Pete briskly corrected this statement.  “We’re from the Olla—­about the cattle—­for your army,” added Pete, no whit abashed as he proffered this bit of flattery.

“Si!  You would talk with the patron then?”—­and Arguilla gestured toward Ortez.

“We got orders from Brent—­he’s our boss—–­to make our talk to you,” said Pete, glancing quickly at Brevoort.

“How did you know that I was here with my army?” queried Arguilla.

“Shucks!  That’s easy.  It’s in all the papers,” asserted Pete, rather proud of himself, despite the hazard of the situation.

Arguilla’s chest swelled noticeably.  He rose and strutted up and down the room, as though pondering a grave and weighty question.  Presently he turned to Ortez.  “You have heard, senor?”

Ortez nodded.  And in that nod Brevoort read the whole story.  Ortez was virtually a prisoner on his own ranch.  The noble captain of Liberty had been known to use his best friends in this way.

“When will the cattle arrive at the Olla?” asked Arguilla, seating himself.

“To-morrow, Senor Comandante.  That is the word from Sam Brent.”

“And you have come for the money, then?”

Pete barely hesitated.  “No.  Brent said there ain’t no hurry about that.  He said you could figure on two hundred head”—­Pete recalled Harper’s statement—­“and that you would send your agent over to the Olla with the cash.”

Arguilla glanced at Ortez.  “You have heard, senor?”

Ortez nodded dejectedly.  He had heard, but he dare not speak.  As the trusted agent of the financiers backing Arguilla, he had but recently been given the money for the purchase of these supplies, and almost on the heels of the messenger bearing the money had come Arguilla, who at once put Ortez under arrest, conveyed the money to his own coffers, and told the helpless Ortez that he could settle with the Gringo Brent according to the understanding between them.

Brevoort, silently eying Arguilla, saw through the scheme.  Arguilla had determined to have both the money and the cattle.  This explained his unwonted presence at the Ortez hacienda.

Arguilla took a stiff drink of whiskey, wiped his mustache and turned to Brevoort.  “You have heard?” he said.

Brevoort knew enough Mexican to understand the question.  “We’ll tell Brent that everything is all right,” he said easily.  “But he’s a dam’ liar,” he added in an undertone to Pete.  Brevoort had made the mistake of assuming that because he did not understand Mexican, Arguilla did not understand English.  Arguilla did not hear all that Brevoort said, but he caught the one significant word.  His broad face darkened.  These Gringoes knew too much!  He would hold them until the cattle had been delivered—­and then they could join his army—­or be shot.  A mere detail, in either event.

“Put these men under arrest!” he commanded the sentries.  “If they escape—­you are dead men.”