"Grands dieux," exclaimed Jacqueline, "have the men in this country nothing to do except catch my bridle! But really, sir, this situation is forced. It is not artistic. As--as Monsieur the Chevalier says, it's quite impossible." She looked around for Monsieur the Chevalier to make it so, but to her dismay, to her disgust, he had taken to his heels. He was running away, as fast as he could go. Then her horse reared, for musket firing had suddenly, mysteriously begun on all sides of her. Many fierce pairs of eyes were bobbing up from behind the boulders on the right of the trail; yellow-brown faces, like a many-headed Hydra coiled in the cacti. They were shooting, not at her, but at the fleeing American. She felt an object in her hand, which Driscoll had thrust there, and she remembered that he had whispered something, though she had forgotten what. Her captor was straining at the bridle. In his frenzy he leaned over, to lift her from the saddle, and then she struck him across the face with her whip. And then, with what the American had put in her other hand, she struck again. The weapon was Driscoll's short hunting knife. The blade grazed Rodrigo's shoulder. He loosed his hold, and before he could prevent, both she and Berthe were in the shack under the cliff. The maid sank to the floor. The mistress stood in the doorway. There was a glint in the gray eyes not lovable in man or woman, but in her it was superb. Fifty feet back up the trail she saw Driscoll scaling the cliff. That demon yelling, which is the first spasm of Mexican warfare, had not ceased, and each demon was shooting as fast as he could reload. She saw the white dust spurt out from the bullet peppered rock. But either the sun slanting down from the mountain line was in their eyes, or they were disconcerted at the American's change in their plans; at any rate their laboriously ascending target did not drop. Up he climbed. Jacqueline wondered why he still clung to the jacket over his arm, as people will cling to absurd things in time of panic. "To go through that peril, and yet a coward!" she murmured. "It's a waste----" The runaway gained the top of the embankment, and fell behind a rock. And now a half dozen of the little demons were coming across the trail to the shack--to take her. "Oh, the frisson, the ecstasy!" she cried. There was a certain poignant sense of enjoyment in it. CHAPTER XI THE COSSACKS AND THEIR TIGER COLONEL "Ah, Captain, here goes for a fine-drawn bead; There's music around when my barrel's in tune." --_Song of the Fallen Dragoon._ Din Driscoll tumbled himself over among the rocks. "There, I'm fixed," he grunted, as he squatted down behind his earthworks. "Plenty of material here"--he meant the cartridges which he poured from his coat pockets into his hat--"and plenty out there too"--indicating the Hydra heads--"and my pipe--I'll have a nice time." He got to work busily.