"Nix," was the inelegant reply, "I know you can, for I saw you handle that bay outlaw they ran in on you this morning: seven years old and no wrangler in Pima could ride him. Old Cap Pike said it was a damn shame to put you up against that sun-fisher as an introduction to Granados."
"Oh! Pike did, did he? Nice and sympathetic of Pike. I reckon he's the old-time ranger I heard about out at the Junction, reading a red-fire riot to some native sons who were not keen for the cactus trail of the Villistas. That old captain must be a live wire, but he thinks I can't stick?"
"No-o, that wasn't Cap Pike, that was my own hunch. Say, are you married?"
"O señorita! this is so sudden!" he spoke in shy reproof, twisting his neckerchief in mock embarrassment, and again Merced looked toward the house because of peals of laughter there.
"You are certainly funny when you do that," she said after her laughter had quieted down to giggles, "but I wasn't joking, honest Indian I wasn't! But how did you come to strike Granados?"
"Me? Well, I ranged over from California to sell a patch of ground I owned in Yuma. Then I hiked over to Nogales on a little _pasear_ and offered to pack a gun and wear a uniform for this Mexican squabble, and the powers that be turned me down because one of my eyes could see farther than the other--that's no joke--it's a calamity! I spent all the _dinero_ I had recovering from the shock, and about the time I was getting my sympathetic friends sobered up, Singleton, of Granados, saw us trying out some raw cavalry stock, and bid for my valuable services and I rode over. Any other little detail you'd like to know?"
"N-no, only needed to know it wasn't Conrad the manager hired you, and I asked if you were married because married men need the work more than single strays. Adolf Conrad got rid of two good American men lately, and fetches over Mexicans from away down Hermosillo way."
"'Cause why?" asked the man who had ceased pretense of mending the saddle, and was standing with back against the adobe.
"'Cause I don't know," came petulant response. "I only had the hunch when I saw you tame that outlaw in the corral. If he pulls wires to lose _you_, I'll stop guessing; I'll know!"