"I'm right fully persuaded. Hallo! Stranger visiting at Corbett's. Guess I'll unlimber the artillery."
They dismounted, and, before turning over his horse to Yeager, Dick unstrapped from the saddle his rifle. Nowadays he never for a moment was separated from some weapon of defense. For he knew that an attack upon his life was almost a certainty in the near future. Though his manner was debonair, he saw to it that nobody got a chance to tamper with his guns.
"Make you acquainted with Mr. Ramon Ainsa, gentlemen. Mr. Gordon—Mr. Davis," said Corbett, standing in the doorway in his shirt-sleeves.
Mr. Ainsa, a very young man with the hint of a black mustache over his boyish mouth, clicked his heels together and bowed deeply. He expressed himself as delighted, but did not offer to shake hands. He was so stiff that Dick wanted to ask him whether the poker he had swallowed was indigestible.
"I am the bearer of a message to Mr. Richard Muir Gordon," he said with another bow.
"My name," acknowledged its owner. "You ain't missed a letter of it. Must have been at the christening, I expect."
"A message from Don Manuel Pesquiera."
"Good enough. That's right friendly of him. How's the don?"
And Dick, the sparkle of malicious humor gleaming in his eye, shook Mr. Ainsa warmly by the hand, in spite of that gentleman's effort to escape.
The messenger sidestepped as soon as he could, and began again, very red: