"Back, men, but stand ready!" commanded the Army boy, pressing forward through the opened doorway. The handsome young lieutenant looked cool and undaunted as he stepped into the cabin, without a weapon in either hand. Hal found himself confronted by a big, purple-faced individual of perhaps middle age, who stood glaring at the intruder, a revolver clutched in his right hand. Back of him stood five Mexicans, each with a rifle, though the man at the moment was making no visible attempt to use his weapon. Behind the group a white-faced young woman, of perhaps twenty, stood clutching at a buffet for support. "I think you had a wager on that you'd shoot me," smiled Lieutenant Hal. "Instead, be good enough to hand your pistol to the sergeant." "I'll----" "You'll give your weapon up," Hal continued smilingly. "Sergeant, relieve the gentleman of his pistol. He's too nervous to have one; he might discharge it accidentally." The purple-faced fellow, who was evidently an American, opened his mouth as if to pour out a torrent of abuse. But the sergeant quietly wrenched the weapon from his hand. "Now, you Mexicans lay your rifles down on the floor," Hal continued, turning to the swarthier men. Hesitatingly they obeyed, for they realized that all hope of successful resistance was now gone. "What relation is this young lady to you, if any?" Hal asked, turning to the man. "He's my father," spoke the girl, instead. "Then, madam, he may remain in the cabin with you, if he chooses. Sergeant, clear all others out of the cabin." "What do you think you are going to do here, you young counter-jumper?" snarled the girl's father. "We are going to take this craft and all it holds back to Agua Dulce as a prize," Hal replied quietly. "Madam, you were not wounded in the least, were you?" "No," she answered, looking rather sheepish. "Then we shall not need to make so much haste on your account. But we have a Mexican up on the deck who may need attention in a hurry." "The fellow on the deck is only a Mexican," sneered the purple-faced one, all of his recent Mexican companions having been removed from the cabin by the soldiers. "He's a badly wounded man, whether he's an American, Mexican, Chinaman or Hindu," Hal retorted. "All men are entitled to humane treatment by soldiers. And I think I hardly need to remind you, sir, that you yourself have deemed it worth while to be associated with Mexicans." "Because business made it necessary," replied the American huskily, yet in a lower voice. "Almost every dollar I have in the world is invested in a part of Mexico that the _insurrectos_ hold and seem likely to go on holding." "The same old dollar excuse?" demanded Lieutenant Overton. "Are you another of the men who have grown to think that the straight and narrow path is found only in the space between the two parallel lines of the dollar-sign?" Then, turning, Hal went to the door of the cabin to call: "Lieutenant Terry!" "Here, sir."