AIR TRAIL, by Arthur O. Friel

Originally published in Short Stories, November 25th 1939.

CHAPTER I

Dugan sat on the riverbank, looking south. Over him a thick-leaved tropic hardwood tree fended off torrid sun. Below him the opaque Orinoco, master stream of Venezuela, flowed toward the distant ocean. Far across, another steep yellow shore topped by dull greenery stretched in utter monotony. Farther still, hulking hills rose in blue haze. On those half-seen bulks, receding into the dim mystery of untamed interior South America, the loafing man’s eyes stayed dreamily set.

Behind him, northward, lay flat Spanish leagues of parched llanos. Many a weary day’s travel across sunburned earth intervened before a horseman could reach the Caribbean Mountains. And then what? Caracas. Politicians and their servants—police, soldiers, other hired jailors or killers of rebels against their power. As in Europe. And as, perhaps, in North America, if would-be lifelong rulers could force their will on millions of smoldering dissenters.

Dugan chuckled and deliberately spat sidewise. Rebel Irish, rebel American, rebel against all oppressive authority, he now derisively consigned all cities, north or south, to the devil. Especially those of North America, where old police circulars still offered reward for the capture of one James Patrick Dugan, oil worker, whose fists had knocked an ugly political boss permanently out. Down here, too, more than one antagonist had met fatal shock from similar thunderbolt punches. But down here such accidents were pardonable. And along the Rio Orinoco sudden deaths were mere incidents.

Incidents remarkable, however, if caused by bare hands. Bullet or knife was the customary concluder of local disagreements. So now this wandering Norteamericano had become known here and there as El Macho—He-Mule, or Sledgehammer, or Hard Hitter.

And now, gazing away into the utterly lawless mountains beyond the man-eating yellow river, the lounger unconsciously stretched and clenched his powerful fingers. Restless reflex of fighting muscles, recently inactive, worked on his nerves as the hazy hinterland lured his adventurous mind. Out—away from all scheming governments—out into no man’s land, fighting savage Indians or murderous half-breeds, but free!

“Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh!”

The harsh chuckle sounded close behind him.

His outstretched arms froze; then casually sank to the ground. The next second he was up.

Springing, ducking, suddenly set, he faced toward the unseen laughter. Low beside his right hip a big-bored revolver leveled itself with trigger tight-drawn.

“Huh-huh-huh!” he mocked. “What’s funny around here?”

No answer came. Nothing was there. Nothing but trees, shade, empty ground slant-lit by the sun broiling the outer plains. Warily scanning the tree butts, he saw no lurking gun-muzzles.

Then the voice again spoke. And again it was behind him.

“Huh-huh! Beg for your life, you—”

Nasty names followed. Suddenly shrilled a ghastly scream. Then fell new silence.

Dugan, wheeling at the first word, again faced nothing human. Brown eyes dilated, square jaw grim, heavy shoulders hunched, he stabbed the surrounding shadows with penetrating gaze. Once more he saw only the thick waterside timber.

Off at his left something thudded earth. A horse hoof, stamping once. Dugan’s own horse, resting upstream, had risen at that shriek and now stood ready.

No other horses could be near. Otherwise that intelligent animal would have signaled sooner. These two far-farers were one in emergency. So now in the hot stillness the man felt a strange chill.

Voices. Nothing else. One malicious voice speaking Venezuelan; a language strange to book-Spanish students but well known to El Macho. Another voice of different timbre, inarticulate in agony. Both voices oddly hollow, as if transmitted through a faulty radio machine. Out of the air—Dugan’s low-hung head jerked up, searching the leafy boughs. At that instant something grasped his right shoulder. His left fist darted up—halted short. The ghostly talkers were only a bird.

A parrot. A royal parrot, green-bodied, red-shouldered, small but brainy. Now, wise little eyes glinting into the man’s stare, it nodded and plaintively asked:

“Crrrawk?”

Dugan’s hostile scowl smoothed out. His tall body quivered with suppressed mirth, and his gun dropped into its holster. Gently he closed both hands on the little body, drew it down, and asked:

“Hungry?”

A peck at his breast answered. Then the feathered poll sank and the light weight subsided in the comforting nest of broad hands.

“Poor little devil!” murmured Dugan.

The little devil was indeed poor. Its feathers were faded, dirty, and ragged. Its skin, tight-drawn over bones, was gashed by half-healed rips.

“Hmmm! Been treated rough, haven’t you, boy? Somebody’s house pet. Took a ride for yourself and got ganged by wild parrots. Well, come on.”

Cradling the bird, the man stepped softly through the grove to his hammock-roll of supplies. There lay a half-hand of fig-bananas; short, sweet, nutritious fruits seldom if ever seen in North America. Avidly the starved bird attacked a proffered pulp. Others followed. At length, full fed, the small stranger wiped its beak, walked to Dugan’s saddle, squatted and slept.

Dugan, sitting down against a tree, rolled a cigarrillo and slowly smoked. His horse had resumed its rest, and nothing else moved. Even the overhead leaves hung almost motionless in the dazing heat of afternoon; and the great river alongside flowed noiseless. Drowsy, yet awake, the man burned up his brown cigarette and then patiently waited.

At length a sweep of late-day wind clattered leaves and roused the bird. Leaping aloft, it perched on a bough. Busily it cleaned itself, dressing wounds, smoothing ragged feathers. Satisfied, it launched out in brief flight; then, finding itself none too strong, veered back to drop at the man’s feet.

The man extended his trigger-finger. The bird jumped, gripped, cocked its head and inquired:

“Crrrawk?”

“No, hombre. No more handouts. Unless you tell me a story. You know one. Let’s hear it.”

Softly stroking the scarred head, Dugan quietly continued:

“You’re a decent lad, and clean, and you’ve got a brain. And I know how it is, when you’re just trying to live your own way but get knocked around by dirty gangs. Now where’s that nasty guy that makes men screech? I think I’d like a look at him. Just show me.”

His slow words were llanos language. The bird stayed motionless. Rising, Dugan tossed it upward. It flew and vanished among the leaves.

Leisurely he prepared to ride. Saddling, he teased:

“Want a ride, lorito? Huh-huh-huh!”

His concluding tone echoed the chuckle first heard behind him. From above dropped response:

“Huh huh! Feet getting warm? Another rub with the iron, Zorro. Between the toes—

“Waaaah! Ai Dios!”

The last outcry was another voice, yelling in intolerable pain.

Dugan, tight-mouthed, walked his horse away. Bright on his supply-pack rested the tempting yellow fig-bananas.

Out into the roasting open he rode, downriver. Sombrero tilted backward against western sun, body loosely resistant to grilling heat-rays, he left the bird behind. Soon a light weight settled again on his shoulder.

Drawing rein, he stopped.

“I mean that, lad,” he said. “No story, no ride. And no eats. Think it over.”

The peering parrot-eyes looked into his own, then shrank behind closing lids. The small head drew down in struggling thought. All at once came new words in new tone:

“Lorito, lorito.

Estas muy bonito!”

