"You seem strangely interested in them," said Dulzura, again glancing back. "It almost seems as if you had heard of them before."
"And it almost seems so to me," confessed Frank. "I think I must have heard of them before. Sometime I shall remember when it was and what I have heard."
But, although they continued to talk, the Spaniard told Merry nothing more of interest in that line. Finally they relapsed into silence and rode on thus.
Frank's thoughts were busy when his tongue became silent. He remembered well that the most malignant and persistent enemy of little Felicia's father was a man who called himself Felipe Costola. This man had made repeated efforts to get possession of Felicia, but had been baffled by Delores and had finally lost his life in Fardale. Beyond question, Felipe Costola was dead, and what had become of Juan Delores no man seemed to know.
Putting two and two together, Frank began to wonder if Delores might not be a Costola who had assumed the name of his mother's family while living in Spain, thus arousing the everlasting enmity of all the Costolas, and who had finally been compelled to flee to America. In many respects the history of this man agreed with that told by Juan Delores himself. He had once told Frank the name and title by which he was known in Spain, but never had he explained the fierce enmity of Felipe Costola. Now Merry was speculating over the possibility that Delores must have once been a Costola.
If this was true, then little Felicia was, by the statement of Dulzura, the rightful heir to the estate in Spain. Meditating on this possibility, Frank fancied he obtained a peep behind the curtain which hid the mystery of Felicia's disappearance. With the child out of the way, a false heir might be substituted, and the schemers behind the plot would reap their reward.
The shadows of evening were thickening in the mountain when Merry and his companion passed from the valley and reached the abrupt foothills. Here the trail was more clearly defined, and soon they were startled to see standing beside it an aged Indian, who regarded them with the stony gaze of the Sphinx. Dulzura drew up and asked the Indian in Spanish if the San Monica Mission was near. The reply was that it was less than half a mile in advance.