Daughter of the Sun: A Tale of Adventure

by Jackson Gregory

CONCERNING THAT WHICH LAY IN THE EYES OF ZORAIDA

Jim Kendric guessed, before the last door was thrown open for him, that he was being led before Zoraida Castelmar. The serving maid flitted on ahead, out through a deep, shadow-filled doorway into the dusk, down a long corridor and into the house again at an end which Kendric judged must be close to the flank of the mountain. Down a second hallway, to a heavy, nail-studded door which opened only when the little maid had knocked and called. This room was lighted by a swinging lamp and its rays showed its scanty but rich furnishings, and the one who had opened, a tall, evil-looking Yaqui who wore in his sash a long-barreled revolver on one side and a longer, curved knife at the other. The girl sidled about the doorkeeper and, safe behind his back made a grimace of distaste at him, then hurried on. Again she knocked at a locked door; again it was swung open only when she had added her voice to her rapping. Who opened this door Kendric did not know; for it was pitch dark as soon as the door was shut after them and they stood in a room either windowless or darkened by thick curtains. But the girl hastened on before him and he followed the patter of her soft moccasins, albeit with a hand under his left arm pit; all of this locking and unlocking of doors and the attendant mystery struck him as clap-trap and he set it down as further play for effect by the mistress of the place, but none the less he was ready to strike back if a wary arm struck at him through the dark.

The girl had stopped before another door, Kendric close behind her. This time she neither knocked nor called. He heard her fingers groping along the wall; then the silvery tinkle of a bell faintly heard through the thick oak panels.

"You will wait," she whispered. And he knew that she was gone.

He was not forced to wait long. Suddenly the door was opened; he heard it move on its hinges and made out a pale rectangle of light. A softly modulated voice said: "Entra, señor." He stepped across the threshhold and into the presence of another serving girl, taller than the other two maidens, finer bred, a calm-eyed, serene girl of twenty dressed in a plain white gown girdled with a smooth gold band.

They were in a little anteroom; the curtains between them and the main apartment had made the light dim, for just beyond he could make out the blurred glowing of many lamps.

The girl's great calm eyes looked at him frankly an instant, vague shadows drifting across them. Then, abruptly, she put her lips quite close to his ear, and whispered: "Do not anger her, señor!" Then, stepping quickly to the curtain, she threw it back and he entered.

A vain, headstrong girl, deemed Kendric, given the opportunity and very great wealth, might be looked to for absurdities of this kind. But was all of this nothing more, nothing worse, than absurdity? Suppose Zoraida were sincere in all that she had said to him, in all the things she did? He had heard a rumor concerning Ruiz Rios, long ago, half forgotten. Certain wild deeds laid to the Mexican's door had brought forth the insinuation that he was a little mad. Zoraida had claimed kinship with him.

At any rate, to Kendric's matter-of-fact way of thinking, here was further clap-trap that might well have been the result of a mad mind working extravagantly. The room was empty. All four walls, from ceiling to floor, were draped in gorgeously rich hangings, oriental silks, he imagined, deep purples and yellows and greens and reds cunningly arranged so that their glowing colors and the ornamental designs worked upon them made no discordant clash of color. The chamber in which he had met Zoraida at the hotel was mild hued, colorless compared to this one. There were no chairs but a couch against each wall, each a bright spot with its high heaped cushions. In the middle of the room was a small square ebony stand; upon it, glowing like red fire upon its frail crystal stem, the familiar stone.

He had stepped a couple of paces into the room, his boots sinking without sound into the deep carpet. In no mood for a girl's whims, mad or sane, he waited, impatient and irritated. He regretted having come; he should have sat tight in the patio and let her come to him. No doubt she was spying on him now from behind the hangings somewhere. There was no comfort in the thought, no joy in imagining that while he stood forth in the clear light of the hanging lamps she and her maidens and attendants might all be watching him. He vastly preferred solid walls and thick doors to silken drapes.

While he waited, two distinct impressions slowly forced themselves upon him. One was that of a faint perfume, coming from whence he had no way of knowing, the unforgettable, almost sickeningly sweet fragrance he remembered. One instant he was hardly conscious of it, it was but a suspicion of a fragrance. And then it filled the room, strongly sweet, strangely pleasant, a near opiate in its soothing effect.

The other impression was no true sensation in that it was registered by none of the five senses; a true sensation only if in truth there is in man a subtle sixth sense, uncatalogued but vital. It was the old uncanny certainty that at last eyes, the eyes of none other than Zoraida Castelmar, were bent searchingly on him. So strong was the feeling on him that he turned about and fixed his own eyes on a particular corner where the silken folds hung graceful and loose. He felt that she was there, exactly at that spot.

He strode across the room and laid a sudden hand on the fabric. It parted readily and just behind it, her eyes more brilliant, more triumphant than he had ever seen them, stood Zoraida.

"Can you say now, Señor Americano," she cried out, the music of her voice rising and vibrating, "that I have not set the spell of my spirit upon your spirit, the influence of my mind upon your mind? You stood here and the chamber was empty about you. I came, but so that you might not hear with your ears and might not see with your eyes. And yet, looking at you through a pin hole in a drawn curtain, I made you conscious of me and called voicelessly to you to come and you came!"

There was laughter in her oblique eyes and upon her scarlet lips, and Kendric knew that it was not merely light mirth but the deeper laughter of a conqueror, a high rejoicing, the winged joy of victory.

"I am no student of mental forces," said Kendric. "But to my knowledge there is nothing unusual in one's feeling the presence of another. As for any power which your mind can exert over mine, I don't admit it. It's absurd."

Contempt hardened the line of her mouth and the laughter died in her eyes.

"Man is an animal of little wisdom," she murmured as she passed by him into the room, "because he has not learned to believe the simple truth."

"If there is anything either simple or true in your establishment," he blurted out, "I haven't found it."

She went to the table before she turned. A flowing garment of deep blue fell about her; on her black hair like a coronet was a crest of many colored, tiny feathers, feathers of humming birds, he learned later; throat and arms were bare save for many blazing red and green stones, feet bare save for exquisitely wrought sandals which were held in place by little golden straps which ended in plain gold bands about the round white ankles.

Slowly she turned and faced him. But not yet did she speak. She clapped her hands together and the curtains at her right bellied out, parted and a man stepped before her, bending deeply in genuflection. No Yaqui, this time; no Mexican as Kendric knew Mexicans. The man was short, but a few inches over five feet, and remarkably heavy-muscled, the greater part of the body showing since his simple cotton tunic was wide open across the deep chest, and left arms and legs bare. The forehead was atavistically low, the cheek bones very prominent, the nose wide and flat, the lips loose and thick. The man looked brutish, cruel and ugly as he stood face to face with the noble beauty of Zoraida. And yet Kendric, glancing swiftly from one to the other, saw a peculiar resemblance. It was the eyes. This squat animal's eyes were like Zoraida's in shape though they lacked the fire of spirit and intellect; long eyes that sloped outward and upward toward the temples.

Zoraida spoke briefly, imperiously. Kendric did not understand the words though he readily recognized the tongue for one of the native Nahua dialects. Old Aztec it might have been, or Toltec.

The man saluted, bowed and was gone. But in a moment he returned, another man with him who might have been his twin brother, so strongly pronounced in each were the racial physiognomic characteristics. Between them they bore a heavy chair of black polished wood the feet of which were eagles' talons gripping and resting on crystal balls. They placed it and stood waiting for orders or dismissal. She gave both, the first in a few low words in the same ancient tongue, the latter with a gesture. They bowed and disappeared. Zoraida, one hand resting upon the stand near the jewel glowing upon the transparent stem, sank gracefully into the seat.

"All very imposing," muttered Kendric. "But if you have anything to say to me I am waiting."

From somewhere in the room a parrot which he had not seen until now and which had no doubt been released by one of her low-browed henchmen behind the curtains, flew by Kendric's head and perched balancing upon an arm of her chair. Idly she put out her hand, stroking the bright feathers. From somewhere else, startling the man when he saw it gliding by him on its soft pads, a big puma, ran forward, threw up its head, snarling, its tail jerking back and forth restlessly. Zoraida spoke quietly; the monster cat crept close to her chair and lay down before her, stretched out to five feet of graceful length. Zoraida set one foot lightly upon the tawny back. The big cat lay motionless, its eyes steady and unwinking upon Kendric.

He felt himself strangely impressed though he sought to argue with himself that here was but more absurdity from an empty-headed girl who had the money and the power to unleash her extravagant desires. But since everything about him was stamped with the barbaric, even to the oblique-eyed woman staring boldly at him; since everything in the exotic atmosphere was in keeping, even to the parrot at her elbow and the heavy, honey-sweet perfume filling the room, he was unable to shake off, as he wished to, the impression made upon him.

"In your heart," said Zoraida gravely, "you censure me for empty by-play, you accuse me of vain trifling. You are wrong, Señor Americano! And soon you will know you are wrong. There is no woman throughout the wide sweep of my country or yours who has the work to do that I have to do; the destiny to fulfil; or the power to wrest from the gods that which she would have. And will have!"

Steadfast conviction, fearlessly voiced, rang through her speech. What she said she meant with all of the fiery ardor of her being. Her words spoke her thought. Whatever the fate which she judged was hers to fulfil, she accepted it with a fervor not unlike some ecstatic religious devotion. Of all this he was confident on the instant; she might surround herself with colorful accessories but her purpose was none the less serious.

"Symbols, if you like," she said carelessly—she had been staring at him profoundly and well might have glimpsed something of his train of thought—"as are statues and pictures symbols in the Roman church. My bright colored bird is older now than you will be, or I, when we die. Age, bright feathers and chatter! My puma means much to me that you would not understand, being of another race. Further, did you or another lift a hand against his mistress he would tear out your throat."

"You have had me brought here for some purpose?" said Kendric.

She sat forward, straight in her chair, her two hands gripping the carved arms.

"Did I not tell you when first we spoke together that I had use for you? Since then have I not sent myself into your thoughts many times? Did I not come to you, that you should remember, on the boat that brought you here?"

"I am no man for mysteries," he said. "Tell me: Did you somehow get aboard the New Moon at San Diego? Or did my fancy play me a trick?"

"You ask me questions!" she mocked. "When you would believe what pleased you, no matter what word I spoke! If I said that across the miles, over mountain and desert and water I sent my spirit to you—would you believe?"

"No. Not when there are other readier explanations."

She raised a quick hand and pointed to the parrot.

"Chatter! Questions put when you do not expect an answer. A hundred years of words and only a red and yellow bundle of feathers at the end. It is deeds we want, Señor Americano, you and I!"

He returned her look steadily.

"Then tell me what you want of me," he said. "And in one word I'll give you yes or no."

"That is man talk!" she cried. "And yet, Señor Jim Kendric, there come times even in a man's life when the yes or no is spoken for him." She paused for him to drink in all that her statement meant. Then, when he remained silent, his eyes hostile upon hers, she went on, her speech quick and passionate. "There are great happenings on foot, American. There will be war and death; there will be tearing down and building up. And it is I who will direct and it is you who will take my orders and make them law. And in the end I shall be a Zoraida whom the world shall know and you shall be a mighty man, the man of Mexico."

"Fine words!" It was his time to mock, his time to glance at the ancient bird.

"Yes, Jim Kendric. Fine words and more since they are great truths. Lest you think Zoraida Castelmar a girl of mad fancies, I will speak freely with you. Since all depends on me and it is in my mind that much will depend on you. And why on you? Why have I put my hand out upon you, a foreigner? Because you are such a man as I would make were I God; a man strong and fearless and masterful; a man trustworthy to the death when his word is given and his honor is at stake. No, I do not judge you alone by what happened at Ortega's gambling house. But that fitted in with all I knew of you. Where else can I find a man to lose ten thousand, twenty thousand dollars, all that he has and think no more of the matter than of a cigaret paper that the wind has blown from his hands? I have heard of you, Jim Kendric, and I have said to myself: 'Is there such a man? I know none like him!' Then I went for myself, saw for myself, judged for myself. And now I offer you what I offer no other man and what no other mortal can offer you."

"You give me a pretty clean bill of health," he said quietly. "Now what follows?"

"This: There will be war in Mexico——"

"No new thing," he cut in. "There is always war in Mexico."

"And I will direct that war," she went on serenely, "from this chair in this room and from elsewhere. Lower California will raise its own standard and it will be my standard. Already has word stirred Sonora into restlessness and a beginning of activity; already is Chihuahua armed and eager. Already have the thousands of Yaquis listened and agreed; already have I made them large promises of ancient tribal lands restored and money. A Yaqui guards my door yonder. But you did not know that he was the son of Chief Pima, nor that in ten days the son will be Chief after having served in the household of Zoraida! And Sonora and Chihuahua and the Yaqui tribes are pledged to one thing: To an independent Lower California over which I shall rule."

"Wild schemes," muttered Kendric. "Foredoomed, like other mad schemes in Mexico. And if your great plannings are feasible, which I very much doubt, has your feathered companion failed to remind you that talk with a stranger is rash?"

"You are no stranger," she said coolly. "Nor have I spoken a word to you that is not known already to all about me. My cousin, Ruiz Rios, whom I distrust and detest; the Captain Escobar who is a small man and a murderer, the other men whom I have gathered about me, they all know, for in this, if in nothing else, I can trust them all."

"But if I went away," he asked, "and talked?"

"You are not going away."

He lifted his brows quickly at that.

"I go where I please," he reminded her. "When I please. I am my own man, Señorita Castelmar."

"Large words." She smiled at him curiously.

"You mean that my going would be interfered with?"

"I mean that you may make yourself free of the house; that you may walk in the gardens; that, if you sought to pass the outer wall, you would be detained. You remain my prisoner, Señor Kendric, until you become my trusted captain!"

"You're a devilish hospitable hostess," he remarked. She was watching him shrewdly, interested to see just how he would accept her ultimatum. He returned her look with clear, untroubled eyes.

