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CHAPTER IX
THE ELOPEMENT
Two riders, a man and a veiled woman evidently young, halted their
horses in Portsmouth Square, where the former alighted and offered an
arm to his companion. She, however, disdaining his assistance, sprang
lightly from the saddle and, turning her back on him, gazed, motionless,
toward the bay. There was something arresting and curiously dramatic
about the whole performance, something that hinted of impending tragedy.
The slight figure with its listless droop and stony immobility caught
and clutched the sympathies of Nathan Spear as he was passing by. The
man was Alec McTurpin; the girl, no doubt, some light o' love from a
neighboring pueblo. Yet there was a disturbing familiarity about her.
Spear watched them go across the square toward the City Hotel, a long,
one-story adobe structure built by Leidesdorff as a store and home. On
the veranda stood the stocky figure of Proprietor Brown, smoking a long
pipe and conversing with half a dozen roughly dressed men who lounged
about the entrance. He looked up wonderingly as McTurpin approached. The
latter drew him to one side and appeared to make certain demands to
which Brown acquiesced by a curt nod, as if reluctant.
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