"Good. Glad you do."
"So I make you an offer. I ask you to relinquish your shadowy claim to the illegal Moreño grant."
"Well, I can't tell you offhand just what I'll do, Don Manuel. Make your proposition to me in writing, and one month from to-day I'll let you know whether it's yes or no."
"But the señorita wants to make improvements—to build, to fence. Delay is a hardship. Let us say a thousand dollars and make an end."
"Not if the court knows itself. You say she's young. A month's wait won't hurt her any. I want to look into it. Maybe you're offering me too much. A fifth of a cent an acre is a mighty high price for land. I don't want any fairest daughter of Spain to rob herself for me, you know," he grinned.
"I exceed my instructions. I offer two thousand, Mr. Gordon."
"If you said two hundred thousand, I'd still say no till I had looked it up. I'm not doing business to-day at any price, thank you."
"You are perhaps of an impression that this land is valuable. On the contrary, I offer an assurance. And our need of your shadowy claim——"
"I ain't burdened with impressions, except one, that I don't care to dispose of my ghost-title. We'll talk business a month from to-day, if you like. No sooner. Have a smoke, Don Manuel?"
Pesquiera declined the proffered cigar with an impatient gesture. He rose, reclaimed his hat and cane, and clicked his heels together in a stiff bow.
He was a slight, dark, graceful man, with small, neat hands and feet, trimly gloved and shod. He had a small black mustache pointing upward in parallels to his smooth, olive cheeks. The effect was almost foppish, but the fire in the snapping eyes contradicted any suggestion of effeminacy. His gaze yielded nothing even to the searching one of Gordon.
"It is, then, war between us, Señor Gordon?" he asked haughtily.
Dick laughed.
"Sho! It's just business. Maybe I'll take your offer. Maybe I won't. I might want to run down and look at the no-'count land," he said with a laugh.
"I think it fair to inform you, sir, that the feeling of the country down there is in favor of the Valdés grant. The peons are hot-tempered, and are likely to resent any attempt to change the existing conditions. Your presence, señor, would be a danger."
"Much obliged, Don Manuel. Tell 'em from me that I got a bad habit of wearing a six-gun, and that if they get to resenting too arduous it's likely to ventilate their enthusiasm."
Once more the New Mexican bowed stiffly before he retired.
Pesquiera had overplayed his hand. He had stirred in the miner an interest born of curiosity and a sense of romantic possibilities. Dick wanted to see this daughter of Castile who was still to the simple-hearted shepherds of the valley a princess of the blood royal. Don Manuel was very evidently her lover. Perhaps it was his imagination that had mixed the magic potion that lent an atmosphere of old-world pastoral charm to the story of the Valdés grant. Likely enough the girl would prove commonplace in a proud half-educated fashion that would be intolerable for a stranger.
But even without the help of the New Mexican the situation was one which called for a thorough personal investigation. Gordon was a hard-headed American business man, though he held within him the generous and hare-brained potentialities of a soldier of fortune. He meant to find out just what the Moreño grant was worth. After he had investigated his legal standing he would look over the valley of the Chama himself. He took no stock in Don Manuel's assurance that the land was worthless, any more than he gave weight to his warning that a personal visit to the scene would be dangerous if the settlers believed he came to interfere with their rights. For many turbulent years Dick Gordon had held his own in a frontier community where untamed enemies had passed him daily with hate in their hearts. He was not going to let the sulky resentment of a few shepherds interfere with his course now.
A message flashed back to a little town in Kentucky that afternoon. It was of the regulation ten-words length, and this was the body of it:
Send immediately, by express, little brown leather trunk in garret.
The signature at the bottom of it was "Richard Gordon."
CHAPTER III
FISHERMAN'S LUCK
A fisherman was whipping the stream of the Rio Chama.
In his creel were a dozen trout, for the speckled beauties had been rising to the fly that skipped across the top of the riffles as naturally as life. He wore waders, gray flannel shirt, and khaki coat. As he worked up the stream he was oftener in its swirling waters than on the shore. But just now the fish were no longer striking.
"Time to grub, anyhow. I'll give them a rest for a while. They'll likely be on the job again soon," he told himself as he waded ashore.
A draw here ran down to the river, and its sunny hillside tempted him to eat his lunch farther up.
Into the little basin in which he found himself the sun had poured shafts of glory to make a very paradise of color. Down by the riverside the willows were hesitating between green and bronze. Russet and brown and red peppered the slopes, but shades of yellow predominated in the gulch itself.
The angler ate his sandwiches leisurely, and stretched his lithe body luxuriantly on the ground for a siesta. When he resumed his occupation the sun had considerably declined from the meridian. The fish were again biting, and he landed two in as many minutes.
The bed of the river had been growing steeper, and at the upper entrance of the little park he came to the first waterfall he had seen. Above this, on the opposite side, was a hole that looked inviting. He decided that a dead tree lying across the river would, at a pinch, serve for a bridge, and he ventured upon it. Beneath his feet the rotting bark gave way. He found himself falling, tried desperately to balance himself, and plunged head first into the river.
Coming to the surface, he caught at a rock which jutted from the channel. At this point the water was deep and the current swift. Were he to let loose of the boulder he must be swept over the fall before he could reach the shore. Nor could he long maintain his position against the rush of the ice-cold waters fresh from the mountain snow fields.
He had almost made up his mind to take his chances with the fall, when a clear cry came ringing to him:
"No suelte!"
A figure was flying down the slope toward him—the slim, graceful form of a woman. As she ran she caught up a stick from the ground. This she held out to him from the bank.
He shook his head.
"I would only drag you in."
She put her fingers to her mouth and gave a clear whistle. Far up on the slope a pony lifted its head and nickered. Again her whistle shrilled, and the bronco trotted down toward her.
"Can you hold on?" she asked in English.
He was chilled to the marrow, but he answered quietly: "I reckon."
She was gone, swift-footed as a deer, to meet the descending animal. He saw her swing to the saddle and lean over it as the pace quickened to a gallop.
He did not know her fingers were busy preparing the rawhide lariat that depended from the side of the saddle. On the very bank she brought up with a jerk that dragged her mount together, and at the same moment slipped to the ground.
Running open the noose of the lariat, she dropped it surely over his shoulders. The other end of the rope was fastened to the saddle-horn, and the cow-pony, used to roping and throwing steers, braced itself with wide-planted front feet for