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+Project Gutenberg's A Daughter of the Dons, by William MacLeod Raine
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Daughter of the Dons
+       A Story of New Mexico Today
+
+Author: William MacLeod Raine
+
+Release Date: April 4, 2005 [EBook #15542]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DAUGHTER OF THE DONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Bruce Thomas and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Little hands caught hold of him and fought with the
+current. Frontispiece. Page 30]
+
+
+
+
+A DAUGHTER OF THE DONS
+
+_A Story of New Mexico Today_
+
+BY
+
+WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+WYOMING, BUCKY O'CONNOR, MAVERICKS, A TEXAS RANGER, BRAND BLOTTERS,
+RIDGWAY OF MONTANA, ETC.
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY
+
+D.C. HUTCHISON
+
+[Illustration: Colophon.]
+
+NEW YORK
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY
+
+G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+_A Daughter of the Dons._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                             PAGE
+
+    I. DON MANUEL INTRODUCES HIMSELF                                   5
+
+   II. THE TWO GRANTS                                                 15
+
+  III. FISHERMAN'S LUCK                                               27
+
+   IV. AT THE YUSTE HACIENDA                                          42
+
+    V. "AN OPTIMISTIC GUY"                                            61
+
+   VI. JUANITA                                                        76
+
+  VII. TWO MESSAGES                                                   88
+
+ VIII. TAMING AN OUTLAW                                              101
+
+   IX. OF DON MANUEL AND MOONLIGHT                                   111
+
+    X. MR. AINSA DELIVERS A MESSAGE                                  123
+
+   XI. THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND THE TWENTIETH                       137
+
+  XII. "I BELIEVE YOU'RE IN LOVE WITH HER TOO"                       149
+
+ XIII. AMBUSHED                                                      159
+
+  XIV. MANUEL TO THE RESCUE                                          173
+
+   XV. ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD                                   193
+
+  XVI. VALENCIA MAKES A PROMISE                                      201
+
+ XVII. AN OBSTINATE MAN                                              213
+
+XVIII. MANUEL INTERFERES                                             230
+
+  XIX. VALENCIA ACCEPTS A RING                                       240
+
+   XX. DICK LIGHTS A CIGARETTE                                       246
+
+  XXI. WHEN THE WIRES WERE CUT                                       259
+
+ XXII. THE ATTACK                                                    269
+
+XXIII. THE TIN BOX                                                   287
+
+ XXIV. DICK GORDON APOLOGIZES                                        298
+
+  XXV. THE PRINCE CONSORT 307
+
+
+
+
+A DAUGHTER OF THE DONS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+DON MANUEL INTRODUCES HIMSELF
+
+
+For hours Manuel Pesquiera had been rolling up the roof of the continent
+in an observation-car of the "Short Line."
+
+His train had wound in and out through a maze of bewildering scenery,
+and was at last dipping down into the basin of the famous gold camp.
+
+The alert black eyes of the young New Mexican wandered discontentedly
+over the raw ugliness of the camp. Towns straggled here and there
+untidily at haphazard, mushroom growths of a day born of a lucky
+"strike." Into the valleys and up and down the hillsides ran a network
+of rails for trolley and steam cars. Everywhere were the open tunnel
+mouths or the frame shaft-houses perched above the gray Titan dump
+beards.
+
+The magic that had wonderfully brought all these manifold activities
+into being had its talisman in the word "Gold"; but, since Pesquiera had
+come neither as a prospector nor investor, he heard with only
+half-concealed impatience the easy gossip of his fellow travelers about
+the famous ore producers of the district.
+
+It was not until his inattentive ears caught the name of Dick Gordon
+that he found interest in the conversation.
+
+"Pardon, sir! Are you acquaint' with Mr. Richard Gordon?" he asked, a
+touch of the gentle Spanish accent in his voice.
+
+The man to whom he had spoken, a grizzled, weather-beaten little fellow
+in a corduroy suit and white, broad-brimmed felt hat, turned his steady
+blue eyes on his questioner a moment before he answered:
+
+"I ought to know him, seeing as I'm his partner."
+
+"Then you can tell me where I may find him?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I can do that. See that streak of red there on the hill--the
+one above the big dump. That's the shafthouse of the Last Dollar. Drop
+down it about nine hundred feet and strike an airline west by north for
+about a quarter of a mile, and you'd be right close to him. He's down
+there, tackling a mighty uncertain proposition. The shaft and the
+workings of the Last Dollar are full of water. He's running a crosscut
+from an upraise in the Radley drift, so as to tap the west tunnel of the
+Last Dollar."
+
+"It is dangerous, you inform me?"
+
+"Dangerous ain't the word. It's suicide, the way I look at it. See here,
+my friend. His drill goes through and lets loose about 'steen million
+gallons of water. How is he going to get in out of the rain about that
+time?"
+
+The New Mexican showed a double row of pearly teeth in a bland smile.
+
+"Pardon, sir. If you would explain a leetle more fully I would then
+comprehend."
+
+"Sure. Here's the way it is. Dick and his three men are plugging away at
+the breast of the drift with air-drills. Every day he gits closeter to
+that lake dammed up there. Right now there can't be more'n a few feet of
+granite 'twixt him and it. He don't know how many any more'n a rabbit,
+because he's going by old maps that ain't any too reliable. The question
+is whether the wall will hold till he dynamites it through, or whether
+the weight of water will crumple up that granite and come pouring out in
+a flood."
+
+"Your friend, then, is in peril, is it not so?"
+
+"You've said it. He's shooting dice with death. That's the way I size it
+up. If the wall holds till it's blown up, Dick has got to get back along
+the crosscut, lower himself down the upraise, and travel nearly a mile
+through tunnelings before he reaches a shaft to git out. That don't
+leave them any too much time at the best. But if the water breaks
+through on them, it's Heaven help Dick, and good-by to this world."
+
+"Then Mr. Gordon is what you call brave?"
+
+"He's the gamest man that ever walked into this camp. There ain't an
+inch of him that ain't clear grit through and through. Get into a tight
+place, and he's your one best bet to tie to."
+
+"Mr. Gordon is fortunate in his friend," bowed the New Mexican politely.
+
+The little miner looked at him with shining eyes.
+
+"Nothing like that. Me, I figure the luck's all on my side. Onct you
+meet Dick you'll see why we boost for him. Hello, here's where we get
+off at. If you're looking for Dick, stranger, you better follow me. I'm
+going right up to the mine. Dick had ought to be coming up from below
+any minute now."
+
+Pesquiera checked his suitcase at the depot newsstand and walked up a
+steep hill trail with his guide. The miner asked no questions of the New
+Mexican as to his business with Gordon, nor did the latter volunteer any
+information. They discussed instead the output of the camp for the
+preceding year, comparing it with that of the other famous gold
+districts of the world.
+
+Just as they entered the shafthouse the cage shot to the surface. From
+it stepped two men.
+
+Several miners crowded toward them with eager greetings, but they moved
+aside at sight of Pesquiera's companion, who made straight for those
+from below.
+
+"What's new, Tregarth?" he asked of one of them, a huge Cornishman.
+
+"The drill have brook into the Last Dollar tunnel. The watter of un do
+be leaking through, Measter Davis. The boss sent us oop while Tom and
+him stayed to put the charges in the drill holes to blow oot the wall.
+He wouldna coom and let me stay."
+
+Davis thought a moment.
+
+"I'll go down the shaft and wait at the foot of it. There'll be
+something doing soon. Keep your eye peeled for signals, Smith, and when
+you git the bell to raise, shoot her up sudden. If the water's coming,
+we'll be in a hurry, and don't you forget it. Want to come down with me,
+Tregarth?"
+
+"I do that, sir." The man stepped into the cage and grinned. "We'll
+bring the byes back all right. Bet un we do, lads."
+
+The cage shot down, and the New Mexican sat on a bench to wait its
+return. Beside him was a young doctor, who had come prepared for a
+possible disaster. Such conversation as the men carried on was in low
+tones, for all felt the strain of the long minutes. The engineer's eye
+was glued to his machinery, his hand constantly on the lever.
+
+It must have been an hour before the bell rang sharply in the silence
+and the lever swept back instantly. A dozen men started to their feet
+and waited tensely. Next moment there was a wild, exultant cheer.
+
+For Tregarth had stepped from the cage with a limp figure in his arms,
+and after him Davis, his arm around the shoulder of a drenched,
+staggering youth, who had a bleeding cut across his cheek. Through all
+the grime that covered the wounded miner the pallor of exhaustion showed
+itself.
+
+But beaten and buffeted as the man had plainly been in his fight for
+life, the clean, supple strength and the invincible courage of him still
+shone in his eye and trod in his bearing. It was even now the salient
+thing about him, though he had but come, alive and no more, from a
+wrestle with death itself.
+
+He sank to a bench, and looked around on his friends with shining eyes.
+
+"'Twas nip and tuck, boys. The water caught us in the tunnel, and I
+thought we were gone. It swept us right to the cage," he panted.
+
+"She didn't sweep Tom there, boss; ye went back after un," corrected the
+Cornishman.
+
+"Anyhow, we made it in the nick o' time. Tom all right, Doctor?"
+
+The doctor looked up from his examination.
+
+"No bones broken. He seems sound. If there are no internal injuries it
+will be a matter of only a day or two in bed."
+
+"Good. That's the way to talk. You got to make him good as new, Doctor.
+You ought to have seen the way he stayed by that drill when the water
+was pouring through the cracks in the granite. Have him taken to the
+hospital, and send the bill to me."
+
+Tregarth boomed out in a heavy bass:
+
+"What's the matter with the boss? Both of un? They be all right. Bean't
+they, lads?"
+
+It was just after the answering chorus that Pesquiera came forward and
+bowed magnificently to the young mine operator. The New Mexican's eyes
+were blazing with admiration, for he was of Castilian blood and
+cherished courage as the chief of virtues.
+
+"I have the honor to salute a hero, _señor_" he cried enthusiastically.
+"Your deed is of a most fine bravery. I, Manuel Pesquiera, say it. Have
+I the right in thinking him of the name of Mr. Richard Gordon?"
+
+Something that was almost disgust filmed the gray eyes of the young
+miner. He had the Anglo-Saxon horror of heroics. What he had done was
+all in the day's work, and he was the last man in the world to enjoy
+having a fuss made over it.
+
+"My name is Gordon," he said quietly.
+
+The Spaniard bowed again.
+
+"I have the honor to be your servant to command, Don Manuel Pesquiera. I
+believe myself to be, sir, a messenger of fortune to you--a Mercury from
+the favoring gods, with news of good import. I, therefore, ask the honor
+of an audience at your convenience."
+
+Dick flung the wet hat from his curly head and took a look at the card
+which the Spaniard had presented him. From it his humorous gaze went
+back to the posturing owner of the pasteboard. Suppressing a grin, he
+answered with perfect gravity.
+
+"If you will happen round to the palace about noon to-morrow, _Señor_
+Pesquiera, you will be admitted to the presence by the court flunkies.
+When you're inquiring for the whereabouts of the palace, better call it
+room 14, Gold Nugget Rooming-House."
+
+He excused himself and stepped lightly across to his companion in the
+adventure, who had by this time recovered consciousness.
+
+"How goes it, Tom? Feel as if you'd been run through a sausage-grinder?"
+he asked cheerily.
+
+The man smiled faintly. "I'm all right, boss. The boys tell me you went
+back and saved me."
+
+"Sho! I just grabbed you and slung you in the cage. No trick at all,
+Tom. Now, don't you worry, boy. Just lie there in the hospital and rest
+easy. We're settling the bill, and there's a hundred plunks waiting you
+when you get well."
+
+Tom's hand pressed his feebly.
+
+"I always knew you were white, boss."
+
+The doctor laughed as he came forward with a basin of water and
+bandages.
+
+"I'm afraid he'll be whiter than he need be if I don't stop that
+bleeding. I think we're ready for it now, Mr. Gordon."
+
+"All right. It's only a scratch," answered Gordon indifferently.
+
+Pesquiera, feeling that he was out of the picture, departed in search of
+a hotel for the night. He was conscious of a strong admiration for this
+fair brown-faced Anglo-Saxon who faced death so lightly for one of his
+men. Whatever else he might prove to be, Richard Gordon was a man.
+
+The New Mexican had an uneasy prescience that his mission was foredoomed
+to failure and that it might start currents destined to affect potently
+the lives of many in the Rio Chama Valley.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE TWO GRANTS
+
+
+The clock in the depot tower registered just twelve, and the noon
+whistles were blowing when Pesquiera knocked at apartment 14, of the
+Gold Nugget Rooming-House.
+
+In answer to an invitation to "Come in," he entered an apartment which
+seemed to be a combination office and living-room. A door opened into
+what the New Mexican assumed to be a sleeping chamber, adjoining which
+was evidently a bath, judging from the sound of splashing water.
+
+"With you in a minute," a voice from within assured the guest.
+
+The splashing ceased. There was the sound of a towel in vigorous motion.
+This was followed by the rustling of garments as the bather dressed. In
+an astonishingly short time the owner of the rooms appeared in the
+doorway.
+
+He was a well-set-up youth, broad of shoulder and compact of muscle. The
+ruddy bloom that beat through the tanned cheeks and the elasticity of
+his tread hinted at an age not great, but there was no suggestion of
+immaturity in the cool steadiness of the gaze or in the quiet poise of
+the attitude.
+
+He indicated a chair, after relieving his visitor of hat and cane.
+Pesquiera glanced at the bandage round the head.
+
+"I trust, _señor_, your experience of yesterday has not given you a
+wakeful night?"
+
+"Slept like a top. Fact is, I'm just getting up. You heard this morning
+yet how Tom is?"
+
+"The morning newspaper says he is doing very well indeed."
+
+"That's good hearing. He's a first-rate boy, and I'd hate to hear worse
+of him. But I mustn't take your time over our affairs. I think you
+mentioned business, sir?"
+
+The Castilian leaned forward and fixed his black, piercing eyes on the
+other. Straight into his business he plunged.
+
+"Señor Gordon, have you ever heard of the Valdés grant?"
+
+"Not to remember it. What kind of a grant is it?"
+
+"It is a land grant, made by Governor Facundo Megares, of New Mexico,
+which territory was then a province of Spain, to Don Fernando Valdés, in
+consideration of services rendered the Spanish crown against the
+Indians."
+
+Dick shook his head. "You've got me, sir. If I ever heard of it the
+thing has plumb slipped my mind. Ought I to know about it?"
+
+"Have you ever heard of the Moreño grant?"
+
+Somewhere in the back of the young man's mind a faint memory stirred. He
+seemed to see an old man seated at a table in a big room with a carved
+fireplace. The table was littered with papers, and the old gentleman was
+explaining them to a woman. She was his daughter, Dick's mother. A slip
+of a youngster was playing about the room with two puppies. That little
+five-year-old was the young mine operator.
+
+"I have," he answered calmly.
+
+"You know, then, that a later governor of the territory, Manuel Armijo,
+illegally carved half a million acres out of the former grant and gave
+it to José Moreño, from whom your grandfather bought it."
+
+The miner's face froze to impassivity. He was learning news. The very
+existence of such a grant was a surprise to him. His grandfather and his
+mother had been dead fifteen years. Somewhere in an old trunk back in
+Kentucky there was a tin box full of papers that might tell a story. But
+for the present he preferred to assume that he knew what information
+they contained.
+
+"I object to the word illegal, Don Manuel," he answered curtly, not at
+all sure his objection had any foundation of law.
+
+Pesquiera shrugged. "Very well, _señor_. The courts, I feel sure, will
+sustain my words."
+
+"Perhaps, and perhaps not."
+
+"The law is an expensive arbiter, Señor Gordon. Your claim is slight.
+The title has never been perfected by you. In fifteen years you have
+paid no taxes. Still your claim, though worthless in itself, operates as
+a cloud upon the title of my client, the Valdés heir."
+
+Dick looked at him steadily and nodded. He began to see the purpose of
+this visit. He waited silently, his mind very alert.
+
+"_Señor_, I am here to ask of you a relinquishment. You are brave; no
+doubt, chivalrous----"
+
+"I'm a business man, Don Manuel," interrupted Gordon. "I don't see what
+chivalry has got to do with it."
+
+"Señorita Valdés is a woman, young and beautiful. This little estate is
+her sole possession. To fight for it in court is a hardship that Señor
+Gordon will not force upon her."
+
+"So she's young and beautiful, is she?"
+
+"The fairest daughter of Spain in all New Mexico," soared Don Manuel.
+
+"You don't say. A regular case of beauty and the beast, ain't it?"
+
+"As one of her friends, I ask of you not to oppose her lawful possession
+of this little vineyard."
+
+"In the grape business, is she?"
+
+"I speak, _señor_, in metaphor. The land is barren, of no value except
+for sheep grazing."
+
+"Are you asking me to sell my title or give it?"
+
+"It is a bagatelle--a mere nothing. The title is but waste paper, I do
+assure. Yet we would purchase--for a nominal figure--merely to save
+court expenses."
+
+"I see," Dick laughed softly. "Just to save court expenses--because
+you'd rather I'd have the money than the lawyers. That's right good of
+you."
+
+Pesquiera talked with his hands and shoulders, sparkling into animation.
+"Mr. Gordon distrusts me. So? Am I not right? He perhaps mistakes me for
+what you call a--a pettifogger, is it not? I do assure to the contrary.
+The blood of the Pesquieras is of the bluest Castilian."
+
+"Fine! I'll take your word for it, Don Manuel. And I don't distrust you
+at all. But here's the point. I'm a plain American business man. I don't
+buy and I don't sell without first investigating a proposition submitted
+to me. I'm from Missouri."
+
+"Oh, indeed! From St. Louis perhaps. I went to school there when I was a
+boy."
+
+Gordon laughed. "I was speaking in metaphor, Don Manuel. What I mean is
+that I'll have to be shown. No pig-in-a-poke business for me."
+
+"Exactly. Most precisely. Have I not traveled from New Mexico up this
+steep roof of the continent merely to explain how matters stand?
+Valencia Valdés is the true and rightful heiress of the valley. She is
+everywhere so recognize' and accept' by the peons."
+
+The miner's indolent eye rested casually upon his guest. "Married?"
+
+"I have not that felicitation," replied the Spaniard.
+
+"It was the lady I meant."
+
+"Pardon. No man has yet been so fortunate to win the _señorita_"
+
+"I reckon it's not for want of trying, since the heiress is so
+beautiful. There's always plenty of willing lads to take over the job of
+prince regent under such circumstances."
+
+The spine of the New Mexican stiffened ever so slightly. "Señorita
+Valdés is princess of the Rio Chama valley. Her dependents understan'
+she is of a differen' caste, a descendant of the great and renowned Don
+Alvaro of Castile."
+
+"Don't think I know the gentleman. Who was he?" asked Gordon genially,
+offering his guest a cigar.
+
+Pesquiera threw up his neat little hands in despair. "But of a certainty
+Mr. Gordon has read of Don Alvaro de Valdés y Castillo, lord of demesnes
+without number, conqueror of the Moors and of the fierce island English
+who then infested Spain in swarms. His retinue was as that of a king. At
+his many manors fed daily thirty thousand men at arms. In all Europe no
+knight so brave, so chivalrous, so skillful with lance and sword. To the
+nobles his word was law. Young men worshiped him, the old admired, the
+poor blessed. The queen, it is said, love' him madly. She was of
+exceeding beauty, but Don Alvaro remember his vows of knighthood and
+turn his back upon madness. Then the king, jealous for that his great
+noble was better, braver and more popular than he, send for de Valdés to
+come to court."
+
+"I reckon Don Alvaro ought to have been sick a-bed that day and unable
+to make the journey," suggested Dick.
+
+"So say his wife and his men, but Don Alvaro scorn to believe his king a
+traitor. He kiss his wife and babies good-bye, ride into the trap
+prepare' for him, and die like a soldier. God rest his valiant soul."
+
+"Some man. I'd like to have met him," Gordon commented.
+
+"Señorita Valencia is of the same blood, of the same fine courage. She,
+too, is the idol of her people. Will Mr. Gordon, who is himself of the
+brave heart, make trouble for an unprotected child without father or
+mother?"
+
+"Unprotected isn't quite the word so long as Don Manuel Pesquiera is her
+friend," the Coloradoan answered with a smile.
+
+The dark young man flushed, but his eyes met those of Dick steadily.
+"You are right, sir. I stand between her and trouble if I can."
+
+"Good. Glad you do."
+
+"So I make you an offer. I ask you to relinquish your shadowy claim to
+the illegal Moreño grant."
+
+"Well, I can't tell you offhand just what I'll do, Don Manuel. Make your
+proposition to me in writing, and one month from to-day I'll let you
+know whether it's yes or no."
+
+"But the _señorita_ wants to make improvements--to build, to fence.
+Delay is a hardship. Let us say a thousand dollars and make an end."
+
+"Not if the court knows itself. You say she's young. A month's wait
+won't hurt her any. I want to look into it. Maybe you're offering me too
+much. A fifth of a cent an acre is a mighty high price for land. I don't
+want any fairest daughter of Spain to rob herself for me, you know," he
+grinned.
+
+"I exceed my instructions. I offer two thousand, Mr. Gordon."
+
+"If you said two hundred thousand, I'd still say no till I had looked it
+up. I'm not doing business to-day at any price, thank you."
+
+"You are perhaps of an impression that this land is valuable. On the
+contrary, I offer an assurance. And our need of your shadowy claim----"
+
+"I ain't burdened with impressions, except one, that I don't care to
+dispose of my ghost-title. We'll talk business a month from to-day, if
+you like. No sooner. Have a smoke, Don Manuel?"
+
+Pesquiera declined the proffered cigar with an impatient gesture. He
+rose, reclaimed his hat and cane, and clicked his heels together in a
+stiff bow.
+
+He was a slight, dark, graceful man, with small, neat hands and feet,
+trimly gloved and shod. He had a small black mustache pointing upward in
+parallels to his smooth, olive cheeks. The effect was almost foppish,
+but the fire in the snapping eyes contradicted any suggestion of
+effeminacy. His gaze yielded nothing even to the searching one of
+Gordon.
+
+"It is, then, war between us, Señor Gordon?" he asked haughtily.
+
+Dick laughed.
+
+"Sho! It's just business. Maybe I'll take your offer. Maybe I won't. I
+might want to run down and look at the no-'count land," he said with a
+laugh.
+
+"I think it fair to inform you, sir, that the feeling of the country
+down there is in favor of the Valdés grant. The peons are hot-tempered,
+and are likely to resent any attempt to change the existing conditions.
+Your presence, _señor_, would be a danger."
+
+"Much obliged, Don Manuel. Tell 'em from me that I got a bad habit of
+wearing a six-gun, and that if they get to resenting too arduous it's
+likely to ventilate their enthusiasm."
+
+Once more the New Mexican bowed stiffly before he retired.
+
+Pesquiera had overplayed his hand. He had stirred in the miner an
+interest born of curiosity and a sense of romantic possibilities. Dick
+wanted to see this daughter of Castile who was still to the
+simple-hearted shepherds of the valley a princess of the blood royal.
+Don Manuel was very evidently her lover. Perhaps it was his imagination
+that had mixed the magic potion that lent an atmosphere of old-world
+pastoral charm to the story of the Valdés grant. Likely enough the girl
+would prove commonplace in a proud half-educated fashion that would be
+intolerable for a stranger.
+
+But even without the help of the New Mexican the situation was one which
+called for a thorough personal investigation. Gordon was a hard-headed
+American business man, though he held within him the generous and
+hare-brained potentialities of a soldier of fortune. He meant to find
+out just what the Moreño grant was worth. After he had investigated his
+legal standing he would look over the valley of the Chama himself. He
+took no stock in Don Manuel's assurance that the land was worthless, any
+more than he gave weight to his warning that a personal visit to the
+scene would be dangerous if the settlers believed he came to interfere
+with their rights. For many turbulent years Dick Gordon had held his own
+in a frontier community where untamed enemies had passed him daily with
+hate in their hearts. He was not going to let the sulky resentment of a
+few shepherds interfere with his course now.
+
+A message flashed back to a little town in Kentucky that afternoon. It
+was of the regulation ten-words length, and this was the body of it:
+
+Send immediately, by express, little brown leather trunk in garret.
+
+The signature at the bottom of it was "Richard Gordon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+FISHERMAN'S LUCK
+
+
+A fisherman was whipping the stream of the Rio Chama.
+
+In his creel were a dozen trout, for the speckled beauties had been
+rising to the fly that skipped across the top of the riffles as
+naturally as life. He wore waders, gray flannel shirt, and khaki coat.
+As he worked up the stream he was oftener in its swirling waters than on
+the shore. But just now the fish were no longer striking.
+
+"Time to grub, anyhow. I'll give them a rest for a while. They'll likely
+be on the job again soon," he told himself as he waded ashore.
+
+A draw here ran down to the river, and its sunny hillside tempted him to
+eat his lunch farther up.
+
+Into the little basin in which he found himself the sun had poured
+shafts of glory to make a very paradise of color. Down by the riverside
+the willows were hesitating between green and bronze. Russet and brown
+and red peppered the slopes, but shades of yellow predominated in the
+gulch itself.
+
+The angler ate his sandwiches leisurely, and stretched his lithe body
+luxuriantly on the ground for a _siesta_. When he resumed his occupation
+the sun had considerably declined from the meridian. The fish were again
+biting, and he landed two in as many minutes.
+
+The bed of the river had been growing steeper, and at the upper entrance
+of the little park he came to the first waterfall he had seen. Above
+this, on the opposite side, was a hole that looked inviting. He decided
+that a dead tree lying across the river would, at a pinch, serve for a
+bridge, and he ventured upon it. Beneath his feet the rotting bark gave
+way. He found himself falling, tried desperately to balance himself, and
+plunged head first into the river.
+
+Coming to the surface, he caught at a rock which jutted from the
+channel. At this point the water was deep and the current swift. Were he
+to let loose of the boulder he must be swept over the fall before he
+could reach the shore. Nor could he long maintain his position against
+the rush of the ice-cold waters fresh from the mountain snow fields.
+
+He had almost made up his mind to take his chances with the fall, when a
+clear cry came ringing to him:
+
+"_No suelte!_"
+
+A figure was flying down the slope toward him--the slim, graceful form
+of a woman. As she ran she caught up a stick from the ground. This she
+held out to him from the bank.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"I would only drag you in."
+
+She put her fingers to her mouth and gave a clear whistle. Far up on the
+slope a pony lifted its head and nickered. Again her whistle shrilled,
+and the bronco trotted down toward her.
+
+"Can you hold on?" she asked in English.
+
+He was chilled to the marrow, but he answered quietly: "I reckon."
+
+She was gone, swift-footed as a deer, to meet the descending animal. He
+saw her swing to the saddle and lean over it as the pace quickened to a
+gallop.
+
+He did not know her fingers were busy preparing the rawhide lariat that
+depended from the side of the saddle. On the very bank she brought up
+with a jerk that dragged her mount together, and at the same moment
+slipped to the ground.
+
+Running open the noose of the lariat, she dropped it surely over his
+shoulders. The other end of the rope was fastened to the saddle-horn,
+and the cow-pony, used to roping and throwing steers, braced itself with
+wide-planted front feet for the shock.
+
+"Can you get your arm through the loop?" cried the girl.
+
+His arms were like lead, and almost powerless. With one hand he knew he
+could not hang on. Nor did he try longer than for that one desperate
+instant when he shot his fist through the loop. The wall of water swept
+him away, but the taut rope swung him shoreward.
+
+Little hands caught hold of him and fought with the strong current for
+the body of the almost unconscious man; fought steadily and strongly,
+for there was strength in the small wrists and compact muscle in the
+shapely arms. She was waist deep in the water before she won, for from
+above she could find no purchase for the lift.
+
+The fisherman's opening eyes looked into dark anxious ones that gazed at
+him from beneath the longest lashes he had ever seen. He had an odd
+sense of being tangled up in them and being unable to escape, of being
+both abashed and happy in his imprisonment. What he thought was: "They
+don't have eyes like those out of heaven." What he said was entirely
+different.
+
+"Near thing. Hadn't been for you I wouldn't have made it."
+
+At his words she rose from her knees to her full height, and he saw that
+she was slenderly tall and fashioned of gracious curves. The darkness of
+her clear skin was emphasized by the mass of blue-black hair from which
+little ears peeped with exquisite daintiness. The mouth was sweet and
+candid, red-lipped, with perfect teeth just showing in the full arch.
+The straight nose, with its sensitive nostrils, proclaimed her pure
+patrician.
+
+"You are wet," he cried. "You went in after me."
+
+She looked down at her dripping skirts, and laughter rippled over her
+face like the wind in golden grain. It brought out two adorable dimples
+near the tucked-in corners of her mouth.
+
+"I am damp," she conceded.
+
+"Why did you do it? The water might have swept you away," he chided,
+coming to a sitting posture.
+
+"And if I hadn't it might have swept you away," she answered, with a
+flash of her ivory teeth.
+
+He rose and stood before her.
+
+"You risked your life to save mine."
+
+"Is it not worth it, sir?"
+
+"That ain't for me to say. The point is, you took the chance."
+
+Her laughter bubbled again. "You mean, I took the bath."
+
+"I expect you'll have to listen to what I've got to say, ma'am."
+
+"Are you going to scold me? Was I precipitate? Perhaps you were
+attempting suicide. Forgive, I pray."
+
+He ignored her raillery, and told her what he thought of a courage so
+fine and ready. He permitted a smile to temper his praise, as he added:
+"You mustn't go jumping in the river after strangers if you don't want
+them to say, 'Thank you kindly.' You find four out of five of them want
+to, don't you?"
+
+"It is not yet a habit of mine. You're the first"
+
+"I hope I'll be the last."
+
+She began to wring out the bottom of her skirt, and he was on his knees
+at once to do it for her.
+
+"That will do very nicely," she presently said, the color billowing her
+cheeks.
+
+He gathered wood and lit a fire, being fortunate enough to find his
+match-case had been waterproof. He piled on dry branches till the fire
+roared and licked out for the moisture in their clothes.
+
+"I've been wondering how you happened to see me in the water," he said.
+"You were riding past, I expect?"
+
+"No, I was sketching. I saw you when you came up to eat your lunch, and
+I watched you go back to the river."
+
+"Do you live near here, then?" he asked.
+
+"About three miles away."
+
+"And you were watching me all the time?" He put his statement as a
+question.
+
+"No, I wasn't," the young woman answered indignantly. "You happened to
+be in the landscape."
+
+"A blot in it," he suggested. "A hop-toad splashing in the puddle."
+
+The every-ready dimples flashed out at this. "You did make quite a
+splash when you went in. The fish must have thought it was a whale."
+
+"And when I told you the water was fine, and you came in, too, they
+probably took you for a naiad."
+
+She thanked him with an informal little nod.
+
+"I thought you Anglo-Saxons did not give compliments."
+
+"I don't," he immediately answered.
+
+"Oh! If that isn't another one, I'm mistaken, sir." She turned
+indifferently away, apparently of the opinion that she had been quite
+friendly enough to this self-possessed young stranger.
+
+Rewinding the lariat, she fastened it to the saddle, then swung to the
+seat before he could step forward to aid her.
+
+"I hope you will suffer no bad effects from your bath," he said.
+
+"I shall not; but I'm afraid you will. You were in long enough to get
+thoroughly chilled. _Adios, señor_."
+
+He called to her before the pony had taken a dozen steps:
+
+"Your handkerchief, _señorita_!"
+
+She turned in the saddle and waited for him to bring it. He did so, and
+she noticed that he limped badly.
+
+"You have hurt yourself," she said quickly.
+
+"I must have jammed my knee against a rock," he explained. "Nothing
+serious."
+
+"But it pains?"
+
+"Just enough to let me know it's there."
+
+Frowning, she watched him.
+
+"Is it a bruise or a sprain?"
+
+"A wrench, I think. It will be all right if I favor it"
+
+"Favor it? Except the ranch, there is no place nearer than seven miles.
+You are staying at Corbett's, I presume?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You can't walk back there to-night. That is certain." She slipped from
+the saddle. "You'll have to go back to the ranch with me, sir. I can
+walk very well."
+
+He felt a wave of color sweep his face.
+
+"I couldn't take the horse and let you walk."
+
+"That is nonsense, sir. You can, and you shall."
+
+"If I am to take your horse I need not saddle myself upon your
+hospitality. I can ride back to Corbett's, and send the horse home
+to-morrow."
+
+"It is seven miles to Miguel's, and Corbett's is three beyond that. No
+doctor would advise that long ride before your knee receives attention,
+I think, sir, you will have to put up with the ranch till to-morrow."
+
+"You ain't taking my intention right. All I meant was that I didn't like
+to unload myself on your folks; but if you say I'm to do it I'll be very
+happy to be your guest." He said it with a touch of boyish embarrassment
+she found becoming.
+
+"We'll stop at the top of the hill and take on my drawing things," she
+told him.
+
+He need have had no fears for her as a walker, for she was of the elect
+few born to grace of motion. Slight she was, yet strong; the delicacy
+that breathed from her was of the spirit, and consisted with perfect
+health. No Grecian nymph could have trod with lighter or surer step nor
+have unconsciously offered to the eye more supple and beautiful lines of
+limb and body.
+
+Never had the young man seen before anybody whose charm went so
+poignantly to the root of his emotions. Every turn of the head, the set
+of the chin, the droop of the long, thick lashes on the soft cheek, the
+fling of a gesture, the cadence of her voice; they all delighted and
+fascinated him. She was a living embodiment of joy-in-life, of love
+personified.
+
+She packed her sketches and her paraphernalia with businesslike
+directness, careless of whether he did or did not see her water-colors.
+A movement of his hand stayed her as she took from, the easel the one
+upon which she had been engaged.
+
+It represented the sun-drenched slope below them, with the little gulch
+dressed riotously in its gala best of yellows.
+
+"You've got that fine," he told her enthusiastically.
+
+She shook her head, unmoved by praise which did not approve itself to
+her judgment as merited.
+
+"No, I didn't get it at all. A great artist might get the wonder of it;
+but I can't."
+
+"It looks good to me," he said.
+
+"Then I'm afraid you're not a judge," she smiled.
+
+From where they stood a trail wound along the ridge and down into a
+valley beyond. At the farther edge of this, nestling close to the hills
+that took root there, lay the houses of a ranch.
+
+"That is where I live," she told him.
+
+He thought it a lovely spot, almost worthy of her, but obviously he
+could not tell her so. Instead, he voiced an alien thought that happened
+to intrude:
+
+"Do you know Señorita Valdés? But of course you must."
+
+She flung a quick glance at him, questioning.
+
+"Yes, I know her."
+
+"She lives somewhere round here, too, does she not?"
+
+Her arm swept round in a comprehensive gesture. "Over that way, too."
+
+"Do you know her well?"
+
+An odd smile dimpled her face.
+
+"Sometimes I think I do, and then again I wonder."
+
+"I have been told she is beautiful."
+
+"Beauty is in the beholder's eyes, _señor_. Valencia Valdés is as Heaven
+made her."
+
+"I have no doubt; but Heaven took more pains with some of us than
+others--it appears."
+
+Again the dark eyes under the long lashes swept him from the curly head
+to the lean, muscular hands, and approved silently the truth of his
+observation. The clean lithe build of the man, muscles packed so that
+they rippled smoothly like those of a panther, appealed to her trained
+eyes. So, too, did the quiet, steady eyes in the bronzed face, holding
+as they did the look of competent alertness that had come from years of
+frontier life.
+
+"You are interested in Miss Valdés?" she asked politely.
+
+"In a way of speaking, I am. She is one of the reasons why I came here."
+
+"Indeed! She would no doubt be charmed to know of your interest," still
+with polite detachment.
+
+"My interest ain't exactly personal; then again it is," he contributed.
+
+"A sort of an impersonal personal interest?"
+
+"Yes; though I don't quite know what that means."
+
+"Then I can't be expected to," she laughed.
+
+His laughter joined hers; but presently he recurred to his question:
+
+"You haven't told me yet about Miss Valdés. Is she as lovely as they say
+she is?"
+
+"I don't know just how lovely they say she is. Sometimes I have thought
+her very passable; then again--" She broke off with a defiant little
+laugh. "Don't you know, sir, that you mustn't ask one lady to praise the
+beauty of another?"
+
+"I suppose I may ask questions?" he said, much amused.
+
+"It depends a little on the questions."
+
+"Is she tall?"
+
+"Rather. About as tall as I am."
+
+"And dark, of course, since she is a Spanish _señorita_"
+
+"Yes, she is dark."
+
+"Slim and graceful, I expect?"
+
+"She is slender."
+
+"I reckon she banks a heap on that blue blood of hers?"
+
+"Yes; she is prouder of it than there is really any need of, though I
+think probably her pride is unconscious and a matter of habit."
+
+"I haven't been able to make out yet whether you like her," he laughed.
+
+"I don't see what my liking has to do with it."
+
+"I expect to meet her, and I want to use your judgment to base mine on."
+
+"Oh, you expect to meet her?"
+
+She said it lightly, yet with a certain emphasis that he noted.
+
+"Don't you think she will let me? Do I have to show blue blood before I
+can be presented? One of my ancestors came over on the _Mayflower_. Will
+that do?"
+
+Her raillery met his.
+
+"That ought to do, I should think. I suppose you have brought
+genealogical proofs with you?"
+
+"I clean forgot. Won't you please get on and ride now? I feel like a
+false alarm, playing the invalid on you, ma'am."
+
+"No; I'll walk. We're almost at the ranch. It's just under this hill.
+But there's one thing I want to ask of you as a favor."
+
+"It's yours," he replied briefly.
+
+She seemed to struggle with some emotion before she spoke:
+
+"Please don't mention Valencia Valdés while you are at the ranch. I--I
+have reasons, sir."
+
+"Certainly; I'll do as you prefer."
+
+To himself he thought that there was probably a feud of some kind
+between the two families that might make a mention of the name
+unpleasant. "And that reminds me that I don't know what your name is.
+Mine is Muir--Richard Muir."
+
+"And mine is Maria Yuste."
+
+He offered her his brown hand. "I'm right happy to meet you, Señorita
+Maria."
+
+"Welcome to the Yuste _hacienda, señor_. What is ours is yours, so long
+as you are our guest. I pray you make yourself at home," she said as
+they rode into the courtyard.
+
+Two Mexican lads came running forward; and one whom she called Pedro
+took the horse, while the other went into the house to attend to a quick
+command she gave in Spanish.
+
+The man who had named himself Richard Muir followed his hostess through
+a hall, across an open court, and into a living-room carpeted with
+Navajo rugs, at the end of which was a great open fireplace bearing a
+Spanish motto across it.
+
+Large windows, set three feet deep in the thick adobe walls, were filled
+with flowers or padded with sofa pillows for seats. One of these his
+hostess indicated to the limping man.
+
+"If you will be seated here for the present, sir, your room will be
+ready very soon."
+
+A few minutes later the fisherman found himself in a large bedroom. He
+was seated in an easy-chair before a crackling fire of _piñon_ knots.
+
+A messenger had been dispatched for a doctor, Señorita Yuste had told
+him, and in the meantime he was to make himself quite at home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AT THE YUSTE HACIENDA
+
+
+The wrench to the fisherman's knee proved more serious than he had
+anticipated. The doctor pronounced it out of the question that he should
+be moved for some days at least.
+
+The victim was more than content, because he was very much interested in
+the young woman who had been his rescuer, and because it gave him a
+chance to observe at first hand the remains of the semifeudal system
+that had once obtained in New Mexico and California.
+
+It was easy for him to see that Señorita Maria Yuste was still
+considered by her dependents as a superior being, one far removed from
+them by the divinity of caste that hedged her in. They gave her service;
+and she, on her part, looked out for their needs, and was the patron
+saint to whom they brought all their troubles.
+
+It was an indolent, happy life the peons on the estate led, patriarchal
+in its nature, and far removed from the throb of the money-mad world.
+They had enough to eat and to wear. There was a roof over their heads.
+There were girls to be loved, dances to be danced, and guitars to be
+strummed. Wherefore, then, should the young men feel the spur of an
+ambition to take the world by the throat and wring success from it?
