Bruce began shouting, calling to his men, three or four of whom came running out of the house. Beyond the barns they made out vague forms, whether of cattle or horses or riders it was at first impossible to know. Again they ran forward; from somewhere in the direction of the corrals came several rifle reports. With the gun shots a confusion of shouts through the heavier notes of which rose one voice, as high pitched as a woman's.

In the barn lofts the flames were spreading in a thousand directions, each dry stalk serving as a duct of destruction. The fire shot upward and the roof blossomed in red flames. Bruce groaned and cursed and prayed wildly for a glimpse of one of the devils who had done this for him. Big clouds of smoke drifted upward across the stars, shot through with flying sparks. Swiftly the lurid light spread until the white walls of the house stood out distinctly and the forms near the corrals were no longer vague. They were running cattle, Bruce's choice forty cows; Kendric saw the fine bred Hereford bull's horns glint, heard the snort of fear and rage, made out the big bulk crushing a way to the fore among his terrified companions. There were horses, too, running wild, the animals from the stables and the near corral. And behind them, shouting and now and then firing into the air to hasten the laggards, were many horsemen. How many it was impossible to estimate, a dozen at the least, perhaps fifty.

As the black mass of frightened beasts gathered forward headway and shot through the area of light, Kendric saw one horseman clearly. On the instant he threw up his rifle. Already his finger was crooking to the trigger when, with a mutter of rage, he lowered his arm. There was no mistaking that great white horse and he thought that there was as little mistaking its rider, a slender, upright figure leading the rush of the raiders, calling out sharp orders in the clear ringing voice, sweeping on recklessly. He cursed her but he held back his fire. Of women he knew little enough and for women there had been no place reserved in his life; but, for all that and all that Zoraida Castlemar might be and might do, he had not learned to lift his hand against her sex.

But there was nothing in what Bruce saw to restrain him. He fired while his rifle was rising to his shoulder and again and again with the stock against his cheek.

"Damn the light!" he growled, and fired again.

Through the tumult Kendric heard her laughter. None other than Zoraida could laugh like that. Again the suspicion flashed into his quickened brain that the girl was mad. He heard several shots behind him; Bruce's men were taking a hand. Then, close behind the white mare came a second horseman and Kendric thanked God for a man for a target and fired at it. Luck if he hit it, he told himself, at that distance and running and in that flickering light. But he fired again, ran in closer and fired the third time. And just as the white mare passed on through the illumed area and was lost in the dark with its rider he saw his man pitch forward and plunge to the ground. Other forms swept by, other shots were fired both from the outlaws and toward them. The darkness accepted them all and no other man fell.

Shouts floated back to them above the hammering thud of the fleeing cows and horses. Into the darkness after them Bruce and Kendric and Bruce's men sent many questing bullets while now and then an answering leaden pellet screamed over their heads. Swiftly the clamor of the receding hoof-beats lessened; no voices returned to them; no wild rider was to be seen. The night pulsed only to the barks of the dogs and the roar of the devastating flames.

Bruce was calling loudly to his men to get to horse and follow. But while he spoke he broke off hopelessly realizing that not a horse was left to him. Before he and his herders could get into saddle they must wait for daylight and must waste hours in driving in horses from the distant pastures, wild brutes for the most part that a man could never get near enough on foot to rope. He threw out his arms in a wide gesture of despair. Thereafter he stood, silent and moody, watching his hay-filled barns burn.

"If I could get my hands on the man that engineered this," he said, his voice broken, barely carrying to Kendric a few paces away. "That's all I ask."

Kendric, his rage scarcely less than Bruce's, called back to him:

"I could lead you as straight as a string. It's the handiwork of your neighbor."

"Rios?" cried Bruce eagerly.

"Zoraida Castelmar."

"Damn her!" cried the boy. In the firelight Kendric saw his steady eyes glisten and knew that they were filled with tears, the terrible tears of rage rising above anguish. "Damn her!"

After that he stood silent again looking at the burning buildings. When a new flame spurted skyward, when a section of roof fell, he twitched as though his muscles knew physical pain. At last he turned away and Kendric saw a face that it was hard to recognize as the boyish face of blue-eyed Bruce West.

"This beats me," said Bruce, quietly. "Best stock gone, new barns and hay turned to cinders. Ten thousand dollars wiped out in an hour. Yes; done for, Jim, old man. Clean."

Kendric found no word of answer. He turned away and went down to the broken corrals where the man behind Zoraida had fallen. If the man were not dead he might be induced to talk. And in any case, thief though he was, he was a man and not a dog. He found the huddled body lying still. Kneeling, he turned it over so that the wavering light shone on the face. He did not know whether the man was dead or not; he knew only that it was Twisty Barlow. He squatted there, looking from the white face to the sky full of stars. And his thought was less on the instant of Twisty Barlow than of Zoraida Castlemar.

"This is what she has done for two old friends," he said aloud.



CHAPTER X

IN WHICH A MAN KEEPS HIS WORD AND ZORAIDA DARES AND LAUGHS

Kendric called to Bruce. Together they carried the unconscious Barlow into the house. Kendric, once satisfied that his old friend's heart still beat, scarcely breathed until he lighted a lamp and found the wound. It was in the shoulder and not only did not appear dangerous, but failed to explain the man's condition of coma. There was a trickle of blood across the pale forehead; Kendric pushed back the hair and found a cut there, ragged and filled with dirt. Plainly the impact of the heavy bullet had sufficed to unseat the sailor who, pitching out of the saddle and striking on his head, had been stunned by the fall.

Kendric bathed and bandaged both wounds while Bruce went for a bottle of brandy.

"He's coming around," said Kendric as Barlow's throat received the stinging liquor. "I don't want to be on hand when he opens his eyes, Bruce; for ten years I've called Twisty by the name of friend. He's down and out for a little and what we two have to say to each other can wait a spell."

Bruce, stolidfaced now and morose, nodded. Kendric went outside and stood watching the flames work their will with Bruce's barns, his heart heavy within him. One friend down, a bullet hole in his shoulder, shot as a raiding cattle thief; another friend looking to have lost his boyish nature with the loss of his hope. And both rendered what they were through the wickedness of a woman. Woman? As he brooded over the devastation she had wrought he began to think of her as an evil spirit. He recalled with a shiver the feel of her burning eyes, hidden but potent; he thought of the nights at sea when he had felt her presence. For the first time he allowed himself to wonder in all seriousness if she had powers above a mere woman's as she had a character set apart.

And, after all that happened, he must return to her! He, Jim Kendric, must leave Twisty Barlow, wounded, and Bruce West, ruined, and return to Zoraida Castlemar who had set her brand upon both them. His twenty-four-hour leave would expire at daybreak. He had meant to spend the evening with Bruce and then to ride back during the night. Now, for the first time, he realized that the raiders had set him on foot. The twenty miles to the Montezuma ranch would have to be walked.

"And I'd better be on my way," he decided promptly. It did not enter his head that he had an excuse to offer for making a tardy appearance. He had pledged his word, and, while it was humanly possible, he would keep it. Even were it impossible it would have been Jim Kendric's way to try. And now he was not sorry for an excuse for leaving early. He could do nothing for Bruce; what must be said between him and Twisty Barlow could come later.

It was then, while he was returning to the house that he saw a steady light shining out in the fields. He stopped, at first fearing that a fresh fire was breaking out.

"Not thieves but cursed marauders," he named the crowd to which Bruce had already lost so heavily. "They've fired the dry grass."

But while he watched it the light did not alter, neither flaring up nor dying down, burning steadily like a lamp. When after two or three minutes he observed this he left the house and walked out into the field, keeping to the shadows when he could, watchful and suspicious. Thus presently he came to see what it was: a lantern tied from a low limb of a tree. Below the lantern he saw a dark object; it moved and he heard the clink of a bridle chain. Again he went forward, puzzled and curious. He made out that the saddle was empty; he could see no one near. A man might be hiding behind the bole of the oak or might even be above in the branches. Inwardly Kendric prayed that he was. He was ready for a meeting with any loiterer of Zoraida's following. His pulses stirred as he thought that it might even be Rios or Escobar.

But though he circled the tree and peered long into the shadows among the branches, he still saw no one. At last he came close to the tethered horse. It was his own, the sorrel El Rey he had ridden here this morning, saddled and bridled, spurs slung to the horn. The lantern shed its rays upon the saddle and Kendric saw something else at the horn; a bunch of little blue field flowers, held in place by a bit of white ribbon.

He snatched the flowers down angrily, trampled on them, ground them under foot. They seemed to him a bit of Zoraida herself; they taunted him, they bore the message she sent. They were her summons to come back to her. He jerked free the tie rope and swung up into the saddle, eager and anxious to go back to her the swiftest way in order that the time might come the more swiftly when he could fulfil his word and be free to leave her. He'd get a rifle from Bruce; with that and his revolver he'd take his chance, let all of her infernal rabble bar the way.

