If Stephen Lorimer, far to the north in the safe serenity of the old house of South Figueroa Street, could have envisaged the three of them that day his chief concern would not have been for their bodily danger. It would have seemed to him that the intangible cloud settling down over them was a more tragic and sinister thing than the insurrectos besieging them, than the thirst which was cracking their lips and swelling and blackening their tongues.

He was to remember and marvel, long afterward, that his thought on that date had tugged uneasily toward them all day and evening. Conditions, so far as he knew, were favorable; the escort for the personage would be a stout one and under his wing the boy and girl would be safe, and James King was waiting for them, spinning out his thread of life until they should come to him. Nevertheless, he found himself acutely unhappy regarding them, aware of an urgent and instant need of being with them.

They had never, in all their blithe young lives, needed him so cruelly. He could not have driven back the bandits, but he could have driven back the clouds of doubt and misery and misunderstanding; he could not have given them water for their parched throats but he could have given them to drink of the waters of understanding; he could have relieved the drought in their wrung young hearts. He would have seen, as only a looker-on could see, what was happening to them. He would have yearned over Honor, fronting the bright face of danger so gallantly but stunned and crushed by the change in Jimsy, over Jimsy himself, setting out to do an incredibly stupid, incredibly noble deed, absolutely convinced by the sight of her one-word telegram that she loved Carter (and humbly realizing that she might well love Carter, the brilliant Carter, better than his unilluminated self), seeing the thing simply and objectively as he would be sure to do, deciding on his course and pursuing it as definitely as he would take a football over the line for a touchdown. He would even have yearned over Carter, at the very moment when the youth fulfilled his ancient distrust of him. He would have understood as even Carter himself did not, by what gradual and destructive processes he had arrived at the point of his outbreak to Jimsy; would have realized in how far his physical suffering—infinitely harder for him than for the others—had broken down his moral fiber; how utterly his very real love for Honor had engulfed every other thought and feeling. And he would have seen, in the last analysis, that Carter was sincere; he had come at last to believe his own fabrications; he honestly believed that Honor's betrothed would go the way of all the "Wild Kings"; that Honor would be ruining her life in marrying him.

But Stephen Lorimer was hundreds and thousands of miles away from them that day of their bitter need, making tentative notes for a chapter on young love for his unborn book, listening to the inevitable mocking-bird in the Japanese garden, waiting for Mildred Lorimer to give him his tea ... wearing the latest of his favorites among her gowns....

Madeline King was spent with her vigil and Honor had coaxed her to lie down for an hour and let her take the chair beside Richard King's bed.

"Very well, my dear. I'll rest for an hour. I'll do it because I know I may want my strength more, later on." She seemed to have aged ten years since the day Honor had come to El Pozo, but she came of fighting blood, this English wife of Jimsy's uncle. "I'm frightfully sorry you're let in for this, Honor, but it's no end of a comfort, having you. Call me if he rouses. I daresay I shan't really sleep."

Honor sat on beside him, fanning him until her arm ached, resting it until he stirred again, trying to wet her dry lips with her thickened tongue. She wasn't thinking; she was merely waiting, standing it. It was a relief not to talk, but she must talk when she was with the boys again; it helped to keep them up, to keep an air of normality about things.

Jimsy King had read the message Carter held up to him and gone away without comment, and Carter had stayed on in the sala. It was almost an hour before Jimsy came back. Honor's stepfather would have marked and marveled at the change so brief a little space of time had been able to register in the bonny boy's face. The flesh seemed to have paled and receded and the bones seemed more sharply modeled; more insistent; and the eyes looked very old and at the same time pitifully young. He was very quiet and sure of himself.

"Jimsy," said Carter, "I shouldn't have told you, now, but I went off my head."

Jimsy nodded. "The time doesn't matter, Cart'. I just want to ask you one thing, straight from the shoulder. I've been thinking and thinking ... trying to take it in. Sometimes I seem to get it for a minute, that Skipper cares for you instead of me, and then it's gone again. All I can seem to hang on to is that telegram." The painful calm of his face flickered and broke up for an instant and there was an answering disturbance in Carter's own. "I keep seeing that ... all the time. But there's no use talking about it. What I want to ask you is this, Cart'"—he went on slowly in his hoarse and roughened voice—"you honestly think Skipper is sticking to me only because she thinks it's the thing to do? Because she thinks she must keep her word?"

