CARLOS AND CARLOTA

Carlota of the Rancho

BY EVELYN RAYMOND

AUTHOR OF
“POLLY THE GRINGO”
“MY LADY BAREFOOT,” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY SARAH A. SHREVE

THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA
MCMIX

COPYRIGHT
1909 BY
THE PENN
PUBLISHING
COMPANY
Carlota of the Rancho

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

CARLOTA OF THE RANCHO

CHAPTER I
BORDER LAND

“My head is in the United States and my feet are in Mexico!” cried Carlos sprawling at ease upon the sun-warmed grass.

Whereupon Carlota, not to be outdone in anything, promptly rolled her plump little person over the sward until its length lay along a lime-line running due east and west across the plain. Her yellow curls touched her twin’s yet her body formed a right angle to his. Then she remarked:

“Pooh! I’m better than that! My heart is in my own country and my—my— What is it that’s on the other side of you from your heart, brother?”

“I don’t know. Maybe gizzard.”

Carlota sat up, amazed and indignant.

“Girls don’t have gizzards, Carlos Manuel. Only chickens and geeses and things like those. You haven’t paid attention when my father teached you.”

Carlos laughed; so merrily and noisily that old Marta came to the door of the adobe house to see what was the fun. Nobody knew the housekeeper’s real age, it was so very great. None could remember things so far back as she, but she had ceased to count the years long, long ago, why not? What matter, if she still had the heart of a child, yes?

Certainly, neither Carlos nor Carlota cared. To them she had never changed, either in appearance or kindness, and they found no birthdays worth remembering except their own. These only, probably, because of the gifts and fiestas[1] then made upon the whole rancho.

“Perhaps, I didn’t, little sister, but neither did you, or you’d never have said ‘geeses’ nor ‘teached’.”

“Both of us was wrong, weren’t we?” returned the girl, with as fine a disregard of grammar as of ill temper. “We’ll be more ’tentive when our father comes home, won’t we? When will that be, Carlos?”

It was a perplexing question, and the boy put it aside, as he put all difficulties, until a more convenient season. Crossing his arms above his head, he gazed unblinkingly upward into the brilliant sky, proposing:

“Let’s find things in the clouds, Carlota. I see a ship, I do, truly. It’s just like the pictures in the books. All its sails are set and flying. Oh! can’t you see? Right there? There! It’s moving northward fast—fast! It might be the ship in which our father will come home.”

He meant to comfort her, but Carlota would not look up. She could not. The sunbeams made prisms of the teardrops on her lashes and blinded her. She buried her face in the grass to escape these tiny “rainbows,” and all at once fell to sobbing bitterly.

Carlos hated that. He hated anything dark or unhappy. He sat up and patted his sister’s shoulder, soothingly, entreating:

“There, don’t! Don’t, girlie. Our father wouldn’t like it if he should come home now, this minute, and find you crying.”

The words were magic. Carlota sprang to her feet and earnestly peered into the distance, crying:

“Is he? Do you see him, brother? Do you?”

Carlos, also, leaped up and threw his arm about her waist:

“I didn’t say that, did I? I only said ‘if.’”

“I don’t like ‘ifs,’” sobbed Carlota.

“Oh, Carlota, don’t cry. You shall not. If you do I will go away myself, to the northwest, to find my father.”

“Oh! let’s!”

“I said ‘I.’ Not you. Girls never go anywhere, because they always cry. If it hadn’t been for that my father might have taken me with him. You see, he couldn’t take you, on account of it; and he couldn’t leave you at home with only Marta and the men, for then—that would make more tears. So I had to stay to take care of you, and I do think, if I were a girl, the very first thing I would do—I wouldn’t cry. Criers never have real good times, I guess.”

This was logic, and from Carlos, whom Carlota idolized only less than their absent father, most convincing. She winked very fast and drew her sleeve across her eyes, to dry the drops which would not be shaken off.

“I—I won’t cry any more, brother; that is, not where anybody can see me.”

“Can’t you manage not to do it at all. It’s so dreadfully silly. It doesn’t bring father back; does it?”

“No—o,” assented the other, with a catch in her voice.

“Nor—Oh! brother! If you won’t, you won’t, so that’s a dear, and don’t let’s talk any more about it. One—two—three! Who is first at the corral shall have first ride on Benoni!”

Now, Carlos was an honorable boy, if a rather lazy and pompous one, so he waited until his sister had placed her feet exactly alongside his own, on that convenient lime-line, before he repeated:

“One—two—three! Off!”

Like arrows they sped across the plain, past the ancient adobe which was their home, and again old Marta hobbled to its door to watch the sturdy little figures, graceful as all other wild, young creatures of that wide, free land. Yet they looked more like children of some Indian race, which disdained the dress of civilization, than of white and cultured people. Unshorn and bare headed, their yellow curls floated backward over shoulders clad in kid-skin. Each wore a costume of the same pattern, save that Carlota’s tunic reached to her knees, while her brother’s was cut short at the waist, where a sash of crimson was loosely knotted. At the ankles, their leather leggings were met by gaily embroidered moccasins; and, indeed, their whole garb was simple and comfortable, though exquisitely fine and dainty, and had been designed by their father to meet the needs of the peculiar life they led.

“Together!” shouted Carlos, as they reached their goal; and Carlota’s delight in thus equalling her brother banished all lonely thoughts. She did not suspect, nor he tell her, that her twin had purposely shortened his steps to suit her own. Instead, he proposed:

“Let’s ride him together! I heard Miguel talking about a ‘shearing,’ this morning.”

“Oh! let’s!”

