PART V

CHAPTER XVIII

There was an atmosphere of happiness and bustle in the house when the night of the outing came. Harboro easily managed a half-holiday (it was a Saturday), and he had ample time to make careful selection of horses for Sylvia and himself at an Eagle Pass stable. He would have preferred a carriage, but Sylvia had assumed that they would ride, and she plainly preferred that mode of travel. She had been an excellent horsewoman in the old San Antonio days.

Old Antonia was drawn out of her almost trance-like introspection. The young señora was excited, as a child might have been, at the prospect of a long ride through the chaparral, and she must not be disappointed. She had fashioned a riding-habit and a very charming little jacket, and to these the old woman made an addition of her own—a wonderfulrebozo. She brought it forth from among her own possessions and offered it affectionately.

“But shall I need it?” asked Sylvia.

Very surely she might, she was assured. She would not wish to dance in her riding costume, certainly. And it might turn chilly after nightfall. She would find that other young women had such garments to protect them. And this particularrebozowas quite wonderful. She pointed out its wonderful qualities. It was of so delicate a weave that it might have been thrust into a man’s pocket; yet, unfolded, it proved to be of the dimensions of a blanket. And there was warmth in it. She folded it neatly and explained how it might be tied to the pommel of the saddle. It would not be in the way.

Sylvia affected much gratitude for such kindness and foresight, though she thought it unlikely that she would need a wrap of any sort.

There was an early supper, Antonia contributing a quite unprecedented alacrity; and then there was a cheerful call from the road. The horses had been brought.

Sylvia ran out to inspect them; and Harboro, following, was not a little amazed to perceive how important a matter she consideredthe sort of horses he had engaged. Horses were not a mere medium of travel to Sylvia; they were persons in the drama, and it was highly important that they should fit into the various romantic demands of the occasion. Harboro had stipulated that they should be safe horses, of good appearance; and the boy from the stable, who had brought them, regarded them with beaming eyes when Harboro examined them. The boy evidently looked at the affair much as Sylvia did—as if the selection of the horse was far more important than the determining of a destination.

“They seem to be all right,” ventured Harboro.

“Yes, they are very good horses,” agreed Sylvia; but she sighed a little.

Then there was the clatter of hoofs down the road, and Valdez appeared. He, too, bestrode a decidedly prosaic-appearing animal; but when Harboro exclaimed: “Ah, it’s Valdez!” Sylvia became more interested in the man than in the horse. It would be a pity to have as companion on a long ride a man without merits. She was not very favorably impressed by Valdez. The manacknowledged his introduction to her too casually. There were no swift, confidential messages in his eyes. He seemed to be there for the purpose of devoting himself to Harboro, not to her.

Antonia came out to be sure that the cherishedrebozowas tied to the pommel of Sylvia’s saddle, and then Harboro and Sylvia went back into the house to get into their riding things. When they returned Harboro lifted her to her saddle with a lack of skill which brought a frown to her brows. But if she regretted the absence of certain established formalities in this performance, she yielded herself immediately to the ecstasy of being in the saddle. She easily assumed a pretty and natural attitude which made Harboro marvel at her.

She watched when it came time for him to mount. The horse moved uneasily, as horses have done since the beginning of time beneath the touch of unpractised riders. Harboro gathered the reins in too firm a grip, and the animal tried to pull away from him.

The boy from the stable sprang forward. “Let me hold his head,” he said, with a too obvious intimation that Harboro needed help.

“Never mind,” said Harboro crisply; and he achieved his place in the saddle by sheer force rather than by skill. Neither did he fall into an easy position; though under ordinary circumstances this fact would not have been noted. But Sylvia swiftly recalled the picture of a dun horse with golden dapples, and of a rider whose very attitude in the saddle was like a hymn of praise. And again she sighed.

She had seen Runyon often since the afternoon on which he had made his first appearance on the Quemado Road. Seemingly, his duties took him out that way often; and he never passed without glancing toward Sylvia’s window—and looking back again after he had passed. Nor had he often found that place by the window vacant. In truth, it was one of Sylvia’s pleasures in those days to watch Runyon ride by; and the afternoon seemed unduly filled with tedium when he failed to appear.

The little picture in front of Harboro’s house dissolved. The three riders turned their horses’ heads to the north and rodeaway. Antonia stood at the gate an instant and looked after them; but she did not derive any pleasure from the sight. It was not a very gallant-appearing group. Sylvia was riding between the two men, and all three were moving away in silence, as if under constraint. The stable-boy went somewhat dispiritedly back along the way he had come.

