Raquel of the ranch country

“I wish grass could help itself that way!” She spoke mournfully, for in the past two weeks the last of the small water holes had disappeared. And the big reservoirs were low. Not a breath of wind strong enough to turn the windmill had there been in weeks. And now the little shiny leaves overhead hung motionless.

Jami and Georgie had gone out to drive up the straggling cattle that were coming in for water. Raquel’s forethought in regard to the tank in the grove had proved wise, for quite a pool had survived in the deep shade of the trees.

Now, as she watched, a straggling line of cattle came up the slight incline that set the grove off from the desert, and broke clumsily into a run as they saw the water they had been smelling so long. They plunged down into it, burying heads and shoulders in its heavenly wetness. One old cow was so exhausted that she could not rise from her knees and would have drowned on the spot if Raquel had not shouted for help to pull her out.

That afternoon Raquel rode over south to a windmill, now idle but still dripping a few drops that in the course of hours would fill a small trough. Here stood a line of patient cows licking the drops as fast as they fell.

This had always been one of the best wells. Raquel was miserable as she saw the thirst-tormented creatures waiting there so patiently. Formerly there had been back of the shack near the windmill a small pipe line leading down from one of those tiny springs in a cañoncito above.

Remembering this, Raquel tore up to the spot. She was riding the pinto, who had become her inseparable companion, and who followed at her heels the moment she dismounted. Rummaging under the dead grass and leaves she soon found the end of the pipe, but not a drop oozed from its dust-clogged mouth. It was choked, that was clear.

Climbing up above, Raquel found that under a shelving rock there was moisture. Her groping fingers felt water in the deep crevice, unbelievably cool in its natural rock filter.

It took but a long piece of baling wire and a few minutes to clean the pipe, to join it with another length that reached crookedly down to the trough, and to watch the tiny stream trickle forth—to be sucked into thirsty, heat-caked muzzles, before it fell.

While she waited there was a continual straggling procession of cattle coming up for water. And now one of those piteous tragedies of the cow country passed before Raquel’s eyes.

A drouth-crazed cow came weaving towards the trough. Ten feet away she stopped, lifted her nose to sniff that scent of water, then stumbling a few steps she buried her muzzle in the dust, lapping it feebly, and fell over dead.

It was impossible to keep some one at each trough all the time, Raquel reflected sadly as she rode homeward. Her depression was not only because of the suffering, but because it meant terrific loss to the cattle country. And it meant that the Government’s demand for beef could not be met.

As she rode Raquel’s eyes traveled anxiously over the plains in search of wandering stock. What cattle she saw were making toward water holes, some of them with stumbling calves at their udders, trying to moisten their baby mouths as they followed along. The little pipe line would take care of them, Raquel reflected gratefully, until the boys could bring them into the home corral.

Not more than a mile from the house she came across a big she-mule, tenderly nuzzling a baby burrito, that butted feebly and in vain for its dinner against this barren foster-mother.

“So you stole you a baby, you poor old childless thing, you.”

Raquel dismounted and picked up the fuzzy, rabbit-eared little bundle, weak with hunger. She laid it across her saddle, much to the pinto’s distaste.

“Hey, there, Paintbrush! Slow there, boy. It’s all right.” She vaulted quickly into the saddle and trotted away with the burrito in her arms and the bereaved kidnaper following close behind.

“Any of you boys see this baby’s mother?” Arrived at the home corral Raquel lifted the woolly little creature, that looked like nothing so much as a giant jack rabbit, into Georgie’s arms, and he bore it off to the house to give it warm milk.

As Raquel stepped into the kitchen Mom handed her a letter from Dad. He was proud of the way she had handled the loan.

“And do your best, my girl, to save every head of beef this summer. These soldier boys have greater need of meat now than they’re ever likely to have again.”

June was drawing to a close, a June in which roses had little part; and only the hardiest of flowers bloomed in Mom’s patio.

“Mother Daniels”—things were serious when Raquel spoke so—“I don’t believe we could ship more than eight hundred lean, very lean, feeders, off this range if we tried. So I have a plan. Tell you when I get back.” And she flung off to Red Dog in the car.

“Here comes that Daniels gal,” drawled Red Dog, lounging in his doorway. “I see her in town t’other day.” He bit off a chew of tobacco and looked in at “A. B.,” who leaned against the bar. “A. B.” apparently did not hear.

“She seemed to have a lot o’ business in the bank, depositin’ her profits and the like.” Red Dog thoroughly enjoyed making this communication and was no whit disconcerted that it was received in silence.

“I hear she’s going across the border after stock next....” Still no effect. “You-all don’t seem to have such a lot of business over towards La Bolsa these days as a while back. Ain’t you on good terms with Esquibal no more? I thought he was stockin’—I mean runnin’—La Bolsa.”

A steely gaze bore into Red Dog’s eyes.

“Some folks don’t know when to mind their own business,” remarked “A. B.” with dangerous softness. “Can’t seem to sense when talkin’ ain’t healthy.—But as long as you’re so conversational today you might just add what cattle the Daniels gal aims to buy.”

“Oh, as to that I don’t know nothin’ for sure,” replied Red Dog unperturbed. “All I know is I heard old Don Justino Chaves say that she was the only person could afford to bring over a bunch o’ cattle from Sonora that his primo’s holdin’ down there.”

“That so?” replied the cowman. “Is that so?”

“Now what in th’ name o’ the Gila monster did I go and tell him that for?” regretted Red Dog as he watched “A. B.” swing into his car and move off towards town without so much as a backward glance. “I’ll get myself into trouble yet braggin’ about that little gal.”

Down in town the boss of the Lazy L was just making a request that left the good Mr. Putney aghast.

“But five thousand in currency, my dear child! Money is meant to be kept in banks! Why endanger yourself by taking that much cash with you?”

Raquel waved aside his qualms with such effect that within fifteen minutes she strode out the door of the main bank of La Cruz with the amount she wanted in bills and gold, stowed away in a money belt about her slender waist. Nothing but cash talked in Mexico, she had always heard Dad say.

And so it came about that Raquel, with Georgie as first aid, made ready to set out for the Mexican border on a shimmering, blinding, July day.

They would ride into town. From there they would ship their horses to the border, riding in the box cars with them, for Raquel had determined to take the pinto with her. There might be a lot of riding, she explained. But the truth was she didn’t want Paintbrush to be separated from her, to forget her and all she had taught him.

“We’ll be back inside two or three weeks at the most, so don’t you fret, Mother honey. I had it straight from Don Justino, who has just come up, that his cousin has several thousand head waiting there at his rancho just across the frontera. Don Justino promised him to find purchasers as soon as he got here.

“He says that everything is quiet along the border now, and there’ll be no trouble. It’s only the rich refugees who are worried.

“Gold, American money, is the only thing that counts in Mexico, and I’ll be back with a herd if they’re as Don Justino says. When you get my wire have the boys meet us at the border.”

CHAPTER XIII
ACROSS THE BORDER

It had not been difficult to arrange for passports. The consul in El Paso did that with unusual alacrity when he understood for what purpose the young Americanos desired them.

