Lucia rose. "You mean you want to give these wonderful rugs and blankets to me?—these priceless things."

"More than that. I want you to have them—to remind you—sometimes of—" He broke off, like a frightened lad.

"As though I should ever need reminding! How dull you men can be! But I don't want to take them from you, Gil."

"I'm giving up this ranch," he told her, "I shan't want them any more. Please take them, for my sake." He made a gesture, as though they were the last of his poor possessions.

"I thought you loved it here?" she said.

"I do—in a way."

"Then why are you giving it up?" was the natural question.

He hesitated, not knowing what to answer. "I thought I'd try something else for awhile. I hate to have to tell you this, Lucia; but the fact is, I—I've got to leave to-day. I was going to tell you before, only I was hoping that something might turn up at the last minute, and—well, it hasn't. That's all."

There was nothing she could say; and they stood looking at each other in silence—a silence that was far more eloquent than speech. Gilbert went over and sat on the case, and Lucia finally said:

"Then we won't see each other again?"

He nodded, sorrowfully. Lucia Pell went over to the door and looked out once more. He watched her, covertly—her every gesture held a new meaning for him now. The silence continued. At length she turned back and faced him. He could not stand it, and bent quickly over the rugs and blankets.

"I don't know what to say, Gil." She moved closer to him. "I've had a wonderful time—you know that. I want to thank you for it. You've been awfully kind to us."

"Having you here is all the thanks I want," he answered. He had everything snugly packed now.

"I'm glad we happened to meet again. Though it does seem strange, doesn't it, that we should run across each other after all these years!"

He stood up straight. "All these years! You talk as if you were a hundred!" And he tried to smile.

"I am—nearly," she laughed. "I'm twenty-four, you know."

"Really? It doesn't seem possible!"

"I was eighteen when you went away. And that's nearly six years ago. Time flies, doesn't it?" She smiled at her bromidic remark, and sat down; but he did not reply, "Gil," she said at last. He looked up. "Why didn't you come to see me before I went away?"

"I don't know. I suppose—"

"You went away from Maine without my knowing—without even coming to say good-bye. Was that fair, was that the thing for a man like you to do?"

How he wished she had not brought up these burning memories!

"I was broke, and I—" he managed to explain.

Lucia knew what he must be feeling now. She got up and went over to his side; she did not dare place her hand in his. Never must there be again that electric current between them. "But you're all right now, aren't you, Gil?"

He seemed abstracted, suddenly lost in another world. "Huh?" he uttered. Then, as if coming to himself, "Oh, my, yes! I'm doing splendidly now, Lucia!"

"I'm so glad, Gil. But you haven't answered my question yet."

"About my not coming to say good-bye?"

She nodded.

"It was pride, I suppose," he went on.

"Very foolish pride. And life is so short. You hurt me a great deal."

"I'm sorry. What more can one say? If I—"

"I thought I had done something to offend you," she said, standing very still, and looking far beyond him now, as though viewing their whole unhappy past. "And it's worried me even until this very day. I didn't do anything to offend you, did I, Gil?"

"You? You, Lucia?" he cried. "You couldn't do anything to offend me. Surely you must know that." He said it as a man says such things to the one woman he loves.

"It was only pride?" she was anxious to know again. "Because you were poor! Gil! Did you think so little of me as that?" There was a half-sob in her voice.

"I hoped to pick a fortune off a tree somewhere, and come back and surprise you with it. I was going to buy an automobile—one of those low ones as long as a Pullman car—and fill it with roses, and come dashing up to your front door and take you for a ride through the hills. It was to be autumn. I had even that fixed," he laughed. "Oh, I had everything thought out! And you were going to be so proud of me!... But I couldn't find a fortune-tree anywhere...." He looked away, embarrassed. He hadn't meant to tell her this.

"Gil!" she cried.

"I guess they don't grow any more. At least, not in this part of the country." He rose, a bit wearily, and walked over to the mantel-piece.

"What did you do, Gil?" she asked, her eyes following him.

"Well, I was a time-keeper on a railroad and weigh-boss in a coal mine. After that I punched cows until I got uncle to come here. Then the war started, and—that's all."

Then she asked what a woman always asks.

"Why didn't you ever write to me, Gil?"

"I was waiting for some good news to tell you. I felt you would consider me a failure—a rank failure. I couldn't have stood that. Women don't know how proud men are about that."

"Maybe we don't—and maybe we do, Gil." She went closer to him. "Why don't you marry?" she dared to inquire.

He was startled. "Marry?" he repeated.

"Yes; you need someone to take care of you—someone to look after your daily needs—every man does."

"I guess there's no doubt about that. But it ought to be a guardian in my case; or maybe a keeper." She could see that he was stalling for time, and trying to laugh off a topic that was serious indeed to him.

"We're such old friends, Gil," she said, looking at his handsome face. "I don't like to go—to think of you always, like this—alone."

"I still have uncle," he reminded her.

"Oh, don't joke, Gil! You need a woman—a wife—someone to mother you."

"All those?"

Why couldn't he be serious for a moment? She asked him that.

"I don't dare to, Lucia." His voice was low.

She was a bit puzzled. "Why?"

"Because the minute you begin to take life seriously, it takes you that way, and then—"

"But don't you see what it would mean to you, dear Gil? To have someone always here; to kiss you when you go; to greet you when you come back; to laugh with you when you are glad; and comfort you when things go wrong. To give you the sympathy, the understanding that a man finds only in a woman's heart. Don't you see, Gil?"

"Yes, of course I see," he said, his head bowed a little.

"Then why don't you, Gil? She'd make you very happy—a woman like that. I want you to understand."

"Don't you suppose I do? Don't you suppose I've always understood, ever since—"

"Ever since when, Gil? Then you have known such a woman?"

He moved his head.

"You have!... And you cared for her?"

He nodded again.

"You loved her?" she hurried on.

His voice was hoarse. "Yes." The monosyllable got out somehow.

"You still love her. I know it, I can see it. Who is she, Gil? I want to know."

"Don't you know?" he asked, and looked her straight in the eyes.

Before she could answer, there were footsteps outside, and Pell could be heard whistling. He rushed in now, the bag still clutched in his hand. At once he sensed something strange in their attitude, and he eyed both of them shrewdly, covertly, briefly. Not a word was uttered. He threw the bag on the table, as though he had noticed nothing, and in the most matter-of-fact tone said,

"Say, how about dinner?"

"It isn't ready yet," Gilbert informed him. Lucia took advantage of her husband's question to move over toward the door.

"Why, good God, man, it's nearly three o'clock! We're not on a hunger strike, are we?" And he laughed at his own dull witticism.

"I'll see about it now," Jones promised.

"Haven't got a drink, have you, while we're waiting? Not that I need an appetizer! And it's damned hot, I know, to guzzle whiskey."

"There's nothing good in the place. But I think the cook has some tequila."

"Tequila? What's that, Jones?"

"It's a Mexican drink."

"Has it got a kick in it?" the other wanted to know.

"I never heard anybody complain," Gilbert smiled. "After two or three of 'em, I never saw anybody able to complain!"

He started toward the kitchen.

"What does it taste like?" said Pell, detaining him.

"Oh, sort of like gasoline with bichloride of mercury in it," Jones answered his eager questioner.

"No wood alcohol?" suspiciously. Pell was always looking out for himself.

"Oh, it's safe enough, I assure you. Would you like to try some of it?" Gilbert suggested.

Pell thought a moment—but only a moment. "I'll try anything once, and anything to drink more than once—if I'm alive the second time."

His host smiled. "I'll get you some if there's any left," and went to the kitchen to see. He couldn't help wondering why a man like Morgan Pell, with so many responsibilities, should wish to drink tequila.

Left alone, there was that strange silence between Lucia and her husband which so often occurred nowadays. A barrier was between them, none the less real because it was invisible. She knew his moods so well, and she dreaded the things he might say, all his inhibitions gone, if he drank any of this deadly Mexican stuff. She would have halted Gilbert had she dared; but she knew that any such action on her part would have aroused Pell the more, inflamed him to anger; and, like most women of fine breeding, she dreaded a scene more than anything in the world. All that she said now was merely,

"I wish you wouldn't do that."

"Do what?" Pell asked, jerking out the two words in a high staccato. He hated to be questioned, particularly by his wife. His hands reached for the satchel he had brought in.

"Order a man around in his own house."

"And why not, I'd like to know?" Pell inquired. "Who's he, anyhow, and what difference does it make?"

Lucia remained perfectly calm. "Well, if you can't see, of course—"

"There's no use your trying to tell me. Is that what you were going to say?" His face showed his rage.

She did not answer. That infuriated him all the more.

"I see what you mean! But I don't agree," Pell pursued. "This Jones person is nothing in my life. And why I should be deprived of my liquor and forced to eat burnt beans three times a day, I can't see." He emitted a sound that might have been designated a laugh.

"But—while we—" Lucia started to argue, and then thought better of it.

"Why doesn't he set his liquor out and see that the meals are right, himself? Then there wouldn't be any need of my saying anything." His tone was brutally frank. He really disliked Jones, and would be glad when they could get back to New York. There was nothing here worth his consideration. Sturgis had been stupid to think so.

"But when we are enjoying his hospitality—"

"Enjoying? Ha! Suffering, I guess you mean!" And Pell's head went back and he gave out a guffaw.

Lucia waited for his false mirth to vanish. Then, "But you seemed very anxious to come here."

"Yes; because I thought he lived in a house, not a—"

The sentence was not completed; for Gilbert came back with a bottle of the deadly tequila in his hand.

"I'm terribly sorry," he apologized, "to have to tell you that dinner will be late."

"You mean later, don't you?" Pell edited the remark.

Gilbert handed him the bottle. "Maybe this will atone for the postponed banquet," he smiled. He got the water-bottle hanging on the peg by the fireplace, and brought that to Pell also. He tried to be as gracious as he could to anyone under his roof.

Pell took a swig out of the bottle—a long one. "Good God!" he exclaimed, his face almost purple, his brow puckered like a dwarf's.

"What's the matter?" Gilbert said. And he handed him the water-bottle.

"It's poison!" Pell cried. And as if he really believed it, and as though water were an antidote, he grabbed the water-bottle and drank from it swiftly and loudly. It was horrible the way he guzzled the liquid down. An animal would have done better.

"The Mexicans like their liquor strong," young Jones explained. "That's what's the matter with the cook."

Lucia was puzzled. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Simply that he's been imbibing again. That's why dinner is so late. But we're getting used to it. There is nothing to do but stand it."

"Drunk?" Pell asked.

"Quite," answered Gilbert.

"Well, I don't know as you can blame him," Pell excused. "I'd be drunk too if I had to live here. What are you going to do about it?" He hung the water-bottle in its place on the peg.

"Red's trying to sober him up," Gilbert said.

They had had enough of the cook, Pell decided within himself. Dinner was inevitably late, and that was all there was about it. So he changed the subject abruptly.

"This ranch belongs to you, doesn't it?" he put the question direct to Jones.

"What's that?"

"I asked you," went on Pell, a little disconcerted at having to repeat his question, "if you own this ranch."