Sweetly feminine, with a lilting uplift, this voice was truly Spanish; clear, without throaty local slurs. The rhyme was childish, meaning: “Little parrot, you are very handsome.” But, having said it, the bird cocked its head proudly at the listener.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” drawled the outlander. “All right, you get another handout for that one. But—No, not now. Show me what you mean. Then I’ll pay off.”

Again he threw his hands aloft. The flyer veered, beat its way higher; wavered uncertainly—then chose its goal and went.

Ragged wings laboring but sure, it flew toward a dull clump of trees on the hazy horizon. Marking its course, the man glanced at the sinking sun and the shadow-slant of his horse’s legs on the burned earth. Soon the flying dot disappeared.

“North-northeast, I’d say,” he judged. “Anyway, from here to there, old horse. Watch your step.”

His left hand stroked his horse’s neck. The animal softly snorted and walked as directed. Dugan drew his sidearm, clicked its cylinder around, smelled its smooth-oiled readiness, dropped it back into its holster.

At those deliberate clicks the experienced llanos horse slightly lengthened steps and cocked ears forward.

Stride, stride, stride, the long-gaited gelding journeyed steadily. But at length, when the northeast wind veered more northerly, the regular steps shortened, slowed, stopped. Nostrils sniffing, the horse then backed.

Half a mile ahead, the close-bunched trees stood hostile against all intruders. West, the red-hot sun slid fast down. And fast from the west, high in the hard blue, suddenly sped a fleet of macaws; huge parrots, wide-winged, long-tailed, harsh-voiced, screeching with every wing-flap; savages, wild as the South American jaguar but more noisy.

Dugan, breathing the wind, caught a faint odor and scowled. Glancing up at the yelping macaws, he scowled more blackly and reached for his belt-gun. Jarring threats always aroused his antagonism. But the homing birds were high out of gun-range. So his hand dropped away.

“Grrrah!” he growled. “You’re the gang that beat up my little lorito, hey? Try and do it again!”

Kicking, he jolted his horse ahead. The macaws shrieked more harshly but swirled higher.

At the tree edge the two halted. Among close-grown trunks and sparse brush nothing moved. Pushing on in, they found damp ground and a small shallow pool. Scouting around the water, then moving westward, they stopped short.

Before them lay a dead man.

CHAPTER II

Sprawled in a short brown hammock, the corpse stared sightless up into the leafy canopy which had concealed it from the llanos vultures. Now out of those leaves something dropped on Dugan’s right shoulder. Startled, he jerked half around, then grumbled:

“Damn it, Lorito, don’t jump me again like that!”

Beak open, head drooping, the tired bird snuggled against his neck. Then the gashed green poll lifted and screeched defiance at the unseen but furiously clamoring birds above. Now its language was that of the macaws, raucous yells which matched and out-dared the loudmouthed bullies. Dugan grinned.

“Give ’em hell, lad!” he encouraged. “I’ll back you up.”

For a moment the royal flyer redoubled its challenge to the mob. Then, gasping, it subsided.

Vindictive replies in the leaf-blotted sky died out. The macaw gang had gone without a fight. Dugan, swinging down, left his horse to drink untended while he studied the dead man.

Tall, light-skinned, dark-haired, this was a young Spanish white man; stubborn-mouthed, big-nosed, straight-browed, and straight-eyed even in death. His fixed gaze still looked straight up, asking dumb sun or stars where to go. His body was somewhat swollen by postmortem gases, but his long legs were hardly more than sharp-shinned bones; and his bare feet had been worn raw before death.

A tramp—dead from starvation. Dead about two days, but well preserved by dry llanos winds. Stepping closer, the observer rapidly examined the cheaply clad form, then swung away with a glance all around.

Starvation, yes. No wounds. And no food, no camp-kettle, no trace of a fire, no horse-track. Nothing but a young fellow gone into nowhere, a bird still trustfully grasping an older man who had come from nowhere, and echoes in the live man’s mind.

Soberly Dugan remounted. Out into the plains he rode, northward. Then the sun set, and from the swiftly darkening east came night.

A mile or two upwind he stopped beside a single scrawny sapling and made dry camp. Unsaddling, he turned his horse loose; squatted, ate Orinoco travel-fare—cassava and cheese—drank from his gourd canteen; fed the parrot with another banana; then asked:

“How come, Lorito? How did that lad happen to starve—and you, too?”

No answer came. In the dimness the bird nodded, seemed sluggishly trying to think. Then, flying into the stunted treelet, it roosted and slept. “All right. Take it easy.”

Dugan lay down; head pillowed on hammock-roll, body supine on hot earth, gun negligently pendant between outstretched legs. In this sun-roasted ground were no fever germs, and on its foodless surface were few snakes. As for night-prowling, horse-killing tigres, he knew his canny animal would run to him for defense.

Nothing disturbed his rest. But, sleeping, he still subconsciously wandered. Voices talked. Men and women struggled. A young man took a long walk; south, toward the Orinoco. Here and there along that young man’s way were small settlements, isolated huts of poor but hospitable mestizos, places where a white man could beg food and drink. But, avoiding them all, he trudged on, heading for empty distance. Somewhere out!

Out, as Dugan himself had dreamed only this afternoon. Out to hell-and-gone. So now, stiffly proud, dead. And now a harsh voice broke into the dreamy mix-up, rasping:

“Crraa! Al infierno! To hell with all, you—”

Dugan started up. Dull light was dawning eastward, pale stars fading westward. A parrot in a rickety little tree was talking tough. A horse, head raised but body lazy, lay close alongside. Another day.

Stretching, Dugan laughed:

“Bueno, big boy. That’s telling ’em. And where do we go from here?”

Invigorated by safe sleep and more bananas, the bird soon showed him. Flying fast, it sped straight northeast. This time Dugan took a bearing with a pocket compass. When the flyer again vanished he leisurely followed.

Once he halted, struck by coincidence. Those raw feet of the unknown man back yonder—were they excoriated only by long travel over blistering earth? Again a parroted voice seemed to say:

“Huh, huh! Feet getting warm? Another touch of the iron, Zorro!”

For the moment the rider almost turned back to re-inspect those feet. Then he muttered:

“Zorro. Fox. You’re the man I want to meet, Mr. Zorro—and your huh-huh boss.”

Through the ensuing hours he moodily frowned. At length, far past siesta time, he let his horse enter a small palm-draped morichal, where must be water. It was empty of life. But there he found another death.

Near the scummy little spring lay a scattering of feathers. Green feathers, torn, and newly bloodstained; feathers strewn hither and thither in desperate, dodging fight. Then beside a palm trunk he detected a small dead parrot.

Mangled by talons and hooked beaks, it still bore on one wing-shoulder a few tattered red feathers signifying its royal name.

Dugan’s dusty face reddened with wrath.

“Got him, hey, you dirty killers?” he grated. “By Judas, you’ll pay!”

Teeth set, he glowered at something afar. Not the vindictive bird-gang which has killed this little lone adventurer; that was gone. Not even the imagined Zorro—a fox-faced torturer holding hot irons. Instead, a malignant thing as yet without face or shape, which maliciously chuckled as it somehow destroyed better lives than its own. Through long miles and hot hours the lone rider had developed toward that vaguely visioned demon a smoldering enmity which now flared into implacable hatred.

