tricks. But surely there had come to her a call for help not born of
her own excited fancy.

In an instant she had made up her mind. Her finger pressed an electric
button beside the desk, and almost simultaneously a second one. The maid
who appeared in the doorway in answer to the first ring found her
mistress busily writing.

Valencia looked up. "Rosario, pack a suitcase for me with clothes for a
week. Put in my light brown dress and a couple of shirt-waists. I'll be
up presently." Her gaze passed to the major domo who now stood beside
the maid. "I'm going to Santa Fe to-night, Fernando. Order the grays to
be hitched to the buggy."

"To-night! But, _Senorita_, the train has gone."

"Juan will go with me. We'll drive right through. My business is
important."

"But it is seventy miles to Santa Fe, and part of the way over mountain
roads," he protested.

"Yes. We should reach there by morning. I mean to travel all night. Make
the arrangements, please, and tell Juan. Then return here. I want to
talk over with you the ranch affairs. You will have charge of the
ditches, too, during my absence. Don't argue, Fernando, but do as I
say."

The old man had opened his mouth to object, but he closed it without
voicing his views. A little smile, born of his pride in her wilfulness,
touched his lips and wrinkled the parchment skin. Was she not a Valdes?
He had served her father and her grandfather. To him, therefore, she
could do no wrong.

CHAPTER XV

ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD

The night of his disappearance Dick had sauntered forth from the hotel
with the jaunty assurance to Davis that he was going to call on a young
lady. He offered no further details, and his friend asked for none,
though he wondered a little what young woman in Santa Fe had induced
Gordon to change his habits. The old miner had known him from boyhood.
His partner had never found much time for the society of eligible
maidens. He had been too busy living to find tea-cup discussions about
life interesting. The call of adventure had absorbed his youth, and he
had given his few mature years ardently to the great American game of
money-making. It was not that he loved gold. What Richard Gordon cared
for was the battle, the struggle against both honorable and unscrupulous
foe-men for success. He fought in the business world only because it was
the test of strength. Money meant power. So he had made money.

It was not until Dick failed to appear