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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Bad Man, by Charles Hanson Towne
+
+
+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: The Bad Man
+
+
+Author: Charles Hanson Towne
+
+
+
+Release Date: October 30, 2005  [eBook #16968]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BAD MAN***
+
+
+E-text prepared by David Garcia, Josephine Paolucci, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) from
+page images generously made available by The Kentuckiana Digital Library
+(http://kdl.kyvl.org/)
+
+
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through the
+      Kentuckiana Digital Library. See
+      http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kyetexts;cc=kyetexts;xc=1&idno=B92-259-31824852&view=toc
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BAD MAN
+
+A Novel
+
+by
+
+CHARLES HANSON TOWNE
+
+Based on the Play by Porter Emerson Browne
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+G. P. Putnam's Sons
+New York and London
+The Knickerbocker Press
+
+1921
+
+Copyright, 1921, by G. P. Putnam's Sons
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HOLBROOK BLINN AS "THE BAD MAN."]
+
+
+
+To
+
+HOLBROOK BLINN
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.--Wherein it is shown that a young American had the courage to come into
+a new country; how fate played against him, and a neighbor looked longingly
+at his ranch
+
+II.--Wherein, far away, another man hears whispers of the wealth along the
+border, and comes down to see about it
+
+III.--Wherein Uncle Henry speaks his mind--as usual
+
+IV.--Wherein "Red" reveals his heart, and Mrs. Quinn gives him good coffee
+and good advice
+
+V.--Wherein Gilbert Jones is worried, and Lucia Pell is asked to do an
+impossible thing
+
+VI.--Wherein an old love awakens, Pell reveals his true colors, a mortgage
+is about to be foreclosed, the contents of a satchel are made known, Uncle
+Henry springs a sensation, and Pell takes an option
+
+VII.--Wherein Lucia sees treachery brewing, Pell proves himself a brute,
+and an unexpected guest appears
+
+VIII.--Wherein the bandit expounds a new philosophy, and makes marionettes
+of the Americans
+
+IX.--Wherein Uncle Henry chatters some more, there is an auction, and
+things look black indeed
+
+X.--Wherein an old friendship comes to life, Lopez learns a thing or two,
+and finally makes a match
+
+XI.--Wherein a man proves himself a craven, a shot rings out, and the bad
+man explains one little hour
+
+XII.--Wherein the bad man cannot understand the good man, and disappears;
+and a dead man stirs
+
+XIII.--Wherein an old situation seems about to be repeated, another shot is
+fired, and the bad man comes back
+
+XIV.--Wherein an old friend returns, and there is a joyful reunion
+
+
+
+
+THE BAD MAN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN THAT A YOUNG AMERICAN HAD THE COURAGE TO COME INTO A
+NEW COUNTRY; HOW FATE PLAYED AGAINST HIM, AND A NEIGHBOR LOOKED LONGINGLY
+AT HIS RANCH
+
+
+Looking back now, after so many months of struggle and foreboding, he
+wondered how he had ever had the high courage to come to this strange
+country. Had he been a few years older he would not have started forth--he
+was sure of that now. But the flame of youth was in him, the sure sense
+that he could conquer where others had miserably failed; and, like all
+virile young Americans, he had love of adventure, and zest for the unknown
+was in his blood. The glamour of Arizona lured him; the color of these
+great hills and mountains he had come to love captivated him from the
+first. It was as if a siren beckoned, and he had to follow.
+
+For days he had been worried almost to the breaking point. Things had not
+shaped themselves as he had planned. Event piled upon event, and now
+disaster--definite disaster--threatened to descend upon him.
+
+All morning, despite the intense heat, he had been about the ranch,
+appraising this and that, mentally; pottering in the shed; looking at his
+horses--the few that were left!--smiling at the thought of his wheezing
+Ford, wondering just when he would clear out altogether.
+
+Not that young Gilbert Jones was a pessimist. And yet he wasn't one of
+those damnable Pollyanna optimists he so abominated--the kind who went
+about saying continually that God was in His heaven and all was right with
+the world. No, indeed! He was just a normal, regular fellow, ready to face
+a difficult situation when it came about as the natural result of a series
+of events. He saw the impending catastrophe as the logical finale of many
+happenings--for some of which he was not in any way responsible.
+
+Who could have foreseen the Great War, for instance? Surely _that_ was not
+his fault! A pitiful archduke was murdered in a European city. He
+remembered reading about it, and then instantly dismissing it from his mind
+as of no consequence. He never connected himself with so remote an event.
+Yet a few years later he, with many others, was fighting in France--a
+lieutenant in the United States Army--just because a shot had been fired at
+a man he had never heard of!
+
+A strange world, he pondered, as he looked out over the blue hills, heavy
+with heat, and meandering away to God knows where.
+
+Then, surely it was no fault of his if the Government under which he lived
+made no strenuous effort to stop the Mexican massacres of American citizens
+all along the border. One firm word, one splendid gesture, and daring raids
+would have ceased; and there would have been no menace of bandits
+hereabouts. It would have been a country fit to live in. There would have
+developed a feeling of permanence and peace, and a young chap could have
+made his plans for the future with some sense of security and high
+optimism. Surely they were entitled to protection--these brave boys and
+stalwart sons of America who fearlessly took up claims, staked all, and
+strove to make homes in this thrilling section along the borderland. They
+were not mere adventurers; they were pioneers. They were of the best stuff
+that America contained--clean-cut, clear-eyed, with level heads and high
+hearts. Yet their own Government did not think enough of them to offer them
+the sure protection they were entitled to.
+
+Gilbert looked back on that distant day when he had gone up to Bisbee and
+purchased four head of cattle, and brought them himself to this ranch he
+had purchased, happy as only a fool is happy. Within a week they had
+mysteriously disappeared.
+
+Rumors of Mexican thieves and assassins had come to him, as they had come
+to all the young land-owners along the line. He recalled how, after one
+raid, in which a good citizen had been foully murdered in his bed, he had
+called a meeting of the ranchers in their section, and with one voice they
+agreed to send a protest to Washington.
+
+They did so. Nothing happened. An aching silence followed. They wrote
+again; and then one day a pale acknowledgment of their communication came
+in one of those long and important-looking unstamped envelopes. It seemed
+very official, very impressive. But mere looks never helped any cause. They
+were not naive enough to expect the Secretary of State to come down in
+person and see to the mending of things. But a platoon of soldiers--a
+handful of troops--would have worked wonders. Jones always contended that
+not a shot would have to be fired; no more deaths on either side would be
+necessary. The mere presence of a few men in uniform would have the desired
+effect. The bandits, now prowling about, would slink over the invisible
+border to their own territory, and never be heard of again. Of that he felt
+confident.
+
+But no! Watchful waiting was the watchword--or the catchword. And the
+eternal and infernal raids went on.
+
+It was while they were having their community meeting that he had come to
+know Jasper Hardy and his young daughter Angela, who occupied the next
+ranch, about a mile and a half south of his. Before that he had been too
+busy to bother about neighbors. "Red" Giddings, his foreman, had spoken
+once or twice about "some nice folks down the line," but he hadn't heard
+much of what he said. There were always a hundred and one odd jobs to be
+done around the place--something was forever needing attention; and when
+Uncle Henry wasn't grumbling about something, he was forcing his nephew to
+play checkers or cribbage or cards with him. And, working so hard all day,
+he was glad to turn in early at night. Social life, therefore--unless you
+could call high words with a crabbed invalid a form of social life--didn't
+come within Gilbert's ken. It was work, work, work, and the desire to make
+good every moment for him.
+
+But Hardy proved to be an aggressive fighter when the meeting took place,
+and spoke in sharp tones of the Government's dilatoriness. He had come to
+Arizona right after his wife's death in the East, and brought his only
+daughter and a few servants with him. He seemed to have plenty of money,
+and he was anxious lest the invading Mexicans should get any of it away
+from him. His holdings, in the eight years since he had come to the border,
+amounted to several thousand well-cultivated acres; and he looked like a
+man who, when he set out to get anything, would get it. He had an
+inordinate desire to grab up some more territory. Tall and thin, and
+sharp-featured, as well as sharp-tongued, he resembled a hawk. It was
+difficult to realize the fact that the pert and lovely little Angela--who
+lived up to her name only once in a while!--was his own flesh and blood. It
+was as incongruous as though a rose had grown on a beanstalk.
+
+On their very first meeting, Gilbert had not been pleasantly impressed with
+Hardy. But he soon saw that the man had a certain rugged strength, and
+there was no doubt he had suffered from the depredations of Mexico's casual
+visitors, and was ready to protect not only his own interests but those of
+any newcomers. He seemed to have the spirit of fair-mindedness; and he
+believed firmly in the possibilities of this magic land, particularly for
+young men. "It's God's country," he told Gilbert on more than one occasion.
+"Get into the soil all you can. Dig--and dig deep."
+
+He said this over and over. It ran like a refrain through every
+conversation he had with anyone. He preached the gospel of labor. And he
+did work himself; there was no shadow of doubt as to that. He had struck
+oil himself, and had made a goodly extra pile. Now, unknown to young Jones,
+he was casting envious eyes on his ranch; and when the war came and Gilbert
+went overseas in a burst of fine patriotism, and later came other
+disasters, he was quick to snatch his opportunity.
+
+Why go to Bisbee, he told Jones, to see who would take up his mortgage?
+What were neighbors for, if not to come in handy in such unpleasant
+emergencies? And he laughed.
+
+The long and short of it was that Hardy took an option on Gilbert's
+property, and held it at this very moment. It was better so, thought
+Gilbert. Better to be foreclosed by a friendly neighbor, who might hesitate
+to drive one out at the last moment, than under the thumb of some unknown
+individual way down the valley.
+
+Four years of it--and he had come to this! Well, he'd take his medicine
+like a man. He had done his best, and no one could do more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+WHEREIN, FAR AWAY, ANOTHER MAN HEARS WHISPERS OF THE WEALTH ALONG THE
+BORDER, AND COMES DOWN TO SEE ABOUT IT
+
+
+Up North there was a man with a jaw like a rock, and hard, steel-gray eyes.
+He had his fingers on the pulse of business, and employed agents everywhere
+to serve his interests. His office in New York, in the heart of the great
+financial district, was like a telephone exchange--he the central who
+controlled the wires, put in and drew out the plugs, and played the
+fascinating game of connecting himself with any "party" he thought worth
+while. A shrewd, inveterate gambler, he was without scruples. He lived for
+one purpose: to make money. For one person: Morgan Pell.
+
+There had been whispers concerning his methods. They were often
+questionable, to say the least; but, like all men who work quietly beneath
+the surface of the world of business, Pell covered up his tracks with as
+much genius as he displayed in consummating a big deal. There should be no
+loose ends if he was ever charged with corruption. Down in his soul he knew
+he was a coward. He could not face disgrace, any more than he could face
+the guns of battle. If his pillow was not always a restful one at night; if
+he tossed more than he should at his age--he was but thirty-eight--no one
+knew it. His conscience smote him now and then. In his earlier days he had
+tricked a widow and caused her to be separated from her last penny.
+Afterwards, he learned she had committed suicide. He shuddered. In fact, he
+suffered a little for two long years. Then he forgot about her. Life was
+life, and though it played unfairly with some, to others it gave beds of
+roses; and after all we were but puppets of fate, and each must take his
+chances, and not complain if he did not hold the winning hand. There were
+only so many to go around. A lottery--that's what it was. And just as
+people left a card table, a few widows and orphans had to clear out of the
+big gambling-hall of life. It was as plain as day.
+
+To a man like Pell, a wife was a necessity--but only a secondary
+consideration. Of course he must marry, keep up an expensive menage, and
+prove to the world that he was successful even where women were concerned.
+He must give his wife the proper background, do all the necessary things;
+furnish the right setting for his jewel. Children? Bah! They were not
+essential. He had no paternal instinct whatever. Enough that he should
+support in luxury and affluence the woman he deigned to make his wife, and
+entertain in his home the people who could and would be of use to him.
+
+Every least act of his life was arranged, specifications written, plans
+drawn, and blueprints made. One day he decided that he wished a beautiful
+Italian villa on the north shore of Long Island. He pressed a button,
+ordered his secretary to get in touch immediately with his architect; and a
+half-hour later the latter was at his desk ready to talk of the nebulous
+house. Within twenty-four hours he had arranged everything--not a detail
+was forgotten.
+
+That is how he did things. He set out to find a wife in the same
+matter-of-fact manner. He met many women; but Lucia Fennell was the only
+one who set his pulse beating a little faster. He felt it a shame that he
+should be so weak. They were at a dinner-party at the country home of a
+mutual friend.
+
+It was her eyes that held him first. He had never seen quite such
+eyes--blue, with a curious depth that spoke of many things--the eyes of a
+girl who, had he been wiser, he would have known had been in love before.
+This was the type of woman who never loved but once, and then with all her
+strength beyond her own high dreams of what love should be. But though Pell
+could appraise men, judge them swiftly and surely, he was a fool where a
+girl was concerned. He had never spent much time on them. Frankly, they
+bored him. He liked far better the subtle game of finance. He had no
+finesse in a world of women, and he would have been the easiest possible
+prey of an adventuress.
+
+But Lucia was far from that. Of the best family, with old traditions, she
+moved among the set she wished; but society, so called, did not appeal to
+her. She preferred people with brains rather than the idle rich; and she
+had traveled a great deal, and known the world in strange places. She was
+very young when she met the one man of all men for her. Like all women of
+great beauty she had known many men who were infatuated with her. Those
+gifts and attentions which are the rightful dower of every charming girl
+were hers in abundance; and she received them as a queen might have done
+from subjects hardly worthy to sit beside her. Then she met--one man.
+
+It was during a trip she had made with her aunt through New England. He was
+poor. To her, that made no difference. She would have gone with him to the
+ends of the earth. The flame had touched her heart; she was a victim, like
+many another; and when her lover, too proud to ask her to share his poverty
+with her, stayed behind when she went back to New York, and failed to write
+to her, she almost died of grief. But life had to be faced. One word from
+her--she, too, was proud,--and there might have been a different story to
+tell. But with the foolish self-consciousness of lovers, each failed the
+other in the great moment that would have sealed their destinies.
+
+Lucia determined that this broken affair should not wreck her existence.
+But she brooded long, in secret, and would go nowhere. Her aunt, with whom
+she lived, could not rouse her for many months to a sense of the vivid
+world around her. She would see no one.
+
+Two years later Morgan Pell came into her life, at almost the first dinner
+she had attended during a long period of time. His impulsiveness, his
+assurance, his faith in himself and his power to win her, swept her
+temporarily off her feet. At their second meeting he asked her to become
+his wife. Why not? She would never love anyone; but she could not go to the
+altar with him unless she told him the truth. She did not love him. Was he
+willing to take her, knowing this?
+
+He was. Love meant little to him--though he did not say so. He was just
+wise enough to keep that secret within himself.
+
+"I'll make you love me," he told her, with all the ardor he could put into
+his voice. Few women can withstand that age-old phrase.
+
+There followed a time of utter disillusion for her. The great house on the
+Avenue proved to be but four bleak walls; and when the villa on Long Island
+was built, she tried to be as enthusiastic as Morgan wanted her to be. He
+lavished gifts upon her. He brought out gay house-parties for weekends.
+Lucia did her best to keep her part of a bad bargain. She made herself
+lovely, and Pell was proud of her physical charms. The jewel was worth the
+finest settings, and these he supplied, with no thought of the cost. He had
+someone at the head of his table of whom he was very proud. The world need
+never know the solemnity of their lives when the curtain was lowered and
+they were alone together. After all, many marriages were like this. Theirs
+was by no means an exceptional case; and he experienced a curious secret
+joy in the fact that he knew other men envied him his wife, and wondered at
+his power to hold her.
+
+And so the months rolled by, with a trip abroad now and then to relieve the
+tedium of existence. For a woman to know that she comes to be tolerated
+only because she is decorative, is a consummating blow. Pell soon reached
+the point where he told Lucia he had bought her, body and soul. He had
+determined to win her love. When he saw that he could not, he swiftly
+forgot the integrity of her part of the bargain, the honesty of her words
+to him before they were married; and he practised subtle cruelties to tame
+her and bring her at last to him.
+
+He began to drink too much. Only a certain pride in his business affairs,
+the desire to keep a level head, a clear brain, kept him from sinking
+definitely to the gutter. He became irritable with her. Nothing she did
+pleased him. He found he could not wound her sufficiently when he was
+sober; so he fortified himself with alcohol, gained courage to speak flat
+truths, and left her alone for days at a time, thinking such absences were
+a punishment.
+
+Had he but known it, they were the only bright oases in her monotonous
+life. She blessed those hours when he mercifully remained away on the
+pretext of business. What he did gave her little concern.
+
+Once she ventured to talk frankly with him about the wisdom of a legal
+separation. It was foolish to go on in this way. It was dishonest; it was
+the only immorality.
+
+He laughed her to scorn. "You're too useful to me, my dear," he sneered. He
+always added that "my dear" to any statement when he wished to be
+thoroughly sarcastic.
+
+He was conscious that certain captains of business would not have come so
+frequently to his home if Lucia had not been there to dispense a supposedly
+gracious hospitality. Let her go? Lose all this? Not at all! He brutally
+told her so again and again. And finally she made up her mind, for the sake
+of peace, that she would merely remain the flower under glass, if that was
+his desire. Arguments were of no avail. In a sense, she was beaten.
+
+The opera, books, travel, a few good friends--those that Morgan allowed
+her to keep--these filled her days.
+
+One evening she was particularly surprised when he said to her, casually:
+
+"How would you like a little trip out West? You look peaked. Maybe it would
+set you up."
+
+"Why--it sounds nice, Morgan," she answered. "Is it business, or--" Her
+sense of humor made it impossible for her to bring out the word "pleasure."
+
+"Of course it's business," he replied. "Precious little else I get." They
+were dining alone, at home, and he motioned the butler to refill his glass
+with champagne.
+
+She wondered at his suggestion. There must be something behind it. But as a
+matter of fact she was tired of Long Island, and if she could kill a few
+weeks--maybe a few months--in the West, she would willingly go.
+
+"Sturgis telegraphed me that there was a big possibility of a new vein of
+oil down on the border," Pell was telling her. "Some important men want to
+talk things over with me at Bisbee. I want to get started in a day or two.
+Don't take your maid. It's a rough country, but you'll be all right. Just
+old clothes. You can ride a lot, so bring your habit. I'll be busy most of
+the time; but I think you'll like the trip. Never been down that way, have
+you?"
+
+"No," she said. "And I've always wanted to go."
+
+"Not afraid of bandits?" he laughed, sipping his champagne. "It's right
+next door to Mexico, you know. Have some swell times down there, they say."
+
+She laughed too. "How exciting," she said. She grew almost jubilant at the
+prospect of the journey. She knew she would probably be "shown off" to the
+important men; and that touched her vanity--what little she had left by
+now.
+
+"They tell me it's God's country, with big chances for everyone. I want to
+add to our little pile, Lucia," Pell went on. He hoped she would get the
+significance of the "our."
+
+"You're too good to me, Morgan," she said, and meant it. "But why do we
+need any more money? We've got everything now."
+
+"Everything?" he said, significantly; and his eyes became two narrow slits
+as he looked at her.
+
+She toyed with her salad. She hoped he was not going to get into one of his
+fiendishly unpleasant moods.
+
+"Well," she ventured, "as much as anyone could reasonably want. This house,
+the garden, friends--"
+
+"Yes," he sneered, "but not much love." The butler had tactfully withdrawn.
+"Why don't you love me, Lucia?"
+
+"I do--in a way. Oh, let's don't go into all that again, Morgan. We've had
+it out so many times. What's the use?"
+
+"Is there anyone else?" he asked. "If I thought there was...." He lifted
+his glass again.
+
+"You know there isn't," she protested.
+
+He appraised her across the table, beautiful in a blue gown which just
+matched her eyes, her throat adorned with a string of pearls he had given
+her on the anniversary of their marriage.
+
+"I don't see how a woman as lovely as you can be so cold," he said. "You
+could do anything with men."
+
+She tried to smile. "But I don't want to. Women--good women--don't like to
+play with fire. It's only adventuresses who dare to face danger.... But
+let's talk about Arizona. How good it will be to get out of this hothouse
+of the East, and see real people--real flesh-and-blood men and women."
+
+"Yes. The folks down there know more about life in a day than we do in all
+our pitiful lives. You've got to live close to nature to understand human
+nature. Simple, isn't it?"
+
+"Very. We're all so false up here. I get so tired of it, Morgan. Maybe down
+there we'll come to a better understanding of each other. Maybe...."
+
+"That's what I was hoping. So you'd like to go--really?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. It'll be hot, that's all. But I won't mind that. Anything to
+get away for awhile."
+
+Two days later they had started. The land was green with early summer, in
+that rich fullness which makes the heart almost sick with ecstasy. The
+farther west they went, the wilder the country grew; and when they finally
+dipped down into Arizona, Lucia looked from the train window, her face
+alight with joy. Such scenic variety she had never dreamed of. One moment
+they were looking at the wonderful mesas and superb canyons; the next they
+seemed to pass through dry gullies and great shallow basins. Then there
+would come long, weary levels of sand that gleamed in the sun; and far away
+she would behold tremendous buttes. The valleys they passed through were
+verdant and lovely. Cattle grazed here in a calm peace. It was as if the
+rest of the world were shut out, and in this quiet land a special blessing
+had come down. The peace of it, the stillness of it crowded in upon her.
+She had been to California, but always she had traveled by a northern
+route, and had missed the wonder of this part of the world. Before their
+journey was over, she had begged Morgan to take her to the Grand Canyon;
+and for two days they remained there, drinking in the glory of perhaps the
+most beautiful spot on the western continent. She could not get enough of
+it--those colors that sank into her heart and consciousness and made her
+think she was in paradise. To see the sun rise here--she almost wept that
+morning when the lord of heaven came over the mountains that towered like
+huge sentinels, impervious to wind and gale and rain.
+
+"I can't stand such beauty, Morgan," she said at last. "It takes something
+out of me. We'll have to go on."
+
+She saw the giant cactus in full bloom, a miracle of orange, pink, and
+crimson; and as they sped south the mountainsides were aflame with juniper
+and manzanita.
+
+At last they reached the little town of Bisbee, where Morgan was to have a
+conference with several engineers. Sturgis met them--a fair-haired fellow
+with a captivating smile. He liked this country, and told Pell he wished he
+could always be kept here. There was no doubt about the new vein of oil,
+and new ranches were being opened up rapidly. Only a few miles away was one
+that promised well; and the young chap on it was in money difficulties. A
+good chance to step in. There had been rumors that a neighbor had taken up
+his mortgage; but maybe this was not so. Perhaps they weren't too late. He
+had telephoned over, and the youngster had agreed that Pell and his wife
+could come and stay with him and his invalid uncle for awhile. Of course he
+knew nothing of their intentions. That would never do. They would just lie
+low. In fact, he, Sturgis, need not accompany them, except to the hotel.
+The ranch-owner's foreman would fetch them out in a Ford. Not a bad trip at
+all--only a few miles. It would be better to stop down there. They could
+comb the country, get acquainted, see how things were, and keep a vigilant
+eye on everything.
+
+Sturgis had arranged things nicely. "Red" Giddings came over, as planned,
+and Lucia liked his pleasant face at once. He was full of enthusiasm for
+the country, loved the outdoor life. "Mr. Jones has had hard luck, though,"
+he said, as they whirled along the road on an afternoon of unbelievable
+heat.
+
+"Jones!" Lucia said.
+
+"Yes--Gilbert Jones," Giddings replied. "Ever hear of him?"
+
+For an instant Lucia could hardly see the valley that spread around them.
+But it couldn't be possible! It was a common name; there could easily be
+two Gilberts--fifty, for that matter. Was this the reason Morgan had asked
+her to come? Had he discovered the man with whom she had once been in love,
+and was this to be one of his subtle punishments? He had told her not to
+bring her maid, and he had been mysterious, she remembered now, as to their
+exact destination. But Sturgis had made it clear, on the contrary, that he
+had accidentally learned of Jones's ranch. Maybe that was part of the
+trick. But what good would come of such a scheme? She and Jones had
+loved--and parted. Moreover, perhaps she was giving herself needless cause
+for worry. This might not be the Gilbert Jones of her dreams. And what if
+Morgan did know? There was nothing to conceal.
+
+"How--long has he been here?" Lucia wanted to know.
+
+"Oh, before the war we agreed to try our fortune together down here," "Red"
+told her; and the little machine went whirring along. "That's the Hardy
+ranch," he said, pointing to the left. "Nice folks." His eyes seemed to
+cling to the low house, and Lucia did not realize it at the time, but he
+slowed up the car. Presently a young girl came out on the stone terrace and
+waved to him. She was like a prairie flower. "Red" Giddings became another
+man in the twinkling of an eye. A flush mounted to his cheeks, and a smile
+as broad as a fat man's belt all but encircled his countenance. He took one
+hand from the wheel and waved until they were out of sight down a curve in
+the road.
+
+"Friend of yours?" said Morgan Pell, smiling.
+
+"You bet! No finer little girl in this territory!" Giddings replied
+promptly.
+
+They were now in sight of the Jones ranch. "There she is!" "Red" cried.
+"Pretty, eh?"
+
+The low adobe house, with its gleaming roof, looked like a jewel set in the
+valley. Far away, seemingly to the very rim of the world, the flat lands
+stretched; and then beyond, in a golden haze, the stern mountains loomed,
+almost kissing the sky. The range dwindled away in an endless line, and
+one could never say where the boundary of Arizona stopped and the unseen
+border of Mexico began. The two countries simply merged in the mist. It was
+as if a battalion of petrified soldiers kept eternal guard in the sun, half
+the line loping over into another camp, but never caring at all. In the
+still heat of the afternoon, sagebrush lifted its bright face to the
+heavens; and now and then a lonely bird swooped above the rich ranches and
+desolate valleys, making a black dot against the sky. A soft wind was
+blowing now, bringing mercy from the west, and silence brooded like an
+angel, stretching out its wings as though to shelter a troubled world.
+
+A young man with black hair and tanned skin came out in the yard, hatless.
+A gray flannel shirt and a flowing tie, high leggings that laced through
+many brass clips, completed his picturesque costume.
+
+One look--and she knew it was Gilbert--_her_ Gilbert. He recognized her at
+the same instant, and a curious light came into his dark eyes. She had been
+thinking, all the way down the road, how she should greet him if indeed he
+turned out to be that one man in the world. Calmly, yes. She was sure now
+that Morgan knew and suspected nothing. It was simply a coincidence that
+they should be coming to the adobe of this old love of hers. The long arm
+of fate had reached out and snatched her into this ring. She knew that
+Gilbert could meet the situation as seemingly unconcerned as she. There was
+nothing at all to fear.
+
+He was their host, and he greeted them as only a good host knows how.
+Fortunately, Morgan wanted to go directly to his room. He was cross and
+tired, he said, and he desired to freshen up.
+
+She got out of the car, and "Red" rattled down to the home-made garage a
+few rods away.
+
+They were alone; and they stood there in the path for a moment, looking
+into each other's eyes.
+
+"He is my husband," Lucia then found herself saying. "I am now Mrs. Pell."
+
+"What are we going to do?" Gilbert asked. He had the face of a dreamer, she
+thought. The steel-gray eyes were full of fire and longing. What had these
+few years done to him?
+
+"We are going to do nothing at all. What _is_ there to do? We shall not be
+here many days. If you'd rather we went back to Bisbee...."
+
+"Oh, no! That would only make an issue of nothing. He doesn't know
+anything? You're sure? Oh, Lucia!" He seemed suddenly overcome at their
+amazing meeting.
+
+She saw that she would have to be the mistress of the situation.
+"Don't--don't, Gilbert," she begged. "I am just a guest of yours."
+
+"I know--I know," he said, and there was a shade of anguish in his voice.
+"Forgive me. There shall be absolutely nothing said. Not even a gesture. I
+promise you that. It is as though we had never known each other."
+
+"Surely we can play a part. It isn't as if we were children," she said, and
+smiled.
+
+He looked at her--indeed, his eyes had never left her face. Never had she
+seemed so wonderful to him.
+
+"I'm in bad," he told her. "Got to give the old place up. But what's that
+to you?" There was a sound behind them. "Here comes Uncle Henry!"
+
+A wheel chair came out of the doorway. In it sat an old man of about sixty.
+But he did not look much like an invalid. His cheeks were rosy, and his
+abundant white hair was brushed back from a forehead of fine moulding. His
+eyes were penetrating--as young as Gilbert's, almost. Ten years before he
+had become paralyzed in his legs, and now he wheeled himself about, not at
+all uncomfortable.
+
+"Uncle Henry, this is Mrs. Pell. Come out and meet her," his nephew said.
+
+Lucia felt that she should go to the invalid; but he beat her to it. Quick
+as a billiard-ball he had reached her side, turning the wheels of his chair
+with great rapidity.
+
+"Pleased to meet you," he said, and put out a white hand. "How long you
+goin' to stay?"
+
+"What a question," Gilbert laughed. "As long as she and her husband wish,
+of course."
+
+"Well, by cricketty ginger!" Henry Smith exclaimed. "Hope you'll give 'em
+enough to eat!" And before anyone could say another word, he had turned and
+scooted back into the house.
+
+"Don't mind Uncle Henry," Gilbert said to Lucia. "He's got a heart of gold,
+but he can be cranky and eccentric sometimes. Maybe he's got one of his
+moods to-day. I never know. Tomorrow he'll be all right--perhaps. I hope
+so, anyhow.... But come inside. You must be tired after your trip. Your
+rooms are upstairs."
+
+He led her into the prettiest low-beamed room she thought she had ever
+seen. Indian pottery was all about, low settles, a fireplace that conjured
+up a cozy picture of lonely winter evenings, and an entrancing staircase
+without a balustrade that led to a dark blue door. On the walls were some
+beautiful Navajo blankets, and a tiny alcove off to the right seemed to
+lead to another part of the long low house. The windows were brightly
+curtained, and all the furniture had a look of endurance and permanence--a
+manly room, she thought. Yet how ironical this appearance of firmness and
+stability was, in view of the reason of their visit! He had said he must
+give the place up. What a wrench it would be for him!
+
+Women seldom like to see a bachelor--particularly a young bachelor--living
+in such solid comfort. As Lucia went up the stairs, she saw little touches
+she could give to the place. But she had to confess that the improvements
+she could suggest were not at all important. If two men could get along so
+well without feminine society, perhaps one of them didn't miss her much,
+after all!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+WHEREIN UNCLE HENRY SPEAKS HIS MIND--AS USUAL
+
+
+It was high noon, two days later. Gilbert again had been about the ranch
+looking things over. He had his dreamy moments, but he was far too
+practical to let the poet in him rule his life. One sensed, by the most
+cursory glance, that here was a type of virile young American who could not
+only dream, but make his dreams come true. No idler he! And he had no use
+for idlers. He had dared to come to this far country, establish himself on
+a ranch, and seek to win out in the face of overwhelming odds.
+
+How many other young men had staked all on a single game--and lost. That
+was one of the finest qualities of the Americans who migrated to this vast
+section of the country. They were always good losers, as well as modest
+winners. The land was rich in possibilities, as Sturgis had told Pell; and
+though the hot season lasted interminably and caused one's spirits, as well
+as one's hopes, to droop, there were enchanting spring days and bright,
+colorful, dwindling autumns when the air was keen and clear, and life was a
+song with youth for its eternal theme.
+
+Men with families bore the hardest burdens in their early struggle for
+success. Gilbert, being single, had less to worry about than many another;
+but his Uncle Henry was a handicap. For Uncle Henry used his invalid's
+chair much as a king might use his throne--a vantage place from which to
+hurl his tyrannous speeches. And there was no come-back. Uncle Henry had
+reigned too long to be fearful of any retort from any mere subject who
+walked about on two firm legs. For ten years he had held court, moving his
+little throne about with sudden jerks. When things did not go entirely his
+way, he could always withdraw--expertly, swiftly, cleverly. Doorsills were
+nothing to him. He skimmed them dexterously, as a regiment might storm a
+hill. Fortunately, he suffered no pain, though sometimes, in a frenzy, he
+affected a twinge in his body, and caused a helpless look to sweep over his
+countenance. As a rule, this trick worked beautifully; for who could be
+cruel to an invalid in pain? Being a bachelor, and having no relative
+closer than Gilbert, the latter took him under his roof. He really liked
+the old boy, despite his querulousness.
+
+To-day, Uncle Henry was in one of his temperamental moods. Gilbert, sitting
+calmly at the little table, writing, in the low main room of the adobe,
+could hear the chair whirling about, each wheel vocal, and revealing the
+state of mind of the occupant.
+
+"Gosh! ain't it hot!" finally came from Uncle Henry, his voice a drawl.
+
+Gilbert said nothing. There was nothing to say. Of course it was hot; and
+he knew Uncle Henry could be depended upon to continue any conversation
+once begun. Sure enough, it wasn't the weather at all that he was deeply
+interested in, but the forthcoming midday meal. "Say, ain't we never goin'
+to eat? I'm as hungry as a bear."
+
+"Dinner ought to be ready now," Gilbert answered patiently, never looking
+up from his paper.
+
+Uncle Henry was not satisfied. "Then why ain't it," he rasped, giving his
+chair a twist, "I ain't had nothin' but a rotten cup of coffee since five
+o'clock this mornin'."
+
+His nephew rose, and went over to the mantel-piece. How often he had heard
+just that remark! He didn't bother to reply to it. Instead, he merely
+silenced his uncle with a gesture. Uncle Henry didn't like being silenced.
+He looked around, as peevish as a spoiled child, and picked at the cloth
+that rested on his knees. Then he switched his chair within reach of the
+table, and snatched up a newspaper, much as a boy might grab the brass ring
+at a merry-go-round. He would read, if he couldn't make his nephew talk;
+and he buried himself in the printed page. Gilbert, having lighted his
+pipe, went back to his writing. "Well, what do you know about that!"
+exclaimed Uncle Henry, his face aglow.
+
+"About what, Uncle?"
+
+"Why, Ezry Pringle's dead."
+
+"Who's Ezry Pringle?" Gilbert asked, feigning an interest he did not feel.
+
+"A friend o' mine. Only seventy years old, too. He was right in the prime
+of life."
+
+Gilbert smiled. "What's that paper you're reading?"
+
+"The _Bangor Daily Commercial_, printed at Bangor, Maine. An' that's the
+only decent town in the whole gol darn world. Wisht I was there now!" He
+glanced at the alcove that led to another room, as if conscious that Morgan
+Pell might have heard him. He wanted to say something more to Gilbert, but
+something told him he had better keep silent. Instead, he read an item from
+the paper aloud to him. "Listen to this, Gilbert," he said: "'The Elite
+Fish Market has just received five barrels of soft clams from Eastport. Get
+there early, feller citizens! They won't last long.' Think o' that,
+Gilbert? Clams!" He smacked his lips, and even forgot how warm it was.
+"Clams! An' I ain't even seen one in five long years! Not even a clam!" He
+turned his chair suddenly, and looked out of the open door, where the
+country meandered away. "This is a hell of a hole! Why did we ever come
+down here?" he whined. He swung about again, and faced his nephew. "Say,
+Gil, do they have clams in France?"
+
+"No; only mussels. Good ones, too."
+
+Uncle Henry looked amazed. "They eat mussels?" he cried.
+
+Gilbert looked up, smiled, and nodded.
+
+"An' I hear they eat frogs, an' hosses, an' cheese with worms in it, too.
+Say," the old man wanted to know, "what don't they eat over there?... An'
+speakin' of eatin', ain't we never goin' to have no dinner?"
+
+"I think it'll be ready soon, Uncle. Do be patient. I want to write."
+
+Uncle Henry settled back in his chair, and for a brief interval became
+absorbed in his newspaper. But not for long could he remain silent.
+"Where's that Mr. Pell?" he asked.
+
+"Inside, I think, lying down," Gilbert replied, nodding toward the alcove,
+his pen rushing across the page.