From the rear of the house he called to Bruce.

"I've found my horse; they left him behind," he said as Bruce came out. "I've got to go back, so back I go the quickest I know how. Take decent care of Barlow; he was a real man once and may be again, if he can shake that damned woman off. Lend me a rifle if you can spare it. I'll see you again as soon as the Lord lets me. So long."

"So long, Jim," returned Bruce drearily. He brought out a rifle, holding it out wordlessly. And Kendric rode away into the night.

In the mountains, though in another narrow pass, he was stopped as he had been this morning. A lantern was flashed in his face and over his horse. Then he was allowed to go on while from the darkness a voice cried after him:

"Viva La Senorita!"

From afar he saw lights burning down in the valley and recognized them as the lamps in the four wall towers. The gates were closed but at his call a man appeared from the shadows and opened to him. He rode in; dismounting, he let the rifle slip into a hiding place in the shrubbery; another man at the front corridor took his horse. At about midnight he again entered the old adobe building. The main hall into which he stepped through the front door was still brightly lighted with its several lamps; through open doors he saw that nowhere in the house were lights out. Yet it was very quiet; he heard neither voice nor step.

He knew where Zoraida was; no doubt Rios and Escobar were with her. He had kept his word and returned to his prison like a good dog; what reason why he should not take advantage of what appeared an unusual opportunity and make his attempt at escape? Zoraida would not have counted on his returning so early; he carried a revolver under his arm pit and hidden in the garden was a rifle. To be sure there were risks to be run; but now, if ever, struck him as the time to run them.

If he could only find where Betty Gordon slept. He must give her a word of hope before he left her here among these devils; assuring her that he would return for her and bring the law with him. Or, if she had the nerve and the desire to attempt escape with him now, that was her right and he would go as far as a man could to bring her through to safety. Noiselessly he crossed the room. He would pass through the music room and down the hall toward the living quarters of the house. If luck were with him he would find her.

It was only when he was about to pass out of the music room door going to the hallway that he heard voices for the first time. They came from a distance, dulled and deadened by the oak doors, but he knew them for the voices of men, raised in anger. A louder word now and then brought him recognition of Ruiz Rios's voice; a sharp answer might have been from Escobar. He stopped and considered. If these men quarreled, how would it affect him? Quarrel they would, soon or late, he knew. For both were truculent and in the looks he had seen pass between them there was no friendship. Two rebellious spirits held in check by the will of Zoraida Castelmar. But now Zoraida was away.

Then for the moment he forgot them and his conjectures. He had heard a faint sound and turning quickly saw for the first time that he was not alone in the music room. In a dim corner beyond the piano was a cushioned seat and on it, her hands clasped in her lap, her eyes wide with the sleeplessness and anxiety of the night, crouched Betty Gordon. He took a quick step toward her. She drew back, pressed tight against the wall, her look one of terror. Terror of him!

But he came on until he stood over her, looking down into her raised face. He felt no end of pity for her, she looked so small and helpless and hopeless. Big gray eyes pleaded with him and he read and understood that she asked only that he go and leave her. An impulse which was utterly new to him surged over him now, the impulse to gather her up into his arms as one would a child and comfort her. Not that she was just a child. She had done her shining brown hair high up on her head; she fought wildly for an air of serene dignity; he judged her at the last of her teens. But she was none the less flower-like, all that a true woman should be according to the beliefs of certain men of the type of Jim Kendric, a true descendant of her sweet, old-fashioned grandmothers. Her little high-heeled slippers, her dainty blue dress, the flower which even in her distress she had tucked away in her hair, were quite as he would have had them.

"Betty Gordon," he said softly so that his words would not carry to other ears, "I want to help you if you will let me. Will you?"

Her clasped hands tightened; he saw the lips tremble before she could command her utterance.

"I—I don't know what to do," she faltered. Her eyes clung to his frankly, filled with shining eagerness to read the heart under the outer man. For the first time Jim was conscious of his several days' growth of beard; he supposed that it was rather more than an even chance that his face was grimy and perhaps still carried evidences of the fight at Bruce West's ranch. To assure her of his honorable intentions toward her he could have wished for a bath and a shave.

"You're in the hands of a rather bad crowd," he said when he saw that she had no further words but was waiting for him. "I thought that at least it would be a relief to know that you had one friend on the job. And an American at that," he concluded heartily.

"How am I to know who is a friend?" She shivered and pressed tight against the wall. "That terrible man named Escobar spoke to me of friendship, and he is the one who gave orders to bring me here! And the other man, Rios, he spoke words that did not go with the look in his eyes. And you—you——"

"Well? What about me?"

"You are one of them. I find you staying in their house. You are the lover of Senorita Castelmar and she is terrible! Oh, I don't know what to do."

"Who told you that?" he demanded sharply. "That I was Zoraida's lover?"

"One of the maids, Rosita. She told me that Zoraida is mad about you. And that you are a great adventurer and have killed many men and are a professional gambler."

"Rosita lied. I am just a prisoner here, like you."

Sheer disbelief shone in Betty's eyes.

"You rode away, alone, this morning," she said. "I saw you through my window. You come in alone tonight. You are not a prisoner."

"I was allowed to leave the house only when I promised to come back. Can't you tell when a man is speaking the truth? Good Lord, why should I want to lie to you?"

Betty hesitated a long time, her hands nervous, her eyes unfaltering on his. She looked at once drawn and repelled, fascinated like a little bird fluttering under the baleful eyes of a snake.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked finally.

"I, for one," he retorted, "refuse to squat here like a fool because I'm told. I'm going to make a break for it. You can take the chance with me or you may remain here and know that I'll do what can be done outside."

Betty shook her head, sighing.

"I don't know what to do," she said miserably.

Jim pondered and frowned. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

"It's up to you, Betty Gordon," he said. "You're old enough to think for yourself. I can't decide for you. But if you were mine, my sister for instance, I'd grab you up and make a bolt for it. A clean bullet is a damned sight more to my liking than the dirty paws of such as Rios and Escobar and their following. They've got a guard around the house which they seem to think sufficient" Again he shrugged. "I've got my notion we can slip through and make the mountains at the rear."

"If I only knew I could trust you," moaned Betty.

A glint of anger shone in Jim's eyes.

"Suit yourself," he told her curtly. "I can promise you it will be a lot easier for me in a scrimmage and a get-away without a woman to look out for."

Immediately he was ashamed of having been brusque with her. For she was only a little slip of a girl after all and obviously one who had never been thrown out into the current of life where it ran strongest. More than ever she made him think of the girl of olden times, the girl hard to find in our modern world. All of her life she had had others to turn to, men whom she loved to lean upon. Her father, her brothers would have done everything for her; she would have done her purely feminine part in making home homey. That was what she was born for, the lot of the sweet tender girl who is quite content to let other girls wear mannish clothing and do mannish work. Kendric knew instinctively that Betty Gordon could have made the daintiest thing imaginable in dresses, that she would tirelessly and cheerfully nurse a sick man, that she would fight every inch of the way for his life, that she would stand by a father driven to the wall, broken financially, that she would put hope into him and bear up bravely and with a tender smile under adversity—but that she would call to a man to kill a spider for her. God had not fashioned her to direct a military campaign. And thinking thus of her, he thought also of Zoraida. Betty Gordon, just as she was, was infinitely more to his liking.

"I can only give you my word of honor, my dear," he said gently, and again he felt as though he were addressing a poor little kid of a girl in short dresses, "that I wouldn't harm a hair of your head for all Mexico."

Betty, though this was her first rude experience with outlaws, was not without both discernment and intuition. Perhaps the maid Rosita had lied to her, carried away by a natural relish in telling all that she knew and more. A look of brightening hope surged up in Betty's gray eyes; her pretty lips were parting when a rude interruption made her forget to say the words which were just forming.

Fitfully voices had come to them from the patio where Ruiz Rios and the rebel captain were arguing, but Jim and Betty with their own problem occupying their minds had paid scant attention. Now a sudden exclamation arrested both words and thought, a sharp cry of bitter anger and more than anger; there was rage and menace in the intonation. And then came the shot, a revolver no doubt but sounding louder as it echoed through the rooms. Betty started up in terror, both hands grasping Kendric's arm. His own hand had gone its swift way to the gun slung under his coat.

They waited a moment, both tense. Then Jim patted her hand reassuringly, removed it from his sleeve and said quietly:

"Wait a second. I'll see which one it was."

But before he could cross the room the door was thrown open and Ruiz Rios stood looking in on them queerly.

"Senor Escobar has shot himself," he said. "Through the heart."

Betty fell back from him, step by step, her eyes staring, her face white. Then she looked pleadingly t to Kendric. When he went to her side, she whispered:

"Take me away! Let's try to go now. Now!"

Ruiz Rios's eyes glittered, his mouth hardened. He closed the door behind him, watching them keenly.

