“Will you-all hush up!” breathed Raquel. “Look what a place for turkey.”
The horses were walking now, up over a pine-crowned summit, carpeted thick with russet needles.
As she spoke there sounded faintly over the ridge the silly peedle-eedle-eedle of the wild turkey. Instantly the hunters stopped in their tracks, and in a few moments there trailed over the crest a flock of half a dozen handsome birds.
At this minute Old Whitey felt that he must switch his tail, and at the swishing slap the turkeys gave a startled obble-obble, and scurried with amazing speed into the forest.
But not before a pinging whine from Raquel’s rifle, adding to their terror and their speed, took one from their number. On the russet floor of the forest lay a beautiful young turkey, “fat as butter, purty as a peacock, a crop full of piñons,” exulted Russ, bursting with pride at Raquel’s bringing down such a difficult bird.
As if the shot had been a signal, a terrific hub-bub arose from the canyon below. Hastily gathering up the turkey they slipped and slid down the steep sides of the canyon. They could see nothing through the pines, but they heard the full tongue of the pack in chase give way to the sharp yapping of combat.
Raquel, cheeks like dark holly berries, was fairly lifting the dancing cowpony down the slippery grade. Behind came Russ, and away back Georgie. Old Whitey reluctantly picked his way like a fat old woman, his hips wobbling from side to side, until under the frantic urging of Georgie’s heels he sat down and slid.
“They’ve treed a cat,” shouted Raquel over her shoulder; “a lion. He’s fixin’ to spring.... Russ, quick!”
Glowing tawnily through the branches below, crouched a menacing form, tail lashing cat-fashion, as the lion waited to spring upon the ancient enemy of his kind, to rend and tear his way to freedom and safety again.
Russ fired, but his shot only stung the tail of the big cat, infuriating it. The horses were trembling, for they hate and fear the mountain lion or the big bear.
The three hunters crept down, nearer and nearer. The great hound, El Capitan, was leaping up at the quarry above his head, fearlessly courting a cat and dog encounter.
With back to the cliff which no leap, however desperate, could scale, the cat looked warily about. Had the hunters not come upon the scene, the hunted thing would have waited, treed for hours or days, until either the dogs or itself gave out. But the smell of man and the sting of the shot made it desperate, and with a terrible, settling crouch, suddenly it sprang with an astounding leap, out over the jumping dogs and down upon Sis, gallant but light-weight member of the pack.
Two of the dogs fell upon the lion’s flank while El Capitan sank his fangs in the tawny throat. The cat fought cruelly and well. Raquel, her heart pounding against her ribs, seized Russ’s Winchester and took one careful aim after another—without firing. If she shot she would be sure to get Cap, or Belt, or Sir Galahad (named and loved by Jimmy).
And then from the far side of the canyon came the crack of a gun, the zoom of a bullet; the cat relaxed slowly, then fell limply beneath its pursuers, torn and bloody.
Jami and Angel scrambled triumphantly down the opposite slope. Rushing over to the excited dogs, they pushed them aside and examined the trophy.
Raquel’s voice and hands at last succeeded in quieting the hounds. She slipped the leash on El Capitan, for the blood lust had been aroused, and, in spite of his wounds, he was ready to hunt for days without returning to Los Ranchos.
As they were examining the lion, a Mexican on a lean, scraggy horse swung down the narrow canyon, and drew up at the group around the cat. It was Manuel, the half-wit cousin of Elena Esquibal.
He grinned amiably, and dismounted to look at the kill, for his horse could not be urged near. As he turned about and the animal leaped up the mountain side to join the other horses, Raquel saw on its flank a large leaning brand, an H.
The shock of it left her speechless for the moment, and before she could collect herself, a tragedy almost took place. The big hound on her leash sprang at the vaguely smiling Mexican youth, tearing the strap away from Raquel’s hand, and burning the wrist round which it had been wrapped.
He leaped upon the boy, sinking his fangs through the sleeve before the others rushed upon him, and tore him off. But Cap seemed enraged, straining and sniffing, even after the terrified Manuel had dashed to his horse and was making off up the mountain. Apparently he had not been injured, but he was scared out of what wits he had.
“Never did see Cap attack a human before this,” muttered Russ. “There is something mighty queer there.”
“Did you notice that brand on his horse, Russ?” asked Raquel, who had recovered her breath and her speech by now. The boys hadn’t noticed. Something kept Raquel from saying more about it. She looked at the lion.
It was a long, lean creature, seven feet from nose to tail, its fine coat torn, its flanks as lean as though it had not had its pick of cattle through the winter. The gaunt, ugly jaws had been pried apart; the long fangs still dripped.
Raquel shuddered. For the first time in her wild, free life, on range of desert and mountain, it all seemed bitterly cruel to her. She turned away with undisguised dislike; all the elation of the morning and her glorious ride vanished.