"You will think of what I have told you," she said slowly. "My wealth is very great; the fertile lands which I have inherited and those which I have purchased, embrace hundreds of thousands of acres; the barren lands which are mine, desert and mountain, stretch mile after mile. There is no power like mine in all Mexico, though until now it has lain hidden, giving no sign. It is in my heart to make you a rich man and, what you like more, Jim Kendric, a man to play the biggest of all games and for the biggest of all stakes. And further—further——"

"Further?" He laughed. "What comes after all that, Queen Zoraida?"

"Look into my eyes," she said softly. "Look deep."

He looked and though to him were women unread books, at last a slow flush crept up into his cheeks. For now neither he nor any other man could have failed to understand the silent speech of Zoraida's eyes. It was as though she invited him not so much to look into her eyes as through them and on, deep into her heart; as though these were gates, open to him, through which he might glimpse paradise. Zoraida, her look clinging to his passionately, was seeking to offer the final argument. The case would have not been plainer had she whispered with her lips: "I, even I, Zoraida, love you! You shall be my master; I your willing slave. What you will, I will also. My beauty shall be yours; my wealth, my estate, my ambitions, my power, all those shall be my lord's. Of a kingdom which shall be built you shall be king. You shall go far, you shall climb high. All because I, Zoraida, love you!"

She stood there watching him, her eyes burning into his. In her own mind were pictures made, pictures of pride and power and, as a mirror reflects the scene before it, so for a little did Jim Kendric's mind hold an image of the thing in Zoraida's. He felt her influence upon him; he felt that odd stirring of the blood; he stared back into her eyes like a man bewildered as pictures rose and swept magnificently by. He saw the red of her parted lips and heard her soft breathing; for a certain length of time—long or short he had little conception—he was motionless and speechless under her spell.

He stirred restlessly. Those visions conjured up within him, either by Zoraida's previous words and what had gone before or by the subtle workings of her mind now, were not unbroken. He thought of Twisty Barlow. Barlow had gone to her at the border town hotel; from his own experiences with her Kendric thought that he could imagine how she stood before the sailor, how she talked with him and looked at him, how in the first small point she won over him. He thought of an ancient tale of Circe and the swine. Was he a free man, a man's man or was he a woman's plaything?… It flashed over him again that it might be that Zoraida was mad. Even now, that he seemed to be reading her inmost soul, was she but playing the siren to his imaginings? Was this some barbaric whim of hers or was she, for the once, sincere? While appearing to be all yielding softness, was she but playing a game? Would she, at one instant swaying toward a man's arms, the next whip back from him, laughing at him?

Confused thoughts winging through his chaos of uncertainty held him where he was, his eyes staring at hers. Zoraida might read some of his mind but surely not all. What she realized was that she had offered much, everything, and that he stood, seemingly unmoved and frowned at her. Quick in all her emotions, now suddenly her cheeks flamed and the light in her eyes altered swiftly to blazing anger.

"Go!" she cried, pointing. She leaped to her feet, her eyes flaming. "By the long vanished Huitzil, I swear that I am of a mind to let those dogs, Rios and Escobar, have their way with you! What! am I Zoraida Castelmar, of a race of kings, daughter of the Montezumas, to have a man stand up before me weighing me in the balance of his two eyes? Go!"

He turned to go, eager to be out in the open air. But as he moved she called out to him:

"Wait! At least I will say my say. You and that fool Barlow came here, into my land, seeking gold. Escobar comes slinking in like a desert wolf on the same errand. Oh, I know something of it as I know something of all that goes forward from end to end of a land that will one day all be mine. Juarez died from Escobar's knife but his last gasp was for one of my agent's ears. When you or Barlow or Escobar lay hand on the treasure of the Montezumas, it will be to step aside for the last Montezuma. It will be mine!"

Fury filled her eyes. The hands at her sides clenched until the knuckles shone white through the blaze of her rings. The great cat rose and yawned, showing its glistening teeth and red throat. Its eyes were no more merciless and cruel than its mistress's. Kendric felt queerly as though he were looking back across dead centuries into ancient Mexico and upon the angry princess of the most cruel of all peoples, the blood-lusting Aztecs.

"Go!" she panted.

With one after another of the doors thrown open before him Kendric hurried away.

CHAPTER VII

OF A GIRL HELD FOR RANSOM AND OF A TOAST
DRUNK BY ONE INFATUATED

Jim Kendric returned straightway to the rooms allotted to him and Barlow, hoping to find his companion there. They must talk together, they must understand each the other; they must know, and know without delay, just in what and to what lengths friend could count on friend. To the uttermost, Kendric would have said a week ago. Now he only pondered the matter, recalling that in some ways Barlow did not seem quite the old mate.

He found the rooms empty and threw himself into one of the big chairs to wait. As he regarded the situation it had little enough to recommend itself to a man of his stamp. He had not the least desire to meddle in any way with Mexican revolutionary politics; upheavals would come and come again, no doubt, for thus would a great country in due time work out its own salvation. But it was no affair of his. This fomenting nucleus into which he and Barlow had come was, he estimated, foredoomed to failure and worse; one fine day Ruiz Rios and Fernando Escobar and their outlaw followings would find themselves with their backs to an adobe wall and their faces set toward a line of rifles. And Zoraida Castelmar had best think upon that, too. For turbulent times had borne women along with men to a quick undoing.

All this was clear to him. But here clarity gave way to groping uncertainty. Less than anything else did he have a stomach for being bottled up in any house in the world, Zoraida's house least of all, and denied the freedom of the open. It looked as though he, who had never done another man's command, must now do a girl's. At call she had fifty, perhaps a hundred retainers, ugly-looking devils all and no lovers of Americans who came unbidden into their country.

"There's always a way out of a mess like this," he told himself, determined to find it. "But right now I don't see it."

There was also the lodestone toward which he and Barlow had steered and which had drawn Fernando Escobar. And that amazing creature who coolly laid claim to the royal blood of the Montezumas, laid claim as well to their treasure trove. Just how any of them could make a move toward it without her knowledge baffled him. And hence, more than ever before, did his desire mount to get his own hands on it.

When presently Barlow entered, Kendric looked up at him thoughtfully. Barlow bore along with him a subdued air of excitement.

"You've just left Rios?" asked Kendric.

"Yes." Barlow came in and closed the door, looking quickly and questioningly at his friend. He appeared to hesitate, then said hurriedly: "There are big things ahead, old Headlong! Big!"

"Shoot," answered Kendric sharply. "What's the play, man?"

Again Barlow hesitated, plainly in doubt just how far Kendric might be in sympathy with him.

"It wouldn't make you mad to fill your pockets, Headlong, would it?" he asked. "Bulgin' full? And you wouldn't mind a scrap or two and a blow or two in the job, would you?"

"Watch your step, Twisty, old timer," said Kendric. "Rios has been talking revolution to you, has he? Sometimes an uprising down here is a nasty mess that it's easier to get into than out of again. And, if we get our hooks on the loot that brought us down here, why should we want to mix it with the federal government?"

Barlow began tugging at his forelock.

"I'm up a tree, Jim," he muttered at last. "Clean up a tree."

"Then look out you light on your feet instead of on your head when you decide to come down. It would be easy to make a mistake right now."

"Yes, easy; dead easy.—Old Headlong counseling caution!" Barlow laughed but with little genuine mirth.

"I want a straight talk with you, Twisty," said Kendric soberly. "I for one don't like the lay-out here and I'm going to break for the open. You and I have fallen among a pack of damned thieves, to draw it mild. It strikes me we'd better understand each other."

"Right!" cried Barlow eagerly. "Let's talk straight from the shoulder."

But events, or rather Zoraida Castelmar who sought to usurp destiny's prerogatives here, ruled otherwise. There came a quiet rap at the door, then the voice of one of the housemaids, saying:

"La Señorita Zoraida desires immediately to speak with Señor Barlow."

Barlow, just easing himself into a chair, jumped up.

"Coming," he called.

Kendric, too, sprang up, his hand locking hard upon Barlow's arm.

"Twisty," he said, "hold on a minute. The house isn't on fire."

"Well?" Barlow's impatience glared out of his eyes. "What is it?"

"I've got a very large, life-sized suspicion that it would be just as well if you sent back word you couldn't come. At least, not until we've had our talk."

"She said immediately," said Barlow. And then, "You don't want me to see her? Why?"

"Because, it you want to know, she isn't good for you. She'll seek to draw you in on this fool scheme of hers, and if you don't look out you'll do just what she says do. There never was a mere woman like her. She's uncanny, man! She will give you the same line of mad talk she gave me, she will make you the same sorts of offers——"

"You've seen her then? Tonight? While I was out with Rios you were with her?"

"Yes. And not because I found any pleasure in her company, either."

Barlow jerked free, laughing his disbelief, his look at once unpleasant and suspicious.

"Tell that to the marines," he jeered. He threw the door open and went out. In the hall Kendric could hear his steps sounding quick and eager. Kendric returned to his chair, perplexed. Then again he sprang up, throwing out his hands, shaking his shoulders as though to rid them of a troublesome weight.

"Too much thinking isn't good for a man," he told himself lightly. "The game's made; let her roll!"

He took a cigar from the table, lighted it and passed through the bath and adjoining room. A door opened to the outer corridor. He stepped out upon the flagstones and strolled down the aisle flanked on one side by the adobe wall of the house, on the other by the white columns and arches. The night was fine, clear and starlit; the fragrance of a thousand flowers lay heavy upon the-air; the babble of the outdoor fountain made merry music. He left the stone floor for the graveled driveway and put his head back to send a little puff of smoke upward toward the flash of stars.

"It's a good old land, at that," he mused. "Big and clean and wide open."

He strolled on, looking to right and left. Before him the gardens appeared deserted. But there were patches of inpenetrable blackness under the wider flung trees, and it seemed likely, from what Zoraida had said, that some of her rabble were watching him. If so, he deemed it as well to know for certain. So he kept straight on toward the whitewashed wall glimpsed through the foliage. He came to it and stopped; it was little higher than his head and would be no obstacle in itself. He shot out his hands, gripped the top and went up.

And still no one to dispute his right to do as he pleased. He sat for a moment atop the wall, looking about him curiously. He marked that at each of the corners of the enclosure to be seen from where he sat, was a little square tower rising a dozen feet higher than the wall. In each tower a lamp burned. From the nearest one came the voices of two men. Tied near this tower and outside the wall were two horses; he saw them vaguely and heard the clink of bridle chains. Saddled horses. There would be saddled horses at each of the four towers; night and day, if Zoraida's talk were not mere boasting. The temptation to know just how strict was the guard kept moved him to drop to the ground, on the outside of the wall. He moved quickly, but his feet had not struck the grass when a sharp whistle cut through the still night. The whistle came from somewhere in the shadows within the enclosure.

Kendric stood stone still. But had he been ready for flight he knew now that he could not have gone twenty paces before they stopped him. Where he had heard the voices of two men he now heard an overturned chair, jingle of spur and thud of boots, a sharp command. He saw two figures run out on the wall and leap down into the saddles just below. And he knew that in the other towers there had been like readiness and like action. For already he saw four mounted men and needed no telling that each man carried a rifle.

He climbed back on the wall, his curiosity for the moment satisfied. And there he sat until one of the riders galloped to him. The man came close and said gruffly:

"It is not permitted to cross the wall. It would be best if Señor Americano remembered. And went back to the house."

"Right-o!" agreed Kendric cheerily. "I just wanted to be sure, compadre," and he turned and dropped back into the garden. "She holds the cards, ace, face and trump!" he conceded sweepingly. "But the game's to play." And, as again he strolled along the driveway, his thoughts were not unpleasant. For what had he come adventuring into Lower California if he weren't ready for what the day might bring? The situation had its zest. He wondered how many men were hidden about the garden, like the fellow who had watched him and whistled? How many were watching him now? He reflected as he walked on, but his conjectures were not so deep as to make him oblivious of his cigar. On the whole, for the night, he was content.

Just as he turned the corner of the house a rider, coming from the double front gate, raced down the driveway and flung himself to the ground. A figure stepped out from the shadowy corridor and Kendric was near enough to recognize the second figure as that of Captain Escobar, even before he heard his sharp:

"Is that you, Ramorez? What luck?"

"Si, Señor Capitan. It is Ramorez. And the luck is fine!"

"You have her?" Escobar's tone was exultant.

"Just outside. Sancho is bringing her. I am here for orders. Where shall we take her?"

"Here. Into the house. Señorita Castelmar knows everything and is with us."

Ramorez swung back up into the saddle and spurred away, gone into the darkness under the trees toward the gate. Kendric stood where he was, receptive for any bit of understanding which might be vouchsafed him. He was satisfied with his position in the shadows; glad when Escobar stepped out so that the lamp light from within streamed across his face. Actually the man's hard eyes gloated.

It was only a moment until Ramorez returned, another man riding knee and knee with him, a led horse following them. It was this animal and its rider that held Kendric's eyes. In the saddle was what appeared a weary little figure, drooping forward, clutching miserably at the horn of the saddle with both hands. As she came nearer and there was more light he saw the bowed head, made out that it was hatless, even saw how the hair was all tumbled and ready to fall about her shoulders.

"You will get down, señorita." It was Escobar's voice, gloating like his eyes.

The listless figure in the saddle made no reply, seemed bereft of any volition of its own. As Ramorez put up his hands to help her, she came down stiffly and stood stiffly, looking about her. Kendric, to see better, came on emerging from the shadows and stood, leaning against the wall, drawing slowly at his cigar and awaiting the end of the scene. So now, for the first time, he saw the girl's face as she lifted it to look despairingly around.

"Oh," she cried suddenly, a catch in her voice, throwing out her two arms toward Escobar. "Please, please let me go!"

The hair was falling about her face; she shook it back, still standing with her arms outflung imploringly. Kendric frowned. The girl was too fair for a Mexican; her hair in the lamp light was less dark than black and might well be brown; her speech was the speech of one of his own country.

"An American girl!" he marveled. "These dirty devils have laid their hands on an American girl! And just a kid, at that."

