The fighting man fell forward senseless on the grass; the moonlight played across his face and tiny streams of blood were running thinly from his nose and ears. He lay without motion or quiver, and, after considering him a bit with all the warmth an artist might bestow upon a masterpiece, Rivera turned loungingly to Peg and myself where we were viewing proceedings from our knoll. There was a dancing light in Rivera's eyes such as comes to a child pleased of a new toy. As he stood before us, a smile about his mouth, he stretched upward on his toes, and raised his hands above his head, his vast chest arching and swelling the while like a drum, and the muscles of his neck writhing until they fairly burst the collar of his gray shirt and sent a button buzzing into the darkness. “He wasn't fit,” said Rivera, recovering himself from the muscle-stretching, and beaming amiably; “the fellow was not in condition.” Here he indicated with a nod the prostrate fighting man, still stunned and bleeding where he fell. “Have you killed him?” said Peg, with a deep breath. The girl was drawn as tense as harpstrings. “I hope he will not die.” “Oh, no,” declared Rivera; “he will not die. In two minutes, or at the most in ten, he will be well again. If he do not come to his wits in ten minutes, I shall help him with water on his face.” “We have to thank you,” said I; “you are a brave fellow to match yourself against a horde.” “I was told always to follow them,” said Rivera. “I have been at their heels for weeks. But they would do nothing until to-night.” Rivera's manner when he related the long-drawn indolence of his quarry and those weeks wherein they would “do nothing,” tasted of disappointment. “However,”--this as though a wrong had been repaired,--“they got to work at last, so after all it ends right.” Now I walked across to my moaning one of the broken arm, who still sat nursing his injuries. “Why would you rob us?” I asked. “Rob you?” he repeated between moans, and with a startled air. “No one wanted to rob you.” “You and your gang,” said I--for this was the story I meant to tell, if made to tell one of the night's turmoil--“you and your gang are footpads. You would have robbed us. Should you be in the town to-morrow, I will find you a place of bars and bolts.” Certainly, these brawling creatures were not highwaymen, but only ruffians whom that Catron had hired for I know not what particular purpose of revenge. But the wretch's exclamation, “Here is our big lover and his light o' love!” alarmed me for Peg. I would not have that tale told to thus bring forth her name. It were better to drive these fellows off and have an end of it. That was my thought in calling them footpads and talking of attempts to take a purse. The argument of robbery put a measure of life into the moaning one; he got upon his feet and made ready to betake himself to scenes of better safety. “My arm is broken,” said he, whiningly, and as hoping I might feel a sympathy.