e pointed the door to Harrison.

The eyes of the two men clashed stormily. It was those of the American
that finally gave way sulkily. Pasquale had power to enforce his
commands and the other knew he would not hesitate to use it.

The prizefighter slouched out of the room with the general at his heels.

With a little gesture that betrayed the despair of her sick heart the
girl turned and flung herself face down on the bed. Sobs shook her
slender body. Her fingers clutched unconsciously at the rough weave of
the blanket upon which she lay.

CHAPTER XIX

THE TEXAN

Steve tapped gently on the window pane with the ball of his middle
finger. Instantly the sobbing was interrupted. The black head of hair
lifted from the pillow to listen the better. He could guess how
fearfully the heart of the girl was beating.

Again he tapped on the glass. With a lithe twist of her body the girl
sat up on the bed. She waited tensely for a repetition of the sound, not
quite sure from where it had come.

Her questing eyes found at last the source of it, a warning forefinger
close to the pane that seemed to urge for silence. Rising, she moved
slowly to the window, uneasy, doubtful, yet with hope beginning to stir
at her heart. She formed a cup for her eyes with her palms so as to hold
back the light while she peered through the glass into the darkness
without.

Over to the left she made out the contour of a face, a brown Mexican
face with quick, eager eyes that spoke comfort to her. Her first thought
was that it belonged to a friend. Hard on the heels of that she gave a
little cry of joy and began with trembling fingers to raise the window.

"Steve!" she cried, laughing and crying together.

And as soon as she had adjusted the window she caught his hand between
both of hers and pressed it hard. Steve was here. He would save her as
he had before. She was all right now.

"Ruth! Little Ruth!" he cried softly, in a whisper.

"Did you hear? Do you know?" she asked.

"Only that he brought you here, the hellhound, and that Pasquale--"

He stopped, his sentence unfinished. There was no need to alarm her
about that old philanderer. Time enough for that if she scratched the
surface and found the savage beneath.

"--Won't let me go home," she finished for him.

"But what are you doing here? How did Harrison trap you?"

"I had been strolling with Daisy Ellington after supper. It was not
late--hardly dark yet. She stopped at th