Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/65

 not because I owed my patron money. That would be a scoundrelly sort of trick."

"How much more sensible for a man who owes his patron money to stay in the reach of his arm," said Don Felipe, with unctuous, persuasive argument. "Only a fool runs away."

"That's what I think about it," Henderson agreed.

He had come around, in the past few minutes, to a decision on a more diplomatic course. He saw at once the obstacles that would present in the way of an escaping debtor; he realized that Don Felipe was not boasting when he said the word went abroad quickly, that a thousand hands would be ready to pull him down. How much more eager these hands would be to snatch at a foreigner, one of a nation for which there was already much jealousy, suspicion and hate.

"Still, you considered running away only a little minute ago," Don Felipe charged.

"It was only because I forgot for the moment how much I really owe the good patron," Henderson replied contritely, by way of confession. "He saved my life the day I deserted ship, the captain would have shot me if he hadn't stepped in front of his pistol and made him put it away. If I owed him money only, Don Felipe, I would run away. But when a man owes another his life he does not run away and forget—if he is a man."

Don Felipe was caballero, gentleman, in spite of