d nature took her revenge in a feverish restlessness that
precluded any real rest. With the coming of day the temperature
subsided. Pablo brought a basin of water and a sponge, with which he
washed the bloody face and head of the bound man.

Dick observed that his nurse had a few marks of his own as souvenirs of
the battle. The cheek bone had been laid open by a blow that must have
been made with his knuckles. One eye was half shut, and beneath it was a
deep purple swelling.

"Had quite a little jamboree, didn't we?" remarked Gordon, with a grin.
"I'll bet you lads mussed my hair up some."

Pablo said nothing, but after he had made his unwilling guest as
presentable and comfortable as possible he proceeded to business.

"You want to know why we have made you prisoner, _Senor_ Gordon?" he
suggested. "It has perhaps occur to you that it would have been much
easier to shoot you and be done?"

"Yes, that has struck me, Menendez. I reckon your nerve didn't quite run
to murder maybe."

"Not so. I spare you because you save my brother's life after he shoot
at you. But I exact conditions. So?"

The eyes of the miner had grown hard and steelly. The lids had closed on
them so that only slits were open. "Let's hear them."

"First, that you give what is called word of honor not to push any
charges against those taking you prisoner."

"Pass that for the present," ordered Dick curtly. "Number two please."

"That you sign a paper drawn up by a lawyer giving all your rights in
the Rio Chama Valley to Senorita Valdes and promise never to go near the
valley again."

"Nothing doing," answered the prisoner promptly, his jaws snapping
tight.

"But yes--most assuredly yes. I risk much to save your life. But you
must go to meet me, _Senor_. Is a man's life not worth all to him? So?
Sign, and you live."

The eyes of the men had fastened--the fierce, black, eager ones of the
Mexican and the steelly gray ones of the Anglo-Saxon. There was the
rigor of battle in that gaze, the grinding of rapier on rapier. Gordon
was a prisoner in the hands of his enemy. He lay exhausted from a
terrible beating. That issues of life and death hung in the balance a
child might have guessed. But victory lay with the white man. The lids
of Menendez fell over sullen, angry eyes.

"You are a fool, _Senor_. We go to prison for no man who is our enemy.
Pouf! When the hour comes I snuff out your life like that." And Pablo
snapped his fingers airily.

"