aid one.

"Yes, till morning. Then he'll tell no one else, and _we_ won't.
Poor old Maxie!"

"Sure," ejaculated Collins, "give Golden Whiskers a show!"

The wolfish light in the sunken eyes quickened to a flash. Lust for
Maximilian's capture turned to chagrin.

"Senores, senores mios," he whined, "you do not know yet, you do not
know, that if Maximilian is not taken----"

"Ah, here now," growled Clay of Carroll, "you needn't worry so much.
He'll be driven back into the town all right, I reckon."

"And what then, senor? No, you do not know. Your general,
senores--General Escobedo--has orders to--to raise the siege."

"_What?_"

"Si senor, to _raise_ the siege! The orders are from San Luis, from
the Senor Presidente there. He--he thinks the siege has lasted long
enough."

"Great Scot!"

"Precisamente. Yes, it would look like--defeat. It would, if--you don't
capture Maximilian by daybreak."

Meagre Shanks brought his boot soles wrathfully to the ground, kicking
the stool back of him. His whole mien exuded a newspaper man's contempt
for faking. "Now then, young fellow," and he shook a long finger at the
ancient Mexican, "here you know all that Maximilian knows. And here
again you know all that the Presidente knows. All right, s'pose you just
tell us now more or less about how mighty little you _do_ know?"

"It's--it's like a message from El Chaparrito," the parson demurred.

"From Shorty?" Daniel almost roared. "Oh come, Clem, don't you go to
mixing up the unseen and all-seeing guardian of the Republica with this
dried-up, wild-eyed specimen of a dried-up--of, of an old rascal. No one
ever hears from El Chaparrito 'less there's a crisis on, and is there
one on now? You know there ain't. If there was, someone would be hearing
from Shorty--Driscoll there, prob'bly. But there ain't. Shucks, this old
codger is only plum' daft. Aren't you now"--he appealed querulously to
Murguia, "aren't you just crazy--_say?_"

But even as the Americans breathed easier, they stared aghast at the old
man.

"Crazy?" he repeated. "Crazy?" he fairly shrieked, clutching Boone by
the sleeve. "No, I am not! Senor, say that I am not! No, no, no, I am
not crazy, not yet--not--not before it is done, not--before----"

"God!" Boone half whispered. "Look at his eyes now!"

The old man checked himself in trembling. No help for him lay in human
testimony. But there was his own will, which had driven his frail body.
Now as a demon it grip