Then the others burst out once more, each eager to tell what he or she had witnessed, though as a matter of fact, none of them had seen much for they had all run to cover as soon as they saw the peon drop dead, and had remained in their hiding places until Watson had arrived. Watson meanwhile, as he tried to get some clear impression from all these divergent accounts of what had actually taken place, thought remorsefully of those moments of indecision when he had been wandering outside the boundary lines of the ranch. If he had only arrived half an hour earlier, if he had only been with Celinda, to defend her, to drive off these kidnappers....
He divined from the look in Cachafaz’s antelope eyes that the boy did, as a matter of fact, know more than he had told, so he led the small half-breed, who was smiling scornfully at the contradictory statements being poured out by the excited servants, into the next room. There Cachafaz, standing on tiptoe, whispered to him,
“It was Manos Duras ... and I know where he took our señora!”
Richard fired rapid questions at him, and the boy explained as best he could. No, neither of the three men who had carried away Celinda was Manos Duras. But when Cachafaz left his first hiding place, which was under the table, he had run into a corral nearby where there was a heap of alfalfa drying for the winter feed of the cows. He had crept to the top of it, and from there he could see way, way off into the distance. So he had seen how the three riders met a fourth who was waiting for them outside the ranch gates, and that fourth was undoubtedly Manos Duras. Then all four started off in the same direction riding hard, and carrying Celinda with them swung across one of the saddles, a prisoner....
And from the top of his alfalfa heap he had seen Watson coming, but he had been so scared that he hadn’t come down until he was quite sure that it was the patroncita’s friend and no one else.
Watson could not for several minutes co-ordinate his thoughts. It seemed to him that the first thing he must do was to go find Celinda and free her at once, without a thought for the advantage of numbers on the side of the bandits. He had one ally at least, young Cachafaz, who knew where Celinda was being concealed. That was the important thing; knowing that, everything else should be easy. He’d fight the ruffians and bring Celinda back of course! And with the absurd self-confidence of lovers, who are incapable of perceiving the actual size of the obstacles placed in their way, he mounted his horse and beckoned to Cachafaz to come with him.
With a flying leap, Cachafaz landed on the horse’s cruppers, and clutched Watson’s blouse; then the latter spurred his mount, and they started off at a gallop.
As soon as they had passed through the gate Richard turned his horse in the direction of the Manos Duras’ ranch, which he had often seen from a distance. But Cachafaz exclaimed,
“That’s the wrong direction!” and he pointed to the highest part of the bluffs overhanging the river.
“Go over there,” he whispered, “to the ranch of the Dead Squaw.”