THE FINEST LITTLE WOMAN IN THE WORLD
THE FINEST LITTLE WOMAN IN THE WORLD
"You tell Mr. Picardy that I ain't visitin' nobody, so he needn't consider that I'm company," announced Jerry, after a wait that was beginning to rasp the nerves of his visitors. "I come here to live! He's called this land hisn, by authority uh the king uh Spain, you say, for over twenty year. Wall, in twenty year he ain't set so much as a fence-post fur as the eye can see. I been five mile from here on every side, and I don't see no signs of his ever usin' the land fer nothin'. Now, mebby the king uh Spain knew what he was talkin' about when he give this land away, and then agin mebby he didn't. 'T any rate, I don't know as I think much of a king that'll give away a hull great gob uh land he never seen, and give it to one feller—more 'n that feller could use in a hull lifetime; more 'n he would ever need fer his young 'uns, even s'posin' he had a couple uh dozen—which ain't skurcely respectable fer one man, nohow. How many's he got, mister?"
"One—his daughter, over there."
"Hum-mh! Wall, she ain't goin' to need so derned much. You tell Mr. Picardy I've come a long ways to find a home fer Mary and me; a long road and a hard road. I can't go no further without I swim fer it, and that I don't calc'late on doin'. I ain't the kind to hog more land 'n what I can use—not mentionin' no names; but I calc'late on havin' what I need, if I can get it honest. My old mother used to read outa the Bible that the earth was the Lord's and the fullness thereof; and I ain't never heard of him handin' over two-thirds of it to any king uh Spain. What he's snoopin' around in Ameriky fur, givin' away great big patches uh country he never seen, I ain't askin'. Californy belongs to the United States of Ameriky, and the United States of Ameriky lets her citizens make homes for themselves and their families on land that ain't already in use. If Mr. Picardy can show me a deed from Gawd Almighty, signed, sealed, and delivered along about the time Moses got hisn fer the Land uh Canyan, or if he can show a paper from Uncle Sam, sayin' this place belongs to him, I'll throw off these logs, h'ist the box back on the wagon and look further; but I ain't goin' to move on the say-so uh no furrin' king, which I don't believe in nohow."
He took the pipe from his mouth, and with it pointed to a spot twenty feet away, so that they all looked towards the place.
"Right thar," he stated slowly, "is whar I'm goin' to build my cabin, fer me and Mary. And right over thar I'm goin' to plow me up a truck patch. I'm a peaceable man, mister. I don't aim to have no fussin' with my neighbors. But you tell Mr. Picardy that thar'll be loopholes cut on all four sides uh that thar cabin, and Jemimy and the twins'll be ready to argy with anybody that comes moochin' around unfriendly. I'm the peaceablest man you ever seen, but when I make up my mind to a thing, I'm firm! Pur-ty tol'able firm!" he added with complacent emphasis.
He waited expectantly while Dade put a revised version of this speech into Spanish, and placidly smoked his little black pipe while the don made answer.
"Already I find that I have done well to choose an Americano for my majordomo," Don Andres observed, a smile in his eyes. "With a few more such as this great hombre, who is firm and peaceful together, I should find my days full of trouble with a hot-blooded Manuel to deal with them. But with you, Señor, I have no fear. Something there is in the face of this Señor Seem'son which pleases me; we shall be friends, and he shall stay and plant his garden and build his house where it pleases him to do. You may tell him that I say so, and that I shall rely upon his honor to pay me for the land a reasonable price when the American government places its seal beside the seal on his Majesty's grant. For that it will be done I am very sure. The land is mine, even though I have no tablet of stone to proclaim from the Creator my right to call it so. But he shall have his home if he is honest, without swimming across the ocean to find it."
"Wall, now, that's fair enough fer anybody. Hey, Mary! Come on out and git acquainted with yer neighbor's girl. Likely-lookin' young woman," he passed judgment, nodding towards Teresita. "Skittish, mebby—young blood most gen'rally is, when there's any ginger in it. What's yer name, mister? I want yuh all to meet the finest little woman in the world—Mrs. Jerry Simpson. We've pulled in the harness together fer twelve year, now, so I guess I know! Come out, Mary."
She came shyly from the makeshift tent, her dingy brown sunbonnet in her hand, and the redoubtable Tige walking close to her shapeless brown skirt. And although her face was tanned nearly as brown as her bonnet, with the desert sun and desert winds of that long, weary journey in search of a home, it was as delicately modeled as that of the girl who rode forward to greet her; and sweet with the sweetness of soul which made that big man worship her. Her hair was a soft gold such as one sees sometimes upon the head of a child or in the pictures of angels, and it was cut short and curled in distracting little rings about her head, and framed softly her smooth forehead. Her eyes were brown and soft and wistful—with a twinkle at the corners, nevertheless, which brightened them wonderfully; and although her mouth drooped slightly with the same wistfulness, a little smile lurked there also, as though her life had been spent largely in longing for the unattainable, and in laughing at herself because she knew the futility of the longing.
"I hope you've taken a good look at Jerry's face," she said, "and seen that he ain't half as bad as he tries to make out. Jerry'll make a fine neighbor for any man if he's let be; and we do want a home of our own, awful bad! We was ten years paying for a little farm back in Illinois, and then we lost it at the last minute because there was something wrong with the deed, and we didn't have any money to go to law about it. Jerry didn't tell you that; but it's that makes him talk kinda bitter, sometimes. He was terrible disappointed about losing the farm. And when we took what we had left and struck out, he said he was going as far as he could get and be away from lawyers and law, and make us a home on land that nobody but the Lord laid any claim to. So he picked out this place; and then along come that Spaniard and a lot of fellows with him and said we hadn't no right here. So I hope you won't blame Jerry for being a little mite uppish. That Spaniard got him kinda wrought up."
Her voice was as soft as her eyes, and winsome as her wistful little smile. She had those four smiling with her in sheer sympathy before she had spoken three sentences; and the two who did not understand her words smiled just as sympathetically as the two who knew what she was talking about.
"Tell the señora I am sorry, and she shall stay; and my mother will give her hens and a bottle of her very good medicine, which Manuel drinks so greedily," Teresita cried, when Dade told her what the woman said, and leaned impulsively and held out her hand. "I would do as the Americanos do, and shake the hands for a new friendship," she explained, blushing a little. "We shall be friends. Señor Hunter, tell the pretty señora that I say we shall be friends. Amiga mia, I shall call her, and I shall learn the Americano language, that we may talk together."
She meant every word of it, Dade knew; and with a troublesome, squeezed feeling in his throat he interpreted her speech with painstaking exactness.
