"No, the government troops came; the Carranzistas. But they were only just in time."
"Phew! No wonder you spoke of the movies! It sounds like a melodrama, doesn't it?"
"It was a tragedy." Willa's voice was very low. "We would all have been wiped out, if it had not been for one man. He was with us when the raiders came, but he fought his way through them, took one of their own horses and rode to the barracks for the troops; ten miles each way, and he made the whole trip in an hour, wounded as he was. He reached us just as the door went down, and I'll never forget him cutting his way through that crowd of fiends to fall unconscious at my feet."
"I shouldn't think you could!" Winnie's breath came fast. "What a magnificent stunt for a chap to do! Was he a Mexican?"
"No, an American. His name is Kearn Thode."
"What! Who?" Winnie exploded. "You can't mean——! For the love of Pete!"
Willa stared at him in dawning comprehension.
"You don't mean that you know him?"
"'Know him'?" he repeated, jubilantly. "I should rather think I do! Classmate of mine at college and the best fellow that ever lived. So old Kearn's been pulling off heroic stuff in Mexico! I never thought he had it in him; he was always one of the quiet kind, but at that he was right there when it came to a show-down. He's an engineer of some sort and forever wandering over the face of the earth. I haven't seen much of him consequently in the last three or four years, but I ran into him about six months ago, and he told me he'd been out in Oklahoma. I wonder what he's doing in Mexico!"
"Tell me about him," Willa invited. "I'm interested after what he did, although I really liked him before that; he is so strong and clean and straightforward."