Caravans to Santa Fe

Some of them were buying tobacco at a dollar and a half a plug, and Steven could scarcely credit his eyes when he saw an Indian give a dollar and sixty cents for a pint cup of gunpowder, while for the same measure of steaming coffee he paid nothing at all at Colonel Bent’s, although at any other trading station even the trappers were obliged to pay one dollar and twenty cents for the drink, sweetened.

Steven bought from a young Pueblo Indian who had come up from Taos a beautiful lynx robe, for which he paid in silver. The Indian was delighted with the exchange and naïvely offered additional skins, which Steven refused. He bought also a strange garment made by the Cheyenne squaws of sewed rabbit skins, the only fabric that plains Indians had until the traders came, and for this he gave silver money. “A bad precedent, for a trader,” he was warned.

By the time night fell there had been half a dozen brawls, and when Steven entered the big room of the Fort at dusk he saw his friend Pierre gambling with a slight, sandy-haired trapper in fringed buckskins, a lad not much older than Steve and not nearly so tall or so broad.

“My fr’en’ Kit Carson,” St. Vrain introduced. “I have tol’ you of the trip we take together two year ago. He’s just back from the Picketwire, as these here folks call Le Purgatoire, the River of Los’ Souls.”

The stranger bowed gravely and said with a sad smile, “I’m aimin’ to keep my friend Peer here busy till he gets his fill of playin’; ’cause, if he gambles his nine years’ stake away, isn’t nothin’ will save some one’s getting knifed before mornin’.”

Carson was to guide St. Vrain’s party over the Raton Pass and down to Santa Fe, a ten-day trip, ordinarily. Three mornings later they were off, ascending into a rarer air and a rocky grandeur that filled the boy from New Orleans with a headiness like wine. Carson dropped alongside Steven often and rode beside him, pointing out spots of interest. “Beyond that far peak yonder”—he nodded northwest—“you see that blue shadow? That’s Pike’s Peak. They get you, you know, the mountains,” he added, reflectively, “You can’t never leave ’em, once you’ve known ’em.”

“Kit’s a great lad,” said St. Vrain. “Already he knows every inch o’ the land for a hundred miles; the sources o’ streams, which way they flow; every peak and pass. He’s a fearful fighter, too, lookin’ sweet as a woman, yet he can get along with Indians, even at his age, better than anyone else except William Bent.”

On the third or fourth day they struck Raton Pass, and at that altitude Steve felt a ringing in his ears and an exultation forever to be associated with the grandeur of the country that lay before them as they emerged, and thereafter as they wended their way over hemlock-darkened slopes and saw beyond the bare reaches above timber line the distant jagged structure of snowy peaks. Santa Fe lay below, they told him. The caravan threaded narrow canyons and ascended to high trails from which they could look down into vast valleys in the bottom of which molten quicksilver flowed in narrow ribbons. Across the empty spaces the blue light of the heavens hung motionless, amethystine in the shadow of titanic hills or the eclipse of a far cloud.

Down mountain roads strewn thick with stone and perilous to the feet of oxen the heavy wagons rocked and slid, with locked wheels, through fertile level valleys, and one bright morning they awoke in a land that shone red as an inferno, where earth and rock alike were red, the color of the red man’s skin. The stunted cedar, the cloudless turquoise sky, alone remained familiar to make the stranger know he was still upon this earth.

“Why is it so red?” Steven marveled.

“It’s the blood that’s been shed here,” replied St. Vrain, solemnly, “and the red Indians that’ve lived and died and been buried in this land.”

“Glorieta!” yelled the mule-drivers. “Glorieta!” answered the echoes.

“Santa Fe tonight,” shouted Kit Carson. “Santa Fe! Santa Fe!” The echoes must have carried almost across the hills.

It had been a long while for Consuelo Lopez to await the coming of the caravan from the East. She was not conscious, perhaps, that she was waiting, nevertheless the summer days had passed in an expectancy that held off Don Tiburcio’s wooing. It was an effective barrier. He himself felt that Consuelo was waiting for something. He hoped that it would prove to have been for him.

On this late and golden afternoon of midsummer she sat on a bench in the garden which was Doña Gertrudis’ pride, and smoldered while Manuel gathered little roses for her. Against the adobe wall stood a sentry of hollyhocks, and in a wide bed each side the path rioted zinnia, in all the extravagant colors with which God has pigmented a richly mineral soil. Geranium and bougainvillea rioted against the “Madonna” blue of the doorway, and honeysuckle vied with Mexican pinks—“clavelitas”—that most winsome, exquisite, and spicy fragrance.

Consuelo herself was dressed for a garden. Don Tiburcio’s bales had yielded this yellow pineapple cloth from the West Indies, and China had sent the lemon-colored shawl, embroidered in crimson and soft jade. An amber necklace circled her throat, and tremulous pendant amber swung from golden filigree at the lobes of her pretty ears. She seemed like imprisoned sunlight and Don Tiburcio’s heart would have been less than human had it not quickened as he stepped through the blue gate and came toward her, bowing with deep courtliness.

Consuelo has learned within a few weeks to restrain her impatience. The talk is polite, “And your grandmother? I trust she also slept well?” Don Tiburcio concludes his inquiries after the health of the family. At this point Doña Gertrudis must call Manuel within the house and Consuelo and Don Tiburcio are left alone. Consuelo parries for a desperate hour the question in Don Tiburcio’s eyes, with animated talk of Mexico and the far lands of which Don Tiburcio has knowledge. Of the carven stone balconies of the City of Mexico, the music, the brilliant life of the capital.

“In Chihuahua, too, they promenade of a fair evening, señor?”

“Ah yes, señorita. The plaza is most lively. With all the señoritas and matrons promenading in one direction, and the gallants in the opposite direction, many a mirada is thrown from one eye to another in passing.”

“Ah, that is like Spain, is it not?”

“It is. But your country here is more like Spain. The mountains of Spain. When I was a lad I accompanied my grandfather there on a visit to cousins who lived in the mountains, in towns like this.” He swept his hand toward the pine-covered foothills of the Sangre de Cristo.

“But tell me, señorita”—the proud hidalgo’s face became suffused as he leaned above Consuelo, sitting so stiffly upright on her bench under the clematis vine—“when am I to have an answer to the question I asked so many weeks ago?” He stood before her, very fine, a silk scarf thrown over his arm, his silver-buttoned breeches flaring open elegantly from the knee.