"It is in my mind to do you a kindness, Senor Kendric," he said, speaking evenly and emotionlessly.

"You are a murderous cur," rapped out Kendric. "I'd do a clean job if I shot you dead in your tracks."

Rios smiled.

"Let us speak business, amigo," he said. "Moralizing is nice when there is plenty of time and nothing else to be done. You are kept here against your will. It might not fit in ill with my plans to see you go."

"I will have a look at Escobar first," said Kendric. Rios stepped aside and again threw open the door. But he did not stir from the spot, awaiting Kendric's return. Nor did Kendric tarry long. Escobar was dead already, shot through the heart, as Rios had said. A revolver lay on the ground, close to his right hand.

"You ought to hang for that," said Kendric as he came back into the room. "But from the way you're going you won't last long enough for the law to get you. Now, what have you to say to me?"

"A part I have said," returned Ruiz Rios. "I can guess much that my fair cousin has said to you. I know her desires and—I know my own!" His eyes flashed. "More, you appear interested in the charming Miss Betty Gordon. If you would like to go yourself, if you would like to take her with you, I think I can arrange matters. At a price, of course."

"Naturally. And the price?"

"Escobar asked twenty-five thousand dollars. Surely she is worth that and more? Ah! Well, what you came to Lower California to find may be worth as much, may be worth nothing. The risk is mine. Tell me where the place is and I will arrange that you and Miss Betty have horses and an open trail."

"Rios," began Jim, speaking slowly.

But it was Betty who answered.

"No!" she cried. "No and no and no! You are a terrible man, Senor Rios, and some day God will bring you to a terrible end. Be sure I would be happy to see the last of you and your cousin and your kind. But the thing you ask is impossible. Why should Jim Kendric, to whom I am only a bothersome stranger, pay you a sum like that—for me? You are crazy!"

Jim himself was perplexed. He had no desire to put Ruiz Rios in the way of appropriating that which had brought both himself and Barlow here. More than that, the secret was not solely his to give away, were he so minded. Barlow had a claim to half and he knew there would be nothing left for Barlow once Rios scented it. Of these matters he thought and also of Betty. Her quick vehemence had surprised him. Until now he would have thought her eager to consent to anything to insure her immediate departure.

"Fine words, senorita," said Rios, his lips twitching so that the white teeth showed. "But you had best think. Many things might happen to a girl, a pretty girl like you, which are not pleasant for her to experience. You had better throw your arms about your countryman's neck and beg him to pay the price for you."

Betty shook her head violently, so violently that the white flower fell from her hair. Rios was going on angrily, when there came into the yard a clatter of hoofs.

"It is Zoraida," he said sharply. "Now be quick; is it yes or no!"

"No!" cried Betty.

"Little fool!" muttered Rios. Under his glare she drew back. "Before again such help is offered you you will wish you were dead!"

Outside they heard Zoraida's laughter, low and rich with its music. Then her voice as gay as though there were in all the world no such shadows as those cast by destruction and death. And then she entered, slender and graceful in her elaborate riding suit, her white plume nodding, her eyes dancing, her red mouth triumphant. Behind her came Bruce West.

Kendric stared at him in amazement. For Bruce came of his own free will and his own eyes were shining. There was no sign of his recent distress upon his face. Rather it looked more joyous, more boyish and glad than Kendric had seen it for years. The boy hardly noted anyone in the room but Zoraida. His eyes were for her alone and they were on fire with adoration.



CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH THERE IS MORE THAN ONE LIE TOLD AND THE TRUTH IS GLIMPSED

"You!" cried Kendric in amazement as his look went swiftly from Bruce's radiant face to Zoraida's and back to Bruce. "With her!"

Young Bruce West advanced eagerly.

"It's been a mistake, Jim," he said earnestly. "A cursed mistake all along the line. When I explain to you——"

"Boy," cut in Kendric sternly, "where's your head? Don't you know that she was one of the crowd raiding you? Have you forgotten all I told you?"

Zoraida, head held high, her cheeks flushed, stood eyeing him defiantly. The mockery of her look disturbed him; she appeared fully confident of herself, her destiny and her place in Bruce's estimation. Bruce himself frowned and shook his head.

"You've always been a fair man, Jim," he said. "Suspend judgment until we've talked."

While Kendric held his tongue and pondered angrily, Zoraida's eyes flashed about the room. Only for an instant did they tarry with Betty who, drawn away from her almost to the table against the wall, looked back at her with unhidden distrust. Longer did they hold to Ruiz Rios.

"My cousin," she said softly, "you have something to say to me. What is it?"

"Not here, senorita," urged Rios. "In another room."

Kendric, but not Bruce, saw the deeply significant regard she shot at Rios. Her answer puzzled Kendric for the moment, not so much the words as the tone. She spoke to Rios as one might speak to a dreaded master.

"I am ready," was all that she said. And when Rios threw open the door for her, it was to Bruce that she said gently, her eyes melting into his, "A moment only, if Senor Rios will permit that I return so soon." And she went out, Rios at her heels.

"Can't you see, Jim?" Bruce was all excitement and his hands were clenched at his side; his boyish eyes blazed. "It's that damned Ruiz Rios! He dictates to her; he has put the fear of death and worse into her heart. She is made to suffer for all of his crimes!"

"So that's the story?" Kendric grunted his disgust. "And you've let her stuff you hide-full of lies?"

"Go easy, Jim." Bruce appeared sincerely pained and troubled. "I've called you a fair man; won't you open your mind to the truth? She has been misrepresented, I know. Her enemies——" He clenched his hands. "She is a wonderful creature!" he burst out. "And she has honored me with her confidence and her friendship."

This very night Zoraida Castelmar had ruthlessly pillaged Bruce's ranch and from Bruce's mouth now gushed the words: "She has honored me with her confidence and her friendship!" Was there no end to the woman's audacity? Was there no end to the blind stupidity of mankind which permitted of lawlessness like tonight's being glossed over, which went to the insane extreme of worshiping when normally the logical emotion would be hatred? Was there finally, no end to the power of Zoraida?

What had happened between Bruce West and Zoraida? Kendric knew something of Zoraida's bravado, no little of her supreme assurance, much of her methods. Plainly she had gone straight to Bruce after the raid. He could see the picture of her coming out of the lurid night and into the experience of a boy all unnerved by his anger and grief. He could understand how she offered her softened beauty to the hard eyes; how her voice had caressed and distorted fact; how Zoraida had had the wit to tell her own story, make her own impression, before Bruce could have had time to steel himself against her. But what tale could she have told to convince a man like Bruce who, at the least, was not a fool?

Somehow, decided Kendric, she had lied out of the whole thing. Further, she had used every siren trick she knew to drug his better judgment. She had been tender and feminine and seductive. While with one hand she had robbed him, she had caressed him with the other. And not too boldly; she had not overdone it. She probably wept for him; she treated him to the flash of her eyes through spurious tears. She employed her beauty like a lure and had little trouble in putting the boy's suspicions to sleep. What chance would a simple, open-hearted fellow like Bruce have against the wiles which were Zoraida's stock in trade? Kendric recalled vividly that subtle influence which Zoraida had cast even upon him; which he had felt even when steeled against her, and asked himself again what chance Bruce could have with her in the hour of her boldest triumph? The very fact of her having come immediately on the heels of the catastrophe gave her a look of innocence. . . . Had Zoraida the trick of hypnosis over men? It began to look like it.

"Poor old Baby-blue-eyes," muttered Jim. He looked at the boy wonderingly. Then only did it occur to him that Bruce and Betty Gordon were strangers to each other and that Bruce, when his sanity should return to him, would make a desirable friend for Betty. So he said, turning toward the girl: "Miss Gordon, this is an old friend of mine; another American, too, Bruce West."

Betty looked her frank interest upon Bruce and her speculation was obvious: among so many men whom she feared and distrusted she wondered if here was one of whom any girl might be sure. She put out her hand, even smiled. But Bruce held stiffly back, his eyes full of accusing light.

"I have heard of Miss Gordon," he said coolly. "She is also known as Pansy Blossom, I believe, over in Sonora."

Kendric failed to understand and looked to Betty. Her eyes widened. Then her cheeks crimsoned.

"Oh!" she gasped. "Mr. West, what do you mean? I have heard of her, everyone has. She is the most terrible creature!" She shuddered. "What made you say that?"

Bruce laughed his disbelief of her words and attitude.

"Jim, here, doesn't seem to remember," he said brusquely. "If you'd been down in Sonora lately, Jim, you'd know all about Pansy Blossom. She sings rather well, I hear, and dances. It would seem that she has the makings of a highly successful actress," he concluded meaningly. Kendric stared at him.

"You mean that Betty Gordon here is some sort of an adventuress?" he demanded.

