A chill ran down the spine of the American. This was the last place in the world that he wanted to meet Chad Harrison. A swift vision of himself standing with his back to a wall before a firing line flashed into his brain. But he was in for it now. He knew that the ex-prizefighter would denounce him. A daredevil spirit of recklessness flooded up in his heart. A smile both gay and sardonic danced in his eyes. Thus does untimely mirth in the hour of danger drive away a sober, prayerful gravity from the mien of such light-hearted sons of nature as Stephen Yeager. CHAPTER X A NIGHT VISIT Harrison stood blinking in the doorway, having just come out from the untempered sunlight in the street. He shook hands with the general, with Culvera, and then his glance fell upon the American. "Fine glad day, ain't it?" Yeager opened gayly. "Great the way friends meet in this little old world." "What are you doing here?" demanded the prizefighter, his chin jutting forward and down. "Me! I'm losing my wad at stud. Want to stake me?" Harrison turned to Pasquale. "Know who he is? Know anything about him, general?" "Only what he has told me, senor." "And that is?" "That he worked for the moving-picture company at Los Robles, that he is out of a job, and that he wants to try the revolutionary game, as you Americans say." "Don't you believe it. Don't believe a word of it," broke out Harrison stormily. "He's a spy. That's what he is." Smiling, Steve cut in. "What have I come to spy about, Harrison?" "You told Threewit that you thought General Pasquale had those cattle. You may deny it, but--" "Why _should_ I deny it?" Yeager turned genially to the insurgent chief. "_You_ don't deny it, do you, general?" Pasquale laughed. He liked the cheek of this young man. "I deny nothing and I admit nothing." He swept his hand around in a gesture of indifference. "My vaqueros herd cattle I have bought. Possibly rustlers sold them to me. Maybeso. I ask no questions." "Nor I," added Yeager promptly. "At least, not many. I eat the beef and find it good. You ought to have got a good price for a nice fat bunch like that, Harrison." "What d'you mean by that?" The man's fists were clenched. The rage was mounting in him. "Forget it, Harrison! You've quit the company. You're across the line and among friends. No use keeping up the bluff. I know who held me up. If I'm not hos-tile about it, you don't need to be." The prizefighter flung at him the word of insult that no man in the fighting West brooks. Before Steve could speak or move, Pasquale hammered the table with his heavy, hairy fist. "Maldito!" he roared. "Is it so you talk to my friends in my own house, Senor Harrison?" The rustler, furious, turned on him. But even in his rage he knew better than to let his passion go. The insurgent chief was more dangerous than dynamite in a fire. Purple with anger, Harrison choked back the volcanic eruption.