"You hear that?" Hardy said to his daughter.

"I do," she answered, "and he's right."

"What's that?" said her surprised father.

"It is Gil's, and to take advantage of him isn't fair. You know it as well as I do, too!" She stamped her little foot.

"Say, you don't think you love him again, do you?" Hardy wanted to know.

From the alcove, Uncle Henry cried: "That's the idea! And if the poor sucker'd only marry her--"

But Angela interrupted: "It isn't him I care for. It's--" She cut herself off, and could have bitten out her tongue for thus revealing her heart.

"Angela!" cried the enraptured "Red." He went over to her, grasped her around the waist, and led her to the window.

Hardy said, trying to pacify his daughter: "But I ain't going to be hard on him--or on Jones."

"You ain't?" Uncle Henry cried.

Hardy turned to the nephew. "You know, that stuff Lopez said about me bein'

a b.u.m patriot stuck in my craw. And now that I got the place, if you ever need any help I'll be glad to go on your note for you."

Gilbert said nothing; but Uncle Henry rushed in with, "You will?"

"That is, if it ain't too much," Hardy craftily added.

"How much?" Uncle Henry asked.

"Oh, two hundred dollars," Jasper Hardy grandly said.

"Two hundred dol--Git out o' my way!" Uncle Henry wheeled straight through him.

"Say, where are you goin'?" Hardy cried.

"To Mexico!" Uncle Henry said. "This country's gettin' so it ain't fit to live in!" And he whirled out of the room.

Hardy turned to his daughter. "Nothing to keep us here any longer. Come on, Angy."

"Come, 'Red,'" said the girl, as she started to follow her father. What else was there to do?

Even though it was Angela who called to him, "Red's" allegiance was for the moment elsewhere.

"I gotter stick by him," he said, looking at Gilbert.

"No," said Gilbert. "This is something I've got to settle alone. But I thank you, 'Red'--I thank you with all my heart. You're a brick--a red brick." He smiled and patted him on the back.

"Red" was suspicious still. He looked at Gilbert. "You don't think he'll try any funny business, do you? You're sure you won't need me around?"

"How can he try any funny business?" Gilbert asked.

"I know," said "Red." Gilbert looked at him closely. "I get yuh," the foreman continued. "But I don't like it just the same." He switched over to the malignant Pell. "There's one little detail I'd like to call your attention to," he said.

"Well?" Pell said.

"I'm a tough little feller myself, sometimes. And if anything should happen that shouldn't, I'll be waitin' for you in town with a one-way ticket. And it won't be to New York. Savez?" Then he turned to his adored and adoring Angela. "Come, Angy!"

And he grasped her arm, and took her out.

CHAPTER XIII

WHEREIN AN OLD SITUATION SEEMS ABOUT TO BE REPEATED, ANOTHER SHOT IS FIRED, AND THE BAD MAN COMES BACK

Deeper and deeper grew the darkness. Outside, indeed, the first stars had begun to shine, and soon the heavens were a miraculous glory. But there was no moon. Every road was hushed, and the trees waved their long arms in the gloom. The little machine that took Angela and her father home, rolled down the quiet valley. Its chug-chug was the only sound for miles around. "Red"

was happy in the cool night. He rode all the way out to the Hardy ranch. He and Angela sang an old song, and let Jasper Hardy sit at the wheel and whirl them to the lights of home.

Meantime, back in Gilbert's adobe, the Mexican cook came from his stuffy kitchen and fetched a lamp for the sitting-room. He lighted two candles by the fireplace, closed the shutters and door, and went back to his pots and pans. He said nothing, noticed nothing. It had been a day of intense excitement for him, and he was glad to crawl back, like some tiny worm, into the cave where he ruled supreme.

Lucia, in the lamplight, was paler than before. The three of them were standing, curiously enough, almost as they had stood only a few brief hours ago; and as she looked around her now she thought of this.

"So," she said. "We're back just where we started from!" The grim humor of it came over her. Ten minutes ago she had thought her husband dead--done for, out of the way. Now he stood before her in all his virility, in all his cruelty; and behind him was the one man in the world that she loved.

"Not quite," said Gilbert. He stepped forward a pace or two. He saw that Lucia was alarmed. "Come," he begged of her. "Don't be afraid." Oh, the balm of those few words!

But she was not wholly herself yet. "What are you going to do?" she asked, and came nearer Gilbert. How strong and determined he looked in the dim light!

"I'm going to have this thing out," he said. "You can never go back to him now." There was finality in his voice.

"No, I never can," Lucia agreed. And there was finality in her voice, too.

It was as if Destiny had come into this house, and an unheard voice told them what to do.

"You'll trust me to protect you--until--" Gilbert went on.

She looked at him pleadingly. "Oh, take me with you, Gil!" She threw her arms out. She had nothing to fear now, his strength beside her. She told him in one glorious gesture that she was his forever--that she had surrendered herself, body and soul, to him. Gilbert looked at her. Slowly, he realized that this woman, this creature of his dreams cared for him, and him alone; and the world might sweep by, the stars and moon might crash to earth, and they would neither know nor care. Fate had brought her to him.

Nothing else mattered now. What was Morgan Pell? In life he was as impotent as when he lay half concealed beneath the table near which he now stood.

They would not consider him, save as the foolish laws of man made it necessary for them to consider him.

Gilbert turned to Pell. "You heard--she's mine now. And any course you may take to stop her--" he warned. It was useless to say more. The manner in which young Jones spoke told the whole story of his feelings.

Yet Pell tried to appear nonchalant and casual. "You haven't another drink around, have you?" he inquired. He still held his handkerchief to his wounded forehead. "That was a rather nasty one I got, you know."

Gilbert, though he loathed him as a serpent, remembered that he was this creature's host, and stepped over to the fireplace where there was a flask with a little tequila still left. He offered Pell the bottle.

"You were saying--?" Pell went on. He poured himself a stiff drink.

"Something about leaving me, wasn't it?" It was plain to be seen that he was bluffing. "I'm sorry," swigging down what he had poured, "but I wasn't listening very closely. This thing here--" he tapped his wound. No one answered him, and he set down his gla.s.s. "Well?" to his wife.