“My friend tells me, Don Padraic, that Colonel Urgo threatens your arrest as well as my own; that you will be held responsible for concealing a fugitive from justice. That cannot be, of course. To-morrow, if Quelele can take Bagley and myself in the car—”
“No!” Benicia’s denial came peremptorily and with a hint of passion which gave Grant a sting of surprise. “No, señor, we do not turn wounded men into the desert—particularly a friend who has served us as you have done.”
Again Grant saw in the firelit pools of her eyes just an instant’s revelation of depths he yearned to plumb—the aspect of a beginning love hardly knowing itself as such. He scarcely heard the voice of Don Padraic seconding his daughter’s protest.
“The hospitality of the Casa O’Donoju,” he was saying, “can hardly recognize such silly threats. Colonel Urgo’s hope was that we would send you back over the Road of the Dead Men to Caborca or Magdalena where, naturally, you would be made a prisoner. Please dismiss from your mind any idea of our permitting ourselves to play into this man’s hands.”
Bim Bagley ventured to break his silence: “Grant here and I have important business together up over the Line. We ought to be moving soon’s we can.” The white-haired don turned to Bim with a gracious spreading of the hands.
“When Señor Hickman feels able to make the journey Quelele will take him and yourself, Señor Bagley, to westward. There is a way through El Infiernillo up to the Arizona town of Cuprico. By so going you will avoid any trap Urgo might lay. But you will not hurry Señor Hickman’s going”—Don Padraic interjected reservation—“and you, Señor Bagley, surely can remain with us until then.”
The direct Bagley, finding himself thwarted by the don’s suavity, sent a sheepish grin Grant’s way in token of his defeat and maintained silence. Don Padraic, to dismiss the subject his reticence had reluctantly introduced, struck a gong to summon a servant. Soon a decanter of sherry was glowing golden in the firelight and cigarettes were burning. The master of the Casa O’Donoju artfully led Bim into talk of cattle, always currency of conversation in the Southwest. Grant drew his chair closer to Benicia’s.
“You startled me with that ‘No’ of yours to my proposal to leave the Garden of Solitude at once,” he said with a boldness he did not wholly feel. “Being a little deaf, I am not sure I heard all the reasons you gave why I should not go.”
“What you failed to hear me say my father supplied,” the girl quickly parried, giving him her steady gaze. He was not to be so easily side-tracked. What had begun in boldness swept him on in passionate sincerity:
“There are many excellent reasons why I should be somewhere else than here this time to-morrow night; but there is one very compelling reason why I welcome every added hour here in the Garden. May I tell you that reason?”