Dick smiled blandly.  “You’ve got another guess coming, Steve.  She’s going to eat dirt because she misjudged me so.  She’s going to lie awake nights and figure what play she can make to get even again.  Getting hold of those blamed letters is the luckiest shot I’ve made yet.  I was in bad—­darned bad.  Explanations didn’t go.  I was just a plain ornery skunk.  Then I put over this grand-stand play and change the whole situation.  She’s the one that’s in bad now.  Didn’t she tell me right off the bat what kind of a hairpin I was?  Didn’t she drive me off the ranch with that game leg of mine all to the bad?  Good enough.  Now she finds out I’m a white man she’s going to be plumb sore at herself.”

“What good does that do you?  You’re making a fight for the Rio Chama Valley, ain’t you?  Or are you just having a kid quarrel with a girl?”

“I wouldn’t take the Rio Chama Valley as a gift if I had to steal it from Miss Valdes and her people.  Ain’t I making enough money up at Cripple Creek for my needs?  No, Steve!  I’m playing for bigger game than that.  Size up my hand beside Don Manuel’s, and it looks pretty bum.  But I’m going to play it strong.  Maybe at the draw I’ll fill.”

“Mebbe you won’t.”

“I can bet it like I had an ace full, can’t I?  Anybody can play poker when he’s got a mitt full of big ones.  Show me the man that can make two pair back an all-blue hand off the map.”

“Go to it, you old sport.  My money’s on you,” grinned the miner admiringly.  “I’ll go order a wedding present.”

Through the pleasant coolness of the evening Dick sauntered along the streets to the Underwood home, nor was his contentment lessened because he knew that at a safe distance the brown shadows still dogged his steps.  In a scabbard fitted neatly beneath his left arm rested a good friend that more than once had saved its owner’s life.  To the fraction of a second Gordon knew just how long it would take him to get this into action in case of need.

Kate Underwood met him at the door and took her guest into the living-room.  Beside a student lamp a plump little old lady sat knitting.  Somehow even before her soft voice welcomed him the visitor knew that her gentle presence diffused an atmosphere of home.

“Thee is welcome, Mr. Gordon.  Kate has been telling us of thee.”

The young man gave no evidence of surprise, but Kate explained as a matter of course.

“We are Friends, and at home we still use the old way of address.”

“I have very pleasant memories of the Friends.  A good old lady who took the place of my own mother was one.  It is nice to hear the speech again,” answered Gordon.

Presently the conversation drifted to the Valdes family.  It appeared that as children Kate and Valencia had known each other.  The heiress of the Valdes estates had been sent to Washington to school, and later had attended college in the East.  Since her return she had spent most of her time in the valley.  So that it happened the two young women had not met for a good many years.