CHAPTER XTHE DISCOVERY
Marc Scott was slow in falling asleep on the night of Pachuca’s escape. He was in the habit of rolling over a few times and losing himself; but on this particular night he was tormented by half a dozen ugly little worries. He was worried about Adams, whose leg had a nasty look to the unprofessional eye; he was worried about Pachuca, whose case was going to require a good deal of finesse; and he was worried about Polly Street, who had to be conveyed to the border, revolution or no revolution.
The most pressing danger on his horizon, Scott did not worry about because he did not recognize it. He was like one of those patients in whose system a deadly disease has started, but who remains in perfect health to all outward appearances. He was in happy ignorance of his feelings for Polly Street. He had been in love times enough, he would have told you, to know the symptoms; all of which was quite true, but the fact remained that this time he did not know them.
Polly Street was so exactly the sort of girl that Marc Scott had not the faintest idea of falling in love with, much less marrying, that he would have dismissed the possibility with a shrug. He, who valued his freedom above everything, to throw it away for exactly the kind of woman who would take the greatest pleasure intrampling on it? As for his jealousy of Juan Pachuca, which should have opened his eyes, he put it aside easily. He didn’t like the fellow—never had—and it annoyed him to see a decent girl allowing herself to be humbugged by his good looks and oily tongue.
It was a pity, for she was a plucky young thing. She had done well to bring back the prisoner and his car; mighty few girls would have had the courage to try it. It was foolish, of course, a regular kid trick—wouldn’t have succeeded once in a dozen times, but nevertheless, she had shown pluck. It was at this stage in his reflections that he had been disturbed by Yellow’s barking and had gone out to investigate. The air and the action had changed his circulation and his thought and when he went to bed the second time he dropped off easily.
This time he was aroused by the noise of the engine started by Pachuca on his escape. At first he hardly realized what it was that had wakened him, but as it dawned on his consciousness, he jumped to his feet and rushed to the window in time to see the car tear down the road. With a muttered exclamation, Scott seized his gun and sent a bullet wildly in the direction of the escaping prisoner. Then he drew on his trousers, calling to Hard at the same time.
“What’s wrong? Another raid?” growled the sleepy Bostonian, who had dozed peacefully through Pachuca’s first attempt.
“No. The guy’s got away,” snapped Scott, angrily.
“Well, we didn’t particularly need him, did we?” observed Hard, sitting up reluctantly.
“We needed his car and needed it bad,” said Scott, viciously. He tramped out of the room, while Hard reached drowsily for his clothes.
“By George, he must have made it through the window!” he muttered as he crossed the street, then as he came upon the body of the dog, thrown aside behind the open door, “The dirty butcher!” he growled, furiously. “And I didn’t have sense enough to search him for a knife!”
Outside, he met O’Grady and Johnson, sketchily dressed and wrathful.
“You heard him, too, did you?” he growled. “He got out by the window. This is some of his work,” he continued, pointing to Yellow.
“He did not,” said O’Grady, promptly. “Did you ever hear of a guy jumping out of a second-story winder and shutting it after him?”
“What?”
“Sure—it’s shut,” grinned Johnson. “He come out of the door all right. It’s wide open, and not hurt, either.”
“Who let him out? Where’s the key? You had it, O’Grady.”
“I did not—you handed it to the girl, yourself. She locked him in all right; I heard her do it,” replied O’Grady quickly.
“That explains it,” said Scott, shortly. “She came over here and let him out. Might have expected it, I suppose, with a flighty youngster and a smooth talker like Pachuca.” He turned away in the direction of the house.
“He’s mad!” murmured Johnson, admiringly. He liked a little excitement himself.
“Mad? He’s jealous, the fool!” Matt offered, disgustedly.
“Jealous? Who of? The greaser?”
“Sure. Good-looking, Juan is, and a winner with the dames.”
“Scott’s one of them woman haters. What d’ye mean—jealous?”
“Woman haters?” Matt spat disdainfully. “There ain’t no such thing as a woman hater, Tommy, in the whole animal kingdom. Don’t you fall for none of that stuff. But, believe me, that girl never opened that door. She’s a straight, honest, smart girl, if she is flighty.”
“Well, if she didn’t, who did?”
“I don’t know. I ain’t sleuthed around enough yet to find out. Hullo, here’s Boston—half asleep, too.”
Scott was angry clear through. He did not stop to analyze his emotions—he was not of an analytical mind—and he did not care why he was angry. He felt that Polly Street, a girl of whom he was beginning to think rather highly, had done an unsportsmanlike thing; a thing that Bob’s sister ought to have been ashamed to do; had disgraced the family, so to speak, and had seriously inconvenienced him into the bargain.
Scott had depended on that automobile for various things. He wanted it to fetch a doctor for Jimmy, and to take Polly, herself, to the border in comfort. Both these important things she had jeopardized because she had been coaxed into it by a soft-spoken young manwith dark eyes. The treasure story he put aside. Even a girl from the East would hardly have taken that stuff seriously, he thought.
He would have felt just the same, he reasoned, had the culprit been Bob instead of Bob’s sister. There was, thank Heaven, nothing soft about him! He could see and hear and even enjoy a good-looking girl without making a fool of himself. That was the beauty of being on the way to forty—one saw things in their right light—and did not make a fool of one’s self over girls.
“Marc Scott, are we being raided again or what? Did I hear a shot and a machine going by or was I dreaming?” demanded Mrs. Van, who, clad in a blanket kimono, her feet thrust into moccasins, and a gay-looking pink boudoir cap on her head, came to the door before Scott reached it. In her rear could be dimly seen another figure, wrapped in a gray blanket.
