Yeager put down the stool and gave it a shove across the floor. "Will you take a seat, general? Sorry I can't offer you refreshments, but the truth is I'm not exactly master in my own house." Pasquale dropped the serape from his face and moved forward. "So you knew me?" "Yes." "How much will you give for your life?" demanded the Mexican abruptly, sitting down on the stool with his back to the table. "As much as any man." The general eyed him narrowly. One sinewy brown hand caressed the butt of a revolver hanging at his hip. "Who paid you to murder Culvera and Mendoza--not Farrugia, surely?" Pasquale shot at him, eyes gleaming under shaggy brows. Garcia Farrugia was the Federal governor of the province, the general with whom Pasquale had been fighting for a year. "No--not Farrugia." The insurrecto chief, sprawling in the moonlight with his back against the table, nodded decisively. "I thought as much. He's no fool. Garcia knows it would not weaken me to lose both of them, that my grief would not be inconsolable. Who, then, if not Farrugia?" "Nobody. I'm not an assassin. The story I told you is the truth, general." "If that is true, Ramon Culvera's lies have brought you to your death." The Mexican still sprawled with an arm flung across the table. Not a muscle of his lax body had grown more taut. But the eyes of the man--the terrible eyes that condemned men to their graves without a flicker of ruth--were fixed on the range-rider with a steady compulsion filled with hidden significance. "Yes." Steve waited, alert and watchful. Presently he would understand what this grim, virile old scoundrel was driving at. "You fought him in the open. You played your cards above the table. He comes back at you with a cold deck. Senor, do you love Ramon like a brother?" "Of course not. If I could get at him before--" The rigor of the black eyes boring into those of Yeager did not relax. The impact of them was like steel grinding on steel. "Yes? If you could get at him? What, then, senor?" The words were hissed across the room at the American. Pasquale was no longer lounging. He leaned forward, body tense and rigid. His prisoner understood that an offer for his life was being made him. But what kind of an offer? Just what was he to do? "Say it right out in plain United States talk, general. What is it you want me to do?" "Would you kill Ramon Culvera--to save your own life?" After barely an instant's hesitation Steve answered. "Yep. I'll fight him to a finish--any time, any place." "Bueno! But there will be no risk for you. He will be summoned from his house to-night. You will stand in the darkness outside. One thrust of the knife and--you will be avenged. A saddled horse is waiting for you now in the cottonwood grove opposite. Before we get the pursuit started you will be lost in the darkness miles away."