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Their footfalls were deadened by a thick carpet; Kendric could see nothing. Never a sound came to him save that of their own quiet progress. They went forward a dozen steps and Zoraida paused abruptly. Another dozen steps and again a pause.
In his hand was a sheaf of bank notes which he readily recognized as the very ones he had just now lost at dice, together with a slip of note paper on which were a few finely penned lines. He held them up to the light in an amazement which sought an explanation. The words were in Spanish and said briefly: "To Señor Jim Kendric because under his laugh he looked sad when he lost.
Kendric failed to understand and looked to Betty. Her eyes widened. Then her cheeks crimsoned. "Oh!" she gasped. "Mr. West, what do you mean? I have heard of her, everyone has. She is the most terrible creature!" She shuddered. "What made you say that?" Bruce laughed his disbelief of her words and attitude. "Jim, here, doesn't seem to remember," he said brusquely.
There the mountains rose black and without detail against the sky. He looked up; the stars were shining. Abruptly, as though at a command, the rifles ceased firing after them. And, instead of the explosions which had concerned Kendric little, came another sound fully to be expected by now and of downright serious import. It was the scurry and race of hoofs, how many there was no guessing.
Perhaps Ortega himself could not have explained clearly since it is doubtful if he felt clearly; it is likely that a childishly blind anger had spurted up venomously in his heart when Kendric had exposed the deuce and men had laughed and Ortega felt as though he had lost five thousand dollars.
Betty's attitude, Betty's look, had stirred him after a strange new fashion which he did not analyze. Barlow's unreasonable unfriendliness hurt and angered; the jeer in Rios's hard black eyes ruffled his blood. And even young Bruce looked at him with a defiance which Kendric had no stomach for.
A moment she whispered to the serving man at the door; then she was gone and they heard only the light patter of her slippers. The man to whom Zoraida had whispered spoke in an undertone to his fellows. One of them went out swiftly; the others threw wide the three doors and then gathered up the fallen gold. It was replaced in its box and gravely presented to Kendric.
"I'd say, Twisty," said Kendric lightly, "that it is downright kind of Señor Escobar to extend so hearty an invitation. It would be the pleasant thing to rest up in the shade during the afternoon. Tomorrow, perhaps, it could be arranged that he would let us have a couple of horses to make our little trip into the hills butterfly-catching?"
I've made a haul today; just how big I won't know until we get home. But enough, I'll gamble to stake you to a new start. Now, let's get going. And good luck to poor old Barlow. It's his game to play his way." They slipped out into the gulf, Nigger Ben and Philippine Charlie content to accept the explanation Kendric gave them of Barlow's absence.
Once, with simulated carelessness, Escobar said: "The rancho would have been yours, had there been no will, is it not so, amigo Rios?" And Ruiz flashed an angry look at him, knowing that the man taunted him. "It is called the Rancho Montezuma, isn't it?" put in Kendric. "Why that name, Rios?" "It is the old name," said Rios lightly. "That is all I know."
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