“Then run to Marta for a bit of luncheon while I bridle Benoni. Tell her we may not be home till nightfall, for father said we were never to worry the dear old thing—so don’t forget that, and be sure to bring a lot of her freshest bollos.”[2]

Carlota had already started, but paused astonished to ask:

“Why, brother, does old Marta ever worry? I didn’t know it. Worrying is what my father does sometimes, isn’t it? When people come to talk to him about their troubles?”

Carlos felt that any conversation with the word “father” in it was to be avoided, so answered indifferently:

“Oh! not really worry, you know. She wouldn’t do that about me; nor about you, if I were with you. And I s’pose I’m master of the rancho when my father”—but there was that word forcing itself in again, and the boy hurried past it to add, convincingly: “A master, a Don or a Señor, a gentleman, always looks out for the comfort of all his old women and little girls.”

They would never get the delectable bollos at this rate! For the mood and manner which had fallen upon her twin was so new to Carlota that she could only stand and stare at his swaggering movements. Seeing this, he promptly assumed his natural manner, which was not that of a care-taker, and, springing to Benoni’s back laid himself down along it while, clasping the animal’s beautiful neck, he rode out of the corral.

Again standing at her doorway, old Marta awaited the children’s approach, reflecting:

“Ah! little ones! So it is always. The easy things of life fall to my Carlos, by right, is it not? While to thee, niña the speeding feet of my service, the burden and the care. But not yet, heart of mine. Look not so at Marta with thy great eyes. There shall be no care for thee, beloved, while I live. What do I hear? Bollos? Sweets? Not home till nightfall? Caramba! With whom, then, shall I play when all my tasks are done? Si,[3] I know. I will take me my guitar and I will to myself sing, why not. But to myself, en verdad,[4] quite to my own self.”

Now, this wise old dame knew that nothing would more easily lure her charges home in good season than this suggestion of songs and guitar. To hear old Marta sing, in her cracked and toothless voice, was the funniest experience of their gay young lives. It was rarely she could be prevailed upon to so amuse them and Carlota hesitated and called to Carlos:

“Brother, did you hear that? This is the night when Marta sings. If we shouldn’t get back in time! But—they will be shearing for many days to come.”

“So will our Marta sing, at any hour, to please her ‘heart’s dearest’!” retorted the boy, laughing and sitting upright upon Benoni, while he bowed so profoundly that he lost his balance and slipped to the ground, at the old woman’s feet.

“Woulds’t jeer at thy Marta, woulds’t thou?” she demanded, and playfully cuffed him. Then, laughing as merrily as they, she swung Carlota up into her brother’s place, exclaiming: “’Tis thou, soul of my life, shall ride ‘before’ this day!”

She seized the loosened bridle just in time. Another instant and Benoni would have been off over the plain for a wild gallop with the now rising wind. He, too, was young and full of caprice as these other children—golden-haired and gray. None of the four knew any other home than Refugio, that cluster of venerable adobe buildings, nor much further restraint than the needs of nature imposed.

To live always in the open, save when hunger or drowsiness drove them indoors, to love all men and fear none—such was their habit. As yet, of things deeper than habit only Marta ever thought, and she but seldom. Their moods were their rulers and the present mood of the twins was for a long holiday at the sheep-shearing, a dozen miles away.

So, indulgent Marta brought out her finest basket—of such exquisite workmanship that it could be folded like a cloth, yet so tightly woven it would hold water—and packed it with a generous luncheon. Yet, as she finished her task, she lifted her face and sniffed suspiciously, saying:

“Ha! The wind rises faster. That is not good. There may be a ‘norther.’ Best safe at home, to-day, my children. To-morrow, mañana, there will yet be the shearing.”

“Of course, Marta. Didn’t s’pose they could finish it in one day, did you? This year there are more sheep than ever and my father—”

Carlos paused and glanced at his sister. That day, it seemed as if he couldn’t open his lips without mentioning that absent loved one, which was natural enough. Their father was the center of their existence, and for the first time in their memories, he had been away for many days; they had not yet learned to live without him.

However, Carlota had not noticed anything save that mention of the sheep-shearing and a dreadful possibility had entered her mind concerning it. Impatient to be away, she exclaimed:

“Never mind the wind, Marta, dear. It’s delicious, for the sun is so hot. But if you fear a ‘norther,’ just please give us our blankets and sombreros and let us go. Do you know, I haven’t seen—Santa Maria—this day!”

“Nor I, San Jose! Do you s’pose—would they dare—just because our father is away—”

Whatever Carlota’s fear, Carlos now shared it. He added his entreaties to hers and Marta limped into the house after their little Navajo blankets and sombreros, which they put between them upon Benoni’s back, while Carlos cried:

“Now we’re ready for anything that comes. Don’t sing till we get home, dear Marta, and— Adios! Guay, Benoni! Vamos!”[5]

CHAPTER II
UNEXPECTED GUESTS

Before they had ridden far, Carlos, whom Marta had laughingly compelled to take the place behind his sister, reached over her shoulder and laid his hand upon the bridle rein, saying:

“Wait, Carlota. Turn him around. I want to go to the schoolroom and get my riata[6] and my little hammer.”

“Let’s! I’ll get my posy-box, too. Maybe we’ll find some nice new things to show our father—when he comes home,” she wistfully answered.

“Of course!” assented the boy, wheeling Benoni about, only to pull him up again in sheer amazement.

