Juanita found in a little nod from Miss Valdés permission to leave. She turned and walked hurriedly away to the adobe cabin where she slept. Before she reached it the walk had become a run.
"Has the young woman lost a ribbon or a lover?" commented Pesquiera, with a smile.
"Manuel, I am worried," answered Valencia irrelevantly.
"What about, my cousin?"
"It's this man Gordon again. Juanita says that Pablo and Sebastian have gone to kill him."
"Gone where?"
"To Santa Fé. They asked for a leave of absence. You know how sullen and suspicious Sebastian is. It is fixed firmly in his head that Mr. Gordon is going to take away his farm."
Manuel's black eyes snapped. He did not propose to let any peons steal from him the punishment he owed this insolent Gordon.
"But Pablo is not a fool. Surely he knows he cannot do such a mad thing."
"Pablo is jealous—and hot-headed." The angry color mounted to the cheeks of the young woman. "He is in love with Juanita and he found out this stranger has been philandering with her. It is abominable. This Gordon has made the silly little fool fall in love with him."
"Oh, if Pablo is jealous——" Pesquiera gave a little shrug of his shoulders. He understood pretty well the temperament of the ignorant Mexican. The young lover was likely to shoot first and think afterward.
Valencia was still thinking of the American. Beneath the olive of her cheeks two angry spots still burned. "I detest that sort of thing. I thought he was a gentleman—and he is only a male flirt ... or worse."
"Perhaps—and perhaps not, my cousin. Did Juanita tell you——?"
"She told me enough. All I need to know."
Again the young man's shoulders lifted in a little gesture of humorous resignation. He knew the uncompromising directness of Miss Valdés and the futility of arguing with her. After all, the character of Gordon was none of his business. The man might have made love to Juanita, though he did not look like that kind of a person. In any case the important thing was to save his life.
After a moment's thought he announced a decision. "I shall take the stage for Santa Fé this afternoon. When I have warned the American I'll round up your man-hunters and bring them back to you."
His lady's face thanked him, though her words did not. "You may tell them I said they were to come back at once."
At her cousin's urgent request Miss Valdés stayed to eat luncheon with him at Corbett's, which was a half-way station for the stage and maintained a public eating-house. Even Valencia hesitated a little at this, though she was at heart an emancipated American girl and not a much-chaperoned Spanish maid. But she wanted to repay him for the service he was undertaking so cheerfully, and therefore sacrificed her scruples.
As they were being served by Juanita the stage rolled up and disgorged its passengers. They poured into the dining-room—a mine-owner and his superintendent, a storekeeper from the village at the other end of the valley, a young woman school-teacher from the Indian reservation, a cattleman, and two Mexican sheepmen.
While the fresh horses were being hitched to the stage Pesquiera and his guest stood back a little apart from the others. Corbett brought out a sack containing mail and handed it to the driver. The passengers found again their places.
Pesquiera shook hands with Valencia. His gaze rested for a moment in her dark eyes.
"Adios, linda," he said, in a low voice.
The color deepened in her cheeks. She understood that he was telling her how very much he was her lover now and always. "Good-bye, amigo," she answered lightly.
Pesquiera took his place on the back seat. The whip of the driver cracked. In a cloud of white dust the stage disappeared around a bend in the road.
Valencia ordered her horse brought, and left for the ranch. Having dispatched Manuel to the scene of action, it might be supposed that she would have awaited the issue without farther activity. But on the way home she began to reflect that her cousin would not reach Santa Fé until next morning, and there was always a chance that this would be too late. As soon as she reached the ranch she called up the station where the stage connected with the train. To the operator she dictated a message to be wired to Richard Gordon. The body of it ran thus:
"Have heard that attack may be made upon your life. Please do not go out alone or at night at all. Answer."
She gave urgent instructions that if necessary to reach Gordon her telegram be sent to every hotel in the city and to his lawyer, Thomas M. Fitt.
Now that she had done all she could the young woman tried to put the matter out of her mind by busying herself with the affairs of the ranch. She had a talk with a cattle buyer, after which she rode out to see the engineer who had charge of the building of the irrigation system she had installed. An answer would, she was sure, be awaiting her upon her return home.
Her anticipation was well founded. One of the housemaids told her that the operator at San Jacinto had twice tried to get her on the telephone. The mistress of the ranch stepped at once to the receiver.
"Give me San Jacinto," she said to the operator.
As soon as she was on the wire with the operator he delivered the message he had for her. It was from Santa Fé and carried the signature of Stephen Davis:
"Gordon has been missing since last night. I fear the worst. For God's sake, tell me what you know."
Valencia leaned against the telephone receiver and steadied herself. She felt strangely faint. The wall opposite danced up and down and the floor swayed like the deck of a vessel in a heavy sea. She set her teeth hard to get a grip on herself. Presently the wave of light-headedness passed.
She moved across the room and sank down into a chair in front of her desk. They had then murdered him after all. She and her people were responsible for his death. There was nothing to be done now—nothing at all.
