The Project Gutenberg eBook, Lone Pine, by R. B. (Richard Baxter) Townshend

LONE PINE

New Fiction

SMITH BRUNT

United States Navy. By Waldron K. Post, author of "Harvard Stories," etc. 12º, 459 pages, $1.50.

"A rattling good story of the Old Navy.... The book recalls Harry Gringo by its breadth and interest of plot; which means it is a first-class sea story. It is not an imitation, however.... The prevailing thought of the book is the unity of aims, ideals and race between Englishmen and Americans, and this idea is brought out so well that, even though the reader enjoys the story of the fierce sea-fights, he deplores the shedding of blood by brothers' hands."—Buffalo Courier.

BEARERS OF THE BURDEN

Being Stories of Land and Sea. By Major W. P. Drury, Royal Marines. 12º, 286 pages, $1.00.

"Major Drury's stories combine pathos and humor with an underlying earnestness that betrays a clear moral vision. The whole volume is of a rare and wholesome quality."—Chicago Tribune.

ROSALBA

The Story of Her Development. By Olive Pratt Rayner (Grant Allen), author of "Flowers and Their Pedigrees," etc. Hudson Library, No. 39. 12º, 396 pages, paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1.00.

"A story which holds the reader with profound interest to the closing lines."—Chicago Inter-Ocean.

ABOARD "THE AMERICAN DUCHESS"

By Headon Hill. Hudson Library, No. 41. 12º, paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1.00.

Note.—This is a reprint of a work previously published under the title of "Queen of the Night"—with certain changes of names.

"He has certainly given to the reading public a capital story full of action. It is a bright novel and contains many admirable chapters. Life on the ocean is well depicted, many exciting episodes are well told, and it will interest readers of all classes."—Knoxville Sentinel.

THE PRIEST'S MARRIAGE

By Nora Vynne, author of "The Blind Artist's Picture," etc. Hudson Library, No. 42. 12º, paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1.00.

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York and London

LONE PINE
THE STORY OF A LOST MINE
By R. B. TOWNSHEND

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK & LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1900

Copyright, 1899
BY
G. P. Putnam's Sons

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

TO
MY FRIENDS IN SANTIAGO
RED AND WHITE
AND
IN MEMORY OF
A BRINDLED BULLDOG

I have to thank Señor F. de Arteaga y Pereira, Reader of Spanish in the University of Oxford, for the Spanish version of Heine's poem which appears in Chapter XXIX.

A lone pine stands in the Northland

On a bald and barren height.

He sleeps, by the snows enfolded

In a mantle of wintry white.

He dreams of a lonely palm-tree,

Afar in the morning-land,

Consumed with unspoken longing

In a waste of burning sand.

After Heine.

CONTENTS

LONE PINE

LONE PINE

CHAPTER I INDIAN LOVERS

A moon just past its first quarter was shining on the Indian pueblo of Santiago, so that one side of the main street (it only boasted four) was in deep shadow, while on the other the mud-built houses were made almost beautiful by the silver light. The walls on the bright side were curiously barred with the slanting shadows cast by low, broad ladders, which led from storey to storey of the terrace-like buildings, and by the projecting ends of the beams which supported their flat roofs. Outside each house, clear away from the wall, stood a great clay oven, in shape exactly like a gigantic beehive as tall as a man. In the deepest shadow on the dark side of the street, between one of these ovens and the wall, something was crouching. The street was deserted, for the Indians, who practise the precept "early to bed and early to rise," had long ago lain down to sleep on their sheepskins. But if anyone had gone up to the crouching something, he would have found a young Indian, with a striped blanket drawn completely over and around him so as to conceal everything except the keen eyes that peered watchfully out of the folds. There was no one to disturb him, however, and the bright moon of New Mexican skies sank lower and lower in the west, and yet he remained there motionless, except when now and again the night air, growing colder, caused the blanket to be gathered more closely to the body it was protecting.

Just as the moon dipped behind the western hills, the figure sprang up and darted forward. The long, untiring watch was over at last. From a hole in the opposite wall, a good deal higher than a man's head from the ground, a little hand and wrist were seen waving.

In a moment the boy—he was hardly more—was underneath. He threw back the blanket from his head, and it fell down to his waist, where it was supported by a belt, leaving his body and arms free. His answering hand crept up the cold, rough surface of the wall till at its utmost stretch he felt a smooth, warm skin rub against his finger-tips, and instantly the two hands interlocked.

"Is that you, Felipe?" breathed a low voice from inside.

"Yes, my love, it is," came back a whisper as low from the Indian boy who had waited so long and so patiently for his sweetheart's signal. "Why did you look so sad," he continued, "when you gave me the signal to-day? Is there anything new?"

"Oh, Felipe, yes," she sighed. "I do not know how to tell you. My father spoke to me this morning and said it should be in three days. He has sent for the padre to come. In three days, Felipe! What shall I do? I shall die!"

The young Indian groaned under his breath. "In three days!" he said. "Ah, that is too cruel! Is it really true?"

"Oh yes," came the whispered answer. "My father said he would beat me to death if I did not consent. I should not so much mind being beaten, Felipe—it would be for you; but he would kill me, I believe. I am frightened."

Felipe felt the shiver that ran through the finger-tips clasped in his. "Do not be so afraid, Josefa," he said, trying to keep up her courage. "Can you not tell the padre that you hate old Ignacio and that you will not marry him?"

"Yes," replied she, "but he will say, 'Oh, nonsense, nonsense; girls are always afraid like that.' As long as my father is cacique the padre is bound to please him to make sure of getting his dues. He'll do what my father wants. He will not mind me."

"There is only one thing for us to do," said the boy; "we must run away together."

"But where?" said she, "and how? They will catch us, and they will beat us, and they will marry me all the same to that ugly old Ignacio. I hate him from the bottom of my heart; and if ever he dares to try to master me, I'll do him a mischief."

"Ah, but he is going to bribe your father with three cows," said her lover disconsolately. "He can do it, too, easy enough. He is the very richest man of all the Eagles, and I suppose the Eagles are the strongest family in the pueblo next to the Snakes. Anyway the cacique always favours them, so he has a double reason for wanting to hand you over to that old miser. Alas! I have no cows to give him, not even one little calf. We Turquoises are so few and so poor! The cacique would never hear of your marrying one of us. He is so proud of having married a Snake himself, that he thinks nobody good enough for his daughter who isn't able——" He was silenced by the girl.

"Hush!" said she quickly in a smothered tone, "I hear him moving about in the farther room"; and the Indian lad listened, motionless as a statue, with all the wary concentration of his race in the moment of danger.

The red Indian has often been represented as apathetic. He is not. His loves and his hatreds are intense, only, both by birth and bringing up, he is endowed with extraordinary power of controlling their expression. Underneath their outward self-restraint these simple folk of Santiago were capable enough of feeling all the emotions of humanity pulsing through their veins and plucking at their heart-strings. Felipe and Josefa, exchanging hand-clasps and vows of fidelity through a hole in an adobe wall, were as passionate and as miserable as if the little drama which meant so much to them was being played on the wider stage of the great world outside. When the girl whispered "hush" to her lover, both held their breath and listened, each conscious of the pulse that throbbed in the other's hand. It was a noise from inside the house that had startled the girl. She could hear that someone in a farther room had got up and was throwing a stick of wood on the fire. With a gentle pressure her finger-tips were withdrawn from her lover's, and her hand disappeared back through the hole. Felipe sank down into the crouching position he had been in till she came, drawing the blanket over him for concealment and warmth as before. For nearly half an hour he remained perfectly still. Then a slight rubbing on the inner side of the wall became audible, and presently looking up he saw not a hand only, but a whole arm reaching down to him from the opening. Up he sprang, and stretching himself on tiptoe against the wall he succeeded in bringing his lips up to the little hand, which he kissed silently again and again.

"It was my father," said she. "He must be asleep again now; he lay down again quite soon. They put a new stone," she continued, "in the hand-mill to-day, for I have quite worn out the old one with grinding corn on it for my step-mother. But they have brought the old one into the storeroom here, and I have taken it to stand on, so that I can see you now if I take my hand in and put my head to the hole. But, Felipe, let us settle what to do."

"I've been thinking," said Felipe, "we must run; we must. Of course it is no use for us to go to our padre. He is on their side, just as you say, so we will not go to him. We will try another padre, who has nothing to do with the pueblo and won't care for your father. I'll tell you. Let us go to Padre Trujillo at Ensenada. They say he is good and kind to his Indians. He will marry us. I have the money to pay his fee. When we are once married, my joy, we are safe. They cannot separate us when the padre has joined us for ever. They cannot do anything to us then; our own padre himself would forbid it."

"We would be safe then, indeed," sighed Josefa. "Oh, if we could only manage it! What shall we do for a horse? the horse herd is away in the sierra, and they will not bring it down till Sunday."

"Sunday will be too late for us," said Felipe sadly. "We want a horse now, at once; I could go out to the horse herd and get my father's horse if he would give me leave to get him. But you know this new captain of the horse herd is that bullying Rufino of the Eagles. He and his helpers have the herd now on the other side of the Cerro de las Viboras, the Mountain of the Snakes. I'm sure they'd never let me have the horse unless my father gave them the order or came to fetch him himself. But he won't do that, I know; the horse is thin after the cold winter, and he wants him to eat green grass now and grow fat. It won't do."

"Ask El Americano, then," suggested the girl quickly, as if a sudden thought had struck her. "Yes, why don't you ask him? Ask Don Estevan to lend you a horse or a mule; you work for him, and he seems so friendly with you, perhaps he'll let you have one of his."

"What!" exclaimed the young Indian, "ask him! Ask Turquoise-eyes to lend a horse! Ask Sooshiuamo to do that! That's no sort of use." He spoke hopelessly, as if surprised at her even thinking of such a thing.

El Americano, as the girl had first called him, otherwise known as Don Estevan or Sooshiuamo, was a solitary white man, a prospector who had obtained permission to spend the past winter in the village of the Indians of Santiago, and by them was often referred to as El Americano, the American par excellence, because he was the only one within fifty miles.

"You might just ask him once, though," she persisted, in spite of Felipe's attitude. "Oh yes, Felipe, go and ask him. Do try. Go now. It can't do any harm even if he won't."

"But I know he won't," returned the boy, unconvinced; "and I shall have to tell him what it's for, and if I go and tell Sooshiuamo our secret, what's to prevent him telling the chiefs? He's very friendly with them all."

"Oh, but of course you mustn't tell him our plan," she answered; "we must keep that dark. But he's very kind to all our folk. Perhaps he'd do it for us out of kindness. It's all out of kindness, isn't it, that he's going to make the rocks fly away out of the acequia to-morrow? They say he's going to do a miracle for the pueblo. I heard my father talking about it."

"Yes, I know that," said Felipe; "I know he told me himself he would make the rocks jump out of the ditch, and that then we should have twice as much water as ever we had before. I know he's a good friend to us. But I know, too, he hates ever to lend any of his animals to any of us. He thinks we would ride them to death if he did. I will try him, though, anyway. I will beg very hard. Don't be afraid, dear heart; I will get one somehow, if you will really come—yes, if I have to take one of the Mexicans' horses."

"Oh no, not that!" cried she. "They will shoot you or hang you if you touch their horses. Don't do it. I will not go if you take a horse of the Mexicans. I would rather go afoot."

"No, dear heart, you couldn't. It isn't possible. It is ten leagues to Ensenada from here, and we must do it between moonset and daylight, or they will catch us. Do not talk of going afoot. Trust me, I will get a horse. But you will really come, Josefa mia? Do you really mean it? What other woman would be so brave?"

"I do mean it, indeed," she answered. "Oh, how I wish we could be married here in our own church by the padre! but my father wouldn't hear of it. He wouldn't even let me speak to you, you know, or let me go out without being watched."

"Yes, I wish we could," said the young Indian wistfully. "I spoke to my father to ask for you for me, but he only said, 'We are too poor. It is no use. We have only one horse and two cows. Ignacio has several horses and thirty cows.' As if that was a reason, when I want you so much!" he added indignantly. "If I had the whole world I would give it to Salvador, and he might be cacique of it all, if he would only let me have you." He drew himself up to the wall again and kissed the little warm hand eagerly. "My sweetheart!" he exclaimed, "I shall die if I do not get you! Oh, if I could only tear down this hateful wall! How can I talk to you properly when I cannot see you? May not I get in by the terrace roof? Let me try."

"Hush, Felipe," she said. "Don't be foolish, you silly boy. You would be sure to be heard, and then everything will be ruined. You must be patient." Here she gave his hand a little squeeze, which of course had just the contrary effect to her advice, for he kissed the fingers with redoubled ardour. Then he broke in—

"But if I can't get in without disturbing them, how will you be able to get out?"

"Oh, I can manage that," said the girl. "I will slip into this storeroom when they are asleep, as I always do, and from here I can get through the trap-door into the room above, and so out on to the terrace. There is an old ladder I can get up by."

The villages of the Pueblo Indians are built in terraces, each house-storey standing back from the one below it like a flight of gigantic steps. From terrace to terrace people ascend by ladders, and many of the lower rooms are without any door but a trap-door in the ceiling. The system is a relic of the times when their villages were castles for defence against their deadly enemies, the marauding Navajos and Apaches.

"How brave you are, Josefita mia!" he cried. "Will you really dare to run away from them, and come with me? How sweet it will be! we shall be together for the first time—think of it! Oh, I will make you happy, I will indeed!"

"If they rob me of you, I shall die," said the girl in a low, sad voice. "One thing, Felipe, I promise you, I will not be Ignacio's wife. Never! You need not fear that."

"Oh, my darling," he sighed, "how can I be content with that? I want you for my very own. In my eyes you are more beautiful than the saints in the church, and they are not more wise and good than you. Why are things made so hard for us?"

"I do not know," she said softly; "nobody seems to be so unhappy as we are. But we can comfort each other ever so much. My step-mother will make me work like a slave all to-morrow, I know, but I shall have the thought of you to comfort me."

"My sweetheart!" said he. "You have a thousand times more to bear than I have. But I will try to think for you. You must take some rest. I know how they treat you." He ground his teeth. "We must part now, but I will come to-morrow night. I will bring a horse if I can get one. If not, we have one day left still, and we will settle what to do."

"Till to-morrow night, then," said she.

"To-morrow night at moonset," said Felipe; and with many final pressures of hands, each one intended to be the very last, the lovers parted.

Silently the moccasined feet of the boy stole up the wide street, as he ran homeward under the clear starlight. He lifted the latch of his mother's door and entered. The fire was low, and he put on another stick of cedar wood, and lying down on the sheepskins spread upon the floor, covered himself with his blanket and lay still. His father, old Atanacio, woke up when he came in, but said nothing to him; and soon sleep reigned again supreme in the Indian house. The Indians are early risers as well as light sleepers, and before daylight they were up and stirring. After their breakfast of bread and dried mutton, Atanacio said, "When you have taken care of the horses of the Americano, Felipe, you had better weed the wheat patch by the meadow. Tomas and I are going to the patch up by the orchard."

"I wanted," said Felipe, somewhat timidly, "to go to the herd and get the horse."

"Bad luck take the boy!" snarled the old Indian. "What does he want with the horse? Does he think we keep a horse for him to wear him to a skeleton flying round the country on him? Let him be. Let him get fat on the green grass."

"But I shall want him if I go with Sooshiuamo," answered Felipe diplomatically. "The Americano told me that he was going off to the sierra for a hunt to get meat as soon as he had made the rocks jump out of the acequia for us as he has promised. He said when he went on a hunt he wanted me to go along and help him to pack the meat down. His rifle never misses, and then when he kills a wild bull he will give me meat—fresh meat—father."

"Bad luck take the Americano, too," growled the old man, as crossly as ever. "Whose cattle are they that he wants to kill? The wild cattle in the mountain are the children of ours, though they have no brands. Why should he come and kill them?"

"The cacique gave him leave, father."

"Well, I suppose he says so," was the ungracious response. "But if he wants to take you, he can give you a beast to ride. He has two mules besides the mare, and they do nothing, and eat maize all the time. They ought to be fat."

"But if he kills a bull he will want them to carry the meat," said Felipe. "One mule can't carry it all."

"Very well, then, you can ride one of his up and walk back," snapped the stern parent. "Want to ride the horse indeed! Lazy young rascal! Go afoot."

Felipe felt rebellious. He was getting to be a man now, and his father still wanted to treat him with as little consideration as a child. Instead of showing increasing respect to his tall son, the old man grew crosser and crosser every day. But Felipe had never rebelled against the parental yoke, though he had said to himself a hundred times that he would not stand it any longer. Yet in plotting to elope with Josefa he was plotting a rebellion far more venturesome against the code of the community of which he was a member.

"There isn't much hope there," said he to himself as he left the house, "but I knew that before. Now for Don Estevan." It was no use to try to borrow from any of the other Indians, for every man of them had his horse out at the herd—except, indeed, the cacique himself—and the herd was a day's journey away. With an anxious heart the boy wended his way to the next street of the village, which was the one where the American lodged.

CHAPTER II A LONE HAND

The sun was just rising above the mesas, or flat-topped hills that formed the eastern horizon of the view from the village, as Felipe knocked at the door in the row of mud-built houses. His knock was answered by a fierce growl from a dog, and a loud "Come in" in Spanish from a vigorous human voice. He opened the door, which was unlocked, and stepped cautiously inside. From the brown blankets of a bed that stood by the wall a brindled bulldog was emerging, and apparently proposed to drive the intruder out.

"Dry up, Faro, will you?" said the same voice in English, addressing the dog. "Can't you see it's only Felipe?"

The dog, who evidently had a general theory that all Indians would bear watching, lay down again sulkily on the bed, and Felipe advanced to the fireplace. The owner of the voice was seated on a low stool, bending over the coals, with his back to the door.

"Good-morning, Don Estevan; how are you?" said Felipe in Spanish. The Santiago people spoke an Indian dialect of their own amongst themselves, but they used Spanish as a medium of communication with the rest of the world.

Stephens, for that was the American's name, which in its Spanish form had become Don Estevan, was busy cooking, and he answered without looking round, "Good-morning, Felipe; how goes it?" A critic might have said that his Spanish accent was by no means perfect, but no more was the Indian's, and the pair were able to understand one another readily enough, which was the main point.

How had this American come to be living here by himself in a remote village community of the Pueblo Indians? During ten long years of search for gold he had wandered from Colorado to California, from California to Nevada, from Nevada to Montana, and from Montana back again to Colorado. The silver boom in Colorado had just begun, and then silver mines were all the talk there. Thereupon Stephens recollected a story he had heard from an old prospector with whom he had once been camped in Nevada about a deserted silver mine in New Mexico which had once been worked by the Spaniards, with the forced labour of their Indian slaves, and had since lain idle, untouched, and even unknown. When the Spanish power was broken, and the Spaniards driven out, the Indians had covered up the place and sworn never to disclose its existence. According to the story, the sole possessors of the secret were the Pueblo Indians of Santiago.

To Santiago accordingly Stephens had made his way in the hope of solving the mystery of the secret mine. This hope, however, was one which he could not avow openly at the first meeting, and when he presented himself before the chiefs of the pueblo it was of gold and not of silver that he spoke. He told them of his past toils and adventures, and the red men seemed to take a fancy to him on the spot. Hitherto these Indians had persistently enforced their right to prevent any man not of their own blood from taking up his abode within a league of their village of Santiago, a right secured to them by special grant from the kings of Old Spain. What was there about this man that melted their obduracy? Some charm they must have found in the face of this lone wanderer, for him alone among white men had they admitted as a permanent guest to the hospitality of their most jealously guarded sanctuary.

Perhaps there was something of pure caprice in their choice; perhaps it was in a way due to the effect of physical contrast. For in this case the contrast between the white man and the red, always marked, was as striking as it could possibly be. He was as fair as they were dark. With his white skin, his grey-blue eyes, and his curling golden hair, worn long in frontier fashion, he was as fair as any Norseman that ever boasted his descent from the ancient Vikings.

"Gold," said Tostado, one of the chiefs, as Stephens sat in the midst of them on the occasion of his first visit; "we ask you what sort of a life you live, and you answer us that you live only to search for gold. Why, here is the gold. You carry it with you"; and with a reverent grace the fine old chief laid his dark fingers gently on the long yellow locks that flowed down from under the prospector's wide sombrero.

The grey-blue eyes of the far-wandered man—one who like Ulysses of old had withstood the buffets of capricious Fortune through many adventurous years—found an expression of genuine friendliness in the dark orbs of this redskin chief, who smiled gravely at his own jest, as if in half-excuse of its familiarity. Tostado gazed into the white man's eyes a moment longer, and then turned to the circle of his fellow-chiefs.

"See," he said, "the white man's eyes are the same colour as our precious turquoise stones; they are the colour of our sacred jewel, the Shiuamo, that I wear as the head man of the Turquoise family," and he pointed to his breast where a large polished turquoise hung from a circlet round his neck. "The white man has travelled far; he is weary; he shall stay with us and rest a while; and we will give him an Indian name, and he shall be as one of ourselves. Let him be called 'Sooshiuamo,' 'Turquoise-eyes.' My brothers, say, is it good?"

"Yes, it is good," they answered, "it is good. From henceforth Sooshiuamo is one of us; he is our brother."

And in this fashion the roving gold-seeker had obtained amongst them the acceptance he desired.

Felipe, with his striped blanket gracefully draped round him, came and stood just behind his employer, but said nothing. On a rough table were a tin cup and tin plate and an iron-handled knife; a small coffee-pot was bubbling in the ashes on the hearth. Stephens held a frying-pan in his left hand, and beside him on a tent-cloth on the floor lay a large smooth boulder and a hammer, with which he had been pounding his tough dried meat before cooking it. He now stood up to his full height, and turning his face, flushed with the fire, to Felipe, pointed with the steel fork held in his right hand to a great wooden chest against the wall at one side of the room. "Go and take an almud of corn and give it to the stock," said he. "Give Morgana her extra allowance."

"Yes, señor," said Felipe; and taking down three nosebags which hung on a peg in the wall, he filled them, and went out to the corral in the outskirts of the village where the American kept his beasts. The mare Morgana was a beautiful bay, of pure Morgan stock, and the mules were sturdy little pack animals of Mexican breed. By the time they had eaten their corn, and the boy had returned to the house with the nosebags, his employer had finished his meal and was washing up the dishes. Felipe hung up the nosebags, and stood by the fire silent and thoughtful; it never occurred to him to offer to help in what he looked upon as women's work. Stephens took the wiping cloth and began to wipe up. Felipe at last screwed up his courage to ask far the mare he needed so badly.

"Oh, Don Estevan!" he began suddenly.

"Well, what is it?" said Stephens sharply, rubbing away at his tin plate. It always irritated him to see anyone else idle when he was busy. Felipe's heart sank. He felt he should fail if he asked now. Perhaps his master would be in a better humour later on.

"What shall I do with the beasts?" he said in his ordinary voice.

"Was that all you were going to say?" said Stephens, looking at him keenly. "What's the matter with you? What's up?"

"Nothing, Don Estevan—it's nothing," said Felipe. "Shall I put them into the meadow as usual?"

"Yes, certainly," replied Stephens. "I sha'n't ride. I shall walk up the acequia to the rock I am going to blast. If I want them after, I'll come down."

"Very well, señor," said the boy; and taking the lariats he went back to the corral, caught the stock, and led them down the Indian road, through the unfenced fields of springing crops, towards the river.

At the lower end of the plough-lands a steep bank of bare earth and clay dropped sharply to the green flat fifteen or twenty feet below, through which the river ran. The plough-lands lay on a sort of natural terrace, and were all watered by numerous channels and runlets, which had their sources in the great acequia madre, or main ditch. This ditch was taken out of the river some miles above, where it was dammed for the purpose, and was led along the side of the valley as high up as possible; the pueblo was built beside the ditch more than a league below the dam, nearly half a mile from the river in a direct line. The grassy flat through which the river flowed remained unploughed, because it was liable to be overflowed in flood time. It was a verdant meadow, the common pasture-ground of the milch cows of the village, which were herded here during the day by small boys and at night were shut up in the corrals to keep them out of the unfenced crops. Felipe hobbled the three animals in the meadow, and set to work weeding in the wheat land above, where he could keep an eye upon them.

Some time after Felipe's departure, Stephens went to his powder-keg and measured out three charges of blasting-powder.

"Curious, isn't it?" said he aloud to himself as he handled the coarse black grains in which so much potential energy lay hid,—"curious how these Indians, hard-working folk as ever I saw, have lived two or three hundred years here under the Spanish Government, and been allowed by those old Dons to go on, year after year, short of water for irrigating, every time."

He closed up his powder-keg again securely, and locked it away in the room that he used as a storeroom; it was the inner of the two rooms that he rented in the block of dwellings inhabited by the Turquoise family. Here he lived, alone and independent, simply paying Felipe a trifle to do his chores and go up to the mesas and get his fire-wood. Indoors the prospector distinctly preferred to keep himself free and unbeholden to anybody; he continued to live exactly as he did in camp, doing his own cooking and mending, and doing them thoroughly well too, with a pioneer's pride in being sufficient to himself in all things.

"And now," said he, as he wrapped up the charges of powder, "I'll just show my good friends of Santiago here a little trick those old Spanish drones were too thick-headed or too lazy ever to work. This fossilised Territory of New Mexico don't rightly know what's the matter with her. She's got the best climate and some of the best land in America, and all she's good for at present is to bask in the sun. If she only knew it, she's waiting for a few live American men to come along and wake her up."

Stephens had been so much alone in the mountains that he had got into the solitary man's trick of talking to himself. Even among the Indians he would sometimes comment aloud upon things in English, which they did not understand; for in spite of their companionship he lived in a world of his own.

He took down a coil of fuse from a shelf, cut off a piece, rolled it up, and stowed it away along with the charges of blasting-powder in his pockets, first feeling carefully for stray matches inside. "Yes," he continued, as his fingers pried into every angle of each pocket preparatory to filling it with explosive matter, "drones is the only name for Spaniards when it comes to talking real work. They don't work, and they never did. They've made this Territory into a Sleepy Hollow. What she wants is a few genuine Western men, full of vim, vinegar, and vitriol, just to make things hum for a change. New Mexico has got the biggest kind of a future before her when the right sort of men come along and turn to at developing her."

He stood in the middle of his outer room, patting himself gently in various parts to make sure that he had got all his needful belongings stowed away. "Now then, Faro," and he addressed the dog, who was still curled upon the bed eyeing his master doubtfully, uncertain whether he was to be left at home on guard or taken out for a spree; "what this here benighted country needs is the right kind of men and the right kind of dogs. Aint that the sort of way you'd put it if you were a human? Come along then, and you and me'll take a little trot up along the ditch and astonish their weak minds for 'em."

With yelps of joy, uttered in a bulldog's strangled whistle, Faro bounded off the bed on to the earthen floor, and danced rapturously round his master, who was still thoughtfully feeling his pockets from the outside to make certain that when he reached his destination he would not find that some quite indispensable requisite had been left behind. Then he bounced out of the open door into the street, scattered a pig and three scraggy chickens that were vainly hunting around after stray grains of corn where the horses had been fed, and then halted to await his master out by the corrals. Stephens, having at last assured himself that he had really forgotten nothing, came out after the dog, pulling to the door behind him, and the pair started off to walk up alongside the acequia. There was no water in it to-day, as it had been cut off up above to facilitate the work of blasting. Here and there in the fields Indians were at work: some wielded their great heavy hoes, with which they hacked away at the ground with astonishing vigour; others were ploughing with pairs of oxen, which walked stiffly side by side, their heads lashed firmly by the thick horns to the yoke, as they dragged the curious old-fashioned wooden ploughs, just like those described by Virgil in the Georgics two thousand years ago. In the peach orchards near the village women were at work, and little naked brown children stopped their play to stare at the white man as he passed, with the simplicity of Arcadia. After half an hour's walk he reached his destination, a rocky promontory that jutted out from the hills into the valley. The acequia ran round its base, and the Indians, in order to bring as much of the valley as possible under irrigation, had carried the line of the ditch as high as they could. They had carried it so high that where it rounded the rocks a point projected into it, and made it too narrow and too shallow to carry the amount of water that it was easily capable of containing both above and below. They had no saws to cut boards to make a flume for the ditch; and, besides, such a piece of engineering was quite beyond the range of their simple arts. This weak place had been a hindrance and a trial to them from time immemorial. If they attempted to run their ditch more than half full of water it brimmed over at this point, and then broke down the bank. It had to be patched every year,—sometimes several times in one year,—and this entailed much extra work on the members of the village community, who were all bound by their laws to work on the ditch when necessary, without pay. In fact, the repair of the ditch at the point of rocks was one of the stock grievances of the pueblo, everyone thinking that he was set to do more than his share of the work. Besides, it naturally broke down when fullest, that is to say, when they needed it most for irrigation, and everyone wanted water for his maize or his wheat crop. No wonder, then, they were first incredulous and then overjoyed when by a fortunate chance Stephens happened to hear of their difficulty and went to examine the spot, saw at once that it was a simple matter, and offered to lend them tools, to show them how to drill the necessary holes, and then to blast away the obnoxious rocks for them. These Indians were familiar with firearms and knew the force of gunpowder, but were ignorant of its use for blasting purposes; nor were their Mexican neighbours in this part of the country much more enlightened. Accordingly they had accepted with joy Stephens's proffered assistance, having learned by experience to set a high value on the skill and resource of their American friend.

CHAPTER III BLASTING THE ACEQUIA

A little crowd of these peaceful and industrious red men, in character so unlike their wild cousins of the prairie and the sierra, were grouped around the point of rocks. As Stephens approached them he heard the click, click, of steel on stone; and as he came near the crowd made way for him, and the cacique saluted him: "Good morning, Sooshiuamo; you have come at the right time. See how well the young men have worked at making the holes in the rock as you showed them yesterday. They have made them quite deep now. Come and tell us if they are right."

Stephens looked into the ditch, where a powerfully built Indian was laboriously jumping a heavy bar of steel up and down in a hole bored in the hard, solid rock, giving it a half-turn with his wrists at each jump. The Colorado miner got down into the ditch and took the drill he had lent them out of the hands of the Indian, and tried the hole with it. His deft and easy way of handling the heavy jumping-bar showed practised skill as well as strength. "That'll do right enough," he said, looking up at the cacique who stood on the bank above him. "You have got your chaps to do the business well. Are the other two holes as deep as this?"

"Yes, deeper," answered the Indian. "See, here they are; try them; the young men have been at them since noon yesterday."

Stephens moved along to the points indicated and examined in a critical manner the work that had been effected. "Yes, that looks as if it would do all right," he said in approving tones. "Now then, you fellows, give me room, and keep still a few minutes, and I'll show you some fireworks."

He produced from his pockets the powder and fuse, and proceeded to make his, to them, mysterious preparations, the eager and inquisitive circle of red men pressing as near as possible, and almost climbing over each other's shoulders in order to get a good view. Their excited comments amused Stephens greatly, and in return he kept up a running fire of jests upon them.

But it is not always easy to jest appropriately with men who stand on a different step of the intellectual ladder from yourself; and without his dreaming of such a thing, one of his laughing repartees suggested to his Indian auditors a train of thought that their minds took very seriously.

