n.

"You may put down that weapon, Senor Yeager. I have not come to knife
you."

The lower half of the man's face was covered by a fold of his serape,
the upper part was shaded by his sombrero. Only the glittering eyes
could be plainly seen.

"Why have you come?"

"To talk with you--perhaps to save you. Quien sabe?"

Yeager put down the stool and gave it a shove across the floor. "Will
you take a seat, general? Sorry I can't offer you refreshments, but the
truth is I'm not exactly master in my own house."

Pasquale dropped the serape from his face and moved forward. "So you
knew me?"

"Yes."

"How much will you give for your life?" demanded the Mexican abruptly,
sitting down on the stool with his back to the table.

"As much as any man."

The general eyed him narrowly. One sinewy brown hand caressed the butt
of a revolver hanging at his hip.

"Who paid you to murder Culvera and Mendoza--not Farrugia, surely?"
Pasquale shot at him, eyes gleaming under shaggy brows.

Garcia Farrugia was the Federal governor of the province, the general
with whom Pasquale had been fighting for a year.

"No--not Farrugia."

The insurrecto chief, sprawling in the moonlight with his back against
the table, nodded decisively.

"I thought as much. He's no fool. Garcia knows it would not weaken me
to lose both of them, that my grief would not be inconsolable. Who,
then, if not Farrugia?"

"Nobody. I'm not an assassin. The story I told you is the truth,
general."

"If that is true, Ramon Culvera's lies have brought you to your death."

The Mexican still sprawled with an arm flung across the table. Not a
muscle of his lax body had grown more taut. But the eyes of the man--the
terrible eyes that condemned men to their graves without a flicker of
ruth--were fixed on the range-rider with a steady compulsion filled with
hidden significance.

"Yes." Steve waited, alert and watchful. Presently he would understand
what this grim, virile old scoundrel was driving at.

"You fought him in the open. You played your cards above the table. He
comes back at you with a cold deck. Senor, do you love Ramon like a
brother?"

"Of course not. If I could get at him before--"

The rigor of the black eyes boring into those of Yeager did not relax.
The impact of them was like steel grinding on steel.

"Yes? If you could get at him? What, then, senor?"

The words were hissed across the room at the American. Pasquale was no
longer lounging