side of a week he'll be calling me
'Dearie,'" she thought. But she knew very well there was no danger. This
young fellow was the kind of man that could be informal without the
slightest idea of flirting or making love.

Kate Underwood's interest in the fight between the claimants for the
Valdes and Moreno grants was not based entirely upon her liking for
Dick. He learned this the fourth day of his stay in Santa Fe.

"Do you know that you were followed to the hotel last night, Mr.
Gordon?" she asked him, as soon as he arrived at the State House.

His eyes met hers instantly. "Was I? How do you know?"

"I left the building just after you did. Two Mexicans followed you. I
don't know when I first suspected it, but I trailed along to make sure.
There can be no doubt about it."

"Not a bit of doubt. Found it out the first day when I left the hotel,"
he told her cheerfully.

"You knew it all the time," she cried, amazed.

"That doesn't prevent me from being properly grateful to you for your
kindness," he hastened to say.

"What are they following you for?" she wanted to know.

Dick told her something of his experiences in the Rio Chama Valley
without mentioning that part of them which had to do with Miss Valdes.
At the sound of Manuel Pesquiera's name the eyes of the girl flashed.
Dick had already noticed that his name was always to her a signal for
repression of some emotion. The eyes contracted and hardened the least
in the world. Some men would not have noticed this, but more than once
Gordon's life had hung upon the right reading of such signs.

"You think that Mr. Pesquiera has hired them to watch you?" she
suggested.

"Maybe he has and maybe he hasn't. Some of those willing lads of Miss
Valdes don't need any hiring. They want to see what I'm up to. They're
not overlooking any bets."

"But they may shoot you."

He looked at her drolly. "They may, but I'll be there at the time. I'm
not sleeping on the job, Miss Kate."

"You didn't turn around once yesterday."

"Hmp! I saw them out of the edge of my eyes. And when I turned a corner
I always saw them mighty plain. They couldn't have come very close
without my knowing it."

"Don Manuel is very anxious to have Miss Valdes win, isn't he?"

Dick observed that just below the eyes two spots were burning in the
usually pale cheeks.

"Yes," he answered simply.

"Why?"

"He's her friend and a relative."

It seemed to Gordon that there was a touch of defian