“You ought to know,” said Scott, rudely; focussing his attention on the pink cap and ignoring the blanketed figure in the rear.
“What do you mean—I ought to know?” indignantly.
“Somebody has unlocked the office door and let that half-breed get away and he’s taken his car with him,” said Scott. “The key’s in your house—that’s all.”
“Of course it’s in this house. It’s in the pocket of my sweater,” answered Polly, indignantly. “If you think I let him out——” She was too angry to continue.
“Well, he didn’t get out by the window becauseit’s shut, and there’s no chimney for him to melt out of.”
“Look here, Marc Scott, ain’t you ashamed of yourself? Coming here and talking to ladies like that—and in the middle of the night, too.” Mrs. Van Zandt was as angry as the other two. “That key couldn’t get out of this house to-night without my knowing it. He’s brainy enough to get out without help, that fellow.”
“He may be brainy, but he’s hardly brilliant enough to go through a locked door,” said Scott, obstinately. “Somebody let him out, that’s all. If you’ll be kind enough to look for the key, Miss Street, and see if it’s been taken away——”
“How could it be? From my room?” demanded Polly, angrily.
“Are you going to hold an inquest over it?” asked Mrs. Van, cuttingly. “I see the jury coming along.”
Johnson, O’Grady and Hard were coming across the street. Polly drew her blanket closely around her and tucked one bare foot behind the other. Her reddish colored braids gave her a squaw-like appearance in the darkness.
“It’s all right, Scotty, don’t stir up the community,” called Hard, cheerfully. “I’m the guilty party.”
“You!”
“It never dawned on me till I saw the unlocked door,” confessed Hard, with a chuckle. “The chap must have found that old bunch of keys that’s been knocking around in the pocket of my old office coat.I’m afraid that’s where he got the knife that did for poor Yellow, too.”
“Do you mean there was a duplicate key?” demanded Scott.
“There must have been. Clever chap to ferret it out,” replied Hard, breezily.
“Mighty clever. I could open a door myself with a key in my hand,” muttered Scott, as he turned away. “Well, he’s gone and the car’s gone and we might as well go back to bed.”
“Just one moment.” Polly’s voice was clear and firm. “I think you owe me an apology, Mr. Scott.”
There was a suppressed chuckle from the rear where the train gang still lingered. Scott stiffened and cleared his throat consciously.
“I apologize,” he said; then, as he saw the others disappear down the street, “Will you shake hands?”
“Not right now; I’m going to think it over,” said the girl, coolly. “I think you should have known that I wouldn’t do a thing like that.”
“Well, I did know it, of course,” confessed Scott, helplessly. “But——”
“But you didn’t believe it.” Polly’s voice was cutting. “Well, next time have a little more faith in your friends, Mr. Scott,” and the blanketed figure disappeared into the house.
“She had you there,” observed Mrs. Van. “Well, go home to bed before you wake up Jimmy—it’s a wonder he’s slept through this all right.”
She went into the house and knocked softly at the girl’s door—after listening a moment and assuringherself that Adams had not wakened. Polly’s room was dark and she was standing, still wrapped in the blanket, by the window in the moonlight.
“Well?” she said, rather curtly.
“Nothing—only——” Mrs. Van’s usually glib tongue faltered. “I was just going to say that you mustn’t take Marc Scott too—too—I mean, you mustn’t be too hard on him.”
“Hard!”
“Yes. It’s just his way; he don’t mean to be ugly. He’s queer, Scotty is, kind of—oh, I don’t know how to put it, but he didn’t mean to be rude to you.”
“He was, though, very rude.”
“Yes, that’s what I mean. It sort of shocked him to think you’d do a thing like that and he didn’t stop to think.”
“Maybe he’ll stop to think next time.”
“Maybe, but I don’t reckon so. Folks like that you can’t change much; you have to take ’em or leave ’em as they are. He’s awful square, though. I’d trust him with anything; money, liquor, or women. When you’ve been around as much as I have, you’ll know that means something.”
In the meantime, Scott, Hard, and the train gang, going down to the corral to investigate, found Miller lying as Pachuca had left him, in the middle of the road. He was regaining consciousness as they came along, and did not seem to be badly hurt, the knife having entered the fleshy part of the arm near the shoulder.
“Serves me damn right, bein’ so slow with my gun,” he said. “I suppose the guy got away?”
“Oh, yes, he got away!” muttered Scott, as they helped Miller to bed. “That’s the kind of luck we’re playing in just now around here.”
Breakfast next morning was not a particularly cheerful meal. Adams was still in bed, and Williams was feverish and cross. Miller seemed little the worse for his accident, but he was blue; he had been particularly attached to the dog and felt its death more than his own misadventure.
“Blankets, canned goods, saddles—everything they could grab,” muttered Williams, resentfully. “Nice condition to be in with a revolution looming.”
“Not looming, loomed,” said O’Grady, cheerfully.
“Wish I could get hold of anOmaha Bee,” murmured Johnson. “I never somehow feel like I had a grip on a situation till I’ve seen my home paper.”
“I think I’ll ride over to Casa Grande this morning and get the doctor,” said Hard. “That leg of Jimmy’s needs advice.”
“I’ll go with you.” Scott looked at Polly. “Want to go?” he said; then as she hesitated, he looked at her penitently, smiling as Scott did not often smile, and whispered: “Please do!”
“How mean of him! He knows I’m dying to. How’s anybody going to stay mad when they want to do things?” said the girl to herself.
