“Say,” observed Rhodes, “I said nothing about Yaqui slave traders. Where did you get that?”
“I heard Conrad and his man Brehman talking of the profits,––sixty pesos a head I think it was. I wonder how they knew?”
Singleton was waiting for them at the entrance to the ranch house, great adobe with a patio eighty feet square in the center. In the old old days it had housed all the vaqueros, but now the ranchmen were divided up on different outlying rancherias and the many rooms of Granados were mostly empty. Conrad, his secretary Brehman, and their cook occupied one corner, while Singleton and Billie and Tia Luz with her brood of helpers occupied the other.
Singleton was not equal to the large hospitality of the old days when the owner of a hacienda was a sort of king, dispensing favors and duties to a small army of retainers. A companionable individual he was glad to meet and chat or smoke with, but if the property had been his own he would have sold every acre and spent the proceeds in some city of the East where a gentleman could get something for his money.
Conrad had halted a moment after Singleton climbed out of the car.
“I sent word to Rhodes to come up from La Partida because of the horse shipment,” he said looking across the level where the two riders were just entering the palm avenue. “Because of that it would seem he is to be my guest, and I have room.”
“Oh, we all have room, more room than anything else,” answered Singleton drearily, “but it will be as Billie says. I see Pike’s nag here, and she always wants Pike.”
The milky blue eyes of Conrad slanted towards Singleton in discreet contempt of the man who allowed a wayward girl to decide the guests or the housing of them. But he turned away.
“The telephone will reach me if there is anything I can do,” he said.
Singleton did not reply. He knew Conrad absolutely disapproved of the range boss being accepted as a family guest. Between Billie and Captain Pike, who was a privileged character, he did not quite see how he could prevent it in the case of Rhodes, although he was honestly so glad to see the girl ride home safe that he would have accepted any guest of the range she suggested.
“Papa Phil,” she said smiling up into his face teasingly, “I’m on my native heath again, so don’t be sulky. And I have a darling new namesake I’ve been making clothes for for a month, and I’ll tell you all about him if you’ll give Mr. Rhodes and me a good supper. He is Cap Pike’s family, and will have the south corner room; please tell Tia Luz.”
And when Billie was like that, and called him “Papa Phil,” and looked up at him with limpid childish eyes, there was never much else to be said.
“I’ll show Rhodes his quarters myself, and you make haste and get your habit off. Luz has been waiting supper an hour. Today’s paper reports a band of bandits running off stock on the Alton ranch, and it is on the Arizona side of the border. That should show you it is no time to ride out of sight of the corrals.”
“Now, now! you know the paper raids aren’t real raids. They’ll have a new one to get excited over tomorrow.”
She ran away to be petted and scolded and prayed for by Tia Luz, who had been her nurse, and was now housekeeper and the privileged one to whom Billie turned for help and sympathy.
“You laugh! but the heart was melting in me with the fear,” she grumbled as she fastened the yellow sash over the white lawn into which Billie had dashed hurriedly. “It is not a joke to be caught in the raiding of Ramon Rotil, or any of the other accursed! Who could think it was south you were riding? I was the one to send them north in the search, every man of them, and Señor Conrad looks knives at me. That man thinks I am a liar, sure he does! and the saints know I was honest and knew nothing.”
“Sure you know nothing, never could and never did, you dear old bag of cotton,” and Billie pinched affectionately the fat arm of Tia Luz and tickled her under her fat chin. “Quick Luzita, and fasten me up. Supper waits, and men are always raving wolves.”
She caught up a string of amber beads and clasped it about her throat as she ran across the patio, and Kit Rhodes halted a moment in the corridor to watch her.
“White and gold and heavenly lovely,” he thought as he rumpled his crisp brown curls meditatively, all forgetful of the earnest attempts he had just made to smooth them decorously with the aid of a damp towel and a pocket comb. “White and gold and a silver spoon, and a back seat for you, Kittie boy!”
Captain Pike emerged from a door at the corner of the patio. He also had damp hair, a shiny face, and a brand-new neckerchief with indigo circles on a white ground.
“Look at this, will you?” he piped gleefully. “Billie’s the greatest child ever! Always something stuck under the pillow like you’d hide candy for a kid, and say,––if any of the outfit would chuck another hombre in my bunk the little lady would raise hell from here to Pinecate, and worse than that there ain’t any this side of the European centers of civilization. Come on in, supper’s ready.”
Rhodes hesitated at the door of the dining room, suddenly conscious of a dusty blouse and a much faded shirt. His spurs clink-clanked as he strode along the tiling of the patio, and in the semi-twilight he felt at home in the ranch house, but one look at the soft glow of the shaded lamps, and the foot deep of Mexican needlework on the table cover, gave him a picture of home such as he had not seen on the ranges.
Singleton was in spotless white linen, the ideal southern ranchman’s home garb, while the mistress of all the enticing picture was in white and gold, and flushing pink as she met the grave appreciative gaze of Rhodes.
“H’lo little Santa Claus,” chirruped Pike. “It’s just the proper caper to set off my manly beauty, so I’m one ahead of Kit who has no one to garnish him for the feast––and it sure smells like some feast!”
“Venison perhaps a trifle overdone, but we hope it won’t disappoint you,” remarked Singleton. “Have this seat, Mr. Rhodes. Captain Pike and Miss Bernard always chum together, and have their own side.”
