"'T is said that absence conquers love,But, oh! believe it not."
"'T is said that absence conquers love,But, oh! believe it not."
"'T is said that absence conquers love,But, oh! believe it not."
"'T is said that absence conquers love,
But, oh! believe it not."
And she stopped. Shewasthinking of Rudolph. Yes, but she had fancied at first that she was "singing out of his father's heart," not her own. Poor Rudolph! Now she knew what had exiled him from his father's home, and she, alas! had driven him from the new home he had meant to build for himself. And she had thought herself right. A bankrupt suicide's daughter, how could she, a German, with all the deep religious prejudices of that people burnt into her soul, dream of becoming anything more than a friend to the man she honored above all others?
People said she had led him on, had jilted him, and he had left the country. Could she recall him? And how? Yetshe could not leave this lonely old man to die, as he was surely dying, of the remorse in his heart and the bitter regrets for his injustice to his son.
No one, coming upon the family at the Lone Linden the very day after their advent to the place, would have suspected them of being strangers there. It was home to them at once. The garden, with its "two ornamental palms," as Christine called them, its wealth of flowers and sparkling fountain, lay all day in the laughing sunshine, and the beams that crept in through the bay-window of the sitting-room played hide-and-seek amid the ivy trailing its glossy leaves across the opposite wall. It was here that Christine's piano stood, and as Miss Barbara always sought the more gayly-furnished parlor as soon as her music-lesson was ended, so Clara learned to despise that apartment, and spend much of her time in this room.
Toward sunset, when shadows grew heavier, and the evening breeze shook the foliage, the broken mound with its single tree had always a dreary look about it, and even Clara was moved into saying, "If Mr. Muldweber should die, I would not dare come to this tree in the evening sun—it would be haunted, I know. I should see the old gentleman or his wraith standing there with his arm around the tree, and his other hand shading his eye. How lonely he looks; is he waiting for any one, I wonder?"
"Poor old man," said Christine, evasively, and she repeated,
"No one hastens home at twilight,Waiting for my hand to wave."
"No one hastens home at twilight,Waiting for my hand to wave."
"No one hastens home at twilight,Waiting for my hand to wave."
"No one hastens home at twilight,
Waiting for my hand to wave."
"Stop, or I shall get the blues, too." Clara raised her hands to her ears in comical despair, and Christine laughed good-naturedly at the effect of her singing.
So the pleasant, sunshiny days passed on, with no event more stirring than an occasional letter from Miss Barbara's father to break the monotony of life.
It was Mr. Farnsworth's desire that Miss Barbara should be treated and looked upon as a child, and it would have gladdened his heart could he have seen her, in the cool of the morning or late in the afternoon, with Snowball and Kickup in the enclosed lot called the Meadow, behind the house. Whether it had ever been the intention of Mr. Farnsworth to have Miss Barbara use the four-footed thing called Kickup as a saddle-horse is not known; it is a matter of doubt, however, whether any one had ever been on its back long enough to discover what was its best gait. To be sure, Miss Barbara made it a point to require her "maid" to "ride around the ring;" and she would urge the pony close up to the fence for this purpose, assist Daisy to mount, and then give a jump to get out of reach of Kickup's heels, for he had never been known to have more than two feet on the ground when any one was on his back; indeed, as a general thing, he never touched the ground again till his burden lay there too. There was no more danger of injuring Snowball's limbs than the pony's, and as they were taken both from the same tribe, back in Arizona somewhere, it is to be presumed that they knew each other. But Miss Barbara was neither cruel nor a coward. She never failed to reach Kickup's back, and from there the ground again, sometime during the day's performance, to Snowball's unbounded delight; and at night she always complained to Mrs. Wardor that "her pony wasn't fairly broken yet," "Which is not so surprising as that your bones are unbroken yet," Christine would say sometimes; for which Miss Barbara would give her a supercilious look out of her wide-open eyes, as though to say: "What do you know about it? Your father was never an army contractor."
About this time Mr. Farnsworth, in his letter to Mrs. Wardor, commenced to promise a visit he intended making them before the summer was over; and Mrs. Wardor commenced saying to Barbara, when she proved particularlyunmanageable, "Do try to behave like a lady, so that your father may see you are no longer a child." And the suggestion always had the desired effect for the time being; but the sight of Snowball driving Kickup into the meadow would as regularly upset all her good intentions.
One day Christine came into Clara's room, with a troubled look on her face. "What is it?" asked Clara; "is your agedprotégémore depressed than usual this morning? Has he refused to enjoy his long pipe, or has he regaled you with a longer account than usual of his son—Hans, I think, you said his name was?"
Christine laughed in spite of herself. Clara had heard something of Mr. Muldweber's trouble with his son, and took it for granted that Christine knew all about it, though she had not the remotest idea of how deeply she was interested; and one of Clara's fancies was that Mr. Muldweber's son was a tow-headed youth, and his name was Hans.
"Mrs. Wardor has had another letter from Mr. Farnsworth," said Christine.
"Again threatening a visit? But why should that make you look so serious? Are you thinking of his displeasure at not finding his Barbara an Arabella Goddard?"
"Thank God, I never held out that prospect to him. No—" she continued, absently; "I don't like his letters, and I fear Mrs. Wardor misunderstands him—misunderstands him entirely. He inquires very particularly for Lady Clare in his letters, too."
"And not for you? Ah! then the cat's out of the bag," she laughed; "you are jealous of me again."
"The vanity of some people—" Christine joined in the laugh; but the troubled look returned to her face as she went on. "That poor old man troubles me too; he is failing fast, and his son must come soon, or I fear he will never see him again."
"Then why not send for him?" asked Clara, innocently; "or does he not know where to find him?"
"No," answered Christine, savagely, after a moment's hesitation.
"Poor old man," sighed Clara; and she was careful after this to meet the forlorn figure wandering restlessly through the grounds with all the sweet consideration it was her nature to show those who were in pain or trouble.
Still the old man never spoke to her of his Rudolph as he did to Christine; it was to the brave-hearted German girl he poured out his long pent-up complaints and lamentations; it was only to her he revealed how the yearning for his first-born was eating his heart away. Often she was on the point of telling him all; he would say then, she thought, that she had acted quite correctly; would commend her for not having fastened herself with her accursed name upon a blameless man, with fame and fortune before him. But he would still demand at her hands his son—his son whom she, more than himself, had made an exile and a wanderer.
So the day passed on, and the cloud on the horizon of Lone Linden grew darker and heavier; but no one saw it gathering save Christine. Instinctively she felt that their fair Paradise would be destroyed when the storm should burst, but she knew not how to divert the threatened deluge.
When Clara rushed into her arms one day, flushed and breathless, crying, "Oh, I knew he loved me—I felt that he had never forgotten me," her heart misgave her—the first harbinger of threatened desolation had come. With difficulty she prevailed on Clara to tell her calmly what had occurred, and, triumphant and happy, she explained that Mrs. Wardor had received a letter from Mr. Farnsworth, to say that at the end of the week he should visit Lone Linden, bringing with him young Mr. Heraclit Gupton, nephew of General Gupton, commanding the Department of the Pacific.