Consuelo swayed against the vines, against a tumult of emotions. Why struggle longer? Her lashes drooped; she retreated, yielding.

“Soon the caravans from the East will arrive,” he pressed. “At any moment now they may come, and I, I must not linger, once they are here. I have urgent affairs calling me back.” Fatal words. They aroused at once in a rebel heart the half-stilled desire for life to bring her more, the half-acknowledged wonder as to what that Eastern land might hold for her. She remembered again the thrill of the days when the caravans came. Hesitated, and was lost, to Don Tiburcio at least, wholly for that day.

“La Caravana!” she exclaimed, all glowing animation at once. “How exciting! One would have thought that the Comanches or the Apaches had them all. Why, then, do they delay so, when they are keeping you waiting, señor?” Consuelo’s lashes fluttered disturbingly. Having yielded not an inch, poutingly she dared Don Tiburcio’s gaze. Coqueta! Minx! What was he to think? Did she want him? How much more must her vanity be flattered? Perhaps Don Tiburcio himself was a little bit tired of the waiting. Disconcerted, he said no more for the moment, and was rewarded by an utterly ravishing smile.

Bees droned through the sunlight and a silence like molten honey. Beyond the adobe wall and across the “sakey” at the end of the garden suddenly there rose a shouting that ran through the town. “Aqui vienen los carros. La Caravana! [Here come the wagons. The caravan].”

Don Tiburcio rose quickly to his feet. “Pardon, señorita, I must go to meet them at once. Hasta luego, pues [Till later, then].” He bowed his departure almost unnoticed by Consuelo, for the tumult in her chest. She ran through the house. It was almost deserted, except for old Lupe and for Doña Gertrudis, who had already taken her seat beside the front windows and was peering discreetly, but with avidity, through the blinds. Consuelo flounced across the courtyard, through her own room, and into a room beyond.

It was Felicita’s, and the window there was neither barred nor curtained. A high window, with a tiny railed balcony from which one could see way up or down the street. But it was already filled with Felicita, who found herself pulled down by the skirts, while Consuelo clambered up on a chair and disposed her own person for a fine view in either direction.

Just in time. The dust of the caravan came rolling along to the accompaniment of shouts of greeting, of long whistles. On it came in the late afternoon sun, like a special cloud of gold; and now from the cloud emerged the first wagon, lumbering and swaying behind three teams of great white oxen that to Consuelo’s ravished gaze seemed to snort blood and to be harnessed with gilded leather. Strange, clear-cut voices rang out among the familiar gritos of the arrieros. How they pierced the consciousness! On came the carros, and the laden mules, helter skelter, right down their street. Madrecita mia, what luck! And then all the rest of the caravan melted away into the golden haze of dust, and Consuelo’s gaze was riveted upon one figure on horse, trotting briskly, side-stepping, as though he and his rider had not been ready to die of fatigue an hour before. A blond, hatless Americano, with hair like burnished metal in the sun, and a face—a face! The caravan halted, some difficulty turning in the narrow street ahead, or a jam of mules, and the rider drew up almost beneath her window. He passed a kerchief over his warm brow and lifted his head to look about. His glance traveled toward Consuelo, peering over the funny little crooked balcony. He may have heard the involuntary exclamation that had escaped her.

They gazed straight at one another. Steven thought, “What an uncommonly bewitching face,” and instinctively bowed. “Señorita,” he saluted, “Buenas tardes,” and rode on, surprised that such a radiant picture should have risen out of the dust to frame itself in the window of a square adobe house. Consuelo saw him pass with a moment of dismay, as though this buckskin-clad young god might be riding on out of her picture—and then, for her eyes were still filled with his smile, saw nothing more, not even the swaying Dearborn wagon that followed close upon the dust of the youthful trader, nor the pale girl who sat on the front seat, tears of relief streaming down her face, a boy held close in her arms.

Consuelo scrambled down from her perch and away to the sala in search of news. Oh, if she could but run out into the street and hear for herself, and see! Bah! What restrictions! Perhaps from the dining room she might catch again a glimpse of them as they turned down the street. She ran into the comedor, bumping full into Luis, who jumped as though a snake had rattled at him, and turned a trifle angrily, setting down the silver pitcher which he held. He recovered at once and, holding his sister at arm’s-length, remarked, pleasantly, fondly: “How lovely we are looking! All ready for the dance tonight, eh! But where so fast?” Ah, so there would be a baile! Enchanting! Consuelo smiled happily and unaffectedly at Luis, grateful as always for a moment of real affection from him.

“Oiga, little sister, listen. Say nothing of having seen me at home after siesta, wilt thou not? I should be at the bodega right now, receiving any new goods. Eh?” She nodded, and he kissed her good-by, hurrying off through the rear of the house.

It was quite dark and late, nearly nine o’clock, before Don Anabel returned from the warehouse with Luis and found Doña Gertrudis fuming and fluttering. The roast was entirely burned up, they would be late to the baile, which was always at ten, and her powder was already pure paste. She fluttered before them into the dining room, where a special effort had been made for the occasion when, she hoped, Consuelo would at last announce to the family what they so much wished to hear. The good Doña Gertrudis adored her daughter, and she was a trifle afraid of her, too, of her youth, her beauty, her wit, though Consuelo’s tongue was always dutiful to her parents. Nor would Don Anabel have tolerated any lack of that obedience and respect which every true Spaniard demands of his children. He would not have forced a marriage that was against his daughter’s heart, yet he was pleased with the idea of this union. But Consuelo made no occasion to tell him that the matter was settled. In the garden, just as crepusculo fell, Don Tiburcio, returning, had found Consuelo and in a moment had his answer clearly, “No.”

Extra candles graced the table, and a silver goblet stiffly crammed with yellow roses. The best leather-backed chairs were placed before six deep silver plates, inside which were laid, on one side the fork, on the other the spoon. Knives were used only in the kitchen or by the hunter on the trail—such vulgarity as carving one’s food at the table was unknown. Don Anabel took his place at the head of the board; Don Tiburcio followed him; Luis slipped in hastily; the ancient abuela, the grandmother who had come up from the country to visit her daughter, was assisted by two servants to a place of honor; and all were seated.

