A Daughter of the Dons by William MacLeod Raine

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"I never rode all night over the mountains to save a man who was trying
to rob me of my land," he retorted.

This brought a sparkle to her eyes. "I had to think of my foolish men
who were getting into trouble."

"Was that why you offered a hundred dollars' reward for the arrest of
these same men?" came his indolent, satiric reply.

"Don Manuel offered the reward," she told him haughtily.

An impish smile was in his eyes. "At your suggestion, he tells me. And I
understand you insisted on paying the bill, Miss Valdes."

"Why should he pay it? The men worked for me. They were brought up on my
father's place. They are my responsibility, not his," she claimed with
visible irritation.

"And now they're my responsibility, too--until I land them in the
penitentiary," he added cheerfully.

From his pocket he took a billbook and selected two fifty-dollar bills.
These he offered to Valencia.

She stood very straight. "You owe me nothing, sir."

"I owe you the hundred dollars you paid to get hold of Sebastian. And
I'm going to pay it."

"I don't acknowledge the debt. I wanted Sebastian for his sake, not
yours. Certainly I shall not accept the money."

"Just as you say. It isn't mine. Care if I smoke again?" he asked
genially.

She caught his meaning in a flash. "Not at all. Burn them if you like."

"Now, see here," interrupted Davis amiably. "You're both acting like a
pair of kids. I'm not going to stand for any hundred-dollar smokes,
Dick. Gimme those bills." He snatched them from his friend and put them
in his pocket. "When you two get reasonable again we'll decide whose
money it is. Till then I expect I'll draw the interest on it."

"And now, since our business is ended, I think I'll not detain you any
longer, Mr. Gordon, except to warn you that it will be foolhardy to
return to the Rio Chama Valley with intentions such as you have."

"Good of you to warn me, Miss Valdes. It's not the first time, either,
is it? But I'm _that_ bull-headed. Steve will give me a recommend as the
most sot chump in New Mexico. Won't you Steve?"

"I sure will--before a notary if you like. You've got a government mule
backed off the map."

"I've done my duty, anyhow." Miss Valdes turned to the older man, and
somehow the way she did it seemed to wipe Gordon out of the picture.
"There is something I want to talk over with you, Mr. Davis. Can you
wait a few moments?"

"Sure I can--all day if you like."

Dick retired with his best bow. "Steve, you always was popular with the
ladies."

Valencia, uncompromising, waited until he had gone. Then, swiftly, with
a little leap of impulse as it were, she appealed to Davis.

"Don't let him go back to the valley. Don't let him push the cases
against Sebastian and Pablo."

The old miner shook his head "Sorry, Miss Valencia. Wish I could stop
him, but I can't. He'll go his own way--always would."

"But don't you see they'll kill him. It's madness to go back there while
he's pushing the criminal case. Before it was bad enough, but now----"
She threw up her hands with a gesture of despair.

"I reckon you're right. But I can't help it."

"Then look out for him. Don't let him ride around in the hills. Don't
let him leave the house at night. Never let him go alone. Remember that
he is in danger every hour while he remains in the valley."

"I'll remember, Miss Valencia," Davis promised.

He wondered as he walked away why the talk between Dick and Miss Valdes
had gone so badly. He knew his friend had come jubilantly, prepared to
do anything she asked of him. The fear and anxiety that had leaped to
her face the instant Gordon had gone showed him that the girl had a deep
interest in the young man. She, too, had meant to meet him half way in
wiping out the gulf between them. Instead, they had only increased it.

CHAPTER XXI

WHEN THE WIRES WERE CUT

Don Manuel rode into the moonlit plaza of the Valdes ranch, dismounted,
and flung the reins to the boy that came running. Pesquiera nodded a
careless greeting and passed into the house. He did not ask of anyone
where Valencia was, nor did he send in a card of announcement. A lover's
instinct told him that he would find her in the room that served both as
an office and a library for her, seated perhaps before the leaping
fireglow she loved or playing softly on the piano in the darkness.

The door was open, and he stood a moment on the threshold to get
accustomed to the dim light.

A rich, low-pitched voice came across the room to him.

"It is you, Manuel?"

He stepped swiftly forward to the lounge upon which she was lying and
knelt on one knee beside her, lifting her hand to his lips. "It is I,
_corazon mia_, even Manuel the lucky."

