Barlow, gone several hours, reported that Escobar had not turned up at the waterfront dives to which, according to the murdered Juarez, he reported now and then to keep in touch with his outlaw commander.
Steering out again through the fishing craft and harbor boats, they pounded the _New Moon_ on toward Port Adventure.
Then came at last the night when Barlow, looking hard mouthed and eager, announced that in a few hours they would drop anchor and go ash.o.r.e to see what they would see. n.i.g.g.e.r Ben and Philippine Charlie were instructed gravely. They were to remain on board and were to maintain a suspicious reserve toward all strangers, denying them foothold on deck.
"The gents who"d be apt to make you a call," Barlow told them impressively, "would cut your throats for a side of bacon. You boys keep watches day and night. When we get back into San Diego Bay, if you do your duties, you both get fifty dollars on top of your wages."
It was shortly before they hoisted the anchor overboard to wait for dawn that for the second time Kendric felt again that oddly disturbing sense of hidden eyes spying at him. Again he was alone, standing forward, peering into the darkness, trying to make some sort of detail out of the black wall ahead which Barlow had told him was a long line of cliff. As before Charlie was at the wheel while n.i.g.g.e.r Ben was listening to instructions from Barlow aft of the cabin. The voices came faint against the gulf wind to Kendric. The words he did not hear since all of his mental force was bent to determine what it was that gave him that uncanny feeling of eyes, the eyes of Zoraida Castelmar, in the dark.
This time he was guarded in his actions. He stood still a moment, his jaw set, only his eyes turning to right and left. As he had asked himself countless times already so now did he put the question again: "How could a man feel a thing like that?" At his age was he developing nerves and insane fancies? At any rate the sensation was strong, compelling. Making no sound, he turned and stared into the darkness on all sides. He saw no one.
Suddenly, startling him so that his taut muscles jumped involuntarily, came an excited shout from n.i.g.g.e.r Ben.
"Ha"nts, Cap"n Barlow! Oh, my Gawd, save me now! Looky dar! Looky dar! It"s a lady g-g-ghost! Oh, my Gawd, save me now!"
Kendric ran back. n.i.g.g.e.r Ben was clutching wildly at Barlow"s arm.
"You superst.i.tious old fool," growled Barlow. "It"s only that piece of torn sail flappin" that Charlie was goin" to sew. Can"t you see? I thought you weren"t afraid of the _New Moon"s_ ha"nts, any way."
n.i.g.g.e.r Ben shifted his big feet uneasily and little by little crept forward to look at the flapping bit of sail cloth. Slowly his courage returned to him. He hadn"t been afraid at all, he declared, but just sort of shook up, seeing the thing all of a sudden that way. Kendric pa.s.sed on as though nothing had happened, as he reasoned perhaps nothing had. But just the same he made his second quiet search, in the end finding nothing. But as he went back to his place up deck he turned the matter over and over in mind stubbornly. Coincidences were all right enough, but reasonable explanations lay back of them. If a man could only see just where the explanation lay.
He sought to reason logically; if in truth someone had been standing looking at him, if n.i.g.g.e.r Ben had seen something other than the flapping canvas, then that someone or something had gone aboard the _New Moon_ at San Diego and had made the entire cruise with them. That could hardly have been done without Barlow"s knowledge. Two points struck him then. First, Barlow had demanded who Zoraida Castelmar was; had not Barlow even learned the name of the girl of the pearls?
Second, it recurred to him that Barlow had followed her to the hotel in the border town, had even had word with her, since he had brought Kendric a message. Why had Barlow gone to the hotel at all? His explanation at the time had been reasonable enough; he had said that he had gone to get a room. But now Kendric remembered how Barlow, on that same night, had expressed his determination to be riding by moonrise!
What would he have done with a hotel room?
But slowly the dawn was coming, the ragged sh.o.r.e was revealing itself, Barlow was calling for help with the small boat. Kendric shrugged his shoulders and kept his mouth shut.
CHAPTER IV
INDICATING THAT THAT WHICH APPEARS THE EARTHLY PARADISE MAY PROVE QUITE ANOTHER SORT OF PLACE
A strip of white beach three hundred feet long, a score of paces across at its widest, with black barren cliffs guarding it and the faint pink dawn slowly growing a deeper rose over it, such was the port of adventure into which nosed the row boat bringing Jim Kendric and Twisty Barlow treasure seeking. In the stern crouched n.i.g.g.e.r Ben, come ash.o.r.e in order to row the boat back to the _New Moon_, his eyes bulging with wonderment that men should come all the way from San Diego to disembark upon so solitary a spot. The dingey shoved its nose into the sand, Kendric and Barlow carrying their small packs and rifles sprang out, n.i.g.g.e.r Ben shook his head and pushed off again.
