“She wasn’t there, Scotty. I found the horses tied to a branch of a tree that grew out of the side of the arroyo but there wasn’t no sign of the girl anywhere.”
Scott’s face darkened. “She was scared and went further up,” he said. “Did you look?”
“Looked and hollered and then some, but she was clean gone.”
Scott muttered something, flung out of the house and threw himself on his horse. In a moment he was tearing up the road.
“Where’s that ugly devil going?” said Johnson, disgustedly. “Didn’t I tell him she’d gone? Is he going to try to chase Johnny Pachuca into the mountains after her?”
“Gone clean nuts!” remarked Adams, gloomily.
“I knew that when I seen him rolling in the dirt and yelling ‘half-breed,’” replied Johnson. “You might as well poison a Mexican as to call him ‘half-breed.’ According to them they’re all second cousins to the King of Spain. Does your leg hurt much, Jimmy?”
“Well, I’ve had legs that felt better,” said Adams, cheerfully. “Where you going, Tom?” as the long, lank engineer swung out of the room.
“To see the boss get his throat cut,” was the reply. “Pachuca’s got the money, the guns and the girl; it don’t seem very good sense to hand him the whole office force but if the boss says so, here goes.”