out to do, and this journey is the first step of the
way. No one must go with me but Tia Juana, no one must even know where
I have gone. Someone owes me a debt, Sallie, and they're going to pay!"

There was a grim note in her quiet tones which boded ill for the
debtor, and Sallie hastily changed the subject.

"And Mr. Thode? What'll I tell him? Does he know?"

"Not where I'm going, but you can say that I've made the first move in
the game I'm playing; I've started on what I've got to do. He'll know
what I mean. I can't tell you or anyone, Sallie, because I want to see
it through alone."

When next Thode rode up to the Casa de Limas, Sallie met him with
strange news.

"She's gone. Went off this morning in a car she bought from Rufe
Terwilliger's widow, and she bundled old Tia Juana along with her. She
said to tell you she'd made a start on what she had to do, and you
would understand."

But Kearn Thode didn't. What was this trust, this unknown inheritance
from Gentleman Geoff? There had been an ominous note in her voice when
she spoke of it, and he remembered what the gambler had told him of her
eye-for-an-eye creed of retributive justice. In her splendid, reckless
courage could she have pitted herself against El Negrito, the bandit of
the hills?

CHAPTER V

A GRINGO CINDERELLA

"Whether you're here for health, pleasure, or business there ain't a
more up-and-comin' town this side o' the Rio than Limasito," Jim
Baggott remarked with the air of publicity-promoter as he "set 'em up"
for a plump, white-mustached stranger, who had drawn up to the hotel an
hour before in an impressive car, and whose equally impressive array of
luggage was even then distributed about the best suite the
establishment afforded.

"I'm here on business, Mr. Baggott," the stranger replied promptly to
his host's tactfully implied question. "Did you ever hear of a gambler
known as 'Gentleman Geoff'? I understand he located somewhere about
here ten years ago."

"Hear of him?" Jim repeated gruffly, and turned his head away. "He was
one of our most prom'nent citizens; ran the Blue Chip over yonder."

"Indeed?" The stranger tasted his liquor and replaced the glass with a
fastidious shudder upon the bar. "He is not here now?"

Baggott shook his head.

"You may have heard that Alvarez--El Negrito, they call him--paid us a
little visit a few days ago." He added a profane and heartfelt
abjuration of the bandit. "Mos