Colonel Urgo straightened himself, and the smile that had twisted his little waxed moustache awry suddenly was smudged out. For his eyes encountered what they were hardly prepared to see--a living dead man. His face went sickly white; one hand arrested itself in the motion of making the sign of the cross. He stared at Grant, fascinated. Grant himself was little less shaken at the appearance of his enemy. It was as if a cobra suddenly had lifted its head from the patio’s flowering jungle. In a moment of dreamy ecstasy, when he had felt his heart yearning toward the girl’s over a bridge of music, came this sinister apparition of evil. It was not fear of the man that caused Grant’s heart to pound--the waspish little Spaniard possessed no essence of malignity sufficient to terrify one of the American’s fibre; rather a loathing and instinctive reflex of anger gorged his combative nerves with blood. Grant read surely enough the shock of surprise in his enemy’s eyes and cannily laid this revelation away as a weapon to hand should necessity demand its use. As for Benicia, she made no pretence of concealing her annoyance. Quick perception seized upon the coincidence of her father’s absence and Colonel Urgo’s coming; she knew the wily little suitor had somehow managed to time his visit to that circumstance. In the first flush of her surprise Benicia caught herself feeling a great thankfulness that Grant Hickman was in the house. “If you have come to see my father”--Benicia did not rise to greet Urgo when he took a tentative step toward her--“he is absent at the moment. I am sorry you have not found him at home.” Urgo’s lynx eyes darted from the girl’s face to Grant’s and back again. Plainly he was in a quandary, not knowing how much--if anything--this American had told his hosts of the circumstances of a night in Sonizona and its consequences. Benicia, misreading his perturbation, was quick to interpose with a smile all irony: “This is Señor Hickman, whom you may remember having seen on the train. Señor Hickman, this is a distant cousin of mine, Colonel Hamilcar Urgo, of the garrison at Sonizona. He is the gentleman who believed you occupied his berth out of El Paso, if you recall. There was some slight misunderstanding--” Grant flashed a glance at the girl, read the mockery in her eyes and took his cue from her: “I believe I have seen the Colonel subsequently,” this in heavy seriousness. “Was it not somewhere in Sonizona?” “I do not recall having had that honour.” Teeth flashed in a nervous smile and the man’s eyes veiled themselves furtively. He caught the challenge to battle of wits with the American and entrenched himself accordingly. Colonel Urgo found himself at a momentary disadvantage, however; he did not know what ammunition his rival would choose. Essaying a diversion, he addressed the girl in rapid Spanish.