Again Rozales bowed and departed.  This time he was not recalled.

Billy found Bridge and Miguel squatting on the ground with two dirty-faced peons standing guard over them.  The latter were some little distance away.  They made no objection when Billy approached the prisoners though they had looked in mild surprise when they saw him crossing toward them without a guard.

Billy sat down beside Bridge, and broke into a laugh.

“What’s the joke?” asked Bridge.  “Are we going to be hanged instead of being shot?”

“We ain’t goin’ to be either,” said Billy, “an’ I’m a captain.  Whaddaya know about that?”

He explained all that had taken place between himself and Pesita while Bridge and Miguel listened attentively to his every word.

“I t’ought it was about de only way out fer us,” said Billy.  “We were in worse than I t’ought.”

“Can the Bowery stuff, Billy,” cried Bridge, “and talk like a white man.  You can, you know.”

“All right, bo,” cried Billy, good-naturedly.  “You see I forget when there is anything pressing like this, to chew about.  Then I fall back into the old lingo.  Well, as I was saying, I didn’t want to do it unless you would stay too, but he wouldn’t have you.  He has it in for all gringos, and that bull you passed him about me being from a foreign country called Grand Avenue!  He fell for it like a rube for the tapped-wire stuff.  He said if I wouldn’t stay and help him he’d croak the bunch of us.”

“How about that ace-in-the-hole, you were telling me about?” asked Bridge.

“I still got it,” and Billy fondled something hard that swung under his left arm beneath his shirt; “but, Lord, man! what could I do against the whole bunch?  I might get a few of them; but they’d get us all in the end.  This other way is better, though I hate to have to split with you, old man.”

He was silent then for a moment, looking hard at the ground.  Bridge whistled, and cleared his throat.

“I’ve always wanted to spend a year in Rio,” he said.  “We’ll meet there, when you can make your get-away.”

“You’ve said it,” agreed Byrne.  “It’s Rio as soon as we can make it.  Pesita’s promised to set you both loose in the morning and send you under safe escort—­Miguel to his happy home, and you to El Orobo Rancho.  I guess the old stiff isn’t so bad after all.”

Miguel had pricked up his ears at the sound of the word escort.  He leaned far forward, closer to the two Americans, and whispered.

“Who is to command the escort?” he asked.

“I dunno,” said Billy.  “What difference does it make?”

“It makes all the difference between life and death for your friend and for me,” said Miguel.  “There is no reason why I should need an escort.  I know my way throughout all Chihuahua as well as Pesita or any of his cutthroats.  I have come and gone all my life without an escort.  Of course your friend is different.  It might be well for him to have company to El Orobo.  Maybe it is all right; but wait until we learn who commands the escort.  I know Pesita well.  I know his methods.  If Rozales rides out with us tomorrow morning you may say good-bye to your friend forever, for you will never see him in Rio, or elsewhere.  He and I will be dead before ten o’clock.”