+
+It had been more years than he could remember since this young American
+had taken a real holiday except for an occasional fishing trip on the
+Gunnison or into Wyoming. He had lived a life of activity. Now for the
+first time he learned how to be lazy. To dawdle indolently on one of the
+broad porches, while Miss Yuste sat beside him and busied herself over
+some needlework, was a sensuous delight that filled him with content. He
+felt that he would like to bask there in the warm sunshine forever.
+After all, why should he pursue wealth and success when love and
+laughter waited for him in this peaceful valley chosen of the gods?
+
+The fourth morning of his arrival he hobbled out to the south porch
+after breakfast, to find his hostess in corduroy skirt, high laced
+boots, and pinched-in sombrero. She was drawing on a pair of driving
+gauntlets. One of the stable boys was standing beside a rig he had just
+driven to the house.
+
+The young woman flung a flashing smile at her guest.
+
+"Good day, Señor Muir. I hope you had a good night's rest, and that your
+knee did not greatly pain you?"
+
+"I feel like a colt in the pasture--fit for anything. But the doctor
+won't have it that way. He says I'm an invalid," returned the young man
+whimsically.
+
+"The doctor ought to know," she laughed.
+
+"I expect it won't do me any harm to lie still for a day or two. We
+Americans all have the git-up-and-dust habit. We got to keep going,
+though Heaven knows what we're going for sometimes."
+
+Though he did not know it, her interest in him was considerable, though
+certainly critical. He was a type outside of her experience, and, by the
+law of opposites, attracted her. Every line of him showed tremendous
+driving power, force, energy. He was not without some touch of Western
+swagger; but it went well with the air of youth to which his boyish
+laugh and wavy, sun-reddened hair contributed.
+
+The men of her station that she knew were of one pattern, indolent,
+well-bred aristocrats, despisers of trade and of those who indulged in
+it more than was necessary to live. But her mother had been an American
+girl, and there was in her blood a strong impulse toward the great
+nation of which her father's people were not yet in spirit entirely a
+part.
+
+"I have to drive to Antelope Springs this morning. It is not a rough
+trip at all. If you would care to see the country----"
+
+She paused, a question in her face. Her guest jumped at the chance.
+
+"There is nothing I should like better. If you are sure it will be no
+inconvenience."
+
+"I am sure I should not have asked you if I had not wanted you," she
+said; and he took it as a reproof.
+
+She drove a pair of grays that took the road with the spirit of racers.
+The young woman sat erect and handled the reins masterfully, the while
+Muir leaned back and admired the steadiness of the slim, strong wrists,
+the businesslike directness with which she gave herself to her work, the
+glow of life whipped into her eyes and cheeks by the exhilaration of the
+pace.
+
+"I suppose you know all about these old land-grants that were made when
+New Mexico was a Spanish colony and later when it was a part of Mexico,"
+he suggested.
+
+Her dark eyes rested gravely on him an instant before she answered:
+"Most of us that were brought up on them know something of the facts."
+
+"You are familiar with the Valdés grant?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And with the Moreño grant, made by Governor Armijo?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The claims conflict, do they not?"
+
+"The Moreño grant is taken right from the heart of the Valdés grant. It
+includes all the springs, the valleys, the irrigable land; takes in
+everything but the hilly pasture land in the mountains, which, in
+itself, is valueless."
+
+"The land included in this grant is of great value?"
+
+"It pastures at the present time fifty thousand sheep and about twelve
+thousand head of cattle."
+
+"Owned by Miss Valdés?"
+
+"Owned by her and her tenants."
+
+"She's what you call a cattle queen, then. Literally, the cattle on a
+thousand hills are hers."
+
+"As they were her father's and her grandfather's before her, to be held
+in trust for the benefit of about eight hundred tenants," she answered
+quietly.
+
+"Tell me more about it. The original grantee was Don Bartolomé de
+Valdés, was he not?"
+
+"Yes. He was the great-great-grandson of Don Alvaro de Valdés y
+Castillo, who lost his head because he was a braver and a better man
+than the king. Don Bartolomé, too, was a great soldier and ruler. He was
+generous and public-spirited to a fault; and when the people of this
+province suffered from Indian raids he distributed thousands of sheep to
+relieve their distress."
+
+"Bully for the old boy. He was a real philanthropist."
+
+"Not at all. He _had_ to do it. His position required it of him."
+
+"That was it, eh?"
+
+Her dusky eyes questioned him.
+
+"You couldn't understand, I suppose, since you are an American, how he
+was the father and friend of all the people in these parts; how his
+troopers and _vaqueros_ were a defense to the whole province?"
+
+"I think I can understand that."
+
+"So it was, even to his death, that he looked out for the poor peons
+dependent upon him. His herds grew mighty; and he asked of Facundo
+Megares, governor of the royal province, a grant of land upon which to
+pasture them. These herds were for his people; but they were in his name
+and belonged to him. Why should he not have been given land for them,
+since his was the sword that had won the land against the Apaches?"
+
+"You ain't heard me say he shouldn't have had it"
+
+"So the _alcalde_ executed the act of possession for a tract, to be
+bounded on the south by Crow Spring, following its cordillera to the Ojo
+del Chico, east to the Pedornal range, north to the Ojo del Cibolo
+--Buffalo Springs--and west to the great divide. It was a princely
+estate, greater than the State of Delaware; and Don Bartolomé held it
+for the King of Spain, and ruled over it with powers of life and death,
+but always wisely and generously, like the great-hearted gentleman he
+was."
+
+"Bully for him."
+
+"And at his death his son ruled in his stead; and _his_ only son died in
+the Spanish-American War, as a lieutenant of volunteers in the United
+States Army. He was shot before Santiago."
+
+The voice died away in her tremulous throat; and he wondered if it could
+be possible that this girl had been betrothed to the young soldier. But
+presently she spoke again, cheerfully and lightly:
+
+"Wherefore, it happens that there remains only a daughter of the house
+of Valdés to carry the burden that should have been her brother's, to
+look out for his people, and to protect them both against themselves and
+others. She may fail; but, if I know her, the failure will not be
+because she has not tried."
+
+"Good for her. I'd like to shake her aristocratic little paw and tell
+her to buck in and win."
+
+"She would no doubt be grateful for your sympathy," the young woman
+answered, flinging a queer little look of irony at him.
+
+"But what's the hitch about the Valdés grant? Why is there a doubt of
+its legality?"
+
+She smiled gaily at him.
+
+"No person who desires to remain healthy has any doubts in this
+neighborhood. We are all partizans of Valencia Valdés; and many of her
+tenants are such warm followers that they would not think twice about
+shedding blood in defense of her title. You must remember that they hold
+through her right. If she were dispossessed so would they be."
+
+"Is that a threat? I mean, would it be if I were a claimant?" he asked,
+meeting her smile pleasantly.
+
+"Oh, no. Miss Valdés would regret any trouble, and so should I." A
+shadow crossed her face as she spoke. "But she could not prevent her
+friends from violence, I am afraid. You see, she is only a girl, after
+all. They would move without her knowledge. I know they would."
+
+"How would they move? Would it be a knife in the dark?"
+
+His gray eyes, which had been warm as summer sunshine on a hill, were
+now fixed on her with chill inscrutability.
+
+"I don't know. It might be that. Very likely." He saw the pulse in her
+throat beating fast as she hesitated before she plunged on. "A warning
+is not a threat. If you know this Señor Gordon, tell him to sell
+whatever claim he has. Tell him, at least, to fight from a distance; not
+to come to this valley himself. Else his life would be at hazard."
+
+"If he is a man that will not keep him away. He will fight for what is
+his all the more because there is danger. What's more, he'll do his
+fighting on the ground--unless he's a quitter."
+
+She sighed.
+
+"I was afraid so."
+
+"But you have not told me yet the alleged defect in the Valdés claim.
+There must be some point of law upon which the thing hangs."
+
+"It is claimed that Don Bartolomé did not take up his actual residence
+on the grant, as the law required. Then, too, he himself was later
+governor of the province, and while he was president of the Ayuntamiento
+at Tome he officially indorsed some small grants of land made from this
+estate. He did this because he wanted the country developed, and was
+willing to give part of what he had to his neighbors; but I suppose the
+contestant will claim this showed he had abandoned his grant."
+
+"I see. Title not perfected," he summed up briefly.
+
+"We deny it, of course--I mean, Miss Valdés does. She shows that in his
+will the old _don_ mentions it, and that her father lived there without
+interruption, even though Manuel Armijo later granted the best of it to
+José Moreño."
+
+"It would be pretty tough for her to be fired out now. I reckon she's
+attached to the place, her and her folks having lived there so long,"
+the young man mused aloud.
+
+"Her whole life is wrapped up in it. It is the home of her people. She
+belongs to it, and it to her," the girl answered.
+
+"Mebbe this Gordon is a white man. I reckon he wouldn't drive her out.
+Like as not he'd fix up a compromise. There's enough for both."
+
+She shook her head decisively.
+
+"No. It would have to be a money settlement. Miss Valdés's people are
+settled all over the estate. Some of them have bought small ranches. You
+see, she couldn't--throw them down--as you Americans say."
+
+"That's right," he agreed. "Well, I shouldn't wonder but it can be fixed
+up some way."
+
+They had been driving across a flat cactus country, and for some time
+had been approaching the grove of willows into which she now turned.
+Some wooden barns, a corral, an adobe house, and outhouses marked the
+place as one of the more ambitious ranches of the valley.
+
+An old Mexican came forward with a face wreathed in smiles.
+
+_"Buenos,_ Doña Maria," he cried, in greeting.
+
+"_Buenos,_ Antonio. This gentleman is Mr. Richard Muir."
+
+"_Buenos, señor_. A friend of Doña Maria is a friend of Antonio."
+
+"The older people call me '_doña,_'" the girl explained. "I suppose they
+think it strange a girl should have to do with affairs, and so they
+think of me as '_doña,_' instead of '_señorita,_' to satisfy
+themselves."
+
+A vague suspicion, that had been born in the young man's mind
+immediately after his rescue from the river now recurred.
+
+His first thought then had been that this young woman must be Valencia
+Valdés; but he had dismissed it when he had seen the initial M on her
+kerchief, and when she had subsequently left him to infer that such was
+not the case.
+
+He remembered now in what respect she was held in the home _hacienda_;
+how everybody they had met had greeted her with almost reverence. It was
+not likely that two young heiresses, both of them beautiful orphans,
+should be living within a few miles of each other.
+
+Besides, he remembered that this very Antelope Springs was mentioned in
+the deed of conveyance which he had lately examined before leaving the
+mining camp. She was giving orders about irrigating ditches as if she
+were owner.
+
+It followed then that she must be Valencia Valdés. There could be no
+doubt of it.
+
+He watched her as she talked to old Antonio and gave the necessary
+directions. How radiant and happy she was in this life which had fallen
+to her; by inheritance! He vowed she should not be disinherited through
+any action of his. He owed her his life. At least, he could spare her
+this blow.
+
+They drove home more silently than they had come. He was thinking over
+the best way to do what he was going to do. The evening before they had
+sat together in front of the fire in the living-room, while her old
+duenna had nodded in a big arm-chair. So they would sit to-night and
+to-morrow night.
+
+He would send at once for the papers upon which his claim depended, and
+he would burn them before her eyes. After that they would be
+friends--and, in the end, much more than friends.
+
+He was still dreaming his air-castle, when they drove through the gate
+that led to her home. In front of the porch a saddled bronco trailed its
+rein, and near by stood a young man in riding-breeches and spurs. He
+turned at the sound of wheels; and the man in the buggy saw that it was
+Manuel Pesquiera.
+
+The Spaniard started when he recognized the other, and his eyes grew
+bright. He moved forward to assist the young woman in alighting; but, in
+spite of his bad knee, the Coloradoan was out of the rig and before him.
+
+"_Buenos, amigo_" she nodded to Don Manuel, lightly releasing the hand
+of Muir.
+
+"_Buenos, señorita_" returned that young man. "I behold you are already
+acquaint' with Mr. Richard Gordon, whose arrival is to me very
+unexpect'."
+
+She seemed to grow tall before her guest's eyes; to stand in a kind of
+proud splendor that had eclipsed her girlish slimness. The dark eyes
+under the thick lashes looked long and searchingly at him.
+
+"Mr. Richard Gordon? I understand this gentleman's name to be Muir," she
+made voice gently.
+
+Dick laughed with a touch of shame. Now once in his life he wished he
+could prove an alibi. For, under the calm judgment of that steady gaze,
+the thing he had done seemed scarce defensible.
+
+"Don Manuel has it right, _señorita_. Gordon is my name; Muir, too, for
+that matter. Richard Muir Gordon is what I was christened."
+
+The underlying red of her cheeks had fled and left them clear olive. One
+might have thought the scornful eyes had absorbed all the fire of her
+face.
+
+"So you have lied to me, sir?"
+
+"Let me lay the facts before you, first. That's a hard word,
+_señorita_."
+
+"You gave your name to me as Muir, You imposed yourself on my
+hospitality under false pretenses. You are only a spy, come to my house
+to mole for evidence against me."
+
+"No--no!" he cried sharply. "You will remember that I did not want to
+come. I foresaw that it might be awkward, but I did not foresee this."
+
+"That you would be found out before you had won your end? I believe you,
+sir," she retorted contemptuously.
+
+"I see I'm condemned before I'm heard."
+
+"Will any explanation alter the facts? Are you not a liar and a cheat?
+You gave me a false name to spy out the land."
+
+"Am I the only one that gave a wrong name?" he asked.
+
+"That is different," she flamed. "You had made a mistake and, half in
+sport, I encouraged you in it. But you seem to have found out my real
+name since. Yet you still accepted what I had to offer, under a false
+name, under false pretenses. You questioned me about the grants. You
+have lived a lie from first to last."
+
+"It ain't as bad as you say, ma'am. Don Manuel had told me it wasn't
+safe to come here in my own name. I didn't care about the safety, but I
+wanted to see the situation exactly as it was. I didn't know who you
+were when I came here. I took you to be Miss Maria Yuste. I----"
+
+"My name is Maria Yuste Valencia Valdés," the young woman explained
+proudly. "When, may I ask, did you discover who I was?"
+
+"I guessed it at Antelope Springs."
+
+"Then why did you not tell me then who you are? Surely that was the time
+to tell me. My deception did you no harm; yours was one no man of honor
+could have endured after he knew who I was."
+
+"I didn't aim to keep it up very long. I meant, in a day or two----"
+
+"A day or two," she cried, in a blaze of scorn. "After you had found out
+all I had to tell; after you had got evidence to back your robber-claim;
+after you had made me breathe the same air so long with a spy?"
+
+Her face was very white; but she faced him in her erect slimness, with
+her dark eyes fixed steadily on him.
+
+"You ain't quite fair to me; but let that pass for the present. When I
+asked you about the grants didn't you guess who I was? Play square with
+me. Didn't you have a notion?"
+
+A flood of spreading color swept back into her face.
+
+"No, I didn't. I thought perhaps you were an agent of the claimant; but
+I didn't know you were passing under a false name, that you were aware
+in whose house you were staying. I thought you an honest man, on the
+wrong side--nothing so contemptible as a spy."
+
+"That idea's fixed in your mind, is it?" he asked quietly.
+
+"Beyond any power of yours to remove it," she flashed back.
+
+"The facts, Señor Gordon, speak loud," put in Pesquiera derisively.
+
+Dick Gordon paid not the least attention to him. His gaze was fastened
+on the girl whose contempt was lashing him.
+
+"Very well, Miss Valdés. Well let it go at that just now. All I've got
+to say is that some day you'll hate yourself for what you have just
+said."
+
+Neither of them had raised their voices from first to last. Hers had
+been low and intense, pulsing with the passion that would out. His had
+held its even way.
+
+"I hate myself now, that I have had you here so long, that I have been
+the dupe of a common cheat."
+
+"All right. 'Nough said, ma'am. More would certainly be surplusage. I'll
+not trouble you any longer now. But I want you to remember that there's
+a day coming when you'll travel a long way to take back all of what
+you've just been saying. I want to thank you for all your kindness to
+me. I'm always at your service for what you did for me. Good-bye, Miss
+Valdés, for the present."
+
+"I am of impression, sir, that you go not too soon," said Pesquiera
+suavely.
+
+Miss Valdés turned on her heel and swept up the steps of the porch; but
+she stopped an instant before she entered the house to say over her
+shoulder:
+
+"A buggy will be at your disposal to take you to Corbett's. If it is
+convenient, I should like to have you go to-night."
+
+He smiled ironically.
+
+"I'll not trouble you for the buggy, _señorita_. If I'm all you say I
+am, likely I'm a horse thief, too. Anyhow, we won't risk it. Walking's
+good enough for me."
+
+"Just as you please," she choked, and forthwith disappeared into the
+house.
+
+Gordon turned from gazing after her to find the little Spaniard bowing
+before him.
+
+"Consider me at your service, Mr. Gordon----"
+
+"Can't use you," cut in Dick curtly.
+
+"I was remarking that, as her kinsman, I, Don Manuel Pesquiera, stand
+prepared to make good her words. What the Señorita Valdés says, I say,
+too."
+
+"Then don't say it aloud, you little monkey, or I'll throw you over the
+house," Dick promised immediately.
+
+Don Manuel clicked his heels together and twirled his black mustache.
+
+"I offer you, sir, the remedy of a gentleman. You, sir, shall choose the
+weapons."
+
+The Anglo-Saxon laughed in his face.
+
+"Good. Let it be toasting-forks, at twenty paces."
+
+The challenger drew himself up to his full five feet six.
+
+"You choose to be what you call droll. Sir, I give you the word,
+poltroon--_lâche_--coward."
+
+"Oh, go chase yourself."
+
+One of Pesquiera's little gloved hands struck the other's face with a
+resounding slap. Next instant he was lifted from his feet and tucked
+under Dick's arm.
+
+There he remained, kicking and struggling, in a manner most undignified
+for a blue blood of Castile, while the Coloradoan stepped leisurely
+forward to the irrigating ditch which supplied water for the garden and
+the field of grain behind. This was now about two feet deep, and running
+strong. In it was deposited, at full length, the clapper little person
+of Don Manuel Pesquiera, after which Dick Gordon turned and went limping
+down the road.
+
+From the shutters of her room a girl had looked down and seen it all.
+She saw Don Manuel rescue himself from the ditch, all dripping with
+water. She saw him gesticulating wildly, as he cursed the retreating
+foe, before betaking himself hurriedly from view to the rear of the
+house, probably to dry himself and nurse his rage the while. She saw
+Gordon go on his limping way without a single backward glance.
+
+Then she flung herself on her bed and burst into tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+"AN OPTIMISTIC GUY"
+
+
+Dick Gordon hobbled up the road, quite unaware for some time that he had
+a ricked knee. His thoughts were busy with the finale that had just been
+enacted. He could not keep from laughing ruefully at the difference
+between it and the one of his day-dreams. He was too much of a Westerner
+not to see the humor of the comedy in which he had been forced to take a
+leading part, but he had insight enough to divine that it was much more
+likely to prove melodrama than farce.
+
+Don Manuel was not the man to sit down under such an insult as he had
+endured, even though he had brought it upon himself. It would too surely
+be noised round that the _Americano_ was the claimant to the estate, in
+which event he was very likely to play the part of a sheath for restless
+stilettos.
+
+This did not trouble him as much as it would have done some men. The
+real sting of the episode lay in Valencia Valdés' attitude toward him.
+He had been kicked out for his unworthiness. He had been cast aside as a
+spy and a sneak.
+
+The worst of it was that he felt his clumsiness deserved no less an
+issue to the adventure. Confound that little Don Manuel for bobbing up
+at such an inconvenient time! It was fierce luck.
+
+He stopped his tramp up the hill, and looked back over the valley.
+Legally it was all his. So his Denver lawyers had told him, after
+looking the case over carefully. The courts would decide for him in all
+probability; morally he had not the shadow of a claim. The valley in
+justice belonged to those who had settled in it and were using it for
+their needs. His claim was merely a paper one. It had not a scintilla of
+natural justice back of it.
+
+He resumed his journey. By this time his knee was sending telegrams of
+pain to headquarters. He cut an aspen by the roadside and trimmed it to
+a walking-stick and, as he went forward, leaned more and more heavily
+upon it.
+
+"I'm going to have a game leg for fair if I don't look out," he told
+himself ruefully. "This right pin surely ain't good for a twelve-mile
+tramp."
+
+It was during one of his frequent stops to rest that a buggy appeared
+round the turn from the same direction he had come. It drew to a halt in
+front of him, and the lad who was driving got out.
+
+"Señorita Maria sends a carriage for Señor Gordon to take him to
+Corbett's," he said.
+
+Dick was on hand with a sardonic smile.
+
+"Tell the _señorita_ that Mr. Gordon regrets having put her to so much
+trouble, but that he needs the exercise and prefers to walk."
+
+"The _señorita_ said I was to insist, _señor_."
+
+"Tell your mistress that I'm very much obliged to her, but have made
+other arrangements. Explain to her I appreciate the offer just the
+same."
+
+The lad hesitated, and Dick pushed him into decision.
+
+"That's all right, Juan--José--Pedro--Francisco--whatever your name is.
+You've done your levelest. Now, hike back to the ranch. _Vamos! Sabe._"
+
+"_Si, señor._"
+
+Dick heard the wheels disappear in the distance, and laughed aloud.
+
+"That young woman's conscience is hurting her. I reckon this tramp to
+Corbett's is going to worry her tender heart about as much as it does
+me, and I've got to sweat blood before I get through with it. Here goes
+again, Dicky."
+
+Every step sent a pain shooting through him, but he was the last man to
+give up on that account what he had undertaken.
+
+"She let me go without any lunch," he chuckled. "I'll bet that troubles
+her some, too, when she remembers. She's got me out of the house, but
+I'll bet the last strike in the Nancy K. against a dollar Mex that she
+ain't got me out of her mind by a heap."
+
+A buggy appeared in sight driven by a stout, red-faced old man.
+Evidently he was on his way to the ranch.
+
+"Who, hello, Doctor! I'm plumb glad to see you; couldn't wait till you
+came, and had just to start out to meet you," cried Dick.
+
+He stood laughing at the amazement in the face of the doctor, who was in
+two minds whether to get angry or not.
+
+"Doggone your hide, what are you doing here? Didn't I tell you not to
+walk more than a few steps?" that gentleman protested.
+
+"But you didn't leave me a motor-car and, my visit being at an end, I
+ce'tainly had to get back to Corbett's." As he spoke he climbed slowly
+into the rig. "That leg of mine is acting like sixty, Doctor. When you
+happened along I was wondering how in time I was ever going to make it."
+
+"You may have lamed yourself for life. It's the most idiotic thing I
+ever heard of. I don't see why Miss Valdés let you come. Dad blame it,
+have I got to watch my patients like a hen does its chicks? Ain't any of
+you got a lick of sense? Why didn't she send a rig if you had to come?"
+the doctor demanded.
+
+"Seems to me she did mention a rig, but I thought I'd rather walk,"
+explained Gordon casually, much amused at Dr. Watson's chagrined wonder.
+
+"Walk!" snorted the physician. "You'll not walk, but be carried into an
+operating-room if you're not precious lucky. You deserve to lose that
+leg, and I don't say you won't."
+
+"I'm an optimistic guy, Doctor. I'll say it for you. I ain't got any
+legs to spare."
+
+"Huh! Some people haven't got the sense of a chicken with its head cut
+off."
+
+"Now you're shouting. Go for me, Doc. Then, mebbe, I'll do better next
+time."
+
+The doctor gave up this incorrigible patient and relapsed into silence,
+from which he came occasionally with an explosive "Huh!" Once he broke
+out with: "Didn't she feed you well enough, or was it just that you
+didn't _know_ when you were well off?"
+
+For he was aware that his patient's fever was rising and, like a good
+practitioner, he fumed at such useless relapse.
+
+The knee had been doing fine. Now there would be the devil to pay with
+it. The utter senselessness of the proceeding irritated Watson. What in
+Mexico had got into the young idiot to make him do such a fool thing?
+The doctor guessed at a quarrel between him and Miss Valdés. But the
+close-mouthed American gave him no grounds upon which to base his
+suspicion.
+
+The first thing that Dick did after reaching Corbett's was to send two
+telegrams. One was addressed to Messrs. Hughes & Willets, 411-417
+Equitable Building, Denver, Colorado; the other went to Stephen Davis,
+Cripple Creek, of the same state.
+
+Doctor Watson hustled his patient to bed and did his best to relieve the
+increasing pain in the swollen knee. He swore gently and sputtered and
+fumed as he worked, restraining himself only when Mrs. Corbett came into
+the room with hot water, towels, compresses, and other supplies.
+
+"What about a nurse?" Watson wanted to know of Mrs. Corbett, a large
+motherly woman whose kind heart always found room in it for the weak and
+helpless.
+
+"I got no room for one. Juanita and I will take care of him. The work's
+slack now. We'll have time."
+
+"He's going to take a heap of nursing," the doctor answered, rubbing his
+unshaven chin dubiously with the palm of his hand. "See how the fever's
+climbed up even in the last half hour. That boy's going to be a mighty
+sick _hombre_."
+
+"I'm used to nursing, and Juanita is the best help I ever had, if she
+_is_ a Mexican. You may trust him to us."
+
+"Hmp! I wasn't thinking of him, but of you. Couldn't be in better hands,
+but it's an imposition for him to go racing all over these hills with a
+game leg and expect you to pull him through."
+
+Before midnight Dick was in a raging fever. In delirium he tossed from
+side to side, sometimes silent for long stretches, then babbling
+fragments of forgotten scenes rescued by his memory automatically from
+the wild and picturesque past of the man. Now he fancied himself again a
+schoolboy, now a ranger in Arizona, now mushing on the snow trails of
+Alaska. At times he would imagine that he was defending his mine against
+attacking strikers, or that he was combing the Rincons for horse
+thieves. Out of his turbid past flared for an instant dramatic moments
+of comedy or tragedy. These passed like the scenes of a motion-picture
+story, giving place to something else.
+
+In the end he came back always to the adventure he was still living.
+
+"You're a spy.... You're a liar and a cheat.... You imposed yourself
+upon my hospitality under false pretenses.... I hate myself for
+breathing the same air as you." He would break off to laugh foolishly,
+in a high-pitched note of derision at himself. "Stand up, Dick Gordon,
+and hear the lady tell you what a coyote you are. Stan' up and face the
+music, you quitter. Liar ... spy ... cheat! That's you, Dick Gordon,
+un'erstand?"
+
+Or the sick mind of the man would forget for the moment that they had
+quarreled. His tongue would run over conversations that they had had,
+cherishing and repeating over and over again her gay little quips and
+sallies or her light phrases.
+
+"Valencia Valdés is as God made her. Now you're throwing sixes, ma'am.
+Sure she's like that. The devil helped a heap to make most of us what we
+are, but I reckon God made that little lady early in the mo'ning when He
+was feeling fine.... Say, I wish you'd look at me like that again and
+light up with another of them dimply smiles. I got a surprise for you,
+Princess of the Rio Chama. Honest, I have. Sure as you're a foot
+high.... Never you mind what it is. Just you wait a while and I'll
+spring it when the time's good and ready. I got to wait till the papers
+come. See? ... Oh, shucks, you're sore at me again! Liar ... cheat ...
+spy! Say, I know when I've had a-plenty. She don't like me. I'm goin' to
+pull my freight for the Kotzebue country up in Alaska.
+
+  '_On the road to Kotzebue, optimistic through and through,
+  We'll hit the trail together, boy, once more, jest me an' you_.'
+
+Funny how women act, ain't it? Stand up and take your medicine--liar ...
+cheat ... spy! She said it, didn't she? Well, then, it must be so. What
+you kickin' about?"
+
+So he would run on until the fever had for the hour exhausted itself and
+he lay still among the pillows. Sometimes he talked the strong language
+of the man in battle with other men, but even in his oaths there was
+nothing of vulgarity.
+
+Mrs. Corbett took the bulk of the nursing on her own broad fat
+shoulders, but during the day she was often relieved by her maid while
+she got a few hours of sleep.
+
+Juanita was a slim, straight girl not yet nineteen. Even before his
+sickness Dick, with the instinct for deference to all women of
+self-respect that obtains among frontiersmen, had won the gratitude of
+the shy creature. There was something wild and sylvan about her sweet
+grace. The deep, soft eyes in the brown oval face were as appealing as
+those of a doe wounded by the hunter.
+
+She developed into a famous nurse. Low-voiced and soft-footed, she would
+coax the delirious man to lie down when he grew excited or to take his
+medicine according to the orders of the doctor.
+
+It was on the third day after Gordon's return to Corbett's that Juanita
+heard a whistle while she was washing dishes after supper in the
+kitchen. Presently she slipped out of the back door and took the trail
+to the corral. A man moved forward out of the gloom to meet her.
+
+"Is it you, Pablo?"
+
+A slender youth, lean-flanked and broad-shouldered, her visitor turned
+out to be. His outstretched hands went forward swiftly to meet hers.
+
+"Juanita, light of my life?" he cried softly. "_Corazon mia!_"
+
+She submitted with a little reluctant protest to his caress. "I have but
+a minute, Pablo. The _señora_ wants to walk over to Dolan's place. I am
+to stay with the sick American."
+
+He exploded with low, fierce energy. "A thousand curses take the gringo!
+Why should you nurse him? Is he not an enemy to the _señorita_--to all
+in the valley who have bought from her or her father or her grandfather?
+Is he not here to throw us out--a thief, a spy, a snake in the grass?"
+
+"No, he is not. _Señor_ Gordon is good ... and kind."
+
+"Bah! You are but a girl. He gives you soft words--and so----" The
+jealousy in him flared suddenly out. He caught his sweetheart tightly by
+the arm. "Has he made love to you, this gringo? Has he whispered soft,
+false lies in your ear, Juanita? If he has----"
+
+She tried to twist free from him. "You are hurting my arm, Pablo," the
+girl cried.
+
+"It is my heart you hurt, _niña_. Is it true that this thief has stolen
+the love of my Juanita?"
+
+"You are a fool, Pablo. He has never said a hundred words to me. All
+through his sickness he has talked and talked--but it is of _Señorita_
+Valdés that he has raved."
+
+"So. He will rob her of all she has and yet can talk of loving her. Do
+you not see he is a villain, that he has the forked tongue, as old Bear
+Paw, the Navajo, says of all gringoes? But let Señor Gordon beware. His
+time is short. He will not live to drive us from the valley. So say I.
+So say all the men in the valley."
+
+"No--no! I will not have it, Pablo. You do not know. This _Señor_ Gordon
+is good. He would not drive us away." Her arms slid around the neck of
+her lover and she pleaded with him impetuously. "You must not let them
+hurt him, for it is a kind heart he has."
+
+"Why should I interfere? He is only a gringo. Let him die. I tell you he
+means harm to all of us."
+
+"I do not know my Pablo when he talks like this. My Pablo was always
+kind and good and of a soft heart. I do not love him when he is cruel."
+
+"It is then that you love the American," he cried. "Did I not know it?
+Did I not say so?"
+
+"You say much that is foolish, _muchacho_. The American is a stranger to
+me ... and you are Pablo. But how can I love you when your heart is full
+of cruelty and jealousy and revenge? Go to the Blessed Virgin and
+confess before the good priest your sins, _amigo_."
+
+"_Amigo!_ Since when have I been friend to you and not lover, Juanita? I
+know well for how long--since this gringo with the white face crossed
+your trail."
+
+Suddenly she flung away from him. "_Muy bien!_ You shall think as you
+please. Adios, my friend with the head of a donkey! _Adios, icabron!_"
+
+She was gone, light as the wind, flying with swift feet down the trail
+to the house. Sulkily he waited for her to come out again, but the girl
+did not appear. He gave her a full half hour before he swung to the
+saddle and turned the head of his pony toward the Valdés' hacienda. A
+new and poignant bitterness surged in his heart. Had this stranger, who
+was bringing trouble to the whole valley, come between him and little
+Juanita, whom he had loved since they had been children? Had he stolen
+her heart with his devilish wiles? The hard glitter in the black eyes of
+the Mexican told that he would punish him if this were true.
+
+His younger brother Pedro took the horse from him as he rode into the
+ranch plaza an hour later.
+
+"You are to go to the _señorita_ at once and tell her how the gringo is,
+Pablo." After a moment he added sullenly: "_Maldito_, how is the son of
+a thief?"
+
+"Sick, Pedro, sick unto death. The devil, as you say, may take him yet
+without any aid from us," answered Pablo Menendez brusquely.
+
+"Why does the _señorita_ send you every day to find out how he is? Can
+she not telephone? And why should she care what becomes of the traitor?"
+demanded Pedro angrily.
+
+His brother shrugged. "How should I know?" He had troubles enough with
+the fancies of another woman without bothering about those of the
+_señorita_.
+
+Valencia Valdés was on the porch waiting for her messenger.
+
+"How is he, Pablo? Did you see the doctor and talk with him? What does
+he say?"
+
+"_Si, señorita_. I saw Doctor Watson and he send you this letter. They
+say the American is a sick man--oh, very, very sick!"
+
+The young woman dismissed him with a nod and hurried to her room. She
+read the letter from the doctor and looked out of one of the deep adobe
+windows into the starry night. It happened to be the same window from
+which she had last seen him go hobbling down the road. She rose and put
+out the light so that she could weep the more freely. It was hard for
+her to say why her heart was so heavy. To herself she denied that she
+cared for this jaunty debonair scoundrel. He was no doubt all she had
+told him on that day when she had driven him away.
+
+Yes, but she had sent him to pain and illness ... perhaps to death. The
+tears fell fast upon the white cheeks. Surely it was not her fault that
+he had been so obstinate. Yet--down in the depth of her heart she knew
+she loved the courage that had carried him with such sardonic derision
+out upon the road for the long tramp that had so injured him. And there
+was an inner citadel within her that refused to believe him the sneaking
+pup she had accused him of being. No man with such honest eyes, who
+stood so erect and graceful in the image of God, could be so
+contemptible a cur. There was something fine about the spirit of the
+man. She had sensed the kinship of it without being able to put a finger
+exactly upon the quality she meant. He might be a sinner, but it was
+hard to believe him a small and mean one. The dynamic spark of
+self-respect burned too brightly in his soul for that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+JUANITA
+
+
+The fifth day marked the crisis of Gordon's illness. After that he began
+slowly to mend.
+
+One morning he awoke to a realization that he had been very ill. His
+body was still weak, but his mind was coherent again. A slender young
+woman moved about the room setting things in order.
+
+"Aren't you Juanita?" he asked.
+
+Her heart gave a leap. This was the first time he had recognized her.
+Sometimes in his delirium he had caught at her hand ind tried to kiss
+it, but always under the impression that she was Miss Valdés.
+
+"_Si, señor_," she answered quietly.
+
+"I thought so." He added after a moment, with the childlike innocence a
+sick person has upon first coming back to sanity: "There couldn't be two
+girls as pretty as you in this end of the valley, could there?"
+
+Under her soft brown skin the color flooded Juanita's face. "I--I don't
+know." She spoke in a flame of embarrassment, so abrupt had been his
+compliment and so sincere.
+
+"I've been very sick, haven't I?"
+
+She nodded. "Oh, _señor_, we have been--what you call--worried."
+
+"Good of you, Juanita. Who has been taking care of me?"
+
+"Mrs. Corbett."
+
+"And Juanita?"
+
+"Sometimes."
+
+"Ah! That's good of you, too, _amiga_."
+
+She recalled a phrase she had often heard an American rancher's daughter
+say. "I loved to do it, _señor_."
+
+"But why? I'm your enemy, you know. You ought to hate me. Do you?"
+
+Once again the swift color poured into the dark cheeks, even to the
+round birdlike throat.
+
+"No, _señor_."
+
+He considered this an instant before he accused her whimsically. "Then
+you're not a good girl. You should hate the devil, and I'm his agent.
+Any of your friends will tell you that."
+
+"_Señor_ Gordon is a joke."
+
+He laughed weakly. "Am I? I'll bet I am, the fool way I acted."
+
+"I mean a--what you call--a joker," she corrected.
+
+"But ain't I your enemy, my little good Samaritan? Isn't that what all
+your people are saying?"
+
+"I not care what they say."
+
+"If I'm not your enemy, what am I?"
+
+She made a great pretense of filling the ewer with water and gathering
+up the soiled towels.
+
+"How about that, _niña_?" he persisted, turning toward her on the pillow
+with his unshaven face in his hand, a gentle quizzical smile in his
+eyes.
+
+"I'm your ... servant, _señor_," she flamed, after the embarrassment of
+silence had grown too great.
+
+"No, no! Nothing like that. What do you say? Will you take me for a
+friend, even though I'm an enemy to the whole valley?"
+
+Her soft, dark eyes flashed to meet his, timidly and yet with an effect
+of fine spirit.
+
+"_Si, señor_."
+
+"Good. Shake hands on it, little partner."
+
+She came forward reluctantly, as if she were pushed toward him by some
+inner compulsion. Her shy embarrassment, together with the sweetness of
+the glad emotion that trembled in her filmy eyes, lent her a rare charm.
+
+For just an instant her brown fingers touched his, then she turned and
+fled from the room.
+
+Mrs. Corbett presently bustled in, fat, fifty, and friendly.
+
+"I can't hardly look you in the face," he apologized, with his most
+winning smile. "I reckon I've been a nuisance a-plenty, getting sick on
+your hands like a kid."
+
+Mrs. Corbett answered his smile as she arranged the coverlets.
+
+"You'll just have to be good for a spell to make up for it. No more
+ten-mile walks, Mr. Muir, till the knee is all right."
+
+"I reckon you better call me Gordon, ma'am." His mind passed to what she
+had said about his walk. "Ce'tainly that was a fool _pasear_ for a man
+to take. Comes of being pig-headed, Mrs. Corbett. And Doc Watson had
+told me not to use that game leg much. But, of course, I knew best," he
+sighed ruefully.
+
+"Well, you've had your lesson. And you've worried all of us. Miss Valdés
+has called up two or three times a day on the phone and sent a messenger
+over every evening to find out how you were."
+
+Dick felt the blood flush his face. "She has?" Then, after a little:
+"That's very kind of Miss Valdés."
+
+"Yes. Everybody has been kind. Mr. Pesquiera has called up every day to
+inquire about you. He has been very anxious for you to recover."
+
+A faint sardonic smile touched the white lips. "A fellow never knows how
+many friends he has till he needs them. So Don Manuel is in a hurry to
+have me get on my feet. That's surely right kind of him."
+
+He thought he could guess why that proud and passionate son of Spain
+fretted to see him ill. The humiliation to which he had been subjected
+was rankling in his heart and would oppress him till he could wipe it
+out in action.
+
+"You've got other friends, too, that have worried a lot," said Mrs.
+Corbett, as she took up some knitting.
+
+"More friends yet? Say, ain't I rich? I didn't know how blamed popular I
+was till now," returned the invalid, with derisive irony. "Who is it
+this time I've got to be grateful for?"
+
+"Mr. Davis."
+
+"Steve Davis--from Cripple Creek, Colorado, God's Country?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Been writing about me, has he?"
+
+Mrs. Corbett smiled. She had something up her sleeve. "First writing,
+then wiring."
+
+"He's a kind of second dad to me. Expect the old rooster got anxious."
+
+"Looks that way. Anyhow, he reached here last night."
+
+Gordon got up on an elbow in his excitement. "Here? Here now? Old
+Steve?"
+
+She nodded her head and looked over her shoulder toward the dining-room.
+"In there eating his breakfast. He'll be through pretty soon. You see,
+he doesn't know you're awake."
+
+Presently Davis came into the room. He walked to the bed and took both
+of his friend's hands in his. Tears were shining in his eyes.
+
+"You darned old son-of-a-gun, what do you mean by scaring us like this?
+I've lost two years' growth on account of your foolishness, boy."
+
+"Did Mrs. Corbett send for you?"
+
+"No, I sent for myself soon as I found out how sick you was. Now hustle
+up and get well."
