Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/154

 "Is it you, my little friend Gabriel?" he hailed, great token of pleasure in his voice. "I thought you were dead, I thought the wolves had made a dinner on you. Come on, my boy—how are you, how have you passed?"

Henderson's horse was picketed some distance down the canyon; Simon was directly in the way between them. Henderson distrusted the friendly show, although Simon appeared to be unarmed and quite genuine in his expression of pleasure. There seemed little warrant for drawing a weapon on him, although the thick growth of shrubs and small trees around the cabin might hide twenty of Don Abrahan's men.

Henderson replied to the flood of affectionate inquiry that all was well with him; asked of Simon's family, according to the custom, shook hands with him, accepted a cigarette. He wondered whether Toberman had betrayed him, dismissing the suspicion at once as unworthy.

He could not know, certainly, of the little talk between Don Abrahan and Simon the night before, or of the small pieces of gold that had passed from the patron's hand in the dark. He could not have known, indeed, that the old men who sit in the sun, wrapped in introspection, see more than passes by them in the road.

"So, then, all is forgiven, my little Gabriel," Simon hastened to explain, with evidence of great joy in his news. "Don Abrahan has sent me, on the directions for finding you that the good John