Mrs. Jerry took the señorita's hand and smiled up at her with the brightness of tears in her eyes. "You've got lots of friends, honey," she said simply, "and I've left all of mine so far behind me they might as well be dead, as far as ever seeing 'em again is concerned; so it's like finding gold to find a woman friend away out here. I ain't casting no reflections on Jerry, mind," she hastened to warn them, blinking the tears away and leaving the twinkle in full possession; "but good as he is, and satisfying as his company is, he ain't a woman. And, my dear, a woman does get awful hungry sometimes for woman-talk!"
Mrs. Jerry Took the Seorita's Hand and Smiled up At Her.
Mrs. Jerry Took the Seorita's Hand and Smiled up At Her.
"Santa Maria! that must be true. She shall come and let my mother be her friend also. I will send a carriage, or if she can ride—ask the big señor if he has no horses!"
Jack it was who took up right willingly the burden of translation, for the pure pleasure of repeating the señorita's words and doing her a service; and Dade dropped back beside the don, where he thought he belonged, and stayed there.
"Wall, I ain't got any horses, but I got two of the derndest mules you ever seen, mister. Moll and Poll's good as any mustang in this valley. Mary and me can ride 'em anywheres; that's why I brung 'em along, to ride in case we had to eat the cattle."
"Then they must surely ride Moll and Poll to visit my mother!" the señorita declared with her customary decisiveness. "Padre mio!"
Obediently the don accepted the responsibility laid upon him by his sole-born who ruled him without question, and made official the invitation. It was not what he had expected to do; he was not quite sure that it was what he wanted to do; but he did it, and did it with the courtliness which would have flowered his invitation to the governor to honor his poor household by his presence; he did it because his daughter had glanced at him and said "My father?" in a certain tone which he knew well.
Something else was done, which no one had expected to do when the four galloped up to the trespassers. Jack and Dade dismounted and helped Jerry unload the logs from the wagon, for one thing; while Teresita inspected Mrs. Jerry's ingenious domestic makeshifts and managed somehow, with Mrs. Jerry's help, to make the bond of mutual liking serve very well in the place of intelligible speech. For another, the don fairly committed himself to the promise of a peon or two to help in the further devastation of the trees upon the Picardo mountain slope behind the little, natural meadow, which Jerry Simpson had so calmly appropriated to his own use.
"He is honest," Don Andres asserted more than once on the ride home, perhaps in self-justification for his soft dealing. "He is honest; and when he sees that the land is mine, he will pay; or if he does not pay, he will go—and tilled acres and a cabin will not harm me. Valencia, if he marries the daughter of Carlos (as the señora says will come to pass), will be glad to have a cabin to live in apart from the mother of his wife, who is a shrew and will be disquieting in any man's household. Therefore, Señor Hunter, you may order the peons to assist the big hombre and his beautiful señora, that they may soon have a hut to shelter them from the rains. It is not good to see so gentle a woman endure hardship within my boundary. Many tules, they will need," he added after a minute, "and it is unlikely that the Señor Seem'son understands the making of a thatch. Diego and Juan are skillful; and the tules they lay upon a roof will let no drop of rain fall within the room. Order them to assist."
"I shall tell Margarita to bake many little cakes," cried Teresita, riding up between her father and Dade, that she might assist in the planning. "And madre mia will give me coffee and sugar for the pretty señora. So soft is her voice, like one of my pigeons! And her hair is more beautiful than the golden hair of our Blessed Lady at Dolores. Oh, if the Blessed Virgin would make me as beautiful as she, and as gentle, I should—I should finish the altar cloth immediately, which I began two years ago!"
"Thou art well enough as thou art," comforted her father, trying to hide his pride in her under frowning brows, and to sterilize the praise with a tone of belittlement.
"I love that pretty señora," sighed Teresita, turning in the saddle to glance wistfully back at the meager little camp. "She shall have the black puppy Rosa gave me when last I was at the Mission San José. But I hope," she added plaintively, like the child she was at heart, "she will make that big, ugly beast they called Tige be kind to her; and the milk must be warm to the finger when Chico is fed. To-night, Señor Allen, you shall teach me Americano words that I may say to the señora what is necessary, for the happiness of my black puppy. I must learn to say that her name is Chico, and that the milk must be warm to the finger, and that the big dog must be kind."
AN ILL WIND
AN ILL WIND
A wind rose in the night, blowing straight out of the north; a wind so chill that the señora unpacked extra blankets and distributed them lavishly amongst the beds of her household, and the oldest peon at the hacienda (who was Gustavo and a prophet more infallible than Elijah) stared into the heavens until his neck went lame; and predicted much cold, so that the frost would surely kill the fruit blossoms on the slope behind the house; and after that much rain.
Don Andres, believing him implicitly, repeated the warning to Dade; and Dade, because that was now his business, rode here and there, giving orders to the peons and making sure that all would be snug when the storm broke.
The Señorita Teresa, bethinking her of the "pretty señora" who would have scant shelter in that canvas-topped wagon-box, even though it had been set under the thickest branches of a great live oak, called guardedly to Diego who was passing, and ordered Tejon, her swiftest little mustang, saddled and held ready for her behind the last hut, where it could not be seen from the house.
Tejon, so named by his mistress because he was gray like a badger, hated wind, which the señorita knew well. Also, when the hatred grew into rebellion, it needed a strong hand indeed to control him, if the mood seized him to run. But the señorita was in a perverse mood, and none but Tejon would she ride; even though—or perhaps because—she knew that his temper would be uncertain.
She wanted to beg the pretty Señora Simpson to come and stay with them until the weather cleared and the cabin was finished. But more than that she wanted to punish Señor Jack Allen for laughing when she tried to speak the Americano sentence he had taught her the night before, and got it all backwards. Señor Jack would be frightened, perhaps, when he learned that she had ridden away alone upon Tejon; he would ride after her—perhaps. And she would not talk to him when he found her, but would be absolutely implacable in her displeasure, so that he would be speedily reduced to the most abject humility.
Diego, when she ran stealthily across the patio, her riding-habit flapping about her feet in the wind, looked at her uneasily as if he would like to remonstrate; but being a mere peon, he bent silently and held his calloused, brown palm for the señorita's foot; reverently straightened the flapping skirt when she was mounted, and sent a hasty prayer to whatever saint might be counted upon to watch most carefully over a foolish little Spanish girl.
"An evil spirit is in the caballo to-day," Diego finally ventured to inform his mistress gravely. "For a week he has not felt the weight of saddle, and he loves not the trees which sway and sing, or the wind whistling in his ears."
"And for that he pleases me much," retorted the señorita, and touched Tejon with her spurred heel, so that he came near upsetting Diego with the lunge he gave.
When the peon recovered his balance, he stood braced against the wind, and with both hands held his hat upon his head while he watched her flying down the slope and out of sight amongst the trees. No girl in all the valley rode better than the Señorita Teresa Picardo, and Diego knew it well and boasted of it to the peons of other hacendados; but for all that he was ill-at-ease, and when, ten minutes later, he came upon Valencia at the stable, he told him of the madness of the señorita.