“Aw, go on, Rakie. You haf to do it.” Georgie read his sister’s expression. “Think of all the stock that fellow has had off our range. Why, one of these lions will eat thirty cows, sixty sheep and heaven knows how many calves, every season.”
Angel was staying to bring back the pelt, after he had skinned it. It was already growing dark in the canyon. It was after four o’clock, but it seemed as if they had started out only two or three hours ago. All at once every one remembered the sandwiches, for which they had had no thought before.
Those generous slices of bread were immensely heartening, and yet, somehow, as they picked their way down the canyon, Raquel was silent and depressed. Then the faithful and gallant boys, her knights of the roundup, set up a rollicking tune, singing Raquel’s fame to the words of The Pecos Queen, caroling right lustily as they rode along:
And so singing the hunters came back to the ranch, the tired horses breaking into a mad gallop as soon as they came in sight of the corral.
The next morning Pancho Esquibal came to Raquel where she was throwing rope down in the feeding corral, limbering up, getting into practice for the spring work.
“May I have the keys to the garage shed, Señorita?” he inquired courteously. “I think it would be safer to hang the skin of the lion in there.... That is the best place,” he added, after a few moments during which Raquel, coiling and hurling her reata, gave no evidence of having heard him at all.
Esquibal waited. There is nothing so disconcerting as to be ignored. Raquel knew this well, partly from instinct and a natural wit in dealing with people, partly from experience.
A curious, furtive look came into Esquibal’s eyes. He looked at the padroncita suspiciously. Raquel had kept the keys to the supply house and to the garage sheds in her own pockets ever since the incident of the oil cans.
Now she turned suddenly while Pancho was still off guard and glanced swiftly at him.
“Why not hang the cuero in the old drying shed, Pancho? Russ has mended up the doors and windows and neither skunks nor dogs can get in there.”
Pancho nodded. As he turned to go Raquel asked carelessly, “By the way, Pancho, Russell tells me that ‘A. B.’ has bought La Bolsa, the ranchito of Elena’s aunt, over by our north reservoir. Is that so?”
“Si, señorita. It was a worthless place and it was sold to him.”
Raquel nodded, and went on with her roping, spreading wide loops over Panchito’s burro.
“Why did they not sell to my father last year when he offered to buy?”
Pancho shrugged. As he turned away there was an expression of annoyed speculation on his face. Raquel grinned. She was pleased with herself that she had disconcerted Esquibal, but she knew that some day she would have to have it out with him.
But although it was the conviction of Ranchos justice that if you let a bad hombre have rope enough he would hang himself, Raquel did not want Pancho to steal the rope, nor to achieve that desirable end at her expense if it could be avoided. She could not be sure that he had had anything to do with the rebranded, stolen heifer. Had she known then, or suspected, what was to come to light later on, she would not have waited for events to solve the matter.
CHAPTER VII
CHRISTMAS
Christmas week came upon Los Ranchos suddenly, and, although there were so few to celebrate it this year, Jami and Raquel and Georgie went out in the car to gather mistletoe, according to the custom. The scrub oak was covered with the pretty parasite, and they gathered great bundles, thick with pearly berries, mixing it with sprays of silver spruce and ground holly from the mountains.
Raquel did up large boxes and sent Russell in to town to mail packages off to the Marvins, and to The Towers in care of Miss Carter.
With the rest she decorated the house, and three days before Christmas she and her mother drove into town to do their Christmas shopping. For Ole Hossfoot, who would be down Christmas Eve as usual, she got a leather jacket, composed mainly of pockets. For her mother she bought a quilted satin dressing gown, fleece-lined, to wear elegantly as she sat before her fire on winter nights after the last dish had been dried and set back on the table for breakfast, after the cats had been fed and put out and let back in again.
It never took Raquel long to decide about anything, and in a short time there was a gift for every one but Anne and Jimmy. Anne’s gift would be late of course. As Raquel strode along the main street she saw in a curio window the gift—a string of graduated, polished turquoise wampum, a lovely thing that Anne could wear beautifully.
What for Jimmy? Impulsively Raquel pointed to a red leather frame and, slipping a large kodak picture of herself out of her bag, she tucked it in with a Christmas card, “Love to Jimmy.”
As she stepped out into the street she came face to face with a man who had been standing there looking through the curio window. It was “A. B.”
“Howdy, Miss Daniels.” The ranchman’s voice was suavely courteous as he waved his hand towards his hat, bowed deeply, and spat by way of greeting.
“Howdy do, Mr. Meyers,” Raquel answered pleasantly as she started up the street.
But he blocked the way.
“Say, Raquel,” he said without looking at her, shifting his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other, “I understand your Dad had an option on that piece of valley range that lies near my northern fences. Don’t suppose you care to hold on to that now. Just thought I’d tell you I was willin’ to take it off your hands.”
“Why, no; we want to hold on to that land, thanks. We will take care of it when the time comes.”
“Better not be too sure of that, my gal; financial conditions are pretty bad, pretty dangerous, right now.”