“Rather,” decided Pike, “and that arrangement reaches back beyond the memory of mere man in this outfit.”
“I should say,” agreed the girl. “Why, he used to have to toss me over his head a certain number of times before I would agree to be strapped in my high chair.”
“Yep, and I carpentered the first one, and it wasn’t so bad at that! Now child, if you will pass the lemons, and Kit will pass the decanter of amber, and someone else will rustle some water, I’ll manufacture a tonic to take the dust out of your throats.”
“Everybody works but father,” laughed Billie as the Chinaman sliced and served the venison, and Tia Luz helped supply all plates, and then took her place quietly at the lower end of the table and poured the strong fragrant coffee.
Rhodes spoke to her in Spanish, and her eyes lit up with kindly appreciation.
“Ah, very good!” she commented amicably. “You are not then too much Americano?”
“Well, yes, I’m about as American as you find them aside from the Apache and Pima and the rest of the tribes.”
“Maybe so, but not gringo,” she persisted. “I am scared of the Apache the same as of El Gavilan, and today my heart was near to stop going at all when we lose señorita and that black horse––and I say a prayer for you to San Antonio when I see you come fetch her home again.”
“Yes, the black horse is valuable,” remarked Billie. “Huh! I might as well be in a convent for all I get to see of the ranges these late days. If anyone would grubstake me, I’d break loose with Cap here and go prospecting for adventures into some of the unnamed ranges.”
“You see!” said Tia Luz. “Is it a wonder I am cold with the fear when she is away from my eyes? I have lived to see the people who go into the desert for adventure, and whose bare bones are all any man looks on again! Beside the mountain wells of Carrizal my own cousin’s husband died; he could not climb to the tank in the hill. There they found him in the moon of Kumaki, which is gray and nothing growing yet.”
“Yes, many’s the salt outfit in the West played out before they reached Tinajas Altas,” said Pike. “I’ve heard curious tales about that place, and the Carrizals as well. Billie’s father nearly cashed in down in the Carrizals, and one of his men did.”
“But that is what I am saying. It was Dario Ruiz,” stated Tia Luz. “Yes, señor, that was the time, and it was for the nameless ranges they went seeking, and for adventures, treasure too; but––his soul to God! it was death Dario was finding on that trail. Your father never would speak one word again of the treasure of that old fable, for Dario found death instead of the red gold, and Dario wascompadreto him.”
“The red gold?” and Cap Pike’s eyes were alight with interest. “Why, I was telling Kit about that today, the red gold of El Alisal.”
“Yes, Señor Capitan, once so rich and so red it was a wonder in Spain when the padres are sending it there from the mission of Soledad, and then witches craft, like a cloud, come down and cover that mountain. So is the vein lost again, and it is nearly one hundred years. So how could Dario think to find it when the padres, with all their prayer, never once found the trail?”
“I never heard it was near a mission,” remarked Pike. “Why, if it had a landmark like that there should be no trouble.”
“Yet it is so, and much trouble, also deaths,” stated Tia Luz. “That is how the saying is that the red gold of El Alisal is gold bewitched, for of Soledad not one adobe is now above ground unless it be in the old walls of the hacienda. All is melted into earth again or covered by the ranch house, and it is said the ranch house is also neglected now, and many of its old walls are going.”
“There are still enough left to serve as a very fair fortress,” remarked Singleton. “I was down there two years ago when we bought some herds from Perez, and lost quite a number from lack of water before the vaqueros got them to La Partida wells. It is a long way between water holes over in Altar.”
“Sure,” agreed Pike, “but if the old mine was near a mission, and the mission was near the ranch of Soledad it should not be a great stunt to find it, and there must be water and plenty of it if they do much in cattle.”
“They don’t these days,” said Singleton. “Perez sold a lot rather than risk confiscation, and I heard they did have some raids down there. I thought I had heard most of the lost mine legends of western Sonora, but I never heard of that one, and I never heard that Fred Bernard went looking for it.”
The old woman lifted her brows and shrugged her shoulders with the suggestion that Sonora might hold many secrets from the amicable gentleman. But a little later, in an inquiry from Rhodes she explained.
“See you, señor, Dario Ruiz wascompadreof Señor Alfredo Bernard, Americanos not understanding all in that word, and the grandfather of Dario was major-domo of the rancho of Soledad at that time the Apaches are going down and killing the people there. That is when the mine was lost. On the skin of a sheep it was told in writing all about it, and Dario had that skin. Sure he had! It was old and had been buried in the sand, and holes were eaten in it by wild things, but Don Alfredo did read it, and I was hearing the reading of it to Dario Ruiz, but of what use the reading when that mine bewitched itself into hiding?”
“But the writing? Did that bewitch itself away also?” demanded Billie.
“How could I be asking of that when Dario was dead down there in the desert, and his wife, that was my cousin Anita, was crazy wild against Don Alfredo the father of you! Ai, that was a bad time, and Don Alfredo with black silence on him for very sorrow. And never again in his life did he take the Sonora trail for adventures or old treasure. And it is best that you keep to a mind like his mind, señorita. He grew wise, but Dario died for that wisdom, and in Sonora someone always dies before wisdom is found. First it was two priests went to death for that gold, and since that old day many have been going. It is a witchcraft, and no blessing on it!”
“Well, I reckon I’d be willing to cross my fingers, and take the trail if I could get started right,” decided Rhodes. “It certainly sounds alluring.”
