But he did not go to the Medina ranch that evening, for the very good reason that he met his man fair in the trail as it looped around the head of the draw where he had heard the automobile running without lights.  As on that other evening, Starr had cut straight across the loop, going east instead of west.  And where the trail forked on the farther side he met Estan Medina driving a big, lathery bay horse hitched to a shiny, new covered buggy.  He seemed in a hurry, but he pulled up nevertheless to have a word with Starr.  And Starr, always observant of details, saw that he had three or four packages in the bottom of the buggy, which seemed to bear out Estan’s statement that he had been to town, meaning San Bonito.

Starr rolled a cigarette, and smoked it while he gossiped with Estan of politics, pretty girls, and the price of mutton.  He had been eyeing the new buggy speculatively, and at last he spoke of it in that admiring tone which warms the heart of the listener.

“Some turnout, Estan,” he summed up.  “But you ought to be driving an automobile.  All your friends are getting them.”

Estan lifted his shoulders in true Spanish fashion and smiled.  “No, amigo.  Me, I can take pleasure yet from horses.  And the madre, she’s so ’fraid of them automobiles.  She cries yet when she knows I ride in one a little bit.  Now she’s so proud, when I drive the new buggy home!  She folds so pretty her best mantilla over her head and rides with me to church, and she bows so polite—­to all the senoras from the new buggy!  And her face shines with the happiness in her heart.  Oh, no, not me for the big automobile!” He smiled and shrugged and threw out his hands.  “I like best to see my money walking around with wool on the back!  Excuse, senor.  I go now to bring the new buggy home and to see the smile of my mother.”  Then he bethought him of the tradition of his house.  “You come and have a soft bed and the comfort of my house,” he urged.  “It is far to San Bonito, and it is not so far to my house.”

Starr explained plausibly his haste, sent a friendly message to the mother and Luis, and rode on thoughtfully.  Now and then he turned to glance behind him at the dust cloud rolling rapidly around the head of the draw.

Since Estan had been to town himself that day, Starr reasoned that there would not be much gained by scouting through the arroyos that led near the Medina ranch.  Estan would have seen in town the men he wanted to see.  He could do so easily enough and without exciting the least suspicion; for San Bonito had plenty of saloons that were popular, and yet unobtrusive, meeting places.  No need for the mysterious automobile to make the long journey through the sand to-day, if Estan Medina were the object of the visit, and Starr knew of no other Mexican out that way who would be important enough to have a hand in the mixing of political intrigue.