Upon the plain before them was a group of four persons, neither Indians, neighbors, nor any white settlers whom the children knew, though the two burros were of the familiar type of vaqueros[7] employed upon their own rancho. The other two strangers were mounted upon fine horses and wore queer clothing, once white, but now soiled and travel-stained. On their heads were curious canvas helmets with green linings and floating, gauzy veils. Also, these two men carried monster umbrellas of white and green, which strange articles nearly sent Benoni into convulsions. He trembled like an aspen, and his suffering promptly restored Carlota’s own composure. She soothed him in her gentlest accents:

“There, there, my darling! Whoa, my pretty! Dearest beastie, don’t you fear, heart of my life! Carlota will take care of Benoni. So she will!”

Carlos could only sit and stare, his curiosity increasing when the foremost rider of the group burst into a hearty laugh of relief and amusement. Then he exclaimed:

“So, you two ferocious creatures are not young Indians, after all! But pray tell me if this is a land where the girls act as guides and protectors to their brothers.”

Neither child fully understood this speech, yet Carlos perceived that, for the second time that day, he was being ridiculed. First, by old Marta, and now by this stranger. This made him forget that cardinal virtue of instant and unquestioning hospitality in which he had been trained and to retort:

“If people do not like the land and its customs they needn’t come into it, no! As for girls ‘protecting’—Pooh! Everywhere men who are men are brave as they are tender and, my father says, to be indulgent is not weakness, always.”

The stranger’s amusement had given place to a frank admiration of the beautiful boy thus arrogantly assuming manhood’s airs, even in part deserving them. Also, the younger gentleman courteously asked:

“Will you kindly tell me, little lady, if there is water near at hand? We are all very thirsty.”

“Surely. Right here in the schoolroom. It is but a tiny way—. Only those queer things—Benoni—I’d show you if it wasn’t for them. I’ll show you, anyway. Here, Carlos!” and with a swift, graceful movement the girl tossed the bridle toward her brother and slipped to the ground. Then lightly catching the bit-ring of the questioner’s horse, she ran forward at a pace which compelled the animal she led to trot. “Right yonder, where the osiers grow, is the most delicious spring of water in all New Mexico. So my father thinks.”

Everybody now followed Carlota, even Benoni; though he planted his forefeet firmly every once in a while as if protesting against the cruelty of his young master in thus forcing him to keep so near those terrible umbrellas; but, fortunately, by the time they reached the spring these obnoxious things had been furled and laid upon the ground.

“The basket, brother! The basket—hurry!” cried the little girl, promptly emptying its precious cakes upon the grass as he tossed it to her. Then she filled it with water and offered it to him who had first complained of thirst.

“Thank you, little lady, but my father needs it most. All the time he suffers from the heat and dryness, and is always ready for a drink. Though I doubt if he has ever used a cup so odd and pretty.”

“Beg pardon, but it isn’t a cup. It’s a basket. Old Marta made it. She can make some even beautifuller.”

“Indeed? What a skillful Marta she must be! This is the finest basket I ever saw.” Then, receiving the utensil from his father’s hand he dipped and offered it to the two Mexican servants. Afterward he quenched his own thirst, which must have been intense, for he drank so deeply before he finished.

“There! I thought you were a gentleman, if the other’s not,” remarked the observant Carlota, with satisfaction.

“Eh? Thank you, but I must claim that my father is, also, a gentleman.”

“Why then did he make Carlos get angry?”

“Maybe because he’s very tired and not used to boys. Where is the schoolroom you mentioned?”

“Why—this. We’re in it, now.”

The young man whistled in surprise, and exclaimed:

“Well, truly, this is a remarkable country! An out-of-door schoolroom. Is the sun your teacher?”

“My father is our teacher. Course, he knows everything there is, I guess.”

“What is his name? I like to know wise people, though they are very scarce.”

“Adrian Manuel. My brother is Carlos and I am Carlota Manuel. We are twins, though he is so much bigger than me.”

Again the stranger whistled, then hastily called to the older man who had lain down in the shade of the osiers to cool and rest:

“Father! We’ve struck the very spot!”

That gentleman arose with surprising quickness, exclaiming:

“What! Is this the Refugio Rancho?”

“Yes, Señor,” answered Carlos who had shown the Mexicans a pool beyond the spring where they could water their animals and who now returned to stand beside his sister, with his arm about her shoulders.

“Does your father live here, son?”

“Course.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s that? I have come a long, long distance on purpose to see, and talk with him. I’ve written him a score of letters without avail, so now I’ll try what word of mouth will do,” answered the elder gentleman, with considerable sharpness.

“When he comes home he’ll be glad to talk with you. He always likes to talk with strangers and makes them welcome. I forgot that when I lost my temper. I beg your pardon, Señor.”

“Don’t mention it, lad. But allow me to say that, upon my word, you’re the queerest little chap I ever met. Indian clothes, Spanish graces, and Yankee bluntness. So this is Refugio, at last! Hmm, hmm. Well, well, well! Where is the house!”

“Yonder, Señor, among the palms and olives that partly hide it. There is a rise of ground that way, too. Would you like to go there now?” asked Carlos, once more the courteous small host his father would have approved.

“Presently, thank you. But I find this rest and shade delightful. My! It’s a hot country! Sit down on the grass here and tell me all you know about Refugio.”

Both children laughed aloud at that, Carlos replying:

“It would take till nightfall! Why, I could talk about our dear Refugio ‘forever and a day’ and not have done. You see, Señor, it’s such a very old place. My father says it is one of the most ancient landmarks. A landmark is, if you don’t know—I didn’t—one of the boundaries of a country or its history. Old Refugio is both.”

The boy was as eager to discuss this beloved subject as the newcomers were to listen, but Carlota quietly interposed:

“If brother once begins to talk about Refugio and the things which have happened here he won’t know how to stop. Yet my father says that travelers are always hungry when they get here, we live so far from any other rancho. So, if you won’t go to the house yet, will you have some of our cakes here?”