"Tejon she would ride, and none other; and to-day he is a devil. Twice he would have bitten my shoulder while I was saddling, and that is the sign that his heart is full of wickedness. Me, I would have put the freno Chilene (Chilian bit) in his mouth—but that would start him bucking; for he hates it because then he cannot run."
Valencia, a little later, met the new majordomo and repeated what Diego had said; and Dade, catching a little of the uneasiness and yet not wanting to frighten the girl's father with the tale, made it his immediate business to find Jack and tell him that Teresita had ridden away alone upon a horse that neither Diego nor Valencia considered safe.
Jack, at first declaring that he wouldn't go where he plainly was not wanted, at the end of an uncomfortable half-hour borrowed Surry, because he was fleet as any mustang in the valley, and rode after her.
In this wise did circumstances and Jack obey the piqued desire of the señorita.
After the first headlong half mile, Tejon became the perfect little saddle-pony which fair weather found him; and Teresita, cheated of her battle of wills and yet too honest to provoke him deliberately, began to think a little less of her own whims and more of the Señora Simpson, housed miserably beneath the canvas covering of the prairie schooner.
She found Mrs. Jerry sitting inside, with a patchwork quilt over her shoulders, her eyes holding a shade more of wistfulness and less twinkle, perhaps, but with her lips quite ready to smile upon her visitor. Teresita sat down upon a box and curiously watched the pretty señora try to make a small, triangular piece of cloth cover a large, irregular hole in the elbow of the big señor's coat sleeve. Sometimes, when she turned it so, the hole was nearly covered—except that there was the frayed rent at the bottom still grinning maliciously up at the mender.
"'Patch beside patch is neighborly, but patch upon patch is beggarly!'" quoted Mrs. Jerry, at the moment forgetting that the girl could not understand.
Whereupon Teresita bethought her of her last night's lesson, and replied slowly and solemnly: "My dear Mrs. Seem'son, how—do—you—do?"
"Mrs. Seem'son," realizing the underlying friendliness of the carefully enunciated greeting, flushed with pleasure and for a minute forgot all about the patch problem.
"Why, honey, you've been learnin' English jest so's you can talk to me!" She leaned and kissed the girl where the red blood of youth dyed brightest the Latin duskiness of the cheek. "I wish't you could say some more. Can't you?"
Teresita could; but her further store of American words related chiefly to the diet and general well-being of one very small and very black pup, which was at that moment sleeping luxuriously in the chimney corner at home; and without the pup the words would be no more than parrot-chattering. So the señorita shook her head and smiled, and Mrs. Jerry went back to the problem of the small patch and the large hole.
Hampered thus by having no common language between them, Teresita failed absolutely to accomplish her mission.
Mrs. Jerry, hazily guessing at the invitation without realizing any urgent need of immediate acceptance, shook her head and pointed to her pitifully few household appurtenances, and tried to make it plain that she had duties which kept her there in the little camp which she pathetically called home.
Teresita gathered that the pretty señora did not wish to leave that great, gaunt hombre who was her husband. So, when she could no longer conceal her shiverings, and having no hope that the big señor would understand her any better when he returned with the load of logs he and the peons were after, she rose and prepared to depart. Surely the Señor Jack, if he were going to follow, would by this time be coming, and the hope rather hastened her adieu.
"Adios, amiga mia," she said, her eyes innocently turning from the Señora Simpson to scan stealthily the northern slope.
"Good-by, honey. Come again and see me. Jerry knows a few Spanish words, and I'll make him learn 'em to me so I can talk a little of your kind, next time. And tell your mother I'm obliged for the wine; and them dried peaches tasted fine, after being without so long. Shan't I hold your horse while you git on? Seems to me he's pretty frisky for a girl to be riding; but I guess you're equal to him!"
Teresita smiled vaguely. She had no idea of what the woman was saying, and she was beginning to wish that she had not tried in just this way to punish the Señor Jack; if he were here now, he could make the Señora Simpson understand that the storm would be a very dreadful one—else Gustavo was a liar, and whom should one believe?
Even while she was coaxing Tejon alongside a log and persuading him to stand so until she was in the saddle, she was generously forswearing Señor Jack's punishment that she might serve the pretty señora who had Tejon by the bit and was talking to him softly in words he had never heard before in his life. She resolved that if she met Señor Jack, she would ask him to come back with her and explain to the señora about the cold and the rain, and urge her to accept the hospitality of her neighbors.
For that reason she looked more anxiously than before for some sign of him riding towards her through the fields of flowering mustard that heaved in the wind like the waves on some strange, lemon-colored sea tossing between high, green islands of oak and willow. Surely that fool Diego would never keep the still tongue! He would tell, when some one missed her. If he did not, or if Señor Allen was an obstinate pig of a man and would not come, then she would tell Señor Hunter, who was always so kind, though not so handsome as the other, perhaps.
Señor Hunter's eyes were brown—and she had looked into brown eyes all her life. But the blue! The blue eyes that could so quickly change lighter or darker that they bewildered one; and could smile, or light flames that could wither the soul of one.
Even the best rider among the Spanish girls as far south as Paso Robles should not meditate so deeply upon the color of a señor's eyes that she forgets the horse she is riding, especially when the horse is Tejon, whose heart is full of wickedness.
A coyote, stalking the new-made nest of a quail, leaped out of the mustard and gave Tejon the excuse he wanted, and the dreaming señorita was nearly unseated when he ducked and whirled in his tracks. He ran, and she could not stop him, pull hard as she might. If he had only run towards home! But instead, he ran down the valley, because then he need not face the wind; and he tried to outstrip the wind as he went.
It was when they topped a low knoll and darted under the wide, writhing branches of a live oak, that Jack glimpsed them and gave chase; and his heart forgot to beat until he saw them in the open beyond, and knew that she had not been swept from the saddle by a low branch. He leaned lower over Surry's neck and felt gratefully the instant response of the horse; he had thought that Surry was running his best on such uneven ground; but even a horse may call up an unsuspected reserve of speed or endurance, if his whole heart is given to the service of his master; there was a perceptible quickening and a lengthening of stride, and Jack knew then that Surry could do no more and keep his feet. Indeed, if he held that pace for long without stumbling, he would prove himself a more remarkable horse than even Dade declared him to be.
He hoped to overtake the girl soon, for in the glimpses he got of her now and then, as she flew across an open space, he saw that she was putting her whole weight upon the reins; and that should make a sufficient handicap to the gray to wipe out the three-hundred-yard distance between them. It did not seem possible that Tejon could be running as fast as Surry; and yet, after a half-mile or so of that killing pace, Jack could not see that he was gaining much. Perhaps it was his anxiety to overtake her that made the chase seem interminable; for presently they emerged upon the highway which led south to Santa Clara and so on down the valley, and he saw, on a straight, open stretch, that he was much nearer; so near he could see that her hair was down and blowing about her face in a way that must have blinded her at times.
