u a colonel?"

"I shall defend them with my life, my general," cried Rozales, bowing
low.

"Good!" cried Pesita. "That is all."

Rozales started back toward the ring of smokers.

"Ah, Captain!" cried Pesita. "Another thing. Will you make it known to
the other officers that the stranger from Granavenoo is a captain and
that it is my wish that he be well treated, but not told so much as
might injure him, or his usefulness, about our sacred work of liberating
poor, bleeding unhappy Mexico."

Again Rozales bowed and departed. This time he was not recalled.

Billy found Bridge and Miguel squatting on the ground with two
dirty-faced peons standing guard over them. The latter were some
little distance away. They made no objection when Billy approached the
prisoners though they had looked in mild surprise when they saw him
crossing toward them without a guard.

Billy sat down beside Bridge, and broke into a laugh.

"What's the joke?" asked Bridge. "Are we going to be hanged instead of
being shot?"

"We ain't goin' to be either," said Billy, "an' I'm a captain. Whaddaya
know about that?"

He explained all that had taken place between himself and Pesita while
Bridge and Miguel listened attentively to his every word.

"I t'ought it was about de only way out fer us," said Billy. "We were in
worse than I t'ought."

"Can the Bowery stuff, Billy," cried Bridge, "and talk like a white man.
You can, you know."

"All right, bo," cried Billy, good-naturedly. "You see I forget when
there is anything pressing like this, to chew about. Then I fall back
into the old lingo. Well, as I was saying, I didn't want to do it unless
you would stay too, but he wouldn't have you. He has it in for all
gringos, and that bull you passed him about me being from a foreign
country called Grand Avenue! He fell for it like a rube for the
tapped-wire stuff. He said if I wouldn't stay and help him he'd croak
the bunch of us."

"How about that ace-in-the-hole, you were telling me about?" asked
Bridge.

"I still got it," and Billy fondled something hard that swung under his
left arm beneath his shirt; "but, Lord, man! what could I do against
the whole bunch? I might get a few of them; but they'd get us all in the
end. This other way is better, though I hate to have to split with you,
old man."

He was silent then for a moment, looking hard at the ground. Bridge
whistled, and cleared his throat.

"I've always wanted to spend a year in Rio,"