With her hair down, with a trembling "Please" upon her lips, she did not look sixteen.

"I am so tired," she begged; "I am so frightened. Won't you let me go? Please?"

Kendric fully expected her to break into tears, so heartbroken was her attitude, so halting were her few supplicating words. A spurt of anger flared up in his heart; to be harsh with her was like hurting a child. And yet he held resolutely back from interference. As yet no rude hand was being laid on her and it would be better if she went into the house quietly than if he should raise a flurry of wild hope in her frightened breast and evoke an outpouring of terrified pleadings, all to no avail. What he would have to say were best said to Escobar alone.

Slowly her arms dropped to her sides. Her look went from face to face, resting longest on Jim Kendric's. He kept his lips tight about his cigar, shutting back any word to raise false hope just yet. The result was that the girl turned from him with a little shudder, seeing in him but another oppressor. She sighed wearily and, walking stiffly, passed to the door flung open by Ramorez and into the house. Escobar was following her when Kendric called to him. The bandit captain muttered but came back into the yard.

"Well, señor?" he demanded impudently. "What have you to say to me?"

"Who is that girl?" asked Kendric. "And what are you doing with her?"

Escobar laughed his open insolence.

"So you are interested? Pretty, like a flower, no? Well, she is not for you, Señor Americano, though she is of your own country. She is the daughter of a rich gentleman named Gordon, if you would know. Her papa calls her Betty and is very fond of her. Him I have let go back to the United States. That he may send me twenty-five thousand dollars for Señorita Betty. Are there other questions, señor?"

"You've got a cursed high hand, Captain Escobar," muttered Kendric. "But let me tell you something: If you touch a hair of that poor little kid's head I'll shoot six holes square through your dirty heart." And he passed by Escobar and went into the house.

He meant to tell the daughter of Gordon that he, too, was an American; that Barlow, another American, was on the job; that, somehow, they would see her through. But he was given only a fleeting glimpse of her as she passed out through a door across the room, escorted by the grave-eyed young woman who an hour ago had warned him not to anger Zoraida. He saw Betty Gordon's face distinctly now; she was fair, her hair was brown, he thought her eyes were gray. But before he could call to her she was gone, clinging to the arm of Zoraida's maid.

"Poor little kid," muttered Kendric, staring after her. "I'd give my hat to have her on a horse, scooting for the New Moon. All alone among these pirates, with her dad the Lord knows where trying to dig up twenty-five thousand dollars for her!"

At least she was no doubt well enough off for the night. She looked too tired to lie awake long, no matter what her distress. He returned to his rooms and sat down to wait again for Barlow.

When at last Barlow came Kendric knew on the instant what success Zoraida had had with him. Twisty's eyes were shining; his head was up; he walked briskly like a man with his plans made and his heart in them.

"You poor boob," muttered Kendric disgustedly. "Once you let a woman get her knife in your heart you're done for."

Barlow swept up the brandy bottle and filled a glass brim full.

"To Zoraida, Queen of Lower California!" he cried ringingly. He drank and smashed the glass upon the floor.

Kendric sighed and shook his head hopelessly. And thanked God that he had never been the man to go mad over a pretty face.

CHAPTER VIII

HOW A MAN MAY CARRY A MESSAGE AND NOT
KNOW HIMSELF TO BE A MESSENGER

"There's no call for bad blood between you and me, Jim," said Barlow, plainly ill at his ease. "We've always been friends; let's stay friends. If we can't pull together in the deal that's comin', why, let's just split our trail two ways and let it go at that."

"Fair enough," cried Kendric heartily. His companion thrust out a hand; Kendric took it warmly. Barlow looked relieved.

"And," continued the sailor, "there's no sense forgettin' what we ran into this port for in the first place. There's the loot; no matter how or when we come at it, both together or single, we split it even?"

"Fair again. The old-time Barlow talking."

"All I've held out on you, Jim, is the exact location, so far as I know it. I'll spill that to you now, best I can. Then you can play out your string your way and I can play it out my way. As Juarez tipped me off, you've got three peaks to sail by; whether it's the three we saw first or the ones right off here, back of the house, I don't know any more than you do. But it ought to be easy tellin' when a man's on the spot. The middle peak ought to be a good fifty feet higher than the others and flat lookin' on top. In a ravine, between the tall boy and the one at the left, Juarez said there was a lot of scrub trees and brush. He said plow through the brush, keepin' to the up edge when you can get to it, until you come to about the middle of the patch. There a man would find a lot of loose rock, boulders that looked like they'd slid off the mountain. This rock, and the Lord knows how much of it there is, covers the hole that the old priest's writin' said that loot was in. And that's the yarn, every damn' word of it."

"If it's the place back of the house," said Kendric, "it'll be a night job, all of it. It's not a half mile off and plain sight from here. Now, what's the likelihood of Escobar having been there ahead of us?"

"Escobar's out of the runnin'." Barlow's eyes glinted with his satisfaction. "He's corked up here tighter'n a fly in a bottle. He isn't allowed to stick nose outside the walls after dark; and he isn't allowed to ride out of sight in the daytime. Those are little Escobar's orders. And, by cracky, I'll bet he minds 'em."

"Who told you all that?"

"She did."

"What's she close-herding him for?"

"Doesn't trust him; can you blame her? She's takin' her chances, and she knows it, plannin' the big things ahead. And she's not missin' a bet."

"And more," remarked Kendric drily, "she hankers for the loot herself?"

"She wouldn't know a thing about it," protested Barlow. "Escobar would keep his mouth shut; he's wise hog enough for that."

"But she does know, Twisty. She knows that Escobar knifed Juarez; she knows why; she knows pretty nearly as much about the thing as we know."

"She knows a lot of things," mused Barlow. But he shook his head: "She's shootin' high, Headlong; no penny-ante game for her! Not that what we're lookin' for sounds little; but it ain't in her path and she's not turnin' aside for anything. And she's the richest lady in Mexico right now. Those pearls of hers, man, are worth over a hundred thousand dollars, or I'm a fool. I saw them again tonight; she let me have them in my hands. And that ruby; did you see it? Why, kings can't sport stones like that in their best Sunday crowns."

"She contends that she is a descendent of the old Mexican kings," offered Kendric coolly. "And any treasure, left by the Montezumas, she claims by right of inheritance!"

"She couldn't get across with a claim like that, could she? Not in any law court, Jim?"

"Not unless the jurors were all men and she could get them off alone, one at a time, and whisper in their ears," grunted Kendric.

Barlow laughed and they dropped the subject. Kendric told Barlow what he had learned during the evening; how the walls were sentinelled and how at the present moment under the same roof with them was an American girl, held for ransom.

"And, according to Escobar," he concluded, watching his old friend's face, "the trick is put over with the connivance of Miss Castelmar. This would seem to be one of the headquarters of the great national game!"

"Well?" snapped the sailor. "What of it? If you can get away with a game like that it pays big and fast. And who the devil sent you and me down this way to preach righteousness? It's their business—but, cut-throat cur that that little bandit hop o' my thumb is, I don't believe a word he says."

"And if you did believe, it would be just the same?" There was a queer note in his voice. "Well, Twisty, old mate, I guess you've said it. Our trail forks. Good night."

"Good night," growled Barlow. Each went into his own bedroom; the doors closed after them.

For a couple of hours Kendric sat in the dark by his window, staring out into the gardens, pondering. Of two things he was certain: He was not going to remain shut up in the Hacienda Montezuma if there was a way to break for the open; and he was not going to leave Lower California without his share of the buried treasure or at least without knowing that the tale was a lie. And, little by little, a third consideration forced itself in with its place with these matters; he could not get out of his mind the picture of the "poor little kid of a girl" in Escobar's hands. Like any other strong man, Kendric had a quick sympathy and pity for the weak and abused. Never, he thought, had he seen an individual less equipped to contend with such forces than was the little American girl.

"What I'd like," he thought longingly, "would be to make a break for the border; to round up about twenty of the boys and to swoop down on this place like a gale out of hell! Clean 'em for fair, pick the little Gordon girl up and race back to the border with her. If it wasn't so blamed far——"

But he realized, even while he let his angry fancies run, that he was dreaming impossibilities. He knew, also, that to take up the matter through the regular diplomatic channels would be a process too infinitely slow to suit the situation. It was either a single-handed job for Jim Kendric, or else it was up to the girl's father to pay down the twenty-five thousand dollars.

"I'd give a good deal for a talk with old Bruce West," he told himself. "His outfit lies close in to these diggings; wonder if he has any American boys working for him? Why, a dozen of us, or a half dozen, would stand this place on end! Yes; I'd like to see Bruce."

A score of reasons flocked to him why it was desirable to see young West. The boy was a friend, and it would be a joy just to grip him by the hand again after three years; Bruce had written to him to come and now that events had led him so near, he should grant the request; Bruce was having his own troubles, no doubt against the lawlessness of Escobar, Rios and the rest. And finally, he and Bruce might work things together so that both should derive benefit. Bruce might be in a position to befriend Gordon's little daughter.

So much did Kendric dwell on the subject that night that it claimed his first thoughts when he woke in the early dawn. And therefore, when Zoraida's message was handed to him at the breakfast table, he stared at it with puzzled eyes asking himself if the amazing creature had read his thoughts through thick walls of adobe.

The message was typewritten, even to the signature. It said:

"No doubt Señor Kendric would like to see his old friend Señor West. If he will only set his signature below what follows he will be given a horse, permission to ride and instructions as to direction. Zoraida."

And below were the words, with date and a dotted line for him to sign:

"I pledge my word, as a gentleman, to Zoraida Castelmar, that I will return to her at Hacienda Montezuma not later than daybreak twenty-four hours from now.…"

"A take or leave proposition, clean cut," he comprehended promptly. And as promptly he decided to take it. The maid who had brought him the paper was offering pen and ink. He accepted and wrote swiftly: "Jim Kendric."

"Has Barlow breakfasted yet?" he asked, returning to his coffee.

"An hour ago, Señor. He has gone out."

"Alone?"

"No, señor. With La Señorita Zoraida."

"Hm," said Kendric. "And Rios? And Escobar?"

"Señor Rios went to bed late; it is his custom, señor." The girl looked as though she could tell him more but, with a quick glance over her shoulder, contented herself with saying only: "Señor Escobar is with the men outside."

"And the American girl? Miss Gordon?"

"Asleep still, señor."

"Has Escobar been near her?"

"No, señor. She has been alone except for me and Rosita. La pobrecita," she added, almost in a whisper. "She is so frightened."

"Be kind to her," said Kendric. He, too, looked over his shoulder. In his pocket were the few fifty-dollar bills left to him from his oil shares. "What is your name?"

"Juanita," she told him.

"All right, Juanita; take this." He slipped a bill along the tablecloth toward her. "Give Rosita half, you keep half. And be kind to Miss Gordon."

"Oh, señor!" she cried, as in protest. But she took the bank note. Kendric felt better for the transaction; he finished his breakfast with rare appetite.

"Now," he cried, jumping up, "for the horse. Is it ready?"

Juanita, the folded paper in her hands, went with him to the door.

"The horse is ready, Señor Americano," she told him. "It remains only for me to tell the boy that you have promised to return."

Sure enough, pawing the gravel in front of the house, half jerking off his feet the mestizo holding it, was a tall, rangy sorrel horse looking as fine an animal as any man in a hurry could wish.

"Señor Kendric will ride, Pedro," called Juanita. "Give him the horse."

Pedro gave the reins over to Kendric and turned away toward the stables. Kendric swung up into the saddle and for a moment curbed the big sorrel's dash toward the gates, to say meditatively to Juanita:

"If I took that paper away from you and made a run for it, what then?"

A look of fear leaped into the girl's dark eyes and she drew hastily back, clutching the paper to her breast.

"Señor!" she cried, breathless and aghast. "You would not! She—she would kill me!"

"She would what?" he scowled.

"She would give me to her cat, her terrible, terrible cat, to play with!" Juanita shivered, and drew still further back. "With my life I must guard this paper until it goes from my hand into her hand."

He laughed his disbelief and gave his horse his head at last. They shot away through the shrubberry; the horse slid to a standstill before the closed gate. Of the man smoking a cigaret before it Kendric said curtly:

"You are to let me through. And direct me to Bruce West's ranch."

"Si, señor." The man opened the gate. "It is yonder; up the valley. The trail will carry you up over the mountain; there are piled stones to mark the way to the pass. In an hour, from the other side of the ridge, you will see houses. Ten miles from there."

Kendric rode through and as he did so his figure straightened in the saddle, his shoulders squared, he put up his head. Free and in the open, if only for twenty-four hours. And with a horse, a real horse, between his knees. He looked off to the left to Barlow's three peaks; the sun was gilding the top of the tallest and it was unquestionable that it was flat-topped. But he did not dwell long upon buried gold nor yet on the query which suggested itself: "Where were Barlow and Zoraida riding so early?" The immediate present and the immediate surroundings were all that he cared to interest himself in on a day like this.

The man at the gate had said it was ten miles from the far side of the ridge to the Bruce West ranch house; the entire distance, therefore, from the Hacienda Montezuma would be about double that distance. The trail, once he reached the hills, was a dilatory, leisurely affair, thoroughly Mexican; it sought out the gentlest slope always and appeared in no haste to arrive anywhere. Well, his mood could be made to suit the trail's; he was in no hurry, having all day for his talk with young West.

The higher he rose above the floor of Zoraida's grassy valley the steeper did his trail become, flanked with cliffs, at times looking too sheer ahead for a horse. But always the path twisted between the boulders and found the possible way up. So he came into a splendid solitude, a region of naked rocks, of a few windblown trees, of little open level spaces grown up with dry brush and wiry grass; of defiles through stone-bound ways that were so narrow two men could not have ridden through them abreast, so crooked that a man often could not see ten steps ahead or ten steps behind, so deep that he must throw his head far back to see the barren cliff tops above him. Strips of sky, seen thus, were deep, deep blue.

