CHAPTER XX
DICK LIGHTS A CIGARETTE
Gordon met Miss Valdes in the El Tovar dining-room next morning. He wastrying at the same time to tell Davis the story of his kidnaping and toeat a large rare steak with French-fried potatoes. The young man hadchosen a seat that faced the door. The instant his eyes fell upon her hegave up both the story and the steak. Putting aside his napkin, he roseto meet her.
She had fallen asleep thinking of him, her dreams had been full of hisvivid personality, and she had wakened to an eager longing for the sightof his gay, mocking eyes. But she had herself under such good controlthat nobody could have guessed how fast her heart was beating as herfingers touched his.
"We are glad your adventure is ended, Mr. Gordon, and that it has turnedout no worse. Probably Mr. Davis has told you that he and I got ourheads together a great many times a day," she said, a little formally.
"You were mighty good to take so much interest in such a scalawag," heanswered warmly.
The color deepened ever so little in her face. "I couldn't let my mencommit murder under the impression they were doing me a service," sheexplained lightly. "There are several things I want to talk over withyou. Can you call on me this morning, Mr. Gordon?"
"Can I?"
He put the question so forcefully that she smiled and dashed a bucket ofcold water over his enthusiasm.
"If you'll be so good then. And bring Mr. Davis along with you, please.He'll keep us from quarreling too much."
"I'll throw him out of the window if he don't behave right," Davispromised joyfully. He was happy to-day, and he did not care who knew it.
Valencia passed on to her table, and Dick resumed his seat. He had astrong interest in this young woman, but even the prospect of a talkwith her could not make him indifferent to the rare steak andFrench-fried potatoes before him. He was a healthy normal American inhis late twenties, and after several days of starvation well-cooked foodlooked very good to him.
"There's some mail waiting for you upstairs--one of the letters is aregistered one, mailed at Corbett's," his friend told him as they roseto leave. He was like a hen with one chick in his eagerness to supplyDick's wants and in his reluctance to let Gordon out of his sight.
The registered letter was the one Valencia had sent him, inclosing theone written by her grandfather to her father. Her contrite little notewent straight to his emotions. If not in words, at least in spirit, itpleaded for pardon. Even the telegram she had wired implied anundeniable interest in him. Dick went with a light heart to theinterview she had appointed him.
He slipped an arm through that of Davis. "Come on, you old bald-headedchaperone. Didn't you hear the lady give you a bid to her party thismo'ning? Get a move on you."
"Ain't you going to let her invite get cold before you butt in?"retorted Steve amiably.
Valencia took away from the dining-room a heart at war with itself. Thesight of his gaunt face, carrying the scars of many wounds and the linesmarked by hunger, stirred insurgent impulses. The throb of passion andof the sweet protective love that is at the bottom of every woman'stenderness suffused her cheeks with warm life and made her eyeswonderful. Out of the grave he had come back to her, this indomitablefoe who played the game with such gay courage. It was useless to tellherself that she was plighted to a better man, a worthier one. Scamp hemight be, but Dick Gordon held her heart in the hollow of his strongbrown hand.
Some impulse of shyness, perhaps of reluctance, had restrained her fromwearing Manuel's ring at breakfast. But when she returned to her roomshe went straight to the desk where she had locked it and put thesolitaire on her finger. The fear of disloyalty drove her back to herbetrothed from the enticement of forbidden thoughts. She must putRichard Gordon out of her mind. It was worse than madness to be dreamingof him now that she was plighted to another.
Gordon, coming eagerly to meet her, found a young woman more reserved,more distant. He was conscious of this even before his eyes stopped atthe engagement ring sparkling on her finger, the visible evidence thathis rival had won.
"You have been treated cruelly, Mr. Gordon. Tell me that you are againall right," she said, the color flooding her face at the searchingquestion of his eyes.
"Right as a rivet, thanks. It is to you I owe my freedom, I suppose."
"To Manuel," she corrected. "His judgment was better than mine."
"I can believe that. He didn't ride all night across dangerous mountainroads to save me."
"Oh, that!" She tossed off his thanks with a little shrug. "They are soimpulsive, my boys ... like children, you know.... I was a little afraidthey might----"
"I was a little afraid myself they might," he agreed dryly. "But whenyou say children--well, don't you think wolves is a more accurate termfor them?"