For answer Bruce shrugged elaborately and returned Kendric's stare. Jim looked to Betty again. Her face was stamped in the image of shocked amazement, she scarcely breathed through her slightly parted lips.

"You're talking nonsense, Bruce," Jim said emphatically. "Sheer rot. She's just Betty Gordon and in a peck of trouble. It's up to you and me, being countrymen of hers, to see her through instead of hurting her feelings."

Bruce regarded him somberly.

"Old Headlong," he said slowly, "you're just the man to mistake a woman. You've judged Zoraida Castelmar wrong; you're making a mistake with Miss Pansy Blossom."

"You fool!" cried Jim angrily. "Where the devil have your wits gone? You call this child an adventuress? Why, man alive, can't you see she's just baby?"

"Pansy Blossom's record——" began Bruce.

"Deuce take Pansy Blossom! We're talking about Betty Gordon, this poor little lost kid here. Who told you that she was the same as that dancing woman?" Bruce made no answer. "Was it Zoraida Castelmar?" demanded Kendric. "Tell me. Is that what Zoraida Castelmar had to say about her?"

"Well?" challenged Bruce. "Suppose it was?"

"What else did she tell you?" Jim had him by the arm now and his eyes were blazing. "Spit it out, boy. What other rot?"

"It's not rot, Jim. If you'll keep your eyes open and think a little you'll know as much as I know."

Kendric groaned. "There's a game on foot that has a bad look to it. Escobar is in it and Rios and—your young lady friend. If you'll give me a few minutes presently, I'll explain."

"Escobar and Betty Gordon! Why, there's nothing between them but fear and hatred. Or rather that's all there was; Escobar's lying dead out there now. Ruiz Rios plugged him square through the heart just now. And now he's taking your lady friend out to tell her about it! Betty is their captive, held for ransom, as I told you."

"Or appears to be?" Bruce jerked his arm away and began moving restlessly up and down, looking always toward the door through which Zoraida had gone. Kendric turned toward Betty. She had not stirred; her cheeks were still burning. Apparently she had heard a very great deal of unsavory report of the lady Bruce mistook her for. Only the expression in her eyes and about her lips had changed; now it was one of passionate anger. The look surprised him. He began to think of Betty in altered terms. She wasn't just the baby he had named her and she wasn't just the little kid of sixteen he had at first taken her to be. During the interview with Ruiz Rios he had learned that she had a mind of her own. To her other possessions he now saw added an American girl's fiery temper.

Then Zoraida and Rios returned. Before a word was spoken Kendric knew that he was to be treated to some more play-acting. Zoraida had elected to look frightened and uncertain; the glance she cast toward her cousin spoke of terror as well as loathing. Rios glared and looked important. Swiftly Zoraida crossed the room, her bejeweled fingers finding Bruce West's arm.

"My friend," she whispered so that they could all hear. "I don't know which way to turn. A man has killed himself—the Captain Escobar. Or so Ruiz Rios says. And I——" She broke off, shuddering. And then, bewildering Jim Kendric if no one else, two big tears gathered in her eyes and spilled down to her cheeks!

"Senores Kendric and West," announced Rios autocratically, "you will take all orders from me now. You will not leave the house, either of you, unless I give the word. Senorita Zoraida, you will go to your room and wait until I send for you. Senorita Pansy," and suddenly his teeth showed in his quick smile, "a word with you please in the patio?"

"My cousin," said Zoraida, all soft supplication now, her two hands held out toward Rios, "it is only a little thing I beg of you. May I have a few words with Senor West?"

"Go to your room," answered Rios shortly. "Senor West remains with us. You may see him later."

Zoraida looked lingeringly at Bruce, shook her head sorrowfully as he appeared to be gathering himself to spring at the man who terrorized her, murmured gently, "Wait—for my sake, senor!" and went out of the room. Out of the corners of her oblique eyes, when her back was to Bruce, she mocked Jim Kendric.

Rios held the door open for Betty.

"Will you come to the patio with me, senorita?" he asked.

"No!" cried Betty. "You terrible man. No."

Rios, though not the actor Zoraida was, managed to appear startled that she should speak so. Then, as he looked from her to Jim and Bruce, he smiled as though in comprehension.

"There is no need to pretend further, Senorita Pansy," he said. "They know."

"There is a great deal we know, Ruiz Rios," broke out Bruce. "You hold the upper hand just now but there's a new deal coming!"

"Will you come, Senorita Pansy?" Rios grew truculent. "Or shall I call for a dozen men to escort you?"

"Rios," snapped Kendric, "I'm getting damned tired of this foolishness. Betty Gordon is a friend of mine and I'm going to see her through. She goes nowhere she does not want to. If you want to take me on, I'm ready for you. Ready and waiting!"

"No," said Betty again. "Mr. Kendric, I will go with him as far as the patio." She took a step forward, then whipped back at a sudden thought. "He is lying out there—dead!" she whispered.

"The unfortunate Captain Escobar," Rios told her equably, "has been removed to another part of the house. And, if you like, we will speak together in the dining-room."

Betty came to Jim Kendric then. She looked up into his eyes and said gently:

"I do trust you. You are the only one I trust. I can look to no one else. If I want you I will call. And you will come to me, won't you?"

"Come to you? Why, bless your heart, I'd come running!"

So Betty and Rios went out and for a little while Jim and Bruce were left alone.

"Bruce, old man," said Kendric, "let's come down to earth. Put your sentimental heart in your pocket and use your brains a while. You know me well enough to know that I won't lie to you. Will you listen to me?"

"Yes. But tell me only what you know, not what you surmise. What do you know against Zoraida Castelmar?"

"I know she is an adventuress, playing for big stakes, stakes so big that in the end they are bound to crush her."

"Speculation, old chap." Bruce smiled faintly. "Keep away from doping out the future and stick to facts."

"So you want facts? All right: She is planning a revolution; she has the mad idea that she can rip Lower California away from the government and make of it a separate empire, herself its queen!"

"Why not? Wilder things have been done. And where would you find a more likely queen?"

"When I first saw her she came, disguised as a man, into Ortega's gaming hell, Rios with her. She played dice with me for twenty thousand dollars."

Bruce's eye brightened.

"She's wonderful!" he said eagerly.

"She's hand and fist with Rios and Escobar and a lot of other riff-raff I don't know. She is instrumental in Betty Gordon's being held for ransom——"

"How do you know? Or are you just guessing again? Betty Gordon! How do you know she isn't what I called her, the infamous dancing woman with an evil record a mile long?"

"Haven't I talked with her?" Kendric grew impatient. "Haven't I seen her terror? Haven't I looked into her eyes?"

"Haven't I talked with Zoraida?" countered Bruce. "Haven't I heard her explanations? Haven't I seen her terror of Rios? Haven't I looked into her eyes?"

"You were burned out tonight. Have you forgotten that? Your herds were raided. Even old Twisty Barlow, once a square man, followed Zoraida Castelmar into that! And Zoraida, herself, was one of the raiders!"

"How do you know?" demanded Bruce. And always he laid significant stress on the word of certainty.

"I saw the horse she rode. I heard the whistle which she wears on a chain about her throat. I even saw the white plume in her hat."

"Is there only one white horse in Mexico? And only one whistle? And only one white plume? These things, if it had been Zoraida, she would have left behind. In the dark you guessed. I am afraid you have guessed all along the line."

"Then tell me how the devil it came about that Zoraida showed up at your place? A pretty tall coincidence."

"Nothing of the kind. The whole thing was engineered by Rios. She overheard a little, guessed it all. Dangerous though the effort was, she tried to be in time to warn me. She came just too late."

Kendric stared at his friend incredulously. First Barlow, then young Bruce West drawn from his side and to Zoraida's. She required men, men of his stamp. And she seemed to have the way of drawing them to her. He felt utterly baffled; he could at the moment think of no argument which Bruce's infatuation would not thrust aside. Where he would depict a heartless, ambitious adventuress Bruce would see a glorified and heroic superwoman.

Rios came to the door.

"Senor West," he said as they turned expectantly toward him, "Senorita Zoraida implores so eloquently for word with you that I have consented. If you will step this way she will come to you."

Bruce required no second invitation. With Rios's words he forgot Kendric's arguments and Kendric's very presence. He went out, his step eager. Before Rios followed him Kendric called:

"Where is Miss Gordon?"

"Gone to her room, senor. If you will look at your watch you will note that it is time."

It was well after midnight and Kendric thought that for all the good he could do, he, too, might as well go to bed. But he was too stubborn a man to give up his friend so easily and he hoped that since Bruce was not a fool he would come in time to see the real Zoraida under the mask she had donned for his benefit. So he waited, walking up and down.

Zoraida entered so quietly that she was in the room and the door shut after her before he felt her presence.

"Bruce has gone out that way, looking for you," he said.

"I can see him presently," she answered lightly. "I think he will wait, don't you?"

