Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chapter III Donovan's Hand WARING was up with the first faint streak of dawn. He threw hay to the horses and strode briskly to the adobe. Juan Armigo was bending over the kitchen stove. Waring nodded to him and stepped to the next room. The Mexicans were asleep; young Ramon lying face down beneath the crucifix on the wall, where he had knelt in prayer most of the night. Waring drew back quietly. "Let them sleep," he told Juan in the kitchen. After frijoles and coffee, the gunman rose and gestured to Juan to follow him. Out near the corral, Waring turned suddenly. "You say that young Ramon is straight?" "Si, sefior. He is a good boy." "Well, he's in dam' bad company. How about Vaca?" Juan Armigo shrugged his shoulders. "Are you afraid of him, Juan?" "No. But if he were to ask me for anything, it would be well to let him have it." "I see. So he sent young Ramon in here for two extra horses, and you were afraid to refuse. I had thought you were an honest man. After I have gone,go hunt up those horses in the canon. And if any one from Sonora rides in here and asks about Ramon or Vaca or me, you don't know anything about us. Sabe? If your horses are found before you get to them, some one stole them. Do these things. I don't want to come back to see if you have done them." Juan Armigo nodded, gazing at Waring with crafty eyes. So the gringo was tempted by the gold. He would ride back to Sonora, find the stolen money in the house of Pedro Salazar, and keep it. It would be a very simple thing to do. Young Ramon would be afraid to speak and Jose Vaca would have disappeared. The gringo could swear that he had not found the bandits or the gold. So reasoned Juan, his erstwhile respect for the gunman wavering as the idea became fixed. He grinned at Waring...