But he'll have no ransom--no, not if it breaks
Maximilian's heart.--Now, Senor Trader----"

He stopped and called to him his nearest men. Murguia sank limp.

"But he hasn't got her! Rodrigo hasn't got her!"

"Who has then?"

"The other one, the American."

"Which way did they go?"

"If Your Mercy will not----"

"Shoot him!" thundered the Tiger.

"But if he will tell us?" someone interposed.

It was Don Tiburcio, still the guardian angel of the golden goose.

"Bien," growled the Tiger, "let him live then until we find the
American."

"Which way did they go?" Tiburcio whispered in Murguia's ear.

"To, to Valles," came the reply.

The blazing huts revealed a ghoulish joy on the miser's face. The
Gringo, not he, would now have to explain to the Tiger.

CHAPTER XIII

UNREGISTERED IN ANY STUDBOOK

"La belle chose que l'aristocratie quand on a le chance d'en etre."
--_Voltaire._

That garish daub which was sopped up from the burning homes of men and
bespattered over the forest's dark crest was already mellowing under the
gentler touch of dawn, when the three travelers gained the open country.

"Poor, dirty, little Inditos," Jacqueline mused aloud. Berthe struck her
pony in a tremor of fright. The American was riding ahead. "Fire and
sword," Jacqueline went on, and her voice lowered to intense scorn,
"they make the final tableau, but--it's gaudy, it's cheap."

The trail had broadened into a high road, and now it wound among the
hills like a soiled white ribbon. Driscoll turned in his saddle. "I
shouldn't wonder," he observed in the full-toned drawl that was peculiar
to him, "but what we'd better be projecting a change of venue. This
route is too public, and publicity around here strikes me as sort of
prejudiced. S'pose we just stir up an alibi?"

A certain stately old judge back in Missouri would have smiled thus to
hear the scion of his house. But the marchioness, confident in her
mastery of English, thought it was the veriest jargon. What was the boy
trying to say? His next words grew fairly intelligible. "We are now
headed for Valles. Well, we've decided not to go to Valles."

Perhaps they had, but she at least had ceased deciding anything, since
the overruling of her veto in the matter of precedence when one is
hoisted upon a burro.

A narrow pony path crossed the road. "First trail to the left, after
leaving the wood," Driscoll