"I fancy he will," he returned bitterly. "What do you want with the boy, Zoraida? What has he done to you that you should ruin him, first financially and then every other way? Aren't you afraid of what you are building up for yourself? Men like Barlow and Bruce West may let you sing their souls to sleep for a little; look out when they wake up!"

She laughed softly.

"I think that all along you have doubted my power," she said, her eyes steady on his. "Are you beginning to see that Zoraida Castelmar is a girl to reckon with? You have said that the great things I attempt are beyond me; have I failed in anything I have tried?"

"To infatuate a man is not the same thing as to build a state!"

"And yet infatuated men make obedient lieutenants."

They grew silent. In each there was much which was of its nature incomprehensible to the other and which, of necessity, must remain so. Slowly there came a different look upon the girl's face. Her eyes softened and were more wistful that he had ever thought they could be. Her breast rose and fell in a profound sigh. All of the triumph and mockery went out of her.

"Why are you so unlike other men?" she asked. And her voice, too, had softened and grown tender.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked.

"Escobar hated me but he would have followed me through fire had I beckoned. You have seen the look in your friend Barlow's eyes when he turns to me, and this after only a few days, a few smiles! You glimpsed just now the love that has sprung up in Bruce West's heart like a flower full blown. There have been many, many men, my friend, who have looked upon Zoraida Castelmar as they look. Until you came there has been no man who turned his head away." Again she sighed unhiddenly. Her eyes melted into his, yearning, promising, beseeching. "And to you I have offered what would have made any other man mad with joy."

He looked into her eyes and it seemed impossible that they could speak shameless lies. For the moment at least she had the appearance of a young girl without sophistication, without the skill to hide her thoughts. Her eyes seemed unusually large, wide open frankly, as innocent as spring violets. Was she always like this—was this the real, true Zoraida— He felt her influence upon him, pervading his senses like heavy perfume, and spoke hurriedly.

"You and I are different sorts of people," he answered. "Our ideas as well as our ideals are of different orders."

"And what if I altered?" whispered Zoraida, coming closer to him. "What it I discarded all of my ideas and ideals. Yes, and my ambitions with them! What then, Senor Jim Kendric?"

He shook his head and moved restlessly.

"I am no woman's man, you know that. And if I were, you know also that you are not my kind of woman."

And still no passionate outburst came from Zoraida denied! Rather she grew more deeply meditative. Almost she seemed saddened and weary.

"Your kind of woman," she mused. And then, in pure jest, "Like Escobar's captive?"

For some obscure reason after which he did not grope the half sneer of the words stung Kendric into a sharp retort.

"By heaven, yes!" he cried. "There's the sort of girl for any man to put his trust in, to give the best that is in him!"

Zoraida gasped. Utter amazement filled her eyes. Then came incredulity: she would not believe. But when she saw the seriousness of his eyes, her passion burst out upon him. Her two hands rose and clenched themselves on her panting breast, her eyes lost their shadow of amazement and grew brilliant with anger.

"That little baby-faced doll!" she cried. "She has dared make eyes at you. And you, blind fool that you are, have turned from me to her!" Her voice shook, her whole body trembled visibly, then stiffened. In a flash all girlish softness was gone; she looked as cold and cruel as steel. "I had thought to let her go when the ransom came. Now I shall have other plans for her."

Kendric stared.

"In the first place," he said with an assumption of carelessness, "you have overshot the mark: Betty Gordon hasn't made eyes at me at all and I'm not in love with her and have no intentions of being. Next, I fail to see what has happened that would alter your plans in her regard?"

Zoraida laughed her disbelief.

"Any girl in her place would make eyes at you," she retorted. "And as for my plans, perhaps you may be allowed to watch the working out of them! Would you enjoy," she taunted him, "the sight of Betty Gordon in a steel cage into which we allowed to enter a certain pet of mine?"

At first he did not understand. Then he stared at her speechlessly. Words of Juanita, spoken fearfully that morning, recurred to him: "She would give me to her cat, her terrible, terrible cat, to play with!" He opened his mouth to lift his voice in hot protest; then he bit back the words, savagely calling himself a fool for the mad thought. Even to Zoraida's lawlessness there must be a limit; even the cold cruelty looking out of her oblique eyes now could not carry her so far. And yet the laugh with which he answered her was a trifle shaky.

"We are talking nonsense," he said abruptly. "And Bruce is expecting you. When you finish distorting facts for his consumption I'd like a word with him."

Zoraida's face went white.

"It is in my heart," she said in a dry whisper, "to give orders that you will never see another sun rise!"

"Give your orders then," he snapped. "I'm sick of things as they are. Send in a gang of your cutthroats and I'll give you my word I'd rather fight my way through them than stand by and watch you poison honest men's souls."

She stepped across the room and put out her hand as though to the bell on the table. Kendric watched her sternly. She stopped and looked at him wonderingly. Suddenly she dropped her hand to her side and with the gesture came a swift alteration in her expression. A strange smile molded her lips, an inscrutable look dawned in the dark eyes.

"I knew already that you were a brave man, Jim Kendric," she said. "I was forgetting, losing all clear thought because a man had dismissed me from his presence? Well, of that, more another time. But brave men I need, brave men I must have in that which comes soon. If there is not one way, then there will be another to draw you to my side."

She was going out but stopped as they heard horses in the yard. She stood still, waiting. Presently there came an unsteady step at the front door. A hand fumbled, the door opened and Twisty Barlow entered. His arm was in a sling, a bandage bound his forehead, his eyes shone feverishly. He stopped on the threshold and stared at them. Kendric spoke quickly.

"Twisty," he said, "do you know who shot you?"

Barlow merely shook his head.

"I did. I was at Bruce's. I did not know you but——"

"But you'd have shot just the same, anyway?" grunted Barlow.

"You got yourself into damned bad company, Barlow. But that's your affair. Just tell me one thing: Was it not at Zoraida Castelmar's orders that you went?"

Barlow's look shifted for an instant to Zoraida's half smiling face. But his hesitation was brief.

"No," he said shortly.

An hour later Kendric gave up waiting for Bruce and went off to his bedroom. On his table were two letters in their envelopes. They were the letters he and Bruce had written, telling of Betty Gordon's captivity.



CHAPTER XII

IN WHICH AN OVERTURE IS MADE, AN ANSWER IS POSTPONED AND A DOOR IS LOCKED

In his bedroom Jim Kendric sat for a long time pondering that night. What had appeared to him the simplest, most straight-away errand in the world had brought him down here, just the time-honored search for treasure. In all particulars the adventure had seemed the usual one, two men undertaking to share whatever lay ahead, expense, danger or loot. And through no fault of his own Kendric saw simplicity altered into complexity. There were Barlow's changed attitude, the desires and ambitions of Zoraida, the absurdity of Bruce West's infatuation, the interference of Ruiz Rios and finally the situation in which Betty Gordon found herself.

"I came down this way to get my hands on buried treasure, if it exists," Kendric at last told himself irritably; "not to work out the salvations of half the souls in Mexico! If the issue becomes complex it is because I am getting turned away from the main thing. What Barlow and Bruce do is up to them; Barlow, for one, ought to know better, and Bruce has got to cut his eye-teeth sooner or later. It's up to me to be on my way."

Which did not entirely dispose of all matters, since it ignored Zoraida and made no place for Betty. The latter, however, he did not bar from his thoughts or even from his plannings: If she said the word and would take the chance with him, he'd find the way to get her safely out of this house of intrigue. He was constitutionally optimistic enough to decide that. Among the bushes out in the garden a rifle was hidden; slung under his left arm pit was a dependable friend; and in his heart he was spoiling for a row.

Such was his mood, an hour after he had gone to his room, when a rap discreetly announced a soft-footed somebody at his door. He rose eagerly, thinking it would be Bruce or perhaps Barlow. But when he opened the door it was Ruiz Rios who slipped noiselessly into the room, swiftly closing and locking the door after him.

"Not in bed yet, my friend?" smiled Rios. "It is well. I have something to say to you."

Kendric went back to his chair from which he eyed Rios narrowly. The Mexican's look was full of craft.

"Let's have it, Rios. What now?"

"What I said to you earlier in the evening came from the heart," said Rios. "That without my help you cannot leave; that you may have that help. For a price."

His utterance was incisive; his voice, eager and quick, filled the room. Evidently he had no fear of eavesdroppers. Kendric stared at him curiously.

"For a double-dealing gentleman you have considerable assurance," he grunted. "You don't seem to care who hears."

Rios waved an impatient hand.

"I know what I am about," he retorted. "La Senorita Zoraida is in her own rooms where she entertains one of your friends while the other cools his heels in her anteroom. I have assurance, yes; because just now I am the man of the hour! Your destiny and that of your compatriot, Miss Betty, as well as the destinies of your two friends and perchance of yet others, lies in my hand."

"You talk big when Zoraida's eyes are not on you," said Kendric.

