ch had made him the
hard, competent man he was, Dick had learned the truth of the saying
that to know all is to forgive all. He himself had done bold and lawless
things often enough, but it was seldom that he did a mean one. Warily
alert though he was for a chance to escape, his feelings were quite
impersonal toward these Mexicans. Confronted with the need, he would
kill if he must to save himself; but it would not be because he was
vindictive.

Dick's mind was alert to every chance of escape. He studied his
situation as well as he could without moving from the bed. From the
glimpse of the house he had had as the two men carried him in he knew
that it was a large, modern one set in grounds of considerable size. He
had been brought down a flight of steps and was now in the basement. Was
the house an unoccupied one? Or was it in the possession of some one
friendly to the scheme upon which the Mexicans had engaged?

A suspicion had startled him just after the men finished eating, but he
had dismissed it as a fantasy of his excited imagination. Sebastian,
carrying out the dishes, had dropped a spoon and left it lying beside
the bed. Dick contrived, after he had wakened, to roll close to the edge
and look down. The spoon was still there. Two letters were engraved upon
the handle. They were A.V. If these stood for Alvaro Valdes, then this
must be the town house of Valencia, and she was probably a party to his
abduction.

He could not without distress of heart accept such a conclusion. She was
his enemy, but she had seemed to him so frank and generous a one that
complicity in a plot of this nature had no part in the picture of her
his mind had drawn. He wrestled with the thought of this until he could
stand it no longer.

"Did Miss Valdes come to town herself, or is she letting you run this
abduction, Menendez?" he asked suddenly.

Pablo repeated stupidly, "Miss Valdes--the _senorita_?"

The keen, hard eyes of Gordon did not lift for an instant from those of
the other man. "That's what I said."

It occurred to the Mexican that this was a chance to do a stroke of
business for his mistress. He would show the confident _Americano_ what
place he held in her regard.

His shoulders lifted in a shrug. "You are clevair, _Senor_. How do you
know the _senorita_ knows?"

"This is her house. She told you to bring me here."

Pablo was surprised. "So? You know it is her house?"

"Surest thing you know."

"The _senorita_ trus