A Daughter of the Dons by William MacLeod Raine

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"I'll do what punishing needs to be done, Miss Valdes. Much obliged to
you, just the same."

Her eyes flashed.

"You forget, sir, that they are my people. I gave orders--the very
strictest orders. I told them that, no matter what you did or how far
you went, you were not to be molested."

"How far I went? You've been served with a legal notice, then? I thought
you must have by this time."

"Yes, sir, I have. But neither on that nor any other subject do I desire
any conversation with you."

"Of course not, me being a spy and all those other things you
mentioned," he said quietly.

"I stopped to tell you only one thing. You must leave this country.
Prosecute your suit from a distance. My people are wrought up. You see
for yourself now." Her gauntlet indicated the hat.

"They do seem to be enthusiastic about hating me," he agreed pleasantly.
"I suppose I'm not what you would call popular here."

She gave a gesture of annoyance.

"Can't you understand that this is no time for flippancy? Can't you make
him see it, sir?" she called to Davis.

That gentleman shook his head.

"He'll go his own way, I expect. He always was that bull-headed."

"Firm--I call it," smiled Gordon.

"I ask you to remember that he has had his warning," the girl called to
Steve.

"I've had several," acknowledged Dick, his eyes again on the hat. "There
won't be anybody to blame but myself."

"You know who shot at you. I saw it in your face. Tell me, and I will
see that he is punished," she urged.

Dick shook his head imperturbably.

"No; I reckon that wouldn't do. I'm playing a lone hand. You're on the
other side. How can I come and ask you to fight my battles for me? That
wouldn't be playing the game. I'll attend to the young man that mistook
me for a rabbit."

"Very well. As you like. But you are quite mistaken if you think I asked
on your account. He had disobeyed my orders, and he deserved to pay for
it. I have no further interest in the matter."

"Certainly. I understand that. What interest could Miss Valdes have in a
spy and a cheat?" he drawled negligently.

The young woman flushed, made as if to speak, then turned away abruptly.

She touched her pony with the spur, and as it took the outside of the
slanting, narrow trail, its hoof slipped on loose gravel and went over
the edge. Dick's arm went out like a streak of lightning and caught the
rein.

For an instant the issue hung in doubt whether he could hold the bronco
and save her a nasty fall. The taut muscles of his lean arm and body
grew rigid with the strain before the animal found its feet and the
path.

"Thank you," the young woman said quietly, and at once disengaged the
rein from his fingers by a turn of the pony's head.

Yet a moment, and she had disappeared round a bend in the trail. Gordon
had observed with satisfaction that there had been no sign of fear in
her eyes at the danger she faced, no screaming or wild clutching at his
arm for help. Her word of thanks to him had been as cool and low as the
rest of her talk.

"She's that game. Ain't she a thoroughbred, Steve?" demanded Dick, with
deep delight in his fair foe.

"You bet she is. It's a shame for you to be annoying her this way. Why
don't you come to an agreement with her?"

"She ain't ready for that yet. When the time comes I'll dictate the
terms of the treaty. Don't you think it's about time for us to be
heading back home?"

"Then we'll meet your lady of the ranch quicker, won't we?" chuckled
Davis. "Funny you didn't think about going back till after she had
passed."

But if Dick had hoped to see her again he was disappointed for that day,
at least. They reached Corbett's with never another glimpse of her; nor
was there any sign of her horse in front of the post office and general
store.

"Must have taken that lower trail that leads back to the ranch,"
hazarded Gordon.

"I reckon," agreed his friend. "Seems funny, too; her knowing you was on
the upper one."

"Guy me all you like. I can stand it," returned Dick cheerfully.

For he had scored once in spite of her. He had saved her from a fall, at
a place where, to say the least, it would have been dangerous. She had
announced herself indifferent to his existence; but the very fact that
she had felt called upon to say so gave denial to the statement. She
might hate him, and she probably did; at least, she had him on her mind
a good deal. The young man was sure of that. He was shrewdly of opinion
that his chances were better if she hated him than if she never thought
of him at all.

CHAPTER VIII

TAMING AN OUTLAW

"Something doing back of the corral, Mr. Gordon."

Yeager, the horse-wrangler at Corbett's, stopped in front of the porch,
and jerked his head, with a twisted grin, in the direction indicated.

Everything about the little stableman was crooked. From the slope of his
legs to the set of his bullet head on the narrow shoulders, he was awry.
But he had an instinct about horses that was worth more than the beauty
of any slim, tanned _vaquero_ of the lot.

