Benito roused himself from his amazement to say, warmly: "Si, compadre. You will enjoy a cup of hot coffee."
But Law ground out fiercely: "I'm not used to kitchen hand-outs. I reckon I can chew my bridle-reins if I get too hungry." Walking to his horse, he vaulted into the saddle.
Benito laid a hand upon his thigh and apologized. "Señor Ed is a strange man. He is often like this, lately. You understand me? Will you come to my house for supper?"
"Thank you, but I think I'll ride on to Tad Lewis's and see Urbina."
At this the Mexican shook his head as if apprehensive of the result, but he said nothing more.
Law hesitated as he was about to spur out of the yard. "By the way," he ventured, "you needn't mention this to Mrs. Austin."
"She is not here," Gonzalez told him. "She has gone to La Feria to see about her affairs. She would not permit of this occurrence if she were at home. She is a very fine lady."
When the Ranger had gone, Gonzalez walked slowly toward his house with his head bowed thoughtfully.
"It is very strange," he muttered. "How could Don Eduardo have met this Garza at noon when, with my own eyes, I saw him ride away from Las Palmas at three o'clock in the afternoon? It is very strange."
On his way to the Lewis ranch Dave Law had a struggle with himself. He had earned a reputation as a man of violent temper, and the time was not long past when a fraction of the insult Ed Austin had offered him would have provoked a vigorous counterblast. The fact that on this occasion he had managed to restrain himself argued an increase of self-control that especially gratified him, because his natural tendency to "fly off the handle" had led more than once to regrettable results. In fact, it was only since he had assumed the duties of a peace officer that he had made a serious effort at self-government. A Ranger's work calls for patience and forbearance, and Dave had begun to realize the perils of his temperament. Normally he was a level-headed, conservative fellow, but when angered a thousand devils sprang up in him and he became capable of the wildest excess. This instability, indeed, had been largely to blame for his aimless roaming. Deep inside himself he knew that it was nothing but his headstrong temper which had brought on all his misfortunes and left him, well along in his thirties, a wanderer, with nothing he could call his own. As with most men of his turbulent disposition, fits of fury were usually followed by keen revulsions of feeling. In Dave these paroxysms had frequently been succeeded by such a sense of shame as to drive him from the scene of his actions, and in the course of his rovings he had acquired an ample store of regrets--bitter food for thought during the silent hours when he sat over his camp-fire or rode alone through the mesquite. His hatreds were keen and relentless, his passions wild, and yet, so far as he knew, they had never led him to commit a mean or a downright evil deed. He had killed men, to be sure, but never, he was thankful to say, in one of his moments of frenzy.