The rancho for which they were headed was about ten miles from Agua Prieta, a tiny border town. They would go as far as they could by train. Had Raquel not wanted to ride Paintbrush on the expedition the trip could have been much more quickly made by motor.

But how fortunate this apparently impractical desire was to turn out! The pinto stood the trip very well indeed, and came daintily down the runway of the box car at the small tank stop, their last station. Georgie’s pony followed with the air of a veteran traveler.

And so on a hot day in July down the dusty little street that was Agua Prieta (which means dirty water) rode two boys who might easily have passed for natives. They were Raquel and Georgie.

“You boys! What do you want in Mexico?” The dignified but far from clean official who examined passports in an adobe hut eyed them a trifle suspiciously.

“Buy cattle? Very, very good. Muy bien. But you’d better tend to business and get back where you’re going, pronto!” he thrust at them brusquely.

“You leave that to us.” Georgie spoke confidently. Raquel was only a girl after all and her voice would give her away. She had decided to pass for a boy, so to Georgie was delegated the gratifying office of making arrangements as far as possible.

They trotted out of the dusty little town and loped away across the desert with full saddle bags and light hearts. Long alkaline stretches reached before them, stunted palms and huge Spanish daggers sped merrily behind them.

The ranch of Don Martin Amador, cousin of the Don Justino who had arranged the purchase with Raquel, appeared to be a primitive and rough place, a station for native cowpunchers, no more. They came upon it according to directions, as there was no other place in sight for miles and miles. There were two windmills, many fine pens and corrals, but no cattle in sight.

As they rode up to a barbed wire gate no servant was to be seen, and only when they pounded on the bright blue door of the adobe house, did they get any response. Movements, then steps, were heard. The blue door opened and a jovial and intoxicated caballero appeared.

“Don Martin Amador? But, yes. I am Don Martin Amador. You come from Don Justino?” He smiled indulgently. His most estimable primo. What a pity there were no more cattle to sell.

Raquel was aghast. He had no cattle to sell? She put the question incredulously. “But I came only because I was assured by Don Justino that you were waiting here for the purchaser he would send.”

“Si, si. Yes, yes.” The comprador he had sent had arrived three days before and it was already two days now since the cattle, one thousand head, had been driven away, down to the railroad. One could see for oneself the corrals were empty.

“El Americano who bought them, Don Señor Meyers, was a most estimable gentleman, and he had the most estimable whiskey.”

There was no doubt about it. Her father’s enemy had been there first. He had beaten her. He couldn’t have been told about the cattle by Esquibal this time. It must have been by Don Justino himself, in whom she had always believed.

At her evident distress Don Martin felt at once most sympathetic. If they would but wait till his son returned from El Paso, where he had accompanied Don Señor Meyers with the cattle, in order to collect the balance of the money and deposit it in his bank there, his son would escort them to a large rancho to the south where there were hundreds—thousands of head of fine cattle.

“When will that be?” Raquel caught at a ray of hope.

A week, maybe two. Don Martin was comfortably soothing, stretched out again in his chair, with a whiskey at his elbow. One knew how it was with a young man, getting to the city from this so dry rancho. Things to drink, and see, and beautiful ladies.

Georgie rolled his eyes lugubriously, and heaved an eloquent groan.

But Raquel was thinking rapidly. Here they were. Why go back empty handed, if there were other cattle that she could get?

Could not Don Martin direct them himself to the rancho of which he spoke? Their time was limited; they had expected to be back in the city in not more than ten days. Considering that they had had Don Justino’s word of honor as to the cattle, and the disappointment——?

“But, yes,” said Don Martin, “myself, I no longer ride. But I can give directions where easily you will find El Rancho del Desierto (the Ranch of the Desert), where one Faustino Mirabal has upwards of two thousand head of very good cattle.” Twenty leagues from that place, it was. They could not miss it

“Very well, then,” Raquel decided at once.

It occurred to Don Martin to offer his callers some refreshment. He suddenly bellowed forth, and finally from the rear of the casa appeared a very ancient old woman who set about laying a table. A boy came to water their horses and turn them into a corral.

After they had eaten and the disappointment had worn off a bit, Raquel’s spirits rose again. She would not return without cattle. It might take a little longer than she had expected, but she couldn’t be hindered as easily as that. And so she took careful directions—from Don Martin, from the old servant, from the boy.

Again they were in the saddle—steady lope and trot and walk and lope, across burning deserts, cactus covered, with mirages unfolding on the flats before them.

Sundown brought them to a rambling hacienda, where curious, tousled heads and frightened faces peered from a dirty doorway. An old man slept on his haunches against the wall. There was a well in the courtyard, and a pretty girl of eighteen or so brought a brimming olla of cool water. She offered it to the handsome young Señor, first, blushing and casting down her eyes. Such young caballeros did not step often into their desert courtyard.

“El rancho de Faustino Mirabal?” But Señores, this was it. Faustino—he was not there. The cattle? They were scattered on the desert and yonder in those eastern foothills. It would take many, many days, many vaqueros for a rodeo.

What a pity! But the young sir could easily find all the cattle in the world near Nacozari. El Rancho Escondido, the Hidden Ranch, was wealthy, protected, and lay in the hills where there was much pasture.

Raquel had tightened her belt for action. She had no thought of turning back now. El Rancho Escondido or some other rancho, it would be.

“We’ll ride all night, Georgie, after the horses have rested,” she decided. “It’s easier riding in the cool of the night than sleeping on the hot sand, after a day in the sun, and when we stop for breakfast we can rest till afternoon, then push on to Nacozari.”

She turned to uncinch the pinto. The Mexican Señorita came close to her.

“Oiga, Señorito Raquel,” she breathed in a low voice, “listen, young sir, Raquel; do not ride by night; do not ride by the road. Stay here—in the court yard you may rest, and at dawn I will direct you by a short cut through the hills to Nacozari. You will be more rested and it will save time,” she added persuasively, “and——” she hesitated, but at an encouraging smile from Raquel added rapidly, “soldados, young Señores, soldiers; a new army of Mexico forms and, if you do not avoid their path, you will of a certainty be compelled to go with the soldiers who gather secretly between here and Nacozari.

“By tomorrow they will be further south and east,” she added as Raquel and Georgie remained silent, momentarily stunned and uncertain what to do or say, “and the way will be clear again.” She stopped and looked dramatically about, although Raquel and Georgie would have been willing to testify there was no one within twenty miles. Then she closed her lips with an effort and seemed alarmed that she had said so much.

“Muy bien, Señorita; very good then,” Raquel answered, making up her mind at once. “If you will be so kind, we will stop here and leave early in the morning for Nacozari. We have food in our saddle bags, so do not let us trouble you.”

But the girl brought a snowy cloth of drawn work, spread it upon a soap box by the well, and gave them hot frijole beans, and tortillas; and they in return gave the dirty black-eyed little children some dried figs and dates from their supplies.

