"What's wrong with that pretty little niece?" he asked. "She was bright enough the day they came aboard on our up trip. Now, the stewardess tells me she fainted dead away and has been begging to be put ashore all night."
Loring couldn't say.
"But you helped carry her down, you and Turnbull. The stewardess says you were both very kind to her, where her own people neglected her. I didn't fancy that scrub Escalante. Do you know anything about him or her own people?"
"Nothing—to speak of," said Loring.
"Fernandez, one of those young Guaymas swells, says the mother was own sister to De la Cruz—married against his wishes when she was a mere girl—died a few years later, and that Don Ramon offered to adopt and educate her little girl, but only lately would the Escalantes give her up. All I know is that she's too damned miserable about something else to be even seasick like the rest of 'em. You'd a-been down there with Turnbull if you hadn't just had more'n your share of illness," added he, with the mariner's slight disapprobation of the landsman who defies initiations of Neptune.
"Very possibly," said Loring.
"The purser tells me Escalante gave him a little packet belonging to her—very valuable, which he ordered kept in the safe until their agent should call for it at 'Frisco."
"Indeed!" said Loring, looking up in quick interest.
"Fact," said the skipper. "Now, have some more coffee? I'm going to turn in for forty winks. Let the steward know when you want anything. Nobody else will. We've got to face some more rollers after awhile. I dassen't go inside Carmen Island."
But Loring had something more engrossing to think of than breakfast or luncheon. So there was a little packet in the purser's safe, was there? Valuable and not to be delivered except to their agent in 'Frisco. It was in Pancha's name, yet not subject to Pancha's order. Why that discrimination? And it was given the purser by Escalante—brother of the Escalante—another brother of the accomplished sharper of Sancho's ranch. A precious trinity of blood relations were these! Small wonder Don Ramon, had opposed his girl sister's union with one of their number. Now, what on earth could that small packet contain, and was it likely that the valuables were any more valuable than those snatched from his saddle-bags the night of the assault at Gila Bend?—the watch and diamonds of the late Captain Nevins now vanished into thin air, apparently, for not a trace of him had appeared since the night he rode away from Camp Cooke.