They had halted beside a dense patch of chaparral. Carlitos had scarcely thrown his verbal bomb when Tom Hotchkiss slid out of his seat and dived into the thicket beside the narrow road like a wood-chuck into its hole. No fat man ever disappeared more quickly.

Janice and Marty were too disturbed by the announcement of the automobile driver, and too startled withal, to note Hotchkiss' departure. The bandits, headed by Dario Gomez, swung into the trail and charged immediately down upon the stalled automobile.

The band consisted of nearly forty—an unusually large and important commando, as the Mexican banditti rove the country mostly in small parties, preying on whomever may have anything worth taking, and keeping up a desultory warfare against the troops of whatever de facto government may at the time be in power in Mexico City.

"Hi tunket!" exploded Marty. "What are we going to do now?"

Carlitos shrugged his shoulders, sat down, and began to roll the ever present cigarette. "As the young seÑor says, ''I tunkeet!'" quoted the Mexican. "What can we do but submeet?"

"Submit to what, Carlitos?" whispered Janice. "What is the danger from these men?"

"QuiÉn sabe?" drawled the driver of the car. "We are in the hands of God, seÑorita."

The leader of the fierce-looking band was a man with long, waving mustachios, a regular piratical-looking hirsute adornment. He carried a white, ugly scar across his right cheek—evidently the memento of a more or less recent saber wound. He spoke first of all in Spanish to Carlitos while his wildly riding followers—plainly vaqueros all—dragged their mounts back to a dramatic halt about the stalled car, surrounding the party with a cloud of dust.

Carlitos drawled a reply and gestured toward his remaining passengers. Dario Gomez exclaimed:

"Americanos—and in the habit of friends? What means this?"

He spoke very good English. His eyes flashed, but his mustache lifted at the corners as though he laughed.

Marty was tongue-tied for the moment. The threatening aspect of the cavalcade and especially of Dario Gomez himself was too much for the nonchalance of the boy. Even the hidden weapon in his sash gave him no comfort, for these "forty thieves" were all armed to the teeth.

It was a difficult situation. Carlitos evidently had no help to offer. Indeed he seemed to feel no particular responsibility, though he was not closely associated with these lusty vagabonds.

"What means this masquerade, seÑor and seÑorita?" Dario Gomez repeated.

It was Janice who stepped into the breach—and stepped from the car as well. She approached the charger ridden by the bandit chief, putting aside the veil that had half hidden her face.

"SeÑor," she said earnestly, "will you not help me get to my father? The car has broken down and we are still a long way from San Cristoval—are we not, Carlitos?"

"Huh? By goodness, yes!" replied the amazed driver.

"My cousin and I," pursued Janice Day, "have come across the States to find my father—from far beyond Chicago—from beyond New York. I must find him quickly, sir. He is wounded—perhaps dying! Will you help me?"

"Who is your padre, seÑorita?" Dario Gomez asked. "How was he wounded?"

"Mr. Broxton Day is my father. He is chief at the Alderdice Mine, beyond San Cristoval."

"Ah! beyond the town, you say? We have no power there, seÑorita. Not now. Old Whiskers rules up there once again—and with a strong arm."

Janice did not know to whom he referred as "Old Whiskers"; possibly to some petty chief like himself. She remembered the name of a rebel leader who had been her father's friend in the past and she urged:

"I am sure my father would not have been attacked at all had SeÑor Juan Dicampa been still alive. He was my father's friend."

"Ha! the Dicampa? He was my friend, too," returned Gomez. "But he joined forces with the conqueror—and was shot for his treachery."

"Oh!"

"Juan Dicampa ended as so many deliverers end—as an apostle of 'the loaves and fishes.' Ha!" ejaculated Dario Gomez. "I and my followers, we are as yet poor enough to be honest. God keep us so!"

"But my father has surely done nobody harm," cried Janice. "I am sure his name must be known for justice and kindness in the Companos District."

"It is true, mi general," said one of Gomez's men softly. "I am acquaint' weeth the SeÑor B-Day. He is a gran hombre."

Dario Gomez pushed back his sombrero and ran a hand through his thick, graying hair, laughing with twinkling eyes and uplifted mustache into Janice's face.

"Shall we, then, play modern Robin Hoods to this so-beautiful seÑorita in distress?" he demanded.

"Who ees thees Rob'n 'Ood, mi general?" asked another of his followers. "A brave compadre?"

"You've said it," ejaculated Gomez, in good American slang. "Very famous."

"What more than we can he do?" asked the lesser bandit.

"True. Your wisdom is of the ancients, Pietro. What say, hombrecitos? shall we lend assistance to the so-beautiful seÑorita—the daughter of SeÑor B-Day?"

