t the authorities to believe you in
a thousand years!"

"What about you?"

"Oh, I have just little enough sense to believe your hunch is right,
but that won't get you anywhere. They think I'm loco too! I've an idea
there is a lot more and rottener activities down south of the line
with which our Teutonic peace arbitrator is mixed up. But he's been on
this job five years, all the trails are his, and an outsider can't get
a look-in! Now Miguel Herrara has been doing gun-running across the
border for someone, and Miguel was not only arrested by the customs
officer, but Miguel was killed two nights ago--shot with his own gun
so that it looks like suicide. Suicide nothing! His chief, whoever he
is, was afraid Miguel would blunder or weaken under government
persuasion, so Miguel was let out of the game. That case is closed,
and no evidence against anyone. I reckon everyone knows that the guns
and ammunition sneaked over is headed for Rancho Soledad. The owner of
Soledad, Jose Perez, is the valued friend of our nice little Conrad,
and it happens that Conrad left Granados this morning for that
direction, ostensibly to negotiate with the political powers of Sonora
concerning a military guard for La Partida in case revolutionary
stragglers should ride north for fresh saddle-horses. All appeals to
the neutral chair warmers at Washington wins us no protection from
that source;--they only have guns and men enough to guard some
cherished spots in Texas."

"Well, if the Teuton is able for a trail I reckon he got nothing worse
in the scrap than I, even if he did look like a job for the
undertaker. That fellow travels on the strength of his belly and not
the strength of his heart."

"So you say," observed Pike, grinning, "but then again there are
others of us who travel on nerve and gall and never get any further!
Just put this in your pipe, Bub, and don't forget it: Conrad is
_organised_ for whatever deviltry he is up to! There is no 'happen so'
in his schemes. He is a cog in some political wheel, and it's a
fifty-fifty gamble as to whether the wheel is German or Mexican, but
it is no little thing, and is not to be despised."

"But I can't see how Singleton, if Singleton is square even----"

"Singleton is a narrow gauge disciple of Universal Peace by
decree--which, translated, means plain damn fool. Lord, boy, if a pack
of prairie wolves had a man surrounded, would he fold his hands with
the hope that his peaceful attitude woul