+
+"I'm going to do just that"
+
+Dick kept his word. Within a few days he was promoted to a rocking-chair
+on the porch. Here Juanita served his meals and waited on his demands
+with the shy devotion that characterized a change in her attitude to
+him. She laughed less than she did. His jokes, his claim upon her as his
+"little partner," his friendly gratitude, all served to embarrass her,
+and at the same time to fill her with a new and wonderful delight.
+
+A week ago, when he had been lying before her asleep one day, she had
+run her little finger through one of his tawny curls and admired its
+crisp thickness. To her maiden fancy something of his strong virility
+had escaped even to this wayward little lock of hair. She had wondered
+then how the _Señorita_ Valdés could keep from loving this splendid
+fellow if he cared for her. All the more she wondered now, for her
+truant heart was going out to him with the swift ardent passion of her
+race. It was as a sort of god she looked upon him, as a hero of romance
+far above her humble hopes. She found herself longing for chances to
+wait upon him, to do little services that would draw the approving smile
+to his eyes.
+
+Gordon was still in the porch-dwelling stage of convalescence when a
+Mexican rider swung from his saddle one afternoon with a letter from
+Manuel Pesquiera. The note was a formal one, written in the third
+person, and it wasted no words.
+
+After reading it Dick tossed the sheet of engraved stationery across to
+his companion.
+
+"Nothing like having good, anxious friends in a hurry to have you well,
+Steve," he said, with a smile.
+
+The old miner read the communication. "Well, what's the matter with his
+hoping you'll be all right soon?"
+
+"No reason why he shouldn't. It only shows what a Christian, forgiving
+disposition he's got. You see, that day I most walked my leg off I
+soused Mr. Pesquiera in a ditch."
+
+"You--what?"
+
+"Just what I say. I picked him up and dropped the gentleman in the
+nearest ditch. That's why he's so anxious to get me well."
+
+"But--why for, boy?"
+
+Dick laughed. "Can't you see, you old moss-back? He wants me well enough
+to call out for a duel."
+
+"A duel." Davis stared at him dubiously. He did not know whether or not
+his friend was making game of him.
+
+"Yes, sir. Pistols and coffee for two, waiter. That sort of thing."
+
+"But folks don't fight duels nowadays," remonstrated the puzzled miner.
+"Anyhow, what's he want to fight about? I reckon you didn't duck him for
+nothing, did you? What was it all about?"
+
+Dick told his tale of adventures, omitting only certain emotions that
+were his private property. He concluded with an account of the
+irrigating-ditch episode. "It ain't the custom in this part of the
+country to duck the blue bloods. Shouldn't wonder but what he's some hot
+under the collar. Writes like he sees red, don't you think, but aims to
+be polite and keep his shirt on."
+
+Davis refused to treat the matter as a joke.
+
+"I told you to let your lawyers 'tend to this, Dick, and for you not to
+poke your nose into this neck of the woods. But you had to come, and
+right hot off the reel you hand one to this Pesky fellow, or whatever
+you call him. Didn't I tell you that you can't bat these greasers over
+the head the way you can the Poles in the mines?"
+
+"Sure you told me. You're always loaded with good advice, Steve. But
+what do you expect me to do when a fellow slaps my face?"
+
+"They won't stand fooling with, these greasers. This Pesky fellow is
+playing squarer than most would if he gives you warning to be ready with
+your six-gun. You take my advice, and you'll burn the wind out of this
+country. If you git this fellow, the whole pack of them will be on top
+of you, and don't you forget it, son."
+
+"So you advise me to cut and run, do you?" said Dick.
+
+"You bet."
+
+"That's what you'd do, is it?"
+
+"Sure thing. You can't clean out the whole of New Mexico."
+
+"Quit your lying, Steve, you old war-horse. You'd see it out, just like
+I'm going to."
+
+Davis scratched his grizzled poll and grinned, but continued to dispense
+good advice.
+
+"You ain't aiming to mix with this whole blamed country, are you?"
+
+The man in the chair sat up, his lean jaw set and his eyes gleaming.
+
+"I've been called the scum o' the earth. I've been kicked out of her
+house as a fellow not decent enough to mix with honest folks. Only
+yesterday I got a letter from some of her people warning me to leave the
+country while I was still alive. This Pesquiera is camping on my trail."
+
+"Maybe he ain't. You've only guessed that."
+
+"Guess nothing. It's a cinch."
+
+"What you going to do about it?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"But if he lays for you."
+
+"Good enough. Let him go to it. I'm going through with this thing. I'm
+going to show them who's the best man. And when I've beat them to a
+standstill I've got a revenge ready that will make Miss Valdés eat
+humble pie proper. Yes, sir. I'm tied to this country till this thing's
+settled."
+
+"Then there ain't any use saying any more about it. You always was a
+willful son-of-a-gun," testified his partner, with a grin. "And I reckon
+I'll have to stay with you to pack you home after the greasers have shot
+you up."
+
+"Don't you ever think it, Steve," came back the cheerful retort. "I've
+got a hunch this is my lucky game. I'm sitting in to win, old hoss."
+
+"What's your first play, Dick?"
+
+"I made it last week, within twenty minutes of the time I got back here.
+Wired my lawyers to bring suit at once, and to push it for all it was
+worth."
+
+"You can't settle it by the courts inside of a year, or mebbe two."
+
+"I ain't aiming to settle it by the courts. All I want is they should
+know I've got them beat to a fare-ye-well in the courts. Their lawyers
+will let them know that mighty early, just as soon as they look the
+facts up. There ain't any manner of doubt about my legal claim. I guess
+Miss Valdés knows that already, but I want her to know it good and sure.
+Then I'll paddle my own canoe. The law's only a bluff to make my hand
+better. I'm calling for that extra card for the looks of it, but my hand
+is full up without it"
+
+"What's in your hand, anyhow, outside of your legal right? Looks to me
+they hold them all from ace down."
+
+Dick laughed.
+
+"You wait and see," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+TWO MESSAGES
+
+
+Because Dick had always lived a clean, outdoor life he rallied
+magnificently from the relapse into which his indiscretion had thrown
+him. For a few days Dr. Watson was worried by reason of the danger of
+blood-poisoning, but the splendid vitality of his patient quickly swept
+him out of danger. Soon he was hobbling round with a cane, and shortly
+after was able to take long rides over the country with his friend.
+
+On one of these occasions, while they were climbing a hill trail, Davis
+broke a long silence to say aloud to himself: "There's just one way to
+account for it."
+
+"Then it can't be a woman you're thinking of," Dick laughed; "for as far
+as I can make out there's always several ways to account for them, and
+the one you guess usually ain't right."
+
+"You've said it, son. It's a woman. I been doing some inquiring about
+this Miss Valdés, and from all telling she's the prettiest ever."
+
+"I could have told you that. It ain't a secret."
+
+"I notice you didn't tell me."
+
+"You didn't ask, you old geezer."
+
+"Sho! You ain't such a clam when it comes to pretty girls. You didn't
+talk about her, because your haid's been full of her. It don't take a
+mind-reader to know that."
+
+"You're ce'tainly a wizard, Steve," came back his partner dryly.
+
+"I know you and your little ways by this time."
+
+"So I'm in love, am I?"
+
+"You're there, or traveling there mighty fast. Course I don't know about
+the lady."
+
+"What don't you know about her?" asked Dick, who was by way of being
+both amused and pleased that the subject had been broached.
+
+"How she feels about the proposition. She had you kicked out of the
+house. That looks kinder as if your show was slim. She did send over
+right often to see how you was getting along, but I reckon she didn't
+want to feel responsible for your turning up your toes. Women are that
+way, even when they hate a man real thorough."
+
+"You're quite an expert. I wonder you know so much about them, and you
+never married."
+
+To this sarcastic reminder Steve made philosophic reply. "Mebbe it was
+because I knew so much about them I never married."
+
+"You're surely a wise old rooster. You think she hates me, then?"
+
+Davis covered a grin. He knew from his friend's tone that the barb had
+pierced the skin.
+
+"Well, looking at it like a reasonable man, there ain't any question
+about it. Soon as you begin to mend she quits taking any interest in
+you; don't know you're on the earth any more. A reasonable man----"
+
+"A reasonable goat!" Dick reined up till the other horse was abreast of
+his, then dived into his pocket and handed Steve a letter. "She's quit
+taking any interest in me, has she? Don't know I'm on the earth, you old
+owl? Looks like it, and her sending me a letter this very day."
+
+Steve turned the square envelope around and weighed it in his hand.
+
+"Am I to read this here _billy doo_?" he wanted to know.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Gravely the old miner opened and read the following:
+
+  "Miss Valdés begs to inform Mr. Gordon that she has reason to fear
+  Mr. Gordon's life is not safe in the present feeling of the
+  country. Out of regard for her people, whom she would greatly
+  regret to see in trouble, Miss Valdés would recommend Mr. Gordon to
+  cut short his pleasure trip to New Mexico. Otherwise Miss Valdés
+  declines any responsibility for the result."
+
+"Can't be called very affectionate, can it?" was Mr. Davis's comment.
+"Ain't it jest a leetle mite--well, like she was writing with a poker
+down her back?"
+
+"I didn't say it was affectionate," snorted the young man.
+
+"Oh, I allowed you thought she was in love with you."
+
+"I didn't say or think anything of the kind," protested Dick
+indignantly. "I said she hadn't forgotten me."
+
+"Well, she ain't, if that's any comfort."
+
+With which, Mr. Davis handed back the letter. "What did you answer to
+the _billy doo_?"
+
+"I said that Mr. Gordon presented his compliments and begged to reply
+that he had large business interests in this part of the country that
+necessitated a visit of some length, and probably in the end a permanent
+residence here; and that he would very fully absolve Miss Valdés of any
+responsibility for his remaining."
+
+"Both of you used up a heap of dictionary words; but that wasn't so bad,
+either," grinned Steve. "You got back at her, all right, for the
+'pleasure trip' part of her letter, but I expect you and she would
+disagree as to what that 'permanent residence' means. I hope it won't be
+more permanent than you think."
+
+From the rocks above came the sound of an exploding rifle. Dick's hat
+was lifted from his head as by a gust of wind. Immediately after they
+caught sight of a slim, boyish figure dodging among the rocks.
+
+"There he goes," cried Dick; and he slid from his saddle and took up the
+chase.
+
+"Come back. There may be several of them up there," called the old
+miner.
+
+Gordon paid no attention; and Steve had nothing left to do but follow
+him up the rocky hillside.
+
+"He'll spoil that game leg of his again, first thing he knows," the
+old-timer growled as he followed in the rear.
+
+Presently a second shot rang out. Davis hastened forward as fast as he
+could.
+
+At the top of the ridge he came on his companion sitting behind a rock.
+
+"Lost him in these rocks, did you?" he asked.
+
+A sardonic smile lit up the face of his friend.
+
+"No, Steve, I found him; but he persuaded me I oughtn't to travel so
+fast on this leg. You see, he had a rifle, and my six-gun was
+outclassed. I couldn't get into range, and decided to hunt cover, after
+he took another crack at me."
+
+"I should think you'd know better than to go hunting bear with a
+twenty-two."
+
+"It ain't a twenty-two; but, for a fact, it don't carry a mile. I got
+what I want, though. I know who the gentleman is."
+
+"Sure it wasn't a lady, Dick?"
+
+"Don't you, Steve," warned Gordon. "She's a lady and a Christian. You
+wouldn't say that if you knew her. Besides, she saved my life."
+
+"Who was it? That Pesky fellow?"
+
+"No. He's hot-blooded; but he wouldn't strike below the belt. He's a
+gentleman. This was one of the lads on her home-place, an
+eighteen-year-old boy named Pedro. He's in love with her. I saw it soon
+as I set eyes on him the day I went there. He worships her as if she
+were a saint. Of course, he loves her without any hope; but that doesn't
+keep him from being jealous of me. He's heard about the row, and he
+thinks he'll do her a service by putting me out of the game."
+
+"Sort of fix you up with that permanent residence you were talking
+about," suggested Steve.
+
+"He didn't make good this time, anyhow. I'll bet a hat he'd catch it if
+Miss Valdés knew what he had been doing."
+
+"She may be a Christian and all you say, Dick, but she don't run a
+Sunday school on her ranch and train these young greasers proper. I
+don't like this ambushing. They might git the wrong man."
+
+"I'm not partial to it, myself. That lead pill hummed awful close to
+me."
+
+They had by this time returned to the road, and Dick picked up his hat
+from the dust. There were two little round holes in the crown, and one
+in the brim.
+
+"If he had shot an inch lower I would have qualified for that permanent
+residence, Steve," Dick laughed.
+
+"Hmp! Let's get out of here _pronto_, Dick. I'm darned if I like to be
+the target at a shooting gallery. And next time I go riding there's
+going to be a good old Winchester lying over my saddle-horn."
+
+Now, as very chance would have it, Miss Valdés, too, rode the hill trail
+that afternoon; and every step of the broncos lessened the distance
+between them.
+
+They met at a turn of the steep path. Davis was in the lead, and the
+girl passed him just in time to meet Dick's bow. It was a very
+respectful bow; but there was a humorous irony in the gray eyes that met
+hers, which hinted at a different story. She made as if to pass him,
+but, on an impulse, reined in. His ventilated hat came off again, as he
+waited for her to speak.
+
+For an instant she let her gaze rest in his, the subdued crimson of her
+cheeks triumphant over the olive. But the color was not of
+embarrassment, and in her eyes shone the spirit of a descendant of old
+Don Alvaro de Valdés y Castillo. She sat her mount superbly; as jimp and
+erect as a willow sapling.
+
+"You received a message from me this morning, sir," she said haughtily.
+
+"Yes, Miss Valdés; I received a message from you this morning and
+answered it. This afternoon I received one from one of your friends; but
+I haven't answered that yet."
+
+As he spoke he let his eyes fall upon the hat in his hand.
+
+Hers followed his, and she started in spite of herself.
+
+"Did--did--were you shot at?" she asked, with dilating eyes.
+
+"Oh, well! He didn't hit me. It's not worth mentioning."
+
+"Not worth mentioning? Who did it, sir? I demand to know who did it?"
+
+He hesitated as he picked his words.
+
+"You see--well--he was behind a rock, and not very close, at that."
+
+"But you knew him. I demand his name. He shall be punished. I myself
+will see to that."
+
+"I'll do what punishing needs to be done, Miss Valdés. Much obliged to
+you, just the same."
+
+Her eyes flashed.
+
+"You forget, sir, that they are my people. I gave orders--the very
+strictest orders. I told them that, no matter what you did or how far
+you went, you were not to be molested."
+
+"How far I went? You've been served with a legal notice, then? I thought
+you must have by this time."
+
+"Yes, sir, I have. But neither on that nor any other subject do I desire
+any conversation with you."
+
+"Of course not, me being a spy and all those other things you
+mentioned," he said quietly.
+
+"I stopped to tell you only one thing. You must leave this country.
+Prosecute your suit from a distance. My people are wrought up. You see
+for yourself now." Her gauntlet indicated the hat.
+
+"They do seem to be enthusiastic about hating me," he agreed pleasantly.
+"I suppose I'm not what you would call popular here."
+
+She gave a gesture of annoyance.
+
+"Can't you understand that this is no time for flippancy? Can't you make
+him see it, sir?" she called to Davis.
+
+That gentleman shook his head.
+
+"He'll go his own way, I expect. He always was that bull-headed."
+
+"Firm--I call it," smiled Gordon.
+
+"I ask you to remember that he has had his warning," the girl called to
+Steve.
+
+"I've had several," acknowledged Dick, his eyes again on the hat. "There
+won't be anybody to blame but myself."
+
+"You know who shot at you. I saw it in your face. Tell me, and I will
+see that he is punished," she urged.
+
+Dick shook his head imperturbably.
+
+"No; I reckon that wouldn't do. I'm playing a lone hand. You're on the
+other side. How can I come and ask you to fight my battles for me? That
+wouldn't be playing the game. I'll attend to the young man that mistook
+me for a rabbit."
+
+"Very well. As you like. But you are quite mistaken if you think I asked
+on your account. He had disobeyed my orders, and he deserved to pay for
+it. I have no further interest in the matter."
+
+"Certainly. I understand that. What interest could Miss Valdés have in a
+spy and a cheat?" he drawled negligently.
+
+The young woman flushed, made as if to speak, then turned away abruptly.
+
+She touched her pony with the spur, and as it took the outside of the
+slanting, narrow trail, its hoof slipped on loose gravel and went over
+the edge. Dick's arm went out like a streak of lightning and caught the
+rein.
+
+For an instant the issue hung in doubt whether he could hold the bronco
+and save her a nasty fall. The taut muscles of his lean arm and body
+grew rigid with the strain before the animal found its feet and the
+path.
+
+"Thank you," the young woman said quietly, and at once disengaged the
+rein from his fingers by a turn of the pony's head.
+
+Yet a moment, and she had disappeared round a bend in the trail. Gordon
+had observed with satisfaction that there had been no sign of fear in
+her eyes at the danger she faced, no screaming or wild clutching at his
+arm for help. Her word of thanks to him had been as cool and low as the
+rest of her talk.
+
+"She's that game. Ain't she a thoroughbred, Steve?" demanded Dick, with
+deep delight in his fair foe.
+
+"You bet she is. It's a shame for you to be annoying her this way. Why
+don't you come to an agreement with her?"
+
+"She ain't ready for that yet. When the time comes I'll dictate the
+terms of the treaty. Don't you think it's about time for us to be
+heading back home?"
+
+"Then we'll meet your lady of the ranch quicker, won't we?" chuckled
+Davis. "Funny you didn't think about going back till after she had
+passed."
+
+But if Dick had hoped to see her again he was disappointed for that day,
+at least. They reached Corbett's with never another glimpse of her; nor
+was there any sign of her horse in front of the post office and general
+store.
+
+"Must have taken that lower trail that leads back to the ranch,"
+hazarded Gordon.
+
+"I reckon," agreed his friend. "Seems funny, too; her knowing you was on
+the upper one."
+
+"Guy me all you like. I can stand it," returned Dick cheerfully.
+
+For he had scored once in spite of her. He had saved her from a fall, at
+a place where, to say the least, it would have been dangerous. She had
+announced herself indifferent to his existence; but the very fact that
+she had felt called upon to say so gave denial to the statement. She
+might hate him, and she probably did; at least, she had him on her mind
+a good deal. The young man was sure of that. He was shrewdly of opinion
+that his chances were better if she hated him than if she never thought
+of him at all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+TAMING AN OUTLAW
+
+
+"Something doing back of the corral, Mr. Gordon."
+
+Yeager, the horse-wrangler at Corbett's, stopped in front of the porch,
+and jerked his head, with a twisted grin, in the direction indicated.
+
+Everything about the little stableman was crooked. From the slope of his
+legs to the set of his bullet head on the narrow shoulders, he was awry.
+But he had an instinct about horses that was worth more than the beauty
+of any slim, tanned _vaquero_ of the lot.
+
+Only one horse had he failed to subdue. That was Teddy, a rakish sorrel
+that had never yet been ridden. Many had tried it, but none had stuck to
+the saddle to the finish; and some had been carried from the corral to
+the hospital.
+
+Dick got up and strolled back, with his hands in his pockets.
+
+A dozen _vaqueros_ and loungers sat and stood around the mouth of the
+corral, from which a slim young Mexican was leading the sorrel.
+
+"So, it's you, Master Pedro," thought the young American. "I didn't
+expect to see you here."
+
+The lad met his eyes quietly as he passed, giving him a sullen nod of
+greeting; evidently he hoped he had not been recognized as the previous
+day's ambusher.
+
+"Is Pedro going to ride the outcast?" Dick asked of Yeager, in surprise.
+
+Yeager grinned.
+
+"He's going to try. The boy's slap-up rider, but he ain't got it in him
+to break Teddy--no, nor any man in New Mexico ain't."
+
+Dick looked the horse over carefully, as it stood there while the boy
+tightened the girths--feet wide apart, small head low, and red eyes
+gleaming wickedly. Deep-chested, with mighty shoulders, barrel-bodied
+like an Indian pony, Teddy showed power in every line of him. It was
+easy to guess him for the unbroken outlaw he was.
+
+There was a swift scatter backward of the onlookers as Pedro swung to
+the saddle. Before his right foot was in the stirrup, the bronco bucked.
+
+The young Mexican, light and graceful, settled to the saddle with a
+delighted laugh, and drove the spurs home. The animal humped like a
+camel, head and tail down, went into the air and back to earth, with
+four feet set like pile-drivers. It was a shock to drive a man's spine
+together like a concertina; but Pedro took it limply, giving to the jar
+of the impact as the pony came down again and again.
+
+Teddy tasted the quirt along his quarters, and the pain made him
+frantic. He went screaming straight into the air, hung there a long
+instant, and fell over backward. The lad was out of the saddle in time
+and no more, and back in his seat before the outlaw had scrambled to his
+feet.
+
+The spur starred him to renewed life. Like a flash of lightning, the
+brute's head swung round and snapped at the boy's leg. Pedro wrenched
+the head back in time to save himself; and Teddy went to sun-fishing,
+and presently to fence-rowing.
+
+The dust flew in clouds. It wrapped them in so that the boy saw nothing
+but the wicked ears in front of him. His throat became a lime-kiln, his
+eyes stared like those of a man weary from long wakefulness. The hot sun
+baked his bare neck and head, the while Teddy rocketed into the sky and
+pounded into the earth.
+
+Neither rider nor mount had mercy. The quirt went back and forth like a
+piston-rod, and the outlaw, in screaming fury, leaped and tossed like a
+small boat in a tremendous sea of cross-currents.
+
+"It's sure hell-for-leather. That hawss can tie himself in more knots
+than any that was ever foaled," commented a tobacco-chewing puncher in a
+scarlet kerchief.
+
+"Pedro is a straight-up rider, but he ain't got it in him to master
+Teddy--no; nor no man ain't," contributed Yeager again proudly. "Hawsses
+is like men. Some of 'em can't be broke; you can only kill them. Teddy's
+one of them kind."
+
+Dick differed, but did not say so.
+
+"Look at him now. There he goes weaving. That hawss is a devil, I tell
+you. He's got every hawss-trick there is, and all of 'em worked up to a
+combination of his own. Look out there, Ped."
+
+The warning came too late. Teddy had jammed into the corral fence, and
+ground his rider's knee till the torture of the pain had distracted his
+attention. Once more then swept round the ugly stub nose, and the yellow
+teeth fastened in the leather chaps with a vicious snap that did not
+entirely miss the flesh of the leg.
+
+The boy, with a cry of pain and terror, slipped to the ground, his nerve
+completely shaken. The sorrel lashed out with his hind feet, and missed
+his head by a hairbreadth. Pedro turned to run, stumbled, and went down.
+
+The outlaw was upon him like a streak, striking with sharp chiseled
+forefeet at the prostrate man. Along the line of spectators ran a groan,
+a kind of sobbing murmur of despair. A young Mexican who had just ridden
+up flung himself from his horse and ran forward, though he knew he was
+too late.
+
+"Pedro's done for," cried one.
+
+And so he would have been but for the watchfulness and alertness of one
+man.
+
+Dick had been ready the instant the outlaw had flung against the fence.
+He had been prepared to see the boy weaken, and had anticipated it in
+his forward leap. The furious animal had risen to drive home his hoofs,
+when an arm shot out, caught the bridle, and dragged him sideways. This
+unexpected intervention dazed the animal; and while he still stood
+uncertain, Gordon swung to the saddle and dug his heels into the
+bleeding sides.
+
+As to a signal the bronco rose, and the battle was on again.
+
+But this time the victory was not in doubt to the onlookers after the
+first half-dozen jumps. For this man rode like a master. He held a close
+but easy seat, and a firm rein, along which ran the message of an iron
+will to the sensitive foaming mouth which held the bit tight-clamped.
+
+This brown, lithe man was all bone and sinew and muscle. He rode like a
+Centaur, as if he were a part of the horse, as easily and gracefully as
+a chip does the waves. The outlaw was furious with hate, blind with a
+madness that surged through it; but all its weaving and fence-rowing
+could not shake the perfect poise of the rider, nor tinge with fear the
+glad fighting edge that throbbed like a trumpet-call in the blood.
+
+Slowly the certainty of this sifted to the animal. The pitches grew less
+volcanic, died presently into fitful mechanical rises and falls that
+foretold the finish. Its spirit broken, with that terrible incubus of a
+human clothes-pin still clamped to the saddle, Teddy gave up, and for
+the first time hung his head in token of defeat.
+
+Dick tossed the bridle to Yeager and swung off.
+
+"There aren't any of them so bad, if a fellow will stay with them," he
+said.
+
+"Where did you learn your riding, partner?" asked the puncher with the
+scarlet kerchief knotted around his neck.
+
+"I used to ride for an outfit up in Wyoming," returned Dick.
+
+"Well, I'd like to ride for that outfit, if all the boys stick to the
+saddle like you," returned the kerchiefed one.
+
+Gordon did not explain that he had been returned winner in more than one
+bucking-bronco contest in the days when he rode the range.
+
+He was already sauntering toward the house.
+
+From a side porch Pedro, awaiting the arrival of a rig to take him back
+to the ranch, sat with his bruised leg on a chair and watched the
+approach of the stalwart figure that came as lightly as though it trod
+on eggs. He had hobbled here and watched the other do easily what had
+been beyond him.
+
+His heart was bitter with the sense of defeat, none the less because
+this man whom he had lately tried to kill had just saved his life.
+
+"_Como_?" asked Dick, stopping in front of him to brush dust from his
+trousers with a pocket-handkerchief.
+
+Pedro mumbled something. Under his olive skin the color burned. Tears of
+mortification were in his eyes.
+
+"You saved my life, _señor_. Take it. It is yours," the boy cried.
+
+"What shall _I_ do with it?"
+
+"I care not. Make an end of it, as on Tuesday I tried to make an end of
+yours," cried the lad wildly.
+
+Gordon took off his hat and looked at the bullet holes casually.
+
+"You did not miss it very far, Pedro."
+
+"You knew then, _señor_, that I was the man?" the Mexican asked in
+surprise.
+
+"Oh, yes; I knew that."
+
+"And you did nothing?"
+
+"Yes; I ducked behind a rock," laughed Gordon.
+
+"But you make no move to arrest me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But, if I should shoot again?"
+
+"I expect to carry a rifle next time I go riding, Pedro."
+
+The Mexican considered this.
+
+"You are a brave man, _señor_."
+
+The Anglo-Saxon snorted scornfully.
+
+"Because I ain't bluffed out by a kid that needs a horse-whip laid on
+good and hard? Don't you make any mistake, boy. I'm going to give you
+the licking of your young life. You were due for it to-day, but it will
+have to be postponed, I reckon, till you're on your feet again."
+
+Pedro's eyes glittered dangerously.
+
+"Señor Gordon has saved my life. It is his. But no living man lays hands
+on Pedro Menendez," the boy said, drawing himself haughtily to his full
+slender height.
+
+"You'll learn better, Pedro, before the week's out. You've got to stand
+the gaff, just the same as a white boy would. You're in for a good
+whaling, and there ain't any use getting heroic about it."
+
+"I think not, Señor Gordon." There was a suggestion of repressed emotion
+in the voice.
+
+Dick turned sharply at the words. A lean, clean-built young fellow stood
+beside the porch. He stepped up lightly, so that he was behind the chair
+in which Pedro had been sitting. Seen side by side thus, there could be
+no mistaking the kinship between the two Mexicans. Both were good
+looking, both lean and muscular, both had a sort of banked volcanic
+passion in their black eyes. Dangerous men, these slim swarthy youths,
+judged Gordon with a sure instinct.
+
+"You think not, Pedro Number 2," retorted the American lightly.
+
+"My name is Pablo, Señor--Pablo Menendez," corrected the young man with
+dignity.
+
+"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Menendez. I was just telling your brother--if
+Pedro is your brother--that I intend to wear out a buggy whip on him as
+soon as his leg is well," explained Dick pleasantly.
+
+"No. You have saved his life. It is yours. Take it." The black eyes of
+the Mexican met steadily the blue-gray ones of the American.
+
+"Much obliged, but I can't use it. As soon as I've tanned his hide I'm
+through with Master Pedro," returned the miner carelessly.
+
+He was turning away when Pablo stopped him. The musical voice was low
+and clear. "Señor Gordon understands then. Pedro will pay. He will
+endure shot for shot if the Señor wishes it. But no man living shall lay
+a whip upon him."
+
+Gordon shrugged his shoulders. "We shall see, my friend. The first time
+I meet him after his leg is all right Master Pedro gets the licking he
+needs."
+
+"You are warned, _señor_."
+
+Dick nodded and walked away, humming a song lightly.
+
+The black eyes of the Mexicans followed him as long as he was in sight.
+A passionate hatred burned in those of the elder brother. Those of Pedro
+were full of a wistful misery. With all his heart he admired this man
+whom he had yesterday tried to kill, who had to-day saved his life, and
+in the next breath promised him a thrashing.
+
+He gave him a grudging hero-worship, even while he hated him; for the
+man trod the world with the splendor of a young god, and yet was an
+enemy of the young mistress to whom he owed his full devotion. Pedro's
+mind was made up.
+
+If this Gordon laid a whip on him, he would drive a knife into his
+heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+OF DON MANUEL AND MOONLIGHT
+
+
+Don Manuel sat curled up in one of the deep window-seats of the living
+room at the Valdés home, and lifted his clear tenor softly in an old
+Spanish love-song to the accompaniment of the strumming of a guitar.
+
+It is possible that the young Spaniard sang the serenade impersonally,
+as much to the elderly duenna who slumbered placidly on the other side
+of the fireplace as to his lovely young hostess. But his eyes told
+another story. They strayed continuously toward that slim, gracious
+figure sitting in the fireglow with a piece of embroidery in the long
+fingers.
+
+He could look at her the more ardently because she was not looking at
+him. The fringes of her lids were downcast to the dusky cheeks, the
+better to examine the work upon which she was engaged.
+
+Don Manuel felt the hour propitious. It was impossible for him not to
+feel that in the past weeks somehow he had lost touch with her.
+Something had come between them; some new interest that threatened his
+influence.
+
+But to-night he had again woven the spell of romance around her. As she
+sat there, a sweet shadowy form touched to indistinctness by the soft
+dusk, he knew her gallant heart had gone with him in the Castilian
+battle song he had sung, had remained with him in the transition to the
+more tender note of love.
+
+He rose, thumbed a chord or two, then set his guitar down softly. For a
+time he looked out into the valley swimming in a silvery light, and
+under its spell the longing in him came to words.
+
+"It is a night of nights, my cousin. Is it not that a house is a prison
+in such an hour? Let us forth."
+
+So forth they fared to the porch, and from the porch to the sentinel
+rock which rose like a needle from the summit of a neighboring hill.
+Across the sea of silver they looked to the violet mountains, soft and
+featureless in the lowered lights of evening, and both of them felt it
+earth's hour of supreme beauty.
+
+"It is good to live--and to know this," she said at last softly.
+
+"It is good to live and, best of all, to know you," he made answer
+slowly.
+
+She did not turn from the hills, made no slightest sign that she had
+heard; but to herself she was saving: "It has come."
+
+While he pleaded his cause passionately, with all the ardor of
+hot-blooded Spain, the girl heard only with her ears. She was searching
+her heart for the answer to the question she asked of it:
+
+"_Is this the man?_"
+
+A month ago she might have found her answer easier; but she felt that in
+some subtle, intangible way she was not the same girl as the Valencia
+Valdés she had known then. Something new had come into her life;
+something that at times exalted her and seemed to make life's currents
+sweep with more abandon.
+
+She was at a loss to know what it meant; but, though she would not
+confess it even to herself, she was aware that the American was the
+stimulating cause. He was her enemy, and she detested him; and, in the
+same breath with which she would tell herself this, would come that warm
+beat of exultant blood she had never known till lately.
+
+With all his ardor, Don Manuel never quickened her pulses. She liked
+him, understood him, appreciated his value. He was certainly very
+handsome, and, without doubt, a brave, courteous gentleman of her own
+set with whom she ought to be happy if she loved him. Ah! If she knew
+what love were.
+
+So, when the torrent of Pesquiera's speech was for the moment dammed,
+she could only say:
+
+"I don't know, Manuel."
+
+Confidently he explained away her uncertainty:
+
+"A maiden's love is retiring, shy, like the first flowers of the spring.
+She doubts it, fears it, hides it, my beloved, like----"
+
+He was just swimming into his vocal stride when she cut him short
+decisively:
+
+"It isn't that way with me, Manuel. I should tell you if I knew. Tell me
+what love is, my cousin, and I may find an answer."
+
+He was off again in another lover's rhapsody. This time there was a
+smile almost of amusement in her eyes as she listened.
+
+"If it is like that, I don't think I love you, Manuel. I don't think
+poetry about you, and I don't dream about you. Life isn't a desert when
+you are away, though I like having you here. I don't believe I care for
+you that way, not if love is what the poets and my cousin Manuel say it
+is."
+
+Her eyes had been fixed absently now and again on an approaching wagon.
+It passed on the road below them, and she saw, as she looked down, that
+her _vaquero_ Pedro lay in the bottom of it upon some hay.
+
+"What is the matter? Are you hurt?" she called down.
+
+The lad who was driving looked up, and flashed a row of white teeth in a
+smile of reassurance to his mistress.
+
+"It is Pedro, _doña_. He tried to ride that horse Teddy, and it threw
+him. Before it could kill him, the _Americano_ jumped in and saved his
+life."
+
+"What American?" she asked quickly: but already she knew by the swift
+beating of her heart.
+
+"Señor Muir; the devil fly away with him," replied the boy loyally.
+
+Already his mistress was descending toward him with her sure stride, Don
+Manuel and his suit forgotten in the interest of this new development of
+the feud. She made the boy go over the tale minutely, asking questions
+sometimes when she wanted fuller details.
+
+Meanwhile, Manuel Pesquiera waited, fuming. Most certainly this fellow
+Gordon was very much in the way. Jealousy began to add its sting to the
+other reasons good for hastening his revenge.
+
+When Valencia turned again to her cousin her eyes were starry.
+
+"He is brave--this man. Is he not?" she cried.
+
+It happened that Don Manuel, too, was a rider in a thousand. He thought
+that Fate had been unkind to refuse him this chance his enemy had found.
+But Pesquiera was a gentleman, and his answer came ungrudgingly:
+
+"My cousin, he is a hero--as I told you before."
+
+"But you think him base," she cried quickly.
+
+"I let the facts speak for me," he shrugged.
+
+"Do they condemn him--absolutely? I think not."
+
+She was a creature of impulse, too fine of spirit to be controlled by
+the caution of speech that convention demands. She would do justice to
+her foe, no matter how Manuel interpreted it.
+
+What the young man did think was that she was the most adorable and
+desirable of earth's dwellers, the woman he must win at all hazards.
+
+"He came here a spy, under a false name. Surely you do not forget that,
+Valencia," he said.
+
+"I do not forget, either, that we flung his explanations in his face;
+refused him the common justice of a hearing. Had we given him a chance,
+all might have been well."
+
+"My cousin is generous," Manuel smiled bitterly.
+
+"I would be just."
+
+"Be both, my beloved, to poor Manuel Pesquiera, an unhappy wreck on the
+ocean of love, seeking in vain for the harbor."
+
+"There are many harbors, Manuel, for the brave sailor. If one is closed,
+another is open. He hoists sail, and beats across the main to another
+port."
+
+"For some. But there are others who will to one port or none. I am of
+those."
+
+When she left him it was with the feeling that Don Manuel would be hard
+hit, if she found herself unable to respond to his love.
+
+He was not like this American, competent, energetic, full of the
+turbulent life of a new nation which turns easily from defeat to fresh
+victory.
+
+Her heart was full of sympathy, and even pity, for him. But these are
+only akin to love.
+
+It was not long before Valencia began to suspect that she had not been
+told the whole truth about the affair of the outlaw horse. There was
+some air of mystery, of expectation, among her _vaqueros_.
+
+At her approach, conversation became suspended, and perceptibly shifted
+to other topics. Moreover, Pedro was troubled in his mind, out of all
+proportion to the extent of his wound.
+
+She knew it would be no use to question him; but she made occasion soon
+to send for Juan Gardiez, the lad who had driven him home.
+
+From the doorway of the living-room, Juan presently ducked a bow at her.
+
+"The _señorita_ sent for me?"
+
+"Yes. Come in, Juan. Take that chair."
+
+Now, though Juan had often sat down in the kitchen, he had never before
+been invited to seat himself in this room. Wherefore, the warm smile
+that now met him, and went with the invitation, filled him with a more
+than mild surprise. Gingerly he perched himself on the edge of a chair,
+twirling his dusty sombrero round and round as a relief to his
+embarrassment.
+
+"I am sorry, Juan, that you don't like me or trust me any longer," his
+mistress began.
+
+"But, _doña_, I do," exclaimed the boy, nearly falling from his chair in
+amazement.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"No; I can see you don't. None of you do. You keep secrets from me. You
+whisper and hide things."
+
+"But, no, _señorita_----"
+
+"Yes. I can see it plainly. My people do not love me. I must go away
+from them, since----"
+
+Juan, having in his tender boyish heart a great love for his _doña_,
+could not stand this.
+
+"No, no, no, _señorita_! It is not so. I do assure you it is a mistake.
+There is nothing about the cattle, nothing about the sheep you do not
+know. It is all told--all."
+
+"_Muy bien_. Yet you conceal what happened yesterday to Pedro."
+
+"He was thrown----"
+
+She stopped him with a gesture.
+
+"I don't want to know that again. Tell me what is in the air; what is
+planned for Señor Gordon; what Pedro has to do with it? Tell me, or
+leave me to know my people no longer love me."
+
+The boy shook his head and let his eyes fall before her clear gaze.
+
+"I can tell nothing."
+
+"Look at me, Juan," she commanded, and waited till he obeyed. "Pedro it
+was that shot at this man Gordon. Is it not so?"
+
+His eyes grew wide.
+
+"Some one has told?" he said questioningly.
+
+"No matter. It was he. Yesterday the American saved his life. Surely
+Pedro does not still----"
+
+She did not finish in words, but her eyes chiseled into his stolid will
+to keep silent.
+
+"The stranger invites evil. He would rob the _señorita_ and us all. He
+has said he would horsewhip Pedro. He rides up and down the valley,
+taunting us with his laugh. Is he a god, and are we slaves?"
+
+"He said he would horsewhip Pedro, did he?"
+
+"_Si señorita_; when Pedro told him to take his life, since it was his."
+
+"And this was after Pedro had been thrown?"
+
+"Directly after. The American is a devil, _doña_. He rode that
+man-killer like Satan. Did he not already know that it was Pedro who
+shot at him? Is not Pedro a sure shot, and did he not miss twice? Twice,
+_señorita_; which makes it certain that this _Señor_ Gordon is a devil."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, Juan. I want to know how he came to tell Pedro
+that he would whip him."
+
+"He came up to the piazza when he had broken the heart of that other
+devil, the man-killer, and Pedro was sitting there. Then Pedro told him
+that he was the one who had shot at him, but he only laughed. He always
+laughs, this fiend. He knew it already, just as he knows everything.
+Then it was he said he had saved the boy to whip him."
+
+"And that is all?"
+
+"_Por Dios_--all" shrugged the lad.
+
+"Are there others beside you that believe this nonsense about the
+American being in league with evil?"
+
+"It is not nonsense, _señorita_, begging your pardon," protested Juan
+earnestly. "And Ferdinand and Pablo and Sebastian, they all believe it."
+
+Valencia knew this complicated the situation. These simple peons would
+do, under the impulsion of blind bigotry, what they would hesitate to do
+otherwise. Let them think him a devil, and they would stick at nothing
+to remove him.
+
+Her first thought was that she must keep informed of the movements of
+her people. Otherwise she would not be able to frustrate them.
+
+"Juan, if this man is really what you think, he will work magic to
+destroy those who oppose him. It will not be safe for any of my people
+to set themselves against him. I know a better way to attack him. I want
+to talk with Pablo and Sebastian. You must work with me. If they try to
+do anything, let me know at once; otherwise they will be in great
+danger. Do you understand?"
