His smiling good humor removed the offense. Nevertheless, the curious brown specks were floating again in the blue of his eye.
Sliver knew the threat was real. “Just this one?”
“Well, if you’ll down it quick and come on.”
With feelings that had hovered between gratification at Gordon’s sobriety and regret for his own, Sliver drank, bade the girl “Adios,” and mounted again. Standing in the doorway, her glance followed them, enwrapping Gordon’s upright figure with its dark caress. Just as they crossed the stream at the foot of the path, her face lit with sudden remembrance. Turning at her call they saw her coming at a breathless run.
“Kain’t bear the parting,” Sliver interpreted the action.
But his grin faded as he listened to her voluble talk. “She says that four strange Mexicans stayed here last night. They didn’t belong to this country, an’ they questioned her closely about the different haciendas. They were ’specially curious about our horses. Us being gringos an’ her Mex, they naturally concluded she’d be ag’in us, and they would have been right but for the fancy she’s taken to you. So they opened right up; asked all about the mountain pastures an’ whether we kep’ a close guard. She says they was heading for there. While I go after ’em, you ride like the mill tails o’ hell an’ bring out Bull an’ Jake.”
That crude but strong expression accurately described Gordon’s progress homeward. While his beast scrambled like a cat up one side of the ravine, slid like a four-footed avalanche down the other, and streaked like a shooting star up and down the long earth rolls, he learned more of horsemanship than during all his previous years. Lee, who saw him coming from the upper gallery above the patio, nodded her approval. Such haste, of course, had but one interpretation—raiders; and by the time Gordon dashed into the compound she was already mounted and a fresh beast waiting for him.
“They are up in the Cañon del Norte,” she answered his inquiry for Bull and Jake. “Come on!”
“You are surely not thinking of—”
Before he could finish, however, she shot under the gate arch; was off at a speed that kept him galloping his hardest to keep her in sight. Not until she slowed down on the rough trail that led into the cañon, within sight of Bull and Jake, who had just roped a foal for branding, did he catch her. But it was just as well, for that which he would have said came with more authority from the lips of Bull.