getting damned tired of this foolishness.
Betty Gordon is a friend of mine and I'm going to see her through. She
goes nowhere she does not want to. If you want to take me on, I'm
ready for you. Ready and waiting!"

"No," said Betty again. "Mr. Kendric, I will go with him as far as the
_patio_." She took a step forward, then whipped back at a sudden
thought. "He is lying out there--dead!" she whispered.

"The unfortunate Captain Escobar," Rios told her equably, "has been
removed to another part of the house. And, if you like, we will speak
together in the dining-room."

Betty came to Jim Kendric then. She looked up into his eyes and said
gently:

"I do trust you. You are the only one I trust. I can look to no one
else. If I want you I will call. And you will come to me, won't you?"

"Come to you? Why, bless your heart, I'd come running!"

So Betty and Rios went out and for a little while Jim and Bruce were
left alone.

"Bruce, old man," said Kendric, "let's come down to earth. Put your
sentimental heart in your pocket and use your brains a while. You know
me well enough to know that I won't lie to you. Will you listen to me?"

"Yes. But tell me only what you know, not what you surmise. What do
you _know_ against Zoraida Castelmar?"

"I know she is an adventuress, playing for big stakes, stakes so big
that in the end they are bound to crush her."

"Speculation, old chap." Bruce smiled faintly. "Keep away from doping
out the future and stick to facts."

"So you want facts? All right: She is planning a revolution; she has
the mad idea that she can rip Lower California away from the government
and make of it a separate empire, herself its queen!"

"Why not? Wilder things have been done. And where would you find a
more likely queen?"

"When I first saw her she came, disguised as a man, into Ortega's
gaming hell, Rios with her. She played dice with me for twenty
thousand dollars."

Bruce's eye brightened.

"She's wonderful!" he said eagerly.

"She's hand and fist with Rios and Escobar and a lot of other riff-raff
I don't know. She is instrumental in Betty Gordon's being held for
ransom----"

"How do you _know_? Or are you just guessing again? Betty Gordon!
How do you _know_ she isn't what I called her, the infamous dancing
woman with an evil record a mile long?"

"Haven't I talked with her?" Kendric grew impatient. "Haven't I seen
her terror? Haven't I looked into her eyes?"