"It wasn't a threat!" interrupted Billie, "it was something different, a warning."

"A warning of what?"

Billie was about to quote Kit's opinion concerning Singleton's ranch force, when she was halted by a strange thing--for Billie; it was merely the mild steady gaze of the quiet gentleman of the peaceful league of the neutrals. There was a slight lifting of his brows as she spoke of a warning; and then a slight suggestion of a smile--it might have been a perfectly natural incredulous smile, but Billie felt that it was not. The yellowish brown eyes narrowed until only the pupils were visible, and warm though the day was, Billie felt a swift chill over her, and her words were cautious.

"I can't say, I don't know, but Kit Rhodes had no grudge against Papa Phil. He seemed in some way to be sorry for him."

She noted that Conrad's gaze was on the face of Mr. James instead of on her.

"Sorry for him?"

"Y-yes, sort of. He tried to explain why, but Papa would not listen, and would not make any engagement with him. Sent his money by Captain Pike and wouldn't see him. But Kit Rhodes did not make a threat, he did not!"

Her last denial was directly at Conrad, who merely shrugged his shoulders as if to dispose of that awkward phase of the matter.

"It was told me so, but the Mexican men might not have understood the words of Rhodes--he was in a rage--and it may be he did not mean so much as he said."

"But he didn't say it!" insisted Billie.

"Very good, he did not, and it is a mistake of mine," agreed Conrad politely. "For quite awhile I was unconscious after his a.s.sault, naturally I know nothing of what was said."

"And where is this man Rhodes to be found?" asked the coroner, and Conrad smiled meaningly.

"Nowhere,--or so I am told! He and a companion are said to have crossed the line into Sonora twenty-four hours before the death of Mr.

Singleton."

"Well, unless there is some evidence that he was seen later on this side, any threat he might or might not have made, has no relation whatever to this case. Is there any evidence that he was seen at, or near, Granados after starting for Sonora?"

No evidence was forthcoming, and the coroner, in summoning up, confessed he was not satisfied to leave certain details of the case a mystery.

That Singleton had discharged Rhodes in anger, and Rhodes had, even by intimation, voiced a threat against Singleton could not be considered as having any bearing on the death of the latter; while the voice of the unknown calling him to a meeting at Jefferson's ranch was equally a matter of mystery, since no one at Jefferson's knew anything of the message, or the speaker, and investigation developed the fact that the telephone wire was broken between the two ranches, and there was no word at Granados Junction Central of any message to Granados after five o'clock the afternoon of the previous day.

And, since Philip Singleton never reached the Jefferson ranch, but turned his car off the road at the cottonwood canon, and was found with one bullet in his head, and the gun in his own hand, it was not for a coroner's jury to conjecture the impulse leading up to the act, or the business complications by which the act might, or might not, have been hastened. But incomprehensible though it might seem to all concerned there was only one finding on the evidence submitted, and that was suicide.

"Papa Phil never killed himself, never!" declared Billie. "That would be two suicides in a month for Granados, and two is one too many. We never had suicides here before."

"Who was the other?"

"Why, Miguel Herrara who had been arrested for smuggling, was searched and his gun taken, and yet that night found a gun to kill himself with in the adobe where he was locked up! Miguel would not have cared for a year or two in jail; he had lived there before, and hadn't tried any killing. I tell you Granados is getting more than its share."

"It sure looks like it, little lady," agreed the coroner, "but Herrara's death gives us no light or evidence on Singleton's death, and our jurisdiction is limited strictly to the hand that held the gun. The evidence shows it was in the hand of Mr. Singleton when found."

The Jeffersons insisted that Billie go home with them, as the girl appeared absolutely and pathetically alone in the world. She knew of no relatives, and Tia Luz and Captain Pike were the only two whom she had known from babyhood as friends of her father's.

The grandmother of Billie Bernard had been the daughter of a Spanish _haciendado_ who was also an officer in the army of Mexico. He met death in battle before he ever learned that his daughter, in the pious work of nursing friend and enemy alike, had nursed one enemy of the hated North until each was captive to the other, and she rode beside him to her father's farthest northern rancho beyond the Mexican deserts, and never went again to the gay circles of Mexico's capital.

Late in her life one daughter, Dorotea was born, and when Alfred Bernard came out of the East and looked on her, a blonde Spanish girl as her ancestresses of Valencia had been, the game of love was played again in the old border rancho which was world enough for the lovers.

There had been one eastern summer for them the first year of their marriage, and Philip Singleton had seen her there, and never forgot her. After her widowhood he crossed the continent to be near her, and after awhile his devotion, and her need of help in many ways, won the place he coveted, and life at Granados went on serenely until her death. Though he had at times been bored a bit by the changelessness of ranch life, yet he had given his word to guard the child's inheritance until she came of age, and had kept it loyally as he knew how until death met him in the canon of the cottonwoods.

But the contented isolation of her immediate family left Billie only such guardian as the court might appoint for her property and person, and Andrew Jefferson, Judge Jefferson by courtesy, in the county, would no doubt be choice of the court as well as the girl. Beyond that she could only think of Pike, and--well Pike was out of reach on some enchanted gold trail of which she must not speak, and she supposed she would have to go to school instead of going in search of him!

