as his own. And then Señora Moreno hurriedly banged the shutter and
took up her guitar. Something had to be done to hush the uproar of
blasphemy and imprecation, mingling with the shout of exultation that
instantly followed her lord's admission to the den.

Nine o'clock came. Murphy and his party were gone. The beacon still
blazed at the westward pass. The twang of the guitar had ceased.
Silence reigned about the ranch. Old Plummer with anxious face plodded
slowly up and down the open space in front of the deserted bar. Feeny,
with three loaded carbines close at hand and his belt bristling with
revolvers, was dividing his attention between the safe and the still
sleeping troopers. Every once in a while he would station the major at
the safe, which had been hauled into the easternmost of the rooms that
opened to the front instead of on the corral, and, revolver in hand,
would patrol the premises, never failing to stop at a certain window
behind which he believed Moreno to be lurking, to warn that impulsive
Greaser not to show his head outside his room if he didn't want it
blown off his shoulders; never failing on his return to stir up both
recumbent forms with angry foot, and then to shower in equal portions
cold water and hot imprecations upon them. To Pedro he had intrusted
the duty of caring for the horses of his prostrate comrades. Every
faculty he possessed was on the alert, watching for the faintest sign
of treachery or hostility from within, listening with dread but stern
determination for the first sound of hoof-beats from without. It must
have been about ten o'clock when, leaving Mr. Dawes, the clerk, seated
in the dark interior beside the safe, Feeny stepped forth to make
another round, stopped to look at Mullan and his partner, now
beginning to twitch uneasily and moan and toss in their drunken sleep,
and then turned to seek the paymaster. Whatsoever lights Moreno had
been accustomed to burn by way of lure or encouragement to belated