"What's that?" said her surprised father. "It is Gil's, and to take advantage of him isn't fair. You know it as well as I do, too!" She stamped her little foot. "Say, you don't think you love him again, do you?" Hardy wanted to know. From the alcove, Uncle Henry cried: "That's the idea! And if the poor sucker'd only marry her--" But Angela interrupted: "It isn't him I care for. It's--" She cut herself off, and could have bitten out her tongue for thus revealing her heart. "Angela!" cried the enraptured "Red." He went over to her, grasped her around the waist, and led her to the window. Hardy said, trying to pacify his daughter: "But I ain't going to be hard on him--or on Jones." "You ain't?" Uncle Henry cried. Hardy turned to the nephew. "You know, that stuff Lopez said about me bein' a bum patriot stuck in my craw. And now that I got the place, if you ever need any help I'll be glad to go on your note for you." Gilbert said nothing; but Uncle Henry rushed in with, "You will?" "That is, if it ain't too much," Hardy craftily added. "How much?" Uncle Henry asked. "Oh, two hundred dollars," Jasper Hardy grandly said. "Two hundred dol--Git out o' my way!" Uncle Henry wheeled straight through him. "Say, where are you goin'?" Hardy cried. "To Mexico!" Uncle Henry said. "This country's gettin' so it ain't fit to live in!" And he whirled out of the room. Hardy turned to his daughter. "Nothing to keep us here any longer. Come on, Angy." "Come, 'Red,'" said the girl, as she started to follow her father. What else was there to do? Even though it was Angela who called to him, "Red's" allegiance was for the moment elsewhere. "I gotter stick by him," he said, looking at Gilbert. "No," said Gilbert. "This is something I've got to settle alone. But I thank you, 'Red'--I thank you with all my heart. You're a brick--a red brick." He smiled and patted him on the back. "Red" was suspicious still. He looked at Gilbert. "You don't think he'll try any funny business, do you? You're sure you won't need me around?" "How can he try any funny business?" Gilbert asked. "I know," said "Red." Gilbert looked at him closely. "I get yuh," the foreman continued. "But I don't like it just the same." He switched over to the malignant Pell. "There's one little detail I'd like to call your attention to," he said. "Well?" Pell said. "I'm a tough little feller myself, sometimes. And if anything should happen that shouldn't, I'll be waitin' for you in town with a one-way ticket. And it won't be to New York. Savez?" Then he turned to his adored and adoring Angela. "Come, Angy!" And he grasped her arm, and took her out. CHAPTER XIII WHEREIN AN OLD SITUATION SEEMS ABOUT TO BE REPEATED, ANOTHER SHOT IS FIRED, AND THE BAD MAN COMES BACK