+
+Uncle Henry made a grimace. "He makes me sick, that feller."
+
+"Oh, cut that out, Uncle," Gilbert implored; but there was a little note of
+irritation in his voice. "That's no way to talk of a guest under our roof."
+
+"I won't neither cut nothin' out! An' you make me sick too, you gol darn
+fool!"
+
+"For the love of Mike, quit your babbling! Sssh!"
+
+"Don't you shush me, gol darn it!" cried Uncle Henry, crumpling the
+newspaper in his hand and throwing it on the floor. The heat was affecting
+him. "I've kep' still long enough, an'--"
+
+"Oh, have you?" Gilbert smiled.
+
+"--an' I'm goin' to find out what's what!" Uncle Henry went on, as though
+he had not been interrupted.
+
+"You act as though I were to blame for what's happened," his nephew said.
+He saw it would do no good to lose his temper.
+
+"Well, ain't you? Why did you want to go to war in the first place? Why,
+why?" He pounded the arm of his chair. "That's what started it."
+
+"Well, somebody had to go," Gilbert answered, smiling. "If some of us
+hadn't taken things in our hands, I don't know what would have become of
+Democracy!"
+
+Uncle Henry pondered a moment. "Mebbe so. But you didn't have to go."
+Gilbert had risen to get a match, and his uncle's eye followed him to the
+mantel-piece. He spoke to the back of his head. "You could have claimed
+exemption if you'd wanted to, an' you know it."
+
+"Exemption?" Gilbert repeated the word, a little angry at its utterance.
+This wasn't like Uncle Henry who, with all his peculiarities, had always
+been a patriot.
+
+"Absolutely! You were the sole support of an invalid uncle." He waited for
+the truth of this remark to sink in; but Gilbert said nothing. "And on top
+of that," Uncle Henry went on, rapidly, when his nephew did not speak,
+"you were engaged in an essential industry--if you can call these rotten
+steaks you feed us on essential. The bones is softer than the meat." He
+gave a curious little laugh, thin and high.
+
+Gilbert went back to the table, leaned over, and put one hand
+affectionately on the old man's shoulder. "Now, Uncle," he said, kindly,
+"what's the use of going over all this again? You know how I dislike it."
+He sat down and began to write again. But Uncle Henry had not finished--he
+had just started.
+
+"What's the _use_?" he wheezed. "There's lots of use. Here you go an'
+persuade me to sell the old home and buy this rotten ranch 'way down here
+in this God-forsaken country. An' just when I, like a darned old fool, take
+an' do it, along comes the war an' you enlist and leave me here with
+nothin' but a lot of rotten cows!"
+
+"But I left the foreman and the cook," Gilbert reminded him.
+
+A look of scorn came over Uncle Henry's face, "Yes, 'Red' Giddings--playin'
+the harmonicky until I go almost crazy! An' a Mexican cook that can't cook
+nothin' but firecrackers! An' not even them when you want 'em!" He waited
+for this crowning touch to sink in. Infuriated by Gilbert's indifference,
+he swung around again in his chair. "Say, ain't we _never_ goin' to have no
+dinner? I'm hungry!"
+
+"I'm sorry," was all Gilbert said.
+
+Uncle Henry almost resorted to tears--they were in his voice, at any rate.
+"First you rob me an' then you starve me!" he all but screamed. "An' the
+best you got to say is you're sorry!"
+
+Jones never looked up, as he continued to write. "I did the best I could,
+Uncle. You know that, of course."
+
+A remark like that always exasperates the hearer. "If that's yer best, I'd
+hate to see what yer worst is like," the other flamed. "An' now we're
+broke, an' they're goin' to foreclose to-day!" he added. "By golly, mebbe
+they've foreclosed already!"
+
+"No, not till eight o'clock," Gilbert's passionless manner was maddening.
+
+"Eight o'clock to-night?" his uncle cried, and leaned so far out of his
+chair that he was in danger of falling to the floor.
+
+"Yes," Gilbert said, calmly.
+
+"You're crazy! Don't you know yet that courts don't stay open at night?" He
+swung about in his frenzy and disgust.
+
+"This court does. Somebody told the judge where he could get a bottle of
+liquor for eighteen dollars," Gilbert added, and smiled.
+
+"So if we don't get ten thousand dollars there by eight o'clock to-night,
+we're set out on the bricks without no more home than a prairie dog--not as
+much!" almost screamed Uncle Henry. "An' yet you say why talk about it?"
+
+"But it isn't getting us anywhere--just to sit around and complain," his
+nephew tried to pacify him, rising, and starting toward him again; but
+Uncle Henry didn't want to be so near him, knowing what he was going to say
+next. Therefore he switched adroitly to the door, and let out, "No, it
+ain't gettin' us anywhere; but it would if you'd marry Angela Hardy, like I
+want you to!" He was a little frightened now that he had uttered the words,
+and he looked anxiously at Gilbert to see their effect. The latter remained
+as calm as ever. "But I don't love her," was all he said.
+
+Uncle Henry was exasperated now. "What's that got to do with it?" he
+yelled. "Her father's rich, an' not even he, mean as he is, would foreclose
+on his own son-in-law. Mebbe he'd even lend you somethin' besides," he
+added, slyly. He had great faith in these neighbors down the valley.
+
+"I can't do it," Gilbert stated, as if he were discussing going to the
+nearest town.
+
+"Won't, you mean."
+
+"No. I mean can't--just what I said. It wouldn't be fair to her. I can't
+pretend to love her when I don't."
+
+"You don't have to," his uncle urged. "She's so crazy about you, she'd
+marry you anyway." Triumphant knowledge was in his tone.
+
+"What makes you think so?" Gilbert asked, coming close to the old man.
+
+"She told me she would." He got it out bravely.
+
+Young Jones was nearly bowled over. "She told you!" he repeated; and as he
+said it, passion for the first time came into his voice. There was the
+sound of hoof beats down the road. But neither of them paid any attention.
+
+"Absolutely," the old man affirmed.
+
+"Absolutely?"
+
+"Absogoshdarnlutely!" Uncle Henry relieved the tension by saying.
+
+Gilbert came over and peered into his uncle's face. "You don't mean you
+spoke to her about it?" he said.
+
+"Why not?" rather impudently. "Somebody had to do it." And he chuckled. "I
+know what would become of Hypocricy if a few of you youngsters would be as
+brave as us old boys!"
+
+"Good Lord!" was all young Jones could say, and he put his hand to his
+head.
+
+"John Alden spoke for Miles Standish, an' they wasn't even related," Uncle
+Henry tried to placate the other.
+
+The horse on the road, unknown to the men, had reached the adobe. Lucia
+Pell, radiant as a prairie flower, appeared at the door. She wore a
+riding-habit that fit her to perfection, and her hair, tumbled a bit by the
+soft breeze, fell around her face in a cascade of golden loveliness. Her
+eyes sparkled. She was the picture of glorious health and youth--a woman
+born for love and loving. She brought fragrance into the room.
+
+"Hello, Gil!" she said, beating her riding-crop on her boot, and smiling
+that entrancing smile of hers. She was glad to see her handsome host again
+after her brisk ride.
+
+"Good morning, Lucia," Gilbert said, hardly daring to look at her.
+
+Uncle Henry didn't mean to be overlooked. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Pell," he
+said, meaningly.
+
+"Why, it _is_ afternoon, isn't it?" she laughed.
+
+"It's darn near night," Uncle Henry rasped.
+
+"And I'm simply famished. Who wouldn't be, after such a glorious ride!"
+Lucia said.
+
+"The cook's getting dinner now. Have a good canter, you say?" young Jones
+inquired.
+
+"I missed you," Lucia answered, unashamed.
+
+Uncle Henry looked disgusted.
+
+"I'm sorry, I had a lot of things to attend to. I'm glad you're back, for I
+was beginning to be worried about you, Lucia. Bandits! They're around
+again."
+
+Lucia didn't take him seriously. She hardly remembered that they were so
+close to the border of Mexico. "Bandits?" she scoffed. "Oh, but they just
+steal cows and things, don't they?"
+
+"Worse than that." Gilbert was serious, and gave her an appraising glance.
+"Human life means little in Mexico. They even kill their prisoners in cold
+blood."
+
+But still Lucia was not alarmed. "If that's true," she smiled, "I won't go
+without you, if you wish it that way." She looked knowingly at him.
+
+"It isn't what I wish," Jones answered. "Nothing is what I wish."
+
+"Well," Uncle Henry put in, "you're going to get your wish all right." As
+he spoke, Morgan Pell came through the alcove from his room, and the old
+invalid steered his chair so that he faced him. Pell looked anything but
+engaging to-day. There was something about him that repelled--people could
+never say what it was; but one sensed a latent cruelty in the man. His eyes
+were shifty, and there were little lines about his mouth that spoke of his
+days of dissipation. It was hard to associate him with the flower-like
+Lucia. Here were a man and woman never meant for each other--that was
+evident immediately; yet he had that old power that seemed to hypnotize
+her. And she was not the only woman who had fallen beneath his spell. But
+now, apparently, he did not see her.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mr. Pell," said old Smith to the newcomer.
+
+"How are you?" the latter answered, with no show of interest.
+
+"Have a good nap?" Gilbert inquired; but he really didn't care at all.
+Pell, however, took his question seriously.
+
+"Couldn't sleep a wink," he said. "This cursed heat, you know. Glad I don't
+have to live in this part of the world all the time."
+
+Uncle Henry leaned forward in his chair, and his eyes followed Pell
+expectantly as the latter moved across the low room, a small satchel in
+his hands. "You ain't leaving, are you?" he asked.
+
+"No," was the laconic reply.
+
+"I was afraid you wasn't," ventured Uncle Henry; and there was an awkward
+pause. Then, "It's pretty hot," the invalid remarked, delighted that no one
+had called him to account for his obvious insult. He knew he had all the
+advantage of a weak woman. His little throne was immune from attack.
+
+"It's always pretty hot till night--then it's pretty cold," Pell said.
+
+"What've you got that bag for?" Uncle Henry pursued. No one was ever more
+frankly curious than Uncle Henry.
+
+"Company, my dear sir," Pell quickly retorted, not a little annoyed at the
+question; and he glared at the old man. He had had two days of him, and was
+getting used to him. Lucia, who had remained silent by the door, saw the
+cloud on her husband's face, and gave a little, startled "Oh!" It was
+hardly more than a whisper, but Pell was swift to catch it. He turned on
+her, and took in her radiant figure.
+
+"So there you are!" he half sneered. "Been riding?"
+
+"Yes; just a little canter."
+
+"Alone?" Pell followed up.
+
+"Yes; why?"
+
+"Oh, nothing--nothing at all." There was a nasal tone in his voice
+always--a twang that grated on sensitive ears. He turned on Gilbert. "How
+about dinner?" he asked, almost as though the young fellow were a hotel
+clerk.
+
+"It isn't ready yet," Jones answered. He disliked the other's tone. After
+all, he was a guest in his, Gilbert's, house. He hoped their wretched
+business would soon be settled, and Pell return to New York. He had had his
+fill of him.
+
+Pell, seemingly oblivious of the bad impression he had made, started toward
+the door. He had not put the bag down. "Well, call me when dinner _is_
+ready, will you? I won't be far away."
+
+"Where are you going?" Lucia ventured.
+
+"Out," was Pell's curt reply; and he almost knocked Uncle Henry's chair
+aside as he hurried into the yard.
+
+There was an awkward silence at his departure. Everyone felt a little
+ashamed for him; but Gilbert was determined that Lucia should not read his
+thoughts. So he said, nonchalantly, "Well, Lucia, how did the pony
+behave?" just as though Pell had never been in the room.
+
+"Splendidly!" the young wife replied, glad that the atmosphere was cleared
+once more. "Oh, Gil, it's wonderful here--nothing but sky and the golden
+desert! What a miracle place!"
+
+"You like it here?" Jones asked, knowing that she did. She had told him so
+every hour of her visit.
+
+Lucia gave him a rapt look. "Like it, Gil? Um! I love it!" She clasped her
+hands to her breast; and Jones thought she had never looked lovelier, more
+desirable. How pink her cheeks were! Yet underneath her beauty there was a
+wistful sadness. Anyone could see that she was not happy.
+
+"You really love it?" Uncle Henry asked, as though he could not believe he
+had heard what she said.
+
+Lucia had forgotten his presence for a moment. Now she turned to him and
+smiled. "Of course. Don't you?"
+
+"It makes me sick!" was the unexpected reply.
+
+Lucia was horrified; and she looked from Smith to Gilbert in utter
+confusion. "Why, it's beautiful!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Beautiful!" Uncle Henry went on, repeating the word in derision. "What's
+beautiful about it? That's what I'd like to know."
+
+"The desert," Lucia answered.
+
+"A lot of gol darn sand!" the invalid whined.
+
+"The sky, then!" Lucia affirmed.
+
+But Uncle Henry merely repeated "The sky!" in whole-hearted disgust.
+
+Lucia refused to be downed. "But think of the glorious colors--blue and
+gold and purple!"
+
+"And no grass nor nothin'," the invalid retorted. "Not even a place to go
+fishin'. And you call it beau--Say, was you ever in Bangor?"
+
+Gilbert roared with laughter; but Lucia took the old boy seriously.
+"Bangor?" she repeated, wonderingly.
+
+"Yes. Bangor, Maine. Now there's a place as is beau--Take the town hall,
+for instance. And the Soldiers' Monument. And the cemetery. They got the
+swellest cemetery in Bangor you ever--." Gilbert was almost doubling up
+with laughter; but Uncle Henry went right on: "As for this gol darn place,
+I wish it was in--An' it wouldn't have fur to go, neither!" he added,
+emphatically, smiling at his own humor. "I wisht I was back in Maine!
+There's where I was always so happy!"
+
+By this time Lucia was smiling too. She went over and shook her finger
+gently in the invalid's face. "You're cross just because you're hungry!"
+
+"I ain't neither!" Smith replied, like a little boy.
+
+"Yes, you are!" Lucia kept on.
+
+"I ain't!"
+
+"Uh, uh!" she teased him, as though she were playing with a baby.
+
+Smith grew peevish. "Gol darn it, I tell you I ain't!" And he gave his
+chair a rapid twirl.
+
+"Boo!" came from Lucia softly. She laughed, and ran up the tiny stone
+stairs that led to her room.
+
+"Boo, yourself!" called out Uncle Henry, determined to have the last word,
+as Lucia disappeared. Then he turned querulously on his nephew, as soon as
+he was certain she was out of hearing. "Why did you ever invite 'em to stay
+here in the first place?" he wanted to know. The sound of "Red's" harmonica
+was heard outside.
+
+"Because there was no decent hotel anywhere near. I couldn't do less than
+offer them what little hospitality I had, could I, when Sturgis suggested
+it?"
+
+But his uncle didn't agree with him at all. "You could have done a whole
+lot less," he decided. "You could have invited 'em to keep on going. Comin'
+here at a time like this, and not only eatin' us out of house and home, but
+drinkin' up the last bottle of liquor in the world!" This seemed to him the
+culminating tragedy. When his nephew said nothing at all, he asked,
+petulantly, "Well, what are you going to do? That's what I want to know."
+
+"What can I do?"
+
+"Do you mean to say you're going to set here and get throwed out into the
+street and not even try to do something?"
+
+Gilbert merely shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Well, of all the--" his Uncle Henry went on. "It's a darn good thing for
+you that I'm an invalid! That's all I got to say!" He wheeled about, and
+aimed at the door that led to the open air. At that instant "Red" Giddings,
+the husky young foreman, appeared directly in his path, his shock of fiery
+hair like an aureole about his head. "Git out o' my way!" Uncle Henry
+yelled. "Gol darn the gol darn luck, anyhow!"
+
+And through years of practice he shot into the yard as straight as an
+arrow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+WHEREIN "RED" REVEALS HIS HEART, AND MRS. QUINN GIVES HIM GOOD COFFEE AND
+GOOD ADVICE
+
+
+"Red" Giddings had been on the ranch with Gilbert since the very beginning.
+He came from the North with the young man, willing to stake all on this one
+venture. Like young Jones, he was not afraid. He was an efficient,
+well-set-up young fellow, with three consuming passions: Arizona, his
+harmonica, and Angela Hardy. The first saw a lot of "Red"; the second
+touched his lips frequently; but as for Angela--well, perhaps the poor boy
+kissed his harmonica so often in order to forget her lips. But if his own
+music charmed "Red," it failed to have that effect upon
+others--particularly Uncle Henry, who went into a rage whenever he heard
+the detested instrument. "Red's" music had no charms to soothe the savage
+breast of Henry Smith.
+
+But another did like it. Angela once told "Red" in the moonlight--and her
+father had never forgiven her for her foolishness--that his harmonica never
+wearied her. That was enough for "Red." Once every day he managed to find
+some excuse to get over to the Hardy ranch; and always his beloved
+instrument went along with him in his pocket, and he would approach his
+lady love's castle like the troubadours of old, his foot tapping on the
+path while his harmonica, in the place of a lute, made soft sounds.
+Instantly Angela would poke her pretty head from the window, and pretend
+that she was a princess in distress, and he her knight who had come to
+release her from her prison.
+
+Moreover, the Hardys had a wonderful cook--a woman they had brought down
+from Phoenix. Instead of the firecracker stuff that Uncle Henry so
+bitterly complained of, she, being an Irish woman, could concoct a stew
+that would make one's hair curl; and her pastry was succulent and sweet,
+and literally melted in the mouth. Her coffee--ah! who could make better
+coffee? And as the meals at the Jones ranch were served sporadically, and
+"Red" was as healthy as a peasant and had never known the time when he
+couldn't tuck away some dainty from the kitchen he ingratiated himself
+with Mrs. Quinn, quite won her heart, too, with his music, and was even
+known to desert his work for the boon of a bit of pie.
+
+When she was suffering from the heat of the stove, and was ready to throw
+up her job and return to the bright lights of Phoenix, "Red" invariably
+came around to the door with music on his lips, his shock of hair blown by
+the soft wind, looking so boyish that she had to succumb to him, boil
+another pot of coffee, and lay a place for him at the corner of the table.
+
+"Be off wid yez!" she always began by saying. But the insinuating harmonica
+was his only reply; and she ended by begging him to come in and play for
+her while she messed with the pots and pans, and maybe found some batter
+for a plate of griddle cakes.
+
+On this particular morning, work being useless since things were going so
+badly for Jones, "Red" slipped up the road and reached the kitchen door
+just as Mrs. Quinn was washing up.
+
+"Oh, so there ye be, me boy!" was her motherly greeting. "Come in, an'
+maybe--who knows?--I'll find a cup o' coffee fer ye, though I'm not
+thinkin' ye deserve it."
+
+"Red" loved the odors from this fragrant kitchen. The stove always
+gleamed, and when Mrs. Quinn was in good humor she was like a great light
+moving here and there, dispensing warmth also. She was a monstrous woman;
+but like many large people, she got about easily and swiftly. Her capable
+hands were forever fluttering in the flour-barrel or over the dough-board,
+and her ruddy cheeks and honest gray eyes spoke of health and good nature.
+She adored Angela; and she really liked "Red" tremendously, and hoped in
+the end he would win the difficult and fickle girl. But, like Angela, she
+had moment when she could have shaken him. For "Red" didn't fight hard
+enough for what he wanted. He was naive to the point of stupidity at times;
+and women like aggressive men--even men who are capable of flogging them
+into submission, deny it as they will. "Red" was gentle and mild, though
+thoroughly manly. Both Angela and Mrs. Quinn would have liked to see him
+live up to his fiery hair.
+
+He beamed now at the genial cook's greeting, and took out his harmonica,
+running over the full scale as a suitable answer.
+
+"Here, sit ye down, 'Red,'" Mrs. Quinn ordered. "But first see that yer
+feet is wiped off. I don't want to see no dirt along me clean floor."
+
+She was busy with a place for him near the window, happy, as most women
+are, to serve a handsome young chap, and secretly wishing in her heart that
+she had him for a son.
+
+The coffee was miraculously brought, and soon the griddle-cakes, gloriously
+brown, and deftly turned by Mrs. Quinn, were in front of him.
+
+"Gee! you make a feller happy, Mrs. Quinn!" said the appreciative "Red,"
+sitting down, and getting busy, "Won't you come to Bisbee with Angela an'
+me the next time we go to the movies?"
+
+She gave him a half-scornful look. "An' what would yez want with an old
+woman like meself taggin' along with yez now?" Mrs. Quinn exclaimed, her
+arms akimbo. "Ain't ye happy enough with yer Angela, an' no fat funeral
+like me occupyin' too much room in the Ford? Go along, me lad, an' have a
+good time with yer colleen! She'd like it better alone with ye, too--be
+sure o' that!"
+
+"Of course I would!"
+
+They hadn't seen Angela come in. She stood in the doorway like a vision--a
+morning-glory from which the freshness of the early hours never seemed to
+depart.
+
+"Oh!" poor "Red" gasped, and leaped to his feet. "Would you, Angela?" He
+looked at her, drank her beauty in, as though she were the only creature on
+this earth.
+
+"Certainly!" said Angela, coming over to him. "You're a boob, 'Red,' and if
+you don't look out, there's a fellow over at Bisbee who--"
+
+"Oh!" the anguished "Red" managed to get out. "_Is_ there, Angy?"
+
+There was--of course there was--and there wasn't. Angela knew just how far
+to go. Her black eyes danced. "Red" sat down again, after she had shoved
+him back to his late breakfast. Mrs. Quinn, amused, was busy with some more
+cakes, though "Red" had scarcely had time to begin the first batch. But she
+knew his capacity, and she felt he would need sustaining food after
+Angela's last remark.
+
+"You don't always wave to me like you did the other day when I went by,"
+said "Red," his lips in Mrs. Quinn's golden coffee.
+
+"Why should I?" said Angela. "You don't always have such swell-looking
+folks with you!"
+
+"Oh, so that's why you waved!" disappointment in his tone.
+
+"Maybe." She was teasing him, but he didn't know it. "Who were they?"
+
+"A Mr. and Mrs. Pell, from New York. They're lookin' over property round
+here.... But I don't care, Angy. Even if I had to go to Bisbee four times a
+day and get some good-lookin' folks to bring down the road, I'd do it if
+you'd wave to me! Oh, why can't you always be nice to me?"
+
+"If I was always nice to you, you wouldn't know how lucky you are!" she
+countered. "It's good for you to have your bad days--with me."
+
+"Well, maybe you're right. You're 'most always right; but gosh! a feller
+does like a little encouragement once in a while. You can be so cruel,
+Angy!"
+
+"Can I? If you think not waving to you is cruelty, you ought to see some of
+my other forms of torture."
+
+"Ugh! I hope I never do!" He drank again from the cup.
+
+"Say," Angela said, watching him, "you seem to like that coffee a lot more
+than you like me! That brunette in the cup is my rival!"
+
+He looked at her in blank amazement. He hadn't much sense of humor. He was
+as literal-minded as a child. "You certainly are the funniest girl, Angy!"
+he said, "How could coffee be a girl's rival?"
+
+"Easier than a fellow in Bisbee--maybe. Better look out, 'Red,' or I'll sue
+Mrs. Quinn for alienation of affections!"
+
+"Oh, you wouldn't do that!" said the kindly, honest "Red."
+
+"What a stupid you are, to be sure!" said Angela, and laughed. "There--eat
+these hot cakes--though how you can on this beastly warm morning is more
+than I can see--and then play me some tunes. I'm dying to hear some music.
+This afternoon Dad says he's going over to your ranch. I don't know what
+for, do you? I do wish people didn't have to lose their property. Why are
+mortgages, anyhow?"
+
+"Blamed if _I_ know, Angy! Thanks, Mrs. Quinn."
+
+"Sure, an' you're welcome, me boy." Angela had gone out on the step. The
+old Irishwoman saw her chance. "For the love o' Mike, 'Red,' woo her, an'
+woo her hard! There _is_ a feller in Bisbee. She's after lovin' ye, but
+you're too slow--slower'n the molasses I just poured on yer griddle-cakes
+fer ye!"
+
+"I'll try," said the accommodating "Red." "You're a good friend, Mrs.
+Quinn. I won't forget you when I own this place!"
+
+"Be off, now! Ye've got some travelin' to do before ye're able to win
+Angela. Then ye can think of buyin' a ranch."
+
+She literally pushed him from her domain; and he found himself by Angela's
+side out of doors.
+
+The bright sunlight touched her hair, and they went over to a pergola she
+had had built, covered with vines. A little fountain tinkled near it, and
+the heat of the day would not bother them here.
+
+For three delirious hours, "Red" was alone with Angela. One moment she
+pouted, the next she let him touch her hand.
+
+"You may be going away soon, 'Red.' Will you write to me if you do?"
+
+"Will I?" he cried, "Every day--a postal-card at least. I ain't much at
+letters.... But I'm not so sure I'm goin', Angy. Something tells me that
+even if your father does hold the mortgage, it won't be foreclosed. Gil
+Jones has worked too hard...."
+
+"Dad's awfully hard about holding to a bargain," Angela reminded him. "He's
+all business. He wasn't that way until after Ma died. I do wish he'd be
+more human. I've talked to him and talked to him, until I'm tired; but he's
+getting harder all the time. This is the last day, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes. Jones is awful blue. That's one reason I ought to get back. Maybe he
+needs some cheerin' up. God knows his Uncle Henry don't give him much."
+
+The sun was now high in the heavens. It was almost noon. "Red" said he
+would walk. No trouble at all; and what did he care how hot it was? He was
+used to it. But how he did hate to leave his Angela!
+
+He played his harmonica most of the way home, and he was still running his
+lips along the instrument when he entered the adobe door, just as Uncle
+Henry wheeled out of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+WHEREIN GILBERT JONES IS WORRIED, AND LUCIA PELL IS ASKED TO DO AN
+IMPOSSIBLE THING
+
+
+Poor "Red" couldn't have encountered the invalid at a less propitious
+moment; for he was almost knocked down by that crabbed gentleman.
+
+"Certainly wheels a mean chair," he said good-naturedly to Gilbert, as he
+watched Uncle Henry steer himself out to the gate. "Got his cut-out open,
+too! Pesky to-day, ain't he? That's one reason I came back." He spread his
+legs apart, and fanned himself with his hat. He ran his fingers through his
+thick, violent crop of hair. "A mean Arizona day!" he said. "The walk made
+me hot."
+
+"I should think it would," Jones replied.
+
+"No grub yet?" "Red" ventured. He was hungry even yet. Twenty-two is always
+hungry.
+
+"No," said his employer.
+
+"Should have been ready two hours ago. What's the matter? Wish we had Mrs.
+Quinn over here."
+
+"I don't know what's the matter. I haven't thought much about eating." He
+was engrossed again in his papers.
+
+But "Red" didn't intend to let the matter drop. "You're too easy on that
+cook," he said. "Now, if you had a Mrs. Quinn--" He had pulled out a worn
+tobacco-bag, which was discouragingly flat. He had smoked a lot this
+morning.
+
+Gilbert was swift to notice the empty pouch, and offered him his.
+
+"Thanks; much obliged," "Red" said, filling his pipe. "But darn that cook,
+anyhow! If he wasn't leavin', I'd fire him! As if you didn't have enough
+troubles, without havin' to bother about late meals--an' guests in the
+house."
+
+But a puff or two on his pipe soothed him, "Red's" bark was always worse
+than his bite. He was the best-natured chap in the world, and he idolized
+Gilbert Jones. There was a big packing-case in the middle of the room, and
+he sat on it, tailor-fashion, as happy as a husky, normal young man can be.
+
+He looked longingly at the unset table; but his thoughts were more of
+Angela Hardy than of the good meal to come.
+
+"'Red,'" said Gilbert after a brief silence, "I was hoping to be able to
+pay you off to-day."
+
+"Pay me off?" That would have been heaven! He could have taken Angela to
+the movies at Bisbee.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, forget it! You don't owe me nothin'!"
+
+"Only a mere trifle of six months' wages," Gilbert laughed.
+
+"Red" had put his head in one hand, and leaned back on the case, at peace
+with the world. His left foot beat a little tattoo on the side of the box.
+Now he sat up straight and looked sharply at Jones.
+
+"What's the use of talking about this?" he wanted to know. "You ain't got
+it, have you?"
+
+Gilbert paused the fraction of a second. "No," he had to admit, "But that
+doesn't alter the fact that I owe you money." He went over and stood close
+to his foreman.
+
+"You're wrong," the younger man said. "It was my own proposition that I
+come here with you and work, an' you know it. Now what you got to say?"
+
+Gilbert put his arm around "Red's" big shoulder, and playfully pushed him
+off the box. "You're just a big kid, aren't you, 'Red'?"
+
+"I don't know what I am. But I do know I was only too glad to take the
+gamble with you. An' I'll take another one right now if you've got one to
+suggest."
+
+Gilbert pushed the case over on its side. It was empty. There were some
+Navajo blankets on a little stand by the window. These he now fetched over
+to the case, first placing them carefully on the floor, spread out in all
+their rainbow beauty. Their bright patterns glorified the room, as if a
+lamp had been lighted. He said nothing. "Red" wondered what he was doing
+with these splendid blankets. He had never seen anything like them on the
+ranch, though there were others on the walls.
+
+"I'd like to remark," "Red" went on, "that if we ever gets into the cow
+business again, we ought to get us a nice ranch in Washington, D.C. It
+don't pay American citizens to go too fur away from home, these days."
+
+Gilbert laughed. Then, "Oh!" he ejaculated, as though remembering
+something.
+
+"What's the matter?" "Red" asked.
+
+"Haven't you heard? Lopez has broken off the reservation again."
+
+"Lopez!" exclaimed "Red," forgetting his pipe, his dinner, and even Angela
+for the moment. "The devil he has!"
+
+"Uh--uh! Raided the Diamond Dot last night."
+
+"He won't bother us," "Red" smiled, settling back again. "Nothin' to steal
+here except the mortgage." He paused, as though in deep thought; but
+Gilbert, had he known it, was thinking even harder. Lopez, the Mexican
+bandit, was a dim uncertainty; the mortgage was a stern reality.
+
+"You'll want to be drivin' over to the station later?" "Red" went on,
+coming to the table, and taking off his spurs.
+
+"Yes," Gilbert answered. He had folded all the blankets neatly, rose, and
+went over to the window-box to get some strong cord.
+
+"In the gallopin' wash-boiler?" "Red" smiled, "_That_ still belongs to
+us--I mean, you." He clinked his spurs on the table.
+
+"Us is right, 'Red.' You said you'd been a partner. You have. Some day I'm
+going to tell you how grateful I am." In his preoccupation, he forgot to
+tie up the blankets; and, one hand on "Red's" shoulder, he let the cord
+fall on the table.
+
+"Aw, that's all right," "Red" said. He didn't like to be thanked, and he
+avoided even the shadow of sentimentality with Jones. After all, they were
+two young fellows, playing a big game together, taking big chances; and
+what was the use of talking about it? "What are you going to tell the
+Pells?" he suddenly asked, glad to get off the immediate subject.
+
+"Pells?"
+
+"Say, I'm goin' to poke that bird in the beak some day!" "Red" declared.
+
+Jones smiled. "What's he done to you?"
+
+"Nothin'. He'd better not. It's the way he treats his wife. She's so darn
+game, too. I wouldn't treat a horse the way he treats her. Well, what are
+you goin' to tell them?"
+
+Gilbert stood perfectly still. He was in deep thought. Finally he spoke.
+
+"I'm going to tell them I'm going away--important business."
+
+"East?" "Red" asked. He had seated himself at the table, and picked up
+Gilbert's pen, and began making curious little scrawls with it on a piece
+of paper, as a business man sometimes does when he is telephoning.
+
+"No. West," answered Jones. "They're going East."
+
+"What are you going to do?" "Red" was amused rather than alarmed.
+
+"Oh, I'll get a job somewhere. Punch cows--or maybe join the rangers.
+There's always something a fellow can do."
+
+"An' what about your uncle?"
+
+"I'll put him up in Bisbee till I get a chance to ship him back to Bangor.
+He likes Bangor, you know!" Gilbert smiled.
+
+"He takes it sort o' hard, don't he?"
+
+"Well, you can't blame the old boy. You see, I got him to sell out
+everything--everything, and invest in this ranch. Maybe it wasn't the right
+thing to do; but I thought I was certain to succeed. I meant all for the
+best, 'Red.' You know that." Who could doubt those gray eyes of Gilbert
+Jones, that open, frank, boyish face?
+
+"Of course I do." He got up, and walked over to the window. "Your uncle
+don't like jokin' much, does he? I asked him the other day why he didn't
+get a chauffeur. Gosh! he got mad!" "Red" laughed at the recollection.
+
+"Uncle Henry's in no joking mood just now. You can't blame him much."
+
+"Red" turned and looked at his employer. He didn't know whether he should
+ask the next question or not; but he took his courage in his hands.
+
+"He--he wants you to--to marry Angela Hardy, don't he?"
+
+Gilbert looked surprised. "Hardy's daughter?"
+
+"Red" nodded.
+
+"How did you know?" Jones asked.
+
+"Because he ain't talked of nothin' else for six months. You wasn't
+thinkin' of doin' it, was you?" He hung on Gilbert's answer.
+
+"Hardly!" with a smile.
+
+The relief of "Red"!
+
+"I know, I know!" he cried. "But once she gets her mind set on a thing--"
+
+"You mean you think she wants to marry me? Is that it?" Gilbert asked, not
+taking the matter very seriously. He was busy at the box again, pulling the
+top farther back.
+
+"Well, I don't know as I'd say that," "Red" offered; "but I think she
+thinks she wants to." He was sitting on the edge of the table, swinging one
+leg. "She's prone to fancies, Angela is. Even I gotter admit that!"
+
+"_Even_ you?" Gilbert inquired, puzzled.
+
+The question made "Red" a bit nervous. He jumped to the floor, and then sat
+down in the chair beside the table, pretending to be very much at ease.
+"Like that traveling man from Saint Looey," he explained. "She thought she
+cared for him. I tried to tell her different. I had to run him out of town
+with a gun to prove it. But even then she didn't believe it until that New
+York surveyor come along."
+
+Gilbert looked up, "And she thought she loved him?"
+
+"Until she met up with that hoss doctor from Albuquerque! An' now there's a
+new feller in Bisbee!"
+
+Jones was a trifle mystified, "Say, how do you happen to know so much about
+her affairs, 'Red'?"
+
+How involved he had become! He blushed like a schoolboy; got up, took his
+pipe out of his mouth and emptied it in the fireplace. "Me?" he said. "Oh,
+I've knowed her a long time."
+
+Jones was beginning to see the truth, to read the heart of this young
+rascal. So it was over at the Hardy's that he spent so many hours!
+
+"Oh, so that's it, is it? What's the matter? Does her father object?"
+
+"Oh, no!" "Red" was quick to deny. "I stand all right with him. He's knowed
+me a long time. It's her."
+
+Gilbert laughed outright; and "Red," humanly embarrassed now that his
+secret was out, paced the room, his hands behind his back, digging his heel
+every now and then in the floor. "Aw--" he began.
+
+"Listen, 'Red,'" said Jones, in sympathy with the lad, and hoping to cover
+up his confusion. "If Hardy comes, keep him out till I'm alone. I don't
+want any war talk before the Pells."
+
+"I get yer," said "Red," visibly relieved.
+
+"Any stronger cord on the place anywhere?" Gilbert looked around the room.
+Maybe one of the many Indian jugs contained a string. "Red" and he had a
+habit of putting any old thing in them.
+
+"There's some down in the hay barn. Want me to get it for you?" "Red"
+offered.
+
+"No; I'll get it, thanks. You see if you can't prod up the cook a little.
+I'm hungry now."
+
+And "Red" ran into the kitchen. No sooner had he left the room, than there
+was a rumble, and Uncle Henry burst in on Gilbert, a smile of triumph on
+his face.
+
+"I got it!" he all but yelled.
+
+"Got what?" his nephew asked.
+
+"An idea!... Mebbe he'd lend you some."
+
+"Some what? And who?"
