As he sprawled there at his reading, Amigo came in from the hills, and he, too, was content to relax. Gravely scanning the colored sheet, his dark face lighted up.
It was all very peaceful and pleasant, but it was not destined to last.
On the morning after they had laughed at the comic paper and decided that all the world was fair, Hooker and Amigo were squatting by the fire and eating a man's-size breakfast.
The creek, swollen by yesterday's torrential rain, had settled to a rivulet. The wind had not risen and the sun was just over the hill when, with a rush and a scramble, Amigo threw down his cup and was off in a flash for the rocks.
A moment later two men rode down the cañon, and then two more, and two more. It was a column of men, all armed with rifles, and they cast envious eyes at Copper Bottom as they halted before the camp. As for Bud, he saluted gravely, for he knew them for what they were.
These were the lost forces of Bernardo Bravo and Salazar, Rojas, and the other bandit chiefs, and they marched, as he well knew, upon Fortuna. They marched quietly, and the great whistle had not blown.
It would make a rich prize, Fortuna, if they could take it by surprise! The ransom for the Spanishhaciendadosalone would amount to thousands of dollars, and the mine-owners could afford to pay anything in order to save their works.
A box of dynamite under the giant concentrator and the money would be produced at once and yet the scoundrels halted at a one-man camp to steal a single horse!
A flicker of scorn passed over Hooker's face as the leader came dashing up, but the Texan greeted him with a slow smile.
"Buenos dias, general!" he said. "You have many men."
"Enough!" observed the "general" hurriedly. "But some in the rear are on foot. As I suppose you are in sympathy with our great cause, I will ask you for that horse. Of course, I will give you a receipt."
He fetched out a blank-book as he spoke and motioned to a ragged beggar at his heels. Bud checked the man's rush with a look.
"One moment!" he said, and as the soldier turned back his general glanced up sharply.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Only this, Señor General," answered Bud. "You are welcome to anything I have—food, blankets, money—but I cannot give you that horse."
"But,señor," protested the general, regarding him with arrogant pig eyes that glinted wickedly, "this poor soldier's feet are sore. Surely you would not make him walk. Only name your price and I will give you a receipt for him, but my man must have the horse."
There was a pause and men began to dismount and move in closer. At a word from their commander any one of them would draw and kill him, as Hooker very well knew, but his love for Copper Bottom made him obdurate.
"If the man is lame," he said, "I will give him another horse—but he cannot have this sorrel."
He stepped quickly over to the corral and turned with his back to the gate, while the commander spat out orders in Spanish and armed men came running.
"Señor," he said, advancing bruskly upon the defiant Hooker, "I must trouble you for that pistol."
"No,señor!" answered the cowboy, keeping his hand upon his gun, "not to you nor no man—and I'll never give it up to a Mexican!"
"Carái!" exclaimed the officer impatiently, "you are anAmericano—no?"
"Not only that," rumbled Bud, drawing himself up in his pride, "I am aTejanoalso, and if any man touches that horse I'll kill him!"
His voice trembled with anger, but his hand was steady and the Mexicans did not deceive themselves.
"Ha,uno Tejano!" murmured the men who stood about, and one or two who had started to climb the fence thought better of it and dropped back to the ground.
Bud knew the fate of several men who had proclaimed themselves Americans to theinsurrectos—boastfully done, it was said to be the quickest way there was of drawing a Mexican bullet. But to be a Texan was different—somehow the very name suggested trouble to their minds and an Alamo fight to the death. Hooker saw that he had made an impression, and he was not slow to follow it up.
"If you need a horse," he said to the general, "let your man go up that arroyo and he will find one hobbled on the flat. Then give me your receipt for two hundred dollars gold and I will contribute a saddle."
It was a reasonable concession, under the circumstances, and, best of all, it saved the general's face. The hideous frown with which he had regarded the American changed suddenly to a look of pompous pride. He jerked an imperious head at his ragged retainer and drew forth his receipt-book with a flourish.
While he waited for the horse to appear he turned upon his snooping men and drove them to their mounts with curses. Evidently it was no sinecure to command in the army of the liberation, and the veiled mutterings of his followers showed that they were little better than tigers in leash.
Mounted upon horses, mules, and even burros, armed with every conceivable weapon from a musket to standard repeating rifles, they were a tatterdemalion army, more fit for "treason, strategems, and spoils" than the sterner duties of war.
Bud looked them over closely, well satisfied to have his back against a wall, and when the low-browed retainer came hurrying back with the horse he quickly took the worthless receipt and watched them on their way. Then, as the last camp-follower disappeared, he ran for his saddle and rifle and within a minute he was mounted and away.
There were rebels below him—very likely there were more to come—the only safe place for Copper Bottom was over the hills at Fortuna. Without stopping for path or trail he headed straight north-west over the ridges, riding as the cowboys do when they rake the range for cattle. Hardly had he topped the first high crest when he came in sight of Amigo, loaded down with his cartridge-belts and carrying his heavy Mauser.
In a long, shambling trot the Yaqui was drifting along the hillside with the free grace of a wild creature, and when Hooker pulled down his horse to keep pace with him he laughed and motioned him on. Taking the lead, he loped on over hogback andbarranca, picking out the best trail by instinct and setting such a pace that Bud was hard-pressed to keep up with him.
He had heard it said that in the Yaqui country no white man, no matter how well he was mounted, could outdistance the Indians on foot, and now he knew it was true. But why this killing haste on the part of Amigo? He had neither friends nor kin in town; why, then, should he run so fast to warn them of the enemy?
They racked on, up one hill and down another, while theinsurrectosfollowed the cañon that swung to the south, and finally, in a last scramble, they mounted a rocky ridge and looked down upon Old Fortuna.
Already the hard-driven peons were out in the fields at work and smoke was rising from themescalstill. Aragon was busy, but his labors would be worse than wasted if the red-flaggers took him prisoner. As Bud breathed his horse he hesitated whether to ride back and warn him or press on and notify Fortuna; but even for that brief spell the Yaqui could not wait.
"Adios," he said, coming close and holding out his black hand; "I go this way!" And he pointed along the ridge.
"But why?" said Bud, still at a loss to account for his haste. Then, seeing the reticence in the Indian's eyes, he thrust out his hand in return.
"Adios, amigo mio!" he replied, and with a quick grip the Yaqui was gone.
With that same deceptive speed he shambled through the bushes, still lugging the heavy rifle and making for higher ground. Bud knew he had some purpose—he even had a sneaking idea that it was to take pot-shots at Captain del Rey—but six months in Mexico had made him careless, and he half hoped the Yaqui would win.
Thecapitanhad it coming to him for his brutality, but with Aragon it was different—Aragon had a wife and daughter—and, with the memory of Gracia in his mind, Bud sent his horse plunging down the ridge to warn them before it was too late.
There were some brush fences to be jumped, but Copper Bottom took them flying, and as they cut into the river trail he made the mud-puddles splash. Across the fields to the south Bud could see the peons running for cover—theinsurrectosmust be in sight beyond the hills.
He was going south, they were moving west, but it was five miles north again to the town. Speed was what was needed and Copper Bottom gave his best. They dashed into Fortuna like a whirlwind, and Hooker raised his voice in a high yell.