Dreamless sleep came to them on their folded ponchos; under Raquel’s head her money belt; above, the brilliant stars of those clear skies. At dawn the Mexican girl knelt, shaking them, while the ragged little children and the old man still slept. “Drink, and take these tortillas.” She pressed the thin corn cakes upon them. “I will go with you as far as I can to point the way.”

She led a fuzzy little burro out of a windowless room that opened on the courtyard, and the three went off towards a hill to the south. An hour later they parted, the girl’s directions pointing their route through a pass southward.

Looking backward, it all seemed like a dream to Raquel. It had been a gay ride down to Nacozari that she and Georgie had undertaken that day, through the same kind of country they had grown up in—hundreds of miles of it! Only this was hotter. Then suddenly bursting into Nacozari, the little Mexican town so like a motion picture setting—green plaza, statue in the center, the deep galleried hotel covered with a profusion of scarlet roses. Supper, and cool white beds in cool white rooms, after a chat on the veranda in the dark with some Mexicans lounging there.

“You seek the cattle ranchos?” queried a mine foreman of communicative disposition. (No one else had seemed to know anything about anything.) “A bad time.” Raquel had become used to this attitude. People were constitutionally discouraging down here, it seemed.

“They’re mostly run off into the hills,” continued the foreman, “but there is fine country over there, southeast, and at El Rancho Escondido the old Don Señon Torreon still has more cattle than he can count. Si, Señor.”

For a slight consideration he himself might even ride so far with the young Señores; did they have any American cigars? No? A pity. But for two dollars gold he would be happy to tell them exactly how to reach El Escondido—even take them part way.

With the caution of the rider whose saddle is more valuable than his horse, Raquel and Georgie took their saddles and bags up to their rooms. Raquel went over their light equipment, putting everything in shape for the trip next morning. At the bottom of her bag was a bulky little lump which she found was made by two cans of sterno and a tiny can of powdered coffee. Mom’s contribution! Sterno had always seemed wonderful to her. No wood to tote, no fire to lay.

Raquel smiled. Little need of that. She took the three little tins out, then impulsively put them back.

“They came this far. Let them stay.”

It was after dark when they arrived at the hotel and with the faint dawn they left. No one had noticed them. The old Chinaman who shufflingly served them a good and plentiful breakfast, gave never a second glance to the pretty youth and the younger boy who ate so much and paid so promptly. There were plenty of beautiful boy faces in Mexico, soft-eyed, long-lashed.

So no one questioned them, no one detained them. The conscientious American officials of the great mining company at Nacozari never knew that an American girl had passed right under their noses down into a hornet’s nest of banditry and revolution, nor did Raquel suspect the forces that were already drawing in around her and Georgie.

She loved the increasingly tropical look of the country as they trotted and loped, and walked and cantered, over palm-covered mesas, through palmetto groves by streamlets shrunken with the heat, until they came at dusk upon the approach to El Rancho Escondido.

It was then that the spell of old Mexico fell upon Raquel, wrapping her in romance. Even Georgie was not indifferent to the charm of the picture before them—crumbling walls laden with purple bougainvillea, with creamy roses, caressed by a mellower moonlight than northern nights know.

And that night as she lay in her balconied bedroom, cool linen sheets inviting rest, Raquel went dreamily over the welcome given them by their host, the courtly Don Nestor Torreon. The fine flavor of Spanish courtesy she knew—it was a possession of peon and prince—but this was an aristocrat, who kept here on this isolated estate the customs and manners of other times. The carven table, laden with ancient, hand-hammered silver; the quiet unobtrusive service. There was a servant to every task, it seemed, a thing to which the sturdy young Americans were unaccustomed.

Although there was decay about El Escondido, disrepair and cobwebs, the linen was spotless, the silver shining, the food delicate and delicious. Don Nestor, his fine old head courteously inclined, listened attentively to Raquel’s statement of her mission.

“I have cattle indeed,” he told them, “I do not even know how many. They are scattered in the hills, out of the way of revolution. For two years we have never rounded them up; they have been branded in lots, as they were found. Some were never branded.

“Discounting losses by theft, banditry, accidents, and then taking away ten per cent, I estimate, Señoritos”—he bowed first toward Raquel and then toward Georgie, who swelled with manliness—“I estimate that I have at least thirty-five thousand head of cattle here in Sonora, bearing the brand of El Rancho Escondido.”

Raquel gasped. What a princely possession! And he owned the range. Tomorrow Esteban, his foreman, would ride out with vaqueros to bring in several hundred head. It would take some time, Don Nestor believed, to get together a thousand. They had better wait a bit there and let them collect as many cattle as possible. He would be glad to sell at their price.

Don Nestor had no family, alas! Wealth was nothing to him. How did they plan to drive the cattle out? He had heard that revolutionists were again gathering in Sonora. He was so isolated, he paid little attention.

“One always hears that, Señor,” Raquel replied laughingly, “yet business in Mexico still goes on. I, too, heard rumors as we rode along, yet all was quiet. I think we can drive straight back through the hills the way we came. We will need vaqueros from here. And my brother here is two men himself.”

It was enchanting to rest in the charming old house next day; to listen to Don Nestor’s tales of the past, of Spanish legend, and Aztec lore, and old Mexican tradition, and to hear the natives strumming the guitar and the violin, from hidden court yard and balcony. It was pleasant to feel the lazy, sweet plentifulness of everything.

And then, that night, after the third day, suddenly there were shots. Don Nestor came trembling up the little flight of stairs that gave upon the court yard, knocking at their doors. He was in nightshirt and cap, a candle in his hand.

“Awake,”—they did not need to—“dress, dress, my dear Señorita. But of course I understood from the beginning you were no man!” he exploded irritably. “Bandidos, robbers, revolutionists, already upon us! The infamy! Manuel, the overseer, will ride with you to a refuge in the hills. Pronto, Queeck, Señorita!”

And there was a last glimpse of the old man descending through a trap door into a hidden cellar, carrying baskets of family plate, and a chest of some precious treasure. He refused to leave with them. He could not, he said, ride so far anyway.

The hurried flight from the corral on restless, waiting horses—Raquel was never to forget it. Georgie seized his own horse and Manuel was saddling a mount of Don Nestor’s for Raquel, but already she had a blanket over the pinto, the bit in his mouth and her own saddle in place.

They raced through the gate just as a party of marauders rode up to the front of the hacienda and surrounded the place. They rode breathlessly through the night, up into the foothills over a rocky trail. The heaving horses climbed as only a panic-pushed animal can. There was a short pursuit and shooting but Manuel shook it off by cutting sharply upward into the hills over this unfrequented path.

At last a high road following the top of the mesa was reached. The horses stopped short, breathing violently. Georgie pressed close to his sister’s side.

“Raquel.” Unconsciously he spoke in English, although they had agreed always to speak Spanish in Mexico, for policy’s sake. “Don’t worry. I will never leave your side a moment. I’m responsible for you.”

“Sh-h, Georgie. It was I who brought you down here. I should have looked into conditions more.... It will come out all right.

“Manuel, where are we going?”

