To an American, accustomed to getting things done first and talking about it afterward, there is nothing so subtly irritating as the Old World formalism, the polite evasiveness of the Mexicans; and yet, at times, they can speak to the point with the best of us.

For sixty days Don Cipriano Aragon had smiled and smiled and then, suddenly, as the last day of their mining permit passed by and there was no record of a denouncement by Cruz Mendez, he appeared at the Eagle Tail mine with a pistol in his belt and a triumphant sneer on his lips.

Behind him rode four Mexicans, fully armed, and they made no reply to De Lancey's polite "Buenos dÍas!"

"Take your poor things," burst out Aragon, pointing contemptuously at their tent and beds, "and your low, pelado Mexican—and go! This mine no longer stands in the name of Cruz Mendez, and I want it for myself! No, not a word!" he cried, as De Lancey opened his mouth to explain. "Nothing! Only go!"

"No, seÑor," said Hooker, dropping his hand to his six-shooter which hung low by his leg and stepping forward, "we will not go!"

"What?" stormed Aragon. "You—"

"Be careful there!" warned Bud, suddenly fixing his eyes on one of the four retainers. "If you touch that gun I'll kill you!"

There was a pause, in which the Mexicans sat frozen to their saddles, and then De Lancey broke the silence.

"You must not think, SeÑor Aragon," he began, speaking with a certain bitterness, "that you can carry your point like this. My friend here is a Texan, and if your men stir he will kill them. But there is a law in this country for every man—what is it that you want?"

"I want this mining claim," shouted Aragon, "that you have so unjustly taken from me through that scoundrel Mendez! And I want you to step aside, so that I can set up my monuments and take possession of it."

"The SeÑor Aragon has not been to the agente mineral to-day," suggested De Lancey suavely. "If he had taken the trouble he would not—"

"Enough!" cried Aragon, still trying to carry it off cavalierly. "I sent my servant to the mining agent yesterday and he reported that the permit had lapsed."

"If he had taken the pains to inquire for new permits, however," returned De Lancey, "he would have found that one has been issued to me. I am now a Mexican citizen, like yourself."

"You!" screamed Aragon, his eyes bulging with astonishment; and then, finding himself tricked, he turned suddenly upon one of his retainers and struck him with his whip.

"Son of a goat!" he stormed. "Pig! Is this the way you obey my orders?"

But though he raved and scolded, he had gone too far, and there was no putting the blame on his servant. In his desire to humiliate the hated gringos he had thrown down all his guards, and even De Lancey saw all too clearly what his intentions in the matter had been.

"Spare your cursing, SeÑor Aragon," he said, "and after this," he added, "you can save your pretty words, too—for somebody else. We shall remain here and hold our property."

"Ha! You Americanos!" exclaimed Aragon, as he chewed bitterly on his defeat. "You will rob us of everything—even our government. So you are a Mexican citizen, eh? You must value this barren mine very highly to give up the protection of your government. But perhaps you are acquainted with a man named Kruger?" he sneered.

"He would sell his honor any time to defraud a Mexican of his rights, and I doubt not it was he who sent you here. Yes, I have known it from the first—but I will fool him yet!

"So you are a Mexican citizen, SeÑor De Lancey? Bien, then you shall pay the full price of your citizenship. Before our law you are now no more than that poor pelado, Mendez. You cannot appeal now to your consul at Gadsden—you are only a Mexican! Very well!"

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled significantly.

"No," retorted De Lancey angrily; "you are right—I cannot appeal to my government! But let me tell you something, SeÑor Mexicano! An American needs no government to protect him—he has his gun, and that is enough!"

"Yes," added Bud, who had caught the drift of the last, "and he has his friends, too; don't forget that!" He strode over toward Aragon and menaced him with a threatening finger.

"If anything happens to my friend," he hissed, "you will have me to whip! And now, seÑor," he added, speaking in the idiom of the country, "go with God—and do not come back!"

"Pah!" spat back Aragon, his hate for the pushing foreigner showing in every glance; "I will beat you yet! And I pray God the revoltosos come this way, if they take the full half of my cattle—so long as they get you two!"

"Very well," nodded Bud as Aragon and his men turned away, "but be careful you do not send any!

"Good!" he continued, smiling grimly at the pallid Phil; "now we got him where we want him—out in the open. And I'll just remember them four paisanos he had with him—they're his handy men, the boys with nerve—and don't never let one of 'em catch you out after dark."

De Lancey sat down on a rock and wiped his face.

"Heavens, Bud," he groaned, "I never would have believed it of him—I thought he was on the square. But it just goes to prove the old saying—every Mexican has got a streak of yellow in him somewhere. All you've got to do is to trust him long enough and you'll find it out. Well, we're hep to Mr. Aragon, all right!"

"I have never seen one of these polite, palavering Mexicans yet," observed Bud sagely, "that wasn't crooked. And this feller Aragon is mean, to boot. But that's a game," he added, "that two can play at. I don't know how you feel, Phil, but we been kinder creeping and slipping around so long that I'm all cramped up inside. Never suffered more in my life than the last sixty days—being polite to that damn' Mexican. Now it's our turn. Are you game?"

