“An’ hyar the truth come out.  There was a gang of bandits hid somewheres, an’ at fust Pat Hawe hed been powerful active an’ earnest in his huntin’.  But sudden-like he’d fetched a pecooliar change of heart.  He had been some flustered with Stewart’s eyes a-pryin’ into his moves, an’ then, mebbe to hide somethin’, mebbe jest nat’rul, he got mad.  He hollered law.  He pulled down off the shelf his old stock grudge on Stewart, accusin’ him over again of that Greaser murder last fall.  Stewart made him look like a fool—­showed him up as bein’ scared of the bandits or hevin’ some reason fer slopin’ off the trail.  Anyway, the row started all right, an’ but fer Nels it might hev amounted to a fight.  In the thick of it, when Stewart was drivin’ Pat an’ his crowd off the place, one of them de-pooties lost his head an’ went fer his gun.  Nels throwed his gun an’ crippled the feller’s arm.  Monty jumped then an’ throwed two forty-fives, an’ fer a second or so it looked ticklish.  But the bandit-hunters crawled, an’ then lit out.”

Stillwell paused in the rapid delivery of his narrative; he still retained Madeline’s hand, as if by that he might comfort her.

“After Pat left we put our haids together,” began the old cattleman, with a long respiration.  “We rounded up a lad who hed seen a dozen or so fellers—­he wouldn’t to they was Greasers—­ breakin’ through the shrubbery to the back of the house.  That was while Stewart was ridin’ out to the mesa.  Then this lad seen your servants all runnin’ down the hill toward the village.  Now, heah’s the way Gene figgers.  There sure was some deviltry down along the railroad, an’ Pat Hawe trailed bandits up to the ranch.  He hunts hard an’ then all to onct he quits.  Stewart says Pat Hawe wasn’t scared, but he discovered signs or somethin’, or got wind in some strange way that there was in the gang of bandits some fellers he didn’t want to ketch.  Sabe?  Then Gene, quicker ’n a flash, springs his plan on me.  He’d go down to Padre Marcos an’ hev him help to find out all possible from your Mexican servants.  I was to hurry up hyar an’ tell you—­give you orders, Miss Majesty.  Ain’t that amazin’ strange?  Wal, you’re to assemble all your guests in the kitchen.  Make a grand bluff an’ pretend, as your help has left, that it’ll be great fun fer your guests to cook dinner.  The kitchen is the safest room in the house.  While you’re joshin’ your party along, makin’ a kind of picnic out of it, I’ll place cowboys in the long corridor, an’ also outside in the corner where the kitchen joins on to the main house.  It’s pretty sure the bandits think no one’s wise to where they’re hid.  Stewart says they’re in that end room where the alfalfa is, an’ they’ll slope in the night.  Of course, with me an’ the boys watchin’, you-all will be safe to go to bed.  An’ we’re to rouse your guests early before daylight, to hit the trail up into the mountains.  Tell them to pack outfits before goin’ to bed.  Say as your servants hev sloped, you might as well go campin’ with the cowboys.  That’s all.  If we hev any luck your’ friends’ll never know they’ve been sittin’ on a powder-mine.”