Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/347



ENERAL GARVANZA arrived about midafternoon, unattended, as he had been instructed to come. Simon opened the gate to him with a feeling of weakness over him like a man rising too soon from a consuming illness.

"So I find you here, traitor!" General Garvanza said, giving the frightened sentinel a look that was his trial and condemnation.

"It will not shoot," Simon whispered, touching his gun. "They forced me to join them. I selected a gun that will not shoot. Pass, your grace. You are where there is a friend."

Roberto looked at the fellow curiously, and at the gun with sharp eagerness, verifying at a glance the truth of Simon's statement. The gun lacked a hammer; it was as harmless as a stick.

But it was through no contrivance of Simon that he bore such a useless piece. Felipe had seen to that particular. Felipe needed his dependable guns for dependable men. His purpose was to double Simon's peril in giving him one that would not shoot.

Roberto was dressed in the uniform of his rank, to which he had added something in the way of adornment, it appeared, over the amount his prede-