"I—er—yes. Why?" Gilbert said.

Pell was quick to notice the other's discomfiture. "I have a friend who thinks he wants to go into the cattle business. He asked me to look him up a place. It's his own money, of course."

"Then I'd advise him not to buy here," said Gilbert, much to Pell's amazement.

"Why?"

"It's too near the border," Jones answered. "The bandits come over and steal all your cattle. It's a rotten situation. I'm sorry I ever came down here."

"That makes it all the better," Pell was shrewd enough to say. "Then he'd lose his money quick, and be satisfied." And he laughed at what he thought a witticism.

Uncle Henry's wheel chair crossed the sill at that moment. His face was full of news. "Hardy's coming!" he informed those in the room.

"A man to see me on a matter of business," Gilbert remembered. "Will you excuse me?" He turned to Pell.

"But I want to talk to you myself," the latter reminded him.

But young Jones had gone to the door. "I'm sorry. This is imperative, and I must see him." He turned definitely as if to go.

"But I was here first," Morgan Pell argued. He hated to be beaten by this stripling.

"I regret that I must insist," Gilbert said. And there was a duel of eyes, as well as of wits, before Jones turned away, easily the victor. After all, it was his own house, his own ranch. His visitor was wise enough to realize that. He walked over to the table and took the tequila bottle up again. "I'll have another drink, if you don't mind," he said, to Gilbert's back.

"Drink?" yelled Uncle Henry from his chair, frantic at the thought of any more of their precious liquor being consumed. It was hard enough to get, even when one had plenty of money.

"Help yourself," said Gilbert, not a little ashamed of the protest in Uncle Henry's voice.

"While I'm waiting," Pell laughed; and, taking the bottle, he went out.

Uncle Henry could scarcely control himself. He switched his chair in his nephew's direction. "Say," he wanted to know, "have you been holding out on me?"

"It's only tequila," Gilbert tried to pacify him.

"I don't care if it's only varnish!" cried Uncle Henry, his voice rising high and shrill. "And you let him go and take the whole bottle!" He pounded the arm of his chair, always his last resort.

Gilbert paid no attention to him. He went over to the table, as though he hadn't said a word, and began looking for a letter in one of the drawers. Almost immediately he laid his hand on it, and, turning to Lucia, said:

"If you'll excuse me?"

"Certainly. I must go and pack anyway." And she started toward the steps that led upstairs.

Gilbert went through the alcove; and no sooner had his broad shoulders disappeared than Uncle Henry turned to Lucia Pell and cried:

"Hey! Wait a minute."

Lucia was astonished. She had one foot on the step, and she turned about to see if Uncle Henry was actually addressing her. There was, obviously, no one else to address; but she thought the cook must have come in when her back was turned. She glared at the invalid, and said nothing.

"Did you ask him?" Uncle Henry went on, paying not the slightest heed to her surprised glance.

"Ask who what?" Lucia asked. She was not a little interested now. She came back into the room.

"Ask him about marryin'—you know. I gotter find out because Hardy's comin'." No speech could have been plainer and balder. "Did you?"

Lucia was nonplussed at the old man's crude directness. "Yes—I mean no. I don't remember."

"Don't remember!" Uncle Henry yelled. "But that's what I left you here for! We had it all framed up! Why didn't you?"

Lucia's head drooped a bit. "We were talking about something else."

The crabbed man was inflamed by this reply. "What was you talkin' about that was so gol darned important that you forgot the only important thing there was to talk about?... Well?" he cried, when she said nothing. "By gollies! I remember now! You was the gal he wouldn't ask to marry him because he didn't have no money!" He did not notice that his nephew had come back from the other room just in time to hear this last remark. He went on relentlessly to Lucia: "And me like a poor boob forgettin' all about it until now!" He suddenly saw Gilbert, and, not a whit abashed, turned on him. "So that's why you won't marry Hardy's daughter! I see it all now! I've been as blind as a hoot-owl!"

There came the sound of a Ford stopping outside, and footsteps approached up the path that led to the adobe.

"It's all right, Lucia," Gilbert said, and she went upstairs, almost weeping. Then he whirled about and glared at his uncle. "It's a good thing—no, I don't know what I'm saying. You're an invalid, or I'd strike you, despite your years, Uncle Henry. For heaven's sake, can't you learn to mind your own business?"

"I ain't got any. You robbed me of it!" the old man flamed back. "Now I'll mind yours for a change. Make a monkey out o' me, will you, gol darn you!"

As he was starting for the door, he bumped directly into Jasper Hardy and his daughter Angela and the ubiquitous "Red." The trio had come over in the Ford.

Hardy, tall and thin, wore a funereal black coat, despite the heat, and a somber dark Stetson hat. He must have been fifty or more. His skin looked bloodless, and his eyes still had that hard, pale look. It was difficult to trust eyes like those. He ambled, rather than walked, and his lean, lanky legs would have made him a fortune on the stage. It was difficult to believe, as everyone always said, that the lovely little Angela, with her bright black eyes and her rose-red cheeks, was the daughter of this sinister man. She was as attractive as a rose;—a typical frontier maiden, romantic, emotional, peppery when occasion demanded—just the kind to take the fancy of an honest soul like "Red." His eyes followed her wherever she went, as ever. She could not sit down or stand up or open her delicate lips but that he stared at her, hoping he could be of some service to her. Sometimes he prayed that some slight accident would befall her in order that he might prove his devotion. If she would only be sent to jail, that he could bring her soup and pass it through the bars of her cell! He dreamed this once, and awakened in a cold perspiration; for Angela (in the dream) realized his worth then; and the Governor pardoned her, and they were married at once and lived happily ever afterward. A Freudian lapse, maybe, and a dream a little too sane, according to the psychologists, to mean anything much; but rich in hidden meanings for poor "Red." Oh, that it would come true! She had been so kind and sweet to him this morning.

Hardy ambled into the room, and looked around in the most casual way. His eye lit upon Uncle Henry first of all, naturally; for he had all but bumped into him.

"How are you, Smith?" he said. "Evenin'."

And Angela piped up, to both uncle and nephew: "Good evening."

Gilbert bowed. "How do you do? Won't you sit down?" And he pulled out a chair for Angela.

"No, thanks," Hardy said; but

"Yes, thanks!" his daughter decided, and popped into a seat. "Red" loved her for it.

Hardy turned to young Jones. "Well?" was all he said. He referred to his state of health—not that he cared how Gilbert felt.

"Anything but," the latter answered.

Jasper Hardy always went right to the point. He disliked equivocation; so he rasped out immediately:

"Have you got the money?"

"No."

Angela, who was tender-hearted, tried to intercede.

"Now, father!" she pleaded. She hated this business.

But Hardy paid not the slightest heed to her. He was a man of action, and women shouldn't interfere—particularly young and pretty girls.

"Then I reckon I'll have to foreclose," he went on relentlessly. "There's nothing else to do." His hands closed tightly, and his hard eyes looked even harder.

"I'm afraid you're right," Gilbert said. "I was afraid it would be inevitable. I couldn't have hoped for anything else."

"I'm sorry," Jasper Hardy announced; but did not mean it.

Gilbert told him so. "Moreover, I know how you got your money," the young man was not afraid to say.

"I know how he got mine, gol darn it!" Uncle Henry cried. Hardy glared at him, seemed to smite him with his eyes.

"I'm not in business for my health," he said coldly.

"Nor for anybody else's," Uncle Henry, unabashed, told him.

Angela feared there was going to be trouble. "Now, daddy, you mustn't—you really mustn't—I feel—"

But her father did not hear her.

"The time's up at eight o'clock," was all he said, and looked sternly at Gilbert, much as a judge who is pronouncing sentence looks at the prisoner at the bar.

"I know it," said Gilbert.

"Now, daddy—" Angela began again.

Hardy was angry at her repeated solicitation. "Will you let me alone? This is my business," he said to her in a firm voice, "Remember that, and don't attempt to put your finger in the pie. This is my business, I tell you."

"Yes, I know daddy; but you needn't be so mean about it."

"I'm a plain man, and I don't believe in beating about the bush. Get that through your head—every one of you, I mean."

"But you might at least be—" his daughter began once more.

"Won't you please keep still?" His rage was mounting; and his brow darkened.

"I only want you to be nice about it, daddy," Angela persisted, sweetly.

"How can anybody be nice about a thing like this?" said the man of iron.

"I know I could be," Angela informed him.

Her father looked at her. "Well, what would you do?"

"Give him his ranch back, of course!"

Jasper Hardy couldn't believe what he had heard, and from his own child. "Well, for the love of heaven!" he cried, and almost burst out laughing.

"We've more ranches now than we know what to do with. Everybody is aware of that."

Here was Uncle Henry's chance. "That's the idea!" he cried. "What do you want it for, anyhow?" But no one paid any attention to him.

"Oh, will you, daddy—for my sake?" Angela pleaded.

Hardy was adamant. "Certainly not! What a stupid request. How did such ideas come into your head?"

"But I don't see why—" the unremitting Angela started to say.

Her father was furious now, and tired of her prattle. He turned to "Red." "Take her out doors, will you?" as though she were a child.

"Red's" face gleamed as if a lantern had been lighted behind it. He turned eagerly to Angela. "Will I!" he cried.

But Angela was scornful. How foolish of "Red" to think her father could dismiss her in this way! She proceeded as though no such suggestion had been made, and addressed her father once more, not in the least perturbed:

"Of course, if you're going to be nasty about it—" Then, sweetly, to Gilbert she continued: "Please don't think too badly of us, Mr. Jones. Father doesn't really mean any harm."

"No more'n a rattlesnake," Uncle Henry leaned out of his chair to whisper in a voice that could be heard by everyone.

"It's just that he doesn't know any better," Angela went on to Gilbert. "He's really very neighborly when he wants to be."

She rose, and "Red" offered her his arm; but she haughtily rejected it, and went out the door, unaware that the devoted and humble "Red" followed her.

Jasper Hardy was glad she had gone. He could speak freely now. He addressed Jones.

"Packed up yet?" he inquired, sarcastically, as though he meant to intimate that his coming journey would be a pleasant one.

Gilbert could have struck him; but he replied quietly: "I'll just put on my hat and I'll be ready."

But the literal-minded Hardy remarked:

"Them crockery, and the rugs?" pointing to the articles significantly.

"The rugs I'm presenting to a friend of mine. The crockery goes to the cook. He has a family, you know." His irony was lost on the imperturbable Hardy, who merely asked:

"And you ain't got anything more to say, Jones?" He watched him closely.

"Nothing of general interest."

But Uncle Henry wasn't going to let matters end here.

"I've got something to say," he announced like an oracle. "Your daughter wants to marry him!" He imagined this would prove a thunderbolt; but Hardy calmly asked:

"How do you know that?"

"Because she told me, that's how! And if only the gol darn fool would do it like I want him to—" He addressed himself suddenly to his nephew, who now stood on the other side of the table: "Aw, come on. Be a good feller, won't you?"

Again this outlandish interfering on the part of Uncle Henry! Was the old fellow losing his reason? There was no privacy in their affairs—everything was an open book to anyone who came to the adobe. It was getting to be unbearable. Gilbert had controlled himself long enough in the presence of others. He was sick and tired of the old man's meddling.