"Count me in!" cried De Lancey, rising from his rock. "What's the play?"

"Well, we'll go into town pretty soon," grinned Bud, "and if I run across old Aragon, or any one of them four bad Mexicans, I'm going to make a show. And as for that big brindle dog of his—well, he's sure going to get roped and drugged if he don't mend his ways. Come on, let's ketch up our horses and go in for a little time."

"I'll go you!" agreed Phil with enthusiasm, and half an hour later, each on his favorite horse, they were clattering down the caÑon. At the turn of the trail, where it swung into the Aragon lane, Bud took down his rope and smiled in anticipation.

"You go on ahead," he said, shaking out his loop, "and I'll try to put the catgut on Brindle."

"Off like a flash!" answered De Lancey, and, putting the spurs to his fiery bay, he went dashing down the street, scattering chickens and hogs in all directions. Behind came Bud, rolling jovially in his saddle, and as the dogs rushed out after his pardner he twirled his loop once and laid it skilfully across the big brindle's back. But roping dogs is a difficult task at best, and Bud was out of practise. The sudden blow struck Brindle to the ground and the loop came away unfilled. The Texan laughed, shifting in his saddle.

"Come again!" commented Bud, leaning sidewise as he coiled his rope, and as the womenfolk and idlers came rushing to see what had happened he turned Copper Bottom in his tracks and came back like a streak of light.

"Look out, you ugly man's dog!" he shouted, whirling his rope as he rode; and then, amid a chorus of indignant protests, he chased the yelping Brindle down the lane and through a hole in the fence. Then, with no harm done, he rode back up the street, smiling amiably and looking for more dogs to rope.

In the door of the store stood Aragon, pale with fury, but Bud appeared not to see him. His eyes were turned rather toward the house where, on the edge of the veranda, Gracia Aragon and her mother stood staring at his antics.

"Good morning to you, ladies!" he saluted, taking off his sombrero with a flourish. "Lovely weather, ain't it?" And with his tongue in his cheek and a roguish glance at Aragon, who was stricken dumb by this last effrontery, he went rollicking after his pardner, sending back a series of joyous yips.

"Now that sure does me good," he confided to Phil, as they rode down between cottonwoods and struck into the muddy creek. "No sense in it, but it gets something out of my system that has kept me from feeling glad. Did you see me bowing to the ladies? Some class to that bow—no? You want to look out—I got my eye on that gal, and I'm sure a hard one to head. Only thing is, I wouldn't like the old man for a father-in-law the way matters stand between us now."

He laughed boisterously at this witticism, and the little Mexican children, playing among the willows, crouched and lay quiet like rabbits. Along the sides of the rocky hills, where the peons had their mud-and-rock houses, mothers came anxiously to open doors; and as they jogged along up the river the Chinese gardeners, working in each separate nook and eddy of the storm-washed creek-bed, stopped grubbing to gaze at them inquiringly.

"Wonder what's the matter with them chinks?" observed Bud, when his happiness had ceased to effervesce. "They sit up like a village of prairie-dogs! Whole country seems to be on the rubber-neck. Must be something doing."

"That's right," agreed Phil. "Did you notice how those peons scattered when I rode down the street? Maybe there's been some insurrectos through. But say—listen!"

He stopped his horse, and in the silence a bugle-call came down the wind from the direction of Fortuna.

"Soldiers!" he said. "Now where did they come from? I was in Fortuna day before yesterday, and—well, look at that!"

From the point of the hill just ahead of them a line of soldiers came into view, marching two abreast, with a mounted officer in the lead.

"Aha!" exclaimed Bud with conviction; "they've started something down below. This is that bunch of Federals that we saw drilling up at Agua Negra."

"Yep," admitted De Lancey regretfully; "I guess you're right for once—the open season for rebels has begun."

They drew out of the road and let them pass—a long, double line of shabby infantrymen, still wearing their last-year's straw hats and summer uniforms and trudging along in flapping sandals.

In front were two men bearing lanterns, to search out the way by night; slatternly women, the inevitable camp-followers, trotted along at the sides with their bundles and babies; and as the little brown men from Zacatecas, each burdened with his heavy gun and a job lot of belts and packs, shuffled patiently past the Americans, they flashed the whites of their eyes and rumbled a chorus of "Adios!"

"Adios, Americanos!" they called, gazing enviously at their fine horses, and Phil in his turn touched his hat and wished them all God-speed.

"Poor devils!" he murmured, as the last tottering camp-followers, laden with their burdens, brought up the rear and a white-skinned Spanish officer saluted from his horse. "What do those little pelÓnes know about liberty and justice, or the game that is being played? Wearing the same uniforms that they had when they fought for Diaz, and now they are fighting for Madero. Next year they may be working for Orozco or Huerta or Salazar."

"Sure," muttered Bud; "but that ain't the question. If the's rebels in the hills, where do we get off?"

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