Gathering up the cakes and loaves she had emptied from the basket, she proffered them to the strangers, beginning with the gray haired man as she had seen his son do with the water.

“Yes, thank you. Though it’s not long since we stopped to eat, those cakes smell very appetizing. Let us all sit about the spring and enjoy them together. So, this is your schoolroom. What do you learn in it?” he asked.

“I could better tell you what we don’t. First, there’s geography. See that white line?”

“Yes. It suggests a tennis-court. What is it for?”

Carlos sprang up and merrily bestrode the line-mark, crying:

“One leg is in my native land and one upon foreign soil! That’s the way my father says it. This—” putting his hand upon a tuft of grass—“is in Mexico. This other in the United States. Our rancho is the southeast boundary of our own country. Our house was built hundreds of years ago by the good priests who came to teach the Pueblos about our Lord. That’s why they named it Refugio, the House of Refuge. Because it wasn’t only to help folks to go to Heaven, it was to give them shelter when they were persecuted. Somebody must always have been fighting then, I think.”

“So history says. Do you learn that, too?” inquired the younger gentleman.

“Yes. Not out of books, though. Father says we’re to study that way, later. Now, he just brings out old Guadalupo—who’s a hundred and fifteen years—and, sometimes, Marta, and makes them what he calls his ‘texts.’ He says that they’re living history. Carlota and I are history-makers, too. If we should live as long as those old folks somebody might find us just as interesting as we do them.”

“Far more so, maybe. I find you extremely interesting even now. I would like to hear a great deal about your lives and doings.”

Carlos thoughtfully studied the young gentleman’s face, then asked:

“Would you, really? How strange that seems—just children like us. Let me see. We learn Spanish and behavior—when we don’t forget it—from the Mestizas. They are never, never rude. Even when they stab a man in the back they do it courteously. So Miguel says.”

“What? What! You dreadful child! Are you taught stabbing, also, in this modern school of philosophy?” demanded the elder Mr. Disbrow, nervously glancing toward his dark-skinned servants.

Carlos rolled upon the grass, boisterously laughing. Then, suddenly remembering the “courtesy” which he boasted of having studied, sat up and apologized.

The apology accepted, the inquiry followed:

“Do you like to speak the Spanish you are taught?”

“Oh! I love it! You can say such things in it. They seem to mean more, ’specially if you’re angry. But our father doesn’t wish us to use it very much. He says we must first acquire pure English. He is very particular himself. But isn’t it hard to be grammar-y?” asked Carlota, not to be left out of the conversation.

“Very. Yet, I think your father couldn’t have greatly objected to the Spanish, since he gave you such pretty Spanish names,” answered Mr. Rupert.

“That was our mother’s doing. She named us. See? That is where she sleeps. That is her grave.”

The little girl stood up and pointed to a clump of agave plants, in the midst of which rose a flower-decked mound, with a simply-inscribed, natural boulder at its head.

After a hasty exchange of glances, with one impulse, the strangers rose and quietly walked to the spot Carlota had designated. For a little time they stood there, with bowed heads, as if doing reverence to the slumbering dust below, then gravely turned away. They did not again sit down in the “schoolroom” and, immediately, Mr. Rupert asked the children to guide them to the house.

For the first time in their lives the twins regarded their mother’s resting place with feelings of awe, inspired by the solemn manner of these strangers. She had died when they were babies, but their father had kept alive in their hearts a consciousness of her existence as real as it was joyous.

Their happy mother, young, beloved, and beautiful; who had sung and laughed her way through life, and who had trustfully gone out of it to another which was even fuller of sunshine. Why should anybody grow stern and sad who looked down upon her grave?

They could not fathom the mystery, and soberly led the way to the old adobe Mission, which had been a House of Refuge for so many strangers.

“I think, Carlota, maybe these are the ‘enemy’ sort of folks Miguel so often talks about, and seems to expect will come, sometime to Refugio,” impressively whispered Carlos.

“‘Enemies’ are wicked people, isn’t they?”

“Ye-es. I be-lieve so;” yet the boy’s tone was doubtful. If these were “enemies” they appeared to be more queer than wicked.

“Hmm. Then that is why.”

“Why what, girlie?”

“Why they wear such funny hats on their heads and carry such strange things in their hands. Don’t you remember that in all the stories of bad ones there’s always something to know them by? Marks on their foreheads, or ugly clothes or faces; and now those have—I wonder what they call these horrid greeny-white open-and-shutters that scared Benoni so! You see, brother, he knew they were ‘enemies’ at once. Horses do know lots about such things, Marta says.”

“They are ‘sunumberellas.’ I asked the gentleman,” answered Carlos, proud of this acquisition to his “pure English.”

“Then whenever I see a ‘sunerbell’ I shall know I see an ‘enemy,’ too,” rejoined Carlota, with conviction.

CHAPTER III
REFUGIO

Nobody living knew how old the House of Refuge was.

Guadalupo, who seemed as native to the soil as the cacti at its gates, affirmed that it did not “grow any older.” He had been born there and he had found it “just so.” It had never changed.

It was an abandoned Franciscan Mission, with chapel and cloister and bell-tower. Within that square, corner belfry still hung the curious bells, each with a rude, jangling clapper between its iron discs. Tradition said that these quaint bells were rung by the ancient Padres not only to summon their neophytes to religious services but, also, to their meals; and this hospitable custom was still followed by Adrian Manuel, into whose possession as a private residence the Mission had now come.

Early in his occupation he had carefully restored the half-obliterated Spanish text over the refectory door: “It is the House of Refuge. Enter and be glad, all ye who will.” Thereafter, so far as lay within his power, the new master of old Refugio made that legend the rule of his own household.