“I did go in once,” confessed Pike, “but we had no luck, struck atemporalewhere a Papago had smallpox, and two dry wells where there should have been water. My working pardner weakened at Paradones and we made tracks for the good old border. That is no trail for a lone white man.”
“But the writing, the writing!” persisted Billie. “Tia Luz, you are a gold mine yourself of stories, but this one you never told, and I am crazy about it! You never forget anything, and the writing youcouldnot,––so we know you have the very words of that writing!”
“Yes, that is true too, for the words were not so many, and where some words had been the wild things had eaten holes. The words said that from the mine of El Alisal the mission of Soledad could be seen. And from the door of Soledad it was one look, one only, to the blue cañoncita where the alisal tree was growing, and water from the gold of the rose washed the roots of that tree.”
“Good God!” muttered Rhodes staring at the old lady who sat nodding her head in emphasis until her jet and gold earrings were all a-twinkle. “It was as easy asthat,––yet no one found it?”
“But señor,”––and it was plain to be seen that Doña Luz was enjoying herself hugely as the center of all attention, “the two padres who made that writing met their death at that place––and it was said thebarbarosat last killed also the grandfather of Dario, anyway he did die, and the women were afraid to tell even a new padre of that buried writing for the cause that it must have been accursed when it killed all people. That is how it was, and that mission was forsaken after that time. A Spaniard came up from Sinaloa and hunted gold and built Soledad hacienda where that mission had been in that old time, but no one ever found any more of gold than the chickens always are picking, a little here, a little there with a gravel in the craw. No señor, only once the red gold––red as flame––went out of Altar on a mule to the viceroy in Mexico, and the padres never lived to send any more, or see their brothers again. The men who dug that gold dug also their grave. Death goes with it.”
“Ugh!” and Billie shivered slightly, and looked at Rhodes, “don’t you go digging it!”
His eyes met hers across the table. It was only for an instant, and then Billie got very busy with her coffee which she had forgotten.
“Oh, I’d travel with a mascot to ward off evil,” he said. “Would you give me a bead from your string?”
She nodded her head, but did not speak. No one noticed them, for Cap Pike was telling of the old native superstition that the man who first found an ore bed found no good luck for himself, though the next man might make a fortune from it.
“Why,” he continued in evidence, “an Indian who finds even a vein of special clay for pottery doesn’t blaze a trail to it for anyone else. He uses it if he wants it, because his own special guardian god uncovered it for him, but if it is meant for any other man, that other man’s god will lead him to it when the time comes. That is how they reason it out for all the things covered by old Mother Earth. And I reckon the redder the gold the more secret the oldbarbaroswould be about it, for gold is their sun-god medicine, or symbol, or something.”
“With white priests scattered through Sonora for two centuries one would suppose those old superstitions would be pretty well eradicated,” remarked Singleton.
Doña Luz glanced at him as at a child who must be let have his own ideas so long as they were harmless, but Pike laughed.
“Lord love you, Singleton, nothing eradicates superstition from the Indian mind, or any other mind! All the creeds of the earth are built on it, and a lot of the white ones are still alive and going strong! And as for priests, why man, the Indian priests are bred of those tribes, and were here before the white men came from Spain. It’s just about like this: If ‘Me und Gott’ and the U-boats took a notion to come over and put a ball and chain on all of so-called free America, there might be some pacifist mongrels pretend to like it, and just dote on putting gilt on the chain, and kow-towing to that blood-puddin’ gang who are raising hell in Belgium. But would the thoroughbreds like it? Not on your life! Well, don’t you forget there were a lot of thoroughbreds in the Indian clans even if some of their slaves did breed mongrels! And don’t forget that the ships from overseas are dumping more scrub stock on the eastern shores right now than you’ll find in any Indian rancheria either here in Pima or over in Sonora. The American isn’t to blame for all the seventeen dozen creeds they bring over,––whether political or religious, and I reckon that’s about the way the heads of the red clans feel. They are more polite than we are about it, but don’t you think for a moment that the European invasion ever changed religion for the Indian thoroughbred. No sir! He is still close to the earth and the stars, and if he thinks they talk to him––well, they justtalk to him, and what they tell him isn’t for you or me to hear,––or to sit in judgment on either, if it comes to that! We are the outsiders.”
“Now, Cap,” said Billie, “I’m going to take it away. It’s too near your elbow, and you have had a double dose for every single one you’ve been handing out! You can take a rest until the others catch up. Tia Luz, give him a cup of coffee good and strong to help get his politics and religion straightened out.”
Pike laughed heartily with the rest of them, and took the coffee.
“All right, dear little Buttercup. Any medicine you hand out is good to me. But say, that dope about hidden ores may not be all Indian at that, for I recollect that mountaineers of Tennessee had the same hunch about coal veins, and an old lead vein where one family went for their ammunition. They could use it and they did, but were mighty sure they’d all be hoodooed if they uncovered it for anyone else, so I reckon that primitive dope does go pretty far back. I’ll bet it was old when Tubal Cain first began scratching around the outcroppings by his lonesomes.”
Conrad sauntered along the corridor and seated himself, flicking idly some leather thongs he had cut out from a green hide with a curved sheath knife rather fine and foreign looking. Singleton called him to come in and have coffee, but he would not enter, pleading his evil-smelling pipe as a reason.