“It’s too far for her,” objected Mrs. Van.
“We’ll send the Chink back,” said Scott, persuasively,“and we’ll stay all night with Herrick. We’ll make him play for you,” he added, as Polly smiled in spite of herself. “Will you go?”
“She must,” said Hard. “It’s her last chance to see the country.” And so the matter was settled.
“That Chink’ll ride the whole twenty miles on a dead run—he’ll be here to dinner,” said Matt. “Ever see a Chinaman ride?”
“He’ll ride his own horse, then,” replied Scott, as he left the room. “Perhaps we’ll bring Herrick back with us, Mrs. Van.”
“He won’t leave that piano of his,” prophesied Mrs. Van Zandt. “No more than a mother’d leave her baby when there was danger around.”
It was ten o’clock when the three riders started on their trip, Scott preserving a reasonably cheerful face, in spite of the fact that he hated late starts. It was a beautiful morning; the sky, blue and cloudless, the air fresh and invigorating with the crispness of early spring, the radiant clearness of the atmosphere making neighbors of the mountains, all combined to make a tonic which showed signs of going to Polly’s head. After all, there are few sensations like the starting out upon a horseback trip; the mare’s springy trot, the freshness of her own healthy body, even the feel of the bridle reins brought her joy.
“You look mighty happy,” commented Hard. “It must be pleasant to be twenty-three.”
Polly laughed. “It is,” she admitted. “But I’m going to be just as happy at forty-three. I’ve found the recipe.”
“Will you sell it to me? My next one happens to be my forty-second. I’ll be needing it soon.”
“I’ll make you a present of it. Stay out-of-doors and keep on doing things. Of course, I haven’t tried it for forty-three years, but I feel in my bones that it will work.”
“I never could see, myself, how people could spend twenty-two out of their twenty-four hours under a roof, the way most of them do,” said Scott, thoughtfully. “Here, we turn now into the trail.”
“That’s where Pachuca’s men went yesterday,” said Polly. “I hope we don’t meet them.”
“No danger of that. Those fly-by-nights are a long way from here by this time.”
“They told me yesterday in Conejo that Obregon had been put under arrest in Mexico City. If that’s true it may put a cog in the revolutionary machinery,” said Hard.
“I wish we’d managed to keep our hands on that automobile,” remarked Scott, wistfully. “I don’t half fancy trying to make the border in a wagon, and no one knows how the railroads will be.”
The trail debouched from the road, running over ground very slightly elevated. There was for some distance no particular reason as far as Polly could see for its being a trail at all except that it hadn’t been sufficiently traveled to make it a road. It was merely a narrow little path leading over some very barren-looking country, but leading ever upward, gradually but surely, toward the hills.
“You see, the regular road runs fairly straight alongtoward Conejo for maybe twenty miles, and then meets a crossroad which runs past Casa Grande,” explained Scott. “Now, with this trail, we cut directly across those foothills, over a couple of ranges of mountains, across a big mesa and down. Casa Grande is almost in a straight line from here and we cut off a lot.”
“Casa Grande is an awfully fancy sort of name. Is it a wonderful place?”
“Just a good little ranch. These Latins like big sounding names,” replied Scott. “Casa Grande is very common down here.”
A dip in the trail took them into an arroyo and out the other side, where they lost sight entirely of Athens. A few moments later, they wound their way through some brush into a narrow canyon, walled on one side by hills and with a drop of some fifteen feet on the other side into a ravine. Out of the ravine grew more brush so densely that it almost crowded the little trail out of existence.
Here it was necessary to go single file and Polly noticed how naturally Scott took the lead, leaving her to follow and Hard to bring up the rear. She noted with some amusement that it seemed characteristic of him to take the lead everywhere, just as it seemed quite in keeping with Hard’s easy-going nature to fall into the rear.
“And yet of the two Mr. Hard has the education and the brains,” thought the girl. “No, that’s not fair. I believe you can have just as good a brain without education—only you’re hampered in the use of it.Marc Scott has what the psychologists call ‘initiative.’ Oh, look!”
High up in the air a bird had flown out from among the tree-tops on the other side of the canyon—a big bird with wide spreading wings.
“It’s an eagle.”
“An eagle!” Polly was awed.
“There’s a nest up there somewhere,” said Scott, shading his eyes with his hand and peering upward. “Last year I was riding over this trail with Gomez, an Indian we had working for us. We were just about here when an eagle, a young one, flew out from the trees. Before I could speak, Gomez up with his gun and shot it.”
“Oh!”
“I wanted to kill the geezer—but Lord, what can you expect of an Indian?”
As they proceeded, Polly found herself riding closer to Scott, while Hard lagged behind. She was not displeased. Scott on horseback and in the woods was Scott at his best as she was beginning to know.
“I’m wondering,” she said, as the mare pushed her nose along the big bay’s flank, “how you know so much about the country. You aren’t a Westerner, are you?”
“Me? No, indeed. Born in New York State and raised in Michigan. Never laid eyes on anything west of the Mississippi until I came out to Colorado to work in the mines. Then I drifted into New Mexico and down here.” Scott was riding with his knee around the pommel and talking meditatively over his shoulder.
“You see, I’ve got mining in my blood. My grandfather was a Forty-Niner.”
“Did he get rich?” asked Polly, interestedly.
“Not so’s you’d notice it. Spent all he had and died trying to get home.”
“Oh!”
“Hard luck, wasn’t it? My folks went to Detroit when I was a little codger and they both died there. I was adopted by an uncle—an uncle who was the whitest man God ever made,” declared Scott, solemnly.
