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Show Flame I of the Border By VINGIE E. ROE Copyright, Doubleday, Doran & Co.. Ino. WNO Service CHAPTER XII Continued He was leaning forward now, searching search-ing t fie girl's fuce with boring eyes to catch the faintest change, the slightest slight-est flicker of betrayal. "I did not, tenor," she said. "H'm," said El Diablo savagely, "and when you so quickly stooped and picked from the floor that small brass can which Senor Turks dropped from his pocket, you still did not know what you were finding?" "No," said Sonya, "and would not now If Manuel there had not told the Senora about It called it a flve-tael can of 'black molasses.' " Manuel leaped from his seat, talking swiftly, facing his master. And somewhere some-where behind her a woman stilled a scream. But Diablo was on his feet, his fist on the table. "So!" he thundered, "my people talk behind me, do they? They mention that which Is never to be mentioned? I shall deal with you and you, senora later. Now bring me Quince." At that Sonya felt the world go round for one terrible second. She clutched the chair back tightly. And from somewhere at the right there came the sound of marching feet, the swift step of men obeying a master. Through the dappled shade cast by the poplar trees live llgures moved Into her line of vision, four who walked abreast In twos and In their midst a fifth Starr Stone as she had seen him last, In cowboy boots and dungarees dun-garees belted at his lean hips, a faded denim shirt. He had no hat, and his bronze head shone in the light like gold, and he had not shaved for days. He was haggard and his eyes were large In his tanned face, and his arms were bound behind him. He was a prisoner with all a prisoner's Indignities Indigni-ties heaped upon him, but his tall form was erect, his blue eyes dark with the spreading pupils. He strode toward the table with his gaze set on Dlablo's face and saw no other In the silent mass. "Senor," he said. "Senor," said El Capitan, and the smile was gone from his face. It was black with rising fury. "For five years, Quince, you have been with me my best and ablest man. You have done my bidding quickly. You have led my raids. You have put my merchandise safely through its secret ways. I have called and you have come, always. Always until lately. Lately you have come on laggard feet. You have held back at my orders. or-ders. You have disobeyed me. And I have now the reason. That reason is a woman. A woman whom you have set before El Capitan Diablo. Wtiose word has been more to you than my word. Who, through your Instruction doubtless, has come upon the key of my activities. Who has caught Qua-tro Qua-tro with the goods In his own store. Who holds Diablo and all his future In the hollow of her hand. Or would so hold him had It not been for Qua-tro's Qua-tro's swift action In the matter. Senor behold the woman !" He had half risen again, leaning with one broad hand on the table. With the other he pointed dramatically dramatical-ly to Sonya. And like a flash Starr Stone whirled and saw her. It was the first Inkling he had had that she was not safe In her own country, coun-try, about her own pursuits, and the shock of It drained his face to a ghastly ghast-ly pallor. "Sonya !" his lips formed soundlessly. sound-lessly. "Yes," said the girl defiantly, "they took me from my horse two nights ago kidnaped me by airplane and brought me here because I stumbled on the fact that Parks Is their agent In the smuggling of narcotics across the line. They think you told me that you and I have planned to double-cross double-cross this wicked bandit here this beast who says I'm lying I" She waved a hand at El Capitan, nodded her black head toward him. "Ah! A beast, am I? El Capitan Diablo a beast?" "Yes, senor and worse," said Sonya Savarin. "You may kill me as I do not doubt you will but I am an American, Amer-ican, and I do not bend to you, either in body or soul. We are both Americans." Ameri-cans." "Oh, Americans ! And Americans do not double-cross?" "No, senor." "Well, we shall see. Quince attention. atten-tion. What do you say for yourself?" The tall man standing in the mottled mot-tled shade looked long In his master's face. What years of wrongdoing, of obedience, of fear, were in that look only they two might say. For a long time It held between the wild blue eyes, the deadly black ones. Then Starr Stone turned to Sonya. "Sonya," he said distinctly, "once I told you that a leopard could not change his spots. A little later I told vou that my inner self had changed, that all my desires, my outlook in lire, had changed with knowing yoa. I longed to prove It to yon. You said ou wanted do proof. The time has come to give It to you. There Is nothing noth-ing left for uie to want on this round earth but your faith in me. I told you once that 1 have been a man of violence. I have been, God forgive me. and what had happened. The events of the last tragic days stood sharply out