he _senor_ and the _senorita_ can come in," said the first man,
standing aside.

Manuel restrained the young woman by stretching his left arm in front of
her.

"Just a moment. Light a lamp, my friends. We do not go forward in the
dark."

At this there was a further demur, but finally a match flickered and a
lamp was lit. Manuel moved slowly forward into the room, followed by
Valencia. In a corner of the room a man lay bound upon the floor, his
back toward them. One of the men rolled him over as if he had been a
sack of potatoes. The face into which they looked had been mauled and
battered, but Valencia had no trouble in recognizing it.

"Sebastian!" she cried.

He said nothing. A sullen, dogged look rested on his face. Manuel had
seen it before on the countenance of many men. He knew that the sheep
grazer could not be driven to talk.

Miss Valdes might have known it, too, but she was too impatient for
finesse. "What have you done with Mr. Gordon? Tell me--now--at once,"
she commanded.

The man's eyes did not lift to meet hers. Nor did he answer a single
word.

"First, our hundred dollars, _Senorita_," one of the men reminded her.

"It will be paid when you deliver Sebastian to us in the street with his
hands tied behind him," Manuel promised.

They protested, grumbling that they had risked enough already when they
had captured him an hour earlier. But in the end they came to
Pesquiera's condition. The prisoner's hands were tied behind him and his
feet released so that he could walk. Manuel slid one arm under the right
one of Sebastian. The fingers of his left hand rested on the handle of a
revolver in his coat pocket.

Valencia, all impatience, could hardly restrain herself until they were
alone with their prisoner. She walked on the other side of her cousin,
but as soon as they reached the Plaza she stopped.

"Where is he, Sebastian? What have you done with him? I warn you it is
better to tell all you know," she cried sternly.

He looked up at her doggedly, moistened his lips, and looked down again
without a word.

"Speak!" she urged imperiously. "Where is Mr. Gordon? Tell me he is
alive. And what of Pablo?"

Manuel spoke in a low voice. "My cousin, you are driving him to silence.
Leave him to me. He must be led, not driven."

Valencia was beyond reason. She felt that every minute lost was of
tremendous importance. If Gordon was alive they must get help to him at
once. All her life she had known S