+
+"Money, of course! That feller Pell, I mean. He's rich, an' if he knowed
+that you and his wife was old friends--I betcher he'd lend you some." He
+paused, breathless, for he had run his sentences into one. Gilbert glared
+at him, as if he thought he had gone stark mad. But Uncle Henry was not
+afraid. "You won't ask him?" he inquired.
+
+"Certainly not. What are you raving about, anyhow? Cut out this sort of
+talk, Uncle. You're getting on my nerves."
+
+The old man simply switched his chair about. He had heard Gilbert in an
+angry mood before, and he knew that nothing would follow his little burst
+of wrath. "Oh, you make me tired, you young people," he raged. "I'd ask him
+if it was me, you can bet I would!"
+
+"_You_ would," was all that Gilbert replied. Sarcasm was in his voice.
+
+"First you won't marry Hardy's daughter and now you won't ask him for
+money," Uncle Henry pursued the subject.
+
+Gilbert was genuinely angry now. "Oh, keep quiet! I'm sick of your plans."
+
+"Yes, but if you ain't goin' to do nothing, I am!"
+
+His nephew wouldn't trust himself to hear another word. He turned on his
+heel and left the old man.
+
+Uncle Henry was shaking with excitement. He lifted his hand, smote the arm
+of his chair, and cried out after the vanishing figure of his nephew, "You
+make me sick, you gol darn fool!" He was almost in tears. "Gol darn the gol
+darn luck, anyhow!"
+
+At that moment, Lucia Pell came down the little stairway. She had discarded
+her riding-habit, and now looked equally lovely in a simple frock of blue.
+
+"What's the matter?" she inquired, seeing at once that something was
+troubling Uncle Henry.
+
+"What _ain't_ the matter?" the old fellow screamed, but glad of someone to
+whom he could unburden his overflowing heart. "Gol darn it! By gollies! I
+got it again!" he cried, seized with another inspiration. He eyed the
+radiant Lucia, as a miser might appraise a new gold coin. "Mis' Pell," he
+said, twirling his chair so that he caught a better glimpse of her.
+
+"Yes?" she said, half-way down.
+
+"You and Gil's old friends, ain't you?" The question was as direct as
+anything could be.
+
+"Yes," was the equally direct answer.
+
+"Want to do him a good turn?" asked the scheming old man.
+
+"Of course. What do you mean?" She was at his side now.
+
+"He's got a chance to make a swell marriage," announced Uncle Henry.
+
+"What?" There was a curious catch in Lucia's voice.
+
+"A rich marriage," Uncle Henry went on, almost smacking his lips over the
+words.
+
+Lucia went over to the window, so that she would not face the invalid.
+
+"Not as rich as yourn, of course," Uncle Henry pursued; "but rich for
+him--and he won't do it." He waited for her to say something; but she did
+not speak. There was a pause. Lucia looked out at the baking valley, and
+off to the far mountains, and the ticking of the clock could be heard like
+steady rain in a cistern. Then she went over to the table near the alcove,
+where a few books were scattered about. She opened one, and pretended to
+read. All the time Uncle Henry's eyes never left her. And she knew he was
+searching her thoughts.
+
+"He won't?" she finally said.
+
+"No--the gol darn fool!" the old fellow screamed again.
+
+"Does he--does he love her?" Lucia brought herself to ask.
+
+Quick as a flash Uncle Henry came back: "Sure he does! It's the only thing
+for him to do. He ain't got no right to be livin' alone. All he don't get
+skinned out of he gives away. Never gets nothin' to eat. If ever a feller
+needed a nice, sensible wife to take care of him, it's Gil. I know. Ain't I
+his uncle?"
+
+"You think she would--make him--a good wife?" Lucia Pell got the words out
+somehow, never lifting her eyes from the printed page.
+
+"The finest in the world!" Uncle Henry affirmed. "Now, looky here, Mis'
+Pell: He won't listen to me--funny the way folks are about their relatives.
+But I was thinkin' that mebbe if you was to ask him--"
+
+Lucia was startled. "I?" she said.
+
+The wheel chair bobbed about. "Yes. You and him bein' old friends that way,
+mebbe he'd pay some attention to you. Make him see what a gol darn fool he
+is and give him h----. Give it to him good! It's a wonderful chance. He'll
+never get another. Darned if I see how he ever got this. But he has. And
+what we gotter do is to make him take it." He paused; but she said nothing.
+He waited a moment. Then,--"What do you say? Will you?"
+
+"You--think he should?"
+
+"I know darn well he should!"
+
+Lucia closed the book and put it down. She looked straight at Uncle Henry.
+"I should think he would see it for himself."
+
+Uncle Henry showed his disgust--not for her, but for his nephew. "Aw, he's
+always been like this. I remember five or six years ago, he told me then he
+wouldn't ask no woman to marry him until he got a lot of money. False
+pride, I call it. What'd the world come to if everybody felt like that?"
+
+"You think it's only pride that's keeping him from it?" Her voice was very
+low.
+
+"Well, what else could it be, I'd like to know."
+
+"Maybe it's because he hasn't a lot of money. He may be honest in that."
+
+"Well, mebbe you're right. That may be it. What do you say?"
+
+"All right," Lucia Pell said. But she turned away.
+
+Uncle Henry was delighted. "That's the idee! Hooray!" Had he been able to
+stand, he would have risen and given three rousing cheers. He hadn't been
+so happy in years. "We'll put it over yet, by heck!"
+
+He hadn't seen his nephew come into the room, with a ball of stout twine in
+his hands.
+
+"Put what over?" Gilbert asked.
+
+Uncle Henry was taken aback, but he quickly covered his confusion.
+
+"Oh, somethin'. It's a secret." He turned and addressed Lucia Pell. "Don't
+forget," he admonished, and swiftly wheeled himself out into the yard
+again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WHEREIN AN OLD LOVE AWAKENS, PELL REVEALS HIS TRUE COLORS, A MORTGAGE IS
+ABOUT TO BE FORECLOSED, THE CONTENTS OF A SATCHEL ARE MADE KNOWN, UNCLE
+HENRY SPRINGS A SENSATION, AND PELL TAKES AN OPTION
+
+
+Lucia's eyes were following Uncle Henry's heaving chair; for the yard was
+full of little stones, and the invalid bumped along, not always able to
+keep on a smooth track. She smiled as she watched him.
+
+"What was he talking about?" Gilbert asked, kneeling on the floor, and
+folding one rug that had slipped away.
+
+"Oh, nothing," Lucia Pell answered. "You know how old people babble on
+sometimes about nothing." She turned and looked at him. Still the same
+handsome Gilbert! "What are you doing?"
+
+"Nothing. You know how young people go on doing nothing. I'm just rolling
+up these rugs and blankets. I'm going to send them away."
+
+Lucia saw the beautiful pattern of one Navajo as Gilbert held it, unfolded,
+from the floor. She came over to him.
+
+"You're sending them away--when they're so exquisite?" she asked. "This
+flaming one--" she picked it up and draped it around her. "Why, it's like
+the sunset. And you do have such beautiful sunsets here, Gil."
+
+"I got them up especially, in honor of your visit," Jones said; and then he
+remembered how many times a remark like that must have been made, by many a
+lover, as if it were quite original, as if no one had ever thought of it
+before!
+
+But Lucia took him seriously, dropped the wonderful blanket and went over
+to the door again. "I never grow tired of this view, Gil. It's almost as if
+God were an artist and had spilt the colors from His palette. And yet not
+that, quite. The colors are more like jewels. The morning's opals; the
+noon's pearls; the evening wears rubies in her hair. There's a sort of
+beauty that makes one ache. It seems to me sometimes as if I couldn't stand
+it--just the way the Grand Canyon got hold of me. Doesn't it affect you
+that way--you who have so much poetry in you?"
+
+"Indeed it does, Lucia. I've often watched that sky until I've forgotten
+all about my cattle--both of them!" He laughed, and reached for the twine.
+He was always turning their serious moments into a jest. As long as she had
+been here with her husband, he kept at a distance.
+
+Lucia saw his hand go out. "The string?" she said. "I'll get it." She left
+the door, and handed him the twine which he had put on the table.
+
+"Thank you," said Gilbert. "Do you mind putting your finger--there? Never
+mind. I think I can do it, after all."
+
+"Oh, do let me help you," she said. "I'd like to." And she leaned down,
+knelt beside him, and held her white forefinger on the cord.
+
+How it happened, neither of them ever knew. But a sudden electric thrill
+ran through their veins. Something hammered in their brains. For a brief
+instant, their hearts beat as though the whole world must hear. He had
+touched her finger, and, before he was aware of it, he had dared to lean
+over and kiss it. Not a word was said--there was no time for words. They
+did not need speech to understand. It was the old, but ever new experience
+of the ages: two who loved each other had found out in the twinkling of an
+eye--and she belonged to another. There was a moment of terrible silence.
+Then,
+
+"I'm sorry," was all Gilbert could get out.
+
+"But you touched my hand many a time, in the old days," Lucia said.
+
+"That was different. You're married now. Oh, there is a vast change since
+then. I could not--Forgive me, my dear." He turned away his face. He did
+not want her to read what was in his eyes. "Shall I send them, or would you
+rather take them with you?" he asked, hiding behind that commonplace
+question the emotion he felt. His voice held a note of pain.
+
+Lucia rose. "You mean you want to give these wonderful rugs and blankets to
+me?--these priceless things."
+
+"More than that. I want you to have them--to remind you--sometimes of--" He
+broke off, like a frightened lad.
+
+"As though I should ever need reminding! How dull you men can be! But I
+don't want to take them from you, Gil."
+
+"I'm giving up this ranch," he told her, "I shan't want them any more.
+Please take them, for my sake." He made a gesture, as though they were the
+last of his poor possessions.
+
+"I thought you loved it here?" she said.
+
+"I do--in a way."
+
+"Then why are you giving it up?" was the natural question.
+
+He hesitated, not knowing what to answer. "I thought I'd try something else
+for awhile. I hate to have to tell you this, Lucia; but the fact is,
+I--I've got to leave to-day. I was going to tell you before, only I was
+hoping that something might turn up at the last minute, and--well, it
+hasn't. That's all."
+
+There was nothing she could say; and they stood looking at each other in
+silence--a silence that was far more eloquent than speech. Gilbert went
+over and sat on the case, and Lucia finally said:
+
+"Then we won't see each other again?"
+
+He nodded, sorrowfully. Lucia Pell went over to the door and looked out
+once more. He watched her, covertly--her every gesture held a new meaning
+for him now. The silence continued. At length she turned back and faced
+him. He could not stand it, and bent quickly over the rugs and blankets.
+
+"I don't know what to say, Gil." She moved closer to him. "I've had a
+wonderful time--you know that. I want to thank you for it. You've been
+awfully kind to us."
+
+"Having you here is all the thanks I want," he answered. He had everything
+snugly packed now.
+
+"I'm glad we happened to meet again. Though it does seem strange, doesn't
+it, that we should run across each other after all these years!"
+
+He stood up straight. "All these years! You talk as if you were a hundred!"
+And he tried to smile.
+
+"I am--nearly," she laughed. "I'm twenty-four, you know."
+
+"Really? It doesn't seem possible!"
+
+"I was eighteen when you went away. And that's nearly six years ago. Time
+flies, doesn't it?" She smiled at her bromidic remark, and sat down; but he
+did not reply, "Gil," she said at last. He looked up. "Why didn't you come
+to see me before I went away?"
+
+"I don't know. I suppose--"
+
+"You went away from Maine without my knowing--without even coming to say
+good-bye. Was that fair, was that the thing for a man like you to do?"
+
+How he wished she had not brought up these burning memories!
+
+"I was broke, and I--" he managed to explain.
+
+Lucia knew what he must be feeling now. She got up and went over to his
+side; she did not dare place her hand in his. Never must there be again
+that electric current between them. "But you're all right now, aren't you,
+Gil?"
+
+He seemed abstracted, suddenly lost in another world. "Huh?" he uttered.
+Then, as if coming to himself, "Oh, my, yes! I'm doing splendidly now,
+Lucia!"
+
+"I'm so glad, Gil. But you haven't answered my question yet."
+
+"About my not coming to say good-bye?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"It was pride, I suppose," he went on.
+
+"Very foolish pride. And life is so short. You hurt me a great deal."
+
+"I'm sorry. What more can one say? If I--"
+
+"I thought I had done something to offend you," she said, standing very
+still, and looking far beyond him now, as though viewing their whole
+unhappy past. "And it's worried me even until this very day. I didn't do
+anything to offend you, did I, Gil?"
+
+"You? You, Lucia?" he cried. "You couldn't do anything to offend me. Surely
+you must know that." He said it as a man says such things to the one woman
+he loves.
+
+"It was only pride?" she was anxious to know again. "Because you were poor!
+Gil! Did you think so little of me as that?" There was a half-sob in her
+voice.
+
+"I hoped to pick a fortune off a tree somewhere, and come back and surprise
+you with it. I was going to buy an automobile--one of those low ones as
+long as a Pullman car--and fill it with roses, and come dashing up to your
+front door and take you for a ride through the hills. It was to be autumn.
+I had even that fixed," he laughed. "Oh, I had everything thought out! And
+you were going to be so proud of me!... But I couldn't find a fortune-tree
+anywhere...." He looked away, embarrassed. He hadn't meant to tell her
+this.
+
+"Gil!" she cried.
+
+"I guess they don't grow any more. At least, not in this part of the
+country." He rose, a bit wearily, and walked over to the mantel-piece.
+
+"What did you do, Gil?" she asked, her eyes following him.
+
+"Well, I was a time-keeper on a railroad and weigh-boss in a coal mine.
+After that I punched cows until I got uncle to come here. Then the war
+started, and--that's all."
+
+Then she asked what a woman always asks.
+
+"Why didn't you ever write to me, Gil?"
+
+"I was waiting for some good news to tell you. I felt you would consider me
+a failure--a rank failure. I couldn't have stood that. Women don't know how
+proud men are about that."
+
+"Maybe we don't--and maybe we do, Gil." She went closer to him. "Why don't
+you marry?" she dared to inquire.
+
+He was startled. "Marry?" he repeated.
+
+"Yes; you need someone to take care of you--someone to look after your
+daily needs--every man does."
+
+"I guess there's no doubt about that. But it ought to be a guardian in my
+case; or maybe a keeper." She could see that he was stalling for time, and
+trying to laugh off a topic that was serious indeed to him.
+
+"We're such old friends, Gil," she said, looking at his handsome face. "I
+don't like to go--to think of you always, like this--alone."
+
+"I still have uncle," he reminded her.
+
+"Oh, don't joke, Gil! You need a woman--a wife--someone to mother you."
+
+"All those?"
+
+Why couldn't he be serious for a moment? She asked him that.
+
+"I don't dare to, Lucia." His voice was low.
+
+She was a bit puzzled. "Why?"
+
+"Because the minute you begin to take life seriously, it takes _you_ that
+way, and then--"
+
+"But don't you see what it would mean to you, dear Gil? To have someone
+always here; to kiss you when you go; to greet you when you come back; to
+laugh with you when you are glad; and comfort you when things go wrong. To
+give you the sympathy, the understanding that a man finds only in a woman's
+heart. Don't you see, Gil?"
+
+"Yes, of course I see," he said, his head bowed a little.
+
+"Then why don't you, Gil? She'd make you very happy--a woman like that. I
+want you to understand."
+
+"Don't you suppose I do? Don't you suppose I've always understood, ever
+since--"
+
+"Ever since when, Gil? Then you have known such a woman?"
+
+He moved his head.
+
+"You have!... And you cared for her?"
+
+He nodded again.
+
+"You loved her?" she hurried on.
+
+His voice was hoarse. "Yes." The monosyllable got out somehow.
+
+"You still love her. I know it, I can see it. Who is she, Gil? I want to
+know."
+
+"Don't you know?" he asked, and looked her straight in the eyes.
+
+Before she could answer, there were footsteps outside, and Pell could be
+heard whistling. He rushed in now, the bag still clutched in his hand. At
+once he sensed something strange in their attitude, and he eyed both of
+them shrewdly, covertly, briefly. Not a word was uttered. He threw the bag
+on the table, as though he had noticed nothing, and in the most
+matter-of-fact tone said,
+
+"Say, how about dinner?"
+
+"It isn't ready yet," Gilbert informed him. Lucia took advantage of her
+husband's question to move over toward the door.
+
+"Why, good God, man, it's nearly three o'clock! We're not on a hunger
+strike, are we?" And he laughed at his own dull witticism.
+
+"I'll see about it now," Jones promised.
+
+"Haven't got a drink, have you, while we're waiting? Not that I need an
+appetizer! And it's damned hot, I know, to guzzle whiskey."
+
+"There's nothing good in the place. But I think the cook has some tequila."
+
+"Tequila? What's that, Jones?"
+
+"It's a Mexican drink."
+
+"Has it got a kick in it?" the other wanted to know.
+
+"I never heard anybody complain," Gilbert smiled. "After two or three of
+'em, I never saw anybody able to complain!"
+
+He started toward the kitchen.
+
+"What does it taste like?" said Pell, detaining him.
+
+"Oh, sort of like gasoline with bichloride of mercury in it," Jones
+answered his eager questioner.
+
+"No wood alcohol?" suspiciously. Pell was always looking out for himself.
+
+"Oh, it's safe enough, I assure you. Would you like to try some of it?"
+Gilbert suggested.
+
+Pell thought a moment--but only a moment. "I'll try anything once, and
+anything to drink more than once--if I'm alive the second time."
+
+His host smiled. "I'll get you some if there's any left," and went to the
+kitchen to see. He couldn't help wondering why a man like Morgan Pell,
+with so many responsibilities, should wish to drink tequila.
+
+Left alone, there was that strange silence between Lucia and her husband
+which so often occurred nowadays. A barrier was between them, none the less
+real because it was invisible. She knew his moods so well, and she dreaded
+the things he might say, all his inhibitions gone, if he drank any of this
+deadly Mexican stuff. She would have halted Gilbert had she dared; but she
+knew that any such action on her part would have aroused Pell the more,
+inflamed him to anger; and, like most women of fine breeding, she dreaded a
+scene more than anything in the world. All that she said now was merely,
+
+"I wish you wouldn't do that."
+
+"Do what?" Pell asked, jerking out the two words in a high staccato. He
+hated to be questioned, particularly by his wife. His hands reached for the
+satchel he had brought in.
+
+"Order a man around in his own house."
+
+"And why not, I'd like to know?" Pell inquired. "Who's he, anyhow, and what
+difference does it make?"
+
+Lucia remained perfectly calm. "Well, if you can't see, of course--"
+
+"There's no use your trying to tell me. Is that what you were going to
+say?" His face showed his rage.
+
+She did not answer. That infuriated him all the more.
+
+"I see what you mean! But I don't agree," Pell pursued. "This Jones person
+is nothing in my life. And why I should be deprived of my liquor and forced
+to eat burnt beans three times a day, I can't see." He emitted a sound that
+might have been designated a laugh.
+
+"But--while we--" Lucia started to argue, and then thought better of it.
+
+"Why doesn't he set his liquor out and see that the meals are right,
+himself? Then there wouldn't be any need of my saying anything." His tone
+was brutally frank. He really disliked Jones, and would be glad when they
+could get back to New York. There was nothing here worth his consideration.
+Sturgis had been stupid to think so.
+
+"But when we are enjoying his hospitality--"
+
+"Enjoying? Ha! Suffering, I guess you mean!" And Pell's head went back and
+he gave out a guffaw.
+
+Lucia waited for his false mirth to vanish. Then, "But you seemed very
+anxious to come here."
+
+"Yes; because I thought he lived in a house, not a--"
+
+The sentence was not completed; for Gilbert came back with a bottle of the
+deadly tequila in his hand.
+
+"I'm terribly sorry," he apologized, "to have to tell you that dinner will
+be late."
+
+"You mean later, don't you?" Pell edited the remark.
+
+Gilbert handed him the bottle. "Maybe this will atone for the postponed
+banquet," he smiled. He got the water-bottle hanging on the peg by the
+fireplace, and brought that to Pell also. He tried to be as gracious as he
+could to anyone under his roof.
+
+Pell took a swig out of the bottle--a long one. "Good God!" he exclaimed,
+his face almost purple, his brow puckered like a dwarf's.
+
+"What's the matter?" Gilbert said. And he handed him the water-bottle.
+
+"It's poison!" Pell cried. And as if he really believed it, and as though
+water were an antidote, he grabbed the water-bottle and drank from it
+swiftly and loudly. It was horrible the way he guzzled the liquid down. An
+animal would have done better.
+
+"The Mexicans like their liquor strong," young Jones explained. "That's
+what's the matter with the cook."
+
+Lucia was puzzled. "What do you mean?" she asked.
+
+"Simply that he's been imbibing again. That's why dinner is so late. But
+we're getting used to it. There is nothing to do but stand it."
+
+"Drunk?" Pell asked.
+
+"Quite," answered Gilbert.
+
+"Well, I don't know as you can blame him," Pell excused. "I'd be drunk too
+if I had to live here. What are you going to do about it?" He hung the
+water-bottle in its place on the peg.
+
+"Red's trying to sober him up," Gilbert said.
+
+They had had enough of the cook, Pell decided within himself. Dinner was
+inevitably late, and that was all there was about it. So he changed the
+subject abruptly.
+
+"This ranch belongs to you, doesn't it?" he put the question direct to
+Jones.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"I asked you," went on Pell, a little disconcerted at having to repeat his
+question, "if you own this ranch."
+
+"I--er--yes. Why?" Gilbert said.
+
+Pell was quick to notice the other's discomfiture. "I have a friend who
+thinks he wants to go into the cattle business. He asked me to look him up
+a place. It's his own money, of course."
+
+"Then I'd advise him not to buy here," said Gilbert, much to Pell's
+amazement.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It's too near the border," Jones answered. "The bandits come over and
+steal all your cattle. It's a rotten situation. I'm sorry I ever came down
+here."
+
+"That makes it all the better," Pell was shrewd enough to say. "Then he'd
+lose his money quick, and be satisfied." And he laughed at what he thought
+a witticism.
+
+Uncle Henry's wheel chair crossed the sill at that moment. His face was
+full of news. "Hardy's coming!" he informed those in the room.
+
+"A man to see me on a matter of business," Gilbert remembered. "Will you
+excuse me?" He turned to Pell.
+
+"But I want to talk to you myself," the latter reminded him.
+
+But young Jones had gone to the door. "I'm sorry. This is imperative, and I
+must see him." He turned definitely as if to go.
+
+"But I was here first," Morgan Pell argued. He hated to be beaten by this
+stripling.
+
+"I regret that I must insist," Gilbert said. And there was a duel of eyes,
+as well as of wits, before Jones turned away, easily the victor. After all,
+it was his own house, his own ranch. His visitor was wise enough to realize
+that. He walked over to the table and took the tequila bottle up again.
+"I'll have another drink, if you don't mind," he said, to Gilbert's back.
+
+"Drink?" yelled Uncle Henry from his chair, frantic at the thought of any
+more of their precious liquor being consumed. It was hard enough to get,
+even when one had plenty of money.
+
+"Help yourself," said Gilbert, not a little ashamed of the protest in Uncle
+Henry's voice.
+
+"While I'm waiting," Pell laughed; and, taking the bottle, he went out.
+
+Uncle Henry could scarcely control himself. He switched his chair in his
+nephew's direction. "Say," he wanted to know, "have you been holding out on
+me?"
+
+"It's only tequila," Gilbert tried to pacify him.
+
+"I don't care if it's only varnish!" cried Uncle Henry, his voice rising
+high and shrill. "And you let him go and take the whole bottle!" He pounded
+the arm of his chair, always his last resort.
+
+Gilbert paid no attention to him. He went over to the table, as though he
+hadn't said a word, and began looking for a letter in one of the drawers.
+Almost immediately he laid his hand on it, and, turning to Lucia, said:
+
+"If you'll excuse me?"
+
+"Certainly. I must go and pack anyway." And she started toward the steps
+that led upstairs.
+
+Gilbert went through the alcove; and no sooner had his broad shoulders
+disappeared than Uncle Henry turned to Lucia Pell and cried:
+
+"Hey! Wait a minute."
+
+Lucia was astonished. She had one foot on the step, and she turned about to
+see if Uncle Henry was actually addressing her. There was, obviously, no
+one else to address; but she thought the cook must have come in when her
+back was turned. She glared at the invalid, and said nothing.
+
+"Did you ask him?" Uncle Henry went on, paying not the slightest heed to
+her surprised glance.
+
+"Ask who what?" Lucia asked. She was not a little interested now. She came
+back into the room.
+
+"Ask him about marryin'--you know. I gotter find out because Hardy's
+comin'." No speech could have been plainer and balder. "Did you?"
+
+Lucia was nonplussed at the old man's crude directness. "Yes--I mean no. I
+don't remember."
+
+"Don't remember!" Uncle Henry yelled. "But that's what I left you here for!
+We had it all framed up! Why didn't you?"
+
+Lucia's head drooped a bit. "We were talking about something else."
+
+The crabbed man was inflamed by this reply. "What was you talkin' about
+that was so gol darned important that you forgot the only important thing
+there was to talk about?... Well?" he cried, when she said nothing. "By
+gollies! I remember now! You was the gal he wouldn't ask to marry him
+because he didn't have no money!" He did not notice that his nephew had
+come back from the other room just in time to hear this last remark. He
+went on relentlessly to Lucia: "And me like a poor boob forgettin' all
+about it until now!" He suddenly saw Gilbert, and, not a whit abashed,
+turned on him. "So that's why you won't marry Hardy's daughter! I see it
+all now! I've been as blind as a hoot-owl!"
+
+There came the sound of a Ford stopping outside, and footsteps approached
+up the path that led to the adobe.
+
+"It's all right, Lucia," Gilbert said, and she went upstairs, almost
+weeping. Then he whirled about and glared at his uncle. "It's a good
+thing--no, I don't know what I'm saying. You're an invalid, or I'd strike
+you, despite your years, Uncle Henry. For heaven's sake, can't you learn to
+mind your own business?"
+
+"I ain't got any. You robbed me of it!" the old man flamed back. "Now I'll
+mind yours for a change. Make a monkey out o' me, will you, gol darn you!"
+
+As he was starting for the door, he bumped directly into Jasper Hardy and
+his daughter Angela and the ubiquitous "Red." The trio had come over in the
+Ford.
+
+Hardy, tall and thin, wore a funereal black coat, despite the heat, and a
+somber dark Stetson hat. He must have been fifty or more. His skin looked
+bloodless, and his eyes still had that hard, pale look. It was difficult to
+trust eyes like those. He ambled, rather than walked, and his lean, lanky
+legs would have made him a fortune on the stage. It was difficult to
+believe, as everyone always said, that the lovely little Angela, with her
+bright black eyes and her rose-red cheeks, was the daughter of this
+sinister man. She was as attractive as a rose;--a typical frontier maiden,
+romantic, emotional, peppery when occasion demanded--just the kind to take
+the fancy of an honest soul like "Red." His eyes followed her wherever she
+went, as ever. She could not sit down or stand up or open her delicate lips
+but that he stared at her, hoping he could be of some service to her.
+Sometimes he prayed that some slight accident would befall her in order
+that he might prove his devotion. If she would only be sent to jail, that
+he could bring her soup and pass it through the bars of her cell! He
+dreamed this once, and awakened in a cold perspiration; for Angela (in the
+dream) realized his worth then; and the Governor pardoned her, and they
+were married at once and lived happily ever afterward. A Freudian lapse,
+maybe, and a dream a little too sane, according to the psychologists, to
+mean anything much; but rich in hidden meanings for poor "Red." Oh, that it
+would come true! She had been so kind and sweet to him this morning.
+
+Hardy ambled into the room, and looked around in the most casual way. His
+eye lit upon Uncle Henry first of all, naturally; for he had all but bumped
+into him.
+
+"How are you, Smith?" he said. "Evenin'."
+
+And Angela piped up, to both uncle and nephew: "Good evening."
+
+Gilbert bowed. "How do you do? Won't you sit down?" And he pulled out a
+chair for Angela.
+
+"No, thanks," Hardy said; but
+
+"Yes, thanks!" his daughter decided, and popped into a seat. "Red" loved
+her for it.
+
+Hardy turned to young Jones. "Well?" was all he said. He referred to his
+state of health--not that he cared how Gilbert felt.
+
+"Anything but," the latter answered.
+
+Jasper Hardy always went right to the point. He disliked equivocation; so
+he rasped out immediately:
+
+"Have you got the money?"
+
+"No."
+
+Angela, who was tender-hearted, tried to intercede.
+
+"Now, father!" she pleaded. She hated this business.
+
+But Hardy paid not the slightest heed to her. He was a man of action, and
+women shouldn't interfere--particularly young and pretty girls.
+
+"Then I reckon I'll have to foreclose," he went on relentlessly. "There's
+nothing else to do." His hands closed tightly, and his hard eyes looked
+even harder.
+
+"I'm afraid you're right," Gilbert said. "I was afraid it would be
+inevitable. I couldn't have hoped for anything else."
+
+"I'm sorry," Jasper Hardy announced; but did not mean it.
+
+Gilbert told him so. "Moreover, I know how you got your money," the young
+man was not afraid to say.
+
+"I know how he got mine, gol darn it!" Uncle Henry cried. Hardy glared at
+him, seemed to smite him with his eyes.
+
+"I'm not in business for my health," he said coldly.
+
+"Nor for anybody else's," Uncle Henry, unabashed, told him.
+
+Angela feared there was going to be trouble. "Now, daddy, you mustn't--you
+really mustn't--I feel--"
+
+But her father did not hear her.
+
+"The time's up at eight o'clock," was all he said, and looked sternly at
+Gilbert, much as a judge who is pronouncing sentence looks at the prisoner
+at the bar.
+
+"I know it," said Gilbert.
+
+"Now, daddy--" Angela began again.
+
+Hardy was angry at her repeated solicitation. "Will you let me alone? This
+is my business," he said to her in a firm voice, "Remember that, and don't
+attempt to put your finger in the pie. This is my business, I tell you."
+
+"Yes, I know daddy; but you needn't be so mean about it."
+
+"I'm a plain man, and I don't believe in beating about the bush. Get that
+through your head--every one of you, I mean."
+
+"But you might at least be--" his daughter began once more.
+
+"Won't you please keep still?" His rage was mounting; and his brow
+darkened.
+
+"I only want you to be nice about it, daddy," Angela persisted, sweetly.
+
+"How can anybody be nice about a thing like this?" said the man of iron.
+
+"I know I could be," Angela informed him.
+
+Her father looked at her. "Well, what would you do?"
+
+"Give him his ranch back, of course!"
+
+Jasper Hardy couldn't believe what he had heard, and from his own child.
+"Well, for the love of heaven!" he cried, and almost burst out laughing.
+
+"We've more ranches now than we know what to do with. Everybody is aware of
+that."
+
+Here was Uncle Henry's chance. "That's the idea!" he cried. "What do you
+want it for, anyhow?" But no one paid any attention to him.
+
+"Oh, will you, daddy--for my sake?" Angela pleaded.
+
+Hardy was adamant. "Certainly not! What a stupid request. How did such
+ideas come into your head?"
+
+"But I don't see why--" the unremitting Angela started to say.
+
+Her father was furious now, and tired of her prattle. He turned to "Red."
+"Take her out doors, will you?" as though she were a child.
+
+"Red's" face gleamed as if a lantern had been lighted behind it. He turned
+eagerly to Angela. "_Will_ I!" he cried.
+
+But Angela was scornful. How foolish of "Red" to think her father could
+dismiss her in this way! She proceeded as though no such suggestion had
+been made, and addressed her father once more, not in the least perturbed:
+
+"Of course, if you're going to be nasty about it--" Then, sweetly, to
+Gilbert she continued: "Please don't think too badly of us, Mr. Jones.
+Father doesn't really mean any harm."
+
+"No more'n a rattlesnake," Uncle Henry leaned out of his chair to whisper
+in a voice that could be heard by everyone.
+
+"It's just that he doesn't know any better," Angela went on to Gilbert.
+"He's really very neighborly when he wants to be."
+
+She rose, and "Red" offered her his arm; but she haughtily rejected it, and
+went out the door, unaware that the devoted and humble "Red" followed her.
+
+Jasper Hardy was glad she had gone. He could speak freely now. He addressed
+Jones.
+
+"Packed up yet?" he inquired, sarcastically, as though he meant to intimate
+that his coming journey would be a pleasant one.
+
+Gilbert could have struck him; but he replied quietly: "I'll just put on my
+hat and I'll be ready."
+
+But the literal-minded Hardy remarked:
+
+"Them crockery, and the rugs?" pointing to the articles significantly.
+
+"The rugs I'm presenting to a friend of mine. The crockery goes to the
+cook. He has a family, you know." His irony was lost on the imperturbable
+Hardy, who merely asked:
+
+"And you ain't got anything more to say, Jones?" He watched him closely.
+
+"Nothing of general interest."
+
+But Uncle Henry wasn't going to let matters end here.
+
+"I've got something to say," he announced like an oracle. "Your daughter
+wants to marry him!" He imagined this would prove a thunderbolt; but Hardy
+calmly asked:
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"Because she told me, that's how! And if only the gol darn fool would do it
+like I want him to--" He addressed himself suddenly to his nephew, who now
+stood on the other side of the table: "Aw, come on. Be a good feller, won't
+you?"
+
+Again this outlandish interfering on the part of Uncle Henry! Was the old
+fellow losing his reason? There was no privacy in their affairs--everything
+was an open book to anyone who came to the adobe. It was getting to be
+unbearable. Gilbert had controlled himself long enough in the presence of
+others. He was sick and tired of the old man's meddling.
+
+"Keep still!" he warned him, and shook his finger in his face, "Keep still,
+I say!" His cheeks were scarlet with rage. The blood pounded in his veins.
+
+The invalid never lost his courage. "You won't marry her?" was what he
+said.
+
+"How can I, you--you--" Gilbert could scarcely stand it any longer.
+
+"Gol darn, the gol darn--" cried Uncle Henry; and then he swerved on Jasper
+Hardy: "Maybe you can persuade him," he suggested.
+
+"Persuade him to what?"
+
+"To marry her," Smith brazenly said.
+
+"I don't want him to marry her," the father was honest enough to say.
+
+This had never occurred to Uncle Henry. "What's the matter with him?" he
+asked, his eyes opening wide in amazement.
+
+"It would take too long to tell you." Hardy considered the argument closed;
+but Uncle Henry came right back again:
+
+"But he's my nevyer!"
+
+"That's one of my main reasons," Hardy cruelly announced; and the only
+come-back poor Uncle Henry had was an exasperated, "Oh, is that so!"
+drawled out peevishly, weakly.
+
+"I want his ranch, not him," Hardy went on. He might have been discussing
+someone not in the room.
+
+"But he's a fine young feller, if I do say so!" Uncle Henry came to
+Gilbert's rescue, after the manner of all relatives when an outsider steps
+in with criticism.
+
+"Only a minute ago I heard you call him a gol darn fool!" Hardy
+triumphantly reminded him.
+
+"There you are," said Gilbert, addressing his uncle. "That's what you
+get--"
+
+"Do you think I want my darter to marry a gol darn fool?" Hardy fired back
+at the old man.
+
+Uncle Henry was flabbergasted, completely done for, for the moment. "Well,
+what the--" But he could get no farther.
+
+Jasper Hardy looked at Gilbert, "Well, now that's settled."
+
+Uncle Henry butted in once more. "You won't let her?"
+
+"Let her what?" A pair of steely eyes were fixed on the questioner.
+
+"Marry him. Won't you?"
+
+"Of course not. What are you talking about, you old fool?"
+
+Uncle Henry was not to be outdone. He whisked around, facing the door, and
+called at the top of his voice:
+
+"Angely! Angely!"
+
+From the yard came back, "Yes, I'm coming!" and Hardy's daughter ran in,
+with "Red" at her heels.
+
+"Did you call me?" she wanted to know, looking at all three.
+
+"Yes; I did," said Uncle Henry. "I wanted to tell you that it ain't no use.
