re
concerned, but I'll own that it gave me a jolt to see how freely and
fearlessly she goes about down here. You may think, Sir, that I'm
exhibiting a lot of nerve, and it may be that I have a distorted
picture in my mind of the life in this part of the country for a young
girl like your daughter, but is she safe with all these low-caste
half-breeds about?"

"As safe as in a convent." Gentleman Geoff's eyes had narrowed. "I
appreciate your interest, Mr. Thode, but let me remind you that it was
a man from the States, a New York swell, who molested her this
afternoon. There isn't a low-caste Mex' who would take a chance, for
he'd know that every gun from here to the Sierra Madre would be cocked
for him, and even the hills couldn't give him a hiding-place! But as
to Wiley. I had a reason apart from his little attentions to Billie,
for asking about him. Whatever lies between you two is your own game,
but I know you better than you think, Mr. Thode. Your chief, Perry
Larkin, told me he was sending you down, and what manner of hombre you
were. If Larkin can trust you, I'm going to take a chance. I thought
I had Wiley's number, but I learned something to-day, aside from that
little fracas, that makes me doubt I've given him credit for his limit
of crookedness. Mr. Thode, do you figure that Starr Wiley is enough of
a man to be a very big rascal?"

Thode hesitated again.

"I think," he began at last, "that it would depend wholly on the size
of the stakes. He's a coward when it comes to a show-down, but money
and place and power are his gods. If it was a tremendous piece of
villainy with a big incentive he mightn't have the courage to see it
through himself, but he is quite capable of aiding and abetting it, or
hiring others to do it for him."

Gentleman Geoff's fists clenched and he drew a deep breath.

"That's it!" he cried. "You've struck it, Mr. Thode! Unless I'm
mistaken, he's dealing the biggest, crookedest hand of his life right
now, but we'll get him, Sir. We'll show him what fair play is below
the border--"

He broke off and for a minute the two men sat in silence, straining
their ears.

Above the click of glasses and sound of many voices in the
gambling-rooms had come the sharp, staccato clatter of a horse's hoofs
upon the hard-packed road. It was not unusual in a land where hooch
was cheap and stimulating and every drunken roysterer celebrated in the
saddle, but there was an ominous, tragic s