The battle was short and sweet.  One almost escaped but Miguel, who proved to be an excellent revolver shot, brought him down at a hundred yards.  He then, with utter disregard for the rules of civilized warfare, dispatched those who were not already dead.

“We must let none return to carry false tales to Pesita,” he explained.

Even Billy Byrne winced at the ruthlessness of the cold-blooded murders; but he realized the necessity which confronted them though he could not have brought himself to do the things which the Mexican did with such sang-froid and even evident enjoyment.

“Now for the others!” cried Miguel, when he had assured himself that each of the six were really quite dead.

Spurring after him Billy and Bridge ran their horses over the rough ground at the base of the little hill, and then parallel to the arroyo for a matter of a hundred yards, where they espied two Indians, carbines in hand, standing in evident consternation because of the unexpected fusillade of shots which they had just heard and which they were unable to account for.

At the sight of the three the sharpshooters dropped behind cover and fired.  Billy’s horse stumbled at the first report, caught himself, reared high upon his hind legs and then toppled over, dead.

His rider, throwing himself to one side, scrambled to his feet and fired twice at the partially concealed men.  Miguel and Bridge rode in rapidly to close quarters, firing as they came.  One of the two men Pesita had sent to assassinate his “guests” dropped his gun, clutched at his breast, screamed, and sank back behind a clump of mesquite.  The other turned and leaped over the edge of the bank into the arroyo, rolling and tumbling to the bottom in a cloud of dry dust.

As he rose to his feet and started on a run up the bed of the dry stream, dodging a zigzag course from one bit of scant cover to another Billy Byrne stepped to the edge of the washout and threw his carbine to his shoulder.  His face was flushed, his eyes sparkled, a smile lighted his regular features.

“This is the life!” he cried, and pulled the trigger.

The man beneath him, running for his life like a frightened jackrabbit, sprawled forward upon his face, made a single effort to rise and then slumped limply down, forever.

Miguel and Bridge, dismounted now, came to Byrne’s side.  The Mexican was grinning broadly.

“The captain is one grand fighter,” he said.  “How my dear general would admire such a man as the captain.  Doubtless he would make him a colonel.  Come with me Senor Capitan and your fortune is made.”

“Come where?” asked Billy Byrne.

“To the camp of the liberator of poor, bleeding Mexico—­to General Francisco Villa.”

“Nothin’ doin’,” said Billy.  “I’m hooked up with this Pesita person now, an’ I guess I’ll stick.  He’s given me more of a run for my money in the last twenty-four hours than I’ve had since I parted from my dear old friend, the Lord of Yoka.”