+They won't neither of 'em do nothin'."
+
+"Who won't?" asked Angela, mystified. She hadn't an idea what the old man
+was talking about.
+
+"The poor stiffs!" said Uncle Henry.
+
+"Do what?" Angela pursued.
+
+"I asked 'em!" the invalid whined.
+
+The girl grew impatient. "For goodness' sake, asked them what?"
+
+"To marry you, of course!"
+
+Angela thought she must be dreaming.
+
+"You--asked him--to marry me?" She looked about her, bewildered.
+
+"Yes; and he turned you down!"
+
+Surely now this must be a dream! "Red," too, was in a daze, suffering
+vicariously for his adored one.
+
+"Oh!" cried Angela, when a full realization of what Uncle Henry meant came
+over her.
+
+Uncle Henry went on: "Like your own payrent--the stony-hearted old
+reptile!"
+
+"Oh, Gil--" began Angela in tears.
+
+"Go on--you ask 'em!" suggested Uncle Henry.
+
+"Gil--" the girl got out the first syllable of his name, and no more; for
+her little handkerchief was at her pretty nose.
+
+"I'm sorry," said Gilbert, gallantly, going to her. "Please don't feel
+badly about it."
+
+"Don't--don't speak to me!" Angela sniffed, and stamped her dainty foot.
+"Don't look at me! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you all!" Blinded with
+rage and tears, she crossed the room, and stumbled directly into Uncle
+Henry's chair, and all but tipped him over. "Red" followed her,
+solicitously.
+
+"Now, Angela--" he said, and tried to grasp her arm. "Remember, I'm here!"
+
+But all the thanks he got was a wild, "Get out of my way!" and he found
+himself pushed aside, into a corner. Another of her unsuspected tantrums!
+
+"My God!" ejaculated Uncle Henry, furious at Angela's accident, which so
+directly concerned himself, "but everybody's unreasonable to-day!" He
+turned harshly on his nephew. "You make me sick, you! Here am I doing my
+gol darndest to save the mess you've made, and you won't even--" He broke
+off, unable, in his wrath, to continue. His eye lit on Hardy. "Look here,"
+he cried, in desperation, "ain't there no way out of this thing? It was my
+money that bought this ranch, you know. And everybody knows it! The last
+ten thousand dollars I had in the world!" There was a sob in his voice on
+the last words.
+
+Hardy looked at him, but with no pity in his gaze. "That's your lookout,
+Smith. Everybody for himself--that's my motto."
+
+"And you'd throw me, old and sick, a invalid, out into the streets?" Uncle
+Henry whined. No one could get more pathos into his tones than Uncle Henry
+when he wanted to do so.
+
+"No; I'd let you wheel yourself out," Jasper Hardy, again the
+literal-minded Hardy, said. It was one of the meanest remarks that even he
+had ever made.
+
+"Say, ain't you got no heart at all?" Uncle Henry wanted to know.
+
+"I used to have; but it cost me too much money," was Hardy's explanation
+and vindication. "Sentiment? Bosh!" And he made a gesture of deep disgust.
+
+Uncle Henry wanted to put a curse on him! "Well, all I hope is that some
+day you'll go broke and they'll bounce you out into Main Street!" He
+chuckled in his chair.
+
+"The line forms on the left," the imperturbable Hardy said. "You're the
+fifth that's had that hope this year. I don't care a rap what you think,
+old feller! Remember that!"
+
+A shadow appeared on the doorsill; and Morgan Pell came in. His face was
+harder than ever. It was obvious that he had not thrown away the bottle of
+tequila until he had consumed the contents. His eye lit on Hardy at once,
+but he said nothing to him. Instead, he meandered toward Gilbert and
+observed, insolently enough:
+
+"Look here, you've kept me waiting too long. What does this mean, eh?"
+
+"I'm sorry," Gilbert returned. "I forgot all about you for the moment. Oh,"
+he suddenly remembered that Hardy and Pell were unacquainted, "you two
+gentlemen ought to know each other. Mr. Pell, shake hands with Mr. Hardy."
+
+Pell gave the other a curt nod. "How are you?" was all he could bring
+himself to say.
+
+"Pleased to meet you," answered Hardy, and turned away, "Red" and Angela,
+interested spectators of this foolish proceeding, sat together on the
+little settee by the window near the door, and smiled at the
+shillyshallying of two grown men who should have known better.
+Civilization! A mockery, surely, when two men couldn't be amenable in the
+presence of others--two men who apparently had no reason for treating each
+other this way.
+
+Pell suddenly addressed Jones. "I forgot to tell you that we're going this
+afternoon."
+
+"I'm sorry," said his host.
+
+"And before I go," Pell went on, "there's a matter of business I want to
+talk over with you. So if this gentleman is through--" he indicated Hardy
+with his thumb.
+
+"Oh, I'll be through, all right--at eight o'clock to-night!" Jasper Hardy
+announced, and drew several silver dollars out of his trousers pocket and
+rattled them about in his hand, significantly.
+
+"What do you mean, eight o'clock?" Pell wondered.
+
+Hardy's eyes pierced him through and through. "When I foreclose the
+mortgage I hold on this ranch. Understand now?"
+
+"When you foreclose...." Pell repeated the words as if he had not quite
+comprehended. Then he said to young Jones: "You said this ranch belongs to
+you?" What was the matter with him? Was his mind clouding? The stuff he had
+drunk? He put his hand to his forehead.
+
+"It does," Gilbert explained. "You see, it isn't eight o'clock yet." A
+faint smile came to his lips.
+
+Hardy failed to see the humor of the situation. "It's as good as eight
+o'clock, as far as he's concerned." And he rattled the silver coins again.
+
+"Oh, is that so?" said Pell, beginning to see daylight. To young Jones he
+said: "How far is it to town?"
+
+"Twenty miles, I should say."
+
+Pell thought a second, "Is that flivver of yours working, Jones?"
+
+"In a way."
+
+Pell thought harder. "We've got plenty of time," he said, as if to himself.
+"Five hours! Get your hat," turning to the young man.
+
+Gilbert was confused. "What's the idea?"
+
+"We're going to pay the mortgage, of course. How much is it?"
+
+"Shouldn't you have asked that first--as a good business man?"
+
+"Answer me: how much is it?"
+
+"Ten thousand dollars," came the quick response.
+
+"And your equity?" Pell pursued, businesslike enough now.
+
+"Another ten thousand."
+
+He thought Morgan Pell would be stunned. Instead, he merely said, "I'll
+give you twenty thousand. That'll pay the mortgage and give you your ten
+back. You can give me an option while I'm arranging payment. Get me?
+That'll save time."
+
+"You mean you'll give me twenty thousand dollars for this ranch?" Gilbert
+said, unable to understand.
+
+"Exactly. Will you take it?"
+
+"You bet your life he'll take it!" cried Uncle Henry, whom everyone had
+forgotten in the excitement of the moment. He rolled his chair expertly to
+the table, and peered into his nephew's face, fearing he would make a fool
+of himself once more. He was trembling with excitement.
+
+"Then that's settled," Pell announced.
+
+Unnoticed, Lucia had come to the top of the stairway, and stood listening
+to every word. And Hardy, who had been trying his best to get a word in
+edgewise, finally managed to cry out:
+
+"Wait a minute!"
+
+No one paid any attention to him. Gilbert was in deep meditation. He turned
+to Pell. "But I don't want to be under any obligation to you," he said.
+
+"You won't," the other affirmed, and anxiety was in his voice. "Well, is it
+a go?"
+
+"A go?" yelled Uncle Henry, unable to restrain himself. "It's gone!"
+
+Hardy stepped in between Pell and Jones.
+
+"Hold on, there! You can't do this."
+
+Pell looked him squarely in the face, "Why not, I'd like to know."
+
+"You mean you'd do me out of this property at the last minute?" Jasper
+Hardy asked.
+
+Pell smiled. "That's my specialty!"
+
+Indignation was in every fiber of Hardy's gaunt frame. He was losing his
+temper, and he was wise enough to know that that would never do. The
+unforgivable sin was to lose control of oneself. He must hold on to his
+voice, his movements; but a nest of hornets, under attack, could not have
+been angrier. "I protest!" he said, as calmly as he could. "Here I been
+settin' around waitin' for this place for five years! You can't come here
+an' take it away from me like this! No, sir, I won't have it!"
+
+"Look here," Gilbert stepped in and said. "You're getting your money! What
+are you boiling about?"
+
+"Red" had been listening attentively. He came close to Gilbert now, and
+said, "He wants the place. Didn't he just say so?"
+
+"The place?" Gilbert repeated. "What the devil does he want the place for?"
+
+Pell was growing impatient. There was too much quibbling. "We're losing
+time. Come on, let's get things settled."
+
+Jones, however, was not to be hurried. "But I want to know why he wants
+this place so much." His suspicions were thoroughly aroused.
+
+No one had observed Uncle Henry, who had silently wheeled his chair about
+until he got to the table, where Pell had left his satchel long ago. Like a
+curious old woman he now picked it up, brazenly opened it, and exclaimed:
+
+"Hey! What the Sam Hill!" and backed away; but not until he had dipped his
+hands into the bag.
+
+"What's the matter?" Gilbert asked, turning.
+
+"It's full o' dirt! Just dirt!" Uncle Henry cried, and glanced about to see
+the effect of his surprising information.
+
+"Dirt?" Gilbert said, not understanding.
+
+"Yes, look!" And the old man pointed to the bag.
+
+"But whose bag is it?" Gilbert persisted.
+
+Uncle Henry lifted a thin finger and directed it to Pell. "His'n!" he said.
+
+But Gilbert was still in a daze.
+
+"But what in the world could anybody be taking specimens of the soil around
+here for?" he inquired, and then began to think.
+
+"Just to show the character of the ground, to see what will grow best,"
+Pell hastened to explain.
+
+"But it won't grow nothin'--not even rocks, an' you know it," the occupant
+of the wheel chair said. Then a new thought came to him, and he shot out,
+"By golly, I got it! He's an oil man, ain't he?"
+
+Pell, furious, cried, "Oh, shut up! You old busybody!"
+
+"He wants to buy this ranch because there's oil here!" Uncle Henry went on,
+not dismayed in the least at the other's insult.
+
+"Bah!" Pell scornfully ejaculated.
+
+Gilbert's face was a study. His eyes went from one to another in the room.
+"Oil?" he said. "Oil?"
+
+"Yes, an' that's why _he_ wants it, too!" cried Uncle Henry, pointing to
+Hardy this time, "The big skin!"
+
+Pell took up the satchel--the little bag that had caused such a big
+sensation--and walked over to Uncle Henry's chair.
+
+"Why, you poor old dotard, there's no oil in these specimens. You can smell
+'em yourself if you want to," he said. But there was something in his
+manner of the lady who doth protest too much.
+
+"No, I can't," Uncle Henry was swift to deny. "My smeller's no good." He
+sniffed comically--as if that proved his point.
+
+"Let _him_ examine them, then," suggested Pell, holding the satchel out to
+Gilbert, who stood on the other side of the table.
+
+But Gilbert said nothing. It was Uncle Henry who again blurted out:
+
+"That don't prove nothin'. Mebbe he hasn't found the oil yet. But it's
+here! If it ain't, why should you be fightin' so hard to get this rotten
+place? Tell me that, will you? Nobody else ever wanted it--except this
+kindly neighbor of ours!" He glared at Hardy triumphantly.
+
+Pell was silent. Gilbert came to himself.
+
+"Oil!" he said. "Then this ranch, instead of being worth nothing, would be
+worth hundreds of thousand of dollars--maybe millions!" He had taken the
+bag from Pell's extended hand, and now turned in dismay and confusion to
+the window, and put the bag on a chair. What a world it was, and how
+terrible that every other man seemed to be a predatory animal, ready to
+spring upon his neighbor and wrest anything he had away from him. What a
+world, indeed! No wonder young men lost their faith and courage!
+
+"Millions!" The word caught Uncle Henry's fancy and imagination. He rolled
+it over on his tongue again and again. "Millions!" He babbled it, he played
+with it. "Millions!"
+
+"Yes!" Gilbert said. "Think of that!" He turned and faced the others once
+more.
+
+"An' we're goin' to get skinned out of millions! Oh, my Gawd!" The poor old
+invalid wailed it out, and rocked himself in his chair. How he wished he
+could rise, step out on the floor and knock Pell and Hardy down! Why didn't
+his strong and husky young nephew do it? What was the matter with the
+present generation, anyhow? Wasn't there any red blood in it? If he had
+only been younger, and strong, able to fight for what he knew to be his
+rights! But here he was, tied down in a wheel chair, trapped, helpless,
+impotent.
+
+Pell was getting nervous, "This is nonsense," he said. "There's no oil
+here."
+
+During all this long harangue, Lucia had quietly come down the stairs, and
+now stood directly behind her husband.
+
+"And this is why you were so anxious to come here," she said, very low; yet
+everyone heard her statement. "To dig around, and then, if you found oil,
+to try to buy this place! Oh, I thought better of you than that, Morgan!
+What a trick--what a dishonorable trick!" She shuddered away from him. She
+almost hated him in this revealing moment.
+
+"And why not?" was all her husband said. "Hadn't I a right to look for oil
+here? Suppose it was on the place?"
+
+"You wouldn't have told him if you had found it! You know you wouldn't,"
+his wife shot back at him.
+
+Pell glared at her, fury in the look. "What do you think I am? Crazy?" he
+argued.
+
+"But that isn't honest!" Lucia fearlessly said. "It's as crooked as it can
+be! And you know it."
+
+"But it's legal!" Pell fired back. "And what do I care--what does anybody
+care--so long as it's legal! Ha! the courts would be with me! Moreover,
+it's the way you get the clothes you wear and the food you eat, and all
+those jewels that you hang on yourself when you undress and go to the
+opera!"
+
+As he spoke, angrily, he went over to the chair where Gilbert had left the
+satchel, seized it and threw it on the floor, as though its contents were a
+symbol of the money she tossed away.
+
+There was no use replying to a man like Pell. Lucia knew that. He was
+indignant that she had seen through his treachery. Here he was, a guest of
+Gilbert Jones, eating at his table day after day, pretending to be his
+friend, and all the while he had been planning this! And she had seemed to
+be a part of it all. What must Gilbert think of her? What must everybody
+think of her?
+
+It was Hardy who broke the tension.
+
+"Say," he wanted to know, "who's this woman, and what's she busting into
+this for? We've had enough of petticoats around here for one day, it seems
+to me."
+
+Uncle Henry was swift to inform him. "I'll tell you who she is--she's his
+wife!" And he pointed to Pell. "But she loves _him_!" And he pointed to
+Gilbert.
+
+It was as though a bomb had exploded. Terror came into Gilbert's eyes, and
+fury into Morgan Pell's.
+
+"What's that?" the latter cried, aghast. As a madman might, he stared at
+Gilbert for an instant; then his gaze shot in the direction of his wife,
+standing so calm at the other side of the table.
+
+Young Jones almost made up his mind, in that blinding moment, to choke
+Uncle Henry once for all, and have it done with. This was the last stroke,
+the final straw. He could stand it no longer. He stalked over to his uncle,
+and really intended to lay violent hands on him; but of course he could
+not. That defenseless old man, that pathetic figure seemed to wilt before
+his piercing eyes, seemed to shrivel and literally fall to pieces. In hot
+disgust, Gilbert could only cry out:
+
+"How dare you! How dare you, I say! This is the crowning interference!" He
+had put his hands behind his back and braced his shoulders, fearing that he
+would not be responsibile for what he did.
+
+Uncle Henry, seeing that he was safe, came back to the fray.
+
+"Well, you _couldn't_ marry her," indicating Lucia, "an' you _wouldn't_
+marry _her_," pointing to Angela. "I guess I got some right to protect
+myself, ain't I?"
+
+"Protect yourself!" repeated Gilbert, cynicism in his tone. He turned his
+back on them all and moved to the window. His very shoulders revealed the
+mental struggle he was going through.
+
+Morgan Pell's eyes, all this time, had never left his wife. He studied her
+countenance as a pathologist might that of a person thought to be insane,
+and Lucia almost gave way under his relentless analysis. "Red," seeing the
+turn affairs had taken, quietly drew his gun, and Angela, frightened, put
+her hands over her shell-like ears. If there was one thing she dreaded, it
+was a shot. She was trembling like a leaf. She closed her eyes. She knew
+that "Red," in his devotion to Gilbert, would not hesitate to kill Pell.
+
+With an inscrutable expression, Morgan Pell murmured, "H'm!" Then he turned
+swiftly on Uncle Henry and asked, "You have proof, I suppose?"
+
+"Proof?" cried Uncle Henry.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"My Gawd," the invalid fairly shrieked, "all you gotter do is look at 'em!
+I been watchin' 'em ever since you came."
+
+At this, Gilbert honestly believed that Uncle Henry had lost his reason.
+Surely this was the insane delusion of a senile old man; and he said as
+much to Pell.
+
+"Senile yourself!" cried Uncle Henry, mad through and through, feeling he
+was immune from any attack. "Gol darn you!"
+
+So there was no shutting Uncle Henry up! Gilbert, in despair, turned to
+Pell. "You don't believe it! You can't believe it!" he said. "This is
+madness--"
+
+Pell said not a word; he seemed to be in deep thought. Suddenly his whole
+manner changed, his voice as well, and he faced Gilbert frankly.
+
+"Certainly I don't believe it. My confidence in my wife is implicit."
+
+The metamorphosis was unbelievable. At least Uncle Henry thought so.
+
+"Well, I always heard that husbands was boobs!" he announced,
+sarcastically.
+
+Angela at that instant opened her eyes and took her fingers from her ears.
+Enough time had elapsed, she thought, for the worst to have happened.
+
+"Has it gone off yet?" she naively asked.
+
+"Has what gone off?" from Pell.
+
+"Why, the gun, of course!" Angela replied.
+
+"Gun?"
+
+She looked at "Red." "He had one, and I thought maybe he'd shoot you, or
+maybe you'd shoot Gilbert, or maybe--Aren't you going to shoot him?"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I thought that was what husbands always did!"
+
+Pell smiled. "Not sensible husbands, my dear." Then he faced Gilbert again.
+"To go back to where we were: I will admit that there is a possibility of
+oil in this property. But it is only a possibility." The strain was broken.
+Everyone looked relieved. Lucia moved for the first time--she had been like
+a frightened bird under the spell of a serpent. "I'm a business man," Pell
+went on, suavely. "I'm willing to gamble twenty thousand dollars."
+
+"You will?" cried Uncle Henry. There was no quieting him. His life was one
+long question-mark.
+
+"It's a fair proposition, and, as far as I can see, your only way out,
+Jones." He had paid no attention to the old man's interruption. But the
+latter broke in once more:
+
+"Why don't you lend _us_ the ten thousand and let _us_ gamble?"
+
+Pell was in no wise disconcerted by the query. He replied with another
+question--always the shrewd man's way out of a difficulty, "Would you, in
+my place?"
+
+"Sure I would!" came from the wheel chair.
+
+"Oh, you would--"
+
+"Yes, _sir_!"
+
+Pell had nothing further to say to him, but addressed himself to Gilbert
+again.
+
+"However, if you don't think that offer fair, I'll give you twenty thousand
+cash and assume the mortgages."
+
+"Twenty thousand?" Uncle Henry's eyes opened wide.
+
+"Well, what do you say?" Pell wanted to know, still addressing Gilbert. He
+had no taste for Smith's constant interruptions.
+
+But Hardy broke in, confounded by this talk. He saw himself slipping out of
+the transactions. "If you think you're going to ..."
+
+Pell paid no heed to what he said. "If I were in your place," he remarked
+to young Jones, "it wouldn't take me long to decide. You see, from me you
+get twenty thousand dollars clean. Otherwise, the place goes to him." He
+nodded toward Hardy. "And you get nothing. It's mighty plain--as plain as
+the nose on your face. I'm a plain man, and I don't quibble. I've made you
+a direct offer. Nothing could be fairer. Well?"
+
+Gilbert didn't pause or hesitate a second. "All right. Give him the ten
+thousand," indicating Hardy.
+
+Morgan Pell was visibly relieved. Things seemed to be going his way, just
+as he had planned. Sturgis had been right, after all. He rubbed his hands
+in satisfaction, "And now, to facilitate matters," he said, "if you will
+give us a ten-day option on the place, at a purchase price of thirty
+thousand ..." He went to the table, and arranged pen and paper, and
+motioned Gilbert to be seated and write.
+
+The latter was in the chair at once. "Thank you, no. Twenty," he said, and
+began to write.
+
+"Twenty?" Pell repeated, and stroked his chin. He must be wary; he must go
+cautiously with this young fellow. He would see through him if he didn't.
+"Certainly. Your first offer is the one I take," Gilbert said in a firm
+voice.
+
+Uncle Henry couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You mean you ain't going
+to take the other ten?" he cried, in surprise. Gilbert never looked up from
+his writing. The pen was moving swiftly over the paper. Uncle Henry was on
+the verge of a nervous breakdown then and there. He looked at Pell,
+eagerly. "Give it to me! _I'll_ take it!"
+
+But Pell only said: "Mr. Jones is the owner of this property," and watched
+the young man write.
+
+Angela, like a timid bird, watched the proceedings breathlessly, and moved
+over close to her big father and put her little hand in his arm, "Isn't
+there anything we can do, dad?" she inquired.
+
+Hardy pressed her fingers, and said, in a whisper: "But I'm not sure
+there's oil here. I'm not sure at all."
+
+"But _he_ seems to be," said the shrewd Angela, looking at Morgan Pell with
+his wily countenance.
+
+"Oh, these New York fellers!" Hardy deprecated. "You never can tell!"
+
+Gilbert rose.
+
+"Finished?" asked Pell.
+
+"Quite." And young Jones handed him the option on the property.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+WHEREIN LUCIA SEES TREACHERY BREWING, PELL PROVES HIMSELF A BRUTE, AND AN
+UNEXPECTED GUEST APPEARS
+
+
+When Lucia saw Gilbert pass the paper to her husband, she thought she could
+not stand it. It was not her concern; and yet it was. Vitally, whatever
+affected young Jones affected her. She could not see him tricked, duped.
+And she knew that he was being played with, made a fool of. Some ulterior
+motive lay beneath this seeming generosity. She tried to control herself;
+but suddenly she found herself speaking.
+
+"No! Don't! I can't--"
+
+But she could get no farther. Something seemed to choke her, and make it
+impossible for her to continue.
+
+Her husband looked at her in amazement. She turned away, and was silent.
+
+"Thank you," said Pell to Gilbert. Then, to his wife he said: "And now that
+this is settled, we shall proceed to other business of even more
+importance. This gentle soul," looking at Uncle Henry, "has said that our
+friend loves you and that you love him. Is it true?" He was perfectly calm.
+
+Once more he was the crafty, cruel, scheming man; and back into his eyes
+came that glitter she so feared.
+
+Gilbert, astonished, got to the other side of the table.
+
+"I thought we were through with all that!" he said. "What's the use of
+harping on it?"
+
+"You were wrong," answered Pell, coldly. "I am a business man, as I told
+you before. I do one thing at a time." His lids half closed, his hands
+clenched. He swerved abruptly on his wife. "Well?" he said. "Well?"
+
+"You mean to say," said Gilbert, "that you took seriously what my doddering
+old uncle said? I told you I thought he was crazy, and you seemed to agree
+with me. What are you talking about now?"
+
+Morgan Pell's steel-gray eyes fastened themselves on Jones, "I am talking
+to my wife. I am not ready for you--yet. One thing at a time, you know."
+He looked again at Lucia. "Well? I am waiting. Answer me: Do you love him?"
+
+Alarm at Pell's manner was rife in the room. What a brute he was, and how
+terrible was his verbal attack!
+
+Lucia could not trust herself to speak. She knew she would have to reply to
+her husband's question, and though she knew her answer would be but a
+monosyllable, she could not get it out.
+
+"Well?" Pell repeated, and the word was like a hammer-blow.
+
+"No!" Lucia managed to say.
+
+The husband now turned on Gilbert. "Do _you_ love _her_?" he asked with
+great deliberation, as though he had rehearsed it in his mind for days.
+
+"Certainly not," was the immediate reply.
+
+The silence that followed could have been cut with a knife. Everyone stood
+as though turned to stone. Surely this denial would be enough. Pell did not
+move. A menacing expression came over his face. As though there were no one
+else in the world, he glanced first at his wife and then at Jones, and
+affirmed with quiet deliberation:
+
+"You're a couple of rotten liars!"
+
+Had he been struck in the face, Gilbert could not have been angrier. He saw
+it all now--he was in this man's power, utterly. It had been planned
+craftily, smoothly. And there was no escape for Lucia. God! what he had
+gotten her in for! He cursed the tongue of Uncle Henry, and mentally he
+heaped maledictions on his own head for his gross stupidity. So this was
+how the land lay--this was the path that led to his destruction--ah! not
+only his, but hers! Angry as he was, he knew it would be futile to do
+anything but try, even now, to placate this wretched specimen of a man. He
+had to think quickly. There was not an instant to lose.
+
+"But you said you didn't believe ..." he began; but Pell came mercilessly
+back at him!
+
+"I didn't--then. The time was inopportune."
+
+Uncle Henry clutched the arms of his chair. "Ooooooh! The dirty bum!" he
+yelled.
+
+Pell went on, inexorably. "But now that she herself has admitted it, and--"
+
+"Admitted it!" Gilbert cried, his rage now at the boiling point.
+
+"Yes! By everything she has said and done to-day. My dear fellow," with a
+subtle change of tone, "God knows I am no prude." He smiled a bland smile.
+"But there are limits to what any husband can endure." His lips became thin
+and terrible; his eyes were gleaming slits.
+
+Gilbert was aghast. He saw no solution of this painful situation; no safety
+for Lucia--his thoughts were all of Lucia.
+
+"You don't think that!" he said, "You couldn't possibly think that! Oh, my
+God!"
+
+Morgan Pell sneered at him. "I know what I would have done, in your place
+and with your opportunities."
+
+Gilbert found it hard to realize that any husband could say a thing like
+this in the presence of his wife. It revealed, if anything further were
+needed to reveal, the cur in the man.
+
+"We're not all as rotten as you are, Pell! Don't forget that!" he cried.
+"You're a dog--a low-down dog." It was all he could do not to spring upon
+this craven and pin him to the floor.
+
+"And we're not all as discreet as you!" Pell flung back. "And now, if you
+don't mind," he added insinuatingly, "I'd like to talk to my wife--alone."
+
+Gilbert was consumed with fear for Lucia. "What?" he cried.
+
+"Have you any objections?" Pell said, curling his lip. The irony in his
+tone was unmistakable.
+
+Gilbert moved toward the door. "Why--no."
+
+"Thank you," Pell said; and he threw wide the door leading from the alcove
+so that his host might pass through. He waited for him to do so. Gilbert
+hesitated for the fraction of a second. He looked at Pell, and then at
+Lucia, still lovely for all her suffering. There was nothing to
+say--nothing he could say. He disappeared into the other room, and shut the
+door behind him. Pell immediately turned to the others. "Well?" he said.
+
+"You mean you want us to get out too?" Uncle Henry asked, indignation in
+his high voice.
+
+"That's exactly what I do mean," Morgan Pell stated, firmly. "And the
+sooner the better."
+
+The situation, he felt, was entirely in his hands.
+
+"Oh, very well!" Uncle Henry replied. He pushed his chair toward the door,
+murmuring as he went, "Thank God I ain't his wife! That's all I got to
+say!"
+
+Hardy was still standing in the shadows. He looked at "Red." "What's he
+going to do?" meaning Pell.
+
+"I don't know. I--" the foreman answered. Angela, frightened, followed the
+husky "Red" through the door; and the husband and wife were left entirely
+alone.
+
+There was a pregnant silence. Terror came into Lucia's heart. Her brain
+reeled. She had seen Morgan in a temper before--many times; but never with
+quite this sinister light in his eyes, this tense, quiet force behind his
+slightest gesture. What was he going to say to her? She felt like an animal
+at bay. She determined that she would gain one advantage by making him be
+the first to speak. But as he approached her slowly, fear seized her. He
+seemed no longer a man, just a hulking giant--a brutal, frenzied creature;
+and something quite apart from herself caused her to cry out:
+
+"What are you going to do?" Oddly there flashed into her mind that very
+line, and she wondered where she had heard it. Yes, even in her terror, her
+abject fear, she remembered. It was once when, as a child, she had seen a
+dramatization of "Oliver Twist." Bill Sykes came toward Nancy, just as
+Morgan was coming toward her now, with leering countenance, and the poor
+wretch had screamed out: "What are you going to do?" That scene was forever
+photographed on her brain, and now, from some strange recess, Nancy's
+pitiful words came back to her.
+
+He did not answer. Another step, and he would be upon her.
+
+"What is it, Morgan? Oh, what is it?" She shrunk back, slowly. If he
+touched her ...
+
+But he did not lift his hand, as she fully expected him to do. Instead, he
+uttered only two words. They were a command.
+
+"Kiss me!"
+
+Almost she would rather have felt his blows raining on her head.
+
+"What?" she cried, a new amazement within her.
+
+He glared down at her. His breath was on her cheek.
+
+"You heard," he stated. And he stood stock still.
+
+Frightened beyond believing or seeing, she offered her cheek to him. "But
+I--" she managed to get out.
+
+Pell saw that she was shrinking away again; she could not bring herself to
+do as he willed.
+
+"So!" her husband cried, significantly. Now she realized, in a blinding
+flash, the cruel subtlety behind his test of her. Her head went back; she
+closed her eyes. And then--how she did it she never knew--she raised her
+mouth.
+
+"I don't want to kiss you." It was the refinement of cruelty. "I want _you_
+to kiss _me_. Do it!" His hands were behind his back. He stood straight and
+stiff as an Indian chief.
+
+He watched her least movement. He put his lips very close to her mouth.
+She struggled in that one mad second, and tried to kiss him. She could
+not--she could not bring herself to the act.
+
+He laughed sardonically. The devil himself could not have laughed liked
+that.
+
+"Some women could have done it," he told her, sternly. "But not you, my
+dear...." Fury and sarcasm were in his tone. "So! That's it, is it? And I
+stand blindly by while you and he ..."
+
+Utter madness seemed to rush upon him.
+
+Lucia had backed to the table. "No! I can't. You--you brute!"
+
+Pell watched her, steadily. "Do you think I am a fool? Or that you are more
+than human?" he cried out.
+
+"I swear to God!" she contradicted him.
+
+"Ha! You've had your turn, my lady! Now, it's mine! And after all I've done
+for you, you ungrateful hussy!"
+
+The clock struck three. It seemed an eternity until the little bell ceased.
+Her life with him swam before her in that brief period. All she could utter
+was:
+
+"What are you going to do?" And she clutched her hands in helplessness,
+for she read some sinister purpose in his voice.
+
+"I'm going to do what I once saw another sensible husband do under these
+circumstances."
+
+Lucia's face was ashen now. "What is that?"
+
+A second's pause. She hung on his answer.
+
+"Horses don't know who they really belong to. So they are branded. There is
+no reason why women equally ignorant shouldn't be similarly treated." Every
+word was measured, uttered with fearful distinctness. His hand shot behind
+him on the table, where "Red" had left his spurs. Lucia saw the swift
+movement.
+
+"No!" she screamed, "Oh, no, Morgan, not that!" Her senses reeled. The
+earth crashed beneath her.
+
+But he paid no heed. He seized her fiercely by one arm, reaching far out to
+do so, and, gorilla-like, he had her, this weak flower, in his clutches. He
+pinioned her deftly, and thrust her lovely body back, until her face looked
+upward from the table. With his right hand, he started to tear her
+beautiful face to shreds with the cruel spurs, forever to ruin her glorious
+features, when, as if through a miracle, the door was thrown wide open, and
+a strange figure stood on the sill--a Mexican in a great sombrero, a
+flaming red kerchief at his throat, and eyes that gleamed and glistened,
+teeth that were like the whitest ivory.
+
+He stood, with arms crossed, surveying the scene. If lightning had struck
+the adobe, Pell could not have been more dazed.
+
+He released his wife. "What the devil!" he cried. "Who are you?"
+
+"Hold up your hands!" yelled the bandit, stepping over the threshold. And
+Pell's hands went up, like magic, the spurs jangling to the floor.
+
+There was a noise without, and Uncle Henry was pushed in by a crude,
+foul-looking Mexican, then came "Red," Angela, and Hardy, followed by
+another Mexican bandit, and several Mexicans.
+
+"Who is he? What does this mean?" Pell cried out.
+
+"This is Pancho Lopez!" "Red" Giddings said. Everyone's hands were lifted,
+and pistols were held by the Mexicans, ready to go off at the slightest
+sign of rebellion.
+
+"Pancho Lopez?" Pell repeated, frightened almost to the breaking point.
+
+The bandit, a strange smile upon his lips, and hidden laughter in his eyes,
+knew his power. The situation was one in which he reveled. He gazed around
+him, triumphantly. His legs were spread apart, a cigarette drooped
+nonchalantly from his lips.
+
+"Senors, senoras!" he announced, in fascinating broken English, "you are
+all my preesoner!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WHEREIN THE BANDIT EXPOUNDS A NEW PHILOSOPHY, AND MAKES MARIONETTES OF THE
+AMERICANS
+
+
+"Put all ze men outside," Lopez ordered. Venustiano and Pedro, his chief
+lieutenants, obeyed at once, forcing them to march ahead of them, and
+standing guard over them near a great cactus bush a few feet from the
+adobe. "Leave ze women with me," the bandit continued. "But first,
+Alvarada, you find ze cook. I am 'ongry."
+
+"_Si_," answered Alvarada; and after he had made certain that Pedro and
+Venustiano could handle the three men, one of whom, after all, was but an
+invalid in a wheel chair, he made his way to the kitchen. He knew there
+were two other companions who would help in any emergency. They slunk in
+the background, cigarettes between their lips, guns always ready for
+action. The house was completely surrounded.
+
+Lucia and Angela, left alone with Lopez, revealed the deep concern they
+felt. They watched the bandit as he pawed through some papers on the table.
+With maddening indifference he then lighted another cigarette, and went
+over to the door, looking out at the male prisoners. Finally he turned upon
+them, looked them over, and remarked:
+
+"What a pity. Only two women!"
+
+They shuddered away from his gaze.
+
+There was a noise from the direction of the kitchen, and Alvarada, with the
+miserable little Mexican cook ahead of him, rushed in.
+
+He was addressing him in Spanish: "_Usted si cusinero. Borachi!_"
+
+Lopez gave one glance at the poor specimen who had charge of the kitchen.
+
+"The cook," he laughed. "He is dronk!" He now addressed him directly: "You
+are dronk," he affirmed, and stamped his foot.
+
+Frightened, the boy cried: "No! No!" Certainly he was under the influence
+of the deadly tequila; but when he saw the bandit's face, and realized that
+he was in his power, he became suddenly and miraculously sober. He was
+firmly convinced that his last moment on this earth had come. He knew that
+a man like Lopez never hesitated to shoot to kill. He realized in the
+twinkling of an eye how late it was, how the dinner had been delayed
+through his drunkenness; and this visitor would brook no further waiting.
+He fully expected to be shot against the door. Therefore, to save time, he
+slunk to the entrance of the kitchen, placed himself against the jamb,
+crossed himself, muttered a rapid, incoherent prayer in Spanish, put his
+hands behind his back, closed his eyes and waited for the fatal shot that
+would send him straight to hell.
+
+But nothing happened. Lopez looked at the cook, and said casually to Pedro:
+
+"Not till after dinner," and puffed his cigarette.
+
+"_Despues de la comida_," said Pedro.
+
+"I will make for you!" cried the wretched cook, opening his eyes, and so
+relieved to be still alive that he could scarcely articulate.
+
+"_Pronto_," ordered Lopez.
+
+"_Si, Madre di Dios!_" cried the cook; and fled to his kitchen, tumbling
+over himself in his eagerness to get a meal for the bandit.
+
+There was a pause. What would Lopez do next? Kill them all? In Spanish he
+began, turning to Lucia:
+
+"_Santa Maria_--You come here."