Stephens's action in ramming down a charge of powder, and then tamping it, had not unnaturally reminded them of an operation which was the only one connected with gunpowder that they had experience of. "Why, he's loading it just like a gun," cried a voice from the crowd; "but what's he going to shoot?"

"Shoot?" retorted Stephens, without looking up, as he adjusted the fuse with his fingers; "why, I'm going to shoot the sky, of course. Don't you see how this hole points right straight up to heaven? You sit on the mouth of it when I touch her off, and it'll boost you aloft away up over the old sun there"; and raising his face he pointed to the brightly glowing orb which was already high overhead.

At his words a sort of shiver ran around the ring of red men. Religion is the strongest and the deepest sentiment of the Indian mind, and the rash phrase sounded as if some violation of the sanctity of what they worshipped was intended. What! Shoot against the sacred sky! Shoot with sacrilegious gunpowder against the home of The Shiuana, of "Those Above"? The deed might be taken as a defiance of those Dread Powers, and bring down their wrath upon them all.

Then came a crisis.

"Bad medicine! witchcraft!" exclaimed a voice with the unmistakable ring of angry terror in it. To the Indian, witchcraft is the one unpardonable sin, only to be atoned for by a death of lingering torture.

A murmur of swift-rising wrath followed the accusing voice. The American was warned in a moment that he had made a dangerous slip, and he at once tried to get out of it with as little fuss as might be.

"You dry up!" he retorted indignantly. "Witchcraft be blowed! You ought to know better than to talk like that, you folks. I'm telling you truth now. That was only a little joke of mine, about shooting the sky. There's no bad medicine in that. We Americans don't know anything about such fool tricks as witchcraft. Here's all there is to it. I'm simply going to blast this rock for you. It's just an ordinary thing that's done thousands of times every day in the mines all over the United States."

"Ah, but there are great wizards among the Americans, and their medicine is very bad," cried the same voice of angry terror that had spoken before. "Are you working their works? are you one of them?"

Stephens glanced quickly round the ring of dark eyes now fixed on him with alien looks. He saw there a universal scowl that sent a chill through him.

"There's a lot of explosive stuff round here besides my blasting-powder," he said to himself, "and it looks as if I'd come mighty nigh touching it off, without meaning it, with that feeble little joke. What a flare-up about nothing!"

There flashed across his mind on the instant a story of three stranger Indians, who by some unlucky chance had violated the mysteries of the Santiago folk and had never been heard of more.

For himself he had every reason, so far, to be satisfied with his treatment, but now, at last, he had happened to touch on a sensitive spot with the Indians, and behold, this was the result. He saw that he must take a firm stand, and take it at once. He straightened himself up from his stooping position, dusting off the earth that adhered to his hands.

"Now, look here, you chaps," he said peremptorily, as he stood erect in the middle of the ditch, "you want to quit that rot about witches right here and now. There's only one question I'm going to ask you, and that's this—do you want your ditch fixed up, or don't you? You say it has been a trouble to you for hundreds of years, and here I stand ready to fix it for you right now in just one minute. There's only one more thing to be done, and that's to strike the match. Come, Cacique, you're the boss around here. Say which it is to be. Is it 'yes' or 'no'?"

Salvador, the cacique of Santiago, was no fool. Personally he was as firm a believer in witchcraft as any of his people, nor would he have hesitated for a moment to utilise such a charge as had just been made to rid himself of an enemy. But he was also well aware that there were times when it was far more expedient to suppress it, and that this was one of them.

"Nonsense, Miguel!" he exclaimed, turning abruptly on the Indian who had first raised the dreaded cry; "this Americano is a good man, and no wizard, and your business is to hold your tongue till you are asked to speak. It is the proper office of your betters to see to these matters, and you have no right nor call to interfere."

The lonely American heard him speak thus with an intense sense of relief. The power of the chief was great, and his words were strong to exorcise the malignant spirit of fanaticism.

"Good for you, Salvador!" he exclaimed, as the cacique's reproof ceased, and left a visible effect on the attitude of the crowd, "that's the talk! I'm glad to see you've got some sense. Your answer is 'yes,' I take it."

"Assuredly I mean 'yes,' Sooshiuamo," answered the cacique; "we want you to go on and finish your work. I say so, and what I say I mean. But if all is ready, as you declare, before you strike the match we will offer a prayer to Those Above that all may be well."

"Why certainly, Cacique," assented Stephens, "I've got no sort of objection to make. You fire ahead." He breathed more freely now, but he was conscious of a vastly quickened interest in the religious methods of the Indians as he watched the cacique withdraw a little space from the edge of the ditch and turn, facing the east, the other Indians following his example, and standing in irregular open formation behind him, all facing towards the east likewise.

"Didn't reckon I was going to drop in for a prayer-meeting," said the American, with a humour which he kept to himself, "or I might have brought my Sunday-go-to-meeting togs if I'd only known. But, by George! when I was mining over on the Pacific slope, the days when things was booming over there, if we'd had to stop and have prayers on the Comstock lode every time we were going to let off a blast, I should rather say that the output of bullion in Nevada would have fallen off some."

He listened intently to the flow of words that the cacique, acting as the spokesman of his people, was pouring forth, but they were utterly unintelligible to him, for the prayer was couched in the language of the tribe, and not in civilised Spanish. All he could distinguish were the "Ho-a's" that came in at intervals from the crowd like responses.

"I wonder what he's saying, and who or what he's saying it to?" he meditated questioningly. "What was it that Nepomuceno Sanchez was telling me only last week,—that they didn't have service in that old Roman Catholic church of theirs more than once in a blue moon, and all the rest of the time they go in for some heathen games of their own in their secret estufas in the pueblo; he swore that one time he dropped on to a party of them at some very queer games indeed, on the site of an old ruined pueblo of theirs 'way off up on the Potrero de las Vacas—swore they had a pair of big stone panthers up there, carved out of the living rock, that they go and offer sacrifices to. I didn't more than half believe him then, but this makes me think there's something in it. What the blazes are they at now?" A chorus of "Ho-a's," uttered with a deep, heartfelt intonation, like the long a-a-mens at a revival meeting, rose from the crowd. There rose also from them little tufts of feather-down that floated upwards to the sky, soaring as it were on the breath of the worshippers, outward and visible symbols of the petitions that ascended from the congregation. The cacique took a step in advance, holding in his hands two long feathers crossed; he stooped down and began to bury them in the loose, light soil. Stephens, his curiosity now intensely aroused, was moving forward a little in order to see more closely what was taking place, but an Indian instantly motioned him back in silence, finger on lip, with a countenance of shocked gravity, making the irreverent inquirer feel like an impudent small boy caught in the act of disturbing a church service.

"Perhaps at this stage of the performances they'd like to have me take off my hat," he soliloquised. "Well, mebbe I will." He looked round at the motionless figures reverently standing with bowed heads. "Do at Rome as Rome does, so some folks say. These Indians themselves don't have any hats to take off, but they look so blamed serious over it that I'm dead sure they would if they wore 'em. Dashed if I don't do it; here goes!" and he swept his broad sombrero from his head, subduing his face to a decorously grave expression.

But the repressed humour of the American reasserted itself beneath this enforced solemnity of his exterior. "Makes me think of the story of the man the Indians in California once took prisoner, only instead of putting him to the torture they painted him pea-green and worshipped him as a deity. It's not so bad as that yet," he went on to himself, "but I don't much like taking any sort of part in this show, nohow." He looked at the hat which he was devoutly holding in his hand as he stood amongst the congregation, and his face assumed a quizzical expression. "I wonder now if by doing this I aint, by chance, worshipping some blamed idol or other. I used to be a joined member oncet, back there in Ohio, of the United Presbyterian Church. I wonder what poor old Elder Edkins would say now if he caught sight of me in this shivaree. However, I guess I can stand it, if it don't go too far. So long as they stick to this tomfoolery and only worship those turkey feathers, or whatever they are, that the cacique's been burying, I'll lay low. But if they want to play me for an idol, and start in to painting me pea-green, there'll be a rumpus. What a time their prayer-meeting does take, anyhow! Ah, thank goodness, here's the doxology."

The cacique had finished his incantation over the crossed feathers, and interred them properly. He now rose and dismissed the assembly, which instantly broke up, the serious expression rapidly dissolving from all faces, as it does from those of a congregation pouring out of church.

It was on the tip of Stephens's tongue to begin, "Why, Cacique, you've forgot to take up the collection. Where's your plate?" as he saw Salvador approaching him, but a sobering recollection of the awkward way in which his last joke had missed fire checked the temptation to be flippant as too dangerous.

"My game," thought he, "is to cut the gab and come to the 'osses, as the English circus-manager said; or else they might call on Brother Miguel to give an exhortation, and who knows which end of the horn I should be liable to come out at then?"

"Well, Cacique," he said aloud, "through? so soon? You don't say! Are you really ready now?"

"Yes," answered the Indian, "now you begin. Do your work."

"All right then," rejoined the American; "if that's so, by the permission of the chairman I'll take the floor." He sprang down into the ditch, drew out a match, and turned round to the cacique. "Now, Salvador," he called out, "make your people stand clear. Let them go right away."

They did not need telling twice, and there was a general stampede, the bolder hiding close by, the most part running off to the distance of a rifle-shot. The cacique gathered up the buckskin riata of his plump mustang, which stood there champing the Spanish ring-bit till his jaws dropped flakes of foam, and retired to a safe distance. Stephens stood alone in the ditch and struck the match. It went out; he took off his broad felt hat, struck another match, and held it inside. This time the flame caught, and he applied it to the ends of the fuses, and retreated in a leisurely manner round the back of a big rock near by. He found two or three of the boldest Indians behind it, and pushing them back stood leaning against the rock. They squeezed up against him, their bright black eyes gleaming and their red fingers trembling with excitement. They had never seen a blast let off before.

Boom! boom! went the first two charges, and the echoes of the reports resounded through the foothills that bordered the valley. Several Indians started forward from their hiding-places.

"Keep back there, will you!" shouted Stephens. "Keep 'em back, Salvador. Tito," he said familiarly to the Indian who was next him beside the rock, "if you go squeezing me like that I'll pull your pigtail." Tito's long black hair was done up and rolled with yellow braid into a neat pigtail at the nape of his neck. The Pueblo Indian men all wear their hair this way, and are as proud of their queues as so many Chinamen.

Tito laughed and showed his gleaming teeth, as he nudged the boy next to him at the American's joke. Boom! went the third charge. The practical miner looked up warily to see that no fragments were flying overhead, and then stepping from under cover waved his arm. At the signal the Indians poured from their hiding-places and rushed eagerly down to the scene of action.

The blast was a great success. Some tons of stone had been shattered and dislodged just where it was necessary, and it was plain to see that the ditch might now be made twice as big as before. Without any delay the Indians swarmed in like ants, and began picking up the broken stone with their hands, and carrying it out to build up and strengthen the lower side of the embankment.

While the workers were thus busily engaged, the cacique came forward, holding his horse by the riata of plaited buckskin. He made a deep, formal reverence before the man who had wrought what for them was nothing less than a miracle,—the man by whose superior art the solid rock had been dissipated into a shower of fragments, and who now stood quietly looking on at the scene of his triumph.

"It is truly most wonderful, this thing that you have done," began the chief, "and we will be your devoted servants for ever after this"; and he bowed himself again more deeply than before, as deeply as when he had buried the sacred feathers a few minutes earlier.

The native humour of the American asserted itself at once. "Here's the pea-green deity business on," he murmured to himself. "So far, so good; I don't mind the deity part, but I draw the line if he trots out his paint-pot; then I'll begin to kick."

"Since the days of Montezuma," continued the cacique, with an eloquent wave of his hand, "no benefactor like you has ever come to the red men; no blessing has been wrought for them such as you have done. Would that our departed ancestors had been allowed to see with their own eyes the great, the glorious manifestation of power that has been shown to us, their children—" and his mellifluous oratory rolled on in an unceasing stream of praise.

"By George!" said Stephens to himself, "I wonder if right now isn't my best time to bounce him about the silver mine. I did calculate to bring it up before the council of chiefs when I saw a favourable opportunity, but though the rest of 'em aren't here at this moment the cacique's talking so almighty grateful that perhaps I'd better strike while the iron's hot." He listened a moment to the profuse expressions of gratitude that poured from the red man's lips. "If he only means a quarter of what he's saying, I ought to have no difficulty in getting him to back me up. But perhaps I'd best tackle him alone first, and make sure of his support." He waited until the cacique had finished his peroration.

"Glad you're pleased, I'm sure," said Stephens in reply, "and here's my hand on it," and he shook the cacique's hand warmly in his. "Just let's step this way a little," he went on quietly. "I've got a word or two to say to you between ourselves," and the pair moved away side by side to a distance of a few yards from the site of the blasted rock.

"You see, working together like this, how easily we've been able to manage it," began the American diplomatically. "I'm an expert at mining, and your young men have carried out the execution of this job admirably. Now, look at here, Cacique; what I wanted to say to you was this. Why shouldn't we go in together, sort of partners like, and work your silver mine together in the same sort of way? I could make big money for both of us; there'd be plenty for me and plenty for you and for all your people, if it's only half as good as I've heard tell"; he paused, looking sideways at the Indian as he spoke to note what effect his suggestion produced on him. At the words "silver mine" the chief's face, which had been smiling and gracious in sympathy with the feelings he had been expressing in his speech, suddenly clouded over and hardened into a rigid impassibility.

"I don't know what you mean by our silver mine, Don Estevan," he answered frigidly. "There is no such thing in existence."

"Tut, tut," said Stephens, good-humouredly, "don't you go to make any mystery of the thing with me, Cacique. I'm your good friend, as you acknowledged yourself only a minute ago. I mean that old silver mine you've got up there on Rattlesnake Mountain, Cerro de las Viboras as you call it. You keep it carefully covered up, with logs and earth piled up over the mouth of it. Quite right of you, too. No use to go and let everybody see what you've got. I quite agree to that. But you needn't make any bones about it with me who am your friend, and well posted about the whole thing to boot."

In reality Stephens was retailing to the Indian the story of the mine as far as he had been able to trace it among the Mexicans. This was the first time that he had even hinted to any of the Santiago people that he knew anything at all about it, or had any curiosity on the subject. Salvador maintained his attitude of impassibility.

"I don't know who has told you all this," he answered, "but it is all nonsense. Put it out of your mind; there's nothing in it."

But in spite of these denials Stephens believed his shot about the mine had gone home, and he knew also that the cacique was reputed to be fond of gain.

"Oh, I understand you well enough, Salvador," he rejoined with easy familiarity. "Of course you're bound to deny it. It's the old policy of your tribe. That's all right. But now, as between you and me, it's time there was a new departure, and you and I are the men to make it. I tell you I know just what I'm talking about, and there's money in it for both of us." He thought he saw the dark eyes of the Indian glisten, but his lips showed small sign of yielding.

"It's no use, Don Estevan," the latter said firmly. "I cannot tell you a word now, and I don't suppose I ever shall be able to. Keep silence. Let no one know you have spoken to me about such things."

At this moment loud cries broke out from where the workers were busy, and Stephens, wondering what was up, listened intently to the sounds. He thought he could distinguish one word, "Kaeahvala," repeated again and again. The cacique turned round abruptly. A huge rattlesnake, which had been disturbed by the shock of the blast, had emerged from a crevice in the rocks, and showed itself plainly to view wriggling away over the open ground.

"After him, after him, Snakes!" called out the cacique in a loud voice. "He is angry because his house has been shaken. To the estufa without delay! You must pacify him."

On the instant there darted forth in pursuit half a dozen young men of the Snake family, and at the same moment Faro, with an eager yelp, announced his ardent intention of pacifying the snake in his own fashion, and away went the dog, who had been compelled to endure, much against his will, the tedium of the Indian prayer-meeting and the oratory of the cacique, and now proceeded to grow frantic with excitement at the chance of joining independently in the chase.

"Come back there, Faro," cried Stephens, in an agony of alarm for his favourite; "come back there, will you!" But Faro was headstrong and pretended not to hear.

The cacique too was filled with alarm, but the object of his solicitude was not the dog but the reptile. "Quick, quick!" he cried to the young men; "be quick and save him from that hound."

And then Stephens saw a sight that astonished him out of measure. The Indian youths had the advantage of Faro in starting nearer the snake; they ran like the wind, and the foremost of them, overtaking the reptile before Faro could get up, pounced upon him and swung him aloft in the air, grasping him firmly just behind the head and allowing the writhing coils to twine around his muscular arm. One of his companions produced a bunch of feathers and stroked the venomous head from which the forked tongue was darting, while the baffled Faro danced around, leaping high in his efforts to get at his prey. Stephens ran up and secured his dog, and looked on at this extraordinary piece of snake-charming with an amazement that increased every moment.

"But why don't you kill the brute?" he cried. "Don't play with him like that; kill him quick. Tell 'em to kill him, Cacique. I never passed a rattler in my life without killing it if I could; it's a point of conscience with me."

The Indian looked at him with grave disapproval, as a parent might look at a child who had in its ignorance been guilty of a serious fault.

"You do not understand, Sooshiuamo," he said in a tone in which reproof was mingled with pity; "the snake is their grandfather, and they have to show their piety towards him." Then turning from the scoffer, "Hasten," he called to the young men; "run with him to the proper place"; and away they sped across the plain towards the pueblo, the writhing reptile still borne high in the air, and the bunch of feathers still playing around its angry jaws.

"Well, I'm jiggered!" said Stephens. "I never saw such a thing as that in my life. I say, Cacique, what is it that you want to do with the brute, anyhow? Do you mean to tell me that you make a deity of him?"

The cacique's face assumed the same rapt and solemn expression it had worn during what Stephens had irreverently called the prayer-meeting.

"These are our mysteries, Sooshiuamo," he said with a voice of awe; "it is not for you to inquire into them. Be warned, for it is dangerous."

"Oh, blow your mysteries!" said Stephens in English, under his breath. "Very well, Salvador," he went on aloud. "I'm sure I don't want to go poking my nose into other people's business. I think I'll just say good-morning. I've blasted that rock for you all right. Now you see if you can make that ditch work; if you can't, you come and tell me, and I'll see what more I can do to fix it for you. So long"; and without more ado he turned on his heel and walked off down to the river.

CHAPTER IV A RACE WITH A MULE

When Stephens arrived at the edge of the terrace on which the plough-lands lay, he looked down on the green expanse of meadow through which the river ran, and feeding in it half a mile below he saw some stock that he knew must be his. "There they are," said he to himself. "I reckon I'll take Jinks and go down to San Remo and get my mail, and see if those Winchester cartridges that I sent for from Santa Fé came last night."

He clambered down the abrupt bank of red clay to the meadow, and followed down the line of the stream till he came to where his stock were eagerly cropping the fresh green grass.

"Now how am I going to catch him?" said he to himself. "Let's see where Felipe and the lariats are"; and looking round, he presently perceived some clothes on the river bank, and going to them found Felipe, stripped to his waist-cloth, splashing about in the middle of a deep pool.

"Hullo, Felipe!" cried he playfully. "Trying to drown yourself there? You must go to the Rio Grande for that—there isn't water enough in the Santiago River."

Felipe heard him indistinctly, and came towards him, swimming in Indian style with an amazingly vigorous overhand stroke. Stephens picked up one of the lariats that were lying loose on the ground by the clothes, and swinging the noose round his head, jestingly tried to lasso the lad. Missing him, he turned it off with, "I don't want you yet. I want the big mule; I'm going to catch him and go down to San Remo"; and suiting the action to the word, he coiled the lariat as he spoke, and turned and started for the beasts.

Felipe came out and stood on the bank to watch him. "What a good humour he's in now," thought the boy. "I suppose he was lucky with the rock. Now is my time to ask him for the mare."

Stephens, holding the coil of rope behind him to conceal his intention from the mule he desired to catch, cautiously approached him. Jinks, the mule, however, was not to be deceived for a moment, and as his master came near, turned his heels to him and scuttled off. Horses and mules where they have frequently to wear hobbles become surprisingly active in them. They bound along for a short distance, in an up-and-down rocking-horse gallop, so fast that even a man on horseback has to make his mount put his best foot forward to get up to them. Stephens found himself outpaced, and gave it up, seeing that it was impossible for him to capture the truant single-handed.

Felipe flew to his side in a moment. "Let me try to catch him, Sooshiuamo," cried he, eagerly. "Let me!" and taking the lariat from the not unwilling hands of the American, he started off, coiling it rapidly as he ran. Before bathing he had undone his pigtail, and his long, glossy black hair hung in thick, wavy masses down to his waist. Among the Indians, the women cut their hair short—if it remained uncut the care of it would take too long, and would keep them from their household duties; but the men, having more leisure, allow theirs to grow, and are very proud of its luxuriance and beauty. As Felipe ran, his streaming locks floated out behind him on the air like the mane of a wild horse, and gave to his figure a wonderfully picturesque effect; his wet skin shone in the sun the colour of red bronze.

The Pueblo Indians are fine runners; they have inherited fleetness of foot and endurance from their forefathers, and keep up the standard by games and races among themselves. Felipe, young though he was, had no superior in swiftness in the village. He darted like a young stag across the meadow after the fugitive mule, and chased him at full speed down to the river brink, and over the dry shingle banks of its very bed. The pebbles rattled and flew back in showers from the hoof-prints of the mule. Round they wheeled, back into the meadow again; and here the Indian, putting on an astonishing burst of speed, fairly ran the quadruped down, lassoed him, and brought him to his master.

"Here he is, señor," said he modestly, handing Stephens the rope.

"Well done, Felipe," said Stephens. "You did that well. You do run like an antelope." He felt quite a glow of admiration for the athletic youth who stood panting before him, resting his hand on the mule's back.

"Now's my time," thought Felipe, "what luck!—oh, Don Estevan," he began, and then stopped with downcast eyes.

"Well, what is it?" said Stephens kindly.

"Oh, Don Estevan, if you would lend me your mare!" The murder was out, and Felipe looked up at his employer beseechingly. "I would take such care of her!" he continued; "I would indeed."

"Lend her for what?" said Stephens, a little taken aback. "What do you want with her?"

"I want her to go to Ensenada to-night," said the boy.

"Oh, but Felipe, I'm going to the sierra to-morrow to hunt, you know. It isn't possible. But," he continued, touched a little by the boy's evident distress, "what do you want to do there? Why don't you get your father's horse?"

"He's at the herd. My father doesn't let me," said Felipe despondently. Then he went on, "I thought perhaps you didn't go for a day or two. I will bring her back to-morrow in the night. And she shall not be tired—not a bit. Oh, do lend her to me! Please do!"

"I wonder what foolery he's up to now," said Stephens to himself; "I do hate to lend a horse anyhow—and to a harebrained Indian boy who'll just ride all the fat off her in no time. Cheek, I call it, of him to ask it."

"But," he continued in a not unfriendly tone, "why do you want her? Is it flour you have to fetch?" Wheat flour was rather scarce this spring in the pueblo, and some of the Indians were buying it over on the Rio Grande.

"No, sir, it's not that. Only I want her," he added. "Oh please, Don Estevan, please," said he with an imploring face; "do lend the mare or the mule, or anything to ride. Oh do!" and he threw all the entreaty he was capable of into his voice, till it trembled and almost broke into a sob.

"Why, what ails the boy?" said Stephens, surprised at his emotion. "If you want it so bad," he continued, "why don't you ask it from Tostado, or Miguel, or some of them? They'll let you have one. You know I never lend mine. If I did once, all the pueblo would be borrowing them every day. You know it yourself. You've always told me yourself that it would be like that." He was trying to harden his heart by going over his stock argument against lending. "You see I can't do it. I'm going off to the sierra to-morrow," and he turned away, leading the mule after him by the rope.

But before he had gone far he stopped and looked round as if an idea had struck him. "It might be a good notion to try and pump this boy a bit right now," he considered; "he's so desperate eager to borrow the mare he might be willing to let out a thing or two to please me." He beckoned with his hand to Felipe, who was gazing regretfully after his employer.

"See here, Felipe," said Stephens, as the boy eagerly ran to him; "there's something that I had in my mind to ask you, only I forgot. It's just simply this—did you ever kill a rattlesnake?"

"Never, oh, never in my life!" cried the young Indian, with a voice of horror.

"Well, and why not?" persisted the other. "What's your reason anyway? What is there to prevent you?"

"Oh, but, Sooshiuamo, why should I?" said the boy in an embarrassed manner, looking distractedly at the ground as he balanced himself uneasily on one bare foot, crossing the other over it, and twiddling his toes together. "I don't know," he added after a pause. "Why should I kill them?"

"Well, they're ugly, venomous things," said the American, "and that would be reason enough for anybody, I should think. But tell me another thing then. What do your folks do with them in the estufa? Can't you tell me that much?"

"What are you saying about things in the estufa?" cried the boy excitedly. "Have any of the Mexicans been telling you, then, that we keep a sacred snake in the pueblo? Don't you ever believe it, don't, don't!" and his voice rose to a passionate shrillness that betrayed the anxiety aroused in him by any intrusion on the mysteries of his people.

"The Mexicans be blowed!" said Stephens. "I'm talking to you now of what I've just been seeing with my own eyes. There was a big old rattler came out of the rock after I blasted it, and young Antonio went and caught it by the neck and let it twist itself around his arm, and another fellow went to playing with it with a bunch of feathers, and then they ran off with it to the pueblo,—the cacique told them to,—and half a dozen more chaps with them, as tight as they could go. Now I want to know what all that amounts to."

"I can tell you this much," said Felipe after a moment's hesitation; "Antonio is one of the Snakes; so were the others, of course, who went with him. The snake is their grandfather, and so they know all about snakes. But I'm a Turquoise, like you, Sooshiuamo. You are my uncle," he added insinuatingly, "and you should be kind to me and lend me a horse sometimes."

The American laughed aloud. "Oh, I know all about Grandfather Snake and Grandfather Turquoise and the rest of them," he said. "But I'm not an Indian, and I don't come into your family tree, even if you do call me Sooshiuamo and I live in a Turquoise house. I don't lay claim to be any particular sort of uncle to you. But I do want you should tell me something more about this snake-charming business. Can't you let it out?"

"But how can I let it out?" exclaimed Felipe in an irritated voice. "Haven't I told you already that the Snakes know all about it, and not me? You may be sure the Snakes keep their own affairs private, and don't show them to outsiders. How should I know anything about the Snakes' business?"

"Well, Felipe, if you won't, you won't, I suppose," said Stephens. "I know you can be an obstinate young pig when you choose." He did not more than half believe in the lad's professed ignorance. He hesitated a moment as if in doubt whether to try another tack. "Look here, young 'un," he began again in a friendlier tone, "I'll pass that. We'll play it you don't know anything about snakes. You're a full-blooded Turquoise boy, you are, and your business is to know all about turquoises, and turquoise mines, and so on. Very well." He was pleased to see a sort of conscious smile come over the lad's mouth almost involuntarily. "All right then. Let's play it that you are my nephew if you like. Now then, fire ahead, you, and tell your uncle all about where we go to get our turquoises from. You're bound to be posted up in these family matters. There's a lot of things your uncle wants to hear. The silver plates for the horse bridles, for instance, now; let's hear where they come from. Go on; tell me about our silver mines."

"No, no, no!" he cried desperately, and he sprang back as if the American had struck him with a whip. "It is impossible; there aren't any; there are no such things; the Mexicans have been telling you that, too, have they? but they're all liars, yes, liars; don't you ever believe one word that they say about us." He paused, his lips parted with excitement and his lithe frame passionately convulsed.

Regretfully Stephens looked at him and recognised that it was hopeless to get anything out of him, at least in his present condition. "Very well, Felipe," he said, "I think I understand your game. You just don't choose, and that's about the size of it"; and gathering up the coils of the lariat he turned abruptly away and led off the reluctant Captain Jinks in the direction of the pueblo in order to saddle him up. He felt decidedly cheap; as yet he had not scored a single trick in the game he was trying to play.

Felipe stood looking after him disconsolately; at last he gave a heavy sigh and walked back to where he had left his clothes, with drooping head and flagging step, a figure how unlike the elastic form that had burst full speed across the meadow five minutes before. "It's no use," said he to himself. "He doesn't care; he's a very hard man, is Don Estevan." He did up his glossy hair into its queue, put on his long buckskin leggings and his cotton shirt, worn outside in Indian fashion like a tunic and secured with a leather belt, bound his red handkerchief as a turban round his head—the universal pueblo head-dress—and with a very heavy heart went back to his weeding.

CHAPTER V "OJOS AZULES NO MIRAN"

"Ojos azules no miran—Blue eyes don't see," said a soft voice to Stephens in gently rallying tones. He was sitting on Captain Jinks in the roadway, nearly opposite to the first house in San Remo, with his eyes shaded under his arched hands, and gazing fixedly back across the long levels of the Indian lands over which he had just ridden.

"Si, miran,—Yes, they do see," he answered coolly, without either looking at the speaker or removing his hands from his forehead, as he still continued his searching gaze. He was trying to make out whether the animals he had left in Felipe's charge were kept by him still grazing safely in the meadow, or if they had been allowed to wander off into the young wheat. The distance to where he had left them feeding was nearer two miles than one, but nature had gifted him with singularly keen vision, and the frontiersman's habit of being perpetually on the lookout had developed this power to the utmost. He was able to identify positively his own stock amongst the other animals at pasture, and to assure himself that, so far, they were all right.

He took his hands from his forehead, straightened himself in his saddle, and looked down at the person who had ventured to speak in so disrespectful a way of the quality of his eyesight. The speaker was a young Mexican woman, and he encountered the glance of a pair of eyes as soft as velvet and as black as night, set in a face of rich olive tint. At that pleasant sight his firm features relaxed into a smile, and he took up her bantering challenge.

"Si, miran," he repeated,—"Yes, they do see, señorita; they see a very pretty girl"; and with a ceremonious sweep of his arm he took off his broad sombrero, as the conventional way of emphasising the conventional gallantry.

The girl blushed with pleasure at the American's compliment. She had a dark scarf drawn over her head, and she now tossed the end of it coquettishly across her face, and kept up her bantering tone.

"Then," replied she, "as you had them directed straight towards the Indian pueblo, I suppose it was a pretty little Indian squaw they were gazing back at so earnestly."

"No," he returned bluntly, matter-of-fact Anglo-Saxon that he was; "I was looking back towards Santiago in order to make out whether my horses had got into the Indians' wheat. But they're all right. And how is your father, Don Nepomuceno?" he added civilly.

"He is very well, señor; he is now at home. Won't you come in and see him? He said he hoped you would be coming down this morning, as it was mail day."

"I am much obliged to him," answered Stephens. "I am on my way now to the stage station, and I will look in as I return."

San Remo was the place where the weekly mail from Santa Fé to Fort Wingate crossed the Santiago River. It was a village of the Mexicans, and lay just outside the boundary of the four square leagues of the Indian grant.

"That is where we two were going," she answered, "my little sister and myself," and she laid her hand on a little brown maiden of ten years or so, who had come out of the house and now stood shyly behind the elder sister, holding on to her dress. "We have to buy some sugar," she continued, "and there is a new storekeeper at the stage station, and they say he sells cheap."