At once all was chattering and conversation so swift that none but the accustomed ear could have understood. Don Anabel’s was not one of those establishments where the women of the family rarely if ever ate with the men. He was a cosmopolite, he averred, as he poured the red grape from the finely chased pitcher and filled the glasses for the second, or was it the third, time? Consuelo drained her goblet, but ate little. The harmless vintage deepened the color in her cheeks, brought an extra sparkle to her eyes. At the moment when she was raising the copa in saludes to her grandmother, Roman, the doddering old moso, appeared in the doorway with a tall figure at his back. “Here he is,” mumbled Roman, and retreated just in time to escape Don Anabel’s wrath at the intrusion.

Eating, drinking, and talking paused for the moment while Don Anabel’s family turned to glance politely at the visitor. He stood in the doorway, tall, reddish blond, an Americano. Loutish, dressed in soiled buckskins, a trader, perhaps only a trapper. What did the fellow want? Don Anabel rose haughtily to dispose of this unwelcome intrusion. The visitor was bowing from the waist with rather surprising good form. In excellent Spanish he inquired:

“Don Anabel Lopez? You will pardon the intrusion, I trust. I was shown in by the moso. I was sent by Colonel St. Vrain to inquire if we could obtain further warehouse space from you this evening. He——”

At this point Steven’s eyes were drawn, as though compelled, to the girl seated there in the mellow candlelight. She was looking at him, too. The girl, the same girl, he had seen that afternoon. She lived here, then. His heart quickened at sight of her, and he was not conscious that he stared, that he had not finished his speech. The whole scene bewildered him. After the crudities of the trail, and the primitive life at Bent’s Fort he was unprepared for this luxury, this glowing, beautiful scene. Why, they did not eat from silver dishes even in New Orleans, where there were silver doorknobs in his father’s house.

Don Anabel’s voice came coldly, with finality. “Colonel St. Vrain had better secure space from our amiable Viscarra. I have none available.”

Steven found his tongue. “Colonel St. Vrain said to say to you, señor, that Colonel Viscarra, whom we encountered on the road just outside Santa Fe this afternoon, instructed him to get accommodations from you, stating that he knew you would, at his request, be most happy to—to make them available. Colonel Viscarra said he would not return to Santa Fe for some weeks, perhaps, as he was going down among the Indians of Texas.” At this hint from the jefe politico of Santa Fe, Don Anabel could only bow silent assent. “Very well. If Viscarra wishes it, St. Vrain may use the space which I reserve to be at the jefe’s disposal.” He turned back to the table, but Steven refused the evident dismissal, addressing his unwilling host again.

“Señor, pardon once more if I intrude. But can you tell me aught of one Tiburcio de Garcia? I have some small business with him.”

Don Tiburcio himself rose. He had taken the measure of the youth and now came forward. “Señor, I am Tiburcio Garcia, a sus ordenes.” He looked inquiringly at the young man.

Steven again bowed and said, quietly, “Señor, might I see you later in the evening for a moment?” And lower, “I bear a message for you from Orleans.”

Don Tiburcio’s eyes gleamed, but his reply was inaudible to those at the table. He showed the young man out with every courtesy.

To the bailes of New Spain came young and old, rich and poor, peon, Indian, trapper, and the proudest Castilian blood. A long, low room—one of those in the rear of the Governor’s palace, now inhabited by Colonel Viscarra—with whitewashed walls and few windows, warm and crowded on this gala night of the arrival of the caravan.

The matrons in their black mantillas sat against the wall on one side of the room; the younger women sat beside them or in chattering clusters in the corners, while the young girls preened, and coquetted across the bare floor at the men and boys lounging and smoking on the other side. The music had not yet begun, but the fiddler and the mandolin-player were tuning up, and the guitaro was being lovingly scraped by the blind musician whose magic would set the feet of the town moving to irresistible accompaniment. Ah, that guitar! deep, full as a ’cello, that could weep, and make lovers set their wedding date on the morrow; that turned the knives of trappers to cutting fringes and posies instead of throats and scalp locks, over cards or a girl.

Now, with a tentative last plucking of strings, suddenly it swept full into a valse, rollicking, tender, sensuous. The young men stepped forth on the floor. No introductions were necessary here. It was customary to ask whomsoever one liked. Strangely enough, the formality of Spanish etiquette laid no ban on a dance with a stranger. True, there were those, like Don Anabel Lopez, whose pride would not permit such condescension, especially when it came to Americans.

And now came Ceran St. Vrain, with the men of the caravan in his wake, and at his side a tall youth whose face was suspiciously clean shaven, even flecked with blood here and there. He wore a dark suit that caused even Luis Lopez to pause with interest and to regard with envy, though he flecked the ash from his cigarette disdainfully and folded his arms comfortably over his own scarlet-and-gold bolero, settling a crimson sash more snugly about a trim waist.

The last of the caravaners entered the hall; they spread out, and in the center appeared a girl. Blonde, Santa Maria but she was blonde! like the white gold of a sacred chalice. And her faded blue dress, over which a white silk fringed shawl was thrown, but made her fairer. The girl took her seat beside an elderly woman who had come in with them, and looked about timidly, almost apprehensively, yet with a certain delight. It was the first dance of any kind that Hope Bragdon had ever seen. She would never have dared suggest going, but her father was occupied, Doren was already sleeping safely, and Mrs. Trenour, the only white woman then in the Villa, had persuaded her to come.

“My father will not like it, Mrs. Trenour,” Hope protested, “I have never looked upon dancing, or cards, or any sinfulness. My father does not tolerate it.”

“Is that possible?” Mrs. Trenour had commented, dryly. Perhaps she had her doubts on the matter. “This is different, however. Everyone goes to the bailes in this country. It is the only way you can see everyone. Besides, I’ll tell him you had to accompany me. Haven’t you anything to put over that muslin frock?”

Yes, there was a white shawl of her mother’s in the bottom of her little tin trunk; and she had a right pretty piece of blue moiré ribbon to tie round her hair (it was the ribbon that first caught Consuelo’s eye), in hair that at night was more silvery than gold. A woman, a blonde woman. She had heard of them, but the fairest creature she had seen up till this time was the baby of Anita, who had married the English trapper. Its curls were flaxen yellow, its eyes blue. But no woman remained this white and gold. Consuelo gazed fascinated and a disturbing jealousy arose in her heart. So this creature had come in the caravan with the tall Americano of the ruddy hair. She had traveled with him across the plains. Was she then his sweetheart? His sister, perhaps? No, not that, she knew intuitively.

