"Capm," said the bravo, and then came to a pause--"Capm, I ain't a gentleman," he resumed, with the sulky humility of a bulldog who is beaten by his master. "I own up to it, Capm. I ain't a gentleman." He was a "poor white" by birth; he remembered still the "high-toned gentlemen" who used to overawe his childhood; he recognized in Thurstane that unforgotten air of domination, and he was thoroughly daunted by it. Moreover, there was his acquired and very rational fear of the army--a fear which had considerably increased upon him since he had joined this expedition, for he had noted carefully the disciplined obedience of the little squad of regulars, and had been much struck with its obvious potency for offence and defence. "You won't fight?" said the officer. "Well, then, will you stop hunting me?" "Capm, I'll go that much." "Will you pledge yourself not to harm any one in this party, man or woman?" "I'll go that much, too." "I don't want to get any tales out of you. You can keep your secrets. Damn your secrets!" "Capm, you're jest the whitest man I ever see." "Will you pledge yourself to keep dark about this talk that we've had?" "You bet!" replied Texas Smith, with an indescribable air of humiliation. "I'm outbragged. I shan't tell of it." "I shall give orders to my men. If anything queer happens, you won't live the day out." "The keerds is stocked agin me, Capm. I pass. You kin play it alone." "Now, then, walk back to the Casa, and keep quiet during the rest of this journey." The most humbled bushwhacker and cutthroat between the two oceans, Texas Smith stepped out in front of Thurstane and returned to the cooking-fire, not quite certain as he marched that he would not get a pistol-ball in the back of his head, but showing no emotion in his swarthy, sallow, haggard countenance. Although Thurstane trusted that danger from that quarter was over, he nevertheless called Meyer aside and muttered to him, "Sergeant, I have some confidential orders for you. If murder happens to me, or to any other person in this party, have that Texan shot immediately." "I will addend to it, Leftenant," replied Meyer with perfect calmness and with his mechanical salute. "You may give Kelly the same instructions, confidentially." "Yes, Leftenant." Texas Smith, fifteen or twenty yards away, watched this dialogue with an interest which even his Indian-like stoicism could hardly conceal. When the sergeant returned to the cooking-fire, he gave him a glance which was at once watchful and deprecatory, made place for him to sit down on a junk of adobe, and offered him a corn-shuck cigarito. Meyer took it, saying, "Thank you, Schmidt," and the two smoked in apparently amicable silence.