"How are you going to keep from accepting it, Miss Valdés? That paper is a perfectly legal document."
She smiled faintly. "I could light a cigarette, Mr. Gordon, as you once did."
"Not a bit of use. I wired to Santa Fé by Steve to have that paper—the original of it—put on record this afternoon. By this time I expect you're the princess of the Rio Chama all right."
She still hesitated, the tide of feeling running full in her heart. It was all very well for this casual youth to make her a present of a half million acres of land in this debonair way, but she could not persuade herself to accept so munificent a gift.
"I don't know—I'll have to think—if you are the legal owner——"
"You're welching," he told her amiably. "I make a legal deed of conveyance because we are all agreed that my title isn't morally good. We're not a bunch of pettifoggers. All of us are aiming to get at what's right in settling this thing. You know what is right. So do I. So does Mr. Pesquiera. Enough said. All we have to do then is to act according to the best we know. Looks simple to me."
"Maybe it wouldn't look so simple if you were at the other end of the bargain, Mr. Gordon. To give is more blessed than to receive, you know."
"Sure. I understand that. I get the glory and do all the grand-standing. But you'll have to stand for it, I reckon."
"I'm going to think it over. Then I'll let you know what I can do." She looked at him sharply, a new angle of the situation coming home to her. "You meant to do this from the first, Mr. Gordon."
"Not quite from the first. After you had taken me to your ranch and I had seen how things stood between you and the folks in the valley I did. You've smoked me, ma'am. I'm a born grand-stander." He laughed in amusement at himself. "I wanted to be it, the hero of the piece, the white-haired boy. But that wasn't the way it panned out. I was elected villain most unanimous, and came mighty near being put out of business a few times before I could make the public sabe I was only play acting. Funny how things work out. Right at the last when I've got the spotlight all trained for me to star and the music playing soft and low, Don Manuel here jumps in and takes the stage from me by rescuing the villain from a fiery furnace. I don't get any show," he complained whimsically.