She both smiled and sighed at that. A chord in her responded to the
extravagance of his speech, even though vaguely it did not quite
satisfy. A woman of the warm-blooded south and no plaster saint, she
answered presently with shy, reluctant lips the kisses of her lover. Why
should she not? Had he not won her by meeting the test she had given
him? Was he not a gallant gentleman, of her own race and caste, bound to
her by ties of many sorts, in every way worthy to be the father of her
children? If she had to stifle some faint, indefinable regret, was it
not right that she should? Her bridges were burned behind her. He was
the man of her choice. She listened, eyes a little wistful, while he
poured out ardently the tale of his devotion.

"You do love me, don't you, Manuel?" she demanded, a little fiercely. It
was as if she wanted to drown any doubts she might have of her own
feeling in the certainty of his.

"More than life itself, I do believe," he cried in a low voice.

Her lithe body turned, so that her shining eyes were close to his.

"Dear Manuel, I am glad. You don't know how worried I've been ... still
am. Perhaps if I were a man it would be different, but I don't want my
people to take the life of this stranger. But they mean him
harm--especially since he has come back and intends to punish Pablo and
Sebastian. I want them to let the law take its course. Something tells
me that we shall win in the end. I've talked to them--and talked--but
they say nothing except 'Si, dona.' But with you to help me----"

"They'd better not touch him again," broke in her lover swiftly.

"It's a great comfort to me, Manuel, that you have blotted out your own
quarrel with him. It was magnanimous, what I should expect of you."

He said nothing, but the hand that lay on hers seemed suddenly to
stiffen. A kind of fear ran shivering through her. Quickly she rose from
the couch.

"Manuel, tell me that I am right, that you don't mean to ... hurt him?"
Her dark eyes searched his unflinchingly. "You don't mean ... you can't
mean ... that----?"

"Let us forget the American and remember only that we love, my beloved,"
he pleaded.

"No ... No!" The voice of the girl was sharp and imperative. "I want the
truth. Is it that you are still thinking of murdering him, Manuel?"

The sting of her words brought a flush to his cheeks. "I fight fair,
Valencia. I set against his life my own, with all the happiness that has
come flooding it. Nor is it that I seek the man's life. For me he might
live a thousand years--and welcome. But my honor----"

"No, Manuel. No--no--no! I will not have it. If you are betrothed to me
your life is mine. You shall not risk it in a barbarous duel."

"Let us change the subject, dear heart."

"Not till I hear you say that you have given up this wicked intention of
yours."

He gave up the attempt to evade her and met her fairly as one man does
another.

"I can't say that, Valencia, not even for you. This quarrel lies between
him and me. I have suffered humiliation and disgrace. Until those are
wiped out there must be war between me and the American."

"Since the day I first wore your ring, Manuel, I have asked nothing of
you. I ask now that you will forget the slight this man has put upon you
... because I ask it of you with all my heart."

A slight tremor ran through his blood. He felt himself slipping from his
place with her.

"I can't, Valencia. You don't know what you ask, how impossible it is
for me--a Pesquiera, son of my honored fathers--to grant such a
request." He stretched his hands toward her imploringly.

"Yet you say you love me?"

"Heaven knows whether it is not true, my cousin."

"You want me to believe that, even though you refuse the first real
request I ever made of you?"

"Anything else in the world that is in my power."

"It is easy to say that, Manuel, when it isn't something else I want.
Give me this American's life. I shall know, then, that you love me."

"You know now," he answered quietly.

"Is love all sighs and vows?" she cried impatiently. "Will it not
sacrifice pride and vanity for the object of its devotion?"

"Everything but honor," answered the man steadfastly.

She made a gesture of despair.

"What is this honor you talk so much about? It is neither Christian nor
lawful nor right."

"It is a part of me, Valencia."

"Then your ideas are archaic. The duel was for a time when every man had
to seek his personal redress. There is law in this twentieth century."

"Not as between man and man in the case of a personal indignity--at
least, not for Manuel Pesquiera."

"But it is so needless. We know you are brave; he knows it, too. Surely
your vanity----"

He smiled a little sadly.

"I think it is not vanity, but something deeper. None of my ancestors
could have tolerated this stigma, nor can their son. My will has nothing
to do with it, and my desire still less. It is kismet."

"Then you must know the truth--that if you kill this man I can
never----"

"Never what?"

"Never marry you."

"Why?"

"His blood would stand between us."

"Do you mean that you--love him?"

Her dark eyes met his steadily.

"I don't think I mean that, Manuel. How could I mean that, since I love
you and am betrothed to you? Sometimes I hate him. He is so insolent in
his daring. Then, too, he is my enemy, and he has come here to set this
happy valley to hate and evil. Yet, if I should hurt him, it would stand
between us forever."

