“Call your friends—­get them in here!” he ordered, tersely, and wheeled toward the door.

“Stewart, wait!” she said.

He turned.  His white face, his burning eyes, his presence now charged with definite, fearful meaning, influenced her strangely, weakened her.

“What will you do?” she asked.

“That needn’t concern you.  Get your party in here.  Bar the windows and lock the doors.  You’ll be safe.”

“Stewart!  Tell me what you intend to do.”

“I won’t tell you,” he replied, and turned away again.

“But I will know,” she said.  With a hand on his arm she detained him.  She saw how he halted—­felt the shock in him as she touched him.  “Oh, I do know.  You mean to fight!”

“Well, Miss Hammond, isn’t it about time?” he asked.  Evidently he overcame a violent passion for instant action.  There was weariness, dignity, even reproof in his question.  “The fact of that Mexican’s presence here in your house ought to prove to you the nature of the case.  These vaqueros, these guerrillas, have found out you won’t stand for any fighting on the part of your men.  Don Carlos is a sneak, a coward, yet he’s not afraid to hide in your own house.  He has learned you won’t let your cowboys hurt anybody.  He’s taking advantage of it.  He’ll rob, burn, and make off with you.  He’ll murder, too, if it falls his way.  These Greasers use knives in the dark.  So I ask—­isn’t it about time we stop him?”

“Stewart, I forbid you to fight, unless in self-defense.  I forbid you.”

“What I mean to do is self-defense.  Haven’t I tried to explain to you that just now we’ve wild times along this stretch of border?  Must I tell you again that Don Carlos is hand and glove with the revolution?  The rebels are crazy to stir up the United States.  You are a woman of prominence.  Don Carlos would make off with you.  If he got you, what little matter to cross the border with you!  Well, where would the hue and cry go?  Through the troops along the border!  To New York!  To Washington!  Why, it would mean what the rebels are working for—­United States intervention.  In other words, war!”

“Oh, surely you exaggerate!” she cried.

“Maybe so.  But I’m beginning to see the Don’s game.  And, Miss
Hammond, I—­It’s awful for me to think what you’d suffer if Don
Carlos got you over the line.  I know these low-caste Mexicans. 
I’ve been among the peons—­the slaves.”

“Stewart, don’t let Don Carlos get me,” replied Madeline, in sweet directness.

She saw him shake, saw his throat swell as he swallowed hard, saw the hard fierceness return to his face.

“I won’t.  That’s why I’m going after him.”

“But I forbade you to start a fight deliberately.”

“Then I’ll go ahead and start one without your permission,” he replied shortly, and again he wheeled.

This time, when Madeline caught his arm she held to it, even after he stopped.