A Daughter of the Dons by William MacLeod Raine

W >> William MacLeod Raine >> A Daughter of the Dons

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

While the fresh horses were being hitched to the stage Pesquiera and his
guest stood back a little apart from the others. Corbett brought out a
sack containing mail and handed it to the driver. The passengers found
again their places.

Pesquiera shook hands with Valencia. His gaze rested for a moment in her
dark eyes.

"_Adios, linda_," he said, in a low voice.

The color deepened in her cheeks. She understood that he was telling her
how very much he was her lover now and always. "Good-bye, _amigo_," she
answered lightly.

Pesquiera took his place on the back seat. The whip of the driver
cracked. In a cloud of white dust the stage disappeared around a bend in
the road.

Valencia ordered her horse brought, and left for the ranch. Having
dispatched Manuel to the scene of action, it might be supposed that she
would have awaited the issue without farther activity. But on the way
home she began to reflect that her cousin would not reach Santa Fe until
next morning, and there was always a chance that this would be too late.
As soon as she reached the ranch she called up the station where the
stage connected with the train. To the operator she dictated a message
to be wired to Richard Gordon. The body of it ran thus:

"Have heard that attack may be made upon your life. Please do not
go out alone or at night at all. Answer."

She gave urgent instructions that if necessary to reach Gordon her
telegram be sent to every hotel in the city and to his lawyer, Thomas M.
Fitt.

Now that she had done all she could the young woman tried to put the
matter out of her mind by busying herself with the affairs of the ranch.
She had a talk with a cattle buyer, after which she rode out to see the
engineer who had charge of the building of the irrigation system she had
installed. An answer would, she was sure, be awaiting her upon her
return home.

Her anticipation was well founded. One of the housemaids told her that
the operator at San Jacinto had twice tried to get her on the telephone.
The mistress of the ranch stepped at once to the receiver.

"Give me San Jacinto," she said to the operator.

As soon as she was on the wire with the operator he delivered the
message he had for her. It was from Santa Fe and carried the signature
of Stephen Davis:

"Gordon has been missing since last night. I fear the worst. For
God's sake, tell me what you know."

Valencia leaned against the telephone receiver and steadied herself. She
felt strangely faint. The wall opposite danced up and down and the floor
swayed like the deck of a vessel in a heavy sea. She set her teeth hard
to get a grip on herself. Presently the wave of light-headedness passed.

She moved across the room and sank down into a chair in front of her
desk. They had then murdered him after all. She and her people were
responsible for his death. There was nothing to be done now--nothing at
all.

Then, out of the silence, a voice seemed to call to her--the voice of
Richard Gordon, faint and low, but clear. She started to her feet and
listened, shaken to the soul by this strange summons from that world
which lay beyond the reach of her physical senses. What could it mean?
She had the body of a healthy young animal. Her nerves never played her
any tricks. But surely there had come to her a call for help not born of
her own excited fancy.

In an instant she had made up her mind. Her finger pressed an electric
button beside the desk, and almost simultaneously a second one. The maid
who appeared in the doorway in answer to the first ring found her
mistress busily writing.

Valencia looked up. "Rosario, pack a suitcase for me with clothes for a
week. Put in my light brown dress and a couple of shirt-waists. I'll be
up presently." Her gaze passed to the major domo who now stood beside
the maid. "I'm going to Santa Fe to-night, Fernando. Order the grays to
be hitched to the buggy."

"To-night! But, _Senorita_, the train has gone."

"Juan will go with me. We'll drive right through. My business is
important."

"But it is seventy miles to Santa Fe, and part of the way over mountain
roads," he protested.

"Yes. We should reach there by morning. I mean to travel all night. Make
the arrangements, please, and tell Juan. Then return here. I want to
talk over with you the ranch affairs. You will have charge of the
ditches, too, during my absence. Don't argue, Fernando, but do as I
say."

The old man had opened his mouth to object, but he closed it without
voicing his views. A little smile, born of his pride in her wilfulness,
touched his lips and wrinkled the parchment skin. Was she not a Valdes?
He had served her father and her grandfather. To him, therefore, she
could do no wrong.

