“Who is it?” demanded Engle sharply.

“It’s Brocky Lane,” returned Norton, and again his voice told of rigid muscles and hard eyes.  “He’s hurt bad, John.  And, if we’re to do him any good we’d better be about it.”

Engle said nothing.  But the slow, deep breath he drew into his lungs could not have been more eloquent of his emotion had it been expelled in a curse.

“I’ll slip around the back way to the hotel,” said Norton.  “I’ll be ready when Miss Page comes in.  Good night, John.”

Silently, without awaiting promise or protest from the girl, he was gone into the deeper shadows of the cottonwoods.

CHAPTER VI

A RIDE THROUGH THE NIGHT

Ignacio Chavez, because thus he could be of service to el senor Roderico Nortone whom he admired vastly and loved like a brother, drew to the dregs upon his fine Latin talent, doubled up and otherwise contorted and twisted his lithe body until the sweat stood out upon his forehead.  His groans would have done ample justice to the occasion had he been dying.

Virginia treated him sparingly to a harmless potion she had secured at her room on the way, put the bottle into the hands of Ignacio’s withered and anxious old mother, informed the half dozen Indian onlookers that she had arrived in time and that the bell-ringer would live, and then was impatient to go with Engle to Struve’s hotel.  Here Engle left her to return to his home and to send the saddle-horse he had promised Norton.

“You can ride, can’t you, Virginia?” he had asked.

“Yes,” she assured him.

“Then I’ll send Persis around; she’s the prettiest thing in horseflesh you ever saw.  And the gamest.  And, Virginia . . .”

He hesitated.  “Well?” she asked.

“There’s not a squarer, whiter man in the world than Rod Norton,” he said emphatically.  “Now good night and good luck, and be sure to drop in on us to-morrow.”

She watched him as he went swiftly down the street; then she turned into the hotel and down the hall, which echoed to the click of her heels, and to her room.  She had barely had time to change for her ride and to glance at her “war bag” when a discreet knock sounded at her door.  Going to the door she found that it was Julius Struve instead of Norton.

“You are to come with me,” said the hotel keeper softly.  “He is waiting with the horses.”

They passed through the dark dining-room, into the pitch black kitchen and out at the rear of the house.  A moment Struve paused, listening.  Then, touching her sleeve, he hurried away into the night, going toward the black line of cottonwoods, the girl keeping close to his heels.

At the dry arroyo Norton was waiting, holding two saddled horses.  Without a word he gave her his hand, saw her mounted, surrendered Persis’s jerking reins into her gauntletted grip and swung up to the back of his own horse.  In another moment, and still in silence, Virginia and Norton were riding away from San Juan, keeping in the shadows of the trees, headed toward the mountains in the north.