“Are the dogs mutinous?” one of the soldiers asked. “Uncivil beasts, all of them!” Lopez replied. “Get about your work instantly, animals!” He rode toward them as if to crush those nearest beneath the hoofs of his horse. Angry mutterings came from the throng, and some of the Indians sprang to their feet menacingly. An old man in the doorway of the building shouted something Lopez did not understand, and the mutterings ceased in an instant and the men scattered, some going toward the fields, others into the buildings. Lopez turned to call Rojerio Rocha again, and saw him disappearing into the house with Señorita Anita and Señora Vallejo. The other two troopers had dismounted, the carreta was rumbling away toward the stables, and the neophyte servant was standing near his mule looking back along the road, for in the distance Sergeant Cassara sat his horse and contemplated the rancho. Lopez started to ride slowly toward the house, the two troopers following. Came a scream from a woman’s throat--then another--a man’s voice raised in surprise! The two soldiers near the house ran in at the door. Lopez and the others spurred their mounts and dashed to the building, there to throw themselves from their saddles and rush inside. They heard the troopers ahead of them running into the patio. A woman was crying hysterically. And then they reached the patio themselves, to stop beneath the arched veranda dumbfounded at the scene confronting them. Señora Vallejo was standing against the side of the building, her face hidden in her hands, sobbing violently. Señorita Anita Fernandez had fainted in Rojerio Rocha’s arms. And the two troopers stood near the small fountain in the centre of the patio, where there were two bodies stretched on the ground. Lopez gave a cry of consternation as he hurried up to them. Here were Antonio and José, the two overseers of the rancho, each sprawled on his face with arms outstretched, each with the hilt of a knife showing between his shoulder-blades! CHAPTER XIII THE EAVESDROPPER Watching from the distance, Sergeant Cassara observed that the Indians of the rancho were leaving their adobe buildings in groups, and, instead of going into the fields to work, were hurrying down the slope toward a cañon. The neophyte who waited in front of the ranch-house mounted his mule after a time, and went toward the cañon himself, urging on his steed as soon as he was a short distance from the building, until the animal was running with head down, covering the ground with great leaps. Already the sergeant had seen the soldiers and Señor Lopez run into the ranch-house, and he was contented no longer to remain a hundred yards away and speculate as to what was transpiring. Sergeant Cassara was a man who enjoyed getting all his information at first hand.