"Poor, blind Mrs. Wardor," Clara went on to say, "saw nothing in this but Mr. Farnsworth's desire to entertain a young gentleman whose uncle had it in his power to award heavy army contracts; indeed, how could she know that Heraclit Gupton was—was—"
"I have lived and loved—but that was to-day;Go bring me my grave clothes to-morrow."
"I have lived and loved—but that was to-day;Go bring me my grave clothes to-morrow."
"I have lived and loved—but that was to-day;Go bring me my grave clothes to-morrow."
"I have lived and loved—but that was to-day;
Go bring me my grave clothes to-morrow."
Christine filled up the pause, her voice more dreary and inclined to "drop into the cellar" than ever.
Clara looked sobered and disappointed at this unexpected comment, but attributed it to a sudden recollection of Christine's own "what might have been."
"What makes you so sad, Christine? Is Mr. Muldweber really sinking as fast as Mrs. Wardor thinks?"
"Sinking fast, child; only the promise that his son shall be brought here, if among the living, before the moon fades, has kept the old man alive."
"Oh! Christine, stay and be glad with me now," pleaded Clara, "the time for mourning will come soon enough."
But Christine could not be made to rejoice, and all the comment she made on the other's enthusiasm was,
"Oh! Lady Clara Vere de Vere,You put strange memories in my head."
"Oh! Lady Clara Vere de Vere,You put strange memories in my head."
"Oh! Lady Clara Vere de Vere,You put strange memories in my head."
"Oh! Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
You put strange memories in my head."
And Clara flew up-stairs to dream over this broadening flood of sunshine as she had dreamed over the first faint glinting.
Had not Miss Barbara been strangely absent-minded about this time, she must have observed how the color in Clara's cheek grew brighter, and her eyes held a deeper, richer light. And if any expression so soft as a "dreamy look" could ever have stolen into this positive young lady's face, one would certainly have said it was there now, though it vanished like a dream, too, whenever the Indian girl's impish laugh fell onher ears. The Indian girl herself seemed to be the only member of the family that was not more or lessdistraitafter the arrival of Mr. Farnsworth's last letter, for even Kickup showed resentment at Miss Barbara's sudden neglect of her "saddle horse." It was only natural that Mrs. Wardor's mind should be on hospitable cares intent, which accounted for her being oblivious to a good many things going on around her.
Saturday had been named by Mr. Farnsworth as the day on which he was to be expected, and as the members of the family arose from the breakfast-table that morning, Miss Barbara astonished Mrs. Wardor by a demand for her mother's diamonds, to wear in honor of her father's coming.
"Nonsense, child," said Mrs. Wardor; "what would the young gentleman coming with your father think, to see a school-girl loaded down with diamonds? Leave them in my trunk; they are better there. You might take a notion to have a romp with Kickup before taking them off, and they would be scattered in the meadow."
But Miss Barbara was determined to carry her point, and broke out at last, the rebellious blood rising to her head, "I think I should be allowed to have them, at any rate; they aremydiamonds, and father promised mother that they should never go to the second wife if he did marry again."
Mrs. Wardor's face flushed as red as Barbara's, but Christine's remained unmoved, calmly marking the notes on a sheet of music, while Clara gave one startled look, as though she had just made a discovery.
Early in the afternoon Miss Barbara appeared in the garden, where the hot sun blazed down on the fiery hair, the burning cheeks, and the flashing jewels. Her eyes were hardly less sparkling than her diamonds, and as she threw a searching look down the road and across the plain, toward the town, they seemed to glitter and glint in all the colors of the rainbow, just like the stones in her ears and at her throat. Later,Clara came to the hall-door, but drew back when Barbara came to join her; the girl's appearance gave her a "scorched" sensation, she said to Christine, who seemed blind to the shadows that coming events were casting before them. At least there was neither glad anticipation nor nervous haste noticeable in her as in the rest, but her heart was very heavy within her. Nevertheless she chided Clara for having dressed in black after all, when she had firmly decided to wear white; and she urged her back into the garden, for she knew her soul was flying across the road to the city, to meet the form she had dreamed of day and night since Mr. Farnsworth's announcement.
The afternoon breeze was gently stirring the fragrant flower heads when she entered the garden again and approached Miss Barbara, who had taken up her station by the low picket fence where the ground rose above the level of the road. Clara, too, sent out a wistful look across the plain. Perhaps she had sighed, for she felt the girl's eyes on her, and as she looked up, it came back to her painfully what Barbara had once said about her lack of color. Could her heart be growing envious of the girl? She did not ask herself the question, but she felt the impulse to turn and leave her, and would have done so had not a start and flutter on the girl's part told her that a vehicle was in sight.
She did not look down the road; she would not betray her feelings to the merciless eyes of this red-headed girl; but her own heart beat so that Barbara's agitation entirely escaped her. She turned toward the house. Shemustpress her hand to her heart to still the tumultuous beating. On the balcony stood Christine, an affectionate smile lighting up the dark features as she threw kisses to her and pointed to the light carriage now quite near the gate. Then the color came back into Clara's face, and, with a sudden joyous impulse, she fluttered her handkerchief in the breeze, and laughed like aglad child reaching out its hand for a long-coveted toy. Mrs. Wardor came to the door; the carriage stopped at the gate that minute, and two gentlemen sprang to the ground.
Just how it all took place, perhaps none of them ever knew—not even Christine, who had remained on the balcony, a deeply-interested, though not indelicate, spectator. They lingered in the garden a little while, and before they entered the house Mr. Farnsworth had pompously announced to Mrs. Wardor that this was the young gentleman who had so faithfully and persistently paid court and attention to his daughter Barbara; that he had at last been touched by his unwavering devotion, and had decided to make his only child happy—as happy as he himself hoped to be some day in the not distant future.
"Bless your soul," he added, in an undertone, to Mrs. Wardor, who had just had an unaccountable attack of heart-beating, "if I had known that Barbara's 'young man' was General Gupton's nephew, she should have had him six months ago, and welcome." He was interrupted by Barbara's asking permission to go driving with her "young man," and, the father consenting, they were soon speeding over the road in the light carriage that had brought the gentlemen.
At her window up-stairs sat Christine, her hands folded idly in her lap, her eyes absently following the couple in the carriage. But on the bed, in her own room, lay Clara, her head buried deep in the pillows, her slender hands covering the white face, sobbing as if her heart would break. And through the half-open door came the saddening chant of Christine:
"I have just been learning the lesson of life,The sad, sad lesson of loving."
"I have just been learning the lesson of life,The sad, sad lesson of loving."
"I have just been learning the lesson of life,The sad, sad lesson of loving."
"I have just been learning the lesson of life,
The sad, sad lesson of loving."
Could the words but have penetrated to the room below, they might have been echoed there by another. Mr.Farnsworth was again making an announcement to Mrs. Wardor—though in a manner not quite so pompous—indeed, almost hesitating.
"Yes," he was saying, "my daughter cannot blame me, since I have made her happy, that I too should look for a suitable companion. When I say suitable, I mean one better fitted than the first Mrs. Farnsworth to my—ahem!—to my—more advanced mental attainments. I have for some time past observed the—ahem!—sweet disposition and—ahem!—amiable character of your friend andprotégé—Clara. Good gracious, madam, are you sick? Can I do anything for you?"