It was not at all strange, he told himself during one of his meditative moments while his horse climbed valiantly, that Zoraida should know of his friendship with Bruce West, nor that she should understand his natural desire to ride where he was going this morning. Everyone in the border town had known of his letter at the postoffice; further, it was not in the least unlikely that Señorita Castelmar would know of the letter when it was dropped into the slot at the Mexican postoffice. What did strike him as odd, however, was that she should consent to his leaving the ranch, realizing that he knew much of her own plans and would doubtless speak freely of them and of the American girl held in her house for ransom.

"Not only was she willing for me to see Bruce," he decided; "she wanted me to. Why?"

His trail led him into the last narrow defile to be encountered before reaching the summit. So closely did the rocks press in on each side that often his tapaderos brushed the sheer wall. He made a turn, none too wide for the body of his horse and drew sudden rein, looking into two rifle barrels. The men covering him lay a dozen feet above his head upon a bare, flat rock. He could see only the hands upon their guns, the heads under their tall hats, the shoulders. But he was near enough to mark a business-like look in the hard black eyes.

"You've got the drop on me, compañeros," he said lightly. "What's the game?"

A third man appeared on foot in the trail before him, stepping out from behind a shoulder of rock. He came on until he could have put out a hand to the sorrel's reins.

"Where do you ride so early?" asked the man on foot, his voice quiet but vaguely hostile. "On what errand?"

"What business is it of yours, my friend?" returned Kendric.

"I know the horse," called one of the figures above. "It is El Rey, from the stables of La Señorita."

"Then the rider must have a message. Or a sign. Or he has stolen the horse, which would go bad with him!"

"Curse you and your signs and messages," cried Kendric hotly. "It's a free country and I ride where I please."

The man before him only smiled.

"Let me look at your saddle strings," he said.

Kendric stared wonderingly; was the fellow insane? What in the name of folly did he mean by a thing like this? Surely not just the opportunity to draw close enough to strike with a knife; the rifles above made such strategy useless.

So he sat still and contented himself with watching. The man came a step closer, twisted El Rey's head aside, pressed close and looked at the rawhide strings on one side of the saddle. Then he moved to the other side and repeated the process. Immediately he drew back, lifting his hat widely.

"Pass on, señor," he said courteously. "Viva La Señorita!"

Kendric spurred by him and rode on, passing abruptly out of a wilderness of tumbled boulders into a grassy flat. He turned in the saddle; nowhere was there sign of another than himself upon the mountain. Curiously he looked at his saddle strings; in one of them a slit had been made through which the end of the string had been passed; a double knot had been tied just below the slit. In no other particular was any one of the strings in the least noteworthy.

"As good a way to carry a message as any," he grunted. "With not even the messenger aware of the tidings he brings!"

The incident impressed him deeply. Zoraida, at the game she played, was in deadly earnest. Her commands went far and through many channels and were obeyed. The passes through the mountains were in her hands. The sunlight fell warm and golden about him; the full morning was serene; a stillness as of ineffable peace lay across the solitudes. And yet he felt that the placid promise was a lie; that the laughing loveliness of the day was but a mask covering much strife. In the full light he moved on not unlike a man groping in absolute darkness, uncertain of the path he trod, suspicious of pitfalls, knowing only that his direction was in hands other than his own. Hands that looked soft and that were relentless; hands that blazed with barbaric jewels. There had been a knot in a rawhide string, and a bandit in the mountains had lifted his hat and had said simply: "Long live La Señorita!"

CHAPTER IX

WHICH BEGINS WITH A LITTLE SONG AND ENDS
WITH TROUBLE BETWEEN FRIENDS

Speculation at this stage was profitless and the day was perfect. Kendric told himself critically that he was growing fanciful; he had been cooped up too much. First on board the schooner New Moon, then in four walls of a house. What he needed was day after day, stood on end, like this. If he didn't look out he'd be growing nerves next. He grinned widely at the remote possibility, pushed his hat far back and rode on. And by the time his horse had carried him to the far edge of the level land and to the first slope of the downward pitch, he was singing contentedly to himself and his horse and all the world that cared to listen.

Far below, far ahead, he caught his first glimpse of the ranch houses marking the Bruce West holdings. From the heights his eye ran down into valley lands that stretched wide and far away, rolling, grassy, with occasional clumps of trees where there were water holes. A valley by no means so prodigally watered as Zoraida's, but none the less an estate to put a sparkle into a man's eyes. It was large, it was sufficiently level and fertile; above aught else it was remote. It gave the impression of a great, calm aloofness from the outside world of traffic and congestion; it lay, mile after mile, sufficient unto itself, a place for a lover of the outdoors to make his home. No wonder that young West had gone wild over it. Hills and mountains shut it in, rising to the sky lines like walls actually sustaining the blue cloudless void. As Jim Kendric rode on and down his old song, his own song, found its way to his lips.

"Where skies are blue
And the earth is wide
And it's only you
And the mountainside!"

"Twenty miles between shacks," he considered approvingly. "And never a line fence to cut your way through. It's near paradise, this land, wherever it isn't just fair hell. No half way business; no maudlin make-believe." But all of a sudden his face darkened. "Poor little kid," he said. "If Bruce could only loan me half a dozen ready-mixed, rough and ready, border cowboys; Californians, Arizonans and Texans!"

His hopes of this were not large at any time; when he came upon the first of Bruce West's riders they vanished entirely. An Indian, or half breed at the best, ragged as to black stringy hair, hard visaged, stony eyed. Kendric called to him and the rider turned in his saddle and waited. And for answer to the question: "Where's the Old Man? Bruce West?" the answer was a hand lifted lazily to point up valley and silence.

"Gracias, amigo," laughed Kendric and rode on.

There was not a more amazed man in all Lower California when Jim Kendric rode up to him. Bruce West was out with two of his men driving a herd of young, wild-looking horses down toward the corrals beyond the house. For an instant his blue eyes stared incredulously; then they filled with shining joy. He swept off his broad hat to wave it wildly about his head; he came swooping down on Kendric as though he had a suspicion that his visitor had it in his head to whirl and make a bolt for the mountains; he whooped gleefully.

"Old Jim Kendric!" he shouted. "Old Headlong Jim! Old r'arin', tearin', ramblin', rovin', hell-for-leather Kendric! Oh, mama! Man, I'm glad to see you!"

Only a youngster, was Bruce West, but manly for all that, who wore his heart on his sleeve, his honesty in his eyes and who would rather frolic than fight but would rather fight than do nothing. When last Kendric had seen him, Bruce was nursing his first mustache and glorying in the triumphant fact that soon he would be old enough to vote; now, barely past twenty-three, he looked a trifle thinner than his former hundred and ninety pounds but never a second older. He was a boy with blue eyes and yellow hair and a profound adoration for all that Jim Kendric stood for in his eager eyes.

"Why all the war paint, Baby Blue-eyes?" Kendric asked as they shook hands. For under Bruce's knee was strapped a rifle and a big army revolver rode at his saddle horn.

Bruce laughed, his mood having no place for frowns.

"Not just for ornament, old joy-bringer," he retorted. "Using 'em every now and then. I'm in deep here, Jim, with every cent I've got and every hope of big things. Times, a man has to shoot his way out into the clear or go to the wall. Hey, Gaucho!" he called, turning in his saddle. "You and Tony haze the ponies in to the corrals. And tell Castro we've got the King of Spain with us for grub and to put on the best on the ranch; we'll blow in about noon. Come ahead, Jim; I'll show you the finest lay-out of a cow outfit you ever trailed your eye across."

They rode, saw everything, both acreage and water and stock, and talked; for the most part Bruce did the talking, speaking with quick enthusiasm of what he had, what he had done, what he meant to accomplish yet in spite of obstacles. He had bought outright some six thousand acres, expending for them and what low-bred stock they fed all of his inherited capital. From the nearest bank, at El Ojo, he had borrowed heavily, mortgaging his outfit. With the proceeds he had leased adjoining lands so that now his stock grazed over ten thousand acres; he had also bought and imported a finer strain of cattle. With the market what it was he was bound to make his fortune, hand over fist——

"If they'd only leave me alone!" he exclaimed hotly.

"They?" queried Kendric.

"Of course the country is unsettled," explained the boy. "Ever since I came into it there has been one sort or another of unrest. When it isn't outright revolution it's politics and that's pretty near the same thing. There are prowling bands of outlaws, calling themselves soldiers, that the authorities can't reach. Look at those mountains over there! What government that has to give half its time or more to watching its own step, can manage to ferret out every nest of highwaymen in every cañon? Those boys are my big trouble, Jim! A raid from them is always on the books and there are times when I'm pretty near ready to throw up the sponge and drift. But it's a great land; a great land. And now you're with me!" His eyes shone. "I'll make you any sort of a proposition you call for, Jim, and together we'll make history. Not to mention barrels of money."

Kendric's ever-ready imagination was snared. But he was in no position to forget that he had other fish to fry.

"What do you know of your neighbors?" he asked.

"Not much," admitted Bruce. "And yet enough to sabe what you're driving at. The nearest are twenty miles away, at the Montezuma ranch. The boss of the outfit is your old friend Ruiz Rios. I told you that in my letter. I haven't the dead wood on him but it's open and shut that he'd as soon chip in on a cattle-stealing deal as anything else."

"He doesn't own the Montezuma," said Kendric.

"It's the same thing. The owner is a woman, his cousin, I believe. But she's away most of the time, and Rios does as he pleases."

"You don't know the lady, then?"

"Never saw her. Don't want to, since she's got Rios blood in her."

"Let's get down and roll a smoke and talk," offered Kendric. They were on a grassy knoll; there were oaks and shade and grass for the horses. Bruce looked at him sharply, catching the sober note. But he said nothing until they were lying stretched out under the oaks, holding the tie ropes at the ends of which their horses browsed.

"Cut her loose, Jim," he said then. "What's the story?"

Kendric told him: Of his quest with Twisty Barlow; of Zoraida Castlemar and her ambitions; of his own situation in the household, a prisoner with today granted him only in exchange for his word to return by dawn; and finally of Betty Gordon.

"Good God," gasped Bruce. "They're going it that strong? Out in the open, too! And laying their paws on an American girl. Whew!"

Kendric added briefly an account of his being stopped in the pass.

"It's a fair bet," he concluded, "that your raiders get their word straight from the Montezuma ranch. Which means, straight from the lips of Zoraida Castlemar."

Bruce fell to plucking at the dry grass, frowning.

"Funny thing, it strikes me, Jim, that if you're right she should give you the chance to tip me off. How do you figure that out?"

"I haven't figured it out. Here's what we do know: When I was a dozen miles from her place and naturally would suppose that, if I chose, I was free to play out my own hand, up popped those three men; a reminder, as plain as your hat, that through their eyes I was still under the eyes of Zoraida Castlemar. Further, as innocent as a fool, I carried a message to them in a cut and tied saddle string. A message that was a passport for me; what other significance it carried, quién sabe? There's a red tassel on my horse's bridle; that might be another sign, as far as you and I know. The quirt at my saddle horn, the chains in my bridle, the saddle itself or the folds of the saddle blanket—how do we know they don't all carry her word? An easy matter, if only the signal is prearranged."

"The fine craft of the Latin mind," muttered Bruce.

"Rather the subtlety of the old Aztecs," suggested Kendric.

"But all this could have been done as well, and taking no chances, by one of the Montezuma riders."

"Of course. Hence, the one thing clear is that it was desired that I should see you. Since it was obvious that I'd tell you what I knew, that's the odd part of it."

"Why, it's madness, man! It gives us the chance, if no other, to get word back home about the little Gordon girl."

"I'd thought of that. Just how would we do it? A letter in the nearest postoffice?"

"You mean that the postmaster would be on the watch for it? And would play into her hands? Well, suppose we took the trouble to send a cowboy to some other, further postoffice? Or, by golly, to send him all the way to the border? Or, if I should go with the word myself?"

"Answer: If you sent an Indian, how much would you bet that he did not circle back to the Montezuma ranch with the letter? If you went yourself, how far do you suppose you'd ever get?"

Bruce's eyes widened.

"Do you suppose they're going that strong, Jim?"

"I don't know, Bruce. But tell me: if it seemed the wise thing to do, could you drop everything here and make a try to get through with the word?"

Bruce looked worried.

"It's my hunch," he answered, "that it would be a cheaper play for me to pay the twenty-five thousand dollar ransom and be done with it! You don't know how bad things are here, Jim; if I went and came back it would be to find that I'd been cleaned. No, I'm not exaggerating. And with the mortgage on the place, the next thing I would know was that it was foreclosed and in the end I'd lose everything I've got."

"From which I gather you don't put a whole lot of confidence in your cowboys?"

"That's the plain hell of it! Not only have I got to sleep with one eye on my stock; I've got to keep the other peeled on the men that are taking my pay. I never know what other man's pay they're taking at the same time."

"Or what woman's. Well, I imagine Miss Castlemar knows conditions as well as we do, if not a good deal better. So it looks as though she were taking no chances in letting me ride over to see you; and it remains possible that by so doing I am furthering her purpose. Though just how, is another thing I don't know."

"She must be some corker of a female," muttered Bruce. "What does she look like, Jim?"

"Tall. Young and not bad looking. Vain as a peacock and high and mighty."

"That kind of a girl makes me sick," was young Bruce's quick decision. "Let's ride back, Jim; it'll be time to eat."

As they rode slowly down toward the ranch house Bruce pointed out how, living in constant expectation of the operations of cattle and horse thieves, he took what precautions he could. The pick of his saddle horses, a dozen of them, were grazed during the day in the fields near the house and at night were brought in and stabled. A number of the finest cattle, including a thoroughbred Hereford bull and forty beautiful Hereford cows, recently purchased, were driven each evening into the nearest fields where from dark to daylight they were herded by a night rider.

"I've got to take it for granted," explained West, "that at least some of my vacqueros are on the level. I pick my best men for jobs like this. And I've always got night riders out, making their rounds from one end of the valley to the other. On top of all that I've got my dogs; look, here they come to meet us."