"Then with your permission, señorita, I'll walk along there with you," said the American. He suited the action to the word, throwing his right leg lightly over the neck of his mule and then dropping both feet together to the ground so as to alight facing the girl.

"Say, Chiquita," and he addressed the younger girl, "don't you want a ride? Let me put you up"; but the child only smiled, showing her ivory teeth and clinging more closely behind her sister.

"Don't be a silly, Altagracia," cried the latter, bringing her round to the front. "Why don't you say 'thank you' to the American señor for his kindness in giving you a ride on his mule?" and she pushed her, in spite of her affected reluctance, into the hands of Stephens, who raised her from the ground and placed her, sitting sideways, in the wide California saddle, and gave her the reins to hold. Then, resting his right hand on the mule's neck, he walked forward towards the store beside the elder girl.

"I heard a new man had moved in and taken charge of the stage station and post-office this week," he said. "Has he got a good stock?—many pretty things for the señoras?"

"They say he has beautiful things,—velvet dresses and splendid shawls," she replied; "but I haven't seen them yet. I've only been in with my aunt to buy things for the house, not to see his dress goods. But I hope my father will take us there soon, before all the best of them are gone. The wife of Ramon Garcia got a lovely pink muslin there. She showed it to me yesterday in her house. He's a very clever man, too, is the new storekeeper; he is a Texan, but he speaks Spanish beautifully, just like ourselves. He has a Mexican wife."

"Ah," remarked Stephens, "has he? What's his name, do you know?"

"Bah-koose," answered the girl, giving full value to the broad Spanish vowels which she imported into the somewhat commonplace name of "Backus." "Don Tomas Bah-koose is his name," she repeated. "He is not old, he appears to be about thirty, and he has three children. But perhaps you have met him; is he a friend of yours?"

"Backus," said Stephens reflectively; "Thomas Backus. No, I can't say that he is; I don't remember ever meeting anyone of that name."

"It sounds almost like our Spanish name, Baca," said she; "but he is not one of the Bacas, though he has been living at Peña Blanca, where so many of them live." The Bacas of New Mexico are a fine old family, sprung from the loins of Cabeza de Vaca, the comrade of Ponce de Leon, one of the heroes of the Spanish conquest.

"Well," said Stephens, "we'll soon see what he looks like, anyhow, for here we are at the store." He lifted the child down from the saddle, and the two girls at once went inside while he tied up his mule to a hitching-post that was set in front of the door.

After he had finished doing so, he followed them in; and stepping across the threshold he was instantly aware of a surprised glance of half-recognition darted at him by a man who stood behind the counter, where he was showing some cotton prints to three shawl-clad Mexican women. "Mornin', mister," said the storekeeper, in English. "Excuse me if I keep you waitin' a minute while I 'tend on these ladies."

"All right," answered Stephens briefly, and he leaned quietly back against the mud-plastered adobe wall till the other should be at leisure. He ran his eye over the shelves, which, like those of most Mexican country village shops, contained a varied assortment that ranged from tenpenny nails to the tin saints whose shrines decorate even the poorest hovel in New Mexico. His gaze reverted to the storekeeper, who was a tall, dark, spare man, with a clean-shaven face, a bilious complexion, and snaky black hair. This, then, was Mr. Thomas Backus, an American citizen married to a Mexican wife. She had certainly helped him to a fluent command of her mother tongue, and Stephens could not help envying the easy way in which he poured out lavish praises of his new goods to the customers whom he was serving. The purchases of these ladies were presently completed, but they still remained in the store carrying on an animated conversation with Don Nepomuceno's daughter, who had joined them in discussing the patterns they had chosen.

"And now what can I do for you?" inquired the storekeeper, looking Stephens in the face as he turned to him.

"Surely I have met this man before, but where?" said Stephens to himself, while he answered Mr. Backus's question by remarking politely, "Oh, I'm not in any hurry, thank you. Won't you serve this young lady first?" and with a slight gesture he indicated Manuelita, who was still absorbed in the muslins of her friends. Rack his memory as he would, he could not recall the occasion when he and Backus had met previously, yet he felt almost certain it had occurred.

"Why certainly, certainly," returned the storekeeper cheerily; "so long as you don't mind waitin' a few minutes," and he turned to the girl. "Then what may I have the pleasure of being allowed to show you, señorita?"

"Two peloncillos, Don Tomas, if you will be so kind," answered the young lady; and two conical loaves of the brown Mexican sugar so popular in the Territory were accordingly wrapped in paper and handed over to her; but it was manifest that the pretty frocks were what were nearest to her heart, and she and her three friends still continued to discuss the subject with all the ardour of connoisseurs.

Meantime Stephens became more and more convinced in his own mind not only that this was not his first encounter with Backus, but that the latter was also engaged in watching him as closely as possible. He chose, however, not to call attention to this by any inquiry when at length the storekeeper announced himself ready to wait upon him, contenting himself with simply explaining the object of his visit to the store.

"I just wanted to see," he said quietly, "if you happened to have a parcel here for me by the stage to-day from Santa Fé. Stephens is my name, John Stephens. It's a parcel from Spiegelberg's," he added explanatorily, "that I'm looking for; a small, heavy parcel; it's Winchester cartridges."

"Oh yes, they're here; the stage driver left 'em for you all right," said Mr. Backus promptly, reaching down for them under the counter and handing them over. "And I think there's some mail matter too for you; I'll just see"; with which remark he disappeared into the little post-office that was boarded off at one end of the store, returning from there presently with some papers in his hand. "I reckon this letter's for you"; he read out the address with the laboured enunciation of a man of limited education. "To Mr. John Stephens, living among the Pueblo Indians, Santiago, N.M."

"Yes, that'll be for me," said Stephens, putting out his hand for it.

"I reckoned as how you must be the man as soon as I seed you come in," answered Backus, handing over the letter along with a newspaper and a postal packet, "'cos by what I hear thar' aint no other American living in this valley."

"Just so," assented the prospector; "I'm the only one there is anywhere around here. I've been playing a lone hand down in these parts all winter. For six months I haven't spoken to an American except the stage-driver."

It was a relief to him to talk English to anyone again after so long an interval, although he was not exactly prepossessed by Mr. Backus's looks, nor by the only thing he knew for certain about him, namely, that he had gone and married a Mexican wife, a decidedly eccentric thing for an American to do, in Stephens's eyes. But the mere sound of his native language again was music in his ears, even though it were spoken by a man as illiterate as the storekeeper. For, compared to the other, Backus was illiterate. And it was a thing worth noting about Stephens, who had had the advantage of a high-school education, that though he now freely made use of the rude, vigorous colloquialism of the West,—so much so, indeed, that he talked to himself in it,—yet he could drop it in a moment on occasion. Before a stranger for whom he felt an instinctive distaste, he at once became formal, and his language took on a precision and his tone a punctiliousness that were foreign to his more familiar discourse. As he would have said of himself, "If I don't cotton to a man at once, I always feel like putting on a lot of frills."

"You bin long in these parts?" inquired Mr. Backus carelessly.

"About a year now in New Mexico," replied Stephens; "but I've been in this Western country a good deal longer than that. I'm not a tenderfoot, exactly, if I may say so; I didn't come to this country for my health."

Many men whose lungs are affected have hoped to shake off their dread malady by breathing the pure, thin, dry air of Colorado and New Mexico. The hardy Western pioneer pities the consumptive patient; he succours him freely in distress; and, above all things, he hates to be mistaken for one himself. Stephens was determined that his fellow-countryman should be under no misapprehension on this point.

"No," laughed Mr. Backus lightly, "nor you don't look much like one of them pore health-seekers neither. Say, though," he continued, more warily, "you'll excuse my axin', but was you never in New Mexico before this last year?"

"No," replied Stephens—"that is—yes, I should have said," correcting himself, "I was once, but only for a short time, and that was some years ago, and not in this part of the Territory." He shifted his position against the adobe wall a little, and laid down on the counter in a casual sort of way the parcel and the mail matter which he was holding, as if to indicate that he was ready for a long chat. In reality he was setting his hands free in case he might possibly need to use them. To be at all closely questioned about one's past life by an absolute stranger acts on the experienced Western man as a danger signal. He noted the intense glow in Backus's eyes, and as he did so he grew conscious of a strange sense of doubleness in his own brain, as if all this scene had been enacted once before, and he ought to know what was coming next. He shifted his waist-belt and left his thumbs resting lightly on the buckle in front; it was a perfectly natural thing to do, and yet it left his right hand within six inches of the trusty Colt's revolver at his hip. Assuredly Stephens was no tenderfoot; he was watching every motion of Backus out of the corner of his eye.

"Say, stranger," began the latter, leaning forward over the counter, and speaking low and clear, "no offence, but I want to ax you a certain question. It's a little sudden-like, but I have a reason for it; allers no offence, you understand?"

"You can ask me any question you have a mind to, Mr. Backus," said Stephens coolly. "Of course, whether I answer it or not is my choice."

Mr. Backus might be his fellow-countryman, but he must learn not to be presuming. Almost unconsciously to himself his tone hardened. Stephens could stand the easy familiarity of races that were not his own, and treat the Indians of Santiago with a friendliness that was all the more kindly for his own underlying sense of superiority, but for an American to treat him lightly was another matter. The pride and reserve that had grown up in solitude revolted at this man's inquisitiveness.

"Wal' then, stranger," continued Backus, with an apologetic manner that was due to the other's change of voice, "allers, as I said before, meanin' no offence, did you ever happen to kill a man?"

Manuelita, though apparently absorbed in a rose-sprigged muslin, caught a note in the Texan's tone that aroused her vigilance. She knew no English, but her quick brain divined that when he asked, "Did you ever kill a man?" he was putting no common question.

Stephens started at the abrupt query, and his face flushed. He paused a moment, looking hard at the other; then he slowly answered, "I don't know that I have ever killed anyone."

"Meanin', I take it," rejoined the other, "that you don't know for certain, neither, that you haven't. I ax yer pardon again, stranger, but as sure as God made little apples I've got a reason for what I'm saying. That ar' time you was in New Mexico years ago that you spoke of just now, was you, by any chance, at the battle of Apache Cañon?"

The words "Apache Cañon" sent a thrill through Manuelita; she knew well that there had been a bloody fight there.

"Yes," answered Stephens, a strange new light beginning to dawn upon him; "I fought at Apache Cañon, if you must know."

"You was on the Northern side, warn't you?" queried the storekeeper again.

"Yes," said the prospector quietly; "I was a volunteer in the Second Colorado Regiment."

"By gum, then, I knowed it!" cried the Texan excitedly; "you was one of the Pet Lambs."

At the beginning of the Civil War the Colorado troops, a pretty tough lot, were sometimes sportively alluded to as the "Pet Lambs."

A dry smile came to Stephens's lips at the sound of the old name. "I was a Lamb," said he.

"And I was one of Baylor's Babes," returned the other.

"Baylor's Babes" was the nickname bestowed upon a force of Texas rangers who invaded New Mexico, and had the audacity to propose to conquer the whole Rocky Mountain country for Jefferson Davis off their own bats.

"Yes, you bet I was a Babe," he repeated, "and a whale of a Babe at that, and hurrahed for Jeff Davis as long as I could stand. But that's all over and done with now, and we've buried the war hatchet. But say, stranger, do you happen to recollect what kind of a wepping you was carrying at Apache Cañon? There warn't no Winchesters in them days," he added, patting the parcel of cartridges that lay on the counter.

"I was armed with a muzzle-loading Springfield U.S. rifle, altered in Denver to fire with a tape cap," replied Stephens. His nerves grew tense, and he braced himself for a possible struggle to the death, for he thought the Texan was about to spring on him; but he only asked with quaint earnestness:

"Du tell; what's a tape cap, mister?"

"Why, did you never see one?" said Stephens. "But of course they're out of date now. It was a dodge for capping a gun automatically. There was a tape fitted with caps that was fed forward on top of the tube in front of the hammer. It worked like a charm. You bet there was no time lost fumbling around in your pouch for a cap with your fingers if you had one of them fixed on your gun."

"Great Scot!" cried Backus, "then now I know how't was."

He raised his hands so suddenly to the neck of his shirt that he made Stephens think he was reaching for the bowie-knife which some fighting men carry in a sheath under the coat at the back of the neck. Manuelita thought the same thing, and drew her breath hard, feeling her heart leap with terror. Instinctively Stephens's fingers found the butt of his revolver, but he felt paralysed at the thought of the defenceless women by the counter. If there was to be a fuss, how could they make their escape before it began?

But Mr. Backus was not preparing to start a fuss, and he was not feeling for a weapon. He tore open the front of his shirt excitedly and bared his breast, and showed a livid bluish mark close beside the collarbone.

"Strange!" he cried, "'t was you as give me that; 't was that darned tape cap of yourn as done me. Now, don't you remember?"

"By thunder, I do!" exclaimed Stephens. "You were the man I shot that day at close quarters. I recall your face now. I thought I'd seen you before."

"I knowed you the minute you set foot inside this door," answered the Texan, drawing himself up, and eyeing Stephens keenly. "You see, you give me a good argyment for remembering you that day. Shake, partner," he added quickly, thrusting out his bony right hand across the counter. "Bygones is bygones. As I said just now, we've buried the war hatchet for good, and I don't bear you no ill-will."

Was this a move to get him off his guard? Stephens felt more than half doubtful, but he decided to chance it, especially as he had a stout sheath-knife handy at his left hip. He loosed his fingers from the ready revolver butt, and the two strong hands met in a vigorous clasp.

CHAPTER VI AN OLD WOUND REOPENED

If it was a strange coincidence that had thus suddenly brought these two old foes together, face to face, in this remote quarter of New Mexico, it was a coincidence no less strange that they were both there for the same object. For Mr. Backus, too, was after the lost silver mine. Ever since his marriage with the daughter of a Mexican peasant he had made a tolerably easy living in a small way by keeping a country store, and in the knowledge which he thus gained of the common pursuits and dominant ideas among the Mexicans, what fascinated him particularly were the tales of hidden mines and buried treasures so often to be heard amongst them. Of all these tales, the legend of the secret mine of the Indians of Santiago had excited his interest most, so that when he learned that the San Remo stage station in their immediate neighbourhood was vacant, and afforded an opening for a store such as his, he speedily arranged to take charge of it and to transfer himself, his family, and his goods to the spot. He had as yet no definite plan of operations beyond keeping his ears open for every scrap of information that might come into his way from any quarter, and doing all he knew to ingratiate himself with the Indians themselves; but the very first step he had proposed to take was to find out about this white man who was said to be living among them, and to discover what his objects were and how much he knew. Fortune had favoured him so far, and here he was shaking hands with the man himself, who had thus unexpectedly proved to be no other than his ancient enemy.

At the moment when the pair were thus exchanging signs of amity, the doorway was darkened by the form of a tall, swarthy, well-dressed Mexican. Mr. Backus hailed the new-comer instantly.

"Welcome, Don Nepomuceno. You come at a good hour. See the wonderful thing that has happened. This American señor that you were telling me of only yesterday, who lives with the Indians of Santiago, has turned out to be the very same man that plugged me in the great fight at Apache Cañon nine years ago. We were just shaking hands over it as you came in, and I've been showing him a little mark over my lungs that he gave me as a remembrancer." Mr. Backus was speaking in Spanish, and Manuelita was drinking in every syllable with intense interest.

"Well, if you come to that," returned Stephens, baring his left arm and displaying the scar of an old bullet wound between the elbow and wrist, "I can do ditto. Perhaps you didn't know that your bullet took me through the fleshy part of the arm here," and he pointed with his finger to the place where the ball had entered.

Don Nepomuceno Sanchez, who had seen fighting in the wars with the Navajos, and knew well what wounds were, came forward to examine the scars of either man with critical eyes. "Truly these are honourable scars," he said; "tell me about it, please, if you don't mind talking over old war times."

"Well, señor," said Backus, in his rapid, fluent Spanish, "it was like this: we were fighting there in the hills, on opposite sides, as of course you know; and naturally, being all frontiersmen on both sides, we advanced under cover as much as ever we could, firing as we got a chance. And so it came about that he and I, sudden-like, found ourselves quite close to one another in the brush, and we both fired as it might be at the same moment. He must have missed me clean that time, but according to the way he tells it, I must have plugged him right through that left arm of his; I didn't even know as I'd touched him though, for it never seemed to phase him, and we both of us set to reloading in a hurry, you bet. We both put in the powder, and both rammed down the bullets, and I had got a trifle ahead of him as I brought up my gun to the hip in order to have it ready to put on the cap. Wal', I'm jiggered if he didn't leave out the capping part of the business, and brought his piece straight up to his shoulder to draw a bead on me. You bet I just thought I knowed as I'd got the deadwood on him then. 'Got ye, Yank,' I called out, slipping the cap on my tube, 'ye haint capped yer gun.' 'Don't want to,' sez he; and whang-g-g! she went, and took me right here through the lung; and that was the last I ever knowed of anything for about a day and a half. You see, he had some kind of a gol-durned, stem-winding trick on his gun that did the capping for him, that I didn't know nothing about."

"Well, now it's all over," said Stephens frankly, "I'm real glad to learn that your wound wasn't mortal. My company fell back directly after we exchanged shots, so that I never knew what had become of you."

"Oh," said the Texan, "they patched me up in the hospital somehow or another, and then I was took in and nursed in a Mexican family, and the end of it was I married one of the darters and settled in the Territory, and here I am with a wife and three kids, and running a store. I do keep a little good whisky, too, you may like to know. Say, won't you take a drink? It's my treat. You'll join us in a tragito, won't you, Don Nepomuceno?"

"I'll drink with you with pleasure," said Stephens, "if you'll allow me to take it in something like a lemon soda. Whisky's a thing I don't use, if you'll excuse me."

"Surely, surely," in amiable tones remarked Mr. Backus, who was setting out on the counter a three-parts full decanter and some glasses. "I'll try and mix something of the lemon-soda order as near as I can fix it." He had hoped to get Stephens into a loquacious mood and pump him over a few social drinks, but he was too cunning to show any trace of disappointment. "Every man has a right to choose his own liquor; I don't quarrel with no man's taste," he said, as he passed the decanter to Don Nepomuceno, with a familiar "Help yourself, friend," and busied himself in searching for materials for concocting some kind of a temperance drink for his other guest.

Sanchez poured a little of the strong spirit into a glass and filled it up with water. "You are coming to take dinner in my house presently, are you not, Don Estevan?" he said in his courteous tones, addressing Stephens, who accepted the invitation cordially. "Manuelita, my child," he turned to his eldest daughter, "run home now quick with Altagracia, and tell your aunt that Don Estevan is coming and to have dinner ready soon."

The temperance drink was compounded, and the three men clinked glasses and pledged each other.

"And what have you bin' doing ever since our last meeting?" said Mr. Backus genially to his former foe. "I've give ye my story; now let's hear yourn."

"Mining," said Stephens with curt emphasis. The word made the Texan give a start of surprise. "Yes," he continued, "it's mining and prospecting for gold and silver that has been my trade ever since; and, what's more, I've travelled over a good part of the Pacific slope at it, too. It's a game you get terribly stuck on after once you take to it."

"Mining, eh?" said the Texan with affected indifference. "Wal', that ar's a thing as I dunno nothin' at all about."

He gave a careless laugh. "Oh, by the way," he said, turning his back on the two men and rummaging on the shelf behind him for a couple of cans of oysters which he displayed with a great show of earnestness, "that's the brand of oysters, Don Nepomuceno, that I meant to bring to your notice, first chance. I can recommend 'em; they're prime."

"Yes," he continued, turning again to Stephens, "you was saying as how you was interested in mines; but as far as that goes, why there ain't no mines being worked in this part of the country, not as I know of." A suspicious man might have guessed that Backus's interest in the possibility of a mine in the neighbourhood of Santiago was a good deal stronger than he chose to let appear, but John Stephens was not of a suspicious nature.

"No," he said in reply, "there aren't any now, but there have been, and there will be again, if I'm any judge." Then, reflecting that he might say too much, and checking himself he went on more cautiously. "But I don't see any opening here myself. I guess I'm about through with New Mexico for the present, and I calculate to light out for Colorado pretty soon. The railroads have got in there, and there's a boom on."

Mr. Backus was sharp at reading other people's motives, and saw in an instant that Stephens was trying to disguise his. So much the more reason for finding out what they were.

"What! going off to Colorado?" he exclaimed with an air of surprise. "Why, I'd understood from the folks here that you had settled down in Santiago for keeps. That's really how I come to hear of you; I heard that you was a white man living amongst them Indians, and had joined the tribe; so I supposed you was adopted by them, and had gone and got hitched up with a squaw."

Stephens's eyes flashed.

"Shouldn't wonder if that drawed him out a bit," reflected Mr. Backus privately to himself.

"If anyone told you so," said the prospector stiffly, "let me tell you that you have been misinformed. No sir, squaws aren't in my line; I'm not that sort of a man. I never have proposed to go outside of my own colour, and I never will."

Mr. Backus gave a short laugh. The word colour touched him on the raw. He was married to a Mexican, and many Americans are undiscriminating enough to class the Mexicans with coloured people. The Mexicans themselves naturally resent such a slight on their race; although a part of them have more or less Indian blood in their veins, they prefer to ignore that side of their pedigree and trace their descent solely back to the conquering cavaliers of Spain. But Mr. Backus was himself a quarter-blooded Indian. He called himself a Texan, and passed as such; though he was born in the Indian Territory and his mother had been a half-breed Cherokee.

He changed the subject abruptly. "Fill your glass again, Don," he said, pushing the decanter towards the Mexican. "It's good whiskey, real old Bourbon. 'There isn't a headache in a hogshead of it,' as the Irishman said."

"A thousand thanks, no, if you will excuse me," replied the Mexican, "I have sufficient. I think I must be going," he went on, for indeed he felt a little out of it, seeing that the two Americans had dropped back instinctively into talking in their own language, of which he knew but a few words. "I shall see you again, then, presently, Don Estevan, at my house," and bowing politely he departed homewards.

"That man's darned well fixed, I can tell you," remarked the storekeeper, refilling his own glass and tossing it off as soon as the Mexican had gone. "And what's more, he's a square man, too. I don't mind saying that Nepomuceno Sanchez can just have all the credit he wants at this store. He's one of the heirs to the Sanchez grant, and that gives him the use of all the pasture land he needs for his sheep. He's a very peart business man, for a Mexican. I used to come across him over in Peña Blanca, you know. He's a relation of old man Baca's by marriage, and he's got a lot of his sheep on shares and makes a good thing of it."

The personage irreverently referred to by the Texan as "old man Baca" was the head of the family of that name, and a man of no small position and wealth. The old families of New Mexico own immense flocks of hardy little Mexican sheep, whose numbers often run into hundreds of thousands. Their flocks are divided into bands of a few thousand and let out on shares to retainers, who return a rent in kind of the wool and the increase. The relation between these retainers and the heads of the great families is semi-feudal.

"Yes," said Stephens, "taking sheep on shares is a good business. I've seen his son, young Andrés Sanchez, up there on that Sanchez grant with their sheep herd when I've been out on the mountains."

"Oh, you've been up on the mountains round here?" said Backus, who saw his chance to lead the conversation once more in the direction he wanted. "Mining, I suppose?" he added, as if it were an afterthought.

"Well, I've prospected some," returned the other. "But you've heard me say I didn't think much of the opening here."

"Ever take any of the Indians out prospecting with you?" inquired the Texan. "They've bin here so long they'd ought to know if there's anything lying around worth looking at. Did they never tell you anything about mines?" He let these last words fall after a pause with studied carelessness.

"No, sir," said the prospector, "I've learnt nothing from the Indians, and it's highly possible that they've nothing to tell."

"You never thought to ask 'em, I suppose?" suggested Backus.

"Why should I?" returned the other quietly. "May I ask, Mr. Backus, if you've any special reason for these questions?"

The Texan hesitated; he felt sure now that his old antagonist was not at Santiago by mere chance, but had an object in view which he did not care to disclose. He quickly decided to try and gain his confidence by a show of openness.

"Wal', yes, I have," he admitted; "I guess I've got some information that might be of value to anyone as knew how to use it."

"What could he mean?" Stephens thought. "Was this information the knowledge of the secret mine? If so, it might be worth while to make terms with him, as the Indians seemed to be so impracticable."

"If anyone will show me a mine," said the prospector, "I can tell him if it's worth working, and how to work it."

"Yes," returned Backus, "and if so what terms would you expect?"

"A half-interest," said Stephens. "If I thought it good enough I'd take a half-interest and bear my share of the expenses."

"That's a square offer," replied the Texan. "Now look at here. Now, s'posin' I was to tell you of a mine in this neighbourhood, you'd be willing to do that with me?"

"Are you referring to the lost mine of the Indians?" asked the prospector. It was not worth while to make any further mystery of the matter, for the Texan had obviously heard the story.

"That's just what I am," said Backus. "I thought as how you must have heard some talk about it. Now you allow as you don't know where it is."

"I do not," said the other.

"Wal', I do," said Backus. "And I'll tell it to you on your own terms, and that's a half-interest for each of us. It's on the Indian grant up in the mountains."

"Well, I knew that much," said Stephens.

"Ah," returned the Texan, "but I can tell you more'n that. The Indians haint got no right to keep it; that grant haint been confirmed to them by act of Congress."

"But, my dear sir," returned Stephens, with something that savoured of contempt, "you're revealing to me as your precious secret what's matter of common knowledge. If you ask anyone in the office at Santa Fé, they'll tell you that the grant to the Indians of four square leagues round the pueblo has been confirmed to them, and that they own it from grass-roots to Hades by a perfectly indefeasible title; but they'll tell you there, too, in the office, that the twenty miles square that they claim in the mountains has never been confirmed, and for that matter is overlapped by half a dozen unconfirmed Mexican grants as well. The real title to that land is in the United States Government. That's as old as a last year's bird's-nest."

"I see you're well posted in the business," said Backus; "but maybe you don't know that the secret mine's on the Cerro de las Viboras. I can tell you that."

"If you can show it to me up there on that Rattlesnake Mountain, Mr. Backus," was Stephens's reply, "I'm ready to acknowledge at once that you'll show me something I don't know. But as you know so much you are probably aware that the mine has been closed for a hundred years or more, and that rumour locates it in a dozen different places, and that to look for it on the Cerro without knowing where it is is to look for a needle in a haystack. I've been all around that Cerro, you can bet, but I haven't run across the mine. The Cerro's a mountain five miles round and five thousand feet high, and a precious rough mountain at that. I'm willing to go up there again; I'm ready to start to-morrow if you like; and if you'll show me the mine there I'm ready to do as I said with you about working it; but unless you can do that I don't consider that what has passed constitutes any claim between us on either side."

"Wal'," said the Texan, "I couldn't leave the store here just yet, not till I get things straightened out and settled down. Nor I won't swear for sartin as I can put you right on to the exact spot, seein' as how I've not been up thar myself yet; but mebbe I can before long, and I reckon that ought to be enough for ye. Say, look here, couldn't we work it between us, somehow, to get them Indians to show us the spot?"

This intrusive Texan had so far told Stephens nothing he did not know already, and now here he was wanting to poach on the prospector's private preserve—his personal influence with the Indians.

"That's what I've been trying to do already, Mr. Backus," said Stephens irritably; "and, to be plain with you, I'm not looking out for a partner in this matter."

"Ah, but mebbe that's just what you want," returned the storekeeper imperturbably; "mebbe the reason as you haint won nary trick so far is that you've bin playing a lone hand. Now, I'll gamble from what you said just now that you've bin trying to get the secret out of the bucks over there, and that you haven't tried the women for it at all. Now, aint I right?" and he gave the other a cunning look.

"I've never seen any reason to think that the women know anything about it," returned Stephens. "It isn't likely they would." The idea had never even occurred to him.

"Ah, and I'll gamble they do," replied Backus. "I know a thing or two about Indians myself, and it's a great trick of theirs to let some of the squaws—only some, mind you—keep some of the secrets of the tribe. You see they don't go and get killed off like the bucks, so it acts as a kind of safeguard against losing the knowledge of a thing entirely that way. Aint there some extra high-toned women, now, in the Santiago tribe,—chief's darters and the like, eh?" His keen black eyes were turned on the other with a cunning inquisitiveness. "Yes, by the way, aint there a white squaw in the tribe somewheres?"

Stephens was startled. "You've taken a lot of trouble to find out things, I fancy, Mr. Backus," he said rather suspiciously; "a great deal more, indeed, than you seemed inclined to let on at first. But you're quite right. Yes, there is a white squaw in the tribe, and she's the daughter of the cacique."

Backus listened with extreme interest. "You reckon she's an Indian, then?" he said. "You don't think she's a white girl they've picked up and adopted, by any chance? I've seen a good few sorts of Indians, but never any white ones yet."

"Oh no, she's Indian, right enough," said Stephens; "she's a natural Indian blonde, as fair-complected as I am. They're none so rare among these Pueblo Indians. There's twenty or thirty of them over in Zuñi."

"I wanter know!" exclaimed the Texan, by which phrase he indicated extreme surprise. "Wal', she might be worth trying. The cacique had ought to know the secret if anybody does, and she'd be as likely as any of the squaws to be let into it. Why shouldn't you tackle her? Is she married?"

"No, she's not married yet," replied the other.

"Wal', there's yer chance," said the storekeeper, with a knowing grin; "but I forgot, you draw the line pretty close in the matter of colour; or mebbe, she being light-complected as yourself, you'd reckon she was white enough to suit you."

Stephens flushed; he had given this man no right to intrude these familiarities upon him; in silence he picked up his parcels to go. When you have just been forgiven by a man for shooting him through the lungs, you can hardly blaze out at him for being a trifle too personal in his conversation.

"Wal', I'm going to be up there right along," continued the storekeeper, seeing that Stephens volunteered no further comment, and was preparing to start, "and then you can introduce me. I'm going to make a bid for the trade of the pueblo anyhow, and I'll have to get on the right side of the cacique for that, and I might as well get the inside track with the girl, too. It's all in the family, eh?" He grinned again with a kind of a grin that Stephens loathed. "And't won't be trespassing on your property neither, I s'pose?"

"I leave the Indian women alone, Mr. Backus, as I think I told you before," said Stephens haughtily, and he drew himself up and moved to the door.

"Oh, no offence," cried the other quickly, following him; "I see you're high-toned, of course. I didn't mean nothing low-down, nohow"; he attended the prospector out to the hitching-post, where the mule was fastened, and watched him as he put the parcels into his saddle-bags.

"That's a real nice California saddle of yourn," he said in a propitiatory tone, "and an A1 mule wearing it. Wal', when are you going to ask me to come and meet Miss Pocahontas?"

"I'm afraid I'm off to the sierra to-morrow on a hunt," was the somewhat ungracious reply, "but we may meet again later on when I come back, before I start for Colorado, if I decide after all to go there"; and he swung himself into his saddle and raised his bridle rein.