“It can’t beat mine for a downright bachelor equipment,” affirmed Pike, “but I’ve scandalized this outfit enough, or thereabout, and that venison has killed all our appetites until breakfast, so why hang around where ungrateful children swat a man’s dearest hobbies?”
“If you think you’ll get rid of me that way you had better think again,” said Billie. “I don’t mind your old smokes, or any other of your evil ways, so long as you and Tia Luz tell us more bewitched mine stories. Say, Cap, wouldn’t it be great if that old sheepskin was found again, and we’d all outfit for a Sonorapasear, and–––”
“We would not!” decided the old man patting her hair. “You, my lady, will take apasearto some highbrow finishing school beyond the ranges, and I’ll hit the trail for Yuma in a day or two, but at the present moment you can wind up the music box and start it warbling. That supper sure was so perfect nothing but music will do for a finish!”
The men drifted out in the corridor and settled into the built-in seats of the plazita, though Rhodes remained standing in the portal facing inward to the patio where the girl’s shimmering white dress fluttered in the moonlight beside the shadowy bulk of Tia Luz.
He lit a cigarette and listened for the music box Pike had suggested, but instead he heard guitar strings, and the little ripple of introduction to the old Spanish serenadeVengo a tu ventana, “I come to your window.”
He turned and glanced towards the men who were discussing horse shipments, and possibilities of the Prussian sea raiders sinking transports on the way to France, but decided his part of that discussion could wait until morning.
Tia Luz had lit the lamp in thesala, and the light streamed across the patio where the night moths fluttered about the white oleanders. He smiled in comical self-derision as he noticed the moths, but tossed away the cigarette and followed the light.
When Captain Pike indulged the following morning in sarcastic comment over Kit’s defection, the latter only laughed at him.
“Shirk business? Nothing doing. I was strictly on the job listening to local items on treasure trails instead of powwowing with you all over the latest news reports from the Balkans. Soon as my pocket has a jingle again, I am to get to the French front if little old U. S. won’t give me a home uniform, but in the meantime Doña Luz Moreno is some reporter if she is humored, and I mean to camp alongside every chance I get. She has the woman at thecantinabacked off the map, and my future Spanish lessons will be under the wing of Doña Luz. Me for her!”
“Avaricious young scalawag!” grunted Pike. “You’d study African whistles and clicks and clacks if it blazed trail to that lost gold deposit! Say, I sort of held the others out there in front thinking I would let you get acquainted with little Billie, and you waste the time chinning about death in the desert, and dry camps to that black-and-tan talking machine.”
Kit only laughed at him.
“A record breaker of a moon too!” grumbled the old man. “Lord!––lord! at your age I’d crawled over hell on a rotten rail to just sit alongside a girl like Billie––and you pass her up for an old hen with a mustache, and a gold trail!”
Kit Rhodes laughed some more as he got into the saddle and headed for the Granados corral, singing:
Oh––I’ll cut off my long yellow hairTo dress in men’s array,And go along with you, my dearYour waiting man to be!
He droned out the doleful and incongruous love ballad of old lands, and old days, for the absurd reason that the youth of the world in his own land beat in his blood, and because in the night time one of the twinkling stars of heaven had dropped down the sky and become a girl of earth who touched a guitar and taught him the words of a Spanish serenade,––in case he should find a Mexican sweetheart along the border!
For to neither of the young, care-free things, had come a glimmer of fore-vision of the long tragic days, treasure trails and desert deaths, primitive devotions and ungodly vengeance, in which the threads of their own lives would be entangled before those two ever heard the music of the patio again––together.
If in Holland fields I met a maidAll handsome fond and gay,And I should chance to love herWhat would my Mary say?What would I say, dear Willie?That I would love her too,And I would step to the one sideThat she might speak with you!
“Yes, you would––not!” he stated in practical prose to no one in particular. “Not if you were our girl, would she, Pardner?”
Pardner tossed up his head in recognition of the comradeship in the tone, and Kit Rhodes became silent, and rode on to the corrals, happily smiling at some new thoughts.
CHAPTER IIIA VERIFIED PROPHECY OF SEÑORITA BILLIE
That smile was yet with him when he saw the herd and the vaqueros coming up from the water tanks, and noted Conrad and Tomas Herrara talking together beside Conrad’s automobile.
The beat of the many hoofs prevented the two men from noting one horse near them, and words of Conrad came to him clearly.
“It has to be that way. You to go instead of Miguel. You have enough English, you can do it.”
Tomas Herrara muttered something, evidently reluctance, for again Conrad’s words were heard.
“But think of thedinero, much of money to you! And that fool swine will not see what is under his nose. You can do it, sure you can! There is no danger. The blame will be to him if it is found; my agent will see to that. Not you but the gringo will be the one to answer the law. You will know nothing.”
He spoke in Spanish rapidly, while both men watched the approaching vaqueros.
The smile had gone from Kit’s face, and he was puzzled to follow the words, or even trust his own ears.
“Bueno,” said Herrara with a nod of consent. “Since Miguel is hurt–––”
“Whoa, Pardner,” sang out Rhodes, back of them as he slid out of the saddle. “Good morning, gentlemen. Do you say Miguel is hurt, Herrara? How comes that?”