before her. "A misstep In ray early youth It doesn't matter now what It was put me In the power of El Capitan Diablo. For my freedom's sake I cast In my lot with him. For my life's sake I could never leave him afterward. I have raided, burned, and pillaged, but I have never killed a man nor harmed a woman or a child. I have heeu his brains in smuggling, his ablest lieutenant, lieu-tenant, as he says. But now I'm through. "With death as my sure rewurd for whut I'm saying, I say here and now, before these witnesses, that 1 am done forever. Done with all wrong and all evil. That the leopard changes bis spots at last. For the' love of you In my soul I am made over new. They will kill me soon, and I hope they'll send you with me with all my heart-though heart-though hell Itself can hold no torture for me to compare with the knowledge that I have brought you to this. That will be more punishment than my lost soul can bear. Oh, Sonya, forgive me for whut I've done to you." "Forgive you?" panted the girl, half sobbing. "Forgive you? I glory In you I And we'll go together, never fear I If not one way, then another. It will not be a long good-by, I promise you." "Soul's covenant," said Starr Stone. "Soul's covenant," she answered. But here El Capitan leaped to his booted feet, his list on the table again. "It will not?" he rasped. "You think It will Dot? Carramba ! El Capitan Diablo has yet the final word. You to the winds and the vultures, Quince, and may you remember many things In the the Interval. "You," he turned to Sonya and leveled a finger at her, "I give to that one among my men who rises to this Quince's empty place. Manuel, my compliments, the lady. 1 believe you liko a white-skinned woman with curls in the hair. And after you the rest. And that, as they say across the Border, Bor-der, Is that. Take them both away." The four men moved to surround their prisoner, the marching feet passed swiftly, and Sonya watched the tall bronze head go out of the shade Into the sun around a corner. The world and all it held turned dark before her just as the senora reached out a motherly arm. She dimly heard Manuel saying, "Careful, senora, careful she Is mine." CHAPTER XIII Love's Sacrifice. When she opened her eyes again It was dusk In the deep-walled room, and she lay on the ancient bed. For a while she lay In a sort of stupid peace, gathering her faculties, which seemed to have been scattered to the four winds. And then suddenly the values of life dropped into their appointed places, like the brilliant colors In a kaleidoscope, kaleido-scope, and she knew where she was and what had happened. El Capitan had spoken, and she was still a prisoner, the property of a dapper dap-per Mexican bandit with predatory eyes and laughing, thin lips, Manuel the aviator. And Starr Stone was gone oh, heaven! Gone to that ghastly fate which lurked In the poignant words, "you to the winds and the vultures." The wild blue eyes that had darkened and changed under the mandates of life, the long hands with their tender touch, the lips so warm upon her own I Sonya leaped to her feet and paced the old room like a tigress caged, striking her hands together, her soul dying within her. The young lieutenant lieuten-ant had said, "Careful she Is mine," and he stood next to the master now. His word was law beneath that other's, and no one would disobey. And presently the senora came padding pad-ding softly to the door on heavy feet, for she was old and excellently fed, and entered to her kindly ministrations. ministra-tions. Sonya whirled and faced her, her dark eyes burning In the shadows. "Senora," she said desperately, "Have pity on me! Can you not help me? A knife, senora with my next meal left od the tray? In the name of that holy Woman whom you worship, wor-ship, please, senora 1" "1 cannot, child," she answered gently. "Manuel would kill me. Come, let me wash your sweet white body with fresh water. And there Is perfume, per-fume, and a woman's clothes to dress you in a scarlet dress, and golden shoes for your feet. To night you rest Manuel's orders but tomorrow you wear these things for him. Ton must forget" Forget ! Forget the vultures and the wind! Forget the stars, the soft winds blowing, blow-ing, the creak of leather, and Starr Stone's hand on hers laid on her pommel pom-mel ! She turned from the old woman and began again her Interminable walk, the striking of her hands together. to-gether. It was a mechanical action which somehow seemed to hold her brain from snapping, to keep her searching for a way to end it all. She would not let the senora wash her, nor accept the silken bed gown which she now produced. She shook her head, pushed her away. "If you have within you, seLora," she said plteously, "any remnant of a woman's pity for another woman lost to all the light of life, leave me to tight it out alone. Leave me now." j Fu a long time the other stood and watched her, calculating, then nodded j and turned away. "I have not forgotten for thirty years." she