When the lethal heat-rays of mid-afternoon had somewhat lessened he rode on. Sundown was near when he approached an inhabited spot. A crooked line of low trees, a few thin cattle grazing half seen under leaf-cover, a yellowish blob amid the dull green betokened an hato; a poor little ranch on a shrunken creek.

As Dugan rode in, mongrel dogs rushed from a pole-and-palm hut, yelping challenge. A squatty brown man, frowzy with sleep, opened a flimsy door, then sturdily advanced. In his right fist a machete hung ready, and behind him a peak-faced woman peered warily out. His greeting was guardedly civil.

“Buenas tardes. What would you like, stranger?”

The stranger digested the voice, the humble home, the shrewish female face in the doorway. Then he rumbled:

“Information. Which way to Zorro, the Fox?”

The flat-nosed rancher drew back, mouth hardening; then stood his ground. His stubby left hand arose and pointed.

East-northeast, judged Dugan. He had been bearing a bit too far north.

“How far?”

The tight-lidded eyes glanced away at the setting sun, back at the questioner.

“Perhaps midnight,” came strained answer. “That way!”

The left arm, stiff as a wooden road-marker, pointed on out.

“And what sort of place?”

Suspicion glinted under the drawn lids. No reply came until the horseman slid a hand to his gun-butt. Then, grudgingly:

“An hacienda.”

“Thanks.”

As the hard-looking stranger resumed progress the brown fellow gradually relaxed. And, watering his horse in the shallow cano, the rider remarked:

“Tough territory, boy, when a lonesome squatter won’t talk to a white man. But maybe we look pretty tough ourselves. And maybe—”

Rubbing his jaw, black with two days’ unshaven bristles, he briefly smiled. And, once more out on the plain, he tilted his sombrero at a tougher angle.

Night fell. Stars again blazed. In their wan light the shadowy traveler repeatedly checked his direction by compass. Once, stopping to breathe his mount and take a walk to stretch his own legs, he concluded his half-spoken thought back yonder:

“Maybe, old horse, this job’s being laid out for us. Maybe, ’twas just as well that our little pal got knocked off. If he’d gone ahead and talked some more he might have tipped off Zorro and Company. Voices—”

His own voice died. And, moving on through the night, he spoke no more. With the whispering wind in his face and the slow clouds drifting dark on their mysterious voyages overhead, he felt an odd fatalism born of past wanderings. More than once, following an impulse and steered by apparently blind chance, he had seemed to meander as senselessly as the clouds; but, later, realized that some strange destiny seemed to have directed his course and planned the outcome.

About midnight his horse raised its head, sniffed, quietly snorted. Reins lax, sandaled feet nudging, the master silently urged him to find the right way. And, turning somewhat more northerly, they presently entered a black mass of trees.

Through the thick darkness the animal cannily progressed, soon emerging into a starlit square bare of any growth. Hard-baked soil surrounded a hard-walled house, low but wide. Silent as a tomb, it also emanated the sinister repellence of a night-shrouded cemetery.

Sitting still, the night rider surveyed the place and absorbed its atmosphere. He had seen haciendas before now, by day and by dark; found hospitality at some, near-death at others. Outside all looked similar. Now, in the wan light of tonight and the reflection of past encounters, this one looked and felt deadly.

From the earth projected broad bumps; low-hacked stumps of ancient trees which long had given both shade and fruit to the dwellers here. Cut away, their denuded space now gave accurate aim to any gunmen now occupying the wilderness fort. Where were the old owners, who through generations of llanos life had been so respected that those slow-grown trees had grown stout?

Only the wind answered, sighing on into the emptiness of lost lives. And soon the outwardly callous but inwardly sensitive Macho drew rein backward, softly prompting:

“Let’s go, fellow. Hold everything till tomorrow.”

They moved out downwind, as they had come. If any dogs lurked near, none had caught scent.

And, a mile or two south, man and horse slept in a clump of cactus.

The sun was well up when they again approached. Slouchy, unkempt, with loose old clothes wrinkled but full cartridge belt drawn snug, the man traveled with apparent indifference to any watchers. Nearing the trees, he glimpsed something white which faded back and disappeared.

“Turn out the guard,” he jeered. “Present arms. And then see what happens.”

No guard and no guns, however, met him when he entered a short roadway, nor even when he crossed the plaza within. Instead, the plaza was strangely empty of human life. Only a dog, silent but menacing, stood watchful before a shut front door.

Huge, yellow, hostile, the dog was not the usual small llanos cur but a powerful mastiff, heavy and strong enough to knock down and kill even an average horse. As for men—its cold eyes showed fixed study of the horseman, calculating chances. Dangerous as a lion, and more intelligent, it remained motionless while making up its mind.

In the thick walls, bulletproof shutters stood blank in narrow windows. In the outer grove nothing moved but the leaves soughing in morning wind. No peons, no horses, no hens, none of the right kind of daytime hacienda life was here. Yet the baked clay earth showed much pressure by feet. Outside the plains were cracked by dry-season heat. Here the dirt was smooth.

Insolently Dugan scanned the place; then walked his horse around the square-set walls, giving any hidden observers a chance to study him and his belt-gun. In Venezuela any such weapon was openly carried only by outlaws. Completing the circuit, he paused and asked the rigid mastiff:

“Are they all dead around here, big fellow? Hope you won’t starve. I’d give you a feed, but I’m short of meat. So adios!”

He plodded northward, contemptuously giving his broad back to the house. The dog, digesting his tone and action, grew loose-muscled; then guardedly followed with heavy brow wrinkled and nostrils wide, breathing the stranger’s back-blown scent.

In the northern sidewall a shutter standing slightly ajar swiftly opened. From it a white handkerchief fluttered in the breeze.

Through the outer trees the departing gunman slowly traveled, giving any unseen watchers more time for decision. No more time was needed.

“Halt!” commanded a voice.

CHAPTER III

Dugan halted. From behind a tree appeared a burly brown man with a rifle hanging loose in one fist. Behind other stout butts, other rifles faintly gleamed in set aim.

“Quién es?” demanded the challenger. “Who are you?”

“Quién quiere?” retorted Dugan. “Who wants to know?”

The guardsman studied the outrider’s black-bristled jaw and big fist curled around revolver-butt. Wooden-faced, he then repeated:

“Quién es?”

“Well, if you have to know,” drawled Dugan, “I’m called El Macho. And what do they call you?”

The native’s eyes briefly widened. His straw sombrero nodded downward. At that small signal the rifles behind the trees sank.

“Bien. Come with me.”

“Where to?” balked El Macho.

“The house.”

“What for?”

The brown man scowled; then oddly smiled. Carefully he said:

“Bienvenido, Señor. You are welcome.”

“Thanks. But I’m traveling. And if you think you can stop me, try it!”

Harsh as the untamable macaws on his back trail, his voice rasped rough threat. His heels nudged his horse, which stiffened for outward spring. But his reins drew back in covert restraint.

