Above the beating of the blood in his ears, Jones heard an irregular, insistent scuffing sound. He crouched in silence while the captain crept up to a ledge and cautiously peered over, then went forward in response to the other’s urgent beckoning. They looked down into a rock-basin of wild and curious beauty. To this day Average Jones remembers the luminous grace and splendor of a Matilija poppy, which, rooted between two boulders, swayed gently in the white moonlight above a figure of dread. The figure, naked from the waist up, huddled upon the hard-baked mud, digging madly at the earth. A sharp exclamation broke from Average Jones. The digger half-rose, turned, collapsed to his knees, and pointed with bleeding fingers to his open mouth, in which the tongue showed black and swollen. They went down to him. An hour later, “Rickey” Hoff was sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion in camp. Average Jones felt amply qualified to join him. But it was not in the Ad-Visor’s character to quit an enterprise before it was wholly completed. So long as the two bandits were on their way to cash the young spendthrift’s checks—Jones had heard from the victim a brief account of the extortion—success was not fully won. “We’ve got to get that money back,” he said to Captain Funcke with conviction. The hunter made no reply in words. He merely leaned his shotgun against his thigh, reached around beneath his coat and produced a forty-five caliber revolver. This he held out toward Jones. “Good thing to have,” conceded the other. “But—well, no; not in this case. They got the booty with a show of legality, since Hoff signed the copartnership agreement and turned over the checks. It was under duress and threats, it’s true, but who’s to prove that, they being two to one, and this being Mexico? No; they’re within the law, and I’ve a notion that we can get the swag back by straight sale and barter. Provided, always, we can catch them in time.” “They’ll want to make pretty good time to the Tenaja Poquita,” pointed out the captain. “They’re shy on water.” “On wind, too. They’ve traveled hard, and they can’t be in the pink of condition. According to Hoff, they deserted him while he was taking a nap, about four o’clock in the afternoon. It’s a fair bet they’d camp for the night, as you say it’s an eight hour hike to the _tenaja_.” “Eight, the way they’d go.” “Then—er—there’s a—er—shorter way?” drawled Average Jones, removing some sand from a wrinkle in his scarified and soiled trousers as carefully as if that were the one immediate and important consideration in life. “Yes. Across the Padre Cliffs. It cuts off about four hours, and it takes us almost to the secret _tenaja_ I spoke of. We can fill up there. But it’s not what you’d call safe, even in daylight.” “But to a hunter, wouldn’t it be well worth the risk for a record pair of horns—even if they were only tin horns?” queried Average Jones suggestively. Captain Funcke relaxed into a grin. He nodded.