lad to
drop the case then and there, but now the defense had the floor and kept
it, though not a word of evidence was needed. The first witness sworn
was Lieutenant Blake, who told of the trick by which he and his men,
Loring's guards, had been lured from the camp at Sancho's ranch, and of
their finding Loring senseless, bleeding and robbed on their return. The
next was little Pancha, and Loring sat with his hand shading his blue
eyes as the pallid maid, with piteously quivering lips at times, with
brave effort to force back her tears, in English only a little better
than that in which she had poured out her fears to Blake that eventful
night at Gila Bend--sometimes, indeed, having to speak in Spanish with
the gray sister sworn as her interpreter--told the plaintive story of
her knowledge of and connection with Sancho's wicked band. Her dear
father and her stepmother were ruled by Sancho. She had seen Nevins
there often, "him who had fled through the window." She gathered enough
from what she heard about the ranch to realize that they were planning
to rob the officer, "this officer," before he could get away with the
diamonds. Nevins had ridden in with six men, bad men, that very night,
and she heard him planning with Sancho and her father, and she had tried
to warn the officers, and "this gentleman" (Blake this time) had come,
and before she could tell him she was followed and discovered. But then
her stepmother had later whispered awful things to her--how they were
going to rob the stage and kill the passengers, and bade her take her
guitar and try to call the officer again, and tell him to take his
soldiers and go to the rescue, and this she had done eagerly, and then
when they were away her mother seized her and drew her into the room and
shut her there, but she heard horsemen rush into the camp, and a minute
later Nevins, jeering and laughing in the bar, and that very night they
took her away--she and her father and the stepmother, and Nevins was
with them. They went by Tucson to Hermosillo and to Guaymas, and her
mother told her she must never breathe what she knew--it would ruin her
father, whom she loved, yes, dearly, and whom she would not believe had
anything to do with it. And at Hermosillo Nevins had the watch, the
diamond ring, the diamond stud, these very ones, she was sure, as the
valuable "exhibits" were displayed. But at San Francisco when the lady
superior told her of the accusations against "this gentle