use, probably to dry himself and nurse his rage the while. She saw
Gordon go on his limping way without a single backward glance.

Then she flung herself on her bed and burst into tears.

CHAPTER V

"AN OPTIMISTIC GUY"

Dick Gordon hobbled up the road, quite unaware for some time that he had
a ricked knee. His thoughts were busy with the finale that had just been
enacted. He could not keep from laughing ruefully at the difference
between it and the one of his day-dreams. He was too much of a Westerner
not to see the humor of the comedy in which he had been forced to take a
leading part, but he had insight enough to divine that it was much more
likely to prove melodrama than farce.

Don Manuel was not the man to sit down under such an insult as he had
endured, even though he had brought it upon himself. It would too surely
be noised round that the _Americano_ was the claimant to the estate, in
which event he was very likely to play the part of a sheath for restless
stilettos.

This did not trouble him as much as it would have done some men. The
real sting of the episode lay in Valencia Valdes' attitude toward him.
He had been kicked out for his unworthiness. He had been cast aside as a
spy and a sneak.

The worst of it was that he felt his clumsiness deserved no less an
issue to the adventure. Confound that little Don Manuel for bobbing up
at such an inconvenient time! It was fierce luck.

He stopped his tramp up the hill, and looked back over the valley.
Legally it was all his. So his Denver lawyers had told him, after
looking the case over carefully. The courts would decide for him in all
probability; morally he had not the shadow of a claim. The valley in
justice belonged to those who had settled in it and were using it for
their needs. His claim was merely a paper one. It had not a scintilla of
natural justice back of it.

He resumed his journey. By this time his knee was sending telegrams of
pain to headquarters. He cut an aspen by the roadside and trimmed it to
a walking-stick and, as he went forward, leaned more and more heavily
upon it.

"I'm going to have a game leg for fair if I don't look out," he told
himself ruefully. "This right pin surely ain't good for a twelve-mile
tramp."

It was during one of his frequent stops to rest that a buggy appeared
round the turn from the same direction he had come. It drew to a halt in
front of him, and the lad who was driving got out.

"Senorita Maria