"Keep still!" he warned him, and shook his finger in his face, "Keep still, I say!" His cheeks were scarlet with rage. The blood pounded in his veins.

The invalid never lost his courage. "You won't marry her?" was what he said.

"How can I, you—you—" Gilbert could scarcely stand it any longer.

"Gol darn, the gol darn—" cried Uncle Henry; and then he swerved on Jasper Hardy: "Maybe you can persuade him," he suggested.

"Persuade him to what?"

"To marry her," Smith brazenly said.

"I don't want him to marry her," the father was honest enough to say.

This had never occurred to Uncle Henry. "What's the matter with him?" he asked, his eyes opening wide in amazement.

"It would take too long to tell you." Hardy considered the argument closed; but Uncle Henry came right back again:

"But he's my nevyer!"

"That's one of my main reasons," Hardy cruelly announced; and the only come-back poor Uncle Henry had was an exasperated, "Oh, is that so!" drawled out peevishly, weakly.

"I want his ranch, not him," Hardy went on. He might have been discussing someone not in the room.

"But he's a fine young feller, if I do say so!" Uncle Henry came to Gilbert's rescue, after the manner of all relatives when an outsider steps in with criticism.

"Only a minute ago I heard you call him a gol darn fool!" Hardy triumphantly reminded him.

"There you are," said Gilbert, addressing his uncle. "That's what you get—"

"Do you think I want my darter to marry a gol darn fool?" Hardy fired back at the old man.

Uncle Henry was flabbergasted, completely done for, for the moment. "Well, what the—" But he could get no farther.

Jasper Hardy looked at Gilbert, "Well, now that's settled."

Uncle Henry butted in once more. "You won't let her?"

"Let her what?" A pair of steely eyes were fixed on the questioner.

"Marry him. Won't you?"

"Of course not. What are you talking about, you old fool?"

Uncle Henry was not to be outdone. He whisked around, facing the door, and called at the top of his voice:

"Angely! Angely!"

From the yard came back, "Yes, I'm coming!" and Hardy's daughter ran in, with "Red" at her heels.

"Did you call me?" she wanted to know, looking at all three.

"Yes; I did," said Uncle Henry. "I wanted to tell you that it ain't no use. They won't neither of 'em do nothin'."

"Who won't?" asked Angela, mystified. She hadn't an idea what the old man was talking about.

"The poor stiffs!" said Uncle Henry.

"Do what?" Angela pursued.

"I asked 'em!" the invalid whined.

The girl grew impatient. "For goodness' sake, asked them what?"

"To marry you, of course!"

Angela thought she must be dreaming.

"You—asked him—to marry me?" She looked about her, bewildered.

"Yes; and he turned you down!"

Surely now this must be a dream! "Red," too, was in a daze, suffering vicariously for his adored one.

"Oh!" cried Angela, when a full realization of what Uncle Henry meant came over her.

Uncle Henry went on: "Like your own payrent—the stony-hearted old reptile!"

"Oh, Gil—" began Angela in tears.

"Go on—you ask 'em!" suggested Uncle Henry.

"Gil—" the girl got out the first syllable of his name, and no more; for her little handkerchief was at her pretty nose.

"I'm sorry," said Gilbert, gallantly, going to her. "Please don't feel badly about it."

"Don't—don't speak to me!" Angela sniffed, and stamped her dainty foot. "Don't look at me! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you all!" Blinded with rage and tears, she crossed the room, and stumbled directly into Uncle Henry's chair, and all but tipped him over. "Red" followed her, solicitously.

"Now, Angela—" he said, and tried to grasp her arm. "Remember, I'm here!"

But all the thanks he got was a wild, "Get out of my way!" and he found himself pushed aside, into a corner. Another of her unsuspected tantrums!

"My God!" ejaculated Uncle Henry, furious at Angela's accident, which so directly concerned himself, "but everybody's unreasonable to-day!" He turned harshly on his nephew. "You make me sick, you! Here am I doing my gol darndest to save the mess you've made, and you won't even—" He broke off, unable, in his wrath, to continue. His eye lit on Hardy. "Look here," he cried, in desperation, "ain't there no way out of this thing? It was my money that bought this ranch, you know. And everybody knows it! The last ten thousand dollars I had in the world!" There was a sob in his voice on the last words.

Hardy looked at him, but with no pity in his gaze. "That's your lookout, Smith. Everybody for himself—that's my motto."

"And you'd throw me, old and sick, a invalid, out into the streets?" Uncle Henry whined. No one could get more pathos into his tones than Uncle Henry when he wanted to do so.

"No; I'd let you wheel yourself out," Jasper Hardy, again the literal-minded Hardy, said. It was one of the meanest remarks that even he had ever made.

"Say, ain't you got no heart at all?" Uncle Henry wanted to know.

"I used to have; but it cost me too much money," was Hardy's explanation and vindication. "Sentiment? Bosh!" And he made a gesture of deep disgust.

Uncle Henry wanted to put a curse on him! "Well, all I hope is that some day you'll go broke and they'll bounce you out into Main Street!" He chuckled in his chair.

"The line forms on the left," the imperturbable Hardy said. "You're the fifth that's had that hope this year. I don't care a rap what you think, old feller! Remember that!"

A shadow appeared on the doorsill; and Morgan Pell came in. His face was harder than ever. It was obvious that he had not thrown away the bottle of tequila until he had consumed the contents. His eye lit on Hardy at once, but he said nothing to him. Instead, he meandered toward Gilbert and observed, insolently enough:

"Look here, you've kept me waiting too long. What does this mean, eh?"

"I'm sorry," Gilbert returned. "I forgot all about you for the moment. Oh," he suddenly remembered that Hardy and Pell were unacquainted, "you two gentlemen ought to know each other. Mr. Pell, shake hands with Mr. Hardy."

Pell gave the other a curt nod. "How are you?" was all he could bring himself to say.

"Pleased to meet you," answered Hardy, and turned away, "Red" and Angela, interested spectators of this foolish proceeding, sat together on the little settee by the window near the door, and smiled at the shillyshallying of two grown men who should have known better. Civilization! A mockery, surely, when two men couldn't be amenable in the presence of others—two men who apparently had no reason for treating each other this way.

Pell suddenly addressed Jones. "I forgot to tell you that we're going this afternoon."

"I'm sorry," said his host.

"And before I go," Pell went on, "there's a matter of business I want to talk over with you. So if this gentleman is through—" he indicated Hardy with his thumb.

"Oh, I'll be through, all right—at eight o'clock to-night!" Jasper Hardy announced, and drew several silver dollars out of his trousers pocket and rattled them about in his hand, significantly.

"What do you mean, eight o'clock?" Pell wondered.

Hardy's eyes pierced him through and through. "When I foreclose the mortgage I hold on this ranch. Understand now?"

"When you foreclose...." Pell repeated the words as if he had not quite comprehended. Then he said to young Jones: "You said this ranch belongs to you?" What was the matter with him? Was his mind clouding? The stuff he had drunk? He put his hand to his forehead.

"It does," Gilbert explained. "You see, it isn't eight o'clock yet." A faint smile came to his lips.

Hardy failed to see the humor of the situation. "It's as good as eight o'clock, as far as he's concerned." And he rattled the silver coins again.

"Oh, is that so?" said Pell, beginning to see daylight. To young Jones he said: "How far is it to town?"

"Twenty miles, I should say."

Pell thought a second, "Is that flivver of yours working, Jones?"

"In a way."

Pell thought harder. "We've got plenty of time," he said, as if to himself. "Five hours! Get your hat," turning to the young man.

Gilbert was confused. "What's the idea?"

"We're going to pay the mortgage, of course. How much is it?"

"Shouldn't you have asked that first—as a good business man?"

"Answer me: how much is it?"

"Ten thousand dollars," came the quick response.

"And your equity?" Pell pursued, businesslike enough now.

"Another ten thousand."

He thought Morgan Pell would be stunned. Instead, he merely said, "I'll give you twenty thousand. That'll pay the mortgage and give you your ten back. You can give me an option while I'm arranging payment. Get me? That'll save time."

"You mean you'll give me twenty thousand dollars for this ranch?" Gilbert said, unable to understand.

"Exactly. Will you take it?"

"You bet your life he'll take it!" cried Uncle Henry, whom everyone had forgotten in the excitement of the moment. He rolled his chair expertly to the table, and peered into his nephew's face, fearing he would make a fool of himself once more. He was trembling with excitement.

"Then that's settled," Pell announced.

Unnoticed, Lucia had come to the top of the stairway, and stood listening to every word. And Hardy, who had been trying his best to get a word in edgewise, finally managed to cry out:

"Wait a minute!"

No one paid any attention to him. Gilbert was in deep meditation. He turned to Pell. "But I don't want to be under any obligation to you," he said.

"You won't," the other affirmed, and anxiety was in his voice. "Well, is it a go?"

"A go?" yelled Uncle Henry, unable to restrain himself. "It's gone!"

Hardy stepped in between Pell and Jones.

"Hold on, there! You can't do this."

Pell looked him squarely in the face, "Why not, I'd like to know."

"You mean you'd do me out of this property at the last minute?" Jasper Hardy asked.

Pell smiled. "That's my specialty!"

Indignation was in every fiber of Hardy's gaunt frame. He was losing his temper, and he was wise enough to know that that would never do. The unforgivable sin was to lose control of oneself. He must hold on to his voice, his movements; but a nest of hornets, under attack, could not have been angrier. "I protest!" he said, as calmly as he could. "Here I been settin' around waitin' for this place for five years! You can't come here an' take it away from me like this! No, sir, I won't have it!"

"Look here," Gilbert stepped in and said. "You're getting your money! What are you boiling about?"

"Red" had been listening attentively. He came close to Gilbert now, and said, "He wants the place. Didn't he just say so?"

"The place?" Gilbert repeated. "What the devil does he want the place for?"

Pell was growing impatient. There was too much quibbling. "We're losing time. Come on, let's get things settled."

Jones, however, was not to be hurried. "But I want to know why he wants this place so much." His suspicions were thoroughly aroused.

No one had observed Uncle Henry, who had silently wheeled his chair about until he got to the table, where Pell had left his satchel long ago. Like a curious old woman he now picked it up, brazenly opened it, and exclaimed:

"Hey! What the Sam Hill!" and backed away; but not until he had dipped his hands into the bag.

"What's the matter?" Gilbert asked, turning.

"It's full o' dirt! Just dirt!" Uncle Henry cried, and glanced about to see the effect of his surprising information.

"Dirt?" Gilbert said, not understanding.

"Yes, look!" And the old man pointed to the bag.

"But whose bag is it?" Gilbert persisted.

Uncle Henry lifted a thin finger and directed it to Pell. "His'n!" he said.

But Gilbert was still in a daze.

"But what in the world could anybody be taking specimens of the soil around here for?" he inquired, and then began to think.

"Just to show the character of the ground, to see what will grow best," Pell hastened to explain.

"But it won't grow nothin'—not even rocks, an' you know it," the occupant of the wheel chair said. Then a new thought came to him, and he shot out, "By golly, I got it! He's an oil man, ain't he?"

