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So to-night he came riding down the winding trail from his mountains, singing. Thus he shot his spirit across the miles ahead of him, to invade Big Pine before his coming, to taunt before he brought his hard eyes to mock at them. He had received his word and his warning, and made his retort in the one way possible to him.

The road in front of the Gallup House, leading on to the pines and the aloof jail where Mexicali Joe glared out, was thronged. Half a dozen bonfires had been started, and in the ruddy light men stirred restlessly. Their talk was becoming purposeful; they gathered in knots about men who were showing impatient signs of initiative; they had murmured and were looking this way and that, over their shoulders, shifting their feet as they gave increasingly free expression to their determination. They were working themselves up to the pitch of defiance of the law, as represented by Sheriff Jim Taggart; as yet no man cared to be first and still they looked frequently at the deputy sheriff with the rifle across his arm, and meant to set Mexicali Joe free. A man broke away from one of these groups and ran back to the Gallup House, to carry warning to Taggart.