with the dried beef already bolted. Bruce laughed.

At the house, like Zoraida's in the matters of age and thick, cool
walls, but much smaller, they found an excellent meal awaiting them.
They ate under a leafy grape arbor on the shady side of the house, half
a dozen of Bruce's men sitting at table with them. Kendric regarded
the men with interest, feeling that their scrutiny of him was no less
painstaking. They were swarthy Indians and half-breeds and little else
did he make of them. Their eyes met his, steady and unwinking, but
gave no clue to what thoughts might lie back of them.

"I'll bet Bruce sleeps with a gun under his pillow," was Kendric's
thought at the end of the meal.

By the well, under some shade trees in the yard, the two friends sat
and smoked, watching the men laze away to the stables. Thereafter they
spoke quietly of the captive in the Hacienda Montezuma.

"It's not to be thought of," said Bruce, "that a scared little kid like
her is to be held that way and we sit like two bumps on a log. Looks
like her troubles were up to you and me, Jim."

In the end they agreed that at least it was unthinkable that Betty
Gordon would suffer any bodily injury in the same house with Zoraida
and her girls; further, that the greatest access of terror had no doubt
passed. One grew accustomed to pretty nearly everything. Kendric,
bound by his parole to return, would seek the girl out and extend to
her what comfort he could; just to know that she was not altogether
friendless would bring hope and its own sort of gladness. Tonight, as
soon as the men came in and it was dark, they would send Manuel,
Bruce's most trustworthy man, to a forty-mile distant postoffice. He
would carry with him two letters: one would be addressed to the
governor of Lower California and one to friends in San Diego.

"It's about the best we can do on short notice," admitted Kendric,
though he was dissatisfied. "I'm not figuring, though, that it's in
the cards for me to stick overlong under the same roof with Rios and
his crowd. There's the schooner down in the gulf and there's you for
us to count on. Never fret, old Baby Blue-eyes; we'll have her out of
that yet."

The letters were written; a little after dusk Manuel set forth,
promised a double month's pay if he succeeded and in return promising
by all the saints he could call to tongue that he would guard the
letters with his life. From their chairs on the porch Kendric and
B