Pell, furious, cried, "Oh, shut up! You old busybody!"

"He wants to buy this ranch because there's oil here!" Uncle Henry went on, not dismayed in the least at the other's insult.

"Bah!" Pell scornfully ejaculated.

Gilbert's face was a study. His eyes went from one to another in the room. "Oil?" he said. "Oil?"

"Yes, an' that's why he wants it, too!" cried Uncle Henry, pointing to Hardy this time, "The big skin!"

Pell took up the satchel—the little bag that had caused such a big sensation—and walked over to Uncle Henry's chair.

"Why, you poor old dotard, there's no oil in these specimens. You can smell 'em yourself if you want to," he said. But there was something in his manner of the lady who doth protest too much.

"No, I can't," Uncle Henry was swift to deny. "My smeller's no good." He sniffed comically—as if that proved his point.

"Let him examine them, then," suggested Pell, holding the satchel out to Gilbert, who stood on the other side of the table.

But Gilbert said nothing. It was Uncle Henry who again blurted out:

"That don't prove nothin'. Mebbe he hasn't found the oil yet. But it's here! If it ain't, why should you be fightin' so hard to get this rotten place? Tell me that, will you? Nobody else ever wanted it—except this kindly neighbor of ours!" He glared at Hardy triumphantly.

Pell was silent. Gilbert came to himself.

"Oil!" he said. "Then this ranch, instead of being worth nothing, would be worth hundreds of thousand of dollars—maybe millions!" He had taken the bag from Pell's extended hand, and now turned in dismay and confusion to the window, and put the bag on a chair. What a world it was, and how terrible that every other man seemed to be a predatory animal, ready to spring upon his neighbor and wrest anything he had away from him. What a world, indeed! No wonder young men lost their faith and courage!

"Millions!" The word caught Uncle Henry's fancy and imagination. He rolled it over on his tongue again and again. "Millions!" He babbled it, he played with it. "Millions!"

"Yes!" Gilbert said. "Think of that!" He turned and faced the others once more.

"An' we're goin' to get skinned out of millions! Oh, my Gawd!" The poor old invalid wailed it out, and rocked himself in his chair. How he wished he could rise, step out on the floor and knock Pell and Hardy down! Why didn't his strong and husky young nephew do it? What was the matter with the present generation, anyhow? Wasn't there any red blood in it? If he had only been younger, and strong, able to fight for what he knew to be his rights! But here he was, tied down in a wheel chair, trapped, helpless, impotent.

Pell was getting nervous, "This is nonsense," he said. "There's no oil here."

During all this long harangue, Lucia had quietly come down the stairs, and now stood directly behind her husband.

"And this is why you were so anxious to come here," she said, very low; yet everyone heard her statement. "To dig around, and then, if you found oil, to try to buy this place! Oh, I thought better of you than that, Morgan! What a trick—what a dishonorable trick!" She shuddered away from him. She almost hated him in this revealing moment.

"And why not?" was all her husband said. "Hadn't I a right to look for oil here? Suppose it was on the place?"

"You wouldn't have told him if you had found it! You know you wouldn't," his wife shot back at him.

Pell glared at her, fury in the look. "What do you think I am? Crazy?" he argued.

"But that isn't honest!" Lucia fearlessly said. "It's as crooked as it can be! And you know it."

"But it's legal!" Pell fired back. "And what do I care—what does anybody care—so long as it's legal! Ha! the courts would be with me! Moreover, it's the way you get the clothes you wear and the food you eat, and all those jewels that you hang on yourself when you undress and go to the opera!"

As he spoke, angrily, he went over to the chair where Gilbert had left the satchel, seized it and threw it on the floor, as though its contents were a symbol of the money she tossed away.

There was no use replying to a man like Pell. Lucia knew that. He was indignant that she had seen through his treachery. Here he was, a guest of Gilbert Jones, eating at his table day after day, pretending to be his friend, and all the while he had been planning this! And she had seemed to be a part of it all. What must Gilbert think of her? What must everybody think of her?

It was Hardy who broke the tension.

"Say," he wanted to know, "who's this woman, and what's she busting into this for? We've had enough of petticoats around here for one day, it seems to me."

Uncle Henry was swift to inform him. "I'll tell you who she is—she's his wife!" And he pointed to Pell. "But she loves him!" And he pointed to Gilbert.

It was as though a bomb had exploded. Terror came into Gilbert's eyes, and fury into Morgan Pell's.

"What's that?" the latter cried, aghast. As a madman might, he stared at Gilbert for an instant; then his gaze shot in the direction of his wife, standing so calm at the other side of the table.

Young Jones almost made up his mind, in that blinding moment, to choke Uncle Henry once for all, and have it done with. This was the last stroke, the final straw. He could stand it no longer. He stalked over to his uncle, and really intended to lay violent hands on him; but of course he could not. That defenseless old man, that pathetic figure seemed to wilt before his piercing eyes, seemed to shrivel and literally fall to pieces. In hot disgust, Gilbert could only cry out:

"How dare you! How dare you, I say! This is the crowning interference!" He had put his hands behind his back and braced his shoulders, fearing that he would not be responsibile for what he did.

Uncle Henry, seeing that he was safe, came back to the fray.

"Well, you couldn't marry her," indicating Lucia, "an' you wouldn't marry her," pointing to Angela. "I guess I got some right to protect myself, ain't I?"

"Protect yourself!" repeated Gilbert, cynicism in his tone. He turned his back on them all and moved to the window. His very shoulders revealed the mental struggle he was going through.

Morgan Pell's eyes, all this time, had never left his wife. He studied her countenance as a pathologist might that of a person thought to be insane, and Lucia almost gave way under his relentless analysis. "Red," seeing the turn affairs had taken, quietly drew his gun, and Angela, frightened, put her hands over her shell-like ears. If there was one thing she dreaded, it was a shot. She was trembling like a leaf. She closed her eyes. She knew that "Red," in his devotion to Gilbert, would not hesitate to kill Pell.

With an inscrutable expression, Morgan Pell murmured, "H'm!" Then he turned swiftly on Uncle Henry and asked, "You have proof, I suppose?"

"Proof?" cried Uncle Henry.

"Yes."

"My Gawd," the invalid fairly shrieked, "all you gotter do is look at 'em! I been watchin' 'em ever since you came."

At this, Gilbert honestly believed that Uncle Henry had lost his reason. Surely this was the insane delusion of a senile old man; and he said as much to Pell.

"Senile yourself!" cried Uncle Henry, mad through and through, feeling he was immune from any attack. "Gol darn you!"

So there was no shutting Uncle Henry up! Gilbert, in despair, turned to Pell. "You don't believe it! You can't believe it!" he said. "This is madness—"

Pell said not a word; he seemed to be in deep thought. Suddenly his whole manner changed, his voice as well, and he faced Gilbert frankly.

"Certainly I don't believe it. My confidence in my wife is implicit."

The metamorphosis was unbelievable. At least Uncle Henry thought so.

"Well, I always heard that husbands was boobs!" he announced, sarcastically.

Angela at that instant opened her eyes and took her fingers from her ears. Enough time had elapsed, she thought, for the worst to have happened.

"Has it gone off yet?" she naively asked.

"Has what gone off?" from Pell.

"Why, the gun, of course!" Angela replied.

"Gun?"

She looked at "Red." "He had one, and I thought maybe he'd shoot you, or maybe you'd shoot Gilbert, or maybe—Aren't you going to shoot him?"

"What for?"

"I thought that was what husbands always did!"

Pell smiled. "Not sensible husbands, my dear." Then he faced Gilbert again. "To go back to where we were: I will admit that there is a possibility of oil in this property. But it is only a possibility." The strain was broken. Everyone looked relieved. Lucia moved for the first time—she had been like a frightened bird under the spell of a serpent. "I'm a business man," Pell went on, suavely. "I'm willing to gamble twenty thousand dollars."

"You will?" cried Uncle Henry. There was no quieting him. His life was one long question-mark.

"It's a fair proposition, and, as far as I can see, your only way out, Jones." He had paid no attention to the old man's interruption. But the latter broke in once more:

"Why don't you lend us the ten thousand and let us gamble?"

Pell was in no wise disconcerted by the query. He replied with another question—always the shrewd man's way out of a difficulty, "Would you, in my place?"

"Sure I would!" came from the wheel chair.

"Oh, you would—"

"Yes, sir!"

Pell had nothing further to say to him, but addressed himself to Gilbert again.

"However, if you don't think that offer fair, I'll give you twenty thousand cash and assume the mortgages."

"Twenty thousand?" Uncle Henry's eyes opened wide.

"Well, what do you say?" Pell wanted to know, still addressing Gilbert. He had no taste for Smith's constant interruptions.

But Hardy broke in, confounded by this talk. He saw himself slipping out of the transactions. "If you think you're going to ..."

Pell paid no heed to what he said. "If I were in your place," he remarked to young Jones, "it wouldn't take me long to decide. You see, from me you get twenty thousand dollars clean. Otherwise, the place goes to him." He nodded toward Hardy. "And you get nothing. It's mighty plain—as plain as the nose on your face. I'm a plain man, and I don't quibble. I've made you a direct offer. Nothing could be fairer. Well?"

Gilbert didn't pause or hesitate a second. "All right. Give him the ten thousand," indicating Hardy.

Morgan Pell was visibly relieved. Things seemed to be going his way, just as he had planned. Sturgis had been right, after all. He rubbed his hands in satisfaction, "And now, to facilitate matters," he said, "if you will give us a ten-day option on the place, at a purchase price of thirty thousand ..." He went to the table, and arranged pen and paper, and motioned Gilbert to be seated and write.

The latter was in the chair at once. "Thank you, no. Twenty," he said, and began to write.

"Twenty?" Pell repeated, and stroked his chin. He must be wary; he must go cautiously with this young fellow. He would see through him if he didn't. "Certainly. Your first offer is the one I take," Gilbert said in a firm voice.

Uncle Henry couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You mean you ain't going to take the other ten?" he cried, in surprise. Gilbert never looked up from his writing. The pen was moving swiftly over the paper. Uncle Henry was on the verge of a nervous breakdown then and there. He looked at Pell, eagerly. "Give it to me! I'll take it!"

But Pell only said: "Mr. Jones is the owner of this property," and watched the young man write.

Angela, like a timid bird, watched the proceedings breathlessly, and moved over close to her big father and put her little hand in his arm, "Isn't there anything we can do, dad?" she inquired.

Hardy pressed her fingers, and said, in a whisper: "But I'm not sure there's oil here. I'm not sure at all."

"But he seems to be," said the shrewd Angela, looking at Morgan Pell with his wily countenance.

"Oh, these New York fellers!" Hardy deprecated. "You never can tell!"

Gilbert rose.

"Finished?" asked Pell.

"Quite." And young Jones handed him the option on the property.



