But, although the moments dragged into an hour, no one came. At last, unable to endure the suspense longer, the girl slipped from her hiding-place, and, keeping close to the wall of the old barn she sidled slowly toward a wide door. She heard voices not far away.
“You ain’t seen nothing of a black-haired wench in a yellar an’ red dress?”
It was Vestor speaking and it was quite evident that he was snarling angry. Nan peered through a knot-hole, her heart beating tempestuously. The gypsy’s gimlet-like black eyes were keeping a sharp lookout all about him as he talked. The rancher’s back was toward the girl. He, at first, quietly replied, but when Vestor took a step toward the barn, saying he’d take a look around himself, the brawny rancher caught his arm, whirled him about and pointed toward the road. “I’ll have none of your kind prowlin’ about my place. You’d lake a look, all right, but I reckon you’d take everything else that wa’n’t held down wi’ a ton of rock.
“I know the thievin’, lying lot of you. I’d as soon shoot one of you down as I would a skunk, an’ sooner, if ’twant for the law upholding of you, though gosh knows why it does.” Then, as Vestor kept looking intently at the open barn door, the rancher, infuriated by the man’s doggedly remaining when he had been told to be off, sprang toward a wagon, snatched a whip and began to lash the gypsy about the legs.
With cries of pain, Vestor turned an ugly visage toward the rancher, but meeting only determination and equal hatred, he thought better of his attempt to spring at him, turned, went to his black pony, mounted it and rode rapidly back the way he had come.
He didn’t want to be too far behind the caravan fearing that the gorigo police might take him up and put him in jail on Anselo’s offense.
The rancher stood perfectly still for sometime after the gypsy had ridden away, then he also turned and looked toward the barn. Nan had at once sidled to her place back of the hay stack and so she did not see that he slowly walked that way.
Stopping in the door he listened intently. Then shrugging his shoulders, he went into the house to his breakfast. Half an hour later he again sauntered to the barn door. “Gal,” he called. “Hi, there, you gypsy gal! That black soul’d critter’s gone this long while. Don’t be afeard to come out. Ma’s waitin’ to give you some breakfast.”
Surely Nan could trust a voice so kindly. Timidly she appeared, leading the pony who was munching a mouthful of hay. The rancher smiled at the girl in a way to set her fears at rest, at least as far as he was concerned, but once out in the open she glanced around wildly.—“Where is he? Where’s that Vestor gone? Will he be back?”
For answer, the rancher motioned the girl to follow him. He led her to a high peak back of the barn. “You kin see from here to all sides,” he said: “You lie low, sort of, behind that big rock an’ keep watchin’. The scoundrel rode off that a-way. If he keep’s a goin’, you’ll see him soon. If he turned back, well, I’ll let out the dogs.” Nan did as she had been told and from that high position, she soon saw, far across the canyon, riding rapidly to the south, the black pony bearing the man she feared.