“To a little rancho, Señores, about a mile from here. There we can stay till it is safe to return to El Escondido.”

“What barbarities!” Manuel crossed himself piously. “I fear for the shock to the padron.... We’d better travel ahead now.”

“I don’t like him very much,” Georgie said in a low voice.

“Why, Don Nestor trusts him absolutely,” Raquel replied. Now that the shooting had stopped she was seized by a spirit of adventure. Everything always came out all right.

They had reached the deserted house, perched near the edge of a sharp cliff, the height of which could not be seen in the darkness. Manuel motioned them to dismount. He took the horses round to a corral, somewhere in the rear of the house, while Georgie and Raquel went inside.

They chose the larger of the two front rooms, and were about to close and barricade the door behind them, when Manuel returned and quickly stepped inside.

“We’ll sleep here,” Georgie said. There were two cots covered with sheepskin robes, which they could see dimly by starlight. “You can call us if necessary.”

“Don Nestor told me not to leave your sides,” replied Manuel courteously but firmly, “and his orders are never to be disobeyed. I shall lie before the door so that any one who enters must do so over my dead body.” Manuel spread his blanket, and made ready to lie down on the floor.

“And any one who goes out has got to step over your live body, huh?” thought Georgie. Instinctively he drew nearer Raquel. “My brother can protect me, Manuel,” he said craftily. “We don’t want to deprive you of a bed. We’d really feel more comfortable if some one was outside.”

“What is that light over there?” suddenly pointing through the window to a distant hillside, where firelight flared up for a moment, then died down.

Manuel shrugged. “Quien sabe? There are probably sheepmen, vaqueros, even bandits, in these hills.” Without troubling to look, he lay down in his blanket.

Raquel and Georgie lay quietly down side by side. They were both wide awake; could never sleep, they thought. And yet, somehow, after their wild ride, the quiet of the house must have had its effect, for soon both brother and sister lost consciousness.

How long a time had passed as she slept Raquel could not have told. She became conscious of some one fumbling about her. Wrapped in that heavy torpor of first sleep, she could not move. Then hands touched her, crept about her waist. The touch brought her instantly fully awake, but an instinct kept her motionless; the hands felt for the pockets of her money belt.

It was all she could do to keep from springing up, but she still feigned heavy sleep. The figure kneeling beside her rose and, silhouetted for a moment against the dim light outside, slipped through the door. Raquel sat up quickly and drew her little automatic from her boot; then she reached for Georgie beside her.

He was not there. Her groping hands could find no boyish figure by her side. Afraid with a fear such as she had never known before Raquel on her hands and knees tremblingly felt over every inch of the dirt floor. Then, crouching, she made towards the door, her eyes now accustomed to the darkness, and slipped through.

A mad torture possessed her. What had become of Georgie? Had Manuel hurt him? The night was so dark that only instinct could direct one. Even the stars had gone out. Raquel, hugging the walls of the house, moved slowly around towards the corrals—or where she supposed the corrals must be.

But she had completely circled the squalid little building and was back at the front door without having passed any corral.

“Why didn’t I stay in the room?” she thought. “I’ll get back there, and when that beast Manuel returns I’ll shoot at him, frighten him good, or wing him and tie him up. Then I’ll find Georgie.”

Her left hand crept cautiously to the door jamb. A man’s hard hand closed quietly over it. Raquel shot from the hip. She could kill a striking rattlesnake without raising her arm. The shot must have come as a surprise to that sneaking figure in the darkened room. There was a groan; then silence as Raquel again flattened herself against the outside wall.

A momentary fear that she might have “winged” Georgie was quelled by a clear “coo-ee” coming to her out of the darkness, from back on the hillside—the cattle call in Georgie’s unmistakable treble, with that rising inflection at the end.

He was alive then, and near. She hardly dared move, for the chances were that Manuel was simply lying low. She had aimed for his right shoulder—or where it should have been.

Backing away from that hateful house she retreated through the dark in the direction of Georgie’s voice. About fifty feet back on the hillside she ran into the corral. She heard the sound of horses and gave the chirrup with which she always called the pinto. It was a sign for both Georgie and the horse. She was rewarded by having the spotted pony’s nose laid eagerly in her outstretched hand, while another soft “coo-ee-ee” sounded about thirty feet away.

Kneeling above Georgie’s prostrate body Raquel found him bound hand and foot, and only one skilled in the handling of rope could have loosened the lariat in that darkness.

“Oh, what a sock on the head,” groaned Georgie. “He knocked me out while I was asleep, that coyote of a Manuel. Oh, Rakie, are you all right? Feel and see if the money is in my boots yet. Gracias a Dios. We must beat it, Sis.”

“Hush, don’t be a burro!” Raquel scarcely breathed the words as she helped her brother to his feet and towards the corral. On the hillside where they had first noticed a light a flame was now flaring up regularly.

“A signal,” Georgie whispered, close to Raquel’s ear. “Manuel had a small fire here that he put out just before he went back to the house.”

They found their own horses and mounted them. Cautiously Raquel pulled open the corral gate. There was a sudden rush out of the gloom and two men threw themselves simultaneously at the heads of the two horses.

But just as quickly the pinto reared and pawed, then shook himself violently free, while a well directed kick from the toe of Raquel’s boot caught her assailant under the chin, and the two were off in the night, followed by shouts and several shots.

Then all was still except for the thudding hoofs of their own horses. They were given their heads, Georgie’s pony in the lead.

“They’ll be making back for El Escondido,” thought Raquel, as they had headed in that direction, it seemed. But a few moments in the dark convinced her that she was hopelessly confused.

The animals slowed up at last and began a careful descent. It was not very steep but it required careful going, in the pinto’s estimation.

The sky was growing lighter. Suddenly they could see all about them. They had descended into a deep canyon through which ran a clear stream in a sandy bed. The canyon was filled with vegetation—palmetto, scrub oak and the brilliant blossoms of the bird of paradise tree. The horses did not offer to stop until they had reached the stream bed in the bottom of the canyon, out of sight of any one from above.

They dismounted and drank with the horses, which considerately took a little pool down stream. Georgie looked dazed, and pallid under his deep tan.

“Poor Georgie dear,” choked Raquel in swift anxiety. “Tell me, what happened? You look as if you didn’t feel well, dear.”

“He knocked me out, Raquel, while I was asleep. First I knew, I found myself on the hillside all tied up like a calf for the branding, my head splitting—feel this lump—and a bad taste in my mouth. I was scared stiff, knew something was up, and laid low waiting to see what would happen.

“A couple of fellows came up to the corral. Manuel spoke with them. I couldn’t catch it all. But ‘Americanos, ransom, money belt, and muchacha,’ all came in. Then Manuel went back to the house and I passed out again.

“Gee, Rakie, I was scared for you!” Tears came into the eyes of Raquel’s staunch protector. “Then he came back and went over me and didn’t find any money belt at all. I s’pose he had already looked and found you didn’t have the money.

