But the “cell” into which he was thrown--for the jailer booted him in from behind and closed the door so quickly that Steven had no chance to make his protests felt--that was different indeed from the room he had just left. Pitch dark, not a window in it as far as he could judge, close and filthy. He scarcely dared stir, but, his hand encountering a small stick, he scraped away at the dirt floor until he had cleared a place large enough to lie down upon. Probably just as well he couldn’t see, he consoled himself, and then proceeded to get what slumber he could, execrating himself, meanwhile, for having disregarded the wise advice of Colonel Bent certainly as regarding politics. “De Garcia is responsible for this,” he thought. “I should not have believed it of him. I should have thought he was genuine, a gentleman of his word.” But Steven was wrong. Don Tiburcio de Garcia had gone to Taos several days before to see Charles Bent. Had Don Tiburcio remained in Santa Fe all that happened might have been quite different. Luis Lopez had ways of knowing many things. His followers were numerous and swift to report whatever they thought might concern him. That is how he knew that Steven Mercer had not broken his neck by that swift fall from the horse--a simple device, the stretched rope, but one which is often successful--but, to the contrary, had been carried back to the house of James Bragdon. The result was that Luis went wild with jealousy and proceeded, after some thought and a little more information from the outside, straight to his father. He talked with him for some time. Don Anabel was a ready listener. “But how do you know that this American is a spy,” he asked, “and what proof have you that he is arranging to ship arms into New Mexico for an insurrection, or to take Santa Fe, as you say?” “This,” replied Luis, triumphantly. “He comes first with no merchandise of his own at all. He is no _mercader_.” “He sold me cloth for twenty duros,” put in Don Anabel, skeptically. “_Esta bien._ He sold only for Colonel St. Vrain, as a blind. But he sends back way to New Orleans for a shipment of two thousand _pistoles, entiende Ud., Señor_? Two thousand pistols, of the new kind, he specifies, whatever they may be; revolver, to turn around, he writes.” “How do you know this?” Don Anabel turned a shade paler under his fine brown skin and leaned tensely forward. “Because the letter which he intrusted to one of the traders who left here five days ago, and which was to have been carried to Fort Leavenworth and from there sent down the Great River somehow to the father of the boy, a _mercader_ himself, says so. Here it is.” He spread on the table before his father a folded paper that he had drawn from his sash. “How did you come into possession of this letter?” asked Don Anabel, after he had read it. “Well, frankly, it was brought to me by one of my _arrieros_ who accompanied the returning caravan part way on the Trail.”