CHAPTER XV

ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD

The night of his disappearance Dick had sauntered forth from the hotel
with the jaunty assurance to Davis that he was going to call on a young
lady. He offered no further details, and his friend asked for none,
though he wondered a little what young woman in Santa Fe had induced
Gordon to change his habits. The old miner had known him from boyhood.
His partner had never found much time for the society of eligible
maidens. He had been too busy living to find tea-cup discussions about
life interesting. The call of adventure had absorbed his youth, and he
had given his few mature years ardently to the great American game of
money-making. It was not that he loved gold. What Richard Gordon cared
for was the battle, the struggle against both honorable and unscrupulous
foe-men for success. He fought in the business world only because it was
the test of strength. Money meant power. So he had made money.

It was not until Dick failed to appear for breakfast next morning that
Davis began to get uneasy. He sent a bellboy to awaken Gordon, and
presently the lad came back with word that he could get no answer to his
knocks. Instantly Steve pushed back his chair and walked out of the room
to the desk in the lobby.

"Got a skeleton key to Mr. Gordon's room--317, I think it is?" he
demanded.

"Yes. We keep duplicate keys. You see, Mr. Davis, guests go away and
carry the keys----"

"Then I want it. Afraid something's wrong with my friend. He's always up
early and on hand for breakfast. He hasn't showed up this mo'ning. The
bell hop can't waken him. I tell you something's wrong."

"Oh, I reckon he'll turn up all right." The clerk turned to the key
rack. "Here's the key to Room 317. Mr. Gordon must have left it here.
Likely he's gone for a walk."

Davis shook his head obstinately. "Don't believe it. I'm going up to
see, anyhow."

Within five minutes he discovered that the bed in Room 317 had not been
slept in the previous night. He was thoroughly alarmed. Gordon had no
friends in the town likely to put him up for the night. Nor was he the
sort of rounder to dissipate his energies in all-night debauchery. Dick
had come to Santa Fe for a definite purpose. The old miner knew from
long experience that he would not be diverted from it for the sake of
the futile foolish diversions known by some as pleasure. Therefore the
mind of Davis jumped at once to the conclusion of foul play.

And if foul play, then the Valdes claimants to the Rio Chamo Valley were
the guilty parties. He blamed himself bitterly for having let Dick
venture out alone, for having taken no precautions whatever to guard him
against the Mexicans who had already once attempted his life.

"I'm a fine friend. Didn't even find out who he was going out to call
on. Fact is, I didn't figure he was in any danger so long as he was in
town here," he explained to the sheriff.

He learned nothing either at the police headquarters or at the newspaper
offices that threw light on the disappearance of Gordon. No murder had
been reported during the night. No unusual disturbance of any kind had
occurred, so far as could be learned.

Before noon he had the town plastered with posters in English and in
Spanish offering a reward of five hundred dollars for news leading to
the recovery of Richard Gordon or for evidence leading to the conviction
of his murderers in case he was dead. This brought two callers to the
hotel almost at once. One was the attorney Fitt, the other a young woman
who gave her name as Kate Underwood. Fitt used an hour of the old
miner's time to no purpose, but the young woman brought with her one
piece of news.

"I want to know when Mr. Gordon was last seen," she explained, "because
he was calling on my mother and me last night and left about ten
o'clock."

The little man got to his feet in great excitement. "My dear young
woman, you're the very person I've been wanting to see. He told me he
was going calling, but I'm such a darned chump I didn't think to ask
where. Is Dick a friend of your family?"

"No, hardly that. I met him when he came to our office in the State
House to look up the land grant papers. We became friendly and I asked
him to call because we own the old Valdes house, and I thought he would
like to see it." She added, rather dryly: "You haven't answered my
question."

"I'll say that so far as I know you are the last person who ever saw
Dick alive except his murderers," Davis replied, a gleam of tears in his
eyes.

"Oh, it can't be as bad as that," she cried. "They wouldn't go that
far."

"Wouldn't they? He was shot at from ambush while we were out riding one
day in the Chama Valley."

"By whom?"

"By a young Mexican--one of Miss Valdes servants."

"You don't mean that Valencia----?"

She stopped, unwilling to put her horrified thought into words. He
answered her meaning.

"No, I reckon not. She wanted Dick to tell her who it was, so she could
punish the man. But that doesn't alter the facts any. He was shot at.
That time the murderer missed, but maybe this time----"

Miss Underwood broke in sharply. "Do you know that he has been followed
ever since he came to town, that men have dogged his steps everywhere?"

Davis leaned across the table where he was sitting. "How do you know?"
he questioned eagerly.

"I saw them and warned him. He laughed about it and said he knew
already. He didn't seem at all worried."