Eyes, boring into him, missed that left-hand back-drag. The stocky commander’s mouth tightened. His head lifted. So did the guns flanking the truculent Macho.

“As you say,” came cool reply. “We try it.”

Dugan, glancing around at the newly menacing muzzles, snorted:

“Careful of your health, aren’t you, hombre? Wouldn’t take a chance at me alone. What are you, anyway? Police?”

“Como? Police? Us?” The other snickered. “Hardly!”

“Or army?”

“Nor army. You are quite safe here, Macho.”

“Grrump!” growled Dugan, visibly relaxing. “Then don’t act like a gang of cops. I don’t like ’em, see?”

“I see. Shall we go?”

With a dour grunt Dugan swung his horse back toward the plaza. So doing, he confronted the forgotten mastiff. Silently attentive, the big dog had stood two yards at rear. Now he turned and trotted houseward, long tail up and slowly wagging.

At that sign of canine friendliness the ambushed gunmen emerging behind Dugan stared and muttered in astonishment. Only their leader seemed to understand. Rifle down, he ambled contentedly after El Macho.

The front door now was open. Lounging in the portal, a slim man in whites narrowly eyed the returning mastiff, horseman, and rear guard. Yellow-skinned, sharp-nosed, thin-cheeked, thin-mouthed, he looked over Dugan like a wolf estimating prey.

“El Macho,” quietly announced the guard leader.

The lounger yawned, straightened, and spoke the emptily polite old Spanish phrase:

“This house is at your service, stranger.”

The voice was metallic. The undertone was a subtle sneer.

“Thanks!” came the sarcastic report. “Up and dressed, are you? All right, I’ll come in, if you’ve got something to eat. Or have you? Yah-ha-ha!”

El Macho’s hard bray brought no facial change. The wiry shape moved deliberately backward, paused, waited. Dugan, with another tough laugh, dismounted and swaggered in. The sharp-nosed man nodded sidewise.

In a shaded room another man sat alone at a table, eating. Gray-haired, gray-skinned, sloppily dressed in soiled white shirt and baggy trousers, he mechanically chewed while he sized up the stranger. Soon he nodded backward in wordless command to enter.

Dugan lounged in, looked around, saw only bare walls, shuttered windows, and dark furniture. The gray man eyed the Northerner’s hard jaw, heavyweight build, muscular legs and sandaled brown feet. His gaze lingered on the feet. Dugan, countering the look, noted a physical defect. Both the feet under the table were short, stubby, turned far inward. Clubfeet.

Then, swallowing his food at one gulp, the master of the house snarled:

“Take off your hat!”

“Says who?” demanded Dugan.

Silence. Thumbs over belt, the rough stranger drifted away from the open doorway at his back and leaned against a wall.

The clubfooted eater, with food sunk, now was hollow-faced. Hook-nosed, lank-cheeked, jawbones limned under skin seamed by deep downward lines, scantily bearded with recently unshaven whitish sprout, he hunched his round shoulders like a vulture. Then from the doorway came a deferential voice:

“Señor, this one is El Macho.”

The commander of the outguard stood there, hat in one hand. Over the gray face flitted a strange change. A claw-like hand closed hard.

“Zorro!” snapped the whitish mouth.

The brown man stepped back. Into his place came the fox-faced yellow one, smirking.

“Si, Señor. At your service.”

“Why in hell didn’t you say who this man was?” Zorro cringed. “So sorry, Señor. I thought perhaps you had heard his name.”

The clubfoot glared; then snapped: “Malparto, vaya! Get out!”

Zorro slunk away. Dugan hoarsely chuckled. Few Spanish epithets are more contemptuous than malparto.

“You spoke a true word there,” he said. “And why do you keep a thing like that around here? It stinks.”

The hunched shape grinned, showing a few scattered teeth.

“It has its uses,” he evaded. Then, growing affable, “Come and eat, Macho.”

“Oh, all right. Why not?”

Strolling forward, Dugan lifted a ponderous chair with one hand, put it down with back to a wall, and sat. The other man, observing both the easy strength and the habitual wariness against indoor backstabbers, grinned more widely. Then he struck a framed gong at his right.

A woman appeared. Dugan stared. Instead of a dumpy, dark-faced house-woman he saw a tall girl, pure Spanish. Black-browed but cream-skinned, coolly composed, simply but neatly dressed in a long white gown, she seemed mistress of the rancho. Yet she stood like a servant expecting orders.

“More food, woman!” grunted the clubfoot. “And quick!”

She turned and was gone. Dugan, poker-faced, regarded the opposite wall. Its bare surface bore large rectangles of old paint, brighter than elsewhere; telltale marks of big portraits of bygone forefathers—now completely gone.

Gone where, and why? His random gaze sharpened. Such pictures were proudly treasured by legitimately descended owners. Now—

“What are you doing around here, El Macho?” the cripple asked.

“Me?” reacted the drifter. “Just cruising along. And what place is this?”

Answer was delayed. Elbows on table, the humped master once more surveyed the notorious Macho: man-killer who could smash antagonists down with bare hands—and, no doubt, could break them up more slowly if he would. A very handy man for certain kinds of work. In the cadaverous gray face grew a calculating light. The thin throat chuckled:

“Huh huh huh!”

Dugan tensed. There it was—the malignant tone and laugh which had come to him out of the air. Not only Zorro the Fox had been traced to his hole, but the diabolical creature which directed his cruelty.

Holding himself quiet, he strove for complete restraint of his fighting muscles. Word by word, step by step, the mystery of this place might be figured out. So advised one cool side of his mind. But in the other side—the hot side wherein burned memories of lost voices and dead souls on his back trail—a mangled bird and a tortured man clamored for vengeance.

Involuntarily his mouth hardened and his fists and feet moved. The sandaled feet scraped slightly back and the loose hands clenched. Into the hooded eyes across the table darted instant suspicion.

“A spy! So I thought, Señor Macho!”

The hunched body jerked back and the skinny right hand swooped down. A pistol sprang up and fired. It missed.

Dugan had leaped. That backward heave and down-snatch had been a second too slow. Swerving to the left of the treacherous host, El Macho dashed around the table-end and seized the gray neck. With a right-hand heave he yanked his antagonist up. With a sideswipe of the left fist he parried the next gunshot.

Writhing, kicking, vainly shooting again and again, the vulturous shape hissed and spat while its gun crashed out fire and noise. Dugan grasped the gun arm, forced the body against the table, and twisted with both hands. Bones gritted, crunched, and cracked. A queer screech sounded. The gun dropped to the floor.

Dugan’s left hand rose and closed on the throat. Whirling the limp thing overhead, he flung it away to flop down and out, neck broken.

Another gunshot cracked. Beside the corridor doorway projected a half-seen head, one eye gleaming over a leveled barrel which flashed again. Sudden shock smote Dugan’s shirt, low down. Across his left side burned a streak of pain.

Again sidestepping, he drew and shot back. Three bullets gone, he ceased fire. The assassin’s head vanished.