CHAPTER VII

WHEREIN LUCIA SEES TREACHERY BREWING, PELL PROVES HIMSELF A BRUTE, AND AN UNEXPECTED GUEST APPEARS

When Lucia saw Gilbert pass the paper to her husband, she thought she could not stand it. It was not her concern; and yet it was. Vitally, whatever affected young Jones affected her. She could not see him tricked, duped. And she knew that he was being played with, made a fool of. Some ulterior motive lay beneath this seeming generosity. She tried to control herself; but suddenly she found herself speaking.

"No! Don't! I can't—"

But she could get no farther. Something seemed to choke her, and make it impossible for her to continue.

Her husband looked at her in amazement. She turned away, and was silent.

"Thank you," said Pell to Gilbert. Then, to his wife he said: "And now that this is settled, we shall proceed to other business of even more importance. This gentle soul," looking at Uncle Henry, "has said that our friend loves you and that you love him. Is it true?" He was perfectly calm.

Once more he was the crafty, cruel, scheming man; and back into his eyes came that glitter she so feared.

Gilbert, astonished, got to the other side of the table.

"I thought we were through with all that!" he said. "What's the use of harping on it?"

"You were wrong," answered Pell, coldly. "I am a business man, as I told you before. I do one thing at a time." His lids half closed, his hands clenched. He swerved abruptly on his wife. "Well?" he said. "Well?"

"You mean to say," said Gilbert, "that you took seriously what my doddering old uncle said? I told you I thought he was crazy, and you seemed to agree with me. What are you talking about now?"

Morgan Pell's steel-gray eyes fastened themselves on Jones, "I am talking to my wife. I am not ready for you—yet. One thing at a time, you know." He looked again at Lucia. "Well? I am waiting. Answer me: Do you love him?"

Alarm at Pell's manner was rife in the room. What a brute he was, and how terrible was his verbal attack!

Lucia could not trust herself to speak. She knew she would have to reply to her husband's question, and though she knew her answer would be but a monosyllable, she could not get it out.

"Well?" Pell repeated, and the word was like a hammer-blow.

"No!" Lucia managed to say.

The husband now turned on Gilbert. "Do you love her?" he asked with great deliberation, as though he had rehearsed it in his mind for days.

"Certainly not," was the immediate reply.

The silence that followed could have been cut with a knife. Everyone stood as though turned to stone. Surely this denial would be enough. Pell did not move. A menacing expression came over his face. As though there were no one else in the world, he glanced first at his wife and then at Jones, and affirmed with quiet deliberation:

"You're a couple of rotten liars!"

Had he been struck in the face, Gilbert could not have been angrier. He saw it all now—he was in this man's power, utterly. It had been planned craftily, smoothly. And there was no escape for Lucia. God! what he had gotten her in for! He cursed the tongue of Uncle Henry, and mentally he heaped maledictions on his own head for his gross stupidity. So this was how the land lay—this was the path that led to his destruction—ah! not only his, but hers! Angry as he was, he knew it would be futile to do anything but try, even now, to placate this wretched specimen of a man. He had to think quickly. There was not an instant to lose.

"But you said you didn't believe ..." he began; but Pell came mercilessly back at him!

"I didn't—then. The time was inopportune."

Uncle Henry clutched the arms of his chair. "Ooooooh! The dirty bum!" he yelled.

Pell went on, inexorably. "But now that she herself has admitted it, and—"

"Admitted it!" Gilbert cried, his rage now at the boiling point.

"Yes! By everything she has said and done to-day. My dear fellow," with a subtle change of tone, "God knows I am no prude." He smiled a bland smile. "But there are limits to what any husband can endure." His lips became thin and terrible; his eyes were gleaming slits.

Gilbert was aghast. He saw no solution of this painful situation; no safety for Lucia—his thoughts were all of Lucia.

"You don't think that!" he said, "You couldn't possibly think that! Oh, my God!"

Morgan Pell sneered at him. "I know what I would have done, in your place and with your opportunities."

Gilbert found it hard to realize that any husband could say a thing like this in the presence of his wife. It revealed, if anything further were needed to reveal, the cur in the man.

"We're not all as rotten as you are, Pell! Don't forget that!" he cried. "You're a dog—a low-down dog." It was all he could do not to spring upon this craven and pin him to the floor.

"And we're not all as discreet as you!" Pell flung back. "And now, if you don't mind," he added insinuatingly, "I'd like to talk to my wife—alone."

Gilbert was consumed with fear for Lucia. "What?" he cried.

"Have you any objections?" Pell said, curling his lip. The irony in his tone was unmistakable.

Gilbert moved toward the door. "Why—no."

"Thank you," Pell said; and he threw wide the door leading from the alcove so that his host might pass through. He waited for him to do so. Gilbert hesitated for the fraction of a second. He looked at Pell, and then at Lucia, still lovely for all her suffering. There was nothing to say—nothing he could say. He disappeared into the other room, and shut the door behind him. Pell immediately turned to the others. "Well?" he said.

"You mean you want us to get out too?" Uncle Henry asked, indignation in his high voice.

"That's exactly what I do mean," Morgan Pell stated, firmly. "And the sooner the better."

The situation, he felt, was entirely in his hands.

"Oh, very well!" Uncle Henry replied. He pushed his chair toward the door, murmuring as he went, "Thank God I ain't his wife! That's all I got to say!"

Hardy was still standing in the shadows. He looked at "Red." "What's he going to do?" meaning Pell.

"I don't know. I—" the foreman answered. Angela, frightened, followed the husky "Red" through the door; and the husband and wife were left entirely alone.

There was a pregnant silence. Terror came into Lucia's heart. Her brain reeled. She had seen Morgan in a temper before—many times; but never with quite this sinister light in his eyes, this tense, quiet force behind his slightest gesture. What was he going to say to her? She felt like an animal at bay. She determined that she would gain one advantage by making him be the first to speak. But as he approached her slowly, fear seized her. He seemed no longer a man, just a hulking giant—a brutal, frenzied creature; and something quite apart from herself caused her to cry out:

"What are you going to do?" Oddly there flashed into her mind that very line, and she wondered where she had heard it. Yes, even in her terror, her abject fear, she remembered. It was once when, as a child, she had seen a dramatization of "Oliver Twist." Bill Sykes came toward Nancy, just as Morgan was coming toward her now, with leering countenance, and the poor wretch had screamed out: "What are you going to do?" That scene was forever photographed on her brain, and now, from some strange recess, Nancy's pitiful words came back to her.

He did not answer. Another step, and he would be upon her.

"What is it, Morgan? Oh, what is it?" She shrunk back, slowly. If he touched her ...

But he did not lift his hand, as she fully expected him to do. Instead, he uttered only two words. They were a command.

"Kiss me!"

Almost she would rather have felt his blows raining on her head.

"What?" she cried, a new amazement within her.

He glared down at her. His breath was on her cheek.

"You heard," he stated. And he stood stock still.

Frightened beyond believing or seeing, she offered her cheek to him. "But I—" she managed to get out.

Pell saw that she was shrinking away again; she could not bring herself to do as he willed.

"So!" her husband cried, significantly. Now she realized, in a blinding flash, the cruel subtlety behind his test of her. Her head went back; she closed her eyes. And then—how she did it she never knew—she raised her mouth.

"I don't want to kiss you." It was the refinement of cruelty. "I want you to kiss me. Do it!" His hands were behind his back. He stood straight and stiff as an Indian chief.

He watched her least movement. He put his lips very close to her mouth. She struggled in that one mad second, and tried to kiss him. She could not—she could not bring herself to the act.

He laughed sardonically. The devil himself could not have laughed liked that.

"Some women could have done it," he told her, sternly. "But not you, my dear...." Fury and sarcasm were in his tone. "So! That's it, is it? And I stand blindly by while you and he ..."

Utter madness seemed to rush upon him.

Lucia had backed to the table. "No! I can't. You—you brute!"

Pell watched her, steadily. "Do you think I am a fool? Or that you are more than human?" he cried out.

"I swear to God!" she contradicted him.

"Ha! You've had your turn, my lady! Now, it's mine! And after all I've done for you, you ungrateful hussy!"

The clock struck three. It seemed an eternity until the little bell ceased. Her life with him swam before her in that brief period. All she could utter was:

"What are you going to do?" And she clutched her hands in helplessness, for she read some sinister purpose in his voice.

"I'm going to do what I once saw another sensible husband do under these circumstances."

Lucia's face was ashen now. "What is that?"

A second's pause. She hung on his answer.

"Horses don't know who they really belong to. So they are branded. There is no reason why women equally ignorant shouldn't be similarly treated." Every word was measured, uttered with fearful distinctness. His hand shot behind him on the table, where "Red" had left his spurs. Lucia saw the swift movement.

"No!" she screamed, "Oh, no, Morgan, not that!" Her senses reeled. The earth crashed beneath her.

But he paid no heed. He seized her fiercely by one arm, reaching far out to do so, and, gorilla-like, he had her, this weak flower, in his clutches. He pinioned her deftly, and thrust her lovely body back, until her face looked upward from the table. With his right hand, he started to tear her beautiful face to shreds with the cruel spurs, forever to ruin her glorious features, when, as if through a miracle, the door was thrown wide open, and a strange figure stood on the sill—a Mexican in a great sombrero, a flaming red kerchief at his throat, and eyes that gleamed and glistened, teeth that were like the whitest ivory.

He stood, with arms crossed, surveying the scene. If lightning had struck the adobe, Pell could not have been more dazed.

He released his wife. "What the devil!" he cried. "Who are you?"

"Hold up your hands!" yelled the bandit, stepping over the threshold. And Pell's hands went up, like magic, the spurs jangling to the floor.

There was a noise without, and Uncle Henry was pushed in by a crude, foul-looking Mexican, then came "Red," Angela, and Hardy, followed by another Mexican bandit, and several Mexicans.

"Who is he? What does this mean?" Pell cried out.

"This is Pancho Lopez!" "Red" Giddings said. Everyone's hands were lifted, and pistols were held by the Mexicans, ready to go off at the slightest sign of rebellion.

"Pancho Lopez?" Pell repeated, frightened almost to the breaking point.

The bandit, a strange smile upon his lips, and hidden laughter in his eyes, knew his power. The situation was one in which he reveled. He gazed around him, triumphantly. His legs were spread apart, a cigarette drooped nonchalantly from his lips.

"Senors, senoras!" he announced, in fascinating broken English, "you are all my preesoner!"



CHAPTER VIII

WHEREIN THE BANDIT EXPOUNDS A NEW PHILOSOPHY, AND MAKES MARIONETTES OF THE AMERICANS

"Put all ze men outside," Lopez ordered. Venustiano and Pedro, his chief lieutenants, obeyed at once, forcing them to march ahead of them, and standing guard over them near a great cactus bush a few feet from the adobe. "Leave ze women with me," the bandit continued. "But first, Alvarada, you find ze cook. I am 'ongry."

"Si," answered Alvarada; and after he had made certain that Pedro and Venustiano could handle the three men, one of whom, after all, was but an invalid in a wheel chair, he made his way to the kitchen. He knew there were two other companions who would help in any emergency. They slunk in the background, cigarettes between their lips, guns always ready for action. The house was completely surrounded.

Lucia and Angela, left alone with Lopez, revealed the deep concern they felt. They watched the bandit as he pawed through some papers on the table. With maddening indifference he then lighted another cigarette, and went over to the door, looking out at the male prisoners. Finally he turned upon them, looked them over, and remarked:

"What a pity. Only two women!"

