The answer floated promptly back: "Hello, Cap! Sure it's us."
"Have you got him?"
It was Blaze Jones's voice which answered this time: "You bet!"
Paloma Jones was trembling now. She clung to Alaire, crying, thankfully: "It's the Rangers! The Rangers!" Then she broke away and ran out into the moonlight, trailing her absurd firearm after her.
"Now, boys," the Ranger captain was saying, "I know 'most every one of you, and we ain't going to have the least bit of trouble over this thing, are we? I reckon you-all are friends of Ricardo Guzman, and you just couldn't wait to find out about him, eh?"
Alaire, who had followed Paloma, was close enough now to recognize the two Guzman boys as members of the Ranger party. Lewis and his men had drawn together at the first alarm; Longorio's Mexicans had gathered about their leader. The entire situation had changed in a moment, and the Ranger captain was in control of it.
Soon Dave Law and Blaze Jones came up over the river-bank; they paused, stricken with surprise at finding a score of people where they had expected no more than four.
Blaze was the first to speak. "What the hell?" he cried. He peered near-sightedly from one to the other; then his huge bulk shook with laughter: "Say, do my glasses magnify, or is this an Odd-Fellows meetin'?"
"Dad! Oh, Dad!" Paloma scurried to him and flung herself into his arms.
"Lord of mercy, kid!" the father exclaimed. "Why, you'd ought to be home and abed, long ago. You'll catch your death of cold. Is that gun loaded."