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When Richard Gordon came back from unconsciousness to a world of haziness and headaches he was quite at a loss to account for his situation He knew vaguely that he was lying flat on his back and that he was being jolted uncoistered sensations of pain both dull and sharp from a score of bruised nerve centers For some reason he could neither move his hands nor lift his head His body had been so badly jarred by the hail of blows through which he had plowed that at first his ive him explanations

Gradually he recalled that he had been in a fight He remembered a sea of faces, the thud of fists, the flash of knives This must be the reason why every bone ached, why the flesh on his face was caked and warm moisture dripped from cuts in his scalp It dawned upon him that he could not move his arms because they were tied and that the interference with his breathing was caused by a gag When he opened his eyes he saw nothing, but whenever his face or hands stirred froh brushed his flesh; An odor of alfalfa filled his nostrils He guessed that he was in a wagon and covered with hay

Where were they taking him? Why had they not killed him at once? Who was at the bottom of the attack upon him? Already hisceased He could hear guarded voices The alfalfa was thrown aside and he was dragged from his place and carried down so first to the right, and then to the left They groped their way into a rooht, but through a s moonbeams entered and relieved somewhat the inky blackness

"Is he dead?" soht hiuardedly

They stood beside the bed and looked down at their prisoner His eyes were getting accustomed to the darkness He saw that one of the men was Pablo Menendez The other, an older Mexican with short whiskers, was unknown to hio's arm is broken Not one of us but isyet, Sebastian," agreed Pablo "Dios, how he slammed poor José down The blood poured froht so fierce and so hard as this Americano He may be the devil himself, but his claws are clipped now And here he lies till he does as ant, or----" The young Mexican did not finish his sentence, but the gleanificant