all right?"

"Right as the wheat. We're blowing open the safe now," Flandrau answered.

Moving closer, he saw that his questioner was the man in charge of the
horses. Though he knew the voice, he could not put a name to its owner.
But this was not the point that first occupied his mind. _There were only
four horses for five riders._ Curly knew now that he had not been
mistaken. Soapy had expected one of his allies to stay on the field of
battle, had prepared for it from the beginning. The knowledge of this
froze any remorse the young _vaquero_ might have felt.

He pushed his revolver against the teeth of the horse wrangler.

"Don't move, you bandy-legged maverick, or I'll fill your hide full of
holes. And if you want to keep on living padlock that mouth of yours."

In spite of his surprise the man caught the point at once. He turned over
his weapons without a word.

Curly unwound a rope from one of the saddles and dropped a loop round the
neck of his prisoner. The two men mounted and rode out of the draw, the
outlaw leading the other two horses. As soon as they reached the bluff
above Flandrau outlined the next step in the program.

"We'll stay here in the _tornilla_ and see what happens, my friend. Unless
you've a fancy to get lead poisoning keep still."

"Who in Mexico are you?" the captured man asked.

"It's your showdown. Skin off that mask."

The man hesitated. His own revolver moved a few inches toward his head.
Hastily he took off the mask. The moon shone on the face of the man called
Dutch. Flandrau laughed. Last time they had met Curly had a rope around
his neck. Now the situation was reversed.

An explosion below told them that the robbers had blown open the safe.
Presently Soapy's voice came faintly to them.

"Bring up the horses."

He called again, and a third time. The dwarfed figures of the outlaws
stood out clear in the moonlight. One of them ran up the track toward the
draw. He disappeared into the scrub oaks, from whence his alarmed voice
came in a minute.

"Dutch! Oh, Dutch!"

The revolver rim pressed a little harder against the bridge of the horse
wrangler's nose.

"He ain't here," Blackwell called back to his accomplices.

That brought Stone on the run. "You condemned idiot, he _must_ be there.
Ain't he had two hours to get here since he left Tin Cup?"

They shouted themselves hoarse. They wandered up and down in a vain
search. All the time Curly and his prisoner sat in the brush