"Thirty fighters, and thirty non-combatants," returned Don Luis. "Surely that might be managed.  Why, my `boys' number more than three hundred, nine-tenths of whom were born and bred upon the estate.  A few of them might possibly desert--perhaps twenty-five per cent of them, to put the figure at its very highest; but I feel certain that the bulk of them would stand by me through thick and thin; they have everything to lose and nothing to gain by going over to the outlaws.  Oh yes, I am convinced that there should be no difficulty in the matter of raising a sufficient number of fighters."