"No, thanks; only a sudden dizziness that sometimes seizes me in warm weather;" and, thanks to Mrs. Wardor's self-possession, it was over directly. As Mr. Farnsworth took it for granted that it was quite essential for a fine lady to have nerves, and even fainting-fits, he saw nothing remarkable in Mrs. Wardor's sudden dizziness and pallor. Then she said Clara was one of the sweetest-tempered women she had ever met with, but she knew nothing of the state of her heart or affections; he must lay the case before the lady herself. And here she suddenly remembered not to have given full directions for supper to the Chinaman in the kitchen, and left Mr. Farnsworth to his own meditations in the parlor. Then the sun went down, and Christine, paying no heed to the sound of carriage-wheels approaching—thinking the happy lovers had returned—was startled by the sharp ring of the door-bell. She sprang to her feet; she felt that the bell called to her, and she was at the door before the servant could reach it. A tall, bearded man stood before her, who, taking advantage of the girl's being utterly disconcerted, drew her quickly to his breast. She rested there only a moment.
"Oh, Rudolph! your father," she said, with a tone of reproach in her voice.
"Take me to him, Christine," and Mrs. Wardor, who had drawn her head back discreetly a moment before, now came fully out of her sitting-room to welcome Rudolph to his home.
"All the afternoon you left me by myself," said Mr. Muldweber, querulously, as Christine softly entered his room. "Ah! if my boy would only come, he would never let his old father lie here alone," and he turned his head to the wall so as not to look at Christine.
"Forgive me," she said; "but poor Clara so needed me. And I have brought news from your son—from Rudolph. He is coming soon—he will be here—"
"He is here now!" cried the old man, opening his arms, but turning his eyes to the ceiling, as though he expected his Rudolph to flutter down from there in the shape of a seraph or an angel.
A few hours later Mr. Muldweber's room, which had seemed so lonesome in the afternoon, was filled to its full capacity. The old man sat in his easy-chair, holding one hand each of Rudolph and Christine in his own, and near them were Mrs. Wardor and Clara. Her friend's happiness was a consolation to her, so much so that she could think, without breaking into tears, of the trio in the parlor of the other house, talking over their plans for the future, just as our friends were doing here.
Mr. Farnsworth intended going back to the city on the morrow, heavily laden with "The Basket" (the German term for the mitten or the sack), which Clara had given him.
In Mr. Muldweber's shanty reigned a soft, subdued happiness, like the half-sad light of the moon flooding in through the window.
"It will be Lone Linden no longer," the old man said, "since I have so large a family. See, I will not crowd you in the big house; I will stop in my dear little hut. There will be only room enough in the other house for Rudolph and his wife and her two sisters" (the old man was naturally gallant),"whose knight I will be till some one worthier and better shall fill my place. And the red-headed one will go next month?" he asked, turning to Mrs. Wardor. With a sigh of relief he continued, "And the black Kobold will go with her I hope, and the four-footed one too. How they used to break my beautiful white lilies and throw them to that animal. Ah! you cannot make me believe anything—if that horse were not possessed by the evil one he never could have eaten those flowers—stem and all." They could not help laughing, and parted almost merrily.
But out in the garden, in the tender white moonlight, Rudolph drew Christine close to his heart and looked searchingly into her eyes.
"Are you at peace with yourself now, Christine, and satisfied to be mine—satisfied and happy? Then why are those tears in your eyes?"
She struggled out of his arms, and passing her hand over her eyes, she fell irresistibly into her old habit, and sang, soft and low,
"Mag auch im Aug' die Thräne stehn—Das macht das frohe Wiedersehn."
"Mag auch im Aug' die Thräne stehn—Das macht das frohe Wiedersehn."
"Mag auch im Aug' die Thräne stehn—Das macht das frohe Wiedersehn."
"Mag auch im Aug' die Thräne stehn—
Das macht das frohe Wiedersehn."
"Poor Mrs. Kennerly" was more lachrymose than usual to-day; her eyes paler, her hair more faded. Paul Kennerly, the keen-eyed, robust counterpart and husband of the lady, was measuring the room with impatient steps. When her pale-blue eyes shed tears and grew paler, his flashed fire and grew deeper blue; when her light-yellow hair hung limp and loose about her eyes, his darker, heavier locks rose obstinately from his forehead, and were shaken back, now and again, as a lion shakes his mane. While the profuse tears coursing over his wife's cheeks seemed to bleach their original pink into vapid whiteness, his own flushed hot and red with the quick blood mounting into them.
Yet, Mrs. Kennerly, of whom her friends spoke only with the adjective "poor" prefixed, was not a martyr; on the contrary, to the unprejudiced observer, the great tall man, in spite of flashing eye and reddened cheek, appeared much more in that light and character.
"Laura,willyou stop crying just for two seconds, and listen to what I have to say?"
"Oh, my poor sister! my poor sister! Coming home, and unwelcome in her own dead father's house! unwelcome to her own brother-in-law, at the house of her poor dead father—oh!"
Before she had finished her lamentation, Mr. Kennerly had left the room, shutting the door behind him with a crash, and crossing the corridor with long, heavy strides. Then his steps resounded on the veranda, where the June sun threwdeepening shadows of the old locusts that stood sentinel in a half circle on the lawn. Pacing back and forth, with knit brows and downcast eyes, the wooing beauties of the summer day were lost on him, as they were without charm or joy to the weak-minded woman fretting and complaining in her darkened room up-stairs.
Unnoticed by him was the short sweet grass on the lawn, and the rows of blossoming lilacs and budding roses that hedged it in on either side, down to the road; unheeded on his ear fell the gentle murmuring of the wind in the cluster of poplar, beech, and elm that stood bowing and swaying by the large old gate. Was it possible that he had ever pushed through its portals (a wanderer returned to his early home), an expectant bridegroom, to meet the meek-eyed bride whose phantom only seemed now to haunt the old-fashioned, hospitable house? Again Paul Kennerly threw back the hair from his forehead with the lion-like motion that had grown more abrupt and hasty year after year. Then the footsteps on the veranda ceased, and soon soft, full chords, such as a master-hand only could strike on the piano, sounded through the wide corridor, and floated up to the ears of the self-willed invalid. Louder and stronger grew the strains; and the woman, in her feebleness, cowered on her lounge up-stairs, and complained fretfully, "Now he storms again!" while the man below seemed to have forgotten everything; his own existence, perhaps—the existence of the woman, surely.
Yet she was present to the waking dreams he dreamed of his early youth—they could not be dreamed without her. She had been his playmate, hisprotégé; as her younger, stronger sister had been his natural antagonist and aversion. The father had been his guardian. And when Paul went as sutler and trader to New Mexico, just as Laura was budding into girlhood, it was tacitly understood that on his return hewould claim her as his betrothed. Years passed, and when old Mr. Taylor felt his end approaching, he begged Paul to return, and be to his two daughters the protector that he had been to Paul's helpless childhood. Soon after Laura's marriage, Mr. Taylor died, firm in the belief that he had made a happy man of his favorite, Paul.
Before the mourning year was over, a schoolmate of Paul's, an army officer, some years his senior, came to spend a month's furlough at the old Taylor mansion. When he left, he was the willing slave and avowed suitor of Regina, the queenly younger sister of Laura. If there were no hearty congratulations from Paul's side, I doubt that either Colonel Douglass, in his happiness, or Laura, in her self-absorption, felt the withholding of his kind wishes; and Regina cared very little either for his favor or his disapproval.
Even before they were married, Regina knew that after a few short weeks spent in the home-like, elegant quarters at the arsenal, they must leave the ease and luxuries of civilization for the wilds of some frontier country. But Regina was content to reign over the limited number of hearts to be found in a frontier's camp, as she had reigned over her train of admirers in the ball-room and at the watering-places; and, to the delight of her husband, she uttered no word of complaint when an order from the War Department sent them to an adobe-built fort on the Rio Pecos, in the most desolate part of all New Mexico.
"Now, I should like to go with you, Hal," had said his brother-in-law, when he read him the order; and he raised his head and flung back his hair, as though he felt the wild, free wind of the Plains tossing it.
Paul rode back from the arsenal slowly that evening; and the nearer home he came, the lower drooped his head, the darker grew his brow. At home he paced the floor uneasily, paying little heed to the feeble whimpering of his wife, whohad been frittering her life away between camphor-bottles and sentimental novels since Regina had left the house.
The drawing-room, where the piano stood, and where the windows opened out on the veranda and the lawn, was his harbor this night, as often when either his own thoughts or the selfish complainings of his wife drove him distractedly about the house. But this night there sounded a single soft strain through his "storming,"—as his wife called it,—and the strain grew wilder and sweeter, till suddenly lost, as the note of some clear-voiced, frightened bird is lost in the howling of the midnight storm.
Then had come days of calm, during which the piano remained closed, and he sat meekly under the drivelling talk of his wife, and in the close, dark atmosphere which alone, she insisted, suited the delicate complexion of her face and of her mind.
After that, an occasional letter from his brother-in-law, now at his station on the Rio Pecos, or an extra twist of the cord matrimonial, which, since the day of his marriage, seemed literally to encircle his neck, would set the lion to fuming in his cage; and, with the toss of his hair from the forehead, would commence the wandering through the house which always ended with "storming" the piano.
But the days are passing while we travel back into the past; and one, not far distant, brings Regina, the unwelcome. Before she had been in the house many days, she knew from her sister's rambling talk what Paul had said of her coming before she came—knew that he did not believe what the colonel had written about the disastrous effects of the New Mexican climate on his wife's health; but believed, rather, the rumors that had come to him from all sides, each varying a little from the rest in detail, but all agreeing in the main. Regina's marble face, and nervous, transparent fingers, might have confirmed the theory of failing health; butthere was something in the momentary flash of her dark eyes, as she listened to her sister's quavering voice, that told of energy or despair, such as woman gains and gathers only from a sudden calling forth of all her passions and powers for the defence of her life, her honor, or position, as the case may be. It may have been only once, in the long past, that this power was called out; but, like the heat-lightning at the close of a hot, murky day, it throws baleful gleams on the cloud-darkened horizon of her life forever after.
"My sternly-virtuous moral brother-in-law," Regina said softly to herself, seated on a low stool in the room where her cradle had stood, "would fain drive me from my own father's house, for a fancied injury to the fair name of the Kennerly-Taylor family. Ah, well! the end of all days has not come yet."
Her head sank on her bosom, as she sat watching the shadows of the tree-clump by the gate, growing longer and deeper in the fading light of the western sun; and a tear stole into her eye and trickled slowly down her pure white cheek. Her sister, creeping up to her, and looking into her face with what affection she was capable of, shed more of her easy-coming tears.
"I told him they were slandering you. Papa always said you were too proud to do a wrong and not acknowledge it. And Paul was always hard on you, I know; and it's all a lie and slander; for even if you were not my sister, I could tell, as any one could, from your face, that you are good and without sin. I know from the stories I have read—they all have just such pale, faultless faces when they're persecuted; and afterwards the misunderstanding is cleared up, and they get married. But then, youaremarried." She had gotten into deep water now; and thinking, probably, that her younger, cleverer sister would solve this problem as she had so many others, Laura picked up her camphor-bottle and returned toher own room. Regina remained, her "pale, faultless face" turned to the dying light, a pensive, half-pained, half-sad expression on her lips and in her eye, looking almost like a saint striving to forgive and bless her traducers.
Yet the woman was not without sin; though how much was to be laid at her door none could tell.
Out in New Mexico, the rumor ran, at the lonely adobe-built post on the Rio Pecos, where her husband, the colonel, was stationed, there was also a post surgeon, a young, handsome man, of fascinating manners, of unquestioned skill and bravery, and born of an Italian mother, from whom he had inherited passion, temper, and disposition, together with Southern eyes and curly, silken hair. His courage had probably come from his American father; none but such could have a son who, in his dare-devil bravery, would go so far as to capture and tame a young panther, and chain him outside his door, to act as watch-dog and protector. And so great was the love of this animal for his master, that he was known to leap and roar for joy when seeing him approach after an absence from home.
Of course, Regina was expected to visit and admire the panther as a "natural curiosity;" and her hand, too, it was said, the beast would lick with every sign of affection and submission. Rumor said, that in the dead of night, when no one else could approach the doctor's quarters within a hundred yards, she could pass by and into the doctor's rooms without hindrance or opposition from Royal, the panther. And, moreover, rumor went on to say, that whenever the colonel was away on duty, looking after those troublesome Navajoes and uncertain Apaches, Regina's white robe was frequently seen flitting past the uncanny keeper of the doctor's door.
But there came a day—a night, rather—when Royal, after a short but terrible conflict with a midnight invader, lay deadon his master's doorsteps, and over the body strode the invader into the presence of the young doctor, who, with an almost superhuman effort, tried to shield the queenly, white-robed form that fell prone to the floor. To be sure, he received a bullet in his temple; and the dark, silken curls were dank and stiff with gore when the sun lighted up the low adobe room next morning. However, he had savedherlife; for the colonel became cool when he saw the destroyer of his peace and honor lying dead at his feet.
There was no public trial—not even a court-martial. The colonel had killed the doctor in a duel; but nobody demanded a record of the event, and the reprimand he received was not by sentence. But he was ordered to Fort Marcy, near Santa Fé. The colonel had borne off a cut across the forehead, extending upward till under the hair, in one of the pitched battles with the Indians; and he was known to suffer from headache and irritation of the wound to such a degree, at times, that over-excitement, from anger or other cause, made him almost crazy. He was an old, valiant, and valued officer; and the War Department, not supposed to know any uninvestigated matter, would excuse many things in such a one, even though it could not approve them.
Then it was that the colonel's wife had returned to the States "for her health,"—as her husband was particular to write to his brother officers stationed at the barracks and arsenal near to the western city where his wife's home was.
Who can tell how rumor travels? When Regina made her appearance at the arsenal, the very women who had once been proud of her notice seemed hardly to remember a passing acquaintance with her; and, stung to the quick, she had barely strength to control her face and hold high her head till the door of her carriage had closed on her. She laid back her head, throbbing and aching, yet filled with a thousand plans for regaining her position and punishing those who had so humbled her.
It was one of Paul's restless days; and she heard him "storming" on the piano as her carriage entered the gateway. With sudden interest she raised her head, while her face grew animated with some struggling thought.
When night had set in, and the broad hall-door was thrown open to admit the soft breeze and the tender moonlight, Regina, for the first time since her return to the home of her childhood, approached the piano in the drawing-room and ran her fingers over the keys. The door stood open, and from her seat she could see into the hall, and catch a glimpse of Paul's shadow every time he passed the hall-door in his walk on the moonlit veranda. Not a muscle of her face moved as she continued in her play, striking chords and runningroulades, without any apparent purpose save that of touching once more the old familiar key-board. Paul's shadow flitted by, regularly and restlessly, never varying an inch in his distance from the door as he passed it. Suddenly the chords melted into a melody low and sweet, yet swelling almost into wildness in its yearning, longing tenderness.
Regina listened intently, and—surely Paul could not have paused suddenly in his walk on the veranda! Directly his footsteps came again, halting and uncertain, and Regina repeated the air, throwing into it more intensity, even, than at first. She seemed absorbed in her playing, though she knew full well when Paul's hesitating footsteps crossed the threshold, and moved nearer the drawing-room entrance. When he stood in the door, she looked up, as though unwilling to be disturbed in her musical meditations. One look at the deathly-pale face, above which the dark blonde hair rose like a lion's mane, assured her that she would gain—hadgained—her end; and she played on, as though forgetting his presence in an instant. Presently, a hoarse, unsteady voice reached her ear:
"Where did you learn that air? Who taught you the song?"
She looked up unconcernedly.
"That air? Do you like it?"
He nodded his head impatiently.
"Where did you learn it? Who taught you?"
"That song? Oh, I learned that in New Mexico."
He looked at her wildly for a moment, but her gaze was so steady that he dropped his eyes and moved slowly away.
Late in the night, when Regina awoke from a sleep sweeter and sounder than any she had yet enjoyed, she heard Paul's steps in the hall-way, on his way to bed.
"You have left me alone all night again," complained his wife, when he entered the room; "and I have had one of my nervous spells."
"You keep the room so confoundedly hot and full of camphor that it smothers me to stay here," was the crusty reply.
"Would you want me to keep the windows and shutters open, so as to let the mosquitoes come in and devour us?"
"Why do you keep the light burning till twelve in the night, then?"
"But, Paul, I can't read in the dark, can I? And I want some pastime, I am sure, so sick and feeble as I am," weeping for very pity of herself.
"Throw those foolish books out of the window; the camphor-bottle, too; let air and daylight into your room, and you'll soon get well and strong," he answered, willing to be kind and anxious to hush her distracting sobs.
Regina, in her room, breathed a little sigh of satisfaction; for though she could not hear the conversation, she could guess very nearly what Paul's reception had been: "Ah! my clever brother-in-law, yours is not a bed of roses, either;" and with this comforting reflection she dropped off to sleep.
Next morning, at the breakfast-table, Regina watched withplacid interest the haggard face of Paul, and the furtive looks he threw over to where she sat. During the morning his wife was attacked with sick headache, "from reading those trashy novels," he said; and by night he was wandering through the house again, groaning in very anguish of spirit, and flying, at last, to his only refuge, the piano. Through the loud clanging of the chords there breathed a strain, now and then, of the song Regina had played; but in a moment it was drowned by the louder crashes, which almost shook the house, and seemed the outpouring of some wild spirit in its abject misery. Day followed day, and as the season advanced, and autumn set in, with stormy days and long, moonless nights, Paul grew more restless; and one night, when he had wandered through the house all day—"as though driven by the Fury of Remorse," Regina said—she went, unobserved, into the drawing-room, from where soon came the strains of the song that had so agitated Paul. Again his heavy steps approached the door, and, as he entered the room, Regina said to herself, "He has grown ten years older since that evening last summer, and he is ripe for my purpose now."
"You learned that song in New Mexico?" he asked, trying to speak in his usual quiet tones. "I suppose it is a popular air among the Mexicans?"
"Not a common one, though it is a Spanish song;" and she softly sang the refrain, "Ela—Manuela!"
Had she stabbed him to the heart he could not have turned paler, or sprung forward quicker, than at the uttering of the words.
"She taught it you! Tell me quick, for God's sake!"
He had clutched her arm, and was shaking her without knowing it.
"Gently, my dear brother-in-law," she said, sneeringly; and he shook the hair back from his forehead, and regained his self-possession by a strong effort.
"You wanted to know who taught me the song? My information has a price."
She had folded her hands in her lap, and was looking quietly into his face.
"Name it!" he burst out impatiently.
"It is a high price; but I can give youallthe information you may want in return. Here is a sample."
She had turned the music-stool on which she was seated, and while he paced up and down the room to hide his agitation, she continued in the tone of one holding easy converse with a good friend:
"I learned this little Spanish song from a very pretty girl in New Mexico. She said she had once taught it to an American, a tall, handsome man, with blue eyes and fair face, who must have been in love with her, I think, for he had always substituted her name, in the refrain, for the name which the author of the song had put into it. She, too, must have been fond of this American with blue eyes and dark blonde hair; for, though not in the least conceited, or aware of her own attractions, she always sang the refrain with her own name, Manuela, instead of the original name, Juanita, simply because this American had wished her so to do. The air is beautiful, I think; and the words are very pretty too." She turned to the keys again, as though to repeat the air.
"Stop!" he said hoarsely, arresting her hand; "you will kill me. What is the price you ask?"
"The price is high," he groaned, when she had coolly and in unfaltering tones stated her conditions to him. "But if you promise to keep to your word, I will do my best."
"You will succeed, then," she said, holding out her hand, and speaking almost cordially as they parted for the night.
When she reached her room she seemed for once to have fallen into Paul'srôleof Wandering Jew; but her steps were noiseless, though the thoughts that danced and chasedthrough her brainwouldcome to her tongue, in quick, triumphant words.
"My upright, truthful judge and brother-in-law—to bring about a reconciliation between his best friend, my husband, and his 'erring but loving wife.'" A haughty look flashed in her eyes: "Regina—and pleading for forgiveness! Ah, well—even a queen must sometimes stoop to conquer!"
The weeks passed slowly on; and, absorbed though Laura was in her camphor-bottle and her novels, she could not but notice that Paul had altogether changed in his behavior toward her sister; and she rejoiced over this in her own fashion:
"I always told Regina that her innocence would come to light, and she would triumph over the machinations of her enemies, and get married to a—But sheismarried—I forget. Well, it will all come right, and she'll be ever so happy, I know."
Poor thing! She could not live to see her so. The camphor-bottle, the close, dark room, and the Frenchy novels were too much for her; and before the spring had brought any flowers to strew on her grave, they had laid her in a darker, closer room than she had yet been in. Her husband and Regina followed the coffin, dressed in deep mourning; and Regina's face, as well as Paul's, was paler and sadder by a good many shades than usual.
Meanwhile, letters passed frequently between Paul and his friend and brother-in-law; and one day, when the roses and lilacs that bordered the lawn were shedding fragrance and beauty together over the old homestead-grounds, Paul announced to his sister-in-law that he would accompany her on her journey to New Mexico.
How the wind of the plains through Paul's hair made it look more than ever like a lion's mane! and how like the Paul of long ago he looked, mounted on his fiery black horse! Something like pity for him sometimes stole into Regina'sheart; but she would sneer at herself for the feeling. "Did he pity me when I came home broken-hearted—repentant?"
The long hours of their rest—for the colonel had seen to it that his wife had not to travel in the plebeian stage, but was furnished train and escort at Fort Leavenworth—she beguiled with telling, bit by bit, the story of her acquaintance with Manuela, who had found her way to the fort on the Rio Pecos, one day, where they had been stationed. Regina had been captivated at once by the girl's gentle face and soft black eyes; and when, after an acquaintance of some weeks, she surmised that the girl was looking for the man who had once loved and then, unaccountably, deserted her, she felt only pity for one who could so unselfishly and devotedly love any man as to give up home and friends, and wander through what must seem the wide world to this poor girl, in search of him. That the man was Paul, she felt quite sure; though she had never expressed the least suspicion of this to the colonel.
This much only could Paul learn from his sister-in-law; and that she knew, even now, where the girl could be found; further than this she would not say; would not tell him that Manuela had lived in her own household, half as domestic, half as companion; that she had been induced to this by the vague hope that while with Americans she might more easily learn of those who arrived, or returned, from the States to the Territories; that on leaving Santa Fé she had exacted a promise from the girl to remain in the colonel's quarters and employ until she should send her permission to leave her post.
And so they reached Santa Fé—Paul hopeful and expectant as a young bridegroom; Regina calm and thoughtful, but trying to look cheerful when she knew of Paul's eyes resting on her; when unobserved, the dreary, despairing look crept back into her eyes, and her face, white as marble, grew rigid as the face of a statue. When the cluster of square, low-built adobe houses, called Santa Fé, rose up before them, Paulcould hardly restrain his impatience; but he had promised to be guided in all things by his sister-in-law, and he had now to abide by her decisions. "It would be painful and embarrassing to have any one, even her own brother-in-law, present at her first meeting with the colonel," she said, and therefore requested Paul to remain over night in Santa Fé, and ride over in the morning to where Fort Marcy lay, on the low rise of the hills bordering the plain.
Since Regina so wished it, let the meeting between herself and husband be entirely private. We will not draw aside the veil till the next morning, which came up with a blaze of broad, staring sunshine, promising an unpleasantly hot day. The commanding officer's quarters, though surrounded by a neat paling-fence, was as bare and innocent of the least attempt at a garden as all the rest of the quarters were. The red, hard earth alone stared up at the hard blue sky; outside the fortress walls, ungainly cactus and stunted mesquit bushes made the plain look only the more inhospitable and barren.
The quarters were low, but cool; and as the doorways were only hung with curtains, the breeze that swept over the plain had free access to every room in the house. The large sitting-room at the colonel's quarters had been darkened since early morning, and the heat excluded as much as possible, for the colonel was threatened with a severe attack of the torturing headache that sprang from the badly-healed wound in his forehead. As the sun rose higher, he succumbed to the pain; and as he threw himself on the wide, low lounge, in intolerable suffering, Regina stepped lightly to his side, to supply the usual remedies. But a cold look and colder words drove her back from his couch; and as he called to Manuela to bathe his head, in gentle, almost tender tones, she for the first time felt a deadly hatred toward this girl, whom she knew still to be an angel in virtue and purity.
Struck to the heart, she left the room, only to throwherself on the hard floor of the next apartment, where she grovelled in an agony of anger and pain. Suddenly the sound of horses' hoofs fell on her ear, and she sprang up with one wild bound, and flew to the door, just in time to motion Paul, who had already dismounted, into her presence.
"Now has my time come!" She could hardly restrain herself from crying it out aloud to the frowning mountain and the arid plain. "Ricardo, thou shalt be avenged! avenged thou, my poor heart, for the tears and the blood wrung from thee for many, many bitter days!"
The light of the sun shining into Paul's eyes, blinded him; and though he saw the finger laid on her lips, he could not see the dishevelled hair and bloodshot eyes, and approached her, looking for some glad surprise. He had donned a Mexican costume, and the little silver bells on the outside seam of his pantaloons jingled musically at every step; while the short jacket, showing the pistol-belt under the red sash, set his figure off to full advantage.
He spoke laughingly: "You see I have turned Mexican, every inch of me!" then he caught the wild eyes, with their frenzied look, and he grasped her hand, exclaiming, "Good God! what has happened?"
"Happened?" she echoed with a demoniac laugh; "we have been deceived—outraged—cheated out of our life's happiness—both you and I! Behold the traitor and the serpent!"
Drawing aside the curtain that hung in the door-arch between the two rooms, she beckoned him to approach, and pointed silently to the group in the next room. Bending over the reclining form of the man on the lounge stood a girl, whose face, of angel goodness, was turned in profile to the two intruders at the doorway. The man's eyes were closed; and as the girl stooped lower, his hand stole softly around her form, and nestled there, lovingly, tenderly, as though ithad found a long-sought resting-place. Pliant braids of glossy black hair fell far below the girl's waist; and her eyes were of the almond shape, that we find in the faces of those descended from the people of Castile.
In a moment Paul's burning eyes had taken in the picture, and an inarticulate sound came over his lips. The woman beside him watched him with the eyes of a tigress; and he never knew—was ithertouch that guided him, or did his own evil passions move his hand from his reeking brow to the pistol in his belt? There was a sharp report, a shriek and a groan, and the next minute Paul Kennerly was dashing over the plain, mounted on his fleet black horse, the wind tossing through his hair, and raising it from his bare brow, where it reared itself proudly, like the mane of a lion when he flies from captivity and death.
Travelling from Los Angeles to Tucson, you can, if you choose, sleep under a roof almost every night, providing you have good teams. There are Government forage stations along the whole route, where travellers are "taken in" by the station-keepers, though not on Government account. I do not say that it is pleasant at all these stations, particularly for a woman, as she will seldom or never meet one of her own sex on the way. When we left Fort Yuma, Sam, the driver, assured me that I would not see a white woman's face between there and Tucson. He was mistaken. I met not only one, but a whole family of them, one after another.
The day that brought us to Oatman's Flat was murky, dark, and gloomy—a day in full harmony with the character of the country we were travelling through. We descended into the Flat by an abrupt fall in the road that landed us at once among a clump of scraggy, darkling willows, drooping wearily over a sluggish little creek. In the distance we could see the white sand of the bed of the Gila, and half-buried in it the ghastly, water-bleached limbs of the trees that the river had uprooted year after year in its annual frenzy. We could not go the upper road, on account of the Gila's having washed out a portion of it, and the lower road seemed to be regarded by Sam with all the disfavor it deserved. Verde or grease-wood, as ragged and scraggy as the willows, covered the whole Flat, except where, towards the centre, a dilapidated shanty stood on a sandy, cheerless open space. Not far from it were the remains of a fence, enclosing some six paces ofuneven ground, and on the only upper rail left of the inclosure sat a dismal-looking, solitary crow.
There was something so repulsively dreary about the whole place that it made me shudder, and when Sam, pointing to it with his whip, said it was the spot where the Oatman family had been murdered and lay buried, I was not in the least surprised. Only one of the whole family had escaped—a little chap who had crawled away after he had been left for dead, and brought the white people from the next settlement to the scene of the massacre. There was nothing to be done but to bury the mutilated corpses; after this, the place had been deserted and shunned by the few who lived here, though there had been no more Indian depredations committed for years past.