Don Tiburcio was asking for the valse. She rose in relief and they spun in dizzying circles, faster and faster, at length subsiding with the music for the march about the room. Luis was standing before the Americana’s chair, bowing. Would she promenade? Evidently urged to do so by the older woman, still the girl hung back. Luis retired, flushed with fury at the rebuff. Consuelo’s eyes never left the blond trader except when her back must be turned; even then she was intensely conscious of him. Did he dance? He must dance with her. Steven still stood against the far wall, looking on. Now Consuelo and Don Tiburcio were passing again before the chair of the fair-haired Americana and Don Tiburcio was looking at her, a sidelong glance. Ah, he too had noted the little blonde! As they passed on he bent to Consuelo’s ear, “You are sure, señorita, of your answer?” His voice seemed uncommonly agitated.

“Quite sure, señor,” flashed Consuelo, with unexpected spirit. “Do not molest yourself to ask me again, I pray, or I may accept, and then you will not be able to promenade with the Americanita, either.”

Diablo! What a little temper she had! And what perspicaz! Don Tiburcio stared straight ahead in his amazement and desire to disprove Consuelo’s accusation. What, jealous already of another’s beauty? He had scarcely glanced at the girl. Devil take it how women caught on! Consuelo was leaving him before the promenade had finished. Reaching her seat, she flounced down upon it. Now the American gentleman could come and get her. Consuelo spread her full skirts, adjusted her veil over the high comb, and sat wide-eyed, confident, smiling bright invitation across the floor at Steven Mercer. Now he could come and get her.

Ah, so that was the reason. Don Tiburcio de Garcia had a bit of pride himself. This open flouting did not soothe his vanity. Muy bien! With a deep ironic bow he wheeled, crossed the floor, and stood directly before the Americanita. Like a delicately tinted saint in a niche she was; sweet, remote, white and golden beyond any woman he had ever seen. His attention was one of sheer deference and gallantry. Just as he reached her, however, the girl rose and laid her hand on the arm proffered by Steven Mercer. They moved away. The room was buzzing, for of all the flirtations brewing and sizzling at the baile this double one was the most conspicuous and exciting. Santa Fe was becoming used to the rough advances of the trappers, half-filled with drink, drunk with music and play and the heady response of plump señoritas with flashing eyes and teeth. Yesterday they had faced death on the Trail; tomorrow or next week they would again be claimed by mountain or desert; but tonight was playtime, dangerous playtime. There were always knifings and bull fights before a baile was over. Ceran St. Vrain stood near the door.

“Are you dancing any more?” he asked as Steven and Hope passed.

“Just once. With the Señorita Lopez, I hope,” Steven replied. “Is there anything that you wished?”

“Don’t do it. Don’t do it!” warned St. Vrain in a low voice. “Stay on the safe side. And don’t even promenade with Miss Bragdon any more. Young Lopez is wild. He’d knife you so easy as not. There’ll be trouble before the evening’s over. Remember, we don’t want to land in the carcel.”

A threat was enough to set Steven at defiance. What, not dance with whom he chose! He looked towards the spot where the Señorita Lopez had been sitting; he was sure she would valse with him. But the music had already struck up a wilder note and she had already risen to take the arm of a native gallant. It was a round dance playing. Steven brought Hope to her seat, and as he turned about Consuelo danced past him and stared straight past his nose without a glance of recognition. Don Tiburcio appeared at his elbow at this moment, demanding, after the manner of their world, an introduction to the American señorita. She laid her hand in his and he bowed over it with what English he could muster.

Consuelo, whirling by with her partner again, looked full into Steven’s eyes with an expression that he could not understand. The round dance was forming, swinging up and down the hall. Steven caught a Mexican maiden and swung her, too, planning to catch Consuelo in partners’ change. Consuelo came nearer; another couple to swing, and they would meet. Consuelo’s heart pounded, and her outstretched hand met—that of Manuel—eager, hot, his face came unpleasantly near. Steven had dropped completely out of the dance, and all that could be seen of him was his back, disappearing through the door.

Quivering with rage, Consuelo stood still. Her hands clenched, she could have stamped her feet in fury and hurt. She would bring that American to her feet and tramp on him! But now she was caught up and swung round and round by a jovial partner, and then—the dance went out with the lights. “Some apache emborrachado (some drunken apache),” stormed Doña Gertrudis, “unaccustomed to the entertainment of civilization.” There was roaring and laughter in the darkness, and the music of the drunken fiddler which never stopped.

Outside the dance hall Ceran St. Vrain hurried his party down a side street, halfway along which he pulled back abruptly. By the faint light of the rising moon they could see half a dozen cloaked figures hovering at the corner. St. Vrain pushed open a door and they hurried through a zaguan, out into a cluttered and used corral, thence into the other street. A few moments later they stood within the colonel’s quarters, where Bragdon was waiting for his daughter. The ladies were escorted to their rooms across the courtyard, where they bid them good night.

“A close call,” said St. Vrain. “When the lights go out watch out. Luis Lopez runs the young bloods of this place, and he had his eye on Miss Bragdon. Sorry, but if I hadn’t plucked you out, Steven, my lad, you would have had a nice knife fight on your hands. And I need you to get the ladies home safely, too.”

There was a light knock upon the door at this moment. The colonel laid a hand on the pistol at his hip, and blowing out the candles, stepped to the door, threw back the bolt, and opened it an inch. A solitary tall figure stood outside. It was Don Tiburcio Garcia. At St. Vrain’s word he stepped quickly inside. Steven relit the candle and, the shade being drawn, the three men sat down.

“You departed just in time,” remarked Don Tiburcio, smiling.

“So it seems,” Steven agreed. “The colonel says there was a party lying in wait for us at the corner.”

“Yes,” Don Tiburcio nodded. “I saw them and took two men on the other side in case there was fighting, but our friend here was too adroit for Luis and his men.”

“And the other young lady?” asked Steven.

“Her mother and a duenna escorted her safely home. Nobody would dare molest the Señorita Consuelo, anyway.”

St. Vrain was pleased at this opportunity to talk business with a Mexican gentleman of Don Tiburcio’s wealth and spent an hour smoking and chatting. Then the colonel rose, remembering a mission among his mule-drivers, and Steven and Don Tiburcio were left together.

