But she was not his girl and, gazing back grimly at the seething plaza and the hotel that hid her from sight, he rode somberly down the road. After all, there was nothing to get excited about--every _revoltoso_ in the country was lined up around Agua Negra and, with four hundred soldiers to oppose them and artillery to shell their advance, it would be many a long day before they took that town. Twice already Agua Negra had fallen before such attacks, but now it was protected by rifle-pits and machine guns set high on mud roofs. And then there were the Yaquis, still faithful to Madero. They alone could hold the town, if they made up their minds to fight. So reasoned Hooker, mulling over the news that he had heard. But he watched the ridges warily, for the weather was good for raiders. A day passed, and then another, and the big whistle blew only for the shifts; the loneliness of the hills oppressed him as he gazed out at the quivering heat. And then, like a toad after a shower, Amigo came paddling into camp on the heels of a thunderstorm, his sandals hung on his hip and his big feet squelching through the mud. Across his shoulders he wore a gay serape, woven by some patient woman of his tribe; and in the belt beside Bud's pistol he carried a heavy knife, blacksmithed from a ten-inch file by some Yaqui hillman. All in all, he was a fine barbarian, but he looked good to the lonely Bud. "_Ola_, Amigo!" he hailed, stepping out from the adobe house where he had moved to avoid the rains; and Amigo answered with his honest smile which carried no hint of savagery or deceit. Try as he would, Bud could not bring himself to think of his Yaqui as dangerous; and even when he balanced the Indian's murderous bowie-knife in his hands he regarded it with a grin. It was a heavy weapon, broad across the back, keen on one edge, and drawn to a point that was both sharp and strong. The haft was wrapped with rawhide to hold the clutch of the hand. "What do you do with this?" queried Hooker. "Chop wood? Skin deer?" "Yes, chop wood!" answered Amigo, but he replaced it carefully in his belt. He looked the adobe house over thoughtfully, listened long to the news of the border and of the _rurales_' raid on their camp, and retired to the rocks for the night. Even Bud never knew where he slept--somewhere up on the hillside--in caves or clefts in the rocks--and not even the most pressing invitation could make him share the house for a night. To Amigo, as to an animal, a house was a trap; and he knew that the times were treacherous. So indeed they were, as Hooker was to learn to his sorrow, and but for the Yaqui and his murderous knife he might easily have learned it too late. It was evening, after a rainless day, and Bud was cooking by the open fire, when suddenly Amigo vanished and four men rode in from above. They were armed with rifles, as befitted the times, but gave no signs of ruffianly bravado, and after a few words Bud invited them to get down and eat.