The face of Herrara went a curious gray, and his lips blue and apparently stiff for he only murmured, “Buenas dias, señor,” and gulped and stared at Conrad. But the surprise of Conrad, while apparent, was easily accounted for, and he was too well poised to be startled unduly by any emergency.
“Hah! Is it you, Rhodes, so early? Yes, Miguel is reported hurt over Poso Verde way. Not serious, but for the fact that he was the one to go with you on the horse shipment, and now another must go. Perhaps his brother here.”
“Oh––ah––yes,” assented Rhodes thoughtfully. He was not so old as Conrad, and quite aware he was not so clever, and he didn’t know their game, so he strove as he could to hold the meaning of what he had heard, and ended rather lamely: “Well, too bad about Miguel, but if you, Tomas, are going instead, you had better get your war togs ready. We start tonight from the Junction, and have three hours to get ready.”
“Three hours only!” again Herrara seemed to weaken. To start in three hours a journey into the unknown far East of the Americano was beyond his imaginings. He shrugged his shoulders, tossed his hands outwards in despair, and turned toward the barns.
Conrad looked after him in irritation, and then smiled at Rhodes. He had a rather ingratiating smile, and it the first time he had betrayed it to Kit.
“These explosive Latins,” he said derisively. “I think I can make him reasonable, and you go forward with your own preparations.”
He followed Herrara, leaving Kit staring after them wondering. His glance then rested on the automobile, and he noted that it had not merely come out of the garage for the usual work of the day. It had been traveling somewhere, for the wheels were crusted with mud––mud not there at sunset yesterday. And in that section of Pima there was no water to make mud nearer than Poso Verde, and it was over there Miguel Herrara had been hurt!
He had only three hours, and no time to investigate. There were rumors of smuggling all along the line over there, and strange conferences between Mexican statesmen and sellers of Connecticut hardware of an explosive nature. He recalled having heard that Singleton was from Connecticut, or was it Massachusetts? Anyway, it was over there at the eastern edge of the country somewhere, and it was also where plots and counter plots were pretty thick concerning ammunition; also they were more complicated on the Mexican border. He wondered if Singleton was as simple as he looked, for he certainly was paying wages to a mixed lot. Also it was a cinch to run any desirable contraband from Granados across to La Partida and from there hellwards.
He wondered if Singleton knew? But Singleton had a capable business manager, while he, Rhodes, was only a range boss with the understanding that he adjust himself to any work a white man might qualify for.
The mere fact that once he had sat at the family table might not, in Singleton’s eyes, warrant him in criticizing an approved manager, or directing suspicion towards him. He might speak to Pike, but he realized that Pike was not taken very seriously; only welcomed because Billie liked him, and because an American ranch usually had the open door for the old timers of his caliber.
Also Pike had told him plainly that he must not be expected to mix up in the Mexican game for any reason whatsoever.
“I reckon it’s up to us, Pardner,” he decided, as he called directions to the different men loading the wagons with oats and barley for the stock on the trail. There were three mule teams ready for the railroad junction where the cars were waiting on the siding, or would be by night.
Some of the men were getting the mules straightened out in the harness while others were roping horses in the corral. It would take most of the home outfit to lead and drive them to the railroad, which meant one lonely and brief period of hilarity at the only joint where “bootleg” whiskey could be secured by the knowing, and a “movie” theater could add to other simple entertainments for the gentle Juans of the ranges. Neither Conrad nor Herrara were visible, and he presumed the latter was making arrangements for the sudden and unexpected departure from his family, but he knew he had not attempted to ride home for a farewell greeting, because his horse still stood near Conrad’s automobile where he had first overheard that curious conversation between the two men.
After a leisurely breakfast Pike was meandering towards the stock yard on his mule with the intent to trail along to the Junction with the boys. Rhodes, catching sight of him, looked hopefully but unsuccessfully for Singleton. The minutes were slipping by, and no definite instructions had been given him concerning the three car loads of horses. Did Conrad mean to leave every detail until the last moment and make difficulties for the new man? Was that the way he got rid of the Americans he didn’t want? He recalled the prophecy of Billie that he would not hold his job. Well, he would show her!
With memories of the white and gold vision of the previous night, and the guitar in thesala, and the moonlight touching all to enchantment, he had fully decided that he would not only hold the job, but on some future day he would be business manager. And he’d find that lost mine or know the reason why, and he would–––
For after all Kit Rhodes was only twenty-three and all of life ahead of him for dreams! He was wondering what he could fetch back from the East that would be acceptable to a witchy elf of a butterfly girl who already had, to his simple estimate, all the requisites of a princess royal.
Juanito came loping past, and Rhodes asked for his father.
“I am myself looking for him,” said the boy. “He has there on his horse all the things for Tio Miguel, but Miguel not coming, and I wonder who goes? Maybe it will be me. What you think?” he asked hopefully.
Kit did not answer, for Juanito’s mention of the articles for Miguel brought from home by Tomas, and still fastened to the back of the saddle, drew his attention to the articles tied there––some clothing badly wrapped, a pair of black shoes tied together with brown strings, and under them, yet plainly visible, a canvas water bag.
There was nothing unusual in a water bag or a canteen tied back of any saddle in the dry lands, it was the sensible thing to do, but Kit found himself staring at this particular water bag stupidly, remembering where he had seen it last. It had been only partly full then, but now it was plump and round as if water-filled; yet one glance told him it was not wet, and moreover, he had noted the day before a hole in the side tied up in a hard knot by twine, and there was the knot!
