Adrian was conscious, suddenly, that his hand still held the pistol.  He flung it from him with a gesture of repulsion.

“My wife!” he said faintly, “Inez!”

“What d’ye mean?” asked Spear.

“Talk up, man.  What’s wrong?”

“She’s gone—­abducted,” Stanley answered.  “Who’ll lend me a horse.  I must find McTurpin.  He knows—­”

Unexpectedly Spear complicated matters.  “You’re mistaken, Stanley.  I followed when you and he took your walk together.  I suspected treachery—­when Gasket sneaked along behind.  I had McTurpin covered when you turned your back on him.  He came here after that.  Both of them have been here all the evening.”

Stanley put his hand to his head with a bewildered gesture.

“Good God!  Then where—?  What has become of them?”

“Maybe they got wind of Benito’s presence.  Maybe they’re with him.  Let’s see.”

They hurried back to the City Hotel.

“The room’s dark,” Spear lighted a taper and they softly opened the door.  Benito slept; beside him drowsed a red-shirted miner slumped upon a chair.  Adrian shook him, whispering, “Where’s Doctor Jones?”

“Don’t know,” muttered the watcher, sleepily.  “This yere is his busy night I reckon.  Asked me to look after this galoot.  Feed him four fingers of that pizen if he woke.”

His head drooped forward and a buzzing sound came from his open mouth.  Once more Adrian shook him.

“Didn’t he say anything about his destination?”

“His which, pard?”

“Where he was bound,” the young man said half angrily.

This time the other sat up straighter.  For the first time he really awoke and took intelligent cognizance of the situation.

“Now I come to think on it, he’s bound for the hill over yonder.  Woman named Briones come for him at a double quick.  Good lookin’ Spanish wench.  She took him by the arm commandin’ like.  ‘You come along,’ she says and picks up his medicine chest.  ‘Don’t stop for yer hat.’  And he didn’t.”  He winked heavily, chuckling at the reminiscence.

“Then it isn’t Juana Briones that’s ill.  Perhaps it’s her husband.”

“Has she got a husband?” asked the miner, disappointedly.  “No, I reckon ’twant him.  ‘Twas a woman name o’ Stanley.  I remember now—­Goin’ to have a bebby.”

CHAPTER XXIII

THE NEW ARRIVAL

“Take my horse,” said Brannan, hurriedly.  “I’ll stay here with Benito.”  He bundled the excited Stanley and Nathan Spear out of the room, where Benito still slept under the spell of the doctor’s opiate.  “You, too,” he told the miner, “you’ve had too much red liquor to play the nurse.”  He closed the door after them.

The young contractor spoke first.  “By the eternal, I never thought of that!  I’m glad she had a woman with her.”

He spurred his horse toward Telegraph, Hill, as it had begun to be known, since signals were flashed from its crest, announcing the arrival of vessels.  Down its farther slope was the little rancho of Dona Briones, where Inez in her extremity had sought the good friend of her childhood.