“Dick!  Are you—­all right?” panted Thorne, grasping Gale.

“I’m—­out of breath—­but—­O.K.,” replied Gale.

“Good!  Good!” choked Thorne.  “I was scared—­helpless....Dick, it worked splendidly.  We had no trouble.  What on earth did you do?”

“I made the row, all right,” said Dick.

“Good Heavens!  It was like a row I once heard made by a mob.  But the shots, Dick—­were they at you?  They paralyzed me.  Then the yells.  What happened?  Those guards of Rojas ran round in front at the first shot.  Tell me what happened.”

“While I was rushing Rojas a couple of cowboys shot out the lamplights.  A Mexican who pulled a knife on me got hurt, I guess.  Then I think there was some shooting from the rebels after the room was dark.”

“Rushing Rojas?” queried Thorne, leaning close to Dick.  His voice was thrilling, exultant, deep with a joy that yet needed confirmation.  “What did you do to him?”

“I handed him one off side, tackled, then tried a forward pass,” replied Dick, lightly speaking the football vernacular so familiar to Thorne.

Thorne leaned closer, his fine face showing fierce and corded in the starlight.  “Tell me straight,” he demanded, in thick voice.

Gale then divined something of the suffering Thorne had undergone —­something of the hot, wild, vengeful passion of a lover who must have brutal truth.

It stilled Dick’s lighter mood, and he was about to reply when Mercedes pressed close to him, touched his hands, looked up into his face with wonderful eyes.  He thought he would not soon forget their beauty—­the shadow of pain that had been, the hope dawning so fugitively.

“Dear lady,” said Gale, with voice not wholly steady, “Rojas himself will hound you no more to-night, nor for many nights.”

She seemed to shake, to thrill, to rise with the intelligence.  She pressed his hand close over her heaving breast.  Gale felt the quick throb of her heart.

“Senor!  Senor Dick!” she cried.  Then her voice failed.  But her hands flew up; quick as a flash she raised her face—­kissed him.  Then she turned and with a sob fell into Thorne’s arms.

There ensued a silence broken only by Mercedes’ sobbing.  Gale walked some paces away.  If he were not stunned, he certainly was agitated.  The strange, sweet fire of that girl’s lips remained with him.  On the spur of the moment he imagined he had a jealousy of Thorne.  But presently this passed.  It was only that he had been deeply moved—­stirred to the depths during the last hour—­had become conscious of the awakening of a spirit.  What remained with him now was the splendid glow of gladness that he had been of service to Thorne.  And by the intensity of Mercedes’ abandon of relief and gratitude he measured her agony of terror and the fate he had spared her.

“Dick, Dick, come here!” called Thorne softly.  “Let’s pull ourselves together now.  We’ve got a problem yet.  What to do?  Where to go?  How to get any place?  We don’t dare risk the station—­the corrals where Mexicans hire out horses.  We’re on good old U.S. ground this minute, but we’re not out of danger.”