Only one horse had he failed to subdue. That was Teddy, a rakish sorrel
that had never yet been ridden. Many had tried it, but none had stuck to
the saddle to the finish; and some had been carried from the corral to
the hospital.

Dick got up and strolled back, with his hands in his pockets.

A dozen _vaqueros_ and loungers sat and stood around the mouth of the
corral, from which a slim young Mexican was leading the sorrel.

"So, it's you, Master Pedro," thought the young American. "I didn't
expect to see you here."

The lad met his eyes quietly as he passed, giving him a sullen nod of
greeting; evidently he hoped he had not been recognized as the previous
day's ambusher.

"Is Pedro going to ride the outcast?" Dick asked of Yeager, in surprise.

Yeager grinned.

"He's going to try. The boy's slap-up rider, but he ain't got it in him
to break Teddy--no, nor any man in New Mexico ain't."

Dick looked the horse over carefully, as it stood there while the boy
tightened the girths--feet wide apart, small head low, and red eyes
gleaming wickedly. Deep-chested, with mighty shoulders, barrel-bodied
like an Indian pony, Teddy showed power in every line of him. It was
easy to guess him for the unbroken outlaw he was.

There was a swift scatter backward of the onlookers as Pedro swung to
the saddle. Before his right foot was in the stirrup, the bronco bucked.

The young Mexican, light and graceful, settled to the saddle with a
delighted laugh, and drove the spurs home. The animal humped like a
camel, head and tail down, went into the air and back to earth, with
four feet set like pile-drivers. It was a shock to drive a man's spine
together like a concertina; but Pedro took it limply, giving to the jar
of the impact as the pony came down again and again.

Teddy tasted the quirt along his quarters, and the pain made him
frantic. He went screaming straight into the air, hung there a long
instant, and fell over backward. The lad was out of the saddle in time
and no more, and back in his seat before the outlaw had scrambled to his
feet.

The spur starred him to renewed life. Like a flash of lightning, the
brute's head swung round and snapped at the boy's leg. Pedro wrenched
the head back in time to save himself; and Teddy went to sun-fishing,
and presently to fence-rowing.

The dust flew in clouds. It wrapped them in so that the boy saw nothing
but the wicked ears in front of him. His throat became a lime-kiln, his
eyes stared like those of a man weary from long wakefulness. The hot sun
baked his bare neck and head, the while Teddy rocketed into the sky and
pounded into the earth.

Neither rider nor mount had mercy. The quirt went back and forth like a
piston-rod, and the outlaw, in screaming fury, leaped and tossed like a
small boat in a tremendous sea of cross-currents.

"It's sure hell-for-leather. That hawss can tie himself in more knots
than any that was ever foaled," commented a tobacco-chewing puncher in a
scarlet kerchief.

"Pedro is a straight-up rider, but he ain't got it in him to master
Teddy--no; nor no man ain't," contributed Yeager again proudly. "Hawsses
is like men. Some of 'em can't be broke; you can only kill them. Teddy's
one of them kind."

Dick differed, but did not say so.

"Look at him now. There he goes weaving. That hawss is a devil, I tell
you. He's got every hawss-trick there is, and all of 'em worked up to a
combination of his own. Look out there, Ped."

The warning came too late. Teddy had jammed into the corral fence, and
ground his rider's knee till the torture of the pain had distracted his
attention. Once more then swept round the ugly stub nose, and the yellow
teeth fastened in the leather chaps with a vicious snap that did not
entirely miss the flesh of the leg.

The boy, with a cry of pain and terror, slipped to the ground, his nerve
completely shaken. The sorrel lashed out with his hind feet, and missed
his head by a hairbreadth. Pedro turned to run, stumbled, and went down.

The outlaw was upon him like a streak, striking with sharp chiseled
forefeet at the prostrate man. Along the line of spectators ran a groan,
a kind of sobbing murmur of despair. A young Mexican who had just ridden
up flung himself from his horse and ran forward, though he knew he was
too late.

"Pedro's done for," cried one.

And so he would have been but for the watchfulness and alertness of one
man.

Dick had been ready the instant the outlaw had flung against the fence.
He had been prepared to see the boy weaken, and had anticipated it in
his forward leap. The furious animal had risen to drive home his hoofs,
when an arm shot out, caught the bridle, and dragged him sideways. This
unexpected intervention dazed the animal; and while he still stood
uncertain, Gordon swung to the saddle and dug his heels into the
bleeding sides.

As to a signal the bronco rose, and the battle was on again.

