“Just let me get that thieving greaser across the line into Yavapai,” said a local luminary, “and I'll find a jury that will hang him on sight or lynch him on general principles.” But Pedro knew better than to venture northward along the tempting shores of the Hassayampa. Even the chance of collecting a bad debt from a fellow countryman, known to be lurking in Wickenburg, failed to lure Pedro thither. He smiled suggestively, showing his white teeth and waving aside the blue smoke of his cigarrito with sinewy brown hand. “A—Wickenburg is too damn close to Yavapai, and Yavapai to 'ell,” he remarked. And it had more than once been said of Pedro that he spoke English like a native.
“Rancho Ruiz” was the sonorous and pretentious title he had bestowed upon the establishment to which the winding Arizona roadway led. “Cutthroat Crossing” was what the soldiers and placer miners had called this half ferry, half ford of Pedro's ever since the body of young Sergeant Dinsmore had been found stranded on a sand bar of the Gila two miles below,' his neck and his money belt slashed by the same knife. Going into Yuma with well-lined pockets, Dinsmore had been warned to make no stay among the gang of monte players always hovering about Pedro's. But he had been a bold and successful gambler at Tucson. He had nothing but contempt for Mexican bravos and confidence in his own prowess as a shot. The card table had attractions he could not well resist, but the ranch had still another—Pedro's daughter.
Now it was when he was sent thither with a squad of a dozen troopers, hunting up the missing sergeant, that Lieutenant Adriance caught sight of this siren of a senorita. She could not have been more than seventeen, and her mother would have denied her even that number of years. “She is a mere child,” protested Senora Dolores, when the subject was mentioned. Pedro had moved up from Sonora only a few years before, and had lived a while at the old Mexico-Spanish town of Tucson, whither, ere long, there came unflattering tales as to the cause of his change of residence. He had money, and that in Arizona covered more sins than charity. The boundary line lay conveniently near. Extradition was an unpracticed art in the days whereof we write. Apaches of the mountains and assassins of the mines found equal refuge across the border, and in exchange we received such choice spirits as proved too tough for even a Mexican town to tolerate. Of such was Pedro; but no one to look at Pedro's daughter would have called her a felon's child.
The night that Adriance reached the rancho on the search just mentioned he had purposely left his little escort some distance up the Gila, and advanced alone to reconnoitre. It was a perfectly still evening, soft and starry. The hoofs of his broncho made no sound upon the sandy waste of road, and not even the dogs about the corral seemed aware of his coming. Adriance had thrice visited the ranch before, when returning from scout or pursuit of Apaches, and never once had he been greeted by feminine voice about the premises. It was with no little surprise, then, that he heard the tinkle of a guitar and the sound of low, soft, girlish tones singing a plaintive melody. He had heard many a Mexican ditty, and had pronounced the singers twangy, shrill and nasal; but this was different. He had come to Rancho Ruiz with every expectation of finding evidence of the murder of one of his most valued troopers, and here, on the instant of his arrival, was disarmed by a song. East of the ranch there stood a little lattice-work structure, something after the manner of a summer house, and from thence the sounds proceeded. The lieutenant leaped from his horse and strode to the entrance, wondering what manner of woman he should find beyond. There was not light enough to distinguish either form or feature, but over in the farther corner was a shadowy something in white. The song continued but a moment before the singer became aware of the equally shadowy form at the entrance, and stopped abruptly.
“Leon!” spoke a girlish voice in the Spanish tongue, “you frightened me. Is that you?”
“I am Felipe, otherwise Phil. Adriance, of the American Cavalry, senorita, and far more surprised than you are at seeing me.”
The girl started to her feet as though flight was her first impulse, then hesitated. Did not the “Senor Teniente” bar the way in merely standing in the entrance?
“Do not be alarmed, I beg of you,” implored the young officer, “it is so long since I have heard a song in a woman's voice. It is such a surprise to hear one now. Do sing for me again. I will have to stand here where I can hold my horse.”
For a moment she was silent, then: “You have been to the rancho? You have seen my father?” she asked at length, her voice tremulous and almost inaudible.