They shuddered away from his gaze.

There was a noise from the direction of the kitchen, and Alvarada, with the miserable little Mexican cook ahead of him, rushed in.

He was addressing him in Spanish: "Usted si cusinero. Borachi!"

Lopez gave one glance at the poor specimen who had charge of the kitchen.

"The cook," he laughed. "He is dronk!" He now addressed him directly: "You are dronk," he affirmed, and stamped his foot.

Frightened, the boy cried: "No! No!" Certainly he was under the influence of the deadly tequila; but when he saw the bandit's face, and realized that he was in his power, he became suddenly and miraculously sober. He was firmly convinced that his last moment on this earth had come. He knew that a man like Lopez never hesitated to shoot to kill. He realized in the twinkling of an eye how late it was, how the dinner had been delayed through his drunkenness; and this visitor would brook no further waiting. He fully expected to be shot against the door. Therefore, to save time, he slunk to the entrance of the kitchen, placed himself against the jamb, crossed himself, muttered a rapid, incoherent prayer in Spanish, put his hands behind his back, closed his eyes and waited for the fatal shot that would send him straight to hell.

But nothing happened. Lopez looked at the cook, and said casually to Pedro:

"Not till after dinner," and puffed his cigarette.

"Despues de la comida," said Pedro.

"I will make for you!" cried the wretched cook, opening his eyes, and so relieved to be still alive that he could scarcely articulate.

"Pronto," ordered Lopez.

"Si, Madre di Dios!" cried the cook; and fled to his kitchen, tumbling over himself in his eagerness to get a meal for the bandit.

There was a pause. What would Lopez do next? Kill them all? In Spanish he began, turning to Lucia:

"Santa Maria—You come here."

Angela stepped forward.

"You mean me?" she asked, sweetly.

"No!" came the gruff voice of Lopez. "You!" pointing to the frightened Lucia.

"Why do you want me?" she asked, moving slightly toward him.

"I would look at you," the bandit replied. He was appraising her already. "Turn around." She obeyed, like an automaton, "'Ow old are you?"

She would not lie. "Twenty-four," she answered.

"Ees pretty old," laughed Lopez. "Let me see your teeth."

"My teeth!" echoed Lucia. Did he take her for a horse?

Lopez merely nodded; and, with all the self-control she could bring to her aid, she opened her mouth and showed her wonderful teeth.

"Si," remarked Lopez, evidently pleased at the sight. "An' now, 'ow much weigh?"

"I don't know exactly," Lucia said.

"What's your name?" the bandit went on.

"Lucia." "Lucia!" he rolled the name over on his tongue, and smiled. "Lucia!" he repeated. "Ees nice name." Then, "Come 'ere. Come 'ere!" He did not wait for her to move this time. He put out his hand and drew her close to him. "I would see more of you," he told her. And, to her amazement and horror, he lifted her skirt delicately, almost tenderly. Her womanhood revolted at his action. This barbarian! She slapped his hand. But Lopez paid no more attention to the blow than if a child had struck him. "Not bad," he went on, indifferently, referring to her well-turned ankle. "'Ow you like to go wiz me to Mexico? Well?" when she did not answer. "You 'eard what I said."

That she should be insulted thus! "But—oh, I couldn't do that!" she cried out, in terror.

"Why not?" Lopez demanded.

"I'm—married."

"Well, we will not take ze 'usband! Just you an' me. We go to ze bull-fight. I rob ze jewelry store for you. We get plenty dronk." She shuddered. "Sure! I show you 'ell of a good time. Well, 'ow you say?" He glared at her, almost winked, smiled, and let a ring of smoke curl upward.

Lucia turned away, ashamed, mortified. "I never heard of such a thing!" she cried. Lopez laughed. "Deedn't nobody ever offer you good time before?"

"Not like this." Lucia thought if he didn't stop soon, she would shriek.

"No? You 'ave been married all your life wiz one man?"

"Yes," she told him.

"My! what a rotten life you 'ave led!" the bandit commiserated her. "But ees not too late. I shall steel save you. But you shall not sank me. Shall not be so damn bad for me, too!"

Definite terror seized Lucia now. She knew by his tone, by his every gesture, that he was not fooling. She had heard, had read, of men like this Lopez. They were thick along the border. He meant business. Morgan had not exaggerated the danger of coming down here.

"But you wouldn't do that," she cried out.

"Why not?" Lopez said.

"It's—it's wrong!"

The bandit smiled his winning smile. "Whose beeziness what we do if we like for do him?"

"Please don't take me with you!" Lucia appealed. Why had Morgan Pell ever brought her to this border line? She might have known better than to come. It was no place for a young and attractive woman.

"You don't wish to go?" Lopez questioned, hardly believing that any pretty woman could resist his charms.

"No," cried Lucia.

"You mean you wish to stay married wiz one man?"

"Ye-es," Lucia faltered.

"Never no life? Never no fun? Ha! If you was old, fat—zen, perhaps. But young, beautiful! For why was you born if you no wish to leeve?"

"But I do wish to live!" Lucia cried in desperation; and her hands went out in an attitude of supplication.

Lopez appraised her once more. "But when I come along an' show you 'ow you raise 'ell and say no. Ees great honor to be took by Pancho Lopez into Mexico. Like 'ow you say, ze decoration for ze chest," and he indicated the spot on his coat where a war medal might be placed.

Just then, to Lucia's relief, the cook came in, bearing a tray laden with chile con carne, bread and butter, and sugar, and placed it on the table. His fright was still evident. His hands trembled, his legs shook.

"Ah! Ze food!" Pancho cried. "Good! Put zem zere!" he ordered; and the cook placed the tray closer to him. Then he turned to Lucia Pell. "You shall wait on me," he told her, as though he were conferring the greatest honor upon her.

Angela came close to him, eager again to please him. He merely pushed her to one side, and had eyes only for Lucia. "You!" he said, looking her straight in the face. He sat down, and scanned the tray, while the cook stood in terror, not daring to leave the room, but wishing to God this moment were over. Had he forgotten anything?

"I do not see ze coffee," Pancho said at last.

"I get for you!" the cook screamed in a shrill voice, and rushed for the kitchen.

"Pronto," Lopez said. Then, to Lucia, "Ze bread." She leaned over to get a piece for him. He watched her carefully. "Your hand is shake. For why? You 'fraid from me, perhaps?"

She admitted that she was afraid—a little.

"And why?" he inquired.

"Because I've heard that you kill people," she bravely told him.

"Oh, but that isn't so!" Angela broke in, fearful that the mere mention of killing would bring about a murder then and there. "I'm sure it isn't!" Nothing must be said to raise the thought in Pancho's mind.

"Why are you so sure?" Lopez demanded.

"It couldn't be! It couldn't be!" Angela declared. "Anyone so romantic as you, so—" And she tried to look her pleasantest. He must be placated, this wretched man.

"You are wrong," Lopez informed her, and also the entire room, "I do kill." Lucia, who had taken a seat near him, now drew back in alarm. He was quick to see her action.

"You need not be afraid," he heartened her. "I shall not 'urt you. That is, not yet. The chile—" she dished some out for him, hurriedly. "So! You are afraid of me because I kill people, eh?" He leaned back, and his lids contracted until his eyes looked wicked and sinister. The spangles on his sleeves trembled like leaves.

"A little," Lucia managed to say.

"You sink it wrong to kill?" Pancho wanted to know, gulping down a great mouthful of chile, and smattering a huge slice of bread with butter. He ate with his knife, like a glutton. He smacked his lips, and wiped them on the sleeve of his coat, where the brass buttons gleamed picturesquely.

"You talk of killing in such a matter-of-fact way," Lucia observed.

"An' why not?" Lopez asked.

The cook brought in the coffee-pot and put it on the table.

"Does life mean as little to you as that?" Lucia asked another question. This man was an enigma. He was bad through and through. They were as helpless as cattle in his hands.

"Life?" Lopez smiled. "To be 'ere—zat is life. Not to be 'ere—" he gulped down some steaming coffee—"zat is death. Life is a leetle thing—unless it is one's own." He put the big cup down and put in four spoonfuls of sugar, stirred it diligently, and looked around him, the wonder of a child in his face.

"You do kill your prisoners, then?" Lucia brought out.

"Sure!" laughed Pancho.

Could she have heard aright? "You do?" she cried, and her cheeks took on an ashen hue.

"Ciertamente!" the bandit stated, as though they were talking of the weather. "You capture ze preesoner. You 'ave no jail to put 'im in. You pack him around wiz you. If you let 'im go, 'e come back to fight you again. So you kill him. Eet is very simple."

"But it seems so cold-blooded!" Lucia said.

"Ah! to you, perhaps! It is ze difference between zose who live in safety and zose who live in danger. In safety you 'ave ze bill to pay. You pay it and you forget it. In danger you 'ave enemy to kill. You kill 'im an' you forget 'im. Save?" And another heaping knifeful of the chile con carne went into his mouth.

"It's too horrible!" said Lucia; and she turned away.

"Ees life too horrible?" Pancho wanted to know.

"I never knew life was like that!" she said.

"Because you 'ave never really lived," the bandit explained. "Because you 'ave been always protect by ozzers. I kill only men. And only evil men. And when I kill evil man, it make me very 'appy. For I 'ave did a good deed." His simple philosophy pleased him.

"But who decides whether a man is good or evil'"

"I do!" answered Lopez, quick as a flash, and wondering how she could have asked so stupid a question.

"Oh, do let me pour some more coffee for you!" Angela begged.

"If you wish," Lopez said, indifferently. It mattered little to him now who waited upon him. His inner man had been partially satisfied. He leaned back in his chair, at peace with all the world. One spurred and booted foot was on the table.

"Oh, thank you!" Angela was all smiles. She was making headway with this evil man. "Thank you so much," she followed up, and, standing sweetly at his left, she poured the brown stuff into his cup. "Lovely weather, isn't it?" she remarked. The cook took the pot from her, and went back to the kitchen with it.

"Si," Lopez said. "Sit down. Sit down." Angela thought of course he was speaking to her, and being kind to her because of her girlish attentions. So she promptly seated herself. "No, not you!" Pancho said roughly, putting six spoons of sugar in this second cup. "You, I mean," indicating Lucia once more. Angela pouted, and turned her back on this bad, bad man. Pancho never even noticed her. The more opulent beauty of Lucia appealed to the sensuous in him. "You," he repeated. "Tell me, senora, 'ave you never been to a free country?"

Lucia was surprised at his question.

"A free country?" she said.

"Yes; like Mexico, for instance."

"Don't you call the United States a free country?" Lucia asked him.

He almost roared his head off. "The United—Bah! Ees the most unfree country what is. Every man, every woman, is slave—slave to law, slave to custom, slave to everysing. You get up such time; eat such time," his hands went out in Latin frenzy. "Every day you work such time, every night go to bed such time. And, Madre di Dios, every week you take bath such time!" This was, to him, the ultimate joke. "An' you call it a free country! Ees only one free country. Ees one in which man does as she damn please. Like Mexico!" he ended.