Gun up, he plunged out through the opening; then halted. On the corridor floor lay a yellow-faced, sharp-nosed sneak with eyes astonished and a short pistol gripped in one narrow paw. Right temple blown away, it now was nobody. It had been somebody named Zorro.

CHAPTER IV

The outer door was shut; so slyly closed and bolted that Dugan had not heard the movements. Glancing down-corridor, he saw a motionless shape and wheeled toward it.

Slowly his gun sank. Momentarily dark against the bright light of a doorway opening to a sunlit patio, the silent watcher was the white girl, standing petrified with a tray of food.

Snapping open his cylinder, he ejected empty shells, thumbed in fresh cartridges, holstered the gun; felt his left side, and dourly grinned. Zorro’s bullet had only opened a stinging gash. Then, hot tide of fight ebbing, he looked at the dead men before and behind him and scolded himself:

“You damn fool, why did you give yourself away? Why didn’t you stay deadpan till you knew what this is all about?”

His voice droned into glum silence. Then sounded another; low, vibrant, speaking English:

“One moment, sir!”

The girl was advancing. Tray still gripped in slender hands, she eyed Zorro, studied the broken-necked cripple beyond the doorway, and turned back toward the patio.

“Come, if you please,” she bade. Dugan followed.

Under a veranda roof she set her tray on a small table. Entering another room, she returned, with two slim chairs. Dugan sat; poured strong coffee from a hot pot, and looked about.

Nobody else was there. Other doors in the square-set inner walls were closed. Inside, as outside, the hacienda seemed strangely deserted.

But now along the corridor sounded knocking at the front door; slow knocks with a gun-butt. The girl, listening, soon moved inward. Dugan arose and watched.

Tapping on the door, the girl received carefully spaced raps in return. She slid the bar. Sunshine blazed in and a male voice asked:

“You are safe, Señorita?”

“Perfectly, I think, José. But enter.”

In walked the bulky guard-commander. He stopped, eyeing the dead Zorro; glanced into the room where lay the slain cripple; shot another look down-corridor at the dark shape of Dugan blocking the patio portal.

“Ah. I see,” he purred. “Is there anything you desire, Señorita?”

His sombrero nodded toward the ominous Dugan. The girl hesitated. Something else interrupted.

The mastiff shouldered José aside. His big head looked anxiously up at the girl. Then, brow wrinkling, he sniffed. Suddenly he lunged past her to stare at the dead Zorro; then burst into furious barks.

Through a long moment his deep chest roared long-pent hate. All at once he stopped, muzzle up and twitching toward another smell. Abruptly he about-faced toward the room where lay the clubfoot. From him came a low growl, more deadly than his recent open-mouthed noise. Bristle-haired, stiff-legged, he stalked inward.

“Perrito!” spoke the girl. “Aqui! Here to me, little dog!”

Quiet but penetrating, the command reached through the thick skull. Slowing, the mastiff hesitated. Again she spoke, this time with a lilting uptone:

“Perrito? Perrito?”

Voice and sweetness were those once heard on Dugan’s back trail.

The mastiff, years ago a perrito (puppy), now a huge brute, gave a final snarling snuffle and turned back to the coaxing woman. She walked away toward the patio.

Dugan moved back. As the girl passed him the dog stopped; smelled, then slouched along.

José lingered behind. Squatting, he drew the pistol from Zorro’s hand; opened it, closed it, regarded spent shells on the floor, and tossed it outside. Rising, he sauntered into the master’s room.

Grouped outside the front doorway, other slouch-hatted men awaited orders. Their commander soon reappeared. He spoke four words. At once four riflemen stepped in. The door swung half-shut.

“Hold it there, José!” warned Dugan.

José, without looking, motioned to his men. The exit reopened. The five strolled down the corridor.

In the patio Jose swung to his right and lounged against a wall, rifle loose. The four dummies obeyed the unspoken command, loafing likewise. The girl, standing straight against an outer pillar, contemplated all the men. At her feet the great dog lay mumbling in subsiding animosity toward things left behind. Dugan again sat, facing all, and drank his coffee.

Silence thickened. At length José volunteered: “This stranger—if you have not heard, Señorita—is one called El Macho. Very sudden in his actions, it is said. And it would seem so.”

There he paused. The girl regarded El Macho—outwardly a ruffian who by blind chance had drifted in here, killed two men for no known reason, and now might be sent along. Sent where? And how?

Five riflemen stood apparently awaiting her verdict. Dugan smiled and chanted:

“Perrito, perrito,

Estas muy bonito!”

His voice now was dulcet, with an upward lift. At the sound the mastiff cocked drooping ears. At the next words the dog arose with teeth bared.

“Huh huh huh! Feet getting warm? The iron, Zorro—”

The malicious voice stopped there. Then, in his natural tone, Dugan said:

“Thanks, folks. I only stopped here for a cup of coffee. Now I’ll be traveling again. Unless there are objections.”

Hands loose, he strolled toward the gunmen.

“Any objections?” he pleasantly inquired.

They stood unmoved, watching the girl. She swiftly stepped forward, asking:

“Stranger, where did you hear those words?”

“Over the air, girl. José, I said I was traveling. So—”

“Don’t hurry,” advised José.

The girl sprang at the departing outlander, grasping his left arm. As his muscles tensed she besought:

“No—no—do not hurry, friend! Where—Tell me—What brought you here?”

“Well, maybe a little bird.”

Quick light flooded her face.

“My little lorito! Where did you find him? And Ramón—Did you see Ramón?”

“Who might Ramón be?”

“My brother, sir! Tell me—is he safe?”

The dark eyes eagerly searched his. Then, as he regarded her in grave silence, she drew away, murmuring:

“Oh! He is—”

For a second she drooped. All at once she grew angry.

“Tell me!” she stormed, face now ablaze. “Tell me, or—Caramba, you who know so much—Too much, perhaps! Just what are you here for, and—Válgame, I can have you shot! I can—”

“A moment, Señorita!”

José, no longer deferential, broke in on her incoherent wrath.

“You are not handling matters well,” he sturdily continued. “This Macho is not to be threatened. And you may remember that he stopped here by your own signal. You spied him coming; and you waved the handkerchief to me when he was leaving. So we invited him in, instead of—”

The slight pause was sinister. Then:

“This Macho was attacked by both Satán and Zorro. Their guns prove it. And, cra, never have I seen so good work done by a man caught in a trap! But—”

Again he halted; then concluded:

“I say no more, Señorita—except that time may be short.”

The last words seemed significant. The young woman’s flush of rage receded, leaving her again cream-white. Formally she said:

“I apologize, sir.”

Dugan grinned.

“That’s all right,” he said. “And if your boys feel like laying down their guns and smoking a cigarrillo maybe we’ll all get together.”

“An idea most excellent, Macho,” accepted José.

Stooping, he laid his rifle flat. Rising, he drew a thin bag of tobacco and a thinner roll of bark wrappers. The four automatons beyond him followed the lead. Smoke floated out and up.

“Well, now,” explained Dugan. “I was rambling down along the Orinoco. And why I was there is nobody’s business. But then—”

Once more at ease, he told a concise story, the story of a desperate little bird, a dead man in a hammock, raw feet, and an idle drifter wondering why.

