“We’re depending on you, Ed. You got to stand pat.”

But Austin was lukewarm.  He had experienced a change of heart, and the cause appeared when he read aloud a letter that day received from Judge Ellsworth, in which the judge told of his meeting with Dave Law, and the Ranger’s reasons for doubting Ed’s word.

“I’ve got to take water,” “Young Ed” told his visitors, “or I’ll get myself into trouble.”  Then querulously he demanded of Adolfo:  “Why in hell did you come here, anyhow?  Why didn’t you keep to the chaparral?”

Adolfo shrugged.  “I thought you were my friend.”

“Sure!” Tad agreed.  “Urbina’s been a friend to you, now you got to stick to him.  We got to hang together, all of us.  My evidence wouldn’t carry no weight; but there ain’t a jury in South Texas that would question yours.  Adolfo done the right thing.”

“I don’t see it,” Ed declared, petulantly.  “What’s the use of getting me into trouble?  There’s the river; they can’t follow you across.”

But Urbina shook his head.

“You know he can’t cross,” Tad explained.  “His people would shoot him if he ever went to Mexico.”

“Well, he’ll be caught if he stays here.  You daren’t send that damned Ranger on another blind trail.  If Adolfo can’t go south he’ll have to go north.”

“Not on your life,” affirmed Lewis.  “If he runs it’ll prove his guilt and look bad for me.  I’m the one they’re after, and I don’t stand any too good, as you know.  You got to go through with this, Ed.”

“I won’t do it,” Austin asserted, stubbornly.  “I won’t be dragged into the thing.  You’ve no business rustling stock, anyhow.  You don’t have to.”

Urbina exhaled a lungful of cigarette smoke and inquired, “You won’t help me, eh?”

“No, I won’t.”

“Very well!  If I go to prison you shall go, too.  I shall tell all I know and we shall be companions, you and I.”

Austin’s temper rose at the threat.  “Bah!” he cried, contemptuously.  “There’s nothing against me except running arms, and the embargo is off now.  It’s a joke, anyhow.  Nobody was ever convicted, even when the embargo was in effect.  Why, the government winks at anybody who helps the Rebels.”

“Oh, that is nothing!” Urbina agreed; “but you would not wish to be called a cattle thief, eh?”

“What d’you mean?”

“You knew that the stealing went on.”

“Huh!  I should say I did.  Haven’t I lost a lot of horses?”

Lewis interposed, impatiently:  “Say!  Suppose Adolfo tells what he knows about them horses?  Suppose he tells how you framed it to have your own stock run across, on shares, so’s you could get more money to go hifalutin’ around San Antone without your wife knowing it?  I reckon you wouldn’t care to have that get out.”

“You can’t prove it,” growled “Young Ed.”

“Oh!  I reckon it can be proved all right,” confidently asserted Lewis.