said cryptically. "You shall have your night, querlda." But she stopped with her hand on the great Iron latch and surveyed the room completely for any sharp thing, any pointed thing, any place where one might tie a rope of bedclothes, say. Finding none of these, she opened the door and went silently a way. The sound of the bolt falling echoed in the empty passage. So. This was the end. Not forever could they keep her in this barren room. Sooner or later she would have the means. She only prayed It might be soon before she must wear the scarlet dress tor Manuel. There must be something hidden somewhere with which one could slash a vein In so slight a thing as a woman's wrist. The bed, perhaps. A spring under the huge tick tilled with feathers, maybe. But the bed was old when the land was new, and It was laced with rawhide so steel-like, hard, and dry that It had outlasted centuries. It was as hopeless as the great bars in the window set In the ancient mud of the walls. And Sonya Savarin, who had guarded guard-ed life so well, now stood at bay, holding hold-ing her breath, pondering desperately how she might destroy It. If only she had her bags! Her little case of instruments! But she had nothing and Starr Stone was dying now, perhaps, or would tomorrow. There was nothing left to do, no foes to face with lifted head, no schemes of hope to make, no one whom she might coax to help her. And so at last Sonya, having exhausted ex-hausted all her resources, scant at best In this terrible situation, made ready to bow in resignation. She knelt by the ancient bed, which had no doubt seen tragedies before, and folding her hands addressed her soul to Its Maker in sorrow and humility. How long she knelt so she never afterward could recall. Sometimes she prayed, weeping, for that other soul which had so grievously misspent Its days, and these were fervent prayers, abased and agonized before the heavenly heaven-ly throne, begging for that mercy of the eleventh hour which has been divinely di-vinely promised ; sometimes for Serge and Lila and little Babs, even for Darkness. For herself she asked scant favor. It had been always so with her. Service to her fellow men, comfort com-fort for all suffering things, had been her passionate aim in life. Of herself she thought last and least, of Starr Stone most. If only they had met in those early days of which he spoke, before that one misstep had put him in El Dlablo's power, made him an outlaw, a Border renegade. WheD the sweetness, the kindness in him had been paramount Before sin and wrong had put the leopard spots upon him. But the spots were changed at last when It was too late. To his face he had repudiated El Capitan, signed his own death warrant, for anyone leaving the dark service of this monstrous bandit put himself "on the spot" as truly as any In more modern places. And he bad done it deliberately, to prove to her that he was changed, even to the death. The courage which had shone In his face In that repudiation repudia-tion had been magnificent. He knew, none better, the fate of El Dlablo's double-crossers, and he double-crossed him high-handedly and with supreme finality. "Oh, Starr!" wept Sonya with her forehead on her clasped hands. "Oh, ray man of all men! My one and only love I" In the warm dark silence the heart In her seemed to melt In anguish, the tides of life to run swiftly out. For her It was the ebb of finite things, the last low hour before the end. In a dull coma of hopelessness, her face swollen with weeping, she sank lower and lower against the great bed, her lips apart, her black head disheveled. And Into this last deep abyss there dropped a tiny sound. So low and soft It was that Sonya was not conscious of It until It had repeated itself several times the almost al-most inaudible scrape of metal against metal. The outside bolt, huge and heavy, slipping slowly In Its slot! With her breath caught In her throat Sonya Savarin listened. After a tense interval It came again, and the gentle creaking of the great door on Its hinges. Instinctively the girl shrank back against the bed. Manuel I Manuel, her master ! She stifled a scream on her open mouth, her hand across It And then a voice, whispering Into the darkness, a breath of a voice as lovely as music, said "Senorita !" She could not speak, and again It whispered, "Senorita?" "Si," said Sonya, gasping, "I am here." There was the murmur of a moving form, and Concha knelt carefully beside be-side her. Sonya reached out and touched her Incredibly, but the girl drew sharply from the contact. "Attend," she said, "If you are brave are you so, senorita?" "1 am very brave," said Sonya simply. "Then listen. Sou 1 date .from my soul's bottom I could strike you now with my two hands but there Is another, an-other, whom I love. Oh, Mary Mother! Moth-er! Love!" she said as if to her Inward In-ward self. She stopped a moment theu went on. "If you can follow me without a sound there Is a hope. Can yot walk so?" TO BE CONTIVTISU |