Sylvia was the first of the three riders to find herself. There were certain things which made the springs of gladness within her stir. The road was perfect. It stretched, smooth and white, away into the dusk. The air was clear as on a mountain top, with just enough crispness to create energy. Of wind there was scarcely a breath.

She was not pleased at all with Harboro’s friend. He had assumed the attitude of a deferential guide, and his remarks were almost entirely addressed to Harboro. But she was not to be put out by so small a part of the night’s programme. After all, Valdez was not planning to return with them, and they were likely to have the ride back by themselves. Valdez, she had been informed, was to be a sort of best friend to the familyof the bride, and it would be his duty to remain for the next day’s ceremonies—the feasting and the marriage itself.

The dusk deepened, and a new light began to glow over the desert. A waxing moon, half-full, rode near the zenith; and as the light of day receded it took on a surprising brilliance. The road seemed in some strange way to be more clearly defined than under the light of day. It became a winding path to happiness. It began to beckon; to whisper of the delights of swift races, of coquetries. It bade the riders laugh aloud and fling their cares away. Occasionally it rose or dipped; and then through little valleys between sand-dunes, or from low summits, the waters of the Rio Grande were visible away to the left. A mist was clinging to the river, making more mysterious its undisturbed progress through the desert.

After a long time the silence of the road was broken by the tinkle of a small bell, and Valdez pulled his horse in and looked sharply away into a mesquite-clad depression. Of old the road had been haunted by night-riders who were willing enough to ride awaywith a traveller’s possessions, leaving the traveller staring sightlessly toward the sky. But Valdez thought of no menaces in connection with the border folk. He was a kind-hearted fellow, to whom all men were friends.

“Travellers, or a party camped for the night,” he said interestedly, as if the presence of other human beings must be welcomed gladly. He rode out toward the sound of that tinkling bell, and in a moment he was guided more certainly by the blaze of a camp-fire.

Harboro and Sylvia followed, and presently they were quite near to two quaint old carts, heaped high with mesquite fagots destined for the humbler hearths of Eagle Pass. Donkeys were tethered near by, and two Mexicans, quite old and docile in appearance, came forward to greet the intruders.

Valdez exchanged greetings with them. He knew something of the loneliness of these people’s lives, and the only religion he had was a belief that one must be friendly to travellers. He produced a flask and invited the old men to drink; and each did sowith much nice formality and thoroughly comprehensive toasts to Harboro and Sylvia.

Then Valdez replaced his flask in his pocket.

“God go with you!” he called as he went away, and “God go with you!” came back the placid, kindly echo.

And Sylvia realized suddenly that it was a very good thing indeed to be riding along that golden road through the desert.

CHAPTER XIX

Harboro became aware that some one was staring almost insolently at Sylvia.

They were seated on one of the benches disposed around the side of the stockade, and there was a great deal of noise all about them. In the open space of the stockade a score or more of young men and women were dancing to the music of violins and flutes and ’cellos. Nearly all who were not dancing were talking or laughing. People who did not see one another for months at a time were meeting and expressing their pleasure in staccato showers of words.

There were other noises in the near-by corral, in which Valdez had put their horses away with the other horses; and in still another place the work of barbecuing large quantities of meat had begun. A pleasant odor from the fire and the meat floated fitfully over the stockade. There was still an almost singular absence of wind, and the night was warm for a midwinter night.

Valdez was remaining for the time being with his guests, and he was making friendly comments upon the scene.

“It’s chiefly the young people who are dancing now,” he observed. “But you’ll notice men and women of all ages around in the seats. They will become intoxicated with the joy of it all—and maybe with other things—later in the night, and then the dancing will begin in earnest.”

For the moment an old type of fandango was being danced—a dance not wholly unlike a quadrille, in that it admitted a number of persons to the set and afforded opportunity for certain individual exhibitions of skill.

And then Harboro, glancing beyond Valdez, observed that a man of mature years—a Mexican—was regarding Sylvia fixedly. He could not help believing that there was something of insolence, too, in the man’s gaze.

He lowered his voice and spoke to Valdez: “That man sitting by himself over there, the fourth—the fifth—from us. Do you know him?”

Valdez turned casually and seemed to be taking in the general scene. He brought his glance back to Harboro without seeming to have noticed anything in particular.

“That’s one of your most—er—conspicuous citizens,” he said with a smile. “His name is Mendoza—Jesus Mendoza. I’m surprised you’ve never met him.”

