It was a dull, dull afternoon, for no patrons came, and the visitors merely glanced in and passed on. It was hot and still, so the sleepy Riego decided to rest. He found a cool spot behind a pile of boxes, and lay down and closed his eyes. * * * * * When Riego opened his eyes again it was with a start. There were voices--smothered voices--some men were in the shop! Riego lay still and listened. "We will attack the gringo camp to-night--just before dawn," a smothered voice was saying. "Alva has three hundred men and more. They can easily surprise and destroy these eighty Americans, and so can seize their horses and ammunition." "But the patrol?" It was Pascual's voice that whispered the question. Riego's heart turned sick. He recognized the voice of Lorente in the terrifying reply: "Pacheco and a picked few will knife the patrol at the ford, then Alva's men will cross, and approach the camp up the ravine." "To-morrow morning?" Pascual's voice asked. "Yes, just before dawn." There were approaching steps on the street. A customer entered. Riego heard Lorente departing--heard the customer inquire the price of a saddle, and go out. It must be done _now_--now while Pascual was alone, and he could speak to him! The next moment Riego stood before his brother. "I heard you!" he cried. "Pascual, they _must not_!" But Pascual laid a fierce hand upon his breast and pinned him to the wall. It was a terrible scene--that which followed--terrible in the tense quiet of its enactment--terrible in its outcome! With Riego pinned against the wall where he needs must listen, Pascual poured forth such a torrent of abuse, of falsehood, against the "gringos" that at length the old hate blood leapt in the younger boy's veins and went beating through his brain. The gringos were their enemies--_enemies_! The men who were coming down upon them with the dawn were of their own blood, of their native country! What if the invaders _were_ "revolutionists"? Were they not _Mexican_? Talk of "loyalty"--one must be loyal to _one's own_! When Pascual loosed his grip upon the slight form it was after he had stirred to the very dregs all that was passionate, all that was ignorant and prejudiced and violent, in the boy's nature. That afternoon Riego did not report at Miss Arden's class, but long after class hour he was obliged to pass her house on the mission to deliver a mended harness to a farmer living near the American camp. Miss Arden and her mother, Riego knew, were the only members of the big captain's family. They lived in a large house in the woods, half-way between the town and the camp. He knew also that the big captain stayed in camp. As Riego emerged from the long stretch of lonely woods which separated Miss Arden's house from the town, and as he faced the other long stretch of woods which lay between him and the camp, the boy was struck by the isolation of the señorita's home.