“Why was he—I mean, how was he?” Polly had by nature that healthy capacity for asking questions, which is one of the most flattering characteristics that a woman can have or assume.
“He was always doing decent things. Didn’t have much money, either, but somehow he always made it do for a lot of folks who didn’t have any. He adopted a girl that wasn’t any kin to him, had her educated and then married her. She made him a fine wife, too, thought the world of him. Well, he adopted me and sent me to school and when he saw I had the roving instinct and couldn’t stick to the books, he gave me a lift to go West to the mines. He knew that there was no use arguing.
“He was queer, too. Didn’t like city folks nor their ways. He owned one of those big farms out near what’s now Grosse Pointe—ran down to the river—and when the town began to grow out toward them, instead of holding on to his land as it began to get valuable, he’d sell out and go further away. Died,leaving Aunt Mary just enough to live comfortably on—might have been a millionaire. But Uncle Silas was a wise man.
“Sometimes when I look at these tight-fisted old guys who make their millions and tie ’em up into estates to hand down, and then remember Uncle Silas—not giving a hoot for money and always pulling along a dozen or two poor relations and setting ’em on their feet, living comfortable and happy, leaving a wife that’s as fond of him to-day as she was the day he died—well, I sort of wonder if money and success mean as much as folks think they do.”
Scott’s autobiography was halted by the view which met their eyes as they rounded the turn at the top of the canyon. Turning, the narrow trail wound its way around the mountainside until one looked down upon the tops of foothills, green with scrubby vegetation. Then it stretched in an irregular line down the mountainside, to disappear in their midst. Beyond lay another range of mountains.
“Back of that range and across the mesa is where Herrick’s place is,” said Scott, as they drew rein and waited for Hard to come along. Polly gazed in silence. It was the first view she had had of the wilder part of the country and it thrilled her.
Hard came up with them. “Don’t you think we’d better make a little speed when we hit the level?” he said.
“We’ve only crossed one stream since we started,” observed Polly.
“We cross another just before we get to Herrick’s,”said Hard, “but it never has much water in it except in the rainy season.”
“I’ve seen plenty in it then,” said Scott, laughing. “I was caught on the wrong side once when they’d had a cloudburst in the mountains. Oh boy, you should have seen her come down! Swept away a wagon with two horses and the Mexican who was driving it in just two minutes.”
“Oh, how could it—in two minutes?”
“Well, it could and did. Before that there wasn’t a foot of water in the river bed. When the water came thundering down there was eight or ten. Picked up trees, bushes, chicken coops, greasers—anything in its way, and whirled ’em down the canyon.”
It was the middle of the afternoon when they crossed the second range, which they did by means of a trail which went through a gap, thus cutting off the worst of the ascent. Once through the gap, they came out upon a huge mesa from which they looked down upon the valley in which Casa Grande was located. On the mesa, the tired horses broke into the little easy-going jog which mountain ponies love.
Scott watched Polly’s sparkling eyes with real gratification. He had chosen to go by trail rather than by road very largely that she might have this experience. He wanted her to see more of the country before she went back to the city and its ways.
“She’s a natural out-of-doors woman, and she’s never had the chance to find it out,” he mused. “Better than a golf course?” he asked, as they trotted across the broad mesa.
“Oh!” she cried, reproachfully. “It’s like the happy hunting grounds! I never understood before why the Indians called their Heaven that. It was because they were thinking of space and openness and freedom. I think it beats our kind of Heaven all hollow,” finished the cheerful product of 1920.
Finally they came out on the other side of the little river bed, which lay below the mesa and was entered by means of a rocky staircase, crossed a round-topped hill, and there, in a flat little valley surrounded by hills, the rear view of the Casa Grande ranch-house became visible. Two or three smaller buildings stood near it and a fence marked the corral.
CHAPTER XICASA GRANDE
There was a great stillness about the place; the whole panorama suggested a picture rather than an actuality, except for the white clouds sailing slowly about in the blue sky, and an occasional bird flying from one tree or bush to another.
“I don’t like things being so still,” said Scott. “Let’s push on.” Riding around to the front of the house—a long, narrow, adobe building, they came upon the first real sign of habitation; a brown hen, who, accompanied by her family, was scratching around the walk with an immense show of industry; while on the veranda sat two men. One was a white man; the other, a Chinese, dressed in the dark blue shirt and trousers of his people. As the newcomers dismounted, the white man came forward.
“Humph, it’s you!” he remarked, with evident relief. “Well, here is what is left of a once prosperous household.”
He was a little man, thin and wiry, with bushy brown hair and beard, and keen dark eyes. His hands, slender and with long white fingers, played nervously with a quirt which he held, apparently for no purpose than that those nervous members might have occupation.
“What’s happened?” demanded Scott. “How do, Li Yow?” as the Chinaman came forward smilingly to take the horses.
“All gone,” he said, blandly. “Laided. One hen, some shickens—notting else left.”
“Raided! Did that young rascal——” began Hard, when Herrick interrupted impatiently.
“Oh, he has been to you, too? He makes a clean sweep of it! He comes here at noon with a score, perhaps, of men; and if there is anything they do not take, it is because it is broken—like my wagon. Men, money, and stock—our neighbor is thorough and no mistake!”
“I was afraid of it,” said Scott. “He’s cleaning up the community. Herrick, I want you to know Bob Street’s sister, Miss Polly Street.” He added a few words of explanation of the girl’s presence. Herrick surveyed her with interest.