But this time the victory was not in doubt to the onlookers after the
first half-dozen jumps. For this man rode like a master. He held a close
but easy seat, and a firm rein, along which ran the message of an iron
will to the sensitive foaming mouth which held the bit tight-clamped.

This brown, lithe man was all bone and sinew and muscle. He rode like a
Centaur, as if he were a part of the horse, as easily and gracefully as
a chip does the waves. The outlaw was furious with hate, blind with a
madness that surged through it; but all its weaving and fence-rowing
could not shake the perfect poise of the rider, nor tinge with fear the
glad fighting edge that throbbed like a trumpet-call in the blood.

Slowly the certainty of this sifted to the animal. The pitches grew less
volcanic, died presently into fitful mechanical rises and falls that
foretold the finish. Its spirit broken, with that terrible incubus of a
human clothes-pin still clamped to the saddle, Teddy gave up, and for
the first time hung his head in token of defeat.

Dick tossed the bridle to Yeager and swung off.

"There aren't any of them so bad, if a fellow will stay with them," he
said.

"Where did you learn your riding, partner?" asked the puncher with the
scarlet kerchief knotted around his neck.

"I used to ride for an outfit up in Wyoming," returned Dick.

"Well, I'd like to ride for that outfit, if all the boys stick to the
saddle like you," returned the kerchiefed one.

Gordon did not explain that he had been returned winner in more than one
bucking-bronco contest in the days when he rode the range.

He was already sauntering toward the house.

From a side porch Pedro, awaiting the arrival of a rig to take him back
to the ranch, sat with his bruised leg on a chair and watched the
approach of the stalwart figure that came as lightly as though it trod
on eggs. He had hobbled here and watched the other do easily what had
been beyond him.

His heart was bitter with the sense of defeat, none the less because
this man whom he had lately tried to kill had just saved his life.

"_Como_?" asked Dick, stopping in front of him to brush dust from his
trousers with a pocket-handkerchief.

Pedro mumbled something. Under his olive skin the color burned. Tears of
mortification were in his eyes.

"You saved my life, _senor_. Take it. It is yours," the boy cried.

"What shall _I_ do with it?"

"I care not. Make an end of it, as on Tuesday I tried to make an end of
yours," cried the lad wildly.

Gordon took off his hat and looked at the bullet holes casually.

"You did not miss it very far, Pedro."

"You knew then, _senor_, that I was the man?" the Mexican asked in
surprise.

"Oh, yes; I knew that."

"And you did nothing?"

"Yes; I ducked behind a rock," laughed Gordon.

"But you make no move to arrest me?"

"No."

"But, if I should shoot again?"

"I expect to carry a rifle next time I go riding, Pedro."

The Mexican considered this.

"You are a brave man, _senor_."

The Anglo-Saxon snorted scornfully.

"Because I ain't bluffed out by a kid that needs a horse-whip laid on
good and hard? Don't you make any mistake, boy. I'm going to give you
the licking of your young life. You were due for it to-day, but it will
have to be postponed, I reckon, till you're on your feet again."

Pedro's eyes glittered dangerously.

"Senor Gordon has saved my life. It is his. But no living man lays hands
on Pedro Menendez," the boy said, drawing himself haughtily to his full
slender height.

"You'll learn better, Pedro, before the week's out. You've got to stand
the gaff, just the same as a white boy would. You're in for a good
whaling, and there ain't any use getting heroic about it."

"I think not, Senor Gordon." There was a suggestion of repressed emotion
in the voice.

Dick turned sharply at the words. A lean, clean-built young fellow stood
beside the porch. He stepped up lightly, so that he was behind the chair
in which Pedro had been sitting. Seen side by side thus, there could be
no mistaking the kinship between the two Mexicans. Both were good
looking, both lean and muscular, both had a sort of banked volcanic
passion in their black eyes. Dangerous men, these slim swarthy youths,
judged Gordon with a sure instinct.

"You think not, Pedro Number 2," retorted the American lightly.

"My name is Pablo, Senor--Pablo Menendez," corrected the young man with
dignity.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Menendez. I was just telling your brother--if
Pedro is your brother--that I intend to wear out a buggy whip on him as
soon as his leg is well," explained Dick pleasantly.

"No. You have saved his life. It is yours. Take it." The black eyes of
the Mexican met steadily the blue-gray ones of the American.

"Much obliged, but I can't use it. As soon as I've tanned his hide I'm
through with Master Pedro," returned the miner carelessly.

