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The two men remained silent for a moment, Don Jose gazing abstractedly on the door through which she had vanished, until Poindexter, with a return of his tolerant smile, said, “You have heard the views of Mrs. Tucker. You know the situation as well as she does.”

“Ah, yes; possibly better.”

Poindexter darted a quick glance at the grave, sallow face of Don Jose, but detecting no unusual significance in his manner, continued, “As you see, she leaves this matter in my hands. Let us talk like business men. Have you any idea of purchasing this property?”

“Of purchasing? ah, no.”

Poindexter bent his brows, but quickly relaxed them with a smile of humorous forgiveness. “If you have any other idea, Don Jose, I ought to warn you, as Mrs. Tucker’s lawyer, that she is in legal possession here, and that nothing but her own act can change that position.”

“Ah, so.”

Irritated at the shrug which accompanied this, Poindexter continued haughtily, “If I am to understand, you have nothing to say”–

“To say, ah, yes, possibly. But”–he glanced toward the door of Mrs. Tucker’s room–“not here.” He stopped, appeared to recall himself, and with an apologetic smile and a studied but graceful gesture of invitation, he motioned to the gateway, and said, “Will you ride?”

“What can the fellow be up to?” muttered Poindexter, as with an assenting nod he proceeded to remount his horse. “If he wasn’t an old hidalgo, I’d mistrust him. No matter! here goes!”

The Don also remounted his half-broken mustang; they proceeded in solemn silence through the corral, and side by side emerged on the open plain. Poindexter glanced round; no other being was in sight. It was not until the lonely hacienda had also sunk behind them that Don Jose broke the silence.

“You say just now we shall speak as business men. I say no, Don Marco; I will not. I shall speak, we shall speak, as gentlemen.”

“Go on,” said Poindexter, who was beginning to be amused.

“I say just now I will not purchase the rancho from the Senora. And why? Look you, Don Marco;” he reined in his horse, thrust his hand under his serape, and drew out a folded document: “this is why.”

With a smile, Poindexter took the paper from his hand and opened it. But the smile faded from his lips as he read. With blazing eyes he spurred his horse beside the Spaniard, almost unseating him, and said sternly, “What does this mean?”

“What does it mean?” repeated Don Jose, with equally flashing eyes; “I’ll tell you. It means that your client, this man Spencer Tucker, is a Judas, a traitor! It means that he gave Los Cuervos to his mistress a year ago, and that she sold it to me–to me, you hear!–me, Jose Santierra, the day before she left! It means that the coyote of a Spencer, the thief, who bought these lands of a thief and gave them to a thief, has tricked you all. Look,” he said, rising in his saddle, holding the paper like a baton, and defining with a sweep of his arm the whole level plain, “all these lands were once mine, they are mine again to-day. Do I want to purchase Los Cuervos? you ask, for you will speak of the business. Well, listen. I have purchased Los Cuervos, and here is the deed.”

“But it has never been recorded,” said Poindexter, with a carelessness he was far from feeling.

“Of a verity, no. Do you wish that I should record it?” asked Don Jose, with a return of his simple gravity.

Poindexter bit his lip. “You said we were to talk like gentlemen,” he returned. “Do you think you have come into possession of this alleged deed like a gentleman?”

Don Jose shrugged his shoulders, “I found it tossed in the lap of a harlot. I bought it for a song. Eh, what would you?”

“Would you sell it again for a song?” asked Poindexter.