There seemed to be a growl of approval. "To San Cristoval, mi general," said one. "There may yet be pickings."

The leader turned immediately and with businesslike directness to Carlitos. "What has happened to the automobile?" he asked.

"Oh, SeÑor Gomez!" stuttered the driver. "She done bust."

"And you can't make on with her?"

"No, seÑor."

"She's more than cast a shoe, then?" laughed Dario Gomez. "So we must tackle horses to her, eh? 'Get a horse!' Horse power is surer than gasoline I have always believed."

"By goodness, yes!" groaned Carlitos Ortez.

Janice hastily climbed back beside the astounded Marty. He stared at her.

"Cricky!" he whispered. "Aren't you just the greatest girl that ever was, Janice? Wait till I tell the folks at home about this!"

Carlitos had a rope. He passed it around the entire body of the car, and straps and singletrees appeared for three horses. Evidently some of the bandits' mounts had been seized while at work.

Just as the three excited horses, their riders plying the quirt, sprang forward to drag the stalled car, Carlitos uttered a startling yell.

"There is a third, mi general!" he shouted to Gomez. "The thief and a son-of-a-thief! he haf not paid me mi dinero!"

"What's that?" demanded Dario Gomez.

"Anothair passenger—by goodness, yes! He have escaped!" and he pointed to the chaparral.

"What's this?"

"I forget heem till this moment," stammered Carlitos. "He is likewise of los Americanos; but he is not a friend to these two," and he gestured to Janice and Marty. "He afraid when you appear, mi general. He run."

"Ha!" ejaculated Gomez. "Perhaps he has cause for fear. We will find him."

He gave an order and ten of his men separated from the rest and began to encircle the patch of chaparral. The car was started again and, being but a light load for three horses, they went forward along the road at a gallop.

The bumping and jouncing Janice and Marty endured now was much worse than that which had gone before. The car under its own power was bad enough; but with the half-wild horses dragging it, the occupants of the tonneau thought surely it would be shaken to pieces.

Carlitos clung to the steering wheel, yelling instructions that were not heeded. These reckless vaqueros of the pampas (they were not Chihuahua men; they did not pronounce the s, and were therefore from the south) thought it rather good fun. But the rattle and banging of the automobile, like nothing so much as a tin-shop with a full crew working at high speed, urged the horses on and on.

"Believe me!" Marty managed to shout into his cousin's ear, "if I ever get out of this alive I never want even to see an automobile again. I'm glad you sold yours, Janice."

They struck into a better and smoother road after a while, and the journey was not so difficult. Janice wondered what had become of Tom Hotchkiss, and spoke of him to Marty.

"I hope they catch him and make him work for them. They tell me that these people have slaves down here just as though Abraham Lincoln had never lived," Marty declared. "You heard what Carlitos said about his grandfather.

"As long as we can't turn the fat chump over to the proper police, I hope he just gets his!" added the boy, with venom in his tone of voice. "I hope the money he stole will never do him any good. But, poor dad! he's comin' out of the little end of the horn, I'm afraid."

Janice, too, was troubled about Uncle Jason's affairs. They had seemed on the point of helping him by Hotchkiss' capture—and then had missed it.

However, hope was growing momentarily in the girl's heart that she was going to reach and rescue her own father. She had won over these wild men so easily to help her that it seemed there could really be nothing now to obstruct the way to the Alderdice Mine. They were already in the Companos District, they told her.

Dario Gomez sometimes rode beside the car and shouted bits of information to them. It was apparent that the chief was well versed in English—had probably lived and been educated in the United States. He was, after all, an anomaly in the company he was with. Janice wondered in what spirit he had become chief with such wild companions for his followers.

The haze-capped mountains seemed much nearer now and the road was almost continually on a grade—either ascending or descending. At dusk they came in sight of several groups of houses.

"San Cristoval," announced Dario Gomez. "Until we learn how matters stand, yonder we may not drag your tin Leezie," and he laughed. "You have had a ride, eh?"

"I never want another like it," growled Marty.

"But if I do not take them into the town, I get no pay," wailed Carlitos, suddenly realizing his situation. "That fat hombre—he escape. And these must ride into San Cristoval in the tin Lizzie or I get no dinero. Don Abreguardo say it."

"Ha! Don Abreguardo is a shrewd hombre," said Gomez.

"Don't worry!" Marty exclaimed. "We'll pay you, and we'll walk the rest of the way. Won't we, Janice?"

"Of course," she agreed. "I—I shall be glad to walk—if I can," and she got stiffly out of the car.

"Bueno! Now we depart," said Gomez, laughing. "We go seek my compadres and the fat hombre Carlitos tell me about. Adios!"

He wheeled his horse, waved his hand, and, with his troop clattering at his heels, rode swiftly away.