A Daughter of the Dons Part 33

"Interesting if true--but not true, I think," commented d.i.c.k pleasantly.

"You have made a mistake, my friends, and you will have to pay for it."

"If we have made a mistake it can yet be remedied, _Senor_" retorted Pablo quietly. "We have but to make an end of you and behold! all is well again."

"Afraid not, my enthusiastic young friend. Too many in the secret.

Someone will squeal, and the rest of you--particularly you two ringleaders--will be hanged by the neck. It takes only ordinary intelligence to know that. Therefore I am quite safe, even though I have a confounded headache and a rising fever." Gordon added with cheerful solicitude: "I do hope I'm not going to get sick on your hands. It's rather a habit of mine, you know. But, really, you can't blame me this time."

A danger signal flared in the eyes of the young Mexican. "Better not, _Senor_. You will here have no young and charming nurse to wait upon you."

"Meaning Mrs. Corbett?" asked the prisoner, smiling up impudently.

"Whose heart your soft words can steal away from him to whom it belongs," continued Pablo furiously.

"Sho, I reckon Corbett----"

"_Mil diablos!_"

A devil of jealousy was burning out of the black eyes that blazed into those of the American. It was no longer possible for d.i.c.k to miss the menace and its meaning. The Mexican was speaking of Juanita. He believed that his prisoner had been making love to the girl and his heart was black with hate because of it.

Gordon looked at him steadily, then summed up with three derisive words.

"You d.a.m.n fool!"

Something in the way he said them shook Pablo's conviction. Was it possible after all that his jealousy had been useless? Juanita had told him that all through his delirium this man had raved of Miss Valdes.

Perhaps---- But, no, had he not with his own eyes seen the man bantering Juanita while the color came and went in her wild rose cheeks? Had he not seen him lean on her shoulder as he hobbled out to the porch, just as a lover might on that of his sweetheart?

With an oath Pablo turned sullenly away. He knew he was no match for this man at any point. Yet he was a leader among his own people because of the force in him.

Gordon slept little during the night. He had been so badly beaten that outraged nature took her revenge in a feverish restlessness that precluded any real rest. With the coming of day the temperature subsided. Pablo brought a basin of water and a sponge, with which he washed the b.l.o.o.d.y face and head of the bound man.

d.i.c.k observed that his nurse had a few marks of his own as souvenirs of the battle. The cheek bone had been laid open by a blow that must have been made with his knuckles. One eye was half shut, and beneath it was a deep purple swelling.

"Had quite a little jamboree, didn't we?" remarked Gordon, with a grin.

"I'll bet you lads mussed my hair up some."

Pablo said nothing, but after he had made his unwilling guest as presentable and comfortable as possible he proceeded to business.

"You want to know why we have made you prisoner, _Senor_ Gordon?" he suggested. "It has perhaps occur to you that it would have been much easier to shoot you and be done?"

"Yes, that has struck me, Menendez. I reckon your nerve didn't quite run to murder maybe."

"Not so. I spare you because you save my brother's life after he shoot at you. But I exact conditions. So?"

The eyes of the miner had grown hard and steelly. The lids had closed on them so that only slits were open. "Let's hear them."

"First, that you give what is called word of honor not to push any charges against those taking you prisoner."

"Pa.s.s that for the present," ordered d.i.c.k curtly. "Number two please."

"That you sign a paper drawn up by a lawyer giving all your rights in the Rio Chama Valley to Senorita Valdes and promise never to go near the valley again."

"Nothing doing," answered the prisoner promptly, his jaws snapping tight.

"But yes--most a.s.suredly yes. I risk much to save your life. But you must go to meet me, _Senor_. Is a man's life not worth all to him? So?

Sign, and you live."

