The face beneath the crown of soft black hair was colorless except for the trembling lips.

"Why? Why must you go? You've just escaped from there with your life.

Are you mad?"

"Look here, Miss Ruth. I've just had a roundup with Miss Ellington about this. I'm going to take a whirl at rescuing our friends. Pasquale can't put over such a raw deal without getting a run for his money from me.

I'm going back there because it's up to me to go. There are some things a man can't do. He can't quit when his friends need him."

She was standing in the doorway, her head leaning against the jamb so that the fine curve of the throat line showed a beating pulse. Something in the pose of the slim, graceful figure told him of repressed emotion.

"That is absurd, Mr. Yeager. You can't do anything for them if you go."

"Everybody sizes me up for a buzzard-head," he complained whimsically.

The gravity did not lift from her young, quick eyes.

"If you go they'll kill you," she said in a voice as dry as a whisper.

"Sho! Nothing to that. I'm going down disguised. I'll be safe enough."

"I suppose ... nothing can keep you from going." A sob choked up in her throat as she spoke.

"No. I've got to go."

"You think you have a right to play at dice with your life! Don't your friends count with you at all?"

"It's because they do that I'm going," he answered gently.

Her troubled eyes rested on his. The protest in her heart was still urgent, but she dared go no further. Some instinct of maidenly reticence curbed the pa.s.sionate rebellion against his decision. If she said more, she might say too much. With a swift, sinuous turn of the slender body she ran into the house and left him standing there.

Daisy sat at one end of the pergola mending a glove. It was in the pleasant cool of the evening just as dusk was beginning to fall. A light breeze rustled the rose-leaves and played with the tendrils of her soft, wavy hair. The coolness was grateful after the heat of an Arizona day.

The front gate creaked. A man was coming in, a Mexican of the peon cla.s.s. He moved up the walk toward her with a slight limp. As he drew closer, she observed negligently that he was of early middle age, ragged, and of course dirty. Age and lack of soap had so dyed his serape that the original color was quite gone.

He bowed to her with the native courtesy that belongs to even the peons of his race. A swift patter of Spanish fell from his lips.

Miss Ellington shook her head. "No sabe Espanol."

The man gushed into a second eruption of liquid vowels, accompanied this time by gestures which indicated that he wanted food.

The young woman nodded, went into the house, and secured from Mrs.

Seymour a plate of broken fragments left over from supper. With this and a cup of coffee she returned to the pergola.

"Gracias, senorita." The shining black poll of the man bowed over the donation as he accepted it.

He sat cross-legged among the roses and ate what had been given him.

Daisy observed critically that his habit of eating was not at all nice.

He discarded the fork she had brought, using only the knife and his fingers. The meat he tore apart and devoured ravenously, cramming it wolfishly into his mouth as fast as he could. A few days before she had fallen into an argument with Steve Yeager about the civilization of the Mexicans. She wished he could see this specimen.

The man spoke, after he had cleaned the plate, licked up the gravy, and gulped down the coffee. His words fell in a slow drawl, not in Spanish, but in English.

"Don't you reckon mebbe I could get a ham sandwich too?"

The actress jumped. "Steve, you fraud!" she screamed, and flew at him.

"Do I win?" he asked, protecting himself as he backed away.

"Of course you do. Why haven't we been using you up stage in the Mexican sets? You're perfect. How did you ever get your hair so slick and black?"

"I've been studying make-ups since I joined the Lunar Company," he told her.

"How about your Spanish? Is it good enough to pa.s.s muster?"

"I learned to jabber it when I was a year old before I did English."

"Then you'll do. I defy even Harrison to recognize you."

He gave her his Mexican bow. "Gracias, senorita."

CHAPTER XVI

THE HEAVY PAYS A DEBT

When Threewit and Farrar reached Noche Buena, Pasquale was absent from camp, but Culvera made them suavely welcome.

"Senor Yeager has recovered and was called away unexpectedly on business," he explained; adding with his lip smile, "He will be desolated to have missed you."

"He is better, then?"

"Indeed, quite his self. He nearly died from gunshot wounds, but unless he suffers a relapse he is entirely out of present danger."

"Shouldn't have thought it would have been safe to travel yet," Farrar returned.

He was uneasy in his mind, sensing something of mocking irony in the manner of the Mexican. It was strange that Yeager, wounded to death as his letter had said, was able in two days to be up and around again.

"We were anxious to have him stop, but he was in a hurry. Personally I did my best to get him to stay." Culvera's smile glittered reminiscently: "The truth is that he thought our climate unhealthy. He was afraid of heart failure."

Threewit scoffed openly. "Absurd. The man is the finest physical specimen I ever saw. If you had ever seen him on the back of an outlaw bronc, you'd know his heart was all right."

The door of the room opened and Harrison came in. He stopped, mouth open with surprise at sight of the Americans.

"Some of Mr. Yeager's anxious friends come down to inquire about his health, Harrison. Did he seem to you healthy last time you saw him?" the Mexican asked maliciously.