The women were astounded. They had always thought of Mexico as a land of rough-and-tumble, comic-opera revolutions; a place where one must forever be on the lookout for trouble; where robbers were rife and the days were nothing but a chain of abominations. A sunny, beautiful country, maybe; but no place for a God-fearing American citizen to settle. Why, they would as soon commit murder in Mexico as go to market.

"Haven't you any laws in Mexico?" Lucia inquired.

"We 'ave—ze best," Lopez was swift to reply.

"But you just said—" Angela started to remind him, and took a little stool and moved close to him, seating herself upon it. She did not want him to forget her girlish sweetness. Lopez paid no heed to her.

"They are ze best because each man makes them for 'imself. Not like New York, where everybody tell you what you cannot do until zere is nozzing left what you want to do."

Angela piped up: "You've been to New York?"

"When I was agent for Madero—yes. I live at ze big hotel. I 'ave planty money. Ees no damn prohibition. I get dronk. I 'ave 'ell of a time. Sure! I see 'im all! New York!" he smiled in recollection.

"And you didn't like it?" Angela persisted, moving her little stool even closer to him.

"Like it? It makes me seeck! Even beautiful woman what I see 'ave 'osband what is afraid for 'er. Each time I get dronk comes big policeman which 'it me on ze 'ead." He smiled at the thought, "When I go to ze teatro, ees someone which 'ide under—ze bed. Not even can I step on ze grass because—New York! It crush ze 'eart!" He put both hands over his chest, and looked up at the ceiling.

"Yes!" exclaimed Angela, her stool very close to him now.

"Ees a prison for ze soul!" Lopez affirmed. "A stupid, seely place, your New York!"

"Yes!" Angela agreed again.

"For me New York can go to 'ell just as soon as she damn please!" the bandit let out.

"Oh, Mr. Robber!" Angela cried.

"But Mexico! How different!" Lopez said, paying no more attention to Angela than he would to a fly.

"I'm sure it is!" the girl said.

To Lucia, Lopez went on: "You shall see! Ze beautiful woman 'ave 'osband. But shall I not 'ave beautiful woman?"

"Oh, Mr. Bandit!" Angela put in once more.

"When we get dronk, ees not policeman which will 'it us on ze 'ead, but us which will 'it policeman on ze 'ead." Angela chuckled at this. "In ze teatro shall not be someone which 'ide under ze bed, but in it! You shall see! In Mexico ze heart leap! Ze soul she is free! You can do what you want—zat is, onless someone shoot you. Leesten, senora." He leaned close to Lucia, who had not ventured to move, "Did you ever know the joy of fierce leeving? Did you?"

But she did not reply. Instead, it was the impetuous Angela who answered him:

"Yes. I mean, no!"

Lopez turned and scowled at her. "I was not spik to you," he said.

"You weren't!" Angela looked her surprise.

"Ciertamente no!" the bandit said.

Angela was hurt. "But you're not cross with me, are you?" she almost wept.

"No! I am not cross wiz you! Eez zat you annoy me!" And as though she were a doll, he pushed her from him, his big hand almost blotting out her pretty little face. The stool and Angela fell to the floor. She was furious. The devil in her was roused. Chagrined, she picked herself up. Her dainty plaid frock was covered with dust. She brushed it off as best she could, and cried:

"How dare you push my face, you bad man!"

"You should keep your face to home," Lopez answered, not turning a hair. He hadn't meant to be cruel. The incident was nothing to him. When anyone was in his way, he always got the obstacle out of it. He addressed the silent Lucia, who was horrified at the treatment accorded the innocent Angela. "Now that we have all finished eating," he said, delighting in the sarcasm, since no one else had had a bite, "we will get down to business." He shoved the tray aside, and the cook began instantly to clean things up. "Pedro!" Lopez called, taking out a huge ivory toothpick which he shamelessly used.

Instantly Pedro was at the door. "Si!" he said.

Lopez still spoke to Lucia: "We shall have big time togezzer—at least for a leetle while." Then he motioned to Pedro; and his men brought in the male prisoners. "You will not worry 'bout being married, once you come wiz me."

Morgan Pell heard this last remark.

"Look here," he said, "that's my wife you're talking to!" Rage was in his face. He didn't care whether he was this man's prisoner or not. There should be no insults hurled at Lucia—that old, primitive feeling for his woman was roused.

"So!" was all Lopez said, turning on Pell, and nodding his head. "Ees nice wife—I like her. You do not mind, do you?" His hand touched Lucia's arm. "Ees all right. I shall ask no question. You shall answer what I ask. And as is my custom, anybody what does not tell ze truth shall be quite suddenly—" he paused just the portion of a second—"shot."

Uncle Henry had rolled in with the rest. At this last word his chair reared up like a frightened steed. "Shot!" he cried.

"Si," answered Lopez, calmly.

"You mean it?" Uncle Henry asked, unbelief in his tone.

The bandit glared at him.

"Should I waste my time listening to sings which are not true?"

"Thank Gawd, I ain't got nothin' to lie about!" was Uncle Henry's relieved thought, expressed aloud.

"H'm!" Lopez murmured. "You have given me a idea." He rubbed his hands together, and then pushed his big sombrero a little back on his forehead. "Better as my own. I shall use it."

Uncle Henry wondered what he had suggested. "What's that?" he asked.

Lopez took on the voice of an orator, or a man in court making an important announcement. "If anyone 'ere shall tell me a lie, zen you shall all be—" he paused dramatically once more—"shot." The final word rang out like a shot itself.

A movement of despair ran through the group.

"Geemoneddy!" Uncle Henry broke the tension.

Lopez turned to Lucia. "All bot you," he graciously informed her. "I 'ave ozzer plans for you!" Her hair enraptured him—her youth and loveliness.

The relief she felt at the first part of the sentence was quickly killed as the sinister meaning of the latter part rushed into her brain.

"Other plans!" she cried.

"Si." He was unmoved by her apprehension. He walked to the very center of the room, and looked about him, studying all their faces.

It was as if he were a central pivot and their destinies revolved around him. They had no idea what he would say next, and they hung on his words.



CHAPTER IX

WHEREIN UNCLE HENRY CHATTERS SOME MORE, THERE IS AN AUCTION, AND THINGS LOOK BLACK INDEED

"And now for business," Lopez said. "And remember zat he what tells a lie shall be right away shotted." In his excitement he lost the little English he had.

"I only hope he tells one!" Uncle Henry couldn't help saying, pointing to Hardy.

"You wish him to be shot?" the bandit wanted to know.

"Absolutely!" Uncle Henry was quick to answer.

Angela was horrified. "You want him to kill my dad?"

"I should enjoy it tremendous," Uncle Henry kept right on, and all but smacked his thin old lips.

Lopez was interested. "Why," he said slowly, wishing to get at the bottom of things, "do you wish him to be shotted so tremendous?"

Uncle Henry had no hesitation in answering: "Because he come to skin us out of this place, gol darn him!" And then, as if to save his skin, he pushed his chair far into the alcove, and, from this vantage point, watched to see what Hardy would do and say. He was aware that he had gotten him in a devilish stew. It served him right. He was a robber, a thief, and he didn't care what became of him. If Lopez took him out and had him shot at once he wouldn't have felt a qualm.

The bandit weighed what Smith had said; then he spoke directly to Hardy. "Zis is so? Zis is true?"

"No." The monosyllable was more emphatic than any long explanation could have been. A scowl on his brow, Hardy came close to Lopez, fearlessly. "I came to foreclose a mortgage I hold on this place. That is all."

But Uncle Henry was not going to see him get away with that. "Tell him why you want this ranch so bad!" he yelled. "I dare you!"

Pell now stepped forward. Their predicament was bad enough as it was, without having this old imbecile make it worse. "Keep still, you fool! Do you want to get us into more trouble?"

"I certainly do," cried Uncle Henry, "an', gol darn it, I'm a-goin' to! Rob me of ten thousand dollars, will you?"

Lopez was listening with both ears; and a glint came into his eyes, "Zat is true?" he inquired, interested anew. "He has rob you of ten sousand dollars? Eh—heh—a good beeg sum!"

"Ask him!" Uncle Henry said. "An' I only hope to thunder he tells a lie!" His voice went up on a high key.

The bandit looked keenly at Morgan Pell. "Did you?" There was no reply. "You hear me—you will answer—at once!"

"No." Morgan Pell shot out the word, and clenched his fists. The situation was becoming hot. This old fellow would have them all dead in a few moments if he didn't keep his mouth shut.

A look of triumph came into Uncle Henry's eyes. "There's your big chance!" he shouted to Lopez. "Shoot him quick!"

But Pell said calmly: "I paid twenty thousand dollars for an option on the place."

"Yes, but you didn't give me the money!" Uncle Henry insisted.

"I was going to," the other replied, not even casting a glance over his shoulder.

Old man Smith turned to Lopez. "Oh! You didn't shoot quick enough! I got it now! Ask him why he wants the place! Maybe he'll tell another one!" And he tittered with glee.

Lopez put the question to Pell.

"I—I—" the latter stammered; but could get no farther.

Uncle Henry was gleeful now. "Get ready!" he yelled to Lopez. "He's going to do it! Keep your hand on your gun!"

"I thought," Pell brought out reluctantly, "I thought there might be—oil on it."

Lopez was dumbfounded. This was far more interesting than even he had calculated.

"Oil?" he said.

Pell looked down. "But I think, under the circumstances, I shall not take up my option." The paper was in his hand, and Lopez, seeing it, reached as if to take it, when Pell handed the document to him. "In which case," Pell informed the bandit, "the place would belong to him," shrugging a shoulder toward Uncle Henry.

"What's that?" the latter asked.

"—making him a very rich man indeed," Pell added, significantly.

Aghast at the turn affairs had taken, Uncle Henry could scarcely speak. "Well, for the love o' Mike!" he managed to say.

The bandit now turned full upon Uncle Henry, who was still concealed in the shadow of the alcove. "Ah! so you would have all ze money!"

"No, I wouldn't!" Uncle Henry protested. "I—" He quickly put his hand to his mouth, stopping it like a child caught in a lie. "I mean—yes, I wouldn't! Only we ain't found the oil yet. And personally, I don't believe there's any here in the first place!" Realizing what he had said, he caught himself again. "I mean, it may be here, but—Don't shoot yet! I'll get it in a minute!" he begged. He was agitated to the breaking point.

Hardy stepped forward, "Wait. I've a suggestion to offer," he said.

"Yes?" Lopez uttered the word as though he had grave doubts.

"You're after money," the tall, lank neighbor said. "I'll tell you how we can make some—make a lot."

"Well?" said Lopez, still far from convinced, and taking things easily.

Hardy spoke more rapidly. "If the mortgage I hold on this property isn't paid by eight o'clock to-night, it becomes mine. Keep that paper here until eight o'clock, and I'll give you ten thousand dollars!" He watched the effect of his words on the Mexican.

Pell spoke before the bandit. "Why, damn you—" he began, to Hardy.

But the latter paid no attention to his insult. He faced Lopez, as though he were the only person in the room. "What do you say, is it a go?"

