“We were comrades before Juarez. One day I dragged him out of a ditch. I reminded him. Then I—I told him something I—I thought—”
“Stewart, I know from the way he looked at me that you spoke of me.”
Her companion did not offer a reply to this, and Madeline did not press the point.
“I heard Don Carlos’s name several times. That interests me. What have Don Carlos and his vaqueros to do with this?”
“That Greaser has all to do with it,” replied Stewart, grimly. “He burned his ranch and corrals to keep us from getting them. But he also did it to draw all the boys away from your home. They had a deep plot, all right. I left orders for some one to stay with you. But Al and Stillwell, who’re both hot-headed, rode off this morning. Then the guerrillas came down.”
“Well, what was the idea—the plot—as you call it?”
“To get you,” he said, bluntly.
“Me! Stewart, you do not mean my capture—whatever you call it—was anything more than mere accident?”
“I do mean that. But Stillwell and your brother think the guerrillas wanted money and arms, and they just happened to make off with you because you ran under a horse’s nose.”
“You do not incline to that point of view?”