Rios stared insolently, then shrugged and made for himself a tiny white paper cigarita.

"I talk big because I can, as you say north of the border, 'deliver the goods.' Do you wish to go free?"

"Since you ask it," said Kendric drily, "yes. I've got no stomach for your crowd here."

"And you would like to take with you the pretty little Betty?" Rios's eyes were full of insinuation. Kendric felt an impulsive desire to kick him but for the time kept his head and witheld his boot.

"Speak on, Senor Man of the Hour," he jeered. "Somehow I'm not particularly sleepy yet. If you've really got anything to say let's have it."

"It is this: The treasure you have come so far to find will never be yours. Mine it may be; if not mine, then Zoraida's. On my honor it will never go into your hands or those of Barlow."

"Your honor," laughed Kendric, "fits well in your mouth, Ruiz Rios, but rides light in the scales."

"You mean you would want proof?" Rios was imperturbable. "It may be given you in due time, but only when it is too late for you to make any stock out of it. Now, for what you know, I offer you your own safety and that of Miss Betty. Have I not marked how you look at her?" He laughed in his turn.

"If this is all you have to say," answered Kendric, "suppose you shut the door from the outside?"

For just now, while he had thought of other matters, he had pondered on this one also. Even were he disposed to treat with Rios, the secret was not his to give. Further, once Rios had the knowledge he sought, he would no doubt fail to keep his word. And in any case there was always the possibility of getting away without the Mexican's aid; and if there was treasure, as Rios so plainly believed, it should be worth many times the twenty-five thousand dollars which had been demanded of Betty's father. On top of all this it was sheer nonsense to plan on what Betty might have to say until her word was spoken. Hence Jim was no little pleased to baffle Rios.

"You are thinking of yourself," said Rios sharply. "Not of the girl. Can you not imagine that it might be unpleasant for her, left here over long?"

Then Kendric sought to be as crafty as his visitor.

"Am I responsible for all wandering damsels in distress?" he asked coldly.

"But Miss Betty——"

"Exactly. What the devil is Miss Betty to me? I never saw her until a few hours ago."

"But," insisted Rios, "in some soils some flowers bloom quickly! Love comes when it comes, in a year, in a day, in a moment."

"Love!" Jim's surprise was not altogether feigned. Then he laughed and remembered his craft. He was thinking that already Zoraida suspected him of being too warmly interested; he did not know but that Rios was here now on Zoraida's errand, making pretenses the while he sought to ferret out real emotions. And so for Zoraida's sake should the words be carried to her, he cried as though in high amusement: "Love? What are you thinking of, man?"

He saw that he had puzzled Rios. The Mexican had been convinced of his keen interest in the girl and, further, knew from of old how lightly Jim Kendric held such mere bagatelles as dollars. Kendric drew a certain satisfaction from the situation. But his frank grin died away slowly as Rios went on.

"We are not friends, you and I, senor," he said smoothly. "But just now that matters not, since my personal interests move me to do you a kindness. Of what happens to you later on, I care less than that." He snapped his fingers. "Perhaps you do not fully understand either your own case or that of Miss Betty. You are to be held here indefinitely; unless you decide to throw your lot in with La Senorita Zoraida's and become her man, body and soul, there will come a time, suddenly, when her patience will die and her wrath rise and you will die too. And for Miss Betty—there remains always the puma."

Rios spoke with every sign of sincerity. Kendric, with what he knew of Zoraida to guide his thoughts to a conclusion, was more than half convinced that the man was telling the truth. Rios himself was not above murder; hardly now had the body of Escobar stiffened when he seemed to have forgotten the rebel captain and the deed of violence. And Zoraida was Rios's blood cousin.

"You appear to be sure that there is treasure?" Kendric said.

"Yes. There is no question." Again was Rios unusually frank. "I could lie to you but there is no need. The treasure is beyond your reach; it may fall to my hand. Yes, I am sure."

"What do you know of it? What makes you so confident?"

Rios smiled.

"Again there is no need to lie to you. You have marked that my cousin is a very rich woman? There is no richer in all Mexico. And why? Because she has long been in possession of a portion of the hidden wealth of the Montezumas. A portion, mark you? For there is some sign which she has understood to tell her that there is still other hidden treasure. Always, since she was a little girl, has she looked for it, never content with what she has. And if I come first to it—Think, senor!" His eyes brightened, a flush warmed his dusky skin, he lifted his head arrogantly. "It will mean that I, even I, can dictate in some things to Zoraida! It will mean that she must join forces with me. It will mean that she and I together will go far, will rise high. As she will be the one bright star in all Mexico, so will I be the newly risen sun."

"So," muttered Kendric, "you two are tarred with the same stick!"

Now Rios's black eyes were deadly.

"What you know means everything to me," he said, his voice at last sunk to a harsh whisper. "I killed Escobar for less. Remember that, Senor Americano!"

Kendric ignored the threat.

"What of my friend?" he demanded. "Even were I of a mind to talk turkey with you, there is Barlow. Half is his."

"Barlow is touched with madness. Have I not told you he will have none of it? You have eyes, senor. Already my fair cousin has made of Barlow a tame animal like her cat. When she commands, he will speak. Think you he will remember in that dizzy moment that you have claims to be safeguarded? All will go to Zoraida. What you are pleased to call your share, along with his own."

Jim hated to believe that. And yet he did believe. Tonight Barlow had looked at him out of hard, unfriendly eyes; he, himself, had shot Barlow out of a cattle raider's saddle.—Suddenly, startling Rios, Kendric's fist came smashing down on his table.

"Here I've just been deciding the whole game is simple enough," he cried, "and along you come messing it all up again! Clear out. I'm going to sleep."

"And my answer?"

"Talk to me tomorrow, if you've a mind to. Most likely I'll tell you to go to blazes, but that can be said as well after breakfast as now."

Rios accepted his dismissal equably.

"For me there is gold at stake," he said, going out without protest. "For you there is your life and Miss Betty's. I can afford to wait as well as you. Buenos noches, senor."

"Go to the devil," retorted Kendric, and banged the door shut after him.

Though he had not intimated his intention to his visitor, Kendric, holding to his determination to simplify matters, had made up his mind to have a talk with Barlow first of all. Since that could not come until tomorrow, the thing now was to go to bed. He undressed and put out his light. Then he flipped up his window shade. Only when he was about to thrust his head out of the open window to inhale the fragrant night air and have his little "look around," did he discover the bars to any possible escape there; a heavy iron grill had been fastened across the opening. Just how it was secured he could not tell since it had been set in place from outside and though he thrust his hand through the bars he could not reach far enough to locate the staples or hooks which held it in place. He shook it tentatively; it was amply solid.

But the door was open from his room to the bath. He groped his way across the smaller room and found the knob of the door which led to the room Barlow had occupied last night. That door was locked. As he fumbled with it he heard someone stir in Barlow's room.

"Who's there?" he called out. "That you, Twisty?"

There was no answer. He rapped on the door and called again. Then he heard quick steps across the room and a door closed; whoever had been there, listening without doubt to his talk with Rios, had gone.

He came back and passing through his own little sitting-room tried the door to the hall, that through which Rios had departed. Fastened by heavy iron hooks on the other side; he could hear them grate in their staples as he shook the door.

"A man had better be in bed this time of night than rapping at locked doors," he decided. And in five minutes was asleep.



CHAPTER XIII

CONCERNING WOMAN'S WILES AND WITCHERY

When Jim woke next morning his first act was to try doors and window. All were as he had left them last night. But since he was not the man for worry before breakfast he went into his tub singing. When he had splashed refreshingly in the cool water and thereafter had dressed, breakfast was ready for him. For, while he was in his own room he heard the door to the room Barlow had slept in the first night open. And when he went through the bath to see who was there he saw a tray spread on a little table by a window, the coffee steaming. No one was there. He tried the outer door which led to the hall. Locked, of course. So he sat down and uncovered the hot dishes and made a hearty meal.

"They've certainly got the big bulge on the situation," he conceded. "They could starve a man, poison his rolls or bore a bullet into him while he slept, and who outside to know about it?"

Now he had the run of four rooms and could look out into the gardens. Not so bad, he consoled himself. He had his smoke and sat back in his chair, assuring himself that there were advantages in being shut off by himself where he could take time to shape his plans. But as an hour passed in silence—not a sound from any part of the big house all of whose inmates might have been asleep or dead—and another hour dragged by after it, he grew first impatient and then angry. He had found that all of his planning could be done in five minutes: It resolved itself down to a decision to have a talk with Barlow and then, with or without help from Ruiz Rios, to make a bolt for the open. If Bruce and Barlow would come to their senses and join him, it would all be so simple. Three able-bodied, determined Americans against a handful of Zoraida's hirelings.