+
+Angela stepped forward.
+
+"You mean me?" she asked, sweetly.
+
+"No!" came the gruff voice of Lopez. "You!" pointing to the frightened
+Lucia.
+
+"Why do you want me?" she asked, moving slightly toward him.
+
+"I would look at you," the bandit replied. He was appraising her already.
+"Turn around." She obeyed, like an automaton, "'Ow old are you?"
+
+She would not lie. "Twenty-four," she answered.
+
+"Ees pretty old," laughed Lopez. "Let me see your teeth."
+
+"My teeth!" echoed Lucia. Did he take her for a horse?
+
+Lopez merely nodded; and, with all the self-control she could bring to her
+aid, she opened her mouth and showed her wonderful teeth.
+
+"_Si_," remarked Lopez, evidently pleased at the sight. "An' now, 'ow much
+weigh?"
+
+"I don't know exactly," Lucia said.
+
+"What's your name?" the bandit went on.
+
+"Lucia." "Lucia!" he rolled the name over on his tongue, and smiled.
+"Lucia!" he repeated. "Ees nice name." Then, "Come 'ere. Come 'ere!" He did
+not wait for her to move this time. He put out his hand and drew her close
+to him. "I would see more of you," he told her. And, to her amazement and
+horror, he lifted her skirt delicately, almost tenderly. Her womanhood
+revolted at his action. This barbarian! She slapped his hand. But Lopez
+paid no more attention to the blow than if a child had struck him. "Not
+bad," he went on, indifferently, referring to her well-turned ankle. "'Ow
+you like to go wiz me to Mexico? Well?" when she did not answer. "You 'eard
+what I said."
+
+That she should be insulted thus! "But--oh, I couldn't do that!" she cried
+out, in terror.
+
+"Why not?" Lopez demanded.
+
+"I'm--married."
+
+"Well, we will not take ze 'usband! Just you an' me. We go to ze
+bull-fight. I rob ze jewelry store for you. We get plenty dronk." She
+shuddered. "Sure! I show you 'ell of a good time. Well, 'ow you say?" He
+glared at her, almost winked, smiled, and let a ring of smoke curl upward.
+
+Lucia turned away, ashamed, mortified. "I never heard of such a thing!" she
+cried. Lopez laughed. "Deedn't nobody ever offer you good time before?"
+
+"Not like this." Lucia thought if he didn't stop soon, she would shriek.
+
+"No? You 'ave been married all your life wiz one man?"
+
+"Yes," she told him.
+
+"My! what a rotten life you 'ave led!" the bandit commiserated her. "But
+ees not too late. I shall steel save you. But you shall not sank me. Shall
+not be so damn bad for me, too!"
+
+Definite terror seized Lucia now. She knew by his tone, by his every
+gesture, that he was not fooling. She had heard, had read, of men like this
+Lopez. They were thick along the border. He meant business. Morgan had not
+exaggerated the danger of coming down here.
+
+"But you wouldn't do that," she cried out.
+
+"Why not?" Lopez said.
+
+"It's--it's wrong!"
+
+The bandit smiled his winning smile. "Whose beeziness what we do if we like
+for do him?"
+
+"Please don't take me with you!" Lucia appealed. Why had Morgan Pell ever
+brought her to this border line? She might have known better than to come.
+It was no place for a young and attractive woman.
+
+"You don't wish to go?" Lopez questioned, hardly believing that any pretty
+woman could resist his charms.
+
+"No," cried Lucia.
+
+"You mean you wish to stay married wiz one man?"
+
+"Ye-es," Lucia faltered.
+
+"Never no life? Never no fun? Ha! If you was old, fat--zen, perhaps. But
+young, beautiful! For why was you born if you no wish to leeve?"
+
+"But I do wish to live!" Lucia cried in desperation; and her hands went out
+in an attitude of supplication.
+
+Lopez appraised her once more. "But when I come along an' show you 'ow you
+raise 'ell and say no. Ees great honor to be took by Pancho Lopez into
+Mexico. Like 'ow you say, ze decoration for ze chest," and he indicated the
+spot on his coat where a war medal might be placed.
+
+Just then, to Lucia's relief, the cook came in, bearing a tray laden with
+chile con carne, bread and butter, and sugar, and placed it on the table.
+His fright was still evident. His hands trembled, his legs shook.
+
+"Ah! Ze food!" Pancho cried. "Good! Put zem zere!" he ordered; and the cook
+placed the tray closer to him. Then he turned to Lucia Pell. "You shall
+wait on me," he told her, as though he were conferring the greatest honor
+upon her.
+
+Angela came close to him, eager again to please him. He merely pushed her
+to one side, and had eyes only for Lucia. "You!" he said, looking her
+straight in the face. He sat down, and scanned the tray, while the cook
+stood in terror, not daring to leave the room, but wishing to God this
+moment were over. Had he forgotten anything?
+
+"I do not see ze coffee," Pancho said at last.
+
+"I get for you!" the cook screamed in a shrill voice, and rushed for the
+kitchen.
+
+"_Pronto_," Lopez said. Then, to Lucia, "Ze bread." She leaned over to get
+a piece for him. He watched her carefully. "Your hand is shake. For why?
+You 'fraid from me, perhaps?"
+
+She admitted that she was afraid--a little.
+
+"And why?" he inquired.
+
+"Because I've heard that you kill people," she bravely told him.
+
+"Oh, but that isn't so!" Angela broke in, fearful that the mere mention of
+killing would bring about a murder then and there. "I'm sure it isn't!"
+Nothing must be said to raise the thought in Pancho's mind.
+
+"Why are you so sure?" Lopez demanded.
+
+"It couldn't be! It couldn't be!" Angela declared. "Anyone so romantic as
+you, so--" And she tried to look her pleasantest. He must be placated, this
+wretched man.
+
+"You are wrong," Lopez informed her, and also the entire room, "I do kill."
+Lucia, who had taken a seat near him, now drew back in alarm. He was quick
+to see her action.
+
+"You need not be afraid," he heartened her. "I shall not 'urt you. That is,
+not yet. The chile--" she dished some out for him, hurriedly. "So! You are
+afraid of me because I kill people, eh?" He leaned back, and his lids
+contracted until his eyes looked wicked and sinister. The spangles on his
+sleeves trembled like leaves.
+
+"A little," Lucia managed to say.
+
+"You sink it wrong to kill?" Pancho wanted to know, gulping down a great
+mouthful of chile, and smattering a huge slice of bread with butter. He ate
+with his knife, like a glutton. He smacked his lips, and wiped them on the
+sleeve of his coat, where the brass buttons gleamed picturesquely.
+
+"You talk of killing in such a matter-of-fact way," Lucia observed.
+
+"An' why not?" Lopez asked.
+
+The cook brought in the coffee-pot and put it on the table.
+
+"Does life mean as little to you as that?" Lucia asked another question.
+This man was an enigma. He was bad through and through. They were as
+helpless as cattle in his hands.
+
+"Life?" Lopez smiled. "To be 'ere--zat is life. Not to be 'ere--" he gulped
+down some steaming coffee--"zat is death. Life is a leetle thing--unless it
+is one's own." He put the big cup down and put in four spoonfuls of sugar,
+stirred it diligently, and looked around him, the wonder of a child in his
+face.
+
+"You do kill your prisoners, then?" Lucia brought out.
+
+"Sure!" laughed Pancho.
+
+Could she have heard aright? "You do?" she cried, and her cheeks took on an
+ashen hue.
+
+"_Ciertamente!_" the bandit stated, as though they were talking of the
+weather. "You capture ze preesoner. You 'ave no jail to put 'im in. You
+pack him around wiz you. If you let 'im go, 'e come back to fight you
+again. So you kill him. Eet is very simple."
+
+"But it seems so cold-blooded!" Lucia said.
+
+"Ah! to you, perhaps! It is ze difference between zose who live in safety
+and zose who live in danger. In safety you 'ave ze bill to pay. You pay it
+and you forget it. In danger you 'ave enemy to kill. You kill 'im an' you
+forget 'im. _Save?_" And another heaping knifeful of the chile con carne
+went into his mouth.
+
+"It's too horrible!" said Lucia; and she turned away.
+
+"Ees life too horrible?" Pancho wanted to know.
+
+"I never knew life was like that!" she said.
+
+"Because you 'ave never really lived," the bandit explained. "Because you
+'ave been always protect by ozzers. I kill only men. And only evil men. And
+when I kill evil man, it make me very 'appy. For I 'ave did a good deed."
+His simple philosophy pleased him.
+
+"But who decides whether a man is good or evil'"
+
+"I do!" answered Lopez, quick as a flash, and wondering how she could have
+asked so stupid a question.
+
+"Oh, do let me pour some more coffee for you!" Angela begged.
+
+"If you wish," Lopez said, indifferently. It mattered little to him now
+who waited upon him. His inner man had been partially satisfied. He leaned
+back in his chair, at peace with all the world. One spurred and booted foot
+was on the table.
+
+"Oh, thank you!" Angela was all smiles. She was making headway with this
+evil man. "Thank you so much," she followed up, and, standing sweetly at
+his left, she poured the brown stuff into his cup. "Lovely weather, isn't
+it?" she remarked. The cook took the pot from her, and went back to the
+kitchen with it.
+
+"_Si_," Lopez said. "Sit down. Sit down." Angela thought of course he was
+speaking to her, and being kind to her because of her girlish attentions.
+So she promptly seated herself. "No, not you!" Pancho said roughly, putting
+six spoons of sugar in this second cup. "You, I mean," indicating Lucia
+once more. Angela pouted, and turned her back on this bad, bad man. Pancho
+never even noticed her. The more opulent beauty of Lucia appealed to the
+sensuous in him. "You," he repeated. "Tell me, senora, 'ave you never been
+to a free country?"
+
+Lucia was surprised at his question.
+
+"A free country?" she said.
+
+"Yes; like Mexico, for instance."
+
+"Don't you call the United States a free country?" Lucia asked him.
+
+He almost roared his head off. "The United--Bah! Ees the most unfree
+country what is. Every man, every woman, is slave--slave to law, slave to
+custom, slave to everysing. You get up such time; eat such time," his hands
+went out in Latin frenzy. "Every day you work such time, every night go to
+bed such time. And, _Madre di Dios_, every week you take bath such time!"
+This was, to him, the ultimate joke. "An' you call it a free country! Ees
+only one free country. Ees one in which man does as she damn please. Like
+Mexico!" he ended.
+
+The women were astounded. They had always thought of Mexico as a land of
+rough-and-tumble, comic-opera revolutions; a place where one must forever
+be on the lookout for trouble; where robbers were rife and the days were
+nothing but a chain of abominations. A sunny, beautiful country, maybe; but
+no place for a God-fearing American citizen to settle. Why, they would as
+soon commit murder in Mexico as go to market.
+
+"Haven't you any laws in Mexico?" Lucia inquired.
+
+"We 'ave--ze best," Lopez was swift to reply.
+
+"But you just said--" Angela started to remind him, and took a little stool
+and moved close to him, seating herself upon it. She did not want him to
+forget her girlish sweetness. Lopez paid no heed to her.
+
+"They are ze best because each man makes them for 'imself. Not like New
+York, where everybody tell you what you cannot do until zere is nozzing
+left what you want to do."
+
+Angela piped up: "You've been to New York?"
+
+"When I was agent for Madero--yes. I live at ze big hotel. I 'ave planty
+money. Ees no damn prohibition. I get dronk. I 'ave 'ell of a time. Sure! I
+see 'im all! New York!" he smiled in recollection.
+
+"And you didn't like it?" Angela persisted, moving her little stool even
+closer to him.
+
+"Like it? It makes me seeck! Even beautiful woman what I see 'ave 'osband
+what is afraid for 'er. Each time I get dronk comes big policeman which 'it
+me on ze 'ead." He smiled at the thought, "When I go to ze teatro, ees
+someone which 'ide under--ze bed. Not even can I step on ze grass
+because--New York! It crush ze 'eart!" He put both hands over his chest,
+and looked up at the ceiling.
+
+"Yes!" exclaimed Angela, her stool very close to him now.
+
+"Ees a prison for ze soul!" Lopez affirmed. "A stupid, seely place, your
+New York!"
+
+"Yes!" Angela agreed again.
+
+"For me New York can go to 'ell just as soon as she damn please!" the
+bandit let out.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Robber!" Angela cried.
+
+"But Mexico! How different!" Lopez said, paying no more attention to Angela
+than he would to a fly.
+
+"I'm sure it is!" the girl said.
+
+To Lucia, Lopez went on: "You shall see! Ze beautiful woman 'ave 'osband.
+But shall I not 'ave beautiful woman?"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Bandit!" Angela put in once more.
+
+"When we get dronk, ees not policeman which will 'it us on ze 'ead, but us
+which will 'it policeman on ze 'ead." Angela chuckled at this. "In ze
+teatro shall not be someone which 'ide under ze bed, but in it! You shall
+see! In Mexico ze heart leap! Ze soul she is free! You can do what you
+want--zat is, onless someone shoot you. Leesten, senora." He leaned close
+to Lucia, who had not ventured to move, "Did you ever know the joy of
+fierce leeving? Did you?"
+
+But she did not reply. Instead, it was the impetuous Angela who answered
+him:
+
+"Yes. I mean, no!"
+
+Lopez turned and scowled at her. "I was not spik to you," he said.
+
+"You weren't!" Angela looked her surprise.
+
+"_Ciertamente_ no!" the bandit said.
+
+Angela was hurt. "But you're not cross with me, are you?" she almost wept.
+
+"No! I am not cross wiz you! Eez zat you annoy me!" And as though she were
+a doll, he pushed her from him, his big hand almost blotting out her pretty
+little face. The stool and Angela fell to the floor. She was furious. The
+devil in her was roused. Chagrined, she picked herself up. Her dainty plaid
+frock was covered with dust. She brushed it off as best she could, and
+cried:
+
+"How dare you push my face, you bad man!"
+
+"You should keep your face to home," Lopez answered, not turning a hair. He
+hadn't meant to be cruel. The incident was nothing to him. When anyone was
+in his way, he always got the obstacle out of it. He addressed the silent
+Lucia, who was horrified at the treatment accorded the innocent Angela.
+"Now that we have all finished eating," he said, delighting in the sarcasm,
+since no one else had had a bite, "we will get down to business." He
+shoved the tray aside, and the cook began instantly to clean things up.
+"Pedro!" Lopez called, taking out a huge ivory toothpick which he
+shamelessly used.
+
+Instantly Pedro was at the door. "_Si!_" he said.
+
+Lopez still spoke to Lucia: "We shall have big time togezzer--at least for
+a leetle while." Then he motioned to Pedro; and his men brought in the male
+prisoners. "You will not worry 'bout being married, once you come wiz me."
+
+Morgan Pell heard this last remark.
+
+"Look here," he said, "that's my wife you're talking to!" Rage was in his
+face. He didn't care whether he was this man's prisoner or not. There
+should be no insults hurled at Lucia--that old, primitive feeling for his
+woman was roused.
+
+"So!" was all Lopez said, turning on Pell, and nodding his head. "Ees nice
+wife--I like her. You do not mind, do you?" His hand touched Lucia's arm.
+"Ees all right. I shall ask no question. You shall answer what I ask. And
+as is my custom, anybody what does not tell ze truth shall be quite
+suddenly--" he paused just the portion of a second--"shot."
+
+Uncle Henry had rolled in with the rest. At this last word his chair
+reared up like a frightened steed. "Shot!" he cried.
+
+"_Si_," answered Lopez, calmly.
+
+"You mean it?" Uncle Henry asked, unbelief in his tone.
+
+The bandit glared at him.
+
+"Should I waste my time listening to sings which are not true?"
+
+"Thank Gawd, I ain't got nothin' to lie about!" was Uncle Henry's relieved
+thought, expressed aloud.
+
+"H'm!" Lopez murmured. "You have given me a idea." He rubbed his hands
+together, and then pushed his big sombrero a little back on his forehead.
+"Better as my own. I shall use it."
+
+Uncle Henry wondered what he had suggested. "What's that?" he asked.
+
+Lopez took on the voice of an orator, or a man in court making an important
+announcement. "If anyone 'ere shall tell me a lie, zen you shall all be--"
+he paused dramatically once more--"shot." The final word rang out like a
+shot itself.
+
+A movement of despair ran through the group.
+
+"Geemoneddy!" Uncle Henry broke the tension.
+
+Lopez turned to Lucia. "All bot you," he graciously informed her. "I 'ave
+ozzer plans for you!" Her hair enraptured him--her youth and loveliness.
+
+The relief she felt at the first part of the sentence was quickly killed as
+the sinister meaning of the latter part rushed into her brain.
+
+"Other plans!" she cried.
+
+"_Si._" He was unmoved by her apprehension. He walked to the very center of
+the room, and looked about him, studying all their faces.
+
+It was as if he were a central pivot and their destinies revolved around
+him. They had no idea what he would say next, and they hung on his words.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WHEREIN UNCLE HENRY CHATTERS SOME MORE, THERE IS AN AUCTION, AND THINGS
+LOOK BLACK INDEED
+
+
+"And now for business," Lopez said. "And remember zat he what tells a lie
+shall be right away shotted." In his excitement he lost the little English
+he had.
+
+"I only hope _he_ tells one!" Uncle Henry couldn't help saying, pointing to
+Hardy.
+
+"You wish him to be shot?" the bandit wanted to know.
+
+"Absolutely!" Uncle Henry was quick to answer.
+
+Angela was horrified. "You want him to kill my dad?"
+
+"I should enjoy it tremendous," Uncle Henry kept right on, and all but
+smacked his thin old lips.
+
+Lopez was interested. "Why," he said slowly, wishing to get at the bottom
+of things, "do you wish him to be shotted so tremendous?"
+
+Uncle Henry had no hesitation in answering: "Because he come to skin us out
+of this place, gol darn him!" And then, as if to save his skin, he pushed
+his chair far into the alcove, and, from this vantage point, watched to see
+what Hardy would do and say. He was aware that he had gotten him in a
+devilish stew. It served him right. He was a robber, a thief, and he didn't
+care what became of him. If Lopez took him out and had him shot at once he
+wouldn't have felt a qualm.
+
+The bandit weighed what Smith had said; then he spoke directly to Hardy.
+"Zis is so? Zis is true?"
+
+"No." The monosyllable was more emphatic than any long explanation could
+have been. A scowl on his brow, Hardy came close to Lopez, fearlessly. "I
+came to foreclose a mortgage I hold on this place. That is all."
+
+But Uncle Henry was not going to see him get away with that. "Tell him why
+you want this ranch so bad!" he yelled. "I dare you!"
+
+Pell now stepped forward. Their predicament was bad enough as it was,
+without having this old imbecile make it worse. "Keep still, you fool! Do
+you want to get us into more trouble?"
+
+"I certainly do," cried Uncle Henry, "an', gol darn it, I'm a-goin' to! Rob
+me of ten thousand dollars, will you?"
+
+Lopez was listening with both ears; and a glint came into his eyes, "Zat is
+true?" he inquired, interested anew. "He has rob you of ten sousand
+dollars? Eh--heh--a good beeg sum!"
+
+"Ask him!" Uncle Henry said. "An' I only hope to thunder he tells a lie!"
+His voice went up on a high key.
+
+The bandit looked keenly at Morgan Pell. "Did you?" There was no reply.
+"You hear me--you will answer--at once!"
+
+"No." Morgan Pell shot out the word, and clenched his fists. The situation
+was becoming hot. This old fellow would have them all dead in a few moments
+if he didn't keep his mouth shut.
+
+A look of triumph came into Uncle Henry's eyes. "There's your big chance!"
+he shouted to Lopez. "Shoot him quick!"
+
+But Pell said calmly: "I paid twenty thousand dollars for an option on the
+place."
+
+"Yes, but you didn't give me the money!" Uncle Henry insisted.
+
+"I was going to," the other replied, not even casting a glance over his
+shoulder.
+
+Old man Smith turned to Lopez. "Oh! You didn't shoot quick enough! I got it
+now! Ask him why he wants the place! Maybe he'll tell another one!" And he
+tittered with glee.
+
+Lopez put the question to Pell.
+
+"I--I--" the latter stammered; but could get no farther.
+
+Uncle Henry was gleeful now. "Get ready!" he yelled to Lopez. "He's going
+to do it! Keep your hand on your gun!"
+
+"I thought," Pell brought out reluctantly, "I thought there might be--oil
+on it."
+
+Lopez was dumbfounded. This was far more interesting than even he had
+calculated.
+
+"Oil?" he said.
+
+Pell looked down. "But I think, under the circumstances, I shall not take
+up my option." The paper was in his hand, and Lopez, seeing it, reached as
+if to take it, when Pell handed the document to him. "In which case," Pell
+informed the bandit, "the place would belong to him," shrugging a shoulder
+toward Uncle Henry.
+
+"What's that?" the latter asked.
+
+"--making him a very rich man indeed," Pell added, significantly.
+
+Aghast at the turn affairs had taken, Uncle Henry could scarcely speak.
+"Well, for the love o' Mike!" he managed to say.
+
+The bandit now turned full upon Uncle Henry, who was still concealed in the
+shadow of the alcove. "Ah! so you would have all ze money!"
+
+"No, I wouldn't!" Uncle Henry protested. "I--" He quickly put his hand to
+his mouth, stopping it like a child caught in a lie. "I mean--yes, I
+wouldn't! Only we ain't found the oil yet. And personally, I don't believe
+there's any here in the first place!" Realizing what he had said, he caught
+himself again. "I mean, it may be here, but--Don't shoot yet! I'll get it
+in a minute!" he begged. He was agitated to the breaking point.
+
+Hardy stepped forward, "Wait. I've a suggestion to offer," he said.
+
+"Yes?" Lopez uttered the word as though he had grave doubts.
+
+"You're after money," the tall, lank neighbor said. "I'll tell you how we
+can make some--make a lot."
+
+"Well?" said Lopez, still far from convinced, and taking things easily.
+
+Hardy spoke more rapidly. "If the mortgage I hold on this property isn't
+paid by eight o'clock to-night, it becomes mine. Keep that paper here until
+eight o'clock, and I'll give you ten thousand dollars!" He watched the
+effect of his words on the Mexican.
+
+Pell spoke before the bandit. "Why, damn you--" he began, to Hardy.
+
+But the latter paid no attention to his insult. He faced Lopez, as though
+he were the only person in the room. "What do you say, is it a go?"
+
+"Wait a minute!" Pell cried.
+
+Lopez faced him. "Yes?" And puffed his cigarette.
+
+Pell addressed both the bandit and Jasper Hardy. "I'll make a better offer.
+Keep _him_ here until eight o'clock, and I'll give you twenty thousand
+dollars!"
+
+Lopez was considering, "H'm," he murmured, and stroked his chin.
+
+Uncle Henry saw a mess ahead. He steered right into the group, crying,
+"Wait a minute. I got a better idea yet!"
+
+"You?" Lopez said, as he might have addressed a moron.
+
+"Yes, this place don't belong to neither of 'em yet!"
+
+"But who does it belong to?" the Mexican wanted to know.
+
+"My nevyer," the invalid said.
+
+"And which is 'e?"
+
+"He's down in the shed--fixin'," the old man informed him.
+
+Lopez turned to Pedro. "Venustiano shall find him. Before he make
+trouble--you," turning to "Red," "shall show 'im where." Pedro had raised
+his revolver; and one look at it was enough for "Red." These bandits meant
+what they said; more, they meant every gesture they made.
+
+"It's all right," the foreman said. "He ain't got anything to lose anyhow.
+I'll show you where he is," and, followed by the sinister Venustiano, he
+went out.
+
+Uncle Henry moved his chair close to Lopez. "Now listen, robber--I mean,
+bandit. You keep both these fellers here and lend us ten thousand dollars,
+and we'll give you a million!"
+
+"A million!" said Lopez, his eyes big.
+
+"The first million we make out of the oil that's here!" "Uncle Henry
+proposed. And, serious as things were getting to be, a smile went around
+the group.
+
+"I should lend you ten sousand dollar?" the bandit asked.
+
+"Absolutely! Will you?" Uncle Henry had the temerity to say.
+
+"I do not lend," was the hard response. "I take." And he turned away.
+
+"But if you'll--" the old man pleaded.
+
+"Your proposition not interests me," Lopez said. Uncle Henry wheeled over
+to the staircase. The bandit turned to Pell. "You offer me twenty sousand?
+Zat is so?" he said.
+
+"Right," Pell replied.
+
+Lopez smiled sardonically, "Twenty sousand--for what is worth millions?"
+
+"But I don't know that there's oil here," Pell argued.
+
+Lopez laughed. "No?" Then, to Hardy, "You? You don't know, eizer, I
+s'pose?"
+
+"I thought there might be--that's all."
+
+The bandit gave a hearty laugh. "Oh!" he exclaimed, almost consumed with
+mirth. "I see I do business wiz business men--wise business men. _Bueno_!
+Now we three business men togezzer, eh? Suppose I shall show you where ze
+oil is. What zen?" He looked around the room, as if he thought everybody
+should be interested; and indeed everyone was. Little gasps came from Hardy
+and Pell, and Uncle Henry wiggled his chair up closer.
+
+"Show us where she is?" Hardy asked, breathless.
+
+"_Si_," Lopez answered.
+
+"There _is_ oil here?" Pell asked excitedly.
+
+Another cigarette went into the bandit's mouth. "Should I waste time
+talking of what ain't?" he drily said.
+
+Hardy was still skeptical. "You know there's oil on this ranch?"
+
+"I 'ave know so for a long time."
+
+"On the level?" said Pell, eagerly.
+
+"'Way down below," laughed Lopez, delighted at his ability to pun in
+English, and making a motion with one hand toward the nether regions.
+
+"You mean it?" Pell continued.
+
+A dark scowl came over the face of Lopez. "Should you doubt my word?" he
+inquired.
+
+"Certainly not," Pell was quick to satisfy him. "Only why didn't you say so
+before?"
+
+"Oil not interests me," the bandit explained.
+
+"But since to you gentlemen it seem so excitable--I 'ave it."
+
+"Yes?" from Hardy.
+
+"Ze little paper. You both want it. _Bueno!_ You shall both 'ave ze chance.
+We will, 'ow you say, 'old ze little hauction."
+
+"Auction?" Pell repeated.
+
+"'E who bids ze 'ighest," Lopez elucidated, "shall 'ave ze little paper and
+shall come wiz me while I show 'im where ze oil she is 'iding." He flicked
+the ashes of his cigarette upon the floor, and sat on the corner of the
+table, one foot dangling in the air.
+
+"Gad!" Pell let out. His hands went together, his jaw set. Things were
+coming out beautifully.
+
+Lopez went on: "While 'e who does not bid ze 'ighest shall stay 'ere wiz
+Pedro until eight o'clock to-night."
+
+Hardy was delighted. "You mean the highest bidder will not only get the
+place but that you'll show him where the oil is besides?"
+
+"_Si._ Is it so agree?"
+
+"I'm for that," Pell said.
+
+"But I--" Hardy began.
+
+"I bid one hundred thousand dollars," Pell quickly cried.
+
+"I'll take it to the courts," Hardy contended.
+
+"Take what to the courts?" Pell wanted to know.
+
+"I was detained by force," Hardy said.
+
+"As long as I get there by eight, what difference does that make?" Pell
+asked.
+
+But Lopez broke in: "One hundred sousand I am offer!" They mustn't
+shillyshally this way. He wanted to keep things going.
+
+"I'll make it one hundred and one!" Hardy cried.
+
+Without a moment's hesitation, Pell jerked it up to a hundred and ten.
+
+"A hundred and eleven!" Hardy pushed ahead.
+
+"A hundred and twenty-five!" Pell yelled. "And what do you know about
+that?"
+
+Hardy was by no means finished. "A hundred and thirty!" he made it.
+
+Uncle Henry couldn't stand it. While they raised each other's bids, he shot
+in between them and managed to say above the din, "And me--gettin' skinned
+not only out of my ten thousand, but a million dollars besides!"
+
+"A hundred and fifty!" Pell was saying.
+
+"A hundred and fifty-one!" the cautious Hardy added.
+
+The face of Lopez was a study; but they were so excited that they did not
+look at him. Angela rushed to her father and clasped his arm when she
+heard his last raise. "That's right, father. Don't let him get it!"
+
+"Don't worry," he reassured her, and patted her little hand, so warm on his
+arm. He turned to Pell. "You city fellers needn't think you can come down
+here and put it all over us."
+
+"Nevertheless," said Morgan Pell, "I'll just bid a hundred and seventy-five
+thousand."
+
+"Then I'll make it a hundred and eighty!" his antagonist stated.
+
+Quick as a flash, "A hundred and ninety," Pell said.
+
+"Two hundred, by darn!" yelled Hardy, furious now.
+
+"Two hundred and--" Pell began; when Lopez, to their amazement, rapped on
+the table with his gun, as though he were an auctioneer and this his gavel,
+"Senors!" he shouted. "It is enough!"
+
+Everyone was dumbfounded, "Enough?" Hardy inquired, unbelieving.
+
+"Too much!" Lopez explained.
+
+"What's the idea?" Pell, shrewder than before, wanted to know. His brow
+contracted. So there was a fly in the ointment, after all!
+
+"Ze idea, my friend, is zis," Lopez calmly stated. "I am not interest in
+pieces of paper. I do not accep' checks. Also I am no damn fool! You sink I
+sink you bring back two 'ondred sousand dollar? Two 'ondred sousand
+soldier, mebbe! But two 'ondred sousand dollar! Pah!" and he made a gesture
+of disgust, and crushed the paper in his hand and let it fall on the floor
+under the table.
+
+"Then what's the idea of this auction in the first place?" Pell asked, mad
+through and through that they had been tricked by this Mexican fool.
+
+Lopez leaned back on the table. "To find out if you gentlemen was rich
+enough to make it worth my w'ile to take you wiz me and 'old you for
+ransom." His eyes half closed. He was enjoying their discomfiture. There
+was nothing he liked more than to spring a surprise like this.
+
+Pell and Hardy looked at each other, real terror in their faces now.
+
+"Ransom!" the former cried.
+
+"It is quite to be seen zat you are," the bandit grinned. "Zis, if I may
+speak so, 'as been a lucky day for me!"
+
+Pell turned to both Hardy and Lopez, and addressed them: "Bluffing, were
+you?"
+
+Lopez was quick to retort: "And was you bluffing when you bidded ze two
+'ondred sousand dollars?"
+
+Hardy was agitated. "I'm afraid we were a bit hasty," he tried to explain
+things away.
+
+This tickled Uncle Henry's bump of humor. He chuckled, and cried, "Ho, ho!
+Serves you both gol darn good and right!" He seemed to go into a spasm of
+laughter.
+
+Pell's chief concern now was to get out of the mess--to get away; to have
+everything settled. Lopez could probably be dealt with, man to man.
+
+"Look here," he suggested, in a direct attack, "can't we settle things some
+way?"
+
+"Yes," the bandit replied. "From my headquarters in Chihuahua I will give
+you pen, ink, messenger-boy--everysing!"
+
+"But I--" Pell started to say.
+
+But Lopez broke in: "You will please listen more and speak less. I 'ave
+decide. You I shall 'old for ransom. And," turning to Hardy, "you; and
+you," pointing to Uncle Henry, "you who 'ave nossing, I shall leave
+be'ind."
+
+Pell and Hardy felt that the game was over.
+
+Uncle Henry, on the contrary, was jubilant. "Gee!" he sang out, "and I get
+the oil, after all!"
+
+No one heeded him. Things were too serious still.
+
+"You wouldn't do this?" Hardy asked of Lopez.
+
+"No?" the bandit asked.
+
+Hardy took Angela in his arms. "But what about her--my daughter? You
+wouldn't take her, would you?"
+
+"Not for a million dollars!" Lopez smiled.
+
+Angela's pride was hurt, "H'm!" she sniffed.
+
+Lopez looked around him. He saw Lucia, and extended his hand to her. "And
+as for you--" he began.
+
+Lucia was frightened. What was to be her fate?
+
+"Yes?" she breathed.
+
+"Life 'as been unkind to you. Too long 'ave you been marry wiz ze tired
+business man. You shall come wiz me to ze land of purple mountains, where I
+will love you myself personal."
+
+This animal! Lucia turned from him in horror. "But I don't want to love!"
+
+"It is not what you want," a new tone came into Lopez's voice. "It is what
+_I_ want. I am ze law, 'ere!"
+
+"Please!" Lucia pleaded.
+
+Pell stepped forward. "Look here!" he cried. "There must be some way out of
+this!"
+
+"Zere is," said Lopez politely. He pointed to the door. "Zat way."
+
+Angela clung to her father's neck. "Dad!" she cried, seeing that he was
+about to be forced to go--perhaps forever. Tears rolled down her pretty
+cheeks.
+
+Pell saw the seriousness of things now, and turned to Hardy in a strange
+camaraderie. "I guess we're up against it," he said.
+
+"Looks that way," the other replied. In their misfortune they were
+curiously united.
+
+Lopez turned to the whole room. "If you are ready?" he said, and snapped
+his fingers as a slave-driver might have done. "Pedro!" he called, "kill ze
+first one what make trouble," indicating the entire group of prisoners.
+Pedro grinned hopefully. "Zey go. _Bueno!_ Zey go--all of zose ozzers. I
+shall follow--wiz my woman." He turned to Lucia, who was standing like a
+graven image near the table. "Come! We shall be very 'appy togezzer, you
+and me!"
+
+They were about to pass through the door--all of them--when a noise
+startled them; and Gilbert, followed by "Red" and Venustiano, appeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+WHEREIN AN OLD FRIENDSHIP COMES TO LIFE, LOPEZ LEARNS A THING OR TWO, AND
+FINALLY MAKES A MATCH
+
+
+"What's coming off?" Gilbert said, looking about him, and not a little
+surprised to find a Mexican and his adherents in his adobe.
+
+Lopez turned and gave him a searching look. A light seemed to come into the
+bandit's countenance. It was as if someone had put a lantern behind his
+face.
+
+"You!" he cried, enraptured. "You ze nephew zat owns zis ranch?"
+
+Gilbert came farther into the room. Everyone now had turned back, stood
+stock still, listening to these two.
+
+"Yes," said young Jones. "I am. What of it?" He didn't understand matters
+at all. Absent from the house for a little time, he had been called back to
+find this medley of people.
+
+Lopez searched his face again. "Tell me you 'ave been in Canon Diabalo
+sometime? 'Ave you?"
+
+"Of course. What of it?" Gilbert was mystified.
+
+"You were there one night, three, mebbe four year ago?" Lopez persisted,
+hoping there could be no mistake.
+
+"I don't remember," was the disappointing answer.
+
+"You remember poor peon was wounded--near bleed to death?"
+
+"What?" said Gilbert, light beginning to dawn upon him.
+
+"You do!" shouted Lopez, delighted. "Where was 'e wounded? Quick! You
+tell!"
+
+"Shot through the shoulder," Gilbert answered promptly.
+
+"It is you! Don't you know me?" He faced him squarely, threw back his
+shoulders, and waited, breathless, for his look of recognition.
+
+Gilbert studied his face. An instant of doubt, and then, "Why, you're
+Pancho Lopez!" he said.
+
+The bandit was overjoyed. "I am! But don't you recognize who is ze Pancho
+Lopez what I am? Look close! Ze clothes, no! Ze face!"
+
+"Good Lord!" was all Gilbert could utter.
+
+"Now you know me?"
+
+"You're the man I found wounded that night!"
+
+"And whose life you save!" Lopez added.
+
+"Well, what do you know about that!" young Jones shouted. He was as
+surprised and happy as the bandit himself. This man, whom he never thought
+to see again in his whole life was standing here, in his own adobe.
+
+"Now you know me!" Pancho went on. "Ah! my frand! 'Ow glad I am for to see
+you some more! Pedro! Venustiano! Ees my friend! Sabbe! Orders like my own!
