No, the senor had not been at the Starr Rancho.  But he would find him.

Ramon tiptoed to the open window, and knelt with his arms on the sill.  A falling star streaked the night.

“And I shall as soon find him as I would find that star,” he murmured.  “Yet to-morrow there will be the sun.  And I will ask the Holy Mother to help me.  She will not refuse, knowing my heart.”

Without undressing, he flung himself on the bed.  As he slept he dreamed; a strange, vivid dream of the setting sun and a tiny horseman limned against the gold.  The horseman vanished as he rose to follow.  If he were only sure that it was the Senor Jim!  The dream had said that the senor had ridden into the west.  In the morning—­

With the dawn Ramon was up.  Some one was moving about in the kitchen below.  Ramon washed and smoothed his long black hair with his hands.  He stepped quietly downstairs.  Breakfast was not ready, so he walked to the kitchen and talked with Anita.

To her, who understood him as no gringo could, he told of his quest.  She knew nothing of the Senor Jim’s whereabouts, save that he had come yesterday and talked with the senora.  Anita admired the handsome young Mexican, whose face was so sad save when his quick smile lightened the shadow.  And she told him to go back to the ranch and not become entangled in the affairs of the Americanos.  It would be much better for him so.

Ramon listened patiently, but shook his head.  The Senor Jim had been kind to him; had given him his life down in the Sonora desert.  Was Ramon Ortego to forget that?

Mrs. Adams declined to take any money for Ramon’s room.  He worked for her husband, and it was at Ramon’s own expense that he would make the journey in search for him.  Instead she had Anita put up a lunch for Ramon.

He thanked her and rode away, taking the western trail across the morning desert.

Thirty miles beyond Stacey, he had news of Waring.  A Mexican rancher had seen the gringo pass late in the evening.  He rode a big buckskin horse.  He was sure it must be the man Ramon sought.  There was not another such horse in Arizona.

Ramon rode on next day, inquiring occasionally at a ranch or crossroad store.  Once or twice he was told that such a horse and rider had passed many hours ago.  At noon he rested and fed his pony.  All that afternoon he rode west.  Night found him in the village of Downey, where he made further inquiry, but without success.

Next morning he was on the road early, still riding west.  No dream had come to guide him, yet the memory of the former dream was keen.  If that dream were not true, all dreams were lies and prayer a useless ceremony.

For three days he rode, tracing the Senor Jim from town to town, but never catching up with him.  Once he learned that Waring had slept in the same town, but had departed before daybreak.  Ramon wondered why no dream had come to tell him of this.