"I am sorry."

"Only sorry, Manuel?"

He clamped his teeth on the torrent of protest that rose within him when
she handed him back his ring. It would do no good to speak more. The
immutable fact stood between them.

"I did not know life could be so hard--and cruel," she cried out in a
burst of passion.

She went to the open window and looked out upon the placid, peaceful
valley. She had a swift, supple way of moving, as if her muscles
responded with effortless ease to her volition; but the young man
noticed that to-night there was a drag to her motions.

His heart yearned toward her. He longed mightily to take her in his arms
and tell her that he would do as she wished. But, as he had said,
something in him more potent than vanity, than pride, than his will,
held him to the course he had set for himself. His views of honor might
be archaic and ridiculous, but he lived by his code as tenaciously as
had his fathers. Gordon had insulted and humiliated him publicly. He
must apologize or give him satisfaction. Until he had done one or the
other Manuel could not live at peace with himself. He had put a powerful
curb upon his desire to wait as long as he had. Circumstances had for a
time taken the matter out of his hands, but the time had come when he
meant to press his claims. The American might refuse the duel; he could
not refrain from defending himself when Pesquiera attacked.

A step sounded in the doorway, and almost simultaneously a voice.

"_Dona,_ are you here?"

The room was lighted only by the flickering fire; but Valencia, her eyes
accustomed to the darkness, recognized the boy as Juan Gardiez.

"Yes, I am here, Juan. What have you to tell me?" she said quickly.

"I do not know, _senorita_. But the men--Pablo, Sebastian; all of
them--are gone."

"Gone where?" she breathed.

"I do not know. To-day I drove a cow and calf to Willow Springs. I am
but returned. The houses are empty. Senor Barela's wife says she saw men
riding up the hill toward Corbett's--eight, nine, ten of them."

"To Corbett's?" She stared whitely at him without moving. "How long
ago?"

"An hour ago--or more."

"Saddle Billy at once and bring him round," the girl ordered crisply.

She turned as she spoke and went lightly to the telephone. With the need
of action, of decision, her hopelessness was gone. There was a hard,
bright light in her eyes that told of a resolution inflexible as
tempered steel when once aroused.

"Give me Corbett's--at once, please. Hallo, Central--Corbett's----"

No answer came, though she called again and again.

"There must be something wrong with the telephone," suggested Don
Manuel.

She dropped the receiver and turned quietly to him.

"The wires have been cut."

"But, why? What is it all about?"

"Merely that my men are anticipating you. They have gone to murder the
American. Deputy sheriffs from Santa Fe to-day came here to arrest Pablo
and Sebastian. The men suspected and were hidden. Now they have gone to
punish Mr. Gordon for sending the officers."

She could not have touched him more nearly. He came to her with burning
eyes.

"How do you know? What makes you think so?"

She told him, briefly and simply, giving more detailed reasons.

Without a word, he turned and left her. She could hear him rushing
through the hall, traced his progress by the slamming of the door, and
presently caught sight of him running toward the corral. He did not
hear, or heed, her call for him to wait.

The girl hurried out of the house after him, in time to see him slap a
saddle on his bronco, swing to his seat lightly, and gallop in a cloud
of dust to the road.

Valencia waited for no more. Quickly running to her room, she slipped on
a khaki riding-skirt. Her deft, tapering fingers moved swiftly, so that
she was ready, crop in hand, booted and spurred, by the time Juan
brought round her horse.

It took but an instant to lift herself to the saddle and send Billy
galloping forward.

Already her cousin had disappeared in great clouds of dust over the brow
of the hill.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ATTACK

Dick Gordon and Davis were sitting on the porch of their cabin, which
was about an eighth of a mile from the main buildings of the Corbett
place. They had returned the day before from Santa Fe, along with two
deputy sheriffs who had come to arrest Pablo and Sebastian. The officers
had scoured the valley for two days, and as yet had not caught a glimpse
of the men they had come to get. Their inquiries were all met by a
dogged ignorance on the part of the Mexicans, who had of a sudden turned
surprisingly stupid. No, they had seen nothing of Pablo or of Sebastian.
They knew nobody of that name--unless it was old Pablo Gardiez the
_senors_ wished to see. Many strangers desired to see him, for he was
more than a hundred years old and still remembered clearly the old days.

Gordon laughed at the discomfiture of his sleuths. "I dare say they may
have been talking to the very men they wanted. But everybody hangs
together in this valley. I'm going out with them myself to-morrow after
the gentlemen the law requires."