Tejon showed no disposition to stop, however; and Jack, bethinking him of the trick Dade had played upon the Vigilantes with his riata, threw off the loop that held it. If he could get close enough, he meant to lasso the horse unless she managed by that time to get him under control. Now that they were in the road, Surry's stride was more even, and although his breathing was becoming audible, he held his pace wonderfully well—though for that matter, Tejon also seemed to be running just as fast as at first, in spite of that steady pull; indeed, Tejon knew the trick of curling his chin down close to his chest, so that the girl's strength upon the reins was as nothing.
Jack was almost close enough to make it seem worth while to call encouragement, when a horseman appeared suddenly from behind a willow clump and pulled up in astonishment, as he saw Teresita bearing down upon him like a small whirlwind. Whereupon Tejon, recognizing horse and rider and knowing of old that they meant leisurely riding and much chatter, with little laughs for punctuation, slowed of his own accord and so came up to the man at his usual easy lope, and stopped before him.
So quickly did it happen that a witness might easily have sworn in perfect good faith that the girl was fleeing from Jack Allen and pulled up thankfully when she met José Pacheco. One could not blame José for so interpreting the race, or for the anger that blazed in his eyes for the pursuer, even while his lips parted in a smile at the coming of the girl. He reined in protectingly between her and the approaching Jack, and spoke soothingly because of her apparent need.
"Be not frightened, querida mia. Thou art safe with me—and the accursed gringo will get a lesson he will not soon forget, for daring—"
Teresita, looking back, discovered Jack behind her. He was pulling Surry in, now, and he held his riata in one hand as though he were ready to use it at a moment's notice, and blank astonishment was on his face. That, perhaps, was because of José and José's hostile attitude, standing crosswise of the trail like that, and scowling while he waited, with the fingers of his right hand fumbling inside his sash—for his dagger, perchance! Teresita smiled wickedly, in appreciation of the joke on them both.
"Do not kill him, José," she begged caressingly. "Truly he did not harm me! I but ran from him because—" She sent a smile straight to the leaping heart of José, and fumbled with her tossing banner of hair, and turned eyes of innocent surprise on the Señor Allen, who needed some punishment—and was in fair way to get it.
"What is the pleasure of the señor?" José's voice was as smooth and as keen as the dagger-blade under his sash. "His message must indeed be urgent to warrant such haste! You would do well to ride back as hastily as you came; for truly a blind man could see that the señorita has not the smallest desire for your presence. As for me—" As for him, he smiled a sneer and a threat together.
Jack looked to the girl for a rebuke of the man's insult; but Teresita's head was drooped and tilted sidewise while she made shift to braid her hair, and if she heard she surely did not seem to heed.
"As for you, it wouldn't be a bad idea for you to mind your own business," Jack retorted bluntly. "The señorita doesn't need any interpreter. The señorita is perfectly well-qualified to speak for herself. She knows—"
"The señorita knows whom she can trust—and it is not a low dog of a gringo, who would be rotting now with a neck stretched by the hangman's rope, if he had but received his deserts; murderer of five men in one day, men of his own race at that! Gambler! loafer—"
At the press of silver rowels against his sides, Surry lunged forward. But Teresita's horse sidled suddenly between the two men.
"Señor Jack, we will go now, if this wicked caballo of mine will consent to do his running towards home. Thank you, José, for stopping him for me; truly, I think he was minded to carry me to Santa Clara, whether I wished to go or not! But doubtless Señor Jack would have overtaken him soon. Adios, José. Gracias, amigo mio!" Having put her hair into some sort of confinement, she picked up her reins and smiled at José and then at Jack in a way to tie the tongues of them both; though their brows were black with the hatred which must, if they met again, bear fruit of violence.
Fifty yards away, Teresita looked back and waved a hand at the gay horseman who still stood fair across the highway and stared blankly after them.
"Poor José!" she murmured mischievously. "Very puzzled and unhappy he looks. I wonder if the privilege of tearing you in pieces would not bring the smile to his lips? Señor Jack, if so be you should ever desire death, will you let José do the killing? To serve you thus would give him great pleasure, I am sure."
Jack, usually so headlong in his speech and actions, rode a moody three minutes without replying. He was not a fool, even though he was rather deeply in love; he felt in her that feline instinct to torment which wise men believe they can detect in all women; and angry as he was at José's deliberate insults, he knew quite well in his heart that Teresita had purposely provoked them.
"I've heard," he said at last, looking at her with the hard glint in his eyes that thrilled her pleasurably, "that all women are either angels or devils. I believe you're both, Señorita!"
Teresita laughed and pouted her lips at him. "Such injustice! Am I then to be blamed because José has a bad temper and speech hotter than the enchilladas of Margarita? I could love him for his rages! When the Blessed Mary sends me a lover—" She looked over her shoulder and sighed romantically, hiding the laughter in her eyes and the telltale twist of her lips as best she could, with lashes downcast and face averted.
Even a kitten the size of your two fists knows how to paw a mouse, even though it lacks the appetite for devouring it after the torture. One cannot logically blame Teresita. She merely used the weapons which nature put into her pink palms.
POTENTIAL MOODS
POTENTIAL MOODS
So engrossed was the señorita in her truly feminine game of cat-and-mouse that she quite forgot her worry over Mrs. Jerry until she was in her own room and smiling impishly at herself in the mirror, while she brushed the wind-tangles from her hair and planned fresh torment for the Señor Jack. The señorita liked to see his eyes darken and then light with the flames that thrilled her; and it was exceedingly pleasant to know that she could produce that effect almost whenever she chose. Also, her lips would curve of themselves whenever she thought of José's rage and subsequent bafflement when she rode off with Señor Jack; and of Señor Jack's black looks when she praised José afterwards. Truly they hated each other very much—those two caballeros! She was woman enough to know the reason why, and to find a great deal of pleasure in the knowledge.
Still smiling, she lifted a heavy lock of hair to the light and speculated upon the mystery of coloring. Black it was, except when the sun lighted it and brought a sheen that was almost blue; and Señor Jack's was neither red, as was the hair of the big Señor Simpson, nor brown nor gold, but a tantalizing mixture of all; especially where it waved it had many different shades, just as the light gold and the dark of the pretty señora's—It was then that remembrance came to the señorita and made her glance a self-accusing one, when she looked at her reflected face.
