“Came by Duke’s less’n three hours ago. Seen her in the kitchen makin’ bread.”
“They’re looking for a school-teacher down there, anyway. Much sickness in the Gap lately, Bull?”
“On’y sickness I knowed lately is what you’re responsible for y’self,” retorted Bull with a grin. “Pity y’ left over any chips at all from that Calabasas job, eh?”
“See McAlpin, Bull, next time you’re over Calabasas way. Here”––de Spain drew some currency from his pocket and handed a bill to Page. “Go get your hair cut. Don’t talk too much––wear your whiskers long and your tongue short.”
“Right-o!”
“You understand.”
“Take it from old Bull Page, he’s a world’s wonder of a sucker, but he knows his friends.”
“But remember this––you don’t know me. If anybody knows you for a friend of mine, you are no good to me. See?”
Bull was beyond expressing his comprehension 228 in words alone. He winked, nodded, and screwed his face into a thousand wrinkles. De Spain, wheeling, rode away, the old man blinking first after him, and then at the money in his hand. He didn’t profess to understand everything in the high country, but he could still distinguish the principal figures at the end of a bank-note. When he tramped to Calabasas the next day to interview McAlpin he received more advice, with a strong burr, about keeping his own counsel, and a little expense money to run him until an opening presented itself on the pay-roll.
But long before Bull Page reached Calabasas that day de Spain had acted. When he left Bull at the bridge, he started for Calabasas, took supper there, ordered a saddle-horse for one o’clock in the morning, went to his room, slept soundly and, shortly after he was called, started for Music Mountain. He walked his horse into the Gap and rode straight for Duke Morgan’s fortress. Leaving the horse under a heavy mountain-pine close to the road, de Spain walked carefully but directly around the house to the east side. The sky was cloudy and the darkness almost complete. He made his way as close as he could to Nan’s window, and raised the soft, crooning note of the desert owl.