oing that most desirable thing. The
Mexican was now afoot and coursing the railroad yard like a baffled
hound. Ford saw that it was only a question of minutes until his
impromptu hiding-place would be discovered, and he began to look for
another. The Nadia was but a short distance away, and the lighted deck
transoms beckoned him.

It was instinct rather than intention that made him duck and plunge
headlong through the suddenly opened door of the private car at the
glimpse of his pursuer standing beside his horse in the open camp
street. This was why the pistol barked harmlessly. Springing to his
feet, and leaving the frightened negro who had admitted him trying to
barricade the door with cushions from the smoking-room seats, Ford burst
into the lighted central compartment.

It was not empty, as he had expected to find it. Two men, startled by
the shots and the crash of breaking glass, were prepared to grapple him.
It was Brissac, the invalided assistant, who cried, "Hold on, Mr.
Adair--it's Ford, and he's hurt!"

Ford met the involuntary rush, gathered the two in his uncrippled arm
and dragged them to the floor.

"That's in case my assassin takes a notion to turn loose on the
windows," he panted. Then he gasped out his story while Brissac got the
aching right arm out of its sleeve and looked for the injury.

Adair listened to the story of the attempted murder awe-struck, as one
from the civilized East had a right to be.

"By Jove!" he commented; "I thought I had bumped into all the different
varieties of deviltry since I left Denver yesterday morning, but this
tops 'em. Actually tried to kill you in cold blood? But what for,
Stuart?--for heaven's sake, what for?"

"Because he was hired to: because his masters, the MacMorroghs, and
their master, North, have staked their roll on this last turn of the
cards. I know too much, Adair. The president was sent over here to get
rid of me. That failing, word was passed down the line that I was to be
effaced. A few hours ago this Mexican overheard me telling your sister
what I proposed to do to North and the MacMorroghs. That's why he--Ouch!
Roy; that is my arm you're trying to twist out of joint, man!"

"It's all right," laughed the Louisianian; "it is only a crazy-bone bump
that you got when the bronc' threw you. Say, Ford; I thought you claimed
to know how to ride a horse!"

Adair was feeling in his pockets for the inevitable cigarette case.

"What he overheard you t