“You are unlucky to strike this country at such a time,” he said. “Unless you like experiences?”
“I do,” said Polly, promptly. “That’s why they’re sending me home.”
The little man smiled. “After all, most experience is worth while,” he said. “Sit down and rest—you will stay, all of you, won’t you? For the night? There is some food left.”
Scott and Li Yow walked away with the horses to the barn which stood not a great way from the house, surrounded by a good-sized corral. Polly sank into an easy chair which commanded through a window a view of a part of the living-room. She caught aglimpse of a grand piano, bright colored rugs, bookcases overflowing with books, and other evidences of comfort. Hard gave their host an account of the Athens hold-up, not forgetting the part Polly had played in it.
“I remembered,” he said, “that Li was a doctor, and thought perhaps you’d loan him to us for Jimmy. We don’t think much of the Conejo medico.”
“Himmel, no!” responded Herrick, quickly. “You shall have Li, of course.”
Polly leaned back with a little sigh of content. Herrick smiled.
“You are tired,” he said, “and by and by you will be chilly. Henry, as Li is busy, suppose you build up a fire in the living-room?”
Polly looked a bit surprised, but Hard laughed as he went into the house.
“Herrick never does any rough work,” he said, indulgently. “He has to take care of his hands.”
“So!” replied their host, “my fingers are my good friends, consequently I take good care of them. Why not? Some day I may need their services again.”
“I hope so,” said Polly, frankly. “I think it’s rather dreadful for an artist to bury himself in a place like this.”
“One does not bury oneself, my child, one rests and creates,” said the musician, gently. “Ah, here is Scott! He has been looking at my wagon.”
Scott tossed Polly her long cloak which she had left on her saddle.
“Yes, I took a look at the wagon, while Li turnedthe horses out,” he said. “I think I can patch it up so that we can drive to Athens in it. You see, Herrick, we’ve only got three horses and I have to send Li back on one of them to-night.”
“Can he make it—the horse?”
“With a little rest and a feed—if Li takes it easy. Of course, it’s not the way I like to treat my horses, but Jimmy’s leg is in a bad state.”
“Very well. You may have Li and also the wagon,” replied Herrick. “The more willingly because I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Of course. What is it?”
“I have a guest,” said the other, slowly. “A lady, from the South. She has had to leave her plantation and is on her way back to the United States. I had intended taking her to the border, but since you are sending this young lady——” He stopped, and Polly thought she saw a look of understanding pass between them.
“We’ll see her through, of course,” said Scott, readily. “Can she be ready to go in the morning?”
“I should think so,” replied the little man; “we will ask her.” To Polly’s disappointment, the talk passed on to the revolution and other political subjects, and nothing more was said about the mysterious guest. “If they’re going to tack a Mexican refugee to me, they might at least tell me something about her!” she thought.
In the meantime, Hard had entered the living-room and was examining the contents of the wood-box.
“Empty, of course!” he said, with a smile. “Thehousehold is quite evidently off its balance.” He went out through the kitchen and returned in a few minutes with a basket of logs from the wood-pile. As he re-entered the living-room, a woman—a tall, slender, graceful woman, with black hair and eyes, entered it from the hall. There was a moment’s silence and then the basket of wood dropped crashingly from Hard’s arms. The woman smiled.
“Henry!” she exclaimed, coming forward, both hands outstretched. “Henry! I heard your voice—I’d have known it anywhere, even if Victor hadn’t told me that you lived near here. You haven’t changed one bit in—how many years is it since I saw you?”
“Fifteen years, six months, and twenty-seven days, Clara,” replied the tall Bostonian, taking her hands and leading her to the light. Something in her easy, friendly manner had softened both the shock of the surprise and the embarrassment of the situation. He looked long into her face and then dropped her hands. She sank into a chair by the fireplace.
“It is a long time, isn’t it?” she said, smiling.
“No one would think so to look at you,” said Hard, sincerely. “You are the same Clara Mallory who went to Paris fifteen years ago to study music.” He picked up the basket of wood and proceeded to build the fire. She watched him, her eyes misty.
“Well, it’s odd that I haven’t changed for I’ve been through a lot,” she said, with a little smile. “And you?”
“Just the same easy-going, good-for-nothing chap, I reckon,” replied Hard.
“But this mining business? But, of course, you were educated for it at the Tech——”
“Yes, without much idea of using it.”
“But, being a Hard, you weren’t contented with doing nothing,” said Mrs. Conrad. “You know why I’m here, I suppose?”
“No. Herrick told me some time ago that you were living down near Mexico City—and that Dick Conrad had died, and how.”
Mrs. Conrad was silent for a moment. “Two years ago,” she said, quietly. “While he lived, we managed to hold down the plantation fairly well. He got on well with the government, and he organized the peons and fought off the bandits. Since then, things have gone rather badly; it takes a man to handle that kind of a situation. I’ve been raided six times in two years and my patience is almost gone.
“I wrote up here to Victor; he’s always been a good friend of mine—I studied with him in London, you know, and knew his wife well. He advised me to sell and go home. I didn’t take his advice about selling; I couldn’t get anything decent for the place right now, and I’ve a fairly good man running it for me. I have faith in this country and I intend to come back some day and go on with my plantation.”
“You always were plucky, Clara.” Hard touched a match to his fire. “But Mexico’s no place for you. Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Clara, frankly. “Back to the States, of course, but where and for what I don’t know. But I hope—my music.”
“Your music?”
“Victor says it’s not too late—but—well, perhaps. I’m out of the way of cities, and I’ve enough so that I don’t have to do anything, but—oh, I would love to be at it again!”
