e
driving at. The nearest are twenty miles away, at the Montezuma ranch.
The boss of the outfit is your old friend Ruiz Rios. I told you that
in my letter. I haven't the dead wood on him but it's open and shut
that he'd as soon chip in on a cattle-stealing deal as anything else."

"He doesn't own the Montezuma," said Kendric.

"It's the same thing. The owner is a woman, his cousin, I believe.
But she's away most of the time, and Rios does as he pleases."

"You don't know the lady, then?"

"Never saw her. Don't want to, since she's got Rios blood in her."

"Let's get down and roll a smoke and talk," offered Kendric. They were
on a grassy knoll; there were oaks and shade and grass for the horses.
Bruce looked at him sharply, catching the sober note. But he said
nothing until they were lying stretched out under the oaks, holding the
tie ropes at the ends of which their horses browsed.

"Cut her loose, Jim," he said then. "What's the story?"

Kendric told him: Of his quest with Twisty Barlow; of Zoraida Castlemar
and her ambitions; of his own situation in the household, a prisoner
with today granted him only in exchange for his word to return by dawn;
and finally of Betty Gordon.

"Good God," gasped Bruce. "They're going it that strong? Out in the
open, too! And laying their paws on an American girl. Whew!"

Kendric added briefly an account of his being stopped in the pass.

"It's a fair bet," he concluded, "that your raiders get their word
straight from the Montezuma ranch. Which means, straight from the lips
of Zoraida Castlemar."

Bruce fell to plucking at the dry grass, frowning.

"Funny thing, it strikes me, Jim, that if you're right she should give
you the chance to tip me off. How do you figure that out?"

"I haven't figured it out. Here's what we do know: When I was a dozen
miles from her place and naturally would suppose that, if I chose, I
was free to play out my own hand, up popped those three men; a
reminder, as plain as your hat, that through their eyes I was still
under the eyes of Zoraida Castlemar. Further, as innocent as a fool, I
carried a message to them in a cut and tied saddle string. A message
that was a passport for me; what other significance it carried, _quien
sabe_? There's a red tassel on my horse's bridle; that might be
another sign, as far as you and I know. The quirt at my saddle horn,
the chains in my bridle, the saddle itself or the folds of the saddle
blanke