“She got you then,” he mused, adding, with a burst of feeling that astonished himself, “And now I’ll get her—if I have to take her by force.”
Planning and dreaming, he rode along until the sight of the river, flowing swiftly and deep over the San Nicolás ford, broke up his reverie. Only a mile away, on the other side, the hacienda lay in full view, yet it appeared at first as if they would have to turn back. But after nosing up and down the banks Caliban presently flushed a peon and a dugout. With the horses swimming behind, they were ferried over, and rode across the tree-studded pastures, which were still clad in summer brown.
At the sight of the amber walls in their setting of low brown hills Seyd’s pulses had quickened, and, interpreting everything by his own feeling, it seemed to him that the dark women who peeped from their doorways, the swart vaqueros, and the slender girls that passed to and fro with ollas balanced ahead, all turned faces of welcome. But when at last he reined in before the shut gates of the casa he experienced a sudden, cold revulsion. Like so many eyes, the iron studs stared from the oaken face of the door, until the sudden sliding of a hatch revealed the wrinkled visage of Paulo, the Spanish administrador.
With his employer’s toleration of the gringo the administrador had no sympathy. Malice sparkled in his small brown eyes while he answered Seyd’s question. “As you see, señor, the casa is empty. The señora and the niña”—he used the family diminutive for Francesca—“are still at hacienda El Quiss. Don Luis? He has gone again to Ciudad Mexico, to talk with Porfirio Díaz himself about the gringo dam. I do not know when he will return,” he replied, further, “nor the señora.”
His high spirits dashed to the ground, Seyd sat his horse, oppressed with heavy forebodings, for the disappointment raised vivid memories of the suddenness with which the girl had been snatched out of his life on two other occasions. Sick at heart, he refused for himself the refreshment that the house’s tradition compelled Paulo to offer, and spent the hour required for the beasts’ feeding in heavy brooding.
From this, however, he roused himself presently to a lighter mood. “After all, the week is only up today,” he urged. “She might easily be detained beyond her expectations.”
At first he thought of leaving a note. But, realizing the formal terms in which it would have to be couched might make an unfavorable impression, he left, instead, verbal regrets. That settled, he had time to think of Don Luis, and, being now on practical ground, came to a quick conclusion. Forgetting all about his promise not to travel alone, he sent Caliban back to the mine while he went himself straight out to the station.
On his arrival there, however—so late that he had to call Peters out of his bed—he was not a little surprised to find that nothing had been seen of Don Luis. It was, of course, easily possible that he had boarded the train at a flag station ten miles up the line that was nearer to El Quiss. But when, next evening, a thorough search of his usual haunts in Mexico City failed to yield sight or sign of Don Luis, Seyd began to grow suspicious. Suspicion developed into a certainty when on his return two days later Peters informed him that Don Luis had taken the up train that very morning.
“He came from San Nicolás, too,” Peters added. “I shouldn’t wonder if he was there all the time. Looks to me like he’s trying to dodge you.”
Intentional or not, it left Seyd in a serious plight. A second trip to Mexico City would take three days. Adding two more to get Billy away in the event of Don Luis’s refusal of further time, less than three weeks would be left of their month of grace. It was not to be thought of; and, though the afternoon rains were draping the mountains with heavy gray sheets, he rode out to the inn that night. Crossing the river early next morning, he sent Billy away at once.
“You’ll have to spend twelve hours in Mexico City anyway,” he instructed him, concerning Don Luis, “so you might as well try to find him. If you succeed, no trifling! Get his fist on a written extension. If he doesn’t come through—and I have my doubts—chase right on home to California. With the photos of the prospect and plant you ought not to have much trouble in raising enough to cover the note. And the minute you get it wire me credits on Mexico City.”
Hardly expecting it, he was not surprised when Billy wired, two days later, that he was leaving that evening for the States. Under the message Peters had scribbled, “Don Luis came in today on Number Nine. Go right down and see him.”
Half an hour after receipt of the message Seyd and Caliban were again on their way.
For nearly a week now it had rained heavily night and day, and here and there on the bottoms small inundations gave early warning of coming floods. Though the river still ran in its banks opposite San Nicolás, the dugout in which they crossed was swept with the swimming horses half a mile downstream before they made a landing, and it was easily to be seen that another week’s rain would cut off travel on that side of the stream.
Riding in to the great square, Seyd’s pulses beat a lively accompaniment to the thought: “It is now the end of the second week. She is sure to be home.” Yet in the moment of its riotous birth the hope gave place to black misgivings at the sight of the shut house.
His spirits touched zero when the sliding hatch left Paulo’s wrinkled visage framed again
