Janice went quickly to the door, opened it, and stepped out. Already the night was old. The footsteps of Dawn were on the eastern hills. On the mesa, however, the encroaching forest made the shadows black. She could barely see the "headquarters" train of General Palo.

A man stumbled by and Janice caught at his arm. It was one of her father's men who had remained to guard the mine.

"What is it? What has happened?" she asked, without betraying all the fear she felt.

She knew that more than half of the government troops had followed the retreating rebels into the hills and had not returned to the military base. The present confusion of the soldiers that remained portended something desperate she knew.

"A night attack?" she asked.

"It may be, seÑorita," whispered the man. "A person has just been brought in—captured by our pickets."

"Oh!"

"An Americano, seÑorita. He say Dario Gomez, that bandit unhung, seÑorita, is about to attack. He has gathered a gre't force and will attack General De Soto Palo. SÍ! sÍ!"

"Dario Gomez?" repeated Janice. "Why, I——Who is this American who has been captured?"

"A deserter. A prisoner. I know not. QuiÉn sabe?"

"But what does he look like?" insisted Janice.

"Oh, seÑorita! He is a fat man and wears a red vest across his stomach—so," and the man gestured.

"Tom Hotchkiss!" murmured Janice.

"I come back to warn SeÑor B-Day if there be need," promised the guard and was gone.

Janice heard a horse charging past her from the direction of the general's car. In the dim light she thought she recognized the young aide-de-camp who had been so much in evidence the day before. He rode off into the north, away from the mine, and Janice believed he had gone to recall that part of the government troops now absent.

Did General Palo consider the promised attack of the banditti serious? When Janice had been in Dario Gomez's company he had had but forty followers!

She re-entered the shed and closed the door. Her father and Marty were sleeping quietly. Should she arouse them?

The girl was already becoming used to war's alarms. She determined to watch alone. By no possibility could she have closed her eyes now in slumber.

While her father and Marty slept peacefully, Janice Day sat by a dim and rather smoky lantern and watched. Confused sounds of marching and countermarching soldiery reached her ears; but from a distance.

Suddenly the uproar increased—then more rifle shots in the distance. Her father roused up, half asleep yet.

"What's that?" he demanded.

A sharp rap came upon the door. Janice arose hastily.

"Lie down, father," she said reassuringly. "I will go."

"The SeÑor General De Soto Palo order you all to the train. We make stand there, seÑorita," said the man who had knocked. "The bandits are at hand."

"What's that?" demanded Mr. Day again, wide awake.

Marty rolled off his couch and appeared in the light of the smoky lantern, the snub-nosed revolver in his hand. "Hey! I'm in this!" he croaked, but half awake. "What's doing?"

Swiftly Janice told them what little she had learned while she crammed things into her bag. The man at the door urged haste.

"That Gomez—he is near," sputtered the messenger.

"Why, we know that feller," Marty drawled. "I don't think he'd do anything to us, would he, Janice?"

"Never trust appearances with these Mexican banditti," said Mr. Day gravely. "I've shared the contents of his tobacco pouch with one and then had him try to cut my throat the next day. They are light-hearted, light-fingered and—lightest of all in their morals. I wonder that you two got away from Gomez as you did."

"And Tom Hotchkiss got away from him, too, did he?" growled Marty. "Well, that's too bad."

"Come, seÑor!" urged the messenger in the doorway.

They hurried to the headquarters car. It was growing lighter in the east. The rifle fire on the southern edge of the mesa was becoming sharper. General De Soto Palo had not led his troops in person against the attack of the banditti. Indeed, it was evident that he had been aroused from his peaceful slumbers at the beginning of the excitement; even now he had not removed his nightcap. He was not half so fierce-appearing in this headgear as he had been in his plumed hat.

But Tom Hotchkiss, cowering in a corner, seemed to think that the general was quite fierce enough.

"You want to remember I'm an American," he was saying whiningly. "Something's got to be done for me. I can't be treated this way, you know."

"SeÑor B-Day!" exploded the little general. "Do you know this man?"

"Day!"

Tom Hotchkiss almost shrieked it and would have sprung forward to peer into Mr. Broxton Day's face had not two of the barefooted soldiers held him back by the ungentle means of their bayonets.

"Yes. It is Thomas Hotchkiss," Mr. Day said, eyeing the fat man without favor.

"You're Brocky Day!" exclaimed the prisoner with sudden relief. "Well, you tell these fellers——"

The general raised his hand for silence. The soldiers suddenly pinned Mr. Hotchkiss into his corner with points that evidently hurt.

"Ouch!"

"You know this man, SeÑor Day?"

"Yes, General."

"Is he to be trusted to speak the truth?"

"Never," said Mr. Day firmly, "unless the truth serves him better than lying."

"Ah!"

"I understand he claims to have escaped from Gomez?"

"SÍ, seÑor."

"It may be so," said Mr. Day. "My daughter and nephew say they were in Gomez's power day before yesterday and they have reason to believe that this Hotchkiss was captured by the bandit."

"And how strong was Gomez's party when the seÑorita saw eet?"

"Forty!"

"Ah! But this man say he have thousands of troops—that an attack in force is intended on the mesa."

"It sounds as though there was some fighting going on out there," admitted Mr. Day. "But it may just be my own troops wasting ammunition. They have plenty—and are like children."

Mr. Day gave Tom Hotchkiss a long and penetrating stare.

"I'm free to confess, mi general," he said finally, "I don't know whether to believe this fellow or not. He's a criminal, wanted by the American officers. That is sure. It has always been my opinion that if a man is crooked in one environment he is very apt to be so in another."

Before the doughty little commander could make reply the rattle of rifle shots increased. It grew nearer. Janice clung to her father's arm.

The door of the office-car was flung open and the Madam suddenly appeared. She wore a wonderfully figured satin boudoir gown and a cap to match; and she was plainly very much frightened.

"General! General!" she cried. "The cook has left! Is there really danger?"

General De Soto Palo muttered something in Spanish that was probably not polite. His wife saw and recognized Janice.

"Oh, my dear!" she cried. "We are the only two females here! Return with me. I see the general is disturbed. Come, my dear. We are such goot friends—yes?"

Before Janice could reply there sounded the sharp plop of a bullet and a hole appeared in the window-pane directly above the general's desk. The bits of shattered glass showered over the little man in the nightcap; but he did not move or show any alarm.

Tom Hotchkiss squealed and tried to lie down in his corner. The two barefoot soldiers prodded him to a standing posture again.

This had been a baggage car in its day, and the windows were few and high. The impact of other bullets in the wooden walls was plainly heard. The rifle fire was advancing and it was not all ammunition wasted by the government troops.

"My angel," said the general softly, "take the seÑorita into the other car. Lie down below the level of the window sills—both. That will be safer."

Madam seized Janice's hand and drew her out through the vestibule. Mr. Day made a motion to Marty.

"Just go along and see that nothing happens to them, my boy," he said.

The Pullman car was fitted with thin steel shutters over the plate-glass windows and they had been closed the night before; but evidently General De Soto Palo did not altogether trust these shutters to keep out stray bullets.

The sharp ping of the lead as it sunk in the woodwork or the more resonant ring of those bullets glancing from the shutters became more and more frequent. The explosion of the guns sounded nearer. It was plain that the government troops were retreating from the southern edge of the mesa where the attack had opened. Dario Gomez and his followers seemed to be pressing on.

"Well, Marty, you wanted to see a battle," his cousin said to the boy. "Are you satisfied now?"

"Huh! I'm not seein' this one, am I?" he challenged. "Hi! what's that?" he added briskly.

The distant shriek of a steam whistle came faintly to her ears. Janice and the general's wife looked at each other. Marty drawled:

"Sounds like the old Constance Colfax comin' into the dock, don't it, Janice? But I reckon they don't have steamboats up in these hills, do they?"