+Serve 'im as you would me!" He went to Gilbert and frankly embraced him in
+the Latin fashion. "Eet's 'ell of a good thing I reckernize you!" he
+laughed, hugging his old friend close. He could never forget his kindness
+that night so many years ago; and to think he had run across his deliverer
+now!
+
+Everyone was relieved. Their troubles would now be ended.
+
+"And you ain't going to rob him, after all?" Uncle Henry piped up.
+
+"Rob 'im? Rob my frand?" Lopez repeated.
+
+"Ain't you?" Uncle Henry cried.
+
+The bandit looked at him, wonder in his eyes. "No! _Ciertamente_ no!"
+
+"Hooray!" the old man yelled, and would have risen in his chair could he
+have done so.
+
+"Say, who the 'ell is that?" said Lopez, addressing himself to Gilbert.
+
+"He's my uncle," young Jones answered.
+
+"Uncle?" the bandit said, unbelieving.
+
+"Uncle Henry," old man Smith wanted it to be straight.
+
+"He shall go free," Lopez announced.
+
+Hardy thought this a good omen. They would all be set free, no doubt. He
+faced Lopez bravely. "Ah, then it's all right," he said, a sickly smile on
+his face.
+
+"All right?" said Lopez.
+
+"Yes," Hardy said.
+
+Lopez considered for a moment, hand on chin, his eyes again two narrow
+slits. "Not so fast," he cautioned. "It ees all right for 'im," nodding at
+Uncle Henry, "an' all right for 'im," indicating Gilbert; "but for you--"
+He let one hand fly out, and a resounding slap on Hardy's eager face was
+the result. Then he turned to Pedro. "Take them all out--_pronto_! 'Ees all
+right!' Like 'ell ees all right!"
+
+Hardy flushed scarlet. His first impulse was to strike back; but how could
+he? Those guns pointed at him from every direction. He was as powerless as
+a baby. But his hour would come. This dastardly Mexican bandit should
+suffer for that blow.
+
+Yet like one of a line of sheep he was obliged to follow Pedro out of the
+door. It was a humiliating moment. Gilbert and Lopez were left alone.
+
+"Now we shall visit," the bandit said, and put his arm through Gilbert's.
+"Ah! it ees so good to see you, my frand!"
+
+Gilbert was still mystified. "Yes," he said, "but I don't understand how
+you, a peon, became the Pancho Lopez so soon."
+
+"Ah! it ees so easy!" laughed the bandit.
+
+"Easy!" Gilbert repeated.
+
+"_Si._ My frand"--his hand went to Gilbert's shoulder--"ees great
+opportunity, ees revolution, for make speed. When I got well, I find I do
+not enjoy my work, which are 'ard. Business? Business, she make me sick! I
+say for myself, 'What to do?' Zen, suddenly I sink, 'I shall be soldado!'
+Soldier which shall be giv ze 'orse, ze gun, ze woman, and nozzing to do
+but shoot a little sometimes! Ees a wonderful life, my frand!" The smoke of
+his cigarette curled to the ceiling.
+
+"I didn't find it so," young Jones said, and smiled in his dry way.
+
+"Pah! It's too many damn rules in your army. For us who make revolution,
+no! We sleep so late we damn please. We fight some when we feel so. If we
+find ze hacienda, we take all what we choose. When we need money, we go to
+city and rob ze bank--we 'elp for ourselves food from ze store, shoes,
+clothes, candy, ze cigarette, agauriante--" he made as if to drink from an
+imaginary glass--"booze! An' if anybody 'ide anysing we cut 'is fingers off
+so's 'e tell us. She is one fine life! You like for try? I make you
+general! Come!"
+
+His face was radiant. The recollection of his army life filled him with
+joy.
+
+But Gilbert shook his head. "Not for me, thank you," he smiled.
+
+Lopez merely shrugged his shoulders. "So! I was afraid!"
+
+"But how did you get ahead so fast?" young Jones wanted to know. "That's
+what sticks me."
+
+The bandit laughed. "Zat is simple. You see, one day ze lieutenant she are
+killed. Soon I become a lieutenant. Nex' day, ze captain. So I am captain,
+Byme-bye, ze major--so I became major. Pretty damn soon ze colonel--so I am
+colonel. I kill ze general for myself." As he spoke, he lifted the chair
+at the table, and brought it down on the floor with a bang.
+
+"What!" cried Gilbert, at this description of an opera-bouffe army.
+
+"But we shall not talk of me," Lopez said. "We shall spik of you. 'Ow you
+been since I seen you, what?" He tossed away his cigarette.
+
+Gilbert offered him another of his own.
+
+"No, gratias; zat's for peon. Zese from ze swell hotel National an
+Torreon--zay are good. I steal zem myself," pulling out his case and
+lighting another. He pushed his chair so that he could see young Jones
+better. "Well, old frand, how you feel zis long time? Eh?"
+
+"I?" said Gilbert. He smiled a little, and looked significantly about the
+room.
+
+Lopez caught the look. "So?" he said, sympathy in his tone. "It ees too
+bad." He paused, letting the smoke curl over his head again. "Ah! I see her
+now! You are ze nephew of Uncle Henry which owns zis rancho which are to be
+foreclosed by moggidge." Gilbert nodded. "H'm! Zat shall make her all
+different some more! Axplain for me, so I shall know."
+
+Gilbert replied: "There's not much to tell. I borrowed ten thousand from
+my uncle; ten more from Hardy--the tall man, and our neighbor. He's a loan
+shark--you know, in a mortgage. I go to the war. When I come home, cattle
+all gone. No money. That's all." He made a gesture as though the world were
+tumbling about him.
+
+"I see," said Lopez. "And wiz ze strange ideas of your country, it makes
+you feel bad."
+
+"Well, it seems like a pretty good chunk of trouble to hand an average
+citizen," young Jones said.
+
+"Trouble?" Lopez let out the word in wrath. "You are no trouble. You only
+sink you are."
+
+"You don't call this trouble? If it isn't then I don't know what trouble
+is!"
+
+"Not really trouble." He came over and put his hand on Gilbert's shoulder.
+"Only trouble you are made for yourself because you go by law what are
+foolish instead of sense what are wise." He gave him an affectionate pat.
+Just then Uncle Henry wheeled himself in, neither inquiring nor caring if
+he was wanted or not.
+
+"Well, I sure told 'em their right names for once, gol darn 'em!" he
+chuckled. Lopez glared at him. "Pardon me! My mistake!" the invalid
+apologized; and rolled into the alcove. "So, you sink you have much
+trouble," Lopez continued, as though the invalid had not come in to
+interrupt them. The clock struck five. He listened to it, and then said, "I
+have time to spare--" He went to the window and looked out.
+
+"But if you've been raiding around here," Uncle Henry said from his
+seclusion, "won't the rangers be after you?"
+
+"I have ze scouts who watch," the bandit said. He turned to Gilbert again.
+"Suppose I stop here and prove to you who sink you have trouble, zat really
+you have no trouble at all?"
+
+The young man looked at him incredulously. "You mean you can get me out of
+this mess?" he asked.
+
+"Sure! In one half hour," the bandit was convinced.
+
+"Really?"
+
+"In one half hour your trouble go poof!" He made a ring of smoke and
+watched it fade away. "And you shall be 'appy man. If I do zat, what zen?"
+
+"If you do that," said the other, "they'll have to tie me down to keep me
+from kissing you!"
+
+"Good!" laughed Lopez. "She is did."
+
+There was a moment's pause. Then, "But how are you going to do this
+miracle?" Gilbert was anxious to find out.
+
+"Zat is for you to leave to me. Well, what you say?"
+
+"I say yes, of course!"
+
+"_Bueno!_ We begin," said the bandit. He called through the door: "Pedro!
+Bring zem all in again."
+
+Uncle Henry was curious, "What are you going to do?"
+
+"You shall see," was all Lopez answered.
+
+Angela was the first to file into the room. Uncle Henry glanced at her.
+"What are you going to do about her?" he asked.
+
+Lopez looked around, "Her?" he said.
+
+"Her!" repeated Uncle Henry.
+
+"What 'as her to do wiz it?" the bandit inquired.
+
+"Why, she wants to marry him," Uncle Henry revealed, pointing to his
+nephew. "That's what started the whole jamboree."
+
+Lopez looked astonished. "So?" he said.
+
+"Uh--huh!"
+
+The bandit glanced at Gilbert. "But 'e does not love 'er," he said, nodding
+toward Angela.
+
+"Certainly not!" Gilbert was instantly saying, and glared at his uncle.
+The latter, as usual, plunged straight ahead, as the others now gathered
+about the room. "He," meaning "Red," "loves her. _He_," he nodded toward
+his nephew, "loves _her_," pointing to Lucia Pell. "And she loves him,"
+nodding back to Gilbert.
+
+"Shut up! How many times must I tell you to--"
+
+"But she," went on Uncle Henry, just as if nothing had been said, and
+pointing to Lucia, "is married to him," indicating Pell. "Which makes it a
+hell of a mess all around!" He leaned back in his chair as if he had done a
+good day's work.
+
+Gilbert could scarcely restrain himself. Again he wanted to lay violent
+hands upon him--he wished he could. "Be quiet, won't you?" he breathed.
+
+"Not me!" Uncle Henry persisted. "I've gotter tell the truth."
+
+"Yes, but--" Gilbert began.
+
+"I don't wanter get shot," the old man declared.
+
+Lopez turned to Gilbert. "Is it true? You love her?" his eyes going to
+Lucia.
+
+How could he tell the truth? "Of course I do not," he affirmed. Then he
+went close to his uncle. "What did you do all this again for?"
+
+"He says he can fix it," Uncle Henry said. "Let him try. He's done swell so
+far. Personally, I got a lot o' confidence in that feller. He's slick, he
+is!"
+
+It was easy to be seen that the bandit was not satisfied with the answer
+Gilbert had given him. He had been slyly watching both him and Lucia. Now,
+he said, looking at them both: "So!" And old man Smith started to break in
+once more; but Lopez went on: "Is it true?"
+
+"What makes you think so?" Gilbert wanted to know.
+
+"It is in her eyes--and yours," the Mexican stated. "I shall miss her. She
+is very beautiful. However, what is one woman between frands?" He laughed a
+bitter laugh. "You shall have her."
+
+Uncle Henry cried out: "But he can't have her. She's married."
+
+"Ees too bad," said Lopez, nonchalantly. "But nozzing to get excite about."
+
+"Nozzing to get excite about!" mimicked Uncle Henry.
+
+"No. But ees more to be did zan I 'ave sought. But I 'ave promise I shall
+make you a 'appy man, my frand," again to Gilbert. "_Bueno!_ I keep zat
+promise. You have gave me your word zat you will not interfere. Is it not
+so?"
+
+"Yes, but I--" Gilbert hardly knew what to say.
+
+"It is for you to keep zat word as I keep mine," Lopez said. Then, to Uncle
+Henry he went on, "I shall start wiz you. Now, Pedro!"
+
+"_Si_," answered the faithful minion of the bandit, stepping forward.
+
+"Remember," his master commanded. "Shoot ze first one which interrup'."
+
+"_Si_," said Pedro again, and grinned broadly and pleasantly. If there was
+one thing he liked, it was the possibility of trouble with prisoners. He
+knew how to bring them to terms. He had been doing it for years.
+
+Lopez got down to business. "Now, look here, Oncle Hennery: my frand 'ave
+borrow money which 'e 'ave lost? Is zat true?"
+
+"Yes, sir," answered Uncle Henry promptly, and happy to have been addressed
+so familiarly by the bandit. He felt that his triumph was now complete.
+
+"'E cannot be happy until 'e pay you back."
+
+"No, sir," sitting up straight in his chair.
+
+"I shall give you ten sousand dollar," was the bandit's surprising remark.
+
+Uncle Henry thought he could not have heard aright. "Ten thousand--! Yes,
+but where are you going to get it?" he inquired, a bit dazed.
+
+"Do not ask me." He caught sight of "Red." "Ze next is you." He appraised
+him rapidly, and then said to Gilbert, "'E is frand for you, no?"
+
+"He certainly is," answered young Jones promptly. "About the best I ever
+had." He wasn't going to see anything happen to the faithful "Red." He'd
+have protected him with his own life.
+
+Lopez liked this, "You love zat girl?" he said to the foreman, meaning, of
+course, Angela.
+
+"What?" the latter cried out.
+
+"Well, I don't go around advertising the fact," "Red" told Lopez, a bit
+mortified that his heart affairs should be thus openly discussed.
+
+"Ze girl zat spoiled my dinner," the bandit laughed.
+
+"Oh!" cried Angela, who thought she had done so well.
+
+"And she love you?" Lopez went on.
+
+"I don't either!" Angela protested, speaking before "Red" had a chance.
+
+"Now, Angela!" said "Red," his face the color of his flaming hair.
+
+His dream seemed so close. Was it possible that the only girl he ever had
+adored was going to see it wrecked?
+
+Angela weakened a bit at his tone. "I like him," she told the bandit. "But
+I don't--love him."
+
+"Ah! but you do!" Lopez insisted.
+
+"I do?" said Angela, wide-eyed.
+
+"I have so decide!" the bandit stated.
+
+"What?" cried Angela, not knowing what he could be driving at.
+
+"Also you make love to my frand, Senor Jones."
+
+"Oh!" cried the frightened girl now.
+
+"And you have annoyed him in other ways."
+
+"I have?" she wailed, terrified to the breaking point.
+
+"Red" intervened. "Listen, Angela--" he began.
+
+She stamped her little foot, and was peppery at once. "I won't!"
+
+"You don't love him," "Red" affirmed, for her.
+
+"Oh!" Angela burst out, all confusion.
+
+"No more than you loved any of the rest of 'em," "Red" went on.
+
+"Keep still!" the girl cried. "Keep still! I think you're dreadful!"
+
+"It's because they're better looking than me," her slave went right on.
+"I'm the one for you to marry, Angy, and you know it!" He had faith in
+himself at last--she couldn't stop him now.
+
+"No!" Angela contradicted.
+
+"Aw, come on!" poor "Red" begged.
+
+But she stamped her foot again. "No--no--_no_!"
+
+"Say you will!" "Red" pleaded, almost distracted.
+
+But Angela was adamant. "I won't--I won't listen to you another minute!"
+She turned her back on him, blushing to the roots of her hair.
+
+Lopez had been highly amused at the girl's pique and "Red's" honest
+interest in her. He came to his assistance. "We shall be patient. She is
+mad. And mad lady sink not wiz ze 'ead, but only wiz ze tongue." He faced
+the pouting Angela. "Senorita, leesten to me. 'Ow old are you?"
+
+"None of your business!" was the instant answer.
+
+"Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine?" Lopez pressed, smiling.
+
+"Certainly not! I'm only twenty!" She was swift with the denial.
+
+"Ah! I sought so," said Lopez, much pleased.
+
+"What?" Angela said, not understanding him.
+
+"In Mexico you would now be married five years--" the bandit explained.
+
+"What?" screamed Angela.
+
+"An' have six children."
+
+"Oh!" The very thought made Angela ill.
+
+"You are not pretty--none too pretty!" Lopez said.
+
+The girl was now both hurt and amazed. "What's that?" she cried, all her
+feminine anger aroused.
+
+"You will soon grow fat," Lopez continued, looking her over carefully.
+
+Angela pulled out her handkerchief and brushed her eyes. "Oh!"
+
+"Like ze tub!" said Lopez, inexorably, spreading his arms to indicate an
+immense diameter.
+
+"Oh!" was all poor Angela could get out.
+
+"Also, you 'ave ze bad temper."
+
+"Oh! Oh!" Sobs now came from her.
+
+"So, if you do not marry soon, it will be too late."
+
+"What's that?" she looked up, not able to believe she had understood.
+
+"Now, my frand 'ere, 'e wish to marry wiz you. Why, I do not know." Lopez
+grinned broadly. He knew this would be the last stroke. He was right.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Angela.
+
+"Shall he come wiz me to Mexico," the bandit piled it on, "I will give 'im
+planty wives, young, beautiful...."
+
+"Oh!" again came from the distracted Angela.
+
+"But he want you. And so ..."
+
+"You're going to force me to marry him. I see!" She turned to the listening
+"Red." "And you'd let him force you on me, like this?"
+
+"It ain't my fault, Angela," the foreman assured her. "I didn't know he was
+going to do this! You know that."
+
+Lopez issued his ultimatum.
+
+"I am not going to force you to marry 'im. You are going to choose to marry
+'im."
+
+The girl was on the brink of despair.
+
+"Never! Never! Never!" she screamed, and stamped her foot vigorously.
+
+"Ah! my young lady. We shall see." He turned abruptly, and called, "Pedro!"
+
+"_Si_," the faithful one answered, and came to his master.
+
+Lopez then addressed Angela: "I shall not force you to marry 'im,"
+indicating "Red" with a wave of the hand. "I shall insist only zat if you
+do not marry wiz 'im, you shall marry wiz Pedro."
+
+Directly behind the girl stood the fearful Pedro. His face was the dirtiest
+that had ever crossed the border into Arizona. His teeth were sparse, his
+hair a tangled mass of grit and dirt; his hands like violent mud-pies. The
+suit he wore was stained and greasy--he had slept in it for many nights.
+Altogether, he was about the most hopeless-looking individual a girl could
+be asked to look upon. At his master's words, he grinned a fiendishly happy
+grin, spread out his arms as if to embrace the charming Angela, and, if
+possible, press a kiss upon her rosy cheek. But Angela, with one look at
+him, collapsed into "Red's" waiting arms. He seemed like heaven to her now.
+
+"Ah!" yelled Lopez.
+
+"'Red'! save me, save me!" Angela cried in melodramatic fashion.
+
+Pedro, seeing how far from popular he was with the young lady, walked
+disconsolately to the door.
+
+"So! You do love 'im, after all!" the bandit said to Angela.
+
+"I never thought I could love anybody so much!" the girl replied. "Oh,
+'Red'!" And she hugged him again.
+
+"You mean it?" asked the delighted "Red." "You're not saying it
+because..."
+
+But Lopez broke in: "She is saying it because it is ze truth. In pleasure,
+a woman go to ze man she sink she love. In fear, she go to ze man she
+really love.... Well, you really want her? She is yours. And I 'ope you
+will be 'appy. At least, I 'ave done my part." He smiled his most
+enchanting smile.
+
+"You have--you certainly have, and I am mighty obliged to you," said the
+grateful "Red."
+
+"You are welcome. I like you. But remember zis: Eet is your wish--not
+mine.... Don't blame me."
+
+"Red" could stand this now: he had his Angela. And tucked in his big arm,
+he took her outdoors.
+
+As soon as they had gone, Hardy turned to Lopez. "Look here!" he shouted,
+"I guess I've got something to say about this. That's my daughter, whose
+affairs you've been so kindly fixing up, and--"
+
+Lopez gave him one look that closed his mouth suddenly. "Don't shoot,
+Pedro," he said. "Well?"
+
+Hardy cast one eye at Pedro's lifted gun, and got out only one word,
+"Nothing." A meeker man never lived.
+
+"From what my frand tell me, I can see now 'ow you make your money," the
+bandit told Hardy. "You are a robber."
+
+This was too much for Hardy--for any man with a spark of manhood left in
+him.
+
+"I am not!" he denied. "I'm a business man."
+
+"You are a loan fish," the bandit pressed.
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A loan fish! You loan money. And when ze people cannot pay, you convict
+zem and take zeir ranchos."
+
+The lean, sharklike Hardy looked a little depressed at this accusation.
+
+"Well, if they can't pay, it isn't my fault," was all he could say.
+
+"It isn't zeir fault, too, is it?" Lopez was curious to know.
+
+"What's that?" Hardy said.
+
+"So you take ze rancho from my friend, Senor Jones. A nice sort of neighbor
+you are, you beeg fish!"
+
+"I'm not to blame because he's a rotten business man, am I?" Hardy tried to
+set himself right.
+
+Lopez looked at him scornfully. "How do you know 'e is a rotten business
+man?"
+
+"Why, the fact that I've had to foreclose the mortgage shows that," Hardy
+smiled.
+
+"Not at all. Senor Jones 'ave been away to war. He been away fighting for
+'is country."
+
+"Well, that isn't my fault."
+
+"No." There was profound contempt in the little word. "He give up 'is
+business to go away to fight to save you, while you stay be'ind to rob 'im.
+Is zat fair?"
+
+Hardy gave a gesture of disdain. "I'm not talking about what's fair, or
+what's not fair. There's lots of things in this world that ain't right. I
+am doing only what the law allows." He thought this cleared his skirts. It
+was the refuge of every scoundrel.
+
+"I do not speak about ze law," Lopez followed him up. "I am doing only what
+is fair. If I were you, I should be ashamed for myself! You love your
+country?"
+
+"Certainly I do," the other answered.
+
+"Like 'ell! You love yourself!" And Lopez deliberately turned his back on
+him.
+
+"Now, wait a minute!" Hardy begged. He could scarcely have this insult
+added to the host of others. "I do love my country. I'm a good American."
+
+"Yet you would rob ze man who fight for your country! Bah!" The bandit
+waved his hand in disgust.
+
+Hardy saw he was in a bad hole. "There's some truth in what you said," he
+admitted, trying to crawl out. "He _has_ fought for America. And I'm
+willing to do the right thing by him."
+
+"You will?" yelled Uncle Henry, wheeling close to him.
+
+"If I get this place, I'm willing to give him a good bonus," Hardy
+continued.
+
+Uncle Henry leaned forward, all eagerness. "How much?" he cried.
+
+"Say, five hundred dollars," the loan shark generously offered.
+
+"I knew there was a ketch in it!" Uncle Henry said, and rolled back in the
+shadows of the alcove.
+
+Lopez had been listening intently. Now he stepped up to Hardy and said:
+"Senor Santy Claus, now I understand why it is so 'ard for your country to
+get ze soldier. In Mexico, ze soldiers would take all ze money and give ze
+people a bonus ... per'aps." He puffed his cigarette. "I am done wiz you."
+He turned abruptly to Lucia. "Now I shall come to you."
+
+She started.
+
+"You love my frand, Senor Jones?"
+
+Gilbert intervened. He could not stand this. "I don't know what you're
+getting at," he said to Lopez, "nor how you're going to get it. But you
+must see that you can't discuss a thing like this here. It's
+impossible--utterly impossible." He was suffering vicariously for Lucia.
+
+Pell sneered. "Your delicacy is somewhat delayed," he murmured.
+
+"I don't mind business discussions. But there's been too much insinuation
+to-day. I won't have any more of it," Jones said.
+
+Lopez looked affectionately at the young fellow, "But if I would make you
+'appy...." he said.
+
+"I don't want to be made happy at a cost so great," Gilbert affirmed.
+
+Lucia's lovely head drooped, and she moved to the window.
+
+"It shall be but a moment," the bandit promised. Gilbert walked to the
+fireplace so that his face would not be seen. Lopez went over to Lucia.
+"Senora, you do not wish to speak of love. Why?"
+
+"I am married," was the answer.
+
+"And because you are marry, you cannot speak of love?... Eet is strange
+customs. Tell me, senora, what does your marriage service say?"
+
+"One promises to love, honor, and obey, in sickness and in health, till
+death shall part."
+
+Lopez smiled. "All zat you promise?"
+
+"Yes," very low.
+
+"And yet you 'ave divorce!"
+
+"Yes," lower still.
+
+"So zat, after 'aving promise to love, honor, and hobey," he tapped off one
+finger at a time, and looked as if he wanted to get this mysterious matter
+straight in his mind, "until death, you 'ave ze right to break your word
+because ze judge say you can? Is zat it?"
+
+"Y-y-y-yes. I suppose so."
+
+Lopez smoked a moment, looked at the ceiling, and then said, "Well, why not
+break it yourself and save ze trouble!"
+
+"It's the law," Lucia told him.
+
+"Humph! An' what does ze 'usband promise? An' 'as 'e kept 'is promise?"
+There was no reply. "Is plain 'e 'as not. Zen why should you keep your word
+to 'im, when 'e 'as broken 'is word to you? Eh? Why do you not go before ze
+judge and 'ave your promise broken? Why ees it ze custom of your country?
+Why? Why?" He looked bewildered.
+
+Lucia could say nothing. What was there to say? Suddenly Uncle Henry's
+sharp voice was heard: "I'll tell you why!"
+
+Lopez turned to him. "And why?"
+
+"She ain't got no money," Uncle Henry informed the room.
+
+Lucia lifted her face. "Oh, do you think that would make any difference?"
+
+"So!" Lopez was interested, "'Er 'usband? 'E 'as money?"
+
+"He's richer'n mud," Uncle Henry declared.
+
+Pell started to speak; but Pedro stopped him by lifting his gun.
+
+"How much?" Lopez asked, not noticing.
+
+Uncle Henry was bursting with information. "He's worth millions, the big
+bum!"
+
+The bandit's eyes opened wide. "Millions!" he repeated. He looked at Lucia.
+"Yet 'e give nozzing to ze wife. H'm! Senora, tell me.... Does a widow in
+your country get any of 'er 'usband's money when 'e dies?"
+
+Pell, listening intently, drew a sharp breath. He caught the significance
+of the question. His lips contracted. This damned bandit was capable of
+anything.
+
+Lopez paid no attention to him. He asked for enlightenment from Hardy.
+"Senor Loan Fish, do you know?"
+
+Pell ventured to get out part of a sentence. "Say, what the ..." But
+Pedro's active gun came against his ribs, and he paused, as who would not?
+
+"She gets it all--the wife," Hardy told Lopez. "That is, if the husband
+hasn't made a will."
+
+"'Ave you?" the bandit turned on Pell. "'Ave you made a will?" His tone was
+incisive. "Do not lie."
+
+"No, damn you!" Pell in his rage cried out. "But I'm going to, the first
+min--"
+
+"Good!" smiled Lopez.
+
+Pell was puzzled, "What do you mean ... good?"
+
+Lopez did not answer him; instead, he addressed Lucia: "Senora, your
+'usband 'e is bad frand for you. 'E beat you, sometimes?"
+
+Lucia was startled. "Why do you think that?" she asked.
+
+"I 'ave known ladies what are beaten. It is in ze eyes ... as in dogs and
+'orses." He waited a second before he went on, came close to her, and
+peered earnestly into her eyes. "_Si_, I sink your 'usband a evil man." He
+turned on Pell again. "Say, who are you? Your business, I mean?"
+
+"I'm in Wall Street," Pell said, in a low voice. What in God's name was
+this bandit going to do? What was his game?
+
+"Wall Street? 'Aven't you never done anything honest? You go to ze war,
+per'aps, like my frand, Senor Jones?"
+
+"I was in Washington," Pell winced. "A dollar-a-year man."
+
+"You use your money, your power, to escape ze war? So! You are not only a
+skindler, but a coward. While my frand fight, you stay to home, to torture
+ze woman, H'm! I see it all now. Nice boy, you!"
+
+Pell could scarcely articulate now, but he managed to get out, "By God,
+I've had enough of this--just about enough!"
+
+Lopez looked at him coldly, a glint in his eye that should have warned
+Pell. "Do not worry," he said. "You are about through." He turned to his
+friend, Gilbert. "And now, my frand, you shall go." Young Jones did not
+understand him.
+
+"Go?" he asked. "What do you mean?"
+
+Lopez looked at him calmly, "I 'ave much business to do. You shall not
+'ear, nor see, because for you is love, romance! Not business, which are
+soddid. Leave all zat for me, which am a business man." He smiled upon
+Lucia. "As I said, life 'as been unkind to you, senora. Ze silly law ... ze
+foolish custom ... 'ave been around your 'eart, around your soul, like
+chains. But fear no more," he assured her. "For I, your frand, shall make
+you also 'appy." He put his arm around her.
+
+She was fearful of his plans. "What are you going to do?" she cried.
+
+Lopez laughed. "Wait and see. Life shall be yours. And love! Planty money!
+All what your 'eart desire. Now go...."
+
+Pedro started to show them out the door. Gilbert, seeing the movement,
+said:
+
+"But I don't understand ..."
+
+"I shall call you soon," Lopez said. "Zen you shall see. Now go." He got
+between them, and affectionately directed them to the door.
+
+Gilbert turned to him. "You aren't going to ..."
+
+The bandit smiled. "Do not worry. I shall do no 'arm. Only good. Please go,
+my frand."
+
+Lucia and Gilbert, deeply puzzled, obeyed, and followed Pedro into the open
+air. What did this portend? There had been a strange look in the eyes of
+Pancho Lopez.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WHEREIN A MAN PROVES HIMSELF A CRAVEN, A SHOT RINGS OUT, AND THE BAD MAN
+EXPLAINS ONE LITTLE HOUR
+
+
+A heavy silence fell upon the men who were left in the room. The bandit,
+unconcerned, puffed his cigarette. Hardy and Pell felt like rats in a trap.
+Only Uncle Henry was passive. In the tense stillness, the clock could be
+heard ticking on and on. Pell was beginning to crack beneath the strain.
+Suddenly he began to pace the floor, his hands behind his back. No tiger in
+a cage was ever more impatient in his captivity.
+
+"If you want money," he finally got out, "for heaven's sake, tell me how
+much, and ..."
+
+Lopez quickly interrupted him. His fury boiled over at the insinuation. "Be
+still!" he cried. "You will please be quiet. I 'ave business to sink out
+which are 'ard."
+
+Pell was equally angry. "Why, damn you ..." he sputtered.
+
+He should have known better. Coldly Lopez took him in. "I 'ave been patient
+wiz you--too patient. I see zat now." The other returned his keen gaze, and
+for an instant he did not quail; but finally he could stand the strain no
+longer. His eyes fell away, and for the first time in all their bitter
+encounter he felt himself sinking. A terrible uncertainty came over him.
+This Mexican, this beast, was going to do something desperate. There was
+not the shadow of a doubt about that. He must go carefully: he must not
+lose his self-control. To do so would be madness.
+
+Luckily, Uncle Henry broke the tension just then: "Am I going to get my
+money back?" he cried out. And his chair projected itself into their midst.
+
+Lopez faced Hardy, across the table. "Senor Loan Fish," he said, "if my
+frand, 'e pay you ze money, zen ze rancho belong to him?"
+
+"If he pays me before eight o'clock," the other replied promptly.
+
+"Senor Wall Street," the bandit now addressed Pell, "you 'ave ten sousand
+dollar. I want it."
+
+Pell was amazed. "But I--"
+
+Lopez snapped his fingers. Pedro, who came back at that very moment, took
+the money from Pell, and watched his master closely for further
+instructions as to what to do. Lopez nodded toward Smith.
+
+"For 'im," he said.
+
+"For me?" cried Uncle Henry, joyfully.
+
+"I must make my frand 'appy," the bandit said. Pedro gave the money to
+Uncle Henry. The latter grabbed it as a child might have grabbed a cooky.
+
+Lopez turned to Pell. "Now--you is rob." To Hardy he said: "You is paid,"
+and to Uncle Henry, "An' you get your money back. _Bueno!_ Ees finish."
+
+Pell was cynical. "I'll say that's service," he murmured; and a sardonic
+grin came to his thin lips. Perhaps the bandit was joking, after all. But
+damn these jokes that kept one in long after school!
+
+Uncle Henry, however, had a strange apprehension, and wheeled about, facing
+Lopez.
+
+"You ain't goin' to take it back from me, are you?" he inquired.
+
+"No, Ooncle Hennery," the bandit laughed, "she is yours for keeps. Zat is
+all. You may go!" And he waved him out. "And you," to Hardy. "Pedro, show
+zem into ze open space!"
+
+"'Im too?" asked Pedro, indicating Morgan Pell who stood, as though made of
+stone, in one corner.
+
+"_Poco tiempo!_" the bandit said.
+
+"_Debommultalo!_" his henchman replied.
+
+"_Si_," Lopez smiled. And Pedro got the invalid and the lanky Hardy through
+the door, as a woman might have swept two geese from her path.
+
+Left alone with the bandit, Pell remarked:
+
+"Look here, there must be some way to settle this thing." But he had grave
+fears.
+
+"To zat, I 'ave come at last," the bandit replied with an emphasis that
+could not be mistaken.
+
+"You have?" Pell's voice was weak.
+
+"It shall cost me planty money. I could 'ave tooken you wiz me for
+ransom--'elluva big ransom--a million dollar, mebbe. But I am not soddid!"
+He laughed, and rubbed his hands together.
+
+"You aren't going to hold me for ransom?" Pell questioned, relief in his
+voice.
+
+"No."
+
+"What--what are you doing to do?"
+
+The reply was as swift as an arrow. "Kill you."
+
+Pell did not believe what he heard.
+
+"Kill me?" he repeated, his head on one side, like a bird listening, and
+pointing to his chest.
+
+"_Si._" Lopez had never used a politer tone.
+
+"You--you're joking." There was a crack in Pell's voice.
+
+"Joking?"
+
+"You must be!" huskily. "I thought so all along--now I'm sure of it."
+
+The bandit faced him, and threw his cigarette over his shoulder in the
+chimney-place. "Do I look like a joker?"
+
+"You sit there, like that, and talk of killing me in cold blood?"
+
+Lopez took him in through half-closed lids. "I do not like you. Nobody like
+you. Alive, you are no good. Dead, you make two people which I love 'appy.
+You get me, Senor Wall Street?"
+
+"Oh, I see," cried Pell, wildly, and doing his best to keep his legs from
+giving way, "you would kill me so that my wife can marry this Gilbert
+Jones?" A sickly smile curled around his mouth.
+
+Lopez nodded. "_Si, senor._"
+
+"If that's all, I'll give her a divorce!"
+
+"You weel give her a divorce?" Lopez repeated, pretending to be much
+interested and pleased.
+
+Pell saw a gleam of hope through the darkness of this moment. "Yes," came
+breathlessly from him. "Then she can marry him. Don't you see? If that's
+all you want--he can have her." He was shaking now in every limb. Escape
+was almost his. He knew he could not be done away with. "I'll give her to
+him!" He staggered toward Lopez, "I will! I swear I will!" he screamed, his
+words reaching a high falsetto.
+
+Lopez rose. "I would look at you once before I shoot," he said slowly, and
+took in the other's cringing form.
+
+"What?" Pell said.
+
+Disgust was on the features of the bandit--contempt and unbelievable
+loathing.
+
+"I 'ave met mans which would not fight for zeir money," he said with great
+deliberation, his lip curled. "I 'ave met mans which would not fight for
+zeir lives. But I 'ave never before met ze man which would not fight for
+'is woman."
+
+Pell saw that he was doomed now. He made one final desperate attempt. "But
+if you--shoot me--you'll be hanged!"
+
+"Ha!" laughed Lopez. "If I am ever caught, I shall be 'anged many times!"
+
+"I'm an American citizen!" shrilled Pell.
+
+"I 'ave kill many American citizens," replied Lopez, without the slightest
+compunction.
+
+Pell wrung his hands. "My Goverment will pursue you!"
+
+"You are mistaken. Your Government will watchfully wait. We kill American
+citizen. Your Government write us beautiful letter about it.... But we have
+waste time!" He drew his gun.
+
+As Lopez leveled the weapon. Pell all but dropped on his knees. "Wait!" he
+cried. "I'll give you money! Plenty of money! A million dollars! Yes, two
+million!" It could not be that so shameful a fate was to be his.
+
+"It is not zat we want money," the bandit replied. "It is zat we _don't_
+want _you_."
+
+Terror seized poor Pell. "But for God's sake," he wailed, "you wouldn't do
+that! You couldn't! Without even a chance for my life. At least fight me
+fair!" His voice seemed far away to him--like the voice of another being
+from a distant world.
+
+"Fair?" Lopez rolled the word over.
+
+"Give me a gun, too!" the fool prayed.
+
+"Give you a gun! Pedro!" The man had evidently been just outside the door,
+and came in at once. "Pedro, you 'ear?" And Pedro grinned.
+
+"Yes! Give me a chance!"
+
+"I shall never understand ze American idea. I give you a gun, you say?"
+
+"Yes! That's the least you can do!" Pell was weeping now.
+
+"But if I should give you a gun, you might shoot me wiz it!" Lopez laughed.
+
+"You won't?"
