Picture-Play Weekly (Apr-Oct 1915)

PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY you. though. Alvarez has wind of what Laguerre means to do, and his soldiers are out scouring the country to try to find his camp and break up his company. Any one who speaks the name 'Laguerre' is under suspicion, and liable to be shot as a traitor to the government of Alvarez. Use your eyes and your ears, when you get into the country, as much as you can — and your tongue as little as possible. That's my advice to you." Royal thought he was following it, when, at the end of the next day, he dismounted at a small 'dobe road house, to inquire of the proprietor — an Indian, who couldn't be a member of Alvarez's army — if he knew whether Laguerre could be found anywhere in the vicinity. Replying that he was unable to supply Royal with the information, a moment later the wineshop keeper had gathered three of Alvarez's soldiers around him in the back room, where I tliey had been drinking, to tell them of ' the inquiry the young man had made. The soldiers burst in upon Royal, and attempted to seize him. Realizing too late the mistake he had made by thinking he could trust the Indian with the query. Royal whipped out his revolver and covered the three soldiers with it. Then, still holding them at bay with the weapon, he backed out of the place. I to spring upon his horse and ride off like I the wind. The soldiers, piling out and onto their ; mounts, were after him a minute later, ' unslinging their carbines and firing at I Royal as they rode. He half turned in the saddle, and gave back shot for shot with his revolver. A bullet clipped a piece out of the brim of his pith helmet. Simultaneously he saw one of the soldiers in the galloping trio behind him fling up his hands and pitch sidewise off his horse. One of his revolver shots had taken effect. I He got another one of his pursuers i before the next quarter of a mile was covered. The third man, reining his horse back on its haunches, shook his carbine after him in baffled rage — giving up the chase. Royal, with a laugh of elation for the way he had got out of what had looked for a minute like a tight corner, turned to see where he was riding. He had just entered a forest of mahogany trees. "Halt! Who goes there?" A sentry rose from the shrubbery fairly under his horse's nose. As he pulled up, before the picket's leveled rifle, again Royal laughed in triumph. The man wore a tricolored bit of ribbon on the pinned-back front of his straw-hat brim, and Royal saw they were neither the colors of Garcia's nor Alvarez's army. Besides, the order that had stopped him had come in good United States English — and Royal knew where he was. He had stumbled upon the hidingplace of Laguerre's companj' of adventurers— or, rather, he had been unwittingly chased to it by the soldiers of Alvarez, who had wanted to keep him from finding it ! Royal crumpled the letter from Beatrice's father in his hands. Their engagement had been broken off, due to his discharge from the academy. "A friend goes here !" Royal answered, as he swung down to the ground and advanced with his hand outstretched. "That is, if this is the outpost of General Laguerre's encampment, as I think." The sentry did not take his proffered hand, but stood regarding him with suspicion for a minute or two. "If you've got a gun, hand it over," he briefly ordered at length. "Then march ahead of me, and you can state your name and business to the officer in temporary command." Surrendering his pistol to the sentinel. Royal preceded him into the forest for a matter of two or three hundred yards. Here, Ijefore a camp lire in the center of a glade, at the left of which stood a solitary tent, he halted before a tall, powerfully built man of a German cast of countenance, whom he heard his guide address as Captain Heinz when he told him the circumstances under which he had escorted the young American thence from the edge of the forest. "W hat do you want here?" rudely demanded the officer, before the three or four hundred men, in khaki or soiled and ragged white duck, who were looking on. "I am looking for General Laguerre,'' answered Royal sharply, nettled by the man's crude manner of addressing him. "Since you are not he, will you kindly summon him, or lead me to him?" "--\re you armed?" snapped back the German. "No; your sentinel told me to surrender my pistol to him, and I did so." "Maybe you carry another weapon," sneered tlie other, stepping up to him and laj-ing a hand on his shirt — "in here." "Take your hand oft" me!" flared Royal, jerking away from the man's touch. "I've told you I'm unarmed. Isn't my word enough to satisfy you?" "I'll be satisfied when I've seen for myself !" was the reply of Captain Heinz, and he made another grab for the front of his shirt. Royal knocked him down. The officer, his little eyes blazing with wrath, regained his feet in a twinkling. Snatching the revolver from his own belt, he covered Royal with it, and advanced upon him. "If you are unarmed, as j'ou say," he snarled, "then I have you at my mercy, now! I will settle with you for that blow, my friend, by killing you where you stand " A steellike voice interrupted : "Captain Heinz, put down that gun !" Royal turned, to see a man of medium height, but with the level, slategray eyes of a born leader looking out of his thin-lipped, hard-bitten face, who stood at his side. Without being told. Royal knew that he was in the presence of General Laguerre himself. "I have been watching the scene between you and this gentleman, through the flap of my tent, yonder," the adventurers' commander informed the German. "You have exceeded your authority in laying your hand on him. I 1... ^-..^