"But why don't you kill the brute?" he cried. "Don't play with him like that; kill him quick. Tell 'em to kill him, Cacique. I never passed a rattler in my life without killing it if I could; it's a point of conscience with me."
The Indian looked at him with grave disapproval, as a parent might look at a child who had in its ignorance been guilty of a serious fault.
"You do not understand, Sooshiuamo," he said in a tone in which reproof was mingled with pity; "the snake is their grandfather, and they have to show their piety towards him." Then turning from the scoffer, "Hasten," he called to the young men; "run with him to the proper place"; and away they sped across the plain towards the pueblo, the writhing reptile still borne high in the air, and the bunch of feathers still playing around its angry jaws.
"Well, I'm jiggered!" said Stephens. "I never saw such a thing as that in my life. I say, Cacique, what is it that you want to do with the brute, anyhow? Do you mean to tell me that you make a deity of him?"
The cacique's face assumed the same rapt and solemn expression it had worn during what Stephens had irreverently called the prayer-meeting.
"These are our mysteries, Sooshiuamo," he said with a voice of awe; "it is not for you to inquire into them. Be warned, for it is dangerous."
"Oh, blow your mysteries!" said Stephens in English, under his breath. "Very well, Salvador," he went on aloud. "I'm sure I don't want to go poking my nose into other people's business. I think I'll just say good-morning. I've blasted that rock for you all right. Now you see if you can make that ditch work; if you can't, you come and tell me, and I'll see what more I can do to fix it for you. So long"; and without more ado he turned on his heel and walked off down to the river.
When Stephens arrived at the edge of the terrace on which the plough-lands lay, he looked down on the green expanse of meadow through which the river ran, and feeding in it half a mile below he saw some stock that he knew must be his. "There they are," said he to himself. "I reckon I'll take Jinks and go down to San Remo and get my mail, and see if those Winchester cartridges that I sent for from Santa Fé came last night."
He clambered down the abrupt bank of red clay to the meadow, and followed down the line of the stream till he came to where his stock were eagerly cropping the fresh green grass.
"Now how am I going to catch him?" said he to himself. "Let's see where Felipe and the lariats are"; and looking round, he presently perceived some clothes on the river bank, and going to them found Felipe, stripped to his waist-cloth, splashing about in the middle of a deep pool.
"Hullo, Felipe!" cried he playfully. "Trying to drown yourself there? You must go to the Rio Grande for that—there isn't water enough in the Santiago River."
Felipe heard him indistinctly, and came towards him, swimming in Indian style with an amazingly vigorous overhand stroke. Stephens picked up one of the lariats that were lying loose on the ground by the clothes, and swinging the noose round his head, jestingly tried to lasso the lad. Missing him, he turned it off with, "I don't want you yet. I want the big mule; I'm going to catch him and go down to San Remo"; and suiting the action to the word, he coiled the lariat as he spoke, and turned and started for the beasts.
Felipe came out and stood on the bank to watch him. "What a good humour he's in now," thought the boy. "I suppose he was lucky with the rock. Now is my time to ask him for the mare."
Stephens, holding the coil of rope behind him to conceal his intention from the mule he desired to catch, cautiously approached him. Jinks, the mule, however, was not to be deceived for a moment, and as his master came near, turned his heels to him and scuttled off. Horses and mules where they have frequently to wear hobbles become surprisingly active in them. They bound along for a short distance, in an up-and-down rocking-horse gallop, so fast that even a man on horseback has to make his mount put his best foot forward to get up to them. Stephens found himself outpaced, and gave it up, seeing that it was impossible for him to capture the truant single-handed.
Felipe flew to his side in a moment. "Let me try to catch him, Sooshiuamo," cried he, eagerly. "Let me!" and taking the lariat from the not unwilling hands of the American, he started off, coiling it rapidly as he ran. Before bathing he had undone his pigtail, and his long, glossy black hair hung in thick, wavy masses down to his waist. Among the Indians, the women cut their hair short—if it remained uncut the care of it would take too long, and would keep them from their household duties; but the men, having more leisure, allow theirs to grow, and are very proud of its luxuriance and beauty. As Felipe ran, his streaming locks floated out behind him on the air like the mane of a wild horse, and gave to his figure a wonderfully picturesque effect; his wet skin shone in the sun the colour of red bronze.
The Pueblo Indians are fine runners; they have inherited fleetness of foot and endurance from their forefathers, and keep up the standard by games and races among themselves. Felipe, young though he was, had no superior in swiftness in the village. He darted like a young stag across the meadow after the fugitive mule, and chased him at full speed down to the river brink, and over the dry shingle banks of its very bed. The pebbles rattled and flew back in showers from the hoof-prints of the mule. Round they wheeled, back into the meadow again; and here the Indian, putting on an astonishing burst of speed, fairly ran the quadruped down, lassoed him, and brought him to his master.