"Worried! He's just kid enough to be tickled to death about it," snapped
the miner, masking his anxiety with irritation. "He hadn't sense enough
to tell me for fear it would disturb me--and I hadn't the sense to find
out in several days what you did in five minutes."

Davis and Miss Underwood went together over every foot of the road
between her home and the hotel. One ray of hope they got from their
examination of the ground he must have traversed to reach the El Tovar,
as the hotel was named. At one spot--where a double row of cottonwoods
lined the road--a fence had been knocked down and many feet had trampled
the sandy pasture within. Steve picked up a torn piece of cloth about
six inches by twelve in dimension. It had evidently been a part of a
coat sleeve. He recognized the pattern as that of the suit his friend
had been wearing.

"A part of his coat all right," he said. "They must have bushwhacked him
here. By the foot-prints there were a good many of them."

"I'm glad there were."

"Why?"

"For two reasons," the girl explained. "In the first place, if they had
wanted to kill him, one or two would have been enough. They wouldn't
take any more than was necessary into their confidence."

"That's right. Your head's level there."

"And, in the second place, two men can keep a secret, but six or eight
can't. Some one of them is bound to talk to his sweetheart or wife or
friend."

"True enough. That five hundred dollars might get one of 'em, too."

"Somehow I believe he is alive. His enemies have taken him away
somewhere--probably up into the hills."

"But why?"

"You ought to know that better than I do. What could they gain by it?"

He scratched his gray head. "Search me. They couldn't aim to hold him
till after the trial. That would be a kid's play."

"Couldn't they get him to sign some paper--something saying that he
would give up his claim--or that he would sell out cheap?"

"No, they couldn't," the old man answered grimly. "But they might think
they could. I expect that's the play. Dick never in the world would come
through, though. He's game, that boy is. The point is, what will they do
when they find he stands the acid?"

Miss Underwood looked quickly at him, then looked quickly away. She knew
what they would do. So did Davis.

"No, that's not the point. We must find him--just as soon as we can.
Stir this whole town up and rake it with a fine-tooth comb. See if any
of Miss Valdes' peons are in town. If they are have them shadowed."

They separated presently, she to go to the State House, he to return to
the El Tovar. There he found the telegram from Miss Valdes awaiting him.
Immediately he dictated an answer.

Before nightfall a second supply of posters decorated walls and
billboards. The reward was raised to one thousand dollars for
information that would lead to the finding of Richard Gordon alive and
the same sum for evidence sufficient to convict his murderers in case he
was dead. It seemed impossible that in so small a place, with everybody
discussing the mysterious disappearance, the affair could long remain a
secret. Davis did not doubt that Miss Underwood was correct in her
assumption that the assailants of Gordon had carried him with them into
some hidden pocket of the hills, in which case it might take longer to
run them to earth. The great danger that he feared was panic on the part
of the abductors. To cover their tracks they might kill him and leave
this part of the country. The closer pursuit pressed on them the more
likely this was to happen. It behooved him to move with the greatest
care.

CHAPTER XVI

VALENCIA MAKES A PROMISE

When Manuel descended from the El Tovar hack which had brought him from
the station to that hotel the first person he saw standing upon the
porch was Valencia Valdes. He could hardly believe his eyes, for of
course she could not be here. He had left her at Corbett's, had taken
the stage and the train, and now found her waiting for him. The thing
was manifestly impossible. Yet here she was.

Swiftly she came down the steps to meet him.

"Manuel, we are too late. Mr. Gordon has gone."

"Gone where?" he asked, his mind dazed as it moved from one puzzle to
another.

"We don't know. He was attacked night before last and carried away,
whether dead or alive we have no proof."

"One thing at a time, Valencia. How did you get here?"

"I drove across the mountains--started when I got the news from Mr.
Davis that his friend had disappeared."

"Do you mean that you drove all night--along mountain roads?" he asked,
amazed.

"Of course. I had to get here." She dismissed this as a trifle with a
little gesture of her hand. "Manuel, we must find him. I believe he is
alive. This is some of Pablo's work. Down in old-town some one must know
where he is. Bring him to me and I'll make him tell what he has done
with Mr. Gordon."

Pesquiera was healthily hungry. He would have liked to sit down to a
good breakfast, but he saw that his cousin was laboring under a heavy
nervous tension. Cheerfully he gave up his breakfast for the present.