There were ten of them, big tan and white collies, vying with one another to come first to their master. Splendid animals all of them, but at the fore ran the most splendid of them all, the father and patriarch of his flock. It was his keen nostril and eye that was wont first to know who came; his superb strength and speed carried him well in the lead and he guarded his supremacy jealously. His sharp teeth snapped viciously when a hardy son ran close at his side and the youngster, though he snarled and bristled, swerved widely and thus fell back. They barked as they swept on, the sharp, stacatto bark of their breed.

"They're something I can trust," said Bruce proudly. "No hand but mine feeds them; if I catch a man carressing one of them he draws his pay and quits. And I go to sleep of nights reasonably sure that their din will wake me if an outsider sets foot near the home corrals. Hi! Monarch! Jump for it."

From his pocket he brought out a bit of dried beef, the "jerky" of the southwest. He held it out arm's length, sending his horse racing forward with a sudden touch of his spur. The big dog barked eagerly and launched his sinewy body into the air; the sunlight flashed back a moment from the bared sharp teeth; Monarch dropped softly back to earth with the dried beef already bolted. Bruce laughed.

At the house, like Zoraida's in the matters of age and thick, cool walls, but much smaller, they found an excellent meal awaiting them. They ate under a leafy grape arbor on the shady side of the house, half a dozen of Bruce's men sitting at table with them. Kendric regarded the men with interest, feeling that their scrutiny of him was no less painstaking. They were swarthy Indians and half-breeds and little else did he make of them. Their eyes met his, steady and unwinking, but gave no clue to what thoughts might lie back of them.

"I'll bet Bruce sleeps with a gun under his pillow," was Kendric's thought at the end of the meal.

By the well, under some shade trees in the yard, the two friends sat and smoked, watching the men laze away to the stables. Thereafter they spoke quietly of the captive in the Hacienda Montezuma.

"It's not to be thought of," said Bruce, "that a scared little kid like her is to be held that way and we sit like two bumps on a log. Looks like her troubles were up to you and me, Jim."

In the end they agreed that at least it was unthinkable that Betty Gordon would suffer any bodily injury in the same house with Zoraida and her girls; further, that the greatest access of terror had no doubt passed. One grew accustomed to pretty nearly everything. Kendric, bound by his parole to return, would seek the girl out and extend to her what comfort he could; just to know that she was not altogether friendless would bring hope and its own sort of gladness. Tonight, as soon as the men came in and it was dark, they would send Manuel, Bruce's most trustworthy man, to a forty-mile distant postoffice. He would carry with him two letters: one would be addressed to the governor of Lower California and one to friends in San Diego.

"It's about the best we can do on short notice," admitted Kendric, though he was dissatisfied. "I'm not figuring, though, that it's in the cards for me to stick overlong under the same roof with Rios and his crowd. There's the schooner down in the gulf and there's you for us to count on. Never fret, old Baby Blue-eyes; we'll have her out of that yet."

The letters were written; a little after dusk Manuel set forth, promised a double month's pay if he succeeded and in return promising by all the saints he could call to tongue that he would guard the letters with his life. From their chairs on the porch Kendric and Bruce saw the man depart. When his figure had dimned and blurred into the gathering night they still sat on, silent, watching the stars come out. Bruce had brought out cigars and the red embers glowed companionably. Presently Bruce sighed.

"It's a great little old land," he said, and the inflection of the quietly spoken words was that of affection. "A man could ask for no better, Jim. Conditions right now are damnable; you've got to scrap all along the line for what's yours. But what do you know that is worth the having that isn't worth the fighting for? And one of these fine days when Mexico settles down to business, sort of grows up and gets past the schoolboy stage, we'll have the one combination now lacking—law and order."

Kendric, who had been reflecting upon other matters, made no immediate reply. Bruce had the answer to his suggestion of a new order of things but it came from the darkness beyond his barns. There was a sudden sharp bark from one of his dogs, then a rising clamor as the whole pack broke into excited barking. From so far away that the sound barely reached them came a man's voice, exclaiming angrily. Then a rifle shot, a long, shrill whistle, shouts and the sudden thud of many racing hoofs.

Bruce West toppled over his chair and plunged through the nearest door. It was dark in the house and Kendric heard him strike against a second chair, send it crashing to the floor and dash on. In a moment Bruce was back on the porch, a rifle in each hand. One he thrust out to Kendric, muttering between his teeth,

"Raiders, or we're in luck. Damned rebel outlaws. Come on!"

He ran out into the yard, Kendric at his heels pumping a shell into the barrel. As they turned a corner of the house Bruce stopped dead in his track and Kendric bumped into him and stopped with him. Already the barns were on fire; two tall flames stabbed upward at the dark; the hissing of burning wood and fodder must have reached their ears in five minutes had the pack given no warning. In the rapidly growing light they saw the dogs where, bunched together, they snarled and snapped and broke into wilder baying.

Bruce began shouting, calling to his men, three or four of whom came running out of the house. Beyond the barns they made out vague forms, whether of cattle or horses or riders it was at first impossible to know. Again they ran forward; from somewhere in the direction of the corrals came several rifle reports. With the gun shots a confusion of shouts through the heavier notes of which rose one voice, as high pitched as a woman's.

In the barn lofts the flames were spreading in a thousand directions, each dry stalk serving as a duct of destruction. The fire shot upward and the roof blossomed in red flames. Bruce groaned and cursed and prayed wildly for a glimpse of one of the devils who had done this for him. Big clouds of smoke drifted upward across the stars, shot through with flying sparks. Swiftly the lurid light spread until the white walls of the house stood out distinctly and the forms near the corrals were no longer vague. They were running cattle, Bruce's choice forty cows; Kendric saw the fine bred Hereford bull's horns glint, heard the snort of fear and rage, made out the big bulk crushing a way to the fore among his terrified companions. There were horses, too, running wild, the animals from the stables and the near corral. And behind them, shouting and now and then firing into the air to hasten the laggards, were many horsemen. How many it was impossible to estimate, a dozen at the least, perhaps fifty.

As the black mass of frightened beasts gathered forward headway and shot through the area of light, Kendric saw one horseman clearly. On the instant he threw up his rifle. Already his finger was crooking to the trigger when, with a mutter of rage, he lowered his arm. There was no mistaking that great white horse and he thought that there was as little mistaking its rider, a slender, upright figure leading the rush of the raiders, calling out sharp orders in the clear ringing voice, sweeping on recklessly. He cursed her but he held back his fire. Of women he knew little enough and for women there had been no place reserved in his life; but, for all that and all that Zoraida Castlemar might be and might do, he had not learned to lift his hand against her sex.

But there was nothing in what Bruce saw to restrain him. He fired while his rifle was rising to his shoulder and again and again with the stock against his cheek.

"Damn the light!" he growled, and fired again.

Through the tumult Kendric heard her laughter. None other than Zoraida could laugh like that. Again the suspicion flashed into his quickened brain that the girl was mad. He heard several shots behind him; Bruce's men were taking a hand. Then, close behind the white mare came a second horseman and Kendric thanked God for a man for a target and fired at it. Luck if he hit it, he told himself, at that distance and running and in that flickering light. But he fired again, ran in closer and fired the third time. And just as the white mare passed on through the illumed area and was lost in the dark with its rider he saw his man pitch forward and plunge to the ground. Other forms swept by, other shots were fired both from the outlaws and toward them. The darkness accepted them all and no other man fell.

Shouts floated back to them above the hammering thud of the fleeing cows and horses. Into the darkness after them Bruce and Kendric and Bruce's men sent many questing bullets while now and then an answering leaden pellet screamed over their heads. Swiftly the clamor of the receding hoof-beats lessened; no voices returned to them; no wild rider was to be seen. The night pulsed only to the barks of the dogs and the roar of the devastating flames.

Bruce was calling loudly to his men to get to horse and follow. But while he spoke he broke off hopelessly realizing that not a horse was left to him. Before he and his herders could get into saddle they must wait for daylight and must waste hours in driving in horses from the distant pastures, wild brutes for the most part that a man could never get near enough on foot to rope. He threw out his arms in a wide gesture of despair. Thereafter he stood, silent and moody, watching his hay-filled barns burn.

"If I could get my hands on the man that engineered this," he said, his voice broken, barely carrying to Kendric a few paces away. "That's all I ask."

Kendric, his rage scarcely less than Bruce's, called back to him:

"I could lead you as straight as a string. It's the handiwork of your neighbor."

"Rios?" cried Bruce eagerly.

"Zoraida Castelmar."

"Damn her!" cried the boy. In the firelight Kendric saw his steady eyes glisten and knew that they were filled with tears, the terrible tears of rage rising above anguish. "Damn her!"

After that he stood silent again looking at the burning buildings. When a new flame spurted skyward, when a section of roof fell, he twitched as though his muscles knew physical pain. At last he turned away and Kendric saw a face that it was hard to recognize as the boyish face of blue-eyed Bruce West.

"This beats me," said Bruce, quietly. "Best stock gone, new barns and hay turned to cinders. Ten thousand dollars wiped out in an hour. Yes; done for, Jim, old man. Clean."

Kendric found no word of answer. He turned away and went down to the broken corrals where the man behind Zoraida had fallen. If the man were not dead he might be induced to talk. And in any case, thief though he was, he was a man and not a dog. He found the huddled body lying still. Kneeling, he turned it over so that the wavering light shone on the face. He did not know whether the man was dead or not; he knew only that it was Twisty Barlow. He squatted there, looking from the white face to the sky full of stars. And his thought was less on the instant of Twisty Barlow than of Zoraida Castlemar.

"This is what she has done for two old friends," he said aloud.

CHAPTER X

IN WHICH A MAN KEEPS HIS WORD
AND ZORAIDA DARES AND LAUGHS

Kendric called to Bruce. Together they carried the unconscious Barlow into the house. Kendric, once satisfied that his old friend's heart still beat, scarcely breathed until he lighted a lamp and found the wound. It was in the shoulder and not only did not appear dangerous, but failed to explain the man's condition of coma. There was a trickle of blood across the pale forehead; Kendric pushed back the hair and found a cut there, ragged and filled with dirt. Plainly the impact of the heavy bullet had sufficed to unseat the sailor who, pitching out of the saddle and striking on his head, had been stunned by the fall.

Kendric bathed and bandaged both wounds while Bruce went for a bottle of brandy.

"He's coming around," said Kendric as Barlow's throat received the stinging liquor. "I don't want to be on hand when he opens his eyes, Bruce; for ten years I've called Twisty by the name of friend. He's down and out for a little and what we two have to say to each other can wait a spell."

Bruce, stolidfaced now and morose, nodded. Kendric went outside and stood watching the flames work their will with Bruce's barns, his heart heavy within him. One friend down, a bullet hole in his shoulder, shot as a raiding cattle thief; another friend looking to have lost his boyish nature with the loss of his hope. And both rendered what they were through the wickedness of a woman. Woman? As he brooded over the devastation she had wrought he began to think of her as an evil spirit. He recalled with a shiver the feel of her burning eyes, hidden but potent; he thought of the nights at sea when he had felt her presence. For the first time he allowed himself to wonder in all seriousness if she had powers above a mere woman's as she had a character set apart.

And, after all that happened, he must return to her! He, Jim Kendric, must leave Twisty Barlow, wounded, and Bruce West, ruined, and return to Zoraida Castlemar who had set her brand upon both them. His twenty-four-hour leave would expire at daybreak. He had meant to spend the evening with Bruce and then to ride back during the night. Now, for the first time, he realized that the raiders had set him on foot. The twenty miles to the Montezuma ranch would have to be walked.

"And I'd better be on my way," he decided promptly. It did not enter his head that he had an excuse to offer for making a tardy appearance. He had pledged his word, and, while it was humanly possible, he would keep it. Even were it impossible it would have been Jim Kendric's way to try. And now he was not sorry for an excuse for leaving early. He could do nothing for Bruce; what must be said between him and Twisty Barlow could come later.

It was then, while he was returning to the house that he saw a steady light shining out in the fields. He stopped, at first fearing that a fresh fire was breaking out.

"Not thieves but cursed marauders," he named the crowd to which Bruce had already lost so heavily. "They've fired the dry grass."

But while he watched it the light did not alter, neither flaring up nor dying down, burning steadily like a lamp. When after two or three minutes he observed this he left the house and walked out into the field, keeping to the shadows when he could, watchful and suspicious. Thus presently he came to see what it was: a lantern tied from a low limb of a tree. Below the lantern he saw a dark object; it moved and he heard the clink of a bridle chain. Again he went forward, puzzled and curious. He made out that the saddle was empty; he could see no one near. A man might be hiding behind the bole of the oak or might even be above in the branches. Inwardly Kendric prayed that he was. He was ready for a meeting with any loiterer of Zoraida's following. His pulses stirred as he thought that it might even be Rios or Escobar.

But though he circled the tree and peered long into the shadows among the branches, he still saw no one. At last he came close to the tethered horse. It was his own, the sorrel El Rey he had ridden here this morning, saddled and bridled, spurs slung to the horn. The lantern shed its rays upon the saddle and Kendric saw something else at the horn; a bunch of little blue field flowers, held in place by a bit of white ribbon.

He snatched the flowers down angrily, trampled on them, ground them under foot. They seemed to him a bit of Zoraida herself; they taunted him, they bore the message she sent. They were her summons to come back to her. He jerked free the tie rope and swung up into the saddle, eager and anxious to go back to her the swiftest way in order that the time might come the more swiftly when he could fulfil his word and be free to leave her. He'd get a rifle from Bruce; with that and his revolver he'd take his chance, let all of her infernal rabble bar the way.

From the rear of the house he called to Bruce.

"I've found my horse; they left him behind," he said as Bruce came out. "I've got to go back, so back I go the quickest I know how. Take decent care of Barlow; he was a real man once and may be again, if he can shake that damned woman off. Lend me a rifle if you can spare it. I'll see you again as soon as the Lord lets me. So long."

