Jose leered at her.

“Presently I will play cards,” he said.  “Presently I will win all their money and I will buy jewelry for you, Marta—­stones that look like diamonds and will sparkle in your neck and in your hair.”

She turned disdainfully away.

“I do not want your jewelry, Jose,” she declared.

He caught her suddenly by the wrist.

“Perhaps this is what you want,” he cried, as he stooped down to kiss her.

She swung her right hand round and struck him on the face.  He staggered back for a moment.  There was a red flush which showed through the tan of his cheek.  Then he drew a little nearer to her, and before she could escape he had passed his long arm around her body.  He drew her to the chair placed by the side of the wall.  His left hand played with the knife at his belt.

“Marta, little sweetheart,” he said mockingly, “you must pay for that blow.  Don’t be afraid,” he went on, as he drew the knife across his leather breeches.  “A little scratch across your cheek, so!  It is but the brand of your master, a love-token from Jose.  Steady, now, little Maverick!”

The girl struggled violently, but Jose was strong, such brawls were common, and those of the company who noticed at all, merely laughed at the girl’s futile struggles.  Jose’s arm was already raised with the knife in his hand, when a sudden blow brought a yell of pain to his lips.  The knife fell clattering to the floor.  He sprang up, his eyes red with fury.  A man had entered the door from behind and was standing within a few feet of him, a man with long, pale face, dark eyes, travel-stained, and with the air of a fugitive.  A flood of incoherent abuse streamed from Jose’s lips.  He stooped for the knife.  Marta threw herself upon him.  The two cowboys who had been dancing suddenly intervened.  The girls screamed.

“It was Jose’s fault!” Marta cried.  “Jose was mad.  He would have killed me!”

Craig faced them all with sudden courage.

“As I came in,” he explained, “that man had his knife raised to stab the girl.  You don’t allow that sort of thing, do you, here?”

The two cowboys linked their arms through Jose’s and led him off towards the door.

“The stranger’s right, Jose,” one of them insisted.  “You can’t carve a girl up in company.”

The girl clutched at Craig’s arm.

“Sit down here, please,” she begged.  “Wait.”

She disappeared for a moment and came back with a glass full of wine, which she set down on the table.

“Drink this,” she invited.  “And thank you for saving me.”

Craig emptied the glass eagerly.  He was beginning to be more than a little conscious of his fatigue.

“I just happened to be the first to see him,” he said.  “They aren’t quite wild enough to allow that here, are they?”

“Quien sabe?  The girls do not like me!  The men do not care,” she declared.  “Jose took me by surprise, though, or I would have killed him.  But who are you, and where did you come from?”