Part 19 (2/2)

”d.a.m.n all family feuds and inherited sc.r.a.ps,” muttered Ranse vindictively to the breeze as he rode back to the Cibolo.

Ranse turned his horse into the small pasture and went to his own room. He opened the lowest drawer of an old bureau to get out the packet of letters that Yenna had written him one summer when she had gone to Mississippi for a visit. The drawer stuck, and he yanked at it savagely--as a man will. It came out of the bureau, and bruised both his s.h.i.+ns--as a drawer will. An old, folded yellow letter without an envelope fell from somewhere--probably from where it had lodged in one of the upper drawers. Ranse took it to the lamp and read it curiously.

Then he took his hat and walked to one of the Mexican _jacals_.

”Tia Juana,” he said, ”I would like to talk with you a while.”

An old, old Mexican woman, white-haired and wonderfully wrinkled, rose from a stool.

”Sit down,” said Ranse, removing his hat and taking the one chair in the _jacal_. ”Who am I, Tia Juana?” he asked, speaking Spanish.

”Don Ransom, our good friend and employer. Why do you ask?” answered the old woman wonderingly.

”Tia Juana, who am I?” he repeated, with his stern eyes looking into hers.

A frightened look came in the old woman's face. She fumbled with her black shawl.

”Who am I, Tia Juana?” said Ranse once more.

”Thirty-two years I have lived on the Rancho Cibolo,” said Tia Juana.

”I thought to be buried under the coma mott beyond the garden before these things should be known. Close the door, Don Ransom, and I will speak. I see in your face that you know.”

An hour Ranse spent behind Tia Juana's closed door. As he was on his way back to the house Curly called to him from the wagon-shed.

The tramp sat on his cot, swinging his feet and smoking.

”Say, sport,” he grumbled. ”This is no way to treat a man after kidnappin' him. I went up to the store and borrowed a razor from that fresh guy and had a shave. But that ain't all a man needs. Say--can't you loosen up for about three fingers more of that booze? I never asked you to bring me to your d----d farm.”

”Stand up out here in the light,” said Ranse, looking at him closely.

Curly got up sullenly and took a step or two.

His face, now shaven smooth, seemed transformed. His hair had been combed, and it fell back from the right side of his forehead with a peculiar wave. The moonlight charitably softened the ravages of drink; and his aquiline, well-shaped nose and small, square cleft chin almost gave distinction to his looks.

Ranse sat on the foot of the cot and looked at him curiously.

”Where did you come from--have you got any home or folks anywhere?”

”Me? Why, I'm a dook,” said Curly. ”I'm Sir Reginald--oh, cheese it.

No; I don't know anything about my ancestors. I've been a tramp ever since I can remember. Say, old pal, are you going to set 'em up again to-night or not?”

”You answer my questions and maybe I will. How did you come to be a tramp?”

”Me?” answered Curly. ”Why, I adopted that profession when I was an infant. Case of had to. First thing I can remember, I belonged to a big, lazy hobo called Beefsteak Charley. He sent me around to houses to beg. I wasn't hardly big enough to reach the latch of a gate.”

”Did he ever tell you how he got you?” asked Ranse.

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