"Selfish, thoughtless one that thou art to forget that sweet señora!" she cried. And for punishment she pulled the lock of hair so that it hurt—a little. "I shall ask Señor Hunter if he will not send the carriage for her—and perhaps I shall go with him to bring her; though truly she will never leave the big hombre who speaks so many words over such slight matters. I am glad I did not yet carry Chico to live there in that small camp. Till the house is finished, he shall stay with me. Truly the storm would kill him if he were there. But perhaps the storm will not be so great, after all—not so great as is the storm in the hearts of those two who met and would have fought, had I not so skillfully prevented it! Santa Maria, I truly must have been inspired, to act like the dove with the branch of the olive when I flew between them; and the eyes of José were blazing; and Señor Jack—" There came the smile again, and the dawdling of the brush while she thought of those two. So the pretty señora was forgotten, after all, and left to shiver over her mending in the prairie schooner because Teresita was a spoiled child with more hearts than it is good for a girl to play with.
As a matter of fact, however, the pretty señora was quite accustomed to discomfort in varying degrees, and gave less thought to the weather than did the more tenderly sheltered women of the valley, so that no harm came of the forgetfulness; especially since the storm fell far short of Gustavo's expectations and caused that particular prophet the inconvenience of searching his soul and the heavens for an explanation of the sunshine that reprehensibly bathed the valley next day in its soft glow.
Also, no immediate harm resulted from the rage of the two caballeros, although not even the most partial judge could give the credit to Teresita's "olive branch." Chance herself stepped in, and sent a heavy, dead branch crashing down from a swaying oak upon the head and right shoulder of José, while he was riding into his own patio. Whereupon José, who had been promising himself vengefully that he would send Manuel immediately with a challenge to the gringo who had dared lift eyes to the Señorita Teresa Picardo, instantly forgot both his love and his hate in the oblivion that held him until nightfall.
After that his stiffened muscles and the gash in his scalp gave him time for meditation; and meditation counseled patience. The gringo would doubtless go to the rodeo, and he would meet him there without the spectacular flavor of a formal challenge. For José was a decent sort of a fellow and had no desire to cheapen his passion or cause the señorita the pain of public gossip. It was that same quality of dignity in his love that had restrained him from seeking a deliberate quarrel with Jack before now; and though he fumed inwardly while his outer hurts healed, he resolved to wait. The rodeo would give him his chance.
Because it is not in the nature of the normal human to keep his soul always under the lock and key of utter silence, a little of his hate and a little of his hope seeped into the ears of Manuel, whose poultices of herbs were doing their work upon the bruised muscles of José's shoulder, and whose epithets against the two gringos who were responsible for his exile from the Picardo hacienda had the peculiar flavor of absolute sincerity. Frequently he cursed them while he changed the poultices; and Don José, listening approvingly, added now and then a curse of his own, and a vague prediction of how he meant to teach the blue-eyed one a lesson which he would weep at remembering—if he lived to remember anything.
Manuel did not mean to tattle; he merely let fall a word or two to Valencia, whom he met occasionally in the open and accused bitterly of having a treacherous friendship for the gringos, and particularly for the blue-eyed one.
"Because that mongrel whose hair is neither red nor yellow nor black speaks praise to you of your skill, perchance, and because he makes you laugh with the foolish tales he tells, you would turn against your own kind, Valencia. No honest Spaniard can be a friend of the gringos. Of the patron," he added rather sorrowfully, "I do not speak, for truly he is in his dotage and therefore not to be judged too harshly. But you, Valencia—you should think twice before you choose a gringo for your friend; a gringo who speaks fair to the father that he may cover his love-making to the daughter, who is easily fooled, like all younglings.
"The young Don José will deal with that blue-eyed one, Valencia. Every day he swears it by all the saints. He but waits for the rodeo and until I have healed his shoulder—and then you shall see! There will be no love-making then for the gringo. José will have the señorita yet for his bride, just as the saints have desired since they played together in the patio and I watched them that they did not run into the corrals to be kicked in the head, perchance, by the mustangs we had there. José, I tell you, has loved her too long to stand now with the sombrero in hand while that arrogant hombre steals her away. When the shoulder is well—and truly, it was near broken—and when they meet at the rodeo, then you shall see what will happen to your new gringo friend."
Valencia did not quarrel with Manuel. He merely listened and smiled his startlingly sunny smile, and afterwards repeated Manuel's words almost verbatim to Jack. Later, he recounted as much as he considered politic to Don Andres himself, just to show how bitter Manuel had become and how unjust. Valencia, it must be admitted, was not in any sense working in the interests of peace. He looked forward with a good deal of eagerness to that meeting of which Manuel prated. He had all the faith of your true hero-worshiper in his new friend, and with the story of that last eventful day which Jack had spent in San Francisco to build his faith upon, he confidently expected to see José learn a much-needed lesson in humility—aye, and Manuel also.
Since even the best-natured gossip is like a breeze to fan the flames of dissension, Don Andres spent an anxious hour in devising a plan that would preserve the peace he loved better even than prosperity. While he smoked behind the passion vines on the veranda, he thought his way slowly from frowns to a smile of satisfaction, and finally called a peon scurrying across the patio to stand humbly before him while he gave a calm order. His majordomo he would see, as speedily as was convenient to a man as full of ranch business as Dade Hunter found himself.
Dade, tired and hot from a forenoon in the saddle inspecting the horses that were to bear the burden of rodeo work, presently came clanking up to the porch and lifted the sombrero off his sweat-dampened forehead thankfully, when the shade of the vines enveloped him.
The eyes of the don dwelt pleasedly upon the tanned face of his foreman. More and more Don Andres was coming to value the keen common-sense which is so rare, and which distinguished Dade's character almost as much as did the kindliness that made nearly every man his friend.
The don had already fallen into the habit of presenting his orders under the guise of ideas that needed the confirmation of the majordomo, before they became definite plans; and it speaks much for those two that neither of them suspected that it was so. Thus, Don Andres' solution of the problem of preserving peace became the subject for a conference that lasted more than an hour. The don was absolutely candid; so candid that he spoke upon a delicate subject, and one that carried a sting of which he little dreamed.
"One factor I cannot help recognizing," he said slowly. "I am not blind, nor is the señora blind, to the—the—friendship that is growing between Señor Jack and our daughter. We had hoped—but we have long been resolved that in matters of the heart, our daughter shall choose for herself so long as she does not choose one altogether unworthy; which we do not fear, for to that extent we can protect her by admitting to our friendship only those in whose characters we have some confidence. Now that we understand each other so well, amigo, I will say that I have had some correspondence with friends in San Francisco, who have been so good as to make some investigations in my behalf. Their Vigilance Committee," he said, smiling, "was not the only tribunal which weighed evidence for and against your friend, nor was it the only vindication he has received.
"I am assured that in the trouble which brought him to my house he played the part of an honest gentleman fighting to uphold the principles which all honest men espouse; and while he is hot-tempered at times, and perhaps more thoughtless than we could wish, I hear no ill of him save the natural follies of high-stomached youth.