"So long, Jim," returned Bruce drearily. He brought out a rifle, holding it out wordlessly. And Kendric rode away into the night.

In the mountains, though in another narrow pass, he was stopped as he had been this morning. A lantern was flashed in his face and over his horse. Then he was allowed to go on while from the darkness a voice cried after him:

"Viva La Señorita!"

From afar he saw lights burning down in the valley and recognized them as the lamps in the four wall towers. The gates were closed but at his call a man appeared from the shadows and opened to him. He rode in; dismounting, he let the rifle slip into a hiding place in the shrubbery; another man at the front corridor took his horse. At about midnight he again entered the old adobe building. The main hall into which he stepped through the front door was still brightly lighted with its several lamps; through open doors he saw that nowhere in the house were lights out. Yet it was very quiet; he heard neither voice nor step.

He knew where Zoraida was; no doubt Rios and Escobar were with her. He had kept his word and returned to his prison like a good dog; what reason why he should not take advantage of what appeared an unusual opportunity and make his attempt at escape? Zoraida would not have counted on his returning so early; he carried a revolver under his arm pit and hidden in the garden was a rifle. To be sure there were risks to be run; but now, if ever, struck him as the time to run them.

If he could only find where Betty Gordon slept. He must give her a word of hope before he left her here among these devils; assuring her that he would return for her and bring the law with him. Or, if she had the nerve and the desire to attempt escape with him now, that was her right and he would go as far as a man could to bring her through to safety. Noiselessly he crossed the room. He would pass through the music room and down the hall toward the living quarters of the house. If luck were with him he would find her.

It was only when he was about to pass out of the music room door going to the hallway that he heard voices for the first time. They came from a distance, dulled and deadened by the oak doors, but he knew them for the voices of men, raised in anger. A louder word now and then brought him recognition of Ruiz Rios's voice; a sharp answer might have been from Escobar. He stopped and considered. If these men quarreled, how would it affect him? Quarrel they would, soon or late, he knew. For both were truculent and in the looks he had seen pass between them there was no friendship. Two rebellious spirits held in check by the will of Zoraida Castelmar. But now Zoraida was away.

Then for the moment he forgot them and his conjectures. He had heard a faint sound and turning quickly saw for the first time that he was not alone in the music room. In a dim corner beyond the piano was a cushioned seat and on it, her hands clasped in her lap, her eyes wide with the sleeplessness and anxiety of the night, crouched Betty Gordon. He took a quick step toward her. She drew back, pressed tight against the wall, her look one of terror. Terror of him!

But he came on until he stood over her, looking down into her raised face. He felt no end of pity for her, she looked so small and helpless and hopeless. Big gray eyes pleaded with him and he read and understood that she asked only that he go and leave her. An impulse which was utterly new to him surged over him now, the impulse to gather her up into his arms as one would a child and comfort her. Not that she was just a child. She had done her shining brown hair high up on her head; she fought wildly for an air of serene dignity; he judged her at the last of her teens. But she was none the less flower-like, all that a true woman should be according to the beliefs of certain men of the type of Jim Kendric, a true descendant of her sweet, old-fashioned grandmothers. Her little high-heeled slippers, her dainty blue dress, the flower which even in her distress she had tucked away in her hair, were quite as he would have had them.

"Betty Gordon," he said softly so that his words would not carry to other ears, "I want to help you if you will let me. Will you?"

Her clasped hands tightened; he saw the lips tremble before she could command her utterance.

"I—I don't know what to do," she faltered. Her eyes clung to his frankly, filled with shining eagerness to read the heart under the outer man. For the first time Jim was conscious of his several days' growth of beard; he supposed that it was rather more than an even chance that his face was grimy and perhaps still carried evidences of the fight at Bruce West's ranch. To assure her of his honorable intentions toward her he could have wished for a bath and a shave.

"You're in the hands of a rather bad crowd," he said when he saw that she had no further words but was waiting for him. "I thought that at least it would be a relief to know that you had one friend on the job. And an American at that," he concluded heartily.

"How am I to know who is a friend?" She shivered and pressed tight against the wall. "That terrible man named Escobar spoke to me of friendship, and he is the one who gave orders to bring me here! And the other man, Rios, he spoke words that did not go with the look in his eyes. And you—you——"

"Well? What about me?"

"You are one of them. I find you staying in their house. You are the lover of Señorita Castelmar and she is terrible! Oh, I don't know what to do."

"Who told you that?" he demanded sharply. "That I was Zoraida's lover?"

"One of the maids, Rosita. She told me that Zoraida is mad about you. And that you are a great adventurer and have killed many men and are a professional gambler."

"Rosita lied. I am just a prisoner here, like you."

Sheer disbelief shone in Betty's eyes.

"You rode away, alone, this morning," she said. "I saw you through my window. You come in alone tonight. You are not a prisoner."

"I was allowed to leave the house only when I promised to come back. Can't you tell when a man is speaking the truth? Good Lord, why should I want to lie to you?"

Betty hesitated a long time, her hands nervous, her eyes unfaltering on his. She looked at once drawn and repelled, fascinated like a little bird fluttering under the baleful eyes of a snake.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked finally.

"I, for one," he retorted, "refuse to squat here like a fool because I'm told. I'm going to make a break for it. You can take the chance with me or you may remain here and know that I'll do what can be done outside."

Betty shook her head, sighing.

"I don't know what to do," she said miserably.

Jim pondered and frowned. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

"It's up to you, Betty Gordon," he said. "You're old enough to think for yourself. I can't decide for you. But if you were mine, my sister for instance, I'd grab you up and make a bolt for it. A clean bullet is a damned sight more to my liking than the dirty paws of such as Rios and Escobar and their following. They've got a guard around the house which they seem to think sufficient" Again he shrugged. "I've got my notion we can slip through and make the mountains at the rear."

"If I only knew I could trust you," moaned Betty.

A glint of anger shone in Jim's eyes.

"Suit yourself," he told her curtly. "I can promise you it will be a lot easier for me in a scrimmage and a get-away without a woman to look out for."

Immediately he was ashamed of having been brusque with her. For she was only a little slip of a girl after all and obviously one who had never been thrown out into the current of life where it ran strongest. More than ever she made him think of the girl of olden times, the girl hard to find in our modern world. All of her life she had had others to turn to, men whom she loved to lean upon. Her father, her brothers would have done everything for her; she would have done her purely feminine part in making home homey. That was what she was born for, the lot of the sweet tender girl who is quite content to let other girls wear mannish clothing and do mannish work. Kendric knew instinctively that Betty Gordon could have made the daintiest thing imaginable in dresses, that she would tirelessly and cheerfully nurse a sick man, that she would fight every inch of the way for his life, that she would stand by a father driven to the wall, broken financially, that she would put hope into him and bear up bravely and with a tender smile under adversity—but that she would call to a man to kill a spider for her. God had not fashioned her to direct a military campaign. And thinking thus of her, he thought also of Zoraida. Betty Gordon, just as she was, was infinitely more to his liking.

"I can only give you my word of honor, my dear," he said gently, and again he felt as though he were addressing a poor little kid of a girl in short dresses, "that I wouldn't harm a hair of your head for all Mexico."

Betty, though this was her first rude experience with outlaws, was not without both discernment and intuition. Perhaps the maid Rosita had lied to her, carried away by a natural relish in telling all that she knew and more. A look of brightening hope surged up in Betty's gray eyes; her pretty lips were parting when a rude interruption made her forget to say the words which were just forming.

Fitfully voices had come to them from the patio where Ruiz Rios and the rebel captain were arguing, but Jim and Betty with their own problem occupying their minds had paid scant attention. Now a sudden exclamation arrested both words and thought, a sharp cry of bitter anger and more than anger; there was rage and menace in the intonation. And then came the shot, a revolver no doubt but sounding louder as it echoed through the rooms. Betty started up in terror, both hands grasping Kendric's arm. His own hand had gone its swift way to the gun slung under his coat.

They waited a moment, both tense. Then Jim patted her hand reassuringly, removed it from his sleeve and said quietly:

"Wait a second. I'll see which one it was."

But before he could cross the room the door was thrown open and Ruiz Rios stood looking in on them queerly.

"Señor Escobar has shot himself," he said. "Through the heart."

Betty fell back from him, step by step, her eyes staring, her face white. Then she looked pleadingly to Kendric. When he went to her side, she whispered:

"Take me away! Let's try to go now. Now!"

Ruiz Rios's eyes glittered, his mouth hardened. He closed the door behind him, watching them keenly.

"It is in my mind to do you a kindness, Señor Kendric," he said, speaking evenly and emotionlessly.

"You are a murderous cur," rapped out Kendric. "I'd do a clean job if I shot you dead in your tracks."

Rios smiled.

"Let us speak business, amigo," he said. "Moralizing is nice when there is plenty of time and nothing else to be done. You are kept here against your will. It might not fit in ill with my plans to see you go."

"I will have a look at Escobar first," said Kendric. Rios stepped aside and again threw open the door. But he did not stir from the spot, awaiting Kendric's return. Nor did Kendric tarry long. Escobar was dead already, shot through the heart, as Rios had said. A revolver lay on the ground, close to his right hand.

"You ought to hang for that," said Kendric as he came back into the room. "But from the way you're going you won't last long enough for the law to get you. Now, what have you to say to me?"

"A part I have said," returned Ruiz Rios. "I can guess much that my fair cousin has said to you. I know her desires and—I know my own!" His eyes flashed. "More, you appear interested in the charming Miss Betty Gordon. If you would like to go yourself, if you would like to take her with you, I think I can arrange matters. At a price, of course."

"Naturally. And the price?"

"Escobar asked twenty-five thousand dollars. Surely she is worth that and more? Ah! Well, what you came to Lower California to find may be worth as much, may be worth nothing. The risk is mine. Tell me where the place is and I will arrange that you and Miss Betty have horses and an open trail."

"Rios," began Jim, speaking slowly.

But it was Betty who answered.

"No!" she cried. "No and no and no! You are a terrible man, Señor Rios, and some day God will bring you to a terrible end. Be sure I would be happy to see the last of you and your cousin and your kind. But the thing you ask is impossible. Why should Jim Kendric, to whom I am only a bothersome stranger, pay you a sum like that—for me? You are crazy!"

Jim himself was perplexed. He had no desire to put Ruiz Rios in the way of appropriating that which had brought both himself and Barlow here. More than that, the secret was not solely his to give away, were he so minded. Barlow had a claim to half and he knew there would be nothing left for Barlow once Rios scented it. Of these matters he thought and also of Betty. Her quick vehemence had surprised him. Until now he would have thought her eager to consent to anything to insure her immediate departure.

"Fine words, señorita," said Rios, his lips twitching so that the white teeth showed. "But you had best think. Many things might happen to a girl, a pretty girl like you, which are not pleasant for her to experience. You had better throw your arms about your countryman's neck and beg him to pay the price for you."

Betty shook her head violently, so violently that the white flower fell from her hair. Rios was going on angrily, when there came into the yard a clatter of hoofs.

"It is Zoraida," he said sharply. "Now be quick; is it yes or no!"

"No!" cried Betty.

"Little fool!" muttered Rios. Under his glare she drew back. "Before again such help is offered you you will wish you were dead!"

Outside they heard Zoraida's laughter, low and rich with its music. Then her voice as gay as though there were in all the world no such shadows as those cast by destruction and death. And then she entered, slender and graceful in her elaborate riding suit, her white plume nodding, her eyes dancing, her red mouth triumphant. Behind her came Bruce West.

Kendric stared at him in amazement. For Bruce came of his own free will and his own eyes were shining. There was no sign of his recent distress upon his face. Rather it looked more joyous, more boyish and glad than Kendric had seen it for years. The boy hardly noted anyone in the room but Zoraida. His eyes were for her alone and they were on fire with adoration.

CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH THERE IS MORE THAN ONE LIE TOLD
AND THE TRUTH IS GLIMPSED

"You!" cried Kendric in amazement as his look went swiftly from Bruce's radiant face to Zoraida's and back to Bruce. "With her!"

Young Bruce West advanced eagerly.

"It's been a mistake, Jim," he said earnestly. "A cursed mistake all along the line. When I explain to you——"

"Boy," cut in Kendric sternly, "where's your head? Don't you know that she was one of the crowd raiding you? Have you forgotten all I told you?"

Zoraida, head held high, her cheeks flushed, stood eyeing him defiantly. The mockery of her look disturbed him; she appeared fully confident of herself, her destiny and her place in Bruce's estimation. Bruce himself frowned and shook his head.

"You've always been a fair man, Jim," he said. "Suspend judgment until we've talked."

While Kendric held his tongue and pondered angrily, Zoraida's eyes flashed about the room. Only for an instant did they tarry with Betty who, drawn away from her almost to the table against the wall, looked back at her with unhidden distrust. Longer did they hold to Ruiz Rios.

"My cousin," she said softly, "you have something to say to me. What is it?"

"Not here, señorita," urged Rios. "In another room."

Kendric, but not Bruce, saw the deeply significant regard she shot at Rios. Her answer puzzled Kendric for the moment, not so much the words as the tone. She spoke to Rios as one might speak to a dreaded master.

"I am ready," was all that she said. And when Rios threw open the door for her, it was to Bruce that she said gently, her eyes melting into his, "A moment only, if Señor Rios will permit that I return so soon." And she went out, Rios at her heels.

"Can't you see, Jim?" Bruce was all excitement and his hands were clenched at his side; his boyish eyes blazed. "It's that damned Ruiz Rios! He dictates to her; he has put the fear of death and worse into her heart. She is made to suffer for all of his crimes!"

"So that's the story?" Kendric grunted his disgust. "And you've let her stuff you hide-full of lies?"

"Go easy, Jim." Bruce appeared sincerely pained and troubled. "I've called you a fair man; won't you open your mind to the truth? She has been misrepresented, I know. Her enemies——" He clenched his hands. "She is a wonderful creature!" he burst out. "And she has honored me with her confidence and her friendship."

