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"Fine! I'll take your word for it, Don Manuel And I don't distrust you at all But here's the point I'm a plain American businessa proposition submitted to me I'm from Missouri"

"Oh, indeed! From St Louis perhaps I went to school there when I was a boy"

Gordon laughed "I was speaking in metaphor, Don Manuel What I -in-a-poke business for me"

"Exactly Most precisely Have I not traveled from New Mexico up this steep roof of the continent merely to explain how htful heiress of the valley She is everywhere so recognize' and accept' by the peons"

The uest "Married?"

"I have not that felicitation," replied the Spaniard

"It was the lady I meant"

"Pardon No man has yet been so fortunate to win the señorita"

"I reckon it's not for want of trying, since the heiress is so beautiful There's always plenty of willing lads to take over the job of prince regent under such circumstances"

The spine of the New Mexican stiffened ever so slightly "Señorita Valdés is princess of the Rio Chama valley Her dependents understan' she is of a differen' caste, a descendant of the great and renowned Don Alvaro of Castile"

"Don't think I know the gentleuest a cigar

Pesquiera threw up his neat little hands in despair "But of a certainty Mr Gordon has read of Don Alvaro de Valdés y Castillo, lord of demesnes without nulish who then infested Spain in swar At his many manors fed daily thirty thousand ht so brave, so chivalrous, so skillful with lance and sword To the nobles his as law Young men worshiped him, the old admired, the poor blessed The queen, it is said, love' hi beauty, but Don Alvaro rehthood and turn his back upon reat noble was better, braver and more popular than he, send for de Valdés to coht to have been sick a-bed that day and unable to ested Dick

"So say his wife and hisa traitor He kiss his wife and babies good-bye, ride into the trap prepare' for him, and die like a soldier God rest his valiant soul"