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Updated: June 1, 2025
With stern control she forced herself to seem composed and quiet, while within her passions raged like a tornado. Self-contempt, wonder, amazement, pity for her husband, for Lawrence, and hatred for Philip Ortez swept round and round in her brain like a maelstrom. She stepped through her curtain and said gaily: "You're preempting my privilege, Philip." He laughed.
Near him sat the owner of the rancho, Ortez, a man much older, bearded and lean, with face lined and interlined by weather and age. At the closed door stood a sentry. From without came raucous laughter and the singing of the soldiers. The sentry nearest Pete told Arguilla that the Gringoes had been caught sneaking in at the back of the hacienda. Pete briskly corrected this statement.
My patron says to call it two hundred even, and to give you a receipt for the money when you turn it over to me." Arguilla's lieutenant had expected to see the herd turned over to Ortez before the payment of any moneys.
It's in all the papers," asserted Pete, rather proud of himself, despite the hazard of the situation. Arguilla's chest swelled noticeably. He rose and strutted up and down the room, as though pondering a grave and weighty question. Presently he turned to Ortez. "You have heard, señor?" Ortez nodded. And in that nod Brevoort read the whole story. Ortez was virtually a prisoner on his own ranch.
Three men sat in the office of the Ortez Mines, smoking and saying little. Donovan, the manager; the paymaster, Quigley; and the assistant manager, a young American fresh from the East. Waring's name was mentioned. Three days ago he had ridden south after the bandits. He might return. He might not. "I'd like to see him ride in," said Donovan, turning to the paymaster.
The sun had almost touched the western sky-line when a solitary rider spurred out from the great gate of the Olla and up to Ortez, who recognized in him one of the young vaqueros that had escaped from Arguilla's guards the preceding night. "Here's our tally." Pete handed Ortez a slip of paper. "Two hundred and three head.
"Right now," he concluded, shrugging his shoulders. "We got trouble of our own," said Brevoort. "Brent tried to run his iron on us but he got hold of the wrong iron. Now the deal will have to go through like The Spider figured. Mebby Brent knows that Arguilla's men are at the Ortez and mebby he don't. But we don't say.
Almost on the instant Arguilla's men appeared in the distance, quirting their ponies as they raced toward the coulee. The lieutenant turned and gazed at the herd, which, from bunching through the gateway, had spread out fanwise. Already the Ortez vaqueros were riding out to take charge. But something was happening over near the Olla gate.
The body of Ortez was recovered late that evening, a coffin was made during the night, and the next morning the unfortunate man was laid in his narrow home. The accident threw a gloom over the ranch. Yet no one dreamt that a second disaster was at hand. But the middle of the week passed without the return of either of the absent boys.
You'll find your horse and a saddle when you are able to ride." The bandit's eyes glistened as he watched Waring depart. If the gringo entered the house of Pedro Salazar, he would not find the gold and he would not come out alive. The gringo gunman had killed the brother of Pedro Salazar down in the desert country years ago. And Salazar had had nothing to do with the Ortez Mine robbery.
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