A month of weary waiting followed that day of days in Fortuna, and still there was no word from Phil. Bernardo Bravo and his rebel raiders passed through the mountains to the east, and news came of heavy fighting in Chihuahua. Don Cipriano Aragon moved his family back to his hacienda and Gracia became only a dream.

Then, one day, as Hooker and the Yaqui were industriously pounding out gold, a messenger came out from town with a telegram in his hand.

Am in Gadsden. No chance to hold mine. Kruger says quit.—P.

"No, I'll be 'sarned if I do!" muttered Bud. Then he sat down to think.

"Amigo," he said to the Yaqui, "are you a Mexican citizen? Can you get title to mine?"

"Me a Mexican?" repeated Amigo, tapping himself proudly on the chest. "No, seÑor! Seguro que no!"

"All right then," observed Bud bitterly, "here goes nothing—nowhere! I'll turn Mexican myself!"

He passed the messenger on the way to town, took out his first papers as a citizen, picked up the mineral agent's expert on the way back, and located the Eagle Tail in his own name. Before riding back to camp he wired to Kruger:

Have turned Mex and relocated claim.

Hooker.

It was his last card, and he did not expect to win by it. Fate had been against him from the first, and he could see his finish, but his nature drove him to fight on. All that Aragon had to do now was to have him summoned for military service, and Del Rey would do the rest.

Then he could take over the mine. A mere formality—or so it seemed—but between Aragon and his mine stood the Texas blood. Hooker had been crowded to the wall, and he was mad enough to fight.

The news of De Lancey's desertion followed quickly after his flight—it came over the Federal wires in a report to Manuel del Rey—but by the time it got to Aragon that gentleman was too late. They rode into camp the next day—Aragon and the captain of the rurales—and at the first glimpse of that hated uniform Amigo was off like a buck. Bud went out sullenly to meet them, his black mood showing in his lowering eyes, and he halted them by the savagery of his cursing.

"You cock-eyed old reprobate," he snarled, advancing threateningly upon the paling Aragon, "this makes three times you've come into my camp and brought your gun with you! Now take it off!" he yelled, dropping suddenly into Spanish. "Take that gun off—do you understand?"

So violent and unexpected was his assault that it threw Aragon into a panic, and even Manuel del Rey softened his manner as he inquired into the cause.

"Never mind," answered Bud, smiling crustily as Aragon laid aside his arms; "I know that hombre well! Now what can I do for you, capitan?"

"Be so kind as to take your hand from your belt," replied Del Rey with a smile that was intended to placate. "Ah, thank you—excuse my nerves—now I can tell you the news. I regret to inform you seÑor, that your friend, De Lancey, has deserted from my command, taking his arms and equipment with him. In case he is captured he will be shot as a deserter."

"Your news is old, capitan," rejoined Hooker. "I knew it two days ago. And you can tell Mr. Aragon that it is no use for him to try to get this mine—I became a Mexican citizen yesterday and located it myself."

"So we learned," responded the captain suavely. "It was part of my errand to-day to ask if you would not enlist in my company of rurales."

"Muchas gracias, capitan," answered Hooker with heavy irony. "I do not care to!"

"But your friend—" protested Manuel del Rey with an insinuating smile.

"My friend was in jail," put in Bud; "he was to be shot at sunrise. But mira, amigo, I am not in jail, and, furthermore, I do not intend to be."

"That is very creditable to you," laughed Del Rey; "but even then you are entitled to enlist."

"The country is full of turbulent fellows who have to be caught or killed. Come now, you understand my errand—why make it hard for me?"

"No, seÑor," returned Bud grimly, "I know nothing of your errand. But this I do know. I have done nothing for which I can be arrested, and if any man tries to make me join the army—" he hooked his thumb into his belt and regarded the captain fixedly.

"Ah, very well," said Del Rey, jerking his waxed mustachios, "I will not press the matter. But I understand from one of my men, seÑor, that you are harboring a dangerous criminal here—the same man, perhaps, whom I saw running up the caÑon?"

He smiled meaningly at this, but Bud was swift to defend his Yaqui.

"No, seÑor," he replied, "I have no such criminal. I have a Mexican working for me who is one of the best miners in Sonora, and that is all I know about him."

"A Mexican?" repeated Del Rey, arching his eyebrows. "Excuse me, sir, but it is my business to know every man in this district, and he is no Mexican, but a Yaqui. Moreover, he is a fugitive and an outlaw, and if he had not been enlisted with the Federals I should have arrested him when he passed through Fortuna. So I warn you, sir, not to hide him, or you will be liable to the law."

"I'm not hiding him," protested Hooker scornfully. "I'm just hiring him as a miner, and any time you want him you can come and get him. He's up in the rocks there somewhere now."