I was glad that the road did not take us very near the shanty, though I watched it with a strange fascination. Sam, too, had his eyes fixed on something that might have been the shadow of one of the victims, flitting by the black gap which had once been the door. The place was so weird that the ghostly shadow seemed to belong there; it chimed in so well with the rest, that I accepted it as a part of the uncanny whole. We had been going along at the usual leisurely gait, but Sam whipped up the mules all at once, and leaned out of the ambulance to speak to Phil, who drove the army wagon containing our baggage. The road was good and solid, so I took no alarm at first; but when the speed was continued, and the baggage-wagon kept thundering close behind us, I ventured to ask, "Is there danger from Indians here?"
"There hain't no Indians been seen around here for more'n three years," was the answer, which satisfied me at the time.
When we came to Burke's Station, where we were to pass the night, a surprise awaited us. The house, a squalidadobe, was built in the style common along the route—an open passage-way with rooms on either side. The principal room tothe left was bar-room and store-room; the room to the right was reception-room, sitting-room, bed-room, and behind it was the kitchen. The passage-way was dining-hall. When the tall young Missourian, mine host, had ushered me into the room, he stepped to the opening leading to the kitchen and called out:
"Here, Sis, come and speak to the lady."
Obedient to the call, a bashful, half-grown girl appeared, wiping her hands on her apron, and looking up timidly from under her long eyelashes. I took her by the hand. "How do you, child? How in the world did you get here, and where is your mother?" I asked.
Sam and Phil stood in the hall-door nudging each other, until Sam could restrain himself no longer.
"Why, that's his wife," pointing to the young Goliah from Missouri, "and her dad and mam's living in the old shanty down on the Flat. I'll be derned if they didn't give me the worst scare I had yet—thought they was Indians, shore!"
I looked from one to the other. "And how old are you?" I asked the girl.
"Almost fifteen!" was the answer; and when the men withdrew she told me about the rest of her family, whom I would probably find along the road.
Sis was badly dressed; a coarse cotton gown, made with a yoke about an inch and a half in depth, was drawn up close around her neck, and hung loosely about her slender, immature form; her naked feet were thrust into coarse boots, and a large check apron completed her costume. But there was a shy, daisy-like grace about her that made one forget the dress and see only the dove-like eyes and half-pensive smile on her face. Her husband treated her in all things like a child, and she obeyed him without a murmur or a question. When we left he told us that we would find Sis's aunt at Kenyon'sStation, and charged us to say that Sis was well, and not the least bit homesick.
We made Kenyon's Station early in the day, Sam and Phil greatly enjoying the prospect of seeing another white woman here. She appeared on the threshold, a brawny, coarse-handed woman of about forty, tidy-looking, in spite of her bare feet and the short pipe in her mouth. By her side appeared a shock-headed girl of twelve, with eyes agog and mouth open at the strange apparition of a civilized-looking white woman. The husband stood beside the ambulance—six feet and a half in his cowhide boots—a good-humored smile on his leathery face, and lifted me to the ground as though I had been a feather. Though the house, like that at Burke's Station, was onlyadobe, there was an air of homely comfort about it, inside and out, that made it much more cheerful than the other place.
Aunt Polly was an excellent housekeeper—as viewed from a Texan standpoint—and after she had in the mostnaïvemanner satisfied her curiosity in regard to my looks and general make-up, she commenced preparations for dinner. Sarah Eliza Jane, sole daughter of the house and race, stayed by me in the room. Sitting in a low, home-made chair, she stared steadily at me, sitting on a taller home-made chair, till she had comprehended that the bits of braid and lace in my lap were to be manufactured into a collar similar to the one I wore in my dress. When she learned that the collar was to be for her, she ran out to the kitchen, shouting for her mother to come and see what I was doing. The mother's delight was as frank and hearty as the daughter's, and all at once the secret leaked out that the family was in possession of a fine American cow. Never speak disparagingly to me of Pikes and Texans. The least kindness shown to them is returned tenfold, and the smallest advance of friendliness is met by them half-way. When dinner (or supper) was placed on the table, there came with it the most delicious butter I had eaten for many along day, to say nothing of a glass of buttermilk, the sweetest I ever tasted. But I must tell you how Aunt Polly made the butter, in case you should emigrate to Arizona without a patent diamond churn. The cream was put into a high tin quart cup, and beaten with a spoon till the butter came—which it did in about fifteen minutes.
By the time dinner was over we had become quite intimate, and Aunt Polly having resumed her pipe, gave me a short account of her history since emigrating from Texas. The two most striking incidents were the loss of her former husband by a stroke of lightning, about ten months ago, and the acquisition of her present husband by a stroke of policy, about three months ago. Though she did not show me the weeds she had worn on becoming a widow, she exhibited the gorgeous "good clothes" she wore on again becoming a wife. She stood at a little distance from me and spread out the second-day dress, so that I could see the whole of the pattern, consisting of detached bouquets—brilliantly variegated in color and gigantic in size—scattered over a plain of light sky-blue. The dress worn for "the occasion" was a gauzy white muslin, which must have had a delicate effect—if she wore bare feet and a pipe in her mouth with it. Her husband had proved kind and indulgent. Since their marriage he had been at Maricopa Wells, and had bought at the store there another beautiful dress of many colors—which, alas! had run out of his saddle-bags, after a two hours' hard rain, on his way home. I saw the dress pattern, and—oh, it was pitiful.
After this display of good-will and fine clothes on her part, she said she had a favor to ask of me, too. She pointed to my trunk, and said her husband was crazy to know whether there was a waterfall in it? He had read so much about waterfalls in the stray papers that fell into his hands that he had the greatest curiosity in the world to know what it was, and to see one with his own eyes. He imagined it to be akind of box or bag that ladies wore on their heads to carry their hair in, and, seeing no foreign matter on my head, he "reckoned that I packed it with me in my trunk." Aunt Polly had shrewdly guessed it to be a new fashion of "putting up" the hair; but they both had about as correct an idea of it as a blind man has of colors. With deep regret I owned that there was no waterfall in my trunk; but seeing their disappointment, I succeeded, with the aid of a pair of stockings and a pin-cushion, in putting up my hair into quite a little Niagara, to the great delight of these fashion-worshipping people.
How charming the grove of trees looks, when you draw up under their shadow at Gila Bend, after days of travel over tedious sand-plains or through wildernesses of grease-wood and cactus. The whisper of the wind in the trees, the bark of the dog that ran out to meet us, and the cackle of the busy hens around the doorway, told us that we should find good and happy people here. There was the solitary house as usual, but it seemed more pretentious than those at the other stations. The passage-way was higher and wider, the rooms more numerous, and finished with whitewash and good glass windows. At the windows curtains; a gay-colored counterpane on the bed, and wolf-skins in front of it and the lounge.
The station-keeper was a black-bearded, good-looking man, and his name was George Washington—(I won't give the rest of his name—it's too long). I knew I should find Sis's elder sister here as Mrs. George W. ——, for she had been married on the same day with her Aunt Polly. The blue eyes, under long, silken lashes, that met my gaze on the threshold at Gila Bend were like Sis's, only these were the eyes of a woman; there were the same pretty movements, too, only there was more of self-assertion in them. She might have been eighteen; from out of the muslin dress she wore shone the whitest shoulders that belle ever exhibited in aball-room. Her hands and feet were small, and her rich brown hair, oddly, though not unbecomingly dressed, lay on a forehead white and pure as that of a child.
