"You 'ain't got a chance, single-handed. You're crazy to try it."
The effect of these words was startling, for Dave laughed harshly. "'Crazy' is the word," he agreed. "It's a job for a lunatic, and that's me. Yes, I've got bad blood in me, Blaze—bad blood—and I'm taking it back where I got it. But listen!" He turned a sick, colorless face to his friend. "They'll whittle a cross for Longorio if I do get through." He called to Montrosa, and the mare came to him, holding her head to one side so as not to tread upon her dragging reins.
"I'm 'most tempted to go with you," Blaze stammered, uncertainly.
"No. Somebody has to stay here and stir things up, If we had twenty men like you we might cut our way in and out, but there's no time to organize, and, anyhow, the government would probably stop us. I've got a hunch that I'll make it. If I don't—why, it's all right."
The two men shook hands lingeringly, awkwardly; then Blaze managed to wish his friend luck. "If you don't come back," he said, with a peculiar catch in his voice, "I reckon there's enough good Texans left to follow your trail. I'll sure look forward to it."
Dave took the river-bank to Sangre de Cristo, where, by means of the dilapidated ferry, he gained the Mexican side. Once across, he rode straight up toward the village of Romero. When challenged by an under-sized soldier he merely spurred Montrosa forward, eyeing the sentry so grimly that the man did no more than finger his rifle uncertainly, cursing under his breath the overbearing airs of all Gringos. Nor did the rider trouble to make the slightest detour, but cantered the full length of Romero's dusty street, the target of more than one pair of hostile eyes. To those who saw him, soldiers and civilians alike, it was evident that this stranger had business, and no one felt called upon to question its nature. There are men who carry an air more potent than a bodyguard, and Dave Law was one of these. Before the village had thoroughly awakened to his coming he was gone, without a glance to the right or left, without a word to anyone.
When Romero was at his back he rode for a mile or two through a region of tiny scattered farms and neglected garden patches, after which he came out into the mesquite. For all the signs he saw, he might then have been in the heart of a foreign country. Mexico had swallowed him.
As the afternoon heat subsided, Montrosa let herself out into a freer gait and began to cover the distance rapidly, heading due west through a land of cactus and dagger, of thorn and barb and bramble.
The roads were unfenced, the meadows desolate; the huts were frequently untenanted. Ahead the sky burned splendidly, and the sunset grew more brilliant, more dazzling, until it glorified the whole mean, thirsty, cruel countryside.
Dave's eyes were set upon that riot of blazing colors, but for the time it failed to thrill him. In that welter of changing hues and tints he saw only red. Red! That was the color of blood; it stood for passion, lust, violence; and it was a fitting badge of color for this land of revolutions and alarms. At first he saw little else—except the hint of black despair to follow. But there was gold in the sunset, too—the yellow gold of ransom! That was Mexico—red and yellow, blood and gold, lust and license. Once the rider's fancy began to work in this fashion, it would not rest, and as the sunset grew in splendor he found in it richer meanings. Red was the color of a woman's lips—yes, and a woman's hair. The deepening blue of the high sky overhead was the hue of a certain woman's eyes. A warm, soft breeze out of the west beat into his face, and he remembered how warm and soft Alaire's breath had been upon his cheek.