Yet it might be a stock ofpinole, parched corn, as evidence of Miguel’s forethought against privation on the long eastern trail. He could think of several reasonable things to account for an old water bag tied to a Mexican’s saddle, but reason did not prevent his glance turning to it again and again.
The fear in Narcisco’s eyes came back to him, and his attempt to cover his harmless playthings at the coming of the unexpected American. He wondered–––
“Say, Bub, I’ve got ten dollars to invest in some little trinket for Billie boy, and I want you to put it down in your jeans and invest it in whatever it will cover,” said Captain Pike at his elbow, clinking the silver coin meditatively. “You’ll have time to see plenty attractive things for the money there in the streets of New York, or Baltimore, or whichever of the dock towns you’ll be heading for.”
Rhodes accepted the coin, absently frowning.
“That’s one of the dark secrets not yet divulged by this curious management,” he growled. “I’m to go, or so I was told, but have been given no instructions. Where’s Singleton?”
“Just rounded up for breakfast.”
“Is he coming down here to the corrals?”
“Not that I could notice. Pedro got in from the Junction with last Sunday’s papers, and he and Billie have the picture sheets spread around, having a weekly feast.”
Kit strode over to his mount, and then halted, glancing towards the house a half mile away, and then at the telephone poles along the wide lane.
“Say, there’s a telephone somewhere down here at the works, connecting with the hacienda, isn’t there?”
“Sure, in that hallway between the two adobes where the bunk house ends and offices begin.”
Kit started briskly towards the long bunk house, and then turned to Pike.
“Do me a favor, Captain. Stay right there till I get back, and don’t let anyone take that Herrara horse away, or his load!”
“All right, but load!––why, the spotted rat hasn’t got a load for a jack rabbit, load!” and Pike sniffed disdain at the little knobs of baggage dangling from the rawhide strings. He didn’t think the subdued animal needed watching––still, if Kit said so–––
At the same time Kit was calling the house, and hearing in reply a soft whistle of the meadow lark, and then a girl’s laugh.
“Your music is good to listen to, Lark-child,” he called back, “and your ears are perfectly good at telling who’s who, but this is a strictly business day, and it is Mr. Singleton I need to speak with.”
“Still holding your job, or asking for your time?” came the mocking voice.
“You bet I’m holding my job, also I am on it, and want the boss.”
“Well, sometimes you know the boys call me the boss. What can we do for you, Mr. Kit Rhodes?”
“I’ll use all three of my Spanish cuss words in a minute, if you don’t be reasonable,” he thundered.
“Is that a bribe?” came sweetly over the wire, and when he muttered something impatiently, she laughed and told him it was not fair to use another language when he had promised Spanish.
“Listen to me, young lady, if I can’t get Singleton on the wire I’ll get on a horse and go up there!”
“And you listen to me, young man, it wouldn’t do you a bit of good, for just now he is nearly having a fit, and writing telegrams about something more important than the horse corrals.”
“There is nothing more important this day and date,” insisted Kit.
“Well, if you were as strictly a white dove advocate as Papa Singleton is, and as neutral, and then saw a full page Sunday supplement of your pet picture fraulein, working for your pet charity and sifting poison into hospital bandages and powdered glass in jellies for the soldiers of the Allies, I reckon you would change your mind.”
“Powdered glass!––infeed!” repeated Kit, stunned at the words and the sudden thought they suggested. “Great God, girl, you don’t have to go to the eastern papers forthat! You’ve got the same trick right here in Granados this minute! Why––damn you!”
The receiver fell from his hand as a crushing blow was dealt him from the door at his back. He heard a girl’s scream in the distance as he grappled with Conrad and saved himself a second blow from the automobile wrench in the manager’s hands. It fell to the tiles between them, and Rhodes kicked it to one side as he struck and struck again the white, furious face of Conrad.
“The wrench! Tomas, the wrench! Give it to him! The Americano would murder me!” shouted Conrad.
Tomas had other things to think of. He had heard as much as Conrad of the telephone discourse, and was aware of his pinto standing placidly not fifty feet away, with all the damning evidence in the case tied to the back of the saddle!
Juanito, however, ran like a cat at his master’s call and caught up the wrench, but halted when Pike closed on his shoulder and pressed a cold little circle of blue steel against his ribs.
“Not this time,muchacho!” he shrilled, “drop it! This is a man’s game, and you’re out.”
The men came running, and others attempted to interfere, but the little old man waved the gun at them and ordered them to keep their distance.
“No crowding the mourners!” he admonished them gleefully. “I’ve a hunch your man started it, and my man will finish it. I don’t know what it’s about, Kit, but give him hell on suspicion! Go to it, boy,––do it again! Who-ee!––that was a sock-dolager! Keep him off you, Kit, he’s a gouger, and has the weight. Give it to him standing, and give it to him good! That’s it! Ki-yi! Hell’s bells and them a-chiming!”
For the finale of that whirl of the two striking, staggering, cursing men, was unexpectedly dramatic. They had surged out into the open, but Conrad, little by little and step by step, or rather stagger by stagger, had given way before the mallet-like precision of the younger man’s fists until Kit’s final blow seemed actually to lift him off his feet and land him––standing––against the adobe wall. An instant he quivered there, and then fell forward, glassy eyed and limp.
