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 at the earthworks under Felipe's direction now, but languidly, without heart.

Henderson suspected they must have learned that the cannon, around which their confidence and admiration centered, was of no more service now than a log. He did not blame them for cooling in what appeared, in his own reason and conviction, a hopeless situation. Their disaffection did not matter much, nor alter the gravity of the case greatly. He had collected the guns with the thought that he and Felipe might make a desperate defense alone, inflicting such loss on the soldiers that Roberto would retire, giving them an opportunity to slip away in the night. He believed he saw something beneath the demeanor of the men that shook even this desperate hope.

Felipe also was of the opinion that the men's cooling was the result of someone who had a knowledge of such things having seen the spike in the touch-hole of the cannon before he had covered it.

"There is nothing to them, Gabriel; they are carrion," he said sadly. "When I said their lives were worth little, I spoke the sad truth. A man's life is valuable only according to the nobility of his heart. It would have been no treason to them if we had gone our way an hour ago."

The ten or twelve men who worked with Simon throwing up the defenses turned their eyes on their leaders as they stood apart talking, a watchfulness in their faces that appeared to Henderson at once