So when old Marta saw the children returning so soon, accompanied by strangers, she set the fire ablaze and, at once, prepared a pot of her delicious coffee. When, putting a loaf and a knife upon the oaken table, she repaired to the doorway and, with many obeisances, awaited the party’s approach.

The sight of her banished all perplexities from Carlota’s mind, and she ran forward to take her own rightful place at the housekeeper’s side; for, as her beloved father often told her, was she not the little mistress of his home? Thence she announced with her best manner:

“Welcome, friends. We are very happy to see you at Refugio.” Yet she whispered to old Marta: “Brother and I think that these people are ‘enemies,’ but then they’re guests, too. They have come to see my father.”

The strangers politely returned the child’s salutation and again the elder Mr. Disbrow exclaimed: “So, this is Refugio!”

“Yes, Señor—Mister Stranger, and I hope you will like it,” answered Carlota.

The younger gentleman now made a formal presentation:

“This is Mr. George Disbrow, my father; and I am Rupert, his son. Maybe you have heard of us, Miss Carlota.”

“No, Mr. Rupert, never. Did you ever see our father?”

“I have not, but my father knew him very well.”

“How delightful! Isn’t he— Didn’t you love him dearly?” she eagerly demanded of the elder man.

“Hmm. I can’t say that there was any affection between us.”

At this reply Carlota drew back, chilled; but Mr. Rupert immediately began to speak of her beautiful home and its curiosities and for her, as for Carlos, there was no theme more beloved.

Forgetting her annoyance she hastily began to lead her guest about the ancient buildings, descanting upon every object they passed with such eagerness that she thereby greatly confused his ideas concerning them. So that he pleaded:

“Slowly, little lady, please. It’s all so wonderful to me I want to take it carefully. This was the refectory, you say. Do you still use it for a dining hall?”

“Yes, oh! yes. And, sometimes, after the shearing and such things when we have everybody here to a fiesta, it is just full of people. Oh! I love it then! and so does my father. But—now shut your eyes! Please shut them just a minute and don’t open them till I tell you, and I’ll show you the ‘loveliest spot on earth,’ my father says.”

Her enthusiasm won his compliance with her whim and, like a boy at play, he followed her blindfold down many passages and through the breezy cloister, till she paused and cried: “Now, look! Quick!”

Then he raised his lids but promptly dropped them again, to clear his bewildered vision.

“Oh! Señor, isn’t it beautiful?”

“Beautiful, indeed! It is a miracle! It is a paradise!”

“Oh! no. It is my mother’s garden,” said Carlota, simply.

“But your mother is dead, long ago,” responded Mr. Rupert, in surprise.

“She has only gone to Heaven. Father and I are taking care of it for her. He does all the heavy work, because the water-cans are too big for me, though we have a fine little water-wagon that we roll around from place to place. But I, myself, prune and cut every plant that needs it. They are from almost all the countries in the world, and some of them have cost my father much, much money. Many have cost nothing but a nice ride or tramp after them. All the things my mother put here, herself, are still alive. Nothing can help living because we so love everything that grows; and, besides, the climate is perfect, my father says,” finished the little girl.

Truly it was a wonderful place, this old court of the monastery. Its southern, open side was a hedge of the prickly pear, which the wise Franciscans had found a natural and safe barricade against the troublous Indians. This hedge was much taller than Carlota’s head and was more than eight feet in width. Its lower branches were curiously gnarled and twisted and as thick as a man’s arm, while every portion bristled with strong spines more difficult to force than bayonet-points, they were so closely interwoven and needle-sharp. Mr. Rupert would have tarried long before this ancient hedge, but his small guide would not so allow.

“See those palms and olives? They are as old as old! Like Refugio itself. But the roses yonder came from France only this last year. And right here—look! These are anemones from my mother’s own childhood’s home. She had them sent after her when she came here.”

“And living still!”

“Surely. Do you s’pose we’d ever let them die? God had to have her in His Heaven, but He left us her garden. My father—”

“Your ‘father’ is your idol, isn’t he?”

“My idol? Father? How queer!” The idea was so amusing that the child clapped her hands and laughed aloud. She had been used to hearing the literal truth and “idols” suggested something most grotesque. Cried she: “Come! I’ll show you. We have a lot, from the Pueblos, and Old Mexico, and everywhere. There is a room just for them, the ugly, hideous things!”

She made him look at them every one. Cheap little images of red clay, or stone, with some that were more pretentious; and as he examined them his astonishment continually grew. Not at the curious carving, for the “collection” was not extensive, but at the characteristics of this unknown Adrian Manuel, whom he had heard described as “beneath contempt.”

However, his reflections were cut short, not only by Carlota’s eagerness to show him more of the Mission but by the entrance of a man who might be either a “cow boy” or a Mexican brigand, to judge from his appearance.

And now, for the first time in her life, Carlota heard Miguel Cardanza speak otherwise than courteously to a guest. He brusquely asked:

“Señor, will you tell me your business here?”

Mr. Rupert showed a brief surprise, then quietly answered:

“I accompany my father, Mr. George Disbrow, upon an unfamiliar journey to accomplish a certain task. I will leave him to explain what that is. Are you Adrian Manuel?”

“His trusted friend and major-domo,[8] Miguel Cardanza, at your service;” but the haughty salutation which accompanied these words evinced that such “service” would be grudgingly performed.

“When will your master return?”

“Señor, at his own good pleasure.”

“We will, I presume, await that season, trusting it will not long be postponed.”