“Well, I’d have to have my Dad’s instructions before I could sell and he said he wanted to hold on to that land.” Raquel turned to go.
“Is that so?” “A. B.” could not control the rage that he felt at being thus dismissed by a mere slip of a girl. “Well, let me tell you,” he called angrily after her, “you’d better keep your Dad’s cattle off my land then. The next animal found on my range I’ll brand.” And with this threat he turned about and strode the other way.
It was an unpleasant encounter, and Raquel went into the post office angry and defiant. There was no mail for any of them. Raquel had not known that she would feel so disappointed. Nothing from Jimmy? Had Anne forgotten her so quickly? She had not heard from her since returning to Los Ranchos nearly a month before.
There was not even a line from Custer, nor from Pop. Mom did not seem to mind, for letters were an almost unknown quantity in her life.
Had it not been for Georgie and Ole Hossfoot it would have been a sorry Christmas Eve. The boys had all gone into town. Mom and Georgie and Raquel sat late before Mom’s fire, and went reluctantly to bed, as if they were waiting for something.
At nine o’clock on Christmas morning, as they lingered over a holiday breakfast of pancakes and cane syrup, and fresh pork sausage, a great hallooing was heard outside the gate, then a heavy tread on the veranda. The door burst open, and there was Custer.
There was a joyful clamor. Mom, unable to flee the arms of her six-foot son, had taken refuge in his coat front, from which haven she eventually emerged transfigured.
“And Raquela, the kid sister, Boss of the Lazy L!” Custer swung her round with one arm while he kept Mom prisoned with the other. “Don’t make ’em any finer!” He kissed her warmly.
He was a man after a girl’s heart, this Custer Daniels—and after a man’s. A gay, undaunted adventurer, with a way about him that seemed to extend even to his roping. But alas for the peace of mind of the girl who, at a ranch ball or a blowout in La Cruz, took to heart the laughing flattery of his words, or believed what his eyes said! And alas for the luckless puncher who presumed on any one’s else range or reputation within Custer’s vicinity!
Custer was courageous and handsome, and now there was a tempering of his spirits with a white fire of consecration to this cause on which he, along with the other youth of the country, had embarked so lightly.
Raquel in her chaps would have been the same little sister to Custer, but now he looked at her again in amazement. Was this Raquel in the citified green dress?
“Mountain cats! But ain’t she the prettiest thing this side San Antone!”
He swung her off her feet and with one hand, held her up under the mistletoe, where he smacked her right heartily. Georgie was then properly cuffed, the hound dogs fondled, a packet of cigarritos slipped Angel while Jami and Russ were wreathed with smiles, smoke emanating from large and murderous looking black cigars.
“Mom’s the only one gets a present, a real present.” And he pulled from his pocket a dull square of folded silk that shook out into a gorgeous Spanish shawl, rare and strange, its golden brown embroidered in pale yellow and crimson roses. Amber and jade flecked its surface like sunshine on a shaded pool.
“It’s too beautiful for me, son.” Mrs. Daniels spoke tremulously. “I danced in one something like this the night I met your father.”
“Well, I’ll tell you something strange about my finding this,” said Custer.
He had been looking for a gift to bring his mother, he said, and was wandering down through the curio shops in El Paso when suddenly he saw a face, the most beautiful girl! He knew he had seen her before, and then it came across him that she was just like that picture of Jimmy’s cousin, Lois, which he had always been so loco about.
He’d have sworn it was she; so he followed her into a shop and saw her go up to look at a shawl. It was this one. She was with an elderly man, and Custer had just made up his mind to step up and speak to her when they turned suddenly, went out a side entrance and, before he could get into the street, stepped into a car and were a block away.
So he went back and bought the shawl. And the next morning he dropped into the same shop, hoping to run across her again. But the shopkeeper said she had returned the same evening and had been fearfully put out, real angry, that the shawl was gone, and she and her father had gone on to the train. They had said they were leaving that night.
Raquel heaved a sigh of relief. That must have been Lois all right!
“I plumb forgot the mail,” said Custer. “Stopped by the post office early and made the boys give it to me. Bring it in from the car, Angel.”
So Christmas was very nearly perfect after all. There was a card from Dad, about to sail on a transport, a letter from Grant, “safely on the other side,” a five-pound box of candy from Jimmy, and a long letter from Anne, and a box.
“Don’t think I have forgotten you, you precious Rakie,” wrote Anne. “I haven’t been at school since the week after you left. Came home to help with the terrific war work that piles up. If I was ever lazy may Heaven forgive me now.... I have scarcely slept, nor has Mamma.... A letter from Barry asks after you and he wishes to be remembered to you without fail.”
Raquel had scarcely dared to think of the elegant Barry since she had been back at home. But at the message a pleasurable warmth mounted to her hair.
The box held five beautifully bound volumes of history, an etching and some handkerchiefs.
After dinner Raquel told Custer about her encounter in town with “A. B.”; of the purchase of La Bolsa, and of the dead heifer which she and Georgie had found, as well as the incident of the half-wit’s horse and its brand.
“Lordy,” said Custer, “not so long ago that would have meant a killin’. But there’s too much shootin’ goin’ on now in the world as it is. And I can’t take time to have it out with the old pizen snake now. Don’t worry, Sis, just keep track of everything and we’ll look after it when we come home!
“Leaving tonight, Mom,” he went on. “Got to. I’ll see Jimmy in Kansas City Wednesday, and we sail just a week later.”
The day passed brilliantly, and all too soon. Yet even after Custer’s rented car had disappeared in the purple shadow of the pass they were heartened by the robust confidence and cheer he always spread.
CHAPTER VIII
LOIS
Life had not been very thrilling for Lois since she had been called away from school so suddenly. At first it was a pleasure to be free from routine and to be with her father, whom she loved deeply and sincerely, if somewhat selfishly.
When they reached El Paso, they found that Jimmy, whom Lois half-feared seeing again, had been transferred to Kansas.
Through a friend of her father Lois was invited to a dance at Fort Bliss, and, exquisitely lovely in a silver tissue dancing frock, she was immediately surrounded by officers. That was thoroughly satisfactory, as were the “dates” with which her calendar was filled for a week ahead.
But alas, two days later her father’s physician decided that the altitude of Colorado would be a better climate for him, and they left for Colorado Springs at once.
Christmas week found them back in El Paso. Colorado had proved too cold; and just when Lois was beginning to make acquaintances and have a good time in the smart hotel at the Springs! But Mr. Wainwright felt much better farther south.
“I would like to hunt up that ranch where Jimmy stayed so long,” he said to Lois the morning after their return. “If it is comfortable, wouldn’t you like to stay a while on a ranch? I think it would be an interesting experience.”
Lois instantly became irritable. “The Daniels’ ranch! Goodness gracious, no, Daddy! There’s not a thing to do there. We’d be bored to death. Oh, don’t talk about it, please, Daddy.”
Mr. Wainwright smiled tenderly, and a little wanly. “All right, darling. I don’t want my little girl to be bored any more than we can help.”
Yet that same afternoon he returned to the hotel with the suggestion that they visit another ranch for a few days. At the Cattlemen’s Loan and Trust Company, where he was doing his banking, he had met a ranchman who had invited them out for Christmas week. The cattleman wanted Mr. Wainwright to look over his property, as he wished to secure a loan on the ranch.
Lois pouted, but as Daddy really seemed eager for it, and there was “absolutely nothing to do here,” she consented to go after she had done her Christmas shopping.
There were many pretty things in El Paso shops. Lois was astonished and, as her father gave her all the money she wanted, she really had a very good time. In a burst of enthusiasm she bought Miss Isaphine Carter a gay Spanish shawl, riotous with roses and color that suggested coquettish eyes and a balcony in Seville, rather than Miss Isaphine’s near-sighted orbs.
There was another, in the same store, which Lois liked. While hesitating over it, she became aware of the good-looking chap in uniform who seemed to be watching her intently. She purposely prolonged her inspection of the brown shawl, which was to play such a part in her life, until Mr. Wainwright exclaimed that they had just three minutes to get to the hotel to keep an appointment.
Lois glanced across the counter at the young officer, and found herself looking straight into a merry, quizzical face. Then she turned and ran after her father. Later on she had insisted on going back after the shawl. She half expected that the same young officer would be there. She really wasn’t the least bit interested, of course—but—and then to find the shawl gone!
The long ride to the ranch which they were to visit was made with indifference on Lois’ part. She sat silent while her father and Mr. Meyers (was that the man’s name?) talked about cattle, and range, and the war market. It was very stupid.
And Christmas Eve at the ranch with Mr. Meyers’ sister, Miss Angie Meyers of Texarkana, acting as sprightly hostess, was silly, with cowboys dressed as she had seen them in Madison Square Garden in New York, roaring and crowding around her, and dancing uncouth dances. Miss Angie, filled with Southern airs and graces, was absurdly up to the minute in her clothes. Why, she wore a dress with long sleeves and a low-cut neck just like Lois’ own! But she was so good-natured and affectionate that Lois rather liked her after all.
Still, she was relieved when they were ready to pile into their car the next afternoon, and she was able, for that reason, to say good-by to Mr. Meyers with real enthusiasm. He thought the young lady had had a good time, and was pleased with himself, for Mr. Wainwright had consented to make an investment in his ranch. That would furnish him with funds for extensions that his local banks were too over-borrowed to finance.
They had been riding for some time after dark when their driver stopped, and said he had got off on the wrong road somehow. He knew they were not going in the right direction. They were headed for those mountains and he knew El Paso lay over there. All the roads looked alike on these deserts. He didn’t know this country by night very well. They turned about and drove back to the last fork, taking a well-traveled road which seemed to be the main thoroughfare. But when it swung east, they stopped, realizing that they were really lost.
Mr. Wainwright, ill able to stand fatigue or exposure, began to cough, and Lois, who until now had been listlessly indifferent to whether they were lost or not, became all solicitude. It was her tenderness and petting at such times which filled her father’s heart with happiness.
The driver was just about to start the engine again when the sound of another car was heard, and in a moment the swinging searchlight came into sight. Their driver got out and held up his hand. The other car came to a stop. A young man jumped out and stepped into the light.
It was the officer whom Lois had seen in the store two days ago!
The driver explained their predicament. The young man came over, hat in hand, and bowed. When he looked up, he could not restrain a start of surprise. This doll-like blonde surely had a meltingly lovely smile! And her voice was sweet as alfalfa honey, thought the romantic Custer.
The result of the meeting was that Custer, returning to his post at Fort Bliss from the holiday visit with Raquel and his mother, joined Lois and her father on the back seat. He directed the driver to the right road, and the rented car followed them.
They talked of this and that, but it was not long before Custer said boldly, “Didn’t I see you in a curio shop in El Paso the day before Christmas?”
“Perhaps so,” replied Lois, all wide-eyed innocence. And then, “I was there.”
“And I bought the shawl you were looking at,” laughed Custer.
“Oh, it was you, you wretch! And I wanted that shawl terribly.”
“Well, I wanted terribly to speak to you,” Custer replied. “I—I thought you were some one I knew; that is, I knew about. Aren’t you Jimmy Hovey’s cousin Lois?”
Lois was completely taken aback. But it never occurred to her that this attractive fellow, a second-lieutenant, was ever anything but a lieutenant. Some friend of Jimmy’s at the fort, she thought, and smiled.
“Yes. How did you know it?”
But Custer was laughing and teasing again. He would not tell her. He thought it would be amusing if she didn’t know that he was Raquel’s brother.
Lois was unaccountably radiant. Custer was a charmer, she thought. And he was entranced.
“Looks like fate that I should meet you,” he told her.
Mr. Wainwright spoke to him then and they talked for some time of the cattle country, its present condition, and the war. Mr. Wainwright told of their Christmas visit to the A. B. Meyers ranch. He spoke of investment. Custer listened politely but this information somewhat chilled the atmosphere, and spoiled the ride a bit for him. They were nearing the city and the rest of the drive was made with little conversation.
Reaching a filling station they stopped and Custer turned to say good-by. Mr. Wainwright held out his card.
“I hope that we shall see you again when we get back to El Paso in the spring. We leave in the morning for California, but we’ll be back. I am very grateful indeed to you for setting us right.”
“Thank you, sir. I am Custer Daniels, and if ever I can be of service to you I should be proud. Only sorry it wasn’t Los Ranchos you called at instead of the Diamond Bar, Meyers’ place. You must come out when you get back this way.”
Lois had been leaning forward, smiling graciously. While Custer spoke a puzzled expression flashed across her face. Then with realization came distress. Something stirred her, something that had long lain unheeded.
Custer turned and held out his hand. “My sister would be right glad to see you again, Miss Lois,” he smiled.
The unaccountable Lois suddenly became strangely distant. Quite self-possessed and exquisite she looked, her gray squirrel coat drawn up about a coolly tilted chin.
“We probably shan’t have time on our return, thank you.”
She did not dare to meet Custer’s eyes, yet she could not withhold her hand from the hand held out to her. A limp enough hand it was that lay for a moment in Custer’s firm clasp.
He gazed after the disappearing car with surprise and bafflement. Now, what was wrong with that? Custer shrugged his shoulders and climbed back into his own car. It was a let-down to the high-spirited mood of the day. Was it because he was Raquel’s brother that she acted like that?
CHAPTER IX
THE BLIZZARD
When it is bright, sunshiny weather, the cold out West is not so penetrating, at least by day, but at night it eats into the very bones. There were long evenings of hard, dry cold, and occasionally a flurry of snow, when Raquel sat opposite Georgie and prodded him on to his lessons.
They had had no more letters from Dad and the boys. Mom, silent and undemanding, spent her time in little services for Raquel and Georgie. The great house was never overly clean, nor even tidy, except for the kitchen. There had been so much drudgery, and Mom was one of the army of western women who grow weary of struggling against the ceaseless invasion of desert dust even into the top shelves of the closets.
“Take it easy, honey. When spring comes on there’ll be plenty of hard work for you. Just wait till this cold weather breaks.”
But it did not break. One afternoon in late January after a day of dark skies it started to snow in great whirling flakes. By night it was blowing a blizzard, sweeping unbroken across the mesas with a strength that seemed to gather force with every mile, until it hurled itself in fury against the steeps of the mountains at their back.
“Well, if we don’t lose us a bunch of steers tonight, this snow’ll save the grass mebbe.” Russell, melting off before the fire, slapped the backs of his hands to bring the blood. He began to warble:
He was unfortunately interrupted by Georgie, who burst in with the message that Elena’s little girls were both sick, and Pancho and Elena wanted Mom and Raquel to please come down there.
“I’ll go.” Raquel was already slipping into her sheepskin jacket and she ran out the door calling back, “If you’re needed, Mom, I’ll come back up, or send for what’s wanted. Come on, Tooth, pronto.”
Out through the frozen patio she ran, and as she squeezed through the snow-blocked gate a cutting gale fairly snatched the breath from her lips. Alternately racing before the wind and stumbling head down against it, she and Georgie made downhill.
Blown half the distance in a few minutes, they scrambled and stumbled against the wind the rest of the way for ten or fifteen minutes more.
In the little low adobe at the foot of the corral ten-year-old Josefita sat shaking before the fire, torn by one chill after another. On a pallet against the wall a four-year-old baby, tiny Luisita, lay with glazed eyes, her lips drawn back pitifully from teeth and gums. Fragile little fingers plucked at the coverlet
“How long has she been like this?” Raquel asked sharply, a sick feeling clutching her throat.
“All day, Señorita,” Elena barely whispered, appeal and agony in her eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Raquel stopped at Elena’s pitiful face. “Oiga,” she said in Spanish, “listen. My mother will have to try to come down. I will go to Red Dog for the Doctor. Take that grease, there on the stove, warm it at once and put it on Josefita’s chest and throat with this flannel over it. Make her a hot drink of your mescal water and sugar, Pancho. Put her feet in hot water; wrap her in a hot blanket.”
It was so they treated sick creatures in the ranch kitchen. But the baby, Luisita!
“This baby, you should have—” No good to scold that poor mother. It looked too late now. She had seen sick lambs so, but this was beyond her skill.
It seemed madness to go out in such a storm. But the Pathfinder had never failed them yet. And within twenty minutes they had started, Jami and she, bundled and gloved and mittened, the Pathfinder’s powerful lights searching through driving snow that swirled and sifted between the closed storm-curtains until she and Jami looked like two snow figures.
Pushing, plowing, slipping, skidding ahead, stopping, they went, Raquel’s hands stiff, glued to the wheel, and they had been gone only twenty minutes. And back there a baby lay gasping for its life.
“Not through the pasture yet,” shouted Jami.
But at length they made the upper gate and, once on the slopes, with a clean-swept frozen road beneath the wheels, the car seemed to take the gale between its teeth as it roared swift and straight up to the pass. The blast that struck them as they reached the top made the ascent seem like balmy weather.
Tears of pain from the cold rolled down Raquel’s face and froze there, and for a moment she had to release the wheel to Jami, who would all too willingly have driven the whole way.
The descent on the other side was made rapidly, and fairly easily. They seemed to aeroplane down through bitter arctic spaces, but when they came to enter the tiny mining town drifts mounted, choking, smothering them. The engine labored, roared like a baffled giant, and only when it had been fed with the thermos flask of hot coffee did it gather itself together, and plow up over the freezing masses of snow.
They stood at length within Doc Merrick’s house. He pulled them toward a leaping fire. The clock on the mantel showed ten, nearly an hour and a half since Raquel had looked down at the sick child in Esquibal’s house.
“Esquibal’s baby, Doc. It looks like pneumonia. I’m afraid she’s dying, and it took so long to come.”
Doc Merrick, tall, splendidly broad and bronzed, lived at the pass through the grace of God and the rare air of the mountain top, with one active lung, two active dogs and three inactive servants. Already he was buttoning his coat with one hand while he handed Raquel a cup of hot coffee with the other.
And then, with two hot-water bottles for the Pathfinder, they were outside again. And they had need of the hot water, for the force of the wind broke the momentum of the long coast from the pass, and they reached the arroyo without any speed and a cold engine. They had to stop, to back, and to rush at the heavy drifts that had piled up.
It seemed an eternity until the car plowed up to its own shed and slid in. When they reached the casita, the doctor went from one cot to the other and then set to work over wee Luisita.
Raquel and Mom, who had come without being summoned, were at his elbow, Elena and Pancho were thrust into the next room, where Panchito slept safely. If once Elena’s volcanic weeping were to start it would be beyond control.
It was seven o’clock in the morning when the doctor beckoned Raquel outside. Mrs. Daniels had gone home about dawn. Inside the two little girls slept quietly. With every care they would recover.
The world was one glittering expanse of snow, gleaming whiteness stretching everywhere, clear and cold and quiet under a dazzling sun. The mountains looked like a frosted Christmas card.
Raquel was tired. Even her youthful face was drawn in that searching light.
“Well, well, young lady, you mustn’t look so sad. Think of what you have accomplished in the last twelve hours. Come, a little breakfast will fix you up,” and Doctor Merrick put a hand under her elbow. “What’s that you’ve got there?”
“Just a branding iron.” Raquel lifted the heavy bar. In the snow at her feet a large letter H was cut diagonally. She rubbed it out with her boot, and shouldering the iron walked up the hill with the doctor.
So Pancho was the rustler! Living right here on Dad’s land! She had noticed the iron in a corner back of the kitchen stove as she sat tending the fire and boiling water during the night. Well, at any rate, Pancho cared enough about his babies to have forgotten such incriminating evidence. He had left it right out where it could be seen. Ordinarily such a discovery would have driven any ranch owner wild, but now, somehow, the struggle for the children’s lives during the night had made other things seem unimportant.
As she passed the bunk house, Russ and Jami came out.
“We’re startin’ out to see how the steers on the mesa stood the storm.” Russ looked at the Boss for confirmation, and Raquel nodded.
“Russ, did you ever see any Lazy L whitefaces, or cattle that looked like Ranchos whitefaces, branded like this?” She held up the iron.
“About a month ago George and I found a heifer at the spring below La Bolsa. It was one that I had branded last summer and was burned over like this.”
Russ swore a round range oath. “Beg your pardon, ma’am, but—” and he sputtered.
“Don’t say a word, Russ. I found it in Pancho’s cabin this morning. Wait till the little girls are well and we’ll fire him clean off Los Ranchos. Dad always said he was mean, but never thought that he would steal.”
After breakfast Raquel slipped into her icy room, crept between blankets that Mom had warmed in the kitchen, and slept for six hours. She woke refreshed, so invigorated by the bracing air that she did not feel the exertion of the night before at all.
Georgie was in the kitchen, on his knees behind the stove, where he had a pair of twin lambs, poor little early offspring that Russ had rescued from a snow drift. Their mother’s body over them had saved them from her fate. Mom and Georgie had poured warm milk from a spoon down their throats, and the little pink noses were beginning to quiver with returning life. They made awkward movements in their soft nest, and blindly adopted the nursing bottle for their mother.
The blizzard took heavy toll over all that part of the state. But Los Ranchos suffered less than most ranges because the cattle were in excellent shape and better able to weather such exposure. The wisdom of Mr. Daniels in acquiring the new piece of range was shown, for the cattle had had fresh grazing for a month before the blizzard; also, that tract of land happened to be protected from northerly winds, and ranged up into the foothills where there were many sheltering canyons.
Raquel, Pancho Esquibal, Angel, Russ and Jami, in a week’s time covered all the lowlands and found not more than twenty casualties.
“We’ll have no trouble rounding up our thousand head, or more,” Russell told her. They were in the middle of February then.
One day the cold weather was gone. The sun shone with surprising heat, the roads were dried up. Raquel drove into town for the mail. She had not been in for a month, although some one went for the mail every week.
There was a big packet, but Raquel did not open it after she saw a letter to her mother on top. She turned and flew straight back to the ranch. Mom was in the kitchen with the lambs, now frisking blithely in the life-giving sunshine that poured through the door. The two other little lambs of the blizzard night, Luisita and Josefita, more languid, but not so white, played beside them.
“You read it, Raquel.” Mom’s hand shook as she held out the letter.
Dad had made his second trip over on cattle transports. Both times they had narrowly escaped being attacked by submarines, and Dad was full of the stupidities of some folks when it came to handling cattle.
“I don’t blame the poor critters none for bein’ seasick,” wrote Dad, “and I wished for Raquel many a time to help me try to quiet them with that way she has when they get frightened.
“Now, Raquel, as soon as you meet the note, deliver the Government as many steers as you can as soon as possible. You’ll be gettin’ a request some time this spring, so be ready. These boys have to eat if we’re goin’ to win this war. Why, I talked with a soldier that said he hadn’t had anything but fudge for a week!”
At that Raquel laughed until she was weak. But the letter had stirred her seriously with a passionate desire for action. The winter seemed as if it would never end. But now the time was coming for which they had been waiting. In two weeks they would begin to pick out their cattle for shipment.
Now the real test for her was at hand. She felt somehow that it was going to be a test; that unforeseen obstacles were waiting. But if other women and girls were taking the place of men all over the country, doing things that they never had done before, she, Raquel Daniels, brought up on the range, used to handling cattle all her life, would be pretty good for nothing if she couldn’t do her bit.
And then she opened the letters from Anne and Miss Carter which came in the same packet.
“We have not forgotten you here at The Towers,” wrote Miss Hetty. “The mistletoe is still green, and so is your memory. I see that the Government is counting greatly on its Western ranches for war supplies, and I envy you your chance to help.”
That was nice of Miss Carter to write her. But my, how far away school seemed now! She could think only of the spring roundup, and the cattle to be shipped from Los Ranchos.
Anne’s letter, however, read aloud to Mom, roused vivid and affectionate memories. Anne loved the Indian necklace, and the mistletoe, “which furnished kisses to lots of parting sweethearts at a big party we gave here New Year’s Night. Did you get the books, darlin’, and the other things? The etching was from Barry, you know. He sailed last week.”
“Didn’t you answer Anne’s letter yet, honey?” Mrs. Daniels looked up in reproof.
“Of course I did, Mother, the next week. Tooth took it in for me.” Georgie had risen stealthily and was creeping from the room. Raquel overtook him at a stride, caught his woolly collar, and from the crumby recesses of an inner pocket of his sheepskin jacket drew forth her six weeks’ old letter to Anne.
She cuffed him, and returned to Anne’s letter, feeling a strange disappointment that Barry should have gone overseas without having had her thanks, without having read her letter to the family at least, for she had been too shy, too “provincial,” Lois would have said, to thank Barry herself.
“The girls at school write,” Anne concluded her letter, “that no one has heard a word from Lois Wainwright since the first few post cards she sent from El Paso. I wonder where she is and why she doesn’t write. I understand that Miss Carter has suggested to your Jimmy that if Lois’ father does not recover she return to school where she can be among old friends. Mr. Wainwright’s lawyers in Boston haven’t even heard from him, and have no idea where he is, as he had said he might go to California, or to the Orient. Did you know that they were in El Paso for some time after you returned home?”
Raquel sat motionless. She felt vaguely covered with a sense of great wrongdoing. Just what it was she did not at first seem to see clearly. Oh, yes, she should have told Jimmy, for then he would have found out where Lois and her father were; he could have seen them while he was stationed so near El Paso. He had been only a few miles away all the time!
Never before in her life had Raquel suffered such a sense of sick shame as came to her then. Once, when she was eight years old, she had stood by and watched her pet coon suck a dozen of Mom’s imported white leghorn eggs, which she had put under a setting hen the day before. Raquel felt now somewhat as she had after that performance.
Russell was standing in the door waiting for Raquel to look up from the letter at which she had been staring for so long.
“Could I speak to you a moment, alone?” He jerked his head towards the store room.
“Now, this here Pancho,” he began when the door was closed behind them, “this here Pancho, it’s time to vamoose him. Roundup’s comin’ on, and if he thinks we ain’t on to him he’ll try some more of this cattle brandin’ business and if he does I’m li’ble to fill him full o’ lead.
“I recommend that we have a understandin’ with him, now that the little gals is well agin, and that you as Boss of the Lazy L backs me as foreman and ridin’ boss, and fires him.”
“Yes,” assented Raquel, dully, “yes. It’s only fair to Dad.”
The interview in the saddle shed was not a happy affair. Pancho, suave, confident, plausible, with a trace of insolence, could explain everything.
The branding iron had been found on the range the day before, was brought home and, on account of the illness of the muchachitas, had been forgotten. That was why he had not mentioned it at the time.
“But why not since?” asked Raquel.
Esquibal quivered with righteous anger. What! They doubted him? Never before had the word of an Esquibal— What should a stray branding iron matter?
“Nothing much except that practically all of the brands in this part of the country are well known,” Raquel replied, “as you know, and this seems to be a new one. And as you also probably know, it has been used over the Lazy L. In fact, it covers it very nicely.”
At that Pancho Esquibal started involuntarily.
“You do not mean you suspect me—me—of stealing cattle?”
“Forget that stuff, Pancho,” advised Russell coldly. “What proof you got that this isn’t your doin’s?”
“What proof have you it is?” Esquibal shot back, while Raquel waved away the discussion with an impatient hand.
“Oiga, Pancho. It may be as you say. But the matter of the gas you sold does not look very well for you.”
It seems that Señor Daniels had told him to sell the gas when any one needed it, and that he could either turn over the money, or have it taken out of his wages. There were the cans. The Padroncita could count up just what had been sold—if she wished to deduct it.
Raquel hardly knew what to do. She shared with her family the sentiment for Elena and the children. Pancho was a valuable hand, and it would be difficult to handle the roundup without him. The chances were he’d stay put for a while anyway.
“Well, Pancho, I don’t want to be unfair, and we’ll wait till Dad comes home before we carry out that firing sentence. We’ll see what rebranded cattle come to light in the spring roundup.”
Esquibal bowed, and without a glance at Russell turned on his heel.
“We’d better have turned him off. That’s a snake meaner’n a rattler. He gives no warnin’.”
“Dear Jimmy,” Raquel started her letter off bravely that night. But after two hours of struggle she folded what she had written and sealed it quickly within an envelope. It had been hard, and she ended by telling him plainly:
“I did a very mean, crooked thing. I knew Lois was in the West with her father. She left school when I did. But I didn’t tell you because I guess I didn’t want you to go to see her. She didn’t care for me at school, and we were not roommates after all.
“I certainly didn’t love her, and that’s the truth. But I should have told you and then you could have looked them up while you were at Fort Bliss. I heard from Anne Marvin that no one knows where they are just now. But I suppose you’ll see them on their way back, and maybe you’ve heard from them yourself by now.
“Well, I suppose you will be awfully disappointed in me, Jimmy. I guess I’m mean and vindictive—no good.—As ever,