Mrs. Seymour made her protest against such an unconventional trip, but Ruth rode her objections down after the fashion of American girls.
"Why can't I go for a ride with the man to whom I'm engaged? What's wrong with it? I'll stay with the lady that keeps house for General Pasquale. In two or three days I'll be back. Don't say no, mommsie." Her voice broke a little as she pleaded the cause. "He's dying—Mr. Yeager is—and he wants to see me. I'd always blame myself if I didn't go. I've just got to go."
"I don't see why you have to go riding all over the country to see one man when you're engaged to another. In my time—"
"If Chad doesn't object, why should you?"
"Oh, I know you'll go. I suppose it's all right, but I wish Phil could go with you too."
"So do I, but of course he can't. Chad says that affairs are so disturbed across the line that probably the Government won't make Phil any trouble, but that if he showed himself in Sonora some of the friends of that man Mendoza would be sure to kill him."
"I suppose so." Mrs. Seymour sighed. Her harum-scarum young son was on her mind a good deal. "Now, don't you fret, honey, about Steve Yeager. He's the kind of man that will take a lot of killing. A man who has lived outdoors in the saddle for a dozen years is liable to get over a wound that would finish some one else."
In his haste to reach Los Robles before Yeager the prizefighter had ruined the horse he rode. He picked up another one cheap and got for Ruth her brother's pony. Within an hour of his arrival the two animals were brought round for the start.
The mother, still a little troubled in her mind, took Harrison aside for a last word.
"Chad Harrison, you look after my little girl and see no harm comes to her. If anything happens to her I'll never forgive you."