Part 43 (1/2)

”Yes!” she responded softly. ”In spite of my blindness and your pride, fate seems to have appointed you to the permanent job of knight-errant to the maiden in distress, hasn't it, Mr. Duenna?”

When the door had closed behind him, she stood quite still in the middle of the floor where he had left her. That letter, that portentous letter which Angie had spitefully put into her willing, credulous hands had referred to Tia Juana, not to herself. How plain it all was, now, and how ruthlessly, unjustly she had driven him from her! And he? He had repaid her flouting of him by tireless devotion and a measureless service! Ah, but she would make amends!

Then a whimsical, tender light flooded her face. Cinderella had come into her own again; the prince had found her and fitted on the slipper just when she had been most sure that he had gone from her forever! He was a very haughty and hurt and angry prince, to be sure, but there had been that in his eyes which told her that she might win him back despite the bitter misunderstanding. The old fairy tale was coming true, after all!

CHAPTER XXIV

THE LOST SOULS' TREASURE

On a certain bright February morning Ben Hallock puffed up the Calle Rivera and across the plaza of Limasito as fast as his battered jitney could carry him and rushed into Baggott's hotel with an antic.i.p.atory gleam in his heavy eyes.

”Hey, Jim! I got your message and I come a-hummin'!” he announced.

”What is it? Vigilance Committee?”

”Sort of!” Jim Baggott fairly pranced from behind the bar, his round face s.h.i.+ning with excitement. ”Here's a gentleman from New York, old friend of yours.”

Ben Hallock turned to find himself facing an elderly personage with an impressively pointed gray beard and keen eyes behind gold-rimmed pince-nez.

”Jumping Jehosaphet! If it ain't Perry Larkin!” Ben pumped the stranger's hand energetically. ”Mighty glad to see you, Sir! Your engineer, Kearn Thode, called on me last fall; fine young feller he is, too! You heard about what he did when El Negrito came?”

”Yes, Hallock, but I'm even more proud of him to-day!” The keen eyes sparkled. ”I want you to meet a--er--a confrere of mine, Mr.

Morrissey.”

Honest Dan, late taxi'-driver and amateur detective, purpled with embarra.s.sment as he rose and shook hands, but his eyes, too, were dancing.

Ben nodded to Henry Bailey, his ranch neighbor and the only other occupant of the bar, and then turned again to Jim Baggott.

”Now perhaps you'll tell me what in thunder the racket is about! I'd have come to meet Mr. Larkin without you hinting at a lynchin' party!”

”Just you say what you'll have and hold your horses!” Jim chuckled.

”I'm acting under instructions, the same that brought Mr. Larkin and this-here young man down from New York, and Hen Bailey in from his hacienda; the orders of Gentleman Geoff's Billie, by G.o.d!”

”Billie! She ain't--you don't mean she's comin' back?” Ben cried joyfully. ”I told you she wasn't the kind to forget her old friends in spite of the grand life she's walked into! I knew she'd come back to see us----”

”It is business which brings her now, Hallock, and grim business, too,”

Mr. Larkin interposed. ”She wanted you and Henry here as her friends and witnesses, and there's apt to be a rather ugly scene.”

”Do you mean she's coming right now, that she's here?” Ben Hallock touched his hip significantly. ”I've come heeled for any kind of a little party that's liable to be sprung, but I little thought Billie'd be mixed up in it. What's the matter? Anybody been tryin' to stack the cards on her?”

”The dirtiest, crookedest game that was ever pulled!” Jim smote the bar a blow which made the gla.s.ses tinkle. ”But she'll beat 'em to it yet, or she wouldn't be Gentleman Geoff's girl! She ain't here now, but we expect her any minute and when she comes the fun'll start.”

As if in answer the hum and whirr of two high-powered motors chugging in unison stole upon the air and rapidly increased in volume. Ben craned his neck from the window and then turned disappointedly.

”It's only that Lost Souls crowd!” he grunted. ”Jim, if anything in the line of a fracas starts here, you'll lose that pa.s.sel of swell boarders of yours! Can you see them women when the shootin' commences?”

”They're in on it, too!” Jim grinned. ”Not the women-folk, but the men, and more especially our fine young friend, Starr Wiley.”

”Something to do with the Lost Souls----”