"What makes ye so sot on leavin' this Territory?" queried Backus, laying his hand on the mule's neck and walking a few paces alongside the parting guest. "Aint it most time for ye to quit all this rovin' round, and settle down? Why don't you ask Don Nepomuceno, now, for his darter? She's gone on you already, if you only knowed it. When you was fingering your revolver there in the store just now—oh, I seen what your little game was, right enough—her eyes was just glued to you. Oh yes; if I was watching you close, right along the hull time, you bet I kept my little eye open for what the women thought of it all as well. You bet I aint no innercent; I aint bin and lived here these seven years in New Mexico without learning to watch the women every time. I'm on the spot there, and no mistake. I know how a girl looks when she thinks as how her man's in danger that she's gone on. You ask her father for her, and you'll find you've got the inside track there, or my name aint Tom Backus."

"Really, Mr. Backus," replied Stephens, "you've set yourself to discuss a matter I prefer not to talk about. I think I'll say good morning now."

With a regretful air Mr. Backus removed his hand from the mule's neck, and remained there still looking at Stephens's back, while the animal he bestrode, feeling its rider's spurs, quickened its pace.

"Wal', so long," he cried after him as the distance between them rapidly increased. "You'd better think over that idea of mine. Take care of yerself now. Good men is scarce"—"and prospectors who know a mine when they see it are scarcer, just now, in this part of the world," he continued to himself. "I've no fancy to have you putting out for Colorado till you've done my bit of work for me down here, Mister Stephens. If I can once get you to fooling with that squaw girl, I'll bet a dollar you can get the secret of the Indians' silver mine out of her; and if she ain't enough to keep you here you may sport around after Miss Manuelita, but stop here you must till you've found that mine for me. You find it and I take the profits, that's fair division," and he gave a chuckle of satisfaction; "and when the time comes for paying you your share, you'll find I haint forgotten how to shoot. Lord! what luck to drop on you like this, and you as innercent as a new-born babby, for all your fingering your six-shooter the way you did. I reckon you'll just play the cards as I deal 'em, and never spot me a-raising a cold deck on you, as I will."

CHAPTER VII DESDEMONA LISTENS

It was but slowly that Manuelita obeyed her father's order to return home; her little feet lagged as the girl dwelt on the scene she had just witnessed, and wondered what it meant. Somehow this American always set her wondering about something. His very unlikeness to the men whom she had hitherto lived among made him appear almost as strange to her as a visitor from another world. He had begun by half repelling, and had ended by fascinating her; on this point the guess of the coarse-minded but quick-witted Texan was not mistaken. Although in speech and manners, in all his tastes and habits, Stephens offered a complete contrast to her Mexican fellow-countrymen, he himself with his light hair and fair complexion was not a type absolutely new to this girl, for in the place of honour in her grandfather's dining-room had hung a portrait of a golden-haired caballero, the great Manuel Sanchez, the friend of Cortez; and Manuelita had woven so many romantic dreams about her glorious ancestor that this fair-haired American had come to seem to her a sort of copy of her hero of romance. It was only in dreams and traditions that the girl had met with heroes; the secluded life led by Mexican ladies was in her case more solitary than usual, for the Sanchez family was poor (poor for its position, that is) but proud, and Manuelita turned up her pretty nose at the few young rancheros of the neighbourhood, and held them beneath the notice of the daughter of a conquistador. The girl's passionate southern nature, with all its capacity for devotion, had slept longer than was usual among her people, and when her heart should awake it would be the heart of a woman, not of a schoolgirl. The young rancheros flaunted their silver spurs and velvet jackets at the Fiestas in vain; they swore the señorita was as wild as an antelope; and, like an antelope, she was caught by her curiosity. She could not keep from speculating on the strange character of this American who bore the golden locks of her great ancestor. The character of a handsome young man is a dangerous study for the peace of mind of a girl, and her interest in the stranger grew so rapidly that soon it seemed to her that there was little else worth studying "beneath the visiting moon."

Nor was the opportunity lacking. Stephens had struck up quite a friendship with her father in the course of the winter, and had got into the way, especially on mail days, of dropping in for a chat with his Mexican crony, who, within his somewhat narrow intellectual limits, was a man both of strong character and active mind. She had listened to them talking together by the hour. The Mexican had many incidents to tell of the ceaseless struggles of his people with the marauding Navajo Indians, who had been but lately reduced to subjection, and of the hardly less constant struggle between the rival great families, the Bacas, the Armijos, the Chavez, and the rest, for supremacy among themselves. The American found no lack of matter in the tale of his wanderings between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains, and of the toils and hopes of a seeker after gold. To her, directly, he had not spoken very much; as an unmarried girl, under the watchful tutelage of her aunt, she was not expected to take a prominent part in conversation, but she went and came freely between the living-room where her father entertained his guest, and the sleeping-chambers which opened off it and the kitchen communicating with it on the other side.

Once, too, it had been her luck to see the American perform a feat that impressed her not a little. She had gone out one evening with Juana, the Navajo captive who had been brought up in the house as a bondservant, to bring in the milk from the corral, when she caught sight in the dusk of an animal prowling near that seemed like a dog, and yet was assuredly something other than a dog. The two girls ran indoors, crying out that there was a wild beast of some kind, a wolf they thought, close by, and Stephens, who was sitting with her father, sprang up, seized his Winchester, which stood in the corner, and hastily threw a cartridge into it as he stepped forth, while she followed to point out the marauder. There, in the dim light, some seventy yards away, the animal stood, hesitating whether to advance or to fly. She well remembered the quick, smooth, steady action with which the rifle came up, came level, went off; the loud clap of the bullet hitting the object; and the nonchalant way in which the tall American had turned on his heel and, without any apparent interest in the effect of his shot, had gone in and replaced the rifle in its corner, merely remarking, "I reckon it's nothing but a coyote."

Pedro, the peon, had run to see, and presently brought in the limp body of the animal, a coyote as he had guessed, its skull shattered to a pulp by the deadly hollow bullet. But what impressed her more than the death-dealing powers of the terrible weapon, was the quiet confidence exhibited by the marksman in his rapid aim, a confidence so entirely justified by the event; and it was this that struck deep into her imagination.

Yes, in her eyes, without doubt, the American was a hero; and yet he was but a cold-hearted hero after all. He could turn a compliment because he had picked up the trick of it from the young Mexicans whom he met occasionally in Don Nepomuceno's house, but his compliments lacked the fanciful gallantry of the words of her countrymen; yes, he was hard, she was sure of it, hard and cold as the ice-bound soil of his own frozen North; she would waste no more thoughts on him, she resolved; and then she thought of him more than ever, and it was in such a mood as this that she re-entered her father's door.

* * * * * * *

When Stephens turned his back somewhat ungraciously on Mr. Backus in front of the stage station, he rode off without casting a look behind him, and urged his mule forward at an easy amble towards the house where he was expected. Those last words of the storekeeper had jarred on him very unpleasantly. Who had asked this intruder to spy on the expression of the girl's face? What business was it of his anyhow? Of course it was all rubbish. He himself had never said a single word to Manuelita that all the world might not hear. Of course he had to pay her a compliment once in a while; he could hardly do less, coming and going at the house as he did, and all these Mexican señoras and señoritas expected it, just as the girls back in Ohio expected you to treat them to candy and ice-cream. That never meant anything particular, neither did his compliments, and she was much too sensible a girl to think they did. It was characteristic of the man that he never for a moment thought of himself as likely by his person and his character to make an impression on a girl's heart. The idea that came into his head when Backus made the suggestion was that if there was anything in it it must be due to this precious art of paying compliments, which was about the only point in Mexican manners that he had taken any special pains to acquire. But the whole thing was rubbish, so he assured himself again and again. Sanchez was no fool, and no more was his daughter. They were kindly people, who had behaved with true Mexican hospitality to a stranger—but they were people of another race: their customs, their beliefs, their ideals, were all strange to him. Between an American and a Mexican there could be no real community of feeling. And yet some Americans did marry Mexicans, and did not seem to repent it. Even that low-down skunk of a storekeeper, who was an American of sorts, had a Mexican wife. Probably she was not much to boast of, a mere peon's daughter most likely,—well, that was his taste. But there were other Americans who had Mexican wives; he could count up several whom he had seen in Santa Fé,—traders, Government employés, and the like,—and they had as comfortable homes as if they had gone back to the States and married American girls. But confound that Backus's impudence! What should he know about these Sanchez folks anyway?

Beneath all this anger lay two very uncomfortable suspicions. One was that the storekeeper was a man with a great deal of low cunning, and might have, as indeed he boasted, most confoundedly sharp eyes for prying into other people's affairs; and the other was that he, Stephens, had never given such an affair as this a serious thought before, and knew precious little about womankind in general; and this last thought of his was much truer than he himself realised.

There are no men whose experience of women, as a rule, is so small as the pioneers of a new country. In older countries there are unmarried men in plenty, but they are brought into frequent daily contact with the other sex unless they take deliberate pains to prevent it, and not seldom they prove to understand women better than those who might be supposed to have a better right. But the celibates of a new country are quite different. In their case it is not choice but necessity that makes the mere sight of a woman's face a rare thing. In the wild, remote mining camps where Stephens's years of adventure had been mostly passed, among a thousand men there would barely be a score or so who ever brought their women-folks along. True enough, where the miners had struck it rich, and hundreds and thousands of dollars were being taken out by eager crowds of men, another class of women did not delay long in appearing upon the scene; but that was a class from which Stephens studiously kept aloof. He had not even the perverted experience that may be thus gained; and he positively knew less at nine-and-twenty about the ways in which girls think and feel than he had known before he left home at nineteen. If he knew little he had been contented with his ignorance, but now this random shaft of the storekeeper had gone home, and he was contented no longer.

Alighting from Captain Jinks before Don Nepomuceno's door, he was welcomed by the Mexican, who insisted on unsaddling the mule for him himself, loudly calling meanwhile for Pedro to come and take him round to the corral and give him some corn. The house was built in Mexican style, of sun-dried bricks, in the form of a hollow square, with a patio, or courtyard, in the centre on which all the doors and windows gave, the outer wall being blank except for a peephole or two high up. It had a flat clay roof, with a low parapet all round. It was, in fact, a miniature castle, as was every house in the country of any pretensions built during the days when the Navajos and Apaches were a constant terror in the land. Stephens followed his host inside after taking off his spurs, Spanish fashion. He had unbuckled his belt and handed it, revolver and all, to his host, begging him to take charge of it. This, too, he had learned was a piece of Spanish etiquette. You give him your arms to keep, for you are under his protection. Don Nepomuceno bustled around, laying the saddle with its "cantines" neatly in a corner, with the saddle blanket over it, and hanging up the belt on a peg, while he kept calling out to his sister to bring in the dinner, and to the Navajo captive, Juana, to bring water for washing. There were no chairs or tables, but a broad divan covered with gaily striped serapes ran all along one side of the room and served as a seat.

On this Stephens sat down, and, while the master of the house showed his hospitable ardour by urging the women in the kitchen to make a wholly unnecessary haste, the American drew from his pocket the letter he had received at the stage station, and proceeded to read it. It ran as follows:

"The What Cheer House, Denver, Col.,
"April 2, 187-.

"To Mr. John Stephens, among the Pueblo Indians of Santiago, N.M.

"Friend Stephens,—It's two years and a half ago that you and me parted company in Helena, Montana, after I'd done my best to bust you that time, you remember. I've knocked around and had my ups and downs since, but I haven't done so badly on the whole. Last summer I was in Col. here, and I got on to a goodish thing up on Boulder. I wish you would come up here this summer and join me in trying to work it, for I think if it was handled right there's big money in it for both of us. I don't want to say too much, for I don't feel plumb sure of this letter reaching you. And for the same reason I don't put in a draft for what I owe you still, but I've got it here for you all right and regular, and if you can't come you've only got to let me know where and how to send it, and it's yours. I'm well enough fixed now to be able to do it right enough. I don't know if there's any chance of this letter finding you. I haven't heard sign or sound of you since we quit being pardners, till yesterday I run on to that Sam Argles as you may remember in Helena in old times; he'd been wintering away down in Arizona, and he said as how when he was passing through New Mexico a stage driver there told him as he knowed of a white man, calling himself John Stephens, that had been a miner, and was living now with the Indians of Santiago, N.M. That Sam Argles is an old gasbag, sure, but I had to allow as it sounded like you in some ways, for he said the driver said this Stephens wouldn't never drink nor gamble; but he said too another thing, that he was living there with 'em as a squawman, and then I didn't hardly believe as it could be you, but I guessed that stage driver might have been lying, and so figuring on it like that I calculated I might as well write you there. Hoping as it is you, and that you're going strong and doing fine, I remain, your former pard,

"Jeff. A. Rockyfeller.

"You can address me, care of Hepburn & Davis, 397 Arapahoe, Denver."

Stephens perused this letter with a dry smile upon his face.

"Yes, Rocky," he said, apostrophising his ex-partner, "it's me, sure pop, that Mr. Sam Argles heard of here; but I'm not a squawman yet, not quite; you were right not to believe that, not if all the darned fool stage drivers in the country were to swear to it."

By the code of the West, a squawman is nothing less than a renegade to his own race, and is hated accordingly.

He refolded the letter and placed it back in his pocket, as Juana appeared bearing a towel and soap and a bowl, which she placed on the clean-swept floor in front of him preparatory to aiding him to wash by pouring a little stream of water over his hands. The Navajo handmaiden, having been captured as a child, had been brought up in Mexican style, but her blood was pure Indian; that showed plainly in her impassive face as she held the towel for him to wipe his hands, and the strong animal expression given by the heavy jaw and dark skin struck him forcibly. He wondered what she was thinking of as she stood there as still as if she had been cast in bronze, and he reflected, with some disgust at his own stupidity, that that 'cute storekeeper down below could probably have made a pretty accurate guess. Yes, in future he positively would pay more attention to what women were thinking about. In that respect there was no doubt he must amend his ways.

At last Don Nepomuceno condescended to settle down and seat himself on the divan beside his guest; a low table was brought in and placed before them, and on it were set two bowls of rich mutton-broth. When the empty bowls were removed by Juana, the master of the house called out loudly, so as to be heard in the kitchen through the open door, "It is very excellent broth! Ah, what capital broth!"

"I have often heard it said," remarked Stephens, by way of showing his appreciation, "that the Mexican ladies make the best soup in the world."

"It is true, Don Estevan, it is quite true. They are capital cooks, capital. I wonder now, Don Estevan, that you can be contented to cook for yourself. Cooking seems such a waste of time for a man!"

Stephens laughed. "It's my bad luck, señor," he said. "You see, the ladies wouldn't ever look at a rover like myself."

"Don't you believe it, don't you believe it," cried the other; "indeed you have no call to say so. Ah, here is the stew," he added, as Juana set down before each of them two small saucers, one of frijoles, or Mexican beans boiled with onions, and one of stewed mutton with red pepper; in fact both dishes were made nearly red-hot by a liberal admixture of the famous chili colorado. For bread she laid before them tortillas, large thin pancakes of the blue Indian corn, peculiar to New Mexico.

Following the example of his host, Stephens broke off a piece of tortilla, formed it into a scoop, and dipping up mouthfuls of the two messes alternately, thus consumed both bread and meat together. His host's approval of this course was delivered for the benefit of the kitchen as emphatically as it had been of the soup.

"It is very savoury meat," he shouted in his commanding voice, as soon as he had tasted two or three mouthfuls from each saucer, "very savoury; and they are excellent beans, delicious beans. Ah yes, Don Estevan," he continued to his guest, "what a pity it is that you have not someone to cook for you like this. To live all by yourself is so solitary, so triste."

"Yes," answered the American quietly; "but how should I do when I went off to the mountains prospecting? I'm off again, I expect, shortly, to Colorado, you see; and what would I do with the cook then?"

"But why do you go?" queried his host. "Is it not time for you to leave off this wandering, roving life of yours and settle down? You are rich, everybody knows. You should marry, man, marry, and enjoy yourself"; he dropped into a more familiar tone,—"yes, marry before old age comes. You are a young man still, but age will be upon you before you know it."

Stephens, instead of giving a direct answer, made play with the tortilla and the stew. "I do begin to believe that cunning Backus was nearer right than I had any idea of," he said to himself. "I suppose this means that my good friend here wants to suggest that he'll find me a wife in short order if I say so—only, as it happens, he's a little too previous; I aint ready just yet." By this time he had consumed sufficient of the stew to set a dry man on fire, and utilised this fact to change the subject.

"Excuse me," said he, "but may I, by your permission, beg for a drink of water? This meat is delicious, but the chili makes me rather thirsty."

"Oh, certainly," cried his hospitable host; "but we have coffee coming. We have coffee here. Bring the coffee, Juana, at once," he shouted to the bondmaid.

"Water, please, if I may be so bold, Don Nepomuceno," pleaded Stephens, whose mouth was really burning.

"Yes, yes; bring water, then, Juana," cried the other, anxious to accommodate his guest. "Or would you not like a little atole? There is atole, too, plenty of it."

Atole is an old and favourite Mexican drink made of the finest Indian corn meal boiled till it becomes a thin gruel.

A jug of atole presently appeared with two cups, and the American was permitted to ease the burning sensations of his palate.

"Thank you," he said gratefully, putting down the cup; "that's very refreshing. Atole is a real good drink, Don Nepomuceno."

"Oh, yes," said the latter, "it's a good drink enough; but now that coffee has come in so much, it is used more by our handmaidens and the peons. All the well-to-do people here buy coffee, with sugar, now. We will have the coffee in in a minute. Tell them to make haste with the coffee, Juana. Did you never hear," he continued to Stephens, "the song that the musician of San Remo has made about Mr. Coffee and Mr. Atole? It is comic, you must know, very comic. You see Mr. Coffee comes from far, far away off in Tamaulipas, or farther still, to cut out his rival Mr. Atole. And then they meet, and the pair have a conversation, and Mr. Coffee tells poor Mr. Atole that he is doomed. Let me see, how does it go? Oh yes, Mr. Coffee begins, and he says to the other jokingly:

"'Como te va, amigo Atole?

Como has pasado tu tiempo;

Desde lejos hé venido

Para hacer tu testamento.'

"'How do you do, Mr. Gruel?

I fear you are rather unwell;

I've taken a mighty long journey

To ring your funeral knell.'

That's how it goes, Don Estevan. There's a great deal more of it; they go on arguing ever so long. We must get him in some time and make him repeat it all for you."

"You're most kind, I'm sure," said the American, wondering in himself the while how any human being could be amused by such a rigmarole concerning Messrs. Coffee and Atole. But there was no accounting for tastes; and he had found out that American humour did not seem at all funny to Mexican ears, while his recent experience in blasting the ditch had taught him that the mildest of American jokes might send red Indians on the war-path. A difference in the sense of humour goes down to the very roots of our nature.

They had finished dinner by this time, and the American, declining a cigarette, filled his pipe, and rising went over to his saddle and extracted from the "cantines" the packet which had come for him by mail. He brought this over to his host and offered it to him.

"Here, señor," said he, "is a little bag I will beg you to accept. It is from Denver; it contains some seed of alfalfa, that clover I told you about, that grows so splendidly in California and Colorado."

The Mexican was warm in his thanks as he untied the bag and took a sample in his hand.

"I told them to send me the best seed," said Stephens. "I think it ought to grow well in this country. You'd better sow it soon in a piece of your ploughed land, and irrigate it when it comes up."

"Yes, I will," said the Mexican. "I'll have it planted to-morrow in the land I am preparing for corn. Come and see my seed corn; I am not content with this common blue corn of the Indians. I have white corn with big ears that I mean to sow. Come along to the storeroom and look at it."

He led the way, and as they passed through the door they almost stepped over Manuelita, who was seated on the ground just outside, busy cleaning a large basket of frijoles. Stephens paused idly to look at what she was doing, while her father bustled around, noisily demanding of his sister where the key of the storeroom was. The girl's task struck him as terribly tedious. She took up a small handful of beans at a time and picked out one by one the little bits of stone that had got in when the threshing was done, in the good old style, by the feet of the wild mares on a floor of clay and gravel concrete.

"That's a long business you're in there," he remarked sympathetically.

"Yes," she answered, glancing up at him with a shy smile, "it takes time," and she bent her eyes on her hand again so as not to interrupt her work. He caught the beautiful smooth outline of her cheek with the long dark lashes showing distinct against it.

"You don't mean to say you have to do the lot that way, picking out all those bits of rock one at a time?" he asked.

"Oh, but yes, of course," she answered. "You would break your teeth if we did not take them out before we cook them."

"But," he rejoined, his practical mind revolting against waste of labour, "it'll take you a good hour to do that lot the way you're doing it, and you could do it better in three minutes." His tone was oracular.

"I don't think it's possible," she said, "unless you had a witch to do it. There is an old woman, the mother of Pedro, that we get sometimes, but she often leaves some in, and then my father hurts his teeth. The people here call her a witch, but she would take three hours instead of three minutes."

"Well, I'm no witch," said he, "though the Indians here wanted to play me for one this morning. But you give me a pan—a milk-pan'll do—and I'll show you."

The pan was brought, and he put in the beans and poured in water enough to set them a-swim. He gave the pan a few deft twirls and shook it from side to side.

"This is the way we wash gravel to get the gold, señorita," he said, as he set it down. "The rocks are all at the bottom of that pan now, you bet. If you'll kindly give me another pan to put the beans into," he went on, "I'll prove it to you."

The girl hastened to bring a second pan and put it beside the first, and in doing so their hands touched.

"You'd better hold it there," said he, "while I shovel them across," and with his hollowed palms he scooped the beans from one to the other. In the pan he had shaken there now remained a little discoloured water, and at the bottom about a teacupful of gravel.

"There you are," said he triumphantly; "here's your gravel in this one, and there's your frijoles in that one. It's as easy as rolling off a log." She looked agreeably surprised, and he laughed.

"How would you look," said he, "if those little rocks were nuggets, eh? Coarse gold, heavy gold, eh?" He smiled a strange smile, and a strange light shone in his eyes. "Many a thousand pounds of gravel I've washed, looking for gold in the bottom of every one; but this is the first time I ever panned out beans to get gravel. Maybe some day I'll find that heavy gold yet, but God knows where."

He straightened himself up to his full height, leaving on the ground the pan over which he had been stooping. His eyes ranged out across the courtyard through the open gateway to distant pine-clad peaks standing out against the intense blue of the sky.

Manuelita had likewise set down her pan, and was leaning her hand against the side of the doorway and her head against her hand.

"I hope you will find it," she said, with a glance from the depths of her liquid eyes. His eyes met hers and dwelt there for a moment.

"Thanks," he said; "your good wishes should bring good luck."

"I wish they might"; she half sighed as she spoke; "but which of us can ever tell where good fortune comes from?"

And then broke in the voice of Don Nepomuceno, "Come along and see the seed corn, Don Estevan. I have found the key."

CHAPTER VIII CHILDREN OF THE SUN

They looked at the seed corn, and the American complimented Don Nepomuceno on his enterprise as an improving farmer.

"Why don't you take to the business yourself?" said the Mexican, as he relocked the door behind them. "You have money and you have a pair of good mules. You could buy land and work-oxen and hire peons. You would make your living at it easier than at the mining. How long have you been a miner?"

"Ten years, on and off," answered the other. "It is a good slice out of one's life, I admit"; there was a certain wistfulness in his tone. He was beginning to think that perhaps he had missed a good deal of happiness in his time.

"Ten years of wandering!" exclaimed the Mexican. "Ay de mi, but you must be tired. Why should you want to go back to Colorado and begin it all over again?"

"Well, for one thing," answered the other, "I've just heard from an old pard of mine up there, and I think from the way he talks he's got hold of a good thing. I'm going to see."

"And you'll go all that journey just to see!" said the other. "You trust him? You think he's a good man?"

"Well, I don't know so much about that," admitted Stephens. "Truth to tell, the last time I saw him we had considerable of a difference of opinion; in fact we split, and we reckoned to stay split. You see, he busted me up as we call it, ruined me, that is; only I had the luck to sort of pull myself round. But that happened two years ago; all the same I don't say that I want him for a pard again, though he must have pretty well straightened himself out, the way he talks; but still, you bet, I'd like mighty well to shake hands with him, right now."

"And he ruined you?" exclaimed the Mexican.

"Busted me wide open. Left me flat broke," said the American.

"How did it all happen?" asked the other. "Tell us all about it; we have heard some of your adventures, but not this. Come into the sitting-room here and let us have it."

"Well, if it won't bore you, you're welcome," said Stephens, following his host and preparing to refill his pipe.

"Ah, you must smoke when you talk, I know," said Sanchez, "and you wish to smoke your own American tobacco, for you do not like the flavour of our New Mexican punche in your pipe. Ho, a light here, Pedrito! quick, bring a live coal for the señor."

Pedrito, a small son of the peon, came running from the kitchen with a live coal in a piece of hoop iron, which he offered to Stephens, pulling off his cap and standing bareheaded before the honoured guest, with old-world courtesy. Manuelita knew very well what was up, and fixed herself down to listen just by the door, where she could hear every word. Stephens settled himself down comfortably on the divan, and began.

"I picked up with this partner, who has just written me this letter, Rockyfeller his name is, when I was up in Idaho. We took to each other kind of natural-like, and he and I pulled together as amiably as a span of old wheel-horses for a goodish bit. We were quite different sort of men, too, in ourselves; but somehow that seemed to make it all the easier for us to get along. We worked in the mines all that winter, and when spring came we had enough saved to rig out a real A1 prospecting outfit. Rocky—that's what I called him—used to spree a bit every once in a while, but nothing really to hurt, you know. He could pull up short, which is more than most men who go on the spree have sense to do. His sprees didn't prevent our saving over four hundred dollars. Then we bought two cayuses to ride—cayuses is the name they give to those broncho horses up that way,—and a good pack-mule and plenty of grub and blankets. We put in the whole of that summer prospecting off in the Cœur d'Alène country, and we staked out a lot of claims on different lodes, and we put in a good bit of work on some of 'em so as to hold 'em for the year. Well, come fall, we hadn't been able to sell any one of our claims, and we hadn't taken out any high-grade ore that would pay for packing over the mountains to any reduction works, and there we were, short of cash. So we cleared from that Cœur d'Alène country at last. It was too far from a railroad. We sold our claims for what we could get, and that wasn't much, and we lit out for Montana, and there that next summer we just did everlastingly prospect over some of the roughest country I ever ran across. The Indians were powerful bad too, to say nothing of the road-agents. But we struck it at last pretty rich on a lode that we called 'The Last Lap'—that's the last round, you know, that the horses make on a race-track. I'd spent eight mortal years chasing my tail all round the Pacific slope looking for a good lode, and here it was, after all, across on the head-waters of the Missouri in Montana. We knew we'd got a good thing. The ledge was three to five feet thick, with a nice, uniform lot of high-grade ore, and a special streak that would assay up to five hundred dollars a ton. I never saw a nicer lode. The only thing was, it was a plaguy long way from any quartz mill for the free ore, and it was a plaguy sight farther to the only reduction works that could handle the richest portions of it. Of course what the mine wanted was a smelter of its own, right on the spot, but that's what got us. We hadn't the capital to start it. It wanted at least fifty or a hundred thousand dollars laid out before we could hope to get back a cent. That mine was worth a million, if we'd had it in California, but off there, five or six hundred miles from a railroad, owned by us two prospectors who'd just about got to the end of our tether, it was too big a thing for us to handle. Well, we did what work we could on it. We sunk a shaft and ran a bit of a drift, and we went into Helena and we offered a share in it to a few capitalists we thought we could trust. None of 'em would even look at it. At last we ran on to Colonel Starr,—old Beebee Starr; likely you never heard of him, but they knew him well enough up there,—and he rode out with us to see it; and he tumbled to it, too, as soon as ever he'd grubbed out a few specimens with his own pick and had 'em assayed. Well, he wouldn't take a half-interest and find the money to develop the mine, which was what we wanted him to do, and we were stony-broke by that time except for our cayuses and our camp outfit, and winter a-coming on; and the long and short of it was that we gave Colonel Starr a quitclaim deed to our whole interest in the Last Lap Lode for twelve thousand five hundred dollars in greenbacks, paid down on the nail. The Last Lap has paid more than that much in a month in dividends since then, but that's common enough; that's how things do pan out; but I don't believe in whining over my luck, never did. And I'd been waiting eight years for a look in, and I didn't despise getting my half of the twelve thousand five hundred dollars, if the Last Lap was worth a million.

"So we sold the best quartz mine in Montana, and that's where Rocky and I split. We got the money from Colonel Starr in greenbacks, and it was a roll as thick as my arm. And Rocky pouched it all, for I had to go out to a cabin three miles out of town to see another old pard of mine who had been crushed by a fall of rock and was dying. I know I ought never to have left Rocky with that money on him; but what was I to do? It was late in the day; I had to go; I couldn't take it along with me, for a man was liable in those days to be held up anywhere round the outskirts of town by those cursed road-agents. Rocky had kept plumb straight for over a year. I trusted him, and I went. I got back to our hotel that night about ten o'clock, and a man says to me, 'D'you know where your pard Rocky's gone?'

"'No,' says I, 'aint he here?'

"'Not much,' says he; 'he's at Frenchy's, bucking agi'n' the tiger.'

"My heart felt like a lump of ice. I just turned right around and walked across the road to where this Frenchy kept a faro bank, and went in. There was Rocky, about half drunk, sitting at the table, with about three little chips on the cloth before him. I went up and put my hand on Rocky's shoulder and looked on. The dealer turned up the jack, I think it was, and raked in Rocky's stake. Rocky turns his head and looks up at me with a ghastly grin. 'Is that you?' says he; 'Jack, you'd orter hev come before. I've had a devil of a run of bad luck; I'm cleaned out.'

"'In God's name,' says I, 'is that so?'

"'You bet,' says he.

"I felt as if my eyes were two big burning holes in my head. 'God forgive you, Rocky,' says I, 'for playing the giddy goat, and me for leaving you alone for one night in Helena, Montana. Come on out of this now, Rocky, and I'll divide my share with you. I never went back on a pard.'

"Then the big blow came. 'Your share?' says he; 'why it's all gone. It's all gone, every dollar of it, and them chips you saw me lose was the end of the Last Lap Lode.' I heard some bummer behind me give a laugh, one of those whiskey-soaking galoots that think it funny to see the next man cleaned out.

"I felt a queer lump in my throat, and I says to the banker, very solemn, 'Mr. Frenchy, this gentleman here,' I was holding my hand on Rocky, 'he's my pardner, and I must beg you to take notice that half what you've won off him is my property that he had charge of.'

"'That's no use, young man,' says the banker to me. 'We play for keeps in this house, and so you'll find it.'

"'We'll see about that,' says I. 'Now, Rocky, tell me, is the whole of the Last Lap gone, the whole of the twelve thousand five hundred dollars?'

"'Every last cent,' says Rocky. I could see by his looks that he felt powerful mean.

"'Then, mister,' says I to the banker—I was determined to be deadly civil—'six thousand two hundred and fifty dollars of what you've took from this gentleman belongs to me.'

"'You're interfering with the progress of the game,' says he; 'and say, look here, you don't need to make that remark of yours here again. That's entirely a matter between you and your pard; it's none of my business, but if you want any advice of me, it is that you take him outside and settle it with him.'

