There was a woman, in the hacienda itself, who could have guided the searchers upon their track—to the very hearthstone of the supposed assassin.
Woodley Poindexter knew it not; and perhaps well for him it was so. Had the proud planter suspected that in the person of his own child, there was a guide who could have conducted kim to the lone hut on the Alamo, his sorrow for a lost son would have been stifled by anguish for an erring daughter.
The last messenger sent in search of Stump came back to the hacienda without him. The thirst for vengeance could be no longer stayed, and the avengers went forth.
They were scarce out of sight of Casa del Corvo, when the two individuals, who could have done them such signal service, became engaged in conversation within the walls of the hacienda itself.
There was nothing clandestine in the meeting, nothing designed. It was a simple contingency, Zeb Stump having just come in from his stalking excursion, bringing to the hacienda a portion of the “plunder”—as he was wont to term it—procured by his unerring rifle.
Of course to Zeb Stump, Louise Poindexter was at home. She was even eager for the interview—so eager, as to have kep almost a continual watch along the river road, all the day before, from the rising to the setting of the sun.
Her vigil, resumed on the departure of the noisy crowd, was soon after rewarded by the sight of the hunter, mounted on his old mare—the latter laden with the spoils of the chase—slowly moving along the road on the opposite side of the river, and manifestly making for the hacienda.
A glad sight to her—that rude, but grand shape of colossal manhood. She recognised in it the form of a true friend—to whose keeping she could safely entrust her most secret confidence. And she had now such a secret to confide to him; that for a night and a day had been painfully pent up within her bosom.
Long before Zeb had set foot upon the flagged pavement of the patio, she had gone out into the verandah to receive him.