inconspicuously toward the
stable that had been converted into a bedroom by the simple process of
throwing a lot of blankets on the floor. But as soon as he was out of
sight, Steve doubled across the road into the alley that ran back of the
house where Pasquale was putting up.

The news about Harrison's return was disquieting. Ever since Yeager's
second arrival at Noche Buena he had been gone. What did his appearance
now mean? Who was the American woman he had brought back with him? Steve
was inclined to think she was probably some one of the man's dubious
acquaintances from Arixico. But of this he intended to make sure.

He passed quietly up the alley and into the yard back of the big house
the insurgent general had appropriated for his headquarters. A light was
shining from one of the back upper rooms. From it, too, there came
faintly the sound of a voice, high and frightened, in which sobs and
hysteria struggled.

By means of a post the Arizonian climbed to the top of the little back
porch. Leaning as far as he could toward the window of the lighted room,
he could see Pasquale and Harrison. The woman, whoever she might be, was
in the corner of the room beyond his vision. The prizefighter showed
both in face and manner a certain stiff sullenness. He was insisting
upon some point to which there was determined opposition. As the general
turned half toward him once, the range-rider saw in his little black
eyes an alert and greedy cunning he did not understand.

The woman broke out into violent protest.

"I won't do it. I won't. If you are a liberator, as they say you are,
you won't let him force me to it, general, will you?"

At the sound of that voice Yeager's heart jumped. He would have known
it among ten thousand. Little beads of perspiration broke out on his
forehead. The primitive instinct to kill seared across his brain and
left him for the moment dizzy and trembling.

There was a grin on Pasquale's ugly mug. His tobacco-stained teeth
showed behind the lifted lips.

"If young ladies will insist on running away with officers of mine--"

"I didn't. Ask the men. I fought. See where I bit his hand," she
protested, fighting against hysterical fears.

"So? But Senor Harrison says you were engaged to him."

"I hate him. I've found him out. I'd rather die than--"

Yeager caught the arm fling that concluded her sentence of passionate
protest.

Pasquale, little black eyes twinkling, shrugged broad shoulders an