"Insurrectos!" he shouted. "La drones! Pr-onto áFortuna!"
There was a hush, a moment's silence, and then heads appeared from every window and women ran screaming with the news. Aragon came rushing from the store and confronted him angrily; then, reading conviction in his tones, he called for horses and ran frantically into the house.
A shrill screech came from the hillside, where a serving-woman had scampered to view the valley, and, as she pointed her finger and screamed, mothers laid hold of their little ones and started up the valley on foot.
Still the men ran about in the horse-pen and Aragon adjured his womenfolk in the house. Burning with impatience, Bud spurred his way to the corral where they were fumbling with reata and rigging and dropped a rope on the first horse he saw. Then he snatched a side-saddle from a trembling peon and slapped it on the brute's back. Grabbing up the bridle, he led the horse back to the house and bridled it while he shouted for haste.
Still the women tarried, and the sound of galloping came from the south. Then, as all seemed lost, the Mexicans came bumping out from the stable with the family coach, Aragon and his wife leaped in, and Gracia, neatly attired in a riding-skirt, came tripping down the steps.
Even in such times as these she seemed to realize her first duty to herself, and Hooker had to gaze for a moment before he helped her up. She offered her foot and vaulted lightly into the saddle; the coach went pounding on ahead; and as the servants scattered before her she galloped off at the side of Bud.
Behind them the rumble of distant hoofs rose up like the roaring of waters, and the shrieks of fleeing women echoed from the roadside, but once safely in the cañon their lead was never lessened and, with coach-horses galloping and postilions lashing from both sides, the whole cavalcade swept into the plaza while the town of Fortuna went mad.
Already the great whistle was blowing hoarsely, its deep reverberations making the air tremble as if with fear. Americans were running back and forth, distributing arms and rushing their women to cover; Don Juan, his chin quivering with excitement, was imploring all comers to be calm; and the Aragons, coming flying up to the door, added the last touch to the panic.
They with their own eyes had seen the rebels; they were riding in from the south! Other men, equally excited, swore they were coming from the north, and a disorderly body of Sonoran miners, armed as if by magic with guns which had long lain hidden, banked themselves about the store and office and clamored for more and more cartridges. Then a rip of gun-fire echoed from across the cañon, and the miners made a rush to the attack.
The whistle, which had obscured all sound as a cloud obscures the light, stopped suddenly in its roar, and the crowd at the hotel became calm. The superintendent, a wiry, gray-haired little man with decision in every movement, came running from his fortlike house on the hill and ordered all the women to take shelter there and take their children with them.
So, while the rifles rattled and stray bullets began to knock mud from the walls, they went straggling up the hill, rich and poor, patrician and peon, while the air was rent by the wails of the half-Indian Mexican women who held themselves as good as captured by therevoltosos, concerning whose scruples they entertained no illusions.
The women of the aristocracy bore themselves with more reserve, as befitting their birth and station, and the Americans who gathered about them with their protecting rifles pretended that all would be well; but in the mind of everyone was that same terror which found expression in the peon wail and, while scattered rebels and newly armed miners exchanged volleys on both sides of the town, the non-combatant Americans sought out every woman and rushed her up to the big house. There, if worst came to worst, they could make a last stand, or save them by a ransom.
So, from the old woman who kept the candy stand in the plaza to the wives of the miners and the cherished womenfolk of the landowners, they were all crowded inside the broad halls of the big house; and seventy-odd Americans, armed with company rifles, paced nervously along the broad verandas or punched loopholes in the adobe walls that enclosed the summer-garden behind.
Along with the rest went Hooker and Gracia, and, though her mother beckoned and her father frowned sternly, the wilful daughter of the Aragons did not offer to leave him as they scampered up the hill. In fact, she rode close beside him, spurring when he spurred and, finally, when the shower of stray bullets had passed, she led on around the house.
"Won't you help me take my horse inside the walls?" she asked. Bud followed after her, circling the fortress whose blank adobe walls gave shelter to the screaming women, and she smiled upon him with the most engaging confidence.
"I know you will have to go soon," she said, "and I suppose I've got to be shut in with those creatures, but we must be sure to save our horses. Some bullets might hit them, you know, and then we could not run away!
"You remember your promise!" she reminded, as Bud gazed at her in astonishment. "Ah, yes, I knew you did—otherwise you would not have picked such a good horse for me. This roan is my father's best riding-horse. You must put yours inside the wall with him, and when the time is right we will get them and ride for the line."
"What?" cried Hooker incredulously, "with the country full of rebels? They're liable to take the town in half an hour!"
"No, indeed they will not!" responded Gracia with spirit. "You do not understand the spirit of us Sonorans! Can't you see how the firing has slackened? The miners have driven your rebels back already, and they will do more—they will follow them up and kill them! Then, when the rebels are in flight and Del Rey and hisruralesare away, that will be a good time for us to slip off and make our dash for the line!"
"Nothing doing!" announced Hooker, as he dismounted at the corral. "You don't know what you're talking about! But I will leave my horse here," he added. "I sure don't wanthimto get hurt."
"But you promised!" protested Gracia weakly.
"Promised nothing!" retorted Bud ungraciously. "I promised to take care of you, didn't I? Well, what's the use of talking, then? You better stay right here, where you're safe. Come on, let's go to the house!"
"No!" cried Gracia, her dark eyes turning misty with imminent tears. "Oh, Mr. Hooker!" she burst out, "didn't I keep them all waiting while I put on this riding-skirt? I thought you had come to take me away! What do I care to be safe? I want to be free! I want to run away—and go across the line to dear Phil!" she faltered. Then she looked up at him sharply and her voice took on an accusing tone.
"Aha!" she said, as if making some expected discovery, "sothatis it! I thought perhaps you wereafraid!"
"What?" demanded Bud, put suddenly upon the defensive.
"I might have known it," soliloquized Gracia with conviction. "You are jealous of dear Phil!"
"Who? Me?" cried Hooker, smiling down at her grimly. "Well, let it go at that," he said, as she regarded him with an arch smile. "I'd certainly be a fool to take all those chances for nothing. Let him steal his own girl—that's what I say!"
"Now that, Mr. Hooker," burst out Gracia in a passion, "is very unkind—and rude! Am I a woman of the town, to be stolen by one man or another? Am I—"
"That's what you would be," put in Bud, with brutal directness, "if these rebels got hold of you. No, ma'am, I wouldn't take you out of this town for a hundred thousand dollars. You don't know what you're talking about, that's all! Wait till the fighting is over—Gee! Did you hear that? Come on, let's get into the house!"
He ducked suddenly as a bullet wentspangagainst the corrugated iron roof above them and, seizing her by the hand, he half dragged her through a side door and into the summer garden.
Here a sudden outcry of women's voices assailed their ears like a rush of wind and they beheld peon mothers running to and fro with their screaming children clasped to their breasts or dragging at their skirts. A few helpless men were trying to keep them quiet, but as the bullets began to thud against the adobe walls the garden became a bedlam.
Gracia stood and surveyed the scene for a moment, ignoring the hulking Bud with disdainful eyes. Then she snatched her hand indignantly away and ran to pick up a child. That was all, but Hooker knew what she thought of him.
He passed through the house, hoping to discover where she had gone, but all he heard was her commanding voice as she silenced the wailing women, and, feeling somehow very much out of place, he stepped forth into the open.
After all, for a man of his build, the open was best. Let the white-handed boys stay with the ladies—they understood their ways.
The superintendent's house stood on a low bench above the town, looking out over all the valley, but protected by a high hill behind, upon the summit of which was placed a mammoth black water-tank.
In its architecture thecasa grandewas an exact replica of a hot-countryhacienda, a flat-roofed, one-storied square of adobe bricks, whitewashed to keep off the sun and presenting on three sides nothing but the dead walls of house and garden, with dense trees planted near for shade. Along the front was a long arcade, thecorredor, graced by a series of massive arches which let in the light and air. Inside were low chambers and long passages; and, behind, thepatioand garden of orange and fig trees.
Built for a sumptuous dwelling, it became in a moment a fort and, with men on the high hill by the tank, it was practically impregnable to direct assault.
As Hooker stepped out onto the covered porch with his saddle-gun in his hand he became simply one more of a band of excited Americans, all armed and ready to defend the house to the last. Some were pacing back and forth in thecorredor, others were hurrying up from the Mexican quarters with a last belated handful of women, but the major portion were out on the open bench, either gazing north and south at the scenes of the distant firing or engaging in a curio-mad scramble for any spent bullet that struck.
The fighting, such as there was, was mostly up the cañon, where a large party of Sonoran miners had rushed in pursuit of the rebels. The firing down the cañon in the direction of Old Fortuna had died away to nothing, and for the moment if seemed as if the futile charge and retreat were the beginning and the end of the battle.
A party of rebels had penetrated clear into the town, but it was apparently more by accident than intention, and they had been quick to beat a retreat. As for the main command of theinsurrectos, they were reported at Chular, six miles up the railroad, where they had surrounded and taken a small mining camp and captured a train at the summit.
The column to the south—the one which Hooker had encountered—had taken to the high hills west of the town, and, along the sky-line of the buttelike summits, they could now be seen in scattered bands making their way to the north.
The defenders of Fortuna consisted of a rag-tag garrison of twenty Federals and the hot-headed, charging miners. But apparently that was a combination hard to beat, for, while the Federals entrenched themselves behind the black tank on the hill and prepared to protect the town, the Sonorans in shouting masses drove everything before them and marched on to attack Chular.
But in this they made a mistake, for the rebel scouts, seeing the great body of defenders pressing on up the narrow cañon, rode back and informed the tricky Bernardo Bravo. He would be a poor general indeed who could not see the opening that was offered and, while the valiant Sonorans pursued the rebel cavalry up the pass, Bernardo Bravo sent the half of his thousand men to cut off their retreat from behind.
Along the broad top of the mountain above they came scampering by tens and twenties, closing in with a vastly superior force upon the now defenseless town. In the depths of the cañon below the miners were still chasing the elusive cavalry, their firing becoming faint as they clambered on toward the summit and the rebel headquarters at Chular.
They had, in fact, been handled like children, and the Americans joined in contemptuous curses of their mistaken bravery as they beheld in what straits it had left them.
Forbidden by the superintendent to participate in the combat, yet having in their care the women of the camp, they were compelled to stand passively aside while rebels by the hundred came charging down the ridges. Only in the last resort, and when all diplomacy and Federal defense had failed, would they be allowed to so much as cock a rifle. And yet—well, twenty determined Americans might easily turn back this charge.
Taking advantage of his Mexican citizenship, Hooker was already on the run for the trenches when the superintendent stopped him with a look.
"Let the Mexicans fight it out," he said. "They might resent it if you took sides, and that would make it bad for us. Just wait a while—you never can tell what will happen. Perhaps theruralesand Federals will stand them off."
"What, that little bunch?" demanded Bud, pointing scornfully at the handful of defenders who were cowering behind their rock-piles. "Why, half of thempelónesdon't know what a gun was made for, and therurales—"
"Well, the rebels are the same," suggested the superintendent pacifically. "Let them fight it out—we need every American we can get, so just forget about being a Mexican."
"All right," agreed Bud, as he yielded reluctantly to reason. "It ain't because I'm a Mexican citizen—I just want to stop that rush."
He walked back to the house, juggling his useless gun and keeping his eye on the distant ridges. And then, in a chorus of defiant yells, the men in the Federal trenches began to shoot.
In an air-line the distance was something over a mile, but at the first scattering volley the rebels halted and fired a volley in return. With a viciousspanga few stray bullets smashed against the reverberating steel tank, but no one was hurt, and the defenders, drunk with valor, began to shoot and yell like mad.
The bullets of the rebels, fired at random, struck up dust-jets in every direction, and from the lower part of the town came the shouting of the non-combatant Mexicans as they ran here and there for shelter. But by the trenches, and in the rear of the black tank, the great crowd of onlookers persisted, ducking as each successive bullet hit the tank and shouting encouragement as the defenders emptied their rifles and reloaded with clip after clip.
The rifles rattled a continuous volley; spent bullets leaped like locusts across the flat; men ran to and fro, now crouching behind the tank, now stepping boldly into the open; and the defiant shouts of the defenders almost drowned the wails of the women. Except for one thing it was a battle—there was nobody hurt.
For the first half-hour the Americans stayed prudently under cover, busying themselves at the suggestion of a few American women in providing a first-aid hospital on the sheltered porch. Then, as no wounded came to fill it and the rebels delayed their charge, one man after another climbed up to the trenches, ostensibly to bring down the injured.
As soldiers and bystanders reported no one hit, and the bullets flew harmlessly past, their solicitude turned rapidly to disgust and then to scorn. Strange as it may seem, they were disappointed at the results, and their remarks were derogatory as they commented on the bravery ofpelónesand Mexicans in general.
From a dread of imminent attack, of charging rebels and retreating defenders, and a fight to the death by the house, they came suddenly to a desire for blood and battle, for dead men and the cries of the wounded; and all fear of theinsurrectosleft them.
"Come away, boys," grunted the burly roadmaster, who up to then had led in the work; "we wasted our time on that hospital—there'll be no wounded. Let's take ourselves back to the house and have a quiet smoke."
"Right you are, Ed," agreed the master mechanic, as he turned upon his heel in disgust. "This ain't war—them Mexicans think they're working for a moving-picture show!"
"I bet you I can go up on that ridge," announced Hooker, "and clean out the whole bunch with my six-shooter before you could bat your eye."
But the superintendent was not so sure.
"Never mind, boys," he said. "We're worth a lot of ransom money to those rebels and they won't give up so quick. And look at this now—my miners coming back! Those are the boys that will fight! Wait till Chico and Ramon Mendoza get after them!"
He pointed as he spoke to a straggling band of Sonorans, led by the much-vaunted Mendoza brothers, as they hurried to save the town, and a cheer went up from the trenches as the Federals beheld reenforcements. But a change had come over the fire-eating miners, and they brought other rebels in their wake.
As they trudged wearily into town and sought shelter among the houses a great body of men appeared on the opposite ridge, firing down at them as they retreated. The battle rapidly turned into a long-distance shooting contest, with the rebels on the ridges and the defenders in the valley, and finally, as the day wore on and a thunderstorm came up, it died out altogether and the rebels turned back to their camp.
Except for one lone Federal who had shot himself by accident there was not a single defender hurt, and if the enemy had suffered losses it was only by some such chance. But when the Sonoran patriots, holding up their empty belts, came clamoring for ammunition, the men by the big house took in the real catastrophe of the battle.
Seventeen thousand rounds of the precious thirty-thirties had been delivered to the excited miners and now, except for what few the Americans had saved, there was not a cartridge in camp. Very soberly the superintendent assured the leaders that he had no more. They pointed at the full belts of the American guard and demanded them as their right; and when the Americans refused to yield they flew into a rage and threatened.
All in all, it was a pitiful exhibition of hot-headedness and imbecility, and only the firmness of the superintendent prevented a real spilling of blood. The Mexicans retired in a huff and broke into thecantina, and as the night came on the valley re-echoed to their drunken shoutings.
Such was war as the Sonorans conceived it. When Hooker, standing his guard in thecorredor, encountered Gracia Aragon on her evening walk, he could scarcely conceal a grin.
"What are you laughing at, Señor Hooker?" she demanded with asperity. "Is it so pleasant, with a houseful of frightened women and screaming children, that you should make fun of our plight?"
"No, indeed," apologized Bud; "nothing like that. Sure must be bad in there—I stay outside myself. But I reckon it'll soon be over with. The Mexicans here in town have shot off all their ammunition and I reckon the rebels have done the same. Like as not they'll all be gone to-morrow, and then you can go back home."
"Oh, thank you for thinking about me!" she returned with a scornful curl of the lip. "But if all men were as open as you, Mr. Hooker, we women would never need to ask a question. This morning you told me I did not know what I was talking about—now I presume you are thinking what cowards the Mexicans are!
"Oh, I know! You need not deny it! You are nothing but a great big—Tejano! Yes, I was going to say 'brute,' but you are a friend of dear Phil's, and so I will hold my tongue. If it wasn't for that, I'd—" She paused, leaving him to guess.
"Oh, I do wish he were here!" she breathed, leaning wearily against the white pillar of an arch and gazing down through the long arcade.
"It was so close in there," she continued, "I could not stand it a minute longer. These Indian women, you know—they weep and moan all the time. And the children—I am so sorry for them. I cannot go now, because they need me; but to-morrow—if Phil were here—I would leave and ride for the line.
"Have you seen Del Rey to-day? No? Then all the better—he must be policing the town. It is only of him I am afraid. These rebels are nothing—I agree with you! No! I am not angry with you at all now! But to-morrow, just at dusk, when all is still as it is at this time; then, if Phil were here, I would mount my brave horse and ride out by the western pass."
She ended rather inconclusively, letting her voice trail off wistfully as she waited for him to speak, but something within moved Hooker to hold his peace, and he looked out over the town without commenting on her plans. It was evident to him that she was determined to enlist his sympathy and involve him in her wild plot, and each time the conversation veered in that direction he took refuge in a stubborn silence.
"What are you thinking, Mr. Hooker?" she asked at last, as he gazed into the dusk. "Sometimes I scold you and sometimes I try to please you, but I never know what you think! I did not mean that when I said I could read your thoughts—you are so different from poor, dear Phil!"
"M-m-m," mumbled Bud, shifting his feet, and his face turned a little grim.
"Aha!" she cried with ill-concealed satisfaction, "you do not like me to call him that, do you? 'Poor, dear Phil,'—like that! But do you know why I do it? It is to punish you for never coming near me—when I signed to you—when I waited for you—long ago! Ah, you were so cruel! I wanted to know you—you were a cowboy, and I thought you were brave enough to defend me—but you always rode right by. Yes, that was it—but Phil was different! He came when I sent for him; he sang songs to me at night; he took my part against Manuel del Rey; and now—"
"Yes!" commented Bud bruskly, with his mind on "dear Phil's" finish, and she turned to peer into his face.
"So that is it!" she said. "You do not trust me. You think that I am not your friend—that I will serve you as he was served. Is that what you are thinking?"
"Something like that," admitted Hooker, leaning lazily against the mud wall. "Only I reckon I don't think just the way you do."
"Why? How do I think?" she demanded eagerly.
"Well, you think awful fast," answered Hooker slowly. "And you don't always think the same, seems like. I'm kind of quiet myself, and I don't like—well, I wouldn't say that, but you don't always mean what you say."
"Oh!" breathed Gracia, and then, after a pause, she came nearer and leaned against the low wall beside him.
"If I would speak from my heart," she asked, "if I would talk plain, as you Americans do, would you like me better then? Would you talk to me instead of standing silent? Listen, Bud—for that is your name—I want you to be my friend the way you were a friend to Phil. I know what you did for him, and how you bore with his love-madness—and that was my fault, too. But partly it was also your fault, for you made me angry by not coming.
"Yes, I will be honest now—it was you that I wanted to know at first, but you would not come, and now I am promised to Phil. He was brave when you were careful, and my heart went out to him. You know how it is with us Mexicans—we do not love by reason. We love like children—suddenly—from the heart! And now all I wish in life is to run away to Phil. But every time I speak of it you shut your jaws or tell me I am a fool."
"Ump-um," protested Bud, turning stubborn again. "I tell you you don't know what you're talking about. These rebels don't amount to nothing around the town, but on a trail they're awful. They shoot from behind rocks and all that, and a woman ain't no ways safe. You must know what they're like—these old women don't think about nothing else—so what's the use of talking? And besides," he added grimly, "I've had some trouble with your old man and don't want to have any more."
"What trouble have you had?" she demanded promptly, but Hooker would not answer in words. He only shrugged his shoulders and turned away, crumpling his hat in his hand.
"But no!" she cried as she sensed the meaning of his concealment, "you must tell me! I want to know. Was it over your mine? Then you must not blame me, for he never has told me a word!"
"No?" inquired Bud, rousing suddenly at the memory of his wrongs. "Then maybe you will tell me how he gotthis"—he fetched a worn piece of ore from his pocket—"when my pardner gave it toyou! It was right there I lost my pardner—and he was a good kid, too—and all because of that rock. Here, take a look at it—I took that away from your father!"
"Then he stole it from me!" flashed back Gracia as she gazed at the specimen. "Oh, have you thought all the time that I betrayed Phil? But didn't I tell you—didn't I tell you at the hotel, when you promised to be my friend? Ah, I see that you are a hard man, Mr. Hooker—quick to suspect, slow to forget—and yet I told you before! But listen, and I will tell you again. I remember well when dear Phil showed me this rock—he was so happy because he had found the gold. And just to make it lucky he let me hold it while we were talking through a hole in the wall. Then my father saw me and started to come near—I could not hand it back without betraying Phil—and in the night, when I was asleep, some one took it from under my pillow. That is the truth, and I will ask you to believe me; and if you have other things against me you must say what they are and see if I cannot explain.
"No!" she ran on, her voice vibrant with the memory of past quarrels. "I have nothing to do with my father! He does not love me, but tries to make me marry first one man and then another. But I am an American girl now, at heart—I do not want to sell myself; I want to marry for love! Can you understand that? Yes? No? Then why do you look away? Have you something that you hold against me? Ah, you shake your head—but you will not speak to me! When I was at school in Los Angeles I saw the cowboys in the West show, and they were different—they were not afraid of any danger, but they would talk, too. I have always wanted to know you, but you will not let me—I thought you were brave—like those cowboys."
