go into a fight without that risk."

"You're a brave boy. I've heard of what you did, an' you don't talk
much. I'm glad of that. I can do all the talkin' that's needed by the
three of us. The Lord created me with a love of gab."

The man spoke in a whimsical tone and Ned laughed.

"You can have all my share of the talking, Mr. Palmer," he said.

"The Ring Tailed Panther," corrected the man. "I told you not to be
Misterin' me. I like that name, the Ring Tailed Panther. It suits me,
because I fit an' I fight till they get me down, then I curl my tail an'
I take another round. Once in New Orleans I met a fellow who said he was
half horse, half alligator, that he could either claw to death the best
man living, stamp him to pieces or eat him alive. I invited him to do
any one of these things or all three of them to me."

"What happened?" asked Ned.

A broad smile passed over the man's brown face.

"After they picked up the pieces an' put him back together," he said, "I
told him he might try again whenever he felt like it, but he said his
challenge was directed to human beings, not to Ring Tailed Panthers. Him
an' me got to be great friends an' he's somewhere in Texas now. I may
run acrost him before our business with the Mexicans is over, which I
take it is goin' to last a good while."

It was now late in the afternoon, and dismounting at a clump of trees
the Panther lighted the end of a dead stick and waved the torch around
his head many times.

"Watch there in the west for another light like this," he said.

Ned, who sat on his horse, was the first to see the faint circling light
far down under the horizon. It was so distant that he could not have
seen it had he not been looking for it, but when he pointed it out the
Panther ceased to whirl his own torch.

"It's some friends," he said, "an' they're answerin'. They're sayin'
that they've seen us an' that they're waitin'. When they get through
we'll say that we understan' an' are comin'."

The whirling torch on the horizon stopped presently. The Panther whirled
his own for half a minute, then he sprang back upon his horse and the
three rode rapidly forward.

The sight of the lights sparkling in the twilight so far across the
prairie thrilled Ned. He felt that he was in very truth riding to a
fight as the Panther had said. Perhaps it was a part of the force of Cos
that was coming to Gonzales. Cos himself had turned from the land route
with a part of his force a