"_Buenos días!_" saluted Bud, as the blinking men rose up from their blankets. "Excuse me, _amigos_, I am in a hurry!" "_A donde va? A donde va?_" challenged a bearded man as he sprang up from his brush shelter. "To the pass, _señor_," answered Hooker, still politely, but motioning for Gracia to ride on ahead. "_Adios!_" "Who is that man?" bellowed the bearded leader, turning furiously upon his followers. "Where is my sentinel? Stop him!" But it was too late to stop him. Bud laid his quirt across the rump of the roan and spurred forward in a dash for cover. They whisked around the point of a hill as the first scattered shots rang out; and as a frightened sentinel jumped up in their path Bud rode him down. The man dropped his gun to escape the fury of the charge and in a mad clatter they flung themselves at a rock-slide and scrambled to the bench above. The path was rocky, but they pressed forward at a gallop until, as the sun came up, they beheld the summit of the pass. "We win!" cried Bud, as he spurred up the last incline. As he looked over the top he exploded in an oath and jerked Copper Bottom back on his haunches. The leader of a long line of horsemen was just coming up the other side, not fifty feet below him. Bud looked to each side--there was no escape--and then back at the frightened girl. "Keep behind me," he commanded, "and don't shoot. I'm going to hold 'em up!" He jumped his horse out to one side and landed squarely on the rim of the ridge. Gracia drew her horse in behind him and reached for the pistol in her holster; then both together they drew their guns and Bud threw down on the first man. "Go on!" he ordered, motioning him forward with his head. "_Pr-r-ronto!_" He jerked out his rifle with his left hand and laid it across his lap. "Hurry up now!" he raged, as the startled Mexican halted. "Go on and keep a-going, and the first man that makes a break I'll shoot him full of holes!" He sat like a statue on his shining horse, his six-shooter balanced to shoot, and something in his very presence--the bulk of his body, the forward thrust of his head, and the burning hate of his eyes--quelled the spirits of the rebels. They were a rag-tag army, mounted on horses and donkeys and mules and with arms of every known make. The fiery glances of the American made them cringe as they had always cringed before their masters, and his curses turned their blood to water. He towered above them like a giant, pouring forth a torrent of oaths and beckoning them on their way, and the leader was the first to yield. With hands half-raised and jaw on his breast he struck spurs to his frightened mule and went dashing over the ridge. The others followed by twos and threes, some shrinking, some protesting, some gazing forth villainously from beneath their broad hats. As they looked back he whirled upon them and swore he would kill the first man that dared to turn his head.