Don Anabel Lopez was proud of his station in the secure and far-flung territory of New Spain which his forbears had first found and conquered nearly three centuries before his time. He claimed descent straight from a Spanish grandee who had accompanied the expedition of settlement of Juan de Oñate in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Don Anabel felt that the riches of this vast territory belonged rightfully to those who had held it through so many generations for the glory of the Spanish crown, which at last, in this year of grace 1828, had been thrown off through a treaty of independence with her colony, Mexico.

Don Anabel’s sheep grazed over a range of a hundred miles. The unnumbered buffalo were his cattle; his slaves the peons that lived upon the extensive lands granted his grandsires. To Don Anabel’s warehouses the Indians brought the pelts of beaver, lynx, fox, the hides and robes of buffalo and deer. These he exchanged with the great fur-traders of the north at a profit that would have made them wince, had they known that he himself had acquired them for a handful of tawdry merchandise and home-distilled liquors.

Every six months his caravan of burros labored up the Cordilleras from the City of Mexico, bringing all manner of merchandise for the people and for the aristocrats of New Spain. Always there were luxuries brought from Spain and from the far markets of the earth. The Mexican hidalgos prided themselves on having none but imported furniture in their establishments, but Don Anabel considered this an affectation, as it was obviously impossible for the dons of New Mexico.

Don Anabel was proud of living in a way that his Spanish forbears might have lived in that Old Spain which was so like this New Spain. His great adobe hacienda might have been considered only a vast mud house by the European, but it covered nearly an acre of ground. The patio within was fifty feet square, and if the inner walls were whitewashed instead of carved and paneled in fine woods, yet they were hung with brocades and strangely beautiful fabrics now no longer woven, which were made from the silken hair of Peruvian llamas or spun from some flax-like Mexican plant. The carved furniture had a rude and florid beauty that was mediæval, and, like the native Aztec lords of Mexico, the proud Montezumas, Don Anabel’s table was served with dishes of purest silver only.

Don Anabel was feared and respected by his servants, his tenants, and his family. Indulgent in all that made for material comfort, he exacted a deference, not only towards himself as head of the family, but among one another. He was autocrat and despot, and though his courtesy was as exquisite as that of any courtier diplomat of the outside world, his discipline was harsh; cruel even. He had never whipped his children, but had punished Luis, when he was a naughty, wilful, kicking child, in ways that made the lad subservient, secretive. For who would court a bath in the snow in winter merely to practice the dubious virtue of truthfulness? He was stoic, for who would cry when water was poured down his throat till he drowned, strangled, and his screams and throbbing head were drenched to shuddering, smothered sobs.

Perhaps the example of Indian discipline had had its effect on Don Anabel, although towards his small daughter he practiced no such heroic measures. Yet they were not necessary. Fear of her father’s displeasure was sufficient to still one of Consuelo’s tantrums. His solemn entrance upon the scene of biting, scratching, shrieking, spitting, and other infantile atrocities was enough to secure trembling silence, proper behavior, and the obedient reception of oil of the castor bean, or whatever else it was that aroused Consuelo’s displeasure and her violent disgusto.

Doña Gertrudis de Chaves y Lopez was exactly the wife for Don Anabel. Her pansy-like beauty when she had come to the hacienda as a bride of sixteen was never marred by tempests. She bloomed, had eight babies, only two of which lived, and grew fat, all without ever questioning her husband’s authority. In her own domain she grew highly excited on important domestic occasions, such as involved the vast responsibility of perfectly bleached sheets, properly seasoned enchiladas, and claret with the venison if the archbishop came to dinner.

It was thought due to her common origin that she molested herself with such things, and Doña Gertrudis made a great pretense of never stepping within the kitchen—save us, no! For there were those who said that Doña Gertrudis was not of pure Spanish blood; that her grandmother had been Aztecan, descended from an Aztec lord. You could see for yourself that her hair was not fine and wispy like Don Anabel’s, but heavy, coarse, though lustrous. But no breath of that! Doña Gertrudis was most devout and her devotions occupied a large part of her time. She did, indeed, a great deal of secret good, and followed often behind Don Anabel’s visits to his ranchos with a soft touch to smooth the sternly dispensed justice.

If Don Anabel’s word was law within his own home, his influence extended no less outside his estates. His father had been a governor of New Mexico, and Don Anabel’s word carried great weight with the successive jefe politicos of the territory of New Mexico. Chihuahua, the seat of government of this province, of which Santa Fe was the chief city, numbering as it did a thousand souls, was three months’ travel to the south. The capital of Mexico was more than nine hundred leagues to the south. Little did the President of the new republic interfere with the overlordship of the jefe politico of the northern territory. At one time Mexican officials had intervened jealously over the intrusion of venturesome Yankees from beyond the mountains, who came exploring and were followed by trains of fresh traders.

They dared to bring in from eastward the goods that Mexico had always supplied to the farthermost parts of New Spain. The luckless ones had been thrown into prison, had languished in Chihuahua jails for a decade, but as soon as they returned to their northern homes it was but to send more and more pack animals back across the deserts.

Don Anabel himself had from the first resented these intruders bitterly. To him the white men from across the plains were still colonists of the hereditarily hated English. They were thrown into the carcel, hindered in every way, yet still they came! And in the end Don Anabel traded with them, as every one else did. It was to his advantage. He could not afford not to.

On the morning after this last invasion Don Anabel, straight, forbidding, stood in his warehouse, taking stock not only of merchandise, but of things in general. Luis, a trifle nervous, but much quicker than usual to anticipate his father’s moods and requests, stood by with pencil and pad, while the clerks ran hither and thither.

“And ten bolts of the cotton cloth, with but two more of the linen,” concluded Don Anabel. “They are an ill-mannered lot,” he resumed his grievance, “bursting into a gentleman’s house while he is at dinner with his family. Turning the dances into low brawls. El Coronel St. Vrain is the only one with any measure of dignity or discretion.”

“Discreet indeed,” murmured Luis, sarcastically. “We had better hurry if we are to get the best of the goods.”

“And your mother tells me that while she was at the baile another piece of silver disappeared from the cupboard. You remember that the last time a caravan arrived the same thing happened. I’ll shoot the next sneaking ladron I lay my hands on.”