The eyes of the men had fastened--the fierce, black, eager ones of the Mexican and the steelly gray ones of the Anglo-Saxon. There was the rigor of battle in that gaze, the grinding of rapier on rapier. Gordon was a prisoner in the hands of his enemy. He lay exhausted from a terrible beating. That issues of life and death hung in the balance a child might have guessed. But victory lay with the white man. The lids of Menendez fell over sullen, angry eyes.

"You are a fool, _Senor_. We go to prison for no man who is our enemy.

Pouf! When the hour comes I snuff out your life like that." And Pablo snapped his fingers airily.

"Maybe--and maybe not. I figure on living to be an old man. Tell you what I'll do, Menendez. Turn me loose and I'll forget about our little rumpus last night. I'd ought to send you to the pen, but I'll consent to forego that pleasure."

Sulkily Pablo turned away. What could one do with a madman who insisted on throwing his life away? The young Mexican was not a savage, though the barbaric strain in his wild lawless blood was still strong. He did not relish the business of killing in cold blood even the man he hated.

"If you kill me you'll hang," went on Gordon composedly. "You'll never get away with it. Your own friends will swear your neck into a noose.

Your partner Sebastian--you'll excuse me if I appear familiar, but I don't know the gentleman's other name--will turn State's evidence to try to save his own neck. But I reckon he'll have to climb the ladder, too."

Sebastian pushed aside his companion angrily and took the American by the throat.

"_Por Dios_, I show you. If I hang I hang--but you----" His muscular fingers tightened till the face of his enemy grew black. But the eyes--the steady, cool, contemptuous eyes--still looked into his defiantly.

Pablo dragged his accomplice from the bedside. The time might come for this, but it was not yet.

It had been a close thing for Gordon. If those lean, strong fingers had been given a few seconds more at his throat they would have snapped the cord of life. But gradually the distorted face resumed its natural hue as the coughing, strangling man began to breathe again.

"Your--friend--is--impetuous," d.i.c.k suggested to Pablo as soon as he could get the words out one at a time.

"He will shake the life out of you as a terrier does that of a rat,"

Pablo promised vindictively.

"There's no fun--in being strangled, as you'll both--find out later,"

the prisoner retorted whimsically but with undaunted spirit.

Sebastian had left the room. At the expiration of half an hour he returned with a tray, upon which were two plates with food and two cups of steaming coffee. The Mexicans ate their ham and their _frijoles_ and drank their coffee. The prisoner they ignored.

"Don't I draw even a Libby Prison allowance?" the American wanted to know.

"You eat and you drink after you have signed the paper," Pablo told him.

"I always did think we ate too much and too often. Much obliged for a chance to work out my theories."

Gordon turned his back upon them, his face to the wall. Presently, in spite of the cramped position necessitated by his bound arms, he yielded to weariness and fell asleep. Sebastian lay down in a corner of the room and also slept. He and Pablo would have to relieve each other as watchmen so long as they held their prisoner. For that reason they must get what rest they could during the day.

Menendez found himself the victim of conflicting emotions. It had been easy while they were plotting the abduction to persuade himself that the man would grant anything to save his life. Now he doubted this. Looking clown at the battered face of the miner, so lean and strong and virile, he could not withhold a secret reluctant admiration. How was it possible for him to sleep so easily and lightly while he lay within the shadow of violent death? There was even a little smile about the corners of his mouth, as if he were enjoying pleasant dreams. Never had Pablo known another man like this one. Had he not broken the spirit of that outlaw devil Teddy in ten minutes? Who else could shoot the heads off chickens at a distance as he had done? Was there another in New Mexico that could, though taken at advantage, put up so fierce a fight against big odds? The young Mexican hated him because of Juanita and his opposition to Miss Valdes. But the untamed and gallant spirit of the young man went out in spite of himself in homage to the splendid courage and efficiency of his victim.

Not till the middle of the afternoon did Gordon awaken. He was surprised to find that his hands were free. Of Menendez he asked an explanation.

Pablo gave him none. How could he say that he was ashamed to keep him tied while two armed men were in the room to watch him?