“I never have,” replied Harboro. He got up and took a new position so that he sat between Sylvia and Mendoza, cutting off the view of her.

She had caught the name. She glanced interestedly at the man called Jesus Mendoza. She could not remember ever to have seen him before; but she was curious to know something about the man whose wife had been kind to her, and whose life seemed somehow tragically lonely.

Mendoza made no sign of recognition of Harboro’s displeasure. He arose with a purposeless air and went farther along the stockade wall. Sylvia’s glance followed him. She had not taken in the fact that the man’s presence, or anything that he had done, had annoyed Harboro. She was wondering whatkind of man it was who had captivated and held the woman who had filled her boudoir with passionate music, and who knew how to keep an expressionless mask in place so skilfully that no one on the border really knew her.

The fandango came to an end, and the smooth earth which constituted the floor of the enclosure was vacated for an instant. Then the musicians began a favorite Mexican waltz, and there was a scurrying of young men and women for places. There was an eager movement along the rows of seats by young fellows who sought partners for the waltz. Custom permitted any man to seek any disengaged woman and invite her to dance with him.

“We ought to find Wayne and pay our respects,” suggested Valdez. “He will want to meet Mrs. Harboro, too, of course. Shall we look for him?”

They skirted the dancing space, leaving Sylvia with the assurance that they would soon return. Harboro was noting, with a relief which he could scarcely understand, that he was among strangers. The peopleof Eagle Pass were almost wholly unrepresented as yet. The few Americans present seemed to be casual sightseers or ranchmen neighbors of the bridegroom.

Left alone, Sylvia looked eagerly and a little wistfully toward the dancers. Her muscles were yielding to the call of the violins. She was being caught by the spirit of the occasion. Here she would have been wholly in her element but for a vague fear that Harboro would not like her to yield unrestrainedly to the prevailing mood. She wished some one would ask her to dance. The waltz was wonderful, and there was plenty of room.

And then she looked up as a figure paused before her, and felt a thrill of interest as she met the steady, inquiring gaze of Jesus Mendoza.

“Mrs. Harboro, I believe?” he asked. The voice was musical and the English was perfect. He shrewdly read the glance she gave him and then held out his hand.

“I heard you spoken of as Mr. Mendoza,” she replied. “Your wife has been very kind to me.” She did not offer to make roomfor him on the seat beside her. She had been relieved of her riding-habit, and she held Antonia’srebozoacross her knees. She had decided not to use it just yet. The night was still comfortably warm and she did not like to cover up the pretty Chinese silk frock she was wearing. But as Mendoza glanced down at her she placed therebozoover one arm as if she expected to rise.

Mendoza must have noted the movement. A gleam of satisfaction shone in his inscrutable eyes—as when a current of air removes some of the ash from above a live coal. “Will you dance with me?” he asked. “When the young fellows overlook so charming a partner, surely an old man may become bold.”

She arose with warm responsiveness, yet with undefined misgivings. He had an arm about her firmly in an instant, and when they had caught step with the music he held her close to him. He was an excellent dancer. Sylvia was instantly transported away from the world of petty discretions into a realm of faultless harmony, of singing rhythm.

Her color was heightened, her eyes were sparking, when they returned to their place. “It was nice,” she said, releasing her partner’s arm and drawing apart. A purple-and-gold Chinese lantern glowed just above her head. And then she realized that Harboro and Valdez had returned. There was a stranger with them.

Harboro regarded her with unmistakable disapproval; but only for an instant. When something of the childlike glory of her face departed under the severe expression of his eyes, he relented immediately. “Are you enjoying yourself, Sylvia?” he inquired gently, and then: “I want you to meet our host.”

Wayne shook hands with her heartily. “You’re a very kind lady to get right into our merrymaking,” he said, “though I hope you’ll save a dance for me a little later.”

They all went to see the bride-to-be then. She was hidden away in one of theadobehouses of the settlement near by, receiving congratulations from friends. She was a dark little creature, nicely demure and almost boisterously joyous by turns.

But later Sylvia danced with Wayne,and he thought of a dozen, a score, of young fellows who would wish to meet her. He brought them singly and in groups, and they all asked to dance with her. She was immediately popular. Happiness radiated from her, and she added to the warmth of every heart that came within her influence.

Harboro watched her with wonder. She was like a flame; but he saw her as a sacred flame.

CHAPTER XX

Sylvia was resting. She had not danced to her heart’s content, but she had become weary, and she threw Antonia’srebozoover her shoulders and leaned back in her seat. For the moment Harboro and Valdez and Wayne were grouped near her, standing. The girl Wayne was to marry the next day had made her formal appearance now and was the centre of attention. She was dancing with one after another, equally gracious toward all.

Then Sylvia heard Valdez and Wayne cry out simultaneously:

“Runyon!”

And then both men hurried away toward the entrance to the stockade.

Sylvia drew her wrap more snugly about her. “Runyon!” she repeated to herself. She closed her eyes as if she were pondering—or recuperating. And she knew that from the beginning she had hoped that Runyon would appear.

“It’s that inspector fellow,” explained Harboro, without looking at her. His tone was not at all contemptuous, though there was a note of amusement in it. “He seems a sort of Prince Charming that everybody takes a liking to.” Wayne and Valdez were already returning, with Runyon between them. They pretended to lead him captive and his face radiated merriment and good nature. He walked with the elasticity of a feline creature; he carried his body as if it were the depository of precious jewels. Never was there a man to whom nature had been kinder—nor any man who was more graciously proud of what nature had done for him. For the occasion he was dressed in a suit of fawn-colored corduroy which fitted him as the rind fits the apple.

“Just a little too much so,” Harboro was thinking, ambiguously enough, certainly, as Runyon was brought before him and Sylvia. Runyon acknowledged the introduction with a cheerful urbanity which was quite without discrimination as between Harboro and Sylvia. Quite impartially he bestowed a flashing smile upon both the man and thewoman. And Harboro began vaguely to understand. Runyon was popular, not because he was a particularly good fellow, but because he was so supremely cheerful. And he seemed entirely harmless, despite the glamour of him. After all, he was not a mere male coquette. He was in love with the world, with life.

Wayne was reproaching him for not having come sooner. He should have been there for the beginning, he said.

And Runyon’s response was characteristic enough, perhaps: “Everything is always beginning.”

There was gay laughter at this, though the meaning of it must have been obscure to all save Sylvia. The words sounded like a song to her. It was a song she had wished to sing herself. But she was reflecting, despite her joy in the saying: “No, everything is always ending.”

Runyon was borne away like a conqueror. He mingled with this group and that. His presence was like a stimulant. His musical voice penetrated everywhere; his laughter arose now and again. He did not look backtoward Sylvia. She had the strange feeling that even yet they had not met—they had not met, yet had known each other always. He ignored her, she felt, as one ignores the best friend, the oldest associate, on the ground that no explanations are necessary, no misunderstanding possible.

Harboro sat down beside Sylvia. When he spoke there was a note of easy raillery in his voice. “They’re getting him to sing,” he said, and Sylvia, bringing her thoughts back from immeasurable distances, realized that the dancing space had been cleared, and that the musicians had stopped playing and were engaged in a low-spoken conference with Runyon. He nodded toward them approvingly and then stepped out into the open, a little distance from them.

The very sky listened; the desert became dumb. The orchestra played a prelude and then Runyon began to sing. The words came clear and resonant:

“By the blue Alsatian mountains

Dwelt a maiden young and fair....”

Runyon sang marvellously. Although he was accustomed to the confines of drawing-roomswith low ceilings, he seemed quite at home on this earthen floor of the desert, with the moon sinking regretfully beyond the top of the stockade. He was perfectly at ease. His hands hung so naturally by his sides that they seemed invisible.

“But the blue Alsatian mountains

Seem to watch and wait alway.”

The song of a woman alone, and then another, “A Warrior Bold,” and then “Alice, Where Art Thou?” And finally “Juanita.” They were songs his audience would appreciate. And all those four songs of tragedy he sang without banishing the beaming smile from his eyes. He might have been relating the woes of marionettes.

He passed from the scene to the sound of clapping hands, and when he returned almost immediately after that agreeable theatrical exit, he began to dance. He danced with the bride-to-be, and then with the bridesmaids. He found obscure girls who seemed to have been forgotten—who might be said to have had no existence before he found them—and danced with them with natural gallantry. He came finally to Sylvia, andshe drifted away with him, her hand resting on his shoulder like a kiss.

“I thought you would never come to me,” she said in a lifeless voice.

“You knew I would,” was the response.

Her lips said nothing more. But her heart was beating against him; it was speaking to him with clarity, with eloquence.

PART VA WIND FROM THE NORTH

CHAPTER XXI

Harboro and Sylvia were taking leave of Wayne and Valdez. Their horses had been brought and they were in their saddles, their horses’ heads already in the direction of Eagle Pass. Valdez was adding final instructions touching the road.

“If you’re not quite sure of the way I’ll get some one to ride in with you,” said Wayne; but Harboro would not listen to this.

“I’ll not lose the way,” he declared; though there remained in his mind a slight dubiousness on this point. The moon would be down before the ride was finished, and there were not a few roads leading away from the main thoroughfare.

Then, much to Harboro’s surprise, Runyon appeared, riding away from the corral on his beautiful dun horse. He overheard the conference between Harboro and the others, and he made himself one of the group with pleasant familiarity.

“Ah, Harboro, must you be going, too?” he inquired genially; and then: “If you don’t mind, I’ll ride with you. It’s rather a lonely road at this hour, and I’ve an idea I know the way better than you.”

Harboro’s eyes certainly brightened with relief. “It’s good of you to offer,” he declared heartily. “By all means, ride with us.” He turned toward Sylvia, plainly expecting her to second the invitation.

“It will be much pleasanter,” she said; though it seemed to Harboro that her words lacked heartiness. She was busying herself with the little package at her pommel—old Antonia’srebozo.

“And you must all remember that there’s one more latch-string out here at the Quemado,” said Wayne, “whenever you feel inclined to ride this way.”

They were off then. The sound of violins and the shuffle of feet became faint, and the last gay voice died in the distance. Only now and then, when the horses’ feet fell in unison, there drifted after them the note of a violin—like a wind at night in an old casement. And then the three riders werepresently aware of being quite alone on a windless waste, with a sentinel yucca standing on a distant height here and there between them and the descending moon, and distant groups of mesquite wreathing themselves in the silver mist of early morning. It had been a little past midnight when they left the Quemado.

Sylvia, riding between the two men, was so obviously under some sort of constraint that Harboro sought to arouse her. “I’m afraid you overtaxed yourself, Sylvia,” he suggested. “It’s all been pleasant, but rather—heroic.” It was an effort for him to speak lightly and cheerfully. The long ride out to the Quemado was a thing to which he was not accustomed, and the merrymaking had seemed to him quite monotonous after an hour or two. Even the midnight supper had not seemed a particularly gay thing to him. He was not quite a youth any more, and he had never been young, it seemed to him, in the way in which these desert folk were young. Joy seemed to them a kind of intoxication—as if it were not to be indulged in save at long intervals.

“I didn’t overtax myself,” replied Sylvia. “The ending of things is never very cheerful. I suppose that’s what I feel just now—as if, at the end, things don’t seem quite worth while, after all.”

Harboro held to his point. “Youaretired,” he insisted.

Runyon interposed cheerfully. “And there are always the beginnings,” he said. “We’re just beginning a new day and a fine ride.” He looked at Harboro as if inviting support and added, in a lower tone: “And I’d like to think we were beginning a pleasant acquaintance.”

Harboro nodded and his dark eyes beamed with pleasure. It had seemed to him that this final clause was the obvious thing for Runyon to say, and he had waited to see if he would say it. He did not suppose that he and Sylvia would see a great deal of Runyon in Eagle Pass, where they were not invited to entertainments of any kind, but there might be occasional excursions into the country, and Runyon seemed to be invited everywhere.

But Sylvia refused to respond to this.The pagan in her nature reasserted itself, and she felt resentful of Runyon’s affable attitude toward Harboro. The attraction which she and Runyon exerted toward each other was not a thing to be brought within the scope of a conventionally friendly relationship. Its essence was of the things furtive and forbidden. It should be fought savagely and kept within bounds, even if it could never be conquered, or it should be acknowledged and given way to in secret. Two were company and three a crowd in this case. She might have derived a great deal of tumultuous joy from Runyon’s friendship for her if it could have been manifested in secret, but she could feel only a sense of duplicity and shame if his friendship included Harboro, too. The wolf does not curry favor with the sheep-dog when it hungers for a lamb. Such was her creed. In brief, Sylvia had received her training in none of the social schools. She was a daughter of the desert—a bit of that jetsam which the Rio Grande leaves upon its arid banks as it journeys stealthily to the sea.

They were riding along in silence half anhour later, their horses at a walk, when the stillness of the night was rudely shattered by the sound of iron wheels grinding on stone, and in an instant a carriage could be seen ascending a branch road which arose out of a near-byarroyo.

The riders checked their horses and waited: not from curiosity, but in response to the prompting of a neighborly instinct. Travellers in the desert are never strangers to one another.