Then, out of the silence, a voice seemed to call to her—the voice of Richard Gordon, faint and low, but clear. She started to her feet and listened, shaken to the soul by this strange summons from that world which lay beyond the reach of her physical senses. What could it mean? She had the body of a healthy young animal. Her nerves never played her any tricks. But surely there had come to her a call for help not born of her own excited fancy.
In an instant she had made up her mind. Her finger pressed an electric button beside the desk, and almost simultaneously a second one. The maid who appeared in the doorway in answer to the first ring found her mistress busily writing.
Valencia looked up. "Rosario, pack a suitcase for me with clothes for a week. Put in my light brown dress and a couple of shirt-waists. I'll be up presently." Her gaze passed to the major domo who now stood beside the maid. "I'm going to Santa Fé to-night, Fernando. Order the grays to be hitched to the buggy."
"To-night! But, Señorita, the train has gone."
"Juan will go with me. We'll drive right through. My business is important."
"But it is seventy miles to Santa Fé, and part of the way over mountain roads," he protested.
"Yes. We should reach there by morning. I mean to travel all night. Make the arrangements, please, and tell Juan. Then return here. I want to talk over with you the ranch affairs. You will have charge of the ditches, too, during my absence. Don't argue, Fernando, but do as I say."
The old man had opened his mouth to object, but he closed it without voicing his views. A little smile, born of his pride in her wilfulness, touched his lips and wrinkled the parchment skin. Was she not a Valdés? He had served her father and her grandfather. To him, therefore, she could do no wrong.
* * *
CHAPTER XV
ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD
The night of his disappearance Dick had sauntered forth from the hotel with the jaunty assurance to Davis that he was going to call on a young lady. He offered no further details, and his friend asked for none, though he wondered a little what young woman in Santa Fé had induced Gordon to change his habits. The old miner had known him from boy
hood. His partner had never found much time for the society of eligible maidens. He had been too busy living to find tea-cup discussions about life interesting. The call of adventure had absorbed his youth, and he had given his few mature years ardently to the great American game of money-making. It was not that he loved gold. What Richard Gordon cared for was the battle, the struggle against both honorable and unscrupulous foe-men for success. He fought in the business world only because it was the test of strength. Money meant power. So he had made money.
It was not until Dick failed to appear for breakfast next morning that Davis began to get uneasy. He sent a bellboy to awaken Gordon, and presently the lad came back with word that he could get no answer to his knocks. Instantly Steve pushed back his chair and walked out of the room to the desk in the lobby.
"Got a skeleton key to Mr. Gordon's room—317, I think it is?" he demanded.
"Yes. We keep duplicate keys. You see, Mr. Davis, guests go away and carry the keys——"
"Then I want it. Afraid something's wrong with my friend. He's always up early and on hand for breakfast. He hasn't showed up this mo'ning. The bell hop can't waken him. I tell you something's wrong."
"Oh, I reckon he'll turn up all right." The clerk turned to the key rack. "Here's the key to Room 317. Mr. Gordon must have left it here. Likely he's gone for a walk."
Davis shook his head obstinately. "Don't believe it. I'm going up to see, anyhow."
Within five minutes he discovered that the bed in Room 317 had not been slept in the previous night. He was thoroughly alarmed. Gordon had no friends in the town likely to put him up for the night. Nor was he the sort of rounder to dissipate his energies in all-night debauchery. Dick had come to Santa Fé for a definite purpose. The old miner knew from long experience that he would not be diverted from it for the sake of the futile foolish diversions known by some as pleasure. Therefore the mind of Davis jumped at once to the conclusion of foul play.
And if foul play, then the Valdés claimants to the Rio Chamo Valley were the guilty parties. He blamed himself bitterly for having let Dick venture out alone, for having taken no precautions whatever to guard him against the Mexicans who had already once attempted his life.
"I'm a fine friend. Didn't even find out who he was going out to call on. Fact is, I didn't figure he was in any danger so long as he was in town here," he explained to the sheriff.
He learned nothing either at the police headquarters or at the newspaper offices that threw light on the disappearance of Gordon. No murder had been reported during the night. No unusual disturbance of any kind had occurred, so far as could be learned.
Before noon he had the town plastered with posters in English and in Spanish offering a reward of five hundred dollars for news leading to the recovery of Richard Gordon or for evidence leading to the conviction of his murderers in case he was dead. This brought two callers to the hotel almost at once. One was the attorney Fitt, the other a young woman who gave her name as Kate Underwood. Fitt used an hour of the old miner's time to no purpose, but the young woman brought with her one piece of news.
"I want to know when Mr. Gordon was last seen," she explained, "because he was calling on my mother and me last night and left about ten o'clock."
The little man got to his feet in great excitement. "My dear young woman, you're the very person I've been wanting to see. He told me he was going calling, but I'm such a darned chump I didn't think to ask where. Is Dick a friend of your family?"
"No, hardly that. I met him when he came to our office in the State House to look up the land grant papers. We became friendly and I asked him to call because we own the old Valdés house, and I thought he would like to see it." She added, rather dryly: "You haven't answered my question."
"I'll say that so far as I know you are the last person who ever saw Dick alive except his murderers," Davis replied, a gleam of tears in his eyes.
