“Have to lock you in,” he apologized airily. “Not that it would do you any good to escape. We’d have you again inside of twenty-four hours. This bit of the hills takes a heap of knowing. But we don’t want you running away. You’re too tired. So I lock the door and lie down on the porch under your window. Adios, señorita.”
Melissy heard the key turn in the lock, and was grateful for the respite given her by the night. She was glad, too, that Boone was here. She knew him for a villain, but she hoped he would stand between her and MacQueen if the latter proved unruly in his attentions. Her guess was that Boone was jealous of the other—of his authority with the gang to which they both belonged, and now of his relationship to her. Out of this division might come hope for her.
So tired was she that, in spite of her alarms, 261 sleep took her almost as soon as her head touched the pillow. When she awakened the sun was shining in at her window above the curtain strung across its lower half.
Some one was knocking at the door. When she asked who was there, in a voice which could not conceal its tremors, the answer came in feminine tones:
“’Tis I—Rosario Chaves.”
The Mexican woman was not communicative, nor did she appear to be sympathetic. The plight of this girl might have moved even an unresponsive heart, but Rosario showed a stolid face to her distress. What had to be said, she said. For the rest, she declined conversation absolutely.
Breakfast was served Melissy in her room, after which Rosario led her outdoors. The woman gave her to understand that she might walk about the cleared space, but must not pass into the woods beyond. To point the need of obedience, Rosario seated herself on the porch, and began doing some drawn work upon which she was engaged.
Melissy walked toward the corral, but did not reach it. An old hag was seated in a chair beside one of the log cabins. From the color of her skin the girl judged her to be an Indian squaw. She wore moccasins, a dirty and shapeless one-piece dress, and a big sunbonnet, in which her head was buried.
Sitting on the floor of the porch, about fifteen feet from her, was a hard-faced customer, with stony 262 eyes like those of a snake. He was sewing on a bridle that had given way. Melissy noticed that from the pocket of his chaps the butt of a revolver peeped. She judged it to be the custom in Dead Man’s Cache to go garnished with weapons.
Her curiosity led her to deflect toward the old woman. But she had not taken three steps toward the cabin before the man with the jade eyes stopped her.