Hard smiled. “You will, Clara. You’re not an idler—as I am. You’ll be in the thick of it in no time.”
“Ah, you have found one another! I thought perhaps you would.” Herrick’s voice broke in upon their talk. He was followed by Polly and Scott, and introductions and explanations came naturally.
“It’s not a Mexican refugee, and it is the lady of the photograph!” Polly said to herself, triumphantly. “But it doesn’t look to me much like a love affair. They’ve got over it evidently.”
“So you also were raided by Juan Pachuca?” said Mrs. Conrad, as Scott seated himself beside her. The latter nodded.
“I happened to hear him talking to one of my men,” said Herrick, “and telling him that he had a rendezvous with Angel Gonzales, somewhere in the vicinity—not too near, I hope. I don’t want Angel Gonzales on my place; I’d rather entertain the devil.”
“What a queer name—Angel! Who is he?” asked Polly, curiously. She was beginning to realize, since she had gotten off her horse and relaxed into the comfort of an easy chair near the fire, how very tired she was.
“A young ruffian with a price on his head,” replied Herrick. “He’s half Indian and half Mexicanand they tell me that both halves are very bad indeed.”
“If Gonzales—by the way, Miss Polly, don’t mix him up with Pablo Gonzales who is a general of note and one of the candidates for the next presidency——” said Hard, laughing. “If Gonzales is trying to get in with the new party, he must have inside information that the revolution is going to be a success.”
“Well, its first work had better be to line Angel and a few more of his kind up against a wall and settle ’em with a firing squad,” said Scott.
“That’s what I think,” declared Mrs. Conrad. “I don’t put much faith in this regiment business. I think Pachuca has simply gone back to first principles and run amuck.”
“I don’t believe——” Polly stopped, consciously.
“Miss Polly thinks he’s a gentleman and that ends it,” said Scott, drily.
“She’s young, and the wretch has a way with him. I liked him myself when I was young and frivolous,” said Mrs. Conrad, cheerfully. “I’ve entertained him many a time in Mexico City. Suppose you go into my room, my dear, and have a nice rest and clean up while I go and help Li rustle us a dinner out of the remnants?” she continued, taking the girl by the hand.
“If Angel Gonzales is playing around this neighborhood, the sooner we get away the better,” said Scott to Hard as the three men were left together. “Come and cast your weather eye over the wagon. For aquiet part of the country, we seem to have struck a bad gait.”
It was nearly eight o’clock when they sat down to their dinner; a dinner contrived with Oriental thrift from materials scorned by the marauders.
“Give a Chinaman a handful of rice and a few vegetables and he’ll make you a feast, so my husband used to say,” remarked Mrs. Conrad. “You simply can’t starve them.”
“Li wants to start right after dinner,” said Scott.
“And ride all night?” asked Herrick.
“He says so. He says he knows the trail, and, of course, he’s got the moon.”
A little later, as they sat around the fire, they heard the sound of his horse’s feet on the stones and knew that the Chinaman had started.
Polly began to feel the charm of the quaint room, with its dim lighting, the low fire, the fantastic patterns of rug and basket showing faintly, and through the windows the mountains and the stars. As the conversation began to yield to the quiet of the place, Herrick went to the piano and played softly. It had never fallen to the lot of the girl to hear such music; the revelation of a man’s soul, poured out through an absolute mastery of the art. The little man, with the brown beard and the long nervous hands, sat hunched up in his low chair, knees crossed, eyes half closed, drawing from the keyboard the chords which carried to each one the message of his own heart.
Presently, Clara Conrad rose, and, standing back of the piano, leaning over it, her hands clasped, began tosing—softly and easily—her voice, a rich contralto, blending with Herrick’s small but exquisite baritone, in an old song. Polly looked at Hard, seated in a dim corner, his chin resting on his hand, his eyes fixed on the two at the piano. She wondered what he was thinking and what the woman meant to him. There was something almost too intimate about the whole scene and she was glad when Scott rose and went toward the door, speaking to her as he passed her.
“Want to see a pretty sight?” he said. She nodded and followed him out. For miles in front of them stretched the hilly country, dotted here and there in the half light by clumps of trees and bushes showing inky black in the night, while in the distance stretched the mountains, irregular, dark, and mysterious looking. Over all shone the moon, while the stars—but who can describe the stars in a desert country?
“Makes you feel like you’d never seen stars before, doesn’t it?” asked Scott, as the girl stood, drinking in the scene.
“Doesn’t it? So many, so bright and so twinkly! Do you know, I don’t wonder that Mrs. Conrad’s rather a wonderful woman—living all the time with this.”
“Well, she is, rather. She’s had a hard life, too; lots of trouble.”
“Wasn’t her husband—I mean, weren’t they happy together?” asked the girl.
“Why, yes, I guess they were,” replied Scott, cautiously. “I reckon they were like most married folks, rubbed along together pretty well.”
“But you said she’d had lots of trouble.”
Scott smiled. “And you made up your mind right off that it was a love affair, eh? You’re a good deal of a kid, aren’t you?”
Polly flushed. “I think you’re rather inconsiderate,” she said, crossly. “You start up my curiosity and then you make fun of me. I don’t think I like the way you treat me, most of the time.”
“I don’t think it’s fair, myself,” said Scott, penitently. “I suppose a girl brought up as you’ve been oughtn’t to be blamed for seeing a love affair behind every bush.”
“Why do you say brought up as I’ve been?”
“I mean having everything easy; everything done for you. No real hard knocks in life.”
