Approving murmurs followed his fiery words.  So long as the Yankees held together there was little likelihood of the outlaws gaining the ground except by burning out, and that now meant the destruction of the very money they were after, the utter loss of the fortune that, divided even among so many, would enable them to live like princes in Hermosillo or beyond.  They would be heroes, conquerors.  But if that were lost after all their plotting, planning, labor, and crime, there was absolutely no recompense.  Even through the brain-clouding fury of his revenge Pasqual Morales saw the sound sense of Moreno’s plea.  He made no effort to check the men who ran to do his bidding and were even now with lariats and stalwart arms dragging the props from under the shed and letting its western end come pattering down.  Within the eastern room the dense smoke was already finding its way.  The sound of falling beams and timber only conveyed to the occupants the idea that already the shed was in embers, and that any instant the roof over their heads would burst into a torrent of fire.  Ned Harvey’s brave spirit was taxed to the utmost.  Unless relief could come and come at once, nothing remained for him but death, nothing for those fair sisters but a fate far worse.

At one instant he was on the point of urging the paymaster to comply with the outlaws’ demand, pledging himself and his father’s fortune to make good to the government every cent so sacrificed.  His father could pay it four times over, and would rather sink his last cent than that the faintest harm should come to those beloved children; but the next moment Feeny’s splendid defiance had so thrilled him that he could not frame the words he thought to speak, and yet, here was awful peril close at hand.  What right had he to further jeopard the life, the honor, of these, his father’s fondest treasures?  If it were only himself it would be stay and fight it out to the bitter end.  But if the robbers could now be content with the money alone and pledge safeguard for the party, was it not his duty, would it not be his father’s mandate were he there, to buy the safe and contents from the agent of the general government and pay the ransom levied?

But he little dreamed of the fury of revenge and hatred burning in the soul of Pasqual Morales.  He little fathomed the treachery and cunning of the outlawed scoundrel.  Even as he was revolving these thoughts in mind, ever and again listening with new hope for the sound of rallying trumpet, the beat of rescuing hoofs, there resounded through the night the sonorous and ringing voice that so short a time before had called for the surrender of the safe.

“Edward Harvey, we pledge safe-conduct for you, your sisters, and your party.  Here is your wagon ready, your team hitched in.  Throw your arms out of the door.  Come forth as you please.  Put the senoritas in the wagon.  Look neither to the right nor left, but drive away, and God be with you.  We have no quarrel with you and yours.  We war only with these soldiers who have killed our chief.”