"He had his gang around him, and I saw that they had the deadwood on me, and the other players wanted to go ahead with their game. I was a stranger from the mountains, dead-broke, with no backing, and I felt there was no show for me in that shebang. I didn't open my mouth, but I set myself to get Rocky home, first thing. I had pretty near to drag him there. When I got him on the street the whiskey he'd drunk went into his head, and he was like a madman. He wanted to fight me, actually he did, till I got his gun away from him. He hit me, yes, he struck me with his fist, till I had to pinion him; luckily I was the stronger man of the two. I got him back to our room at last, and got him to bed. He just laid there on his bed like a log and snored. And I laid over there on mine and cursed. I lay awake all that night thinking. I'd been a brother to Rocky; I'd saved him time and again before that night; and now he'd been and given me clean away,—lost me the only good stake I'd ever had in eight years.

"I was sick. I didn't know what to do. We hadn't even money to pay our livery-stable and hotel bill. We'd put up at a first-class hotel when we made our bargain with Colonel Starr, reckoning to pay our account out of the proceeds of the Last Lap. Now, by selling our cayuses we'd hardly cover it; so that here we were, fairly busted, afoot, stony-broke, and winter coming on. Sick was no name for what I felt. It was all to begin over again, and I was eight years older than when I started out at prospecting. You bet I felt old that night. Morning came, and I couldn't eat any breakfast. Rocky was snoring still. I belted on my six-shooter, stepped over to Frenchy's, and asked for the proprietor. They told me he wasn't up. It was a tony gambling-house, you know, quite a 'way-up' sort of place. I sat down and said I could wait. At last they told me he'd see me. I was shown up into a room. He was there, spick and span, in a biled shirt and diamond pin, and all that.

"'Sit down,' says he.

"'Thank you,' said I, 'I can stand. I prefer it.' There was a table between us.

"'Let me warn you,' says he, 'at once, that this room is loopholed, and that you are now covered with a double-barrelled shot-gun, loaded with sixteen buckshot in both barrels, at about ten feet off. If you make a move towards that six-shooter you've brought you'll be filled so full of lead that your hide wouldn't hold shucks.'

"'All right,' said I, 'I expected as much. I didn't bring this six-shooter to argue with you.'

"He kind of laughed at that. 'Then what the h—l did you bring it here for?' says he.

"'To protect myself on the street,' says I; 'to protect myself from footpads as I go back to my hotel with my money.'

"'What money's that you're talking about?' says he.

"'My money,' says I, 'that you've won off my pardner last night, six thousand two hundred and fifty dollars in greenbacks. That'll need protecting.'

"He gave a kind of a grin. 'It's protected by them thirty-two buckshot at the present moment,' he says, 'and I guess they're good enough to guarantee it.'

"'I'm not denying it,' says I. 'I've come here, as a gentleman, to appeal to you as a gentleman, to restore me my money that my pardner's wrongly handed over to you.'

"He looked amused. 'I notice you don't speak as if you upheld the game wasn't square,—as if he'd been robbed of it here,' says he.

"'I don't know nothing at all about that,' says I. 'I don't gamble myself, but I don't doubt your game's a square game enough, as things go. People say it is. I don't complain of the game; that's Rocky's business, if it's anybody's. It's my money that I'm talking about, whether it was a skin game that he lost it over or not. It's those greenbacks that Colonel Starr paid me that I'm here for.'

"Then he fairly laughed out. 'Why, you galoot,' says he, 'you talk like a tenderfoot, yet you've been around this Western country long enough to cut your eye-teeth. When did you ever hear of a professional gambler giving up the stakes after he'd won 'em?'

"'I don't know as I ever did,' says I; 'but if not, here's the place for it to begin to happen, right here and now. I tell you I've got to have that money. I tell you I'm tired. I've prospected in every range of mountains there is in three Territories to find that Last Lap Lode. I've been eight years sweating and starving and freezing and wrastling round. Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I got my stake, and I've got to have it. I tell you again I'm tired. I won't go through it all again for nothing. I'm either going out of this room with my money in my pocket, or I'm going out of it feet first, with a hole in my head you could put your fist through. I don't threaten nobody, but I'll have my money or I'll die right here.'

"'You say you don't threaten,' says he suspiciously. 'Aint that what you're saying now—something darned like a bluff?'

"'No,' says I, 'it aint. I don't threaten,' and I turned my right hip round towards him where I had my pistol slung. 'I'll hold up my hands and you can take away this pistol if you like,' and I threw up both my arms over my head.

"'Put down your hands,' says he quietly, 'I don't want to take your pistol.' There were mirrors all round the room, and as I turned I caught sight of my face, and though I felt red-hot I could see I was as white as a sheet, and my eyes like coals of fire. Truth to tell, I was mad. 'Don't take things too hard,' says he, 'it'll come right. I know just how you feel. I've been busted myself more nor once. Look here, young man, I've rather taken a liking to you. I'm going to set you going again. I'll give you a thousand dollars out of my own pocket, and that'll start you, and all I'll ask is——'

"'You'll give h—l!' I burst out. 'I'm not a beggar! I don't want no man's charity. I want my money—six thousand two hundred and fifty dollars in greenbacks—neither more nor less. That's all.'"

Stephens paused. The vividness of his own recollections, excited by the recital of the incident, had flushed his face and quickened his breathing. His pipe had gone out, and he signalled to the boy for another coal to relight it. Manuelita sprang up, ran to the kitchen hearth, snatched a coal from it, and gave it to the boy to carry in.

Don Nepomuceno, keenly interested, leaned forward with his hands on his knees. "Yes," he said, "yes. Gambling makes much trouble. I know it, for I was a great gambler myself. There were four years that I gambled a great deal, when I was sowing my wild oats." He nodded with the sententiousness of a reformed character, who yet relished the reminiscence. "It's a bad thing, very bad. But young men will be young men. Now, there's my son Andrés, he gambled a great deal too much last winter. But, look you, I am keeping that young man now out in camp with the sheep herd, to see after the peons. The lambing season is just coming on, and they are going off up the Valle Grande, where there is much green grass. That is far away from the settlements; he can't get into much trouble up there, can he?" and the father chuckled with self-satisfaction over his ingenious little manœuvre. "But here, I am interrupting you, Don Estevan, and I want to hear the rest of your story. Please excuse me, and continue."

"Well," resumed Stephens, "the upshot of it was he saw I was in earnest. So I was. I expected to die right there. If he'd attempted to leave that room, I'd have jumped him, and then they'd have killed me. I didn't mind, I was so wound up. He turns to me, and says he, 'I believe I'm going to do a thing that I never did before, young man. I'm going to give you back that money that your partner lost of yours.' He went to a safe he had in the corner, unlocks it, takes out a roll of notes and brings 'em to the table. 'Jake,' he sung out to his man through the wall, 'you can put away that shot-gun, it aint needed.'

"He counts out to me the full amount and hands it over.

"'Mr. Frenchy,' says I, 'you're a gentleman. I'll never forget this the longest day I live.'

"'No more'll I,' says he, with a dry grin on his face. 'The laugh's on me this time, I think,' he says, 'and I can tell you that aint the case very often.'

"'I think likely,' says I, getting up to go. 'Good morning, mister; will you shake hands?'

"'That I will,' says he; and we shook.

"'Look here,' says he, holding me by the hand, 'I want to ask you one thing more. If you thought you had the best right to this money why didn't you go to a lawyer and enter suit for it?'

"'Go to a lawyer!' said I; 'what would I do that for? The law in Montana's a thief; you know it, and everyone knows it.' So it was, Don Nepomuceno. The head of the ladrones there was the regular, lawful, elected sheriff of Helena; the road-agents ran the country in fact.

"'No,' says I to Mr. Frenchy, 'I didn't want no lawyer. I heard say you were a gentleman, and I thought I'd give you a chance to prove it, and I'm glad I did.'"

Stephens took a few draws at his pipe; the excitement into which he had worked himself over his story was passing off now the climax was over.

"Well," he resumed, "I went back to my hotel and I woke Rocky. I told him we must part, and I offered to divide. He wouldn't quite do that, but he took a thousand dollars off me. He was mighty penitent, but I told him I'd no use for such a pard any more. I was sick of Montana altogether, and concluded to skip. I paid my hotel bill, went over to Frenchy's and made him a present of my cayuse, and I donated over to him my share in every claim I had located in Montana to compensate him for what he had lost by giving up the half of Rocky's losings. I believe he's made a pot of money out of some of those claims since. I took the stage for Green River City, and then for Denver, and I got through safe without being held up. I salted down most of my money into Denver real estate, which pays me a fair interest, and part I've used in paying my way while I've been prospecting in Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico. And that's how I come to be here."

"Thank you, Don Estevan, thank you," said the Mexican. "It is most interesting; but I wonder you can think of going back to such a compañero. It is a very perilous idea."

"Oh, well," answered Stephens carelessly, as he rose to take his departure, "meeting him isn't the same thing as going and doubling up with him again. I'll be apt to know more about that when I see him."

But Manuelita's heart gave a little painful throb at the discovery that this man, in whom she was fast learning to take an interest too great for her own peace of mind, could return so lightly to a life that had already brought him into such dangers, and could depart apparently without thinking of her, or of what his loss might mean to her. He did indeed belong to another world.

His mule was brought out and saddled, and his belt once more buckled on, with the revolver hanging low on his right hip. He warmly grasped Don Nepomuceno's hand at parting, and with a smile and a bow and his hat doffed to the ladies, he swung himself into the saddle and rode away.

Don Nepomuceno and his sister stood in the great doorway at the entrance to the courtyard, looking after his retreating form. He rode with the long stirrup and erect military seat of one who had seen service in a United States cavalry regiment, no bad school for horsemanship; his fine figure and his athletic frame showed off to great advantage. A hundred yards away, at the bend of the road, he turned in his saddle to wave his hat once more in a final adieu, and the warm sunlight kissed his profusion of golden curls. Manuelita ran back into the house that her aunt might not detect the emotion betrayed by her quivering lip. But the elder lady had her gaze steadily directed towards the parting guest. "Ah, que hombres tan aventureros, si, son estos!" she said—"What bold adventurers they are, those men!"

"True indeed," answered her brother, "'tis most true. For myself, I hate the Americans, most of them, but admire this one, and I like him too. But he is set on this life of adventure. I sounded him on the matter; I even hinted to him that it was full time for him to marry and settle down. But he would none of it."

"Es hombre muy frio"—"He is a very cold man"—said the Mexican woman, and there was a spice of scorn as well as regret in her tone. She despised a man who was a laggard in love, and her spoken judgment had coincided with Manuelita's thought.

"It is true, it is most true," assented her brother. "He is cold. These Americans are not impassioned in the love of women as we are. The chill of their frozen North is in the very marrow of their bones. They are not like unto us of Mexico and the South."

Those who know them best will bear witness that, whether they are descended from Spanish conquistadores, from the devoted warriors of Montezuma, the passionate hearts of the sons and daughters of Mexico prove them in very truth to be Children of the Sun.

CHAPTER IX A SQUAW FOR A FEE

All day Felipe remained in the wheat patch. At noon he ate his lunch of bread and dried flesh down by the river instead of going back to the pueblo. At intervals during the day he came to the edge of the bank in order to see that the mare and the remaining mule were all right, and not trying to get up the bank into the crops. He might have gone off to talk, for a change to other Indians, who were working in their fields, but he did not care to. His heart was too sore; he wanted to be alone. He thought and he thought, but all to no purpose. He ended by saying to himself, "Well, there's one day more. I'll see Josefa to-night, and we'll talk it over."

A wild idea floated through his brain of taking one of Don Estevan's animals without his leave, but he knew it was wild. He believed Don Estevan would shoot anyone that did so, and he did not mean to incur that penalty. The only rational scheme he could think of was to run off in the night to the sierra, find the horse herd next day, get his father's horse and start back with it, but instead of coming straight to the pueblo, to lie hid in the foothills of the sierra till night time, and then slip down and get Josefa to come. But he knew that on the morrow, when his father missed him, there would be a noise made and he might be followed, in which case his plan might miscarry, the more so that his disappearance would cause a doubly sharp watch to be kept on Josefa. With melancholy eyes he watched the sun sink lower and lower in the west. Precious time was passing, and he was doing nothing and could do nothing to bring his will to pass. He burned with desire to act, and he was helpless.

Before sunset he caught the mare and mule, and took them up to the pueblo in order to put them in the corral for the night. This was the time of day when Josefa was likely to be fetching water from the ditch, which had been empty all the morning on account of the blasting, and in the hope of meeting her Felipe led them through the street on which her father's house faced.

And where had Josefa been all this time? She had been hard at work at home, under the vigilant eye of her step-mother. Grinding corn meal was the labour which she was set to do, a good steady task to give to a young person of rebellious disposition. The Indian hand-mill is a large, smooth stone, something like a flagstone, set sloping in a box on the floor. The grinding is always done by a woman, who kneels on the ground, and bending over the mill rubs the corn up and down with a smaller stone held in both her hands. Hard work it is indeed for back and arms, but the Pueblo women keep it up for hours. Their good health and fine physique are largely due to this vigorous exercise.

Josefa worked away over the mill till her back ached, while her step-mother, at the other end of the room sat at a hand-loom, on which she was slowly weaving a gorgeous blanket of many colours for the cacique's next official appearance. Josefa thought as she toiled at her work; and her mind reviewed over and over again different alternatives. From the bottom of her heart she hoped that Felipe would be successful in getting a horse from the American. If he didn't, she did not know what she should do. One thing only was certain in her mind. Have Ignacio she would not. They might starve her, and they might beat her, but they should not force her to be his wife. What was the use of being a woman of Santiago if she mightn't have some say in the matter? Why should she be treated as a slave, as the savage Utes treated their women? "I don't care," she said to herself, and as she said it she stiffened her back, and rubbed away at the refractory corn harder than ever. "I won't. He's old, and he's ugly, and I hate him. I know he beat his first wife—he did. I won't have him."

She glowed with the heat of her scorn and indignation; but all the time a little unbelieving spirit in the recesses of her mind kept asking in a sort of undertone, "How will you like being beaten if you disobey? How will you like it; how will you like it?" And as she cooled off from her glow, and thought of another side to the picture,—an intercepted flight, rough seizure, angry words, and furious blows,—she quaked. She had not been beaten since she was a child, and not much then, for the Pueblo Indians are good to their little ones; but she knew that her father was within his rights in giving her to whom he chose, and that those who broke the laws of the community were liable to the lash. She had never seen it done severely. All she had seen was two or three cuts with a whip, administered publicly in the street after a severe scolding by the marshal of the village, to some misdemeanant who had let his ass trespass among the standing corn, or who had otherwise broken some of their simple rules; but she knew with what severity, in private, serious offences were treated, and in the depths of her brave little heart she quaked.

But the quaking fit passed off, too, as the indignant glow had done; perhaps the hard work helped her through. "They can't do more than kill me," said she to herself. "I can stand it. But have old Ignacio I won't."

Then she thought of Felipe. She had not much fear for him. His own father certainly wouldn't beat him. For one thing he couldn't, for the son was the stronger; and as for Ignacio, she fairly laughed to herself at the idea of the ugly old fellow attacking Felipe. "Why, Felipe would put him on the ground in a moment, and keep him there, too, as long as he wanted," she thought, and felt a grim satisfaction at the idea. The only danger she feared for him was lest he should get furious and use his knife, and kill Ignacio, and be hanged for it. But Felipe had promised her never, never to do such a thing, and he would keep his word. Such a thing had not happened in the pueblo for forty years—not since old Fernando was a youth, when he had quarrelled in a fit of jealousy with another Indian and stabbed him, and had been arrested, and afterwards pardoned.

Towards evening it was reported that the ditch was running again, and Josefa and her step-sisters went out to draw water. With the great earthen jars on their heads, they filled out one after another, and marched off to the waterside. Here they lowered their burdens to the ground, and slowly filled them by dipping up cupfuls of water with their gourds. There were several other women at the waterside doing the same thing, and there was much animated talk about the blasting of the acequia—for they had heard the explosions quite distinctly at the village—and about the improvement of the ditch, which was fuller now than it had ever been before.

Then some of the younger girls took to playing and splashing each other, and one said something sly to Josefa about Ignacio. She flushed up and was on the point of flying into a rage, but calmed herself in a moment, returned a laughing retort, and joined in the fun and the splashing. Her step-sisters were surprised, for they well knew her feelings on the subject of the intended marriage; but they supposed that perhaps she was growing more reconciled to the idea of it.

At last the welcome interval of fun and gossip came to an end. One by one the jars, now full and very heavy, were carefully elevated on the heads of their owners, the party broke up, and the women returned to their respective homes. Josefa was hoping for the appearance of the figure she desired to see, and lingered as long as possible; but when the rest of the party had assumed their burdens she could delay no longer, and, taking up hers, moved after them, the last of the file.

As they re-entered the village she saw with joy that her manœuvre had succeeded. Felipe was strolling very slowly, and apparently quite unconcerned, up the street, leading the mare and mule towards the corrals.

They dared not speak, but they had devised a little code of signals of their own. A shake of the head conveyed to her, "I have failed"; a crook of the forefinger, "I am coming to-night." An answering crook from her said to him, "I will meet you"; and they passed on their ways, no one but themselves the wiser for the little exchange of messages that had taken place. But Josefa's heart sank lower still as she crossed the threshold and thought that one of the precious three days was already gone, and no means of escape was yet provided.

At sunset her father returned. The acequia round the point had been properly embanked on its lower side, and the stone dislodged by the blasts cleaned out of its channel. He was in high good humour at the success of the work, which would render memorable his term of office. He brought his saddle indoors, and, taking down a key from a sort of shelf of wickerwork, which was slung by cords from the roof beams, he took his horse to the stable. He did not keep him at the corrals, where the prospector kept his mare and mules, but was the proud possessor of a mud-built stable, with a lock on the door.

His coming set Josefa thinking again. "Our great difficulty," said she to herself, "is a horse. Why not take my father's? If I could only get the key we could manage it. I could not indeed get down the saddle and take it out of the house without making a noise, but Felipe must find a saddle. And if I can get the key and we take my father's horse, he will have nothing to pursue us on, which is double reason for taking it."

Filled with this idea, she got some more corn and began to grind again, so that when her step-mother went into the kitchen to prepare the evening meal she was left alone in the outer room. Her father came back from the stable and replaced the key on the shelf, and then went out again without speaking to her. Now was her chance. She darted silently across the room, seized the key, and flew back to her work so quickly that no one in the next room could have suspected what she had done.

She was so bright and cheerful that evening that her family thought she must have ceased her opposition and become reconciled to the match. "Ah," said her step-mother, "if Ignacio only gives you work enough, and doesn't spoil you, he'll have a docile wife as any in the pueblo."

Josefa laughed aloud. "He will have a docile one when he gets me!" she said. But she laughed to think how blank they would look at daybreak next morning when they found her flown.

After supper the cacique and the chiefs went in a body to call upon Stephens. They entered the room and seated themselves against the wall on the ground, sitting on sheepskins or on mats which they had brought with them. Stephens passed round the tobacco-bag and some corn husks cut square for cigarette papers. Presently old Tostado began to speak.

"We are very grateful, and we give you thanks, Sooshiuamo," said he, "for the work that you have done for us to-day. Ever since the year of the great eclipse of the sun, which is the most ancient thing the oldest man of us can remember, the point of rocks has been that which has given trouble to us all, and our fathers told us it was so when they were little boys. We have had to be always mending it, and then just when we had most need of water it always broke. Then you came among us to stay. You know that we like to live apart from the rest of the world. We do not like to have strangers come here to live. Our fathers never allowed it, and they have handed down to us as sacred the command that we should never allow it either. We have obeyed their command until now, and never till this day have we proposed to make an exception to our rule in favour of anybody. The Mexicans, and others who wish, may live at San Remo, and they may live at Rio Feliz, and at other places in the world, where they belong, but here, No. It is not our custom. We do not want it, and we have the right to prevent it. When our fathers made peace with the old kings of Spain, many generations ago, they had the right given them for ever to keep all strangers away. It is written in our grant, and it is a very good law to have. See how in Abiquiu the Indians let the Mexicans come in, and now they are a sort of mixed people, and not proper Indians at all. But we are the Indians of Santiago, and we wish to remain the same. But you came among us, and we gave you a name, and you lived quietly and did not interfere with anyone, and we saw that you were good. Then we gave you leave to stop on and to go and hunt in the mountain the wild cattle, which are the children of the cattle of the Indians. And you stayed with us all this winter past, and you have been happy here among us; but now you say that you must go far away again, following your business. Now we say this: you have done a thing to-day that we are glad of, and our children will be glad of, and their children, too, for ever. Now we say this: you live alone, and life alone is very lonesome. It is good that you should give up the life of wandering so far and being so lonesome. It is good that you should live here with us, and we will build you a house, and we will give you a wife, a young one and a good one, whichever one you please among the girls, and we will assign you pieces of land of the village, and you shall have it to cultivate the same as we do. If you do not want to work with the plough and the hoe yourself, you have money and you can hire others to work. And you shall live here safe and at ease, and if we want to do more to the ditch, or to keep the smallpox away, you shall do it, because you are wise and know the arts of the Americans. We have talked it over, and that is what we think." And he closed his oration and folded his blanket about him, not without dignity.

Stephens was sitting on the side of his bed, leaning forward and looking down, with his pipe in his mouth, when Tostado began his speech. As it proceeded, he stopped smoking, and still sat looking thoughtfully on the ground, holding his pipe in his hand, and a curious smile came over his features.

"People seem determined to make a squawman out of me somehow," he meditated. "First a lying stage-driver goes and swears to Sam Argles that I'm one already, and now here comes this worthy Tostado with an extremely public offer of the pick of the bunch. Well, how am I going to decline? Shall I say, 'Thanks very much, my good friend, but I'm not taking any, this time'? Pretend to blush and be embarrassed, and play the funny man generally? Not much, I guess. My jokes with these people don't seem to come off. They're not their style. No, I'll just refuse civilly; but, seeing that they're making themselves so particularly sweet to me at this moment, I believe I'll trot out my best card and ask for the mine."

He waited till the applause that followed Tostado's peroration had quite died away, but instead of rising to make a formal speech in reply, he remained sitting on the side of the bed.

"I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you, Tostado," he began conversationally, looking at the friendly face of the Turquoise headman, "and to all of you chiefs here present,"—he cast a comprehensive glance round the circle,—"for the good opinion you say you have of me, and for your proposal that I should settle down among you. I take it very kind of you that you offer me a wife and a home here. But I'm not quite prepared to settle at present. You said, Tostado, that I had money; so I have, but only a little, not enough, not as much as I want. Now, I've got this to say to you. There's just one thing that would induce me to remain here, and not go away. Don't be startled, it's a very simple matter; you know that I'm a miner, and live by finding and working mines. Well, I want you to give me leave to open and work your silver mine, the silver mine that you have up in the mountains, and that you keep so carefully hidden. If you'll make a contract with me to do that, I'll stay on here and work the mine for you. What do you say?"

Never was the admirable facial self-control of the red man better exemplified than in the reception of this speech. To the Indians the very name of mines in connection with themselves was a horror. They had awful traditions of ancient Spanish cruelties, of whole villages stripped of their young men, who were forcibly carried off to work in a slavery which was degradation and death. Spanish enterprise in that line had ceased with the exhaustion of the labour supply, and the accumulation of water in the shafts which they had no steam-pumps to remove. But the terror of those evil days lay upon the souls of the red men. They had hidden those ancient shafts where their forefathers laboured in the damp, unwholesome darkness, till sickness and misery found their only respite in death. They guarded the secret of them jealously, and never with their goodwill should they be reopened.

At the words of the American, the chiefs turned one to another with looks of astonishment, and acted their little play admirably.

Tostado remained silent, and the cacique was the first to speak.

"Silver mine?" he innocently asked. "What silver mine?" thus ignoring the fact that the prospector had broached the idea to him already. "We have no silver mine. We know nothing of such things. The Mexicans have some, far away in the south. The Americans have some, far away there," he pointed to the north. "But there never have been any here, never. Is it not true, my brothers?" He appealed to the circle of chiefs. There was a chorus of replies: "It is true." "There never have been any." "None of us ever heard of such things here."

"Nonsense, Salvador," retorted Stephens, laughing as good-humouredly as he could by way of reassuring the suspicious redskins. "Everybody round here knows that you fellows have a mine that you keep well covered up so that nobody shall find it. Very sensible plan that of yours, too. Quite right not to let other people get hold of it. I allow that. But you're all wrong about one thing. You're afraid the Spaniards may come back and force you to work in the mine again. No fear. The Spaniards have gone for keeps, and the American Government has come, and it's going to stop. There's absolutely nothing to be afraid of. I've heard of your mine; now, you let me work it for you; I'll make money out of it for myself and money for you. The money will buy you lots of cows and sheep and horses, and improved ploughs and good guns, and all sorts of things. You say you have got confidence in me, here's your chance to show it."

He might as well have expended his eloquence upon the dead adobe walls. The chiefs stared at him vacantly. When Stephens ceased there was a pause, and then Tostado took up the subject.

"It is quite true what you say, Sooshiuamo. You are our friend. The American Government is our friend; it has protected us from the Mexicans when they tried to ride roughshod over us, and we are grateful to the American Government. But the stories about a silver mine are foolishness. These Mexicans must have been yarning to you; they are idle talkers. We have no mine. We never had a mine. We don't know anything about mines, and never did." And again all the chiefs chorused:

"We know nothing of a mine; nothing whatever."

For a whole hour Stephens argued with them. Vain effort. No solid rock was ever more impenetrable than an Indian who has made up his mind, and the baffled and wearied prospector gave it up in despair.

His thoughts drifted away to earlier days when he first found himself in the midst of that wonderful rush to the El Dorado of this century, the Far Western goldfields. He thought of his hopes, his failures, and his struggles; how he had always intended "when he had made his pile," to go back East and marry a nice girl of his own race, and settle down comfortably. When he had made his pile!—the will-o'-the-wisp that has led many a man such a weary dance through the sloughs of life. He had to admit to himself that he had lowered his figure. He had set it at first at a million, a brownstone front, and a seat in the United States Senate. It had come down step by step in the last ten years, till it stood now at ten thousand dollars,—enough to buy a nice little place back East, and stock it, and have something left on hand; but, alas! he was not half-way yet even to that goal—and now there was offered him a mud home, an Indian squaw, and a corn patch. "Not yet, I reckon," said he to himself, with a grimmer smile than ever. "I've not come to that quite yet. Not but what these Indians are the honestest and most virtuous folks to live among that ever I knew. But I can't quite go turning squawman yet."

"Much obliged to you, Tostado," said he in response to a renewed offer, "but I don't want to settle down just now. No, thank you. I have business to see after far away, beyond the country of the Navajos. Not that I don't like you here. I consider you as my friends. You know that. Perhaps some other day I may think about settling down, but now I have other business. But I am much obliged to you, all the same."

"No," said the Indian; "it is we who are obliged to you for what you have done for us. It is a great thing, and we are grateful to you for it. There is nothing we would not do for you." And then he went on to praise and compliment Stephens, and the Americans generally; for he was no mean proficient in the art of oratory, and enjoyed doing what he knew he could do well, and what his people admired him for.

Poor Stephens could not escape from the flow of language by quietly walking off, as he had done in the morning; and though he wanted badly to get free to finish reading his San Francisco weekly paper, he could not be so discourteous as to cut the speech short abruptly. But all things come to an end at last, and finally the chiefs, having made speeches to their heart's content, took their leave, folded their blankets around them, and filed off into the moonlight.

CHAPTER X AN ELOPEMENT

Once again Felipe waited patiently for the setting of the moon, in the dark corner between the mud oven and the wall where we saw him first. Thoughts keen almost as sensations chased each other through his mind as he crouched there watching. Dominant was the feeling of the eternal sense of need: "I want her and I'll have her." All this trouble, and strife, and disappointment only made him more obstinate. "I will succeed," he said to himself. "I will. If I fail now I shall be a loser all my life—always wanting, never getting. If I win I shall have what I desire all my life and be happy." This was frank egoism. Felipe's moral standpoint may be guessed from the fact that had he been told he was egoistic he would not have understood the implied reproach. To himself his position was simply natural.

But it would be wrong to suppose that generous and unselfish impulses did not run side by side with self-regarding ones. He thought of Josefa, lonely and sad in her father's house. His anger rose as he thought of the unkindness and the threats she had to endure, and of the heartless way in which she was being disposed of. He longed to save her from the present trouble and from the hateful future that threatened her. How sweet she was and how beautiful! Every fibre in his frame thrilled at the thought of becoming her protector, at the delicious idea of her seeking safety in his arms, while he acted as her shield against tyranny and wrong. And through her sweet eyes there looked out, he knew, the faithful soul of a true and loving woman. She was good. He felt as sure of that as he did of his own existence. Her kindness and dutiful spirit he knew, for he had seen her behaviour in the daily life of the village. What a shame it was that she should be so ill-treated just because she was by nature gentle and obedient! Poor girl, she would want to be comforted a great deal to make up for all the trials she was undergoing now. He would have to be very good to her in every way, and he swore to himself that he would be so; he would do his best to make her happy. Ah, if they could but once get to the padre at Ensenada and be married by him, it would be all right; and at the thought his pulse beat high.

At last the welcome hand appeared at the hole in the wall he had been watching so long, and he flew to the spot.

"Is that you, sweetheart?" he whispered as he stretched his hand along the wall to meet the little fingers. "I always tell myself you will not come, just to tease myself, for I know all the time that you will. And at last I see the signal and I know it is all right."

"You know I always do come," she returned, "you bad boy, as soon as I feel sure they are sound asleep. But now tell me what news you have."

"Bad enough," said he despondently. "I asked the American—I begged hard of him; but he would not lend me one of his beasts. I waited till he was in a good temper, after he had blasted the rock; but it was no use. I will go to-morrow to the sierra for my father's horse and I will come back for you in the night. He is thin and cannot travel fast, so you must come early before the moon sets or we shall not have time enough; but we must take our chance as we can get it. I will tie him away off on the edge of the mesa, so that there will be no horse tracks for them to follow close here. You must come afoot so far."

"Stay, Felipe," said she. "I have been thinking. Can you get a saddle—now—to-night?"

"I can get one of the American's," he said. "He has an old one he never uses. He would lend me that, I know."

"Yes, but can you go to him to-night, Felipe?"

"Oh, yes," he answered. "I would wake him—he doesn't mind what I do. But what horse are you thinking of? One of his?"

"No, no," she cried; "I have a better plan than that. We must take my father's horse. I got the key this evening after he went out. Go first and get the saddle, and then here is the key."

His fingers tightened eagerly on hers. "You darling!" he whispered. "How clever you are! Ten times cleverer than I. Why didn't I ever think of that before? Wait. I'll be back in a moment." He gave her hand one more rapturous pressure, and loosing it, darted off like the wind to Stephens's house.

Stephens was a sound sleeper, but in the middle of the night he was waked by a sudden angry growl from Faro. He opened his eyes, but it was pitch-dark. A low knock was heard at the door. "Who is it?" he cried, first in English, then in Spanish.

