“No, they won’t,” said the Major gloomily.  “They’ll be along—­deputized, of course.  Maybe they won’t be in the first batch though.  Your part is to be the disinterested traveler, wanting to be on your way.”

“It won’t work, Major.  This is a put-up job.  Even if Applegate and his strikers aren’t along they’ve given my description.  Somebody will know I was with Foy last night, and they’ll know I’m lying.”

The Major sighed.  “That’s so, too.  I’m afraid you’re in for trouble.”

“I’m used to that,” said Pringle lightly.  “Once, in Arizona——­”

“Don’t throw it up to me, John,” said the Major a trifle sheepishly.  “I’ll say this though:  I wouldn’t ask for a better man in a tight than you.”

“Thanks so much!” murmured Pringle.  “And that Sir Hubert Stanley thing.”

“One more point, John:  You don’t know Foy.  I do.  Foy’ll never give up.  He’s desperate—­and he’s not pleased.  There’s no question of surrender and standing trial; understand that.  He’d be lynched, probably, if they ever got him in Las Uvas.  A trial, even, would be just lynching under another name.  They don’t want to capture him anyway—­they want a chance to kill him.”

“I wouldn’t want the job,” said Pringle.

“Hush!” said Stella.  “I hear them coming.  Talk about something else—­the war in Europe.”

The Major picked up a paper.

“What do you think about the United States building a big navy, John?” he asked casually.

Stealthy footsteps rustled without.

“Fine!” said Pringle.  “I’m strong for it.  We want dreadnoughts, and lots of ’em—­biggest we can build.  But that ain’t all.  When we make the navy appropriations we ought to set by about fifty-some-odd million and build a big multiple-track railroad, so we can carry our navy inland in case of war.  The ocean is no place for a battleship these days.”

“Stop your kidding!”

“I’m not kidding,” said John Wesley indignantly.  “I never was twice as serious in my whole life.  My plan is sound, statesman-like—­”

“Shut up, you idiot!  I want to read.”

“Oh, very well, then!  I’ll grind the coffee.”

Men crept close to the open door on each side of the kitchen.  Stella slipped a pan of biscuits in the oven; she laid the table briskly, with a merry clatter of tinware; her face was cheerful and unclouded.  The Major leaned back in one chair, his feet on another; he was deep in the paper; he puffed his pipe.  John Wesley Pringle twirled the coffee mill between his knees and sang a merry tune: 

    "There were three little mice, playing in the barn—­
      Inky, dinky, doodum, day! 
    Though they knew they were doing what was very, very wrong—­
      Inky, dinky, doodum, day! 
    And the song of the owls, it sounded so nice
    That closer and closer crept the three little mice. 
    And the owls came and gobbled them——­“