“Carajo!”

VIII.

Whatever might have been his other moral attributes, Pasqual Morales had borne a name for desperate courage that seemed justified in this supreme moment of surprise and stampede.  What he saw as he leaned out of the bounding vehicle was certainly enough to disgust a bandit and demoralize many a leader.  Scattering like chaff before the gale his followers were scudding out across the desert, every man for himself, as though the very devil were in pursuit of each individual member of the gang.  Eight or ten at least, spurring, lashing their horses to the top of their speed, were already far beyond reach of his voice.  Close at hand, however, six or seven of the fellows, desperadoes of the first water, had unslung their Henry rifles and, blazing away for all they were worth, showed evidence of a determination to die game.  Behind them, screaming at the tops of their shrill, strident voices, Senora Moreno and her daughter were clinging stoutly to the iron rail of their seats as the buck-board was whirled and dashed across the plain.  Already both the wounded men had been flung helplessly out upon the sands, and, even as he looked, the off fore wheel struck a stout cactus stump; flew into fragments; the tire rolled off in one direction, and Moreno’s luckless family shot, comet-like, into space and fetched up shrieking in the midst of a plentiful crop of thorns and spines.  The husband and father, gazing upon the incident from over his shoulder and afar, blessed the saints for their beneficence in having landed his loved ones on soft soil instead of among the jagged rocks across the plain.  But for himself the sooner he reached the rocks the better.  A tall Gringo, who cast aside a dark-blue blouse as he rode, stooping low over his horse’s neck, seemed bent on racing the late ranch-owner to the goal where both would be, and there was none to dispute with them the doubtful honor.  Even those who had stampeded at the first yell of alarm were now reining back in broad, sweeping circle, unslinging the ready rifle and pouring in a long-range fire on the distant rank of cavalry, just bursting into the triumph of the charge.  Here, there, and everywhere across the plain little puffs of blue-white smoke were shooting up, telling of the leaden missiles hurled at the charging line.  But on like the wind came the troopers in blue, never pausing to fire a shot, their leader at racing speed.

Wounded though he was, Pasqual Morales was not the man to fail in the fight.  Yelling orders and curses at his driver, he succeeded in getting him to control his frantic team just long enough to enable the outlaw captain to tumble out.  Then away they dashed again, the stiffening body of Ramon and the weighty little safe being now sole occupants of the interior.  In the mad excitement of the first rush two or three horses had broken loose, leaving their owners afoot, and believing that no quarter would