This very night Zoraida Castelmar had ruthlessly pillaged Bruce's ranch and from Bruce's mouth now gushed the words: "She has honored me with her confidence and her friendship!" Was there no end to the woman's audacity? Was there no end to the blind stupidity of mankind which permitted of lawlessness like tonight's being glossed over, which went to the insane extreme of worshiping when normally the logical emotion would be hatred? Was there finally, no end to the power of Zoraida?

What had happened between Bruce West and Zoraida? Kendric knew something of Zoraida's bravado, no little of her supreme assurance, much of her methods. Plainly she had gone straight to Bruce after the raid. He could see the picture of her coming out of the lurid night and into the experience of a boy all unnerved by his anger and grief. He could understand how she offered her softened beauty to the hard eyes; how her voice had caressed and distorted fact; how Zoraida had had the wit to tell her own story, make her own impression, before Bruce could have had time to steel himself against her. But what tale could she have told to convince a man like Bruce who, at the least, was not a fool?

Somehow, decided Kendric, she had lied out of the whole thing. Further, she had used every siren trick she knew to drug his better judgment. She had been tender and feminine and seductive. While with one hand she had robbed him, she had caressed him with the other. And not too boldly; she had not overdone it. She probably wept for him; she treated him to the flash of her eyes through spurious tears. She employed her beauty like a lure and had little trouble in putting the boy's suspicions to sleep. What chance would a simple, open-hearted fellow like Bruce have against the wiles which were Zoraida's stock in trade? Kendric recalled vividly that subtle influence which Zoraida had cast even upon him; which he had felt even when steeled against her, and asked himself again what chance Bruce could have with her in the hour of her boldest triumph? The very fact of her having come immediately on the heels of the catastrophe gave her a look of innocence.… Had Zoraida the trick of hypnosis over men? It began to look like it.

"Poor old Baby-blue-eyes," muttered Jim. He looked at the boy wonderingly. Then only did it occur to him that Bruce and Betty Gordon were strangers to each other and that Bruce, when his sanity should return to him, would make a desirable friend for Betty. So he said, turning toward the girl: "Miss Gordon, this is an old friend of mine; another American, too, Bruce West."

Betty looked her frank interest upon Bruce and her speculation was obvious: among so many men whom she feared and distrusted she wondered if here was one of whom any girl might be sure. She put out her hand, even smiled. But Bruce held stiffly back, his eyes full of accusing light.

"I have heard of Miss Gordon," he said coolly. "She is also known as Pansy Blossom, I believe, over in Sonora."

Kendric failed to understand and looked to Betty. Her eyes widened. Then her cheeks crimsoned.

"Oh!" she gasped. "Mr. West, what do you mean? I have heard of her, everyone has. She is the most terrible creature!" She shuddered. "What made you say that?"

Bruce laughed his disbelief of her words and attitude.

"Jim, here, doesn't seem to remember," he said brusquely. "If you'd been down in Sonora lately, Jim, you'd know all about Pansy Blossom. She sings rather well, I hear, and dances. It would seem that she has the makings of a highly successful actress," he concluded meaningly. Kendric stared at him.

"You mean that Betty Gordon here is some sort of an adventuress?" he demanded.

For answer Bruce shrugged elaborately and returned Kendric's stare. Jim looked to Betty again. Her face was stamped in the image of shocked amazement, she scarcely breathed through her slightly parted lips.

"You're talking nonsense, Bruce," Jim said emphatically. "Sheer rot. She's just Betty Gordon and in a peck of trouble. It's up to you and me, being countrymen of hers, to see her through instead of hurting her feelings."

Bruce regarded him somberly.

"Old Headlong," he said slowly, "you're just the man to mistake a woman. You've judged Zoraida Castelmar wrong; you're making a mistake with Miss Pansy Blossom."

"You fool!" cried Jim angrily. "Where the devil have your wits gone? You call this child an adventuress? Why, man alive, can't you see she's just baby?"

"Pansy Blossom's record——" began Bruce.

"Deuce take Pansy Blossom! We're talking about Betty Gordon, this poor little lost kid here. Who told you that she was the same as that dancing woman?" Bruce made no answer. "Was it Zoraida Castelmar?" demanded Kendric. "Tell me. Is that what Zoraida Castelmar had to say about her?"

"Well?" challenged Bruce. "Suppose it was?"

"What else did she tell you?" Jim had him by the arm now and his eyes were blazing. "Spit it out, boy. What other rot?"

"It's not rot, Jim. If you'll keep your eyes open and think a little you'll know as much as I know."

Kendric groaned. "There's a game on foot that has a bad look to it. Escobar is in it and Rios and—your young lady friend. If you'll give me a few minutes presently, I'll explain."

"Escobar and Betty Gordon! Why, there's nothing between them but fear and hatred. Or rather that's all there was; Escobar's lying dead out there now. Ruiz Rios plugged him square through the heart just now. And now he's taking your lady friend out to tell her about it! Betty is their captive, held for ransom, as I told you."

"Or appears to be?" Bruce jerked his arm away and began moving restlessly up and down, looking always toward the door through which Zoraida had gone. Kendric turned toward Betty. She had not stirred; her cheeks were still burning. Apparently she had heard a very great deal of unsavory report of the lady Bruce mistook her for. Only the expression in her eyes and about her lips had changed; now it was one of passionate anger. The look surprised him. He began to think of Betty in altered terms. She wasn't just the baby he had named her and she wasn't just the little kid of sixteen he had at first taken her to be. During the interview with Ruiz Rios he had learned that she had a mind of her own. To her other possessions he now saw added an American girl's fiery temper.

Then Zoraida and Rios returned. Before a word was spoken Kendric knew that he was to be treated to some more play-acting. Zoraida had elected to look frightened and uncertain; the glance she cast toward her cousin spoke of terror as well as loathing. Rios glared and looked important. Swiftly Zoraida crossed the room, her bejeweled fingers finding Bruce West's arm.

"My friend," she whispered so that they could all hear. "I don't know which way to turn. A man has killed himself—the Captain Escobar. Or so Ruiz Rios says. And I——" She broke off, shuddering. And then, bewildering Jim Kendric if no one else, two big tears gathered in her eyes and spilled down to her cheeks!

"Señores Kendric and West," announced Rios autocratically, "you will take all orders from me now. You will not leave the house, either of you, unless I give the word. Señorita Zoraida, you will go to your room and wait until I send for you. Señorita Pansy," and suddenly his teeth showed in his quick smile, "a word with you please in the patio?"

"My cousin," said Zoraida, all soft supplication now, her two hands held out toward Rios, "it is only a little thing I beg of you. May I have a few words with Señor West?"

"Go to your room," answered Rios shortly. "Señor West remains with us. You may see him later."

Zoraida looked lingeringly at Bruce, shook her head sorrowfully as he appeared to be gathering himself to spring at the man who terrorized her, murmured gently, "Wait—for my sake, señor!" and went out of the room. Out of the corners of her oblique eyes, when her back was to Bruce, she mocked Jim Kendric.

Rios held the door open for Betty.

"Will you come to the patio with me, señorita?" he asked.

"No!" cried Betty. "You terrible man. No."

Rios, though not the actor Zoraida was, managed to appear startled that she should speak so. Then, as he looked from her to Jim and Bruce, he smiled as though in comprehension.

"There is no need to pretend further, Señorita Pansy," he said. "They know."

"There is a great deal we know, Ruiz Rios," broke out Bruce. "You hold the upper hand just now but there's a new deal coming!"

"Will you come, Señorita Pansy?" Rios grew truculent. "Or shall I call for a dozen men to escort you?"

"Rios," snapped Kendric, "I'm getting damned tired of this foolishness. Betty Gordon is a friend of mine and I'm going to see her through. She goes nowhere she does not want to. If you want to take me on, I'm ready for you. Ready and waiting!"

"No," said Betty again. "Mr. Kendric, I will go with him as far as the patio." She took a step forward, then whipped back at a sudden thought. "He is lying out there—dead!" she whispered.

"The unfortunate Captain Escobar," Rios told her equably, "has been removed to another part of the house. And, if you like, we will speak together in the dining-room."

Betty came to Jim Kendric then. She looked up into his eyes and said gently:

"I do trust you. You are the only one I trust. I can look to no one else. If I want you I will call. And you will come to me, won't you?"

"Come to you? Why, bless your heart, I'd come running!"

So Betty and Rios went out and for a little while Jim and Bruce were left alone.

"Bruce, old man," said Kendric, "let's come down to earth. Put your sentimental heart in your pocket and use your brains a while. You know me well enough to know that I won't lie to you. Will you listen to me?"

"Yes. But tell me only what you know, not what you surmise. What do you know against Zoraida Castelmar?"

"I know she is an adventuress, playing for big stakes, stakes so big that in the end they are bound to crush her."

"Speculation, old chap." Bruce smiled faintly. "Keep away from doping out the future and stick to facts."

"So you want facts? All right: She is planning a revolution; she has the mad idea that she can rip Lower California away from the government and make of it a separate empire, herself its queen!"

"Why not? Wilder things have been done. And where would you find a more likely queen?"

"When I first saw her she came, disguised as a man, into Ortega's gaming hell, Rios with her. She played dice with me for twenty thousand dollars."

Bruce's eye brightened.

"She's wonderful!" he said eagerly.

"She's hand and fist with Rios and Escobar and a lot of other riff-raff I don't know. She is instrumental in Betty Gordon's being held for ransom——"

"How do you know? Or are you just guessing again? Betty Gordon! How do you know she isn't what I called her, the infamous dancing woman with an evil record a mile long?"

"Haven't I talked with her?" Kendric grew impatient. "Haven't I seen her terror? Haven't I looked into her eyes?"

"Haven't I talked with Zoraida?" countered Bruce. "Haven't I heard her explanations? Haven't I seen her terror of Rios? Haven't I looked into her eyes?"

"You were burned out tonight. Have you forgotten that? Your herds were raided. Even old Twisty Barlow, once a square man, followed Zoraida Castelmar into that! And Zoraida, herself, was one of the raiders!"

"How do you know?" demanded Bruce. And always he laid significant stress on the word of certainty.

"I saw the horse she rode. I heard the whistle which she wears on a chain about her throat. I even saw the white plume in her hat."

"Is there only one white horse in Mexico? And only one whistle? And only one white plume? These things, if it had been Zoraida, she would have left behind. In the dark you guessed. I am afraid you have guessed all along the line."

"Then tell me how the devil it came about that Zoraida showed up at your place? A pretty tall coincidence."

"Nothing of the kind. The whole thing was engineered by Rios. She overheard a little, guessed it all. Dangerous though the effort was, she tried to be in time to warn me. She came just too late."

Kendric stared at his friend incredulously. First Barlow, then young Bruce West drawn from his side and to Zoraida's. She required men, men of his stamp. And she seemed to have the way of drawing them to her. He felt utterly baffled; he could at the moment think of no argument which Bruce's infatuation would not thrust aside. Where he would depict a heartless, ambitious adventuress Bruce would see a glorified and heroic superwoman.

Rios came to the door.

"Señor West," he said as they turned expectantly toward him, "Señorita Zoraida implores so eloquently for word with you that I have consented. If you will step this way she will come to you."

Bruce required no second invitation. With Rios's words he forgot Kendric's arguments and Kendric's very presence. He went out, his step eager. Before Rios followed him Kendric called:

"Where is Miss Gordon?"

"Gone to her room, señor. If you will look at your watch you will note that it is time."

It was well after midnight and Kendric thought that for all the good he could do, he, too, might as well go to bed. But he was too stubborn a man to give up his friend so easily and he hoped that since Bruce was not a fool he would come in time to see the real Zoraida under the mask she had donned for his benefit. So he waited, walking up and down.

Zoraida entered so quietly that she was in the room and the door shut after her before he felt her presence.

"Bruce has gone out that way, looking for you," he said.

"I can see him presently," she answered lightly. "I think he will wait, don't you?"

"I fancy he will," he returned bitterly. "What do you want with the boy, Zoraida? What has he done to you that you should ruin him, first financially and then every other way? Aren't you afraid of what you are building up for yourself? Men like Barlow and Bruce West may let you sing their souls to sleep for a little; look out when they wake up!"

She laughed softly.

"I think that all along you have doubted my power," she said, her eyes steady on his. "Are you beginning to see that Zoraida Castelmar is a girl to reckon with? You have said that the great things I attempt are beyond me; have I failed in anything I have tried?"

"To infatuate a man is not the same thing as to build a state!"

"And yet infatuated men make obedient lieutenants."

They grew silent. In each there was much which was of its nature incomprehensible to the other and which, of necessity, must remain so. Slowly there came a different look upon the girl's face. Her eyes softened and were more wistful that he had ever thought they could be. Her breast rose and fell in a profound sigh. All of the triumph and mockery went out of her.

"Why are you so unlike other men?" she asked. And her voice, too, had softened and grown tender.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked.

"Escobar hated me but he would have followed me through fire had I beckoned. You have seen the look in your friend Barlow's eyes when he turns to me, and this after only a few days, a few smiles! You glimpsed just now the love that has sprung up in Bruce West's heart like a flower full blown. There have been many, many men, my friend, who have looked upon Zoraida Castelmar as they look. Until you came there has been no man who turned his head away." Again she sighed unhiddenly. Her eyes melted into his, yearning, promising, beseeching. "And to you I have offered what would have made any other man mad with joy."

He looked into her eyes and it seemed impossible that they could speak shameless lies. For the moment at least she had the appearance of a young girl without sophistication, without the skill to hide her thoughts. Her eyes seemed unusually large, wide open frankly, as innocent as spring violets. Was she always like this—was this the real, true Zoraida— He felt her influence upon him, pervading his senses like heavy perfume, and spoke hurriedly.

"You and I are different sorts of people," he answered. "Our ideas as well as our ideals are of different orders."

"And what if I altered?" whispered Zoraida, coming closer to him. "What it I discarded all of my ideas and ideals. Yes, and my ambitions with them! What then, Señor Jim Kendric?"

