No one. The door of the ramshackle building stood wide open. Through the gaping aperture he could see the interior of the house. There was no one there. But as he looked up from this disappointing scene, he caught sight of a rider disappearing at a fast gallop in the direction of the mountains; and this rider bore in front of him on the saddle a large bundle which he held with both arms; and in spite of the rapidly widening distance, Celinda’s father could see that the bundle was struggling frantically.
“Ah, you criminal, you horse thief!”
He had had no worse fears. And while he stood, motionless for the moment with despair, it seemed to him that he could still hear his little daughter crying out to him for help....
CHAPTER XVII
WHEN Elena finally got up the next morning, she was astonished to find that Sebastiana paid no attention to her repeated calls.
At last one of the half-breed girls who worked under the house-keeper’s directions presented herself and announced that Sebastiana hadn’t come back to the house after her departure from it early that morning.
“They say there have been terrible goings-on at the Rojas ranch. The comisario and a lot of men are all riding out there now.”
Sebastiana, it seemed, had been seen on horseback riding out of the town, accompanied by the señor Robledo’s servant.
“She has gone to see what happened to her mistress ... everybody tells a different story.... But one thing is sure and that is that someone was killed out at the ranch....”
But the mistress of the house showed so little interest in what the young half-breed was saying, that the girl stopped. A brief exclamation of surprise had been the only comment made by the señora. Then she had lapsed into silence as though the subject bored her.