rfected by you. In fifteen years you have
paid no taxes. Still your claim, though worthless in itself, operates as
a cloud upon the title of my client, the Valdes heir."

Dick looked at him steadily and nodded. He began to see the purpose of
this visit. He waited silently, his mind very alert.

"_Senor_, I am here to ask of you a relinquishment. You are brave; no
doubt, chivalrous----"

"I'm a business man, Don Manuel," interrupted Gordon. "I don't see what
chivalry has got to do with it."

"Senorita Valdes is a woman, young and beautiful. This little estate is
her sole possession. To fight for it in court is a hardship that Senor
Gordon will not force upon her."

"So she's young and beautiful, is she?"

"The fairest daughter of Spain in all New Mexico," soared Don Manuel.

"You don't say. A regular case of beauty and the beast, ain't it?"

"As one of her friends, I ask of you not to oppose her lawful possession
of this little vineyard."

"In the grape business, is she?"

"I speak, _senor_, in metaphor. The land is barren, of no value except
for sheep grazing."

"Are you asking me to sell my title or give it?"

"It is a bagatelle--a mere nothing. The title is but waste paper, I do
assure. Yet we would purchase--for a nominal figure--merely to save
court expenses."

"I see," Dick laughed softly. "Just to save court expenses--because
you'd rather I'd have the money than the lawyers. That's right good of
you."

Pesquiera talked with his hands and shoulders, sparkling into animation.
"Mr. Gordon distrusts me. So? Am I not right? He perhaps mistakes me for
what you call a--a pettifogger, is it not? I do assure to the contrary.
The blood of the Pesquieras is of the bluest Castilian."

"Fine! I'll take your word for it, Don Manuel. And I don't distrust you
at all. But here's the point. I'm a plain American business man. I don't
buy and I don't sell without first investigating a proposition submitted
to me. I'm from Missouri."

"Oh, indeed! From St. Louis perhaps. I went to school there when I was a
boy."

Gordon laughed. "I was speaking in metaphor, Don Manuel. What I mean is
that I'll have to be shown. No pig-in-a-poke business for me."

"Exactly. Most precisely. Have I not traveled from New Mexico up this
steep roof of the continent merely to explain how matters stand?
Valencia Valdes is the true and rightful heiress of the valley. She is
everywhere so recognize' and accept' by the peons."

The miner