She paused to make him speak, but Hooker was tongue-tied. There was something about the way she talked that pulled him over, that made him want to do what she said, and yet some secret, hidden voice was always crying: "Beware!" He was convinced now that she had never been a party to treachery; no, nor even wished him ill.
She was very beautiful, too, in the twilight, and when she drew nearer he moved away, for he was afraid she would sway him from his purpose. But now she was waiting for some answer—some word from him, though the question had never been asked. And yet he knew what it was.
She wanted him to steal away with her in the evening and ride for the border—and Phil. That was what she always wanted, no matter what she said, and now she was calling him a coward.
"Sure them bronco-riders are brave," he said in vague defense; "but there's a difference between being brave and foolish. And a man might be brave for himself and yet be afraid for other people."
"How do you mean?" she asked.
"Well," he said, "I might be willing to go out and fight a thousand of theminsurrectoswith one hand, and at the same time be afraid to take you along. Or I might—"
"Oh, then youwillgo, won't you?" she cried, clasping him by the hand. "You will, won't you? I'm not afraid!"
"No," answered Bud, drawing his hand away, "that's just what I won't do! And I'll tell you why. That country up there is full of rebels—the lowest kind there are. It just takes one shot to lay me out or cripple one of our horses. Then I'd have to make a fight for it—but what would happen to you?"
"I'd fight, too!" spoke up Gracia resolutely. "I'm not afraid."
"No," grumbled Bud, "you don't know them rebels. You've been shut up in a house all the time—if you'd been through what I have in the last six months you'd understand what I mean."
"If Phil were here,he'dtake me!" countered Gracia, and then Bud lost his head.
"Yes," he burst out, "that's jest what's the matter with the crazy fool! That's jest why he's up across the line now a hollering for me to save his girl! He's brave, is he? Well, why don't he come down, then, and save you himself? Because he's afraid to! He's afraid of getting shot or going up against Manuel del Rey. By grab! it makes me tired the way you people talk! If he'd done what I told him to in the first place he wouldn't have got into this jack-pot!"
"Oh, my!" exclaimed Gracia, aghast. "Why, what is the matter with you? And what did you tell him to do?"
"I told him to mind his own business," answered Hooker bluntly.
"And what did he say?"
"He said he'd try anything—once!"
Bud spat out the phrase vindictively, for his blood was up and his heart was full of bitterness.
"Oh, dear!" faltered Gracia. "And so you do not think that Phil is brave?"
"He's brave to start things," sneered Bud, "but not to carry 'em through!"
For a moment Gracia huddled up against a pillar, her hand against her face, as if to ward off a blow. Then she lowered it slowly and moved reluctantly away.
"I must go now," she said, and Bud did not offer to stay her, for he saw what his unkindness had done.
"I am sorry!" she added pitifully, but he did not answer. There was nothing that he could say now.
In a moment of resentment, driven to exasperation by her taunts, he had forgotten his pledge to his pardner and come between him and his girl. That which he thought wild horses could not draw from him had flashed out in a fit of anger—and the damage was beyond amendment, for what he had said was the truth.
There are two things, according to the saying, which cannot be recalled—the sped arrow and the spoken word. Whether spoken in anger or in jest our winged thoughts will not come back to us and, where there is no balm for the wound we have caused, there is nothing to do but let it heal.
Bud Hooker was a man of few words, and slow to speak ill of any one, but some unfamiliar devil had loosened his tongue and he had told the worst about Phil. Certainly if a man were the bravest of the brave, certainly if he loved his girl more than life itself—he would not be content to hide above the line and pour out his soul on note-paper. But to tell it to the girl—that was an unpardonable sin!
Still, now that the damage was done, there was no use of vain repining, and after cursing himself whole-heartedly Bud turned in for the night. Other days were coming; there were favors he might do; and perhaps, as the yesterdays went by, Gracia would forgive him for his plain speaking. Even to-morrow, if the rebels came back for more, he might square himself in action and prove that he was not a coward. A coward!
It had been a long time since any one had used that word to him, but after the way he had knifed "dear Phil" he had to admit he was it. But "dear Phil"! It was that which had set him off.
If she knew how many other girls—but Bud put a sudden quietus on that particular line of thought. As long as the world stood and Gracia was in his sight he swore never to speak ill of De Lancey again, and then he went to sleep.
The men who guarded thecasa grandeslept uneasily on the porch, lying down like dogs on empty sugar-sacks that the women might not lack bedding inside. Even at that they were better off, for the house was close and feverish, with the crying of babies and the babbling of dreamers, and mothers moving to and fro.
It was a hectic night, but Bud slept it out, and at dawn, after the custom of his kind, he arose and stamped on his boots. The moist coolness of the morning brought the odor of wet greasewood and tropic blossoms to his nostrils as he stepped out to speak with the guards, and as he stood there waiting for the full daylight the master mechanic joined him.
He was a full-bodied, round-headed little man with determined views on life, and he began the day, as usual, with his private opinion of Mexicans. They were the same uncomplimentary remarks to which he had given voice on the day before, for the rebels had captured one of his engines and he knew it would come to some harm.
"A fine bunch ofhombres, yes," he ended, "and may the devil fly away with them! They took No. 9 at the summit yesterday and I've been listening ever since. Her pans are all burned out and we've been feeding her bran like a cow to keep her from leaking steam. If some ignorant Mex gets hold of her you'll hear a big noise—and that'll be the last of No. 9—her boiler will burst like a wet bag.
"If I was running this road there'd be no more bran—not since what I saw over at Aguas Calientes on the Central. One of those bum, renegade engine-drivers had burned out No. 743, but the rebels had ditched four of our best and we had to send her out. Day after day the boys had been feeding her bran until she smelled like a distillery. The mash was oozing out of her as Ben Tyrrell pulled up to the station, and a friend of his that had come down from the north took one sniff and swung up into the cab.
"Ben came down at the word he whispered—for they'd two of 'em blowed up in the north—and they sent out another man. Hadn't got up the hill when the engine exploded and blew the poor devil to hell! I asked Tyrrell what his friend had told him, but he kept it to himself until he could get his time. It's the fumes, boy—they blow up like brandy—and old No. 9 is sour!
"She'll likely blow up, too. But how can we fix her with these ignorant Mexican mechanics? You should have been over at Aguas the day they fired the Americans.
"'No moreAmericanos!' says Madero. 'Let 'em all out and hire Mexicans! The national railroads of Mexico must not be in the hands of foreigners.'
"So they fired us all in a day and put a Mexican wood-passer up in the cab of old No. 313. He started to pull a string of empties down the track, threw on the air by mistake, and stopped her on a dead-center. Pulled out the throttle and she wouldn't go, so he gave it up and quit.
"Called in the master mechanic then—a Mexican. He tinkered with her for an hour, right there on the track, until she went dead on their hands. Then they ran down a switch-engine and took back the cars and called on the roadmaster—a Mex. He cracked the nut—built a shoo-fly around No. 313 and they left her right there on the main track. Two days later an American hobo came by and he set down and laughed at 'em. Then he throws off the brakes, gives No. 313 a boost past the center with a crowbar, and runs her to the roundhouse by gravity. When we left Aguas on a hand-car that hobo was running the road.
"Ignorantesthombresin the world—these Mexicans. Shooting a gun or running an engine, it's all the same—they've got nothing above the eyebrows."
"That's right," agreed Bud, who had been craning his neck; "but what's that noise up the track?"
The master mechanic listened, and when his ears, dulled by the clangor of the shops, caught the distant roar he turned and ran for the house.
"Git up, Ed!" he called to the roadmaster. "They're sending a wild car down the cañon—and she may be loaded with dynamite!"
"Dynamite or not," mumbled the grizzled roadmaster, as he roused up from his couch, "there's a derailer I put in up at kilometer seventy the first thing yesterday morning. That'll send her into the ditch!"
Nevertheless he listened intently, cocking his head to guess by the sound when it came to kilometer seventy.
"Now she strikes it!" he announced, as the rumble turned into a roar; but the roar grew louder, there was a clash as the trucks struck a curve, and then a great metal ore-car swung round the point, rode up high as it hit the reverse and, speeding by as if shot from a catapult, swept through the yard, smashed into a freight-car, and leaped, car and all, into the creek.
"They've sneaked my derailer!" said the roadmaster, starting on a run for the shops. "Who'll go with me to put in another one? Or we'll loosen a rail on the curve—that'll call for no more than a claw-bar and a wrench!"
"I'll go!" volunteered Bud and the man who stood guard, and as startled sleepers roused up on every side and ran toward the scene of the wreck they dashed down the hill together and threw a hand-car on the track.
Then, with what tools they could get together, and a spare derailer on the front, they pumped madly up the cañon, holding their breaths at every curve for fear of what they might see. If there was one runaway car there was another, for the rebels were beginning an attack.
Already on the ridges above them they could hear the crack of rifles, and a jet or two of dust made it evident that they were the mark. But with three strong men at the handles they made the hand-car jump. The low hills fled behind them. They rounded a point and the open track lay before them, with something—
"Jump!" shouted the roadmaster, and as they tumbled down the bank they heard a crash behind them and their hand-car was knocked into kindling-wood.
"Now up to the track!" the roadmaster panted, as the destroyer swept on down the line. "Find some tools—we'll take out a rail!"
With frantic eagerness he toiled up the fill and attacked a fish-plate, and Bud and the young guard searched the hillside for tools to help with the work. They fell to with sledge and claw-bar, tapping off nuts, jerking out spikes, and heaving to loosen the rail—and then once more that swift-moving something loomed up suddenly on the track.
"Up the hill!" commanded the roadmaster, and as they scrambled into a gulch a wild locomotive, belching smoke and steam like a fire-engine, went rushing past them, struck the loose rail, and leaped into the creek-bed. A moment later, as it crashed its way down to the water, there was an explosion that shook the hills. They crouched behind the cut bank, and the trees above them bowed suddenly to the slash of an iron hail.
"Dynamite!" cried the roadmaster, grinning triumphantly as he looked up after the shock; and when the fall of fragments had ceased, and they had fled as if by instinct from the place, they struck hands on their narrow escape. But back at the big house, with everybody giving thanks for their delivery from the powder-train, the master mechanic raised a single voice of protest.
"'Twas not dynamite!" he yelled. "Powder-train be damned! It was No. 9! She was sour as a distillery! She blowed up, I tell ye—she blowed up when she hit the creek!"
And even after a shower of bullets from the ridge had driven them all to cover he still rushed to those who would listen and clamored that it was the bran.
But there was scant time to hold a post-mortem on No. 9, for on the summit of a near-by ridge, and overlooking the black tank, the rebels had thrown up a wall in the night, and from the security of this shelter they were industriously shooting up the town.
The smash of the first wild car had been their signal for attack, and as the explosion threw the defenders into confusion they made a rush to take the tank. Here, as on the day before, was stationed the Federal garrison, a scant twenty or thirty men in charge of a boy lieutenant.
Being practically out of ammunition, he did not stand on the order of his going, but as hispelónespelted past the superintendent's house the reorganized miners, their belts stuffed with cartridges from their own private stock, came charging up from the town and rallied them in the rear.
In a solid, shouting mass they swept up the hill together, dropped down behind the defenses, and checked the astounded rebels with a volley. Then there was another long-range battle, with every sign of war but the dead, until at last, as the firing slackened from lack of cartridges, a white flag showed on the ridge above, and the leaders went out for a parley.
Properly speaking, Del Rey was in command of the town, but neither the Federals nor the miners would recognize his authority and the leadership went by default. While they waited to hear the rebel demands the Americans took advantage of the truce to bring up hot food from the hotel, where Don Juan de Dios stood heroically at his post. Let bullets come and go, Don Juan kept his cooks about him, and to those who had doubted his valor his coffee was answer enough.
"W'y, my gracious, Mr. Hooker!" he railed, as Bud refreshed himself between trips, "ain't you going to take any up to those women? Don't drink so much coffee now, but give it to the men who fight!"
"Ump-um," grunted Bud with a grin; "they got a skinful ofmescalalready! What they need is another car-load of ammunition to help 'em shoot their first rebel."
"I thought you said they wouldn't fight!" twitted Don Juan. "This is the battle of Fortuna that I was telling you about last week."
"Sure!" answered Bud. "And over there is the dead!"
He pointed to a riot ofmescalbottles that marked the scene of the night's potations, and Don Juan gave him up as hopeless.
But, jest as he would, Bud saw that the situation was serious, for the foolhardy Sonorans had already emptied their cartridge-belts, and their guns were no better than clubs. Unless the rebels had been equally reckless with their ammunition they had the town at their mercy, and the first thing that they would demand would be the refugees in the big house.
The possession of the town; the arms of the defenders; food, clothing, and horses to ride—none of these would satisfy them. They would demand the rich Spanish landowners to be held for ransom, the women first of all. And of all those women huddled up in thecasa grandenot one would bring a bigger ransom than Gracia Aragon.
Bud pondered the outcome as the emissaries wrangled on the hillside, and then he went back to the corral to make sure that his horse was safe. Copper Bottom, too, might be held for ransom. But, knowing the rebels as he did, Hooker foresaw a different fate, and rather than see him become the mount of some rebel chieftain he had determined, if the town surrendered, to make a dash.
Riding by night and hiding in the hills by day, he could get to the border in two days. All he needed was a little jerked beef for the trip and he would be ready for anything.
So he hurried down to the hotel again and was just making a sack of food fast to his saddle when he heard a noise behind him and turned to face Aragon. For two days the once-haughty Don Cipriano had slunk about like a sick cat, but now he was headed for Gracia's big roan, and the look in his eyes betrayed his purpose.
"Where you going?" demanded Hooker in English, and at the gruff challenge the Spaniard stopped in his tracks. The old, hunted look came back into his eyes, he seemed to shrink before the stern gaze of the Texan, and, as the memory of his past misdeeds came over him, he turned as if to flee.
But there was a smile, an amused and tolerant smirk, about the American's mouth, and even for that look of understanding the harriedhaciendadoseemed to thank him. He was broken now, thrown down from his pedestal of arrogance and conceit, and as Hooker did not offer to shoot him at sight he turned back to him like a lost dog that seeks but a kind word.
"Ah,señor," he whined, "your pardon! What?" as he sighted the sack of meat. "You are going, too? Ah, my friend"—his eyes lighted up suddenly at the thought—"let me ride with you! I will pay you—yes, anything—but if Bernardo Bravo takes me he will hang me! He has sworn it!"
"Well, you got it coming to you!" answered Hooker heartlessly.
"But I will pay you well!" pleaded Aragon. "I will pay you—" He paused as if to consider what would tempt him and then suddenly he raised his head.
"What is it you wish above everything?" he questioned eagerly. "Your title to the mine—no?Bien!Take me to the line—protect me from my enemies—and the papers are yours!"
"Have you got them with you?" inquired Hooker with businesslike directness.
"No, but I can get them!" cried Aragon, forgetful of everything but his desire to escape. "I can get them while you saddle my horse!"
"Where?" demanded Hooker craftily.
"From theagente mineral!" answered Aragon. "I have a great deal of influence with him, and—"
"Bastante!" exploded Bud in a voice which made Aragon jump. "Enough! If you can get them,Ican! And we shall see, Señor Aragon, whether this pistol of mine will not give me some influence, too!"
"Then you will take them?" faltered Aragon as Hooker started to go. "You will take them and leave me for Bernardo Bravo to—"
"Listen,señor!" exclaimed Hooker, halting and advancing a threatening forefinger. "A man who can hire four men to do his dirty work needs no protection from me. You understand that—no? Then listen again. I am going to get those papers. If I hear a word from you I will send you to join your four men."
He touched his gun as he spoke and strode out into the open, where he beckoned the mineral agent from the crowd. A word in his ear and they went down the hill together, while Don Cipriano watched from above. Then, as they turned into the office, Aragon spat out a curse and went to seek Manuel del Rey.
In a land of class privilege and official graft it is often only in times of anarchy that a poor man can get his rights. For eight months Hooker had battled against the petty intrigue of Aragon and theagente mineral, and then suddenly, when the times turned to war and fear gripped at their hearts, he rose up and claimed his own, holding out his brawny right hand and demanding the concession to his mine.
In a day the whirligig of fortune had turned, and it was the fighting man who dominated. He spoke quietly and made no threats, but the look in his eye was enough, and theagentegave him his papers.
With his concession inside his shirt and a belt of gold around his waist Bud stepped forth like a king, for there was nothing left in Mexico for him. Once on his horse and headed for the line and he could laugh at them all. In Gadsden he could show title to Kruger, he could give answer for his trust and look the world in the eye.
Yes, he was a man now—but his work was not quite done. Up at the big house, with the screeching women around her, was Gracia Aragon, and he owed her something for his rough words. To pay her for that he would stay. Whatever she asked now he would grant it; and if worst came to worst he would take her with him and make good his promise to Phil. He had given his word and that was enough. Now he had only to wait.
The boy lieutenant, the brothers Mendoza, the superintendent, and Manuel del Rey, all were out on the hillside talking terms with Bernardo Bravo and his chiefs. With the rebels it was largely a bluff, since field-glasses had shown them to be short of cartridges; but they had over a thousand men massed along the ridges and, with courage, could easily take the town.
As for the Mendozas and their Sonoran miners, they were properly chagrined at their waste of ammunition and swore by Santa Guadalupe to fight it out with hand-grenades. Even as their leaders wrangled the Mexican powder-men were busily manufacturing bombs, and all the while the superintendent was glancing to the south, for swift couriers had been sent to Alvarez, the doughty Spanishhaciendadoof the hot country, to beg him to come to their relief.
Twice before Alvarez had met the rebels. The first time he spoke them well and they ran off all his horses. The second time he armed his Yaquis and Yaqui Mayorancherosagainst them and drove them from his domain, inflicting a sanguinary punishment.
Since then he had been itching to engage them in a pitched battle, and when the word reached him he would come. Two hundred and forty Yaquis, all armed with repeating rifles, would follow at his back, and even with his boasted thousands Bernardo Bravo could hardly withstand their valor. So, while the rebels parleyed, demanding a ransom of millions and threatening to destroy the town, the defenders argued and reasoned with them, hoping to kill the time until Alvarez should arrive.
In the open space in front of the house the refugees gathered in an anxious group, waiting for messengers from the front, and as Hooker walked among them he was aware of the malignant glances of Aragon. There were other glances as well, for he had won great favor with the ladies by ditching the powder-train, but none from Gracia or her mother.
From the beginning the Señora Aragon had treated him as a stranger, according to the code of her class, and Hooker had never attempted to intrude. But if Gracia still remembered that she was an American girl at heart, she forgot to show it to him. To all she was now the proud Spanish lady, thrown with the common people by the stress of circumstances, but far away from them in her thoughts.
The conference between the leaders dragged on and messengers came and went with the news—then, after hours of debate, it broke up suddenly in a row and the emissaries came back on the run. Even at that they narrowly escaped, for the rebels opened fire upon them from the ridges, and before they could get back to cover the dandy, Manuel del Rey, received a bullet-hole through the crown of his hat.
A grim smile flickered across Bud's face as he saw the damage it had wrought, for he knew that Amigo was in the hills—and a bullet shot down-hill goes high! Some trace of what was in his mind must have come to Del Rey as he halted in the shelter of the house, for he regarded the American sternly as Aragon spoke rapidly in his ear. But if they planned vengeance between them the times were not right, for a rattle of arms came from the lower town and the captain was up and away to marshal his men to the defense.
So far in the siege Del Rey had kept under cover, patrolling the streets and plaza and letting the volunteers fight, but now the war had shifted to his territory and hisruraleswere running like mad. For, matching treachery against deceit, the rebel leaders had sent men around to slip up near the town and at the first fusillade from the hillside they came charging up the creek.
Then it was that the ever-watchfulruralesproved their worth. As the rebels appeared in the open they ran to the outlying houses and, fighting from the flat roofs, checked the advance until the miners could come to their aid.
But in the confusion another party of rebels had rushed down the gulch from the west, and while the fight was going on in the lower town they found lodgment in a big adobe house. And now for the first time there was fighting in earnest—the house-to-house fighting that is seen at its worst in Mexico. While women screamed in thecasa grandeand the Americans paced to and fro on the hill, the boom of a dynamite bomb marked the beginning of hand-to-hand.
With a fearlessness born of long familiarity with explosives the Sonoran miners advanced valiantly with their hand-grenades—baking-powder cans filled with dynamite and studded with fulminating caps. Digging fiercely through wall after wall they approached unperceived by the enemy and the first bomb flung from a roof filled the adobe with wounded and dead.
A dense pall of yellowish smoke rose high above the town and, as bomb after bomb was exploded and the yells of the miners grew louder with each success, the stunned invaders broke from cover and rushed helter-skelter up the gulch. Then there was a prodigious shouting from the Sonorans and more than one triumphant grenadier swung his can of giant powder by the sling and let it smash against the hill in a terrific detonation.