Carter swallowed hard and tried to moisten his aching throat, and he did not look at his friend.

"Is that what you honestly believe, Cart'?"

Carter brought his eyes back with an effort and his heart contracted. Jimsy King—Jimsy King—the boy he had envied and hated and loved by turns all these years; Jimsy King, idolized, adored in the old safe days—the old story book days—

The Jimsy King, the young prince who had had everything that all the wealth of Ali Baba's cave couldn't compass for Carter Van Meter ... standing here before him now, his face drained of its color and joy, begging him for a hope. There was a long moment when he hesitated, when the forces within him fought breathlessly and without quarter, but—long ago Stephen Lorimer had said of him—"there's nothing frail about his disposition ... his will doesn't limp." He wrenched his gaze away before he answered, but he answered steadily.

"That is what I believe."

Jimsy was visibly and laboriously working it out. "Then, she's only sticking to me because she thinks I'm worth saving. If she thought I was a regular 'Wild King,' if she believed what her mother and a lot of other people have always believed, she'd let go of me."

"I believe she would," said Carter.

"Then," said Jimsy King, "it's really pretty simple. She's only got to realize—to see—that I'm not worth hanging on to; that it's too late. That's all."

"What do you mean?"

He walked over to the little table and picked up the decanter of whisky and looked at it, and the scorn and loathing in his ravaged young face were things to marvel at, but Honor Carmody, coming into the room at that moment, could not see his expression. His back was toward her and she saw the decanter in his hand.

"Jimsy!" She said it very low, catching her breath.

His first motion was to put it down but instead he held it up to the fast fading light at the window and grinned. "It's makin' faces at me, Skipper!"

"Jimsy," she said again, and this time he put it down.

Honor began hastily to talk. "Do you think Juan will try to come back, or will he wait and come with the soldiers?"

"He'll come back," said Jimsy with conviction. "He must have found the wires down at the first place he tried, or he'd have been here before this. Yes—as soon as he's got his message through, he'll come back to us. I hope to God he brings water."

"But did he realize about the well? He got away at the very first, you know, and they weren't holding the well, then."

"He'll have his own canteen, won't he?" said Jimsy crossly.

Honor's eyes mothered him. "Mrs. King really slept," she said cheerfully. "She said she had a good nap, and dreamed!" She sat down in a low chair and made herself relax comfortably; only her eyes were tense. She never did fussy things with her hands, Honor Carmody; no one had ever seen her with a needle or a crochet hook. She was either doing things, vital, definite things which required motion, or she was still, and she rested people who were near her. "Well, he'll be here soon then," she said contentedly. "And so will the soldiers. Our Big Boss will have us on his mind, Jimsy. He'll figure out some way to help us. Just think—in another day—perhaps in another hour, this will all be over, like a nightmare, and we'll be back to regular living again. And won't we be glad that we all stood it so decently?" It was a stiff, small smile with her cracked lips but a stout one. "You know, I'm pretty proud of all of us! And won't Stepper be proud of us? And your dad, Jimsy, and your mother, Cartie!" Her kind eyes warmed. "I'm glad she hasn't had to know about it until we're all safe again." She was so hoarse that she had to stop and rest and she looked hopefully from one to the other, clearly expecting them to take up the burden of talk. But they were silent and presently she went on again. "You know, boys, it's like being in a book or a play, isn't it? We're—characters—now, not just plain people! I suppose I'm the leading lady (though Mrs. King's the real heroine) and we've got two heroes and no villain. The insurrectos are the villain—the villain in bunches." Suddenly she sat forward in her chair, her eyes brightening and a little color flooding her face. "Boys, it's our song come true! Now I know why I always got so thrilled over that second verse,—even the first time Stepper read it to us,—remember how it just bowled me over? And it seemed so remote from anything that could touch our lives,—yet here we are, in just such a tight place." They were listening now. "There isn't any desert or regiment or gatling, and Mr. King isn't dead, only dreadfully hurt, but it fits, just the same! We've got this thirst to stand ... and it's a good deal, isn't it? Those insurrectos down there,—planning we don't know what, perhaps to rush the house any moment—

That means to us that L. A. is far, and South Figueroa Street ... all the safe happy things that didn't seem wonderful then...."

