id Kendric, "it'll be a night
job, all of it. It's not a half mile off and plain sight from here.
Now, what's the likelihood of Escobar having been there ahead of us?"

"Escobar's out of the runnin'." Barlow's eyes glinted with his
satisfaction. "He's corked up here tighter'n a fly in a bottle. He
isn't allowed to stick nose outside the walls after dark; and he isn't
allowed to ride out of sight in the daytime. Those are little
Escobar's orders. And, by cracky, I'll bet he minds 'em."

"Who told you all that?"

"She did."

"What's she close-herding him for?"

"Doesn't trust him; can you blame her? She's takin' her chances, and
she knows it, plannin' the big things ahead. And she's not missin' a
bet."

"And more," remarked Kendric drily, "she hankers for the loot herself?"

"She wouldn't know a thing about it," protested Barlow. "Escobar would
keep his mouth shut; he's wise hog enough for that."

"But she does know, Twisty. She knows that Escobar knifed Juarez; she
knows why; she knows pretty nearly as much about the thing as we know."

"She knows a lot of things," mused Barlow. But he shook his head:
"She's shootin' high, Headlong; no penny-ante game for her! Not that
what we're lookin' for sounds little; but it ain't in her path and
she's not turnin' aside for anything. And she's the richest lady in
Mexico right now. Those pearls of hers, man, are worth over a hundred
thousand dollars, or I'm a fool. I saw them again tonight; she let me
have them in my hands. And that ruby; did you see it? Why, kings
can't sport stones like that in their best Sunday crowns."

"She contends that she is a descendent of the old Mexican kings,"
offered Kendric coolly. "And any treasure, left by the Montezumas, she
claims by right of inheritance!"

"She couldn't get across with a claim like that, could she? Not in any
law court, Jim?"

"Not unless the jurors were all men and she could get them off alone,
one at a time, and whisper in their ears," grunted Kendric.

Barlow laughed and they dropped the subject. Kendric told Barlow what
he had learned during the evening; how the walls were sentinelled and
how at the present moment under the same roof with them was an American
girl, held for ransom.

"And, according to Escobar," he concluded, watching his old friend's
face, "the trick is put over with the connivance of Miss Castelmar.
This would seem to be one of the headquarters of the great national
game!"