Singleton’s car came whirling down the lane. Billie leaped from it before it stopped, and ran in horror to the prone figure. One of the older Mexicans tried to ward her off from the sight.
“No good, señorita, it is the death of him,” he said gently. “One stroke like that on the heart and it is––adios!”
“What in the name of God––” began Singleton, and Kit wiped the blood from his eyes and faced him, staggering and breathless.
“Get him water! Get busy!” he ordered. “I don’t think he’s done for, not unless he has some mighty weak spot he should have had labelled before he waded into this.”
The blood was still trickling from the cut in his head made by the wrench, and he presented an unholy appearance as they stared at him.
“I’ll explain, Singleton, for I reckon you are white. I’ll––after while–––”
“You’ll explain nothing to me!” retorted Singleton “If the man dies you’ll explain to a jury and a judge; otherwise you’d better take yourself out of this country.”
Kit blinked at those who were lifting Conrad and listening to his heart, which evidently had not stopped permanently.
“But give me a chance, man!” persisted Rhodes. “I need some mending done on this head of mine,––then I’ll clear it up. Why, the evidence is right here––powdered glass for the stock at the far end of the trail––Herrara knows––Conrad’s game––and–––”
He did not know why words were difficult and the faces moved in circles about him. The blood soaking his shirt and blouse, and dripping off his sleeve was cause enough, but he did not even know that.
“Take him away, Captain Pike,” said Singleton coldly. “He is not wanted any longer on either of the ranches. It’s the last man I hire, Conrad can do it in future.”
“Conrad, eh?” grunted Kit weakly, “you’re a nice easy mark for the frankfurter game,––you and your pacifist bunch of near-traitors! Why man–––”
But Singleton waved him away, and followed the men who were carrying Conrad to the bunk house.
“All right,allright! But take care you don’t meet with a nastier accident than that before you are done with this game!” he said shaking his fist warningly after Singleton, and then he staggered to his horse where Pike was waiting for him.
He got in the saddle, and reeled there a moment, conscious of hostile, watchful eyes,––and one girl’s face all alone in the blur.
“Say,” he said, “I heard you scream. You thought it was you I swore at. You’re wrong there. But you are some little prophetess,––youare! The job’s gone, and Herrara’s got away with the evidence, and the jig’s up! But it wasn’t you I cussed at––not––at––all! Come on, Pike. This new ventilator in my head is playing hell its own way. Come on––let’s go by-bye!”
CHAPTER IVIN THE ADOBE OF PEDRO VIJIL
“There ain’t no such animal,” decided Kit Rhodes seated on the edge of the bed in Pedro Vigil’s adobe. His head was bandaged, his face a trifle pale and the odor of medicaments in the shadowy room of the one deep-barred window. “No, Captain, no man, free, white and twenty-onecouldbe such a fool. Can’t Singleton see that if Conrad’s story was true he’d have the constable after me for assault with intent to kill? He’s that sort!”
“Well, Singleton thinks Conrad would be justified in having you prosecuted, and jailed, and fined, and a few other things, but for the reputation of Granados they let you down easy. You know it’sthedovery for the Pass-up-the-fists of this section, and what the Arizona papers would do would be comic if they ever got hold of the fact that Singleton picked a new bird for the dove cage, and the dratted thing changed before their eyes to a fractious game rooster swinging a right like the hind leg of a mule! No, Bub, we’re orderly, peaceable folks around here, so for the sake of our reputation Singleton has prevailed on his manager to be merciful to you, and Conrad has in true pacifist spirit let himself be prevailed upon.”
“Which means,” grinned Kit, “that I’m to be put off my guard, and done for nicely and quietly some moonless night when I take the trail! And he reports me either drunk or temporarily insane, does he? Well, when the next time comes I’ll change that gentleman’s mind.”
“Shucks, Bub! Thank a fool’s luck that your skull was only scratched, and don’t go planning future wars. I tell you we are peace doves around here, and you are a stray broncho kicking up an undesirable dust in our front yard. Here is your coin. Singleton turned it over to me and I receipted for it, and we have enough between us to hit the Sonora trail, and there’s not a bit of use in your hanging around here. You have no evidence. You are a stranger who ambled in, heard a sensational newspaper report of anti-ally criminal intent, and on the spot accused the highly respectable Granados rancho of indulging in that same variety of hellishness! Now there is your case in a nutshell, Bub, and you wouldn’t get the authorities to believe you in a thousand years!”
“What about you?”
“Oh, I have just little enough sense to believe your hunch is right, but that won’t get you anywhere. They think I’m loco too! I’ve an idea there is a lot more and rottener activities down south of the line with which our Teutonic peace arbitrator is mixed up. But he’s been on this job five years, all the trails are his, and an outsider can’t get a look-in! Now Miguel Herrara has been doing gun-running across the border for someone, and Miguel was not only arrested by the customs officer, but Miguel was killed two nights ago––shot with his own gun so that it looks like suicide. Suicide nothing! His chief, whoever he is, was afraid Miguel would blunder or weaken under government persuasion, so Miguel was let out of the game. That case is closed, and no evidence against anyone. I reckon everyone knows that the guns and ammunition sneaked over is headed for Rancho Soledad. The owner of Soledad, José Perez, is the valued friend of our nice little Conrad, and it happens that Conrad left Granados this morning for that direction, ostensibly to negotiate with the political powers of Sonora concerning a military guard for La Partida in case revolutionary stragglers should ride north for fresh saddle-horses. All appeals to the neutral chair warmers at Washington wins us no protection from that source;––they only have guns and men enough to guard some cherished spots in Texas.”
