CHAPTER XIV.
RALPH’S HOUR OF DANGER.
“The next moment the door was flung open and a flood of light rushed into the room. The latter came from a lantern carried by the bearded man, who was the individual that had unlocked the door. In a flash it came to me to employ the fellow’s own tactics on himself. Before he had recovered from his evident astonishment at seeing me on my feet, I flung myself at him like a thunderbolt.
“With the lantern he could not raise his hands in time to defend himself, and he went down under my onslaught like a log. And then a startling and astonishing thing occurred. My fingers had become entangled in that monstrous beard, and in pulling them away the mass of black hair came with them. It was as if a mask had been pulled off and revealed the face underneath.
“The countenance I then beheld was the last on earth I expected to see just then.
“It was that of Alvarez himself. He snarled like a vicious dog when he saw what I had done. But I had him down and he could do nothing. I forgot to mention that when he entered the room he had with him a coil of hair rope, no doubt intending to bind me before I should recover consciousness. I now used this on Alvarez while he bit and literally foamed at the mouth. It was turning the tables with a vengeance.
“’Now then, you hound,’ I said, when I had finished, ‘tell me where those cattle are and where your ponies are, or I’ll kill you here and now instead of taking you back across the Border.’
“Of course, I had no intention of carrying out such a threat; but I put on such a ferocious look as I spoke that the fellow changed from a defiant, snapping wolf to a timid, cowering cur in an instant. He begged me to save his life and he would tell me the whole truth.