"Hey! What's that?" he demanded, striding down the run-around. "What you got hid there, eh?" He ogled Marcelina threateningly as he stood over her and she shrank before his glance like a school-girl. "Come, now," he blustered, "show me what that is or I'll take it away from you. We don't allow anything to be passed in to the prisoners!" "She can't pass nothin' through here!" interposed Pecos, tapping on the screen. "You haven't got nothin', have you, Marcelina?" "Well, I saw her hide something blue in her dress just now," persisted the jailer, "and I want to see it, that's all!" "It was—it was only a handkerchief!" sobbed Marcelina, clutching at her breast. "No, no! Eet is mine—he—he geev it to me! You can not—" she choked, and backed swiftly toward the door. Like a panther Pecos whipped out of his cell and sprang against the corridor grating, but she was gone. The deputy made a futile grab as she darted away from him and sprang after her, but she swung the great door in his face and sped like a deer down the hall. The next moment she was gone, leaving Pecos and the deputy to have it out together. "Aha!" cried the deputy vengefully, "you will try to smuggle things in, will you? I'll report this matter to Mr. Morgan at once!" "Well, report it, then, you low-flung hound!" wailed Pecos, "report it, and be damned to you! But if I was outside these bars I'd beat you to death for this!" They raged up and down the grating, snarling at each other like dogs that fight through a lattice, and even when Boone Morgan came and called them down Pecos would not be appeased. "He scairt my girl away!" he cried, scowling menacingly at the raw deputy. "She come to give me a handkerchief and he jumped at her. I'll fix him, the dastard, if ever I git a chance!" And so he raged and stormed until they went away and left him, mystified. To Boone Morgan it seemed as if his alcalde was raising a row out of all proportion to his grievance, but that was because Pecos could not explain his woes. Marcelina had promised to kiss him good-bye, and the damned deputy had intervened! CHAPTER XX THE LAW AND THE EVIDENCE