“Well, if the Teuton is able for a trail I reckon he got nothing worse in the scrap than I, even if he did look like a job for the undertaker. That fellow travels on the strength of his belly and not the strength of his heart.”
“So you say,” observed Pike, grinning, “but then again there are others of us who travel on nerve and gall and never get any further! Just put this in your pipe, Bub, and don’t forget it: Conrad isorganisedfor whatever deviltry he is up to! There is no ‘happen so’ in his schemes. He is a cog in some political wheel, and it’s a fifty-fifty gamble as to whether the wheel is German or Mexican, but it is no little thing, and is not to be despised.”
“But I can’t see how Singleton, if Singleton is square even–––”
“Singleton is a narrow gauge disciple of Universal Peace by decree––which, translated, means plain damn fool. Lord, boy, if a pack of prairie wolves had a man surrounded, would he fold his hands with the hope that his peaceful attitude would appeal to their better instincts or would he reach for a gun and give them protective pills? The man of sense never goes without his gun in wolf land, but Singleton––well, in peace times he could have lived a long lifetime, and no one ever guessed what a weak sister he was, but he’s sure out of place on the border.”
“I’m tired wearing this halo,” observed Rhodes, referring to the white handkerchief around his head. “Also some of the dope you gave me seems to be evaporating from my system, and I feel like hitting the Piman breeze. Can we strike trail tomorrow?”
“We cannot. Doña Luz has been dosing out the dope for you––Mexican women are natural doctors with their own sort of herbs––and she says three days before you go in the sun. I’ve a notion she sort of let the Mexicans think that you were likely to cash in, and you bled so like a stuck pig that it was easy enough to believe the worst.”
“Perhaps that’s why Conrad felt safe in leaving me outside of jail. With Doña Luz as doctor, and a non-professional like you as assistant, I reckon he thought my chance of surviving that monkey wrench assault was slim, mighty slim!”
“Y––yes,” agreed Pike, “under ordinary conditions he might have been justified in such surmise, but that would be figuring on the normal thickness of the normal civilized skull, but yours––why, Bub, all I’m puzzling over now is how it happens that the monkey wrench was only twisted a mite, not broke at all!”
“You scandalous old varmint!” grinned Kit. “Go on with your weak-minded amusements, taking advantage of a poor lone cripple,––refused by the army, and a victim of the latest German atrocity! I suppose––I suppose,”––he continued darkly, “everyone on and around Granados agrees that I was the villain in the assault?”
“I couldn’t say as to that,” returned Pike judicially. “Doña Luz would dose you, and plaster you, just the same if you had killed a half dozen instead of knocking the wind out of one. She’s pretty fine and all woman, but naturally since they regard you as mycompanerothey are shy about expressing themselves when I’m around––all except Singleton––and you heard him.”
“Good and plenty,” agreed Kit. “Say, I’m going to catch up on sleep while I’ve a chance, and you rustle along and get any tag ends of things needed for the trail. I’m going to strike for Mesa Blanca, as that will take us up into the country of that Alisal mine. If we go broke there is Mesa Blanca ranch work to fall back on for a grub stake, but from what I hear we can dry wash enough to buy corn and flour, and the hills are full of burro meat. We’ll browse around until we either strike it rich, or get fed up with trying. Anyway,Companero, we will be in a quiet, peaceful pastoral land, close to nature, and out of reach of Teuton guile and monkey wrenches.Buenas noches, señor. I’m asleep!”
Pike closed the door, and went from the semi-dark of the adobe out into the brilliant sunshine where Billie, with a basket, was waiting under theramadawith Merced, and Merced looked gloomy lest Pedro should be blamed by Señor Singleton for practically turning his family out of the adobe that it might be given over to the loco Americano.
“Tomorrow, can he go?” she asked hopefully. “Me, I have a fear. Not before is the adobe here watched by hidden men at night, and that is very bad! Because that he is friend to you I say to everybody that I think the Americano is dying in our house, but today he talks, also he is laughing. No more sick?”
“No more sick, sure not, but it will be one more day. A man does not bleed like a gored bull and ride the next day under a sky hot enough to fry eggs. The tea of Doña Luz drove off the fever, and he only sleeps and talks, and sleeps again, but sick? Not a bit!”
“Nor––nor sorry, I reckon?” ventured Billie.
“Why, no child, not that I could notice. That scalawag doesn’t seem to have much conscience concerning his behavior.”
“Or his language!” she added.
“Sure, that was some invocation he offered up! But just between pals, Billie, you ought to have been in hearing.”
“I––I don’t suppose he even remembers that I was,” she remarked, and then after a silence, “or––or even mentioned––us?”
“Why, no, Billie. You made the right guess when you sized him up and thought he couldn’t hold the job. He certainly doesn’t belong, Billie, for this ranch is the homing nest of the peace doves, and he’s just an ungainly young game rooster starting out with a dare against the world, and only himself for a backer. Honest,––if that misguided youth had been landed in jail, I don’t reckon there’s anyone in Arizona with little enough sense to bail him out.”
“Likely not,” said Billie. “Well, there’s the basket from Tia Luz, and I might as well go home.”