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“Yes,” cynically said Sherry. “The Aztecs got rattled, and then the bullets rattled. And what was done to the Aztecs?”

“Senor, what could be done? They meant no harm, as you can see.”

“Of course, of course; but you put the Little Red Peg down two holes just the same, eh, my Becodar–with your Gerado. I smell a great man in your Gerado, Becodar. Your bandit turned soldier is a notable gentleman–gentlemen all his tribe…. You see,” Sherry added to me, “the country was infested with bandits–some big names in this land had bandit for their titles one time or another. Well, along came Diaz, a great man. He said to the bandits: ‘How much do you make a year at your trade?’ They told him.

“‘Then,’ said he, ‘I’ll give you as much a month and clothe you. You’ll furnish your own horses and keep them, and hold the country in order. Put down the banditti, be my boundary-riders, my gentlemen guards, and we will all love you and cherish you.’ And ‘it was so,’ as Scripture says. And this Gerado can serve our good compadre here, and the Little Red Peg in the wall keeps tally.”

“What shall you do with Bernal the boy when he grows up?” added Sherry presently.

“There is the question for my mind, senor,” he answered. “He would be a toreador–already has he served the matador in the ring, though I did not know it, foolish boy! But I would have him in the Rurales.” Here he fetched out and handed us a bottle of mescal. Sherry lifted his glass.

“To the day when the Little Red Peg goes no farther!” he said. We drank.

“To the blind compadre and the boy!” I added, and we drank again.

A moment afterwards in the silent street I looked back. The door was shut, and the wee scarlet light was burning over it. I fell to thinking of the Little Red Peg in the wall.