"Take the girl alive. Shoot down the traitor dogs with her," he cried savagely. "One hundred pesos to the man who kills either of them or captures her."
Steve answered this by firing twice, once with his revolver and almost immediately afterward with his rifle. Ochampa sat down suddenly. He had been hit in the leg.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE PRISONER
Pasquale changed his tactics. Having located his prey with fair accuracy, he spread his men so as to converge upon the fugitives as the spokes of a wheel do toward the hub. His instructions were that the men were not to fire unless they were within close enough range to be sure not to hit the girl.
His courage had been tested often enough to be beyond doubt, so Gabriel contented himself with waiting behind his horse for the captives to be brought to him. He had no intention of being killed in a skirmish of this kind as long as he had peons to send forward in his place.
"Bet five dollars gold I have them inside of a quarter of an hour, captain," the Mexican general said, peering across his saddle toward the grove.
"Yes," assented Major Ochampa in a depressed voice. He objected to having camp vagrants take liberties with his leg. "Hope you make an example of them, general."