Conrad spoke to her kindly as she was led to the Jefferson car, and there was a subtle deference in his manner, indicating his realization that he was speaking--not to the wilful little maid who could be annoying--but to the owner of Granados and, despite his five year contract as manager, an owner who could change entirely the activities of the two ranches in another year--and it was an important year.

He also spoke briefly to Mr. James offering him the hospitality of the ranch for a day of rest before returning to Nogales, but the offer was politely declined. Mr. James intimated that he was at Conrad's service if he could be of any practical use in the mysterious situation. He carefully gave his address and telephone number, and bade the others good day. But as he was entering his little roadster he spoke again to Conrad.

"By the way, it was a mistake to let that man Rhodes get over into Sonora. It should be the task of someone to see that he does not come back. He seems a very dangerous man. See to it!"

The words were those of a kindly person interested in the welfare of the community, and evidently impressed by the evidence referring to the discharged range boss. Two of the men hearing him exchanged glances, for they also thought that rumor of the threats should have been looked into. But the last three words were spoken too softly for any but Conrad to hear.

The following week Billie went to Tucson with the Jeffersons and at her request Judge Jefferson was appointed guardian of her person and estate, after which she and the judge went into a confidential session concerning that broken wire on the Granados line.

"I'm not loco, Judge," she insisted, "but I want you to learn whether that wire was cut on purpose, or just broke itself. Also I want you to take up that horse affair with the secret service people. I don't want Conrad to be sent away--yet. I'd rather watch him on Granados. I won't go away to school; I'd rather have a teacher at home. We can find one."

"But, do you realize that with two mysterious deaths on Granados lately, you might run some personal risk of living there with only yourself and two women in the house? I'm not sure we can sanction that, my child."

Billie smiled at him a bit wanly, but decided.

"Now Judge, you know I picked you because you would let me do whatever I pleased, and I don't mean to be disappointed with you. Half the men at the inquest think that Kit Rhodes did come back to do that shooting, and you know Conrad and the very smooth rat of the Charities Society are accountable for that opinion. The Mexican who dragged in Kit's name is one of Conrad's men; it all means something! It's a bad muddle, but Kit Rhodes and Cap Pike will wander back here some of these days, and I mean to have every bit of evidence for Kit to start in with. He suspected a lot, and all Granados combined to silence him--fool Granados!"

"But, just between ourselves, child, are you convinced Rhodes did not make the statement liable to be construed into a threat against Mr.

Singleton?"

"Convinced nothing," was the inelegant reply of his new ward. "I heard him say enough to hang him if evidence could be found that he was north of the line that morning, and that's why it's my job to take note of all the evidence on the other side. The horses did not kill themselves. That telegram concerning it did not send itself. Papa Phil did not shoot himself, and that telephone wire did not cut itself! My hunch is that those four things go together, and that's a combination they can't clear up by dragging in the name of a man who never saw the horses, and who was miles south in Sonora with Cap Pike when the other three things happened. Now can they?"

CHAPTER VII

IN THE PROVINCE OF ALTAR

_There was a frog who lived in the spring: Sing-song Kitty, can't yo' carry me, oh?

And it was so cold that he could not sing, Sing-song Kitty, can't yo' carry me, oh?

Ke-mo! Ki-mo! Dear--oh my!

To my hi'--to my ho--to my----_

"Oh! For the love of Mike! Bub, can't you give a man a rest instead of piling up the agony? These old joints of mine are creakin' with every move from desert rust and dry camps, and you with no more heart in you than to sing of springs,--cold springs!"

"They do exist, Cap."

"Uh--huh, they are as real to us this minute as the red gold that we've trailed until we're at the tag end of our grub stake. I tell you, Bub, they stacked the cards on us with that door of the old Soledad Mission, and the view of the gold canon from there! Why, Whitely showed us that the mission door never did face the hills, but looked right down the valley towards the Rio del Altar just as the Soledad plaza does today; all the old Mexicans and Indians tell us that."

"Well, we've combed over most of the arroyas leading into the Altar from Rancho Soledad, and all we've found is placer gravel; yet the placers are facts, and the mother lode is somewhere, Cap."

"Worn down to pan dirt, that's what!" grunted Pike. "I tell you these heathen sit around and dream lost mission tales and lost mine lies; dream them by the dozen to delude just such innocent yaps as you and me. They've nothing else to do between crops. We should have stuck to a white man's land, north into Arizona where the Three Hills of Gold are waiting, to say nothing of the Lost Stone Cabin mine, lost not twenty miles from Quartzite, and in plain sight of Castle Dome. Now there is nothing visionary about _that_, Kit! Why, I knew an old-timer who freighted rich ore out of that mine thirty years ago, and even the road to it has been lost for years! We know things once did exist up in that country, Kit, and down here we are all tangled up with Mexican-Indian stories of ghosts and enchantments, and such vagaries.

I'm fed up with them to the limit, for everyone of them we listen to is different from the last. We'll head up into the Castle Dome country next time, hear me?"

"Sure, I hear," agreed Kit cheerfully. "Perhaps we do lose, but it's not so bad. Since Whitely sent his family north, he has intimated that Mesa Blanca is a single man's job, and I reckon I can have it when he goes--as he will. Then in the month we have scouted free of Whitelys, we have dry washed enough dust to put you on velvet till things come our way. Say, what will you bet that a month of comfort around Nogales won't make you hungry for the trail again?"