"Here he is, señor," said he modestly, handing Stephens the rope.
"Well done, Felipe," said Stephens. "You did that well. You do run like an antelope." He felt quite a glow of admiration for the athletic youth who stood panting before him, resting his hand on the mule's back.
"Now's my time," thought Felipe, "what luck!—oh, Don Estevan," he began, and then stopped with downcast eyes.
"Well, what is it?" said Stephens kindly.
"Oh, Don Estevan, if you would lend me your mare!" The murder was out, and Felipe looked up at his employer beseechingly. "I would take such care of her!" he continued; "I would indeed."
"Lend her for what?" said Stephens, a little taken aback. "What do you want with her?"
"I want her to go to Ensenada to-night," said the boy.
"Oh, but Felipe, I'm going to the sierra to-morrow to hunt, you know. It isn't possible. But," he continued, touched a little by the boy's evident distress, "what do you want to do there? Why don't you get your father's horse?"
"He's at the herd. My father doesn't let me," said Felipe despondently. Then he went on, "I thought perhaps you didn't go for a day or two. I will bring her back to-morrow in the night. And she shall not be tired—not a bit. Oh, do lend her to me! Please do!"
"I wonder what foolery he's up to now," said Stephens to himself; "I do hate to lend a horse anyhow—and to a harebrained Indian boy who'll just ride all the fat off her in no time. Cheek, I call it, of him to ask it."
"But," he continued in a not unfriendly tone, "why do you want her? Is it flour you have to fetch?" Wheat flour was rather scarce this spring in the pueblo, and some of the Indians were buying it over on the Rio Grande.
"No, sir, it's not that. Only I want her," he added. "Oh please, Don Estevan, please," said he with an imploring face; "do lend the mare or the mule, or anything to ride. Oh do!" and he threw all the entreaty he was capable of into his voice, till it trembled and almost broke into a sob.
"Why, what ails the boy?" said Stephens, surprised at his emotion. "If you want it so bad," he continued, "why don't you ask it from Tostado, or Miguel, or some of them? They'll let you have one. You know I never lend mine. If I did once, all the pueblo would be borrowing them every day. You know it yourself. You've always told me yourself that it would be like that." He was trying to harden his heart by going over his stock argument against lending. "You see I can't do it. I'm going off to the sierra to-morrow," and he turned away, leading the mule after him by the rope.
But before he had gone far he stopped and looked round as if an idea had struck him. "It might be a good notion to try and pump this boy a bit right now," he considered; "he's so desperate eager to borrow the mare he might be willing to let out a thing or two to please me." He beckoned with his hand to Felipe, who was gazing regretfully after his employer.
"See here, Felipe," said Stephens, as the boy eagerly ran to him; "there's something that I had in my mind to ask you, only I forgot. It's just simply this—did you ever kill a rattlesnake?"
"Never, oh, never in my life!" cried the young Indian, with a voice of horror.
"Well, and why not?" persisted the other. "What's your reason anyway? What is there to prevent you?"
"Oh, but, Sooshiuamo, why should I?" said the boy in an embarrassed manner, looking distractedly at the ground as he balanced himself uneasily on one bare foot, crossing the other over it, and twiddling his toes together. "I don't know," he added after a pause. "Why should I kill them?"
"Well, they're ugly, venomous things," said the American, "and that would be reason enough for anybody, I should think. But tell me another thing then. What do your folks do with them in the estufa? Can't you tell me that much?"
"What are you saying about things in the estufa?" cried the boy excitedly. "Have any of the Mexicans been telling you, then, that we keep a sacred snake in the pueblo? Don't you ever believe it, don't, don't!" and his voice rose to a passionate shrillness that betrayed the anxiety aroused in him by any intrusion on the mysteries of his people.
"The Mexicans be blowed!" said Stephens. "I'm talking to you now of what I've just been seeing with my own eyes. There was a big old rattler came out of the rock after I blasted it, and young Antonio went and caught it by the neck and let it twist itself around his arm, and another fellow went to playing with it with a bunch of feathers, and then they ran off with it to the pueblo,—the cacique told them to,—and half a dozen more chaps with them, as tight as they could go. Now I want to know what all that amounts to."
"I can tell you this much," said Felipe after a moment's hesitation; "Antonio is one of the Snakes; so were the others, of course, who went with him. The snake is their grandfather, and so they know all about snakes. But I'm a Turquoise, like you, Sooshiuamo. You are my uncle," he added insinuatingly, "and you should be kind to me and lend me a horse sometimes."