"'Honor's a name,'" said Jimsy under his breath.

"Oh," said the girl, "I never noticed that before! Isn't that funny? Well—

That fits! And won't we be thankful all our lives—all our snug, safe, prosy lives—that we were sporting now?— That we all played the game?" Her eyes were on Jimsy, reassuring him, staying him. "When this is all over——"

He cut roughly into her sentence. "Oh, for God's sake, Skipper, let's not talk!"

Again he had to bear the mothering of her understanding eyes. "All right, Jimsy. We won't talk, then. We'll sit here together"—she changed to the chair nearest his and put her hand on his arm—"and wait for Juan and——"

He sprang to his feet. "I wish you'd leave me alone!" he said. "I wish you'd go upstairs and stay with Aunt Maddy and Uncle Rich'. I want to be by myself."

She did not stir. "I think I'll stay with you, Jimsy."

His voice was ugly now. "When I don't want you? When I tell you I'd rather be alone?"

Honor was still for a long moment. She rose and went to the door but she turned to look at him, a steady, intent scrutiny. "All right, Jimsy. I'll go. I'll leave you alone. I'll leave you alone because—I know I can leave you alone." She seemed to have forgotten Carter's presence. She held up the hand which wore the old Italian ring with the hidden blue stone of constancy. "I'm 'holding hard,' Jimsy."

Soon after dark Yaqui Juan came. He had been waiting for three hours, trying to get past the sentries; it had been impossible while there was any light. He was footsore and weary and had only a little water in his canteen, but he had found the telephone wires still up at the second hacienda, the owner had got the message off for him, and help was assuredly on the way to them. There was the off chance, of course, that the soldiers might be held up by another wing of the insurrectos, but there was every reason to hope for their arrival next day. Jimsy King sent the Yaqui up to Honor with the canteen, and the Indian returned to say that the SeÑorita had not touched one drop but had given it to the master.

Carter dragged himself away to his room and Jimsy and Yaqui Juan talked long together in the quiet sala. It was a cramped and halting conversation with the Indian's scant English and the American's halting Spanish; sometimes they were unable to understand each other, but they came at last to some sort of agreement, though Juan shook his head mutinously again and again, murmuring—"No, no! SeÑor Don Diego! No!"

It was almost midnight when Jimsy called them all down into the sala. They came, wondering, one by one, Carter, Mrs. King,—Richard King had fallen asleep after his half dozen swallows of water—and Honor, and Josita, her head muffled in her rebozo, her brown fingers busy with her beads.

Jimsy King was standing in the middle of the room, standing insecurely, his legs far apart, the decanter in his hand, the decanter which had been more than half full when Honor left the room and had now less than an inch of liquor in it. Yaqui Juan, his face sullen, his eyes black and bitter, crouched on the floor, his arms about his knees.

Honor did not speak at all. She just stood still, looking at Jimsy until it seemed as if she were all eyes. "It comes so suddenly,"—Carter had told her—"like the boa constrictor's hunger ... and then he was just—an appetite."

"Ladies'n gem'mum," said Jimsy, thickly, "goin' shing you lil' song!" Then, in his hoarse and baffled voice he sang Stanford's giddy old saga, "The Son of a Gambolier."

They all stiffened with horror and disgust. Mrs. King wept and Josita mumbled a frightened prayer, and Carter, red and vehement, went to him and tried to take the decanter away from him. Only Honor Carmody made no sign.

sang Jimsy King. He looked at every one but Honor.

—"And my 'skee!" he patted the decanter.

Madeline King put her arms about Honor. "Come away, my dear," she said. "Come upstairs."