“That is as may be. But I must, on his behalf, request you to leave Refugio immediately. Yes, yes, little one. I know you marvel to hear such rudeness from your Miguel’s lips. Yet I am right, yes. I know what I do. Well, Señor?”

“But Mr. Cardanza, I protest. Though he might not care to receive us I doubt if even your master would turn us adrift in this sparsely settled land. We have traveled many miles since daybreak, yet this is the first shelter we have seen.”

“Señor, you traveled in the wrong direction, that is all. There are settlements in plenty. That way, thus—” pointing toward the northeast—“lives a man who takes in pilgrims for a price. He is a hungry miner, and an hour’s ride will bring you to his shack. It is the only inn this side Lanark.”

Carlota had been a silent listener to this dialogue but she now interrupted it with:

“Miguel, you shall not send any weary man away. Even if he were—were the evil one, this was once God’s House, and it is still Refugio. Miguel Cardanza, I shall tell my father about you when he comes home. Oh! if he came now! What would he say to you but: ‘Good Miguel, hot-headed as ever?’ Oh! I know. I’ve heard him, often, often. Do be a nice old Miguel, do—”

The Spaniard flushed but caught the child’s hand and whispered in her ear. She listened with impatience, amazement, and, at last, with wild alarm. Then, darting one terrified glance toward the unfortunate Mr. Rupert, vanished from the cloister, shrieking, as she ran:

“Carlos! Carlos! Brother! My brother! For our father’s sake come—come quick—quick!”

CHAPTER IV
WHAT SERVES, SERVES

Miguel was the trusted and capable manager of Refugio Rancho, and, also, he knew something of its owner’s private affairs. What he did not know he surmised and not always correctly. He knew that Mrs. Manuel, an orphan, had married against the will of the wealthy eccentric aunt who had reared her; and that this old Mrs. Sinclair had never forgiven Adrian Manuel for his share in the affair, and had harshly accused him of seeking her money as well as her niece, whom she promptly disinherited.

Then, after the death of the young wife, she suddenly demanded possession of “her Mary’s children;” alleging that their father was unfit to “raise them in the wilderness.” This demand had been made in her name by her lawyers, Disbrow and Disbrow. Upon condition of Mr. Manuel’s absolutely resigning them to her she promised to educate them well and to bequeath them her fortune. Originally, the lonely old lady had asked for the children from a real desire for their affection, hoping they would fill the place in her life left empty by their mother’s desertion; but when the father positively and courteously declined her offers on their behalf, her strong and wilful temper had been aroused and she determined to have them at all costs.

It had therefore developed into a mere contest of wills. The lawyers’ letters grew more frequent and importunate as the years passed and, finally, she had induced the Disbrows to undertake a personal visit to Refugio in the hope of thus effecting what the numberless letters had failed to do.

Mr. Manuel’s plans for his idolized children were simple and decided, and though not a wealthy man, he possessed sufficient fortune to carry them out. He intended to educate them himself up to a certain degree; then, leaving Refugio in Miguel’s hands, go north with them, place them in some good co-educational college, and himself settle near them till their four years’ course of study should be completed.

But, of late, something had happened to make these plans doubtful. He had not confided this doubt to Miguel, but had gone quietly away for a time until the doubt could be settled. He did not explain what this uncertainty was. He merely departed, leaving a sealed letter of instructions in his steward’s hands. If at the end of two months he had not returned this letter was to be opened and its instructions implicitly followed. Meanwhile:

“You are master of Refugio while I am gone, good Miguel. And more than that you are absolute guardian of my precious children till I come and claim them from you. See to it, on your love and honor, that no harm befalls them; else, look to welcome home a broken-hearted man.”

These had been Adrian Manuel’s last words to his manager, as he departed on a journey more hazardous than anybody guessed, and Miguel had treasured them in his inmost heart.

Now his fealty and his honor were to be tested. Instantly, upon learning who the strangers were and realizing that they had chosen the time of his master’s absence to arrive, he leaped to the conclusion that they had come to carry by force what persuasion had failed to accomplish. In brief: they had come to kidnap the twins!

It was this belief which had inspired his rudeness to Mr. Rupert and this fear which had been whispered to little Carlota. He had bidden her seek Carlos and go with him to some safe place of hiding until such time as the strangers should grow weary of their fruitless efforts and depart. There were many, many outbuildings at Refugio. It was, indeed, as strangers always said, large enough for a regular rancheria, or village, and had been such in the old Padres’ time. In some one of these many old adobes the imperilled little ones might stay till danger was past, and in whichever spot they hid he would soon find and watch over them. The main thing was for them to disappear, and at once. Alas! hasty Miguel little dreamed how literally they were to obey his commands!

It was but a few moments after the manager had whispered his caution that old Marta paused in her supper getting, and its incident scolding of young Anita, her helper, to watch the children speed past her kitchen door, and remarked:

“There they flit, yes, the children of my last days. Heart of my life, but it was fine to hear that small Carlota speak the strange Señor so fair. Anita, under her curls of gold lie the brains thou lackest, my imbecile!”

“Then if she has what belongs to me, let her restore to me my own, for her then, the indolent, would be thy unnumbered chidings. Good. ‘Turn about is fair play.’ Why should she always be free to run and ride while I—”

“Take that for thy insolence, kitchen-maid! Let me tell thee that in that far land whence my child’s blessed mother came, the Señora Manuel of holy memory, there are—Bah! Why waste words on such? This is for the impudence; and this—because thou mindest not the podrida[9] but must be staring, staring at every stranger-man crossing the threshold of Refugio!”

The housekeeper’s words were emphasized by a couple of heavy slaps upon Anita’s broad shoulders, but the girl cared no more for the blows than for the interminable scoldings. It was all in the day’s work, yes. She, too, loved her master’s children, as everybody knew, and having annoyed Marta by her pretended envy of Carlota the mischievous maid was ready to join the old woman at the door and behold what thence might be seen.