"Up the cliffs the easiest way," cried Barlow, his eyes shining with excitement. "Up there I"ll get my bearin"s and we"ll steer a straight-string line for what"s ahead, Headlong, old mate! Step lively is the word now while it"s cool. And by noon, if we"re in luck----"
He left the rest to any man"s imagination and hastened across the sand and to the rock wall. But more forbidding than ever rose the cliffs against the path of men who did not know their every crevice, and it was full day and the sun was up before they came panting to the top.
Down went packs, with two heaving-chested, bright-eyed men atop of them, while Barlow, compa.s.s in hand, got his bearings.
The devil"s own he had named this country from afar; the devil"s own it extended itself, naked and dry and desolate before their questing eyes, a weary land, sun-smitten, broken, looking deserted of G.o.d and man. As far as they could see there were no trees, little growth of any kind, no birds, no grazing beasts. Just swell after swell of arid lands, here and there cut by ancient gorges, tumbled over by heaps of black rocks, swept clean of dust on the high places by racing winds, piled high with sand and small stones in the depressions. Where growing things thrust up their heads, they were the harsh, fanged and envenomed growth of desert places. The place had an air of unholiness in the light of the new day. A thorn, as Barlow turned carelessly, tore the skin on the back of his hand painfully. The parent stem had an evil look and he cursed it as though it had been a conscious malign agent, and struck at it with his clubbed rifle. From the place where the branch was wrenched away exuded a slow red sticky ooze like coagulating blood.
"There"s our course," announced Barlow, pointing, "with half a dozen hours of d.a.m.ned unpleasant walking, according to poor old Juarez. See those three peaks, standing up together? We bear a little off to the south for a spell and then straight toward "em. And never a spring until we get there! Look out you don"t poke a hole in your canteen."
"Ready," said Jim. "Let"s go."
They went on. Now that a new phase had come into their quest, with the days of distant speculation giving place to action on the ground, a certain difference of character was manifest in the two men. A growing taciturnity, accompanied by deep frowning thoughtfulness, locked Barlow"s lips, while Kendric, to whom any such experience was always primarily a lark, expanded and mounted steadily to fresh stages of lightheartedness. It mattered less to him than to his companion what might lie at the end of their journey; the journey itself was with Jim Kendric the golden thing. He felt alive, jubilant, keenly in sympathy with the lure and zest of the expedition. He felt like singing, would no doubt have sung out in some wild border ballad or bit of deep sea melody with a piratical swing to it, had he not been half the time fairly breathless from the pace they maintained over the broken country.
In a couple of hours they left behind them the worst of the gorges and canons, flinty peaks and ridges, and dropped down into a long crooked valley floored with dry sand ankle deep and grown over with a gray shrub plainly akin to California sage brush. Here was some scant evidence of animal life, a dusty jack rabbit, a circling buzzard, a thin spotted snake, a wild pony with up-flung head staring at them from the further ridge, gone whisking away as they drew on. And they came to trees whose shade was grateful, oaks and, later, a few dusty straggling pinons. Wisps of dry gra.s.s, an occasional patch of flowering weeds or taller plants, a flock of bewildered-looking birds that had the appearance of having strayed hitherward by mistake. No water, no sign of water; no man-owned herds, no sign of man. The open valley under the high, hot sun was a drearier place than the mountain slopes.
Then came the up-hill climb as they pa.s.sed out of the western edge of the sandy flats, a steep spur of the Cordillera, a region silent and saturnine and unthinkably hot. Three times, though they guarded against profligacy with their water, they unstoppered their canteens and rested in the shade on the way up. At last they came to the crest of the barrier of the blistering hills, having been on foot for a full five hours. And now, for the first time, looking forward, down the steep slopes and across the miles, they saw the Valley of Las Flores, the place of flowers. At first it was hard for them to believe that their eyes, which the desert lands befool so often and so readily, had not tricked them. It was as though in a twinkling the world had changed about them.
