The Senora told the driver to tie the team and wait.  Then she entered the house.  Corliss gazed about the familiar room while she made coffee.  Half starved, he ate ravenously the meal she prepared for him.  Later, when she came and sat opposite, her plump hands folded in her lap, her whole attitude restful and assuring, he told her of the robbery, concealing nothing save the name of Fadeaway.

Then he drew the canvas sack from his pocket.  “I thought I could go back and face it out, but now, I can’t.  Will you—­return it—­and—­tell John?”

She nodded.  “Si!  If you wish it so, my son.  You would not do that as I would tell you—­so I say nothing.  I can only—­what you say—­help, with my hands,” and she gestured gracefully as though leading a child.  “You have money to go away?”

“No, madre.”

“Then I give you the money.”  And the Senora, ignoring his half-hearted protests, stepped to an adjoining room and returned.  “Here is this to help you go.  Some day you come back strong and like your father the big John Corliss.  Then I shall be much glad.”

“I’ll pay it back.  I’ll do anything—­”

But she silenced him, touching his lips with her fingers.  “No.  The promise to make is not so hard, but to keep . . .  Ah!  When you come back, then you promise; si?”

Not a word of reproof, not a glance or a look of disapproval, yet Corliss knew that the Senora’s heart was heavy with sorrow for him.  He strode to the doorway.  Senora Loring followed and called to the driver.  As Corliss shook hands with her, she kissed him.

An anger against himself flushed his cheek.  “I don’t know which road I’ll take, madre,—­after I leave here,—­this country.  But I shall always remember . . .  And tell Nell . . . that . . .” he hesitated.

The Senora smiled and patted his arm.  “Si!  I understand.”

“And, madre, there is a man—­vaquero, or cook, a big man, tall, that they call Sundown, who works for the Concho.  If you see him, please tell him—­that I sent it back.”  And he gestured toward the table whereon lay the little canvas sack of gold.  “Good-bye!”

He stepped hurriedly from the veranda, climbed to the seat of the buckboard, and spoke to the driver.  For a long time the Senora stood in the doorway watching the glint of the speeding ponies.  Then she went to her bedroom and knelt before the little crucifix.  Her prayer was, strangely enough, not for Will Corliss.  She prayed that the sweet Madonna would forgive her if she had done wrong.

CHAPTER XI

CHANCE—­CONQUEROR

Sundown’s return to the camp occasioned some indirect questioning and not a little comment.  He told the story of his adventure at the Concho in detail up to the point of his conversation with Will Corliss.  Then he lapsed into generalities, exhibiting with some little pride the wound on his head as evidence of his attempt to prevent the robbery and incidentally as a reason for being unable to discourse further upon the subject.  His oft-repeated recital invariably concluded with, “I steps in and tries to stop the first guy when Wham! round goes the room and I takes a sleep.”