e, being in air, lunged backward.

"We stop here," Driscoll announced.

Don Rodrigo plumped down heavily in his saddle. His bristling moustache
lifted over his cruel white teeth. Two hundred swarthy little demons
reining in around them looked expectantly for a signal. But their chief
frowned at the twelve hundred Gringo Grays hovering on his flank. They
too wanted only a sign, and they outnumbered the Brigand's six to one.
But Rodrigo believed he held the advantage. First he obediently halted
himself and his minions.

"Now then senor," said he in pompous and heavy syllables, "I am at your
disposition. Will your people commence the battle, or shall we?"

Driscoll appreciated the dilemma. The carriage would be in the line of
fire. He had had an intuition of its occupants, and for that reason had
kept back his men.

"Where was she going?" he demanded.

Rodrigo feigned surprise. "And where," he asked, "or rather, to whom,
should Your Mercy imagine?"

To Queretero! To Maximilian, of course! This, too, Driscoll had divined
already.

"No matter," he retorted shortly, "but how did you run across her this
time?"

The outlaw filled his chest, "You Americans, senor, do not understand
the feelings of a man bowed under a heavy wrong. You----"

"We'll let it go at that," said Driscoll, with a little wave of the
hand, "but--how in----"

"You scoff already, senor? But will you, at these stains of blood? Then
let me say to you, senor mio, they make me remember one shameless deed
for which the tyrant Maximilian must pay."

The stains Rodrigo meant were on a little ivory cross which he had taken
from his jacket. The emblem served him to lash his emotions, to goad his
precious sense of wrong. He studied the cross intently; then, by a vast
and excruciating effort, thrust it into Driscoll's hand.

"Yes, yes," he cried, "you must take it! He said so."

"He?"

"Si, senor, he who shares my wrong, Don Anastasio Murguia."

"Murgie!" exclaimed the bewildered American. "But--why, hombre, I
haven't seen the old skinflint since--since he and I both were
court-martialled by Lopez!"

"Still I promised him to send the cross to you, because you will have a
chance to give it to him. He said so."

"Oh, he did?" But Driscoll put the trinket in his pocket, not unwilling
to see more of this foolish drama in Latin-American sentiment. "Now
then, Rod," he went on impatiently, "you haven't explained yet how you
happen to find her again."