“Certainly not, señor,” the man answered calmly, his head erect, his arms folded, and one foot advanced. The trio on the veranda noted and laughed over his attitude. Lucy said he looked like a hero of melodrama taking the limelight. Miss Dent added that he was handsome enough for a matinee idol, and Conrad declared that there was no telling how many señoritas’ hearts he had already broken. Bancroft turned to go back to the house, but paused an instant, and the Mexican quickly went on in a softly insinuating voice: “But if the señor should wish to say anything particular? Don Dellmey thought it might be possible.”
Bancroft lingered, flicking the ashes from his cigar. “I—I know nothing about it,” he blurted out, uncertainly. “If Don Dellmey had anything to say to you I suppose he said it.”
As he turned away he heard the man say gently, “Thank you, Señor Bancroft. I shall not forget our talk.” There was no reply, and the Mexican, whistling a Spanish love tune, disappeared down the hill in the weird mixed lights of the fading day and the brilliant moon.
Alone on the veranda, Alexander Bancroft walked restlessly to and fro, stopping now and again as if to listen to the music from within, which he did not hear, or to look at the moonlit landscape, which he did not see. Over and over he was saying to himself that he had no idea what Dellmey Baxter had said to this Mexican, and, whatever it was, he had distinctly told the creature that he knew nothing about it. The man had come to him recommended as an expert cowboy, he had passed the recommendation on to Conrad, and that was all there was about it.
Nevertheless, he knew he had reason to believe—the Congressman had intimated as much in his letter—that the man who called himself José Gonzalez was in reality Liberato Herrara, guilty of at least one murder and probably of others, whom Baxter’s legal skill had saved from the gallows. Curtis had said that he should carry the man behind him to the ranch that night. Before Bancroft’s inward eye a sudden vision opened: wide miles of silent plain, a great white moon hanging low in the sky, a long stretch of deserted road, and then two men on a single horse—and the light gleaming on a long knife! He shuddered as the blade flashed, and turned his face away from the plain. Then, as there came to him a sudden sense of tremendous relief, with breath and thought suspended he turned slowly, fascinatedly, and with greedy eyes searched the distant plain, as if eager to find in it some proof, at last, of his own safety.
Lucy’s voice rose in a gay little song above the piano and fell upon his ears. With a deep, long-drawn breath his thought leaped out and seized upon all that freedom from Curtis Conrad’s pursuit would mean for him. José Gonzalez would sink out of sight, and Liberato Herrara would be back in his own home, unsuspected and silent. Some excitement would follow, search would be made, a body would be found in a mesquite thicket,—and then the interest would die out, and there would be only another grewsome tale of mystery to be added to the hundreds already told through the Southwest. And he—Alexander Bancroft—would be safe—secure in fortune and reputation and the love and honor of his daughter as long as they should live.
The music within ceased and Lucy’s voice rippled out in girlish laughter. His heart sank as he seemed to hear again her hot denunciation of Baxter’s loan and mortgage operations. “I’ll sell out to Dell and she’ll never know I’ve had anything to do with it,” he thought. Then there came ringing through his memory, as he had heard them so many times since they rode home from the Socorro Springs ranch, her passionate words, “He must have been a wicked man,” and “I should hate him, with all my strength,” and again his longing face turned impulsively toward the plain.
“I’d kill him myself, rather than let her find out,” he whispered, with teeth set. “And a man has got to protect himself out here!” his urgent thought went on. “I’ll be a fool if I don’t stop him before he gets his chance at me!” With a sudden stirring of conscience he remembered that this man whose death he was so ardently desiring was his friend and trusted his friendship. “I—I don’t want him stuck in the back,” he muttered. “I might warn him. He may not have started yet.”
He walked uncertainly toward the veranda steps. There was a flutter of white drapery and Lucy was laying an affectionate hand on his arm. “Oh, daddy dear,” she coaxed, “won’t you come in and try this duet with us? Dearie will play the accompaniment for us to sing. She brought it to me, and I’m dying to try it.”
“Yes, if you wish it, daughter,” the banker replied, hesitation in his voice, “but I was thinking of going down town.” He saw the shade of disappointment that crossed her face, and drew her hand into his arm. “It doesn’t matter,” he went on, “and I would rather stay at home.” To himself he said as they moved to the door, “Conrad has gone by this time, and, anyway, I’ve no reason to think this Mexican intends to do him any harm.”