But when, three hours later, he returned from the old adobe Mexican
quarter Manuel had nothing to report but failure. Pablo had been seen by
several people, but not within the past twenty-four hours. Nor had
anything been seen of Sebastian. The two men had disappeared from sight
as completely as had Gordon.

Valencia, in the privacy of one of the hotel parlors, broke down and
wept for the first time. Manuel tried to comfort her by taking the girl
in his arms and petting her. She submitted to his embrace, burying her
face in his shoulder.

"Oh, Manuel, I'm a--a murderess," she sobbed.

"You're a goose," he corrected. "Haven't you from the first tried to
save this man from his own rashness? You're not to blame in any way,
Val."

"Yes ... Yes," she sobbed. "Pablo and Sebastian would never have dared
touch him if they hadn't known that I'd quarreled with him. It all comes
back to that."

"That's pure nonsense. For that matter, I don't believe he's dead at
all. We'll find him, as gay and insolent as ever, I promise you."

Hope was buoyant in the young man's heart. For the first time he held
his sweetheart in his arms. She clung to him, as a woman ought to her
lover, palpitant, warm, and helpless. Of course they would find this
pestiferous American who had caused her so much worry. And then
he--Manuel--would claim his reward.

"Do you think so ... really? You're not just saying so because ...?" Her
olive cheek turned the least in the world toward him.

Manuel trod on air. He felt that he could have flown across the range on
the wings of his joy.

"I feel sure of it, _nina_." Daring much, his hand caressed gently the
waves of heavy black hair that brushed his cheek.

Almost in a murmur she answered him. "Manuel, find him and save him.
Afterward ..."

"Afterward, _alma mia?_"

She nodded. "I'll ... do what you ask."

"You will marry me?" he cried, afraid to believe that his happiness had
come at last.

"Yes."

"Valencia, you love me?"

She trod down any doubts she might feel. Was he not the one suitable
mate for her of all the men she knew?

"How can I help it. You are good. You are generous. You serve me truly."
Gently she disengaged herself and wiped her eyes with a lace kerchief.
"But we must first find the American."

"I'll find him. Dead or alive I'll bring him to you. Dear heart, you've
given me the strength that moves mountains."

A little smile fought for life upon her sad face. "You'll not have
strength unless you eat. Poor Manuel, I think you lost your breakfast. I
ordered luncheon to be ready for us early. We'll eat now."

A remark of Manuel during luncheon gave his vis-a-vis an idea.

"Mr. Davis is most certainly thorough. I never saw a town so plastered
with bills before," he remarked.

Valencia laid down her knife and fork as she looked at him. "Let's offer
a reward for Pablo and Sebastian--say, a hundred dollars. That would
bring us news of them."

"You're right," he agreed. "I'll get bills out this afternoon. Perhaps
I'd better say no incriminating questions will be asked of those giving
us information."

Stirred to activity by the promise of such large rewards, not only the
sheriff's office and the police, but also private parties scoured the
neighboring country for traces of the missing man or his captors. Every
available horse in town was called into service for the man-hunt. Others
became sleuths on foot and searched cellars and empty houses for the
body of the man supposed to have been murdered. Never in its history had
so much suspicion among neighbors developed in the old-town. Many who
could not possibly be connected with the crime were watched jealously
lest they snap up one of the rewards by stumbling upon evidence that had
been overlooked.

False clews in abundance were brought to Davis and Pesquiera. Good
citizens came in with theories that lacked entirely the backing of any
evidence. One of these was that a flying machine had descended in the
darkness and that Gordon had been carried away by a friend to avoid the
payment of debts he was alleged to owe. The author of this explanation
was a stout old lady of militant appearance who carried a cotton
umbrella large enough to cover a family. She was extraordinarily
persistent and left in great indignation to see a lawyer because Davis
would not pay her the reward.

That day and the next passed with the mystery still unsolved. Valencia
continued to stay at the hotel instead of opening the family town house,
probably because she had brought no servants with her from the valley
and did not know how long she would remain in the city. She and Manuel
called upon the Underwoods to hear Kate's story, but from it they
gathered nothing new. Mrs. Underwood welcomed them with the gentle
kindness that characterized her, but Kate was formal and distant.

"She doesn't like me," Valencia told her cousin as soon as they had
left. "I wonder why. We were good enough friends as children."