“I’m still wondering,” he concluded. “But if you people wouldn’t want to say—”

Yawning, he turned again toward the exit. José and his half-squad dropped their burned-out cigarettes. The girl drew a long sigh; then impulsively declared:

“The good God Himself must have guided you here, amigo! You have come like an avenging angel!”

“Thanks,” dryly replied Dugan. “That’s a new one. Some folks call me a son of the devil.”

José chuckled.

“Si. Especially in a fight,” he remarked. “And that reminds me—you muchachos would be more useful outside. Let me know when you see—You know what.”

The wordless quartet grasped their guns and shuffled away. Dugan quizzically eyed their foreman, who hinted:

“With your permission, Señorita—”

“Sí,” she agreed. “Tell him what he should know. I should be most lacking in gratitude if I withheld proper return to this caballero.”

The words were Castilian Spanish, the phrasing and pronunciation punctiliously correct. At Dugan’s slight smile she flushed again.

“I regret, sir,” she quickly added, “that I speak like a book—if you think so. But I have had no schooling except books—and the help of my father. I—Oh, what do you think of me, Señor Norteamericano?”

Hands clenched, she awaited sarcasm. None came. Instead he said:

“Well, I know you’re no kitchen-mechanic. And if you haven’t been anywhere yet, so much the better for you, maybe. The less you see of some schools the more you can be your real self. I’ve been in several—and got out. Got kicked out! And I’m glad of it. Then I thought it was the end of the world. Now—pfff!

“Aside from that, I think you’re a temperamental Spanish hellcat and maybe can fight like one. And I gather the idea from José here that things aren’t finished around here yet. If there’s any excitement due, I’m in no hurry.”

His easy banter routed her momentary embarrassment.

“A hellcat, am I?” she laughed. “Hellcat! Ha ha ha! Perhaps that’s true! And—do you dislike hellcats, Macho?”

Her eyes sparkled, and her lithe body swung slightly forward, tantalizing. Then José coughed.

“As I was saying, Señorita—”

She frowned; then, glancing at the corridor, nodded.

“Ahora, it’s this way, Macho,” immediately pursued Jose. “This hacienda is that of El Señor Miguel Soto y Delgado. An old family. El Señor died half a year ago. God rest his soul!

“He left two children; Ramón, now gone, and Helena, now here. Then came one Soto, a legal relation. Very legal, Macho—if you get that. Politicians, lawyers, tax-greedy government vultures, all were behind this twist-footed, twist-brained desk-sitter. The—”

José tensed; stood with jaw shut, swallowing lurid words unfit for feminine ears. Then:

“You saw him, Macho. One named Soto. We called him Satán: the devil himself. He was. With his own feet only hoofs, he loved to torture the feet of real men. And—Cra! You know the rest.”

He swung toward the corridor, listening, evidently uneasy.

“No, there’s a lot I don’t know,” demurred Dugan. “Why would he act that way? And why did you stand for it? And—”

He nodded toward Helena. Why had she remained here, humbled, when some escape might be managed?

“He believed there was some treasure here,” explained Jose. “An insane notion. He was loco. But he had the power, through some legal crook—and an armed gang to search and seize. Taxes, he said, had not been properly paid—and so on. Old pictures were taken down, walls were sounded, everything done—but nothing found. There was nothing to find.

“Servants were grilled until they ran away. Then they were overtaken and shot. You have been around, Macho; you know what can be done in the name of the law. We who were not so foolish as to run saved ourselves by seeming to be slavish servitors. Even the young Señor Ramón—he was not, God rest him, a fighter like the old Don Miguel—even Ramón endured indignity until Satan lost patience and burned him. His feet were not so badly burned as some before. He was given a day to think before a worse thing would be done.

That night he disappeared. And you know the end of that.

“The Señorita Helena, though, was not harmed in any bodily way. We saw to that. Once I spoke plainly to Satán on that point, and he heeded. His way with her was to torture her pride with menial work and—”

Abruptly he turned doorward. There stood a shabby rifleman.

“Hah! Qué pasa, Tomas!” Jose grabbed his gun. “They come?”

“Sí,” grunted the other. “From the west.”

“West? They went north. Hah! And Ramón—poor lad—outguessed them by going south. They have swung about but not found him. And now, damn the dirty dogs—”

His teeth snapped like a steel trap. He took one step; then halted.

“Macho, this is not your affair,” he asserted. “Stay in! And—if anything goes wrong—protect the Señorita.”

The last words stopped Dugan’s belligerent forward motion. Hiding within doors, with trouble looming outside, was not his habit. But now he shortly nodded.

“All right. Forget I was just a gentle angel from heaven. But roll your own, hombre. I’ll stand by.”

José leaped away. The flat-faced messenger had already gone. Dugan strode after the foreman and, shutting the front door, reached for the bar. Then broke a single hard bark.

The mastiff, recently quiescent, now was instinctively alive to outer danger. Lunging against the barrier, he pawed.

“Go get ’em, big boy!” chuckled Dugan, reopening. Perrito sprang out. The door closed and the bar slid.

Turning away, Dugan collided with Helena. Noiseless, forgotten, she now was close at hand, wide eyes teasingly innocent.

“What goes on, big man?” she softly inquired.

“You’re asking me?” he retorted. “You know more about this than I do.”

“I? I know nothing, Señor. I am only a little llanos girl, and—” A hand rose and stroked his jaw. “I think, if you would shave, you would be quite handsome.”

“Hell’s bells!” he exploded. “Get out from under foot, will you? Go sit in the patio! I’m busy!”

Into the master’s room he strode; the room where Satán lay like a misborn dead monkey. Heaving open a tight front shutter, he heard a mocking reply from the corridor:

“As you say, Señor! I obey.”

Outside he saw only the empty plaza and the brooding cordon of trees. But from somewhere near sounded a warning hiss:

“Sssst! Shut up!”

“Good advice,” muttered the insider.

Moving the barrier almost tight, he glanced over his shoulder. Helena was gone.

Gloomy within, blank without, the hacienda waited under the sun.

Time dragged. Standing, waiting in thick silence, Dugan looked back at the broken Satán and fitted various pieces into a still broken puzzle. His own surprised survey of the white girl; the vulturous watch of the clubfooted schemer; the satanic idea that José, hitherto somewhat obstructive, now might be replaced by the more powerful, reputedly merciless Macho.

If skillfully baited by creamy beauty this black-jawed Northern tough might—

“That’s what you thought, you lousy ape!” jarred Dugan. “But it’s funny how things work out. And—”

His gun-hand dropped, clutched, held. His left moved the shutter an inch wider ajar. Outside sounded a dull thudding of tired horse hoofs.

CHAPTER V

Into the clearing trooped horsemen on drooping animals cruelly roweled by Spanish spurs; horsemen in semi-military uniforms, blouses open, with rifles slung awry in army scabbards. Under their sloppy sombreros their faces were dark. Their commander was black.