He was turning away when Pablo stopped him. The musical voice was low
and clear. "Senor Gordon understands then. Pedro will pay. He will
endure shot for shot if the Senor wishes it. But no man living shall lay
a whip upon him."

Gordon shrugged his shoulders. "We shall see, my friend. The first time
I meet him after his leg is all right Master Pedro gets the licking he
needs."

"You are warned, _senor_."

Dick nodded and walked away, humming a song lightly.

The black eyes of the Mexicans followed him as long as he was in sight.
A passionate hatred burned in those of the elder brother. Those of Pedro
were full of a wistful misery. With all his heart he admired this man
whom he had yesterday tried to kill, who had to-day saved his life, and
in the next breath promised him a thrashing.

He gave him a grudging hero-worship, even while he hated him; for the
man trod the world with the splendor of a young god, and yet was an
enemy of the young mistress to whom he owed his full devotion. Pedro's
mind was made up.

If this Gordon laid a whip on him, he would drive a knife into his
heart.

CHAPTER IX

OF DON MANUEL AND MOONLIGHT

Don Manuel sat curled up in one of the deep window-seats of the living
room at the Valdes home, and lifted his clear tenor softly in an old
Spanish love-song to the accompaniment of the strumming of a guitar.

It is possible that the young Spaniard sang the serenade impersonally,
as much to the elderly duenna who slumbered placidly on the other side
of the fireplace as to his lovely young hostess. But his eyes told
another story. They strayed continuously toward that slim, gracious
figure sitting in the fireglow with a piece of embroidery in the long
fingers.

He could look at her the more ardently because she was not looking at
him. The fringes of her lids were downcast to the dusky cheeks, the
better to examine the work upon which she was engaged.

Don Manuel felt the hour propitious. It was impossible for him not to
feel that in the past weeks somehow he had lost touch with her.
Something had come between them; some new interest that threatened his
influence.

But to-night he had again woven the spell of romance around her. As she
sat there, a sweet shadowy form touched to indistinctness by the soft
dusk, he knew her gallant heart had gone with him in the Castilian
battle song he had sung, had remained with him in the transition to the
more tender note of love.

He rose, thumbed a chord or two, then set his guitar down softly. For a
time he looked out into the valley swimming in a silvery light, and
under its spell the longing in him came to words.

"It is a night of nights, my cousin. Is it not that a house is a prison
in such an hour? Let us forth."

So forth they fared to the porch, and from the porch to the sentinel
rock which rose like a needle from the summit of a neighboring hill.
Across the sea of silver they looked to the violet mountains, soft and
featureless in the lowered lights of evening, and both of them felt it
earth's hour of supreme beauty.

"It is good to live--and to know this," she said at last softly.

"It is good to live and, best of all, to know you," he made answer
slowly.

She did not turn from the hills, made no slightest sign that she had
heard; but to herself she was saving: "It has come."

While he pleaded his cause passionately, with all the ardor of
hot-blooded Spain, the girl heard only with her ears. She was searching
her heart for the answer to the question she asked of it:

"_Is this the man?_"

A month ago she might have found her answer easier; but she felt that in
some subtle, intangible way she was not the same girl as the Valencia
Valdes she had known then. Something new had come into her life;
something that at times exalted her and seemed to make life's currents
sweep with more abandon.

She was at a loss to know what it meant; but, though she would not
confess it even to herself, she was aware that the American was the
stimulating cause. He was her enemy, and she detested him; and, in the
same breath with which she would tell herself this, would come that warm
beat of exultant blood she had never known till lately.

With all his ardor, Don Manuel never quickened her pulses. She liked
him, understood him, appreciated his value. He was certainly very
handsome, and, without doubt, a brave, courteous gentleman of her own
set with whom she ought to be happy if she loved him. Ah! If she knew
what love were.

So, when the torrent of Pesquiera's speech was for the moment dammed,
she could only say:

"I don't know, Manuel."

Confidently he explained away her uncertainty:

"A maiden's love is retiring, shy, like the first flowers of the spring.
She doubts it, fears it, hides it, my beloved, like----"

He was just swimming into his vocal stride when she cut him short
decisively:

"It isn't that way with me, Manuel. I should tell you if I knew. Tell me
what love is, my cousin, and I may find an answer."

He was off again in another lover's rhapsody. This time there was a
smile almost of amusement in her eyes as she listened.

"If it is like that, I don't think I love you, Manuel. I don't think
poetry about you, and I don't dream about you. Life isn't a desert when
you are away, though I like having you here. I don't believe I care for
you that way, not if love is what the poets and my cousin Manuel say it
is."

