Daughter of the Dons

"Fine! I'll take your word for it, Don Manuel. And I don't distrust you at all. But here's the point. I'm a plain American business man. I don't buy and I don't sell without first investigating a proposition submitted to me. I'm from Missouri."

"Oh, indeed! From St. Louis perhaps. I went to school there when I was a boy."

Gordon laughed. "I was speaking in metaphor, Don Manuel. What I mean is that I'll have to be shown. No pig-in-a-poke business for me."

"Exactly. Most precisely. Have I not traveled from New Mexico up this steep roof of the continent merely to explain how matters stand? Valencia Valdés is the true and rightful heiress of the valley. She is everywhere so recognize' and accept' by the peons."

The miner's indolent eye rested casually upon his guest. "Married?"

"I have not that felicitation," replied the Spaniard.

"It was the lady I meant."

"Pardon. No man has yet been so fortunate to win the señorita"

"I reckon it's not for want of trying, since the heiress is so beautiful. There's always plenty of willing lads to take over the job of prince regent under such circumstances."

The spine of the New Mexican stiffened ever so slightly. "Señorita Valdés is princess of the Rio Chama valley. Her dependents understan' she is of a differen' caste, a descendant of the great and renowned Don Alvaro of Castile."

"Don't think I know the gentleman. Who was he?" asked Gordon genially, offering his guest a cigar.

Pesquiera threw up his neat little hands in despair. "But of a certainty Mr. Gordon has read of Don Alvaro de Valdés y Castillo, lord of demesnes without number, conqueror of the Moors and of the fierce island English who then infested Spain in swarms. His retinue was as that of a king. At his many manors fed daily thirty thousand men at arms. In all Europe no knight so brave, so chivalrous, so skillful with lance and sword. To the nobles his word was law. Young men worshiped him, the old admired, the poor blessed. The queen, it is said, love' him madly. She was of exceeding beauty, but Don Alvaro remember his vows of knighthood and turn his back upon madness. Then the king, jealous for that his great noble was better, braver and more popular than he, send for de Valdés to come to court."

"I reckon Don Alvaro ought to have been sick a-bed that day and unable to make the journey," suggested Dick.

"So say his wife and his men, but Don Alvaro scorn to believe his king a traitor. He kiss his wife and babies good-bye, ride into the trap prepare' for him, and die like a soldier. God rest his valiant soul."