Great heavens, what a withered, aged face was raised toward his own! It was the first time he had ever seen Guadalupe unveiled and at close quarters. Her cheeks were wrinkled into a hundred folds; her eyes were sunken in deep cavernous hollows. When he touched her, she rose and, jabbering furiously for all the world like an angry ape, reviled him with curses, her meaning unmistakable, although she spoke in some strange Indian tongue.
Just then Dick caught the distant chug-chug of the automobile. He looked up the valley, wondering who might be passing at that hour of night. This was not the main highway; nobody ever came to Comanche Point after dark. Some intervening spur of the foothills dulled the sound; all was still and silent.
He became conscious that Guadalupe’s fury had spent itself, and turned round. The squaw was gone. His eyes searched the scrub; at one place he saw the twigs bending, and he even fancied he could detect the outline of the white wolf gliding away through the brushwood. But that was all.
Again the sound of the automobile smote his ears; louder now, and only a few hundred yards away he beheld the headlights sweeping toward the spot where he stood. He resolved to intercept the vehicle and stepped across the belt of chaparral that intervened between him and the roadway. Gaining the thoroughfare, he called aloud and the machine slowed down.
But what was his utter amazement when Merle jumped’ from the runabout. To her there could be no more surprises on this night of surprises.
“Dick,” she exclaimed, as she accepted his embrace almost as a matter of course.
“How do you come to be here, Merle, my darling?” he asked, holding her in his arms.
“Something terrible is going to happen. I have come to try to prevent it. Have you seen Don Manuel?”
“Don Manuel!” He repeated the name in great surprise.
“Mr. Robles is Don Manuel,” she gasped by way of explanation.