"So!" exclaimed the captain, glancing uneasily at the hillside. "I did not think—but many thanks, seÑor, another time will do as well."

He reined his horse away as he spoke and, with a jerk of the head to Aragon, rode rapidly down the caÑon. Aragon lingered to retrieve his fallen gun-belt and then, seeming to think better of his desire to speak, he made a single vindictive gesture and set spurs to his champing horse.

It was merely a fling of the hand, as spontaneous as a sigh or a frown, but in it Hooker read the last exasperation of the Spaniard and his declaration of war to the knife. He bared his strong teeth in reply and hissed out a blighting curse, and then Aragon was gone.

That evening, as the darkness came on and the caÑon became hushed and still, Bud built a big fire and stood before it, his rugged form silhouetted against the flames. And soon, as quiet as a fox, the Yaqui appeared from the gloom.

"Did he come for me," he asked, advancing warily into the firelight, "that capitan?"

"Yes," answered Bud, "and for me, too. But you must have known him before, Amigo—he seems to be afraid of you."

A smile of satisfaction passed over the swarthy face of the Indian at this, and then the lines became grim again. His eyes glowed with the light of some great purpose, and for the first time since he had been with Bud he drew aside the veil from his past.

"Yes," he said, nodding significantly, "the rural is afraid. He knows I have come to kill him."

He squatted by the fire and poured out a cup of coffee, still brooding over his thoughts—then, with a swift gesture, he laid open his shirt and pointed to a scar along the ribs.

"He shot me there," he said.

"And so you have come to kill him?"

"Yes," answered Amigo; "but not now. Tomorrow I go to my people—I must take them my money first."

"Have you got a wife?" asked Hooker, forgetting for once his accustomed reserve.

"No," grumbled Amigo, shaking his head sadly, "no wife."

"Oh, you take your money to your father and mother."

"No. No father—no mother—nadie!"

He threw up his open hands to signify that all were gone, and Hooker said no more. For three months and more he had worked alongside this giant, silent Yaqui and only once had he sensed his past. That was when Amigo had torn his shirt in lifting, and across the rippling muscles of his back there had shown the long white wale of a whip.

It was the mark of his former slavery when, with the rest of his people, he had been deported to the henequen-fields of Yucatan and flogged by the overseer's lash—and Amigo was ashamed of it. But now that he was about to go, Bud made bold to ask him one more question, to set his mind at rest.

"Perhaps this captain killed your people?"

"No, seÑor," answered Amigo quietly; "they died."

He spoke the words simply, but there was something in his voice that brought up images of the past—of peaceful Yaquis, seized at every ranch in Sonora on a certain night; of long marches overland, prodded on by rurales and guards; of the crowded prison-ships from which the most anguished hurled themselves into the sea; and then the awful years of slavery in the poisoned tropics, until only the hardiest were left.

Amigo had seen it all, as the scars on his broad back proved—but he withdrew now into silence and left his thoughts unsaid. As he sat there by the fire, one long, black hand held out to keep the gleam from his eyes, he made a noble figure, but the Yaqui songs which he had crooned on other nights were forgotten, and he held himself tense and still. Then at last he rose and gazed at Bud.

"You pay me my money," he said. "I go now."

"Sure," answered Bud, and after he had weighed out the equivalent in gold on his scales he flipped in some more for luck and gave him a sack to hold it.

"What you buy with all that," he inquired with a friendly grin; "grub?"

"No, seÑor," answered Amigo, knotting the precious gold in a handkerchief; "cartridges!"

"What for?" queried Bud, and then it was Amigo who smiled.

"To kill Mexicans with!" he replied, and in those words Hooker read the secret of his thrift.

While his wild brethren fought in the hills or prepared for the battles to come, it was his part to earn the money that should keep them in ammunition. It was for that, in fact, that Porfirio Diaz had seized all the peaceful Yaquis in a night and shipped them to Yucatan—for he saw that while they were working the wild Yaquis would never lack.

All the time that Amigo had been doing two men's work and saving on the price of a shirt he had held that cheerful dream in his mind—to kill more Mexicans!

Yet, despite the savagery in him, Hooker had come to like the Yaqui, and he liked him still. With the rurales on his trail it was better that he should go, but Bud wanted him to return. So, knowing the simple honesty of Indians, he brought out his own spare pistol and placed it in Amigo's hands. Often he had seen him gazing at it longingly, for it was lighter than his heavy Mauser and better for the journey.

"Here," he said, "I will lend you my pistol—and you can give it to me when you come back."

"Sure!" answered the Indian, hanging it on his hip. "Adios!"

They shook hands then, and the Yaqui disappeared in the darkness. In the morning, when a squad of rurales closed in on the camp, they found nothing but his great tracks in the dust.