“Oh, well, if that’s all, I’ll probably have hard knocks enough before I get through. Most people do, I’ve noticed,” replied Polly, easily. “I’ll probably marry somebody who’ll spend all his money and leave me eight children to support, or else I’ll die a rheumaticky old maid. Will that satisfy you?”
“Don’t talk that way,” said Scott, sharply. “It’s unlucky.”
“Unlucky? Are you superstitious?”
“No, but I’ve noticed that people who are always expecting bad luck usually get it. I’d hate to have you——” he stopped, and Polly caught a look in his eyes that startled her.
“Die a rheumaticky old maid?” she said, nervously. “Well, I don’t want to, either, but it seems to me that the number of people who get out of this world withouta lot of trouble of some kind or other is a pretty small one, so you needn’t begrudge me a few years of easy going. What was Mrs. Conrad’s trouble?”
“She’s had a good deal of it first and last, but I was thinking of her husband’s death, two years ago.”
“Did you know her then?”
“Me? No, indeed, I never met her before to-night, but Hard told me, and so did Herrick. I don’t reckon Hard would mind my telling you her story, now you’ve met her. You see, he and she were young folks together in Boston. I guess they sort of played at being in love with each other, like young folks do. Then her father died, and left her with hardly anything, and that woke ’em up. It made things look more serious.
“Hard wanted to marry her, but she wouldn’t. She had a voice and she wanted a career; so she went to Europe. That’s where she met Herrick and took lessons of him. Then, suddenly, instead of going on the stage, she married one of those floating Englishmen. Met him in Paris, married him, and came over here with him.”
“Didn’t she care for Mr. Hard?”
“Well, it’s pretty hard sometimes to know who a woman does care for,” said Scott, candidly. “But if she did, she must have got over it. Or maybe she got tired of the singing business and took Conrad in a fit of the blues. I’ve known ’em to do that.”
“Men, I suppose, never marry for reasons of that sort!”
“Men? Lord, yes, men’ll do anything—most of ’em,” grinned Scott, cheerfully. “We’re a rum lot.Anyhow, Mrs. Conrad married her Englishman and came over to the coffee plantation with him. I guess they had some trouble like everybody else has had these last few years, but they managed to weather it. Then, about two years ago, they went on a hunting trip, up in the mountains, just the two of them and a Mexican boy. While they were there, Conrad shot himself while he was cleaning his gun.”
“Oh!”
“It was hopeless from the first and she knew it, but she stayed alone with him and sent the boy back to the ranch for a doctor. He died while they were there alone.”
Polly’s eyes had tears in them. She was staring wistfully at the mountains. “I’m trying to think what it would mean—being up there, alone, with someone you loved who was dying,” she said at last. “No wonder little things don’t bother a woman who’s been through a thing like that.”
“Yes, it’s those things that make character, I guess,” said Scott, thoughtfully. “Or break it.”
“Hasn’t Mr. Hard ever been down there to see her?”
“No, there’s a proud streak in Hard—or maybe he’s got over his feeling for her. He never would let her know he was in the country. I rather guess Herrick planned this.”
“I wonder? Oh, what is it? What do you see?” she cried, as she noticed that Scott’s attention was no longer on her, but was fastened upon the dark foothills which rose between them and the mountains.
“I don’t know; wish I had my glasses! Looks to me like fellows riding—do you see ’em? Over there, coming through that darkish spot between the foothills? Wonder if we’re in for another row?”
“No—yes, it is! Coming this way!”
“Go in and tell them to put out the lights and stop that noise quick!” Scott’s voice was hard and sharp. Polly darted into the house. Scott strained his eyes to watch the party of riders racking recklessly down the dark roadway from the hills. “It can’t be Pachuca!” he muttered. “He wouldn’t come back. It must be that damned young Angel. Well, I guess we’re in for trouble before daybreak.”
“What is it?” Hard was at his elbow. Scott turned and saw that the house was dark.
“It’s a bunch on horseback—see, over yonder? They’re making good time; they’ll be on us in half a minute. Where’s Herrick?”
“Getting the rifles. Where are the horses?”
“In the pasture, up by the river. They’ll not find them in a hurry.”
“Hadn’t we better have the women go up there, too?” said Hard, anxiously.
“I don’t believe so. If they’re bound for us, there’s no time. I think——”
“Mr. Scott,” Clara Conrad’s voice came softly from the dark doorway, “if that’s Angel Gonzales why can’t we all go——”
“I don’t know who it is, and the moon’s too strong out there—they’d spot you in a minute.”
“But we can’t sit here and do nothing!”
“You can do as you please.” Scott’s voice was ugly with the ugliness of strained nerves. “I say stick to shelter while you’ve got it.” He drew his revolver as he spoke and examined it.
“They’re coming fast.” Hard’s voice was tense. Herrick carrying three rifles came out.
“Get inside—everybody!” ordered Scott. The party had turned in from the road and were dashing toward them. Mrs. Conrad and Polly were already in the house. The men followed. “They ride like Indians, Hard; I believe it’s Yaquis on the warpath!” He and Hard stationed themselves at the open windows in the darkness. “I’m for waiting till they attack us; what do you think?”
“Yes. Let them make the first move.”
The intruders were at the gate. Now they swept in, a couple of score of them. They whirled and made for the barn.
“They’re Indians, all right,” whispered Scott. “They’re after the horses.”
The silence was complete for a few seconds, the women obediently crouching in the darkest corner scarcely seeming to breathe, Scott and Hard, hidden behind the light curtains, keeping their eyes fixed upon the swiftly moving figures outside, Herrick standing just within the doorway. Suddenly, cries broke the stillness. Two of the Yaquis who had entered the barn came out with the news. The yells were of rage.