The approaching carriage proved to be an impressively elegant affair, the locality considered, drawn by two horses which were clearly not of the range variety. And then further things were revealed: a coachman sat on the front seat, and a man who wore an air of authority about him like a kingly robe sat alone on the back seat. Then to Harboro, sitting high with the last rays of the moon touching his face, came the hearty hail: “Harboro! How are you, Harboro?”

It was the voice of the General Manager.

Harboro turned his horse so that he stood alongside the open carriage. He leaned over the wheel and shook hands with theGeneral Manager. The encounter seemed to him to add the one desirable touch of familiarity to the night ride. He explained his presence away out on the Quemado Road; and the General Manager also explained. He had been spending the evening with friends on a near-by ranch. His family were remaining for the night, but it had been necessary for him to return to Piedras Negras.

Harboro looked about for his companions, intending to introduce them. But they were a little too far away to be included comfortably in such a ceremony. For some reason Runyon had chosen to ride on a few steps.

“How many are you?” inquired the General Manager, with a note of purposefulness in his voice. “Three? That’s good. You get in with me. Tie your horse behind. Two can ride abreast more comfortably than three, and you and I can talk. I’ve never felt so lonesome in my life.” He moved over to one side of the seat, and looked back as if he expected to help in getting Harboro’s horse tied behind the carriage. His invitation did not seem at all like a command,but it did seem to imply that a refusal would be out of the question.

The arrangement seemed quite simple and desirable to Harboro. He was not a practised horseman, and he was beginning to feel the effect of saddle strain. Moreover, he had realized a dozen times during the past hour that two could ride easily side by side on the desert road, while a third rider was continually getting in the way.

He called to Runyon cheerfully: “You two go on ahead—I’m going to ride the rest of the way in.”

“Fine!” called back Runyon. To Runyon everything always seemed precisely ideal—or at least such was the impression he created.

It became a little cavalcade now, the riders leading the way. Riders and carriage kept close together for a time. Sylvia remained silent, but she felt the presence of her companion as a deliciously palpable thing. Harboro and the General Manager were talking, Harboro’s heavy tones alternating at unequal intervals with the crisp, penetrating voice of the General Manager—a voice dry with years, but vital nevertheless.

After a time the horses in the carriage broke into a rhythmic trot. In the darkness Runyon’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “We’ll have to have a little canter, or we’ll get run over,” he said gayly, and he and Sylvia gave rein to their horses.

In a very few minutes they had put a distance of more than a hundred yards between them and the occupants of the carriage.

“This is more like it!” exclaimed Runyon exultantly. Tone and words alike implied all too strongly his satisfaction at being rid of Harboro—and Sylvia perversely resented the disloyalty of it, the implication of intrigue carried on behind a mask.

And then she forgot her scruples. The boy who had chosen her horse for her had known what he was doing, after all. The animal galloped with a dashing yet easy movement which was delightful. She became exhilarated by a number of things. The freedom of movement, the occasional touch of her knee against Runyon’s, the mysterious vagueness of the road, now that the moon had gone down.

Perhaps they both forgot themselves for a time, and then Sylvia checked her horse with a laugh in which there was a sound of dismay. “We ought to wait for them to catch up,” she said.

Runyon was all solicitude immediately. “We seem to have outdistanced them completely,” he said. They turned their horses about so that they faced the north. “I can’t even hear them,” he added. Then, with the irrepressible optimism which was his outstanding quality, he added laughingly: “They’ll be along in a few minutes. But wasn’t it a fine ride?”

She had not framed an answer to this question when her mind was diverted swiftly into another channel. She held her head high and her body became slightly rigid. She glanced apprehensively at Runyon and realized that he, too, was listening intently.

A faint roar which seemed to come from nowhere fell on their ears. The darkness swiftly deepened, so that the man and the woman were almost invisible to each other. That sinister roaring sound came closer, as if mighty waters were rolling toward themfar away. The northern sky became black, as if a sable curtain had been let down.

And then upon Sylvia’s startled senses the first breath of the norther broke. The little winds, running ahead as an advance-guard of the tempest, flung themselves upon her and caught at her hair and her riding-habit. They chilled her.

“A norther!” she exclaimed, and Runyon called back through the whistle of the winds: “It’s coming!”

His voice had the quality of a battle-cry, joined to the shouts of the descending storm.

CHAPTER XXII

Fortunately, Runyon knew what to do in that hour of earth’s desolation and his own and Sylvia’s peril.

He sprang from his horse and drew his bridle-rein over his arm; and then he laid a firm hand on the bridle of Sylvia’s horse. His own animal he could trust in such an emergency; but the other had seemed to lose in height and he knew that it was trembling. It might make a bolt for it at any moment.

“Keep your seat,” he shouted to Sylvia, and she realized that he was leading both horses away from the road. She caught glimpses of his wraith-like figure as the whirling dust-cloud that enveloped them thinned occasionally.

She knew that he had found a clump of mesquite after a faltering progress of perhaps fifty yards. Their progress was checked, then, and she knew he was at the hitching straps, and that he was tethering the animalsto the trees. The powdered dust and sand were stinging her face, and the cold wind was chilling her; yet she felt a strange elation as she realized that she was here alone with Runyon, and that he was managing the situation with deftness and assurance.

She felt his hand groping for her then, and, leaning forward, she was borne to the ground. He guided her to a little depression and made her understand that she was to sit down. He had removed his saddle-blanket and spread it on the earth, forming a rug for her. “Therebozo?” he cried in her ear.

“It’s fastened to the pommel,” she called back.

She could neither see nor hear him; but soon he was touching her on the shoulders. Therebozowas flung out on the wind so that it unfolded, and he was spreading it about her.

She caught his hand and drew him close so that she could make herself heard. “There’s room under it for two,” she said. She did not release his hand until he had sat down by her. Together they drew therebozoabout them like a little tent.

Immediately they were transformed into two sheltered and undismayed Arabs. Therebozowas pinioned behind them and under their feet. The finest dust could not penetrate its warp and woof. The wind was as a mighty hand, intent upon bearing them to earth, but it could not harm them.

Sylvia heard Runyon’s musical laugh. He bent his head close to hers. “We’re all right now,” he said.

He had his arm across her shoulder and was drawing her close. “It’s going to be cold,” he said, as if in explanation. He seemed as joyous as a boy—as innocent as a boy. She inclined her head until it rested on his shoulder, so that both occupied little more than the space of one. The storm made this intimacy seem almost natural; it made it advantageous, too.

And so the infinite sands swarmed over them, and the norther shrieked in their ears, and the earth’s blackness swallowed them up until they seemed alone as a man and a woman never had been alone before.

Therebozosagged about them at intervals, weighted down with the dust; butagain it rippled like a sail when an eccentric gust swept away the accumulated sediment.

The desert was a thing of blank darkness. A protected torch would have been invisible to one staring toward it a dozen steps away. A temporary death had invaded the world. There was neither movement nor sound save the frenzied dance of dust and the whistle of winds which seemed shunted southward from the north star.

Runyon’s hand travelled soothingly from Sylvia’s shoulder to her cheek. He held her to him with a tender, eloquent pressure. He was the man, whose duty it was to protect; and she was the woman, in need of protection.

And Sylvia thought darkly of the ingenuities of Destiny which set at naught the petty steps which the proprieties have taken—as if the gods were never so diverted as when they were setting the stage for tragedy, or as if the struggles and defeats of all humankind were to them but a proper comedy.

But Runyon was thinking how rare a thing it is for a man and a woman to bequite alone in the world; how the walls of houses listen, and windows are as eyes which look in as well as out; how highways forever hold their malicious gossips to note the movements of every pair who do not walk sedately; how you may mount the stairway of a strange house—and encounter one who knows you at the top, and who laughs in his sleeve; how you may emerge from the house in which you have felt safe from espionage—only to encounter a familiar talebearer at the door.

But here indeed were he and Sylvia alone.

CHAPTER XXIII

Before the next spring came two entirely irreconcilable discoveries were made in Eagle Pass.

The first of these was made by certain cronies of the town who found their beer flat if there was not a bit of gossip to go with it, and it was to the effect that the affair between Sylvia and Runyon was sure to end disastrously if it did not immediately end otherwise.

The other discovery was made by Harboro, and it was to the effect that Sylvia had at last blossomed out as a perfectly ideal wife.

A certain listlessness had fallen from her like a shadow. Late in the winter—it was about the time of the ride to the Quemado, Harboro thought it must have been—a change had come over her. There was a glad tranquillity about her now which was as a tonic to him. She was no longer given to dark utterances which he could not understand.She was devoted to him in a gentle, almost maternal fashion—studying his needs and moods alertly and affectionately. Something of the old tempestuous ardor was gone, but that, of course, was natural. Harboro did not know the phrases of old Antonia or he would have said: “It is the time of embers.” She was softly solicitous for him; still a little wistful at times, to be sure; but then that was the natural Sylvia. It was the quality which made her more wonderful than any other woman in the world.

And Sylvia? Sylvia had found a new avenue of escape from that tedium which the Sylvias of the world have never been able to endure.

Not long after that ride to the Quemado a horse had been brought to her front gate during a forenoon when Harboro was over the river at work. Unassisted she had mounted it and ridden away out the Quemado Road. A mile out she had turned toward the Rio Grande, and had kept to an indistinct trail until she came to a hiddenadobehut, presided over by an ancient Mexican.

To this isolated place had come, too, Runyon—Runyon, whose dappled horse had been left hidden in the mesquite down by the river, where the man’s duties lay.

And here, in undisturbed seclusion, they had continued that intimacy which had begun on the night of the norther. They were like two children, forbidden the companionship of each other, who find something particularly delicious in an unguessed rendezvous. All that is delightful in a temporary escape from the sense of responsibility was theirs. Their encounters were as gay and light as that of two poppies in the sun, flung together by a friendly breeze. They were not conscious of wronging any one—not more than a little, at least—though the ancient genius of the place, a Mexican who had lost an eye in a jealous fight in his youth, used to shake his head sombrely when he went away from his hut, leaving them alone; and there was anxiety in the glance of that one remaining eye as he kept a lookout over the trail, that his two guests might not be taken by surprise.

Sometimes they remained in the hutthroughout the entire noon-hour, and on these occasions their finely discreet and taciturn old host placed food before them. Goat’s milk was brought from an earthenware vessel having its place on a wooden hook under the eaves of the house; and there was a delicious stew of dried goat’s flesh, served with a sauce which contained just a faint flavor of peppers and garlic and herbs. And there waspan, as delicate as wafers, and coffee.

Time and again, throughout the winter, the same horse made its appearance at Sylvia’s gate at the same hour, and Sylvia mounted and rode away out the Quemado Road and disappeared, returning early in the afternoon.

If you had asked old Antonia about these movements of her mistress she would have said: “Does not the señora need the air?” And she would have added: “She is young.” And finally she would have said: “I know nothing.”

It is a matter of knowledge that occasionally Sylvia would meet the boy from the stable when he arrived at the gate and instruct him gently to take the horse away,as she would not require it that day; and I am not sure she was not trying still to fight the battle which she had already lost; but this, of course, is mere surmise.

And then a little cog in the machine slipped.

A ranchman who lived out on the north road happened to be in Eagle Pass one evening as Harboro was passing through the town on his way home from work. The ranchman’s remark was entirely innocent, but rather unfortunate. “A very excellent horsewoman, Mrs. Harboro,” he remarked, among other things.

Harboro did not understand.

“I met her riding out the road this forenoon,” explained the ranchman.

“Oh, yes!” said Harboro. “Yes, she enjoys riding. I’m sorry, on her account, that I haven’t more liking for it myself.”

He went on up the hill, pondering. It was strange that Sylvia had not told him that she meant to go for a ride. She usually went into minute details touching her outings.

He expected her to mention the matterwhen he got home, but she did not do so. She seemed disposed not to confide in him throughout the entire evening, and finally he remarked with an air of suddenly remembering: “And so you went riding to-day?”

She frowned and lowered her eyes. She seemed to be trying to remember. “Why, yes,” she said, after a moment’s silence. “Yes, I felt rather dull this morning. You know I enjoy riding.”

“I know you do,” he responded cordially. “I’d like you to go often, if you’ll be careful not to take any chances.” He smiled at the recollection of the outcome of that ride of theirs to the Quemado, and of the excitement with which they compared experiences when they got back home. Sylvia and Runyon had made a run for it and had got home before the worst of it came, she had said. But Harboro and the General Manager had waited until the storm had spent itself, both sitting in the carriage with their handkerchiefs pressed to their nostrils, and their coats drawn up about their heads. He remembered, too, how the dust-fog had lingeredin the air until well into the next day, like a ghost which could not be laid.

He brought himself back from the recollection of that night. “If you like, I’ll have the horse sent every day—or, better still, you shall have a horse of your own.”

“No,” replied Sylvia, “I might not care to go often.” She had let her hair down and was brushing it thoughtfully. “The things which are ordered for you in advance are always half spoiled,” she added. “It’s better to think of things all of a sudden, and do them.”

He looked at her in perplexity. That wasn’t his way, certainly; but then she was still occasionally something of an enigma to him. He tried to dismiss the matter from his mind. He was provoked that it came back again and again, as if there were something extraordinary about it, something mysterious. “She only went for a ride,” he said to himself late at night, as if he were defending her.

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