“You--no traitor?” She threw back her head and laughed loudly, scornfully. “May I suggest that you lower your voice?” he queried. “If you bring hostiles into the room all my plans will have gone awry.” “Your plans, _señor_?” “To remove you and the _señora_ to the mission, _señorita_.” She dropped the _señora’s_ arms from about her and took a step toward him, and again her hands were clenched at her sides and her eyes blazed. “Do you think I would stir a step from this place with you?” she demanded. “Do you think I trust you? Do you imagine you have skill enough, if I were willing, to get two women out of this house, put them in a carreta and drive them to the mission--when the roads are watched, when there are plenty of horses and ponies here for hostiles to use in chase?” “’Tis a difficult proposition, I admit, yet I think it can be solved successfully.” “Leave this house with you?” she stormed at him. “Go to the mission? How could I look a fray in the face again? How could I even speak to my good padre? How could I go to the presidio, where the soldiers were wont to call me the regiment’s daughter? ‘Daughter of an accursed family that spread murder and robbery throughout the coast country,’ they would say now. Here I am, Señor Fly-by-Night, in the home of my father, with his good name besmirched by a traitor, and here I remain, hoping death will come quickly, even before I know whether this treasonable plot succeeds.” “The task will be more difficult than I had imagined,” quoth the caballero. “Go with you? Trust you?” she went on. “To what purpose? You would steal me from this Rojerio Rocha, eh? A pretty pair of rogues!” Now he walked swiftly to her side and looked down into her blazing eyes, and when he spoke it was in a voice she never had heard before. “_Señorita_,” he said, “I swear to you by all the saints, by my dead mother’s honour, by whatever you will, that I mean you no harm, and that my sole object is to rescue you from this place and take you to the mission, there to hand you over to your padre. I have come here to-night at much risk, since both white and red men seek me. I have used subterfuge and device to reach you safely. And you must allow the rescue!” Señora Vallejo would have spoken, but he silenced her with a wave of his hand and looked at the girl again. “And I say to you I am no traitor, _señorita_,” he went on. “Never have I raised my hand against His Excellency the Governor, never have I conspired with Indians. In time, things may be explained; for the present I ask you to believe me.” “Yet you are Captain Fly-by-Night--gambler, swindler, wronger of women!” “Which has nothing to do with this present rescue.” “Save this,” she added, quickly, “that Señorita Anita Fernandez does not trust herself with Captain Fly-by-Night, no matter what the circumstances.” The caballero sighed and turned on one heel to walk back to the fireplace, there to stand for a moment in thought.