+
+"_Si, señorita_."
+
+"And will you let me know, quietly, without telling them?"
+
+"_Si, señorita_."
+
+"That is good. Now, I know my Juan trusts and loves his mistress. You
+have done well. Go, now."
+
+From the point of view of her people the girl knew it was all settled.
+If the stranger whipped Pedro, the boy would kill him unless he used
+magic to prevent it. If he did use it, they must contrive to nullify his
+magic. There was, too, Don Manuel, who would surely strike soon, and
+however the encounter might terminate, it was a thing to dread
+miserably.
+
+But, though her misery was acute, she was of a temperament too hopeful
+and impulsive to give up to despair so long as action was possible.
+While she did not yet know what she could do, she was not one to sit
+idle while events hurried to a crisis.
+
+Meantime she had her majordomo order a horse saddled for her to ride
+over to Corbett's for the mail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MR. AINSA DELIVERS A MESSAGE
+
+
+Back to Davis, who had stopped to tighten his saddle-girth, came Dick
+Gordon's rather uncertain tenor in rollicking song:
+
+  "Bloomin' idol made o' mud--
+  Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd--
+  Plucky lot she cared for idols when I
+  Kissed 'er where she stud!"
+
+"There he goes, advertising himself for a target to every greaser in the
+county. Pity he can't ride along decent, if he's got to ride at all in
+these hills, where every gulch may be a trap," grumbled the old miner.
+
+He jerked the leather strap down with a final tug, pulled himself to the
+saddle, and cantered after his friend.
+
+  "Elephints a pilin' teak
+  In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
+    Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you
+  Was 'arf afraid to speak!"
+
+"No danger of the silence hanging heavy here while you're around trying
+to be a whole opery troupe all by your lonesome," suggested Davis.
+"Seems to me if you got to trapse round this here country hunting for
+that permanent residence, it ain't necessary to disturb the Sabbath calm
+so on-feelin'. I don't seem to remember hearing any great demand for an
+encore after the rendering of the first verse."
+
+"You do ce'tainly remind me of a lien with one chick, Steve," laughed
+Dick.
+
+"I ain't worrying about you none. It's my own scalp kinder hangs loose
+every time you make one of your fool-plays," explained the other.
+
+"Go pipe that up to your granny. Think I ain't learned my ABC's about
+my dry-nurse yet?"
+
+"I'm going back to the gold camp to-morrow."
+
+"You been saying that ever since you came here. Why don't you go, old
+Calamity Prophet?"
+
+"Well, I am. Going to-morrow."
+
+"You've hollered wolf too often, Steve. I'll believe it when I see it."
+
+"Well, why don't you behave? What's the use of making a holy Caruso of
+yourself? Nobody ain't ever pined to hear you tune up, anyhow."
+
+"All right. Mum's the word, old hoss. I'll be as solemn as if I was
+going to my own funeral."
+
+"I ain't persuaded yet you're not."
+
+"I'm right fully persuaded. Hallo! Stranger visiting at Corbett's. Guess
+I'll unlimber the artillery."
+
+They dismounted, and, before turning over his horse to Yeager, Dick
+unstrapped from the saddle his rifle. Nowadays he never for a moment was
+separated from some weapon of defense. For he knew that an attack upon
+his life was almost a certainty in the near future. Though his manner
+was debonair, he saw to it that nobody got a chance to tamper with his
+guns.
+
+"Make you acquainted with Mr. Ramon Ainsa, gentlemen. Mr. Gordon--Mr.
+Davis," said Corbett, standing in the doorway in his shirt-sleeves.
+
+Mr. Ainsa, a very young man with the hint of a black mustache over his
+boyish mouth, clicked his heels together and bowed deeply. He expressed
+himself as delighted, but did not offer to shake hands. He was so stiff
+that Dick wanted to ask him whether the poker he had swallowed was
+indigestible.
+
+"I am the bearer of a message to Mr. Richard Muir Gordon," he said with
+another bow.
+
+"My name," acknowledged its owner. "You ain't missed a letter of it.
+Must have been at the christening, I expect."
+
+"A message from Don Manuel Pesquiera."
+
+"Good enough. That's right friendly of him. How's the _don_?"
+
+And Dick, the sparkle of malicious humor gleaming in his eye, shook Mr.
+Ainsa warmly by the hand, in spite of that gentleman's effort to escape.
+
+The messenger sidestepped as soon as he could, and began again, very
+red:
+
+"Don Manuel considers himself deeply insulted, and desires through me,
+his friend, to present this note."
+
+Dick looked at the envelope, and back at the youth who had handed it to
+him, after which he crowded in and pump-handled the other's arm again.
+
+"That's awfully good of him, Mr. 'Tain't-so."
+
+"My name is Ainsa, at your service," corrected the New Mexican.
+
+"Beg pardon--Ainsa. I expect I hadn't ought to have irrigated the _don_
+so thorough, but it's real good of him to overlook it and write me a
+friendly note. It's uncommon handsome of him after I disarranged his
+laundry so abrupt."
+
+"If the _señor_ will read the letter--" interrupted the envoy
+desperately.
+
+"Certainly. But let me offer you something to drink first, Mr.
+Ain't-so."
+
+"Ainsa."
+
+"Ainsa, I should say. A plain American has to go some to round up and
+get the right brand on some of these blue-blooded names of yours.
+What'll it be?"
+
+"Thank you. I am not thirsty. I prefer not." With which Mr. Ainsa
+executed another bow.
+
+"Just as you say, colonel. But you'll let me know if you change your
+mind."
+
+Dick indicated a chair to his visitor, and took another himself; then
+leisurely opened the epistle and read it. After he had done so he handed
+it to Davis.
+
+"This is for you, too, Steve. The _don_ is awfully anxious to have you
+meet Mr. Ainsa and have a talk with him," chuckled Gordon.
+
+"'To arrange a meeting with your friend,' Why, it's a duel he means,
+Dick."
+
+"That's what I gathered. We're getting right up in society. A duel's
+more etiquettish than bridge-whist, Steve. Ain't you honored, being
+invited to one. You're to be my second, you see."
+
+"I'm hanged if I do," exploded the old miner promptly.
+
+"Sho! It ain't hard, when you learn the steps."
+
+"I ain't going to have nothing to do with it. Tommyrot! That's what I
+call it."
+
+"Don't say it so loud, Steve, or you'll hurt Mr. Ainsa's feelings,"
+chided his partner.
+
+"Think I'm going to make a monkey of myself at my age?"
+
+Dick turned mournfully to the messenger of war.
+
+"I'm afraid it's off, Mr. Ainsa. My second says he won't play."
+
+"We shall be very glad to furnish you a second, sir."
+
+"All right, and while you're at it furnish a principal, too. I'm an
+American. I write my address Cripple Creek, Colorado, U.S.A. We don't
+fight duels in my country any more. They've gone out with buckled shoes
+and knee-pants, Mr. Ainsa."
+
+"Do I understand that Mr. Gordon declines to meet my friend on the field
+of honor?"
+
+"That's the size of it."
+
+"I am then instruct' to warn you to go armed, as my friend will punish
+your insolence at sight informally."
+
+It was just at this moment that Mrs. Corbett, flushed with the vain
+chase of her fleeing brood of chickens, came perspiring round the house.
+Her large, round person, not designed by nature for such arduous
+exercise, showed signs of fatigue.
+
+"I declare, if them chickens ain't got out, and me wanting two for
+supper," she panted, arms on her ample hips.
+
+"That's too bad. Let me chase them," volunteered Dick.
+
+He grasped his rifle, took a quick, careless aim, and fired. A
+long-legged, flying cockerel keeled over and began to kick.
+
+"Gracious me!" ejaculated the woman.
+
+"Two, did you say?" asked the man behind the gun.
+
+"I said two."
+
+Again the rifle cracked. A second chicken flopped down, this one with
+its head shot off at the neck.
+
+The eyes of the minister of war were large with amazement. The distance
+had been seventy yards, if it had been a step. When little Jimmie
+Corbett came running forward with the two dead cockerels a slight
+examination showed that the first had also been shot through the neck.
+
+Dick smiled.
+
+"Shall I shoot another and send it for a present to Don Manuel, Jimmie?"
+he pleasantly inquired.
+
+Mr. Ainsa met his persiflage promptly.
+
+"I do assure you, _señor_, it will not be at all necesair. Don Manuel
+can shoot chickens for himself--and larger game."
+
+"I'm sure he'll find good hunting," the other gave him back, looking up
+genially.
+
+"He is a good hunter, _señor_."
+
+"Don't doubt it a bit," granted the cordial Anglo-Saxon. "Trouble is
+that even the best hunters can't tell whether they are going to bring
+back the bear, or Mr. Bear is going to get them. That's what makes it
+exciting, I reckon."
+
+"Is Don Manuel going bear-hunting?" asked Jimmie, with a newly aroused
+boy interest.
+
+"Yes, Jimmie. One's been bothering him right considerable, and he's
+going gunning for it," explained Dick.
+
+"Gee! I hope he gets it."
+
+"And I hope he don't," laughed Gordon. "Must you really be going,
+colonel? Can't I do a thing for you in the refreshment line first? Well,
+so long. Good hunting for your friend. See him later."
+
+Thus cheerfully did the irrepressible Gordon speed Mr. Ainsa on his way.
+
+That young man had somehow the sense of having been too youthful to cope
+with the gay Gordon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Valencia Valdés had not ridden far when she met Ramon Ainsa returning
+from his mission. He was a sunny young fellow, whom she had known since
+they had been children together.
+
+It occurred to her that he bore himself in a manner that suggested
+something important on hand. His boyish mouth was set severely, and he
+greeted her with a punctilio quite unusual. At once she jumped shrewdly
+to a conclusion.
+
+"Did you bring our mail back with you from Corbett's?" she innocently
+inquired.
+
+"Yes, _señorita_."
+
+"Since when have I been '_señorita_' to you, Ramon?"
+
+"Valencia, I should say." He blushed.
+
+"Indeed, I should think so. It hasn't been so long since you called me
+Val."
+
+"Ah! Those happy days!" he sighed.
+
+"Fiddlesticks!" she promptly retorted. "Don't be a goose. You're not in
+the sere and yellow yet. Don't forget you'll not be twenty-one till next
+month."
+
+"One counts time not by years, but by its fullness," he said, in the
+manner of one who could tell volumes if he would.
+
+"I see. And what has been happening of such tremendous importance?"
+
+Mr. Ainsa attempted to twirl his mustache, and was as silent as honor
+demanded.
+
+"Pooh! It's no secret. Did you find Mr. Gordon at home?"
+
+"At home?" he gasped.
+
+"Well, at Corbett's, then?"
+
+"I didn't know---- Who told you--er----"
+
+"I'm not blind and deaf and dumb, you know."
+
+"But you certainly have a great deal of imagination," he said,
+recovering himself.
+
+"Not a bit of it. You carried a challenge to this American from Don
+Manuel. Now, I want to know the answer."
+
+"Really, my dear girl----"
+
+"You needn't try to evade me. I'm going to know, if I stay here all
+night."
+
+"It's a hold-up, as the Americans say," he joked.
+
+"I don't care what you call it. You have got to tell me, you know."
+
+"But I can't tell you, _niña_. It isn't mine to tell."
+
+"Anyhow, you can't keep me from guessing," she said, with an
+inspiration.
+
+"No, I don't see how I can very well," he admitted.
+
+"The American accepted the challenge immediately."
+
+"But he didn't," broke out the young man.
+
+"Then he refused?"
+
+"That's a little obvious now," replied Ramon, with a touch of chagrin.
+
+"He was very angry about it, and threatened to call the law to his aid."
+
+Her friend surrendered at discretion, and broke into a laugh of delight.
+
+"I never saw such a fellow, Val. He seemed to think it was all a joke.
+He must have known why I was there, but before I could get in a word he
+got hold of my hand and shook it till I wanted to shriek with the pain.
+He's got a grip like a bear. And he persisted in assuming we were the
+best of friends. Wouldn't read the letter at all."
+
+"But after he did?"
+
+"Said duels were not fashionable among his people any more."
+
+"He is very sensible, but I'm afraid Manuel won't rest satisfied with
+that," the girl sighed.
+
+"I hinted as much, and told him to go armed. What do you think the
+madman did then?"
+
+"I can never guess."
+
+Ramon retailed the chicken-shooting episode.
+
+"You were to mention that to Manuel, I suppose?'" the girl said
+thoughtfully.
+
+"So I understood. He was giving fair warning."
+
+"But Manuel won't be warned."
+
+"When he hears of it he'll be more anxious than ever to fight."
+
+Valencia nodded. "A spur to a willing horse."
+
+"If he knew he would be killed it would make no difference to him. He is
+quite fearless."
+
+"Quite."
+
+"But he is a very good shot, too. You do not need to be alarmed for
+him."
+
+"Oh, no! Not at all," the girl answered scornfully. "He is only my
+distant cousin, anyhow--and my lover."
+
+"It is hard, Val. Perhaps I might pick a quarrel with this American
+and----"
+
+She caught him up sharply, but he forgave it when he saw her white
+misery.
+
+"Don't you dare think of it, Ramon Ainsa. One would think nobody in the
+valley had any business except fighting with this man. What has he done
+to you? Or to these others? You are very brave, all of you, when you
+know you are a hundred to one. I suppose _you_, too, will want to shoot
+him from ambush?"
+
+This bit of feminine injustice hurt the young man, but he only said
+quietly:
+
+"No; I don't think I would do that."
+
+Impulsively she put out her hand.
+
+"Forgive me, Ramon. I don't mean that, of course, but I'm nearly beside
+myself. Why must all this bad will and bloodshed come into our happy
+little valley? If we must have trouble why can't we let the law settle
+it? I thought you were my friends--you and Manuel and my people--but
+between you I am going to be made unhappy for life."
+
+She broke down suddenly and began to sob. The lad slipped to the ground
+and went quickly to her, putting an arm around her waist across the
+saddle.
+
+"Don't cry, Val. We all love you--of course we do. How can we help it?
+It will all come right yet. Don't cry, _niña_"
+
+"How can it come right, with all of you working to make things wrong?"
+she sobbed.
+
+"Perhaps the stranger will go away."
+
+"He won't. He is a man, and he won't let you drive him out."
+
+"We'll find some way, Val, to save Manuel for you."
+
+"But it isn't only Manuel. I don't want any of you hurt--you or
+anybody--not even this Mr. Gordon. Oh, Ramon, help me to stop this
+wicked business."
+
+"If you can tell me how."
+
+She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, as a sign that her weakness was
+past.
+
+"We must find a way. Do you know, my own people are in a dangerous mood?
+They think this man's some kind of a demon. I shall talk to them
+to-night. And you must send Manuel to me. Perhaps he may listen to me."
+
+Ainsa agreed, though he felt sure that even she could not induce his
+friend to withdraw from a position which he felt his honor called him to
+take.
+
+Nor did the mistress of the valley find it easy to lead her tenants to
+her way of thinking. They were respectful, outwardly acquiescent, but
+the girl saw, with a sinking heart, that they remained of their own
+opinion. Whether he were man or devil, they were determined to make an
+end of Gordon's intrusion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND THE TWENTIETH
+
+
+It was the second day after Pesquiera's challenge that his rival was
+called to Santa Fé, the capital of the State, to hold a conference with
+his lawyers about the progress of the suit of ouster against those
+living on the Moreño grant. Gordon knew how acute was the feeling of the
+residents of the valley against him. The Corbetts, whose homestead was
+not included in either the original Valdés or Moreño grant, reported
+daily to him whatever came to their ears. He could see that the
+impression was strong among the Mexicans that their champion, Doña Maria
+as they called her, would be worsted in the courts if the issue ever
+came to final trial.
+
+To live under the constant menace of an attack from ambush is a strain
+upon the best of nerves. Dick and his friend Davis rode out of the
+valley to meet the Santa Fé stage with a very sensible relief. For a few
+days, anyhow, they would be back where they could see the old Stars and
+Stripes flutter, where feudal retainers and sprouts of Spanish
+aristocracy were not lying in wait with fiery zeal to destroy the
+American interloper.
+
+They reached the little city late, but soon after sunup Gordon rose,
+took a bath, dressed, and strolled out into the quaint old town which
+lays claim to being the earliest permanent European settlement in the
+country. It was his first visit to the place, and as he poked his nose
+into out of the way corners Dick found every step of his walk
+interesting.
+
+Through narrow, twisted streets he sauntered, along unpaved roads
+bounded by century-old adobe houses. His walk took him past the San
+Miguel Church, said to be the oldest in America. A chubby-faced little
+priest was watering some geraniums outside, and he showed Dick through
+the mission, opening the door of the church with one of a bunch of large
+keys which hung suspended from his girdle. The little man went through
+the usual patter of the guide with the facility of long practice.
+
+The church was built, he said, in 1540, though Bandelier inaccurately
+sets the date much later. The roof was destroyed by the Pueblo Indians
+in 1680 during an attack upon the settlement, at which time the
+inhabitants took refuge within the mission walls. These are from three
+to five feet thick. The arrows of the natives poured through the
+windows. The señor could still see the holes in the pictures, could he
+not? Penuelo restored the church in 1710, as could be read by the
+inscription carved upon the gallery beam. It would no doubt interest the
+señor to know that one of the paintings was by Cimabue, done in 1287,
+and that the seven hundred pound bell was cast in Spain during the year
+1356 and had been dragged a thousand miles across the deserts of the new
+world by the devoted pioneer priests who carried the Cross to the simple
+natives of that region.
+
+Gordon went blinking out of the San Miguel mission into a world that
+basked indolently in a pleasant glow of sunshine. It seemed to him that
+here time had stood still. This impression remained with him during his
+tramp back to the hotel. He passed trains of faggot-laden burros, driven
+by Mexicans from Tesuque and by Indians from adjoining villages, the
+little animals so packed around their bellies with firewood that they
+reminded him of caricatures of beruffed Elizabethan dames of the olden
+days.
+
+Surely this old town, which seemed to be lying in a peaceful siesta for
+centuries unbroken, was an unusual survival from the buried yesterdays
+of history. It was hard to believe, for instance, that the Governor's
+Palace, a long one-story adobe structure stretching across one entire
+side of the plaza, had been the active seat of so much turbulent and
+tragic history, that for more than three hundred years it had been
+occupied continuously by Spanish, Mexican, Indian, and American
+governors. Its walls had echoed the noise of many a bloody siege and
+hidden many an execution and assassination. From this building the old
+Spanish cavaliers Onate and Vicente de Salivar and Penalosa set out on
+their explorations. From it issued the order to execute forty-eight
+Pueblo prisoners upon the plaza in front. Governor Armijo had here
+penned his defiance to General Kearney, who shortly afterward nailed
+upon the flagpole the Stars and Stripes. The famous novel "Ben Hur" was
+written in one of these historic rooms.
+
+But the twentieth century had leaned across the bridge of time to shake
+hands with the sixteenth. A new statehouse had been built after the
+fashion of new Western commonwealths, and the old Palace was now given
+over to curio stores and offices. Everywhere the new era compromised
+with the old. He passed the office of the lawyer he had come to consult,
+and upon one side of the sign ran the legend:
+
+    +---------------------------------+
+    |            Despacho             |
+    |               de                |
+    |   Thomas M. Fitt, Licendiado.   |
+    +---------------------------------+
+
+Upon the other he read an English translation:
+
+    +---------------------------------+
+    |           Law Office            |
+    |               of                |
+    |    Thomas M. Fitt, Attorney.    |
+    +---------------------------------+
+
+Plainly the old civilization was beginning to disappear before an alert,
+aggressive Americanism.
+
+At the hotel the modern spirit became so pronounced during breakfast,
+owing to the conversation of a shoe and a dress-goods drummer at an
+adjoining table, that Gordon's imagination escaped from the tramp of
+Spanish mailclad cavalry and from thoughts of the plots and counterplots
+that had been devised in the days before American occupancy.
+
+In the course of the morning Dick, together with Davis, called at the
+office of his attorney. Thomas M. Fitt, a bustling little man with a
+rather pompous manner, welcomed his client effusively. He had been
+appointed local attorney in charge by Gordon's Denver lawyers, and he
+was very eager to make the most of such advertising as his connection
+with so prominent a case would bring.
+
+He washed the backs of his hands with the palms as he bowed his visitors
+to chairs.
+
+"I may say that the case is progressing favorably--very favorably
+indeed, Mr. Gordon. The papers have been drawn and filed. We await an
+answer from the defendants. I anticipate that there will be only the
+usual court delays in pressing the action."
+
+"We'll beat them, I suppose," Dick replied, with a manner almost of
+indifference.
+
+"One can never be positive in advance, but I'd like to own your claim to
+the estate, Mr. Gordon," laughed the lawyer wheezily.
+
+"Think we'll be able to wolf the real owners out of their property all
+right, do you?"
+
+Fitt's smile went out like the flame of a burnt match. The wrinkles of
+laughter were ironed out of his fat cheeks. He stared at his client in
+surprise. It took him a moment to voice the dignified protest he felt
+necessary.
+
+"Our title is good in law, Mr. Gordon. I have been over the evidence
+very carefully. The court decisions all lean our way. Don Bartolomé
+Valdés, the original grantee, failed to perfect his right of ownership
+in many ways. It is very doubtful whether he himself had not before his
+death abandoned his claim. His official acts appear to point to that
+conclusion. Our case is a very substantial one--very substantial,
+indeed."
+
+"The Valdés' tenants have settled on the land, grazed their flocks over
+it, bought farms here and there from the heirs, haven't they?"
+
+"Exactly. But if the sellers cannot show a good title--and my word as a
+lawyer for it they can't. Prove that in court and all we'll need is a
+writ of ejectment against the present holders as squatters. Then----"
+Fitt snapped his finger and thumb in an airy gesture that swept the
+Valdés' faction into the middle of the Pacific.
+
+"It'll be the story of Evangeline all over again, won't it?" asked
+Gordon satirically.
+
+"Ah! You have a kind heart, Mr. Gordon. Your sympathy does you credit.
+Still--business is business, of course."
+
+"Of course," Dick picked up a pen and began to jab holes aimlessly into
+a perfectly good blotter tacked to the table. "Well, let's hear the
+story--just a sketch of it. Why do the rightful heirs lose out and the
+villain gain possession?"
+
+Mr. Fitt smiled blandly. He had satisfied himself that his client was
+good pay and he did not intend to take offense. "It pleases you to be
+facetious, Mr. Gordon. But we all know that what this country
+needs--what such a valley as the Rio Chama ought to have--is up to date
+American development. People and conditions are in a primitive state.
+When men like you get possession of the Moreño and similar tracts New
+Mexico will move forward with giant strides to its great destiny. Time
+does not stand still. The day of the indolent semi-feudal Spanish system
+of occupancy has passed away. New Mexico will no longer remain _mañana_
+land. You--and men like you--of broad ideas, progressive, energetic----"
+
+"Quite a philanthropist, ain't I?" interrupted Gordon, smiling lazily.
+"Well, let's hear the yarn, Mr. Fitt."
+
+The attorney gave up his oration regretfully. He subsided into a chair
+and resumed the conversational tone.
+
+"You've got to understand how things were here in the old Spanish days,
+gentlemen. Don Bartolomé for instance was not merely a cattleman. He was
+a grandee, a feudal lord, a military chief to all his tenants and
+employees. His word was law. The power of life and death lay in him."
+
+Dick nodded. "Get you."
+
+"The old Don was pasturing his sheep in the Rio Chama valley and he had
+started a little village there--called the place Torreon, I think, from
+a high tower house he had built to overlook the valley so that Indians
+could be seen if they attempted an attack. Well, he takes a notion that
+he'd better get legal title to the land he was using, though in those
+days he might have had half of New Mexico for his cattle and sheep as a
+range. So he asks Facundo Megares, governor of the royal province, for a
+grant of land. The governor, anxious to please him, orders the
+constitutional alcalde, a person named José Garcia de la Mora, to
+execute the act of possession to Valdés of a tract described as follows,
+to wit----"
+
+"I've heard the description," cut in the young man. "Well, did the Don
+take possession?"
+
+"We claim that he never did. He visited there, and his shepherds
+undoubtedly ran sheep on the range covered by the grant. But Valdés and
+his family never actually resided on the estate. Other points that
+militate against the claim of his descendants may be noted. First, that
+minor grants of land, taken from within the original Valdés grant, were
+made by the governor without any protest on the part of the Don. Second,
+that Don Bartolomé himself, subsequently Governor and Captain-General of
+the province of New Mexico, did, in his official capacity as President
+of the Council, endorse at least two other small grants of land cut out
+from the heart of the Valdés estate. This goes to show that he did not
+himself consider that he owned the land, or perhaps he felt that he had
+forfeited his claim."
+
+"Or maybe it just showed that the old gentleman was no hog," suggested
+Gordon.
+
+"I guess the law will construe it as a waiver of his claim. It doesn't
+make any allowances for altruism."
+
+"I've noticed that," Gordon admitted dryly.
+
+"A new crowd of politicians got in after Mexico became independent of
+Spain. The plums had to be handed out to the friends of the party in
+power. So Manuel Armijo, the last Mexican Governor of the province,
+being a favorite of the President of that country because he had
+defeated some Texas Rangers in a battle, and on that account endowed
+with extraordinary powers, carved a fat half million acres out of the
+Valdés grant and made a present of it to José Moreño for 'services to
+the government of Mexico.' That's where you come in as heir to your
+grandfather, who purchased for a song the claim of Moreño's son."
+
+"My right has been lying dormant twenty-five years. Won't that affect
+its legality?"
+
+"No. If we knock out the Valdés' grant, all we have to do is to prove
+the legality of the Moreño one. It happens we have evidence to show that
+he satisfied all legal requirements by living on the land more than four
+years. This gave him patent in perpetuity subject to taxes. By the
+payment of these we can claim title." Fitt rubbed his hands and walked
+backward and forward briskly. "We've got them sewed up tight, Mr.
+Gordon. The Supreme Court has sustained our contention in the almost
+parallel Baca case."
+
+"Fine," said Dick moodily. He knew it was unreasonable for him to be
+annoyed at his counsel because the latter happened to be an alert and
+competent lawyer. But somehow all his sympathies were with Valencia
+Valdés and her dependents.
+
+"If you'd like to look at the original documents in the case, Mr.
+Gordon----"
+
+"I would."
+
+"I'll take you up to the State House this afternoon. You can look over
+them at your leisure."
+
+Davis laughed at his friend as they walked back to the hotel.
+
+"I don't believe you know yourself what you want. You act as if you'd
+rather lose than win the suit."
+
+"Sometimes I'm a white man, Steve. I don't want to grab other people's
+property just because some one can dig up a piece of paper that says
+it's mine. We sit back and roast the trusts to a fare-you-well for
+hogging all there is in sight. That's what Fitt and his tribe expect me
+to do. I'm damned if I will."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+"I BELIEVE YOU'RE IN LOVE WITH HER, TOO"
+
+
+It was characteristic of Dick Gordon that he established at once a
+little relation of friendliness between him and the young woman at the
+State House who waited upon him with the documents in the Valdés grant
+case. She was a tall, slight girl with amazingly vivid eyes set in a
+face scarcely pretty. In her manner to the world at large there was an
+indifference amounting almost to insolence. She had a way of looking at
+people as if they were bits of the stage setting instead of individuals.
+
+A flare of interest had sparkled in her eyes when Gordon's fussy little
+attorney had mentioned the name of his client, but it had been Dick's
+genial manner of boyish comradeship that had really warmed Miss
+Underwood to him. She did not like many people, but when she gave her
+heart to a friend it was without stipulations. Dick was a man's man.
+Essentially he was masculine, virile, dominant. But the force of him was
+usually masked either by his gay impudence or his sunny friendliness.
+Women were drawn to his flashing smile because they sensed the strength
+behind it.
+
+Kate Underwood could have given a dozen reasons why she liked him. There
+were for instance the superficial ones. She liked the way he tossed back
+the tawny sun-kissed hair from his eyes, the easy pantherish stride with
+which he covered ground so lightly, the set of his fine shoulders, the
+peculiar tint of his lean, bronzed cheeks. His laugh was joyous as the
+song of a bird in early spring. It made one want to shout with him.
+Then, too, she tremendously admired his efficiency. To look at the hard,
+clear eye, at the clean, well-packed build of the man, told the story.
+The movements of his strong, brown hands were sure and economical. They
+dissipated no energy. Every detail of his personality expressed a mind
+that did its own thinking swiftly and incisively.
+
+"It's curious about these documents of the old Valdés and Moreño claims.
+They have lain here in the vaults--that is, here and at the old
+Governor's Palace--for twenty years and more untouched. Then all at once
+twenty people get interested in them. Scarce a day passes that lawyers
+are not up to look over some of the copies. You have certainly stirred
+things up with your suit, Mr. Gordon."
+
+Dick looked out of the window at the white adobe-lined streets resting
+in a placid coma of sun-beat.
+
+"Don't you reckon Santa Fé can stand a little stirring up, Miss
+Underwood?"
+
+"Goodness, yes. We all get to be three hundred years old if we live in
+this atmosphere long enough."
+
+The man's gaze shifted. "You'd have to live here a right long time, I
+reckon."
+
+A quick slant of her gay eyes reproached him. "You don't have to be so
+gallant, Mr. Gordon. The State pays me fifteen hundred dollars a year to
+wait on you, anyhow."
+
+"You don't say. As much as that? My, we're liable to go bankrupt in New
+Mexico, ain't we? And, if you want to know, I don't say nice things to
+you because I have to, but because I want to."
+
+She laughed with a pretense at incredulity. "In another day or two I'll
+find out just what special favor I'm able to do Mr. Gordon. The regular
+thing is to bring flowers or candy, you know. Generally they say, too,
+that there never has been a clerk holding this job as fit for it as I
+am."
+
+"You're some clerk, all right. Say, where can I find the original of
+this _Agua Caliente_ grant, Miss Kate?"
+
+She smiled to herself as she went to get him a certified copy. "Only two
+days, and he's using my first name. Inside of a week he'll be calling me
+'Dearie,'" she thought. But she knew very well there was no danger. This
+young fellow was the kind of man that could be informal without the
+slightest idea of flirting or making love.
+
+Kate Underwood's interest in the fight between the claimants for the
+Valdés and Moreño grants was not based entirely upon her liking for
+Dick. He learned this the fourth day of his stay in Santa Fé.
+
+"Do you know that you were followed to the hotel last night, Mr.
+Gordon?" she asked him, as soon as he arrived at the State House.
+
+His eyes met hers instantly. "Was I? How do you know?"
+
+"I left the building just after you did. Two Mexicans followed you. I
+don't know when I first suspected it, but I trailed along to make sure.
+There can be no doubt about it."
+
+"Not a bit of doubt. Found it out the first day when I left the hotel,"
+he told her cheerfully.
+
+"You knew it all the time," she cried, amazed.
+
+"That doesn't prevent me from being properly grateful to you for your
+kindness," he hastened to say.
+
+"What are they following you for?" she wanted to know.
+
+Dick told her something of his experiences in the Rio Chama Valley
+without mentioning that part of them which had to do with Miss Valdés.
+At the sound of Manuel Pesquiera's name the eyes of the girl flashed.
+Dick had already noticed that his name was always to her a signal for
+repression of some emotion. The eyes contracted and hardened the least
+in the world. Some men would not have noticed this, but more than once
+Gordon's life had hung upon the right reading of such signs.
+
+"You think that Mr. Pesquiera has hired them to watch you?" she
+suggested.
+
+"Maybe he has and maybe he hasn't. Some of those willing lads of Miss
+Valdés don't need any hiring. They want to see what I'm up to. They're
+not overlooking any bets."
+
+"But they may shoot you."
+
+He looked at her drolly. "They may, but I'll be there at the time. I'm
+not sleeping on the job, Miss Kate."
+
+"You didn't turn around once yesterday."
+
+"Hmp! I saw them out of the edge of my eyes. And when I turned a corner
+I always saw them mighty plain. They couldn't have come very close
+without my knowing it."
+
+"Don Manuel is very anxious to have Miss Valdés win, isn't he?"
+
+Dick observed that just below the eyes two spots were burning in the
+usually pale cheeks.
+
+"Yes," he answered simply.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He's her friend and a relative."
+
+It seemed to Gordon that there was a touch of defiance in the eyes that
+held to his so steadily. She was going to find out the truth, no matter
+what he thought.
+
+"Is that all--nothing more than a friend or a relative?"
+
+The miner's boyish laugh rippled out. "You'd ought to have been a
+lawyer, Miss Kate. No, that ain't all Don Manuel doesn't make any secret
+of it. I don't know why I should. He wants to be prince consort of the
+Valdés kingdom."
+
+"Because of ... the estate?"
+
+"Lord, no! He's one man from the ground up, M. Pesquiera is. In spite of
+the estates."
+
+"You mean that he ... loves Valencia Valdés?"
+
+"Sure he does. Manuel doesn't care much who gets the kingdom if he gets
+the princess."
+
+"Is she so ... pretty?"
+
+Dick stopped to consider this. "Why, yes, I reckon she is pretty, though
+I hadn't thought of it before. You see, pretty ain't just the word.
+She's a queen. That is, she looks like a queen ought to but don't. Take
+her walk for instance: she steps out like as if in another moment she
+might fly."
+
+"That doesn't mean anything. It's almost silly," replied the downright
+Miss Underwood, not without a tinge of spite.
+
+"It means something to me. I'm trying to give you a picture of her. But
+you'd have to see her to understand. When she's around mean and little
+things crawl out of your mind. She's on the level and square and fine--a
+thoroughbred if there ever was one."
+
+"I believe you're in love with her, too."
+
+The young man found himself blushing. "Now don't get to imagining
+foolishness. Miss Valdés hates the ground I walk on. She thinks I'm the
+limit, and she hasn't forgotten to tell me so."
+
+"Which, of course, makes you fonder of her," scoffed Miss Underwood.
+"Does she hate the ground that Don Manuel walks on?"
+
+"Now you've got me. I go to the foot of the class, because I don't
+know."
+
+"But you wish you did," she flung at him, with a swift side glance.
+
+"Guessing again, Miss Kate. I'll sure report you if you waste the
+State's time on such foolishness," he threatened gaily.
+
+"Since you're in love with her, why don't you marry Miss Valdés and
+consolidate the two claims?" demanded the girl.
+
+Her chin was tilted impudently toward him, but Gordon guessed that there
+was an undercurrent of meaning in her audacity.
+
+"What commission do you charge for running your matrimonial bureau?" he
+asked innocently.
+
+"The service comes free to infants," she retorted sweetly.
+
+She was called away to attend to other business. An hour later she
+passed the desk where he was working.
+
+"So you think I'm an infant at that game, do you?"
+
+"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings," was her saucy answer.
+
+"You haven't--not a mite. What about Don Manuel? Is he an infant at it,
+too?"
+
+A sudden flame of color swept her face. The words she flung at Gordon
+seemed irrelevant, but he did not think them so. "I hate him."
+
+And with that she was gone.
+
+Dick's eyes twinkled. He had discovered another reason for her interest
+in his fortunes.
+
+Later in the day, when the pressure of work had relaxed, the clerk
+drifted his way again while searching for some papers.
+
+"Your lawyers are paid to look up all this, aren't they? Why do you do
+it, then?" she asked.
+
+"The case interests me. I want to know all about it."
+
+"Would you like to see the old Valdés house here in Santa Fé? My father
+bought it when Alvaro Valdés built his new town house. One day I found
+in the garret a bundle of old Spanish letters. They were written by old
+Bartolomé to his son. I saved them. Would you care to see them?"
+
+"Very much. The old chap was a great character. I suppose he was really
+the last of the great feudal barons. The French Revolution put an end to
+them in Europe--that and the industrial revolution. It's rather amazing
+that out here in the desert of this new land dedicated to democracy the
+idea was transplanted and survived so long."
+
+"I'll bring the letters to-morrow and you can look them over. Any time
+you like I'll show you over the house. It's really rather
+interesting--much more so than their new one, which is so modern that it
+looks like a thousand others. Valencia was born in the old house. What
+will you give me to let you into the room?"
+
+He brushed aside her impudence with a laugh. "Your boss is looking this
+way. I think he's getting ready to fire you."
+
+"He's more likely to be fired himself. I'm under civil service and he
+isn't. Will you take your shoes off when you go into the holy of
+holies?"
+
+"What happens to little girls when they ask too many questions? Go 'way.
+I'm busy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+AMBUSHED
+
+
+On her return from luncheon that same afternoon Miss Underwood brought
+Dick a bundle of letters tied with a ribbon. She tossed them down upon
+the desk in front of him.
+
+"I haven't read them myself. Of course they're in Spanish. I did try to
+get through one of them, but it was too much like work and I gave it up.
+But since they're written by _her_ grandfather they'll interest you more
+than they did me," Miss Kate told him, with the saucy tilt to her chin
+that usually accompanied her impudence.
+
+He had lived in Chihuahua three years as a mining engineer, so that he
+spoke and read Spanish readily. The old Don wrote a stiff angular hand,
+but as soon as he became accustomed to it Dick found little difficulty.
+Some of the letters were written from the ranch, but most of them
+carried the Santa Fé date line at the time the old gentleman was
+governor of the royal province. They were addressed to his son Alvaro,
+at that time a schoolboy in Mexico City. Clearly Don Bartolomé intended
+his son to be informed as to the affairs of the province, for the
+letters were a mine of information in regard to political and social
+conditions. They discussed at length, too, the business interests of the
+family and the welfare of the peons dependent upon it.
+
+All afternoon Gordon pored over these fascinating pages torn from a dead
+and buried past. They were more interesting than any novel he had ever
+read, for they gave him a photograph, as it were projected by his
+imagination upon a moving picture canvas, of the old regime that had
+been swept into the ash heap by modern civilization. The letters
+revealed the old Don frankly. He was proud, imperious, heady, and
+intrepid. To his inferiors he was curt but kind. They flocked to him
+with their troubles and their quarrels. The judgment of their overlord
+was final with his tenants. Clearly he had a strong sense of his
+responsibilities to them and to the state. A quaint flavor of old-world
+courtesy ran through the letters like a thread of gold.
+
+It was a paragraph from one of the last letters that riveted Dick's
+attention. Translated into English, it ran as follows:
+
+  "You ask, my dear son, whether I have relinquished the great grant
+  made us by Facundo Megares. In effect I have. During the past two
+  years I have twice, acting as governor, conveyed to settlers small
+  tracts from this grant. The conditions under which such a grant
+  must be held are too onerous. Moreover, neither I nor you, nor your
+  son, nor his son will live to see the day when there is not range
+  enough for all the cattle that can be brought into the province.
+  Just now time presses, but in a later letter I shall set forth my
+  reasons in detail."
+
+A second and a third time Dick read the paragraph to make sure that he
+had not misunderstood it. The meaning was plain. There could be no doubt
+about it. In black and white he had a statement from old Don Bartolomé
+himself that he considered the grant no longer valid, that he had given
+it up because he did not think it worth holding. He had but to prove the
+handwriting in court--a thing easy enough to do, since the Don's bold,
+stiff writing could be found on a hundred documents--and the Valdés
+claimants would be thrown out of possession.
+
+Gordon looked in vain for the "later letter" to which Bartolomé
+referred. Either it had never been written or it had been destroyed. But
+without it he had enough to go on.
+
+Before he left the State House he made a proposal to Miss Underwood to
+buy the letters from her.
+
+"What do you want with a bunch of old letters?" she asked.
+
+"One of them helps my case. The Don refers to the grant and says he has
+relinquished his claim."
+
+She nodded at him with brisk approval. "It's fair of you to tell me
+that." The girl stood for a moment considering, a pencil pressed against
+her lips. "I suppose the letters are not mine to give. They belong to
+father. Better see him."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"At the office of the _New Mexican_. Or you can come to the house
+to-night."
+
+"Believe I'll see him right away."
+
+Within half an hour Dick had bought the bundle of letters for five
+hundred dollars. He returned to the State House with an order to Kate
+Underwood to deliver them to him upon demand.
+
+"Dad make a good bargain?" asked Miss Underwood, with a laugh.
+
+Gordon told her the price he had paid.