“No horses!” grinned Scott. “Their feelings are hurt. Here’s where the play begins.”
“They’re firing the barn,” said Hard, grimly.
They were. It blazed like a child’s bonfire and the shouts and curses of the disappointed Yaquis rose with the flames.
In another moment the Indians had ridden toward the house. Polly, who in spite of orders, had crept toward the window saw them in amazement. Between the moon and the light of the blazing barn, they were distinctly visible.
“But they can’t be Indians!” she exclaimed, at Scott’s elbow. “They’re just like our Mexicans!”
“Did you expect them to wear scalp locks? Get out of range, quick! Hard, cover the second chap, there. I’m going to give the first boy a shock. They’ll be in here in half a minute if I don’t.”
His shot rang out and the bullet flew over the Indian’s head. It was close enough to make him pull his horse to its haunches while those behind him did the same.
“While I’m talking to him, you women slide out the back door,” muttered Scott, hurriedly. “Make for the stream and the horses while they’re watching us. Hello, out there, what do you want?” he said in Spanish.
Mrs. Conrad gripped Polly’s arm. “Come!” she said.
“We can’t!” demurred the girl. “We can’t leave them like this.”
“Come!” repeated Clara, angrily. “Do you want to fall into their hands?” Polly, too frightened by her tone to resist, crept softly behind her. They heard the Indian at whom Scott had fired answer. To Polly itmeant nothing, but Clara’s ears, accustomed to the tongue, caught an angry demand for horses, food and money.
“We haven’t any of those things. We’ve just been raided—cleaned out—we’re as poor as you are,” was Scott’s reply. The Indians conferred together. “It’s a question of whether they think we’re lying or not,” said Scott, drily.
“Exactly. And they have unfortunately every reason to believe that a white man usually is,” replied Hard. “What’s the play if they come at us?”
“Shoot as many as we can,” said Scott. “They’ll do the rest. That’s why I sent the women off.”
“I thought so. Well, here goes. I ought to be able to get a couple before I cash in though I’m not considered very dangerous with firearms,” replied Hard, calmly, though his heart was registering something approaching acute blood pressure.
From the leader came in angry Spanish: “We don’t believe you! We’ll come and get it.”
“Come on!” yelled Herrick. Instantly, a dozen Yaquis were off their horses and running toward the house, shooting as they came. As instantly, two of the leaders fell in the path of the others.
“Good boy, Herrick!” cried Scott. “Let ’em have it again!” he yelled, as the Indians, halted for a moment by the fall of their men, came on again. The shots rang out again but this time no one fell. Hard felt something sing by him in the darkness and thanked God that the women were not there. Herrick rushed over for more cartridges.
“They’re coming!” he shouted, excitedly.
“Let ’em come. Some of ’em are coming to something they won’t like,” growled Scott. “Look out—in the doorway!”
Two Indians had burst their way into the house, but disconcerted by its utter darkness after the moonlight outside, paused a moment to get their bearings. Scott, Hard and Herrick shot with one accord. One Indian came on; the other uttered a cry of pain; then both dashed outside for the shelter of the veranda. There was silence; the Indians hesitating in doubt as to their companions’ fate, the white men uncertain as to what form the attack would take next.
“Are the women gone?” Herrick called softly.
“Yes,” replied Hard. “Are you all right?”
“So. They whistle through my hair but they do not touch me,” replied the musician, cheerfully.
“Here they come!” cried Scott, impatiently. “Watch your shots!”
The Indians were coming, and coming in a body.
“Gosh, it’s going to be all day with us in half a minute!” gasped Scott. “Let ’em have it as hard as you can, boys. We may be able to hold ’em long enough to give the women a chance to get the horses.”
Hard clenched his teeth and bent his eye on his rifle. In another moment the invaders would be upon them—when, sharp and decisive came the sound of shots; shots from among the foothills, followed by yells. There was a cry from the Indian who led the rush; a wavering of the line; and a stop. They broke into loud talk. In the meantime, the shots and yellscontinued. They seemed to come from two directions.
“There’s another crowd back in the hills. They’ve got another fight on their hands,” muttered Scott, listening. “It’s a flank attack and these fellows don’t like it.”
“If it is——”
“It is. Hear that!”
There were more yells; the Yaquis outside flung themselves into their saddles and in another moment the two wounded men lying near the windows were all that remained of the attack.
“By golly, I’ve heard of luck before, but this is a case of the pure and unadulterated article,” said Scott, awed.
Hard did not reply. He was taking a deep breath—the first in several minutes. Herrick whistled cheerfully.
“Unless it’s Angel Gonzales,” continued Scott, pensively. “In that case it’s a question of ‘Go it, old woman; go it, b’ar.’”
“Let’s go after the horses and the women,” said Hard. “The quicker we hit the trail for home the better my circulation’s going to be. I think the Hards must have deteriorated considerably since the battle of Lexington. I’m getting to be a regular old woman.”
Scott laughed. “You’re a pretty good pal in a fight, old man,” he said, simply. “I think you winged one of those birds outside. Shall we go and have a look?”
“Not I,” replied Hard, decidedly. “It’s unpleasantenough to me to kill a man without pawing him over afterward.”
Scott went outside and looked over the victims of the fight.
“Dead, both of them,” he said, briefly. “Come on, let’s get out of this before their friends come back.” And to the sounds of yells and shots in the distance they made their way toward the stream.