"Therefore I am willing to abide by the choice of my daughter, whose happiness is more dear to her parents than any hope they may have cherished of the welding of two families who have long been friends. I myself," he added reminiscently, "fled to the priest with my sweetheart as if all the fiends of hell pursued us, because her parents had chosen for her a husband whom she could not love. Since we know the pain of choosing between a parent's wishes and the call of the heart, we are resolved that our child shall be left free to choose for herself. Therefore, I think our plan is a wise one; and the result must be as the saints decree."
Dade, because he was engrossed with stifling the ache he had begun to think was dead because it had grown numb, bowed his head without speaking his assent and rose to his feet.
"I'll tell Jack," he said, as he started for the stables. "I guess he'll do it, all right."
BILL WILSON GOES VISITING
BILL WILSON GOES VISITING
"I Don't know what you've been doing to José Pacheco, lately," was Dade's way of broaching the subject, "but Don Andres asked me to 'persuade' you not to go on rodeo, on account of some trouble between you and José."
"He wants my scalp, is all," Jack explained easily, picking burrs from the fringe of his sash—burrs he had gotten when he ran a race with Teresita from the farther side of the orchard to the spring, a short time before. "Valencia told me—and he got it from Manuel—that José is right on the warpath. If it wasn't for his being laid up—"
"Oh, I know. You'd like to go over and have it out with him. But you can't. The Pachecos and the Picardos are almost like one family. I don't suppose José ever stayed away from here so long since he was a baby, as he has since we came. It's bad enough to keep old friends away, without mixing up a quarrel. Have you seen José lately? Don Andres seemed to think so, but I told him you'd have said something about it to me if you had."
"I met him in the trail, a week or so ago," Jack admitted with manifest reluctance. "He wasn't overly friendly, but there wasn't any real trouble, if that's what you're afraid of." He looked sidelong at the other, saw the hurt in Dade's eyes at this evidence of the constraint growing intangibly between them, and laughed defiantly.
"Upon my soul!" he exclaimed, "one would think I was simple-minded, the way you act! D'you think a man never scowled my way before? D'you think I'm afraid of José? D'you think I don't know enough to take care of myself? What the devil do you think? Can't go on rodeo—you're afraid I might get hurt! I ain't crazy to go, for that matter; but I don't know as I relish this guardian-angel stunt you're playing. You've got your hands full without that. You needn't worry about me; I've managed to squeak along so far without getting my light put out—"
"By being a tolerably fair shot, yes," Dade assented, his face hardening a little under the injustice. "But since I'm hired to look after Don Andres' interests, you're going to do what I tell you. You'll stay here and boss the peons while I'm gone. A friendship between two families that has lasted as many years as you are old, ain't going to be busted up now, if I can help it. It's strained to the snapping-point right now, just because the don is friendly with us gringos. Of course, we can't help that. He had his ideas on the subject before he ever saw me or you. Just the same, it's up to us not to do the snapping; and I know one gringo that's going to behave himself if I have to take him down and set on him!"
"Whee-ee! Somebody else is hitting the war-post, if I know the signs!" Dade stirred to anger always tickled Jack immensely, perhaps because of its very novelty, and restored him to good humor. "Have it your own way, then, darn you! I don't want to go on rodeo, nohow."
"I know that, all right," snapped Dade, and started off with his hat tilted over his eyes. No one, he reminded himself, would want to spend a month or so riding the range when he could stay and philander with as pretty a Spanish girl as ever played the game of cat-and-mouse with a man. And Jack never had been the kind to go looking for trouble; truth to tell, he had never found it necessary, for trouble usually flew to meet him as a needle flies to the magnet.
But, a wound is not necessarily a deadly one because it sends excruciating pain-signals to a man's heart and brain; and love seldom is fatal, however painful it may be. Dade was slowly recovering, under the rather heroic treatment of watching his successor writhe and exult by turns, as the mood of the maiden might decree. Strong medicine, that, to be swallowed with a wry face, if you will; but it is guaranteed to cure if the sufferer is not a mental and moral weakling.
Dade was quite ready to go out to rodeo work; indeed, he was anxious to go. But, not being a morbid young man, he did not contemplate carrying a broken heart with him. Teresita was sweet and winsome and maddeningly alluring; he knew it, he felt it still. Indeed, he was made to realize it every time the whim seized her to punish Jack by smiling upon Dade. But she was as capricious as beauty usually is, and he knew that also; and after being used several times as a club with which to beat Jack into proper humility (and always seeing very clearly that he was merely the club and nothing more) he had almost reached the point where he could shrug shoulders philosophically at her coquetry; and what is better, do it without bitterness. At least, he could do it when he had not seen her for several hours, which made rodeo time a relief for which he was grateful.
What hurt him most, just now, was the constraint between him and Jack; time was when Jack would have told him immediately of any unpleasant meeting with José. It never occurred to Dade that he himself had fostered the constraint by his moody aloofness when he was fighting the first jealous resentment he had ever felt against the other in the years of their constant companionship. An unexpected slap on the shoulder almost sent him headlong.
"Say, old man, I didn't mean it," Jack began contritely, referring perhaps to his petulant speech, rather than to his mode of making his presence known. "But—come over here in the shade, and let's have it out once for all. I know you aren't stuck up over being majordomo, but all the same you're not the old Dade, whether you know it or not. You go around as if—well—you know how you've been. What I wanted to say is, what's the matter? Is it anything I've said or done?"
He sat down on the stone steps of a hut used for a storehouse and reached moodily for his smoking material. "I know I didn't say anything about running up against José—but it wasn't anything beyond a few words; and, Dade, you've been almighty hard to talk to lately. If you've got anything against me—"
"Oh, quit it!" Dade's face glowed darkly with the blood which shame brought there. He opened his lips to say more, took a long breath instead, closed them, and looked at Jack queerly. For one reckless moment he meditated a plunge into that perfect candor which may be either the wisest or the most foolish thing a man may do in all his life.
"I didn't think you noticed it," he said, his voice lowered instinctively because of the temptation to tell the truth, and his glance wandering absently over to the corral opposite, where Surry stood waiting placidly until his master should have need of him. "There has been a regular brick wall between us lately. I felt it myself and I blamed you for it. I—"
"It wasn't my building," Jack cut in eagerly. "It's you, you old pirate. Why, you'd hardly talk when we happened to be alone, and when I tried to act as if nothing was wrong, you'd look so darned sour I just had to close my sweet lips like the petals of a—"
"Cabbage," supplied Dade dryly, and placed his cigarette between lips that twitched.
Former relations having thus been established after their own fashion, Dade began to wonder how he had ever been fool enough to think of confessing his hurt. It would have built that wall higher and thicker; he saw it now, and with the lighting of his cigarette he swung back to a more normal state of mind than he had been in for a month.
