d kill the man
who attacked his wife, and the newspapers called on the police to
discover the ruffian."

There was a protracted silence; then Law controlled his voice
sufficiently to say: "It's fortunate he didn't recognize you to-night."

"Maybe he did. Anyhow, his wife is the new dressmaker Paloma's hired. I
'ain't got a chance, Dave. That story will ruin me in the community,
and Paloma will turn me out when she learns I'm a--a lady-pincher."

"What are you going to do about it?"

Blaze sighed. "I don't know, yet. Probably I'll end by running from
those scorpions, like I did before."

The next morning at breakfast Paloma announced, "Father, you must
help Dave hunt down these cattle thieves."

"Ain't that sort of a big order?" Blaze queried.

"Perhaps, but you're the very man to do it. Ricardo Guzman is the only
person who knows the Lewis gang as well as you do."

Jones shook his head doubtfully. "Don Ricardo has been working up his
own private feud with that outfit. If I was the kind that went looking
for a fight, I wouldn't have paid freight on myself from the Panhandle
down here. I could have got one right at home, any morning before
breakfast."

"Ricardo Guzman is something of a black sheep himself," Law spoke up.

"Pshaw! He's all right. I reckon he has changed a few brands in his
time, but so has everybody else. Why, that's how 'Old Ed' Austin got
his start. If a cowman tells you he never stole anything, he's either a
dam' good liar or a dam' bad roper. But Ricardo's going straight enough
now."

"He has lost his share of stock," Paloma explained, "and he'll work
with you if father asks him. You go along with Dave---"

"I'm too busy," Blaze demurred, "and I ain't feeling good. I had bad
dreams all night."

"I don't want you around here this morning. That new dressmaker is
coming."

Jones rose abruptly from the table. "I reckon my business can wait.
Hustle up, Dave." A few moments later, as they were saddling their
horses, he lamented: "What did I tell you? Here I go, on the dodge from
a dressmaker. I s'pose I've got to live like a road-agent now, till
something happens."

Don Ricardo Guzman was an American, but he spoke no English. An
accident of birth had made him a citizen of the United States--his
father having owned a ranch which lay north instead of south of the Rio
Grande. Inasmuch as the property had fallen to Ricardo, his sons, too,
were Yankees in the eyes of the law. But in all othe