A thin streak of light came from a window. It seemed to slash deeply into the staggering man, bringing him back to himself. Then a sound, the low, worried nickering of a horse! The Mexican girl felt the arm about her neck tighten and tremble. "The Captain!" VB muttered, looking about wildly. He opened his lips to cry out to the horse as the events of the night poured back into his consciousness, to cry his questioning and his sorrow, to put into words the mourning for a faith, but that cry never came from his throat. The nickering of the stallion and the flood of memory had brought him to a clear understanding of the situation; a sudden glare of light from the abruptly uncovered window before which he and the girl stood provoked an alertness which was abnormally keen, that played with the subjective rather than the more cumbersome objective. He stooped with the quickness of a drop and scuttled into the shadows, cautious, the first law of man athrob. The man who had brushed away the blanket that had screened the window burst into irritated talk. VB recognized him as Matson. Back in the shadows of the room he saw the Mexican standing. A table was close to the window, so close that in crowding behind it Matson had torn down the blanket that had done service as a curtain. A lamp burned on the table, its wick so high that smoke streamed upward through the cracked chimney. And close beside the lamp, eyes glittering, cruel cunning in every line, the flush of anger smearing it, was the face of Rhues! VB, crouching there, saw then that Matson's finger was leveled at Rhues. "It ain't good money!" That was the declaration Matson had made as the blanket slipped down and disclosed the scene. He repeated it, and his voice rose to a snarl. Delilah started to rise but VB jerked her back with a vehemence that shot a new fear through the girl, that made her breathe quickly and loudly. For the first time he turned and looked at the girl, not to discover who this might be that had brought him to the nest of those who sought his life, but to threaten. "You stay here," he whispered sharply. "If you make a sound, I'll--you'll never forget it!" His face was close to hers and he wagged his head to emphasize the warning. Where she had expected to find a friend the Mexican girl realized that she had encountered a foe. Where she had, from the fullness of her heart and for a dollar and the admiration of Julio, sought to help, she knew now that she had wronged. His intensity filled her with this knowledge and sent her shrinking against the wall of the cabin, a hand half raised to her cheek, trembling, wanting to whimper for mercy. "Keep still!" he warned again, and, stretching one hand toward her as though to do sentry duty, ready to throttle any sound, to stay any flight, to bolster his commands, he crept closer to the window. "Why ain't it good?" Rhues was asking in a voice that carried no great conviction, as though he merely stalled for time.