"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 Valdes 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 Fe 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 Valdes 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 emanc.i.p.ated 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 pa.s.sengers. 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 pa.s.sengers 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 Fe 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 Fe and carried the signature of Stephen Davis:
"Gordon has been missing since last night. I fear the worst. For G.o.d"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 pa.s.sed.
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 b.u.t.ton 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 pa.s.sed to the major domo who now stood beside the maid. "I"m going to Santa Fe to-night, Fernando. Order the grays to be hitched to the buggy."
"To-night! But, _Senorita_, 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 Fe, 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 Valdes?
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 d.i.c.k had sauntered forth from the hotel with the jaunty a.s.surance 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 Fe had induced Gordon to change his habits. The old miner had known him from boyhood.
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 d.i.c.k 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. d.i.c.k had come to Santa Fe 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 Valdes claimants to the Rio Chamo Valley were the guilty parties. He blamed himself bitterly for having let d.i.c.k 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."