“Danger!” repeated the filibuster with sarcasm. “Danger, did you say? Oh, no, of course not. It will be a pink tea! You know that town as well as I do. You know there are two places in it where American visitors can stop—the Frances y Ingles, where you were, and the American Legation. By day after to-morrow, that plaza will be the bull’s-eye for General Vegas’s target-practice. General Vegas has a mountain to rest his target-gun on, and it’s loaded with shell. Oh, no, there won’t be any danger!”
“Wasn’t there some pretext on which you could warn them off?” inquired the painter.
Rodman shook his head.
“You see, I have to be careful in my talk. I might say too much. As it was, I knocked the town to the fellow all I could. But he seemed hell-bent on getting there, and getting there quick. He was a fool Kentuckian, and you can’t head off a bull-headed Kentuckian with subtleties or hints. I’ve met one or two of them before. And there was a girl along who seemed as anxious to get there as he was. That girl was all to the good!”
Saxon leaned suddenly forward.
“A Kentuckian?” he demanded. “Did you hear his name?”
“Sure,” announced Mr. Rodman. “Little Howard Stanley picks up information all along the way. The chap was named George Steele, and——”
But the speaker broke off in his story, to stand astounded at the conduct of his auditor.
“And the girl!” shouted Saxon. “Her name?”
“Her name,” replied the intriguer, “was Miss Filson.”