The American laughed aloud. "Oh, I know all about Grandfather Snake and Grandfather Turquoise and the rest of them," he said. "But I'm not an Indian, and I don't come into your family tree, even if you do call me Sooshiuamo and I live in a Turquoise house. I don't lay claim to be any particular sort of uncle to you. But I do want you should tell me something more about this snake-charming business. Can't you let it out?"
"But how can I let it out?" exclaimed Felipe in an irritated voice. "Haven't I told you already that the Snakes know all about it, and not me? You may be sure the Snakes keep their own affairs private, and don't show them to outsiders. How should I know anything about the Snakes' business?"
"Well, Felipe, if you won't, you won't, I suppose," said Stephens. "I know you can be an obstinate young pig when you choose." He did not more than half believe in the lad's professed ignorance. He hesitated a moment as if in doubt whether to try another tack. "Look here, young 'un," he began again in a friendlier tone, "I'll pass that. We'll play it you don't know anything about snakes. You're a full-blooded Turquoise boy, you are, and your business is to know all about turquoises, and turquoise mines, and so on. Very well." He was pleased to see a sort of conscious smile come over the lad's mouth almost involuntarily. "All right then. Let's play it that you are my nephew if you like. Now then, fire ahead, you, and tell your uncle all about where we go to get our turquoises from. You're bound to be posted up in these family matters. There's a lot of things your uncle wants to hear. The silver plates for the horse bridles, for instance, now; let's hear where they come from. Go on; tell me about our silver mines."
"No, no, no!" he cried desperately, and he sprang back as if the American had struck him with a whip. "It is impossible; there aren't any; there are no such things; the Mexicans have been telling you that, too, have they? but they're all liars, yes, liars; don't you ever believe one word that they say about us." He paused, his lips parted with excitement and his lithe frame passionately convulsed.
Regretfully Stephens looked at him and recognised that it was hopeless to get anything out of him, at least in his present condition. "Very well, Felipe," he said, "I think I understand your game. You just don't choose, and that's about the size of it"; and gathering up the coils of the lariat he turned abruptly away and led off the reluctant Captain Jinks in the direction of the pueblo in order to saddle him up. He felt decidedly cheap; as yet he had not scored a single trick in the game he was trying to play.
Felipe stood looking after him disconsolately; at last he gave a heavy sigh and walked back to where he had left his clothes, with drooping head and flagging step, a figure how unlike the elastic form that had burst full speed across the meadow five minutes before. "It's no use," said he to himself. "He doesn't care; he's a very hard man, is Don Estevan." He did up his glossy hair into its queue, put on his long buckskin leggings and his cotton shirt, worn outside in Indian fashion like a tunic and secured with a leather belt, bound his red handkerchief as a turban round his head—the universal pueblo head-dress—and with a very heavy heart went back to his weeding.
"Ojos azules no miran—Blue eyes don't see," said a soft voice to Stephens in gently rallying tones. He was sitting on Captain Jinks in the roadway, nearly opposite to the first house in San Remo, with his eyes shaded under his arched hands, and gazing fixedly back across the long levels of the Indian lands over which he had just ridden.
"Si, miran,—Yes, they do see," he answered coolly, without either looking at the speaker or removing his hands from his forehead, as he still continued his searching gaze. He was trying to make out whether the animals he had left in Felipe's charge were kept by him still grazing safely in the meadow, or if they had been allowed to wander off into the young wheat. The distance to where he had left them feeding was nearer two miles than one, but nature had gifted him with singularly keen vision, and the frontiersman's habit of being perpetually on the lookout had developed this power to the utmost. He was able to identify positively his own stock amongst the other animals at pasture, and to assure himself that, so far, they were all right.
He took his hands from his forehead, straightened himself in his saddle, and looked down at the person who had ventured to speak in so disrespectful a way of the quality of his eyesight. The speaker was a young Mexican woman, and he encountered the glance of a pair of eyes as soft as velvet and as black as night, set in a face of rich olive tint. At that pleasant sight his firm features relaxed into a smile, and he took up her bantering challenge.
"Si, miran," he repeated,—"Yes, they do see, señorita; they see a very pretty girl"; and with a ceremonious sweep of his arm he took off his broad sombrero, as the conventional way of emphasising the conventional gallantry.
The girl blushed with pleasure at the American's compliment. She had a dark scarf drawn over her head, and she now tossed the end of it coquettishly across her face, and kept up her bantering tone.
"Then," replied she, "as you had them directed straight towards the Indian pueblo, I suppose it was a pretty little Indian squaw they were gazing back at so earnestly."
"No," he returned bluntly, matter-of-fact Anglo-Saxon that he was; "I was looking back towards Santiago in order to make out whether my horses had got into the Indians' wheat. But they're all right. And how is your father, Don Nepomuceno?" he added civilly.
