The Arizonian was a light sleeper. But like some men in perfect trim he had the faculty of going to sleep whenever he desired. Often he had taken a nap in the saddle while night-herding. Fatigued from eighteen hours of wrestling the cattle to safety through a bitter storm, he had learned to fall easily into rest the instant his head hit the pillow. It was a heritage that had come to him from his rugged, outdoor life. So he slept now, a gentle, untroubled slumber, until daylight sifted through the hole in the wall at his side. He was on duty that day herding the remuda, and it was not until late afternoon that he returned to camp. From a distance, dropping down into the draw which formed the location of the town, he saw a dust cloud moving down the street. At the apex of it rode a little bunch of travelers, evidently just in from the desert. Incuriously his eyes watched the party as it moved toward the headquarters of Pasquale. Some impulse led him to put his scarecrow of a pony at a canter. The party reached the house of Pasquale and the two leaders dismounted. Yeager was still at some distance, but he had an uncertain impression that one of them was a woman. They stood on the porch talking. The larger one seemed to be overruling the protest of the other, so far as Steve could tell at that distance. The two passed together into the house. It was not at all unusual for women to go into that house, according to the camp-fire stories that were whispered in the army. Pasquale was an unmoral old barbarian. If he liked women and wine the Legion made no complaint. The women were either camp-followers or visitors from the nearest town. In either case they were not of a sort whose reputation was likely to suffer. Yeager cooked his simple supper and ate it. He sat down with his back to an adobe wall and rolled a cigarette. The peons, loafing in the cool of the evening, naturally fell into gossip. Steve, intent on his own thoughts, did not hear what was said until a word snatched him out of his indifference. The word was the name of Harrison. "This afternoon?" asked one. "Not an hour ago." "Brought a woman with him, Pablo says," said a third indifferently. "Yes." The first speaker laughed with an implication he did not care to express. One of the others leaned forward and spoke in a lower tone. "This Harrison promised the general to bring back with him the Gringo Yeager. Old Gabriel is crazy to get the Yankee devil in his hands. Not so? Harrison brings him a woman instead to soften his bad temper, maybe." The American gave no sign of interest. His fingers finished rolling the cigarette. Not another muscle of the inert body moved. "A white woman this time, Pablo says." The first speaker shrugged. "Look you, brother. All is grist that comes to the mill of Gabriel. As for these Gringo women"--He whispered a bit of slander that brought the blood to the face of Steve.