A voice answered, likewise in Spanish. "Oh, Don Estevan, it's me, Felipe."

"Felipe!" he exclaimed. "Why, what the mischief are you up to now? But come in, the door isn't locked."

He heard the latch pulled, and seized the collar of Faro, who was snarling savagely. The door opened and the cool night air blew freshly in. A figure was dimly seen in the starlight. Felipe approached the bed. "Oh, Don Estevan!" he began at once, "do be kind to me; lend me your saddle—the old saddle, not the good one. You know the old one hanging on the wall in there."

"Why, what's up, Felipe?" said Stephens, surprised at being roused by this request in the middle of the night. "What do you want with it? What makes you come bothering me now?"

"Oh, please don't be angry, but lend it me," pleaded the boy. "I will bring it you back, and I know you don't want it; you never use it."

"What mischief are you after?" said Stephens. "You want to go off sweethearting somewhere—that's what it is, you young rascal. That's what you wanted my mare for to-day. I know what you are up to."

"Oh, Don Estevan," begged the boy,—"the saddle, please. If you won't lend it to me, sell it to me. I have money,—five dollars."

"Hold on till I strike a light, and shut the door, will you?" said Stephens. "Lie down, Faro, and be quiet." The prospector got out of bed, struck a match, and lit a candle. "You're a pretty sort of fellow, to come roaming around this time of night!" he went on as, candle in hand, he stepped cautiously across the floor in his bare feet to the door of the inner room, which he unlocked. "Sensible people are in bed and asleep at this time of night," he grumbled. "Come in here and get your saddle."

Felipe followed him instantly to the storeroom where he kept his powder-keg, mining-tools, pack-saddles, and provisions.

"There it is," said Stephens, pointing to an old saddle hanging by one stirrup from a peg in the wall. "Get it down. And the bridle; yes, that's it"—and the pair emerged again into the outer room.

Stephens locked the door again, and turning round encountered Felipe's hand with a five-dollar bill in it. "Here it is, Don Estevan; five dollars," said the young Indian.

"Tut, tut, I don't want your money," said the American cheerfully. "Keep it or give to your sweetheart to keep for you. She'll do that fast enough"—and he chuckled at his own wit. "Now don't you smash that saddle," he continued; "and mind you bring it back when you've done with it."

"Oh, thank you, Don Estevan, a thousand times!" cried the young Indian. "God will reward you for it."

"Likely story," growled his employer, "when I guess it's the devil's business you're riding on. There, that'll do; be off with you," he added; and he escorted Felipe, still protesting his gratitude, to the door.

As the boy stepped outside, Stephens asked through the half-shut door, "Who's going to look after my stock to-morrow?"

"Oh, Don Estevan, my brother, my little brother Tomas. He will see to them. I have told him."

"Much good he'll be!" retorted the Californian. "Whom did I hire, him or you?"

"Why, me, Don Estevan, but my little brother will——"

"Yes, your little brother will play the mischief," said Stephens, cutting him short. "I know you. There, get along with you. I'm tired of you,"—and the sarcastic prospector turned growling to his blankets again. "Who is she? for there's some woman at the bottom of it, as sure as fate," said he to himself as he turned over on his bed before going to sleep. "One of the young squaws I suppose. Felipe used to be a pretty good sort of a boy, but durn my skin if I don't believe he's going to turn out just as ornery as the rest of 'em. Who is she, I wonder, anyway?" He was just dropping off to sleep when the thought struck him, "Maybe he's gone to the corral to get the mare!" He half rose at the idea, but lay down again, soliloquising slowly, "No, he never would have come here to borrow the saddle if that had been his game; he dursn't. I'd break every bone in his confounded young carcass if he dared do such a thing"; and comforting himself with this hypothetical revenge, he finally dropped asleep.

With the saddle safely tucked into the fold of his blanket, Felipe flew round the corner and down the street to the back of the cacique's house. When he came to the place he stooped down and picking up a tiny pebble he tossed it through the hole. Josefa was waiting inside and answered his signal instantly.

"Have you got the saddle?" she whispered.

"Yes, yes, all right," answered her lover.

"Here is the key," said she rapidly; "take this and go to my father's stable and get out the horse and take him away outside the pueblo and tie him, and then come back for me. I mustn't risk being caught getting out unless we are quite sure to succeed; it would prevent our ever having another chance."

"Good!" said Felipe shortly; and without a moment's delay he started off.

"Stop, Felipe, stop an instant," she whispered. "Don't tie him near the corrals; he'll neigh to Don Estevan's animals."

"As if I didn't know that!" returned the boy almost indignantly, and he turned again and darted away. It was all plain sailing now. How clever of Josefa! How thoughtful she was!

He reached the cacique's stable, looked stealthily round to be sure he was not watched, and then turned the key in the lock and entered. The horse, a noble and intelligent creature, was standing there quietly. In a minute Felipe put the saddle on him and brought him out, locking the door again behind him. He led him straight away from the pueblo, up along the acequia; a few dogs began to bark at the unwonted sound of hoofs in the night. He tied him to a tree in a peach orchard, and gave him a handful of corn fodder which he had brought from the stable to keep him quiet. Then he flew back to the village.

"All right, Josefa, come! I have him tied ready," he whispered.

The little hand met his once again through the hole in the wall, and he pressed it. It trembled in his clasp. "You will always be good to me, always?" she said. "I shall have nobody but you now."

"Yes, I swear it, my heart's joy, I swear it!" he cried earnestly. "But come, come quick!" The clasped hands unlocked, and the Indian boy sank down once more to wait; this was to be the end of his waiting.

It was not for long. Three minutes later, a head peeped over the edge of the terrace above him, and in a moment more Josefa dropped into her lover's arms. One long kiss, one long, rapturous embrace, was all they dared delay for; and then without a word, hand in hand and side by side, they fled with stealthy steps up the street.

Perhaps it was the fact of a woman's being abroad at that hour of the night that excited the suspicions of the dogs; but whatever it was, the whole hundred-and-odd of them belonging to the pueblo seemed to begin to bark just then. The clamour brought one or two Indians to their doors, but they saw nothing; the lovers had already disappeared.

Up along the acequia they ran. They reached the peach orchard. The horse was there all right. Felipe bridled him in a moment and then sprang across the acequia with the lariat in his hand. He pulled at the rope, but the horse refused to follow. "Hit him, Josefa," said he to the girl, "hit him." She shook the fold of her blanket at the animal, and with a snort he sprang across after Felipe. She bounded over lightly and stood beside him.

He lifted her to the saddle and vaulted on to the croup behind her. He slipped his arms round her waist, both to hold her securely and to grasp the reins, and striking the horse's sides with his feet, he urged him forward. The noble creature made nothing of his double burden, and bounded forward.

"It's no use trying to dodge," said he as he guided the animal straight towards the trail that led to the Rio Grande. "They'll track us anywhere to-morrow; but they can't see to trail before daylight, and by that time we must be at Ensenada."

"Hark to those dogs," said she, as the chorus of barkings from the village rose and fell upon the night wind.

"Never mind; we're off now," said he, holding her closer to him. "The dogs are always barking anyhow. They'll think it's only some Mexican going down the valley. Why, if they did wake up and miss us now, they must wait till morning to know which way we've gone, so don't you be frightened, sweetheart."

They struck into the trail at last—a well-marked bridle-path, which led across the mesas. There was no fear of their missing it, dark as it was after the moon had set, for both the horse and his rider knew the trail well enough. On they pushed, on, on, the keen night wind from the east blowing freshly in their faces, and causing them to fold their blankets more closely to them. The stout little Indian horse was used to carrying double, as indeed most horses in those parts are, and he travelled onward without flinching or staggering under his burden, cantering where the ground was not too rough, and picking his way with wonderful sure-footedness up and down the steep sides of the ravines, which here and there intersected the broad table-lands.

Felipe had to tell Josefa of his vain attempts to borrow the mare of the American, and he gave her a laughing description of the way in which he had roused him at midnight to borrow the saddle. "I'm glad, though, he didn't take the five dollars from me," said the boy. "Perhaps I should not have had money enough left for the padre if he had."

"But you have enough?" inquired Josefa eagerly. "How much have you?"

"Oh, I have fifteen dollars," replied he. "I have saved my wages, every cent, since Don Estevan came here last autumn, and my father let me keep half. Fifteen dollars is more than enough. It is only the rich people who pay twenty and twenty-five dollars. Why, lots of poor people pay only ten. I am sure we are poor enough."

"I am afraid we are indeed," sighed she sadly.

"Never mind," said he cheerfully, trying to keep up her spirits, which were failing somewhat at the strangeness of this lonely ride over lands unknown to her, under the immense vault of night. "Never mind that. Why, I have sown six bushels of wheat more than last year, and I am going to put in plenty of corn too. There is plenty of land, and if we have not enough the head Turquoises must give us some more. There is lots of water now in the ditch to sow a thousand bushels more than we used to."

"Yes," said Josefa thoughtfully. "I know how hard you have worked, dear Felipe, and that you will not be slack now, but are you quite sure of your father? Will he not turn us out?"

"How can he?" said the boy scornfully. "You know he is too poor to hire anyone to work for him. He cannot do without me. He is getting old and cannot put in a crop by himself, and Tomas is too young to be much good. It is I who do the work on the land. You know, Josefa, I would work ten times harder for you," and he pressed her closer to him again.

"Yes, yes, Felipe," she cried, "I know that. I am sure of that. I never could have trusted you so if I had not known you were good at home. But, Felipe dear, if they are cross to me at your house I shall hate it."

"They sha'n't be cross to you," he cried hotly. "I am a man now, and they must listen to me. If I support them they must do what I say—at least sometimes," he added, correcting himself. "Besides, my mother loves me, and when she sees how I love you, and how you are all the world to me, she will love you too; I know she will."

"Ah, perhaps not, Felipe," said the girl doubtfully. "You talk like a man. Women are not always like that, you know."

"But she will; she must," said Felipe decidedly. He had a comfortable masculine conviction that women's feelings were something that could always be put down or got round. He felt that he was acting a man's part now, and that it was time for him to assert himself. How could he feel otherwise with his arms round his sweetheart's waist, with the free sky above them and the broad mesas around, fifteen dollars in his pocket to pay the padre, and a good horse (he did not stop to think whose) to carry them to Ensenada! For the first time in his life he felt himself a man and free. They had left behind them the village with its narrow, cramping laws and customs, its parental tyrannies, and its hateful distinction of rich and poor. To Felipe, Ignacio with thirty cows was an odious monopolist. How delightful it was to have hoodwinked the watchful guardian of Josefa and baffled his miserly rival!

While the fugitives thus sped onward through the night, peace once more reigned supreme over the pueblo. The barking of the dogs at their departure had soon ceased, and no one took the trouble to inquire seriously into the source of their wrath. They might have been barking at a hungry coyote, come to explore the heaps of household refuse deposited day by day outside the village by the tidy squaws, or at some belated Mexican passing up or down the valley, or even at some stray donkey escaped from his owner's corral. At any rate, no one cared enough to prosecute his inquiries, and no movement was perceptible in the village till the first grey dawn.

Dawn caught the lovers descending the long hill that leads from the mesas down to the wide flats of the Rio Grande valley. The light was too dim as yet to do more than show vaguely the broad line of the wooded banks of the river, still some distance ahead of them. The sun rose as they were pushing across the sandy flats and passing through the poverty-stricken hovels of the Mexican village of La Boca, past a surprised-looking, unkempt peon, who blinked drowsily at the couple from his doorway. On they pressed and still onward, making for the point where the road forded the river.

But what roar was this that met their ears as they neared the grove of cottonwood trees through which the road to the ford ran,—a dull strong roar as of the rushing of many waters? Felipe recognised it, and on the instant his heart felt like lead in his breast.

"Valgame Dios, Josefa!" said he, "I believe the river is up. Oh! what luck! what luck!"

CHAPTER XI MY DUCATS AND MY DAUGHTER

The grey dawn that awoke the household of the cacique did so to some purpose. "Josefa," called the step-mother as she arose, "Josefa"—but no answer came. "Why, where can she be?" exclaimed the Indian woman, looking round and calling her other daughters. Salvador himself rushed into the inner room to look for her. In a moment he sprang out again.

"She has gone!" he shouted. "She has got through the trap-door and escaped. Oh, the wretch!"

"Where can she be?" wondered his wife helplessly.

"Where can she be?" he echoed scornfully. "Why, with that pauper scoundrel of a Felipe. I know her. Oh, I'll make her pay for this!"

He seized his revolver and slipped his belt through the loop of its case, and grasping a horsewhip he darted from the house. The rest of the family followed him somewhat timidly, anxious to see what was going to happen, wishing, perhaps, that he would punish her a little for not being so good and steady as they were, hoping, too, to intervene and save her from the extremity of his passion, for they knew how pitiless he was when roused.

The cacique flew straight to Atanacio's dwelling, and thrusting the door open burst rudely into the apartment.

"Where is Felipe? Where is my daughter?" shouted he in tones of fury.

"I don't know. I don't know anything about it," said the old man humbly. "Isn't your daughter at home? Perhaps she is over at Sahwaquiu's." Sahwaquiu was Josefa's uncle, her own mother's brother, and Josefa was a pet of his.

"Where's Felipe, I ask you? Answer me, you old reprobate!" roared the angry cacique.

"I don't know," said the old man again, in the humblest tones. "I have not seen him. He was here last night when we lay down, but he got up and went out. I don't know where he is."

"He's run off with my daughter, that's where he is," shouted the indignant parent; "and I believe you know about it too," he added, threatening the old man with his whip. "You had better say what you know, or I'll make you."

He was a thick-set, muscular man, and looked well able to carry out his threat, as he stood over old Atanacio, who remained passive, seated on a sheep skin near the hearth, neither attempting to defend himself nor to escape. The cacique's black eyes flashed fury, and his coarse features worked with passion, as with taunts and threats he cowed the helpless being before him.

But meanwhile the news of the elopement had spread, and the Indians were buzzing about their village like a swarm of bees round the hive. Up dashed one of the younger men with news. "Cacique, Cacique," he cried, "the stable! Your horse has gone, but the stable is locked. His tracks go all up by the acequia"; and he pointed to where two Indians, with their heads bent low almost to the ground, were busily questing from side to side like sleuth-hounds on a scent.

"Oh, the villain!" roared Salvador. "He's got my horse. He shall be hanged." And he ran first of all to the stable to satisfy himself by seeing with his own eyes what had happened.

It was true. The stable was locked, but the steed was stolen, as could be seen by lying down and peeping under the door. The cacique got up with his white shirt and buckskins all dusty from the ground, and turning to the crowd called out:

"Here, get me a horse, some of you—Tito, Miguel, Alejandro. Go get me the mare of the Americano, and mount yourselves, too." And he himself started out towards the acequia to look at the tracks. Several Indians ran towards the corrals.

"The saddle," said one; "we want a saddle; go get yours, Alejandro. You live nearest."

"Hadn't we better tell the Americano," said Tito, "before we take his mare? Maybe he won't like to lend her."

"But he must lend her," retorted Miguel impatiently. "The cacique wants her. Isn't that enough?"

By this time they had arrived at the bars of the corral where the prospector kept his stock, and they stopped to wait for Alejandro to bring the saddle. Tito took advantage of the delay to act on his own motion, and darting over to the door of Stephens's dwelling began to knock vigorously.

"Hullo! who's there?" called out Stephens in response to the knocking. He was still between the blankets, and had not yet turned out.

"The cacique wants your mare," cried Tito through the keyhole.

"Wants my what?" exclaimed Stephens, who failed to catch his words exactly. "Open the door, can't you, and let me hear what you've got to say," he added, sitting up in bed.

Tito held the door ajar and put half his face into the aperture. He had a wholesome respect for Faro and did not care to adventure farther.

"The cacique wants to take your mare to ride, to go after his daughter," he explained.

"Well, he can't have her, that's all about it," said Stephens, getting out of bed and beginning to put on his moccasins. He had adopted the Indian foot-covering as more comfortable as well as more economical than boots. "Just tell him," he continued, "that I'm not lending horses just now. When I am I'll let him know. But why can't he take his own?"

"He hasn't got it. It's gone," said Tito, at the same time signalling with the half of him outside the doorway to Miguel not to take the mare. "It's gone. Felipe's run away with the cacique's horse and his daughter."

"The dickens he has!" said Stephens. "When did he do that?" As he spoke he recollected Felipe's midnight visit to him for the purpose of borrowing the saddle, and a light dawned on him. But under the circumstances it seemed better to say nothing about the matter.

He put on his hat and came to the door. Tito volubly expounded all he knew of the story. Presently Salvador himself came bustling up from the acequia, whip in hand and revolver on hip.

"Looks considerable on the war-path," said the prospector to himself. "Wonder what he means to do about it."

"Here," said the cacique in a loud voice to the Indians round, "where's the horse? why isn't it saddled?"

Stephens stood leaning carelessly against the doorpost, but took no notice of his speech. There was silence for a moment, and then Tito said in a apologetic tone, "Don Estevan says he doesn't want to lend her."

"Oh, nonsense!" said the cacique; and then turning to the American and mastering his passion as well as he could, he said, "Lend me your mare, Don Estevan."

"I can't do it, Salvador," said the prospector deliberately. "I want to go to the sierra to-day."

"Oh, the sierra!" said the cacique impatiently. "That will do to-morrow. My daughter is gone and my horse is gone and there's nothing else to go after them on. You must lend yours for once."

"Not to be ridden to death after them," said Stephens. "Why, they're leagues away by this time. You'll have to ride like the very mischief to catch them." There was an accent of contempt in his voice which infuriated the Indian. Stephens valued the mare, which he had brought with him from Denver, above all earthly things, and the idea of letting an Indian ride her near to death in a long, stern chase seemed to him the blankest absurdity. "Why, I wouldn't do it for my own brother!" he went on. "You can't have her, Cacique, and that's flat."

"But I must," said the Indian, enraged at an opposition he had not expected. "I must and I will. What's a horse for but to ride?" He turned to the crowd of Indians behind him, and called out, "Saddle her up, will you, quick!"

Two or three began instantly to run towards the corral, and the rest were starting to follow when the loud, clear voice of the prospector arrested their movement.

"Stop right there!" were his words. "You do no such thing. If anyone touches my stock without my leave I'll shoot him."

The Indians stopped.

"I'll drive you out of here, you Americano," said the angry cacique, laying his hand upon the butt of his revolver and advancing directly towards Stephens, who was of course quite unarmed.

"Drive away then, and be d—d to you," returned the American. "I've hired these rooms from old Reyna till the end of April, and I sha'n't budge before." And his eyes flashed back defiance.

Salvador kept advancing in a threatening manner, and the younger Indian men, of whom there were thirty or forty on the spot, closed up behind their leader; they half felt that he was wrong, but still he was their chosen cacique.

Stephens stood his ground, and faced the mob with dauntless coolness. An odd thing struck him. He knew them all personally quite well, but now he hardly seemed to recognise them. The expression of their faces, usually so peaceful, was entirely altered. It gave him quite a turn to think that people who had crowded round him so full of fun, and so eager to show their friendship and gratitude only the day before, should change so quickly to a cruel mob. Yesterday's momentary outburst of suspicion excited by the dreaded charge of witchcraft had revealed to him the explosive forces that lay hidden under their quiet exterior, but that had been dissipated by his own prompt repudiation of the charge, and by the cacique's influence. Now it was the cacique himself who was assailing him, and there was none to help, nor hope of anyone. A hundred black, flashing eyes were fixed on him with an angry glare. He felt as if he were shut up in a den of wild beasts. He was quite alone; the new storekeeper at San Remo was the only other American within sixty miles.

"Take your hand off that pistol, Salvador," said he quietly. "You can't scare me, so don't you try it on."

The Indian stopped, but his hand plucked nervously at the hilt of the weapon. Stephens observed his opponent's indecision, and continued: "A pretty lot of fellows you are, to come crowding round me as you did yesterday, and call me your best friend, and say how you'll sing my praises to the third generation, and now this morning you're ready to cut my throat before breakfast, all about nothing! I've heard of the gratitude of Indians before now," he continued, "but this beats all."

The Indians visibly winced at this taunt, the justice of which they could not but acknowledge, and began to interchange rapid words in their own language, thereby making themselves unintelligible to Stephens.

Just at this moment came a most welcome diversion. Round the corner dashed Miguel full charge on a fiery steed. The Indians scattered right and left before him. With a jerk on the terrible Spanish bit he set the horse on his haunches, and as he sprang to the ground he cried, "Here, Cacique! Here's the horse of the new storekeeper at San Remo. I've got him for you."

Salvador never spoke, but seizing the rein offered him by Miguel he sprang to the saddle, turned his back on Stephens and the crowd, and dashed wildly forwards to the trail.

All eyes were bent on his rapid course. The trackers on foot had already traced the hoof-marks from the acequia across to the Ensenada trail, and were running half a mile off like hounds in full cry. In less than two minutes the galloping horseman overtook them, and cantered alongside to hear what they had to tell. They reported that the tracks were several hours old and that the horse carried double.

"I could have told you that," said Salvador, as he plied the whip freshly, and galloping ahead disappeared in the direction of the mesas from the sight of those who were watching him.

"Wonder what he'll do if he catches Felipe!" said Stephens to himself as he saw him vanish over the hills. "That young man'll have to look out for himself, as sure as he's a foot high. Rather lucky for me," he ruminated, turning to go in, "that chap Miguel's coming up with Backus's horse! I wonder, by the way, how he came to get him. I don't know what I should have done if Mr. Salvador had gone for me with that six-shooter, and he was just about mad enough to try it on. Blamed if it wasn't the suddenest scare I ever did get let in for! Why, hallo, Faro, old man," said he aloud, on finding the dog at his heels, "what's up with you? I don't often see you out of the blankets before breakfast. Blamed if I don't believe you heard me a-talkin' to them fellers and just come out to take a hand!" He was right. The dog's quick ear had caught the note of danger in his master's voice, and he had flown to his assistance.

Stephens took another look at the Indians around. Some were still watching the mesas; others were going about their daily business. It seemed as if those who knew him best kept aloof, feeling ashamed to come up and speak to him. However, an old man whom he hardly knew, and who spoke Spanish badly, approached him in an apologetic sort of way, and said, "Salvador very angry!"

"Well," answered Stephens, with a grim laugh, "I should think he's gone mad."

"Yes, mad, silly," assented the old man; "for why get angry? No good, no good,"—and he stood there wagging his old head and saying "no good" in a way that the prospector quite understood to be intended for an amende honorable on the part of his fellows.

Nor was he the only one. "Señor Americano," said a cracked voice close beside him, and Stephens felt a light touch on his elbow. He turned and found himself face to face with Reyna, the Turquoise squaw from whom he rented his rooms. She and her husband lived next door to him, and from her he often bought eggs and meal. She of course had been a witness of the whole affair. She now produced two eggs, and holding them out to him said, "See, two."

"Yes, I see," said Stephens, "but I don't want 'em to-day. Haven't got the five cents."

"No, no!" she cried. "No money—two."

Her Spanish was weaker even than the old man's. Stephens turned to him. "What does she mean?" he asked. "I can't make out what she's up to."

The two Indians exchanged some words in their own language.

"She means, your honour," said the old Indian man, speaking with painful elaboration, "that this is for the gratitude of the Indians. Excuse her, your honour, she does not speak much in Spanish—that is, not like us, the men"—he added explanatorily, "but she can understand, and she heard you say the Indians got no gratitude, and this is for her."

Stephens turned to the old squaw and took the eggs, thanking her as well as he knew how. "And I'm going now to cook them for breakfast," said he, as he went back to his room.

"Well, who'd have thought that?" he said to himself, as he began to whittle shavings from a piece of fat pine to light his fire with. "They're a queer lot, Indians are, but I suppose it takes all sorts of people to make a world." His thoughts wandered back to Salvador and the fugitives. "Wonder what Salvador'll do," he said half aloud. "He's mad enough to kill the boy, if he gets close enough. Blamed if I don't think he was about mad enough to kill me! He's real ugly when he's mad, and it's no foolin' when it comes to six-shooters." He went over the scene of the early dawn again in his mind. "It does beat cock-fightin'," he continued to himself, "how folks like these Indians, that's as quiet and decent and orderly as can be, should flare up all in a moment and glare at you like a lot of wildcats, and all for nothing. Why, if I'd gone and killed somebody, or run off with somebody's wife, there'd be some sense in it, but to burst out just because I wouldn't lend my mare to be rode plumb to death! It does beat all."

The fire now burned up brightly, and after setting the coffee-pot on to boil he filled the nose-bags himself, and went out to feed his stock. "Confound that boy, running off like this," he grumbled, "and leaving me this job! Told his little brother Tomas, indeed! I don't see him around yet; not much; don't expect to neither."

He leaned up against the fence waiting while the stock ate their feed. Someone must keep watch in order to drive off the hungry Indian pigs, who prowled around and would have disputed their corn with the horses. The sun had just risen, and his level rays lit up like a flame the red cliffs crowned with dark pines, which formed the western side of the valley. But Stephens did not see them. He was facing east, with the sunlight full in his face, and his eyes fixed on the bare, flat-topped table-lands which divided the Santiago valley from the Rio Grande. "Confound him!" he growled again. "What a fool trick for him to play! I'm mighty glad it isn't my mare he's playing it on. He'll find himself in a muss, too, if he don't mind out, sure. I don't more than half like the notion of that ugly savage of a cacique getting after him with a six-shooter."

He waited till the stock had finished feeding, and then went back to his rooms. But he decided not to start for the sierra till the next day. "Confound the boy!" said he the third time. "I can't take that little fool, Tomas, and I want somebody to help me dry the meat and pack it down. Why the dickens couldn't he run off some other time! He want a wife! He wants a nurse and a birch rod, I should say."

Thoroughly vexed, he prepared to put in the rest of his morning, or at least as much of it as he could spare from swearing at Felipe's escapade, in fixing up pack-saddles, mending his tent, cleaning his beloved repeating rifle, and generally getting ready for the trip he so unwillingly postponed.

But his plans for the day were destined to be interfered with for the second time. The inquisitive face of Mr. Backus appeared suddenly in the open door.

"Mornin', Mr. Stephens," he began; "can I come in? So this is where you live when you're at home." He dragged a heavy saddle across the threshold and took a seat. "I told you I wouldn't be long before comin' up to take a squint at your white squaw."

"She's no squaw of mine, Mr. Backus," said Stephens with rising anger. "I think I told you so already. And if you want to see her you can't, for it so happens that she has just eloped." He turned his back on the storekeeper, kneeling down to arrange his pack-cinches with a preoccupied air.

"Oh," returned the other, "is that it? I didn't tumble to it that she was the one who had bolted." His eye wandered around Stephens's modest abode, taking in every detail, as he tried to gratify his curiosity concerning the prospector's domestic arrangements. It seemed to him an incredible thing that a man should settle down like this among the Indians and not provide himself with at least a temporary wife. But in these bachelor's quarters there was no sign of feminine occupation, temporary or permanent. The one novelty that puzzled him was the neatly built assaying furnace, which he at first took for a new sort of bread oven, until he detected the parcels of ore beside it and its true nature dawned upon him. But postponing the idea of asking questions about it for the present, he went babbling on: "And here I've been and loaned my horse to a chief to go chasing after her upon, and left myself afoot. Guess I'll have to try and borrow that mule of yourn to get back to San Remo on." Stephens's face at this suggestion became the picture of disgust. "Say, though," he went on, "I was forgetting. You're badly wanted down there. I come up partly just to tell you that. Don Nepomuceno is in a mighty awkward fix. What do you think that son of his, Andrés, has been up to? You'll never guess in a month of Sundays. He's bin and had a fuss with a Navajo up yonder in the mountains over a game of cards, and killed him, and half burned the body in the camp-fire to try and get rid of the thing. And the Navajos have got right up on their ear about it and there's a whole band of 'em now down at San Remo wanting old Sanchez to turn 'em over his whole sheep herd to pay for it. How's that for high, eh?"

Stephens leaped to his feet. "Who told you this?" he cried.

"Why, Andrés himself," replied the storekeeper. "I've seen him. He's hidden away now in an inner room down at the house. The Indians are having a big pow-wow outside. Oh, they'd just murder him if they could get their hands on him once."

Without a word Stephens caught up his saddle and his Winchester and started for the door.

"Where are you off to so quick?" asked Backus, rising also.

"To get my mare," was the answer, "and go straight down there. And you'd best come along, too. You can have that mule."

CHAPTER XII PACIFYING A GHOST

"Say," asked Mr. Backus, as the pair rode out of the pueblo side by side, "how're ye getting on with the silver-mine question? Had any new developments?"

"No," replied the prospector, "I bounced them straight out about it last night, and learned nothing. They just won't open their heads on the subject at all. They simply swear there never was a mine, and I don't believe it's any use to go on working at them."

"And what'll you do next?" queried the storekeeper.

"To tell you the truth," said Stephens simply, "I've not quite made up my mind what I want to do, but I'm much inclined to chuck it up."

"Look at here," interjected Backus, "did ye ever think to try them Navajos? They used to roam all over these mountains in the old days, and they know 'em still just like a book. They know what silver is, too, for you see all their high-u-muck-a-mucks wearing plates of it all over 'em. How about them knowing where the mine is?"

"I doubt it," returned Stephens. "They'd have sold the secret of it to the Mexicans long ago if they had known it."

"They're too suspicious of the Mexicans to do that," said the other; "they don't trust 'em. They'd be afraid they'd cheat 'em; but mebbe they might trust you or me enough to think we'd pay 'em if we promised to."

"They don't trust the Mexicans far, by all accounts," said Stephens, "I allow that much. But say—I want to know more about this fuss between Don Andrés and the Navajo. How was it?"

"Oh," said Backus, "the Navajo came to the sheep camp where Andrés was with his two herders. The Navajo had his squaw along. And he and Andrés got to playing cards by the firelight, and Andrés won all the money he had, six dollars and a half. And then the Injun got mad and swore Andrés had cheated him. And Andrés told him to go to Halifax! And then the Injun got madder, and drawed his butcher-knife and went for Andrés right there. But Andrés was too darn quick for him, and pulled his gun,—he wears a mighty nice pistol, does Andrés, a Smith and Wesson nickel-plated,—and he plugged him just under the heart and laid him out. And then the squaw bawled and ran off into the woods, and Andrés and the two sheep-herders were powerful frightened over what they'd done, and they chucked the body on the camp-fire to burn it up, and they packed their camp outfit and drove the sheep herd that night right away to the Ojo Escondido. But when the squaw got back to the other Injuns and told them, they just naturally knew their best plan was to come down on old man Sanchez at oncet. That's why they're here. They got here this morning, and Andrés come in only a few hours ahead of 'em, about midnight last night."

"Well I'm sorry for Don Nepomuceno," said Stephens.

"And he's tarnation sorry for himself too, you bet," added the Texan. "He's in an awful sweat over his flock of sheep. I never saw a man look sicker. Why, if the Navajos was to run off his sheep it'd bust him wide open. He's liable to have to make the original herd good to old man Baca, you see."