“A boy who had waited for him at the corral came up and they talked. He told the boy that you were a girl, and therefore more valuable, and he was going to keep you there himself. He said he wouldn’t hand you over without better terms.

“Oh, snakes, Rakie, I don’t know how I stood it! And just for a lot of cows——”

“That was pretty bad,” Raquel admitted, “but we’re safe now anyway. Tell me the rest.”

“So then Manuel went back. I heard your automatic, and yelled without waiting. I had to know if it was you, and to let you know I was there all right.”

Georgie was tired with his recital and lay back wearily. He wanted only a drink of water, but Raquel took some figs and tortillas from the saddle bags, and ate them while the horses grazed near by. Georgie slept, but Raquel kept anxious watch.

When he woke later in the morning she explained that she wanted to reconnoiter a bit, and would climb afoot up the canyon. Some time later she returned. “We’re lost, Georgie,” was her report. “But I could find the way back to Escondido by just following up the canyon to the source of the stream, I think. Then when we get past that mesa our sense of direction should locate us. It wouldn’t be safe for a few days yet though.”

Georgie’s reply was a light-headed laugh.

“I shot Manuel four times while you were gone,” he said, “and there he comes again.” He pointed wildly over Raquel’s shoulder. She turned involuntarily, but only the cool green of the palms was there. She took Georgie’s feverish head between her hands. The boy was delirious, quite out of his head.

Of that day and the next Raquel can not think even now without distress. She moved farther down the canyon with the horses and her now unconscious Georgie, for she was afraid of being pursued even to this retreat. The place must be known because of the water here. Yet here they must stay. She could not take Georgie out into the blazing sun, away from the only water and shade of which she was sure. She bathed his face and his body in the cool stream, and laid him on a soft sandy place.

On the second day Georgie, quiet and pale, woke to his senses from a long sleep. He felt perfectly all right, he insisted, and was hungry. Raquel had been expecting this, hoping for it. And she had caught a strange little creature like a possum, and had had a stew simmering in her little pan for several hours.

They drank deeply of the spring water, filled their canteens, then ate the remaining figs. They had decided to make a break for Escondido that night. They would have to have food. The little animal she had caught was the only edible thing that Raquel had seen.

The horses were saddled and they rode up the canyon looking eagerly from side to side in an effort to recognize the trail by which they must have come down into this pretty little valley. But a morning’s search discovered no place where it was possible to ascend. Many an easy slope made a promising beginning, only to end against a cliff or a jumble of insurmountable rock. Shortly after noon they came to the canyon’s end. It was a cul-de-sac, closed by insurmountable cliffs, over which leaped the little stream in a lacy waterfall a hundred feet above their heads. It was discouraging. They must ride out then through the other end of the canyon, where the little stream meandered forth into the desert and was swallowed up by the thirsty sands.

And so night found them, these two young adventurers, making their way over a brilliantly moonlit waste—quite alone—lost on a Mexican desert.

CHAPTER XIV
HIDING

“You find the water for us, pintito mio.” Raquel spoke with an effort at lightness, but in her heart she was praying. There was very little water left in the canteen. Just a warm swallow gurgled when she shook it.

All day, even during that unbearable noon hour when the swifts and the homed toads remain motionless, they had kept moving steadily across the cracked and blistered spaces. They moved as in a dream, but vaguely conscious of their burning shoulders, their pinching stomachs, aware only of great thirstiness. It seemed as if all the moisture were being sucked from their bodies. The dryness was greater than anything they had ever known even in their worst times of drouth.

They had allowed themselves to be led astray by two mirages. Once to their left they had distinctly seen the green line of trees that means a river bed, and had hastened confidently in that direction only to find after an hour that the green had disappeared completely. Then there was a house surrounded by alamos. It vanished before their eyes. Perhaps Paintbrush saw the house too, for he quickened his pace when Raquel turned in that direction, and shied when it seemed to be wiped away from before them, leaving only the ashen white sky.

Again they had seen a windmill. That was in the afternoon. But there could be no windmills here, Raquel knew, so she forcibly kept Georgie from riding towards it. Paintbrush had gone obediently toward the green trees because Raquel had guided him in that direction. That was enough for him. But he reared with impatience when Raquel turned aside after Georgie, to pull him back from seeking windmills. The pinto’s sharp senses gave him no promise of water in that quarter.

And now he pricked up his ears as if he had completely understood Raquel’s words. She threw the reins loose upon the wild horse’s neck. His pace quickened to a smooth amble.

Before them a lavender haze of dust blended desert and sky. The pinto kept straight ahead and, after an hour or more of choking, silent progress, suddenly cactus and maguey became strange new shrubs, an upheaval of distorted rocks appeared, and they were treading their way among bowlders that grew bigger and bigger.

They were in a little canyon. Its floor was sometimes a stream bed and the coarse-grained sand made heavy going. The horses were plodding, the riders dazed with heat and a shimmer of light brighter than any they had ever known.

At length Paintbrush came to a stop in the cool blue shadow of a high rock cliff. He lifted up his head and sniffed with distended nostrils. Looking up Raquel saw that the rock was strangely smooth, like lava, and porous looking. There were curious hollows and holes, and small caves in it.

She slipped from the back of the little wild horse and instinctively, trustfully, shakily went over to the largest of the holes. It was a natural wall fountain, and within it was cool, clear, sweet water. Twelve inches of it in a wide basin!

The horses were waiting obediently, deferentially. Raquel pulled Georgie away from the water and made him lie down between drinks, while she bathed his head and face.

Later on, while the horses grazed on the tufts of sweet grass growing in the crevices of the rock she searched up the canoncito and found plenty of ripened tunas on which birds were already feasting. She knocked the strawberry-red pear to the ground with a stick to avoid those murderous little needles with which the cactus covers even its fruit, and rolled them into her handkerchief.

Georgie was weak but much restored, and grinned cheerfully as he devoured the twelfth prickly pear.

“But somehow my stomach craves solids, Sis,” he admitted.

“Little likelihood of solids, my lad.” Raquel was spreading her blanket for the night.

They slept, and woke, and slept again, through the warm night. The air was light as a feather, dry, sweet, cool enough. It was uneasiness, hunger and fatigue that made them restless. Dawn seemed long in coming, and shortly after they were making their way again up the canyon. Some habitation must be found. One cannot live forever on cactus fruit.

Then, rounding a corner of the strange porous rock, that made the landscape appear like some other planet, they came upon a thread of blue smoke and a delicious smell of cooking food.

There perched on the side of a rock was a tiny house of branches and a little Mexican woman boiling coffee on a small fire before her door and baking tortillas on a sheet of iron over the coals. She was patting more flat corn cakes between her hands as she tended her cooking.

“Buenos dias, Señora.” They cantered up beneath her little house.

“Good day,” she replied incuriously, quite as if strangers dropped down upon her for breakfast just at any time. She did not look up, but went straight on with what she was doing.

“Could—could we get something to eat from you?” There was a faint catch in Raquel’s voice. The smell of food suddenly made her stomach do queer things.

