"No, I won't. If that money was mine, you might take it, and I would run the risk of catching you before you could get very far away with it. But it belongs to my uncle; you have no claim upon it, and, what's more, you sha'n't touch it." "Is that your final answer?" asked the Ranchero, bracing himself for a strong pull. "You had better ponder the matter well before you decide. What do you suppose your uncle will think, when he comes home and finds you hanging to this hook? He had rather lose the money a thousand times over than to part with you." Frank shuddered as the Ranchero said this, and, for the first time, he felt his firmness giving away. But he was possessed of no ordinary degree of fortitude, and, after a momentary thrill of terror, his courage returned, and he looked at Pierre as bravely as ever. The Ranchero paused for a moment or two, to give his last words time to have their full effect, and then said: "Once more--yes or no." "No, I tell you," was the firm reply. Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, when the Ranchero began to pull down upon the lasso, and Frank, in spite of his desperate struggles, was drawn up until he almost swung clear of the floor. Pierre held him in this position for a few seconds--it seemed an age to Frank, who retained his consciousness all the while--and then gradually slackened up on the lasso, until his prisoner's feet once more rested firmly on the floor. Frank reeled a moment like a drunken man, gazed about him with a bewildered air, and attempted to raise his hands to his throat, while the Ranchero stood watching him with a smile of triumph. "I have given you one more chance," said he. "Have you come to your senses yet." Frank tried in vain to reply. The choking he had endured had deprived him of his power of utterance, but it had not affected his courage or his determination. There was not the least sign of yielding about him. Pierre had thus far conducted his operations with the most business-like coolness, and in much the same spirit that he would have exhibited had he been breaking one of Mr. Winters's wild horses to the saddle. He had smiled at times, as he would have smiled at the efforts of the horse to escape, and the thought that he should fail in his object had never entered his head. He had been certain that he could frighten or torture Frank into revealing the hiding-place of the office key; but now he began to believe that he had reckoned without his host. He was astonished and enraged at the wonderful firmness displayed by his prisoner. He had never imagined that this sixteen-year-old boy would prove an obstacle too great to be overcome. "You are the most obstinate colt I ever tried to manage," said Pierre, in a voice choked with passion; "but I'll break one of two things--your spirit or your neck; it makes no difference to me which."