d the hoss-stealers that are in with Bob's gang of road
agents that made it easy for him to buy up and win over Bob's friends
here, so that they'd help to trap him."

"It's pretty rough on Bob to be sold out in that way," said the second
speaker, sympathizingly.

"If they were white men, p'rhaps," returned his companion,
contemptuously, "but this yer's a case of Injin agen Injin, ez the men
are Mexican half-breeds just as Bob's a half Cherokee. The sooner that
kind o' cross cattle exterminate each other the better it'll be for the
country. It takes a white man like Johnson to set 'em by the ears."

A silence followed. Ezekiel, beginning to be slightly bored with his
cheaply acquired but rather impractical information, was about to slip
back into the passage again when he was arrested by a laugh from the
first speaker.

"What's the matter?" growled the other. "Do you want to bring the whole
posada out here?"

"I was only thinkin' what a skeer them innocent greenhorn passengers
will get just ez they're snoozing off for the night, ten miles from
here," responded his friend, with a chuckle. "Wonder ef anybody's goin'
up from here besides that patent medicine softy."

Ezekiel stopped as if petrified.

"Ef the ---- fools keep quiet they won't be hurt, for our men will be
ready to chip in the moment of the attack. But we've got to let the
attack be made for the sake of the evidence. And if we warn off the
passengers from going this trip, and let the stage go up empty, Bob
would suspect something and vamose. But here's Johnson!"

The door in the adobe wall had suddenly opened, and a figure in a serape
entered the patio. Ezekiel, whose curiosity was whetted with indignation
at the ignominious part assigned to him in this comedy, forgot even
his risk of detection by the newcomer, who advanced quickly towards the
compartment. When he had reached it he said, in a tone of bitterness:

"The game is up, gentlemen, and the whole thing is blown. The scoundrel
has got some confederate here--for he's been seen openly on the road
near Demorest's ranch, and the band have had warning and dispersed. We
must find out the traitor, and take our precautions for the next time.
Who is that there? I don't know him."

He was pointing to Ezekiel, who had started eagerly forward at the first
sound of his voice. The two occupants of the compartment rose at
the same moment, leaped into the courtyard, and confronted Ezekiel.
Surrounded by the