Out at the corral gate meantime a vehement council was being held. Feeny's bold defiance and threat had produced their effect. His voice had rung out above the roar of the flames, and what Morales could not hear was promptly reported by those who had crawled up nearer to the bar and could understand every word. Even hampered by the care of their helpless women, the defence was undismayed; the little garrison was fighting with magnificent hope and courage. Beyond the wounding of one of their number, no impression apparently had been made, whereas the bandits had a sorry loss to contemplate. Ramon shot dead, Pasqual crippled, and the two "Gringos," the daring and enterprising leaders of the attack, painfully wounded, one probably mortally so. And now with the flames lighting up the whole valley between the Picacho and the Christobal, with cavalry known to be out in several squads within easy march, some of the men were already weakening. They had had enough of it and were quite ready to slink away; but Pasqual was a raging lion. Revenge for the death of his brother, wrath over his own crippled condition, fury at the failure of the assault, and hatred on general principles of all honest means and honest men, all prompted him to order and enforce a renewal of the attack, all served to madden him to such a degree that even burning his adversaries to death seemed simply a case of serving them right. What cared he that two of the besieged were fair young girls, non-combatants? They were George Harvey's daughters, and that in itself was enough to bring balm to his soul and well-nigh cause him to forget his physical ills. One or two of the band strove to point out that the faintest indignity offered to the sisters would array not only all Arizona, but all Mexico against them. Like dogs they would be hunted to their holes and no quarter be given. Returning hitherto with their spoils, Chihuahua or Sonora had welcomed them with open arms; but what outlaw could find refuge in Mexican soil who had dared to wrong the children of George Harvey and Inez Romero? It was even as they were pointing this out to Pasqual and urging that he consent to be lifted into the ambulance and driven away southward before the return of the cavalry, that Moreno himself appeared. Slipping out of his western window, dropping to the ground and making complete circuit of the corral, he suddenly joined in the excited conference. What he said was in Spanish, or that pan-Arizona _patois_ that there passes current for such, and was a wild, fervid appeal. They had ruined him, him and his. He was unmasked, betrayed, for now his connection with the band was established beyond all question; now he was known and would soon be branded as an outlaw. His home was being destroyed before his eyes,--not that that amounted to much now that he could no longer occupy it,--his wife and child must flee at once for Sonora and he go with them, but recompense for his