, about and above. He was as a fly in a
bottle. A massive rough-hewn door, jammed tight, sealed him within adobe
walls two feet thick. There was one window, cross-barred, as high as his
chin, and only large enough to frame his head. They had brought him to
the carcel, or dungeon, of the hacienda, where peons were constrained to
docility. A wide masonry bench against the wall approximated a couch,
but it was as blocked ice. By the flickering of a lone tallow dip, Din
Driscoll noted these things with every sense delicately attuned to
strategy. But his verdict was unpromising.

"Tough luck!" he observed.

The adobe was built among the stables that bordered on the pasture, and
when not needed as a calabozo, it served snugly for the administrador's
best horse. From the one stall came a tentative whinny. Driscoll jumped
with delight. "Demijohn! W'y, you good old scoundrel, you!" The night
before, he remembered, he had seen the horse bedded here. "Say howdy as
loud as you want," he cried, slapping him fondly on the flank, "you'll
not betray us. _That's_ been done already."

Driscoll was cavalryman to the bone, and it heartened him unaccountably
to find his horse. If, only, he could have his pistols too! Ever since
the Federals had cut him off from his furloughs home, those black ugly
navies were next to the nearest in his affections. The nearest was the
buckskin charger. And now, only the buckskin was left, which simply made
the dilemma more poignant. The condemned man gazed critically at the
walls, the rafters, the ground, and shook his head. Supposing a chance
for escape, could he bring himself to leave Demijohn behind? He got his
pipe to going, sat down, and frowned ruefully at the candle.

"I don't want to be shot!" he burst out suddenly, with a plaintive
twang. Then he grinned. The boy still in him had prompted the absurdity.
And the rough warrior had laughed at it. Boy and warrior faced each
other, either surprised that the other existed. The boy flushed
resentfully at the veteran's contemptuous grunt. His eyes still had the
boy's naively inquisitive greeting to the world before him. Next, quite
abruptly, the warrior knew a bitterness against himself. If he could,
but once, whimper as the lad about to be soundly strapped! He took no
pride in his irony, nor in his hardened indifference to the visage of
death. How far, how very far, had the few past years of strife carried
him from the youngster who used to gaze so eage