He covered ground so fast that the other could not keep up with him.  From above there came the crack of a rifle, then another and another, as the men on the ridge sighted their prey.  A spatter of bullets threw up the dirt around them.  Dick felt a red-hot flame sting his leg, but, though he had been hit, to his surprise he was not checked.

Topping the brow of a little rise, he caught sight of the cabin, and, to his consternation, saw that smoke was pouring from the door and that within it was alight with flames.

“The beggars have set fire to it,” he cried aloud.

So far as he could see, four men had been left below.  They did not at first catch sight of him as he dodged forward in the shadows of the alders at the foot of the hill.  Nor did they see him even when he stopped among the rocks at the rear, for their eyes were on Davis and their attention focused upon him.

He had come puffing to the brow of the hillock Gordon had already passed, when a shout from the ridge apprised those below of his presence.  Cut off above and below, there was nothing left for Steve but a retreat down the road.  He could not possibly advance in the face of four rifles, and he knew, too, that the best aid he could offer his friend was to deflect the attention of the watchers from him.

He fell back promptly, running from boulder to boulder in his retreat, pursued cautiously by the enemy.  His ruse would have succeeded admirably, so far as Dick was concerned, except for that young man himself.  He could not sit quiet and see his friend the focus of the fire.

Wherefore, it happened that the attackers of Davis were halted momentarily by a disconcerting fusillade from the rear.  The “American devil” had come out into the open, and was dropping lead among them.

At this juncture a rider galloped into view from the river gorge along which wound the road.  He pulled his jaded horse to a halt beside the old miner and leaped to the ground.

Without waiting an instant for their fire to cease, he ran straight forward toward the pursuing Mexicans.

As he came into the moonlight, Dick saw with surprise that the newcomer was Don Manuel Pesquiera.  He was hatless, apparently too unarmed.  But not for a second did this stop him as he sprinted forward.

Straight for the spitting rifles Don Manuel ran, face ablaze with anger.  He had covered half the distance before the weapons wavered groundward.

“Don Manuel!” cried Sebastian, perturbed by this apparition flying through the night toward them.

Dick waited only long enough to make sure that hostilities had for the moment ceased against his friend before beginning his search for the tin box.

He quartered back and forth over the ground behind the burning house without result, circled it rapidly, his eyes alert to catch the shine of the box in the moonbeams, and examined the space among the rocks at the base of the hill.  Nowhere did he see what he wanted.