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y. "Let us see. You are a man--how far would you go for the woman you loved?" "The limit!" Mrs. Austin frowned at this light-seeming answer. "I suppose you mean that you would make any sacrifice?" "Yes; that's it." "Would you give up the woman herself, if you considered it your duty?" "No. There couldn't be any duty higher than love--to my way of thinking. But you shouldn't take me as a specimen. I'm not a good representative of my sex." "I think you are a very good one," Alaire said, quietly, and Dave realized that no flattery was intended. Although he was willing to talk further on this subject, Mrs. Austin gave him no opportunity of airing his views. Love, it appeared, was a thing she did not care to discuss with him on their footing of semi-intimacy. Despite the rough roads, they made fair time, and the miles of cactus and scrawny brush rolled swiftly past. Occasionally a lazy jack-rabbit ambled out of his road-side covert and watched them from a safe distance; now and then a spotted road-runner raced along the dusty ruts ahead of them. The morning sun swung higher, and by midday the metal of the automobile had become as hot as a frying-pan. They stopped at various goat-ranches to inquire about Adolfo Urbina, and at noon halted beside a watercourse for lunch. Dave was refilling the radiator when he overheard Jose in conversation with Mrs. Austin. "Nowhere a trace!" the horse-breaker was saying. "No one has seen him. Poor Rosa Morales will die of a broken heart." Alaire explained to her guest: "Jose is worried about his cousin Panfilo. It seems he has disappeared." "So! You are Panfilo's cousin?" Dave eyed the Mexican with new interest. "Si!" "You remember the man?" Alaire went on. "He was with that fellow you arrested at the water-hole." "Oh yes. I remember him." With steady fingers Dave shook some tobacco into a cigarette-paper. He felt Alaire's eyes upon him, and they were eloquent of inquiry, but he did not meet them. Jose frowned. "No one at La Feria has seen him, and in Pueblo there was not a word. It is strange." "Panfilo was in bad company when I saw him." Law finished rolling his cigarette and lit it, still conscious of Alaire's questioning gaze. "He may have had trouble." "He was a good man," the horse-breaker asserted. "If he is dead--" The Mexican's frown deepened to a scowl. "What then?" Jose significantly patted the gift revolver at his hip. "This little fel
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