"By George!" returned Stephens, "I don't wonder he's in a sweat. What does he want to see me for, d'you know?"

"Wal'," replied Backus, "he reckons that as an American you might be able to help him some. The Americans are running this Territory now, and the Navajos have darned good reason to know it, and he thinks they'll mind you. I left him and some of his compadres pow-wowing away with them outside the house, but they hadn't come to no conclusion. Pretty Miss Manuelita"—he looked knowingly at the prospector—"was just crying her eyes out over her brother inside. She thinks he'll be killed, sure."

Stephens touched his mare with the spurs. "I'll gallop ahead, I think," he said, raising his reins, "but I'll be obliged to you if you'll bring that mule along quietly and just put him in your stable till I can come round for him. So long." He gave the mare her head, and in a moment she was skimming like a swallow over the gentle undulations of the dusty stretch of the Indian lands. Backus jogged along, watching the mare and her rider grow smaller and smaller in the distance.

"You don't just know what you want yourself," said he, apostrophising his late companion, "but I think I know about what you want, and I'll make it my business, Mr. Stephens, to see that you don't get it." The look in his eye as he spoke was not amiable.

It was not exactly a cheerful sight that greeted the American on his arrival at San Remo. The palaver was in progress, and there against a blank wall outside the Sanchez house squatted eleven very glum-faced Navajos, while on the ground opposite to them in the strong morning light sat Don Nepomuceno and three of his relations who had come to give him their support.

The eleven Indians were the first Navajos Stephens had ever seen, and he eyed them with no little curiosity. "Call these wild Indians?" he felt like saying: "why they look as civilised as the Pueblos." This was because of their dress mainly. They did not have their hair braided in locks with beaver fur like the mountain Utes, or twisted up like any of the plains Indians; each had a bright red kerchief bound turban-wise round his snaky black locks, just like the Pueblo Indians, except that he wore no "chungo," or pigtail, at the back. Neither was their colour as dark as that of the Utes or the Sioux; they were distinctly lighter. "Perhaps living further south they wash more," he thought, "and that may account for it." Then, in lieu of buffalo robes and buckskins they were clad in neat belted tunics and loose cotton breeches, and for a wrap or mantle had gaily striped blankets of their own weaving. "Real tony their blankets are," said he to himself, "and just as pretty as a painted mule." A pinto, or piebald, mule is an extraordinary rarity, and it is quoted in the Far West as the highest standard of picturesque beauty.

No; as far as dress went they did not look like wild Indians at all, at least not like any he had ever seen. But when he came to look at their faces he changed his mind. Not that they were all alike; on the contrary the diversity of types was remarkable. There were lowbrowed, thick-lipped, thick-nosed, heavy-jawed men among them, and there were others with fine aquiline features and regular, well-shaped mouths. But their bold, impudent, cunning eyes betrayed them. One and all they looked thorough rascals. As Stephens ran his eye over them, his acute glance rested on a big, hawk-faced man with a sullen expression, who sat in the middle of them smoking a cigarette with an air of unconcern. His broad leather belt was studded with great bosses of shining silver.

"How," said Stephens, dismounting and looking straight at this Indian whom he took for the chief, but the latter gazed at him stolidly without taking any notice. The Mexican rose and welcomed him warmly.

"Come round with me to the corral, Don Estevan," said Sanchez as he dismounted; "let me put the mare up for you. Pedro, the peon, is keeping the house door. My unlucky boy Andrés is inside. Ah, what a foolish boy to go and gamble with an Indian! The storekeeper will have told you of our trouble."

"Yes," said Stephens, "he told me that the Navajos were demanding your whole flock of sheep."

"Oh, not really," replied the Mexican; "that is, they only threaten to take them if I don't pay. But they positively and actually have the impudence to demand that I should pay them a thousand dollars, silver dollars, for one scrub Indian," he groaned.

"It sounds a good lot," said Stephens reflectively.

"Oh, it's ridiculous," said the disconsolate Mexican. "A thousand dollars for one miserable, low-down Indian. I've offered them a hundred and twenty-five, and that's more than he was worth to them twice over. But they say he belonged to Ankitona's family." He busied himself undoing the latigo strap of the hair cinch.

"But, look here," rejoined the American, to whom this exact appraisement of the value of one "low-down Indian" was a novelty; "according to the way Mr. Backus gave me the story as we rode down, I can't see why you should have to pay anything to them at all. If Don Andrés killed the Indian in self-defence, any court in this country would clear him. Do they deny it? Do they say that he attacked the Indian first?"

"Oh, no," said the Mexican, "you don't understand; his acting in self-defence doesn't make any difference." He spread the saddle blanket over the mare, tying it on with a cord surcingle. "She's hot," he observed, "she'd best have it on till she's cool. No," he repeated, as they turned back to the scene of the palaver, "it isn't a matter where law courts count for anything. Our courts don't ever bind the Navajos. The one thing that does count in our dealings with them is whether we are at peace or at war. Now, if we were at war with them at present they wouldn't come here to ask for pay. No, they'd go straight off and just kill or carry away captive any Mexicans they could catch in revenge. But, you see, we're at peace; so the rule is, if any Mexican kills a Navajo he must pay. They think that if his family don't make the Mexicans pay up for the dead man his ghost will haunt them. Their religion, you see, binds them, if I don't pay, to kill my son, or else maybe me, or some other member of my family; and very likely they'll cut my sheep herd some night and run off a lot of the sheep besides. Oh, I've got to pay." He groaned again.

"Well, Don Nepomuceno," said the American, "I'm real sorry to hear of your ill-luck. I call it a very hard case. If there's anything I can do to help you, you can count on me. All the same, if that Indian came at Don Andrés with a knife I don't myself see what else he could do except shoot, and I ain't the man to blame him for defending himself. Say, now, before we go back to where the Navajos are, you just tell me what you think I can do to be of assistance."

The strictly business footing, so to speak, on which Don Nepomuceno dealt with the subject puzzled the prospector not a little, and he was afraid lest by interfering ignorantly he might only make things worse.

"Well, Don Estevan, these Navajos think a deal of an American's opinion, naturally; so, since you are so kind, I want you to use your influence with them to make them take a more reasonable sum. A thousand dollars is all nonsense. He was quite a poor scrub Indian. He had hardly any sheep of his own, and no pony. They admit that he lived off the richer men of his family, so I say that they're well rid of him. They're really richer without him. He was, among them, like one of the poorest of our peons here. I declare if I gave them fifty dollars for him it would be plenty. But he was one of the family of Ankitona, and he's a very powerful chief, with lots of relations. He's not here himself—not he. He has sent his sister's son though, Mahletonkwa. He's that tall Indian with a hooked nose and the big row of silver plates all round his belt. He's a terribly bad Indian. He boasts that he never surrendered to the Americans,—that they never could take him to the Pecos. I think he's rather afraid of them all the same, though he says he isn't, and swaggers about with his band of desperadoes. But he's quite the worst Navajo going, and there hasn't been a piece of mischief done in the last two years without him and his gang having a hand in it. They're the terror of the whole country. There's another rascal there that's pretty near as bad as he is. That's the one with two feathers in his head-dress—Notalinkwa his name is. He's a villain too."

"I see," answered Stephens; "you want me to talk to this—what do you call him—Mahletonkwa, and tell him that he's got to come down a bit in his price. Do you think that'll do any good?"

The Mexican turned his eager eyes full on Stephens, and laid his hand on his arm. "I think it will," he cried; "you are an American, and all the Navajos think that it's their cue to keep on good terms with the Americans. They are a good deal afraid of them since the time of their defeat in the Cañon de Chelly, when they learned to fear the brave Coronel Christophero Carson and that valiente capitan, Albert Pfeiffer. That was several years ago, and after that they surrendered and were taken away beyond Santa Fé and kept over on the Pecos. They did hate that; they were nearly starved there, and lots of them died, and a good job too. It is only a couple of years now since they have been allowed to come back to their own country. But even those who never were caught and taken to the Pecos heard the story of it, and they, too, fear the Americans. Oh yes, they listen to their agent, Señor Morton, at Cañon Bonito."

"Well, then," exclaimed Stephens, "there's our man. Of course the Indian agent is the proper person to appeal to in a matter of this sort. Shall I tell this Mahletonkwa, then, that the moment he goes to cutting up any didoes on his own hook round here the agent will be down on him like a knife? I'll just inquire what right Mr. Mahletonkwa has got to come here anyhow—yes, or to be off his reservation at all. If Don Andrés had gone on to their reservation and killed a Navajo there, then there might be something to be said for their side of the argument, but if a Navajo comes here among the Mexican sheep herds he's got to abide by the laws of New Mexico, I say."

"Oh, Don Estevan, that's no use," answered the other sadly. "He don't care two reales about the laws. No, you tell him that Señor Morton will make the soldiers come and shoot him if he or any of his family kill my son; make him believe that, if you can, and you'll be doing some good."

"I'll try," said the American doubtfully, "but I hardly expect he'll mind much what I say."

The pair walked round the house to the south side, where the Navajos were sitting, and squatted down on the dry, sandy soil opposite them, alongside of the three Mexicans. Stephens got out his tobacco-bag and passed it round before he filled his own pipe, and began to smoke with calculated deliberation. He had at least learned one lesson, that it is no use to hurry an Indian if you want to do business with him.

Having got his pipe thoroughly alight and returned his tobacco-bag to his pocket, he looked at Mahletonkwa, and said, "You come from Fort Defiance?"

The Agency at Fort Defiance, called by the Mexicans Cañon Bonito, is just over the border line between New Mexico and Arizona, and well in the middle of the Navajo country.

"No," said the Indian briefly; "more this side."

"You got leave from the agent to be off the reservation?" asked Stephens sharply.

The Indian parried this question. "I come from my mother's brother, Ankitona," he said. "He mucho bravo—very angry about this thing." He indicated the killing by Don Andrés.

"Likely enough," said Stephens, "but that's no answer to my question. What I want to know is if you've got leave."

"I don't ask anybody's leave," said Mahletonkwa defiantly. "I'm not the slave of the Americans. I never went to Bosque Redondo." Bosque Redondo was the scene of their captivity over on the Pecos River.

"Indeed!" retorted Stephens; "but, if you hear me talk, it might have been better for you if you had. You might have had a chance to learn how to behave yourself." If this audacious redskin was going to put on any frills with him he proposed to check him up short right at the start.

Mahletonkwa chose to look very surly at this rebuff. Then he repeated his previous assertion. "Ankitona very angry indeed about this."

"And quite right of him too," said Stephens. "He ought to be very angry with your man who went and got himself killed. You've got no right to say it's Don Andrés's fault, if he had to defend himself. The man who drew the knife is to blame."

The Indian dissented by a gesture, but made no verbal reply. Disregarding Sanchez's warning of the futility of this argument, Stephens laboured to prove that killing done in self-defence was nothing more than justifiable homicide. But his words seemed to take no effect on the Indian, who smoked on stolidly till it was evident that all this talk was to no purpose. In an undertone Don Nepomuceno hinted as much.

When at last the Navajo condescended to answer, his view of the affair proved to be very much as the Mexican had prophesied. To him it did not matter three straws, he explained, who struck the first blow or who was to blame for the quarrel. His point was that the family had lost a valuable asset in the shape of a warrior, for which they required a good round sum in compensation, and not only that, but enough to enable them to give their lost relative a number of gifts that would make him comfortable in the next world. He would require a good deal to make him comfortable, too, for not only had he been killed, but he had been sadly disfigured; an undeniable fact, for of course the charred object that had been partly destroyed with fire was a horrid sight. The dead warrior's spirit was exceedingly angry, said Mahletonkwa, and required to be appeased with liberal offerings, and if he wasn't properly mollified he would take it out of his neglectful family by haunting them. Under this spiritual compulsion it was clear that all the family were bound to rise to the situation, he argued. There was no choice left them; they were absolutely bound, by some means or other, to extract satisfaction from the family of the slayer. He was very much in earnest. It wasn't war by any means; no, it was a mere family affair, so to speak. But there it was, and it would have to be arranged.

It took Stephens some time to become convinced that Don Nepomuceno was right, and that the dead man's ghost was at the bottom of it all.

"You see, this is how it is, Don Estevan," said the Mexican, speaking to him aside. "These Navajos have a sort of Purgatory of their own. Heaven forgive me for comparing their heathen superstitions to our holy religion, but I want to make you understand. You know when our friends die we give the proper offerings to the priest to say masses to make their stay in Purgatory shorter. Well, now you have heard Mahletonkwa say that these Indians have their religion, which is all false, of course, only they are obstinate and believe it, and according to that it is necessary for the family to give presents to make the spirits of the dead more happy. And they are very much afraid if they don't do it; oh yes, they are grossly superstitious; but how can I help it? How can I teach them better? These heathens are very expensive to deal with. If he were a Christian it wouldn't cost me half so much, but I don't suppose you could make him see how foolish he is."

He paused, as if a new idea had struck him. "Could you, do you think"—he added eagerly—"could you show him the error of his ways?"

"Jerusalem, no!" cried Stephens, taken considerably aback, "I rather guess not. I'm not a missionary by a long shot. No sir-ee, that's a trade I never had a go at, but I'll tell you what we used to say up in Montana: 'The best missionary is a gain-twist, hair-trigger rifle that will convert a Sioux Indian at three hundred yards every pop.' That's what we said there; but I'll admit that these southern Indians down here are a very different sort of folk. The Sioux were pure, unadulterated savages, but these Navajos seem to be part human. Still, I don't see my way to wading in at Messrs. Mahletonkwa and Co. with a hymn-book." He chuckled to himself at the naïveté of the Mexican's suggestion.

"Yes," said the latter regretfully, "I feared you couldn't do it. After all, to be missionaries is the business of the padres and not of you or me. But I like what you told me about the missionary rifle of the Americans that converts an Indian at three hundred yards. You tell him that; preach that to him; put it strong." He evidently had great faith in the moral influence of the American over the Navajos from the mere fact of his being an American.

"Very well," replied Stephens, with a certain pride of race in the appeal thus made, "I'll see what I can do. Look here, Mahletonkwa," he continued, addressing the chief, "I've heard your talk about this unfortunate incident, and I quite see that you've got reason on your side, looking at it from your point of view. Of course, our point of view is quite different; but we'll waive that for the moment. Very well. Here's Don Nepomuceno making you a very liberal offer of a hundred and twenty-five dollars to settle the matter. Now that's a lot of money; and if you're the wise man I take you for, you'll close with it and accept his offer. That's my advice to you. You'll find it best in the end, much better business than trying to fight the United States soldiers. The soldiers have got repeating rifles, heap-shoot guns, mind you. If you refuse, and go and take the law into your own hands, and attack Don Andrés, or any of his family, you'll smart for it. I give you fair warning. If you touch them I'll have the soldiers sent after you. Captain Pfeiffer aint dead yet. You've heard of him, so don't you make any mistake about that. You hear me talk; and what I say I'll do. My tongue is straight. I have spoken."

His words carried weight and produced some effect, as two of the Navajos at once began to urge something on their chief with great earnestness in their own language, apparently wishing him to comply. Stephens had adopted the crisp, pungent sentences that appeal most to the redskin's taste. But Mahletonkwa was in no hurry to come to terms, and presently replied to Stephens at some length, explaining that the offer was most inadequate. More cash for themselves and gifts for the dead man were indispensable, absolutely indispensable. His terms were still a thousand dollars, neither more nor less.

"I believe that other chap—what d'you call him? Notalinkwa, looks as if he was inclined to vote for taking your offer," said Stephens to Don Nepomuceno. He had been observing the faces of the rest of the Indians very closely while Mahletonkwa was speaking. "Look here. Let's leave him and his friends to argue it out; I'm sure by their looks some of them want him to give way. They'll talk better if we're not by. Come along to the store or somewhere."

"Come into the house," said the Mexican, jumping up; "we can talk better too when we are by ourselves," and he led the way to the great door leading into the patio, now strongly barred and fastened. At the master's summons the peon who was on guard hastened to unbar; the door was partly opened and they slipped in, the master of the house quickly assisting the peon to replace the wooden beams that secured it as soon as they were inside, while Stephens shook hands with Don Andrés, a tall, well-built young Mexican, who would have been very handsome had he not been marked with smallpox.

"How do you do, Don Andrés?" he said heartily. "I'm sorry for this trouble you've got into. However, let's hope it can be fixed up all right."

"It's very unlucky," returned the young Mexican; "I didn't want to kill him, but he would have it. I had to do something to defend my life."

"That's just what I say," assented Stephens; "I was putting it to Mahletonkwa like that just now, only he wouldn't see it. He jumped the track entirely, and went off into a rigmarole about ghosts and such like stuff, where I couldn't follow him, nohow."

"You were an exasperating, foolish boy!" exclaimed Don Nepomuceno testily to his son, as the door-beam was finally wedged into its place. "It's all your fault," he broke out, with vexation and almost despair in his voice. "What I shall do I don't know. You've gone and acted like an idiot. I've told you to stop your gambling a thousand times, and then you must go and gamble with an Indian, a scrub Indian! Yes, an idiot, that's what you are. Come in, Don Estevan, come into the house," and he led the way to the big living-room, Don Andrés following rather sheepishly. Not a word did he venture to say in reply to his angry father's tirade. "Honour thy father" is a commandment that is far from being obsolete in New Mexico. If his father had taken a rod in his wrath and beaten him, this tall young man would have dutifully submitted himself.

"Sit down," said the master of the house hospitably, pointing to the divan; "take a seat here, Don Estevan. Will you have something to eat?"

"Well, thank you, Don Nepomuceno," answered Stephens, "since you are so kind, I think I will, if it isn't too much trouble. The fact is, I came down without my breakfast."

"Ho, there, Juana!" cried the Mexican, running to the door, "and you, my sister! Make haste, set breakfast for the señor. He is hungry. Be quick now." A scurrying of feet was heard in the kitchen at the sound of his commanding voice. "And make him tortillas of wheat flour," his loud tones went on, "hot tortillas with fat, and coffee; see that you make coffee."

He came back and seated himself beside Stephens. "What do you think about it, señor?" he inquired. "What is the best thing to be done?"

"Well, if you ask me my deliberate opinion," said Stephens, leaning back and crossing his left leg over the other with his hands clasped round the knee, "I should say this: It seems to be perfectly clear that these Indians are outside the law; it's no use to appeal to it with them. Now the mail goes by here to-day, noon, towards Santa Fé. I say, write to the governor of the Territory at Santa Fé, and to the general commanding the United States troops there, and tell them about it, and ask their protection. They're bound to give it you. And write to the Navajo Agency at Fort Defiance, and tell the agent there, and ask him to have Mahletonkwa and his band brought back on to the reservation. And I should tell the Indians exactly what I was doing, and warn them once more that they'll certainly have the United States cavalry after them if they don't behave. If that makes them any more inclined to accept your offer of a hundred and twenty-five dollars, why, of course you'll count them out the money and settle it out of hand. I should call a settlement cheap at a hundred and twenty-five dollars cash down. More than that, if I was you, I'd raise my offer a trifle, if I thought I could afford it, so as to meet them. You heard Mahletonkwa say he wanted gifts, some sheep and a pony, to sacrifice for the dead man's ghost. I gather by what you tell me about their religion, that he thinks that if he kills them for him specially, the dear departed can go and corral the ghosts of the pony and sheep in the happy hunting-grounds, and have the full benefit of them there. Now, you must have in your flock some old six-tooth ewes, that likely will never breed another lamb; give him a dozen or two to butcher. And then, couldn't you trade for, or borrow, some old stove-up pony, very cheap, and let him have that, too? That won't ruin you. I take it the Navajos mean to keep your good hard silver dollars for themselves, and they'll religiously send the foundered old sheep and pony ghosts to keep their defunct relative company in the sweet by-and-by." The notion of this ghostly herd tickled his cynical humour mightily.

"Yes, perhaps I might do that," said Sanchez in a saddened voice. To part with any of his cherished flock is like drawing eye-teeth for a Mexican. "I might let them have a few of my oldest ewes; they come in very useful for mutton, but if I must, I must. And my brother-in-law has a handsome pony who is inyerbado; he ate poison-weed over on the Rio Grande a year ago, and has never been any use since. That dead Navajo was a very poor scrub, and it would be more than good enough for him; he ought to be uncommonly grateful for it."

He spoke so feelingly that it really seemed as if he almost half believed in the Purgatory of the Navajos himself. He hesitated and then went on. "But as for the letters, Don Estevan, it's not so easy. For one thing, the governor and the general don't know Spanish; and then, you know, I haven't much English, and I'm not much of a hand at letter-writing anyhow. I couldn't manage the letters."

"Oh, if that's all," returned the other, "I'll write the letters for you willingly enough. Indeed, as I'm an American, it's just possible they may be a trifle more ready to pay attention to them. Yes, and I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll write out an account of the killing of the Navajo for Don Andrés, like an affidavit, and he shall sign it, and then we'll have Mr. Backus witness it and put on the post-office stamp. He's a sort of a United States official, and it may help to make them feel more called upon to take notice of it. That'll come as near to being a regular legal document as anything we can scare up out here. I do like to do everything in correct legal style, when I can. I'm all for law and order every time. That's me."

"Ah, Don Estevan," said the elder Mexican, "it is you that have the clear head. I am very much obliged to you. Your plan is the good one."

"Very well, then," answered Stephens, "I'll just run over to the post-office, and get some paper and envelopes and stamps, and draw up those letters; and as Don Andrés had better not go outside the house before the matter is settled, I'll ask Mr. Backus to step around here in the course of an hour, and bring his post-office stamp with him."

He rose from his seat to go towards the door, but Don Nepomuceno hospitably protested. "Wait till you have had your breakfast first, Don Estevan. It is all ready; here is Manuelita bringing it for you;" and as he spoke the girl entered and set the table for him, as Juana had done on the previous day. She smiled at his greeting, but her eyelids were swollen with crying.

At this moment there came a knocking at the outer door, and the master of the house hastened out to see who it was demanding admittance, and was followed by his son.

"He's all right," said Stephens cheerfully to the girl, as he looked into her anxious eyes. "He's safe enough as long as he stays inside here. They'll none bother him while he's protected by these walls. And I've good hopes that we may be able to bring them to a reasonable settlement, so that he can go about again in perfect safety. Don't you fret yourself over it. We'll make these Navajos sing a proper tune before we've done with them." He spoke with the easy confidence of a man accustomed to deal with serious affairs, and conscious of possessing the ability and the experience for handling them successfully. But he was equally astonished and embarrassed when Manuelita, instead of appearing calmed by his reassuring words, flung her hands over her face and burst into a passion of sobs.

CHAPTER XIII A GIRL'S TEARS

At the girl's outburst Stephens was completely taken aback. Tears, a woman's tears, were a novelty to him, and he felt the quick leap of his heart in response. But it was ten years since he had heard a woman sob, and his practical sympathy, or at least the power of expressing it, had become blunted. He did not know what to say; half a dozen phrases struggled to be born in his throat; he wanted to explain at once to the pretty creature that it was all right; to tell her that there was nothing to cry about; to say there was no use in getting into a fuss over it; that after all a man had to take his chances; and that anyhow the milk wasn't spilt yet; that it would be time enough to begin to cry when something really happened. But he felt the brutal stupidity of such remarks, and they remained unspoken, while there arose in him at the same instant the urgent desire to do something; to take her by the hand like a frightened child; to smooth her ruffled hair and staunch her tears; to console her, and, by some means or other, stay the sobs that shook the slender body. But he had no right to do any such thing, and he hesitated to intrude himself on her grief, which, moreover, appeared to him, like a child's, a trifle exaggerated. To him who had lived so many years on the frontier, a violent death had come to seem almost the natural end. Few pioneers expected to die in their beds. Along the trails and around the mining-camps were many mounds, each one of which marked a six-by-two claim that was the last that the holder would ever occupy, one that he needed no ever-ready Winchester to defend. Nameless graves they were for the most part, or if there slanted at the head some rude board with a name and date roughly scribbled to say who lay beneath, the brief legend that gave all that would ever be known of how he came there repeated with monotonous regularity the tale of misadventure or of wrong. "Shot, stabbed, stripped and mangled by Thugs," "Killed by Indians," "Murdered by road-agents," "Lynched by Vigilantes," "Blown up by dynamite", "Crushed by a fall of rock," "Died of starvation," "Died of thirst," "Died of cold,"—these and such as they were the forms of death with which his Odyssey of toils had made him familiar. Small wonder, then, if he who had lived so long face to face with the possibility of such an end, taking the chances of it freely himself, and seeing them taken as freely by others, now felt as if the young man Don Andrés was a trifle overpitied. He was sorry for him himself, he was trying to help him all he knew, and he was ready to turn out and fight for him at any minute, but he could not see why anybody should want to cry about it. And yet here was this startlingly agitating, insistent noise of a girl sobbing beside him that gripped his heart with an emotion he hardly knew the meaning of.

"Don't you fret yourself," he repeated; "we'll see him through, señorita, never fear."

Instinctively he had risen to his feet and was standing by her; and presently she recovered herself and began to speak, though brokenly at first.

"It is very foolish of me, I know, but I cannot help it. It makes me think how my two uncles were killed by the Indians eight years ago up in the mountain. My grandfather found them both lying dead in the trail; the cruel Navajos had shot them both with arrows from an ambush. My poor grandfather was alone, so he could not carry them down; he had to leave them there, while he came back to San Gabriel for help. He cried so much that he grew blind and could hardly find his way to San Gabriel. And then their bodies were brought down here; I was only a child like Altagracia, but I remember it so well, and indeed this was a house of mourning; and now if they kill my brother too, I don't know what I shall do."

Again Stephens felt the odd sense of surprise at the strength of her feelings. Don Andrés was a fine young fellow enough in his way, but why all this display of emotion because he was now to run rather more risk than usual? Dimly he became conscious that her trouble was due to family affection, and that he himself had forgotten what it was like. His mind fled back to his boyhood, when he and a brother and sister, from whom he had now been long parted, used to play together; memories of that early fondness came back with a curious vividness. A hard crust had formed over the gentler side of his nature during the years of isolation and severance from those natural ties; it seemed ready now to dissolve in a moment at a few tears shed by a girl for a brother's peril. Habituated as he was to hold himself firmly in hand, he was half angry with himself for minding anything so much as he minded her sobs.

"Why, how fond you must be of him!" he remarked crudely; and without his intending it, his secret surprise showed itself in his tone.

"But he is my brother," she returned, and her wet eyes met his half indignantly; "don't you understand that I must care for him very much indeed?"

"Surely yes," he rejoined. "Of course I understand that"; but in his heart came a denial that he did really understand it, or had any right to understand it. "If I had been clubbed to death for witchcraft in the ditch yesterday by those Santiago idiots," he thought, "not one human soul would have cared like this about me." Yes; it was quite true. There was no one now who cared for him in this way, with this warmth of feeling, and there was no one for whom he cared or could care. Thence came a new sense of something lacking in his life; even supposing that all his hopes deferred were to be realised at last, supposing that to-morrow, for instance, he became master of a mine worth a million, who would rejoice? No one, unless it were Rocky, his old pard, who really wasn't a bad-hearted sort of fellow, though he could play the fool at times to such exasperating effect. But now he felt a sudden vacancy in his heart; the need of a comradeship that should be entire, absolute, and inalienable.

"And have you no family, Don Estevan?" she asked; "no brother or sister?"

"Yes," he answered, "I have both, but I haven't seen them in ten years. They are married and settled down away back there in the States; they must have half forgotten me by this time; I was no more than a boy when I started for the West, and I've never been back." And at the recollection his lips parted, and his breast heaved gently. An involuntary sigh escaped him before he knew what it was. The sighing mood had not been much in his line. Manuelita looked at him with a question in her eyes.

"But you love them still?" she said.

"Well, yes," he replied, "I suppose I do, if it comes to that. But it is a long time since I saw them, and much water has run under the bridges between then and now."

"Have the Americans no feelings?" she said; "perhaps it is a good thing for some people to have the heart hard."

"Oh, I guess we've got our feelings right enough," he replied, with an uneasy smile, "but it isn't our way to say much about them; at least, with us, the men don't like to show them. As for the American women, I think they show theirs freely enough; but upon my word it is so long since I have seen any of them that I hardly know. No, señorita, our hearts are not hard."

At this moment, Don Nepomuceno entered, bringing with him one of the three Mexicans who had been sitting with him outside. "Here is my brother-in-law, Don Estevan," he began, "who says that he will gladly let me have the pony that ate poison-weed. He says, too, that the Navajos have gone over to the store, and that he suspects the Texan will sell them whiskey. It is very wrong of him, for whiskey makes them very dangerous."

"It's dead against the law," said Stephens bluntly.

"I know," rejoined the other, "but it is not easy to prove it. But you have eaten no breakfast, my friend. Sit down and have your meal." At the entrance of her father, Manuelita had retired to the kitchen, leaving the sitting-room to the men.

"Thank you," answered Stephens, "I will, then, by your leave"; and he sat down and helped himself, while he continued to discuss with the others the conduct of Mr. Backus and the chances of coming to an arrangement with Mahletonkwa. The conversation went on after he had finished his meal, when the sudden sharp report of a rifle-shot was heard not far away. All stopped and listened; a minute or two later it was followed by a second, and then at pretty regular intervals by a number of others.

"It sounds like somebody practising at a mark," said the American; "do you suppose it's Mr. Backus?" He had risen to his feet and stood intent.

"Who knows?" said his host. "For my part I know not much about this Texan. It may be so; they are unaccountable people." To throw away powder and bullets on practice seemed to him a piece of wanton extravagance.

Stephens caught up his rifle into the hollow of his arm. "I think," said he, "I'll just step across and get that paper and envelopes, and I'll be able to see what they're up to over there as well." The Mexicans accompanied him to the big door, which was carefully unbarred to allow of his departure.

The occasional shots continued as the American walked down towards the stage station, and he presently discerned Mr. Backus and the Navajos in a group behind the store. He went up and joined them. They had set up an empty box against a blank wall, and fastened a piece of white cardboard against it with a nail through the centre, and several black circles in different parts of the cardboard showed where bullets had struck. The Indians were laughing and chaffing one another freely about their shooting; their manner had noticeably altered from the moody and sullen attitude they had exhibited at the pow-wow.

Mahletonkwa came close up to Stephens excitedly.

"Now, then, Don Americano, let's see you take a shot."

Stephens smelt him; there was whiskey in his breath. "Not at present, thank you," said he shortly. "Mr. Backus," and he turned abruptly on the storekeeper, "this Indian has had something to drink. I presume you know it is against the law."

"Well, if he has nobody knows where he got it," said the storekeeper defiantly, "nor nobody need know."

He knew very well himself that there were now two beautiful Navajo blankets rolled up in his store which had not been there an hour ago; also that his stock was diminished to the extent of two bottles of whiskey. The whiskey stood him in exactly one dollar. The pair of Navajo blankets were cheap at ten. Nine hundred per cent. profit was good enough business for any man.