"Oh, no--no!" Her protest was quick, eager, imperative. "You don't knowhow loyal they can be--how faithful. They are really just like children,so impulsive--so unreasoning."
"Afraid I can't enthuse with you on that subject for a day or two yet,"he answered with a laugh. "Truth is I found their childlike impulsesboth painful and annoying. Next time you see them you might mention thatI'm liable to have an impulse of my own they won't enjoy."
"That's one of the things I want to talk with you about. Manuel says youmean to prosecute. I hope you won't. They're friends of mine. Theythought they were helping me. Of course I have no claim on you, but----"
"You have a claim, Miss Valdes. We'll take that up presently. Just nowwe're talking about a couple of criminals due for a term in thepenitentiary. I offered them terms. They wouldn't accept. Good enough.They'll have to stand the gaff, I reckon."
She realized at once there was no use arguing with him. The steel in hiseyes told her he had made up his mind and was not to be moved. But shecould not desert her foolish dependents.
"I know. What you say is quite true, but--I'll have to come to someagreement with you. I can't let them be punished for their loyalty tome."
Her direct, unflinching look, its fearlessness, won his admiration. Inher slim suppleness, vibrant, feminine to the finger tips, alluring withthe unconscious appeal of sex, there was a fine courage to face franklyessential facts. But he was a hard man to move once he had made up hismind. For all his frivolous impudence and his boyish good nature, heknew his own mind, and held to it with the stiffness characteristic ofoutdoor Westerners.
"You're not in this, Miss Valdes. I'll settle my own accounts with yourfriends Sebastian and Pablo."
"But even for your own sake----" She stopped, intuitively aware thatthis was not the ground upon which to treat with him. He would neverdrop the charges against the Mexicans merely because there was danger inpressing them.
"I reckon I'll have to try to look out for myself. Maybe next time Iwon't be so easy a mark," he answered with an almost insolent laugh.
Valencia was a little puzzled. Things were not going right, and she didnot quite know the reason. There was just a touch of bitterness in hisvoice, of aloofness in his manner. She did not know that the sight ofthe solitaire sparkling on her left hand stirred in him the impulse tohurt her, to refuse rather than concede her requests.
"You're not going to push the cases against Pablo and Sebastian andstill try to live in the valley, are you?" she asked, beginning to feela little irritation at him.
"That's just what I'm going to do."
"You mustn't. I won't have it. Don't you see what my people will think,that because Pablo and Sebastian were loyal to me----"
His acrid smile cut her sentence in two. "That's about the third timeyou've mentioned their loyalty. Me, I don't see it. Sebastian owns landunder the Valdes grant. He didn't want me to take it from him. Mr. PabloMenendez--well, he had private reasons of his own, too."
The resentment flamed in her heart. If he was shameless enough to referto the affair with Juanita she would let him know that she knew.
"What were his reasons, Mr. Gordon--that is, if they are not a privateaffair between you and him?"
"Not at all." The steel-blue eyes met hers, steadily. Dick was yieldingto a desire to hurt himself as well as her, to defy her judgment if shehad no better sense than to condemn him. "The idiot is jealous."
"Jealous--why?" The angry color beat its way to the surface above hercheek bones. Her disdain was regal.
"About Juanita."
"What about Juanita?"
"The usual thing, Miss Valdes. He was afraid she had the bad taste toprefer another man to himself."
Davis broke in. "Now, don't you be a goat, Dick. Miss Valdes, he----"
"If you please, Mr. Davis. I'm quite sure Mr. Gordon is able to defendhimself," she replied scornfully.
"Didn't know I _was_ defending myself. What's the charge against me?"asked the young miner with a touch of quiet insolence.
"There isn't any--if you don't see what it is. And you're quite right,Mr. Gordon. Your difficulties with Pablo are none of my business. You'llhave to settle them yourselves--with Juanita's help. May I ask whetheryou received the registered letter I sent you, Mr. Gordon?"
Dick was angry. Her cool contempt told him that he had been condemned.He knew that he was acting like an irresponsible schoolboy, but he wouldnot justify himself. She might think what she liked.
"Found it waiting for me this morning, Miss Valdes."