“It is terrible,” assented Luis, unmoved, as he checked over the bolts of cloth. “Well, shall we go on to the trading?”

They left the warehouse in charge of an overseer and walked down the crooked street, crossed the bridge below which the Santa Fe River flowed, a sparkling racing little stream, and after several turns came to the plaza. There in a large bodega the caravaners had set out their goods. In a short while business would begin. Luis’ eyes searched the Americans assembled in the bodega. Colonel St. Vrain, his young friend, Steven Mercer, Bragdon, a small boy who was the brother of the fair-haired girl—ah, the sister had not come, then. Just as well. He would contrive better opportunities to see this disdainful exquisita.

The traders were spreading out their merchandise on the long low tables that served for counters. Several of them were disposing of their goods outside, from the wagons, which were surrounded by Pueblo Indians from Tesuque, above Santa Fe, from Taos, and from the pueblos down upon the Rio Grande. Silver exchanged hands rapidly within the bodega, while outside furs and supple deer hides were bartered for the manufactured articles coveted by the Indians.

Bragdon had already disposed outside of the wagonful of goods which he had acquired on the Trail through the death of the two New England traders. He had earrings, rope, paint, cheap knives and good knives, liquor, and sugar. He had increased the amount of his whisky by diluting a gallon at least one half, and obtaining for the diluted pints a buffalo hide each, or the equivalent in the nearer pelts of the Rockies. The sugar had been amplified by a method all his own and appeared to satisfy the unaccustomed palate of the Indian just as well as the purer product. Bragdon worked quickly and had as quickly retired into the bodega, where he was now ready to dispose of his higher-grade goods.

A line of nankeen trousers was interesting the young men of the town. They sold out rapidly, and the majority were donned at once. Bragdon’s shoes did not meet with approval, however, and Luis scornfully laid down the pair he had been considering when he had discovered that they were neither rights nor lefts, but straight lasts, to be worn on either foot.

“What! These are not de modo. Does he think we know nothing here?” Bragdon was much taken aback, but later was able to convince other purchasers of the advantages of the good old-fashioned shoe that would go on either foot. His snipe toes, Bonapartes, goose-and-ganders, Swiss hunting, were soon disposed of. And then came Bragdon’s prize. He opened a case in which were numerous small boxes. Opening one, he extracted a sliver of wood tipped with a yellow and blue substance. Calling attention to what he was about to do, he struck the small stick upon a wall and immediately it flamed, burning like a tiny taper with a full flame, and emitting a sulphurous odor. Bragdon set the flame to his pipe, puffed in, and lit it; then taking a cigarette from the hand of the astonished Steven, he lit that too before the flame flickered and died out, having consumed the small stick.

“Diablo! What is it?” The Santa Feans went wild.

“Matches,” said Bragdon, “they are called; a new thing, just discovered in England last year. I have with me here some of the very first packet brought into the United States. You will see that they are phosphorescent?” he held up one proudly.

“Fosforo!” shouted some one, and the name stuck. Everyone gathered round to see the miracle. Fire in a minute. No scratching of flintlocks, no need of burning glasses.

“Por mi vida (By my life),” said St. Vrain to Steven, “it is a pity that he could not have produced one of those little boxes that wet night when we could not strike flint or rub a stick to heat a bit of broth for his own young. Sacré!”

The packages went like tortillas, and Bragdon had at length to admit that there were no more. Don Anabel was himself enormously interested, and pleased, too, with this new fancy, though it was his opinion that the things were not in the least practical and would never be of much real use or value.

It was annoying, but he had to pay the tall youth, who was again thrust upon him by St. Vrain, at the rate of four dollars a yard for the two bolts of linen which he decided to take, and in the end he was induced also to buy for his own use and for the use of Doña Gertrudis a piece of cloth, a fine black it was, at twenty dollars the yard. Luis did a good piece of work here in forcing the American down a dollar a yard. This exertion was not at all distasteful to Luis. It appealed to the gaming instinct which every youth of Mexico or New Spain had.

St. Vrain, on the other hand, had been forced that morning to pay thirty dollars apiece for the ten mules which he was taking back to Taos with him, where he and Charles Bent would need them in conducting their branch of the trade that had grown up about Bent’s Fort. Salt at five dollars a load was not difficult to dispose of, although any New Mexican could haul it himself from various places for even less than that amount. St. Vrain showed Steven a pretty little mare which he bought at once for eleven dollars and of which he at once became very fond.

By noon everyone was ready to stop. A good deal remained to be disposed of, and yet an extremely good business had been done. “I do not mind paying thirty dollars for the mules,” St. Vrain confided to Steven, as he locked his warehouse door behind him, “as long as I am not forced to buy back my own mules as those poor chaps did last year. Not four days from La Villa their mules were all stampeded off, nearly three hundred of them, and, having been forced to return to Santa Fe on foot to purchase more, they were offered their own animals and had to buy them back. And they are not nearly so good, either, these mules of New Mexico, as your large Louisiana jackass. Did you notice that Bragdon had six of his mules die in harness just as they reached the end of the Trail?”

“No wonder, with the load he carried and the way he pushed them.”

“Trade is not nearly so good this year as it was last,” St. Vrain considered. “It’s due to such treatment here in Santa Fe and to the terrible ferocity of the Indians. Why, last year there were a hundred wagons to the thirty of this summer. The amount of merchandise brought in and the business done was more than three times as much as for this summer.”

They were walking up the narrow street and Steven now was getting his first real glimpse of Santa Fe. There were no sidewalks and the walls of the houses rose straight from the road. There were occasional glimpses into green patios, and fragrant sprays of deep pink tamarack drooped occasionally over the walls, waving their plumes against a very blue sky. When it wished, the reserve of Old Spain was well housed behind those shuttered windows and crooked little doors. Yet when so disposed it could overflow merrily into the street, or peer intimately from windows through which a hand could thrust to pluck at one’s cloak as he passed, to pick one’s pocket, or to drop a note within the hand.

One may imagine Steven’s surprise to feel a crumpled piece of paper come into contact with his palm. He closed his finger upon the fragment and looked swiftly down. But only the barred shutters of a little blue window were there, and he walked on with scarcely a halt in his stride.

