“Look,” Katherine exclaimed, “a dove just flew out of the versicolor.”
“Nest probably there—spines protection—certain enemies. Katherine—suggest you and Lance—rest here— wait for me—get acquainted, y’understand.” Jones paused awkwardly.
“Where are you going?” the girl asked.
Jones jerked one thumb over his shoulder. “Down into that canyon—gravelly limestone soil—evidence presence—perhaps—
Katherine sighed and dropped to a sitting position on the earth. “Well, there doesn’t seem anything else to do, does there?”
“Suits me.” Lance dropped down a few feet away.
“Poor Uncle Uly.” Katherine laughed ruefully. “Sometimes I think he’s plain batty on the subject of cacti ——”
“At the same time,” Lance said directly, “he didn’t bring me out here to just educate me along those lines.”
Katherine’s blue eyes met his a moment, then dropped before his steady gaze. Suddenly she lifted her head. “Lance, we haven’t fooled you a moment, have we?”
“How do you mean?”
“You know how I mean. You’ve been suspicious right from the start. I’ve felt it. Uncle Uly felt perhaps I could persuade you better than he—you know”—the girl’s face crimsoned—“turn on my winning feminine charm or something of the kind. I can see, now, it was all so silly.”
“I think,” Lance said directly, “that if anybody could persuade me to anything it would be you, Miss Gregory.”
Katherine smiled. “Very nicely put, Lance, and you can dispense with the ‘Miss.’ I’m plain Katherine to my friends. And that’s not part of the charm. At least I’m sincere in that.”
“Just what,” Lance asked, “are you supposed to persuade me to do?”
“Uncle wants,” the girl replied, “a guide to take us down into Mexico.”
Lance considered. Just what was back of this? Why should anybody try to persuade him to leave Pozo Verde? He said, “So your uncle is going through with the Mexican trip. I had understood from Fletcher that he wasn’t going——”
“Mr Fletcher is against the trip. He says it is no place for me to go.”
“For once I think I agree with Fletcher.”
The girl made an impatient little gesture. “I’ve been able to take care of myself for a long time,” she said slowly. “I don’t believe I have anything to fear from Mexico.”
“Even so, why should your uncle want me for a guide? I’ve been all through Sonora and Chihuahua, of course, but I don’t count myself as thoroughly familiar with that country down there. You could probably find dozens of men around Pozo Verde who’d make far better guides than I.”
“That may be,” Katherine agreed, “but it isn’t so much a guide as it is a man to manage the trip. There ’ll be wagons to buy, men to hire; someone to handle them is necessary. Uncle says you’re smart. He likes you. He said he considered the trailing down of Frank Bowman’s murderer one of the finest pieces of detection he ever heard of.”
Lance smiled. “I reckon your uncle isn’t too familiar with the business of detection.”
“He might fool you.”
“He might, at that.” Lance added after a minute, “And you’re going to the expense of such a trip just to collect and study cacti? Do you expect me to believe that, Katherine?”
The girl was silent for several minutes. Lance rolled and lighted a cigarette. Finally Katherine spoke. “Maybe I’d better give you the whole story. You’ve probably heard that my father owned the Three-Cross Ranch down in Mexico—and that he was killed down there?”
“I’ve heard that.” Lance nodded. “I believe the Yaquentes brought him to Pozo Verde, and nobody ever discovered who did it.”
“That’s correct. Father was given that ranch years ago in return for certain ser vices he rendered the Mexican Government’s Bureau of Mines. Father was really a mining man, you see. He didn’t know very much about cattle raising but he wanted to try. Things didn’t go as well as he hoped, though he made a good living for us. Then, when I was fifteen, Mother died. There was a revolution brewing in Mexico at the time. Father thought it best if I return to the States. He sent me up to San Francisco, where I lived at a school for girls, to complete my education.”
“And you haven’t been back to the ranch since?” Lance asked.
Katherine shook her head. “I never saw Father again. That’s nearly seven years ago. He was always promising to get away from the Three-Cross and come to San Francisco to visit me, but the ranch always needed him. He was still working hard to put it on a big-paying business, and I guess it wasn’t easy. I wanted to be with him, but he always refused to let me come to the ranch until, as he said, he could furnish it fit for a lady. That was foolish, of course, but, after all, he was the boss.”
Lance ground out his cigarette butt in the sandy soil at his feet and waited for the girl to continue. In a few moments she went on, “A little over a year ago I had a letter from Father. He seemed more cheerful than usual and enclosed a draft on the Pozo Verde bank for five thousand dollars, which he wrote was to make up for the years of doing without things—though that was another foolish idea. I may not have had as many clothes as other girls at the school but I wasn’t doing any protesting. He said that before long he would be sending for me.”
“That was the last letter you had from him?”
“The last.” Katherine nodded. “He explained that for twenty-five thousand dollars he had sold a half-interest in the ranch to a man named Malcolm Fletcher and that they intended to buy some blooded bulls and raise the quality of their stock. Father appeared very cheerful about his new pardner and mentioned that he’d made a discovery that might make us all wealthy. He didn’t mention what it was but said he was sending a present that might give me a clue.”
“What was the present?”
Katherine unbuttoned the sleeve of her shirt and rolled it up to display a heavy silver arm clasp about two inches wide. She slipped it off and handed it to Lance who examined it curiously, conscious of its warmth from the girl’s arm. It was of extremely fine workmanship and looked like pure silver. Its surface was almost entirely covered with an orderly series of strange symbols, arranged in straight lines, down and across the armlet, raised slightly above the level of the silver.
Lance scrutinized the markings. “Looks like Indian work,” he said dubiously, “though I don’t know.”
“Uncle Uly thought they were Aztec symbols, if not of an earlier race.”
“I’d take the professor’s word for it if he knows about those early races the way he does cactus—cacti. I suppose your dad had this made up someplace. What was his discovery?—a silver mine?”
“That’s what I’m inclined to think, but I don’t know. Mr Fletcher claims he never heard anything of the discovery.”
“Where does Fletcher fit into this story? Does he deny your ownership of half the ranch—or anything of the sort?”
Katherine shook her head. “Not at all. He’s really been very kind about the whole business. In a way I feel obligated to him. You see, it was he who wrote me of Father’s death. Mr Fletcher wasn’t at the Three-Cross when it happened. Some Yaquente Indians found Father’s body and brought it to Pozo Verde. It was Fletcher who arranged to have it shipped to San Francisco for burial. He intended coming with it but at the last moment telegraphed me he was unavoidably detained but would come later to see me and tell me what he knew——”
“Did he know anything?”
“Nothing, except that the Yaquentes had found Father’s body a short way from the ranch house. He had been shot. But I didn’t verify that until we arrived in Pozo Verde and I met Fletcher personally. You see, he’d kept writing from time to time that he was coming to San Francisco, and I kept postponing my visit here while awaiting his arrival. A whole year passed in such fashion. Finally I made up my mind to come here. Uncle Uly was about to start his cactus expedition, so we decided to make it a joint affair. He’ll look for cactus, and I’ll see what, if anything, I can learn regarding Father’s death.”
“The professor came on here from Washington, of course?” Lance said.