Dark brown Indians, flat-faced, brute-mouthed, were led by a coal-black Negro. Dugan, watching, grinned downward. No government men, these. Territorial hirelings, sent out by a llanos governor grasping all he could get by torture or death, and scheming to grab the Presidency of Venezuela next. The same old picture. In this land where all shadings of white skin meant much, Presidential troopers should be led by a white man.

So the story of José added up right thus far. Now, outside, José quietly announced:

“Bien ’sta. All’s well. You didn’t find him, Señor Capitan?”

The black captain’s cloudy eyes slid along the shut wall, then outward.

“Where’s the guard?” he growled.

“Here. Perrito and I. The boys are on duty in the trees and reported your approach. But speak softly, Señor Capitan. The commandant is not to be disturbed just now.”

“Hm!” A wicked smile flitted over the black visage. “He was amused last night?”

“Quién sabe? It is not for me to know.”

“Bien.” Still crookedly smiling, the captain ordered, “Take my horse, muchacho!”

“Mucho gusto. A pleasure.”

Jose stepped briskly forward. The black swung off and down. As he touched ground José purred: “With my regards, Capitan—”

His rifle leaped to hip-level and fired.

Shot through the body, the troop leader doubled over, reeled, but kept his feet. Instantly José seized the horse’s reins and kicked him in the belly. While astounded troopers sat momentarily petrified, the scared animal bolted across the plaza, José running with it in prodigious bounds.

“Maldito!” groaned the staggering black. “Kill—kill—”

Rifles sprang from scabbards and banged after José. A terrified half-scream told that the fleeing horse was hit. But a mocking yell testified that the human runner had escaped.

Then from the house-front rushed a tawny beast which snarled once and sprang like a llanos puma. Perrito, the mastiff, clenched his huge jaws in the crouched black man’s neck. Shooting wild, the captain fell.

From the woods across the plaza broke a shout:

“Now!”

The voice was that of José. Response was trigger-quick.

Flashes licked out from tree-trunks. Bullets whacked into flesh. Rapid reports hammered.

From right and left and ahead the lurking home-guard pumped sudden death into the bunched riders. Caught in the bare clearing which they themselves had made, semi-surrounded by ambushed enemies, blocked on one side by the wide front wall of the fort-like house, the trapped bloodhounds who had vainly hunted the young Señor Ramón had scant chance.

Leaderless, they reacted to attack in blundering confusion. Voices yelled, striving for command—but each order different. Horses reared, bumped others, threw their masters’ rifles off hasty aim. Some men obeyed a random order to dismount and fight on foot. Some charged at the trees. Some about-faced to dash rearward—but met bullets. Turn whither they might, blunt .44 slugs knocked them down and out.

A stray bullet thumped into Dugan’s shutter. The tough wood jumped back hard against his head. Dazed, he instinctively struck at it; then caught himself and wryly grinned. Fighting nothing—hiding like an old woman, while the boys’ outside were—

“Grrrump!” he growled, striding to the barred door.

As he reached it another bullet thudded against it. Recklessly he yanked the bar and lunged out. He met no action.

The last shot had been fired. In the woods was ominous silence, broken only by irregular metallic clacks of breech-bolts relocking. Empty guns had paused for new loads.

But the work was finished. In the stumpy clearing nothing moved. Nothing but a red-jawed mastiff which, sated but still savage, arose from a sprawled black man-corpse and, licking chops, stalked away unhindered.

Elsewhere, the ground was littered with mingled bodies of men and horses, a few weakly struggling, others limp. Contortions soon ceased. Mercilessly efficient after long waiting, the executioners avenging many past crimes against this hacienda had wasted few bullets. Not a horseman nor a horse recently enforcing the rule of Satán and his politico-legal backers had won free to tell any tales.

Now again broke the exultant voice of Jose:

“Forward, lads!”

From the tree-cover rushed wolfish shapes with guns up and yellowish faces fiercely a-grin. No longer dumb slaves, but each a fighting man at last released, they swooped at their fallen enemies as a mop-up squad. Only a squad, plus José. Nine barefoot peons, who had just annihilated twenty-odd professional troopers and their mounts.

Dugan blinked. But then, multiplying the old-fashioned repeaters by their long magazine-loads and adding the advantages of pointblank range and trapped target, he sniffed and lounged against the door frame.

There, as the victors scrambled among the confused bodies, a hand closed on his shoulder.

“We have won, big man?” eagerly questioned Helena. “The tyrants are destroyed?”

“Looks that way.”

“Thank God—and you, my brave savior!”

Her hand grasped harder, while her wide gaze burned into his. Dugan’s lids narrowed. That grip was too strong, the reckless light in the flushed face too hot, for those of a girl who had obediently waited in the patio.

Seizing the hand, he smelled it. On it was the odor of gun oil.

As she tugged away he moved with her. Through the doorway both faded. Inside, he glanced left. There, opposite the master’s room, was one similar—but with a shutter half-open and a rifle lying on the floor.

“So you took some shots yourself,” he accused.

Her flush deepened. Struggling with contrary emotions, she pulled back, came forward, stood hesitant. Then at Dugan’s back sounded a harsh cough.

Turning, Dugan encountered the hostile gaze of José. Chest out, jaw clenched, brows down-drawn, the stocky home-guard glowered at the outlander holding the Señorita Helena. His rifle was gone, but each brown fist now held a military pistol gleaned outside; muzzles down, but—For a second Dugan stared. Then, gauging the menace in the glittering eyes, he dropped the girl’s wrists and slid a hand to his own gun-butt.

“Would you like to be traveling, Macho?” inquired José.

The jarring tone and ominous attitude roused reckless retort:

“So you’re back again, General Nuisance? Just won the war, did you? And now you think I’ve got intentions on this lady? Well, so what? What’s in your own mind, ugly-mug?”

The foreman’s hands twitched, but stayed down. Then crackled another voice:

“José! Follow me!”

Blazing with inner fury, the Señorita Helena snapped the command in no sweet little-girl tone. José, hot with recent victory, lifted his chin defiantly. But then his face grew wooden.

“As you say, Señorita,” he grudgingly acquiesced.

Stiffly he walked past Dugan. The girl, thin-lipped, said:

“Señor Macho, I request you to wait. I have something to say to this one.”

“So have I. And I’ll say it now. José, turn around here. That’s right. Now listen:

“You’re a big shot, you think. Awhile ago I thought so, too. But since I saw you shoot a man when he wasn’t looking and run for cover behind a horse, I don’t think you’re so tough. If you were, why didn’t you knock off Satán and Zorro and Company before I drifted in here? You had the guns and the gang. But you didn’t have the guts. That’s it. No real guts.

“And now you’re the boss around here, are you?

Maybe. I wouldn’t know. But while the Señorita speaks her piece to you, you can leave your guns here. Drop ’em! Now!”

Holding his gaze, he shouldered the outer door shut and leaned against it, excluding other gunmen; then thinly smiled. Slowly José obeyed. His pistols clunked down on the floor.

“Bueno!” jeered El Macho. “Now about my getting out of here: That suits me, and the sooner the better. I’m no ranch mule, and nobody can tie me down. But anybody that tries to kick me out is liable to get a sudden shock. See?”

