"No, I'll be 'sarned if I do!" muttered Bud. Then he sat down to think.
"Amigo," he said to the Yaqui, "are you a Mexican citizen? Can you get title to mine?"
"Me a Mexican?" repeated Amigo, tapping himself proudly on the chest. "No, señor! Seguro que no!"
"All right then," observed Bud bitterly, "here goes nothing—nowhere! I'll turn Mexican myself!"
He passed the messenger on the way to town, took out his first papers as a citizen, picked up the mineral agent's expert on the way back, and located the Eagle Tail in his own name. Before riding back to camp he wired to Kruger:
Have turned Mex and relocated claim.
Hooker.
It was his last card, and he did not expect to win by it. Fate had been against him from the first, and he could see his finish, but his nature drove him to fight on. All that Aragon had to do now was to have him summoned for military service, and Del Rey would do the rest.
Then he could take over the mine. A mere formality—or so it seemed—but between Aragon and his mine stood the Texas blood. Hooker had been crowded to the wall, and he was mad enough to fight.
The news of De Lancey's desertion followed quickly after his flight—it came over the Federal wires in a report to Manuel del Rey—but by the time it got to Aragon that gentleman was too late. They rode into camp the next day—Aragon and the captain of the rurales—and at the first glimpse of that hated uniform Amigo was off like a buck. Bud went out sullenly to meet them, his black mood showing in his lowering eyes, and he halted them by the savagery of his cursing.
"You cock-eyed old reprobate," he snarled, advancing threateningly upon the paling Aragon, "this makes three times you've come into my camp and brought your gun with you! Now take it off!" he yelled, dropping suddenly into Spanish. "Take that gun off—do you understand?"