No wonder George W. was proud of his wife, and had tried hard to win as such the barefooted girl whom he found one day, with her family and some sorry ox-teams, camped near his house, on their way from Texas to California. It was quite a large family. There was the girl's mother, her step-father, her sister, her brother, the aunt, and the aunt's little girl. Aunt Polly seemed to be the leading man, for to her belonged the two best ox-teams, one of which was driven by herself, the other by the girl, Dorinda. She had hired or bought her niece from the step-father for this purpose, after she had lost her husband by lightning, and Dora had been faithful to her task, although pretty nearly worn out crossing the Desert from Maricopa Wells to Gila Bend, where George W. first found them. After he had taken a deep look into the girl's eyes, he very disinterestedly invited the whole family to come into his house—as far as they would go in—to rest there from the long, hard journey. The family was treated to the best the house afforded, and the oxen were fed on such hay as they had perhaps never dreamed of before.
The Texans were in no hurry to move on, and George W. was in no hurry to have them go; being a bachelor, he was naturally fond of ladies' society. Dora, Sis, and the ten-year-old brother soon became warmly attached to him, and they, with the big dog, Bose, would daily wander off to the Gila to catch fish. When they got there the two barefooted girls and the brother would wade into the stream with ever fresh zest, as they recalled that dreadful drag across the waterless desert. Bose always went into the water with them, George W. alone remaining on the bank, fishing-line in hand.
One day, when Dora had watched the cool, clear water gliding swiftly over her sun-browned feet in silence, she raised her eyes suddenly from under the long, shading lashes:
"Why do you never come into the water? Don't you like to stand in it?" she asked of George.
"Come and sit beside me here, and I will tell you!"
She nestled down beside him, and he called to Bose, who laid his head on his master's knee and looked knowingly from one to the other.
"About three years ago, before I had built this house of mine, I lived in a little shanty, about a mile from the river—just back here. The summer was very hot. I had suffered much from the sun and the want of water in crossing the country, and after the man who came out here with me had gone on to Fort Yuma, I was left entirely alone. When I see you over your ankles in the water now, I am often tempted to call you back, only I know that you are young and strong, and I remember but too well what pleasure there is in it. Besides, you do not remain in it as I did, for long weary hours every day, standing in the shade of a willow catching fish for my dinner. There was little else here to eat then, and I never left off fishing till I was taken with rheumatism, from which I had suffered years before. I was all alone and could not move, and had nearly perished for want of water, because I could not walk down to the river to get it. Nor could I cook anything, because beans require a great deal of water, and I would have died alone in my shanty, if it had not been for this dog." (Bose wagged his tail to indicate that he understood what was being said.) "A dozen times a day Bose would trot down to the river, dip up a small tin pailful of water, and bring it to me where I stood or lay. Otherwise the faithful old fellow never left my side, day or night, and though he would, no doubt, nurse me through another spell of rheumatism, it would be dreadful to be sick and alone here after you and your people have left me."
Dora was stroking the dog's rough coat. "It would be dreadful," she repeated, absently, a tear rolling from herlashes to her cheek. Her words and the look in her eyes thrilled the man to his inmost soul.
"Dora," he said, and arrested the hand travelling over Bose's head; "Dora, I am old enough to be your father—"
"Yes," she replied, looking up artlessly—but there was something in his face that made her eyes drop and the warm blood flush her cheeks.
When he spoke again it was of something quite different, and after awhile the conversation turned to her family. Her stepfather did not always treat her well; he had struck her cruelly once, and her mother dared not interfere, she knowing his temper but too well. George could hardly keep from putting his arms about her to shield her from the man's rough ways, and in his heart he vowed that it should be different if Dora did but will it so. The stepfather and aunt had spoken of pulling up stakes soon, but what wonder that Dora was averse to going?
In the evening George W. proposed to the stepfather that he remain at the station and "farm it" near the river, while the mother kept house for them all and served meals to the travelling public of Arizona. From sheer perverseness the stepfather refused, saying that he wanted to go on to California, and George W. determined to hasten matters in another direction. He hovered as much as possible about Dora, who, since the day by the riverside, had taken Bose into her confidence and affection. Wherever she went the dog went, too, and his master augured well for himself from this, though Dora was shy and more distant than when she first came to Gila Bend.
One day the Texans commenced gathering up their "tricks" and making ready to go. Dora's eyes were red, and George W., to cheer her, perhaps, proposed that she should go with him to where he suspected one of the hens had made a nest in the bushes by the river bank. When they came back sheseemed even more shy, though she stole up to him in the twilight, where he stood by the big mesquite tree, and hastily put her hands into his. He drew her to him quickly, pressed her head to his breast, and murmured: "Thanks, my little girl!" as he touched her hair with his lips. An hour later there was clamor and confusion at Gila Bend. George W. seemed to have caused it all, for to him the aunt vehemently declared that shewouldhave the girl to drive her ox-team into California—she had hired her and paid for her; and the step-father shouted that he had control of the child, and go she should, whether or no.
Poor George passed a sleepless night. The picture of Dora, barefooted and weary, toiling hopelessly through the sand on the desert, was always before him, and he swore to himself that she should not go from him; that he would shelter her henceforth from the cruel, burning sun, and the sharp words and sharper blows of her stepfather. In the morning, after exacting a promise from the aunt and the stepfather to remain until he returned, he started out alone on his trusty horse, Bose running close by his side. When he had left the shelter of the trees, he halted and looked keenly about him in every direction. A sharp bark from Bose made him turn toward the river. Swift of foot as the antelope of the plains, Dora was crossing the stretch of land between the road and the river, and when she reached the lone horseman waiting for her, a light bound brought her foot into the stirrup and her flushed face on a level with his.
"Thanks, my little girl, I knew you would come," he said, as on the night before; but this time he held her face between his hands and looked searchingly into her eyes. "What if they should try to take my little girl away before I come back—would she go off and leave me?"
She met his look fearlessly and confidingly. "Tell me what direction you are going, and I will run away and follow you, if they break up before your return."
"Toward Fort Yuma. I shall ride day and night, and return to you in ten days. Good-bye; keep faith and keep courage."
"Good-bye!" for the first time the soft, bare arms were laid around his neck, and the blushing, child-like face half-buried in his full black beard. "Let me keep Bose here," she called after him, and at a word from his master, the dog sped after her over the cactus-covered ground.
At Gila Bend, preparations for departure on George's return were kept on foot—purposely, it seemed, to keep before Dora's eyes the fact that she was expected to go with her people when they went. The days passed, one like the other; there was no event to break the monotony of this desert-life. Yes, there was a change; but none knew of it nor perceived it, except, perhaps, Dora's mother. From a thoughtless, easily-guided girl, Dora was changing into a self-reliant, strong-spirited woman. Her mother knew of her resolve as well as though she had heard her utter it; she looked upon her eldest-born with all the greater pride when she discovered that "the gal had a heap of her dad's grit," as well as his mild blue eyes.