+
+"I am no damn fool!" the bandit cried. And he deliberately raised his gun
+again.
+
+"You're not going to kill me? No! for the love of God, don't!" He plunged
+forward, groveling at Lopez's feet. A woman in a melodrama could not have
+begged harder for mercy. "Spare me!" were the words that fell from his
+pitiful lips. "For God's sake, spare me! I'll do anything! Go anywhere! He
+can have her! You can have her! Her, and all the money I've got, if only
+you'll spare my life!"
+
+The bandit looked down in utter disgust at the cringing form. Never had he
+seen anything in the world that he detested more. Pell's fingers were on
+the bandit's boots.
+
+"I did not know zat even a dog could be so yellow," he said. Then he
+turned to Pedro. "I do not 'unt rabbits. You kill 'im, Pedro." And he would
+not look again on the miserable specimen of a man that wallowed there on
+the floor.
+
+"Ah! for the love of God!" came from Pell, who had half risen. At that
+instant Pedro shot from his hip at the debased creature. The form stiffened
+and collapsed like a bag, falling partially under the table.
+
+"It is a good deed," said Lopez, turning. "He was evil man."
+
+The shot had been heard without. "Red," Gilbert, Hardy, and a few Mexicans
+rushed in at the sound.
+
+"Who shot?" cried the former.
+
+"Pedro," said Lopez.
+
+"But what was he shooting at?" "Red" asked.
+
+Lopez smiled. "Only ze 'usband."
+
+"What!" cried "Red." He turned and saw the body of Pell lying sprawled on
+the floor, and horror came over him. "You've killed him!" His voice was
+husky.
+
+"I 'ave. Most enjoyishly!" said Lopez, lighting a cigarette.
+
+Gilbert went over and stared down at the mute frame. "He's dead," he
+announced. "Completely. Pedro never misses," was the bandit's only
+comment.
+
+"But to kill a man--like that! In cold blood!" Hardy gasped. "Oh, it's
+horrible!"
+
+"Why not?" Lopez wanted to know. "Ze skindler, ze coward what beat his
+wife. Was evil man." What white-livered folk these Americans were!
+
+Gilbert looked down at Pell's body, which had now, in death, a certain
+curious dignity. "But don't you see what you've done?"
+
+Lopez looked at him in bland amazement. "You wouldn't still fool around wiz
+ze foolish law, ze silly court?" he inquired. "Do you not see 'ow much
+better is my way? One hour ago you 'ave no money, no rancho, no woman. One
+little hour! Ze money she is paid, ze rancho she is yours, and ze woman
+what you want to marry is free for do so!" He looked Gilbert in the eyes,
+and came close to him. "Tell me, 'ave I not keep my promise? 'Ave I not
+make you, in one little hour, a 'appy man?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+WHEREIN THE BAD MAN CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE GOOD MAN AND DISAPPEARS; AND A
+DEAD MAN STIRS
+
+
+Immediately after, Lucia came in. She saw the body of her husband, the legs
+drawn up a bit, the arms stretched out, the wounded head turned so that the
+blood flowing from the forehead could not be seen. Only a few moments
+before, this limp, pitiful object had been speaking to her--calling her by
+name. It seemed incredible that Pell was powerless now to harm her. Brute
+though he had been, he gained, in this awesome instant, a strange glory, as
+the dead always do. The splendor of that universal experience was suddenly
+his; and, even lying there like a discarded meal-sack, he took on something
+of the pomp of a cardinal who had died. Never, of course, had she respected
+him more; and though she could not bring herself to shed a tear, she
+looked down at the still body, huddled in a heap, and craved one more word
+with him. No matter what has happened between a man and a woman; no matter
+what tragic hours they have known, when the moment of separation comes,
+there is always that wish to have explained a little more, to have taken a
+different course in all one's previous actions. It was not that she blamed
+herself; she had nothing on her conscience. But there was an instinctive
+dread at meeting the certain pain of this crisis.
+
+She could not believe that he had gone from her like this. She had read of
+people being blotted out in such fashion; but that Fate should bear down
+upon her household, that the lightning should strike within the borders of
+her garden, seemed impossible. Like everyone else, she never dreamed that a
+great tragedy could come to her. Just as we never think of ourselves as
+meeting with a street accident, so she never thought of this catastrophe.
+Yet there he lay, the symbol of that inexorable terror that moves through
+the world.
+
+She went over quietly to a chair near the table and sat down. She hid her
+face in her hands. She did not wish to see that silent form again; yet he
+had been her husband, and her place, she knew, was by his side, in death
+even more than in life. How the world had changed for her in this little
+hour!
+
+She had come into the room just as Pancho was finishing his talk with
+Gilbert; and she caught the force of his words. Now she heard him saying
+something else.
+
+"And now, what you say? You all 'appy, eh?"
+
+Gilbert was still too dazed to understand. "You've killed him!" was all he
+could utter.
+
+"I 'ave," the bandit answered. "You need not thank me. It was a great
+pleasure." Evidently he smiled; Lucia would not look up.
+
+Gilbert paced the floor. "He's dead!" he kept repeating, as though to brand
+the truth upon his brain. "He's dead!" He paused once and stared down again
+at the body.
+
+"He's dead, just as I say," Lopez stated. "Pedro never misses."
+
+As though he had heard his name spoken, the ubiquitous Pedro ambled in,
+slowly, and with a bored expression upon his ugly countenance.
+
+"Azcooze, my general," he said. His chief turned. "It is ze damn ranger.
+Zey is after us some more."
+
+Lopez never turned a hair. Lucia heard him say: "It is time. I was
+agspectin' zem. Ze 'osses?"
+
+"Zey are ready," Pedro informed him.
+
+Pancho paused and considered a moment. "Zey come from ze souse, zose
+rangers?"
+
+"_Si_," was the quick answer.
+
+Lopez rose. "Felipe Aguilaw becomes more hefficient hevery day. I shall
+make general of 'im yet. _Bueno_, we go."
+
+"Red" had gone over and looked out of the window. Twilight had definitely
+come, and the sky was a great sheet of flame. Orange, pink, purple, and
+red, the clouds shifted over the face of the dying sun. A king going down
+to his death could not have passed in greater glory. While men and women
+fought their little battles, waged their puny quarrels, this stately
+miracle occurred once more. Unmindful of the grief of mortals, the day was
+about to pass into the arms of the waiting night.
+
+"What's it all about?" "Red" asked, turning from the wonderful scene
+without to the frightened people within.
+
+"It is ze ranger what chase me some more again," smiled Lopez. He seemed
+wholly unconcerned.
+
+"Texas rangers after you?" asked "Red," startled.
+
+"_Si!_" laughed Lopez.
+
+"And you don't even get excited?"
+
+"For why? It is not my habit. I give not a damn for any man." He snapped
+his fingers, as though at life itself.
+
+Two horses could be seen through the door. The men were bringing them up to
+their leader. "We should take our time--is no hurry." He took his big
+sombrero from the peg where he had put it long ago, and turned to Gilbert.
+"Well, I go now. _Adios_, my frand."
+
+"Wait a minute," the other tried to detain him. "You've killed him. You
+wouldn't go and leave things this way, would you?"
+
+"As I say, no trouble for me," Lopez boyishly said, and smiled, shrugging
+his broad shoulders.
+
+Gilbert was astonished. "Yes; but how about me?" he wanted to know, "You do
+not think of that."
+
+The bandit turned, amazed. "What ze matter? Are you not satisfied? You all
+what you say: zit--zot--zet!" He pinched his fingers, and made a funny
+little noise.
+
+"I can't think," said Gilbert, sitting down, one hand on his forehead.
+"It's all so strange, so confusing to me. The world seems to be rocking
+beneath my feet. What does it all mean--this life we live for so brief a
+time? What does anything mean?"
+
+Lopez came over to him and put his hand on his shoulder affectionately.
+"You Americanos so queer," he said, "For why you waste time thinking? Are
+you not rich? 'Ave you not ze beautiful lady to love like 'ell yourself
+personal?"
+
+Gilbert jumped up. He thought he would go mad if this sort of thing kept
+up. "Good God, man!" he cried. "After what you've done, you can talk like
+that?"
+
+"What have I done?" inquired the bandit, blandly. "Well, _what_ I done?"
+
+Gilbert looked at him in amazement. "You killed him! That's all."
+
+Lopez smiled. "Sure!" He let the word loiter on his tongue. He pulled it
+out like so much molasses candy. "I killed him--sure. Was in ze way. What
+else could I do?"
+
+"You've put a barrier between us. We're of a different brand, a different
+calibre. Don't you see?"
+
+"Ees no way for pliz you. If I do not kill ze 'usband, ees all wrong. If I
+do kill ze 'usband, ees all wrong. Say," he looked at him in confusion,
+"what ze 'ell shall I do wiz ze damn 'usband, anyway?" He puckered his
+brow.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," Gilbert said in desperation. What was the use in
+arguing with this barbarian? Yes, he was a barbarian--nothing else. They
+were miles apart. Centuries of belief and training separated them.
+
+"You don't know?" Lopez said. "Pretty soon you find out. It surprise you
+now. But pretty damn soon when all shall go and leave you alone wiz 'er,
+you shall be sensible, too--like Mexican. To live is more strong as law.
+Wait and see, my frand, wait and see!" He shook his head mysteriously.
+
+Pedro stepped forward. "Here is a pistol," he said to his master in
+Spanish.
+
+Lopez looked at him. "Ah, _gratia_, Pedro!" He took the weapon from him and
+patted him on the back. Then he whispered something in his ear, handed it
+back, and Pedro gave it to Gilbert.
+
+"Ze ranger. Zey come," he said as he did so.
+
+"_Bueno._ I go," said Lopez, and started toward the door. Then he turned to
+Gilbert. "_Astuavago adios._ Maybe we will meet again, maybe no. _Quien
+sabe?_" He waved his hand, gave one last look at Pell's limp form, and
+cried, "_Adios!_" He was gone--vanished like a ghost.
+
+They all were mute in the little room. They heard the hoof beats of the
+horses as they galloped away. Fainter and fainter grew the sound. Then
+silence. And meanwhile the great night was falling like a curtain around
+them all. Through the doorway came the last beautiful beams of the sun. The
+mountains were like giant sentinels, row on row, unbelievably near in the
+semi-darkness. Far off, now and then, a bird could be heard calling. Soon
+darkness would envelop the earth, and this day of doom would be gone
+forever. Never might they see Pancho Lopez again. Gilbert would go north;
+and Lucia--He could not think.
+
+Hardy broke the silence. He came over and looked down at Pell. "We can't
+touch him till the coroner gits here," he said grimly. There were, as
+always, ghastly details to be attended to.
+
+"But I better make sure," said "Red," kneeling beside the body. "Right in
+the head. Not a chance." He was peering down at the gaunt face. "No, not a
+chance when you get it there."
+
+Angela, hearing something outside, had rushed to the door and looked into
+the growing darkness. "I thought--What was that?" she exclaimed.
+
+They all listened. Far off a shot could be heard--then another. But it must
+have been miles away.
+
+"Red" sprang up. "Rangers!" he cried. "They're shooting!"
+
+"Where are they?" Hardy asked.
+
+"In the arroyo," "Red" replied. He was at the window, looking out. "You'll
+see 'em in a minute."
+
+The sound of shots came nearer. It was as though a miniature army were
+storming the section near the adobe.
+
+Uncle Henry, sitting in the alcove, was terrified. "What's that?" came his
+piercing voice.
+
+"They see him!" cried "Red."
+
+"Do you think they can hit him?" Angela cried.
+
+"Red" was certain they could not. "There ain't a chance, at that range," he
+said.
+
+But Uncle Henry was not so sure. "Mebbe they might, by accident."
+
+"Red" turned. "Accidents don't happen in Arizona--leastwise not with guns."
+
+The horses' hoof beats came nearer. Yet in all the excitement, Lucia did
+not move. She was keeping her silent place by the body of Morgan Pell. She
+did not even raise her head.
+
+"Here they come!" cried Angela, leaning out the doorway.
+
+"Red" had gone out of the room; but he came back now. "Better get inside,"
+he warned them all, definite fear in his voice. "We're in range. It's
+pretty dangerous. As I said, accidents don't happen down in this country."
+
+"But I want to see!" cried Angela, dancing with excitement now.
+
+"Red" was distracted. "Please come in, Angela," he begged. More shots were
+heard. He was frightened for everyone. He had lived too long down here not
+to know the meaning of such desperate shooting. "What the h----" Two
+bullets came through the window, and smashed a little mirror that hung on
+the wall near the staircase. The bits of glass fell to the floor with a
+loud crash.
+
+"What's the matter?" came the terrified voice of Uncle Henry. His hands
+clung to the wheels of his chair. But he did not budge it.
+
+"Red" had not been able to dodge a shot. "Right through the hat!" he cried,
+and waved his Stetson. Sure enough, a bullet had gone clean through his
+headgear. Had he lifted his face a few inches higher, he would have been
+shot himself.
+
+More hoof beats. Yet Lucia never moved.
+
+"Bullet?" asked Hardy.
+
+"Yes," "Red" replied. "And it was spang new--this hat. Cost eighteen
+dollars!" He was still looking at the tattered Stetson.
+
+"Oh, it might have hit you!" Angela cried and embraced him.
+
+"Told you we'd better keep inside!" "Red" said.
+
+"You bet--until they go by," Hardy agreed.
+
+"Red" stepped forward. "Back, everybody!" he ordered. He pushed everyone
+farther back into the room, until they were all crowded in one corner.
+Uncle Henry was trembling like a leaf. How he wished he had never been
+brought to this strange country! Oh, for the peace of Bangor, Maine!
+_There_ was a place for you! Down here it was all shooting, killing, and
+desperate trouble. Having escaped one crisis, was it possible the fates
+were to be so unkind as to put him in the way of another, from which there
+might be no extrication? Curse the luck, anyhow. Gol darn it!
+
+The hoof beats came nearer and nearer. There were more shots. A man
+dismounted near the door. Then a man on horseback galloped up to the very
+entrance of the adobe. There was a general movement without, but no one
+ventured to go out and see what had happened. They could hear voices,
+sharp commands, and far off one more shot. Someone cried, "Keep on after
+him, boys!"
+
+A ranger came in. He was an angular fellow, with a bushy mustache, and eyes
+like a ferret. His gun was on his hip, and one hand never left it. His name
+was Bradley. Gilbert knew him well. Often had he met him in the hills. He
+was known as one of the best shots of all that company of men who pursued
+criminals and bandits through the State, and drove them over the border.
+Few escaped him; and he had a train of lieutenants who adored him. A born
+fighter, a born pursuer of men, who loved his desperate life, and gloried
+in his conquests. Some called him Bradley the Inexorable. He seldom missed
+a shot; and God help those who came into his power.
+
+"We're after Lopez," he said breathlessly. "Been here?" He never wasted
+words.
+
+"Yes," Hardy answered. He looked toward Pell's body.
+
+Bradley's quick eyes followed his. "Hello! what's that? Wounded?" he asked.
+
+"Worse--he's dead," Hardy replied.
+
+Bradley stepped close to the still form. "Who did this? Lopez?"
+
+"Yes," from Hardy.
+
+"Got it in the head, eh?" the ranger went on, looking down at Pell, but
+with no pity in his face. He was too accustomed to death. A man who had
+been killed was just another "case" to him--one of an endless row of
+corpses.
+
+Angela came up to the table. "He's really dead?" she breathed, and clung to
+"Red's" big arm.
+
+"Who was he?" Bradley inquired.
+
+Hardy motioned to the mute Lucia, sitting so quietly in the chair. "Her
+husband. Name's Pell."
+
+"Sorry for you, lady," said Bradley, perfunctorily, as he might have said
+"Good-morning." He turned now to go. "Don't touch him till the coroner
+comes," he commanded. "Mind what I say."
+
+"But officer--" began Hardy.
+
+"Can't stop," Bradley waved him aside. "Now we _gotter_ get him." He went
+out as swiftly as he had come in. Every instant was precious. There was not
+a second to be lost.
+
+And still Lucia did not stir a muscle. It was as if she had been turned to
+stone. A silence fell upon them all. "Red" sat down on the little
+window-seat, his Angela beside him. Hardy tried to smoke. They could hear
+the clock ticking on and on--that little clock which had heard so much as
+its hands moved around the dial during the last few pregnant hours.
+
+Suddenly Uncle Henry, who had been looking at Morgan Pell's huddled form,
+cried out;
+
+"Hey, what's comin' off?" Had the darkness deceived him?
+
+"Red" jumped at the question. "What's the matter?" His nerves were on edge.
+
+"He moved!" cried Uncle Henry, excited now, and rising in his chair, which
+he wheeled out into the room.
+
+"Moved!" cried "Red." "You're crazy! He's stone dead, if ever anyone was."
+
+"I seen him--I swear I seen him!" Uncle Henry's eyes were almost popping
+from his head. "Why didn't someone do something? Why didn't they see what
+he saw? Oh, to be able to walk, and not sit forever like a dried mummy in
+this chair!
+
+"But how could he have moved?" "Red" exclaimed. "He's dead, I say!"
+
+"I don't know how he could!" Uncle Henry cried, "but he did! Look at him!"
+He could scarcely control himself now.
+
+"Maybe Lopez didn't kill him after all," "Red" said, and knelt down to
+examine Pell's body again.
+
+"Now don't tell me that!" Uncle Henry yelled. "Ain't we got trouble enough
+here without him comin' back?" He could have stood any calamity, it seemed,
+but the return to life of this wretched Morgan Pell.
+
+"By golly!" "Red" exclaimed, on his knees, his hand on Pell's white face.
+
+"Was I right?" Uncle Henry said.
+
+"Red" rose slowly. His voice was almost a whisper. "He's alive!" he
+breathed.
+
+Gilbert, who had not taken Uncle Henry's word seriously, could not doubt
+"Red's" verdict.
+
+"Alive!" he said. "Oh, it can't be!"
+
+For the first time Lucia moved. Her lips opened. "Alive!" she managed to
+say. Again the world crumbled for her.
+
+"It was only a flesh wound," "Red" said. "The bullet just grazed his head."
+
+Lucia looked up. She was ashen. She was older, and her eyes seemed to have
+lost their fire. "He's--really--alive?" she got out. She stared down at her
+husband.
+
+"They should of shot 'im in the stomach!" Uncle Henry stated. What a mess!
+What rotten luck, ran through his weary brain.
+
+Pell's foot moved again. Then his arm went up; and slowly he rose on one
+elbow, pushed away the tablecloth that touched his head, and looked about
+him. He was like a man awaking from a sound slumber. He was dazed,
+mystified. In the almost complete darkness, he could not distinguish faces.
+
+"What was it? What happened?" he inquired, in a hollow voice--a voice from
+the tomb!
+
+No one answered. They were all terror-stricken.
+
+"I can't remember," the hollow voice went on. He fell back on the floor. He
+was weak from the loss of blood. "Red" lifted him up, and helped him around
+the table to a chair.
+
+Lucia's eyes never left Morgan Pell's face. Was she dreaming? Was this some
+madness that had come to her? This brute come back to life! It was
+unbearable, unbelievable. She could not adjust her mind to the situation.
+But with true feminine instinct, she found herself leaving her chair where
+she had sat so long, going to the kitchen and getting a cup of water. Then
+she knew, in some strange way, that she had fetched a bowl, and a towel.
+These she placed on the table. Still she looked at her husband, as though
+he were a ghost--as, literally, he was. They had thought him dead--gone
+forever. Now he was back among them, speaking, moving. Incredible! One hand
+went to her face. She dreaded the thought of Morgan's seeing her.
+
+It was Uncle Henry who broke the awful tension.
+
+"You was shot!" he cried, to Pell.
+
+The other looked at the old man in the chair. "Shot?" he said.
+
+"Yes, and a rotten shot it was, too!" Uncle Henry was not afraid to say.
+"Gol darn it all!"
+
+The moment was too tragic for anyone to smile.
+
+"Who shot me?" Pell asked. He was very weak. He put the towel in the bowl
+of water, and pressed it to his forehead.
+
+"A friend of mine!" cried Uncle Henry.
+
+Gilbert glared at the old man. No one could be forgiven for a remark like
+that.
+
+"I remember, now," Pell murmured. "The bandit."
+
+"And a gol darn nice fellow, too," Uncle Henry went on. "A little careless,
+but--"
+
+Pell looked startled. The towel fell from his hand and he looked about him.
+"He's not here still!" he cried, as one just coming out of a stupor to a
+full realization of his surroundings.
+
+"No, worse luck!" Uncle Henry said.
+
+"He's gone?" Pell said.
+
+"The rangers came," Hardy explained.
+
+"Texas?" from Pell.
+
+"Yes, gol darn 'em!" Uncle Henry let out.
+
+Lucia, who had been watching Pell's face every second, now offered him the
+bowl of water with her own hands, and drew closer to him. She picked up the
+towel that had fallen to the table, and folded it, then dampened it. Pell
+looked up and saw her for the first time.
+
+"Oh, so there you are, my dear!" was his cynical greeting.
+
+Lucia still stared at him. "I thought--I thought--you were dead," she
+murmured. Her voice sounded far away to her. It was scarcely a whisper.
+
+"So it seems!" Morgan Pell answered, his lip curling. "My dear, I regret to
+disappoint you. But aside from a slight pain in my head, I was never better
+in my whole life!" He wanted to see the effect of his words.
+
+"Shall I bandage your wound for you?" his dutiful wife asked.
+
+He looked at her from the corner of his eye. "Thank you--no," he said.
+
+Lucia sat down on the other side of the table.
+
+Not a word more was said. Pell took out his own handkerchief, and started
+to dip it in the bowl of water. But he was shaking still, and the piece of
+linen dropped to the floor. He stooped to pick it up. As he did so, he saw,
+in the dim light, the option lying exactly where Pancho Lopez had tossed
+it. He grasped it in his hand, crushed and crumpled as it was, and thought
+no one had observed him. But Uncle Henry's eagle eye had seen his movement.
+
+"What's that?" he called out.
+
+Pell tried to seem unconcerned. "The option, my dear sir," he answered
+truthfully.
+
+"By gollies, he's got it again!" Uncle Henry yelled, in desperation. He
+switched his chair around, and faced Gilbert. "Why didn't you tear it up
+while he was dead?" he asked.
+
+Pell addressed Uncle Henry. "You've got ten thousand dollars of my money,"
+he firmly said.
+
+"_I_ have?"
+
+"I want it," was the other's immediate reply.
+
+"It was paid me for a debt," the old man said.
+
+"It was stolen from me first," Morgan Pell stated, calmly. "Come across."
+He put one hand out. The other still held the cloth to his wounded
+forehead.
+
+"I'll be cussed if I will!" the invalid cried. He clapped his hands over
+his vest pocket, where the money was safely hidden.
+
+"Why, you poor old crook--" Pell began, rose, and snatched the money from
+Uncle Henry before anyone knew what he was doing. All his old fire was
+back. He seemed the most alive man in the room.
+
+Uncle Henry cried out, wildly, "Hey, ain't there no Americans present?" He
+saw Gilbert's gun which was on the seat beneath the stairway. He was close
+enough to grasp it. He did so, pointed it at the room in general, and
+yelled, "Now I got yuh! Hands up, everybody!"
+
+But no one moved. A disdainful silence followed. "Didn't yuh hear what I
+said?" Uncle Henry inquired, looking at everybody.
+
+"Put that down," said Hardy contemptuously. "You might hurt somebody," he
+added, smiling.
+
+"Ain't yuh goin' to do it?" Uncle Henry asked.
+
+"As I was going to say--" Hardy started, when Uncle Henry interrupted him
+with:
+
+"But it was what _he_ done!"
+
+"Who?" asked Hardy.
+
+"The bandit," Uncle Henry answered.
+
+"Will you keep still?" Hardy urged.
+
+"Certainly not!" Uncle Henry went on. "I got a gun here and I--"
+
+Hardy reached for the weapon. "I'm holdin' you up, gol darn it!" Jasper
+Hardy took the gun as he would have taken a bag of peanuts from a child,
+and handed it to Gilbert with a wink.
+
+"Hey! You can't do that!" wailed the invalid. He wheeled his chair toward
+his nephew. "You wouldn't do that if my friend Lopez was here, you big
+bum!" he ended, as peevish as an infant.
+
+Pell turned upon his wife. "Well, my dear--" he began, and once more his
+lips curled at the irony of the last phrase.
+
+"What!" Lucia said; and there was terror in her voice.
+
+Pell did not mince words. "Having both the Option and a clearer
+understanding of each other, there's nothing to detain us." He measured
+everything he uttered, and watched the effect upon her.
+
+"It's no use," Hardy broke in. "You're too late."
+
+"Not if I got there by eight o'clock," Pell said.
+
+"But you won't!" Jasper Hardy quickly said, glancing at the clock which
+ticked on, inexorably.
+
+Pell pulled out his watch. Then he looked at the option, deliberately,
+carefully, and seemed to read a final sentence. Having done so, he tore the
+piece of paper to bits slowly, and scattered them on the floor at his feet.
+At that very instant the clock struck eight.
+
+"It's eight o'clock!" "Red" exclaimed on the last peal of the bell.
+
+"Eight o'clock!" Hardy cried. "And the place belongs to me!" He turned to
+Pell. "Anything more from you?" he inquired, and smiled.
+
+The other stared at him; but he said nothing. Instead, he went over again
+to the table, and wet his handkerchief in the bowl, again refusing Lucia's
+proffered assistance with a wave of his other hand. He bathed his own
+wound. And meanwhile Hardy was saying to Gilbert:
+
+"Well, young feller, it's your move."
+
+"His move!" "Red" repeated the phrase. "Say, you wouldn't go and skin him
+out of the place all over again, would you?"
+
+Hardy sneered. "I'm going to foreclose, certainly, if that's what you mean,
+you impudent young scoundrel!"
+
+"You mean you would trim him again?" "Red" didn't believe it.
+
+"Say, boy, you better use your head. You're going to marry my darter, ain't
+you?"
+
+"Yes--I hope so," the foreman said.
+
+"Well, don't you realize that all I got will eventually go to you and her?
+Don't you?"
+
+"It will?" asked the incredulous "Red."
+
+"Certainly; when I die," answered Hardy.
+
+"I hope it'll be soon!" cried out Uncle Henry. Then, to "Red," "Don't you
+see he's leading you up to the top o' that gol darn mountain?"
+
+"Red" did not understand. "Gol darn _what_?" he said.
+
+Uncle Henry was exasperated at his stupidity. "Why, he's temptin' you, the
+old devil! Don't let him. It's a gol darn shame," he added, turning his
+chair so that he faced Hardy, "an old scoundrel like you tryin' to corrupt
+a nice young feller like him! Don't you know money you get like that won't
+do you no good?"
+
+"It's his--Gilbert Jones's," cried "Red," "and I ain't goin' to be party to
+robbin' him of it!"
+
+"Hooray!" yelled Uncle Henry. "That's the boy! I knew you was like that.
+You're all right!" And he backed into the alcove, happier than he had been
+in a long time.
+
+"You hear that?" Hardy said to his daughter.
+
+"I do," she answered, "and he's right."
+
+"What's that?" said her surprised father.
+
+"It is Gil's, and to take advantage of him isn't fair. You know it as well
+as I do, too!" She stamped her little foot.
+
+"Say, you don't think you love him again, do you?" Hardy wanted to know.
+
+From the alcove, Uncle Henry cried: "That's the idea! And if the poor
+sucker'd only marry her--"
+
+But Angela interrupted: "It isn't him I care for. It's--" She cut herself
+off, and could have bitten out her tongue for thus revealing her heart.
+
+"Angela!" cried the enraptured "Red." He went over to her, grasped her
+around the waist, and led her to the window.
+
+Hardy said, trying to pacify his daughter: "But I ain't going to be hard on
+him--or on Jones."
+
+"You ain't?" Uncle Henry cried.
+
+Hardy turned to the nephew. "You know, that stuff Lopez said about me bein'
+a bum patriot stuck in my craw. And now that I got the place, if you ever
+need any help I'll be glad to go on your note for you."
+
+Gilbert said nothing; but Uncle Henry rushed in with, "You will?"
+
+"That is, if it ain't too much," Hardy craftily added.
+
+"How much?" Uncle Henry asked.
+
+"Oh, two hundred dollars," Jasper Hardy grandly said.
+
+"Two hundred dol--Git out o' my way!" Uncle Henry wheeled straight through
+him.
+
+"Say, where are you goin'?" Hardy cried.
+
+"To Mexico!" Uncle Henry said. "This country's gettin' so it ain't fit to
+live in!" And he whirled out of the room.
+
+Hardy turned to his daughter. "Nothing to keep us here any longer. Come on,
+Angy."
+
+"Come, 'Red,'" said the girl, as she started to follow her father. What
+else was there to do?
+
+Even though it was Angela who called to him, "Red's" allegiance was for the
+moment elsewhere.
+
+"I gotter stick by him," he said, looking at Gilbert.
+
+"No," said Gilbert. "This is something I've got to settle alone. But I
+thank you, 'Red'--I thank you with all my heart. You're a brick--a red
+brick." He smiled and patted him on the back.
+
+"Red" was suspicious still. He looked at Gilbert. "You don't think he'll
+try any funny business, do you? You're sure you won't need me around?"
+
+"How can he try any funny business?" Gilbert asked.
+
+"I know," said "Red." Gilbert looked at him closely. "I get yuh," the
+foreman continued. "But I don't like it just the same." He switched over to
+the malignant Pell. "There's one little detail I'd like to call your
+attention to," he said.
+
+"Well?" Pell said.
+
+"I'm a tough little feller myself, sometimes. And if anything should happen
+that shouldn't, I'll be waitin' for you in town with a one-way ticket. And
+it won't be to New York. Savez?" Then he turned to his adored and adoring
+Angela. "Come, Angy!"
+
+And he grasped her arm, and took her out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+WHEREIN AN OLD SITUATION SEEMS ABOUT TO BE REPEATED, ANOTHER SHOT IS FIRED,
+AND THE BAD MAN COMES BACK
+
+
+Deeper and deeper grew the darkness. Outside, indeed, the first stars had
+begun to shine, and soon the heavens were a miraculous glory. But there was
+no moon. Every road was hushed, and the trees waved their long arms in the
+gloom. The little machine that took Angela and her father home, rolled down
+the quiet valley. Its chug-chug was the only sound for miles around. "Red"
+was happy in the cool night. He rode all the way out to the Hardy ranch. He
+and Angela sang an old song, and let Jasper Hardy sit at the wheel and
+whirl them to the lights of home.
+
+Meantime, back in Gilbert's adobe, the Mexican cook came from his stuffy
+kitchen and fetched a lamp for the sitting-room. He lighted two candles by
+the fireplace, closed the shutters and door, and went back to his pots and
+pans. He said nothing, noticed nothing. It had been a day of intense
+excitement for him, and he was glad to crawl back, like some tiny worm,
+into the cave where he ruled supreme.
+
+Lucia, in the lamplight, was paler than before. The three of them were
+standing, curiously enough, almost as they had stood only a few brief hours
+ago; and as she looked around her now she thought of this.
+
+"So," she said. "We're back just where we started from!" The grim humor of
+it came over her. Ten minutes ago she had thought her husband dead--done
+for, out of the way. Now he stood before her in all his virility, in all
+his cruelty; and behind him was the one man in the world that she loved.
+
+"Not quite," said Gilbert. He stepped forward a pace or two. He saw that
+Lucia was alarmed. "Come," he begged of her. "Don't be afraid." Oh, the
+balm of those few words!
+
+But she was not wholly herself yet. "What are you going to do?" she asked,
+and came nearer Gilbert. How strong and determined he looked in the dim
+light!
+
+"I'm going to have this thing out," he said. "You can never go back to him
+now." There was finality in his voice.
+
+"No, I never can," Lucia agreed. And there was finality in her voice, too.
+It was as if Destiny had come into this house, and an unheard voice told
+them what to do.
+
+"You'll trust me to protect you--until--" Gilbert went on.
+
+She looked at him pleadingly. "Oh, take me with you, Gil!" She threw her
+arms out. She had nothing to fear now, his strength beside her. She told
+him in one glorious gesture that she was his forever--that she had
+surrendered herself, body and soul, to him. Gilbert looked at her. Slowly,
+he realized that this woman, this creature of his dreams cared for him, and
+him alone; and the world might sweep by, the stars and moon might crash to
+earth, and they would neither know nor care. Fate had brought her to him.
+Nothing else mattered now. What was Morgan Pell? In life he was as impotent
+as when he lay half concealed beneath the table near which he now stood.
+They would not consider him, save as the foolish laws of man made it
+necessary for them to consider him.
+
+Gilbert turned to Pell. "You heard--she's mine now. And any course you may
+take to stop her--" he warned. It was useless to say more. The manner in
+which young Jones spoke told the whole story of his feelings.
+
+Yet Pell tried to appear nonchalant and casual. "You haven't another drink
+around, have you?" he inquired. He still held his handkerchief to his
+wounded forehead. "That was a rather nasty one I got, you know."
+
+Gilbert, though he loathed him as a serpent, remembered that he was this
+creature's host, and stepped over to the fireplace where there was a flask
+with a little tequila still left. He offered Pell the bottle.
+
+"You were saying--?" Pell went on. He poured himself a stiff drink.
+"Something about leaving me, wasn't it?" It was plain to be seen that he
+was bluffing. "I'm sorry," swigging down what he had poured, "but I wasn't
+listening very closely. This thing here--" he tapped his wound. No one
+answered him, and he set down his glass. "Well?" to his wife.
+
+She faced him with a flame in her eyes. "Had I known you, I never would
+have married you. But now that I do know you, I could never live with you
+again. I loathe and despise you, with all the strength that is in me."
+
+"You want to leave me, eh?" He sneered as he stared at her. "And go with
+him?... Won't your reputation--?"
+
+"What do I care for my reputation?" she flared. "At least I shall have my
+self-respect. I never could keep that if I went back to you."
+
+"It's _your_ reputation, of course," Pell smiled. "You can do as you like
+with it." He turned fully toward her. "All right, I've no objection."
+
+"You're lying," Gilbert affirmed.
+
+Pell's tongue rolled round in his cheek. "I don't blame you for thinking
+so. _You_ haven't been shot to-day. You should try it sometime. It changes
+one's viewpoint surprisingly." His voice seemed to lose its hardness for a
+moment; there was a note of self-pity in it.
+
+"But you said--" Gilbert began.
+
+Pell's whole manner changed, and the look of a wounded animal came into his
+eyes. "A man says many things in anger that he doesn't mean," was his own
+extenuation. "Haven't you ever made the same mistake yourself, Jones? I'm
+sure you have. There's no use getting excited." He put up a hand. "Here we
+are, we three. She is my wife. But she doesn't love me, nor do I love her.
+She does love you. What is the best way out for all of us?"
+
+A new Morgan Pell! They could scarcely believe the metamorphosis.
+
+"You'd give her up?" Gilbert said.
+
+The other looked down, and the point of his boot drew a little ring on the
+floor. "I can't hold her," he said, "if she doesn't want to be held, can
+I?"
+
+"You don't intend--"
+
+"To fight you?" Pell looked him squarely in the eye. "I do not. I've had
+all the fighting I want for one day. Now, my own course is simple. I have
+merely to go back to New York and forget that either of you ever existed.
+But your problem is more difficult. It's after eight. You've lost the
+ranch. And you have no money."
+
+"But I can earn money," Gilbert said.
+
+"A hundred dollars a month punching cows? With her in a boarding-house in
+Bisbee? A nice life, isn't it? Do you care to think of it, both of you?"
+
+"I can take care of her," Gilbert was quick in saying.
+
+"With your friend, Lopez--if he escapes--become a professional killer. My
+dear chap, you forget. She's used to decent people. It makes all the
+difference in the world." Pell turned away, lest the hard look should
+return to his countenance.
+
+Lucia had been listening intently. "I know him, Gil," she whispered, loud
+enough for her husband to hear. "He's trying to frighten us!"
+
+Pell faced her. "Frighten you? You're wrong, my dear. I'm merely trying to
+help you. That's all."
