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"You know those men, Taggart and Gallup and the rest. What do you make of it? What had we ought to do?"

Deveril shook the man off.

"Go slow until you know what you're doing," he admonished curtly. "Then go like hell."

He skirted the crowd and went up to his cabin to be alone and do a bit of thinking on his own part.

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There was a crowd of men, tight-jammed, about the little square stone jail as Deveril made his way toward his cabin. Every man of them was striving for a glance through the barred slit of a window behind which Mexicali Joe glared out at them. In the throng Deveril marked a man who wore his deputy-sheriff's badge thrust prominently into notice and who carried a rifle across the hollow of his arm. Deveril shrugged and went on.

"In jail or out, the Mex is going to keep a shut mouth," he meditated. "He'll never spill a word now, unless Taggart gets a chance to give him a rough-and-ready third degree. And Taggart will get no such chance to-night."

Through the dim dusk gathering among the pines he came to the cabin. A light winked at him through the open door; Maria, Joe's daughter, was getting his supper. Well, he was ready for it; blow hot, blow cold, a man must eat.