“Indeed!” he replied to the colonel, politely, and answered intelligently upon matters of the trade until they reached the house, where the colonel went to see that lunch was forthcoming at once, before siesta. Then Steven opened his hand and spread out the crumpled paper, half foolishly, half expectantly. Was it from Don Tiburcio de Garcia?

In a fine, painstaking script the note ran thus:

Señor Estevan Mercer: Will you not come below the balcon where first we met yesterday, at the tenth hour tonight? I should esteem it a favor, as I have a word for your safety.

Consuelo Lucero Lopez y Chavez.

Steven was looking for intrigue. But political, not the intrigue of lovely ladies. Still, pleased and puzzled, he revolved the matter in his mind for a moment. Ceran St. Vrain had warned him against girls, this girl in particular. Colonel Bent had warned him against political entanglements. And here he was getting nicely tied up in both, it seemed. For of course he would be beneath the balcon at the stroke of ten. Oh well, time enough yet. Here he was, and he hadn’t done anything, so far. He’d been forced to slight the señorita the night before, and not of his own accord or liking, either. He must make apology for that, in any event. A wonder she would bother about him at all.

Steven’s modesty was not greater than that of the average decent youth, perhaps, yet to tell the truth, as he was unfamiliar with the manners of this new old world, he had not realized that Consuelo was indicating any special favor for him by her actions of the night before. He had seen her twice before that day, and she was smiling at him in pleasant recognition. He had already asked Hope Bragdon to promenade. In New Orleans he had been well schooled in the proper thing to do. Well, at all events, he would be under that balcony at ten.

Had Consuelo been able to know of that decision it would have saved her much suspense. Relegated to her room for the day, she was in disgrace. Yet it was a relief to be there, away from the incessant agitation of Doña Gertrudis’ tongue. Scarcely had the wavering candles been relit in the dance hall the night before when Doña Gertrudis, sweeping her daughter before her, and surrounded by their elderly neighbors and their cousins and their aunts, poured out of the place and down the street, duennas and muchachas, chaperons and girls. While some were frightened and many were elated, they themselves were in reality in no danger. The indignant clatter of Doña Gertrudis’ tongue would have caused every drunken trapper or jovial Spaniard to give her a wide berth. When they had reached their own home she poured out her indignation again to Don Anabel.

Imagine, Consuelo, ungrateful daughter of no consideration, had again this night insulted such a noble gentleman as Don Tiburcio. “Si! I saw with my own eyes.” And moreover, she had smiled openly at the Americano, the very trader who had been at their house that same night. At the first of these charges Don Anabel became very stern and dignified. At the second he flew into a fiery rage.

“I will myself have this young scoundrel thrown into jail,” he stormed.

“But what for, papa?” Consuelo protested, aghast at the storm her behaviour had evoked. No matter. She should keep to her room the whole of the following day and learn better how to conduct herself with her inferiors. And so she had, alternating between regret and fury that the ruddy-haired trader had not danced with her. Shortly before noon the faded and faithful Felicita came tiptoeing in, to report all the news. After recounting the events of the morning’s trading, what her father had bought, and how the father of the blonde girl had made fire with naught but a tiny splinter (and she knew, therefore, that he must indeed be in league with the devil), Felicita’s pock-marked face blanched at this, she whispered, “The caballero, the young gentleman who stopped beneath the balcony yesterday afternoon—your brother Señor Luis, has threatened that if that one does not abandon the white girl he, Don Luis, will attend to the Yanqui’s funeral himself.

“Yes, and even Don Tiburcio, señorita, is enchanted, they say, by the fair-haired American, and followed the merchants to their house last night. Surely there will be trouble for the handsome lad.” Felicita sighed, for, though old at thirty, romance had not departed from her, and when peeping over the window ledge the day before, she had seen the youth stop, look up and smile at her mistress—as who did not—and bid her good afternoon.

Consuelo’s rage against Estevan Mercer, if that was what they called him, melted into a swift flow of concern. How terrible! She had brought all this upon him. This was a pleasanter thought than that he had brought it upon himself or that Luis was merely visiting his wrath upon Steven.

“What will Luis do, Felicita?” Consuelo barely breathed the question.

“He will shoot or knife him, señorita, the first time he catches him out at night.”

“Oh, I must tell Don Estevan! Where is the American now, Felicita? At the warehouse? Good! good! Quick, Felicita! Give me pencil and paper.” Felicita flew; her young mistress was educated, she could write. This was important.

Consuelo wrote, folded a tiny missive, thrust it into Felicita’s hands. “Here, run with it to the house of my aunt Juana on the street leading from the bodega to the house of Doña Katarina. See if you cannot catch him if he passes that way. I must warn him.” She pushed the willing Felicita out the door just as Doña Gertrudis’ step was heard coming in. Consuelo flew to the bed, and when Doña Gertrudis entered was lying with her head pillowed on her arm, fast asleep.

Siesta; and a long afternoon that dragged through hot, golden hours. Later, in the garden, when there was no trading for the day, Don Anabel sat with Don Tiburcio, drinking a bottle of berry wine that had been cooling in the acequia since that morning.

“It is extraordinary, the amount of goods that those Yanquis pulled out of their wagons this morning,” said Don Tiburcio. “It is incredible, actually. I should have judged that a wagon could have carried but half the amount. But it is to our advantage. Both in the quantity of the useful goods that they bring and in the quality. Competition is invariably a great spur to trade, Don Anabel.”

“Perhaps, as you say, this trade with the Yanquis stimulates our business,” Don Anabel conceded, reluctantly, “but it has many other aspects that are undesirable.”

“Yes, it has,” agreed Don Tiburcio, thinking of Steven Mercer and the American girl. Was she in love with her countryman? He thought not. She seemed to be in love with no one. She was a saint, as delicately tinted as plaster, and as cold, perhaps as hard. He was fascinated; caught on the rebound of his emotions. He realized it. Was he always to love the unattainable? Don Anabel was talking on.

“I have never seen such a vast amount of goods produced as from those wagons. They have already taken in a great deal of silver. But there will be sizable duties upon it, so they will not have the clear profit they look for. Instead of repelling this growing trade and discouraging it,” Don Anabel was arguing, “Colonel Viscarra is doing everything to protect the traders. He himself escorted Colonel Bent’s party from the border to the Fort, and but just missed coming back with this caravan. He has dashed off now to put down a border warfare with the Texans and the Crees. Texas has been claiming, as you know, that the southern route of the Santa Fe Trail lies through her territory. She demands the right of arancel, the return-trip duties, instead of Santa Fe.” This seemed to annoy Don Anabel exceedingly, though he’d have admitted no inconsistency in his attitude.