+
+"If I had telephoned to him what you wanted them for they would have
+cost you three times as much," she told him, nodding sagely.
+
+"Then I'm glad you didn't. Point of fact you haven't the slightest idea
+what I want with them."
+
+"To help your suit. Isn't that what you're going to use them for?"
+
+Mildly he answered "Yes," but he did not tell her which suit they were
+to help.
+
+As he was leaving she spoke to him without looking up from her writing.
+"Mother and I will be at home this evening, if you'd like to look the
+house over."
+
+"Thanks. I'd be delighted to come. I'm really awfully interested."
+
+"I see you are," she answered dryly.
+
+Followed by his brown shadows at a respectful distance, Dick walked back
+to the hotel whistling gaily.
+
+"Some one die and leave you a million dollars, son?" inquired the old
+miner, with amiable sarcasm.
+
+"Me, I'm just happy because I'm not a Chink," explained his friend, and
+passed to the hotel writing-room.
+
+He sat down, equipped himself with stationery, and selected a new point
+for a pen. Half a dozen times he made a start and as often threw a
+crumpled sheet into the waste-paper basket. It took him nearly an hour
+to compose an epistle that suited him. What he had finally to content
+himself with was as follows:
+
+  "DEAR MADAM:--Please find inclosed a bundle of letters that
+  apparently belong to you. They have just come into my possession. I
+  therefore send them to you without delay. Your attention is
+  particularly called to the one marked 'Exhibit A.'
+
+  "Very truly yours, RICHARD MUIR GORDON."
+
+He wrapped up the letters, including his own, sealed the package
+carefully, and walked downtown to the post office. Here he wrote upon
+the cover the name and address of Miss Valencia Valdés, then registered
+the little parcel with a request for a signed receipt after delivery at
+its destination.
+
+Davis noticed that at dinner his friend was more gay than usual.
+
+"You ce'tainly must have come into that million I mentioned, judging by
+your actions," he insisted, with a smile.
+
+"Wrong guess, Steve. I've just been giving away a million. That's why
+I'm hilarious."
+
+"You'll have to give me an easier one, son. Didn't know you had a
+million."
+
+"Oh, well! A million, or a half, or a quarter, whatever the Moreño claim
+is worth. I'm not counting nickels. An hour ago I had it in my fist.
+I've just mailed it, very respectfully yours, to my friend the enemy."
+"Suppose you talk simple American that your Uncle Steve can understand,
+boy. What have you been up to?"
+
+Dick told him exultantly.
+
+"But, good Lord, why for did you make such a play? You had 'em where the
+wool was short. Now you've let loose and you'll have to wait 'steen
+years while the courts eat up all the profits. Of all the mule-headed
+chumps----"
+
+"Hold your horses, Steve. I know what I'm doing. Said I was a spy and a
+thief and a liar, didn't she? Threw the hot shot into me proper for a
+cheap skate swindler, eh?" The young man laid down his knife, leaned
+across the table, and wagged a forefinger at Davis. "What do you reckon
+that young woman is going to think of herself when she opens that
+registered package and finds the letter that would have put the rollers
+under her claim _muy pronto?_"
+
+"Think! She'll think you the biggest burro that ever brayed on the San
+Jacinto range. She'll have a commission appointed to examine you for
+lunacy. What in Mexico is ailin' you, anyhow? You're sick. That's what's
+wrong. Love-sick, by Moses!" exploded his friend.
+
+Dick smiled blandly. "You've got another guess coming, Steve. She's
+going to eat dirt because she misjudged me so. She's going to lie awake
+nights and figure what play she can make to get even again. Getting hold
+of those blamed letters is the luckiest shot I've made yet. I was in
+bad--darned bad. Explanations didn't go. I was just a plain ornery
+skunk. Then I put over this grand-stand play and change the whole
+situation. She's the one that's in bad now. Didn't she tell me right off
+the bat what kind of a hairpin I was? Didn't she drive me off the ranch
+with that game leg of mine all to the bad? Good enough. Now she finds
+out I'm a white man she's going to be plumb sore at herself."
+
+"What good does that do you? You're making a fight for the Rio Chama
+Valley, ain't you? Or are you just having a kid quarrel with a girl?"
+
+"I wouldn't take the Rio Chama Valley as a gift if I had to steal it
+from Miss Valdés and her people. Ain't I making enough money up at
+Cripple Creek for my needs? No, Steve! I'm playing for bigger game than
+that. Size up my hand beside Don Manuel's, and it looks pretty bum. But
+I'm going to play it strong. Maybe at the draw I'll fill."
+
+"Mebbe you won't."
+
+"I can bet it like I had an ace full, can't I? Anybody can play poker
+when he's got a mitt full of big ones. Show me the man that can make two
+pair back an all-blue hand off the map."
+
+"Go to it, you old sport. My money's on you," grinned the miner
+admiringly. "I'll go order a wedding present."
+
+Through the pleasant coolness of the evening Dick sauntered along the
+streets to the Underwood home, nor was his contentment lessened because
+he knew that at a safe distance the brown shadows still dogged his
+steps. In a scabbard fitted neatly beneath his left arm rested a good
+friend that more than once had saved its owner's life. To the fraction
+of a second Gordon knew just how long it would take him to get this into
+action in case of need.
+
+Kate Underwood met him at the door and took her guest into the
+living-room. Beside a student lamp a plump little old lady sat knitting.
+Somehow even before her soft voice welcomed him the visitor knew that
+her gentle presence diffused an atmosphere of home.
+
+"Thee is welcome, Mr. Gordon. Kate has been telling us of thee."
+
+The young man gave no evidence of surprise, but Kate explained as a
+matter of course.
+
+"We are Friends, and at home we still use the old way of address."
+
+"I have very pleasant memories of the Friends. A good old lady who took
+the place of my own mother was one. It is nice to hear the speech
+again," answered Gordon.
+
+Presently the conversation drifted to the Valdés family. It appeared
+that as children Kate and Valencia had known each other. The heiress of
+the Valdés estates had been sent to Washington to school, and later had
+attended college in the East. Since her return she had spent most of her
+time in the valley. So that it happened the two young women had not met
+for a good many years.
+
+It occurred to Dick that there was a certain aloofness in Miss
+Underwood's attitude toward Valencia, a reticence that was not quite
+unfriendliness but retained the right of criticism. She held her
+judgment as it were in abeyance.
+
+While Miss Underwood was preparing some simple refreshments Gordon
+learned from her mother that Manuel Pesquiera had been formerly a
+frequent caller.
+
+"He has been so busy since he moved down to his place on the Rio Chama
+that we see nothing of him," she explained placidly. "He is a fine type
+of the best of the old Spanish families. Thee would find him a good
+friend."
+
+"Or a good foe," the young man added.
+
+She conceded the point with a sigh. "Yes. He is testy. He has the old
+patrician pride."
+
+After they had eaten cake and ice cream, Kate showed Gordon over the
+house. It was built of adobe, and the window seats in the thick walls
+were made comfortable with cushions or filled with potted plants. Navajo
+rugs and Indian baskets lent the rooms the homey appearance such
+furnishings always give in the old Southwest. The house was built around
+a court in the center, fronting on which were long, shaded balconies
+both on the first and second floor. A profusion of flowering trailers
+rioted up the pillars and along the upper railing.
+
+"The old families knew how to make themselves comfortable, anyhow,"
+commented the guest.
+
+"Yes, that's the word--comfort. It's not modern or stylish or up to
+date, but I never saw a house really more comfortable to live in than
+this," Miss Underwood agreed. She led the way through a French window
+from the veranda to a large room with a southern exposure. "How do you
+like this room?"
+
+"Must catch the morning sunshine fine. I like even the old stone
+fireplace in the corner. Why don't builders nowadays make such rooms?"
+
+"You've saved yourself, Mr. Gordon. This is _the sacred room_. Here the
+Princess of the Rio Chama was born. This was her room when she was a
+girl until she went away to school. She slept in that very bed. Down on
+your knees, sir, and worship at the shrine."
+
+He met with a laugh the cool, light scorn of her banter. Yet something
+in him warmed to his environment. He had the feeling of having come into
+more intimate touch with her past than he had yet done. The sight of
+that plain little bed went to the source of his emotions. How many times
+had his love knelt beside it in her night-gown and offered up her pure
+prayers to the God she worshiped!
+
+He made his good-byes soon after their return to Mrs. Underwood. Dick
+was a long way from a sentimentalist, but he wanted to be alone and
+adjust his mind to the new conception of his sweetheart brought by her
+childhood home. It was a night of little moonlight. As he walked toward
+the hotel he could see nothing of the escort that had been his during
+the past few days. He wondered if perhaps they had got tired of
+shadowing his movements.
+
+The road along which he was passing had on both sides of it a row of big
+cottonwoods, whose branches met in an arch above. Dick, with that
+instinct for safety which every man-hunter has learned, walked down the
+middle of the street, eyes and ears alert for the least sign of an
+ambush.
+
+Two men approached on the plank sidewalk. They were quarreling. Suddenly
+a knife flashed, and one of the men went with an oath to the ground.
+Dick reached for his gun and plunged straight for the assailant, who had
+stooped as if to strike again the prostrate man. The rescuer stumbled
+over a taut rope and at the same moment a swarm of men fell upon him.
+Even as he rose and shook off the clutching hands Gordon knew that he
+was the victim of a ruse.
+
+He had lost his revolver in the fall. With clenched fists he struck hard
+and sure. They swarmed upon him, so many that they got in each other's
+way. Now he was down, now up again. They swayed to and fro in a huddle,
+as does a black bear surrounded by a pack of dogs. Still the man at the
+heart of the mêlée struck--and struck--and struck again. Men went down
+and were trodden under foot, but he reeled on, stumbling as he went,
+turning, twisting, hitting hard and sure with all the strength that many
+good clean years in the open had stored within him. Blows fell upon his
+curly head as it rose now and again out of the storm--blows of guns, of
+knives, of bony knuckles. Yet he staggered forward, bleeding, exhausted,
+feeling nothing of the blows, seeing only the distorted faces that
+snarled on every side of him.
+
+He knew that when he went down it would be to stay. Even as he flung
+them aside and hammered at the brown faces he felt sure he was lost. The
+coat was torn from his back. The blood from his bruised and cut face and
+scalp blinded him. Heavy weights dragged at his arms as they struck
+wildly and feebly. Iron balls seemed to chain his feet. He plowed
+doggedly forward, dragging the pack with him. Furiously they beat him,
+striking themselves as often as they did him. His shoulders began to
+sway forward. Men leaped upon him from behind. Two he dragged down with
+him as he went. The sky was blotted out. He was tired--deadly tired. In
+a great weariness he felt himself sinking together.
+
+The consciousness drained out of him as an ebbing wave does from the
+sands of the shore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MANUEL TO THE RESCUE
+
+
+Valencia Valdés did not conform closely to the ideal her preceptress at
+the Washington finishing school had held as to what constitutes a
+perfect lady. Occasionally her activities shocked Manuel, who held to
+the ancient view that maidens should come to matrimony with the
+innocence born of conventual ignorance. He would have preferred his wife
+to be a clinging vine, but in the case of Valencia this would be
+impossible.
+
+No woman in New Mexico could ride better than the heiress of the Rio
+Chama. She could throw a rope as well as some of her _vaqueros_. At
+least one bearskin lay on the floor of her study as a witness to her
+prowess as a Diana. Many a time she had fished the river in waders and
+brought back with her to the ranch a creel full of trout. Years in the
+untempered sun and wind of the southwest had given her a sturdiness of
+body unusual in a girl so slenderly fashioned. The responsibility of
+large affairs had added to this an independence of judgment that would
+have annoyed Don Manuel if he had been less in love.
+
+Against the advice of both Pesquiera and her foreman she had about a
+year before this time largely increased her holdings in cattle, at the
+same time investing heavily in improved breeding stock. Her
+justification had been that the cost of beef, based on the law of supply
+and demand, was bound to continue on the rise.
+
+"But how do you know, _Doña_?" her perplexed major domo had asked.
+"Twenty--fifteen years ago everybody had cattle and lost money. Prices
+are high to-day, but _mañana_----"
+
+"To-morrow they will be higher. It's just a matter of arithmetic,
+Fernando. There are seventeen million less cattle in the country than
+there were eight years ago. The government reports say so. Our
+population is steadily increasing. The people must eat. Since there are
+fewer cattle they must pay more for their meat. We shall have meat to
+sell. Is that not simple?"
+
+"_Si, Doña_, but----"
+
+"But in the main we have always been sheep-herders, so we ought always
+to be? We'll run cattle and sheep, too, Fernando. We'll make this ranch
+pay as it never has before."
+
+"But the feed--the winter feed, _Señorita_?"
+
+"We'll have to raise our feed. I'm going to send for engineers and find
+what it will cost to impound, water in the _cordilleras_ and run ditches
+into the valley. We ought to be watering thousands of acres for alfalfa
+and grain that now are dry."
+
+"It never has been done--not in the time of Don Alvaro or even in that
+of Don Bartolomé."
+
+"And so you think it never can?" she asked, with a smile.
+
+"The Rio Chama Valley is grazing land. It is not for agriculture.
+Everybody knows that," he insisted doggedly.
+
+"Everybody knows we were given two legs with which to walk, but it is an
+economy to ride. So we use horses."
+
+Fernando shrugged his shoulders. Of what use to argue with the _doña_
+when her teeth were set? She was a Valdés, and so would have her way.
+
+That had been a year ago. Now the ditches were built. Fields had been
+planted to alfalfa and grain. Soon the water would be running through
+the laterals to irrigate the growing crops. Quietly the young woman at
+the head of things was revolutionizing the life of the valley by
+transforming it from a pastoral to a farming community.
+
+This morning, having arranged with the major domo the work of the day,
+Valencia appeared on the porch dressed for riding. She was going to see
+the water turned on to the new ditches from the north lateral.
+
+The young mistress of the ranch swung astride the horse that had just
+been brought from the stables, for she rode man-fashion after the
+sensible custom of the West. Before riding out of the plaza she stopped
+to give Pedro some directions about a bunch of yearlings in the corral.
+
+The mailman in charge of the R.F.D. route drove into the yard and handed
+Valencia a bunch of letters and papers. One of the pieces given her was
+a rather fat package for which she had to sign a registry receipt.
+
+She handed the mail to Juan and told him to put it on the desk in her
+office library; then she changed her mind, moved by an impulse of
+feminine curiosity.
+
+"Give me back that big letter, Juan. I'll just see what it is before I
+go."
+
+Five minutes later she descended to the porch. "I'm not going riding
+just now. Keep the horse saddled, Pedro." She had read Dick Gordon's
+note and the letter marked Exhibit A. Even careless Juan noticed that
+his mistress was much agitated. Pedro wondered savagely whether that
+splendid devil _Americano_ had done something fresh to annoy the dear
+saint he worshiped.
+
+Gordon had not overemphasized the effect upon her of his action. Her
+pride had clung to a belief in his unworthiness as the justification for
+what she had said and done. Now, with a careless and mocking laugh, he
+had swept aside all the arguments she had nursed. He had sent to her, so
+that she might destroy it, the letter that would have put her case out
+of court. If he had wanted a revenge for her bitter words the American
+had it now. He had repaid her scorn and contempt with magnanimity. He
+had heaped coals of fire upon her head, had humiliated her by proving
+that he was more generous of spirit than she.
+
+Valencia paced the floor of her library in a stress of emotion. It was
+not her pride alone that had been touched, but the fine instincts of
+justice and fair play and good will. She had outraged hospitality and
+sent him packing. She had let him take the long tramp in spite of his
+bad knee. Her dependents had attempted to murder him. Her best friend
+had tried to fasten a duel upon him. All over the valley his name had
+been bandied about as that of one in league with the devil. As an answer
+to all this outrage that had been heaped upon him he refused to take
+advantage of this chance-found letter of Bartolomé merely because it was
+her letter and not his. Her heart was bowed down with shame and yet was
+lifted in a warm glow of appreciation of his quality. Something in her
+blood sang with gladness. She had known all along that the hateful
+things she had said to him could not be true. He was her enemy, but--the
+brave spirit of her went out in a rush to thank God for this proof of
+his decency.
+
+The girl was all hot for action. She wanted to humble herself in
+apology. She wanted to show him that she could respond to his
+generosity. But how? Only one way was open just now.
+
+She sat down and wrote a swift, impulsive letter of contrition. For the
+wrong she had done him Valencia asked forgiveness. As for the letter he
+had so generously sent, she must beg him to keep it and use it at the
+forthcoming trial. It would be impossible for her to accept such a
+sacrifice of his rights. In the meantime she could assure him that she
+would always be sorry for the way in which she had misjudged him.
+
+The young woman called for her horse again and rode to Corbett's, which
+was the nearest post-office. In the envelope with her letter was also
+the one of her grandfather marked "Exhibit A." She, too, carefully
+registered the contents before mailing.
+
+As she stood on the porch drawing up her gauntlets a young man cantered
+into sight. He wore puttees, riding breeches, and a neat corduroy coat.
+One glance told her it was Manuel. No other rider in the valley had
+quite the same easy seat in the saddle as the young Spaniard. He drew up
+sharply in front of Valencia and landed lightly on his feet beside her.
+
+"_Buenos, Señorita_."
+
+"_Buenos,_ cousin." Her shining eyes went eagerly to his. "Manuel, what
+do you think Mr. Gordon has done?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "How can I guess? That mad American might do
+anything but show the white feather."
+
+In four sentences she told him.
+
+Manuel clapped his hands in approval. "Bravo! Done like a man. He is at
+least neither a spy nor a thief."
+
+Valencia smiled with pleasure. Manuel, too, had come out of the test
+with flying colors. He and Gordon were foes, but he accepted at face
+value what the latter had done, without any sneers or any sign of
+jealousy.
+
+"And what shall I do with the letter?" his cousin asked.
+
+"Do with it? Put it in the first fire you see. Shall I lend you a
+match?"
+
+She shook her head, still with the gleam of a smile on her vivid face.
+"Too late, Manuel. I have disposed of the dangerous evidence."
+
+"So? Good. You took my advice before I gave it, then."
+
+"Not quite. I couldn't be less generous than our enemy. So I have sent
+the letter back to him and told him to use it."
+
+The young man gave her his best bow. "Magnificent, but not war. I might
+have trusted the daughter of Don Alvaro to do a thing so royal. My
+cousin, I am proud of you."
+
+"What else could I have done and held my self-respect? I had insulted
+him gratuitously and my people had tried to kill him. The least I could
+do now was to meet him in a spirit like his own."
+
+"Honors are easy. Let us see what Mr. Gordon will now do."
+
+The sound of a light footfall came to them. A timid voice broke into
+their conversation.
+
+"May I see _Doña_ Valencia--alone--for just a minute?"
+
+Miss Valdés turned. A girl was standing shyly in the doorway. Her soft
+brown eyes begged pardon for the intrusion.
+
+"You are Juanita, are you not?" the young woman asked.
+
+"_Si, Doña_."
+
+Pesquiera eliminated himself by going in to get his mail.
+
+"What is it that I can do for you?" asked Valencia.
+
+The Mexican girl broke into an emotional storm. She caught one of her
+hands in the brown palm of the other with a little gesture of despair.
+
+"They have gone to kill him. Doña. I know it. Something tells me. He
+will never come back alive." The feeling she had repressed was finding
+vent in long, irregular sobs.
+
+Valencia felt as if she were being drowned in icy water. The color
+washed from her cheeks. She had no need to ask who it was that would
+never come back alive, but she did.
+
+"Who, child? Whom is it that they have gone to kill?"
+
+"The American--_Señor_ Gordon."
+
+"Who has gone? And when did they go? Tell me quick."
+
+"Sebastian and Pablo--maybe others--I do not know."
+
+Miss Valdés thought quickly. It might be true. Both the men mentioned
+had asked for a holiday to go to Santa Fé. What business had they there
+at this time of the year? Could it be Pablo who had shot at Gordon from
+ambush? If so, why was he so bitter against the common enemy?
+
+"Juanita, tell me everything. What is it that you know?"
+
+The sobs of the girl increased. She leaned against the door jamb and
+buried her face in the crook of her arm.
+
+The older girl put an arm around the quivering shoulders and spoke
+gently. "But listen, child. Tell me all. It may be we can save him yet."
+
+A name came from the muffled lips. It was "Pablo."
+
+Valencia's brain was lit by a flash of understanding. "Pablo is your
+lover. Is it not so, _niña_?"
+
+The dark crown of soft hair moved up and down in assent. "Oh, _Doña_, he
+was, but--"
+
+"You have quarreled with him?"
+
+Miss Valdés burned with impatience, but some instinct told her she could
+not hurry the girl.
+
+"_Si, Señorita_. He quarreled. He said--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"----that ... that _Señor_ Gordon ..."
+
+Again, groping for the truth, Valencia found it swiftly.
+
+"You mean that Pablo was jealous?"
+
+"Because I had nursed _Señor_ Gordon, because he was kind to me,
+because----" Juanita had lifted her face to answer. As she spoke the
+color poured into her cheeks even to her throat, convicting evidence of
+the cruel embarrassment she felt.
+
+Valencia's hand dropped to her side. When she spoke again the warmth had
+been banished from her voice. "I see. You nursed Mr. Gordon, did you?"
+
+Juanita's eyes fell before the cold accusation in those of Miss Valdés.
+"_Si, Señorita._"
+
+"And he was kind to you? In what way kind?"
+
+The slim Mexican girl, always of the shyest, was bathed in blushes. "He
+called me ... _niña_. He ..."
+
+"----made love to you."
+
+A sensation as if the clothes were being torn from her afflicted
+Juanita. Why did the _Doña_ drag her heart out to look at it? Nor did
+the girl herself know how much or how little Richard Gordon's gay
+_camaraderie_ meant. She was of that type of women who love all that are
+kind to them. No man had ever been so considerate as this handsome
+curly-headed American. So dumbly her heart went out to him and made the
+most of his friendliness. Had he not once put his arm around her
+shoulder and told her to "buck up" when he came upon her crying because
+of Pedro? Had he not told her she was the prettiest girl in the
+neighborhood? And had he not said, too, that she was a little angel for
+nursing him so patiently?
+
+"_Doña_, I--do--not--know." The words came out as if they were being
+dragged from her. Poor Juanita would have liked the ground to open up
+and swallow her.
+
+"Don't you know, you little stupid, that he is playing with you, that he
+will not marry you?"
+
+"If _Doña_ Valencia says so," murmured the Mexican submissively.
+
+"Men are that way, heartless ... selfish ... vain. But I suppose you led
+him on," concluded Valencia cruelly.
+
+With a little flare of spirit Juanita looked up. Her courage was for her
+friend, not for herself.
+
+"_Señor_ Gordon is good. He is kind."
+
+"A lot you know about it, child. Have nothing to do with him. His love
+can only hurt a girl like you. Go back to your Pablo and forget the
+American. I will see he does not trouble you again."
+
+Juanita began to cry again. She did not want _Señorita_ Valdés or
+anybody else interfering between her and the friend she had nursed. But
+she knew she could not stop this imperative young woman from doing as
+she pleased.
+
+"Now tell me how you know that Pablo has gone to injure the American.
+Did he tell you so?"
+
+"No-o."
+
+"Well, what did he say? What is it that you know?" Valencia's shoe
+tapped the floor impatiently. "Tell me--tell me!"
+
+"He--Pablo--met me at the corral the day he left. I was in the kitchen
+and he whistled to me." Juanita gave the information sullenly. Why
+should _Señorita_ Valdés treat her so harshly? She had done no wrong.
+
+"Yes. Go on!"
+
+If she had had the force of character Juanita would have turned on her
+heel and walked away. But all her life it had been impressed upon her
+that the will of a Valdés was law to her and her class.
+
+"I do not know ... Pablo told me nothing ... but he laughed at me, oh,
+so cruelly! He asked if I ... had any messages for my Gringo lover."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"All ... except that he would show me what happened to foreign devils
+who stole my love from him. Oh, _Señorita_, do you think he will kill
+the American?"
+
+Valencia, her white lips pressed tightly together, gave no answer. She
+was thinking.
+
+"I hate Pablo. He is wicked. I will never speak to him again," moaned
+Juanita helplessly.
+
+Manuel, coming out of the post-office with his mail, looked at the
+weeping girl incuriously. It was, he happened to know, a habit of the
+sex to cry over trifles.
+
+Juanita found in a little nod from Miss Valdés permission to leave. She
+turned and walked hurriedly away to the adobe cabin where she slept.
+Before she reached it the walk had become a run.
+
+"Has the young woman lost a ribbon or a lover?" commented Pesquiera,
+with a smile.
+
+"Manuel, I am worried," answered Valencia irrelevantly.
+
+"What about, my cousin?"
+
+"It's this man Gordon again. Juanita says that Pablo and Sebastian have
+gone to kill him."
+
+"Gone where?"
+
+"To Santa Fé. They asked for a leave of absence. You know how sullen and
+suspicious Sebastian is. It is fixed firmly in his head that Mr. Gordon
+is going to take away his farm."
+
+Manuel's black eyes snapped. He did not propose to let any peons steal
+from him the punishment he owed this insolent Gordon.
+
+"But Pablo is not a fool. Surely he knows he cannot do such a mad
+thing."
+
+"Pablo is jealous--and hot-headed." The angry color mounted to the
+cheeks of the young woman. "He is in love with Juanita and he found out
+this stranger has been philandering with her. It is abominable. This
+Gordon has made the silly little fool fall in love with him."
+
+"Oh, if Pablo is jealous----" Pesquiera gave a little shrug of his
+shoulders. He understood pretty well the temperament of the ignorant
+Mexican. The young lover was likely to shoot first and think afterward.
+
+Valencia was still thinking of the American. Beneath the olive of her
+cheeks two angry spots still burned. "I detest that sort of thing. I
+thought he was a gentleman--and he is only a male flirt ... or worse."
+
+"Perhaps--and perhaps not, my cousin. Did Juanita tell you----?"
+
+"She told me enough. All I need to know."
+
+Again the young man's shoulders lifted in a little gesture of humorous
+resignation. He knew the uncompromising directness of Miss Valdés and
+the futility of arguing with her. After all, the character of Gordon was
+none of his business. The man might have made love to Juanita, though he
+did not look like that kind of a person. In any case the important thing
+was to save his life.
+
+After a moment's thought he announced a decision. "I shall take the
+stage for Santa Fé this afternoon. When I have warned the American I'll
+round up your man-hunters and bring them back to you."
+
+His lady's face thanked him, though her words did not. "You may tell
+them I said they were to come back at once."
+
+At her cousin's urgent request Miss Valdés stayed to eat luncheon with
+him at Corbett's, which was a half-way station for the stage and
+maintained a public eating-house. Even Valencia hesitated a little at
+this, though she was at heart an emancipated American girl and not a
+much-chaperoned Spanish maid. But she wanted to repay him for the
+service he was undertaking so cheerfully, and therefore sacrificed her
+scruples.
+
+As they were being served by Juanita the stage rolled up and disgorged
+its passengers. They poured into the dining-room--a mine-owner and his
+superintendent, a storekeeper from the village at the other end of the
+valley, a young woman school-teacher from the Indian reservation, a
+cattleman, and two Mexican sheepmen.
+
+While the fresh horses were being hitched to the stage Pesquiera and his
+guest stood back a little apart from the others. Corbett brought out a
+sack containing mail and handed it to the driver. The passengers found
+again their places.
+
+Pesquiera shook hands with Valencia. His gaze rested for a moment in her
+dark eyes.
+
+"_Adios, linda_," he said, in a low voice.
+
+The color deepened in her cheeks. She understood that he was telling her
+how very much he was her lover now and always. "Good-bye, _amigo_," she
+answered lightly.
+
+Pesquiera took his place on the back seat. The whip of the driver
+cracked. In a cloud of white dust the stage disappeared around a bend in
+the road.
+
+Valencia ordered her horse brought, and left for the ranch. Having
+dispatched Manuel to the scene of action, it might be supposed that she
+would have awaited the issue without farther activity. But on the way
+home she began to reflect that her cousin would not reach Santa Fé until
+next morning, and there was always a chance that this would be too late.
+As soon as she reached the ranch she called up the station where the
+stage connected with the train. To the operator she dictated a message
+to be wired to Richard Gordon. The body of it ran thus:
+
+  "Have heard that attack may be made upon your life. Please do not
+  go out alone or at night at all. Answer."
+
+She gave urgent instructions that if necessary to reach Gordon her
+telegram be sent to every hotel in the city and to his lawyer, Thomas M.
+Fitt.
+
+Now that she had done all she could the young woman tried to put the
+matter out of her mind by busying herself with the affairs of the ranch.
+She had a talk with a cattle buyer, after which she rode out to see the
+engineer who had charge of the building of the irrigation system she had
+installed. An answer would, she was sure, be awaiting her upon her
+return home.
+
+Her anticipation was well founded. One of the housemaids told her that
+the operator at San Jacinto had twice tried to get her on the telephone.
+The mistress of the ranch stepped at once to the receiver.
+
+"Give me San Jacinto," she said to the operator.
+
+As soon as she was on the wire with the operator he delivered the
+message he had for her. It was from Santa Fé and carried the signature
+of Stephen Davis:
+
+  "Gordon has been missing since last night. I fear the worst. For
+  God's sake, tell me what you know."
+
+Valencia leaned against the telephone receiver and steadied herself. She
+felt strangely faint. The wall opposite danced up and down and the floor
+swayed like the deck of a vessel in a heavy sea. She set her teeth hard
+to get a grip on herself. Presently the wave of light-headedness passed.
+
+She moved across the room and sank down into a chair in front of her
+desk. They had then murdered him after all. She and her people were
+responsible for his death. There was nothing to be done now--nothing at
+all.
+
+Then, out of the silence, a voice seemed to call to her--the voice of
+Richard Gordon, faint and low, but clear. She started to her feet and
+listened, shaken to the soul by this strange summons from that world
+which lay beyond the reach of her physical senses. What could it mean?
+She had the body of a healthy young animal. Her nerves never played her
+any tricks. But surely there had come to her a call for help not born of
+her own excited fancy.
+
+In an instant she had made up her mind. Her finger pressed an electric
+button beside the desk, and almost simultaneously a second one. The maid
+who appeared in the doorway in answer to the first ring found her
+mistress busily writing.
+
+Valencia looked up. "Rosario, pack a suitcase for me with clothes for a
+week. Put in my light brown dress and a couple of shirt-waists. I'll be
+up presently." Her gaze passed to the major domo who now stood beside
+the maid. "I'm going to Santa Fé to-night, Fernando. Order the grays to
+be hitched to the buggy."
+
+"To-night! But, _Señorita_, the train has gone."
+
+"Juan will go with me. We'll drive right through. My business is
+important."
+
+"But it is seventy miles to Santa Fé, and part of the way over mountain
+roads," he protested.
+
+"Yes. We should reach there by morning. I mean to travel all night. Make
+the arrangements, please, and tell Juan. Then return here. I want to
+talk over with you the ranch affairs. You will have charge of the
+ditches, too, during my absence. Don't argue, Fernando, but do as I
+say."
+
+The old man had opened his mouth to object, but he closed it without
+voicing his views. A little smile, born of his pride in her wilfulness,
+touched his lips and wrinkled the parchment skin. Was she not a Valdés?
+He had served her father and her grandfather. To him, therefore, she
+could do no wrong.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD
+
+
+The night of his disappearance Dick had sauntered forth from the hotel
+with the jaunty assurance to Davis that he was going to call on a young
+lady. He offered no further details, and his friend asked for none,
+though he wondered a little what young woman in Santa Fé had induced
+Gordon to change his habits. The old miner had known him from boyhood.
+His partner had never found much time for the society of eligible
+maidens. He had been too busy living to find tea-cup discussions about
+life interesting. The call of adventure had absorbed his youth, and he
+had given his few mature years ardently to the great American game of
+money-making. It was not that he loved gold. What Richard Gordon cared
+for was the battle, the struggle against both honorable and unscrupulous
+foe-men for success. He fought in the business world only because it was
+the test of strength. Money meant power. So he had made money.
+
+It was not until Dick failed to appear for breakfast next morning that
+Davis began to get uneasy. He sent a bellboy to awaken Gordon, and
+presently the lad came back with word that he could get no answer to his
+knocks. Instantly Steve pushed back his chair and walked out of the room
+to the desk in the lobby.
+
+"Got a skeleton key to Mr. Gordon's room--317, I think it is?" he
+demanded.
+
+"Yes. We keep duplicate keys. You see, Mr. Davis, guests go away and
+carry the keys----"
+
+"Then I want it. Afraid something's wrong with my friend. He's always up
+early and on hand for breakfast. He hasn't showed up this mo'ning. The
+bell hop can't waken him. I tell you something's wrong."
+
+"Oh, I reckon he'll turn up all right." The clerk turned to the key
+rack. "Here's the key to Room 317. Mr. Gordon must have left it here.
+Likely he's gone for a walk."
+
+Davis shook his head obstinately. "Don't believe it. I'm going up to
+see, anyhow."
+
+Within five minutes he discovered that the bed in Room 317 had not been
+slept in the previous night. He was thoroughly alarmed. Gordon had no
+friends in the town likely to put him up for the night. Nor was he the
+sort of rounder to dissipate his energies in all-night debauchery. Dick
+had come to Santa Fé for a definite purpose. The old miner knew from
+long experience that he would not be diverted from it for the sake of
+the futile foolish diversions known by some as pleasure. Therefore the
+mind of Davis jumped at once to the conclusion of foul play.
+
+And if foul play, then the Valdés claimants to the Rio Chamo Valley were
+the guilty parties. He blamed himself bitterly for having let Dick
+venture out alone, for having taken no precautions whatever to guard him
+against the Mexicans who had already once attempted his life.
+
+"I'm a fine friend. Didn't even find out who he was going out to call
+on. Fact is, I didn't figure he was in any danger so long as he was in
+town here," he explained to the sheriff.
+
+He learned nothing either at the police headquarters or at the newspaper
+offices that threw light on the disappearance of Gordon. No murder had
+been reported during the night. No unusual disturbance of any kind had
+occurred, so far as could be learned.
+
+Before noon he had the town plastered with posters in English and in
+Spanish offering a reward of five hundred dollars for news leading to
+the recovery of Richard Gordon or for evidence leading to the conviction
+of his murderers in case he was dead. This brought two callers to the
+hotel almost at once. One was the attorney Fitt, the other a young woman
+who gave her name as Kate Underwood. Fitt used an hour of the old
+miner's time to no purpose, but the young woman brought with her one
+piece of news.
+
+"I want to know when Mr. Gordon was last seen," she explained, "because
+he was calling on my mother and me last night and left about ten
+o'clock."
+
+The little man got to his feet in great excitement. "My dear young
+woman, you're the very person I've been wanting to see. He told me he
+was going calling, but I'm such a darned chump I didn't think to ask
+where. Is Dick a friend of your family?"
+
+"No, hardly that. I met him when he came to our office in the State
+House to look up the land grant papers. We became friendly and I asked
+him to call because we own the old Valdés house, and I thought he would
+like to see it." She added, rather dryly: "You haven't answered my
+question."
+
+"I'll say that so far as I know you are the last person who ever saw
+Dick alive except his murderers," Davis replied, a gleam of tears in his
+eyes.
+
+"Oh, it can't be as bad as that," she cried. "They wouldn't go that
+far."
+
+"Wouldn't they? He was shot at from ambush while we were out riding one
+day in the Chama Valley."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"By a young Mexican--one of Miss Valdés servants."
+
+"You don't mean that Valencia----?"
+
+She stopped, unwilling to put her horrified thought into words. He
+answered her meaning.
+
+"No, I reckon not. She wanted Dick to tell her who it was, so she could
+punish the man. But that doesn't alter the facts any. He was shot at.
+That time the murderer missed, but maybe this time----"
+
+Miss Underwood broke in sharply. "Do you know that he has been followed
+ever since he came to town, that men have dogged his steps everywhere?"
+
+Davis leaned across the table where he was sitting. "How do you know?"
+he questioned eagerly.
+
+"I saw them and warned him. He laughed about it and said he knew
+already. He didn't seem at all worried."
+
+"Worried! He's just kid enough to be tickled to death about it," snapped
+the miner, masking his anxiety with irritation. "He hadn't sense enough
+to tell me for fear it would disturb me--and I hadn't the sense to find
+out in several days what you did in five minutes."
+
+Davis and Miss Underwood went together over every foot of the road
+between her home and the hotel. One ray of hope they got from their
+examination of the ground he must have traversed to reach the El Tovar,
+as the hotel was named. At one spot--where a double row of cottonwoods
+lined the road--a fence had been knocked down and many feet had trampled
+the sandy pasture within. Steve picked up a torn piece of cloth about
+six inches by twelve in dimension. It had evidently been a part of a
+coat sleeve. He recognized the pattern as that of the suit his friend
+had been wearing.
+
+"A part of his coat all right," he said. "They must have bushwhacked him
+here. By the foot-prints there were a good many of them."
+
+"I'm glad there were."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"For two reasons," the girl explained. "In the first place, if they had
+wanted to kill him, one or two would have been enough. They wouldn't
+take any more than was necessary into their confidence."
+
+"That's right. Your head's level there."
+
+"And, in the second place, two men can keep a secret, but six or eight
+can't. Some one of them is bound to talk to his sweetheart or wife or
+friend."
+
+"True enough. That five hundred dollars might get one of 'em, too."
+
+"Somehow I believe he is alive. His enemies have taken him away
+somewhere--probably up into the hills."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"You ought to know that better than I do. What could they gain by it?"
+
+He scratched his gray head. "Search me. They couldn't aim to hold him
+till after the trial. That would be a kid's play."
+
+"Couldn't they get him to sign some paper--something saying that he
+would give up his claim--or that he would sell out cheap?"
+
+"No, they couldn't," the old man answered grimly. "But they might think
+they could. I expect that's the play. Dick never in the world would come
+through, though. He's game, that boy is. The point is, what will they do
+when they find he stands the acid?"
+
+Miss Underwood looked quickly at him, then looked quickly away. She knew
+what they would do. So did Davis.
+
+"No, that's not the point. We must find him--just as soon as we can.
+Stir this whole town up and rake it with a fine-tooth comb. See if any
+of Miss Valdés' peons are in town. If they are have them shadowed."
+
+They separated presently, she to go to the State House, he to return to
+the El Tovar. There he found the telegram from Miss Valdés awaiting him.
+Immediately he dictated an answer.
+
+Before nightfall a second supply of posters decorated walls and
+billboards. The reward was raised to one thousand dollars for
+information that would lead to the finding of Richard Gordon alive and
+the same sum for evidence sufficient to convict his murderers in case he
+was dead. It seemed impossible that in so small a place, with everybody
+discussing the mysterious disappearance, the affair could long remain a
+secret. Davis did not doubt that Miss Underwood was correct in her
+assumption that the assailants of Gordon had carried him with them into
+some hidden pocket of the hills, in which case it might take longer to
+run them to earth. The great danger that he feared was panic on the part
+of the abductors. To cover their tracks they might kill him and leave
+this part of the country. The closer pursuit pressed on them the more
+likely this was to happen. It behooved him to move with the greatest
+care.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+VALENCIA MAKES A PROMISE
+
+
+When Manuel descended from the El Tovar hack which had brought him from
+the station to that hotel the first person he saw standing upon the
+porch was Valencia Valdés. He could hardly believe his eyes, for of
+course she could not be here. He had left her at Corbett's, had taken
+the stage and the train, and now found her waiting for him. The thing
+was manifestly impossible. Yet here she was.
+
+Swiftly she came down the steps to meet him.
+
+"Manuel, we are too late. Mr. Gordon has gone."
+
+"Gone where?" he asked, his mind dazed as it moved from one puzzle to
+another.
+
+"We don't know. He was attacked night before last and carried away,
+whether dead or alive we have no proof."
+
+"One thing at a time, Valencia. How did you get here?"
+
+"I drove across the mountains--started when I got the news from Mr.
+Davis that his friend had disappeared."
+
+"Do you mean that you drove all night--along mountain roads?" he asked,
+amazed.
