curtain blowing out of a window. The more he thought over the matter the more assured was he that he had allowed his imaginings to make a fool of him. And by the time the sun flooded the decks next morning he was ready to forget the episode.

They rounded San Lucas one morning, turned north into the gulf and steered into La Paz where Barlow said he hoped to get a line on Escobar and where they allowed custom officials an opportunity to assure themselves that no contraband in the way of much dreaded rifles and ammunition were being carried into restive Sonora. "Loco Gringoes out after burro deer," was how the officials were led to judge them. Barlow, gone several hours, reported that Escobar had not turned up at the waterfront dives to which, according to the murdered Juarez, he reported now and then to keep in touch with his outlaw commander. Steering out again through the fishing craft and harbor boats, they pounded the _New Moon_ on toward Port Adventure.Then came at last the night when Barlow, looking hard mouthed and
eager, announced that in a few hours they would drop anchor and go
ashore to see what they would see.  Nigger Ben and Philippine Charlie
were instructed gravely.  They were to remain on board and were to
maintain a suspicious reserve toward all strangers, denying them
foothold on deck.

"The gents who'd be apt to make you a call," Barlow told them
impressively, "would cut your throats for a side of bacon.  You boys
keep watches day and night.  When we get back into San Diego Bay, if
you do your duties, you both get fifty dollars on top of your wages."

It was shortly before they hoisted the anchor overboard to wait for
dawn that for the second time Kendric felt again that oddly disturbing
sense of hidden eyes spying at him.  Again he was alone, standing
forward, peering into the darkness, trying to make some sort of detail
out of the black wall ahead which Barlow had told him was a long line
of cliff.  As before Charlie was at the wheel while Nigger Ben was
listening to instructions from Barlow aft of the cabin.  The voices
came faint against the gulf wind to Kendric.  The words he did not hear
since all of his mental force was bent to determine what it was that
gave him that uncanny feeling of eyes, the eyes of Zoraida Castelmar,
in the dark.

This time he was guarded in his actions.  He stood still a moment, his
jaw set, only his eyes turning to right and left.  As he had asked
himself countless times already so now did he put the question again:

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