"I BELIEVE YOU'RE IN LOVE WITH HER, TOO"
It was characteristic of Dick Gordon that he established at once a
little relation of friendliness between him and the young woman at the
State House who waited upon him with the documents in the Valdés grant
case. She was a tall, slight girl with amazingly vivid eyes set in a
face scarcely pretty. In her manner to the world at large there was an
indifference amounting almost to insolence. She had a way of looking at
people as if they were bits of the stage setting instead of individuals.
A flare of interest had sparkled in her eyes when Gordon's fussy little
attorney had mentioned the name of his client, but it had been Dick's
genial manner of boyish comradeship that had really warmed Miss
Underwood to him. She did not like many people, but when she gave her
heart to a friend it was without stipulations. Dick was a man's man.
Essentially he was masculine, virile, dominant. But the force of him was
usually masked either by his gay impudence or his sunny friendliness.
Women were drawn to his flashing smile because they sensed the strength
behind it.
Kate Underwood could have given a dozen reasons why she liked him. There
were for instance the superficial ones. She liked the way he tossed back
the tawny sun-kissed hair from his eyes, the easy pantherish stride with
which he covered ground so lightly, the set of his fine shoulders, the
peculiar tint of his lean, bronzed cheeks. His laugh was joyous as the
song of a bird in early spring. It made one want to shout with him.
Then, too, she tremendously admired his efficiency. To look at the hard,
clear eye, at the clean, well-packed build of the man, told the story.
The movements of his strong, brown hands were sure and economical. They
dissipated no energy. Every detail of his personality expressed a mind
that did its own thinking swiftly and incisively.
"It's curious about these documents of the old Valdés and Moreño claims.
They have lain here in the vaults--that is, here and at the old
Governor's Palace--for twenty years and more untouched. Then all at once
twenty people get interested in them. Scarce a day passes that lawyers
are not up to look over some of the copies. You have certainly stirred
things up with your suit, Mr. Gordon."
Dick looked out of the window at the white adobe-lined streets resting
in a placid coma of sun-beat.
"Don't you reckon Santa Fé can stand a little stirring up, Miss
Underwood?"
"Goodness, yes. We all get to be three hundred years old if we live in
this atmosphere long enough."
The man's gaze shifted. "You'd have to live here a right long time, I
reckon."
A quick slant of her gay eyes reproached him. "You don't have to be so
gallant, Mr. Gordon. The State pays me fifteen hundred dollars a year to
wait on you, anyhow."
"You don't say. As much as that? My, we're liable to go bankrupt in New
Mexico, ain't we? And, if you want to know, I don't say nice things to
you because I have to, but because I want to."
She laughed with a pretense at incredulity. "In another day or two I'll
find out just what special favor I'm able to do Mr. Gordon. The regular
thing is to bring flowers or candy, you know. Generally they say, too,
that there never has been a clerk holding this job as fit for it as I
am."
"You're some clerk, all right. Say, where can I find the original of
this _Agua Caliente_ grant, Miss Kate?"
She smiled to herself as she went to get him a certified copy. "Only two
days, and he's using my first name. Inside of a week he'll be calling me
'Dearie,'" she thought. But she knew very well there was no danger. This
young fellow was the kind of man that could be informal without the
slightest idea of flirting or making love.
Kate Underwood's interest in the fight between the claimants for the
Valdés and Moreño grants was not based entirely upon her liking for
Dick. He learned this the fourth day of his stay in Santa Fé.
"Do you know that you were followed to the hotel last night, Mr.
Gordon?" she asked him, as soon as he arrived at the State House.
His eyes met hers instantly. "Was I? How do you know?"
"I left the building just after you did. Two Mexicans followed you. I
don't know when I first suspected it, but I trailed along to make sure.
There can be no doubt about it."
"Not a bit of doubt. Found it out the first day when I left the hotel,"
he told her cheerfully.
"You knew it all the time," she cried, amazed.
"That doesn't prevent me from being properly grateful to you for your
kindness," he hastened to say.
"What are they following you for?" she wanted to know.
Dick told her something of his experiences in the Rio Chama Valley
without mentioning that part of them which had to do with Miss Valdés.
At the sound of Manuel Pesquiera's name the eyes of the girl flashed.
Dick had already noticed that his name was always to her a signal for
repression of some emotion. The eyes contracted and hardened the least
in the world. Some men would not have noticed this, but more than once
Gordon's life had hung upon the right reading of such signs.
"You think that Mr. Pesquiera has hired them to watch you?" she
suggested.
"Maybe he has and maybe he hasn't. Some of those willing lads of Miss
Valdés don't need any hiring. They want to see what I'm up to. They're
not overlooking any bets."
