In a couple of minutes he came back leading one, which he tied to the corral bars.

“But I can’t ride that horse,” exclaimed the girl.  “He bucks.”

“Sure,” said Eddie.  “I’m a-goin’ to ride him.”

“Oh, are you going somewhere?” she asked.

“I’m goin’ with you, miss,” announced Eddie, sheepishly.

“But I didn’t ask you, Eddie, and I don’t want you—­ today,” she urged.

“Sorry, miss,” he threw back over his shoulder as he walked back to rope a second pony; “but them’s orders.  You’re not to be allowed to ride no place without a escort.  ‘Twouldn’t be safe neither, miss,” he almost pleaded, “an’ I won’t hinder you none.  I’ll ride behind far enough to be there ef I’m needed.”

Directly he came back with another pony, a sad-eyed, gentle-appearing little beast, and commenced saddling and bridling the two.

“Will you promise,” she asked, after watching him in silence for a time, “that you will tell no one where I go or whom I see?”

“Cross my heart hope to die,” he assured her.

“All right, Eddie, then I’ll let you come with me, and you can ride beside me, instead of behind.”

Across the flat they rode, following the windings of the river road, one mile, two, five, ten.  Eddie had long since been wondering what the purpose of so steady a pace could be.  This was no pleasure ride which took the boss’s daughter—­ “heifer,” Eddie would have called her—­ten miles up river at a hard trot.  Eddie was worried, too.  They had passed the danger line, and were well within the stamping ground of Pesita and his retainers.  Here each little adobe dwelling, and they were scattered at intervals of a mile or more along the river, contained a rabid partisan of Pesita, or it contained no one—­Pesita had seen to this latter condition personally.

At last the young lady drew rein before a squalid and dilapidated hut.  Eddie gasped.  It was Jose’s, and Jose was a notorious scoundrel whom old age alone kept from the active pursuit of the only calling he ever had known—­brigandage.  Why should the boss’s daughter come to Jose?  Jose was hand in glove with every cutthroat in Chihuahua, or at least within a radius of two hundred miles of his abode.

Barbara swung herself from the saddle, and handed her bridle reins to Eddie.

“Hold him, please,” she said.  “I’ll be gone but a moment.”

“You’re not goin’ in there to see old Jose alone?” gasped Eddie.

“Why not?” she asked.  “If you’re afraid you can leave my horse and ride along home.”

Eddie colored to the roots of his sandy hair, and kept silent.  The girl approached the doorway of the mean hovel and peered within.  At one end sat a bent old man, smoking.  He looked up as Barbara’s figure darkened the doorway.

“Jose!” said the girl.

The old man rose to his feet and came toward her.

“Eh?  Senorita, eh?” he cackled.