The little old wrinkled woman looked up, and took them in with her glance. Then a veritable chatter of bird talk burst chippering from her. She was for all the world like a little black-and-white woodpecker. But pobrecitos! They were not soldados at all! Nor to be treated like bandidos! Right out of the cradles they were. As pretty as girls. And starving! “Sit here,” and she dusted the earth that it might be cleaner. She placed a soap box between them and produced miraculously from within the house of twigs a spotless square of drawn linen for a cloth.

All the coffee, all the tortillas they wanted, they could have. But beans? Just twelve, or twenty-four for dinner, or thirty-six for la cena. Take instead this pinole, freshly ground. She stirred some white meal into a pan of boiling water and not long afterward offered them tiny portions of the most delicious cereal they had ever tasted.

Before that meal everything else in the world seemed to have drifted far away. But now they sat happy, safe, with rising spirits again, and remembered about everything.

First of all Raquel pulled from within her belt a coin that made the little old lady’s eyes widen almost with fear. She shook her head violently. But no! She wished no pay for food. When Raquel had succeeded in making her understand that she must take the money and that there was more of it where that came from she accepted it with a profusion of thanks.

Good American gold—it would take care of her and her esposo for years! They sat and chatted, while the old Señora smoked many cigarettes. Her man was beyond in the hills with the goats. He had to keep them moving and out of the way of the bandits that had been hereabouts of late. The abandoned creatures had taken all her garden before it was ripe enough even.

The nearest town? It was her birthplace, her home where she lived when this summer home grew too cold. It was eight, ten leguas over there, to the west. But revolutionists occupied Moctezuma now. El Rancho Escondido? She had never heard of it. But then, she had never traveled so far. Only between here and Moctezuma in all her fifty-five years.

Follow the canyon and you would come to the silver mine above, where there were rooms to sleep in and food without a doubt, and where they could take shelter until the soldiers had left Moctezuma.

So they bid the little old bird woman adios. “Go with God,” she called after them.

The rainy season had come in the mountains, and the hillsides were covered with lluvia de oro, rain-of-gold; the ground beneath their feet with lilies and Indian paintbrush, that little red and yellow broom for which the pinto had been named.

The deserted silver mine they found a few miles above: a cluster of buildings at the top of a high round hill, a natural fortification. As they rode past the hacienda several people ran out, two men and a woman.

“De donde viene? From where do you come?”

“We got lost, escaping bandits. We fled at night from El Rancho Escondido. Can you tell us how to get back?” Raquel spoke as one of them and they accepted her as such. The little fellow with reddish hair, and bluish eyes—he was a guerito, blond and somewhat like the Mayordomo’s son.

No, they did not know of such a rancho. But one thing they knew. To avoid the desert one had to return north up the valley of the Moctezuma, and that was now held as far as Nacozari by the revolucionistas and the maytorenistas. Yes, there were plenty of cattle in these hills, if one would round them up. Sell them? But why not? Something for nothing.

The boys had better get down and stay there at the mina for a while until the way was clear. But, yes, get down; though there was little enough to eat, what with bandits and all. Maybe they were bandidos themselves, the woman suggested questioningly. Veritable nenes, babies merely out of the cradle, were so desperate and abandoned nowadays.

Raquel felt queerly sick. Disappointment very nearly brought tears to her eyes. She brushed her smarting lids with the back of her hand, and then, and then——

“It is the heat, pobrecito,” said the kindly old woman, gathering the wilted figure into her arms, while Georgie stood aghast and helpless at this sudden weakness on Raquel’s part. He followed the old woman inside the main building, which was nearly as hot as outdoors.

A corrugated iron roof crackled and sizzled like a stove above them. There on a clean cot with sheets the old woman laid Raquel. She had seen at once that the pretty boy was a girl. She was shocked. What! Riding astride, wearing pantalones! She had heard Gringo girls did that!

“Hush,” whispered Georgie, who by now had recovered his presence of mind. “We are rancheros. My sister came to buy cattle, and when the rancho was attacked by soldiers, we had to get away in the night. Of course we lost our way.

“But we will soon get out,” he added with a confident swagger. “I guess they’re making a fuss about us up there by now. The Mexicans better leave us alone.”

Within the house, the old woman was bathing Raquel’s head, and when she opened her eyes wearily for a moment, the Mexican held to her lips a gourd of some cooling drink. When she had drunk it, she sank back into a heavy slumber which lasted until nightfall. Outside their door, a young Mexican lounged against a post. When no one was looking, he moved his foot and, stooping, picked up a silver coin that he had covered when it fell from Raquel’s pocket. “Froylan,” called a voice; “Froylan.” And he sauntered off.

Georgie led Paintbrush and his pony up to a corral on the mountainside, and gave them grain. Then he returned to sit near the house, and to talk with the men and women. Great tales they told, squatted there on their haunches against the wall—how bandits had come a few days before, and held up the engineer and the manager of the mine, and gone away over the mountains threatening to return in a week and kill all Americanos. They had shot a man because he would not hand them an orange, or allow his granddaughter to kiss them all around.

“How far is it to Moctezuma?” Georgie asked again. About twenty leguas they agreed, and a legua was a bit more than a mile.

Raquel was awakened by the crackling of the iron roof, cooling after sundown. It sounded like a bombardment of rifle bullets. She was weak; never had she felt this way before. Strange! Acting up like a little, old baby! But after supper she was able to sit and listen to the conversation of the group that passed stories there under the stars. Her thoughts were on her own problems, however, and she was miserable at the situation. She was not only further away than ever from getting any cattle into the States—but here they were fleeing bandits.

“No doubt but that we’ll get out safe all right,” she reflected gloomily. “We can hide here as long as necessary. I suppose they’d send out for us eventually. But Mom! She’ll be crazy by this time. Let’s see. It was ten, eleven days yesterday, since we left.

“She’ll think of the Columbus raid and all the stories she ever heard, about Americans being held up and killed. And the truth of it is,” she confessed to herself, “anything is likely to happen.”

Georgie leaned over and whispered. “There are lots of cattle in these mountains. Suppose it’s too far to drive them up to the border?”

“I’m thinking of getting ourselves up to the border just now,” Raquel answered in a low voice. “Whatever happens, Georgie, stick by me close, and should we get separated, we’ll both make for El Escondido. Remember now.”

“Trust me. But we’re safe here. These gente are as friendly as can be. Gee, this is exciting. Why, it’s worse than the Indian days and the cattle country wars, when Dad was a kid. You wouldn’t believe it if you heard it—people hiding and all like this in the mountains.”

“I should think people would believe anything these days, with all the world at war, when no one ever expected it,” Raquel replied bitterly.

The talk of the Mexicans burst upon their attention. “And it was a lad just like this one, a young gringo about the age of this boy.” The Mexican minero nodded toward Raquel. “They stood him up against a sand bank and shot him because he defied them. They thought to hold him for ransom, but when the American troops came over the border they grew frightened, and so killed the poor young one to get rid of him.”