“I think Viscarra has the right policy,” replied Don Tiburcio, suavely. “We shall have to come to rely to a certain extent upon American trade. The old opposition that the traders were sent as spies upon our government has been shown to be without foundation.”

“I do not know,” replied Don Anabel, quickly; “certainly they were looking into the country and the possibilities of trade. La Lande would have gone back, only he found he could prosper here, and as the goods with which he set himself up in business here did not belong to him, but to his employer back on the Missouri River, he would have had to make an accounting had he returned. Pursley—well, we all want to make Pursley’s stay agreeable; or his departure formidable, rather.”

“Don Anabel laughed a frankly cynical laugh. He came here, you may remember, as an emissary. Was one of a thousand men who first crossed our northern Andes, with two thousand animals. In Pursley’s pockets were nuggets of pure gold. He alone knew exactly where he had picked them up. That tale returned across the Trail. But Pursley remains here.

“The question is,” Don Anabel resumed, after a moment’s sipping of his cordial, “to whom does this country belong? To us, the Spaniards who have held it for three centuries, ever since Cabeza de Baca first found it, or to these upstart colonials who have been free from England’s skirts for hardly half a century? Santa Fe is not large. She is remote from Mexico—and its political storms”—Don Tiburcio winced—“and for that very reason little able to withstand a horde of Yanquis coming like bull-headed buffalo over the Trail. The more you kill, the more there are, apparently. Will Mexico fight for us, or is she no longer Spanish? Has she thrown off the traditions of Spain along with the yoke of Spain?”

“I do not know,” Don Tiburcio replied, slowly. “Last winter Mexico expelled all the Cachupines. Every Spanish-born citizen, including the friars, even, and drove out Gomez Pedraza, the first President they had been able to elect constitutionally. That,” he concluded, dryly, “in connection with our treaty of independence of January last year, might be construed as a severing of identity with Spain, and the development of a national identity.”

“National disintegration,” declared Don Anabel. “Mexico was never united until Cortez came. A handful of scattered tribes that even the great Montezuma did not pretend to keep together. Spain’s imprint will never depart, no matter how much you throw off the ‘yoke.’ This whole country is New Spain.”

“Yet one day I think you will find that you, too, will be throwing off Mexico; allegiance is more geographic than of blood. Your capital may be eastward in another century.”

“No,” said Don Anabel, violently. “New Mexico this territory has been since Antonio de Espejo named us in 1583; Santa Fe has been the seat of government since sixteen five, and so shall they always be. Our boundaries began at New Galicia, and extended to New Biscay, and they shall never retreat so far as I can help it.”

“Señor,” replied Don Tiburcio, with frank admiration of the older man in his eyes, “you may be mistaken, but you are admirable, señor.”

Don Tiburcio was relieved not to see Consuelo at dinner that night. Dinner was a quiet affair, with Doña Gertrudis much subdued, Luis abstracted. Don Tiburcio could not like Luis wholly, but there was a certain careless gayety and deference about the boy that was most charming. The family separated immediately after the meal and Don Tiburcio departed up the street where Ceran St. Vrain was lodging; Luis disappeared; and Doña Gertrudis went to see if her poor little Consuelo had eaten her supper, and found her already in bed, so retired herself. Valga-me! it was ten minutes to ten o’clock.

No sooner had her mother departed than Consuelo leaped from her bed, patted the bolster into her own place, pulling the covers up deftly over it. She snatched her shoes from under the bed, flung a white lace scarf over her tumbled hair, and tiptoed through the door at the opposite end of the room, across the room of the sleeping grandmother, into another chamber, unoccupied, and beyond to Felicita’s room. There stood her slave, shivering with excitement, and steadied a chair while Consuelo mounted to the balcon, where she crouched, peering between the crudely turned bars.

A yellow harvest moon was just rising over the Sangre de Cristo. Before long its radiance would flood the quiet street. Now it gave but a slight glow. The street below was empty. Consuelo’s heart thumped so loudly that at first she thought it the beat of a horse’s hoofs on the road. Dios! If he did not come. It would be simply not to be supported! She held her breath in an agony of listening. Not a sound, not a footfall, not a breath stirring. Desperately she peered over the railing. He was there, below the balcon, close to the wall. Imagine!

She rose bravely and leaned over. “Señor, I thank you for coming. I wished to tell you that you are in danger, señor.”

“It does not matter, señorita. It would be worth it to see you.” Was this he, Steven Mercer, talking? Maman would quite approve of his pretty speeches.

“Ah, but not just this moment. I mean all the while, señor, when you may be abroad at night. For that reason I wished to warn you. Do not go unarmed at night, nor to out-of-the-way places by day, I beg of you.” She was pleading so earnestly that Steven looked up in surprise, at once serious.

“Have you heard anyone threatening me, Señorita Lopez?” he asked.

“Oh, I have heard of threats. My brother Luis he threatens because you danced with the fair girl last night and she would not walk with him. He thinks—you are in love with her, señor?——”

“And would it be his affair if I were?” replied Steven, with a trace of asperity. “But I am not, señorita. She is my countrywoman, and I am bound to protect her and be courteous to her. That is all.”

“I am glad for that.” There was no doubting the sighing voice from the balcony, “but that is not all, Señor Estevan. You are American, and must be very discreet here in Santa Fe. It would be awful to have bloodshed. Although I suppose you are used to that.”

“Oh yes, more or less,” replied Steven, modestly. “The mosquitoes on the Trail were frightful. I lost simply quarts to them.”

Consuelo looked startled. Felicita was pulling at her skirts from below. “I must go, señor. I may be discovered.” She was peering over the rail at him, and all he could see was her eyes and nose. A wave of genuine gratitude, of pleasure, of moonlight and youth, swept Steven up to the rail. Pulling himself up on a level with it, he implanted a kiss on the small fingers clutching there. But somehow the kiss landed instead on a nose.

With a little gasp Consuelo dropped out of sight. Steven slipped to the ground, leaped to the dark side of the street, and, for a novice, lost himself very successfully in the shadows just as the moon escaped fully from the mountains.