Her eyes had been fixed absently now and again on an approaching wagon.
It passed on the road below them, and she saw, as she looked down, that
her _vaquero_ Pedro lay in the bottom of it upon some hay.

"What is the matter? Are you hurt?" she called down.

The lad who was driving looked up, and flashed a row of white teeth in a
smile of reassurance to his mistress.

"It is Pedro, _dona_. He tried to ride that horse Teddy, and it threw
him. Before it could kill him, the _Americano_ jumped in and saved his
life."

"What American?" she asked quickly: but already she knew by the swift
beating of her heart.

"Senor Muir; the devil fly away with him," replied the boy loyally.

Already his mistress was descending toward him with her sure stride, Don
Manuel and his suit forgotten in the interest of this new development of
the feud. She made the boy go over the tale minutely, asking questions
sometimes when she wanted fuller details.

Meanwhile, Manuel Pesquiera waited, fuming. Most certainly this fellow
Gordon was very much in the way. Jealousy began to add its sting to the
other reasons good for hastening his revenge.

When Valencia turned again to her cousin her eyes were starry.

"He is brave--this man. Is he not?" she cried.

It happened that Don Manuel, too, was a rider in a thousand. He thought
that Fate had been unkind to refuse him this chance his enemy had found.
But Pesquiera was a gentleman, and his answer came ungrudgingly:

"My cousin, he is a hero--as I told you before."

"But you think him base," she cried quickly.

"I let the facts speak for me," he shrugged.

"Do they condemn him--absolutely? I think not."

She was a creature of impulse, too fine of spirit to be controlled by
the caution of speech that convention demands. She would do justice to
her foe, no matter how Manuel interpreted it.

What the young man did think was that she was the most adorable and
desirable of earth's dwellers, the woman he must win at all hazards.

"He came here a spy, under a false name. Surely you do not forget that,
Valencia," he said.

"I do not forget, either, that we flung his explanations in his face;
refused him the common justice of a hearing. Had we given him a chance,
all might have been well."

"My cousin is generous," Manuel smiled bitterly.

"I would be just."

"Be both, my beloved, to poor Manuel Pesquiera, an unhappy wreck on the
ocean of love, seeking in vain for the harbor."

"There are many harbors, Manuel, for the brave sailor. If one is closed,
another is open. He hoists sail, and beats across the main to another
port."

"For some. But there are others who will to one port or none. I am of
those."

When she left him it was with the feeling that Don Manuel would be hard
hit, if she found herself unable to respond to his love.

He was not like this American, competent, energetic, full of the
turbulent life of a new nation which turns easily from defeat to fresh
victory.

Her heart was full of sympathy, and even pity, for him. But these are
only akin to love.

It was not long before Valencia began to suspect that she had not been
told the whole truth about the affair of the outlaw horse. There was
some air of mystery, of expectation, among her _vaqueros_.

At her approach, conversation became suspended, and perceptibly shifted
to other topics. Moreover, Pedro was troubled in his mind, out of all
proportion to the extent of his wound.

She knew it would be no use to question him; but she made occasion soon
to send for Juan Gardiez, the lad who had driven him home.

From the doorway of the living-room, Juan presently ducked a bow at her.

"The _senorita_ sent for me?"

"Yes. Come in, Juan. Take that chair."

Now, though Juan had often sat down in the kitchen, he had never before
been invited to seat himself in this room. Wherefore, the warm smile
that now met him, and went with the invitation, filled him with a more
than mild surprise. Gingerly he perched himself on the edge of a chair,
twirling his dusty sombrero round and round as a relief to his
embarrassment.

"I am sorry, Juan, that you don't like me or trust me any longer," his
mistress began.

"But, _dona_, I do," exclaimed the boy, nearly falling from his chair in
amazement.

She shook her head.

"No; I can see you don't. None of you do. You keep secrets from me. You
whisper and hide things."

"But, no, _senorita_----"

"Yes. I can see it plainly. My people do not love me. I must go away
from them, since----"

Juan, having in his tender boyish heart a great love for his _dona_,
could not stand this.

"No, no, no, _senorita_! It is not so. I do assure you it is a mistake.
There is nothing about the cattle, nothing about the sheep you do not
know. It is all told--all."

"_Muy bien_. Yet you conceal what happened yesterday to Pedro."

"He was thrown----"

She stopped him with a gesture.

"I don't want to know that again. Tell me what is in the air; what is
planned for Senor Gordon; what Pedro has to do with it? Tell me, or
leave me to know my people no longer love me."

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