“Well, we’ll lock you up and see if we can learn who your ‘friend’ is that sent this barrel in,” Lee stated.

There was a slight movement of the man’s elbow.

“Watch him—­his right hand!” Pat cried, sharply.

The hand had darted swiftly to the fellow’s hip, but Bryant’s fist was as quick.  It shot up, catching the man’s jaw and hoisting him off his feet.  Next instant the engineer had disarmed the prostrate ruffian.

“The Kennard jail for you,” said he, in English.  “A bad hombre, eh!  Up with you, quick.”

But what followed neither the engineer nor the contractor anticipated.  With a lightning-like roll of his body the man vanished under the side of the tent.  When the others rushed out in search of him he had made good his escape; and a search through the dark camp would be useless.  They therefore emptied the keg upon the ground, extinguished the lamp, and returned to Lee’s office.  Though the Mexican had got away, they nevertheless had put a foot on the malicious scheme.

All at once Dave, who was walking at Bryant’s and Pat’s heels up the street, exclaimed: 

“I’ve got that greaser’s number now!  We saw him once at the depot in Kennard, Lee.  He was watching you, remember?”

“I guess you’re right; I recall him.”

“Bet that old devil in Bartolo put him up to this.”  Dave asserted.

“Tut, tut, kid!  Language like that on Christmas Eve!  Charlie might—­but not his father, I imagine.”

Dave, however, was not altogether to be suppressed.

“Well, I don’t put anything past either of them,” he sniffed.

CHAPTER XXI

On Christmas morning the thought occurred to Lee that he had heard nothing more from Imogene of the plan for him to spend the day at the McDonnells’, which she had mentioned the night of their talk.  Rather strangely, too, he had not received from either of the girls even a note of holiday greeting; to Imogene he had had sent from Denver an edition of Ibsen’s plays, and to Ruth a splendid set of furs, both in care of Mrs. McDonnell, who had promised they should be delivered when Santa Claus came down the chimney.  Odd, the girls’ silence.

He was at work on his accounts at the moment, but now he remained biting the end of his pen-holder and staring through the window.  From somewhere in the sagebrush came the sound of shots:  Dave potting tin cans with the .22 rifle that had been Lee’s gift to him.  In the room was only the snapping of the fire.  Presently the telephone rang.

“Imo now,” he exclaimed.  “I’ll be hanged if I go down and carry out the farce before the McDonnells.”

But the person proved to be Louise Graham.

“I wondered—­well, several things,” she said, when he had answered.  “First, if you had gone away anywhere; next, in case you hadn’t, whether you were working; and last, should the camp be resting to-day, if you wouldn’t come to Christmas dinner with father and me.”