“Well, what can the Americanos expect? They have not recognized Carranza yet? What protection should they look for?” A flaming-eyed sallow fellow spoke up. Georgie’s eyes were popping. He was shivering in the heat of the tropic night.

“Cállate, pendejo viejo. Be still, old fool,” snapped the old mosa, “can’t you see you are frightening the poor lads to death. They are not such as the wild mountain youngsters who join the bandidos before they are yet a dozen years from their mother’s milk.” She drew a protecting arm around Raquel’s shoulders, and rising, motioned her into her own quarters.

Raquel slept in Old Antonina’s house that night, with Georgie on a palm mat beside her. The cook house with its mud roof was cool as a cave and much pleasanter than the iron roofed hacienda. In the early morning Raquel woke to find Antonina sitting beside her cot braiding her long hair, still thick and dark.

“Ah hah!” said the old woman, “you couldn’t deceive me, little one, even though your hair is cropped like a boy’s. Now, why you go about as a youth I do not know, but believe me, Froylan, who sat by the door last night, had his eyes on you.”

She paused significantly. She enjoyed dramatizing life, old Antonina. “And Froylan is a bad one, without conscience, without honor, and without money. Which last is perhaps the most dangerous in this case.”

“What do you mean, Señora?” Raquel asked.

“That you must not stay here, for Froylan will surely try to get ransom money out of you. I don’t trust him. I think he would just as soon be a bandit as a miner—rather!”

“But why should he imagine that he could get any ransom money for me?”

“Grrr,” growled the old woman. “You might deceive these poor country folk, about here. But I have traveled, me. I have been to Douglas, Arizona, and seen the Gringoes; and Froylan has been even to El Paso.”

As they sat at their breakfast of piñole and black coffee a young girl looked in the doorway. She was frankly curious to see the strangers and made conversation which did not in the least deceive the cynical and astute Antonina.

“Soldiers came up to Divisaderos (a small place a few miles below the mine), and took away Don Refugio to shoot him. But he swore he was a Carrancista, and so they spared him. Froylan is so brave,” she said. “He went before dawn up into the mountains to see that bandits have not mutilated or molested his cattle.”

“Hmph,” said Antonina.

But when the girl had left she quickly made a little bundle and, after a casual inspection outside her house, beckoned Raquel and Georgie to follow her. They walked slowly past the hacienda, then strolled in a leisurely way up toward the mine, not speaking.

Turning aside before they reached the main shaft, the old woman ducked into a narrow and villainously rough little canyon. She parted the scrub oak, brushed through the cactus, Georgie and Raquel following, and in a moment they stood within the entrance of an abandoned shaft.

The change in atmosphere was so intense that the young Texans gasped. It was as if a thin, invisible curtain hung over the mouth of the tunnel, dividing the oven heat of the day outside from the cool, dank rush of air coming up from the bowels of the earth.

“This is certainly great.” Georgie had kept silence as long as possible. Antonina shook her head warningly.

“Talk low. They can not find you here. Only one or two have known of the old workings of the mine. And my fine Froylan is not one of them. It is as I suspected. He flew forth before daylight to find some desperado or other to come and capture you.”

“How do you know that is what he went for?”

Antonina ignored the question with a disdainful wave of the hand.

“But when he returns you will have left. You must stay here till I can see what to do.”

“What about our horses? I would rather be captured than have anything happen to my pinto.”

“That little grandson of my husband, José, he will herd them on the hillside. He knows how, and tonight he will bring them to the tunnel here.”

“But where are we to go?” Raquel trusted the old woman and was eager to be on her way, even though fleeing bandits and kidnapers. But both she and Georgie were tired from their experience in the desert, and she felt that a few days rest would make them fit again.

“You may rest with my old comadre, Dorothea, in the valley. Then on to Moctezuma, from where you must find your way back north, my child.”

With a finger to her lips she ducked quickly and was out in the blinding glare of the morning. Georgie and Raquel sat taking stock of things.

“Well, it’s better here than on the desert, or in that tin-roofed oven. We can rest here,” Georgie observed cheerfully.

Raquel was worried about Paintbrush. She had gone up to the corral to caress him and talk with him before she slept the night before, but he would be expecting her during the day sometime. Would he behave with the little boy? Or would he hunt her out here?

As the long day wore on they drowsed and rested. The heat waves before the tunnel entrance grew whiter and more shimmery. They retreated farther down the inclining shaft and explored as far as they dared. Coming back to that white light at the mouth of the shaft they found Antonina with lunch and a package.

She brought the most delicious of enchiladas, savory with cheese and wild onion, swimming in red hot chili. That she had gathered the ingredients together was a miracle, yet she apologized for the lack of eggs to top the dish. In spite of the weather they ate every mouthful with relish.

“Froylan has just ridden away with three evil-looking men in the direction of Divisaderos, chasing you,” said Antonina. “You must leave tonight over the rocks where José will guide you. But you, Señorita, ought to leave your fine clothes and take these pantalones of the people, these teguas.” She opened the bundle and took out the native sandals, a cotton shirt and trousers.

José was to take them to the house of Dorothea. She would set them on the road to Moctezuma when they were ready to leave. They were to ride fast to the house of the priest and stay there till the silly soldiers had departed to play their game of hide and seek in other parts.

“The soldiers, they do little harm to each other. It is the gente, the people, who suffer, their houses burned, their crops destroyed.” She was indignant, the good Antonina.

She embraced Raquel fondly, taking her to her bosom and kissing her upon both cheeks. Raquel pressed a gold piece in her hand. Antonina wept with joy. She had mothered the young Americans from the goodness of her heart.

The escape had been so easy—the pinto’s nicker after dark as he was brought to the mouth of the old tunnel shaft where they hid, and sensed his mistress within; the soft dark night, skies like ink in which millions of stars seemed to be throwing out sparks, and shooting back and forth across the heavens.

Oh, that sense of nervous expectation as little wiry José led them down a strange trail and over a hill! But they rode unmolested through the dawn, and the sun was already high before they stopped at a small house, located just there in the foothills for no apparent reason.

José left them there with the friends of his grandmother, an old woman and an old man, who scarcely addressed either Raquel or Georgie all day, but put them in a wee room off the main room. There Raquel lay on a canvas cot and fell asleep, her brother on the floor beside her.

Not till after dark did they set out again. They had only six or eight miles still to go. Their spirits rose and they hummed as they rode along. They were on their way back; probably they could locate El Escondido again as they got farther north.

Raquel’s thoughts returned to Don Nestor and the wonderful opportunity for buying cattle there. Now that they felt safe, somehow they did not worry so much about what Mrs. Daniels would think.

“Oh, she’ll know we’re all right,” Georgie asserted confidently. “She knows we can take care of ourselves.”

They were passing an occasional rancho, and a glow of lights began to appear before them among the trees. Suddenly a turn in the road brought them upon a startling scene. Before them rose a large and pretentious adobe casa, from whose gayly lighted windows floated music and sounds of merrymaking.

Outside the house there stood and lounged about several companies of soldiers. To what faction they belonged neither Raquel nor Georgie could tell, and before they could beat a retreat two sentries had sprung out from among the acacias bordering the road, and were holding their horses’ heads.

