Cautiously it was opened a few inches. There was another whispered conversation.
"The _senor_ and the _senorita_ can come in," said the first man, standing aside.
Manuel restrained the young woman by stretching his left arm in front of her.
"Just a moment. Light a lamp, my friends. We do not go forward in the dark."
At this there was a further demur, but finally a match flickered and a lamp was lit. Manuel moved slowly forward into the room, followed by Valencia. In a corner of the room a man lay bound upon the floor, his back toward them. One of the men rolled him over as if he had been a sack of potatoes. The face into which they looked had been mauled and battered, but Valencia had no trouble in recognizing it.
"Sebastian!" she cried.
He said nothing. A sullen, dogged look rested on his face. Manuel had seen it before on the countenance of many men. He knew that the sheep grazer could not be driven to talk.
Miss Valdes might have known it, too, but she was too impatient for finesse. "What have you done with Mr. Gordon? Tell me--now--at once,"
she commanded.
The man"s eyes did not lift to meet hers. Nor did he answer a single word.
"First, our hundred dollars, _Senorita_," one of the men reminded her.
"It will be paid when you deliver Sebastian to us in the street with his hands tied behind him," Manuel promised.
They protested, grumbling that they had risked enough already when they had captured him an hour earlier. But in the end they came to Pesquiera"s condition. The prisoner"s hands were tied behind him and his feet released so that he could walk. Manuel slid one arm under the right one of Sebastian. The fingers of his left hand rested on the handle of a revolver in his coat pocket.
Valencia, all impatience, could hardly restrain herself until they were alone with their prisoner. She walked on the other side of her cousin, but as soon as they reached the Plaza she stopped.
"Where is he, Sebastian? What have you done with him? I warn you it is better to tell all you know," she cried sternly.
He looked up at her doggedly, moistened his lips, and looked down again without a word.
"Speak!" she urged imperiously. "Where is Mr. Gordon? Tell me he is alive. And what of Pablo?"
Manuel spoke in a low voice. "My cousin, you are driving him to silence.
Leave him to me. He must be led, not driven."
Valencia was beyond reason. She felt that every minute lost was of tremendous importance. If Gordon was alive they must get help to him at once. All her life she had known Sebastian. When she had been a little tot he had taught her how to ride and how to fish. Since her return from college she had renewed acquaintance with him. Had she not been good to his children when they had small-pox? Had she not sold him his place cheaper than any other man could have bought it? Why, then, should he a.s.sume she was his enemy? Why should he distrust her? Why, above all, had he done this foolish and criminal thing?
Her anger blazed as she recalled all this and more. She would show Sebastian that because she had been indulgent he could not trade defiantly upon her kindness.
"No," she told Manuel. "No. I shall deal with him myself. He will speak or I shall turn him over to the sheriff."
"Let us at least go to the hotel, Valencia. We do not want to gather a crowd on the street."
"As you please."
They reached the hotel parlor and Valencia gave Sebastian one more chance.
The man shuffled uneasily on his feet, but did not answer.
"Very well," continued Miss Valdes stiffly, "it is not my fault that you will have to go to the penitentiary and leave your children without support."
Manuel tried to stop her, but Valencia brushed past and left the room.
She went straight to a telephone and was connected with the office of the sheriff. After asking that an officer be sent at once to arrest a man whom she was holding as prisoner, she hung up the receiver and returned to the parlor.
In all she could not have been absent more than five minutes, but when she reached the parlor it was empty. Both Manuel and his prisoner had gone.
CHAPTER XVII
AN OBSTINATE MAN
When Richard Gordon came back from unconsciousness to a world of haziness and headaches he was quite at a loss to account for his situation. He knew vaguely that he was lying flat on his back and that he was being jolted uncomfortably to and fro. His dazed brain registered sensations of pain both dull and sharp from a score of bruised nerve centers. For some reason he could neither move his hands nor lift his head. His body had been so badly jarred by the hail of blows through which he had plowed that at first his mind was too blank to give him explanations.
Gradually he recalled that he had been in a fight. He remembered a sea of faces, the thud of fists, the flash of knives. This must be the reason why every bone ached, why the flesh on his face was caked and warm moisture dripped from cuts in his scalp. It dawned upon him that he could not move his arms because they were tied and that the interference with his breathing was caused by a gag. When he opened his eyes he saw nothing, but whenever his face or hands stirred from the jolting something light and rough brushed his flesh; An odor of alfalfa filled his nostrils. He guessed that he was in a wagon and covered with hay.
Where were they taking him? Why had they not killed him at once? Who was at the bottom of the attack upon him? Already his mind was busy with the problem.
Presently the jolting ceased. He could hear guarded voices. The alfalfa was thrown aside and he was dragged from his place and carried down some steps. The men went stumbling through the dark, turning first to the right, and then to the left. They groped their way into a room and dropped him upon a bed. Even now they struck no light, but through a small window near the ceiling moonbeams entered and relieved somewhat the inky blackness.
"Is he dead?" someone asked in Spanish.
"No. His eyes were open as we brought him in," answered a second voice guardedly.
They stood beside the bed and looked down at their prisoner. His eyes were getting accustomed to the darkness. He saw that one of the men was Pablo Menendez. The other, an older Mexican with short whiskers, was unknown to him.
"He fought like a devil from h.e.l.l. Roderigo"s arm is broken. Not one of us but is marked," said the older man admiringly.
"My head is ringing yet, Sebastian," agreed Pablo. "_Dios_, how he slammed poor Jose down. The blood poured from his nose and mouth. Never yet have I seen a man fight so fierce and so hard as this _Americano_.
He may be the devil himself, but his claws are clipped now. And here he lies till he does as we want, or----" The young Mexican did not finish his sentence, but the gleam in his eyes was significant.
Pablo stooped till his eyes were close to those of the bound man.
"_Senor,_ shall I take the gag from your mouth? Will you swear not to cry out and not to make any noise?"
Gordon nodded.
"So, but if you do the road to Paradise will be short and swift,"
continued Menendez. "Before your shout has died away you will be dead.
_Sabe, Senor_?"
He unknotted the towel at the back of his prisoner"s head and drew it from d.i.c.k"s mouth. Gordon expanded his lungs in a deep breath before he spoke coolly to his gaoler.
"Thank you, Menendez. You needn"t keep your fist on that gat. I"ve no intention of committing suicide until after I see you hanged."
"Which will be never, _Senor_ Gordon," replied Pablo rapidly in Spanish.
"You will never leave here alive except on terms laid down by us."