"No, I wouldn't do that, Dick. With every greaser in the valley
simmering against you, it won't do for you to go trapsing right down
among them," Davis explained.

"That's where I'm going, anyhow--to-morrow morning. The deputies are
staying up at Morrow's. I'm going to phone 'em to-night that I'll ride
with them to-morrow. Bet you a new hat we flush our birds."

"What's the sense of you going into the police business, Dick? I'll tell
you what's ailing you. You're just honing to see Miss Valdes again. You
want to go grand-standing around making her mad at you some more."

"You're a wiz, Steve," admitted his friend dryly. "Maybe you're right.
Maybe I do want to see her again. Why shouldn't I?"

"What good does it do you when you quarrel all the time you're together?
She's declared herself already on this proposition--told the deputies
flat-footed that she wouldn't tell them anything and would help her boys
to escape in any way she could. You're just like a kid showing off his
muscle before a little girl in the first grade."

"All right, Steve. You don't hear me denying it."

"Denying it," snapped the old miner. "Hmp! Lot of good that would do.
You're fair itching to get a chance to go down to the ranch and swagger
around in plain sight of her lads. You'd be tickled to death if you
could cut out the two you want and land them here in spite of her and
Don Manuel and the whole pack of them. Don't I know you? Nothing but
vanity--that's all there's to it."

"He's off," murmured Dick with a grin to the scenery.

"You make me tired. Why don't you try a little horse sense for a change?
Honest, if you was a few years younger I'd put you acrost my knee and
spank you."

Gordon lit a cigarette, but did not otherwise contribute to the
conversation.

"Ain't she wearing another man's ring?" continued Davis severely.
"What's bitin' you, anyhow? How many happy families you want to break
up? First off, there's Pablo and Juanita. You fill up her little noodle
with the notion that----"

Dick interrupted amiably. "Go to grass, you old granny. I've been
putting in my spare time since I came back letting Juanita understand
the facts. If she had any wrong notions she ain't got them any longer.
She's all ready to kiss and make up with Pablo first chance she gets."

"Then there's Miss Valdes and this Pesky fellow, who's the whitest brown
man I ever did see. Didn't he run his fool laigs off getting you free so
you could go back and make love to his girl?"

"He's the salt of the earth. I'm for Don Manuel strong. But I don't
reckon Miss Valdes would work well in harness with him," explained Dick.

Steve Davis snorted. "No, you reckon Dick Gordon would, though. Don't
you see she's of his people--same customs, same ways, same----"

"She's no more of his people than she is of mine. Her mother was an
American girl. She was educated in Washington. New Mexico is in America,
not in Spain. Don't forget that, you old croaker."

"Well, she's engaged, ain't she? And to a good man. It ain't your put
in."

"A good one, but the wrong one. It's a woman's privilege to change her
mind. I'm here to help her change it," announced the young man calmly.
"Say, look at Jimmie Corbett hitting the high spots this way."

Jimmie, not yet recovered from a severe fright, stopped to explain the
adventure that had befallen him while he had been night fishing.

"I seen spooks, Mr. Gordon--hundreds of 'em--coming down the river bank
on horseback--honest to goodness, I did."

"Jimmie, if I had your imagination----"

But Davis cut into Dick's smiling incredulity:

"Did you say on horseback, Jimmie?"

"Yes, sir, on horseback. Hope to die if they weren't--'bout fifty of
them."

"You better run along home before they catch you, Jimmie," advised the
old miner gravely.

The boy went like a streak of light. Davis turned quietly to his
partner.

"I reckon it's come, Dick."

"You believe the boy did see some men on horseback? It might have been
only shadows."

"No, sir. His imagination wouldn't have put spooks _on horseback_. We
got no time to argue. You going to hold the fort here or take to the
hills?"

"You think they mean to attack us in the open?"

"They're hoping to surprise us, I reckon. That's why they're coming
along the creek instead of the road. Hadn't 'a' been for Jimmie, they
would have picked us off from the porch before we could say 'Jack
Robinson.'"

Both men had at once stepped within the log cabin, and, as they talked,
were strapping on ammunition belts and looking to their rifles and
revolvers.

"There are too many doors and windows to this cabin. We can't hold it
against them. We'll take the trail from the back door that leads up to
the old spring. From up there we'll keep an eye on them," said Dick.

"I see 'em coming," cried the older man softly from the front window.
"They ain't on the trail, but slipping up through the rocks.
One--two--three--four--Lord, there's no end to the beggars! They're on
foot now. Left their hawsses, I expect, down by the river."