The long wide valley below was one sweep of green: fresh, colorful, cool green. Across it wandered many cows and horses and donkeys, browsing where the herbiage was lushest, dozing in the shade of the wide-spread oaks, standing indolent in the golden sunshine. A bright stream of water cut the emerald sward in two, coming from the bordering mountains at one end, gone flashing into the mountain-guarded pa.s.s at the other. From a distance Kendric heard a bird singing away like mad and saw the sweep and flutter of a b.u.t.terfly"s wing.
"The earthly paradise!" he cried admiringly.
But already Barlow"s fixed eyes were upon the mountainous country across the valley.
"Come on," he said, slipping his pack-straps over his shoulders and swinging up his rifle. "It would be three to five miles, easy going, and we"re there! There are our three peaks, straight across."
Only when they were fairly down on the floor of the valley did they see the ranch houses. There were several, a big, rambling adobe with white-washed walls, barns and smaller outbuildings, all making a sizeable group. They stood in an oak grove at the opposite side of the valley, close to the common bases of Barlow"s peaks. The two men stopped and looked, reflecting.
"Neighbors," said Kendric. "They"ll be wanting to know what we"re about, pottering around on the rim of their holding."
"It"s anybody"s land over there," growled Barlow. "They"d best keep out of it."
They pushed on across the fields, noting casually how they were all leveled and ditched for irrigation, and came at last to the creek where they rested under an oak and drank deeply and smoked. As they rose to go on they saw four hors.e.m.e.n bearing down upon them from the direction of the ranch houses.
"_Vacqueros_," said Barlow. "They"ll be wantin" to know if we"re lost."
"They look more like brigands than cow men," grunted Kendric. "Every man jack of them wears a rifle. And they"re in a rush, Twisty, old mate. What will you bet they don"t herd us back where we came from?"
"Let "em try it on," Barlow shot back at him, his eyes narrowing on the oncoming riders. "I"m goin" to roll up in my blanket under those three peaks tonight if the whole Mexican army shows up."
The two Americans stopped and stood ready to ease their shoulders out of their packs and start pumping lead if the newcomers turned out to be half the desperadoes they appeared. "The way to argue with these sort of gents," said Barlow contemptuously, "is shoot their eyes out first and talk next." But as the foremost of the little cavalcade drew up in front of them, with his three followers curbing their horses a few paces in his rear, the fellow"s greeting was amazingly hospitable.
"_Buenas dias, amigos_," he called to them. But, though he hailed them in the name of friendship, his eyes were sullen and gave the lie to his speech. "You would be fatigued with walking across the cursed desert; you would be parched with thirst. Yonder," and he pointed toward the distant white walls, "is coolness and pleasant welcome awaiting you."
His followers were out-and-out ragam.u.f.fins, wild-looking fellows with their unshaven cheeks and tangled hair and fierce eyes. Their spokesman stood apart in appearance as well as in position, being somewhat extravagantly dressed, showing much ornamentation both on his own person and that of his mount in the way of silver buckles and spangles. He was the youngest of the crowd, not over twenty-two or three from the look of him, with a nicely groomed black mustache. The horse under him was a superb creature, a great savage fiery-eyed sorrel stallion.
"Thanks," returned Barlow. "But my friend and I are on our way over there." He pointed. "We are students of entymology and are studyin"
certain new b.u.t.terflies." All along, until the very moment, he had fully intended explaining by saying they were on a hunting trip. But as he spoke it struck him that the slopes about his three peaks would not harbor a jack rabbit, and furthermore on the instant a big golden b.u.t.terfly went flapping by him, putting the idea into his head.
The young Mexican nodded but insisted.
"There will be time for b.u.t.terfly catching tomorrow," he said carelessly. "Today you will honor us by riding back to the Hacienda Montezuma. You are expected, senores; everything is prepared for you.
_Oyez_, Pedro, Juanito," turning in his saddle and addressing two of his men. "Rope two horses and let _los Americanos_ have yours." And when both Pedro and Juanito frowned and hesitated, his eyes flashed and he cried out angrily at them: "_p.r.o.nto_! It is commanded!"
They rode away toward a herd of horses half a mile down the valley, their riatas soon in their hands and widening and swinging into great loops. Presently they were back, leading two captured ponies.
Dismounting, they made impromptu hackamores of their ropes and mounted bareback, leaving their own saddles empty for Kendric and Barlow.
"Look here, _amigo_," said Kendric then. "We"re much obliged for the kind invitation. But you"ve got the wrong guests. If your outfit was expecting newcomers it was someone else."
The Mexican lifted his fine black brows.
"Then are you not Senores Kendric and Barlow?" he asked impudently.
They stared wonderingly at him, then at each other.