He lowered himself quickly, slid down the porch post, and disappeared into the darkness almost instantly. Ruth heard voices. One gave commands, the others answered mildly with "Si, Excellency." Dim figures moved about below, one heavy, bulky, dominating. He gestured, snapped out curt directions, and presently vanished. Two guards were left. They paced up and down beneath her window. She understood that Pasquale was providing against any chance of escape. Half an hour ago she would have shuddered. Now she could even smile faintly at his precautions. Steve would evade them when the right time came. Her confidence in him, since it looked only to the results, was greater than that he felt in his own power. The range-rider saw the difficulties before him. He was alone in a camp of wild, ignorant natives who moved at the nod of Pasquale. When he let himself think of Ruth as a prisoner at the mercy of that savage old outlaw's whim, the heart of Steve failed him. What could one man do against so many? He felt that she was perfectly safe for the present, but Yeager found it impossible to sleep in the stable. Taking his blankets with him, he slipped noiselessly out to the cottonwood clump back of Pasquale's headquarters. Here, at least, he could see the light in her window and be sure that all was well with her. As he moved noiselessly from one tree to another which gave a better view of the window, Steve stumbled against the prostrate body of a man. Some one ripped out a sullen oath and a grip of steel caught at the ankle of the cowpuncher. Taken by surprise, Yeager was dragged to the ground. "What are you doing here?" demanded a voice Steve recognized instantly as belonging to Harrison. The prisoner made no resistance. He ran into a patter of frightened, apologetic Spanish. "What's your name?" "Pedro Cabenza, senor," replied the owner of that name. "It is so hot in the stable. So I bring my blankets here and sleep." "Hmp!" Harrison took time for reflection. "Know where I put up?" "Si, senor." The prizefighter gave him a dollar. "Stay here. Keep an eye on that lighted window upstairs. If anything happens--if you hear a noise--if a woman screams, come and knock me up right away. Understand?" The docile Cabenza repeated his instructions like a parrot. "Good enough," Harrison nodded. "I'll give you another dollar when you come. But don't wake me for nothing." "No, senor." "And you'd better keep your mouth shut unless you want your head beat off," advised the white man as he left. The one who had given his name as Cabenza grinned to himself. He was now Harrison's hired watcher. Both of them were in league to frustrate any deviltry on the part of Pasquale. He wondered what the prizefighter would give to know that he had his enemy so wholly in his power, that he had only to lay hands on him and cry out to doom him to a painful and a violent death.