"I'm going up toward Manuel's camp, pretty soon," he observed lazily, eying Jack meditatively through a thin haze of smoke. "Want to take a ride up that way and let the sun shine on your nice new saddle?" Though he called it Manuel's camp from force of habit, that hot-blooded gentleman had not set foot over its unhewn doorsill for three weeks and more.
Jack hesitated, having in mind the possibility of persuading Teresita that she ought to pay a visit to the Simpson cabin that day to display her latest accomplishment by asking in real, understandable English, how the pup was getting along; and to show the pretty señora the proper way to pat tortillas out thin and smooth, as Margarita had been bribed to teach Teresita herself to do.
"Sure, I'll go," he responded, before the hesitation had become pronounced, and managed to inject a good deal of his old heartiness into the words.
"I'm going to have the cattle pushed down this way," Dade explained, "so you can keep an eye on them from here and we won't have to keep up that camp. Since they made Bill Wilson captain of the Vigilantes, there isn't quite so much wholesale stealing as there was, anyway, and enough vaqueros went with Manuel so I'll need every one that's left. I'll leave you Pedro, because he can't do any hard riding, after that fall he got the other day. The two of you can keep the cattle pretty well down this way."
"All right. Say, what was it made you act so glum since we came down here?" Jack, as occasionally happens with a friend, was not content to forget a grievance while the cause of it remained clouded with mystery.
"Are you sore over that trouble I had in town? I know how you feel about—well, about killings; but, Dade, I had to. I hate it myself. You needn't think I like the idea, just because I haven't talked about it. A fellow feels different," he added slowly, "when it's white men. When we fought Injuns, I don't believe it worried either one of us to think we'd killed some. We were generally glad of it. But these others—they were mean enough and ornery enough; but they were humans. I was glad at the time, but that wore off. And I've caught you looking at me kinda queer, lately, as if you hated me, almost. You ought to know—"
"I know you're always going off half-cocked," chuckled Dade, quite himself again. "No, now you mention it, I don't like the idea of shooting first and finding out afterwards what it was all about, the way so many fellows have got in the habit of doing. Guns are all right in their place. And when you get away out where the law doesn't reach, and you have to look out for yourself, they come in mighty handy. But like every other kind of power, most men don't know when and how to use the gun argument; and they make more trouble than they settle, half the time. You had a right to shoot, that day, and shoot to kill. Why, didn't the Committee investigate you, first thing after Bill was elected, and find that you were justified? Didn't they wipe your reputation clean with their official document, that Bill sent you a copy of? No, that never bothered me at all, old man. You want to forget about it. You only saved the Committee the trouble of hanging 'em, according to Bill. Say, Valencia was telling me yesterday—"
"Well, what the dickens did ail you, then?"
Dade threw out both hands helplessly and gave a rueful laugh. "You're harder to dodge than an old cow when you've got her calf on the saddle," he complained.
"The trouble was," he explained gravely, "that these last boots of mine pinched like the devil, and I've been mad for a month because my feet are half a size bigger than yours. I wanted to stump you for a trade, only I knew yours would cripple me up worse than these did. But I've got 'em broke in now, so I can walk without tying my face into a hard knot. There's nothing on earth," he declared earnestly, "will put me on the fight as quick as a pair of boots that don't fit."
Jack paid tribute to Dade's mendaciousness by looking at him doubtfully, not quite sure whether to believe him; and Dade chuckled again, well pleased with himself. Even when Jack finally told him quite frankly that he was a liar, he only laughed and went over to where Surry stood rolling the wheel in his bit. He would not answer Jack's chagrined vilifications, except with an occasional amused invitation to go to the devil.
So the wall of constraint crumbled to the nothingness out of which it was built, and the two came close together again in that perfect companionship that may choose whatever medium the mood of man may direct, and still hold taut the bond of their friendship.
While they rode together up the valley, Jack told the details of the encounter with José, and declared that he was doing all that even Dade could demand of him by resisting the desire to ride down to Santa Clara and make José swallow his words.
"I'd have done it anyway, as soon as I brought Teresita home," he added, with a hint of apology for his seeming weakness. "But, darn it, I knew all the time that she made him think she was running away from me. It did look that way, when she stopped as soon as she met him; I can't swear right now whether Tejon was running away, or whether he was just simply running!" He laughed ruefully. "She's an awful little tease—just plumb full of the old Nick, even if she does look as innocent and as meek as their pictures of the Virgin Mary. She had us both guessing, let me tell you! He was pretty blamed insulting, though, and I'd have licked the stuffing out of him right then and there, if she hadn't swung in and played the joker the way she did. Made José look as if he'd been doused with cold water—and him breathing fire and brimstone the minute before.
"It was funny, I reckon—to Teresita; we didn't see the joke. Every time I bring up the subject of that runaway, she laughs; but she won't say whether it was a runaway, no matter how I sneak the question in. So I just let it go, seeing José is laid up now; only, next time I bump into José Pacheco, he's going to act pretty, or there's liable to be a little excitement.
"I wish I had my pistols. I wrote to Bill Wilson about them again, the other day; if he doesn't send them down pretty soon, I'm going after them." He stopped, his attention arrested by the peculiar behavior of a herd of a hundred or more cattle, a little distance from the road.
"Now, what do you suppose is the excitement over there?" he asked; and for answer Dade turned from the trail to investigate.
"Maybe they've run across the carcass of a critter that's been killed," he hazarded, "though this is pretty close home for beef thieves to get in their work. Most of the stock is killed north and east of Manuel's camp."
The cattle, moving restlessly about and jabbing their long, wicked horns at any animal that got in the way, lifted heads to stare at them suspiciously, before they turned tail and scampered off through the mustard. From the live oak under which they had been gathered came a welcoming shout, and the two, riding under the tent-like branches, craned necks in astonishment.
"Hello, Jack," spoke the voice again. "I'm almighty glad to see yuh! Hello, Dade, how are yuh?"
"Bill Wilson, by thunder!" Jack's tone was incredulous.
Bill, roosting a good ten feet from the ground on a great, horizontal limb, flicked the ashes from the cigar he was smoking and grinned down at them unabashed.
"You sure took your time about getting here," he remarked, hitching himself into a more comfortable posture on the rough bark. "I've been praying for you, two hours and more. Say, don't ever talk to me about hungry wolf-packs, boys. I'll take 'em in preference to the meek-eyed cow-bossies, any time."
They besought him for details and got them in Bill's own fashion of telling. Briefly, he had long had in mind a trip down to the Picardo ranch, just to see the boys and the country and have a talk over the stirring events of the past month; and, he added, he wanted to bring Jack his pistols himself, because it was not reasonable to expect any greaser to withstand the temptation of keeping them, once he got them in his hands.
Therefore, having plenty of excuses for venturing so far from his place, and having "tied the dove of peace to the ridge-pole" of town by means of some thorough work on the part of the new Committee, he had boldly set forth that morning, soon after sunrise, upon a horse which somebody had sworn that a lady could ride.
