“Well, perhaps I’ll have breakfast with them,” he laughed.

“Silly.  I won’t let you go,” she told him, firmly; and, reading the expression in her face, he felt a dizzy wonder.  “We’ll find a nice secluded spot; then we’ll sit down and wait for night to come.  We’ll pretend we’re having a picnic.”

Dolores sighed at the suggestion.  “That would be heaven, but there can be no sitting down for me.”

Garcia, who had been standing in his stirrups scanning the long, flat road ahead, spoke sharply:  “Caramba!  Here come those very soldiers now!  See!”

Far away, but evidently approaching at a smart gait, was a body of mounted men.  After one look at them Dave cried: 

“Into the brush, quick!” He hurried his companions ahead of him, and when they had gone perhaps a hundred yards from the road he took Juan’s Winchester, saying:  “Ride in a little way farther and wait.  I’m going back.  If you hear me shoot, break for the river.  Ride hard and keep under cover as much as possible.”  Before they could remonstrate he had wheeled Montrosa and was gone.

This was luck, he told himself.  Ten miles more and they would have been safe, for the Rio Grande is not a difficult river either to ford or to swim.  He dismounted and made his way on foot to a point where he could command a view, but he had barely established himself when he found Alaire at his side.

“Go back,” he told her.  But she would not, and so they waited together.

There were perhaps a dozen men in the approaching squad, and Dave saw that they were heavily accoutred.  They rode fast, too, and at their head galloped a large man under a wide-brimmed felt hat.  It soon became evident that the soldiers were not uniformed.  Therefore, Dave reasoned, they were not Federals, but more probably some Rebel scouting band from the south, and yet—­He rubbed his eyes and stared again.

Dave pressed forward eagerly, incredulously; the next instant he had broken cover with a shout.  Alaire was at his side, clapping her hands and laughing with excitement

The cavalcade halted; the big man tumbled from his saddle and came straddling through the high grass, waving his hat and yelling.

“Blaze!  You old scoundrel!” Dave cried, and seized one of the ranchman’s palms while Alaire shook the other.

“Say!  We’re right glad to see you-all,” Jones exclaimed.  “We reckoned you might be havin’ a sort of unpleasantness with Longorio, so we organized up and came to get you.”

The other horsemen were crowding close now, and their greetings were noisy.  There were the two Guzman boys, Benito Gonzales, Phil Strange, and a number of Jonesville’s younger and more adventurous citizens.

In the midst of the tumult Benito inquired for his wife, and Dave relieved his anxiety by calling Dolores and Father O’Malley.  Then, in answer to the questions showered upon him, he swiftly sketched the story of Alaire’s rescue and their flight from La Feria.