"No," Jimsy protested. "Don' go 'way. Got somep'n tell you. Shee this fool Injun here? Know wha' he's goin' do? Goin' slide out'n creep down to ol' well. Says insur—insur-rectos all pretty drunk now ... pretty sleepy.... Fool Injun's goin' take three—four—'leven canteens ... bring water back for you. Not f' me! I got somep'n better. 'Sides, he'll get killed ... nice'n dead ... fancy dead ... cut ears off ... cut tongue out firs'! Not f' me! I'm goin' sleep pret' soon. Firs' I'll shing you lil' more!" Again the rasping travesty of melody:

"Shut up, you drunken fool!" said Carter, furiously.

"Oh," said Jimsy, blinking his eyes rapidly, bowing deeply. "Ladies present. I shee. My mishtake. My mishtake, ladies! Well, guesh I go sleep now. Come on. Yac', put me to bed 'fore you go. Give you lil' treat. All work'n no play makes Yac' a dull boy!" He roared over his own wit. The Indian, his face impassive, had risen to his feet and now Jimsy cast himself into his arms and insisted on kissing him good-night, clinging all the while to the decanter with its half inch of whisky.

Carter wrenched it away from him. "You'll kill yourself," he said, in cold disgust.

"Well," said his friend, reasonably, "ishn't that the big idea? Wouldn' you razzer drink yourself to death'n die of thirst?"

They were making for the door now in a zigzag course, and when they passed Honor, Jimsy stayed their progress. He held out his hand and spoke to her, but he did not meet her eyes. "Gimme ring," he said, crossly.

"What do you mean?" said Honor.

"Gimme back ring ... busted word ... busted engagement ... want ring anyway ... maybe nozzer girl ... you can't tell!" His hoarse voice rose querulously. "Gimme ring, I shay!"

Honor shrank back from him against Mrs. King. "Jimsy," she said, "when the boy that gave me this ring comes and asks me for it, he can have it. You can't!"

His legs seemed to give way beneath him, at that, and Yaqui Juan half led, half dragged him out of the room.

Mrs. King wept again but Honor's eyes were dry. Carter started to speak to her but she stopped him. "Please, Carter ... I can't ... talk. I think I'd like to be alone."

"Oh, my dear, please come up with me," Mrs. King begged, "it's so cold here, and——"

"I have to be alone," said Honor in her worn voice.

"Then you must have this," said the older woman, finding comfort in wrapping her in her own serape. It was a gay thing, striped in red and white and green, the Mexican colors; it looked as if it had been made to wear in happy days.

They went away and left her alone in the sala. She didn't know how long she had sat there when she saw a muffled figure crawling across the veranda. She opened the door and stepped out, nodding to the peÓn on guard there, leaning on his gun. "Juan?" she called softly.

The crouching, cringing figure hesitated. "Si," came the soft whisper. He kept his head shrouded. She knew that he was sick with shame for the lad he had worshiped; he did not want to meet her gaze. She could understand that. It did not seem to her that she could ever meet any one's eyes again—kind Mrs. King's, Carter's—her dear Stepper's. Suddenly it came to her with a positive sense of relief and escape that perhaps there would be no need for facing any one after to-night.... Perhaps this was to be the last night of all nights. It might well be, when Jimsy King slept in a drunken stupor and a Yaqui Indian slave went out with his life in his hands to help them. She crossed the veranda and leaned down and laid her hand on the covered head. Her throat was so swollen now that she could hardly make herself heard. "Tu es amigo leal, Juan," she said. "Good friend; good friend!" Then in her careful Spanish—"Go with God!"

He had been always an impassive creature, Yaqui Juan, his own personal sufferings added to the native stoicism of his race, but he made an odd, smothered sound now, and caught up the trailing end of her bright serape and pressed his face against it for an instant. Then he crept away into the soft blackness of the tropic night and Honor went back into the empty sala. She wished that she had seen his face; she was mournfully sure she would never see it again. It did not seem humanly possible for any one to go into the very midst of their besiegers encamped about the well, fill the canteens and return alive, but it was a gallant and splendid try, and she would have liked a memory of his grave face. It would have blotted out the look of Jimsy King's face, singing his tipsy song. She thought she would keep on seeing that as long as she lived, and that made it less terrible to think that she might not live many more hours.