"But they may shoot you."
He looked at her drolly. "They may, but I'll be there at the time. I'm
not sleeping on the job, Miss Kate."
"You didn't turn around once yesterday."
"Hmp! I saw them out of the edge of my eyes. And when I turned a corner
I always saw them mighty plain. They couldn't have come very close
without my knowing it."
"Don Manuel is very anxious to have Miss Valdés win, isn't he?"
Dick observed that just below the eyes two spots were burning in the
usually pale cheeks.
"Yes," he answered simply.
"Why?"
"He's her friend and a relative."
It seemed to Gordon that there was a touch of defiance in the eyes that
held to his so steadily. She was going to find out the truth, no matter
what he thought.
"Is that all--nothing more than a friend or a relative?"
The miner's boyish laugh rippled out. "You'd ought to have been a
lawyer, Miss Kate. No, that ain't all Don Manuel doesn't make any secret
of it. I don't know why I should. He wants to be prince consort of the
Valdés kingdom."
"Because of ... the estate?"
"Lord, no! He's one man from the ground up, M. Pesquiera is. In spite of
the estates."
"You mean that he ... loves Valencia Valdés?"
"Sure he does. Manuel doesn't care much who gets the kingdom if he gets
the princess."
"Is she so ... pretty?"
Dick stopped to consider this. "Why, yes, I reckon she is pretty, though
I hadn't thought of it before. You see, pretty ain't just the word.
She's a queen. That is, she looks like a queen ought to but don't. Take
her walk for instance: she steps out like as if in another moment she
might fly."
"That doesn't mean anything. It's almost silly," replied the downright
Miss Underwood, not without a tinge of spite.
"It means something to me. I'm trying to give you a picture of her. But
you'd have to see her to understand. When she's around mean and little
things crawl out of your mind. She's on the level and square and fine--a
thoroughbred if there ever was one."
"I believe you're in love with her, too."
The young man found himself blushing. "Now don't get to imagining
foolishness. Miss Valdés hates the ground I walk on. She thinks I'm the
limit, and she hasn't forgotten to tell me so."
"Which, of course, makes you fonder of her," scoffed Miss Underwood.
"Does she hate the ground that Don Manuel walks on?"
"Now you've got me. I go to the foot of the class, because I don't
know."
"But you wish you did," she flung at him, with a swift side glance.
"Guessing again, Miss Kate. I'll sure report you if you waste the
State's time on such foolishness," he threatened gaily.
"Since you're in love with her, why don't you marry Miss Valdés and
consolidate the two claims?" demanded the girl.
Her chin was tilted impudently toward him, but Gordon guessed that there
was an undercurrent of meaning in her audacity.
"What commission do you charge for running your matrimonial bureau?" he
asked innocently.
"The service comes free to infants," she retorted sweetly.
She was called away to attend to other business. An hour later she
passed the desk where he was working.
"So you think I'm an infant at that game, do you?"
"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings," was her saucy answer.
"You haven't--not a mite. What about Don Manuel? Is he an infant at it,
too?"
A sudden flame of color swept her face. The words she flung at Gordon
seemed irrelevant, but he did not think them so. "I hate him."
And with that she was gone.
Dick's eyes twinkled. He had discovered another reason for her interest
in his fortunes.
Later in the day, when the pressure of work had relaxed, the clerk
drifted his way again while searching for some papers.
"Your lawyers are paid to look up all this, aren't they? Why do you do
it, then?" she asked.
"The case interests me. I want to know all about it."
"Would you like to see the old Valdés house here in Santa Fé? My father
bought it when Alvaro Valdés built his new town house. One day I found
in the garret a bundle of old Spanish letters. They were written by old
Bartolomé to his son. I saved them. Would you care to see them?"
"Very much. The old chap was a great character. I suppose he was really
the last of the great feudal barons. The French Revolution put an end to
them in Europe--that and the industrial revolution. It's rather amazing
that out here in the desert of this new land dedicated to democracy the
idea was transplanted and survived so long."
"I'll bring the letters to-morrow and you can look them over. Any time
you like I'll show you over the house. It's really rather
interesting--much more so than their new one, which is so modern that it
looks like a thousand others. Valencia was born in the old house. What
will you give me to let you into the room?"
He brushed aside her impudence with a laugh. "Your boss is looking this
way. I think he's getting ready to fire you."
"He's more likely to be fired himself. I'm under civil service and he
isn't. Will you take your shoes off when you go into the holy of
holies?"
"What happens to little girls when they ask too many questions? Go 'way.
I'm busy."