The time came when Jim thundered at the doors and called. When only silence followed his echoing voice he hammered at the hardwood doors with the butt of his revolver and shouted, demanding to be a let out. He tried the iron gratings over the windows and found them firm in their places and too heavy-barred to be bent. In the end he gave over in high disgust and waited.

Toward noon, while he was in his own room, pacing restlessly up and down, he heard a door slam. He ran to the bathroom and found that the door leading to Barlow's former quarters was closed and locked. Someone was moving about just beyond the thick panel. He heard the homely sound of dishes on a tray and waited, his hand on the doorknob, meaning to push his way forward once the door was opened. But he heard no other sound, though he waited minute after minute until perhaps half an hour had dragged by. Then he sat on the edge of the tub, grown stubborn, determined not to budge. And so another half hour passed.

An hour was a long time for Jim Kendric to sit or stand still and at the end of it he began pacing up and down again; at first just in the narrow confines of the bath, presently soft-footedly upon the soft carpet of his room. And no sooner had he stepped a dozen paces from the bathroom door than he heard a bolt shot back. He raced to the door that had so long baffled him and threw it open. As he did so he heard the outer hall door slam shut. When he laid hasty hands on it it was barred again.

"Well, there's food, anyway," he muttered. And sat down.

Half way through his meal a thought struck him which gave little zest to the rest of his food. He had walked silently when he left his post; no one waiting in the room where the tray was could have heard him, he felt sure. Then how did that person know the instant he stepped away? He could not have been spied on through the keyhole of the door since no keyhole was there; the fastening on the other side was simply that of primitive bar. But that he had been spied on he was confident. Well, why not? The house was old and no doubt had known no end of intrigue in its time. The walls were thick enough for passageways within them; an eye might be upon him all the time. He did not relish the thought but refused to grow fanciful over it.

The afternoon he spent stoically accepting his condition. As he put it to himself, the other fellow had the large, lovely bulge on the situation. For the most part of the sultry afternoon he sat in shirt-sleeved discomfort at his open window, staring out into the empty gardens and wondering what the other dwellers of the old adobe house were doing. Where were Bruce and Barlow and what lies was Zoraida telling them? And where was Betty? He did not realize that his wandering thoughts came back to Betty more often than to either of his friends whom he had known so many years. But realization was forced upon him that, despite all he had told both Zoraida and Ruiz Rios, he did feel a very sincere interest in her. When repeatedly vague fears on Betty's account disturbed him he told himself not to be a fool and sought to dismiss them for good. What though Zoraida had indulged in wild talk? At least she was a woman and though she held Betty for ransom would be woman enough to hold her in safety. And yet his fears surged back, stronger each time, and he would have given a good deal to know just where and how Betty was spending the long hours of this interminable day.

Finally came dusk, time of the first stars in the sky and lighted lamps in men's houses. And, bringing him infinite relief, a tap at his door and the gentle voice of Rosita saying:

"La Senorita invites Senor Kendric, if he has rested sufficiently, to join her and her other guests at table."

He followed the little maid to the great dim dining-room. Purple-shaded lamps created an atmosphere which impressed him as a little weird; the long table was set forth elaborately with much rich silver and sparkling glass; several men servants stood ready to place chairs and serve; there were rare white flowers in tall vases, looking a bluish-white under the lamps. As Kendric came to the threshold wide double doors across the room opened and Zoraida's other "guests" entered. They were Bruce, stiff and uncomfortable, seeming to be doing his best to unbend toward Betty; Betty herself, flushed and excited; Barlow, morose because of the arm he wore in a sling or because of a day not passed to his liking; and Ruiz Rios, suave and immaculate in white flannels.

When they were all in the room a constraint like a tangible inhibition against any natural spontaneity fell over them. Kendric read in Barlow's look no joy at the sight of him but only a sullen brooding; Betty flashed one look at him in which was nothing of last night's friendliness but an aloofness which might have been compounded of scorn and distrust; Bruce appeared not to notice him.

"Oh, well," was Kendric's inward comment. "The devil take the lot of them."

Zoraida did not keep them waiting. One of the servants, as though he had had some signal, threw open still another door and Zoraida, a splendid, vivid and vital Zoraida, burst upon their sight. She was gowned as though she had on the instant stepped from a fashionable Paris salon. And as though, on her swift way hither, she had stopped only an instant in some barbaric king's treasure house to snatch up and bedeck herself with his most resplendent jewels. Her arms were bare save for scintillating stones set in broad gold bands; long pendants, that seemed to live and breathe with their throbbing rubies, trembled from the tiny lobes of her shell-pink ears. Her throat was bare, her gown so daringly low cut at breast and back that Betty stared and flushed and turned away from the sight of her.

At her best was Zoraida tonight. Life stood high in her blood; zest shone like a bright fire in her eyes. A moment she poised, looking the queen which she meant to become, which already in her heart she felt herself. The inclination of her head as she greeted them, the graciousness which the moment drew from her, were regal.

Even the heavy arm-chair at the head of the table had the look of a throne. Two men drew it back for her, moved it into place when she was seated. Then she looked to her guests, smiled and nodded and in silence each accepted the place given him. Thus Jim Kendric sat at the other end of the table in a chair like Zoraida's. At his right was Betty who, since she averted her face from both him and Zoraida, kept her eyes on her plate. At his left was Ruiz Rios. To right and left of Zoraida sat Bruce and Barlow.

"I am afraid," said Zoraida lightly, embracing them all with her quick smile, "that I have seemed to lack in courtesy to my friends today! But here, amigos, when you come to know our land of the sun, you will understand that the long hot days are for rest and solitude in shady places while it is during the nights that one lives." A goblet of wine as yellow as butter stood at her hand having just been poured from an ancient misshapen earthen bottle. She lifted it and held it while the other glasses were filled. "I drink with you, my friends, to many golden nights!"

She scarcely more than touched the yellow wine with her lips and looked to the others. Barlow, still surly, tossed off his drink at a gulp. Bruce drank slowly, a little, and set his glass down. Betty did not lift her eyes and kept her hands in her lap. Ruiz tasted eagerly and his eyes sparkled and widened. Kendric mechanically set his glass to his lips, drank sparingly and marveled. For never had he tasted vintage like this. Its fragrance in his nostrils rose with strange pleasant sensation to his brain; a drop on his palate seemed to pass directly into his blood and electrically thrill throughout his whole body. The draft was like a magic brew; potent and seductive it soothed and at the same time set a delicious unrest in the blood, like that vaguely stirring unrest of youth in springtime.

Barlow, the sullen, alone had drunk deeply. And in a flash Barlow was another man. A warm color crept into his weathered cheeks, he drew himself up in his chair, his eyes shone. Zoraida, looking from face to face, laughed softly.

"What say you, my guests, to Zoraida's wine?" she said happily. "Made for Zoraida a full four hundred years ago, treasured for her in the vaults of the ancient Montezumas, distilled from the olden moonberry which no longer do men know where to find or how to grow! None but the Montezumas themselves and the priests of the great god Quetzel ever drank of it, and they only on great feast days of rejoicing. A taste, Miss Pansy Blossom, would bring back the roses to your pale cheeks. And see my friend Barlow!" Lightly, laughing, she laid her hand for a fleeting instant on his arm. "Already has the moonberry made his heart swell and blossom and filled it with dream stuff like honey!"

Something—the golden liquor in his veins or Zoraida's touch or the look in her eyes—emboldened the sea-faring man. He clamped his big hairy hand down over her slim fingers and cried out, half starting from his chair:

"It's in my mind, Zoraida, that the old Montezumas left more than bottled moonshine after them. To be taken by them that have the hearts for the job. Maybe for you—Yes, and for me!"

Zoraida drew her hand away but the laughter did not die in her eyes or pass away from her scarlet lips. Barlow, holding himself stiff, shot a look that was open challenge at Kendric who returned it wonderingly. Rios touched up the ends of his black mustachios and appeared highly good humored.

"Who knows?" said Zoraida softly, with a sidelong look at Kendric. "At least, spoken like a man, friend Barlow!"

Her mood was one of intense exhilaration. The movements of her supple body in her ample chair were quick and graceful and sinuous, like a slender snake's; she seemed a-thrill and glowing; it was as though for the moment life was for her as a great dynamo to which she had drawn close so that it sent its mighty pristine and vigorous current dancing through her. She lifted her glass and sipped while she still smiled; she saw Barlow's empty goblet and impulsively emptied into it half of her own. Though her back for the time was upon Bruce she seemed to feel his quick jealous frown, for she turned swiftly from Barlow, and her fingers fluttered to Bruce's shoulder. Kendric saw her eyes as she gave them to Bruce in a look that was like a kiss. The boy flushed and when she made further amends by holding to his lips her own glass, he touched it almost reverently.

Kendric, sickening with disgust at what he chose to consider a competition in assininity between his two old friends, turned from them to Betty with some trivial remark. As he spoke he was contrasting her with the splendid Zoraida and had he voiced the comparison Zoraida must have whitened with anger and mortification while Betty flushed up, startled. He would have said; "One is like a poison serpent and the other like a flower." But instead of that he merely said:

"And how have you spent the long day, Miss Betty?"