"It was very fair and generous of you to send me the letter, I recognizethat fully. But of course I can't accept such a sacrifice," she told himstiffly.
"Not necessary you should. Object if I smoke here?"
Valencia was a little surprised. He had never before offered to smoke inthe house except at her suggestion. "As you please, Mr. Gordon. Whyshould I object?"
From his coat pocket Dick took the letter Don Bartolome had written tohis son, and from his vest pocket a match. He twisted the envelope intoa spill, lit one end, and found a cigarette. Very deliberately he puffedthe cigarette to a glow, holding the letter in his fingers until it hadburned to a black flake. This he dropped in the fireplace, and alongwith it the unsmoked cigarette.
Holding the letter in his fingers until it had burned toa black flake]
"Easiest way to settle that little matter," he said negligently.
"I judge you're a little impulsive, too, sometimes, Mr. Gordon,"Valencia replied coldly.
"I never rode all night over the mountains to save a man who was tryingto rob me of my land," he retorted.
This brought a sparkle to her eyes. "I had to think of my foolish menwho were getting into trouble."
"Was that why you offered a hundred dollars' reward for the arrest ofthese same men?" came his indolent, satiric reply.
"Don Manuel offered the reward," she told him haughtily.
An impish smile was in his eyes. "At your suggestion, he tells me. And Iunderstand you insisted on paying the bill, Miss Valdes."
"Why should he pay it? The men worked for me. They were brought up on myfather's place. They are my responsibility, not his," she claimed withvisible irritation.
"And now they're my responsibility, too--until I land them in thepenitentiary," he added cheerfully.
From his pocket he took a billbook and selected two fifty-dollar bills.These he offered to Valencia.
She stood very straight. "You owe me nothing, sir."
"I owe you the hundred dollars you paid to get hold of Sebastian. AndI'm going to pay it."
"I don't acknowledge the debt. I wanted Sebastian for his sake, notyours. Certainly I shall not accept the money."
"Just as you say. It isn't mine. Care if I smoke again?" he askedgenially.
She caught his meaning in a flash. "Not at all. Burn them if you like."
"Now, see here," interrupted Davis amiably. "You're both acting like apair of kids. I'm not going to stand for any hundred-dollar smokes,Dick. Gimme those bills." He snatched them from his friend and put themin his pocket. "When you two get reasonable again we'll decide whosemoney it is. Till then I expect I'll draw the interest on it."
"And now, since our business is ended, I think I'll not detain you anylonger, Mr. Gordon, except to warn you that it will be foolhardy toreturn to the Rio Chama Valley with intentions such as you have."
"Good of you to warn me, Miss Valdes. It's not the first time, either,is it? But I'm _that_ bull-headed. Steve will give me a recommend as themost sot chump in New Mexico. Won't you Steve?"
"I sure will--before a notary if you like. You've got a government mulebacked off the map."
"I've done my duty, anyhow." Miss Valdes turned to the older man, andsomehow the way she did it seemed to wipe Gordon out of the picture."There is something I want to talk over with you, Mr. Davis. Can youwait a few moments?"
"Sure I can--all day if you like."
Dick retired with his best bow. "Steve, you always was popular with theladies."
Valencia, uncompromising, waited until he had gone. Then, swiftly, witha little leap of impulse as it were, she appealed to Davis.
"Don't let him go back to the valley. Don't let him push the casesagainst Sebastian and Pablo."
The old miner shook his head "Sorry, Miss Valencia. Wish I could stophim, but I can't. He'll go his own way--always would."
"But don't you see they'll kill him. It's madness to go back there whilehe's pushing the criminal case. Before it was bad enough, but now----"She threw up her hands with a gesture of despair.
"I reckon you're right. But I can't help it."
"Then look out for him. Don't let him ride around in the hills. Don'tlet him leave the house at night. Never let him go alone. Remember thathe is in danger every hour while he remains in the valley."
"I'll remember, Miss Valencia," Davis promised.
He wondered as he walked away why the talk between Dick and Miss Valdeshad gone so badly. He knew his friend had come jubilantly, prepared todo anything she asked of him. The fear and anxiety that had leaped toher face the instant Gordon had gone showed him that the girl had a deepinterest in the young man. She, too, had meant to meet him half way inwiping out the gulf between them. Instead, they had only increased it.