Bill confessed frankly that he wasn't any lady, however; and so, when the horse ducked unexpectedly to one side of the trail, because of something he saw in the long grass, Bill surprised himself very much by getting his next clear impression of the situation from the ground.
"I dunno how I got there, but I was there, all right, and it didn't feel good, either. But I'd been making up my mind to get off and try walking though, so I done it. Say, I don't see nothing so damned attractive about riding horseback, anyway!"
He yelled at the horse to stop, but it appeared that his whoas were so terrifying that the horse ran for its life. So Bill started to walk, beguiling the time, by soliloquizing upon—well, Bill put it this way: "I walked and I cussed, and I cussed and I walked, for about four hours and a half. Say! How do you make out it's only twenty miles?"
"Nearer thirty" corrected Dade, and Bill grunted and went on with the story of his misfortunes. Walking became monotonous, and he wearied of soliloquy before the cattle discovered him.
"Met quite a band, all of a sudden," said Bill. "They throned up their heads and looked at me like I was wild Injuns, and I shooed 'em off—or tried to. They did run a little piece, and then they all turned and looked a minute, and commenced coming again, heads up and tails a-rising. And," he added naïvely, "I commenced going!" He said he thought that he could go faster than they could come; but the faster he departed, the more eager was their arrival. "Till we was all of us on the gallop and tongues a-hanging."
Bill was big, and he was inclined to flesh because of no exercise more strenuous than quelling incipient riots in his place, or weighing the dust that passed into his hands and ownership. He must have run for some distance, since he swore by several forbidden things that the chase lasted for five miles—"And if you don't believe it, you can ride back up the trail till you come to the dent I made with my toes when I started in."
Other cattle came up and joined in the race, until Bill had quite a following; and when he was gasping for breath and losing hope of seeing another day, he came upon a live oak, whose branches started almost from the roots and inclined upward so gently that even a fat man who has lost his breath need not hesitate over the climbing.
"Thank the good Lord he don't cut all his trees after the same pattern," finished Bill fervently, "and that live oaks ain't built like redwoods. If they was, you'd be wiping off my coat-buttons right now, trying to identify my remains!"
Being polite young men, and having a sincere liking for Bill, they hid certain exchanges of grins and glances under their hat-brims (Bill being above them and the brims being wide) and did not by a single word belittle the escape he had had from man-eating cows. Instead, Dade coaxed him down from the tree and onto Surry, swearing solemnly that the horse was quite as safe as the limb to which Bill showed a disposition to cling. Bill was hard to persuade, but since Dade was a man who inspired faith instinctively, the exchange was finally accomplished, Bill still showing that strange, clinging disposition that made him grip the saddle-horn as a drowning man is said to grasp at a straw.
So they got him to the house, the two riding Jack's peppery palimeno with some difficulty; while Surry stepped softly that he might not dislodge that burden in the saddle, whose body lurched insecurely and made the horse feel at every step the ignorance of the man. They got him and themselves to the house; and his presence there did its part towards strengthening Don Andres' liking for gringos, while Bill himself gained a broader outlook, a keener perception of the rights of the native-born Californians.
Up in San Francisco there was a tendency to make light of those rights. It was commonly accepted that the old land grants were outrageous, and that the dons who prated of their rights were but land pirates who would be justly compelled by the government to disgorge their holdings. Bill had been in the habit of calling all Spaniards "greasers," just as the average Spaniard spoke of all Americans as "gringos," or heathenish foreigners.
But on the porch of Don Andres, his saddle-galled person reclining at ease in a great armchair behind the passion vines, with the fragile stem of a wine-glass twirling between his white, sensitive, gambler-fingers while he listened to the don's courtly utterances as translated faithfully by Dade (Jack being absent on some philandering mission of his own), big Bill Wilson opened his eyes to the other side of the question and frankly owned himself puzzled to choose.
"Seems like the men that came here when there wasn't anything but Injuns and animals, and built up the country outa raw material, ought to have some say now about who's going to reap the harvest," he admitted to Dade. "Don't look so much like gobbling, when you get right down to cases, does it? But at the same time, all these men that leave the east and come out here to make homes—seems like they've got a right to settle down and plow up a garden patch if they want to. They're going to do it, anyway. Looks like these grandees'll have to cash in their chips and quit, but it's a darned shame."
As to the town, Bill told them much that had happened. Politics were still turbulent; but Perkins' gang of hoodlums was fairly wiped out, and the Committee was working systematically and openly for the best interests of the town. There had been a hanging the week before; a public hanging in the square, after a trial as fair as any court properly authorized could give.
"Not much like that farce they pulled off that day with Jack," asserted Bill. "Real lawyers, we had, and real evidence for and against the feller, and tried him for real murder. Things are cooling down fast, up there, and you can walk the streets now without hanging onto your money with one hand and your gun with the other. Jack and you can come back any time. And say, Jack!" Having heard his voice beyond the vines, Bill made bold to call him somewhat peremptorily.
"There's some gold left, you know, that belongs to you. I didn't send it all down; didn't like the looks of that—er—" He checked himself on the point of saying greaser. "And seeing you're located down here for the summer, and don't need it, why don't you put it into lots? You two can pick up a couple of lots that will grow into good money, one of these days. Fact is, I've got a couple in mind. I'd like to see you fellows get some money to workin' for you. This horseback riding is too blamed risky."
"That looks reasonable to me," said Dade. "We've got the mine, of course, but the town ought to go on growing, and lots should be a good place to sink a thousand or two. I've got a little that ain't working." Then seeing the inquiring look in the eyes of Don Andres, he explained to him what Bill had suggested.
Don Andres nodded his white head approvingly. "The Señor Weelson is right," he said. "You would do well, amigos, to heed his advice."
"Just as Jack says," Dade concluded; and Jack amended that statement by saying it was just as Bill said. If Bill knew of a lot or two and thought it would be a good investment, he could buy them in their names. And Bill snorted at their absolute lack of business instinct and let the subject drop into the background with the remark that, for men that had come west with the gold fever, they surely did seem to care very little about the gold they came after.
"The fun of finding it is good enough," declared Jack, unashamed, "so long as we have all we need. And when we need more than we've got, there's the mine; we can always find more. Just now—"
He waved his cigarette towards the darkening hills; and in the little silence that followed they heard the sweet, high tenor of a vaquero somewhere, singing plaintively a Spanish love-song. When the voice trailed into a mournful, minor "Adios, adios," a robin down in the orchard added a brief, throaty note of his own.
Bill sighed and eased his stiffened muscles in the big chair. "Well, I don't blame either one of you," he drawled somewhat wistfully. "If I was fifteen years limberer and fifty pounds slimmer, I dunno but what I'd set into this ranch game myself. It's sure peaceful."
Foolishly they agreed that it was.