“Quien vive?” was the hoarse demand on both sides. “Who goes there?”

“Dios y sus Santas! [God and His Saints!]” quavered Raquel. “Carranza,” shouted Georgie simultaneously at the top of his lungs.

“Ha, a very pretty answer,” replied one of the soldiers, “but off you get, both of you, and into the house yonder till the commandante sees for himself if he has any further need of you.”

And at the points of their bayonets they drove the two toward a corral gate, and through, where they were at once surrounded by other soldiers.

Paintbrush laid back his ears and rose wickedly on his hind feet as a soldier laid a hand on the bridle. Had the man not ducked out of the way the pinto would undoubtedly have annihilated him. Raquel slipped quickly to the ground.

“Let me, Señor. He is not a broncho, only a wild horse but newly gentled. I am the only one who can manage him.”

“Put him up then,” growled the soldier, “and that one too,” pointing at Georgie and his little brown pony, which Georgie was stimulating to a very pretty exhibition of bucking and fancy rearing, through pricking and a few tricks which the good little beast knew well.

So they were permitted to stable their ponies within an inside corral, high-walled, over which there was no escape, and as they came out, they were surprised to find that for the moment their guard had disappeared. Knowing that there was no escape over the high spiked wall, he had returned to his gambling game at the gate. Beside them was an open window, unbarred. Instinctively Raquel pushed Georgie through and followed on his heels.

They were in an end room, dimly lit with candles, and piled with soldierly equipment. A doorway opposite led out upon a large patio, around which ran a gallery. They slipped across and looked out. They were at the kitchen end of the house and a grape arbor offered a covered passageway across the rear of the court yard.

A dance was in progress at the front of the house, and the rest of the place seemed deserted. They could see an empty bedroom across the patio. Slipping through the arbor they peered in a doorway. On the bed lay various feminine garments. In an open wardrobe hung others.

“Let’s dress like girls,” whispered Raquel to Georgie, “and then perhaps we can get by.” It seemed a daring idea. She had entered Mexico disguised as a boy; now she would escape “disguised” as a girl!

Reaching through a window she lifted from a chest a mass of rose-colored ruffles. It was a skirt which looked like civil war days. A petticoat lay beneath it. Raquel pulled off her pantolones and sandals, standing there in the dark, with the music of the mandolins and fiddles and the gayety up forward going on all the while.

She slipped into the skirts and stepped within the room to complete her toilette. She peeped at herself in a little old mirror atop a high chest of drawers. Horrors! What a dirty face! But there was a basin, water, and towels in the room, and powder on the bureau beside the colorete which some soft-eyed belle had used that night.

Raquel threw a mantilla out for Georgie. He wrapped it about him and stepped into the room.

“Roll up our clothes and hide them in a corner of the arbor,” whispered Raquel.

While he was doing this she bathed, powdered her face, touched her cheeks with the rouge, her mouth with the red stick lying there. On the bed lay a black lace scarf which she seized. But what could she do with bobbed hair in this land of long-haired Señoritas? It would never escape notice.

Peeping cautiously into a drawer for hairpins she came across a carved high comb. A little deft work with comb and brush, a thrust of stout hairpins to fix the comb in the tangle of her back hair—there! It was ready to drape the black lace scarf about her face.

The effect was magical. The wavery little mirror gave back above a tiny rose bodice and billowing organdie skirts, a lovely face, rare, piquant, like the grandmother of old. In the closet was a pair of slippers, shiny and tiny. But they slipped on.

“Must have been too large or too small for the happy child they belong to,” surmised Raquel. She hoped that the owner of the clothes would not catch a glimpse of her. She felt as if she were dressed for a fancy dress party with these full skirts, for at home, she remembered the narrow slit skirt was the fashion.

“You look like a princess.” Georgie was watching the finishing touches. But there was no time to lose and she began to search desperately for something for Georgie to wear.

There was not a thing but a little old gingham dress, such as any little kitchen helper might put on. So Georgie was squeezed into that, and with a mantilla clutched under his chin he made a typical little muchacha.

They stepped bravely out through the door, looking for the best way to escape. There was a large closed gate at the back of the patio. It led into still another court, and outside that was the open. But they could not get away without their horses and how to get into the corrals again?

Although there was no outside gate in the corral where they had been obliged to stable their horses, the corral opened into several other yards.

“Perhaps we could make a break through in front if we can get back through that window,” Raquel suggested.

It had taken them more than half an hour to dress as girls. Perhaps the same soldado would no longer be there in the corral. They slipped across the court yard, into the first room they had entered. The window was barred, from the outside!

All Spanish houses are built on very nearly the same design; realizing this, they crept out on tiptoe and went forward to try the windows of the next room. They were open, but barred with iron, for this was an establishment of some pretension.

As they stepped again into the patio they stood for a moment in the stream of light from a doorway into the sala de baile, the dance hall. A figure lounging there glanced over its shoulder just in time. He darted out and made a low bow before Raquel, laying at the same time a detaining hand on her arm.

“Not so fast, Señorita. Why are you so late? What! you are not thinking of leaving before you have begun? The honor of the first dance must be mine. Come, it is a chotess.” And he swung her irresistibly through the door, and out on to the floor where a dozen girls were being whirled from one soldier to another.

“Varsouviana, valse.” The chief fiddler announced the dances.

A timid little girl peered through the door from under a black shawl for a few moments, and then flattened herself on her haunches in a shadowy corner of the court yard.

There was nothing else for it. Raquel must play up. Terrified at first, her feet nevertheless whirled obediently in the steps of the old-fashioned schottische she knew so well. Her thoughts collected themselves. Her poise returned as she whirled about. These fellows seemed to mean no harm; at any rate, just now they were bent only on having a good time.

“You dance divinamente, Señorita,” whispered the young Mexican who had captured her. “From where do you come? Surely you are not of this barbarous locality? What? Yes?” He shrugged. “But of different quality from the other girls with whom I danced earlier in the evening.” He was bored with the native belles who coquetted about them.

“Well, it is fortunate for you that you live about here,” went on the teniente, “otherwise you would never return home tonight. No one may pass through the lines about Moctezuma. There must be no possible communication with the north—with the United States. The General Carranza has not yet been recognized by that government, you see, and we are not any too friendly.

“All gringoes are being detained, and not too well treated!” he laughed. “But that does not concern you, Señorita bella. The commandante has given orders that this vicinity be molested no more. I understand they suffered much during the last Villa raid in Sonora.”

“But tell me,” he pursued, “is it native to Sonora of the south, your beauty? Myself, I am from Chihuahua, where the girls are very indifferent, but I have heard that the southern provinces, el distrito Sahuaripa especially, is famed for its lovely ladies.”

The attentions of the young lieutenant had not gone unnoticed. Other uniforms were gathering round. The girls were buzzing with curiosity. Who was this newcomer? That dress? Was it not exactly like one of Caterina’s? But this one had a gracia in wearing clothes, surely!