+
+"Of course. I had to get here." She dismissed this as a trifle with a
+little gesture of her hand. "Manuel, we must find him. I believe he is
+alive. This is some of Pablo's work. Down in old-town some one must know
+where he is. Bring him to me and I'll make him tell what he has done
+with Mr. Gordon."
+
+Pesquiera was healthily hungry. He would have liked to sit down to a
+good breakfast, but he saw that his cousin was laboring under a heavy
+nervous tension. Cheerfully he gave up his breakfast for the present.
+
+But when, three hours later, he returned from the old adobe Mexican
+quarter Manuel had nothing to report but failure. Pablo had been seen by
+several people, but not within the past twenty-four hours. Nor had
+anything been seen of Sebastian. The two men had disappeared from sight
+as completely as had Gordon.
+
+Valencia, in the privacy of one of the hotel parlors, broke down and
+wept for the first time. Manuel tried to comfort her by taking the girl
+in his arms and petting her. She submitted to his embrace, burying her
+face in his shoulder.
+
+"Oh, Manuel, I'm a--a murderess," she sobbed.
+
+"You're a goose," he corrected. "Haven't you from the first tried to
+save this man from his own rashness? You're not to blame in any way,
+Val."
+
+"Yes ... Yes," she sobbed. "Pablo and Sebastian would never have dared
+touch him if they hadn't known that I'd quarreled with him. It all comes
+back to that."
+
+"That's pure nonsense. For that matter, I don't believe he's dead at
+all. We'll find him, as gay and insolent as ever, I promise you."
+
+Hope was buoyant in the young man's heart. For the first time he held
+his sweetheart in his arms. She clung to him, as a woman ought to her
+lover, palpitant, warm, and helpless. Of course they would find this
+pestiferous American who had caused her so much worry. And then
+he--Manuel--would claim his reward.
+
+"Do you think so ... really? You're not just saying so because ...?" Her
+olive cheek turned the least in the world toward him.
+
+Manuel trod on air. He felt that he could have flown across the range on
+the wings of his joy.
+
+"I feel sure of it, _niña_." Daring much, his hand caressed gently the
+waves of heavy black hair that brushed his cheek.
+
+Almost in a murmur she answered him. "Manuel, find him and save him.
+Afterward ..."
+
+"Afterward, _alma mia?_"
+
+She nodded. "I'll ... do what you ask."
+
+"You will marry me?" he cried, afraid to believe that his happiness had
+come at last.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Valencia, you love me?"
+
+She trod down any doubts she might feel. Was he not the one suitable
+mate for her of all the men she knew?
+
+"How can I help it. You are good. You are generous. You serve me truly."
+Gently she disengaged herself and wiped her eyes with a lace kerchief.
+"But we must first find the American."
+
+"I'll find him. Dead or alive I'll bring him to you. Dear heart, you've
+given me the strength that moves mountains."
+
+A little smile fought for life upon her sad face. "You'll not have
+strength unless you eat. Poor Manuel, I think you lost your breakfast. I
+ordered luncheon to be ready for us early. We'll eat now."
+
+A remark of Manuel during luncheon gave his vis-à-vis an idea.
+
+"Mr. Davis is most certainly thorough. I never saw a town so plastered
+with bills before," he remarked.
+
+Valencia laid down her knife and fork as she looked at him. "Let's offer
+a reward for Pablo and Sebastian--say, a hundred dollars. That would
+bring us news of them."
+
+"You're right," he agreed. "I'll get bills out this afternoon. Perhaps
+I'd better say no incriminating questions will be asked of those giving
+us information."
+
+Stirred to activity by the promise of such large rewards, not only the
+sheriff's office and the police, but also private parties scoured the
+neighboring country for traces of the missing man or his captors. Every
+available horse in town was called into service for the man-hunt. Others
+became sleuths on foot and searched cellars and empty houses for the
+body of the man supposed to have been murdered. Never in its history had
+so much suspicion among neighbors developed in the old-town. Many who
+could not possibly be connected with the crime were watched jealously
+lest they snap up one of the rewards by stumbling upon evidence that had
+been overlooked.
+
+False clews in abundance were brought to Davis and Pesquiera. Good
+citizens came in with theories that lacked entirely the backing of any
+evidence. One of these was that a flying machine had descended in the
+darkness and that Gordon had been carried away by a friend to avoid the
+payment of debts he was alleged to owe. The author of this explanation
+was a stout old lady of militant appearance who carried a cotton
+umbrella large enough to cover a family. She was extraordinarily
+persistent and left in great indignation to see a lawyer because Davis
+would not pay her the reward.
+
+That day and the next passed with the mystery still unsolved. Valencia
+continued to stay at the hotel instead of opening the family town house,
+probably because she had brought no servants with her from the valley
+and did not know how long she would remain in the city. She and Manuel
+called upon the Underwoods to hear Kate's story, but from it they
+gathered nothing new. Mrs. Underwood welcomed them with the gentle
+kindness that characterized her, but Kate was formal and distant.
+
+"She doesn't like me," Valencia told her cousin as soon as they had
+left. "I wonder why. We were good enough friends as children."
+
+Manuel said nothing. He stroked his little black mustache with the
+foreign manner he had inherited. If he had cared to do so perhaps he
+could have explained Kate Underwood's stiffness. Partly it was
+embarrassment and partly shyness. He knew that there had been a
+time--before Valencia's return from college--when Kate lacked very
+little of being in love with him. He had but to say the word to have
+become engaged--and he had not said it. For, while on a visit to the
+East, he had called upon his beautiful cousin and she had won his love
+at once. This had nipped in the bud any embryonic romance that might
+otherwise have been possible with Kate.
+
+A little old Mexican woman with a face like wrinkled leather was waiting
+to see them in front of the hotel.
+
+"_Señor_ Pesquiera?" she asked, with a little bob of the body meant to
+be a bow.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And _Señorita_ Valdés?"
+
+"That is my name," answered Valencia.
+
+"Will the _señor_ and the _señorita_ take a walk? The night is fine."
+
+"Where?" demanded Manuel curtly.
+
+"Into old-town, _señor_."
+
+"You have something to tell us."
+
+"To show you, _señor_--for a hundred dollars."
+
+"Sebastian--or is it Pablo?" cried Valencia, in a low voice.
+
+"I say nothing, _señorita_" whined the old woman. "I show you; then you
+pay. Is it not so?"
+
+"Get the money, Manuel," his cousin ordered quietly.
+
+Manuel got it from the hotel safe. He took time also to get from his
+room a revolver. Gordon had fallen victim to an ambush and he did not
+intend to do so if he could help it. In his own mind he had no doubt
+that some of their countrymen were selling either Pablo or Sebastian for
+the reward, but it was better to be safe than to be sorry.
+
+The old crone led them by side streets into the narrow adobe-lined roads
+of old-town. They passed through winding alleys and between buildings
+crumbling with age. Always Manuel watched, his right hand in his coat
+pocket. At the entrance to a little court a man emerged from the shadow
+of a wall. He whispered with the old dame for a minute.
+
+"Come. Make an end of this and show us what you have to show, _muy
+pronto_," interrupted Manuel impatiently.
+
+"In good time, _señor_," the man apologized.
+
+"Just a word first, my friend. I have a revolver in my hand. If there is
+trickery in your mind, better give it up. I'm a dead shot, and I'll put
+the first bullet through your heart. Now lead on."
+
+The Mexican threw up his hands in protest to all the saints that his
+purpose was good. He would assuredly keep faith, _señor_.
+
+"See you do," replied the Spaniard curtly.
+
+Their guide rapped three times on a door of a tumble-down shack.
+Cautiously it was opened a few inches. There was another whispered
+conversation.
+
+"The _señor_ and the _señorita_ can come in," said the first man,
+standing aside.
+
+Manuel restrained the young woman by stretching his left arm in front of
+her.
+
+"Just a moment. Light a lamp, my friends. We do not go forward in the
+dark."
+
+At this there was a further demur, but finally a match flickered and a
+lamp was lit. Manuel moved slowly forward into the room, followed by
+Valencia. In a corner of the room a man lay bound upon the floor, his
+back toward them. One of the men rolled him over as if he had been a
+sack of potatoes. The face into which they looked had been mauled and
+battered, but Valencia had no trouble in recognizing it.
+
+"Sebastian!" she cried.
+
+He said nothing. A sullen, dogged look rested on his face. Manuel had
+seen it before on the countenance of many men. He knew that the sheep
+grazer could not be driven to talk.
+
+Miss Valdés might have known it, too, but she was too impatient for
+finesse. "What have you done with Mr. Gordon? Tell me--now--at once,"
+she commanded.
+
+The man's eyes did not lift to meet hers. Nor did he answer a single
+word.
+
+"First, our hundred dollars, _Señorita_," one of the men reminded her.
+
+"It will be paid when you deliver Sebastian to us in the street with his
+hands tied behind him," Manuel promised.
+
+They protested, grumbling that they had risked enough already when they
+had captured him an hour earlier. But in the end they came to
+Pesquiera's condition. The prisoner's hands were tied behind him and his
+feet released so that he could walk. Manuel slid one arm under the right
+one of Sebastian. The fingers of his left hand rested on the handle of a
+revolver in his coat pocket.
+
+Valencia, all impatience, could hardly restrain herself until they were
+alone with their prisoner. She walked on the other side of her cousin,
+but as soon as they reached the Plaza she stopped.
+
+"Where is he, Sebastian? What have you done with him? I warn you it is
+better to tell all you know," she cried sternly.
+
+He looked up at her doggedly, moistened his lips, and looked down again
+without a word.
+
+"Speak!" she urged imperiously. "Where is Mr. Gordon? Tell me he is
+alive. And what of Pablo?"
+
+Manuel spoke in a low voice. "My cousin, you are driving him to silence.
+Leave him to me. He must be led, not driven."
+
+Valencia was beyond reason. She felt that every minute lost was of
+tremendous importance. If Gordon was alive they must get help to him at
+once. All her life she had known Sebastian. When she had been a little
+tot he had taught her how to ride and how to fish. Since her return from
+college she had renewed acquaintance with him. Had she not been good to
+his children when they had small-pox? Had she not sold him his place
+cheaper than any other man could have bought it? Why, then, should he
+assume she was his enemy? Why should he distrust her? Why, above all,
+had he done this foolish and criminal thing?
+
+Her anger blazed as she recalled all this and more. She would show
+Sebastian that because she had been indulgent he could not trade
+defiantly upon her kindness.
+
+"No," she told Manuel. "No. I shall deal with him myself. He will speak
+or I shall turn him over to the sheriff."
+
+"Let us at least go to the hotel, Valencia. We do not want to gather a
+crowd on the street."
+
+"As you please."
+
+They reached the hotel parlor and Valencia gave Sebastian one more
+chance.
+
+The man shuffled uneasily on his feet, but did not answer.
+
+"Very well," continued Miss Valdés stiffly, "it is not my fault that you
+will have to go to the penitentiary and leave your children without
+support."
+
+Manuel tried to stop her, but Valencia brushed past and left the room.
+She went straight to a telephone and was connected with the office of
+the sheriff. After asking that an officer be sent at once to arrest a
+man whom she was holding as prisoner, she hung up the receiver and
+returned to the parlor.
+
+In all she could not have been absent more than five minutes, but when
+she reached the parlor it was empty. Both Manuel and his prisoner had
+gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+AN OBSTINATE MAN
+
+
+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 uncomfortably to and fro. His dazed brain registered
+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 mind was too blank to give 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 from the jolting
+something light and rough 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 his mind was busy with the
+problem.
+
+Presently the jolting ceased. He could hear guarded voices. The alfalfa
+was thrown aside and he was dragged from his place and carried down some
+steps. The men went stumbling through the dark, turning first to the
+right, and then to the left. They groped their way into a room and
+dropped him upon a bed. Even now they struck no light, but through a
+small window near the ceiling moonbeams entered and relieved somewhat
+the inky blackness.
+
+"Is he dead?" someone asked in Spanish.
+
+"No. His eyes were open as we brought him in," answered a second voice
+guardedly.
+
+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 him.
+
+"He fought like a devil from hell. Roderigo's arm is broken. Not one of
+us but is marked," said the older man admiringly.
+
+"My head is ringing yet, Sebastian," agreed Pablo. "_Dios_, how he
+slammed poor José down. The blood poured from his nose and mouth. Never
+yet have I seen a man fight 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 we want, or----" The young Mexican did not finish
+his sentence, but the gleam in his eyes was significant.
+
+Pablo stooped till his eyes were close to those of the bound man.
+"_Señor,_ shall I take the gag from your mouth? Will you swear not to
+cry out and not to make any noise?"
+
+Gordon nodded.
+
+"So, but if you do the road to Paradise will be short and swift,"
+continued Menendez. "Before your shout has died away you will be dead.
+_Sabe, Señor_?"
+
+He unknotted the towel at the back of his prisoner's head and drew it
+from Dick's mouth. Gordon expanded his lungs in a deep breath before he
+spoke coolly to his gaoler.
+
+"Thank you, Menendez. You needn't keep your fist on that gat. I've no
+intention of committing suicide until after I see you hanged."
+
+"Which will be never, _Señor_ Gordon," replied Pablo rapidly in Spanish.
+"You will never leave here alive except on terms laid down by us."
+
+"Interesting if true--but not true, I think," commented Dick pleasantly.
+"You have made a mistake, my friends, and you will have to pay for it."
+
+"If we have made a mistake it can yet be remedied, _Señor_" retorted
+Pablo quietly. "We have but to make an end of you and behold! all is
+well again."
+
+"Afraid not, my enthusiastic young friend. Too many in the secret.
+Someone will squeal, and the rest of you--particularly you two
+ringleaders--will be hanged by the neck. It takes only ordinary
+intelligence to know that. Therefore I am quite safe, even though I have
+a confounded headache and a rising fever." Gordon added with cheerful
+solicitude: "I do hope I'm not going to get sick on your hands. It's
+rather a habit of mine, you know. But, really, you can't blame me this
+time."
+
+A danger signal flared in the eyes of the young Mexican. "Better not,
+_Señor_. You will here have no young and charming nurse to wait upon
+you."
+
+"Meaning Mrs. Corbett?" asked the prisoner, smiling up impudently.
+
+"Whose heart your soft words can steal away from him to whom it
+belongs," continued Pablo furiously.
+
+"Sho, I reckon Corbett----"
+
+"_Mil diablos!_"
+
+A devil of jealousy was burning out of the black eyes that blazed into
+those of the American. It was no longer possible for Dick to miss the
+menace and its meaning. The Mexican was speaking of Juanita. He believed
+that his prisoner had been making love to the girl and his heart was
+black with hate because of it.
+
+Gordon looked at him steadily, then summed up with three derisive words.
+"You damn fool!"
+
+Something in the way he said them shook Pablo's conviction. Was it
+possible after all that his jealousy had been useless? Juanita had told
+him that all through his delirium this man had raved of Miss Valdés.
+Perhaps---- But, no, had he not with his own eyes seen the man bantering
+Juanita while the color came and went in her wild rose cheeks? Had he
+not seen him lean on her shoulder as he hobbled out to the porch, just
+as a lover might on that of his sweetheart?
+
+With an oath Pablo turned sullenly away. He knew he was no match for
+this man at any point. Yet he was a leader among his own people because
+of the force in him.
+
+Gordon slept little during the night. He had been so badly beaten that
+outraged nature took her revenge in a feverish restlessness that
+precluded any real rest. With the coming of day the temperature
+subsided. Pablo brought a basin of water and a sponge, with which he
+washed the bloody face and head of the bound man.
+
+Dick observed that his nurse had a few marks of his own as souvenirs of
+the battle. The cheek bone had been laid open by a blow that must have
+been made with his knuckles. One eye was half shut, and beneath it was a
+deep purple swelling.
+
+"Had quite a little jamboree, didn't we?" remarked Gordon, with a grin.
+"I'll bet you lads mussed my hair up some."
+
+Pablo said nothing, but after he had made his unwilling guest as
+presentable and comfortable as possible he proceeded to business.
+
+"You want to know why we have made you prisoner, _Señor_ Gordon?" he
+suggested. "It has perhaps occur to you that it would have been much
+easier to shoot you and be done?"
+
+"Yes, that has struck me, Menendez. I reckon your nerve didn't quite run
+to murder maybe."
+
+"Not so. I spare you because you save my brother's life after he shoot
+at you. But I exact conditions. So?"
+
+The eyes of the miner had grown hard and steelly. The lids had closed on
+them so that only slits were open. "Let's hear them."
+
+"First, that you give what is called word of honor not to push any
+charges against those taking you prisoner."
+
+"Pass that for the present," ordered Dick curtly. "Number two please."
+
+"That you sign a paper drawn up by a lawyer giving all your rights in
+the Rio Chama Valley to Señorita Valdés and promise never to go near the
+valley again."
+
+"Nothing doing," answered the prisoner promptly, his jaws snapping
+tight.
+
+"But yes--most assuredly yes. I risk much to save your life. But you
+must go to meet me, _Señor_. Is a man's life not worth all to him? So?
+Sign, and you live."
+
+The eyes of the men had fastened--the fierce, black, eager ones of the
+Mexican and the steelly gray ones of the Anglo-Saxon. There was the
+rigor of battle in that gaze, the grinding of rapier on rapier. Gordon
+was a prisoner in the hands of his enemy. He lay exhausted from a
+terrible beating. That issues of life and death hung in the balance a
+child might have guessed. But victory lay with the white man. The lids
+of Menendez fell over sullen, angry eyes.
+
+"You are a fool, _Señor_. We go to prison for no man who is our enemy.
+Pouf! When the hour comes I snuff out your life like that." And Pablo
+snapped his fingers airily.
+
+"Maybe--and maybe not. I figure on living to be an old man. Tell you
+what I'll do, Menendez. Turn me loose and I'll forget about our little
+rumpus last night. I'd ought to send you to the pen, but I'll consent to
+forego that pleasure."
+
+Sulkily Pablo turned away. What could one do with a madman who insisted
+on throwing his life away? The young Mexican was not a savage, though
+the barbaric strain in his wild lawless blood was still strong. He did
+not relish the business of killing in cold blood even the man he hated.
+
+"If you kill me you'll hang," went on Gordon composedly. "You'll never
+get away with it. Your own friends will swear your neck into a noose.
+Your partner Sebastian--you'll excuse me if I appear familiar, but I
+don't know the gentleman's other name--will turn State's evidence to try
+to save his own neck. But I reckon he'll have to climb the ladder, too."
+
+Sebastian pushed aside his companion angrily and took the American by
+the throat.
+
+"_Por Dios_, I show you. If I hang I hang--but you----" His muscular
+fingers tightened till the face of his enemy grew black. But the
+eyes--the steady, cool, contemptuous eyes--still looked into his
+defiantly.
+
+Pablo dragged his accomplice from the bedside. The time might come for
+this, but it was not yet.
+
+It had been a close thing for Gordon. If those lean, strong fingers had
+been given a few seconds more at his throat they would have snapped the
+cord of life. But gradually the distorted face resumed its natural hue
+as the coughing, strangling man began to breathe again.
+
+"Your--friend--is--impetuous," Dick suggested to Pablo as soon as he
+could get the words out one at a time.
+
+"He will shake the life out of you as a terrier does that of a rat,"
+Pablo promised vindictively.
+
+"There's no fun--in being strangled, as you'll both--find out later,"
+the prisoner retorted whimsically but with undaunted spirit.
+
+Sebastian had left the room. At the expiration of half an hour he
+returned with a tray, upon which were two plates with food and two cups
+of steaming coffee. The Mexicans ate their ham and their _frijoles_ and
+drank their coffee. The prisoner they ignored.
+
+"Don't I draw even a Libby Prison allowance?" the American wanted to
+know.
+
+"You eat and you drink after you have signed the paper," Pablo told him.
+
+"I always did think we ate too much and too often. Much obliged for a
+chance to work out my theories."
+
+Gordon turned his back upon them, his face to the wall. Presently, in
+spite of the cramped position necessitated by his bound arms, he yielded
+to weariness and fell asleep. Sebastian lay down in a corner of the room
+and also slept. He and Pablo would have to relieve each other as
+watchmen so long as they held their prisoner. For that reason they must
+get what rest they could during the day.
+
+Menendez found himself the victim of conflicting emotions. It had been
+easy while they were plotting the abduction to persuade himself that the
+man would grant anything to save his life. Now he doubted this. Looking
+clown at the battered face of the miner, so lean and strong and virile,
+he could not withhold a secret reluctant admiration. How was it possible
+for him to sleep so easily and lightly while he lay within the shadow of
+violent death? There was even a little smile about the corners of his
+mouth, as if he were enjoying pleasant dreams. Never had Pablo known
+another man like this one. Had he not broken the spirit of that outlaw
+devil Teddy in ten minutes? Who else could shoot the heads off chickens
+at a distance as he had done? Was there another in New Mexico that
+could, though taken at advantage, put up so fierce a fight against big
+odds? The young Mexican hated him because of Juanita and his opposition
+to Miss Valdés. But the untamed and gallant spirit of the young man went
+out in spite of himself in homage to the splendid courage and efficiency
+of his victim.
+
+Not till the middle of the afternoon did Gordon awaken. He was surprised
+to find that his hands were free. Of Menendez he asked an explanation.
+
+Pablo gave him none. How could he say that he was ashamed to keep him
+tied while two armed men were in the room to watch him?
+
+"Move from that bed and I'll blow your brains out," the Mexican growled
+in Spanish.
+
+Presently Pablo brought him a tin dipper filled with water.
+
+"Drink, _Señor_" he ordered ungraciously.
+
+Dick drank the last drop and smiled at his guard gratefully. "You're
+white in spots, Mr. Miscreant, though you hate to think it of yourself,"
+he said lightly.
+
+Odd as it may seem, Gordon found a curious pleasure in exploring the
+mind of the young man. He detected the struggle going on in it, and he
+made remarks so uncannily wise that the Mexican was startled at his
+divination. The miner held no grudge. These men were his enemies because
+they thought him a selfish villain who ought to be frustrated in his
+designs. Long ago, in that school of experience which had made him the
+hard, competent man he was, Dick had learned the truth of the saying
+that to know all is to forgive all. He himself had done bold and lawless
+things often enough, but it was seldom that he did a mean one. Warily
+alert though he was for a chance to escape, his feelings were quite
+impersonal toward these Mexicans. Confronted with the need, he would
+kill if he must to save himself; but it would not be because he was
+vindictive.
+
+Dick's mind was alert to every chance of escape. He studied his
+situation as well as he could without moving from the bed. From the
+glimpse of the house he had had as the two men carried him in he knew
+that it was a large, modern one set in grounds of considerable size. He
+had been brought down a flight of steps and was now in the basement. Was
+the house an unoccupied one? Or was it in the possession of some one
+friendly to the scheme upon which the Mexicans had engaged?
+
+A suspicion had startled him just after the men finished eating, but he
+had dismissed it as a fantasy of his excited imagination. Sebastian,
+carrying out the dishes, had dropped a spoon and left it lying beside
+the bed. Dick contrived, after he had wakened, to roll close to the edge
+and look down. The spoon was still there. Two letters were engraved upon
+the handle. They were A.V. If these stood for Alvaro Valdés, then this
+must be the town house of Valencia, and she was probably a party to his
+abduction.
+
+He could not without distress of heart accept such a conclusion. She was
+his enemy, but she had seemed to him so frank and generous a one that
+complicity in a plot of this nature had no part in the picture of her
+his mind had drawn. He wrestled with the thought of this until he could
+stand it no longer.
+
+"Did Miss Valdés come to town herself, or is she letting you run this
+abduction, Menendez?" he asked suddenly.
+
+Pablo repeated stupidly, "Miss Valdés--the _señorita_?"
+
+The keen, hard eyes of Gordon did not lift for an instant from those of
+the other man. "That's what I said."
+
+It occurred to the Mexican that this was a chance to do a stroke of
+business for his mistress. He would show the confident _Americano_ what
+place he held in her regard.
+
+His shoulders lifted in a shrug. "You are clevair, _Señor_. How do you
+know the _señorita_ knows?"
+
+"This is her house. She told you to bring me here."
+
+Pablo was surprised. "So? You know it is her house?"
+
+"Surest thing you know."
+
+"The _señorita_ trusts me. She is at the ranch."
+
+"But you are acting under her orders?"
+
+"If the _señor_ pleases."
+
+Dick turned his back to the wall again. His heart was bitter within him.
+He had thought her a sportsman, every inch a thoroughbred. But she had
+set her peons to spy on him and to attack him--ten to one in their
+favor--so that she might force him to sign away his rights to her. Very
+well. He would show her whether she could drive him to surrender,
+whether she could starve him into doing what he did not want to do.
+
+The younger Mexican wakened Sebastian late in the afternoon and left him
+to guard the prisoner while he went into the town to hear what rumors
+were flying about the affair. About an hour later he returned, bringing
+with him some provisions, a newspaper, and a handbill. The latter he
+tossed to Gordon.
+
+"Señor, I never saw five hundred dollars dangling within reach before.
+Shall I go to your friend and give him information?" asked Pablo.
+
+Dick read the poster through with interest. "Good old Steve. He's
+getting busy. Inside of twenty-four hours he'll ferret out this spot."
+
+"It may be too late," Pablo flung back significantly. "If they press us
+hard we'll finish the job and make a run for it."
+
+They were talking in Spanish, as they did most of the time. The prisoner
+read aloud the offer on the handbill.
+
+"Please notice that I'm worth no more alive than you are if I'm dead. I
+reckon this town is full of friends of yours anxious to earn five
+hundred plunks by giving a little information. Let me ask a question of
+you. Suppose you do finish the job and hit the trail. Where would you
+go?"
+
+"The hills are full of pockets. We could hide and watch a chance to get
+out of the country."
+
+"We wouldn't have to hide. Jesu Cristo, who would know we did it?"
+chipped in Sebastian roughly.
+
+"Everybody will know it soon. You made a bad mistake when you didn't
+bump me off at the start. All your friends that helped bushwhack me will
+itch to get that five hundred, Sebastian. As to hiding--well, I was a
+ranger once. Offer a reward, and everybody is on the jump to earn it.
+The way these hills are being combed this week by anxious man-hunters
+you'd never reach your cache."
+
+"Maybe we would and maybe we wouldn't. We'll have to take a chance on
+that," replied the bearded Mexican sullenly.
+
+To their prisoner it was plain that the men were I growing more anxious
+every hour. They regretted the course they had followed and yet could
+see no way of safety opening to them. Suspicious by nature, Sebastian
+judged the American by himself. If their positions were reversed, he
+knew he would break any pledge he might make and go straight to the
+sheriff with his story. Therefore they could not with safety release the
+man. To kill him would be dangerous. To keep him prisoner was possible
+only for a limited time. Whatever course they followed seemed precarious
+and uncertain. Temperamentally he was inclined to put an end to the man
+and try a bolt for the hills, but he found in Pablo an unexpected
+difficulty. The young man would not hear of this. He had made up his
+mind riot to let Gordon be killed if he could prevent it, though he did
+not tell the American so.
+
+Menendez made another trip after supplies next day, but he came back
+hurriedly without them. Pesquiera's poster offering a reward of one
+hundred dollars for the capture of him or Sebastian had brought him up
+short and sent him scurrying back to his hole.
+
+Gordon used the poster for a text. His heart was jubilant within him,
+for he knew now that Valencia was not back of this attack upon him.
+
+"All up with you now," he assured them in a genial, offhand fashion.
+"Miss Valdés must be backing Pesquiera. They know you two are the guilty
+villains. Inside of twelve hours they'll have you both hogtied."
+
+Clearly the conspirators were of that opinion themselves. They talked
+together a good deal in whispers. Dick was of the opinion that a
+proposition would be made him before morning, though it was just
+possible that the scale might tip the other way and his death be voted.
+He spent a very anxious hour.
+
+After dark Sebastian, who was less well known in the town than Pablo,
+departed on an errand unknown to Gordon. The miner guessed that he was
+going to make arrangements for horses upon which to escape. Dick was not
+told their decision. Menendez had fallen sulky again and refused to
+talk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+MANUEL INTERFERES
+
+
+Valencia had scarcely left the parlor to telephone for the sheriff
+before Manuel flashed a knife and cut the rope that tied his prisoner's
+hands.
+
+Sebastian had shrunk back at sight of the knife, but when he found that
+he was free he stared at Pesquiera in startled amazement.
+
+"Come! Let's get out of here. We can talk when you are free of danger,"
+said Manuel with sharp authority in his voice.
+
+He led the way into the corridor, walked quickly down one passage and
+along another, and so by a back stairway into the alley in the rear.
+Within a few minutes they were a quarter of a mile from the El Tovar.
+
+Sebastian, still suspicious, yet aware that for some reason Don Manuel
+was unexpectedly on his side, awaited explanations.
+
+"_Doña_ Valdés is quite right, Sebastian. She means well, but she is,
+after all, a woman. This is a man's business, and you and I can settle
+it better alone." Manuel smiled with an air of frank confidence at his
+former prisoner. "You are in a serious fix--no doubt at all about that.
+The question is to find the best way out."
+
+_"Si, Señor"_.
+
+Pesquiera's bright black eyes fastened on him as he flung a question at
+the man. "I suppose this Gordon is still alive."
+
+Sebastian nodded gloomily. "He is like a cat with its nine lives. We
+have beaten and starved him, but he laughs--this Gringo devil--and tells
+us he will live to see us wearing stripes in prison."
+
+_"Muy bien."_ Manuel talked on briskly, so as to give the slower-witted
+Mexican no time to get set in obstinacy. "I should be able to arrange
+matters then. We must free the man after I have his word to tell
+nothing."
+
+"But he will run straight to the sheriff," protested Sebastian.
+
+"Not if he gives his word. I'll see to that. Where have you him hidden?"
+The young Spaniard asked the question carelessly, almost indifferently,
+as if it were merely a matter of course.
+
+Sebastian opened his mouth to tell--and then closed it. He had had no
+intention of telling anything. Now he found he had told everything
+except their hiding-place. The suspicion which lay coiled in his heart
+lifted its head like a snake. Was he being led into a trap? Would Don
+Manuel betray him to the law? The gleaming eyes of the man narrowed and
+grew hard.
+
+Manuel, intuitively sensing this, hurried on. "It can be a matter of
+only hours now until they stumble upon your hiding-place. If this
+happens before we have come to terms with Gordon you are lost. I have
+come to town to save you and Pablo. But I can't do this unless you trust
+me. Take me to Gordon and let me talk with him. Blindfold me if you
+like. But lose no time."
+
+As Sebastian saw it, this was a chance. He knew Manuel was an honest
+man. His reputation was of the best. Reluctantly he gave way.
+
+"The _Americano_ is at the Valdés house," he admitted sulkily.
+
+"At the Valdés house? Why, in Heaven's name, did you take him there?"
+
+"How could we tell that the _Señorita_ would come to town? The house was
+empty. Pablo worked there in the stables as a boy. So we moved in."
+
+A quarter of an hour later Pablo opened the outer basement door in
+answer to the signal agreed upon by them. He had left the prisoner upon
+the bed with his hands tied. Sebastian entered. Pablo noticed that
+another man was standing outside. Instantly his rifle covered him. For,
+though others of their countrymen had been employed to help capture
+Gordon, none of these knew where he was hidden.
+
+"It is Don Manuel Pesquiera," explained Sebastian. "I brought him here
+to help us out of this trouble we are in. Let him in and I will tell you
+all."
+
+For an instant Pablo suspected that his accomplice had sold him, but he
+dismissed the thought almost at once. He had known Sebastian all his
+life. He stepped aside and let Pesquiera come into the hall.
+
+The three men talked for a few minutes and then passed into the bedroom
+where the prisoner was confined. Evidently this had formerly been the
+apartment of the cook, who had slept in the basement in order no doubt
+to be nearer her work. Pesquiera looked around and at last made out a
+figure in the darkness lying upon the bed.
+
+He stepped forward, observing that the man on the bed had his hands
+bound. Bending down, he recognized the face of Gordon. Beaten and
+bruised and gaunt from hunger it was, but the eyes still gleamed with
+the same devil-may-care smile.
+
+"Happy to meet you, Don Manuel."
+
+The Spaniard's heart glowed with admiration. He did not like the man. It
+was his intention to fight him as soon as possible for the insult that
+had been put upon him some weeks earlier. But his spirit always answered
+to the call of courage, and Gordon's pluck was so debonair he could not
+refuse a reluctant appreciation.
+
+"I regret to see you thus, Mr. Gordon," he said.
+
+"Might have been worse. Sebastian has had se-vere-al notions about
+putting me out of business. I'm lucky to be still kicking."
+
+"I have come from Miss Valdés. She came to Santa Fé when she heard from
+your friend Mr. Davis that you had disappeared. To-night we saw
+Sebastian for the first time. He brought me here."
+
+"Good of him," commented Dick ironically.
+
+"You will be freed of course--at once." Manuel drew out his knife and
+cut the cords that bound the prisoner. "But I must ask your forbearance
+in behalf of Sebastian and Pablo and the others that have injured you.
+May I give them your pledge not to appear as a witness against them for
+what they have done?"
+
+"Fine! I'm to be mauled and starved and kidnaped, but I'm to say 'Thank
+you kindly' for these small favors, hoping for a continuance of the
+same. You have another guess coming, Mr. Pesquiera. I offered those
+terms two days ago. They weren't accepted. My ideas have changed. I'm
+going to put your friends behind the bars--unless you decide to let them
+murder me instead. I've been the goat long enough."
+
+"Your complaint is just, Mr. Gordon. It iss your right to enforce the
+law. Most certainly it iss your right. But consider my position.
+Sebastian brought me here only upon my pledge to secure from you a
+promise not to press your rights. What shall I do? I must see that you
+are released. That goes without saying. But shall I break faith with him
+and let him be delivered to justice? I have given my word, remember."
+
+Gordon looked up at him with his lean jaw set. "You couldn't give _my_
+word, could you? Very well. Go away. Forget that you've seen me. I'll be
+a clam so far as you are concerned. But if I get free I'm going to make
+things hot for these lads that think they can play Ned with me. They're
+going to the pen, every last one of them. I'm going to see this thing
+out to a finish and find out if there's any law in New Mexico."
+
+Manuel stiffened. "You put me in an awkward position, Mr. Gordon. I have
+no choice but to see you are set at liberty. But my honor is involved.
+These men shall not go to prison. They have made a serious mistake, but
+they are not what you call criminals. You know well----"
+
+"I know that they and their friends have shot at me, ambushed me, beaten
+me, and starved me. They've been wanting to kill me ever since they got
+me here--at least one of them has--but they just didn't have the guts to
+do it. What is your definition of a criminal anyhow? Your friends here
+fill the specifications close enough to suit me. I ain't worried about
+their being too good for the company they'll join at the pen."
+
+"You are then resolve', _Señor_?"
+
+"That's what I am. I'm going to see they get the limit. I've not got a
+thing against you, Mr. Pesquiera, and I'd like to oblige you if I could.
+But I'm playing this hand myself."
+
+The Spaniard spoke to him in a low voice. "These men are the people of
+Miss Valdés. She drove all night across the mountains to get here sooner
+when she found you were gone. She offered and paid a reward of one
+hundred dollars to help find you. Do you not owe something to her?"
+
+"I owe one hundred dollars and my thanks, sir. I'll pay them both. But
+Miss Valdés cannot ask me to give up prosecuting these men because she
+would not stand back and see murder done."
+
+"Will you then leave it to her to punish these men?"
+
+"No. I pay my own debts."
+
+Manuel was troubled. He had expected to find the prisoner so eager for
+release that he would consent at once to his proposal. Instead, he found
+a man hard and cold as steel. Yet he had to admit that Gordon claimed
+only his rights. No man could be expected to stand without an appeal to
+the law such outrageous treatment as he had been given.
+
+"Will you consent then to settle the matter with me, man to man? These
+men are but peons. They are like cattle and do not think. But I--I am a
+more worthy foeman. Let me take the burden of their misdeeds on my
+shoulders."
+
+Dick wagged a forefinger at him warningly. "Now you've got that
+swashbuckler notion of a duel again. I'm no cavalier of Spain, but a
+plain American business man, Don Quixote. As for these jail-birds"--his
+hand swept the room to include the Mexicans--"since I'm an unregenerate
+human I mean to make 'em pay for what they've done. That's all there is
+to it."
+
+Don Manuel bowed. "Very good, Mr. Gordon. We shall see. I promise you
+that I shall stand between them and prison. I offer you a chance to win
+the friendship of the Mexicans in the valley. You decline. So be it. I
+wash my hands, sir."
+
+He turned away and gave directions to Pablo, who left the room at once.
+The Spaniard called for candles and lit two. He pointedly ignored
+Gordon, but sat with his hands in his pockets whistling softly a popular
+air.
+
+About a quarter of an hour later Pablo returned with a hot meal on a
+tray. Gordon, having done without food for two days, ate his ham and
+eggs and drank his coffee with an appetite given to few men. Meanwhile
+Pesquiera withdrew to the passage and laid down an ultimatum to the
+Mexicans. They must take horse at once and get back to the hills above
+the Rio Chama Valley. He would bring saddle horses from a stable so that
+they could start within the hour and travel all night.
+
+The Mexicans listened sullenly. But they knew that the matter was now
+out of their hands. Since the arrival of Pesquiera it had become
+manifestly impossible to hold their prisoner longer. They agreed to the
+plan of the Spaniard reluctantly.
+
+After Pablo and Sebastian had taken horse Pesquiera returned to the
+prisoner.
+
+"We will, if it pleases you, move upstairs, Mr. Gordon," he announced.
+"To-night I must ask you to remain in the house with me to give those
+poor fools a little start on their ride for freedom. We shall find
+better beds upstairs no doubt."
+
+"They're hitting the trail, are they?" Dick asked negligently as he
+followed his guide.
+
+"Yes. If you'll give me your parole till morning, Mr. Gordon, I shall be
+able to return to Miss Valdés and let her know that all is well.
+Otherwise I shall be obliged to sit up and see that you do not get
+active in interfering with the ride of Pablo and his friend."
+
+"I'll stay here till seven o'clock to-morrow morning. Is that late
+enough? Then I'll see the sheriff and start things moving."
+
+Pesquiera bowed in his grand, formal manner. "The terms satisfy. I wish
+Mr. Gordon a very good night's sleep. This room formerly belonged to the
+brother of Miss Valdés. It is curious, but she was here airing this room
+only to-day. She did not know you were in the house at the time. _Adios,
+Señor._"
+
+"Good night, Mr. Pesquiera. I reckon I'm in your debt quite a bit. Sorry
+we couldn't agree about this little matter of what to do with the boys."
+
+Manuel bowed again and withdrew from the room.
+
+Inside of ten minutes Gordon was fast asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+VALENCIA ACCEPTS A RING
+
+
+Manuel found Valencia pacing up and down the porch of the hotel in a
+fever of impatience. Instantly at sight of him she ran forward quickly.
+
+"Where have you been? What have you done with Sebastian? Why did you
+leave without telling me about it?" she demanded.
+
+"One question at a time, my cousin," he answered, smiling at her. "But
+let us walk while I tell you."
+
+She fell into step beside him, moving with the strong, lissom tread that
+came from controlled and deliberate power.
+
+"What is it you have to tell? If you were called away, why did you not
+leave a message for me?" she asked, a little imperiously.
+
+"I wasn't called away, Valencia. You were excited and angry. My opinion
+was that Sebastian would speak if the matter was put to him right. So I
+cut the rope that tied him and we ran away through the back door of the
+hotel."
+
+Her dark eyes, proud and passionate, began to smoulder. But the voice
+with which she answered him was silken smooth.
+
+"I see. You pretended to be working with me--and then you betrayed me.
+Is that it?"
+
+"If you like," he said with a little shrug. "I backed my judgment
+against your impatience. And it turns out that I was right."
+
+"How? What has happened? Where is Sebastian?"
+
+"He is galloping toward the hills as fast as he can--at least I hope he
+is. What happened is that he told me where Gordon is hidden."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"At your house. When you were there to-day you must have passed within
+twenty feet of him."
+
+"But--do you mean that Pablo and Sebastian took him there?"