In the big house all was confusion. Soon the cheers of the defenders heralded victory and, in spite of all efforts to restrain them, the wives of the miners rushed into the open to gaze upon the triumph of their menfolk.
On the hilltops the ineffective rebel riflemen rose up from behind their stone wall to stare, until suddenly they, too, were seized with a panic and ran to and fro like ants. Then, around the curve below the concentrator, a tall man came dashing up on a pure white horse, and behind him, charging as he charged, came the swarthy Yaquis of Alvarez, their new rifles gleaming in the sun.
Up along the hillside and after the fugitives they ran with vengeful eagerness, racing one another for the higher ground and the first shot at the rebels. First Alvarez on his white horse would be ahead and then, as they encountered rocks, the Yaquis would surge to the front. It was a race and at the same time it was a rout, for, at the first glimpse of that oncoming body of warriors, the cowardly followers of Bernardo Bravo took to their heels and fled.
But over the rocks no Chihuahuan, no matter how scared, can hope to outdistance a Yaqui, and soon thepop, popof rifles told the fate of the first luckless stragglers. For the Yaquis, after a hundred and sixty years of guerrilla warfare, never waste a shot; and as savage yells and the crash of a sudden volley drifted down from the rocky heights the men who had been besieged in Fortuna knew that death was abroad in the hills.
Fainter and fainter came the shots as the pursuit led on to the north and, as Hooker strained his eyes to follow a huge form that intuition told him was Amigo, he was wakened suddenly from his preoccupation by the touch of some unseen hand. He was in the open with people all about him—Spanish refugees, Americans, triumphant miners and their wives—but that touch made him forget the battle above him and instantly think of Gracia.
He turned and hurried back to the corral where Copper Bottom was kept, and there he found her waiting, with her roan all saddled, and she challenged him with her eyes. The sun gleamed from a pistol that she held in her hand, and again from her golden hair, but he saw only her eyes, so brave and daring, and the challenge to mount and ride.
Only for a moment did he stand before her gaze, and then he caught up his saddle and spoke soothingly to his horse. They rode out of the corral together, closing the gates behind them and passing down a gulch to the rear. All the town lay silent below them as they turned toward the western pass.
Soldiers, miners, and refugees, men, women, and children, every soul in Fortuna was on the hill to see the last of the battle. It had been a crude affair, but bravely ended, and something in the dramatic suddenness of this victory had held all eyes to the close. Bud and Gracia passed out of town unnoticed, and as soon as they had rounded the point they spurred on till they gained the pass.
"I knew you would come!" said Gracia, smiling radiantly as they paused at the fork.
"Sure!" answered Hooker with his good-humored smile. "Count me in on anything—which way does this trail go; do you know?"
"It goes west twelve miles toward Arispe," replied Gracia confidently, "and then it comes into the main road that leads north to Nogales and Gadsden."
"What is there up here?" inquired Bud, pointing at a fainter trail that led off toward the north. "This country is new to me. Don't know, eh? Well, if we followed that trail we'd run into them rebels, anyway, so we might as well go to the west. Is your saddle all right? We'll hit it up then—I'd like to strike a road before dark."
They hurried on, following a well-marked trail that alternately climbed ridges and descended into arroyos, until finally it dropped down into a precipitous cañon where a swollen stream rushed and babbled and, while they still watched expectantly for the road, the evening quickly passed.
First the slanting rays of the sun struck fire from high yellow crags, then the fire faded and the sky glowed an opal-blue; then, through dark blues and purples the heavens turned to black above them and all the stars came out. Thousands of frogs made the cañon resound with their throaty songs and strange animals crashed through the brush at their approach, but still Hooker stayed in the saddle and Gracia followed on behind.
If she had thought in her dreams of an easier journey she made no comment now and, outside of stopping to cinch up her saddle, Bud seemed hardly to know she was there. The trail was not going to suit him—it edged off too far to the south—and yet, in the tropical darkness, he could not search out new ways to go.
At each fork he paused to light a match, and whichever way the mule-tracks went he went also, for pack-mules would take the main trail. For two hours and more they followed on down the stream and then Hooker stopped his horse.
"You might as well get down and rest a while," he said quietly. "This trail is no good—it's taking us south. We'll let our horses feed until the moon comes up and I'll try to work north by landmarks."
"Oh—are we lost?" gasped Gracia, dropping stiffly to the ground. "But of course we are," she added. "I've been thinking so for some time."
"Oh, that's all right," observed Hooker philosophically; "I don't mind being lost as long as I know where I'm at. We'll ride back until we get out of this dark cañon and then I'll lay a line due north."
They sat for a time in the darkness while their horses champed at the rich grass and then, unable to keep down her nerves, Gracia declared for a start. A vision of angry pursuers rose up in her mind—of Manuel del Rey and his keen-eyedrurales, hot upon their trail—and it would not let her rest.
Nor was the vision entirely the result of nervous imagination, for they had lost half the advantage of their start, as Hooker well knew, and if he made one more false move he would find himself called on to fight. As they rode back through the black cañon he asked himself for the hundredth time how it had all happened—why, at a single glance from her, he had gone against his better judgment and plunged himself into this tangle. And then, finally, what was he going to do about it?
Alone, he would have taken to the mountains with a fine disregard for trails, turning into whichever served his purpose best and following the lay of the land. Even with her in his care it would be best to do that yet, for there would be trailers on their track at sun-up, and it was either ride or fight.
Free at last from the pent-in cañon, they halted at the forks, while Bud looked out the land by moonlight. Dim and ghostly, the square-topped peaks and buttes rose all about him, huge and impassable except for the winding trails. He turned up a valley between two ridges, spurring his horse into a fast walk.
From one cow trail to another he picked out a way to the north, but the lay of the ground threw him to the east and there were no passes between the hills. The country was rocky, with long parallel ridges extending to the northeast, and when he saw where the way was taking him Bud called a halt till dawn.
By the very formation he was being gradually edged back toward Fortuna, and it would call for fresh horses and a rested Gracia to outstrip their pursuers by day. If theruralestraveled by landmarks, heading for the northern passes in an effort to outride and intercept him, they might easily cut him off at the start; but if they trailed him—and he devoutly hoped they would—then they would have a tangled skein to follow and he could lose them in the broken country to the north.
So thinking, he cut grass among the rocks, spread down their saddle-blankets, and watched over the browsing horses while Gracia stretched out on the bed. After a day of excitement and a night of hard riding there is no call for a couch of down, and as the morning star appeared in the east she slept while Bud sat patiently by.
It was no new task to him, this watching and waiting for the dawn. For weeks at a time, after a hard day's work at the branding, he had stood guard half the night. Sleep was a luxury to him, like water to a mountain-sheep—and so were all the other useless things that town-bred people required.
People like Gracia, people like Phil—they were different in all their ways. To ride, to fight, to find the way—there he was a better man than Phil; but to speak to a woman, to know her ways, and to enter into her life—there he was no man at all.
He sighed now as he saw the first flush of dawn and turned to where she slept, calm and beautiful, in the solemn light. How to waken her, even that was a question, but the time had come to start.
Already, from Fortuna, Del Rey and his man-killingruraleswould be on the trail. He would come like the wind, that dashing little captain, and nothing but a bullet would stop him, for his honor was at stake. Nay, he had told Bud in so many words: