And so Hike suddenly remembered into what a terrible business of bloodshed they were plunging; but he shut his mouth grimly, and drove ahead, while Lieutenant Duros watched with admiration. An hour and seven minutes after he had left the rancho, they swooped in sight of it. Surrounding the ranch were over two hundred insurrectos. They were attacking the gates with axes. “Take ’em with the gun from the aeroplane,” Hike howled to the Lieutenant, who saluted, crawled back to the machine-gun, and tried it. It was loaded. Hike shut off the motor and volplaned down, directly over the thickest of the howling revolutionists. They fired a storm of bullets up at the _Hustle_, but Hike paid no attention to the bullets. He let her come down, slowly, and soared just over the heads of the insurrectos, who fled like frightened bronchos, bellowing with fear. Lieutenant Duros aimed the machine-gun down, from the slowly sailing aeroplane. He let loose a shot a second, while the twelve soldiers fired in one continuous roaring stream. The revolutionists fell by dozens. Over their dead bodies stumbled fleeing wounded men. Hike snapped on the motor, ascended to get leeway, and soared down again, over another bunch, on whom Lieutenant Duros let loose the machine-gun. He grimly kept her going thus, with the most delicate steering the tetrahedral had ever known; kept her just over the fleeing robbers. One group made a stand, and Hike saw Captain Welch in the midst of it. “There’s Welch—their leader—capture him—soldiers drop off!” he yelled to Lieutenant Duros, who saluted again, and shouted in rapid Spanish to his men. They instantly dropped the fifteen feet to the ground, and as they did so Duros swept the group about Welch with the machine-gun. His supporters fell, a dozen men wounded and dying, and Welch himself clapped his hand to his side. Before he could recover, he was surrounded by federal soldiers, and hauled back toward the ranch. Out from the ranch-yard came Jack Adeler’s men, with Jack at the head, yelling and riding like demons. The Lieutenant swung from his horse, raised Welch, lifted him up and laid him across the saddle. Instantly he mounted, and rode back with the bleeding captive. Three more circles were made with the tetrahedral. Sharpshooters in it picked out the fleeing insurrecto leaders, letting the privates escape. Lieutenant Duros, still smiling a fixed, hard, busy smile, once more turned the machine-gun loose—on a bunch of picketed horses of the insurrectos. Then he sat down, and held his head in his hands. Hike brought the _Hustle_ to earth, in front of the east gate.