He shook his head and moved restlessly.

"I am no woman's man, you know that. And if I were, you know also that you are not my kind of woman."

And still no passionate outburst came from Zoraida denied! Rather she grew more deeply meditative. Almost she seemed saddened and weary.

"Your kind of woman," she mused. And then, in pure jest, "Like Escobar's captive?"

For some obscure reason after which he did not grope the half sneer of the words stung Kendric into a sharp retort.

"By heaven, yes!" he cried. "There's the sort of girl for any man to put his trust in, to give the best that is in him!"

Zoraida gasped. Utter amazement filled her eyes. Then came incredulity: she would not believe. But when she saw the seriousness of his eyes, her passion burst out upon him. Her two hands rose and clenched themselves on her panting breast, her eyes lost their shadow of amazement and grew brilliant with anger.

"That little baby-faced doll!" she cried. "She has dared make eyes at you. And you, blind fool that you are, have turned from me to her!" Her voice shook, her whole body trembled visibly, then stiffened. In a flash all girlish softness was gone; she looked as cold and cruel as steel. "I had thought to let her go when the ransom came. Now I shall have other plans for her."

Kendric stared.

"In the first place," he said with an assumption of carelessness, "you have overshot the mark: Betty Gordon hasn't made eyes at me at all and I'm not in love with her and have no intentions of being. Next, I fail to see what has happened that would alter your plans in her regard?"

Zoraida laughed her disbelief.

"Any girl in her place would make eyes at you," she retorted. "And as for my plans, perhaps you may be allowed to watch the working out of them! Would you enjoy," she taunted him, "the sight of Betty Gordon in a steel cage into which we allowed to enter a certain pet of mine?"

At first he did not understand. Then he stared at her speechlessly. Words of Juanita, spoken fearfully that morning, recurred to him: "She would give me to her cat, her terrible, terrible cat, to play with!" He opened his mouth to lift his voice in hot protest; then he bit back the words, savagely calling himself a fool for the mad thought. Even to Zoraida's lawlessness there must be a limit; even the cold cruelty looking out of her oblique eyes now could not carry her so far. And yet the laugh with which he answered her was a trifle shaky.

"We are talking nonsense," he said abruptly. "And Bruce is expecting you. When you finish distorting facts for his consumption I'd like a word with him."

Zoraida's face went white.

"It is in my heart," she said in a dry whisper, "to give orders that you will never see another sun rise!"

"Give your orders then," he snapped. "I'm sick of things as they are. Send in a gang of your cutthroats and I'll give you my word I'd rather fight my way through them than stand by and watch you poison honest men's souls."

She stepped across the room and put out her hand as though to the bell on the table. Kendric watched her sternly. She stopped and looked at him wonderingly. Suddenly she dropped her hand to her side and with the gesture came a swift alteration in her expression. A strange smile molded her lips, an inscrutable look dawned in the dark eyes.

"I knew already that you were a brave man, Jim Kendric," she said. "I was forgetting, losing all clear thought because a man had dismissed me from his presence? Well, of that, more another time. But brave men I need, brave men I must have in that which comes soon. If there is not one way, then there will be another to draw you to my side."

She was going out but stopped as they heard horses in the yard. She stood still, waiting. Presently there came an unsteady step at the front door. A hand fumbled, the door opened and Twisty Barlow entered. His arm was in a sling, a bandage bound his forehead, his eyes shone feverishly. He stopped on the threshold and stared at them. Kendric spoke quickly.

"Twisty," he said, "do you know who shot you?"

Barlow merely shook his head.

"I did. I was at Bruce's. I did not know you but——"

"But you'd have shot just the same, anyway?" grunted Barlow.

"You got yourself into damned bad company, Barlow. But that's your affair. Just tell me one thing: Was it not at Zoraida Castelmar's orders that you went?"

Barlow's look shifted for an instant to Zoraida's half smiling face. But his hesitation was brief.

"No," he said shortly.

An hour later Kendric gave up waiting for Bruce and went off to his bedroom. On his table were two letters in their envelopes. They were the letters he and Bruce had written, telling of Betty Gordon's captivity.

CHAPTER XII

IN WHICH AN OVERTURE IS MADE,
AN ANSWER IS POSTPONED
AND A DOOR IS LOCKED

In his bedroom Jim Kendric sat for a long time pondering that night. What had appeared to him the simplest, most straight-away errand in the world had brought him down here, just the time-honored search for treasure. In all particulars the adventure had seemed the usual one, two men undertaking to share whatever lay ahead, expense, danger or loot. And through no fault of his own Kendric saw simplicity altered into complexity. There were Barlow's changed attitude, the desires and ambitions of Zoraida, the absurdity of Bruce West's infatuation, the interference of Ruiz Rios and finally the situation in which Betty Gordon found herself.

"I came down this way to get my hands on buried treasure, if it exists," Kendric at last told himself irritably; "not to work out the salvations of half the souls in Mexico! If the issue becomes complex it is because I am getting turned away from the main thing. What Barlow and Bruce do is up to them; Barlow, for one, ought to know better, and Bruce has got to cut his eye-teeth sooner or later. It's up to me to be on my way."

Which did not entirely dispose of all matters, since it ignored Zoraida and made no place for Betty. The latter, however, he did not bar from his thoughts or even from his plannings: If she said the word and would take the chance with him, he'd find the way to get her safely out of this house of intrigue. He was constitutionally optimistic enough to decide that. Among the bushes out in the garden a rifle was hidden; slung under his left arm pit was a dependable friend; and in his heart he was spoiling for a row.

Such was his mood, an hour after he had gone to his room, when a rap discreetly announced a soft-footed somebody at his door. He rose eagerly, thinking it would be Bruce or perhaps Barlow. But when he opened the door it was Ruiz Rios who slipped noiselessly into the room, swiftly closing and locking the door after him.

"Not in bed yet, my friend?" smiled Rios. "It is well. I have something to say to you."

Kendric went back to his chair from which he eyed Rios narrowly. The Mexican's look was full of craft.

"Let's have it, Rios. What now?"

"What I said to you earlier in the evening came from the heart," said Rios. "That without my help you cannot leave; that you may have that help. For a price."

His utterance was incisive; his voice, eager and quick, filled the room. Evidently he had no fear of eavesdroppers. Kendric stared at him curiously.

"For a double-dealing gentleman you have considerable assurance," he grunted. "You don't seem to care who hears."

Rios waved an impatient hand.

"I know what I am about," he retorted. "La Señorita Zoraida is in her own rooms where she entertains one of your friends while the other cools his heels in her anteroom. I have assurance, yes; because just now I am the man of the hour! Your destiny and that of your compatriot, Miss Betty, as well as the destinies of your two friends and perchance of yet others, lies in my hand."

"You talk big when Zoraida's eyes are not on you," said Kendric.

Rios stared insolently, then shrugged and made for himself a tiny white paper cigarita.

"I talk big because I can, as you say north of the border, 'deliver the goods.' Do you wish to go free?"

"Since you ask it," said Kendric drily, "yes. I've got no stomach for your crowd here."

"And you would like to take with you the pretty little Betty?" Rios's eyes were full of insinuation. Kendric felt an impulsive desire to kick him but for the time kept his head and witheld his boot.

"Speak on, Señor Man of the Hour," he jeered. "Somehow I'm not particularly sleepy yet. If you've really got anything to say let's have it."

"It is this: The treasure you have come so far to find will never be yours. Mine it may be; if not mine, then Zoraida's. On my honor it will never go into your hands or those of Barlow."

"Your honor," laughed Kendric, "fits well in your mouth, Ruiz Rios, but rides light in the scales."

"You mean you would want proof?" Rios was imperturbable. "It may be given you in due time, but only when it is too late for you to make any stock out of it. Now, for what you know, I offer you your own safety and that of Miss Betty. Have I not marked how you look at her?" He laughed in his turn.

"If this is all you have to say," answered Kendric, "suppose you shut the door from the outside?"

For just now, while he had thought of other matters, he had pondered on this one also. Even were he disposed to treat with Rios, the secret was not his to give. Further, once Rios had the knowledge he sought, he would no doubt fail to keep his word. And in any case there was always the possibility of getting away without the Mexican's aid; and if there was treasure, as Rios so plainly believed, it should be worth many times the twenty-five thousand dollars which had been demanded of Betty's father. On top of all this it was sheer nonsense to plan on what Betty might have to say until her word was spoken. Hence Jim was no little pleased to baffle Rios.

"You are thinking of yourself," said Rios sharply. "Not of the girl. Can you not imagine that it might be unpleasant for her, left here over long?"

Then Kendric sought to be as crafty as his visitor.

"Am I responsible for all wandering damsels in distress?" he asked coldly.

"But Miss Betty——"

"Exactly. What the devil is Miss Betty to me? I never saw her until a few hours ago."

"But," insisted Rios, "in some soils some flowers bloom quickly! Love comes when it comes, in a year, in a day, in a moment."

"Love!" Jim's surprise was not altogether feigned. Then he laughed and remembered his craft. He was thinking that already Zoraida suspected him of being too warmly interested; he did not know but that Rios was here now on Zoraida's errand, making pretenses the while he sought to ferret out real emotions. And so for Zoraida's sake should the words be carried to her, he cried as though in high amusement: "Love? What are you thinking of, man?"

He saw that he had puzzled Rios. The Mexican had been convinced of his keen interest in the girl and, further, knew from of old how lightly Jim Kendric held such mere bagatelles as dollars. Kendric drew a certain satisfaction from the situation. But his frank grin died away slowly as Rios went on.

"We are not friends, you and I, señor," he said smoothly. "But just now that matters not, since my personal interests move me to do you a kindness. Of what happens to you later on, I care less than that." He snapped his fingers. "Perhaps you do not fully understand either your own case or that of Miss Betty. You are to be held here indefinitely; unless you decide to throw your lot in with La Señorita Zoraida's and become her man, body and soul, there will come a time, suddenly, when her patience will die and her wrath rise and you will die too. And for Miss Betty—there remains always the puma."

Rios spoke with every sign of sincerity. Kendric, with what he knew of Zoraida to guide his thoughts to a conclusion, was more than half convinced that the man was telling the truth. Rios himself was not above murder; hardly now had the body of Escobar stiffened when he seemed to have forgotten the rebel captain and the deed of violence. And Zoraida was Rios's blood cousin.

"You appear to be sure that there is treasure?" Kendric said.

"Yes. There is no question." Again was Rios unusually frank. "I could lie to you but there is no need. The treasure is beyond your reach; it may fall to my hand. Yes, I am sure."

"What do you know of it? What makes you so confident?"

Rios smiled.

"Again there is no need to lie to you. You have marked that my cousin is a very rich woman? There is no richer in all Mexico. And why? Because she has long been in possession of a portion of the hidden wealth of the Montezumas. A portion, mark you? For there is some sign which she has understood to tell her that there is still other hidden treasure. Always, since she was a little girl, has she looked for it, never content with what she has. And if I come first to it—Think, señor!" His eyes brightened, a flush warmed his dusky skin, he lifted his head arrogantly. "It will mean that I, even I, can dictate in some things to Zoraida! It will mean that she must join forces with me. It will mean that she and I together will go far, will rise high. As she will be the one bright star in all Mexico, so will I be the newly risen sun."

"So," muttered Kendric, "you two are tarred with the same stick!"

Now Rios's black eyes were deadly.

"What you know means everything to me," he said, his voice at last sunk to a harsh whisper. "I killed Escobar for less. Remember that, Señor Americano!"

Kendric ignored the threat.

"What of my friend?" he demanded. "Even were I of a mind to talk turkey with you, there is Barlow. Half is his."

"Barlow is touched with madness. Have I not told you he will have none of it? You have eyes, señor. Already my fair cousin has made of Barlow a tame animal like her cat. When she commands, he will speak. Think you he will remember in that dizzy moment that you have claims to be safeguarded? All will go to Zoraida. What you are pleased to call your share, along with his own."

Jim hated to believe that. And yet he did believe. Tonight Barlow had looked at him out of hard, unfriendly eyes; he, himself, had shot Barlow out of a cattle raider's saddle.—Suddenly, startling Rios, Kendric's fist came smashing down on his table.

"Here I've just been deciding the whole game is simple enough," he cried, "and along you come messing it all up again! Clear out. I'm going to sleep."

"And my answer?"

"Talk to me tomorrow, if you've a mind to. Most likely I'll tell you to go to blazes, but that can be said as well after breakfast as now."

Rios accepted his dismissal equably.

"For me there is gold at stake," he said, going out without protest. "For you there is your life and Miss Betty's. I can afford to wait as well as you. Buenos noches, señor."

"Go to the devil," retorted Kendric, and banged the door shut after him.

Though he had not intimated his intention to his visitor, Kendric, holding to his determination to simplify matters, had made up his mind to have a talk with Barlow first of all. Since that could not come until tomorrow, the thing now was to go to bed. He undressed and put out his light. Then he flipped up his window shade. Only when he was about to thrust his head out of the open window to inhale the fragrant night air and have his little "look around," did he discover the bars to any possible escape there; a heavy iron grill had been fastened across the opening. Just how it was secured he could not tell since it had been set in place from outside and though he thrust his hand through the bars he could not reach far enough to locate the staples or hooks which held it in place. He shook it tentatively; it was amply solid.

But the door was open from his room to the bath. He groped his way across the smaller room and found the knob of the door which led to the room Barlow had occupied last night. That door was locked. As he fumbled with it he heard someone stir in Barlow's room.

"Who's there?" he called out. "That you, Twisty?"

There was no answer. He rapped on the door and called again. Then he heard quick steps across the room and a door closed; whoever had been there, listening without doubt to his talk with Rios, had gone.

He came back and passing through his own little sitting-room tried the door to the hall, that through which Rios had departed. Fastened by heavy iron hooks on the other side; he could hear them grate in their staples as he shook the door.

"A man had better be in bed this time of night than rapping at locked doors," he decided. And in five minutes was asleep.

CHAPTER XIII