Quietly the two men stepped from the back door of the cabin and swiftly
ascended the little trail that rose at a sharp acclivity to the spring.
At some height above the cabin, they crouched behind boulders and
watched the cautious approach of the enemy.

"Not taking any chances, are they?" murmured Gordon.

Steve laughed softly.

"Heard about that chicken-killing affair, mebbe, and none of them
anxious to add a goose to the exhibit."

"It would be right easy to give that surprise party a first-class
surprise," chuckled Dick. "Shall I drop a pill or two down among them,
just to let them know we're on the premises?"

"Now, don't you, Dick. We'll have to put half of 'em out of biz, and get
shot up by the rest, if you do."

"All right. I'll be good, Steve. I was only joking, anyhow. But it
ce'tainly is right funny to sit up here and watch them snake up to the
empty cabin. See that fellow with the Mexican hat? I believe it's my
jealous friend Pablo. He's ce'tainly anxious to get one Gringo's scalp.
I could drop a stone down on him so he'd jump about 'steen feet."

"There's one reached the window. He's looking in mighty careful, you
bet. Now he's beckoning the other fellows. I got a notion he's made a
discovery."

"Got on to the fact that the nest's empty. They're pouring in like bees.
Can you make out how many there are? I count nine," said Dick.

"They're having a powwow now. All talking with their hands, the way
greasers do. Go to it, boys. A regular debating society, ain't you?"

"Hello! What's that mean?" broke in Gordon.

One of the Mexicans had left the rest, and was running toward the
Corbett house.

"Gone to find whether we're on the porch with the family, up there,"
continued the young man, answering his own question.

"What's the matter with beating it while we've got a chanct?"

"I'm going to stay right here. You can go if you like, Steve?"

"Oh, well. I just suggested it." Davis helped himself to a chew of
tobacco placidly.

"Fellow coming back from the house already," he presently added.

"Got the wrong address again. They'll be happening on the right one
pretty soon."

"Soon as they're amply satisfied we ain't under the beds, or hid between
the covers of some of them magazines. Blamed if they ain't lit a lamp."

Gordon gave a sudden exclamation of dismay. A Mexican had appeared at
the back door of the cottage with a tin box in his hand.

"I'm the blamedest idiot out of an asylum," he cried bitterly. "All the
proofs of my claim are in that box. You know I brought it back from
Santa Fe with me."

"Ain't that too bad?"

Gordon rose, the lines of his mouth set fast and hard.

"I'm going down after it. If I lose those papers, the whole game's
spoilt for me. I've got to have them, and I'm going to."

"Don't be a goat. How can you take it from a whole company of them?"

"I'll watch my chance. It may be the fellow will hide it somewhere till
he wants it again."

"I'm going, too, then."

"See here, Steve. Be sensible. If we both go down, it's a sure thing
they will stumble on us."

"Too late, anyhow. They're coming up after us."

"So much the better. We'll cut across to the left, slip down, and take
them in the rear. Likely as not we'll find it there."

"All right. Whatever you say, Dick."

They slipped away into the semi-darkness, taking advantage of every bit
of cover they could find. Not until they were a long stone's throw from
the trail did the young miner begin the descent.

Occasionally they could hear voices over to the right as they silently
slipped down. It was no easy thing to negotiate that stiff mountainside
in the darkness, where a slip would have sent one of them rolling down
into the sharp rock-slide beneath. Presently they came to a rockrim, a
sheer descent of twenty-five feet down the perpendicular face of a
cliff.

They followed the ledge to the left, hoping to find a trough through
which they might discover a way down. But in this they were
disappointed.

"We'll have to go back. There's a place we passed where perhaps it may
be done. We've got to try it, anyhow," said Gordon, in desperation.

Retracing their steps, they came to the point Dick had meant. It looked
bad enough, in all conscience, but from the rocks there jutted halfway
down a dwarf oak that had found rooting in a narrow cleft.

The young man worked his body over the edge, secured a foothold in some
tiny scarp that broke the smoothness of the face, and groped, with one
hand and then the other, for some hold that would do to brace his
weight. He found one, lowered himself gingerly, and tested another
foothold in a little bunch of dry moss.

"All right. My rifle, Steve."

It was handed down. At that precise moment there came to them the sound
of approaching voices.

"Your gun, Steve! Quick. Now, then, over you come. That's right--no, the
other hand--your foot goes there--easy, now."

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