It was a good enough profit, at all events, to tempt Mr. Backus; and it needed to be a good one, for he was not ignorant of the risk that he ran. To give, trade, or sell spirituous liquor to an Indian is a penitentiary offence in the United States. The law is a wise one, and, what is more, is approved by popular feeling. A drunken Indian is about as pleasant to meet with as a mad wolf; he is possessed by a demon that prompts him to fly at the throat of any white man, woman, or child he comes across; and an Indian who has tasted liquor will go any length till he has obtained enough of it to throw him into this horrible frenzy, if he can by any means procure it. Trading whiskey to an Indian is like playing with a tiger. Up to a certain point it is pleasantly exciting. Go one step beyond it and his fangs are in your jugular. Mr. Backus was not a novice at the game; he had been there before. For nine hundred per cent. he would let them have just enough to whet their appetites. Two bottles of whiskey to eleven Indians was about the right dose; while half a dozen would send them crazy, he knew.

"I'm just letting them have a few shots at the mark with my rifle," he continued. "It tickles them to death to shoot with a breech-loader; they aint hardly got any themselves, and it's mighty well worth my while to keep in with them." He winked deliberately. "I've been talking with them, and they know all about this mine upon the Cerro de las Viboras, just as well as those stingy Santiago folks. I believe I'll get 'em to show it me. I tell you I understand Indians, I'm an old hand at dealing with them"; he gave a self-satisfied chuckle.

"I should say that last statement of yours was highly probable," returned the prospector. "Personally, I should have said that with this unsettled difficulty on hand with Don Nepomuceno the very worst thing possible was to let them have any drink, and the next worst was to encourage them to go letting off a gun like this right close to where he lives."

"And why the deuce should I be so cursedly particular about the Don?" replied the storekeeper; "he's an uncommon close-fisted old hunks, if it comes to that; he does most of his trading in Santa Fé anyway, and don't encourage local talent. And I'll warrant you he's got a thumping big hoard of silver dollars buried under the floor somewhere in that old casa of his. I don't see why he shouldn't pay a decent compensation to this Mahletonkwa here." The chance of some of those silver dollars passing from Mahletonkwa's hands over his counter had considerably quickened Mr. Backus's sense of "justice for the poor Indian" in this matter. Also he had had a couple of drinks as well as Mahletonkwa, and they had loosened his tongue a little.

"Well, sir," replied Stephens, "I don't propose to argue the matter with you here, but if you can afford to leave those precious customers of yours I should like to have you come into the store and supply me with some paper and envelopes."

He hated to have to ask this man for anything, but he must procure these things, and there was no other house in San Remo where he could get them. There would not be time before the mail passed to return to the pueblo and get them from his own stock.

At this moment Mahletonkwa fired again with Backus's rifle, and a triumphant exclamation followed the shot. The Indians ran to the target, pointing with pride to a bullet-hole within half an inch of the central nail. Mahletonkwa swaggered up to the American. "Now, you shoot," he exclaimed familiarly, "and show us what you can do."

Stephens had not intended to do anything of the sort. He thought the Indian's familiarity, due to the couple of drinks he had taken, most offensive, and he had meant to leave them to their sport with the least possible delay; but there was something irritating about his swagger that put the American on his mettle. He swung himself half round and took a good look at the target, which stood there in a strong light, beautifully distinct, at some five-and-twenty paces distance.

Up came the rifle to his shoulder; for one instant it remained there, poised level, as he glanced down the sights and got a bead on the centre; "bang!" came the report, and down fell the piece of cardboard. He had driven up the nail.

The Navajos dashed in eagerly to pick up the paper, and were loud in their expression of wonder and admiration. But Mahletonkwa's eyes were still fixed on the Winchester; he came forward and touched it lightly with his hand, and turned with a loud laugh to the others who came crowding round them. Mahletonkwa told them a story in the Navajo language which produced roars of laughter from them all, and Stephens's curiosity was excited.

"What's the joke, Mahletonkwa?" said he. "Why can't you tell it in Spanish so the rest of us may have a chance to join in the fun?" The drinks had made the Indian reckless, and he needed but little urging to repeat the story.

"Once there was a man out in the mountains over yonder," said he, pointing to the west, "and he had a 'heap-shoot' gun like this."

"What sort of a man do you mean?" asked Stephens; "an American?"

The Indian looked at him with eyes that were both bold and cunning. "I didn't ask him," said he; "he was just a man."

"I'll bet he was a lone American prospector," returned Stephens.

The Navajo laughed, and there was insolence in his laugh. "He was alone," he continued, "and the people there got after him——"

"What people do you mean?" asked Stephens; "the Navajos?"

The Indian laughed the same laugh as before.

"Oh, leave him finish," interjected Backus in English. "You can bet he means Navajos. Probably he was there himself."

"The people got after him," repeated the redskin, "and he fired away at them a long time with his 'heap-shoot' gun; but he couldn't do them any harm." An insolent chuckle accompanied this last remark.

"Couldn't he!" rejoined Stephens. "If he was an American prospector, and there's no other sort of man ever went there with a Winchester, I'll bet he laid some of them out."

"And then," continued Mahletonkwa, "one of the people shot him with a common rifle here across the face," he drew his hand across his forehead, "and the blood ran into his eyes and he couldn't see, and the blow of the bullet made him stupid, and then the people went up to him and he was a prisoner. And they took his gun and looked at it with much awe, for they had never seen a 'heap-shoot' gun before. But they did not understand how to make it work. So they gave him some water, and wiped the blood from his face so that he could see, and they asked him to show them the secret of the 'heap-shoot' gun. And he was very happy then, and thought that they were going to make friends with him, so he told them how to work the gun, and showed them how to load it and unload it. And then, when they had found out all they wanted to know about it, one of them took the 'heap-shoot' gun and loaded it just as the Amer— the man had shown them how to do, and pointed it at him and pulled the trigger, and it killed him quite dead." He exploded again in a great roar of laughter, and the rest of the party roared in chorus with equal mirth.

Stephens flushed a dark red, and swore under his breath. "They were a d—d treacherous, sneaking lot of coyotes, that's what they were," he said defiantly to Mahletonkwa, who only laughed the more. "A pretty lot of friends you seem to have been making, Mr. Backus. I wish you joy of them."

The latter looked rather uncomfortable. "It was a low-down, dirty mean trick to play," he said, starting to go towards the store, "but Mahletonkwa aint said as he had any hand in it himself."

"I reckon he was there, though," retorted Stephens, "for it was the sight of my Winchester that set him off to tell it. Rifles like that aint quite as common as blackberries around this country. I wish I knew who that prospector was that they murdered," he added meditatively, as he moved off to the store after Backus; "I'd go and bury him decently, anyway, if I could find the place. I hope he laid out a score of them before they got him, the mean hounds. And that's their idea of a funny story!" He ground his teeth in his anger.

In the store Mr. Backus soon supplied the prospector with writing materials, and promised to bring over the post-office stamp presently to stamp Don Andrés's affidavit. He seemed nervously anxious now to conciliate Stephens, and to rub out, if possible, the bad impression his conduct with regard to the Navajos had left. He fetched round Captain Jinks from the stable with profuse thanks for the loan, and even reclaimed his rifle from the Navajos and put a stop to their target practice on the ground that he could not spare any more cartridges.

"Mahletonkwa," said Stephens, gathering up the lariat of his mule and addressing the chief, "I give you notice that I'm going to have you put back on the reservation. Take my advice and lose no time in accepting Don Nepomuceno's offer."

"I want a thousand dollars," said the Indian doggedly.

"And I very much doubt your getting it," said Stephens, turning on his heel and walking off.

But as the prospector made his way towards the Sanchez house the thought of Manuelita's tears came back to him. After all, what was a thousand dollars? It was a lot of money to be sure, but if it would guarantee young Andrés's safety, and put an end to her anxiety, it might be worth while to part with it. The brutal laughter of the Indians over the cruel deception they had so cunningly practised on the wounded American who had the ill fortune to fall into their hands had angered him deeply. He had from the first kicked against the idea of paying them anything, but if some blackmail was to be paid to them, he saw no difference in principle between a thousand dollars and a hundred and twenty-five. And it came into his head Rocky had just offered to repay him the thousand dollars he had lent him in Montana. The idea occurred to him, why not pass it on? He might lend it to Don Nepomuceno to pay off the Navajos with, and the Mexican might repay him at his leisure, or pass it on again on a fitting occasion to some other man in a bad strait. Backus's idea of Don Nepomuceno possessing a great hoard of buried silver dollars seemed to him a wild and improbable conjecture, considering what a stew he was in about raising a hundred and twenty-five.

He stabled his mule alongside the mare, and, after knocking, was admitted to the casa with the same precaution as before. A table and ink were set before him, and a full statement of the case written for the benefit of the governor and also of the general at Santa Fé. An affidavit by Don Andrés was duly drawn up in Spanish and English, and according to his promise Mr. Backus arrived with the stamp of the San Remo post-office to stamp it. Stephens sealed up the letters, and accompanied him to the door and put them in his hands to be forwarded.

"Them Indians have gone off down the river a mile, to where there's grass, to let their horses feed, and to eat a bite themselves," said the storekeeper; "and I reckon likely they'll be more amiable when they get back here again later on. Anyways, I hope as they will. I told that Mahletonkwa as he'd orter be reasonable." All the time Backus had been in the house he had fawned on Don Nepomuceno in a way that had made Stephens sick when he remembered how he had called him a "close-fisted old hunks" an hour before, and he watched the storekeeper returning to his own abode with a feeling of absolute disgust.

Turning back into the patio he found himself in the presence of Manuelita, who was crossing it on some errand. As all the doors gave on the patio, it acted, so to speak, as the passage by which everybody went from any one room to any other, except where two or three rooms opened into each other en suite. "Señorita," he said, "one word with you, if I may. It would really make you very happy, it would make your heart quite free of sorrow, if this money were paid and things settled in that way?"

"Oh, Madre de Dios!" she exclaimed, "but can you doubt it for an instant? I would dance for joy"; and her eyes grew brighter on the instant with the thought.

"Very well," answered Stephens cautiously, "I'll see what can be done. I'll promise you to do my best to bring about a peaceful settlement. I can't say more."

He went back into the sitting-room and wrote a third letter to the cashier of the First National Bank at Santa Fé, where he kept a small balance. He asked the cashier to telegraph to Rockyfeller at Denver to say that he, Stephens, was unavoidably detained at Santiago, and to ask Rockyfeller to send the thousand dollars to his account at the Santa Fé bank, and he likewise wrote a cordial answer to Rocky's letter, explaining matters at length. As soon as he had finished these he hastened with them to the post-office. The ambulance which brought the mail from Fort Wingate stood before the door, and a fresh team was being harnessed to it, while Mr. Backus was in the act of bringing out the little San Remo mail-bag, and at sight of Stephens stowed it hastily inside.

For the little San Remo mail-bag was all but empty. The two fat letters Stephens had entrusted to him for the governor and the general were not inside it; their thin papery ashes lay amid the glowing coals of the cedar-wood fire on Mr. Backus's kitchen hearth, and had helped to cook the stage-driver's dinner. The impeccable United States postmaster had opened and read them; decided on the spot that he did not want these Navajos interfered with just at present; and had taken this summary method of blocking the game.

"Here's a couple more letters," exclaimed Stephens, running up. "Can't you put them in?" and he held them out to Backus in total ignorance of his perfidy.

"Bag's sealed up now," said the postmaster officially. "Contrary to U.S. regulations to open it again."

Stephens turned instantly to the mail-driver. "I wish you'd oblige me by posting these for me when you get to Santa Fé. They're stamped all right."

The driver held out his hand for the letters and shoved them carelessly into the pocket of his overcoat.

"Mind you don't forget to post them," repeated Stephens; "they're important." At this instant there came into his mind a thing that he had forgotten, so absorbed had he become in the troubles of the Sanchez family. Some stage-driver had libelled him to Sam Argles, and he had intended to find out who it was. Probably this was the man. "Say," he began, "do you remember driving a man named Sam Argles, a miner from Prescott, over this line a month or two back?"

"Can't say, I'm sure," replied the driver, who was shortening a trace with some difficulty. "You don't suppose as I can remember the names of all the passengers I take?"

"Well, Argles was over this line recently," said Stephens, "and he reports that a driver on it told him something about me."

"Likely he did," said the driver unconcernedly; "like as not, too, 't warn't me. I aint the only driver on this line."

"Then you deny having told him I was a squawman?" said Stephens.

"Dunno nawthin' about it," replied the driver, gathering up the lines and climbing to his perch. "It's no concern of mine." But he avoided meeting Stephens's eye.

"Well, so long," said the latter; "I'm obliged to you about the letters," and without further comment on the matter he started back towards the Sanchez house.

"A d—d highfalutin, tonified cuss he is," said Backus as soon as the prospector was out of earshot. "If you was to drop them letters in the Rio Grande it'd serve him right for bouncing you like that."

"He dursn't say nuthin' to me," said the driver, "or I'd mash his face in a minute. What do I know about his Sam Argleses? I reckon he is a squawman, aint he?"

"Wal', if he aint, what does he live with them Injuns for? That's what I say," said Backus with an evil laugh. "And I think, if I was you," he added, "I'd be apt to have an accident with them letters crossing the Rio Grande."

"There's a chance for it anyway," said the stage-driver; "the river was rising fast day before yesterday, and I judge 't will be booming by now. I've got to rustle around, for I'm going straight across to San Miguel. I can cross there with the mail, anyway. Get up there, mules." He raised the reins, cracked his whip and departed.

CHAPTER XIV A STERN CHASE

Could Felipe but have known what the stage-driver knew, that the rise of the river had begun two days ago, he would never have made the sad mistake of taking the straight route to Ensenada. Alas, now, when he and Josefa reached the spot where the ford should have been, his cry, "Valgame Dios, the river is up," was only too true. As they passed through the grove of cottonwoods they beheld right from their feet to the farther bank, full a half-mile off, a turbid yellow flood, rolling rapidly southward towards Texas and the Gulf, twelve hundred miles away. All autumn and winter long, a broad expanse of dry water-worn pebbles and boulders, and beds of shingle and sand, through which ran half a dozen easily forded streams of clear water, had been all that lay between La Boca on the west bank and Ensenada on the east. During those seasons both horses and waggons, and people on foot by picking their way through the shallows, could cross almost anywhere without wading much above knee-deep. But all autumn and winter long, on the great mountain ranges of Colorado, two hundred miles away to the north where the river had its sources, the snows of successive storms had been piled up deeper and deeper. And now the sun was well past the vernal equinox, and his growing heat had loosened those snows and was sending their cold floods down ten thousand gulches and tributaries to swell the current of the Rio Grande. This takes place every April, and Felipe ought to have thought of it, but he was young and had not yet learned to think of everything. This was a possibility he had forgotten.

"It must have come down in the last two days," he groaned, as he looked hopelessly at the flood. "I know Juan and Miguel passed here only three days ago from Santa Fé, and it was all light then, and now it is like this."

"We are lost," said Josefa. "What shall we do, Felipe?"—even her brave heart succumbing to this unexpected calamity.

"Don't cry, dear heart, don't cry," said he tenderly, taking her in his arms, and lifting her from the horse. "Perhaps there is a boat. I will go and see." He pulled the bridle from the horse's head. "Do you rest here a minute," he said, spreading his blanket for her to rest her weary limbs, "and let him feed here on the green grass, but don't let him drink. I will run back to La Boca and ask." He threw her the rope, and darted back like the wind in the direction of the houses they had lately passed. The unkempt Mexican was milking a cow in the corral as Felipe dashed up breathless. "Where is the boat?" he asked eagerly. "Is it running? Is it this side?"

"The boat?" said the Mexican slowly, going on with his milking. "No, friend. The river only came down like this yesterday. It was high the day before, but we could still ford it up above. It was yesterday it came down big."

The leisurely manner of the man, and the indefiniteness of his reply, were maddening to the excited Indian.

"Yes, but the boat," he almost shouted, "the boat, where is it?"

The Mexican had finished milking his cow, and putting down the milk jar he began to unfasten the rawhide strap with which her hind legs were tied.

"The boat, friend?" said he; "there is no boat here now. Last year Don Leandro had the boat, but she is hauled up, and they say there is a hole in her. Perhaps he will talk of getting it mended after a while. I suppose the Americano at the mail station in Ensenada will be wanting to send the mail across next week."

"Valgame Dios!" cried the boy. "And will there be no way of getting over the river till next week?"

"The water will have run by in a month, or perhaps in three weeks, if God wills it," remarked the Mexican piously; "and then, friend, you can cross without a boat."

"And is there no boat anywhere up or down the river on this side?" exclaimed Felipe. "Is there no way over?"

"There are the Indians at San Miguel, eight leagues below," said the man, proceeding to take down the bars of the corral for the purpose of turning out the cow to pasture. "They have a bridge of single logs to cross on foot by. I do not know if the river will have carried it down. Probably not. They have land on both sides, and are always crossing."

"Eight leagues below!" cried the young Indian in a despairing voice. "And a sandy road from here they say—deep sand, is it not?" He followed the man and the cow outside the corral.

"Yes, friend," said the man, "it is deep sand along the river. But there is a better way: to take the trail to Santiago as far as the Banded Mesa and then turn to the left. So you keep up on the mesas the whole way, and it is better going."

"Thanks, sir; adios," said Felipe; and without waiting for more discourse he tore along back towards Josefa as fast as he could run.

She was lying on the blanket where he had left her, and holding the end of the lariat. Felipe rushed up to the horse and began to bridle him.

"There is no boat, sweetheart," he panted, "but there is a bridge of the Indians at San Miguel. Let us go there. We can leave the horse with the Indians on this side, and get a horse from some of them on the other, and come on to Ensenada that way. Make haste."

Once more he lifted her to the saddle, and springing up behind her turned the horse's head.

"They must be after us long ago," said he wearily, looking at the sun, which was already well up. "I expect they are half-way here by this time. They will be here in a little while."

"My father will have no horse," suggested Josefa, trying to make the best of it.

"Oh, he will take the Americano's. Don Estevan will lend it to him," said Felipe bitterly. "The cacique can take what he wants."

He revolved their position in his mind. If he rode the back trail as far as the Banded Mesa, and there turned off the trail just where it was hard and stony, he would be almost certain to throw the pursuers off the track. But could he reach the Banded Mesa before they got there? That was the question. He considered it well. It was an up-hill road, and the horse, gallantly as he had carried his double burden, was beginning to flag. He doubted whether to try it did not mean running into the very jaws of the lion. It seemed more hopeful to turn out as soon as they were out of sight of the people at La Boca, and go down parallel to the Rio Grande, trusting to the sand, which was here in drifts almost like the seashore, being so loose that no definite trail of theirs could be traced.

On this idea he acted. But no sooner were they in the deep sand than the tired horse could no longer raise the semblance of a gallop. Felipe sprang off and ran on foot, urging the horse on. Relieved of half his load he went better, but even under the most favourable circumstances the deep sand was very heavy going, and their progress was but slow. Thus they struggled on for two weary miles, and Felipe kept uttering words of encouragement to his mistress, whose silence proclaimed her sinking spirits; but all the time his eyes kept turning in the direction of the Santiago trail, for every moment he expected their pursuers to appear.

Suddenly on the brow of the topmost of the low, rolling hills that rose between the Rio Grande and the mesas, his keen sight discerned a black speck, which he knew had not been there a minute before. In the clear air of New Mexico, and over those bare, open downs far-off things are seen with amazing distinctness; but at that distance it was impossible to say for certain what it was. Felipe said nothing of it to Josefa; what was the use of adding unnecessarily to her terrors. He kept his eye vigilantly on the object of his suspicions.

"It is no use to try to hide," said he to himself. "There isn't cover enough among these scattering juniper bushes to hide a sheep. If it is a man he can see us as plain as we do him, and he will know what we are by our actions. If it is a cow or a horse feeding, it will move slowly about; if it is a man riding, he will move straight on in a minute or two, and then I shall know."

His uncertainty did not last long. Before five minutes elapsed the speck moved again, and this time it descended the hill straight towards the fugitives, till it was lost to sight behind the brow of a nearer ridge. There was no longer any doubt left in Felipe's mind.

"Ay de mi!" said he to his mistress, "we are pursued. It is one man only, as far as I can see. It must be your father," and he urged the horse on freshly.

"Run, run, Felipe!" said the girl. "Hide yourself somewhere! He will kill you if he catches us. Never mind me. He won't kill me, you know."

"No, not that! I can't do that!" he cried; but dark despair came over him. His feet seemed like lead as he struggled forward. He looked over his shoulder again. The black speck had reappeared again much closer and much larger; it was a galloping horseman. His last hope fled. "There he comes!" he cried—and he seized the horse's bridle, and, turning him to the left, headed him straight for the Rio Grande, which was but a few hundred yards away.

"What are you doing? Where are you going, Felipe?" exclaimed Josefa, troubled at this sudden change of direction and at the sudden fury of his face.

"Where am I going?" he echoed bitterly. "Don Estevan told me yesterday that I must come to the Rio Grande to find water enough to drown myself, and I am going to see."

They came near the brink of the rushing river. Behind them the galloping horseman was fast closing up the gap that separated them. Felipe recognised his style of riding. "It is your father! see!" he cried in a voice of despair, "but he sha'n't separate us now," and he urged the horse towards the water's edge.

"Oh stop, Felipe, stop! What madness is this?" cried the girl, and she drew rein and pulled up. Felipe seized the bridle, his face aflame with baffled passion.

"Loose the rein!" he cried to her desperately. "Let the horse come on. He will carry you over. I can swim."

"Oh, you are mad!" said she, gazing on the wide rolling flood and the distant shore beyond. "Don't dream of such a thing. We shall both be drowned."

"Well, let us drown, then; we shall be together," he exclaimed passionately. "Give him the rein. Come on. Better that than to be beaten like dogs and separated." As he spoke he looked over his shoulder and saw that Salvador, his face raging with anger, was within a few yards of them. Felipe raised his arm to strike Josefa's horse, and force him to take the desperate plunge into the boiling current.

The desperate plunge was never taken. A shot cracked. Felipe felt a great blow, and his right arm fell powerless to his side. Salvador was close by with a smoking pistol in his hand. Josefa's terrified horse wheeled round and bounded away in terror from the bank of the dreaded river. Salvador dashed in between her and Felipe and fired at him again. Felipe hardly knew if he was hit again or not, but instinctively he ran off some fifty yards and then stopped. Wounded and weaponless, what could he do against the murderous firearm in the hands of the cacique?

"Yes, run, you villain, you scoundrel!" shouted Salvador. "Run, and don't stop within a hundred leagues of me! If ever I catch you near the village again I'll kill you—I will," and he poured forth a torrent of abuse at the wretched youth who stood there on the river's bank the very picture of misery, the blood running down his right arm and dropping from his hand to the ground. Josefa saw him, and overcome with pity and fear for him turned her horse towards him, but the animal, dreading the water, refused to approach it.

Salvador rode up to her and seized her rein. "Ah, traitress, ungrateful, disobedient!" hissed his angry voice. "I'll settle with you for this piece of work, be sure." And leaving Felipe he started away from the river, dragging the horse and its rider after him across the sand-dunes.

The horse followed not unwillingly, but too slowly for Salvador's impatience. He dropped the rein, pulled his horse behind, and striking the other violently with his whip forced him into a gallop. The position was a tempting one to his passion, and the cruel rawhide fell once and again, not on the horse only but also on his rider. The girl uttered no sound and made no resistance, only she bent forward over the animal's neck before the shower of blows. At this pitiful sight her lover gave a great cry of despair and started forward to the rescue, wounded and unarmed as he was. But bleeding, exhausted, and on foot, it was hopeless for him to attempt to overtake the horses. He made one despairing rush with all his failing strength, then he fell headlong and lay senseless on the sand.

CHAPTER XV THE ROD DESCENDS

The cacique made straight for the pueblo, driving his wretched prisoner before him. The poor girl, sick at heart and stupefied with grief and fatigue, picturing to herself Felipe dead of his wounds or drowning himself in his despair, submitted unresistingly to the blows and the reproaches of her father. He was the stronger; how could she resist? She let herself be driven back like a strayed beast of burden over the same leagues of burning mesa and sandy ravine that she had traversed in the coolness of the night under the silence of the stars. Then she had her lover's arms round her and his voice whispering words of love in her ear; now she shrank before bitter curses and the stinging lash. Yet never did she open her lips to utter a word in self-defence or a plea for pardon. Only she kept saying over and over to herself in time to the hoof-beats of the horse, "He may beat me, he may kill me, but Ignacio I won't have." Even sunk in misery as she was, she found a surprising comfort in steeling herself to endure, and swearing to be true to herself and to Felipe.

There is a limit to the staying powers of even the toughest of Indian ponies, and by the time the cacique and his captive had covered half the distance back to Santiago, the horse of the storekeeper which he was mounted upon, and his own which carried his daughter, were both showing painful signs of exhaustion. The cacique, unwilling to run the risk of injuring his own animal, left the trail and made for a spring that he knew of a few miles off to one side, near the foot of the mountains, where they found both water and grass. Here, in a sullen silence, they remained, till long after the sun had set and the weary day ended. The cacique was nursing his wrath till he should have got her safely home again, when he would make an example of her. Not till the Great Bear had sunk well below the pole did they remount their now rested steeds and set out once more for the pueblo; it was grey dawn when they came in sight of it at last, and presently the well-known step-like outline of the terraced roofs of Santiago showed sharp and clear among the peach orchards ahead of them. As they entered its precincts they passed through quite a crowd of onlookers; they had been observed descending from the mesas, and natural curiosity had brought numbers to see the excitement. Poor Josefa dropped her head in shame to escape the hard, inquisitive looks.

They stopped at her father's door. He pulled her roughly from the saddle, pushed her inside, and giving the horses to two of the boys, he entered after her, shut the door, and bolted it. He advanced towards her with glowing eyes. The blows he had given her on the road had only whetted his passion. "Now, you she-devil," said he, "I'll teach you to run away from me."

He flung her to the ground and stood over her. The cruel rawhide descended again and again. The eager crowd outside was squeezing up against the door and the little close-barred lattice window, anxious to see as much as possible of the exciting scene inside. They had no notion of interfering. On the contrary, it seemed to them entirely natural that a father should chastise his disobedient daughter. "If he didn't, who was to?"—that was the way they would have put it.

Among the crowd was Tito. Tito was a friend of Felipe's, and what was a source of curiosity to others was maddening to him. There came into his mind the thought of the American, and he resolved to call him to the rescue.

Stephens, after despatching his letters, as he believed, on the previous day, had returned to the house of Don Nepomuceno. He had done all he could to set the proper authorities in motion, and now, finding that the Navajos had taken themselves off and not returned, so that it was impossible to go on with the negotiations, he took his leave of the Sanchez family and hastened back to the pueblo. The more he thought of the fury the cacique had displayed in the morning, the more uneasy he felt as to what might happen when he should overtake Felipe and Josefa. But when he learnt, on his arrival, that nothing further was known since the cacique had galloped away on their tracks, he settled in his mind that no news was good news, and waited quietly for matters to develop themselves. He rose before dawn the following morning, only to be told once more that nothing had been heard of the fugitives or of the cacique, and he was now busy wiping out his rifle, when there came a hasty knock at the door, and, forgetful of the bulldog, Tito burst headlong into the room. "Oh, Don Estevan!" he exclaimed breathlessly, "Salvador is back, and he is beating his daughter like fury. Perhaps he will kill her."

"The dickens you say!" said the American, dropping his work abruptly and making for the door. "Where's Felipe?"

"I don't know," answered Tito. "He's not there. Perhaps the cacique has killed him."

Tito knew nothing of the sort, but the temptation to deepen the shadows of a harrowing tale is quite irresistible.

"Where are they?" said Stephens, as soon as they were in the open air.

"Here, in his house," cried Tito eagerly, leading the way.

Stephens paused and stood irresolute. "After all, it's none of my funeral," growled he to himself. "I haven't any call to interfere. And I haven't got any weapon on me neither." He turned back to get his pistol, but paused again. "No," he said, "I don't want it. Maybe I sha'n't do anything, and if I do, I'd better go through on my nerve." He knew that an appeal to physical force was idle where the odds were one against a hundred, and that his only chance lay in moral influence.

He followed Tito. It was plain enough where the scene was taking place by the crowd at the door. Stephens went up. The sound of blows was audible from inside, but no cry was heard from the victim. "Where are the chiefs? Where are Tostado and Benito and the rest?" he asked. He would gladly have had the support of the seniors of the village, but they were much too dignified to appear at this performance. The mob consisted of boys, young men, and some of the poorer and less well-thought-of people.

No one answered Stephens's question. He listened; the blows continued. "He can't be allowed to murder her," he cried. "The whole pueblo will get into a row with Government if that happens." He collared two or three boys out of the press. "Here you, Jose, Tomas, Juan Antonio, run and fetch Tostado here and the other chiefs. Say I want them to come."

The boys obeyed him; and the American, squeezing into the gap he had made in the crowd, knocked loudly at the door. There was no answer to the knock, but the blows stopped. He knocked again, calling, "Hullo, Salvador! Hullo there!"

"Look out, Don Estevan," called out some of the boys. "He's furious. Maybe he'll go for you."

He listened for an answer, but none was given. Then came the sound of the whip again. Stephens shouted again, but in vain. He looked round for the chiefs. There was no sign of any of them yet.

"I can't stand this any longer," said he. "Give me room, you fellows." He stood back four or five feet from the door, and raising his right foot dashed it against the lock.

The fastenings were old and the door flew open. He stepped over the threshold and entered. The crowd behind him hung back. In the middle of the floor, full length on her face, lay the form of Josefa. Her arms were bare; she had thrown them up to protect her head, and the marks of the whip were only too visible. She lay perfectly silent and still, a slight quivering of her limbs alone showing that she was alive. The Indian stood across her with his uplifted whip in his hand. He glared fiercely at the American who advanced towards him.

Stephens did not meet the cacique's eye. He was looking down at the prostrate figure on the ground. "So you've brought her back, Salvador," he remarked in an unruffled, every-day voice.

"Yes, I have," he replied brutally; "and I've given her something to keep her from ever running away again."

"It looks like it," said Stephens.

He took one hand out of his pocket, stooped down, and felt her head. "It looks like she'd never run anywhere again," he said.

He did not really believe that she was killed, but he thought it politic to assume so. His position placed him absolutely at the mercy of the Indian; but his voice, his manner, and his action conveyed the assumption that it was absolutely impossible that the Indian should dream of attacking him.

His coolness succeeded. The cacique lowered his whip and stepped back, while Stephens moved the girl's arms gently from her head. They fell limp on the earthen floor.

Stephens had seen some wild doings in Californian mining towns, but he never had seen a woman beaten in his life. Those limp arms sent a queer thrill through him. A sudden fury rose within him, but he mastered it. He felt her head all over slowly and carefully to see if the skull was fractured—as indeed it might well have been had she been struck with the loaded whip-handle. This gave him time to think of his next move.

"If you've killed her, you'll be hanged for it, Salvador," he said at last, in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone. "You and she are not citizens, but you'll be hanged all the same. The law of the Americans reaches here; understand that."

The Indian, whose passion was really more under control than seemed to be the case, was somewhat cowed at Stephens's deliberate statement, but he rejoined sullenly, "She's not dead. Lashes don't kill."