“Where’s he to be found?”
“You’ll run across him! Whenever anything’s up, he is on hand. He senses it. And then there’s Matt Hamlin.”
“I’ll see him, of course. Has he been up the river?”
“No, but I’ll tell you two who have. Maldonado, a half-breed, who lives some twenty miles down the river from Hamlin’s. He knows the Gila as though he were pure Indian. The Gila’s tricky! Maldonado’s grandfather was a trapper, his great-grandfather, they say, a priest. The women were all Indian. He’s smart. Smart and bad.”
Estrada’s Japanese servant came back into the car to offer tea, freshly iced.
“That’s what I want, smart river-men, not tea!” laughed Rickard. “I want river history.”
“There’s another man you ought to meet.” Before he spoke the name, Rickard had a flash of telepathy; he knew Estrada would say, “Brandon.”
“He was with the second Powell expedition. He’s written the book on the river. He knows it, if any man does.”
“That’s so. I’d forgotten about him. I think I’ll run up and have a talk with him.”
“This instant?” smiled the Mexican, for his guest had risen. “There’s no train out until to-night.”