Manuel said nothing. He stroked his little black mustache with the
foreign manner he had inherited. If he had cared to do so perhaps he
could have explained Kate Underwood's stiffness. Partly it was
embarrassment and partly shyness. He knew that there had been a
time--before Valencia's return from college--when Kate lacked very
little of being in love with him. He had but to say the word to have
become engaged--and he had not said it. For, while on a visit to the
East, he had called upon his beautiful cousin and she had won his love
at once. This had nipped in the bud any embryonic romance that might
otherwise have been possible with Kate.

A little old Mexican woman with a face like wrinkled leather was waiting
to see them in front of the hotel.

"_Senor_ Pesquiera?" she asked, with a little bob of the body meant to
be a bow.

"Yes."

"And _Senorita_ Valdes?"

"That is my name," answered Valencia.

"Will the _senor_ and the _senorita_ take a walk? The night is fine."

"Where?" demanded Manuel curtly.

"Into old-town, _senor_."

"You have something to tell us."

"To show you, _senor_--for a hundred dollars."

"Sebastian--or is it Pablo?" cried Valencia, in a low voice.

"I say nothing, _senorita_" whined the old woman. "I show you; then you
pay. Is it not so?"

"Get the money, Manuel," his cousin ordered quietly.

Manuel got it from the hotel safe. He took time also to get from his
room a revolver. Gordon had fallen victim to an ambush and he did not
intend to do so if he could help it. In his own mind he had no doubt
that some of their countrymen were selling either Pablo or Sebastian for
the reward, but it was better to be safe than to be sorry.

The old crone led them by side streets into the narrow adobe-lined roads
of old-town. They passed through winding alleys and between buildings
crumbling with age. Always Manuel watched, his right hand in his coat
pocket. At the entrance to a little court a man emerged from the shadow
of a wall. He whispered with the old dame for a minute.

"Come. Make an end of this and show us what you have to show, _muy
pronto_," interrupted Manuel impatiently.

"In good time, _senor_," the man apologized.

"Just a word first, my friend. I have a revolver in my hand. If there is
trickery in your mind, better give it up. I'm a dead shot, and I'll put
the first bullet through your heart. Now lead on."

The Mexican threw up his hands in protest to all the saints that his
purpose was good. He would assuredly keep faith, _senor_.

"See you do," replied the Spaniard curtly.

Their guide rapped three times on a door of a tumble-down shack.
Cautiously it was opened a few inches. There was another whispered
conversation.

"The _senor_ and the _senorita_ can come in," said the first man,
standing aside.

Manuel restrained the young woman by stretching his left arm in front of
her.

"Just a moment. Light a lamp, my friends. We do not go forward in the
dark."

At this there was a further demur, but finally a match flickered and a
lamp was lit. Manuel moved slowly forward into the room, followed by
Valencia. In a corner of the room a man lay bound upon the floor, his
back toward them. One of the men rolled him over as if he had been a
sack of potatoes. The face into which they looked had been mauled and
battered, but Valencia had no trouble in recognizing it.

"Sebastian!" she cried.

He said nothing. A sullen, dogged look rested on his face. Manuel had
seen it before on the countenance of many men. He knew that the sheep
grazer could not be driven to talk.

Miss Valdes might have known it, too, but she was too impatient for
finesse. "What have you done with Mr. Gordon? Tell me--now--at once,"
she commanded.

The man's eyes did not lift to meet hers. Nor did he answer a single
word.

"First, our hundred dollars, _Senorita_," one of the men reminded her.

"It will be paid when you deliver Sebastian to us in the street with his
hands tied behind him," Manuel promised.

They protested, grumbling that they had risked enough already when they
had captured him an hour earlier. But in the end they came to
Pesquiera's condition. The prisoner's hands were tied behind him and his
feet released so that he could walk. Manuel slid one arm under the right
one of Sebastian. The fingers of his left hand rested on the handle of a
revolver in his coat pocket.

Valencia, all impatience, could hardly restrain herself until they were
alone with their prisoner. She walked on the other side of her cousin,
but as soon as they reached the Plaza she stopped.

"Where is he, Sebastian? What have you done with him? I warn you it is
better to tell all you know," she cried sternly.

He looked up at her doggedly, moistened his lips, and looked down again
without a word.

"Speak!" she urged imperiously. "Where is Mr. Gordon? Tell me he is
alive. And what of Pablo?"

Manuel spoke in a low voice. "My cousin, you are driving him to silence.
Leave him to me. He must be led, not driven."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14