“And lots of good your meeting me seems to do me,” growled the man called Pete.

“Well, old fellow! is that my fault?” demanded the puncher.

“I don’t know. I gotter git inside that hacienda.”

“Walk in. The door’s open.”

“You think you are smart, don’t you?” snarled Pete, in anger. “You tell me where the chest is located; but it couldn’t be brought out by day. But at night— My soul, man! I had the team all ready and waiting the other night, and I could have got the thing if I’d had luck.”

“You didn’t have luck,” chuckled Ratty M’Gill. “And I don’t believe you’d ’a’ had much more luck if you’d got away with the old Cap’s chest.”

“I tell you there’s a fortune in it!”

“You don’t know—”

“And I suppose you do?” snarled Pete.

“I know no sane man ain’t going to keep a whole mess of jewels and such, what you talk about, right in his house. He’d take ’em to a bank at Amarillo, or somewhere.”