here's the point. I'm a plain American business man. I don't buy and I don't sell without first investigating a proposition submitted to me. I'm from Missouri."

"Oh, indeed! From St. Louis perhaps. I went to school there when I was a boy."

Gordon laughed. "I was speaking in metaphor, Don Manuel. What I mean is that I'll have to be shown. No pig-in-a-poke business for me."

"Exactly. Most precisely. Have I not traveled from New Mexico up this steep roof of the continent merely to explain how matters stand? Valencia Valdés is the true and rightful heiress of the valley. She is everywhere so recognize' and accept' by the peons."

The miner's indolent eye rested casually upon his guest. "Married?"

"I have not that felicitation," replied the Spaniard.

"It was the lady I meant."

"Pardon. No man has yet been so fortunate to win the señorita"

"I reckon it's not for want of trying, since the heiress is so beautiful. There's always plenty of willing lads to take over the job of prince regent under such circumstances."

The spine of the New Mexican stiffened ever so slightly. "Señorita Valdés is princess of the Rio Chama valley. Her dependents understan' she is of a differen' caste, a descendant of the great and renowned Don Alvaro of Castile."

"Don't think I know the gentleman. Who was he?" asked Gordon genially, offering his guest a cigar.

Pesquiera threw up his neat little hands in despair. "But of a certainty Mr. Gordon has read of Don Alvaro de Valdés y Castillo, lord of demesnes without number, conqueror of the Moors and of the fierce island English who then infested Spain in swarms. His retinue was as that of a king. At his many manors fed daily thirty thousand men at arms. In all Europe no knight so brave, so chivalrous, so skillful with lance and sword. To the nobles his word was law. Young men worshiped him, the old admired, the poor blessed. The queen, it is said, love' him madly. She was of exceeding beauty, but Don Alvaro remember his vows of knighthood and turn his back upon madness. Then the king, jealous for that his great noble was better, braver and more popular than he, send for de Valdés to come to court."

"I reckon Don Alvaro ought to have been sick a-bed that day and unable to make the journey," suggested Dick.

"So say his wife and his men, but Don Alvaro scorn to believe his king a traitor. He kiss his wife and babies good-bye, ride into the trap prepare' for him, and die like a soldier. God rest his valiant soul."

"Some man. I'd like to have met him," Gordon commented.

"Señorita Valencia is of the same blood, of the same fine courage. She, too, is the idol of her people. Will Mr. Gordon, who is himself of the brave heart, make trouble for an unprotected child without father or mother?"

"Unprotected isn't quite the word so long as Don Manuel Pesquiera is her friend," the Coloradoan answered with a smile.

The dark young man flushed, but his eyes met those of Dick steadily. "You are right, sir. I stand between her and trouble if I can."

"Good. Glad you do."

"So I make you an offer. I ask you to relinquish your shadowy claim to the illegal Moreño grant."

"Well, I can't tell you offhand just what I'll do, Don Manuel. Make your proposition to me in writing, and one month from to-day I'll let you know whether it's yes or no."

"But the señorita wants to make improvements—to build, to fence. Delay is a hardship. Let us say a thousand dollars and make an end."

"Not if the court knows itself. You say she's young. A month's wait won't hurt her any. I want to look into it. Maybe you're offering me too much. A fifth of a cent an acre is a mighty high price for land. I don't want any fairest daughter of Spain to rob herself for me, you know," he grinned.

"I exceed my instructions. I offer two thousand, Mr. Gordon."

"If you said two hundred thousand, I'd still say no till I had looked it up. I'm not doing business to-day at any price, thank you."

"You are perhaps of an impression that this land is valuable. On the contrary, I offer an assurance. And our need of your shadowy claim——"

"I ain't burdened with impressions, except one, that I don't care to dispose of my ghost-title. We'll talk business a month from to-day, if you like. No sooner. Have a smoke, Don Manuel?"

Pesquiera declined the proffered cigar with an impatient gesture. He rose, reclaimed his hat and cane, and clicked his heels together in a stiff bow.

He was a slight, dark, graceful man, with small, neat hands and feet, trimly gloved and shod. He had a small black mustache pointing upward in parallels to his smooth, olive cheeks. The effect was almost foppish, but the fire in the snapping eyes contradicted any suggestion of effeminacy. His gaze yielded nothing even to the searching one of Gordon.

"It is, then, war between us, Señor Gordon?" he asked haughtily.

Dick laughed.

"Sho! It's just business. Maybe I'll take your offer. Maybe I won't. I might want to run down and look at the no-'count land," he said with a laugh.

"I think it fair to inform you, sir, that the feeling of the country down there is in favor of the Valdés grant. The peons are hot-tempered, and are likely to resent any attempt to change the existing conditions. Your presence, señor, would be a danger."

"Much obliged, Don Manuel. Tell 'em from me that I got a bad habit of wearing a six-gun, and that if they get to resenting too arduous it's likely to ventilate their enthusiasm."

Once more the New Mexican bowed stiffly before he retired.

Pesquiera had overplayed his hand. He had stirred in the miner an interest born of curiosity and a sense of romantic possibilities. Dick wanted to see this daughter of Castile who was still to the simple-hearted shepherds of the valley a princess of the blood royal. Don Manuel was very evidently her lover. Perhaps it was his imagination that had mixed the magic potion that lent an atmosphere of old-world pastoral charm to the story of the Valdés grant. Likely enough the girl would prove commonplace in a proud half-educated fashion that would be intolerable for a stranger.

But even without the help of the New Mexican the situation was one which called for a thorough personal investigation. Gordon was a hard-headed American business man, though he held within him the generous and hare-brained potentialities of a soldier of fortune. He meant to find out just what the Moreño grant was worth. After he had investigated his legal standing he would look over the valley of the Chama himself. He took no stock in Don Manuel's assurance that the land was worthless, any more than he gave weight to his warning that a personal visit to the scene would be dangerous if the settlers believed he came to interfere with their rights. For many turbulent years Dick Gordon had held his own in a frontier community where untamed enemies had passed him daily with hate in their hearts. He was not going to let the sulky resentment of a few shepherds interfere with his course now.

A message flashed back to a little town in Kentucky that afternoon. It was of the regulation ten-words length, and this was the body of it:

Send immediately, by express, little brown leather trunk in garret.

The signature at the bottom of it was "Richard Gordon."

CHAPTER III

A fisherman was whipping the stream of the Rio Chama.

In his creel were a dozen trout, for the speckled beauties had been rising to the fly that skipped across the top of the riffles as naturally as life. He wore waders, gray flannel shirt, and khaki coat. As he worked up the stream he was oftener in its swirling waters than on the shore. But just now the fish were no longer striking.

"Time to grub, anyhow. I'll give them a rest for a while. They'll