Betty raised her head and looked at him steadily. A flower? Quickly, even before she spoke, he amended that. A girl, rather; a girl with a mind of her own and a sorching [Transcriber's note: scorching?] hot temper and her utterly human moments of unreasonableness. Her glance meant to cut and did cut. Her voice was serene, cool and contemptuous.

"I do not require to be amused, thank you," she said.

"Amused?" demanded Kendric, puzzled equally by words and expression.

"I am here against my will," she explained. "You are among your chosen friends. To entertain me you need not deny yourself the pleasure of their delightful conversation."

"You know better than that," he said sharply. "If you don't care to talk with me——"

"I don't," said Betty.

Kendric reddened angrily. He opened his lips for the retort he meant to make; then instead gulped down his wine and sat back glowering. After having been fool enough to worry over her all day long to be told to hold his tongue now set him to forming sweeping and denunciatory generalizations concerning her entire sex. Well, he wanted matters simplified and here came the desired solution. Betty could forage for herself, could go to the devil if she liked, he told himself bluntly. Before the night passed he meant to make a break for the open and, thank God, he'd go alone. As a man should, with no woman around his neck. Because a girl had hurt him he chose now to pretend to himself that he was glad to be rid of her.

After that, during the meal, both Jim and Betty sat for the most part silent and Rios, nursing his mustache and watching all that went forward, had little to say. On the other hand Zoraida and Bruce and Barlow made the dinner hour lively with their talk. Skilled in her management of men, Zoraida had never shown greater genius for holding two red blooded, ardent men in leash. She threw favors to each side of her; a tumbled rose from her hair was loot for the sailorman who at the moment was of a mood to forget other greater and more golden loot for the scented, wilting petals; a bracelet coming undone was for Bruce's eager fingers to fasten. And always when she looked at one man with a kiss in her oblique eyes her head was turned so that the other man might not see. Kendric she ignored.

"The same old story of good men gone wrong," philosophized Kendric. "Let a man get a woman in his head and he's no earthly good." And, in his turn, he ignored Betty. Or at least assured himself that he did so. But Betty, being Betty, though for the most part her eyes seemed downcast, knew that the man at her side thought of little but her own exasperating self. She did a good bit of speculating upon Jim Kendric; she was perplexed and uncertain; when he was not observing she shot many a curious sidelong look at him.

"Miss Zoraida is about due to overreach herself," thought Kendric. "She can't drive Barlow and Bruce tandem."

But Zoraida appeared to feel no uneasiness. As the meal went on and meats and fruits were served and other vintages poured and coffee set bubbling over a tiny alcohol flame on the table, her spirits rose and she dared anything. She was sure of herself and of her destiny and of her dominance over the pleasureable situation. Bruce's eyes and Barlow's clashed like knives, but when they met hers softened and worshiped.

At the end of the meal, when they rose, Zoraida cried: "Wait!" At her signal her servants swiftly lifted the table and carried it out through the double doors. Another smaller table was brought in; a man came to Zoraida with a small steel box. She took it laughing, and laughing spilled its contents out upon the table so that gold pieces rolled jingling across the polished top and some fell to the floor. With her own hands she carelessly divided the gold into four nearly equal piles.

"For my guests!" she told them lightly. She took from the servant's hands a deck of cards and tossed it down among the minted gold. "I would watch such men as you four play for the whole stake. And," she added more slowly, her burning look embracing them all but lingering upon Jim Kendric, "I have a curiosity to know who of you in my house is the most favored of the gods!"

"There's a goodly pile there, Senorita," said Barlow who could never look upon gold without hungering. "You mean it all goes to the man who wins? And you don't play?"

"All that," she answered him steadily, "goes to the man who wins. With perhaps much more? Who knows?"

Bruce stepped eagerly to the table where already Barlow was before him with a heap of the gold drawn up to his hand. Ruiz Rios took his place indifferently, affecting a look of ennui. Kendric held back. Betty, aloof from them all, looked about her as though to escape. But at each door, as though forbidding exit, stood one of Zoraida's men.

"You yourself do not play?" Barlow asked of Zoraida.

"This time, my friend," she replied, "I am content to watch."

Content rather, thought Kendric, to amuse herself by stirring up more bad blood among friends. For the look he saw on her face was one of pure malicious mischief. It occurred to him that she had sorrowed not at all over the taking off of Escobar at Rios's hand; he had the suspicion that in her cleverness she discerned looming trouble as a result of encouraging the infatuations of two men like Bruce and Barlow, and that before she would let herself be destroyed by an inevitable jealous rage she meant to set them at each other's throats. Such an act he deemed entirely germane to Zoraida's dark methods.

"Senor Jim does not care to play?" she asked quietly.

Had not Betty chosen to look at him then Kendric's answer would have been a blunt, "No." But Betty did look, and the glance was as eloquent as a gush of stinging words. Without a clue to the girl's thoughts, he merely set her down as the most illogical, impertinent and irritating creature it had ever been his bad lot to encounter. For her eyes told him that he was an animal of some sort of a crawling species which she abhorred. This after he had put in long troubled hours seeking the way to be of service to her!

"Bah," he said in his heart, staring coldly at her until she averted her eyes, "they're all the same." And to Zoraida, "I'll play but I play with my own money."

Zoraida only laughed. His open rudeness seemed unmarked.

"Barlow," said Kendric, "I want a word with you first."

Barlow did not turn or lift his eyes.

"Talk fast then," he retorted. "The game's waiting."

"In private, if you don't mind," urged Kendric.

Now Barlow looked at him sullenly.

"After what happened last night, Kendric," he said heavily, "you and me have got no private business together. Am I the man to take a bullet from another and then go chin with him?"

"You blame me for that?" Kendric was incredulous. Barlow snorted. "Well," continued Kendric stiffly, "at least we've unfinished business between us. You haven't forgotten what brought us down here, have you?"

"Treasure, you mean?" Barlow spat out the words defiantly. "Put the name to it, man! Well, what of it?"

"The understanding was that we stand together. That we split what we find fifty-fifty. Does that still go?"

Barlow pulled nervously at his forelock, his eyes wandering. For an instant they were fixed on the smiling face of Zoraida. Then grown dogged they came back to Kendric.

"Hell take the understanding!" he blurted out savagely. "We stand even tonight, one as close to the loot as the other. It's every man for himself, whole hog or none, and the devil take the hindmost. That's what it is!"

"Good," snapped Kendric. "That suits me." He slammed his little pad of bank notes down on the table and took his chair. "What's the game, gentlemen?"

They named it poker and played hard. Reckless men with money were they all, men accustomed to big fast games. The most reckless of them, Jim Kendric, was in a mood for anything provided it raced. Betty's attitude, Betty's look, had stirred him after a strange new fashion which he did not analyze. Barlow's unreasonable unfriendliness hurt and angered; the jeer in Rios's hard black eyes ruffled his blood. And even young Bruce looked at him with a defiance which Kendric had no stomach for. From the first card played, Jim Kendric, like a pace maker in a race, stamped his spirit upon the struggle.

Betty, seeing that she was not to be allowed to go sat down and for a space made a pretense of ignoring what went forward before her. But presently as the atmosphere grew strained and intense, she forgot her pretense and leaned forward and watched eagerly. Zoraida had a couch drawn up for her, richly colored silken cushions placed to her taste, and stretched out luxuriously, her chin in her two hands.

There are isolated games wherein chance enters which make one wonder what is this thing named chance, and from which one rises at last touched by the superstition which holds so firm a place in the hearts of all gamblers. From the beginning it was Jim Kendric's game. When a jack-pot was opened he went into it with an ace high, though it cost him a hundred dollars to call for cards, which was not playing poker but defying mathematics and challenging his luck. And the four cards given him by Bruce, whose blue eyes named him fool, were two more aces and two queens. And the pot that was close to ten hundred dollars before the sweetening was done, was his. Barlow, who had lost most, glared at him and muttered under his breath; young Bruce merely stared incredulously and looked again at the cards to make sure; Rios, who had kept clear, smiled and murmured:

"Lucky at cards, unlucky in love, senor."

"I prefer the cards, thanks," said Kendric, stacking his winnings. And there was enough of the boy left in him for him to look briefly for the first time at Betty. Zoraida saw and bit her lip.

But though it was borne in upon those who played and those who watched that it was Jim Kendric's game there were the inevitable tense moments when each man in turn had his own eager hope. Bruce, no cool hand at gambling, showed his excitement in his shining blue eyes; Barlow muttered to himself; Rios sat forward in his chair and left off pointing the tips of his mustaches. At the end of the first half hour, though Kendric's heap of winnings was by far the greatest, no man of them was down to bed rock.