+
+"Exactly. They did not foresee that you would come to town, Valencia."
+He added, after a moment: "I have seen Mr. Gordon, talked with him, and
+released him. At this moment he is in your brother's room, probably
+asleep."
+
+All the sharpness had died out of the young woman's voice when she
+turned to her cousin and spoke with a humility rare to her.
+
+"Forgive me, Manuel. I always know best about everything. I drive ahead
+and must have my own way, even when it is not the wise one. You did just
+right to ignore me."
+
+She laid her hand on his coat sleeve pleadingly, and he lifted it to his
+lips.
+
+"_Niña_ ... the Queen can do no wrong. But I saw you were driving
+Sebastian to stubbornness. I tried to let him see we meant to be his
+friends if he would let us."
+
+"Yes, you were right. Tell me everything, please." She paused just a
+moment before she said quietly: "But first, what about Mr. Gordon? He is
+... uninjured?"
+
+"Beaten and mauled and starved, but still of the gayest courage,"
+answered the Spaniard with enthusiasm. "Did I not say that he was a
+hero? My cousin, I say it again. The fear of death is not in his heart."
+
+He did not see the gleam in her dark eyes, the flush that beat into her
+dusky face. "Starved as well as beaten, Manuel?"
+
+"They were trying to force him to give up his claim to the valley. But
+he--as I live the American is hard as Gibraltar."
+
+"They dared to starve him--to torture him. I shall see that they are
+punished," she cried with the touch of feminine ferocity that is the
+heritage of the south.
+
+"No need, Valencia," returned Pesquiera with a dry little laugh. "Mr.
+Gordon has promised himself to attend to that."
+
+He told her the story from first to last. Intently she listened, scarce
+breathing until he had finished.
+
+Manuel had told the tale with scrupulous fairness, but already her
+sympathies were turning.
+
+"And he wouldn't agree not to prosecute?" she asked.
+
+"No. It is his right to do so if he likes, Valencia."
+
+She brushed this aside with an impatient wave of her hand. "Oh, his
+right! Doesn't he owe something to us--to me--and especially to you?"
+
+"No, he owes me nothing. What I did was done for you, and not for him,"
+the Spaniard replied instantly.
+
+"Then to me at least he is in debt. I shall ask him to drop the
+prosecution."
+
+"He is what his people call straight. But he is hard--hard as jade."
+
+They were walking along a dark lane unlighted save by the stars.
+Valencia turned to him impetuously.
+
+"Manuel, you are good. You do not like this man, but you save him
+because--because my heart is torn when my people do wrong. For me you
+take much trouble--you risk much. How can I thank you?"
+
+"_Niña mia_, I am thanked if you are pleased. It is your love I seek,
+Heart of mine." He spoke tremulously, taking her hands in his.
+
+For the beat of a heart she hesitated. "You have it. Have I not given my
+word that--after the American was saved----?"
+
+He kissed her. Hers was a virginal soul, but full-blooded. An
+unsuspected passion beat in her veins. Not for nothing did she have the
+deep, languorous eyes, the perfect scarlet lips, the sumptuous grace of
+an artist's ideal. Fires lay banked within her in spite of the fine
+purity of her nature. Nature had poured into her symmetrical mold a rich
+abundance of what we call sex.
+
+The kisses of Manuel stirred within her new and strange emotions, though
+she accepted rather than returned them. A faint vague unease chilled her
+heart. Was it because she had been immodest in letting him so far have
+his way?
+
+When they returned to the hotel Manuel's ring was on her finger. She was
+definitely engaged to him.
+
+It was long before she slept. She thought of Manuel, the man chosen it
+seemed by Fate to be her mate. But she thought, too, of the lithe,
+broad-shouldered young American whose eyes could be so tender and again
+so hard. Why was it he persisted in filling her mind so much of the
+time? Why did she both admire him and resent his conduct, trust him to
+the limit one hour and distrust the next? Why was it that he--an
+unassuming American without any heroics--rather than her affianced lover
+seemed to radiate romance as he moved? She liked Manuel very much, she
+respected him greatly, trusted him wholly, but--it was this curly-headed
+youth of her mother's race that set her heart beating fast a dozen times
+a day.
+
+She resolved resolutely to put him out of her mind. Had he not proved
+himself unworthy by turning the head of Juanita, whom he could not
+possibly expect to marry? Was not Manuel in every way worthy of her
+love? Her finger touched the diamond ring upon her hand. She would keep
+faith in thought as well as in word and deed.
+
+At last she fell asleep--and dreamed of a blond, gray-eyed youth
+fighting for his life against a swarm of attacking Mexicans.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+DICK LIGHTS A CIGARETTE
+
+
+Gordon met Miss Valdés in the El Tovar dining-room next morning. He was
+trying at the same time to tell Davis the story of his kidnaping and to
+eat a large rare steak with French-fried potatoes. The young man had
+chosen a seat that faced the door. The instant his eyes fell upon her he
+gave up both the story and the steak. Putting aside his napkin, he rose
+to meet her.
+
+She had fallen asleep thinking of him, her dreams had been full of his
+vivid personality, and she had wakened to an eager longing for the sight
+of his gay, mocking eyes. But she had herself under such good control
+that nobody could have guessed how fast her heart was beating as her
+fingers touched his.
+
+"We are glad your adventure is ended, Mr. Gordon, and that it has turned
+out no worse. Probably Mr. Davis has told you that he and I got our
+heads together a great many times a day," she said, a little formally.
+
+"You were mighty good to take so much interest in such a scalawag," he
+answered warmly.
+
+The color deepened ever so little in her face. "I couldn't let my men
+commit murder under the impression they were doing me a service," she
+explained lightly. "There are several things I want to talk over with
+you. Can you call on me this morning, Mr. Gordon?"
+
+"Can I?"
+
+He put the question so forcefully that she smiled and dashed a bucket of
+cold water over his enthusiasm.
+
+"If you'll be so good then. And bring Mr. Davis along with you, please.
+He'll keep us from quarreling too much."
+
+"I'll throw him out of the window if he don't behave right," Davis
+promised joyfully. He was happy to-day, and he did not care who knew it.
+
+Valencia passed on to her table, and Dick resumed his seat. He had a
+strong interest in this young woman, but even the prospect of a talk
+with her could not make him indifferent to the rare steak and
+French-fried potatoes before him. He was a healthy normal American in
+his late twenties, and after several days of starvation well-cooked food
+looked very good to him.
+
+"There's some mail waiting for you upstairs--one of the letters is a
+registered one, mailed at Corbett's," his friend told him as they rose
+to leave. He was like a hen with one chick in his eagerness to supply
+Dick's wants and in his reluctance to let Gordon out of his sight.
+
+The registered letter was the one Valencia had sent him, inclosing the
+one written by her grandfather to her father. Her contrite little note
+went straight to his emotions. If not in words, at least in spirit, it
+pleaded for pardon. Even the telegram she had wired implied an
+undeniable interest in him. Dick went with a light heart to the
+interview she had appointed him.
+
+He slipped an arm through that of Davis. "Come on, you old bald-headed
+chaperone. Didn't you hear the lady give you a bid to her party this
+mo'ning? Get a move on you."
+
+"Ain't you going to let her invite get cold before you butt in?"
+retorted Steve amiably.
+
+Valencia took away from the dining-room a heart at war with itself. The
+sight of his gaunt face, carrying the scars of many wounds and the lines
+marked by hunger, stirred insurgent impulses. The throb of passion and
+of the sweet protective love that is at the bottom of every woman's
+tenderness suffused her cheeks with warm life and made her eyes
+wonderful. Out of the grave he had come back to her, this indomitable
+foe who played the game with such gay courage. It was useless to tell
+herself that she was plighted to a better man, a worthier one. Scamp he
+might be, but Dick Gordon held her heart in the hollow of his strong
+brown hand.
+
+Some impulse of shyness, perhaps of reluctance, had restrained her from
+wearing Manuel's ring at breakfast. But when she returned to her room
+she went straight to the desk where she had locked it and put the
+solitaire on her finger. The fear of disloyalty drove her back to her
+betrothed from the enticement of forbidden thoughts. She must put
+Richard Gordon out of her mind. It was worse than madness to be dreaming
+of him now that she was plighted to another.
+
+Gordon, coming eagerly to meet her, found a young woman more reserved,
+more distant. He was conscious of this even before his eyes stopped at
+the engagement ring sparkling on her finger, the visible evidence that
+his rival had won.
+
+"You have been treated cruelly, Mr. Gordon. Tell me that you are again
+all right," she said, the color flooding her face at the searching
+question of his eyes.
+
+"Right as a rivet, thanks. It is to you I owe my freedom, I suppose."
+
+"To Manuel," she corrected. "His judgment was better than mine."
+
+"I can believe that. He didn't ride all night across dangerous mountain
+roads to save me."
+
+"Oh, that!" She tossed off his thanks with a little shrug. "They are so
+impulsive, my boys ... like children, you know.... I was a little afraid
+they might----"
+
+"I was a little afraid myself they might," he agreed dryly. "But when
+you say children--well, don't you think wolves is a more accurate term
+for them?"
+
+"Oh, no--no!" Her protest was quick, eager, imperative. "You don't know
+how loyal they can be--how faithful. They are really just like children,
+so impulsive--so unreasoning."
+
+"Afraid I can't enthuse with you on that subject for a day or two yet,"
+he answered with a laugh. "Truth is I found their childlike impulses
+both painful and annoying. Next time you see them you might mention that
+I'm liable to have an impulse of my own they won't enjoy."
+
+"That's one of the things I want to talk with you about. Manuel says you
+mean to prosecute. I hope you won't. They're friends of mine. They
+thought they were helping me. Of course I have no claim on you, but----"
+
+"You have a claim, Miss Valdés. We'll take that up presently. Just now
+we're talking about a couple of criminals due for a term in the
+penitentiary. I offered them terms. They wouldn't accept. Good enough.
+They'll have to stand the gaff, I reckon."
+
+She realized at once there was no use arguing with him. The steel in his
+eyes told her he had made up his mind and was not to be moved. But she
+could not desert her foolish dependents.
+
+"I know. What you say is quite true, but--I'll have to come to some
+agreement with you. I can't let them be punished for their loyalty to
+me."
+
+Her direct, unflinching look, its fearlessness, won his admiration. In
+her slim suppleness, vibrant, feminine to the finger tips, alluring with
+the unconscious appeal of sex, there was a fine courage to face frankly
+essential facts. But he was a hard man to move once he had made up his
+mind. For all his frivolous impudence and his boyish good nature, he
+knew his own mind, and held to it with the stiffness characteristic of
+outdoor Westerners.
+
+"You're not in this, Miss Valdés. I'll settle my own accounts with your
+friends Sebastian and Pablo."
+
+"But even for your own sake----" She stopped, intuitively aware that
+this was not the ground upon which to treat with him. He would never
+drop the charges against the Mexicans merely because there was danger in
+pressing them.
+
+"I reckon I'll have to try to look out for myself. Maybe next time I
+won't be so easy a mark," he answered with an almost insolent laugh.
+
+Valencia was a little puzzled. Things were not going right, and she did
+not quite know the reason. There was just a touch of bitterness in his
+voice, of aloofness in his manner. She did not know that the sight of
+the solitaire sparkling on her left hand stirred in him the impulse to
+hurt her, to refuse rather than concede her requests.
+
+"You're not going to push the cases against Pablo and Sebastian and
+still try to live in the valley, are you?" she asked, beginning to feel
+a little irritation at him.
+
+"That's just what I'm going to do."
+
+"You mustn't. I won't have it. Don't you see what my people will think,
+that because Pablo and Sebastian were loyal to me----"
+
+His acrid smile cut her sentence in two. "That's about the third time
+you've mentioned their loyalty. Me, I don't see it. Sebastian owns land
+under the Valdés grant. He didn't want me to take it from him. Mr. Pablo
+Menendez--well, he had private reasons of his own, too."
+
+The resentment flamed in her heart. If he was shameless enough to refer
+to the affair with Juanita she would let him know that she knew.
+
+"What were his reasons, Mr. Gordon--that is, if they are not a private
+affair between you and him?"
+
+"Not at all." The steel-blue eyes met hers, steadily. Dick was yielding
+to a desire to hurt himself as well as her, to defy her judgment if she
+had no better sense than to condemn him. "The idiot is jealous."
+
+"Jealous--why?" The angry color beat its way to the surface above her
+cheek bones. Her disdain was regal.
+
+"About Juanita."
+
+"What about Juanita?"
+
+"The usual thing, Miss Valdés. He was afraid she had the bad taste to
+prefer another man to himself."
+
+Davis broke in. "Now, don't you be a goat, Dick. Miss Valdés, he----"
+
+"If you please, Mr. Davis. I'm quite sure Mr. Gordon is able to defend
+himself," she replied scornfully.
+
+"Didn't know I _was_ defending myself. What's the charge against me?"
+asked the young miner with a touch of quiet insolence.
+
+"There isn't any--if you don't see what it is. And you're quite right,
+Mr. Gordon. Your difficulties with Pablo are none of my business. You'll
+have to settle them yourselves--with Juanita's help. May I ask whether
+you received the registered letter I sent you, Mr. Gordon?"
+
+Dick was angry. Her cool contempt told him that he had been condemned.
+He knew that he was acting like an irresponsible schoolboy, but he would
+not justify himself. She might think what she liked.
+
+"Found it waiting for me this morning, Miss Valdés."
+
+"It was very fair and generous of you to send me the letter, I recognize
+that fully. But of course I can't accept such a sacrifice," she told him
+stiffly.
+
+"Not necessary you should. Object if I smoke here?"
+
+Valencia was a little surprised. He had never before offered to smoke in
+the house except at her suggestion. "As you please, Mr. Gordon. Why
+should I object?"
+
+From his coat pocket Dick took the letter Don Bartolomé had written to
+his son, and from his vest pocket a match. He twisted the envelope into
+a spill, lit one end, and found a cigarette. Very deliberately he puffed
+the cigarette to a glow, holding the letter in his fingers until it had
+burned to a black flake. This he dropped in the fireplace, and along
+with it the unsmoked cigarette.
+
+[Illustration: Holding the letter in his fingers until it had burned to
+a black flake]
+
+"Easiest way to settle that little matter," he said negligently.
+
+"I judge you're a little impulsive, too, sometimes, Mr. Gordon,"
+Valencia replied coldly.
+
+"I never rode all night over the mountains to save a man who was trying
+to rob me of my land," he retorted.
+
+This brought a sparkle to her eyes. "I had to think of my foolish men
+who were getting into trouble."
+
+"Was that why you offered a hundred dollars' reward for the arrest of
+these same men?" came his indolent, satiric reply.
+
+"Don Manuel offered the reward," she told him haughtily.
+
+An impish smile was in his eyes. "At your suggestion, he tells me. And I
+understand you insisted on paying the bill, Miss Valdés."
+
+"Why should he pay it? The men worked for me. They were brought up on my
+father's place. They are my responsibility, not his," she claimed with
+visible irritation.
+
+"And now they're my responsibility, too--until I land them in the
+penitentiary," he added cheerfully.
+
+From his pocket he took a billbook and selected two fifty-dollar bills.
+These he offered to Valencia.
+
+She stood very straight. "You owe me nothing, sir."
+
+"I owe you the hundred dollars you paid to get hold of Sebastian. And
+I'm going to pay it."
+
+"I don't acknowledge the debt. I wanted Sebastian for his sake, not
+yours. Certainly I shall not accept the money."
+
+"Just as you say. It isn't mine. Care if I smoke again?" he asked
+genially.
+
+She caught his meaning in a flash. "Not at all. Burn them if you like."
+
+"Now, see here," interrupted Davis amiably. "You're both acting like a
+pair of kids. I'm not going to stand for any hundred-dollar smokes,
+Dick. Gimme those bills." He snatched them from his friend and put them
+in his pocket. "When you two get reasonable again we'll decide whose
+money it is. Till then I expect I'll draw the interest on it."
+
+"And now, since our business is ended, I think I'll not detain you any
+longer, Mr. Gordon, except to warn you that it will be foolhardy to
+return to the Rio Chama Valley with intentions such as you have."
+
+"Good of you to warn me, Miss Valdés. It's not the first time, either,
+is it? But I'm _that_ bull-headed. Steve will give me a recommend as the
+most sot chump in New Mexico. Won't you Steve?"
+
+"I sure will--before a notary if you like. You've got a government mule
+backed off the map."
+
+"I've done my duty, anyhow." Miss Valdés turned to the older man, and
+somehow the way she did it seemed to wipe Gordon out of the picture.
+"There is something I want to talk over with you, Mr. Davis. Can you
+wait a few moments?"
+
+"Sure I can--all day if you like."
+
+Dick retired with his best bow. "Steve, you always was popular with the
+ladies."
+
+Valencia, uncompromising, waited until he had gone. Then, swiftly, with
+a little leap of impulse as it were, she appealed to Davis.
+
+"Don't let him go back to the valley. Don't let him push the cases
+against Sebastian and Pablo."
+
+The old miner shook his head "Sorry, Miss Valencia. Wish I could stop
+him, but I can't. He'll go his own way--always would."
+
+"But don't you see they'll kill him. It's madness to go back there while
+he's pushing the criminal case. Before it was bad enough, but now----"
+She threw up her hands with a gesture of despair.
+
+"I reckon you're right. But I can't help it."
+
+"Then look out for him. Don't let him ride around in the hills. Don't
+let him leave the house at night. Never let him go alone. Remember that
+he is in danger every hour while he remains in the valley."
+
+"I'll remember, Miss Valencia," Davis promised.
+
+He wondered as he walked away why the talk between Dick and Miss Valdés
+had gone so badly. He knew his friend had come jubilantly, prepared to
+do anything she asked of him. The fear and anxiety that had leaped to
+her face the instant Gordon had gone showed him that the girl had a deep
+interest in the young man. She, too, had meant to meet him half way in
+wiping out the gulf between them. Instead, they had only increased it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+WHEN THE WIRES WERE CUT
+
+
+Don Manuel rode into the moonlit plaza of the Valdés ranch, dismounted,
+and flung the reins to the boy that came running. Pesquiera nodded a
+careless greeting and passed into the house. He did not ask of anyone
+where Valencia was, nor did he send in a card of announcement. A lover's
+instinct told him that he would find her in the room that served both as
+an office and a library for her, seated perhaps before the leaping
+fireglow she loved or playing softly on the piano in the darkness.
+
+The door was open, and he stood a moment on the threshold to get
+accustomed to the dim light.
+
+A rich, low-pitched voice came across the room to him.
+
+"It is you, Manuel?"
+
+He stepped swiftly forward to the lounge upon which she was lying and
+knelt on one knee beside her, lifting her hand to his lips. "It is I,
+_corazon mia_, even Manuel the lucky."
+
+She both smiled and sighed at that. A chord in her responded to the
+extravagance of his speech, even though vaguely it did not quite
+satisfy. A woman of the warm-blooded south and no plaster saint, she
+answered presently with shy, reluctant lips the kisses of her lover. Why
+should she not? Had he not won her by meeting the test she had given
+him? Was he not a gallant gentleman, of her own race and caste, bound to
+her by ties of many sorts, in every way worthy to be the father of her
+children? If she had to stifle some faint, indefinable regret, was it
+not right that she should? Her bridges were burned behind her. He was
+the man of her choice. She listened, eyes a little wistful, while he
+poured out ardently the tale of his devotion.
+
+"You do love me, don't you, Manuel?" she demanded, a little fiercely. It
+was as if she wanted to drown any doubts she might have of her own
+feeling in the certainty of his.
+
+"More than life itself, I do believe," he cried in a low voice.
+
+Her lithe body turned, so that her shining eyes were close to his.
+
+"Dear Manuel, I am glad. You don't know how worried I've been ... still
+am. Perhaps if I were a man it would be different, but I don't want my
+people to take the life of this stranger. But they mean him
+harm--especially since he has come back and intends to punish Pablo and
+Sebastian. I want them to let the law take its course. Something tells
+me that we shall win in the end. I've talked to them--and talked--but
+they say nothing except 'Si, doña.' But with you to help me----"
+
+"They'd better not touch him again," broke in her lover swiftly.
+
+"It's a great comfort to me, Manuel, that you have blotted out your own
+quarrel with him. It was magnanimous, what I should expect of you."
+
+He said nothing, but the hand that lay on hers seemed suddenly to
+stiffen. A kind of fear ran shivering through her. Quickly she rose from
+the couch.
+
+"Manuel, tell me that I am right, that you don't mean to ... hurt him?"
+Her dark eyes searched his unflinchingly. "You don't mean ... you can't
+mean ... that----?"
+
+"Let us forget the American and remember only that we love, my beloved,"
+he pleaded.
+
+"No ... No!" The voice of the girl was sharp and imperative. "I want the
+truth. Is it that you are still thinking of murdering him, Manuel?"
+
+The sting of her words brought a flush to his cheeks. "I fight fair,
+Valencia. I set against his life my own, with all the happiness that has
+come flooding it. Nor is it that I seek the man's life. For me he might
+live a thousand years--and welcome. But my honor----"
+
+"No, Manuel. No--no--no! I will not have it. If you are betrothed to me
+your life is mine. You shall not risk it in a barbarous duel."
+
+"Let us change the subject, dear heart."
+
+"Not till I hear you say that you have given up this wicked intention of
+yours."
+
+He gave up the attempt to evade her and met her fairly as one man does
+another.
+
+"I can't say that, Valencia, not even for you. This quarrel lies between
+him and me. I have suffered humiliation and disgrace. Until those are
+wiped out there must be war between me and the American."
+
+"Since the day I first wore your ring, Manuel, I have asked nothing of
+you. I ask now that you will forget the slight this man has put upon you
+... because I ask it of you with all my heart."
+
+A slight tremor ran through his blood. He felt himself slipping from his
+place with her.
+
+"I can't, Valencia. You don't know what you ask, how impossible it is
+for me--a Pesquiera, son of my honored fathers--to grant such a
+request." He stretched his hands toward her imploringly.
+
+"Yet you say you love me?"
+
+"Heaven knows whether it is not true, my cousin."
+
+"You want me to believe that, even though you refuse the first real
+request I ever made of you?"
+
+"Anything else in the world that is in my power."
+
+"It is easy to say that, Manuel, when it isn't something else I want.
+Give me this American's life. I shall know, then, that you love me."
+
+"You know now," he answered quietly.
+
+"Is love all sighs and vows?" she cried impatiently. "Will it not
+sacrifice pride and vanity for the object of its devotion?"
+
+"Everything but honor," answered the man steadfastly.
+
+She made a gesture of despair.
+
+"What is this honor you talk so much about? It is neither Christian nor
+lawful nor right."
+
+"It is a part of me, Valencia."
+
+"Then your ideas are archaic. The duel was for a time when every man had
+to seek his personal redress. There is law in this twentieth century."
+
+"Not as between man and man in the case of a personal indignity--at
+least, not for Manuel Pesquiera."
+
+"But it is so needless. We know you are brave; he knows it, too. Surely
+your vanity----"
+
+He smiled a little sadly.
+
+"I think it is not vanity, but something deeper. None of my ancestors
+could have tolerated this stigma, nor can their son. My will has nothing
+to do with it, and my desire still less. It is kismet."
+
+"Then you must know the truth--that if you kill this man I can
+never----"
+
+"Never what?"
+
+"Never marry you."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"His blood would stand between us."
+
+"Do you mean that you--love him?"
+
+Her dark eyes met his steadily.
+
+"I don't think I mean that, Manuel. How could I mean that, since I love
+you and am betrothed to you? Sometimes I hate him. He is so insolent in
+his daring. Then, too, he is my enemy, and he has come here to set this
+happy valley to hate and evil. Yet, if I should hurt him, it would stand
+between us forever."
+
+"I am sorry."
+
+"Only sorry, Manuel?"
+
+He clamped his teeth on the torrent of protest that rose within him when
+she handed him back his ring. It would do no good to speak more. The
+immutable fact stood between them.
+
+"I did not know life could be so hard--and cruel," she cried out in a
+burst of passion.
+
+She went to the open window and looked out upon the placid, peaceful
+valley. She had a swift, supple way of moving, as if her muscles
+responded with effortless ease to her volition; but the young man
+noticed that to-night there was a drag to her motions.
+
+His heart yearned toward her. He longed mightily to take her in his arms
+and tell her that he would do as she wished. But, as he had said,
+something in him more potent than vanity, than pride, than his will,
+held him to the course he had set for himself. His views of honor might
+be archaic and ridiculous, but he lived by his code as tenaciously as
+had his fathers. Gordon had insulted and humiliated him publicly. He
+must apologize or give him satisfaction. Until he had done one or the
+other Manuel could not live at peace with himself. He had put a powerful
+curb upon his desire to wait as long as he had. Circumstances had for a
+time taken the matter out of his hands, but the time had come when he
+meant to press his claims. The American might refuse the duel; he could
+not refrain from defending himself when Pesquiera attacked.
+
+A step sounded in the doorway, and almost simultaneously a voice.
+
+"_Doña,_ are you here?"
+
+The room was lighted only by the flickering fire; but Valencia, her eyes
+accustomed to the darkness, recognized the boy as Juan Gardiez.
+
+"Yes, I am here, Juan. What have you to tell me?" she said quickly.
+
+"I do not know, _señorita_. But the men--Pablo, Sebastian; all of
+them--are gone."
+
+"Gone where?" she breathed.
+
+"I do not know. To-day I drove a cow and calf to Willow Springs. I am
+but returned. The houses are empty. Señor Barela's wife says she saw men
+riding up the hill toward Corbett's--eight, nine, ten of them."
+
+"To Corbett's?" She stared whitely at him without moving. "How long
+ago?"
+
+"An hour ago--or more."
+
+"Saddle Billy at once and bring him round," the girl ordered crisply.
+
+She turned as she spoke and went lightly to the telephone. With the need
+of action, of decision, her hopelessness was gone. There was a hard,
+bright light in her eyes that told of a resolution inflexible as
+tempered steel when once aroused.
+
+"Give me Corbett's--at once, please. Hallo, Central--Corbett's----"
+
+No answer came, though she called again and again.
+
+"There must be something wrong with the telephone," suggested Don
+Manuel.
+
+She dropped the receiver and turned quietly to him.
+
+"The wires have been cut."
+
+"But, why? What is it all about?"
+
+"Merely that my men are anticipating you. They have gone to murder the
+American. Deputy sheriffs from Santa Fé to-day came here to arrest Pablo
+and Sebastian. The men suspected and were hidden. Now they have gone to
+punish Mr. Gordon for sending the officers."
+
+She could not have touched him more nearly. He came to her with burning
+eyes.
+
+"How do you know? What makes you think so?"
+
+She told him, briefly and simply, giving more detailed reasons.
+
+Without a word, he turned and left her. She could hear him rushing
+through the hall, traced his progress by the slamming of the door, and
+presently caught sight of him running toward the corral. He did not
+hear, or heed, her call for him to wait.
+
+The girl hurried out of the house after him, in time to see him slap a
+saddle on his bronco, swing to his seat lightly, and gallop in a cloud
+of dust to the road.
+
+Valencia waited for no more. Quickly running to her room, she slipped on
+a khaki riding-skirt. Her deft, tapering fingers moved swiftly, so that
+she was ready, crop in hand, booted and spurred, by the time Juan
+brought round her horse.
+
+It took but an instant to lift herself to the saddle and send Billy
+galloping forward.
+
+Already her cousin had disappeared in great clouds of dust over the brow
+of the hill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE ATTACK
+
+
+Dick Gordon and Davis were sitting on the porch of their cabin, which
+was about an eighth of a mile from the main buildings of the Corbett
+place. They had returned the day before from Santa Fé, along with two
+deputy sheriffs who had come to arrest Pablo and Sebastian. The officers
+had scoured the valley for two days, and as yet had not caught a glimpse
+of the men they had come to get. Their inquiries were all met by a
+dogged ignorance on the part of the Mexicans, who had of a sudden turned
+surprisingly stupid. No, they had seen nothing of Pablo or of Sebastian.
+They knew nobody of that name--unless it was old Pablo Gardiez the
+_señors_ wished to see. Many strangers desired to see him, for he was
+more than a hundred years old and still remembered clearly the old days.
+
+Gordon laughed at the discomfiture of his sleuths. "I dare say they may
+have been talking to the very men they wanted. But everybody hangs
+together in this valley. I'm going out with them myself to-morrow after
+the gentlemen the law requires."
+
+"No, I wouldn't do that, Dick. With every greaser in the valley
+simmering against you, it won't do for you to go trapsing right down
+among them," Davis explained.
+
+"That's where I'm going, anyhow--to-morrow morning. The deputies are
+staying up at Morrow's. I'm going to phone 'em to-night that I'll ride
+with them to-morrow. Bet you a new hat we flush our birds."
+
+"What's the sense of you going into the police business, Dick? I'll tell
+you what's ailing you. You're just honing to see Miss Valdés again. You
+want to go grand-standing around making her mad at you some more."
+
+"You're a wiz, Steve," admitted his friend dryly. "Maybe you're right.
+Maybe I do want to see her again. Why shouldn't I?"
+
+"What good does it do you when you quarrel all the time you're together?
+She's declared herself already on this proposition--told the deputies
+flat-footed that she wouldn't tell them anything and would help her boys
+to escape in any way she could. You're just like a kid showing off his
+muscle before a little girl in the first grade."
+
+"All right, Steve. You don't hear me denying it."
+
+"Denying it," snapped the old miner. "Hmp! Lot of good that would do.
+You're fair itching to get a chance to go down to the ranch and swagger
+around in plain sight of her lads. You'd be tickled to death if you
+could cut out the two you want and land them here in spite of her and
+Don Manuel and the whole pack of them. Don't I know you? Nothing but
+vanity--that's all there's to it."
+
+"He's off," murmured Dick with a grin to the scenery.
+
+"You make me tired. Why don't you try a little horse sense for a change?
+Honest, if you was a few years younger I'd put you acrost my knee and
+spank you."
+
+Gordon lit a cigarette, but did not otherwise contribute to the
+conversation.
+
+"Ain't she wearing another man's ring?" continued Davis severely.
+"What's bitin' you, anyhow? How many happy families you want to break
+up? First off, there's Pablo and Juanita. You fill up her little noodle
+with the notion that----"
+
+Dick interrupted amiably. "Go to grass, you old granny. I've been
+putting in my spare time since I came back letting Juanita understand
+the facts. If she had any wrong notions she ain't got them any longer.
+She's all ready to kiss and make up with Pablo first chance she gets."
+
+"Then there's Miss Valdés and this Pesky fellow, who's the whitest brown
+man I ever did see. Didn't he run his fool laigs off getting you free so
+you could go back and make love to his girl?"
+
+"He's the salt of the earth. I'm for Don Manuel strong. But I don't
+reckon Miss Valdés would work well in harness with him," explained Dick.
+
+Steve Davis snorted. "No, you reckon Dick Gordon would, though. Don't
+you see she's of his people--same customs, same ways, same----"
+
+"She's no more of his people than she is of mine. Her mother was an
+American girl. She was educated in Washington. New Mexico is in America,
+not in Spain. Don't forget that, you old croaker."
+
+"Well, she's engaged, ain't she? And to a good man. It ain't your put
+in."
+
+"A good one, but the wrong one. It's a woman's privilege to change her
+mind. I'm here to help her change it," announced the young man calmly.
+"Say, look at Jimmie Corbett hitting the high spots this way."
+
+Jimmie, not yet recovered from a severe fright, stopped to explain the
+adventure that had befallen him while he had been night fishing.
+
+"I seen spooks, Mr. Gordon--hundreds of 'em--coming down the river bank
+on horseback--honest to goodness, I did."
+
+"Jimmie, if I had your imagination----"
+
+But Davis cut into Dick's smiling incredulity:
+
+"Did you say on horseback, Jimmie?"
+
+"Yes, sir, on horseback. Hope to die if they weren't--'bout fifty of
+them."
+
+"You better run along home before they catch you, Jimmie," advised the
+old miner gravely.
+
+The boy went like a streak of light. Davis turned quietly to his
+partner.
+
+"I reckon it's come, Dick."
+
+"You believe the boy did see some men on horseback? It might have been
+only shadows."
+
+"No, sir. His imagination wouldn't have put spooks _on horseback_. We
+got no time to argue. You going to hold the fort here or take to the
+hills?"
+
+"You think they mean to attack us in the open?"
+
+"They're hoping to surprise us, I reckon. That's why they're coming
+along the creek instead of the road. Hadn't 'a' been for Jimmie, they
+would have picked us off from the porch before we could say 'Jack
+Robinson.'"
+
+Both men had at once stepped within the log cabin, and, as they talked,
+were strapping on ammunition belts and looking to their rifles and
+revolvers.
+
+"There are too many doors and windows to this cabin. We can't hold it
+against them. We'll take the trail from the back door that leads up to
+the old spring. From up there we'll keep an eye on them," said Dick.
+
+"I see 'em coming," cried the older man softly from the front window.
+"They ain't on the trail, but slipping up through the rocks.
+One--two--three--four--Lord, there's no end to the beggars! They're on
+foot now. Left their hawsses, I expect, down by the river."
+
+Quietly the two men stepped from the back door of the cabin and swiftly
+ascended the little trail that rose at a sharp acclivity to the spring.
+At some height above the cabin, they crouched behind boulders and
+watched the cautious approach of the enemy.
+
+"Not taking any chances, are they?" murmured Gordon.
+
+Steve laughed softly.
+
+"Heard about that chicken-killing affair, mebbe, and none of them
+anxious to add a goose to the exhibit."
+
+"It would be right easy to give that surprise party a first-class
+surprise," chuckled Dick. "Shall I drop a pill or two down among them,
+just to let them know we're on the premises?"
+
+"Now, don't you, Dick. We'll have to put half of 'em out of biz, and get
+shot up by the rest, if you do."
+
+"All right. I'll be good, Steve. I was only joking, anyhow. But it
+ce'tainly is right funny to sit up here and watch them snake up to the
+empty cabin. See that fellow with the Mexican hat? I believe it's my
+jealous friend Pablo. He's ce'tainly anxious to get one Gringo's scalp.
+I could drop a stone down on him so he'd jump about 'steen feet."
+
+"There's one reached the window. He's looking in mighty careful, you
+bet. Now he's beckoning the other fellows. I got a notion he's made a
+discovery."
+
+"Got on to the fact that the nest's empty. They're pouring in like bees.
+Can you make out how many there are? I count nine," said Dick.
+
+"They're having a powwow now. All talking with their hands, the way
+greasers do. Go to it, boys. A regular debating society, ain't you?"
+
+"Hello! What's that mean?" broke in Gordon.
+
+One of the Mexicans had left the rest, and was running toward the
+Corbett house.
+
+"Gone to find whether we're on the porch with the family, up there,"
+continued the young man, answering his own question.
+
+"What's the matter with beating it while we've got a chanct?"
+
+"I'm going to stay right here. You can go if you like, Steve?"
+
+"Oh, well. I just suggested it." Davis helped himself to a chew of
+tobacco placidly.
+
+"Fellow coming back from the house already," he presently added.
+
+"Got the wrong address again. They'll be happening on the right one
+pretty soon."
+
+"Soon as they're amply satisfied we ain't under the beds, or hid between
+the covers of some of them magazines. Blamed if they ain't lit a lamp."
+
+Gordon gave a sudden exclamation of dismay. A Mexican had appeared at
+the back door of the cottage with a tin box in his hand.
+
+"I'm the blamedest idiot out of an asylum," he cried bitterly. "All the
+proofs of my claim are in that box. You know I brought it back from
+Santa Fé with me."
+
+"Ain't that too bad?"
+
+Gordon rose, the lines of his mouth set fast and hard.
+
+"I'm going down after it. If I lose those papers, the whole game's
+spoilt for me. I've got to have them, and I'm going to."
+
+"Don't be a goat. How can you take it from a whole company of them?"
+
+"I'll watch my chance. It may be the fellow will hide it somewhere till
+he wants it again."
+
+"I'm going, too, then."
+
+"See here, Steve. Be sensible. If we both go down, it's a sure thing
+they will stumble on us."
+
+"Too late, anyhow. They're coming up after us."
+
+"So much the better. We'll cut across to the left, slip down, and take
+them in the rear. Likely as not we'll find it there."
+
+"All right. Whatever you say, Dick."
+
+They slipped away into the semi-darkness, taking advantage of every bit
+of cover they could find. Not until they were a long stone's throw from
+the trail did the young miner begin the descent.
+
+Occasionally they could hear voices over to the right as they silently
+slipped down. It was no easy thing to negotiate that stiff mountainside
+in the darkness, where a slip would have sent one of them rolling down
+into the sharp rock-slide beneath. Presently they came to a rockrim, a
+sheer descent of twenty-five feet down the perpendicular face of a
+cliff.
+
+They followed the ledge to the left, hoping to find a trough through
+which they might discover a way down. But in this they were
+disappointed.
+
+"We'll have to go back. There's a place we passed where perhaps it may
+be done. We've got to try it, anyhow," said Gordon, in desperation.
+
+Retracing their steps, they came to the point Dick had meant. It looked
+bad enough, in all conscience, but from the rocks there jutted halfway
+down a dwarf oak that had found rooting in a narrow cleft.
+
+The young man worked his body over the edge, secured a foothold in some
+tiny scarp that broke the smoothness of the face, and groped, with one
+hand and then the other, for some hold that would do to brace his
+weight. He found one, lowered himself gingerly, and tested another
+foothold in a little bunch of dry moss.
+
+"All right. My rifle, Steve."
+
+It was handed down. At that precise moment there came to them the sound
+of approaching voices.
+
+"Your gun, Steve! Quick. Now, then, over you come. That's right--no, the
+other hand--your foot goes there--easy, now."
+
+They stood together on a three-inch ledge, their heels projecting over
+space. Nor had they reached this precarious safety any too soon, for
+already their pursuers were passing along the rim above.
+
+One of them stopped on the edge, scarce eight feet above them.
+
+"They must have come this way," he said to a companion. "But I expect
+they're hitting the trail about a mile from here."
+
+"_Si, Pablo_. Can you feed me a cigareet?" the other asked.
+
+The men below, scarce daring to breathe, waited, while the matches
+glimmered and the cigarettes puffed to a glow. Every instant they
+anticipated discovery; and they were in such a position that, if it
+came, neither of them could use his weapons. For they were cramped
+against the wall with their rifles by their sides, so bound by the
+situation that to have lifted them to aim would have been impossible.
+
+"The American--he has escaped us this time," one of them said as they
+moved off.
+
+"_Maldito_, the devil has given him wings to fly away," replied Pablo.
+
+After the sound of their footsteps had died, Gordon resumed his descent.
+He reached the stunted oak in safety, and was again joined by his
+friend.
+
+"Looks like we're caught here, Steve. There ain't a sign of a foothold
+below," the younger man whispered.
+
+"Mebbe the branches of that tree will bend over."
+
+"We'll have to try it, anyhow. If it breaks with me, I'll get to the
+bottom, just the same. Here goes."
+
+Catching hold of the branches, he swung down and groped with his feet
+for a resting-place.
+
+"Nothing doing, Steve."
+
+"What blamed luck!"
+
+"Hold on! Here's a cleft, away over to the right. Let me get a hold on
+that gun to steady me. That's all right. The rest's easy. I'll give you
+a hand across--that's right. Now we're there."
+
+At the very foot of the cliff an unexplainable accident occurred. Dick's
+rifle went off with noise enough to wake the seven sleepers.
+
+"Come on, Steve. We got to get out of here," he called to his partner,
+and began to run down the hill toward their cabin.
+
+He covered ground so fast that the other could not keep up with him.
+From above there came the crack of a rifle, then another and another, as
+the men on the ridge sighted their prey. A spatter of bullets threw up
+the dirt around them. Dick felt a red-hot flame sting his leg, but,
+though he had been hit, to his surprise he was not checked.
+
+Topping the brow of a little rise, he caught sight of the cabin, and, to
+his consternation, saw that smoke was pouring from the door and that
+within it was alight with flames.
+
+"The beggars have set fire to it," he cried aloud.