"Oh, it can't be as bad as that," she cried. "They wouldn't go that far."
"Wouldn't they? He was shot at from ambush while we were out riding one day in the Chama Valley."
"By whom?"
"By a young Mexican—one of Miss Valdés servants."
"You don't mean that Valencia——?"
She stopped, unwilling to put her horrified thought into words. He answered her meaning.
"No, I reckon not. She wanted Dick to tell her who it was, so she could punish the man. But that doesn't alter the facts any. He was shot at. That time the murderer missed, but maybe this time——"
Miss Underwood broke in sharply. "Do you know that he has been followed ever since he came to town, that men have dogged his steps everywhere?"
Davis leaned across the table where he was sitting. "How do you know?" he questioned eagerly.
"I saw them and warned him. He laughed about it and said he knew already. He didn't seem at all worried."
"Worried! He's just kid enough to be tickled to death about it," snapped the miner, masking his anxiety with irritation. "He hadn't sense enough to tell me for fear it would disturb me—and I hadn't the sense to find out in several days what you did in five minutes."
Davis and Miss Underwood went together over every foot of the road between her home and the hotel. One ray of hope they got from their examination of the ground he must have traversed to reach the El Tovar, as the hotel was named. At one spot—where a double row of cottonwoods lined the road—a fence had been knocked down and many feet had trampled the sandy pasture within. Steve picked up a torn piece of cloth about six inches by twelve in dimension. It had evidently been a part of a coat sleeve. He recognized the pattern as that of the suit his friend had been wearing.
"A part of his coat all right," he said. "They must have bushwhacked him here. By the foot-prints there were a good many of them."
"I'm glad there were."
"Why?"
"For two reasons," the girl explained. "In the first place, if they had wanted to kill him, one or two would have been enough. They wouldn't take any more than was necessary into their confidence."
"That's right. Your head's level there."
"And, in the second place, two men can keep a secret, but six or eight can't. Some one of them is bound to talk to his sweetheart or wife or friend."
"True enough. That five hundred dollars might get one of 'em, too."
"Somehow I believe he is alive. His enemies have taken him away somewhere—probably up into the hills."
"But why?"
"You ought to know that better than I do. What could they gain by it?"
He scratched his gray head. "Search me. They couldn't aim to hold him till after the trial. That would be a kid's play."
"Couldn't they get him to sign some paper—something saying that he would give up his claim—or that he would sell out cheap?"
"No, they couldn't," the old man answered grimly. "But they might think they could. I expect that's the play. Dick never in the world would come through, though. He's game, that boy is. The point is, what will they do when they find he stands the acid?"
Miss Underwood looked quickly at him, then looked quickly away. She knew what they would do. So did Davis.
"No, that's not the point. We must find him—just as soon as we can. Stir this whole town up and rake it with a fine-tooth comb. See if any of Miss Valdés' peons are in town. If they are have them shadowed."
They separated presently, she to go to the State House, he to return to the El Tovar. There he found the telegram from Miss Valdés awaiting him. Immediately he dictated an answer.
Before nightfall a second supply of posters decorated walls and billboards. The reward was raised to one thousand dollars for information that would lead to the finding of Richard Gordon alive and the same sum for evidence sufficient to convict his murderers in case he was dead. It seemed impossible that in so small a place, with everybody discussing the mysterious disappearance, the affair could long remain a secret. Davis did not doubt that Miss Underwood was correct in her assumption that the a
ssailants of Gordon had carried him with them into some hidden pocket of the hills, in which case it might take longer to run them to earth. The great danger that he feared was panic on the part of the abductors. To cover their tracks they might kill him and leave this part of the country. The closer pursuit pressed on them the more likely this was to happen. It behooved him to move with the greatest care.
* * *
CHAPTER XVI
VALENCIA MAKES A PROMISE
When Manuel descended from the El Tovar hack which had brought him from the station to that hotel the first person he saw standing upon the porch was Valencia Valdés. He could hardly believe his eyes, for of course she could not be here. He had left her at Corbett's, had taken the stage and the train, and now found her waiting for him. The thing was manifestly impossible. Yet here she was.
Swiftly she came down the steps to meet him.
"Manuel, we are too late. Mr. Gordon has gone."
"Gone where?" he asked, his mind dazed as it moved from one puzzle to another.
"We don't know. He was attacked night before last and carried away, whether dead or alive we have no proof."
"One thing at a time, Valencia. How did you get here?"
"I drove across the mountains—started when I got the news from Mr. Davis that his friend had disappeared."
"Do you mean that you drove all night—along mountain roads?" he asked, amazed.
"Of course. I had to get here." She dismissed this as a trifle with a little gesture of her hand. "Manuel, we must find him. I believe he is alive. This is some of Pablo's work. Down in old-town some one must know where he is. Bring him to me and I'll make him tell what he has done with Mr. Gordon."
Pesquiera was healthily hungry. He would have liked to sit down to a good breakfast, but he saw that his cousin was laboring under a heavy nervous tension. Cheerfully he gave up his breakfast for the present.
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