There was always something interesting. Miguel pottering about, swaggering in that authority he never allowed to lapse; a vaquero coming or going; now and again, a farm hand, with Mateo, the gardener; and “forever and always,” the poultry-boys, chasing the fowls from the cistern.

Anita was just in time to see the twins swing themselves upon Benoni’s back, where their Navajo blankets still rested. They had put on their sombreros and now, seeing the two women in the doorway, Carlos caught his off and waved it as he cried:

“Adios! Marta—Anita—Refugio! Adios—ADIOS!”

What was there in that familiar salutation that set old Marta’s heart to beating trip-hammer strokes? Clapping her withered hand to her side she caught hold of Anita and whirled that young person around with an unexpected force, demanding:

“Did’st thou hear that, yes? Why do they say that? What is it?”

“ADIOS, ADIOS!”

“Leave hand! May I not hearken the last word of the little one but I must be sent to mind an old stew-pot of podrida?”

“Podrida—Pstit! Tell me. There’s something amiss with my children, is it not? ‘Adios’—‘farewell’—It has been often in that voice of silver, but always with the sound of ‘I return,’ so sweet to hear. Always with the laughter breaking through, but this time—the heart-break!”

Feeling her own superstitious heart sing before that strange expression on Marta’s paling face, Anita indignantly retorted:

“You are a fanciful old woman. You are dotard. What? Have you an ague, you? Speak. Have you never seen the small ones ride away upon Benoni that you should stare at ghosts this hour?”

“Ghosts? Yes. I dreamed of their mother last night. She was not weeping and wringing her white hands, no? Anita Pichardo, I tell thee that evil has come to Refugio this day, and it is the strangers who have brought it.”

She paused and pointed toward Mr. Rupert, hastily coming down the cloistered walk.

“Well then, Mother Marta, it is I, Anita, who thanks this unknown evil for coming by so handsome a carrier, yes. In truth, if it is this fine Señor I am to serve at supper I will even bother to stir the stew once more. Then I will put on my Sunday gown, why not? Many strangers have come to Refugio, but none so comely as yon.”

Being something of a beauty and more of a coquette, maid Anita chose the roundabout way to her own chamber, along the veranda floor and through the cloister, casting arch glances toward the young lawyer who met her midway the passage, but noticed her not at all.

Yet her trouble was not useless for, at the turn of the corridor, she came upon Miguel and one of the Mexicans who had arrived in the Disbrows’ company. They were talking in Spanish and Anita did not scruple to pause and hearken; and what she overheard worked the customary mischief of all half-truths, and she exclaimed:

“Santa Maria! It is so, then. Old Marta was right! They knew, those small ones, my heart’s delights! and they have run away! Yes, yes, I understand! It was ‘Adios,’ indeed. But—”

Her coquetry now forgotten, Anita hurried back to the kitchen by the shortest route; and, muttering something which Marta did not comprehend, caught off the pot of stew from its hook in the fireplace. Hastily emptying the mess into a handled jar, she seized a loaf from the table and rushed away. The whole transaction had so amazed the housekeeper that she was speechless till, as the flutter of the maid’s scarlet petticoat waved defiance from the dooryard, her voice returned:

“Anita! AN-I-TA! Eyes of my soul, is she daft, that one? An—i—ta! AN—I—I—TA!”

“Fortune favors the daring.” Miguel’s horse Amador stood tethered near; for, when a chance passer-by had reported meeting strangers presumably bound for Refugio, the manager had left the shearing-place and hurried homeward, to find there the most unwelcome guests who had ever sought its shelter.

“Hola! Amador! That is good, yes. This jar grows heavy, and thy feet are swifter than mine!” cried Anita, and mounted. So daringly up and away—on Miguel’s own Amador which none but he must ride!

“They have all gone mad!” shrieked Marta, while Miguel entered the kitchen and indignantly demanded:

“Mother, what ails the women? First the little Carlota; I but whisper to her that which she should know and off she flies, screaming, louder than I dreamed she could. Then comes Anita where she had no business, listens what concerns her not, and off she races, likewise screaming. Now thou—if—what?”

“The podrida—the supper, heart’s idol!” wailed the housekeeper, and her sorely tried son burst into a laugh, which she arrested by a gesture and the words:

“‘He laughs best who laughs last,’ and that won’t be my Miguel, no. For the guests of the master to lose their supper, that is one thing, indeed; but what of Amador, no?”

Now Amador was the delight of Miguel’s soul and it needed but this suggestion to send him doorward again. The horse was gone, and in fury he turned upon his unoffending mother:

“Didst thou—didst—”

“Pouf! Is it I, Marta Cardanza, at eighty years, would mount that fiend, Amador, and ride away with a dangling jar of hot stew, yes? Such pranks suit not gray hairs, Miguel, son of my soul, no.”

“But which way, mother? How dared she?” Marta shrugged her shoulders, answering:

“Bah! Some maids are ever silly. ’Tis I think these strangers have foul-bewitched all Refugio, yes.”

Yet there was a gleam of mischief in her black eyes as she pointed to where a vaquero was leading the beautiful horse that Mr. Rupert had ridden to the rancho. “Tit for tat,” she quoted in her native tongue.

“Thanks, mother! That is good!”

Then, even while Mr. Rupert came onward to mount, did Miguel seize the creature before its owner’s eyes and ride away as only a plainsman can ride. Instantly, the visitor turned upon his servant, like all the others—angry with the wrong person:

“Boy, what do you mean by that? Where has he gone?”

