The Argosy, November 1908 — page 21: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BY BULLET “Tam not particular how he goes. I am even willing to lend you a team and a wagon. Or, I see that you have two horses. I will give you a double harness and a pole-wagon. I will even give you a mattress for him to lie on. And you can drive him home as nicely as you please. See?” Bonilla put his face quite close to mine and peered into my eyes. ‘““Why are you so anxious to get rid of Sefior Hernandez?” he asked. ‘“ Even so eager as to lose a good harness and wagon?” ‘T said nothing about losing any har- ness and wagon. You are arich man and a Mexican gentleman. Just now you are excited and enraged because your daugh- ter has eluded you. I was not to blame for that. I am always ready to help beauty in distress. And when she said you were se//ing her toa man named Hers: nandez, and begged me to aid her to escape, of course I did so.” “And you say she is with the Moquis now?” ‘‘She is under the care of the Moquis now, and I am the controlling influence with the Moquis of the San Jacintos.” ‘“T am apparently helpless in your hands,” he said, sitting down again and putting his revolver away. ‘I am help- less. Then you make it a bargain that if this Moqui woman you call Namona is returned safely you will restore my daughter to me?” ‘“T made no such bargain. The return of your daughter depends entirely upon her own will. I did say that if Namona is harmed by your Yaquis you will never see your daughter again alive.” He looked at me, and a gray ashen color almost drove the swarthiness from his face. ‘You are a desperate man,” he gasped. “Tam,” Isaid. ‘ Now I will get your wagon.” CHAPTER VI. A REMOVAL. Ir wasn’t much of a job to get out the wagon from the shed, and it wasn’t much of a wagon after it was out. But it was all I had, and I could ill afford the money to buy another. PERSUASION. 587 But I was so eager to get rid of Her- nandez, so that I might relieve the young lady from her disagreeable situation, that I would have let them take every horse I had. I took the saddles off their two mounts, with the help of the Mexican who had accompanied Bonilla, and then harnessed them to the wagon. I made a comfort- able bed in the bottom of the vehicle, put in a couple of fairly good blankets, and the Mexican drove round to the door. “Your wagon is ready, Senor Bonil- la,’ I said. “I regret that circumstances do not permit me to be more hospitable. But this man received his wounds in an attack on my house, and I cannot have him here. My own man is wounded, but so slightly that I can take care of him. Senor Hernandez is perhaps_ badly wounded and requires the services of a surgeon. He will be better off among his friends. You see I am isolated here, and he would not get the proper care.” “You are wonderfully eager, however, to have us go. I am disposed to think you have lied.” ‘He lied to me,” said Hernandez. “And he is lying to you.” ‘Then my daughter is here.” ““T have told you all I intend to tell you about your daughter,’ I retorted angrily. “I shall say no more, except to reiterate what I have said. If you wish to see your daughter alive don’t let any harm come to Namona.”’ He seemed about to become furious again, but he saw that I had him abso- lutely at a disadvantage. He did not know where his daughter was. Even if, as I had made him be- lieve, without deliberately lying—which, however, I don’t think I would have hesi- tated to do—she was up in the San Jacintos with the Moquis, he knew he could not get her without a command from me. And if she was not there, but hidden somewhere nearer, he could not hope to find her that night. It was now getting dark, and a search, in a region unfamiliar to him, would be fruitless. And he knew—or, at least, his acquies- cent manner after the first ebullition of rage was over seemed to indicate that he knew—his daughter would be safe in my hands until the return of Namona. comiclooks.conn