The sentry upon the beat before the bank heard both.  For an instant he stood motionless, then he called aloud for the guard, and turned toward the bank door.  But this was locked and he could but peer in through the windows.  Seeing a dark form within, and being a Mexican he raised his rifle and fired through the glass of the doors.

Tony, who had dropped through the hole which Billy had used so quietly, heard the zing of a bullet pass his head, and the impact as it sploshed into the adobe wall behind him.  With a second yell Tony dodged behind the safe and besought Mary to protect him.

From above Benito peered through the hole into the blackness below.  Down the hall came the barefoot landlord, awakened by the screams and the shot.  Behind him came Bridge, buckling his revolver belt about his hips as he ran.  Not having been furnished with pajamas Bridge had not thought it necessary to remove his clothing, and so he had lost no time in dressing.

When the two, now joined by Benito, reached the street they found the guard there, battering in the bank doors.  Benito, fearing for the life of Tony, which if anyone took should be taken by him, rushed upon the sergeant of the guard, explaining with both lips and hands the remarkable accident which had precipitated Tony into the bank.

The sergeant listened, though he did not believe, and when the doors had fallen in, he commanded Tony to come out with his hands above his head.  Then followed an investigation which disclosed the looting of the safe, and the great hole in the ceiling through which Tony had tumbled.

The bank president came while the sergeant and the landlord were in Billy’s room investigating.  Bridge had followed them.

“It was the gringo,” cried the excited Boniface.  “This is his room.  He has cut a hole in my floor which I shall have to pay to have repaired.”

A captain came next, sleepy-eyed and profane.  When he heard what had happened and that the wealth which he had been detailed to guard had been taken while he slept, he tore his hair and promised that the sentry should be shot at dawn.

By the time they had returned to the street all the male population of Cuivaca was there and most of the female.

“One-thousand dollars,” cried the bank president, “to the man who stops the thief and returns to me what the villain has stolen.”

A detachment of soldiers was in the saddle and passing the bank as the offer was made.

“Which way did he go?” asked the captain.  “Did no one see him leave?”

Bridge was upon the point of saying that he had seen him and that he had ridden north, when it occurred to him that a thousand dollars—­even a thousand dollars Mex—­was a great deal of money, and that it would carry both himself and Billy to Rio and leave something for pleasure beside.

Then up spoke a tall, thin man with the skin of a coffee bean.