Robinson gathered up his reins. “Then, hasta la vista! See you at dinner time.”
Cervantes gestured assent, and watched the slender figure go riding off. Once more his pony lifted its head, cocking its ears toward another quarter. Cervantes glanced at the hills, saw nothing, and returned to his labor.
The figure of Robinson rode out of sight. For a space Cervantes worked on, rolling up the wire with painstaking care. For the third time his pony looked up, and flung a whinny of greeting into the sunlight. Cervantes halted, straightened up, and surveyed the empty landscape with one hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun.
As he stood thus, motionless, a tiny puff of white spat out from a hillside to his right; a second puff became visible to his left. Two rolling reports followed. Cervantes, dropping his shielding hand, stood for an instant and then quietly fell on his face.
Jack Robinson meantime rode up to the old adobe house beneath wide cottonwoods that view the Shumway domain from its rounded knoll, and dismounted. The house had been built Mexican style, even to the flat, stone-rolled adobe roof; it was cool and restful, with its vines and flowers.
Since no one came forth to greet him, Robinson unsaddled, took his horse to the corral to one side, and then tramped around the house to the rear. He turned the corner and paused.
Before him portly Señora Cervantes was pinning clothes to a line, while from the near-by doorway of the kitchen issued a voice that made Robinson turn a trifle red.
“I do hope he’ll come soon!” was saying Estella Shumway. “I don’t see why he went on to Harper’s, when he must have known we were dying to see him. Well, that’s the last of the batch; I’d better bring them outside to cool.”
The señora turned, beheld Robinson, and stood with open mouth. He made a gesture of silence, and stepped forward to the doorway. In this, a moment later, appeared a young lady who held a great platter of new-sugared doughnuts in both arms. As she came out, Robinson stepped forward and took the platter from her.
Something happened swiftly.