+
+So far as he could see, four men had been left below. They did not at
+first catch sight of him as he dodged forward in the shadows of the
+alders at the foot of the hill. Nor did they see him even when he
+stopped among the rocks at the rear, for their eyes were on Davis and
+their attention focused upon him.
+
+He had come puffing to the brow of the hillock Gordon had already
+passed, when a shout from the ridge apprised those below of his
+presence. Cut off above and below, there was nothing left for Steve but
+a retreat down the road. He could not possibly advance in the face of
+four rifles, and he knew, too, that the best aid he could offer his
+friend was to deflect the attention of the watchers from him.
+
+He fell back promptly, running from boulder to boulder in his retreat,
+pursued cautiously by the enemy. His ruse would have succeeded
+admirably, so far as Dick was concerned, except for that young man
+himself. He could not sit quiet and see his friend the focus of the
+fire.
+
+Wherefore, it happened that the attackers of Davis were halted
+momentarily by a disconcerting fusillade from the rear. The "American
+devil" had come out into the open, and was dropping lead among them.
+
+At this juncture a rider galloped into view from the river gorge along
+which wound the road. He pulled his jaded horse to a halt beside the old
+miner and leaped to the ground.
+
+Without waiting an instant for their fire to cease, he ran straight
+forward toward the pursuing Mexicans.
+
+As he came into the moonlight, Dick saw with surprise that the newcomer
+was Don Manuel Pesquiera. He was hatless, apparently too unarmed. But
+not for a second did this stop him as he sprinted forward.
+
+Straight for the spitting rifles Don Manuel ran, face ablaze with anger.
+He had covered half the distance before the weapons wavered groundward.
+
+"Don Manuel!" cried Sebastian, perturbed by this apparition flying
+through the night toward them.
+
+Dick waited only long enough to make sure that hostilities had for the
+moment ceased against his friend before beginning his search for the tin
+box.
+
+He quartered back and forth over the ground behind the burning house
+without result, circled it rapidly, his eyes alert to catch the shine of
+the box in the moonbeams, and examined the space among the rocks at the
+base of the hill. Nowhere did he see what he wanted.
+
+"I'll have to take a whirl at the house. Some of them may have carried
+it back inside," he told himself.
+
+As he stepped toward the door, Don Manuel came round the corner. At his
+heels were Steve and the four Mexicans who had but a few minutes before
+been trying industriously to exterminate the miner.
+
+Don Manuel bowed punctiliously to Gordon.
+
+"I beg to express my very great regrettance at this untimely attack," he
+said.
+
+"Don't mention it, _don_. This business of chasing over the hills in the
+moonlight is first-class for the circulation of the blood, I expect.
+Most of us got quite a bit of exercise, first and last."
+
+Dick spoke with light irony; but one distraught half of his attention
+was upon the burning house.
+
+"Nevertheless, you will permeet me to regret, _señor_," returned the
+young Spaniard stiffly.
+
+"Ce'tainly. You're naturally sore that you didn't get first crack at me.
+Don't blame you a bit," agreed Dick cheerfully but absently. "Funny
+thing is that one of your friends happened to send his message to my
+address, all right. Got me in the left laig, just before you butted in
+and spoiled their picnic so inconsiderate."
+
+"You are then wounded, sir?"
+
+"Not worth mentioning, _don_. Just a little accident. Wouldn't happen
+again in a thousand years. Never did see such poor shots as your valley
+lads. Say, will you excuse me just a minute? I got some awful important
+business to attend to."
+
+"Most entirely, Señor Gordon."
+
+"Thanks. Won't be a minute."
+
+To Pesquiera's amazement, he dived through the door, from which smoke
+poured in clouds, and was at once lost to sight within.
+
+"He is a madman," the Spaniard murmured.
+
+"Or devil," added Sebastian significantly. "You will see, _señor_, he
+will come out safe and unharmed."
+
+But he did not come out at all, though the minutes dragged themselves
+away one after another.
+
+"I'm going after him," cried Davis, starting forward.
+
+But Don Manuel flung strong arms about him, and threw the miner back
+into the hands of the Mexicans.
+
+"Hold him," he cried in Spanish.
+
+"Let me go. Let me go, I say!" cried the miner, struggling with those
+who detained him.
+
+But Pesquiera had already gone to the rescue. He, too, plunged through
+the smoke. Blinded unable to breathe, he groped his way across the door
+lintel into the blazing hut.
+
+The heat was intense. Red tongues of flame licked out from all sides
+toward him. But he would not give up, though he was gasping for breath
+and could not see through the dense smoke.
+
+A sweep of wind brushed the smoke aside for an instant, and he saw the
+body of his enemy lying on the floor before him. He stooped, tried to
+pick it up, but was already too far gone himself.
+
+Almost overcome, he sank to his knees beside Gordon. Close to the floor
+the air was still breathable. He filled his lungs, staggered to his
+feet, and tried to drag the unconscious man across the threshold with
+him.
+
+A hundred fiery dragons sprang unleashed at him. The heat, the stifling
+smoke were more than flesh and blood could endure. He stumbled over a
+fallen chair, got up and plowed forward again, still with that dead
+weight in his arms; collapsed again, and yet once more pulled himself to
+his feet by the sheer strength of the dogged will in him.
+
+So, at last, like a drunken man, he reeled into safety, the very hair
+and clothes of the man on fire from the inferno he had just left.
+
+A score of eager hands were ready to relieve him of his burden, to
+support his lurching footsteps. Two of them were the strong brown hands
+of the woman he loved more than any other on earth, the woman who had
+galloped into sight just in time to see him come staggering from that
+furnace with the body of the man who was his hated rival. It was her
+soft hands that smothered the fire in his hair, that dragged the burning
+coat from his back.
+
+He smiled wanly, murmured "Valencia," and fainted in her arms.
+
+Gordon clutched in his stiffened fingers a tin box blistered by the
+heat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE TIN BOX
+
+
+Dick Gordon lay on a bed in a sunny south room at the Corbett place.
+
+He was swathed in bandages, and had something the appearance of a relic
+of the Fourth of July, as our comic weeklies depict Young America the
+day after that glorious occasion. But, except for one thing which he had
+on his mind, the Coloradoan was as imperturbably gay as ever.
+
+He had really been a good deal less injured than his rescuer; for,
+though a falling rafter had struck him down as he turned to leave the
+hut, this very accident had given him the benefit of such air as there
+had been in the cabin. Here and there he had been slightly burned, but
+he had not been forced to inhale smoke.
+
+Wound in leg and all, the doctor had considered him out of danger long
+before he felt sure of Don Manuel.
+
+The young Spaniard lay several days with his life despaired of. The most
+unremitting nursing on the part of his cousin alone pulled him through.
+
+She would not give up; would not let his life slip away. And, in the
+end, she had won her hard fight. Don Manuel, too, was on the road to
+recovery.
+
+While her cousin had been at the worst, Valencia Valdés saw the wounded
+Coloradoan only for a minute of two each day; but, with Pesquiera's
+recovery, she began to divide her time more equitably.
+
+"I've been wishing I was the bad case," Dick told her whimsically when
+she came in to see him. "I'll bet I have a relapse so the head nurse
+won't always be in the other sick room."
+
+"Manuel is my cousin, and he has been very, very ill," she answered in
+her low, sweet voice, the color in her olive cheeks renewed at his
+words.
+
+The eyes of the Anglo-Saxon grew grave.
+
+"How is Don Manuel to-night?"
+
+"Better. Thank Heaven."
+
+"That's what the doctor told me."
+
+Dick propped himself on an elbow and looked directly at her, that
+affectionate smile of his on his face.
+
+"Miss Valdés, do you know, ever since I've been well enough, I've been
+hoping that if one of us had to cross the Great Divide it would be me?"
+
+Her troubled eyes studied him.
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+"Because it would seem more right that way. I came here and made all
+this trouble in the valley. I insulted him. I had in mind another hurt
+to him that we won't discuss just now. Then, when it comes to a
+showdown, he just naturally waltzes into Hades and saves my life for me
+at the risk of his own. No, ma'am, I sure couldn't have stood it if he
+had died."
+
+"I'm glad you feel that way," she answered softly, her eyes dim.
+
+"How else could I feel, and be a white man? I tell you, it makes me feel
+mean to think about that day I threw him in the water. Just because I'm
+a great big husky, about the size of two of him, I abused my strength
+and----"
+
+"Just a moment," the girl smiled. "You are forgetting he struck you
+first."
+
+"Oh, well! I reckon I could have stood that."
+
+"Will you be willing to tell him how you feel about it?"
+
+"Will I? Well, I guess yes."
+
+The young woman's eyes were of starry radiance. "I'm so glad--so happy.
+I'm sure everything will come right, now."
+
+He nodded, smiling.
+
+"That's just the way I feel, Miss Valencia. They couldn't go wrong,
+after this--that is, they couldn't go clear wrong."
+
+"I'm quite certain of that."
+
+"I want to go on record as saying that Manuel Pesquiera is the gamest
+man I know. That isn't all. He's a thoroughbred on top of it. If I live
+to be a hundred I'll never be as fine a fellow. My hat's off to him."
+
+There was a mist in her soft eyes as she poured a glass of ice water for
+him. "I'm so glad to hear you say that. He _is_ such a splendid fellow."
+
+He observed she was no longer wearing the solitaire and thought it might
+be to spare his feelings. So he took the subject as a hunter does a
+fence.
+
+"I wish you all the joy in the world, Miss Valdés. I know you're going
+to be very happy. I've got my wedding present all picked out for you,"
+he said audaciously.
+
+She was busy tidying up his dresser, but he could see the color flame
+into her cheeks.
+
+"You have a very vivid imagination, Mr. Gordon."
+
+"Not necessary in this case," he assured her.
+
+"You're quite sure of that, I suppose," she suggested with a touch of
+ironic mockery.
+
+"I haven't read any announcement in the paper," he admitted.
+
+"It is always safe to wait for that."
+
+"Which is another way of saying that it is none of my business. But then
+you see it is." He offered no explanation of this statement, nor did he
+give her time to protest. "Now about that wedding present, Miss Valdés.
+It's in a tin box I had in the cabin before the fire. Can you tell me
+whether it was saved? My recollection is that I had it at the time the
+rafter put me to sleep. But of course I don't remember anything more
+till I found myself in bed here."
+
+"A tin box? Yes; you had it in your hands when Manuel brought you out.
+They could hardly pry your fingers from it."
+
+"Would you mind having that box brought to me, Miss Valdés? I want to be
+sure the present hasn't been injured by fire."
+
+"Of course not. I don't just know where it is, but it must be somewhere
+about the place."
+
+She was stepping toward the door, with that fine reaching grace of a
+fawn that distinguished her, when his voice stopped her. She stopped,
+delicate head poised and half turned, apparently waiting for further
+directions.
+
+"Not just this minute, please. I've been lying here all day, with nobody
+but Steve. Finally he got so restless I had to turn him out to pasture.
+It wouldn't be right hospitable to send you away so soon. That box can
+wait till you have had all of me you can stand. What I need is good
+nursing, and I need it awful bad," he explained plaintively.
+
+"Has Mrs. Corbett been neglecting you?"
+
+"Mrs. Corbett--no!" he shouted with a spirit indomitable, but a voice
+still weak. "She's on earth merely to cook me chicken broth and custard.
+It's you that's been neglecting me."
+
+The gleam of a strange fire was in her dark, bright eyes; in her cheeks
+the soft glow of beating color.
+
+"And _my_ business on earth is to fight you, is it not? But I can't do
+that till you are on your feet again, sir."
+
+He gave her back her debonair smile.
+
+"I'm not so sure of that. Women fight with the weapons of their sex--and
+often win, I'm told."
+
+"You mean, perhaps, tears and appeals for pity. They are weapons I
+cannot use, sir. I had liefer lose."
+
+"I dare say there are other weapons in your arsenal. I know you're too
+game to use those you've named."
+
+"What others?" she asked quietly.
+
+He let his eyes rest on her, sweep over her, and come back to the
+meeting with hers. But he did not name them. Instead, he came to another
+angle of the subject.
+
+"You never know when you are licked, do you? Why don't you ask me to
+compromise this land grant business?"
+
+"What sort of a compromise have you to offer, sir?" she said after a
+pause.
+
+"Have your lawyers told you yet that you have no chance?"
+
+"Would it be wise for me to admit I have none, before I go to discuss
+the terms of the treaty?" she asked, and put it so innocently that he
+acknowledged the hit with a grin.
+
+"I thought that, if you knew you were going to lose, you might be easier
+to deal with. I'm such a fellow to want the whole thing in my bargains."
+
+"If that's how you feel, I don't think I'll compromise."
+
+"Well, I didn't really expect you would. I just mentioned it."
+
+"It was very good of you. Now I think I'll go back to my cousin."
+
+"If you must I'm coming over to his room as soon as the doc will let me,
+and as soon as he'll see me."
+
+She gave him a sudden flash of happy eyes. "I hope you will. There must
+be no more trouble between him and you. There couldn't be after this,
+could there?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Not if it takes two to make a quarrel. He can say what he wants to,
+make a door-mat out of me, go gunning after me till the cows come home,
+and I won't do a thing but be a delegate to a peace conference. No,
+ma'am. I'm through."
+
+"You don't know how glad I am to hear it."
+
+"Are you as anxious I should make up my quarrel with you as the ones
+with your friends?" he asked boldly.
+
+The effrontery of this lean, stalwart young American--if effrontery it
+was, and no other name seemed to define it--surprised another dash of
+roses into the olive.
+
+"The way to make up your quarrel with me is to make up those with my
+friends," she answered.
+
+"All right. Suits me. I'll call those deputies off and send them home.
+Pablo and Sebastian will never go to the pen on my evidence. They're in
+the clear so far as I'm concerned."
+
+She gave him both her hands. "Thank you. Thank you. I'm _so_ glad."
+
+The tears rose to her eyes. She bit her lip, turned and left the room.
+
+He called after her:
+
+"Please don't forget my tin box."
+
+"I'll remember your precious box," she called back with a pretense of
+scorn.
+
+He laughed to himself softly. There was sunshine in his eyes.
+
+She had resolved to leave him to Mrs. Corbett in future, but within the
+hour she was back.
+
+"I came about your tin box. Nobody seems to know where it is. Everybody
+remembers having seen it in your hands. I suppose we left it on the
+ground when we brought you to the house, but I can't find anybody that
+removed it. Perhaps some of my people have seen it. I'll send and ask
+them."
+
+He smiled disconsolately.
+
+"I may as well say good-bye to it."
+
+"If you mean that my boys are thieves," she retorted hotly.
+
+"I didn't say that, ma'am; but mebbe I did imply they wouldn't return
+that particular box, when they found what was in it. I shouldn't blame
+them if they didn't."
+
+"I should. Very much. This merely shows you don't understand us at all,
+Mr. Gordon."
+
+"I wish I had that box. It ce'tainly disarranges my plans to have it
+gone," he said irritably.
+
+"I assure you I didn't take it."
+
+"I don't lay it to you, though it would ce'tainly be to your advantage
+to take it," he laughed, already mollified.
+
+"Will you please explain that?"
+
+"All my claims of title to this land grant are in that box, Miss
+Valdés," he remarked placidly, as if it were a matter of no consequence.
+
+She went white at his words.
+
+"And it is lost--probably in the hands of my people. We must get it
+back."
+
+"But you're on the other side of the fence," he reminded her gaily.
+
+With dignity she turned on him.
+
+"Do you think I want to beat you that way? Do you think I am a
+highwayman, or that I shall let my people be?"
+
+"You make them draw the line between murder and robbery," he suggested
+pleasantly.
+
+"I couldn't stop them from attacking you, but I can see they don't keep
+your papers--all the more, that it is to their interest and mine to keep
+them."
+
+She said it with such fine girlish pride, her head thrown a little back,
+her eyes gleaming, scorn of his implied distrust in her very carriage.
+For long he joyfully carried the memory of it.
+
+Surely, she was the rarest creature it had ever been his fortune to
+meet. Small wonder the gallant Spaniard Don Manuel loved her. Small
+wonder her people fed on her laughter, and were despondent at her
+frowns.
+
+Dick Gordon was awake a good deal that night, for the pain and the fever
+were still with him; but the hours were short to him, full of joy and
+also of gloom. Shifting pictures of her filled the darkness. His
+imagination saw her in many moods, in many manners. And when from time
+to time he dropped into light sleep, it was to carry her into his
+dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+DICK GORDON APOLOGIZES
+
+
+Don Manuel was at first too spent a man even to wish to get well. As his
+cousin's nursing dragged him farther and farther back into this world
+from which he had so nearly slipped, he was content to lie still and
+take the goods the gods provided.
+
+She was with him for the present. That sufficed. Whether he lived or
+died he did not care a hand's turn; but the while Fate flipped a coin to
+determine whether it should be life or death for him, he had Valencia's
+love as he feared he would never have it in case he recovered.
+
+For these days she lived for him alone. Her every thought and desire had
+been for him. On this his soul fed, since he felt that, as they slipped
+back into the ordinary tide of life, she would withdraw herself gently
+but surely from him.
+
+He had fought against the conviction that she loved his rival, the
+Colorado claimant to the valley. He had tried to persuade himself that
+her interest in the miner was natural under the circumstances and
+entirely independent of sentiment. But in the bottom of his heart such
+assurances did not convince.
+
+"You will be able to sit up in a few days. It's wonderful how you have
+improved," she told him one day as she finished changing his pillow.
+
+"Yes, I shall be well soon. You will be relieved of me," he said with a
+kind of gentle sadness.
+
+"As if I wanted to be," she reproved softly, her hand smoothing down his
+hair.
+
+"No. You're very good to me. You don't want to be rid of me. But it's
+best you should be. I have had all of you that's good for me, my cousin,
+unless I could have more than I dare hope."
+
+She looked through the window at the sunlit warmth of the land, and,
+after a long time, said:
+
+"Must we talk of that, Manuel?"
+
+"No, _niña_--not if I am once sure. I have guessed; but I must be
+certain beyond the possibility of mistake. Is my guess right? That it
+can never be."
+
+She turned dim eyes on him and nodded. A lump had risen to her throat
+that forbade speech.
+
+"I can still say, dearest, that I am glad to have loved you," he
+answered cheerfully, after an instant's silence. "And I can promise that
+I shall trouble you no more. Shall we talk of something else?"
+
+"There is one thing I should like to tell you first," she said with
+pretty timidity. "How proud I am that such a man could have loved me.
+You are the finest man I know. I must be a foolish girl not to--care for
+you--that way."
+
+"No. A woman's heart goes where it must. If a man loses, he loses."
+
+She choked over her words. "It doesn't seem fair. I promised. I wore
+your ring. I said that if you saved ... him ... I would marry you.
+Manuel, I ... I'll keep faith if you'll take me and be content to wait
+for ... that kind of love to grow."
+
+"No, my cousin. I have wooed and lost. Why should you be bound by a
+pledge made at such a time? As your heart tells you to do, so you must
+do." He added after a pause: "It is this American, is it not?"
+
+Again she nodded twice, not looking at him lest she see the pain in his
+eyes.
+
+"I wish you joy, Valencia--a world full of it, so long as life lasts."
+
+He took her fingers in his, and kissed them before he passed lightly to
+another subject:
+
+"Have you heard anything yet of the tin box of Mr. Gordon's?"
+
+She accepted the transition gratefully, for she was so moved she was
+afraid lest she break down.
+
+"Not yet. It is strange, too, where it has gone. I have had inquiries
+made every where."
+
+"For me, I hope it is never found. Why should you feel responsibility to
+search for these papers that will ruin you and your tenants?"
+
+"If my men had not attacked and tried to murder him he would still have
+his evidence. I seek only to put him in the position he was in before we
+injured him."
+
+"You must judge for yourself, Valencia. But, if you don't mind, I shall
+continue to wish you failure in your search," he replied.
+
+It was now that Jimmie Corbett came into the room to say that Mr. Gordon
+would like to call on Don Manuel, if the latter felt able to receive
+him.
+
+Pesquiera did not glance at his cousin. He answered the boy at once.
+
+"Tell Mr. Gordon I shall be very glad to see him," he said quietly.
+
+Nor did he look at her after the boy had left the room, lest his gaze
+embarrass her, but gave his attention wholly to propping himself up on
+his elbow.
+
+Dick stood a moment filling the doorway before he came limping into the
+room. From that point he bowed to Miss Valdés, then moved forward to the
+bed.
+
+He did not offer to shake hands, but stood looking down at his rival,
+with an odd look of envy on his face. But it was the envy of a brave and
+generous man, who acknowledged victory to his foe.
+
+"I give you best, Don Manuel," he finally said. "You've got me beat at
+every turn of the road. You saved my life again, and mighty near paid
+with your own. There ain't anything to say that will cover that, I
+reckon."
+
+The Spaniard's eyes met his steadily, but Pesquiera did not say a word.
+He was waiting to see what the other meant.
+
+"You're a gamer man than I am, and a better one. All I can say is that
+I'm sorry and ashamed of myself for the way I treated you. If you still
+want to fight me, I'll stand up and give you a chance to pepper me.
+Anything you think right."
+
+"If you put it so, sir, I have no choice but to join you in regrets and
+hopes of future amity."
+
+"I can understand that you'd like to spill me over a ten-acre lot, and
+that you don't listen to my apologies with any joy," said the
+Coloradoan, smiling whimsically down at his former foe.
+
+"I do not forget that the first offense was mine, _Señor Gordon_," the
+Spaniard answered.
+
+Then came Jimmie Corbett again with a message for Miss Valdés.
+
+"Pablo wants to see you, ma'am. Just rode over from the ranch. Says it's
+important."
+
+The hands of the two men met in a strong grip as Valencia left the room,
+and so, too, did their steady gazes. Each of them knew that the other
+was his rival for the heart of the girl. Oddly enough, each thought the
+other was the successful suitor. But there was in each some quality of
+manliness that drew them together in spite of themselves.
+
+Valencia found Pablo sitting on the porch. A rifle lay across his knees
+ready for emergencies. The deputies had ridden away to the other end of
+the valley that morning, but Menendez did not intend to be caught
+napping in case of their unexpected return.
+
+Miss Valdés smiled. "You needn't be so careful, Pablo. I bring you good
+news--better than you deserve. Mr. Gordon has promised to drop the cases
+against you and Sebastian. Even if the officers arrest you, nothing can
+come of it except a trip to Santa Fé for a few days. If I were you I
+would give myself up. The rewards have been withdrawn, so it is not
+likely your friends will betray you."
+
+"But, _Doña_, are you sure? Will this _Americano_ keep his word? Is it
+certain they will not hold me in prison?"
+
+"I tell you it is sure. Is that not enough? Did you find Mr. Gordon so
+ready to give you his word and break it when he was your prisoner?"
+
+"True, _Doña_. He laughed at us and told us to kill him. He is a brave
+man."
+
+"And brave men do not lie."
+
+Pablo turned to his horse and took down from the horn of the saddle a
+gunny sack tied to it. This he opened. From it he drew a tin box that
+had been badly blistered with heat.
+
+"It is _Señor_ Gordon's tin box. After you carried him to the house here
+the other night I found it under a cottonwood. So I took it home with
+me. They are papers. Important---- Is it not so?"
+
+"Yes. I have been looking everywhere for them. You did right to bring
+them back to me."
+
+"Perhaps they may help you win the land. Eh, _Doña_?"
+
+"Perhaps. You know I offered a reward of twenty-five dollars for the
+box. It is yours. Buy some furniture with it when you and Juanita go to
+housekeeping."
+
+"That is all past, alas, _Señorita_. Juanita looks down her nose when I
+am near. She does not speak to me."
+
+"Foolish boy! That is a sign she thinks much of you. Tell her you did
+wrong to accuse her. Beg her to forgive you. Do not sulk, but love her
+and she will smile on you."
+
+"But--this _Señor_ Gordon?"
+
+"All nonsense, Pablo. I have talked with Juanita. It is you she loves.
+Go to her and be good to her. She is back there in the milkhouse
+churning. But remember she is only a girl--so young, and motherless,
+too. It is the part of a man to be kind and generous and forbearing to a
+woman. He must be gentle--always gentle, if he would hold her love. Can
+you do that, Pablo? Or are you only a hot-headed, selfish, foolish boy?"
+
+"I will try, _Doña_," he answered humbly. "For always have I love' her
+since she was such a little _muchacha_."
+
+"Then go. Don't tell her I sent you. She must feel you have come because
+you could no longer stay away."
+
+Pablo flashed his teeth in a smile of understanding and took the path
+that led round the house. He followed it to the sunken cellar that had
+been built for a milkhouse. Noiselessly he tiptoed down the steps and
+into the dark room. The plop-plop of a churn dasher told him Juanita was
+here even before his eyes could make her out in the darkness.
+
+Presently he saw more clearly the slender figure bent a little wearily
+over the churn. Softly he trod forward. His hand went out and closed on
+the handle above hers. In startled surprise she turned.
+
+"You--Pablo!" she cried faintly.
+
+"I have so longed to see you--to come to you and tell you I was wrong,
+_niña_---- Oh, you don't know how I have wanted to come. But my
+pride--my hard, foolish pride--it held me back. But no longer, heart of
+my heart, can I wait. Tell me that you forgive--that you will love me
+again--in spite of what I said and have done. I cannot get along without
+my little Juanita," he cried in the soft Spanish that was native to them
+both.
+
+She was in his arms, crying softly, nestling close to him so that his
+love might enfold her more warmly. Always Juanita had been a soft,
+clinging child, happy only in an atmosphere of affection. She responded
+to caresses as a rose does to the sunlight. Pablo had been her first
+lover, the most constant of them all. She had relied upon him as a child
+does upon its mother. When he had left her in anger and not returned she
+had been miserably unhappy. Now all was well again, since Pablo had come
+back to her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE PRINCE CONSORT
+
+
+Valencia returned to Don Manuel's room carrying a gunny sack. She found
+Dick Gordon sitting beside his rival's bed amiably discussing with him
+the respective values of the Silver Doctor and the Jock Scott for night
+fishing. Dick rose at her entrance to offer a chair.
+
+She was all fire and animation. Her eyes sparkled, reflecting light as
+little wavelets of a sun-kissed lake.
+
+"Supreme Court decision just come down in your favor?" asked the other
+claimant to the valley with genial irony.
+
+"No, but--guess what I've got here."
+
+"A new hat," hazarded Gordon, furrowing his brow in deep thought.
+
+"Treason!" protested Manuel. "Does the lady live who would put her new
+hat in a gunny sack?"
+
+"You may have three guesses, each of you," replied Miss Valdés,
+dimpling.
+
+The miner guessed two guinea pigs, a million dollars, and a pair of
+tango slippers. Pesquiera went straight to the mark.
+
+"A tin box," he said.
+
+"Right, Manuel. Pablo brought it. He had just heard I was looking for
+the box--says he found it the night of the fire and took it home with
+him. His idea was that we might use the papers to help our fight."
+
+"Good idea," agreed the Cripple Creek man, with twinkling eyes. "What
+are you going to do with the papers now you have them, Miss Valdés?"
+
+"Going to give them to their owner," she replied, and swung the sack
+into his lap.
+
+He took out a bunch of keys from his pocket, fitted one to the lock of
+the box, and threw up the lid. Carefully he looked the papers over.
+
+"They are all here--every last one. I'm still lord of the Rio Chama
+Valley--unless my lawyers are fooling me mighty bad."
+
+"It's a difference of opinion that makes horse races, _Señor_," retorted
+Manuel gaily from his pillows.
+
+"I'll bet one of Mrs. Corbett's cookies there's no difference of opinion
+between my lawyers and those of Miss Valdés. What do you honestly think
+yourself about the legal end, ma'am?"
+
+"I think that law and justice were divorced a good many years ago," she
+answered promptly.
+
+"Which is another way of saying that you expect me to win out."
+
+"By advice of counsel we decline to make any admissions, sir."
+
+"You don't have to say a word. The facts do all the talking that is
+necessary." Gordon glanced in a business-like fashion over several
+papers. "This would be a fine time for friend Pablo to attack me again.
+Here are several of the original papers--deed of the grant, map of it
+with the first survey made, letters showing that old Moreño lived
+several years in the valley after your people were driven out at the
+time of the change in government. By the way, here's a rather
+interesting document. Like to look at it, Miss Valdés?"
+
+He handed to her a paper done up in a blue cover after the fashion of
+modern legal pleadings. Valencia glanced it over. Her eye caught at a
+phrase which interested her and ran rapidly down the page.
+
+"But--I don't understand what this means--unless----"
+
+She looked up quickly at Gordon, an eager question in her face.
+
+"It means what it says, though it's all wrapped up in dictionary words
+the way all law papers are."
+
+Valencia passed the document to Pesquiera. "Read that, and tell me what
+you think it means, Manuel." Her face was flushed with excitement, and
+in her voice there was a suggestion of tremulousness.
+
+The Spaniard read, and as he read his eyes, too, glowed.
+
+"It means, my cousin, that you have to do with a very knightly foe. By
+this paper he relinquishes all claim, title and interest in the Moreño
+grant to Valencia Valdés, who he states to be in equity the rightful
+owner of same. Valencia, I congratulate you. But most of all I
+congratulate Mr. Gordon. Few men have the courage to make a gift of a
+half million acres of land merely because they have no moral title to
+it."
+
+"Sho! I never did want the land, anyhow. I got interested in the scrap.
+That's all." The miner looked as embarrassed as if he had been caught
+stealing a box of cigars.
+
+The young woman had gone from pink to white. The voice in which she
+spoke was low and unsteady.
+
+"It's a splendid thing to do--the gift of a king. I don't know--that I
+can accept it--even for the sake of my people. I know now you would be
+fair to them. You wouldn't throw them out. You would give new deeds to
+those who have bought land, wouldn't you?"
+
+"How are you going to keep from accepting it, Miss Valdés? That paper is
+a perfectly legal document."
+
+She smiled faintly. "I could light a cigarette, Mr. Gordon, as you once
+did."
+
+"Not a bit of use. I wired to Santa Fé by Steve to have that paper--the
+original of it--put on record this afternoon. By this time I expect
+you're the princess of the Rio Chama all right."
+
+She still hesitated, the tide of feeling running full in her heart. It
+was all very well for this casual youth to make her a present of a half
+million acres of land in this debonair way, but she could not persuade
+herself to accept so munificent a gift.
+
+"I don't know--I'll have to think--if you are the legal owner----"
+
+"You're welching," he told her amiably. "I make a legal deed of
+conveyance because we are all agreed that my title isn't morally good.
+We're not a bunch of pettifoggers. All of us are aiming to get at what's
+right in settling this thing. You know what is right. So do I. So does
+Mr. Pesquiera. Enough said. All we have to do then is to act according
+to the best we know. Looks simple to me."
+
+"Maybe it wouldn't look so simple if you were at the other end of the
+bargain, Mr. Gordon. To give is more blessed than to receive, you know."
+
+"Sure. I understand that. I get the glory and do all the grand-standing.
+But you'll have to stand for it, I reckon."
+
+"I'm going to think it over. Then I'll let you know what I can do." She
+looked at him sharply, a new angle of the situation coming home to her.
+"You meant to do this from the first, Mr. Gordon."
+
+"Not quite from the first. After you had taken me to your ranch and I
+had seen how things stood between you and the folks in the valley I did.
+You've smoked me, ma'am. I'm a born grand-stander." He laughed in
+amusement at himself. "I wanted to be it, the hero of the piece, the
+white-haired boy. But that wasn't the way it panned out. I was elected
+villain most unanimous, and came mighty near being put out of business a
+few times before I could make the public _sabe_ I was only play acting.
+Funny how things work out. Right at the last when I've got the spotlight
+all trained for me to star and the music playing soft and low, Don
+Manuel here jumps in and takes the stage from me by rescuing the villain
+from a fiery furnace. I don't get any show," he complained whimsically.
+
+Valencia smiled. "The action of the play has all revolved around you,
+anyhow. That ought to satisfy you. Without you there wouldn't have been
+any entertainment at all."
+
+"I've had plenty of fun for my money. I'm not making any complaint at
+all. When a pretender invades a country to put the reigning queen out of
+business he has a license to expect a real warm welcome. Well, I got
+it."
+
+Once again Jimmie Corbett appeared in the doorway, this time with a
+yellow envelope which he handed to Gordon.
+
+Dick read the enclosed telegram and passed it to Pesquiera.
+
+The Spaniard waved his hand and made a feeble attempt at a cheer.
+
+"Am I to hear the good news?" Valencia asked.
+
+"Read it, Mr. Pesquiera."
+
+Manuel read:
+
+  "Relinquishment of claim to Moreño grant in favor of Valencia
+  Valdés filed ten minutes ago. Have you taken my advice in regard to
+  consolidation?
+
+  KATE UNDERWOOD."
+
+"What does she mean about a consolidation?" asked Miss Valdés.
+
+Dick flushed. "Oh, that was just something we were talking over--some
+foolishness or other, I reckon. Nothing to it. The important point is
+that the legal fight is over. You're now the owner of both the Valdés
+and the Moreño claims."
+
+"_Le roi est mort! Vive la reine!_" cried Manuel gaily.
+
+"I can't be said to have had a very peaceful reign. Wish you better
+luck, ma'am." He let his eyes rest drolly on the invalid for a moment.
+"And I hope when you take a prince consort to share the throne he'll
+meet all expectations--which I'm sure he will."
+
+Dick shook hands with the bright-eyed flushing girl.
+
+She laughed in the midst of her blushes. "_Gracias, señor!_ I'll save
+your good wishes till they are needed."
+
+"_Adios_, _Don_ Manuel. See you to-morrow if you're up to it. I expect
+you've had enough excitement for one day."
+
+"I'll let you know then whether I can accept your gift, Mr. Gordon,"
+Valencia told him.
+
+"That's all settled," he assured her as he left.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was in the evening that he saw her again. Dick had stopped in the
+hall on the way to his room to examine a .303 Savage carbine he found
+propped against the wall. He had picked the weapon up when a voice above
+hailed him. He looked up. Valencia was leaning across the balustrade of
+the stairway.
+
+"I want to talk with you, Mr. Gordon."
+
+"Same here," he answered promptly. "I mean I want to talk with you.
+Let's take a walk."
+
+"No. You're not up to a walk. We'll drive. My rig is outside."
+
+Ten minutes later they were flying over the hard roads packed with
+rubble from decomposed sandstone. Neither of them spoke for some time.
+He was busy with the reins, and she was content to lean back and watch
+him. To her there was something very attractive about the set of his
+well-modeled head upon the broad shoulders. He had just been shaved, and
+the scent of the soap wafted to her a pleasant sense of intimacy with
+his masculinity. She could see the line above which the tiny white hairs
+grew thick on the bronzed cheeks. A strange delight stirred in her
+maiden heart, a joy in his physical well-being that longed for closer
+contact.
+
+None of this reached the surface when she spoke at last.
+
+"I can't let things go the way you have arranged them, Mr. Gordon. It
+isn't fair. After the way I and my people have treated you I can't be
+the object of such unlimited generosity at your hands."
+
+"Justice," he suggested by way of substitution.
+
+"No, generosity," she insisted. "Why should you be forced to give way to
+me? What have I done any more than you to earn all this?"
+
+"Now you know we've all agreed----"
+
+"Agreed!" she interrupted sharply. "We've taken it for granted that I
+had some sort of divine right. When I look into it I see that's silly.
+We're living in America, not in Spain of the seventeenth century. I've
+no right except what the law gives me."
+
+"Well, the law's clear now. I'm tired of being shot at and starved and
+imprisoned and burned to make a Mexican holiday. I'm fed up with the
+excitement your friends have offered me. Honest, I'm glad to quit. I
+don't want the grant, anyhow. I'm a miner. We've just made a good strike
+in the Last Dollar. I'm going back to look after it."
+
+"You can't make me believe anything of the kind, Mr. Gordon. I know
+you've made a strike, but you had made it before you ever came to the
+valley. Mr. Davis told me so. We simply couldn't drive you out. That's
+all humbug. You want me to have it--and I'm not going to take it. That's
+all there is to it, sir."
+
+He smiled down upon her. "I never did see anyone so obstinate and so
+changeable. As long as I wanted the land you were going to have it; now
+I don't want it you won't take it. Isn't that just like a woman?"
+
+"You know why I won't take it. From the very first you've played the
+better part. We've mistreated you in every way we could. Now you want to
+drown me in a lake of kindness. I just can't accept it. If you want to
+compromise on a fair business basis I'll do that."
+
+"You've got a first-rate chance to be generous, too, Miss Valdés. I'm
+like a kid. I want to put this thing over my way so that I'll look big.
+Be a nice girl and let me have my own way. You know I said my wedding
+present was in that tin box. Don't spoil everything. Show me that you do
+think we're friends at last."
+
+"We're friends--if you're sure you forgive me," she said shyly.
+
+"Nothing in the world to forgive," he retorted cheerfully. "I've had the
+time of my life. Now I must go home and get to work."
+
+"Yes," she agreed quietly, looking straight in front of her.
+
+He drove in silence for a mile or two before he resumed the
+conversation.
+
+"Of course I'll want to come back for the wedding if you send me an
+invitation. I think a good deal of the prince consort, you know. He's
+one man from the ground up."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"He's the only man I know that's good enough for you. The more I see of
+him the better I like him. He's sure the gamest ever, a straight-up man
+if ever there was one."
+
+"I'm glad of that." She flashed a little sidelong look at him and
+laughed tremulously. "It's good of you to pick me a husband you can
+endorse so heartily. Would you mind telling me his name--if it isn't a
+secret?"
+
+"You know mighty well, but I reckon all girls play the game of making
+believe it isn't so for a while. All right. You don't have to admit it
+till the right time. But you'll send me a card, won't you?"
+
+Her eyes, shyly daring, derided him. "That's no fair, Mr. Gordon. You go
+out of your way to pick a prince consort for me--a perfect paragon I'm
+given to understand--and then you expect me to say 'Thank you kindly,
+sir,' without even being told his name."
+
+He smiled. "Oh, well, you can laugh at me all you like."
+
+"But I'm not laughing at you," she corrected, her eyes dancing. "I'm
+trying to find out who this Admirable Crichton is. Surely I'm within my
+rights. This isn't Turkey, you know. Perhaps I mayn't like him. Or, more
+important still, he may not like me."
+
+"Go right ahead with your fun. Don't mind me."
+
+"I don't believe you've got a prince consort for me at all. If you had
+you wouldn't dodge around like this."
+
+At that instant he caught sight by chance of her ungloved left hand.
+Again he observed that the solitaire was missing. His eyes flashed to
+hers. A sudden hope was born in his heart. He drew the horse to a halt.
+
+"Are you telling me that----? What about Don Manuel?" he demanded.
+
+Now that the crisis was upon her, she would have evaded it if she could.
+Her long lashes fluttered to the hot cheeks.
+
+"He is my cousin and my friend--the best friend I have," she answered in
+a low voice.
+
+"No more than that?"
+
+"No more." She lifted her eyes and tried to meet his boldly. "And now I
+really think you've been impudent enough, don't you?"
+
+He imprisoned her hands in his. "If it isn't Don Manuel who is it?"
+
+She knew her eyes had failed her, that they had told him too much. An
+agony of shyness drenched her from head to foot, but there was no escape
+from his masterful insistence.
+
+"Will you let me go ... please?"
+
+"No--not till you tell me that you love me, Valencia, not till you've
+made me the happiest man alive."
+
+"But ..."
+
+He plunged forward, an insurgent hope shaking his imperturbability.
+
+"Is it yes, dear? Don't keep me waiting. Do I win or lose, Valencia?"
+
+Bravely her eyes lifted to his. "I love you with all my heart and soul.
+I always have from the first. I always shall as long as life lasts," she
+murmured.
+
+Swept away by the abandon of her adorable confession, he caught her in
+his arms and drew her to him. Close as breathing he held her, her heart
+beating against his like a fluttering bird. A delicious faintness
+overcame her. She lay in his embrace, wonderfully content.
+
+The dewy eyes lifted again to his. Of their own volition almost their
+lips met for the first kiss.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Daughter of the Dons, by William MacLeod Raine
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