+
+There was a step on the path--another step. Several people were approaching
+the adobe. Without ceremony, the door was thrust open, and Bradley was
+before them, excitement in his eyes. He came into the room and dim figures
+could be seen behind him. Was that Lopez tied up, with his back to them in
+the darkness? His shoulders were bent over, his hat was pulled down over
+his brow. His hair was matted, and two Mexicans stood guard on either side
+of him. Far away the stars twinkled, unmindful of his plight.
+
+"Got any water?" Bradley asked.
+
+"Lopez!" Pell exclaimed.
+
+"He's got him!" came from Gilbert.
+
+Lucia grew paler still. "Lopez! Captured!" she cried. "Oh!" And she hid her
+face in her hands. What a few brief hours could bring!
+
+Bradley came close to her. "And a fine day's work for us, lady," he said,
+triumph in his tone. "We got him at last." Then, in the light of the
+candle, he caught a good view of Pell. "Say, I thought you was dead!" he
+cried.
+
+"I was," laughed the other. "I mean--only a scalp wound." And he pointed to
+the mark on his forehead.
+
+The figure at the door, piteous in its helplessness, never moved, never
+turned.
+
+"Give me that water," Bradley continued. "I want to get him in alive if I
+can. All the more credit to me and my men, you see."
+
+Morgan Pell had taken the canteen down from the wall and poured some water
+in it. Now he handed it to Bradley. "There you are," he said.
+
+"Thanks," the ranger said. He went back to the door, and pushed the jug to
+the lips of his prisoner. "Take a swig o' that." Lopez did so. His
+humiliation was evident even in his back. And only a little while ago he
+had been the monarch of all he surveyed! Now he was the slave of Bradley,
+and must ride, hand-cuffed, to the jail a few miles away.
+
+"He's wounded," said Lucia, going to the door. "You can't take him--like
+that!" she exclaimed. She longed for Lopez to turn and look at her; yet she
+longed, oddly enough, that he would not do so in the next second. It would
+be as difficult for her, as for him, if they saw each other. Her heart went
+out to him--this friend of Gilbert's--and hers.
+
+Bradley hated this show of feminine weakness. "Why can't I take him like
+that? Do you think I'm going to nurse an invalid like him around these
+parts?" He took the canteen from one of his men. "Here," he said, handing
+it back to Pell.
+
+"That's all right. Keep it; you may need it later on," said Pell, as though
+the jug were his to give away.
+
+"Much obliged," the ranger thanked him, nothing loath. "Come on, Bloke.
+Good-night. We got him!"
+
+He gave the bandit a shove, and two other rangers grasped him by either
+arm. In a twinkling they were gone, had mounted their horses and were
+galloping away in the starlight.
+
+So everything was over and done with! Lucia was heart-broken for Lopez. She
+came back into the room, murmuring:
+
+"Lopez! Lopez captured!" There were tears in her eyes.
+
+Pell paced the room with new strength. His eyes were now sinister.
+
+"Fortunately for us, my dear," he said. "For now we are certain not to be
+disturbed while working out a sensible solution of our little problem." He
+had forgotten the pain in his head. He lighted a cigarette, casually,
+slowly. "You will of course sue for divorce," he went on, blowing a ring to
+the ceiling and watching it ascend. "But there'll be no difficulty about
+that. I shall not contest," he added magnanimously.
+
+She grasped at the straw. "You won't?" She almost believed him now.
+
+"You'd win, anyway," her husband said. "But there _is_ the question of
+alimony."
+
+Gilbert swerved about. He detested the word. "Alimony!" he cried.
+
+"An attractive woman never gets the worst of it in court," Pell coldly
+stated. "Suppose we settle that--right here and now. It will give you ready
+money. And it will save me from having to pay perhaps a greater sum--later.
+That is...."
+
+Gilbert was incensed. "We don't want your money!" he cried. And Lucia
+treated the suggestion with the scorn it deserved.
+
+Pell looked at them both. "No? Well, in that case, I suppose there's
+nothing more to be said."
+
+"And we are free to go?" Lucia cried, unbelieving.
+
+Her husband puffed again. "Why not? I know I shan't stop you." Suddenly he
+dropped his cigarette, leaned heavily against the table, swayed a bit, and
+put his hand to his head. The old pain was returning.
+
+"You're suffering?" Lucia asked, alarmed. A strange pallor had come over
+him.
+
+"I regret--that water--I gave away so liberally," Pell said, his voice
+weak.
+
+"There's more," Gilbert cried. "I'll get it." He went hurriedly to the
+kitchen.
+
+"Is there anything I can do for you?" Lucia asked, sympathy in her tone.
+Always with her was the womanly instinct to serve, to help. Morgan was like
+a wounded animal to her, and as deserving of attention as any hurt thing.
+
+"No, thank you," he said.
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry! I ..."
+
+Gilbert was back with another canteen. He went close to Pell and put the
+jug to his lips, standing by his side, leaning over to proffer the cooling
+water. As he did so, Pell stealthily reached out--Lucia could not see the
+movement, for she had gone over to the fireplace--and craftily removed
+Gilbert's gun from his hip-pocket. While in the very act of taking this
+man's sustenance, he was playing him a foul trick. His heart lost a beat
+at the easy success of his plan, the fulfillment of a wish he had been
+harboring for the last ten minutes. He thrust the canteen away, stood up
+suddenly, and pointed the stolen weapon straight at Jones.
+
+"Now, I've got you just where I want you!" he snarled.
+
+Lucia saw his base trickery. Why had she been so stupid as to believe in
+him again? Why had she not warned Gilbert? What fools they had both been!
+
+"Gil!" she cried out; and anguish was hers--a deep, horrible moment of
+suffering. It was all up with them. They were as helpless as Pell had been
+with the bandit a few hours before. Caught, ensnared, trapped!
+
+"Why, damn you!" Gilbert screamed, and made a futile lunge for Pell. But he
+was too late. The revolver was leveled at his head.
+
+"Make a fool out of me, will you, you s----" Pell said, and his eyes
+glittered. A snake never looked more venomous. "I've got you now--got you
+both, and by God--"
+
+"He means it, Gil!" Lucia cried, and threw herself into her lover's arms.
+She would die, if he died--she would die with him.
+
+Pell stepped nearer to his intended victim. "Our wife is right," he
+scoffed. "It isn't killing that I mind--it's being killed that I object
+to."
+
+"They'll hang you!" Gilbert warned.
+
+Pell smiled his sardonic, evil smile. "The unwritten law works in Arizona
+as well as in other places." He brutally ordered Lucia to get out of his
+way.
+
+But Lucia still clung to Gilbert. "I won't! I won't move!" she yelled, and
+her voice held the desperation of womankind.
+
+Deliberately Pell said: "All right! Then take what's coming to you and you
+go to hell together, damn you both!"
+
+He raised the gun and aimed a deadly aim.
+
+Gilbert, in that mad moment, threw Lucia aside, to save her. He could not
+let her die with him, much as he hated to leave her with this fiend
+incarnate. "You'd better shoot straight," he cried to Pell. "Because, by
+God, if you miss...." With one wild lunge, he knocked the lamp from the
+table between them, and there was instant and terrible darkness.
+
+Confused, Pell did not know what to do. His tongue was cleaving to the roof
+of his mouth, his hand seemed to freeze on the trigger.
+
+"What the devil!" he called out. And then a figure appeared miraculously in
+the alcove, where one candle still burned, shedding a ghostly beam of light
+from a shelf. "Good God!"
+
+A shot rang out. But it was not Pell's revolver from which it sped. Morgan
+Pell crumpled at the feet of Gilbert, and the bandit rushed in, the smoke
+still coming from his gun.
+
+"Santa Maria del Rio de Guadaloupe!" he cried. "'Ow many time I got for to
+kill you to-day, any'ow? Now, damn to 'ell, mebbe you stay dead a while,
+eh?" He looked down at the shriveled form. And as of old he called to his
+henchman, "Pedro!"
+
+And Pedro was there. "_Si!_" he said.
+
+"Did I not tell you for kill zis man?" said Lopez, pointing in disgust to
+Morgan Pell.
+
+Swiftly in Spanish, and frightened almost out of his wits, poor Pedro
+muttered something wholly unintelligible.
+
+"Ees bum shooting! If she 'appen some more, zen I 'ave for get new Pedro.
+Should be too bad. Especially for you. You onnerstand?"
+
+Terrified at the thought, poor Pedro simply shivered. "_Si_," he whispered.
+
+Lopez indicated Pell's body, and took out a cigarette nonchalantly. "Take
+'im away. Ees no use for nobody no more." Pedro started to lift the heavy
+form. "Save ze clothes and ze boots," he reminded his faithful man.
+
+"_Si_," the latter said, meekly.
+
+Venustiano appeared from the outer darkness, as if by magic, and rushed to
+Pedro's aid. They lifted the stricken Pell, and carried him away.
+
+The distasteful business finished, Lopez turned to Gilbert.
+
+"Now, zen, you all right some more, eh?" he asked.
+
+Gilbert could not understand. "I guess so," he said, "I--I thought you were
+captured!"
+
+"Me?" said Lopez in surprise, "It is not me, ees my double!"
+
+"Your double?" Gilbert, amazed, answered.
+
+"Ees idea what I get from ze moving pitchers."
+
+Gilbert and Lucia stared at each other; then at the bandit.
+
+"Then it wasn't you they captured?" Gilbert said.
+
+He flicked the ashes from his cigarette. "I should be capture by ze damn
+ranger? Ees a idea!" He roared with mirth. "No, no! Long time I 'ave fix
+zat."
+
+"But how? How do you work it?" Gilbert inquired, his brain in a tumult.
+
+"I pick from my men ze best rider. I make 'im for look like me. So when ze
+ranger wish for chase me, 'e go while I remain be'ind. It save me moch
+hexercise. Say, why you no kill 'im yourself? You got ze gun." Lopez was
+mystified.
+
+"I--I couldn't," Gilbert answered.
+
+"Ees no difference from us three--me, you, and 'im," Lopez explained. "You
+is afraid for kill. 'E was afraid for die. Me, I am afraid for neizer! Now
+zen, what you do, eh?" He patted Gilbert on the shoulder.
+
+"I don't know," the young man said. "We've got to go somewhere."
+
+Lopez was firm. "No. You shall stay right 'ere in your 'ome sweet 'ome."
+
+"But I've lost the place." He pointed to the little clock that was ticking
+out its relentless minutes. "It's after eight o'clock."
+
+"No," said Lopez, definitely. "For at 'alf-past six-thirty, what I do? I
+tell you. When I am chase by ze ranger what I follow, I sink for myself
+eight o'clock she soon come. Suppose moggidge of my frands he meet wiz
+accident? Would never do!" He waved his arms. "So I goes and pays 'er
+myself!" He handed Gilbert a paper.
+
+Gilbert could not believe his eyes. "What's that?" he wanted to know.
+
+"Ees recipe," Lopez affirmed.
+
+"But where did you get the money?" Gilbert asked, incredulously.
+
+Lopez winked. "Ees all right."
+
+"Where did you get it?" the American persisted.
+
+"I rob ze bank," said Lopez; and thought nothing more of it.
+
+"Robbed the bank?" Gilbert was wide-eyed now.
+
+"Sure! Ees what I go to town for."
+
+Jones turned away. "It's all off again!"
+
+The bandit was discouraged. "No! I am become business man what are tired
+myself! I take ze money to lawyer what are frand for me. 'E go to ze judge
+what 'ave come 'ome planty dronk. 'E tell ze judge you send 'im for pay ze
+moggidge. Judge say sure, and 'and 'im recipe. Ees all right." And the
+bandit, convinced of his logic, strutted to the fireplace, and threw his
+cigarette away.
+
+"But I--must pay him back," Gilbert wanted to make it clear.
+
+"I 'ave planty money. You mus' not worry, my frand. I give you ten sousand
+dollar which you can send back should you be so foolish."
+
+But Gilbert was obdurate. "I can pay it back. The oil--"
+
+"I am sorry. Zere is no oil," the bandit informed him.
+
+This was the consummating blow to the young man. "But you said--"
+
+"I tell you one damn big lie," Lopez laughed. "But 'as she not a million
+dollar from ze 'usband which I kill?" He nodded toward Lucia.
+
+"Oh!" cried she. "How can you speak of such things--now?"
+
+"You don't think we'd touch one penny of that, do you?" Gilbert followed
+up.
+
+Lopez looked puzzled. "Ze law is give it to you."
+
+Disgustedly Gilbert cried, "The Law!"
+
+"Ha!" The bandit saw his chance. "Is it possible all ze law what you love
+is not so damn wise, after all?" He was tickled at his own perspicacity.
+"However, it makes no never mind. You shall still be rich any'ow. I shall
+send back all ze cattle what I steal from you."
+
+"You will? That's generous, to say the least." And Jones couldn't help
+smiling.
+
+"And planty more what I shall steal for you myself personal. Now zen, is
+all right? You 'ave ze money, ze lady, everyzing." Surely there was nothing
+lacking, Lopez tried to make it plain, for complete happiness. There were
+no bars now in the path of content.
+
+Yet this stupid young American was asking questions still! "But have I
+everything?" he said, and, stooping, picked up the gun that Pell had
+dropped just before he was killed.
+
+Lopez was amazed. "Have you?" he said, and pointed to Lucia. "There is it!"
+
+"But is it all right?" the young man persisted.
+
+A look of scorn came over the face of the bandit. "If it makes you 'appy,
+what you care? You should not look ze gift 'appiness in ze face. Go on,
+take her. Ees nice; you like 'er."
+
+Still Gilbert hesitated. "But I can't now."
+
+"And why not?" the bandit asked. He was thoroughly weary of Gilbert's
+dilly-dallying, so foreign to his own philosophy.
+
+"Maybe sometime. By and bye; but not now."
+
+"If she is all right by and bye, why the 'ell is she all wrong now?" cried
+Lopez, incensed.
+
+"You're not as sorry as I am. God knows, I want her."
+
+Lopez was desperate by this time. "_Dios!_" he fairly yelled. "You
+Americanos make me seek! I shall come 'ere and work like 'ell all day to
+make you 'appy, and the best I get is zis!" In his despair, he broke into
+Spanish: "_Per dios mio!_" Stupidity could go no farther! What fools these
+youngsters were!
+
+"I don't mean to be ungrateful," Gilbert explained.
+
+There was silence for a moment. Lopez strode up and down the room like an
+animal. He was hot and disgusted. What was the use, after all? Why didn't
+this young fellow, who had proved himself so brave and so worthy, show
+signs of the red blood in him? No Mexican would have acted like this--no
+Latin. He would make him get his happiness, if he had to die in the
+attempt. Suddenly a crafty look came into his eyes. He came straight toward
+Gilbert and snapped his fingers in his face.
+
+"Bah!" he cried.
+
+But all the young ranchman said was, "I'm sorry. You don't understand our
+ways."
+
+"Shut up!" Lopez was genuinely infuriated now. "Ees no use for talk wiz
+such fools. You make me seek! Such ideas! Not fit for ze child to 'ave! No
+blood, no courage! Only ze liver what are white and ze soul what are
+yellow." Gilbert winced at the word. "Americans! Bah! Fishes! Zat is all!
+Fishes what ees poor! Bah! For you I am finish!" And he snapped his fingers
+again. His face was purple with rage.
+
+He heard Gilbert murmuring only, "I'm sorry!"
+
+"Sorry! Ees all you can say--sorry! Ze coward! Ze fool! Ze fish what are
+poor! Ze damn doormat for everybody to walk from!" His arms were flying in
+the air. "All day I 'ave try to make ze man from you! It are no use. Ees no
+man in you. Only ze damn fool what are sorry! Bah! All right. You will not
+let me make you 'appy? _Bueno!_ Zen I shall go back and make you on'appy
+and serve you damn good right!" He pointed to Lucia. "You will not take
+'er?"
+
+Gilbert had stood still during this tirade. "I've tried to explain--" he
+began once more.
+
+"Bah!" cried Lopez. "Zen I take her!"
+
+At last the American was roused. "You take her!" he cried.
+
+"Sure! All day I 'ave want 'er. Ees ze first time in my life when I want
+woman all day and not--as favor I give 'er to you. Now, since you too big
+damn fool not to take 'er yourself, I take 'er myself. And what you know
+about 'im?" He paused, and called out, "Pedro!"
+
+Fearful at what might happen, Gilbert said, "Wait a minute." He thought
+swiftly. "You mean this?"
+
+Lopez did not even answer him, so deep and abiding was his disgust.
+Instead, he said to his man, "Pedro, we go."
+
+Gilbert watched his every motion. "You mean it?" he repeated.
+
+Lopez laughed. "Everybody sink I am joker to-day. Pedro, take 'er," and
+nodded toward the terrified Lucia.
+
+Pedro started to obey.
+
+"I'm damned if you do!" cried Gilbert. "All day you've been trying to make
+me do things your way. I've had enough. This Mexican stuff may be all right
+in your country, but it won't go here!"
+
+He threw a protecting arm around Lucia, who was panting and pale. He pulled
+his gun, and aimed it at Pedro's head. "Drop it!" he cried. Pedro obeyed
+like lightning. The gun fell to the floor with a vibrating crash.
+
+Then Gilbert covered Lopez. "If this is a trick--" he cried.
+
+"Trick for what?" the bandit wanted to know. He nodded to Pedro. "Get ze
+men. 'E will not shoot!"
+
+Enraged beyond control, young Jones cried out: "For the last time! You mean
+it? I know what you've tried to do, and I'm grateful; but there's one thing
+that I must do!" Still the gun was leveled at the bandit's head.
+
+"What's that?" nonchalantly.
+
+"Protect her!" Gilbert said, drawing Lucia closer to his heart.
+
+Lopez smiled again. "You will not shoot."
+
+"I will--if I must!"
+
+"Oh, ze wolf in ze sheep's overcoat!" the bandit smirked.
+
+"I will! I warn you!"
+
+"Gil!" cried Lucia, in mortal terror.
+
+"It's your life or his, and I'm damned if it's yours! I'll give you just
+three seconds to get out of here! Now," and there was a fire in his eyes
+that could deceive no one, "you hear me? One--two ..."
+
+"Don't shoot!" cried the bandit. And he laughed outright, almost doubling
+up with mirth.
+
+"It was a trick?" Gilbert asked, beginning to see light.
+
+"_Si._ Ah, my frand, I 'ave make ze man from you at last! Fine man what
+would kill for 'is woman!" He patted him on the shoulder.
+
+Gilbert looked at him seriously, and the terrible realization came to him.
+"I _would_ have killed you! Yes, I _would_ have killed you--and you are my
+friend!"
+
+Lopez saw how earnest he was. "I know. And it makes me very 'appy. For at
+last you 'ave became ze man of intelligence--like me. You could not leave
+'er go now, could you?"
+
+Gilbert looked at the relieved Lucia. "No!" he cried.
+
+"You not question ze what you call Destiny, do you?" Lopez said.
+
+"No."
+
+"Zen for you I am Destiny, to beat 'ell!" He walked toward the door.
+
+There was a whistle outside. Pedro had drifted into the night. The stars
+poured their miracle of beauty into the room as Pancho Lopez flung the door
+wide.
+
+"Well, no more of zat!" he said. "I must go--to leave you to live and love!
+No, you shall not zank me," as Gilbert started to speak. "Ees I shall zank
+you, for 'ere in your quiet 'ome you 'ave give me ze most peaceful day I
+'ave spend in years." He smiled his captivating smile, and for the first
+time took his sombrero from his head. He made a grand gesture. "Ees 'appy
+day for you. Ees 'appy day for 'er. Ees 'appy day for me!"
+
+He made a very low bow. Then he stepped forward and touched Lucia on the
+arm, and led her to Gilbert. One hand was on the shoulder of each.
+
+"You will name ze baby for me sometime--Pancho, or per'aps Panchita?" There
+was a wistful note in his deep voice, and a look of eagerness in his eyes.
+"Not ze first one, per'aps--but mebbe, like you say, by and bye--later?
+Eh?"
+
+There was another whistle down the starlit road.
+
+"_Adios_, my frands! And may you always be so 'appy like what I 'ave make
+you!"
+
+He was gone. They heard the horses trotting away; and even in that moment
+of blinding and almost unendurable happiness, they were conscious of a
+tinge of sorrow.
+
+For when would they ever see Pancho Lopez again?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+WHEREIN AN OLD FRIEND RETURNS, AND THERE IS A JOYFUL REUNION
+
+
+On a wonderful afternoon, more than two years later, Lucia sat in the
+little Spanish courtyard that Gilbert had had built a few months after
+their marriage. The air was like golden wine, and she drank it in, bathed
+her soul in it, as though she could never find enough joy through these
+slow hours. How marvelous life had been to her in the last radiant months!
+She had realized the fulfillment of her most cherished dream, and looked
+down now at a tiny pink face that smiled at her.
+
+"Oh, how sweet you are, Pancho!" she was saying. "I don't know what I ever
+did without you!" And she kissed the baby's cheek, which instantly took on
+a rosy hue.
+
+There is an ecstasy that is close to tears; and in the happiness that Lucia
+had now found she was experiencing that high state of spiritual exaltation
+which made life almost unbearably beautiful. The autumn day itself, warm
+and glowing, was like a low fire on the hearth, toward which she stretched
+her hands. But there was a spiritual fire within her which needed no
+outward symbol; a flame that leaped and burned steadily.
+
+Far off she heard the chug of a motor--not the Ford now, but a big
+touring-car that glistened in the sun. She knew that Gilbert would be
+returning from Bisbee at just about this hour, and she could hardly wait to
+see him turn in.
+
+"Here's your daddy, Pancho!" she cried, when the car swung from the road,
+and Gilbert, hatless and sun-burned, leaped from the machine with all the
+eagerness of a great healthy boy.
+
+He ran to his little family and kissed them both. "Gosh! but you look
+lovely, Lucia, my dear!" he exclaimed, standing back a bit so that he could
+have even a better view of her rosy cheeks, flashing eyes, and blowing
+hair. "This autumn weather agrees with you, doesn't it? And Pancho--he
+looks better than any baby around here--even Angela's."
+
+He dropped down on the seat beside her, and looked with rapture at the
+child in her arms.
+
+"Sold ten head of cattle this morning, and Montrose says he'll take as many
+more when I'm ready for him. Great, isn't it? 'Red' been over to-day?"
+
+"Yes," answered Lucia; "and he said he was going to bring Angela and
+Panchita for an early supper. Says it's awful the way they've neglected us.
+We haven't seen them for two whole days, you know!"
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"Well, of course old 'Red' has more to do now that Jasper Hardy's dead; but
+after all, he can hire all the men he needs. Guess it's more a question of
+his wanting to stay around Angy and the kid, don't you think so?"
+
+"He tries so hard to imitate you in everything. It makes me ache to see how
+happy he is, Gil. Aren't they the cutest couple you ever saw? And won't it
+be nice when Pancho and Panchita are old enough to play together?"
+
+"You bet!" Gilbert agreed. He looked off at the quiet mountains, steadfast
+in their serenity, their crests seeming to kiss the sky. This _was_ God's
+country, after all. Sometimes he could not believe that he had come so
+gloriously into his own. In the slow process of putting his ranch on a
+paying basis, after the turmoil of those weeks following the departure of
+Lopez, he had had the sustaining wonder of Lucia always beside him; and
+when little Pancho came upon the scene he felt that life was altogether too
+kind to him. He had worked unremittingly; and not only had he had his own
+affairs to absorb him, but "Red," after his marriage to Angela, was forever
+ringing him up on the telephone, or coming over and asking his advice and
+help. He was never too busy to throw out a word to his faithful friend;
+indeed, they had reached a cooeperative basis so far as the two properties
+were concerned, and the arrangement could not have worked out better. The
+ranches touched each other, and after Jasper Hardy's death a year and a
+half before, it seemed wise to form a sort of partnership. There was no
+need of a written understanding; the two men simply said to each other that
+they would do certain things, install certain improvements, and share
+expenses and profits. Nothing on paper for them! No, siree, said "Red." He
+wouldn't hear of it. And everything had been as amicable as possible.
+
+It was curious to see the change in Uncle Henry since the arrival of little
+Pancho. Gilbert got him a brand-new wheel chair--sent all the way to
+Phoenix for it--to celebrate the great event; and Uncle Henry loved
+nothing better than to take the chap on his knee and give him a ride in the
+courtyard whenever Lucia would trust him to his care. He never complained
+now. He was deliriously happy, and with the new era of prosperity that had
+struck the household, he was given a Mexican boy as his own personal
+attendant, and he grew to take a kindly interest in him. He taught him to
+read and write English. Thus busily occupied, and loving Lucia because she
+loved his nephew so, his health improved, as well as his temper. He could
+even tolerate "Red's" harmonica; in fact, he often begged him to play it
+when the latter came over to midday dinner, and his legs had so improved
+that he could actually jiggle them to some merry tune.
+
+"If you don't look out, you'll be dancin' soon!" "Red" used to say on these
+happy occasions. "You can shimmy now!"
+
+"Shet your head!" Uncle Henry cried; but not angrily--not now. He laughed
+when he said it, and was secretly flattered that anyone thought he had such
+pep at his age and in his condition of semi-invalidism (for that is all it
+could be called now).
+
+It was five o'clock when the Giddings family came. They used the faithful
+little Ford for the short run; but they too had a big roadster, painted a
+flaming red, "to match the master's hair," Mrs. Quinn put it.
+
+Angela, radiant in her motherhood, instantly compared notes with Lucia as
+to infant symptoms--not that anything was the matter with either child; but
+she loved to be ready for any emergency, and had a natural fear that
+Panchita might be taken ill in the night sometime; and was everything in
+her home medicine-chest, that should be?
+
+Uncle Henry begged to take both children on his lap; and, holding them
+firmly, he made his boy push the chair here and there, got "Red" to play
+the once detested harmonica, and had a gay time of it all around the ranch
+house.
+
+"We'd better eat indoors this afternoon," Lucia said. "I was going to
+spread the table under the pergola; but it may turn cooler."
+
+It was not long before they were all seated at an extended table in the big
+living-room--that same room which had been the scene of tragedy and
+suffering for them, but was now so filled with joy.
+
+"Mrs. Quinn sent over the cake," Lucia announced, as the table-boy brought
+in a huge dish, on which was a chocolate cake of magnificent proportions.
+It looked--and was--as light as a feather; a work of art to be proud of.
+
+"Just like her, eh?" said "Red." "What would we do without Mrs. Quinn, the
+queen of 'em all!"
+
+"That's what I say," Uncle Henry declared. He could hardly wait to get to
+the cake, for he knew what toothsome dainties the Irishwoman could cause to
+emerge from her oven; and often she sent him this or that sweet, "just to
+let 'im know she was livin' an' breathin'."
+
+Suddenly there came a sound of hoof beats on the road; and through the open
+door, outlined against the flaming sunset, Gilbert could see two horsemen
+approaching, with pointed hats, and glistening buttons.
+
+"Mexicans!" he cried. "What can they be doing here, now?" His mind rushed
+back to that terrible evening so long ago when Lopez had ridden up to the
+adobe, and changed the world for them all in almost the twinkling of an
+eye.
+
+He got up from the table now, and "Red" followed him. Dusk was just
+descending, but Gilbert's sharp eyes recognized the first horseman even in
+the dimming light.
+
+"It's Pancho Lopez!" he cried.
+
+And sure enough, on a steed that looked like Sunday afternoon, with
+brand-new reins and bit, and in a suit that fit him to perfection, with
+gleaming spurs and shining buttons, the rakish and indomitable Pancho, his
+long-lost friend, returned to greet him. He could scarcely believe it. For
+since that memorable night when he had left them, to return to the interior
+of Mexico, never a word had he had from him. Meantime, the great happiness
+had come to him; and when the baby came into the world, he and Lucia had
+not forgotten the man who had been responsible for their joy. With one
+accord they named the boy Pancho. There was not the slightest doubt but
+that should be what he should be called. The only tragedy was that they had
+no way of letting the bandit know what they had done. Where was he? They
+did not know. When, if ever, would he return? They had no way of finding
+out. There was but one thing to do--wait. And they did. But often Gilbert
+had said to Lucia, "He has forgotten us, though we have never forgotten
+him--our friend."
+
+Now, in the quiet, brooding autumn dusk he came to their doorstep,
+dismounted, lifted his hat, smiled that wonderful smile of his, and made a
+bow that any courtier might have been proud to make. Behind him, on a brown
+horse, was Pedro, his lieutenant--the same monosyllabic Pedro, faithful
+unto death, and now as clean as a whistle.
+
+"Ah! my frand!" Pancho said, as he bowed again, "How glad am I to see you.
+You glad to see me, too, eh?"
+
+Lucia also had come to the door; likewise Angela--but the latter was still
+a bit timid. Even Uncle Henry pushed his way to the sill, and sat like a
+lonely man in a gallery while those in the orchestra pressed about their
+favorite actor.
+
+"Glad?" exclaimed Gilbert. "I could kiss you, Pancho! But where on earth
+have you been? Come in, and tell us everything."
+
+He needed no urging. "Hongry as beeg bear!" he told them.
+
+"Then sit right down," Lucia said, "There's plenty--far more than the last
+time you were here!" And they all laughed.
+
+He came into the room, while Pedro took care of the horses.
+
+"Hallo, Oncle Hennery," he greeted the old man in the wheel chair. "You
+look splendid! And 'allo, 'Red,'--zat's what zey call you--yes?" Then he
+saw the babies, and his eyes fairly popped from his head, "Well, well!" he
+cried, "Who 'ave zese leetle fellers!"
+
+"They're not both fellers!" Angela made bold to say. "One's a girl--that
+one! She's mine!"
+
+"Oh, ho! Leetle spitfire still!" Pancho laughed. He chucked her under her
+pretty chin. "So you marry ze man I pick for you, eh? Good! An'
+zis"--pointing to the baby--"zis ees better yet!"
+
+"Look at mine!" the proud Lucia couldn't help saying. "Isn't he the image
+of his father?"
+
+She held him up, and Lopez took his little hand in his. "Yes, I see what
+you mean," he said, carefully looking at the child. "Hees father's
+eyes--but not so much hair! What you call heem?"
+
+"Guess!" said Gilbert.
+
+"Could not," the Mexican answered.
+
+"Only one guess!" Lucia begged.
+
+"Could not t'ink," Lopez insisted.
+
+"Well, then--you tell him, Gilbert," the mother said, turning to her
+husband.
+
+"There could be only one name in all the world for that youngster," Gilbert
+said, and put his hand affectionately on his old friend's shoulder. "You
+ought to know it as well as I. Of course his name is--Pancho!"
+
+The smile that came over the Mexican's face was beautiful to see. And was
+that the suggestion of a tear in his eye?
+
+Long and long, and while everybody in the room remained perfectly still, he
+looked at the baby, whose tiny hands bobbed up and down--a fat, healthy
+youngster, fit as a fiddle, laughing, squirming, happy.
+
+"For me you name him?" Lopez finally got out. "Oh, too good you are to me.
+Pancho! my own leetle boy! Pancho! 'Some' name, what you say, eh?"
+
+And he pinched the child's cheek, tenderly as his mother would have done.
+
+"And here's mine!" Angela, not to be outdone, piped up, presenting her
+child, also in her arms, to the delirious bandit.
+
+"An' what heez name?"
+
+"It ain't a he--it's a she, I told you!" Angela corrected.
+
+"Ah! All kinds you 'ave 'ere, eh? Good! An' what _'er_ name?"
+
+"Can't you guess?" asked "Red," coming forward, smiling.
+
+"A girl? What use I 'ave for girls?" laughed Pancho Lopez. "What you say
+now--what's ze name?"
+
+"Why, Panchita! What else could we have named her?" Angela said.
+
+You could have knocked the Mexican down with a straw. This time he was
+flabbergasted.
+
+"You all too fine, too tender, too good to me," he said; and there was a
+softness in his speech that none of them had guessed could be there, save,
+perhaps, Gilbert.
+
+"Oh, no," Jones said. "We wanted a little Mexican touch in our households.
+And we've never forgotten you, old friend. Tell me, where have you been all
+these months? We hoped to hear from you. But never a word or a sign from
+you. Aren't you just a little ashamed of yourself now, when you see how
+much we have been thinking of you?"
+
+Lopez hung his head. "Yes, my frand, I _am_ ashamed." Then he looked around
+at all of them. "I love you very much. I dream of you often, an' I say to
+myself. 'Some day I go back there, an' see my old frands which I make so
+'appy.' But I bandit no more, an' travel I hate in trains. I reform. I
+settle down in Mexico City. I 'ave baby too, an' good wife, good mother.
+But I get 'omesick, 'ow you say, for you all, an' so I come down for what
+you call 'oliday, an'--'ere I am! You 'ave made me very 'appy to-night. I
+love you all even more seence I see zese cheeldrens. _Madre Dio!_ How fine
+to 'ave cheeldren!"
+
+"Ain't we ever goin' to finish our supper?" Uncle Henry wanted to know; but
+his tone was not querulous; it was plaintively sweet, and it held a note of
+invitation for everyone.
+
+Laughing, they all sat down, but not before Pedro had been asked in. The
+frightened cook--the same who had been drunk that fatal evening when Pancho
+first arrived--scurried here and there, eager to serve the distinguished
+guest.
+
+"You all right!" Lopez told him. "Never fear, so long as you bring me good
+'ot coffee!"
+
+And, happy as the babies, they all fell to; and it was Pancho himself who
+was asked to cut Mrs. Quinn's big cake.
+
+"First time I use a knife in long while!" he laughed, as he stood up to the
+job. "Now we all eat much; an' mebbe give some to leetle Pancho and
+Panchita too, eh?"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+A Selection from the Catalogue of
+
+G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+
+Complete Catalogues sent on application
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE STRANGENESS OF NOEL CARTON
+
+By
+
+WILLIAM CAINE
+
+
+Noel Carton, driven to desperation by his vulgar little wife who, in buying
+his position, is forced to accept him with it, determines to bury himself
+in the writing of a novel, in the vain hope of forgetting. At the same time
+he elects to keep a secret journal. In his novel he subconsciously draws
+the portraits of the living people surrounding him.
+
+How this novel becomes inextricably entangled with his own journal is the
+basis for this extraordinarily original story which leads to an astounding
+climax.
+
+G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+
+New York London
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Night Horseman
+
+A Tale of Wild-riding Herdsmen and Outlaws, and their Deeds of Daring and
+Deviltry
+
+By
+
+Max Brand
+
+
+A well-known English critic said of _The Untamed_--"There are in it
+passages of extraordinary power--the whole conception is very bold." And no
+less bold nor less powerful is its sequel _The Night Horseman_. Once again
+we ride in company with "Whistlin' Dan," the fearless, silent, mysterious
+chap who shares the instincts of wild things, and once again we engage with
+him in his desperate adventures, hair-breadth escapes, and whirlwind
+triumphs. A novel thrilling in its reality, which will not be put down by
+lovers of exciting fiction.
+
+G.P. Putnam's Sons
+
+New York London
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WITHOUT MERCY
+
+BY
+
+JOHN GOODWIN
+
+
+Mrs. Garth, a genius of finance, a personage in the social world, and head
+of a great banking firm, is determined that her beautiful daughter shall
+not marry Sir Melmoth Craven, of the sinister Sternberg Syndicate. He,
+equally determined, and humiliated, plans revenge, not suspecting that Mrs.
+Garth, under another name, heads Gordon's, Ltd., a notorious and powerful
+money-lending establishment. A story full of thrilling situations and
+exciting incidents.
+
+G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+
+New York London
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Door of the Unreal
+
+By
+
+Gerald Biss
+
+12. Full Novel Size
+
+
+A story of the Werewolves, made wonderfully credible and told with great
+skill and feeling. This is far from being an ordinary detective novel. Mr.
+Biss is on brand new ground and will puzzle every reader till the mystery
+is at last solved by the right man--the mystery of the baffling murders on
+the Brighton road.
+
+
+G.P. Putnam's Sons
+
+New York London
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BAD MAN***
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