"The capitan has it wrong," asserted José. "We awake to find our _popero_ being kicked in the head. We want to know why. If Francisco has done what you say I will deal with him. That I may be sure, allow me to look." "Very well. Look." José advanced, stooped, studied the ground, the position of Francisco's body, the knife still clutched in the nerveless hand. Tim growlingly vouchsafed a brief explanation of the incident. When José straightened up, his mouth was a hard line and his eyes hot coals. "_Si. Es verdad._ To-morrow we shall have a new _popero_." With which he stooped again, grasped the prone man by the hair, dragged him into the moonlit space between the huts, and flung him down. "Juan, bring water!" he ordered. One of the paddlers, looking queerly at him, did so. José deluged the senseless man. Francisco, reviving, sat up and scowled about him. His eyes rested on the three Americans standing grimly ready, shoulder to shoulder, before their hut; veered to his mates bunched in sinister silence beside their own quarters; shifted again to meet the baleful glare of José. His hand stole to his empty sheath. "Your knife, Francisco _mio_?" queried José, a menacing purr in his tone. "I have it. It seems that you are in haste to use it. Too much haste, Francisco. But if you will stand instead of crawling as before, you may have your knife again--and use it, too." Francisco, staring sullenly up, seemed to read in the words more than was evident to the Americans. He lurched to his feet, staggered, caught his balance, braced himself, stood waiting. "You know who commands here," José went on. "You disobey. You seek to stab in the night--" "Now or later--what is the difference?" "--and now the boat is too small for both of us." José ignored the interruption. "Here is your knife. Now use it!" He flipped the weapon at the other, who caught it deftly. José dropped his right hand to his waist. An instant later naked steel licked out at Francisco's throat. The steersman's knife flashed up, caught the reaching blade, knocked it with a scraping clink. For a few seconds the two weapons seemed welded together, their owners each striving to bear down the other's wrist. Then they parted as the combatants sprang back. José side-stepped twice to his right. Francisco, turning to preserve his guard, now had the light full in his face. But the moon rode so high that the steersman's disadvantage was negligible, and the next assault of the _puntero_ was blocked as before. And this time the wrist of the _popero_ proved a bit the better; he threw the attacking steel aside and struck in a slashing sweep at his antagonist's stomach. A convulsive inward movement of the bowman's middle, coupled with a swift back-step, made the slash miss by a hair's breadth. With the quickness of light José was in again. His knife hand, still outstretched sidewise, stopped with a light smack of flesh on flesh. Then it jerked outward. His steel now was red to the hilt.