then, we've just _got_ to do something!" said Rosemary,
desperately. "And I'm going to do it."

Again she started up.

"Wait a minute!" exclaimed her brother again.

He seemed to be listening. He leaned forward, and then softly arose
from where he was sitting and went forward.

"What is it?" asked his sister in a low voice.

"I thought I heard voices--good old United States voices, and not this
jargon of Mexican and Spanish," was the reply. "Maybe some of the
attackers, whoever they are, have broken through."

A look of delighted joy came over the face of Rosemary. But a moment
later it faded away and she seemed hopeless.

"It can't be," she said. "There'd be a lot of yelling and shouting if
any of those who are attacking the Yaquis had broken through their
lines," she went on. "There's no use waiting, Floyd. Let's try my
plan!"

But her brother was not yet convinced.

"It will be all right if it works," he agreed. "But if it fails, and
they only have the laugh on us, we'll be treated so much the worse. I
don't mind on my own account--but yours!" and he glanced at his sister.

"I hadn't thought of that," spoke Rosemary in a low voice. "If it
should--fail--why--"

She did not complete the sentence.

"It would only make them more angry, I'm afraid," went on Floyd.

There was silence, for a time, between brother and sister. It was
broken only by occasional and distant shouts, punctuated, now and
again, by a shot. But the heavy fusillade had subsided for a time.

"Well?" questioned Rosemary.

She was eager to get some action.

"This is what I'll do," said Floyd, after some tense consideration,
"I'll take a look around and see how matters shape up."

"Then what?" asked Rosemary.

She was evidently not going to let the matter go by default.

"Well, then if I can't see anything better to do then what you
proposed, we'll go to it!" decided Floyd. "You sit here and I'll
scurry around. I won't be long."

"No, please don't," begged Rosemary. "If we're going to do anything
we'll have to do it very soon. This can't last--much longer!"

Floyd did not stop to ask his sister just what she meant. In fact he
did not dare question her as to what it was that could not last "much
longer." He had a desperate fear that it was Rosemary's own spirit
that was on the point of breaking.

Up to now she had kept up her courage remarkably well. But there was a
limit, and if the breaking point had been re