"Wait a minute!" Pell cried.

Lopez faced him. "Yes?" And puffed his cigarette.

Pell addressed both the bandit and Jasper Hardy. "I'll make a better offer. Keep him here until eight o'clock, and I'll give you twenty thousand dollars!"

Lopez was considering, "H'm," he murmured, and stroked his chin.

Uncle Henry saw a mess ahead. He steered right into the group, crying, "Wait a minute. I got a better idea yet!"

"You?" Lopez said, as he might have addressed a moron.

"Yes, this place don't belong to neither of 'em yet!"

"But who does it belong to?" the Mexican wanted to know.

"My nevyer," the invalid said.

"And which is 'e?"

"He's down in the shed—fixin'," the old man informed him.

Lopez turned to Pedro. "Venustiano shall find him. Before he make trouble—you," turning to "Red," "shall show 'im where." Pedro had raised his revolver; and one look at it was enough for "Red." These bandits meant what they said; more, they meant every gesture they made.

"It's all right," the foreman said. "He ain't got anything to lose anyhow. I'll show you where he is," and, followed by the sinister Venustiano, he went out.

Uncle Henry moved his chair close to Lopez. "Now listen, robber—I mean, bandit. You keep both these fellers here and lend us ten thousand dollars, and we'll give you a million!"

"A million!" said Lopez, his eyes big.

"The first million we make out of the oil that's here!" "Uncle Henry proposed. And, serious as things were getting to be, a smile went around the group.

"I should lend you ten sousand dollar?" the bandit asked.

"Absolutely! Will you?" Uncle Henry had the temerity to say.

"I do not lend," was the hard response. "I take." And he turned away.

"But if you'll—" the old man pleaded.

"Your proposition not interests me," Lopez said. Uncle Henry wheeled over to the staircase. The bandit turned to Pell. "You offer me twenty sousand? Zat is so?" he said.

"Right," Pell replied.

Lopez smiled sardonically, "Twenty sousand—for what is worth millions?"

"But I don't know that there's oil here," Pell argued.

Lopez laughed. "No?" Then, to Hardy, "You? You don't know, eizer, I s'pose?"

"I thought there might be—that's all."

The bandit gave a hearty laugh. "Oh!" he exclaimed, almost consumed with mirth. "I see I do business wiz business men—wise business men. Bueno! Now we three business men togezzer, eh? Suppose I shall show you where ze oil is. What zen?" He looked around the room, as if he thought everybody should be interested; and indeed everyone was. Little gasps came from Hardy and Pell, and Uncle Henry wiggled his chair up closer.

"Show us where she is?" Hardy asked, breathless.

"Si," Lopez answered.

"There is oil here?" Pell asked excitedly.

Another cigarette went into the bandit's mouth. "Should I waste time talking of what ain't?" he drily said.

Hardy was still skeptical. "You know there's oil on this ranch?"

"I 'ave know so for a long time."

"On the level?" said Pell, eagerly.

"'Way down below," laughed Lopez, delighted at his ability to pun in English, and making a motion with one hand toward the nether regions.

"You mean it?" Pell continued.

A dark scowl came over the face of Lopez. "Should you doubt my word?" he inquired.

"Certainly not," Pell was quick to satisfy him. "Only why didn't you say so before?"

"Oil not interests me," the bandit explained.

"But since to you gentlemen it seem so excitable—I 'ave it."

"Yes?" from Hardy.

"Ze little paper. You both want it. Bueno! You shall both 'ave ze chance. We will, 'ow you say, 'old ze little hauction."

"Auction?" Pell repeated.

"'E who bids ze 'ighest," Lopez elucidated, "shall 'ave ze little paper and shall come wiz me while I show 'im where ze oil she is 'iding." He flicked the ashes of his cigarette upon the floor, and sat on the corner of the table, one foot dangling in the air.

"Gad!" Pell let out. His hands went together, his jaw set. Things were coming out beautifully.

Lopez went on: "While 'e who does not bid ze 'ighest shall stay 'ere wiz Pedro until eight o'clock to-night."

Hardy was delighted. "You mean the highest bidder will not only get the place but that you'll show him where the oil is besides?"

"Si. Is it so agree?"

"I'm for that," Pell said.

"But I—" Hardy began.

"I bid one hundred thousand dollars," Pell quickly cried.

"I'll take it to the courts," Hardy contended.

"Take what to the courts?" Pell wanted to know.

"I was detained by force," Hardy said.

"As long as I get there by eight, what difference does that make?" Pell asked.

But Lopez broke in: "One hundred sousand I am offer!" They mustn't shillyshally this way. He wanted to keep things going.

"I'll make it one hundred and one!" Hardy cried.

Without a moment's hesitation, Pell jerked it up to a hundred and ten.

"A hundred and eleven!" Hardy pushed ahead.

"A hundred and twenty-five!" Pell yelled. "And what do you know about that?"

Hardy was by no means finished. "A hundred and thirty!" he made it.

Uncle Henry couldn't stand it. While they raised each other's bids, he shot in between them and managed to say above the din, "And me—gettin' skinned not only out of my ten thousand, but a million dollars besides!"

"A hundred and fifty!" Pell was saying.

"A hundred and fifty-one!" the cautious Hardy added.

The face of Lopez was a study; but they were so excited that they did not look at him. Angela rushed to her father and clasped his arm when she heard his last raise. "That's right, father. Don't let him get it!"

"Don't worry," he reassured her, and patted her little hand, so warm on his arm. He turned to Pell. "You city fellers needn't think you can come down here and put it all over us."

"Nevertheless," said Morgan Pell, "I'll just bid a hundred and seventy-five thousand."

"Then I'll make it a hundred and eighty!" his antagonist stated.

Quick as a flash, "A hundred and ninety," Pell said.

"Two hundred, by darn!" yelled Hardy, furious now.

"Two hundred and—" Pell began; when Lopez, to their amazement, rapped on the table with his gun, as though he were an auctioneer and this his gavel, "Senors!" he shouted. "It is enough!"

Everyone was dumbfounded, "Enough?" Hardy inquired, unbelieving.

"Too much!" Lopez explained.

"What's the idea?" Pell, shrewder than before, wanted to know. His brow contracted. So there was a fly in the ointment, after all!

"Ze idea, my friend, is zis," Lopez calmly stated. "I am not interest in pieces of paper. I do not accep' checks. Also I am no damn fool! You sink I sink you bring back two 'ondred sousand dollar? Two 'ondred sousand soldier, mebbe! But two 'ondred sousand dollar! Pah!" and he made a gesture of disgust, and crushed the paper in his hand and let it fall on the floor under the table.

"Then what's the idea of this auction in the first place?" Pell asked, mad through and through that they had been tricked by this Mexican fool.

Lopez leaned back on the table. "To find out if you gentlemen was rich enough to make it worth my w'ile to take you wiz me and 'old you for ransom." His eyes half closed. He was enjoying their discomfiture. There was nothing he liked more than to spring a surprise like this.

Pell and Hardy looked at each other, real terror in their faces now.

"Ransom!" the former cried.

"It is quite to be seen zat you are," the bandit grinned. "Zis, if I may speak so, 'as been a lucky day for me!"

Pell turned to both Hardy and Lopez, and addressed them: "Bluffing, were you?"

Lopez was quick to retort: "And was you bluffing when you bidded ze two 'ondred sousand dollars?"

Hardy was agitated. "I'm afraid we were a bit hasty," he tried to explain things away.

This tickled Uncle Henry's bump of humor. He chuckled, and cried, "Ho, ho! Serves you both gol darn good and right!" He seemed to go into a spasm of laughter.

Pell's chief concern now was to get out of the mess—to get away; to have everything settled. Lopez could probably be dealt with, man to man.

"Look here," he suggested, in a direct attack, "can't we settle things some way?"

"Yes," the bandit replied. "From my headquarters in Chihuahua I will give you pen, ink, messenger-boy—everysing!"

"But I—" Pell started to say.

But Lopez broke in: "You will please listen more and speak less. I 'ave decide. You I shall 'old for ransom. And," turning to Hardy, "you; and you," pointing to Uncle Henry, "you who 'ave nossing, I shall leave be'ind."

Pell and Hardy felt that the game was over.

Uncle Henry, on the contrary, was jubilant. "Gee!" he sang out, "and I get the oil, after all!"

No one heeded him. Things were too serious still.

"You wouldn't do this?" Hardy asked of Lopez.

"No?" the bandit asked.

Hardy took Angela in his arms. "But what about her—my daughter? You wouldn't take her, would you?"

"Not for a million dollars!" Lopez smiled.

Angela's pride was hurt, "H'm!" she sniffed.

Lopez looked around him. He saw Lucia, and extended his hand to her. "And as for you—" he began.

Lucia was frightened. What was to be her fate?

"Yes?" she breathed.

"Life 'as been unkind to you. Too long 'ave you been marry wiz ze tired business man. You shall come wiz me to ze land of purple mountains, where I will love you myself personal."

This animal! Lucia turned from him in horror. "But I don't want to love!"

"It is not what you want," a new tone came into Lopez's voice. "It is what I want. I am ze law, 'ere!"

"Please!" Lucia pleaded.

Pell stepped forward. "Look here!" he cried. "There must be some way out of this!"

"Zere is," said Lopez politely. He pointed to the door. "Zat way."

Angela clung to her father's neck. "Dad!" she cried, seeing that he was about to be forced to go—perhaps forever. Tears rolled down her pretty cheeks.

Pell saw the seriousness of things now, and turned to Hardy in a strange camaraderie. "I guess we're up against it," he said.

"Looks that way," the other replied. In their misfortune they were curiously united.

Lopez turned to the whole room. "If you are ready?" he said, and snapped his fingers as a slave-driver might have done. "Pedro!" he called, "kill ze first one what make trouble," indicating the entire group of prisoners. Pedro grinned hopefully. "Zey go. Bueno! Zey go—all of zose ozzers. I shall follow—wiz my woman." He turned to Lucia, who was standing like a graven image near the table. "Come! We shall be very 'appy togezzer, you and me!"

They were about to pass through the door—all of them—when a noise startled them; and Gilbert, followed by "Red" and Venustiano, appeared.



CHAPTER X

WHEREIN AN OLD FRIENDSHIP COMES TO LIFE, LOPEZ LEARNS A THING OR TWO, AND FINALLY MAKES A MATCH

"What's coming off?" Gilbert said, looking about him, and not a little surprised to find a Mexican and his adherents in his adobe.

Lopez turned and gave him a searching look. A light seemed to come into the bandit's countenance. It was as if someone had put a lantern behind his face.

"You!" he cried, enraptured. "You ze nephew zat owns zis ranch?"

Gilbert came farther into the room. Everyone now had turned back, stood stock still, listening to these two.

"Yes," said young Jones. "I am. What of it?" He didn't understand matters at all. Absent from the house for a little time, he had been called back to find this medley of people.

Lopez searched his face again. "Tell me you 'ave been in Canon Diabalo sometime? 'Ave you?"

"Of course. What of it?" Gilbert was mystified.

"You were there one night, three, mebbe four year ago?" Lopez persisted, hoping there could be no mistake.