The impact of his hard words and bass rumble beat down the mestizo’s smoldering self-importance. Watching him, Dugan did not see that his declared determination to go made Helena wince.

Then, wordless, the girl and her satellite walked away to the patio. Behind them the door closed.

Dugan slid the bar at the front door; eyed the dead Zorro; seized him, flung him into the room with Satán, shut that door also. Picking up the pistols dropped by José, he tossed them into the other room to fall near the emptied rifle. Once more he pulled a door tight. Alone in the dark corridor, he rolled a cigarrillo and smoked.

Time crept along. Outside, killers from ambush looted the dead, and black birds ghoulishly circled on long wings high in the hot blue. From the closed patio came no sound. At length, dropping his used-up cigarette, the waiter remarked:

“Just a little country girl, sweet as sugar. Ain’t seen nothin’ yet, big travelin’ man. But you can shoot men in the back when they’re busy, and step over a dead Zorro without knowing he’s there. You forget ’em quick, Lady Cream-Puff, when they’re dead ones. Yes, I’ll be riding, as soon as—”

Abruptly the patio door reopened. José, wooden face oddly alight, padded rapidly up-corridor. Behind him glided the Señorita Helena, head high, face cold; a Spanish queen in full command of her realm. To the lounging outlander she crisply ordered:

“Let my servant pass!”

Dugan stood impassive, lazily eyeing both. Jose warily stopped beyond the Northerner’s long fist-range. The girl, statuesque, waited behind him.

“As you please, Señorita,” then drawled Dugan. “And I’ll be going, too.”

“If you wish, Señor!” she flashed.

Rigid, she waited while he unbarred the door and gestured José out. When the mestizo had passed he doffed his sombrero, swung it wide in exaggerated Spanish flourish of adios, and strode away.

CHAPTER VI

Stolidly José walked toward the woods, disregarding his gang of triumphant peons who, ready for more slaughter, wolfishly eyed El Macho and awaited only a sly signal. None came. At the mestizo’s back El Macho swung easily along with hands loose but gaze fixed on the leader. One move out of turn, and—José knew. Stepping high over the dead, he made straight for the woods.

As the two men reached the shade, the girl in the hacienda doorway sprang out—then caught herself. Looking at her peons, she drew back. Proudly white, she disappeared into the shadow of her dead house.

Within the grove, José led the way to a covert where Dugan’s horse contentedly rested. Still wordless, he carefully saddled and loaded the animal, brought it forward, and stopped.

“As you see, Señor Macho,” he then announced, “your horse has been given special attention. He was not put into the corral or made to find his own food. I have felt that you might be going.

“Now before you go, there is one matter to be mentioned. This hacienda lives to itself. It has no use for politicians or policemen or soldiers. On the other hand it has no use for revolutionists or outlaws or other bloodsuckers. In the law or out of the law, all they want is blood and gold. Either way, they always come in gangs.

“We have heard that El Macho is different. About this Macho there are many different stories, but they all agree that he also wants only to be let alone, like this hacienda—and tells no tales to the politicians or anyone else. So now—Adios y buen’ suert’! Good fortune to you!”

Across his thick lips twisted a peculiar smile.

Abruptly he jerked the horse forward into Dugan’s grasp. As the Northerner’s left hand closed on the reins he walked fast away.

“Say, wait a minute, hombre!” objected Dugan. “Maybe I’ve misunderstood you.”

“Maybe you have, Macho,” came brief reply. “You do sometimes make mistakes.”

A sardonic chuckle, instantly repressed, floated back. Then José vanished amid the trees.

Dugan mounted and went. Out in the open, he drifted without conscious aim, yet again steering east, downriver, toward the far Atlantic Ocean where ships sailed for—where? Anywhere but here. Anywhere but North or South America; somewhere over the rim of the world, where—

Reaction had hit him hard. The strange air trail along which he had followed a winged voice had ended. The hacienda which he had happened to yank out of misery now had ushered him out with a snicker. So it seemed. And now the aftertaste of it all was sour.

But, hours later and leagues away, his grim mood changed. At another waterhole he paused for much belated lunch. Opening his food pack, he found something stealthily added by an expert saddler named José.

A canvas-wrapped sausage, tightly corded, was too hard and heavy to be mere meat. Loosed of its spiral winding, it became a bag. From it poured a compact mass of Venezuelan morrocotas: old-time gold coins, each worth about twenty dollars at old-time rates, and more today. Roughly, a thousand dollars.

Dazed, Dugan stared down at it; a small but potent heap of metal dropped on the starved dirt of the llanos, yellowly gleaming up with a mutely mocking echo of the farewell of José:

“You do sometimes make mistakes!”

Rubbing his jaw, Dugan muttered:

“How the hell—”

Then, mind quickening, “Hm! Dumb Dugan, wake up! Old Clubfoot Satán was right. There’s gold in them there walls, and the girl knew where it was, and now—”

Reddening, he flared:

“Now this is the payoff, hey, just to make double sure that the dirty damned tramp will keep his mouth shut? By Judas’ Priest, I’ll come back and make you eat this—and take it hot!”

He kicked the yellow dump. Coins scattered. With them jumped a hitherto unseen cube of white paper.

Scowling at it, he soon snatched it up. Neatly folded into many small squares, it opened into a sheet of precise script. Formally it stated:

Dear Sir:

We regret your departure from the house honored by your visit.

We trust in God that our good fortune will soon return you to our humble home and—

Suddenly slashed out, the next bookish words were sunk in black ink. Bolder, the last ones read:

Adios—if you are afraid of

A HELLCAT

Dugan blinked as if slapped in the face.

“Well, you little devil!” he muttered.

Crumpling the note, he walked out of the thin shade into the brown barrens, looking westward.

“You hellcat!” he softly said. “You’ve got plenty to give a man. And not only money. Not only a house and land and good tough dogs that’ll stand by till—”

His musing voice paused; then continued:

“Till hell freezes over. And how it’ll freeze, after you’ve got me under your thumb. Big fighting man from far away, romantic hero in the Spanish novels you’ve read, gets tamed down to just another house dog. And then if I don’t jump when you snap the whip—” Again he paused. In vivid memory he again saw Jose, respectful, then arrogant, then again reduced to subservience by tongue-lashing in a closed patio.

“Just like that,” concluded El Macho. “No, old brown boy, I won’t cut you out of your job of running the rancho. Lady Cream-Puff hasn’t much to learn about driving men—or shooting them. So, thanking you all very much for your kind attention, I’m not having any hellcats.”

Ambling back to the gold, he scooped it up and retied the bag; ate, remounted, and asked his horse: “Where were we going, old stumblebum, if anywhere?”

The animal turned south, heading again toward the huge yellow Rio Orinoco. Beyond that water-serpent still waited the mist-veiled mountains wherein ancient Indians with blowguns and poisoned darts killed white men at sight. Farther on lay the great green jungles of torrid backlands still unseen. So, leaving behind them the llanos hacienda where tame security would end roving adventure, the two drifters faded away into dreamy distance. Footloose and free.