“How can I tell, Señor?”

“Why did you let him take the horse?”

“You had not so forbidden, Señor.”

“Humph! I told you to bring him here—for me.”

“Ten thousand pardons, Señor. To bring him here, yes. For whom—that was not mentioned.”

There was no virtue in anger, so Rupert Disbrow forced a laugh; then looked up to find the youthful eyes of wrinkled Marta watching him with a keen amusement which plainly explained the affair. Crossing to where she leaned against the doorframe he lifted his helmet and asked:

“Madam, may I have a word with you?”

“Many, if it so pleases the Señor.”

He looked past her into the great kitchen, through which a swiftly rising breeze swept refreshingly, and remarked:

“It feels like a storm. Do they often visit this locality?”

“When the good God wills,” responded the old woman, piously.

After all, she could see but little amiss with this stranger. He had a speech and manner which reminded her of her beloved, lost Doña Mary, though she knew that he could not be of that young mistress’s kin.

He presently observed, insinuatingly:

“That settle against the window, yonder, looks inviting.”

“The veranda is cooler, yes.”

“Then, by all means, let us sit there.”

He certainly was courteous. No gentleman of old Castile could have been more deferential. He was fully equal in graciousness to Señor Adrian, himself; and, after all—the podrida was gone! That charge the saints had taken off an old woman’s hands, yes. If there was no supper—Pouf! there was still bread in the buttery and fruit in plenty. With the master at home, there would have been fowls to kill and cook; yet—for this fair-speaking stranger? Of that Marta was not so sure; any more than she was sure of her regret for the lost podrida. In any case, she now willingly took the place upon the settle which the young man had earlier indicated.

“Have you lived here always, Madam?” he began.

“Always, Señor.”

“Then you must have known Mrs. Manuel.”

“As my own soul, yes.”

“Was she a happy woman?”

“The angels in Paradise cannot be happier.”

“Yet she relinquished a great deal to come here with her husband, nor had she known him long.”

“A day is a lifetime when it is soul of one’s soul,” answered Marta, now looking steadily into his inquiring eyes with such an expression that he abruptly terminated his cross-examination.

Returning to the present and his own perplexities he said:

“That man who rode off upon my horse seems to be a sort of ‘boss’ here, in Mr. Manuel’s absence.”

“In truth, yes.”

“He declines the hospitality of Refugio to us, but my father is an old man.”

“He should be thinking of his sins,” suggested Marta.

“I can sleep out of doors, well enough, but he can’t. Besides, he is saddle-worn and can ride no further at present. What shall I do?”

“I was never good at riddles, no. My head, it is quite stupid, yes.”

“But you are a woman. You should be merciful, and Refugio means ‘succor.’ Remember, please, he is old and he—knew your mistress.”

She turned upon him sharply:

“But I remember, also, that he has come to bring sorrow to her innocent little ones, yes.”

“No! I tell you truly that you are wholly mistaken. Our errand is one of kindness, only. Provide us shelter for to-night and to-morrow I—”

She interrupted him by rising and saying:

“One may do what one will with one’s own, is it not? It is the House of Refuge. Bring the father. He is, indeed, too old for such a task as his; but there is still time. He may repent and depart before harm is done. I repeat, it is the House of Refuge, and the sin of turning any beggar from its doors shall lie neither on the head of my beloved master nor on that of Marta Cardanza. There are rooms of my own, yes. In them—‘the house is yours.’”

CHAPTER V
A LITTLE EXCURSION

“Basta, enough! If some go supperless to bed this night it shall not be the little ones! Vamos, Amador!” cried Anita, as she struggled to keep both her difficult seat and the contents of the jar.

Now Amador was a horse of spirit, and, like his master, was called a “woman hater”; therefore, he resented the petticoat flapping against his side. Rearing, he pawed the air with his forefeet, tossed himself from side to side, and vigorously tried to shake off the obnoxious skirt.

“So? Wouldst thou? Vicious, like thy owner, si? Well, learn then! One day is as good as another to break thy will, and before thou wast born, imp, Anita was a horsewoman. Take that!”

With an audacity even Miguel would not have shown, the excited girl brought the hot and heavy jar down upon Amador’s shoulder, and, instantly, he stood stock-still, save for a peculiar shivering through all his frame which, in itself, would have warned Miguel of evil to come.

Not inexperienced Anita. Her heart swelled with pride and mischief, as she jeered:

“Ha, ungallant! Thus easily subdued by a woman—a woman, Amador—Wouldst not the skirt? Then, take this for thy incivility and—forward!”

Unwisely, she again lifted the jar and dealt the beast a second blow, and, already loosened by the violent shaking, the stopper fell out and the warm contents splashed over his neck.

This was the last indignity which Amador could endure. With a spring he was off. The jar fell to the ground, broken, and for her life Anita now clung to the bridle. But he thrust his nostrils forward and jerked the reins from her grasp. Then she gripped him about the throat, half-choking him; yet the fire of his wild ancestors stirred within him and he did not stop for this. His wicked eyes glanced backward and seemed to ask:

“Wouldst ride, Anita? Then ride thou shalt till thou art content!”

She never knew how long that startling onrush lasted. It seemed an endless progress in which, each moment, destruction menaced her; then, suddenly, she found herself in the middle of a mesquite bush, her clothing torn, her face scratched and bleeding, while the footfalls of the now free Amador swiftly died in the distance.

“Ha! But you shall suffer—suffer—villain!” she cried, as soon as she could recover her breath. Then she tried to turn about, but each movement meant agony. Everywhere the sharp thorns of the shrub pierced her. To remain was impossible—to extricate herself—Ugh!