"He is very well, señor; he is now at home. Won't you come in and see him? He said he hoped you would be coming down this morning, as it was mail day."
"I am much obliged to him," answered Stephens. "I am on my way now to the stage station, and I will look in as I return."
San Remo was the place where the weekly mail from Santa Fé to Fort Wingate crossed the Santiago River. It was a village of the Mexicans, and lay just outside the boundary of the four square leagues of the Indian grant.
"That is where we two were going," she answered, "my little sister and myself," and she laid her hand on a little brown maiden of ten years or so, who had come out of the house and now stood shyly behind the elder sister, holding on to her dress. "We have to buy some sugar," she continued, "and there is a new storekeeper at the stage station, and they say he sells cheap."
"Then with your permission, señorita, I'll walk along there with you," said the American. He suited the action to the word, throwing his right leg lightly over the neck of his mule and then dropping both feet together to the ground so as to alight facing the girl.
"Say, Chiquita," and he addressed the younger girl, "don't you want a ride? Let me put you up"; but the child only smiled, showing her ivory teeth and clinging more closely behind her sister.
"Don't be a silly, Altagracia," cried the latter, bringing her round to the front. "Why don't you say 'thank you' to the American señor for his kindness in giving you a ride on his mule?" and she pushed her, in spite of her affected reluctance, into the hands of Stephens, who raised her from the ground and placed her, sitting sideways, in the wide California saddle, and gave her the reins to hold. Then, resting his right hand on the mule's neck, he walked forward towards the store beside the elder girl.
"I heard a new man had moved in and taken charge of the stage station and post-office this week," he said. "Has he got a good stock?—many pretty things for the señoras?"
"They say he has beautiful things,—velvet dresses and splendid shawls," she replied; "but I haven't seen them yet. I've only been in with my aunt to buy things for the house, not to see his dress goods. But I hope my father will take us there soon, before all the best of them are gone. The wife of Ramon Garcia got a lovely pink muslin there. She showed it to me yesterday in her house. He's a very clever man, too, is the new storekeeper; he is a Texan, but he speaks Spanish beautifully, just like ourselves. He has a Mexican wife."
"Ah," remarked Stephens, "has he? What's his name, do you know?"
"Bah-koose," answered the girl, giving full value to the broad Spanish vowels which she imported into the somewhat commonplace name of "Backus." "Don Tomas Bah-koose is his name," she repeated. "He is not old, he appears to be about thirty, and he has three children. But perhaps you have met him; is he a friend of yours?"
"Backus," said Stephens reflectively; "Thomas Backus. No, I can't say that he is; I don't remember ever meeting anyone of that name."
"It sounds almost like our Spanish name, Baca," said she; "but he is not one of the Bacas, though he has been living at Peña Blanca, where so many of them live." The Bacas of New Mexico are a fine old family, sprung from the loins of Cabeza de Vaca, the comrade of Ponce de Leon, one of the heroes of the Spanish conquest.
"Well," said Stephens, "we'll soon see what he looks like, anyhow, for here we are at the store." He lifted the child down from the saddle, and the two girls at once went inside while he tied up his mule to a hitching-post that was set in front of the door.
After he had finished doing so, he followed them in; and stepping across the threshold he was instantly aware of a surprised glance of half-recognition darted at him by a man who stood behind the counter, where he was showing some cotton prints to three shawl-clad Mexican women. "Mornin', mister," said the storekeeper, in English. "Excuse me if I keep you waitin' a minute while I 'tend on these ladies."
"All right," answered Stephens briefly, and he leaned quietly back against the mud-plastered adobe wall till the other should be at leisure. He ran his eye over the shelves, which, like those of most Mexican country village shops, contained a varied assortment that ranged from tenpenny nails to the tin saints whose shrines decorate even the poorest hovel in New Mexico. His gaze reverted to the storekeeper, who was a tall, dark, spare man, with a clean-shaven face, a bilious complexion, and snaky black hair. This, then, was Mr. Thomas Backus, an American citizen married to a Mexican wife. She had certainly helped him to a fluent command of her mother tongue, and Stephens could not help envying the easy way in which he poured out lavish praises of his new goods to the customers whom he was serving. The purchases of these ladies were presently completed, but they still remained in the store carrying on an animated conversation with Don Nepomuceno's daughter, who had joined them in discussing the patterns they had chosen.
"And now what can I do for you?" inquired the storekeeper, looking Stephens in the face as he turned to him.
"Surely I have met this man before, but where?" said Stephens to himself, while he answered Mr. Backus's question by remarking politely, "Oh, I'm not in any hurry, thank you. Won't you serve this young lady first?" and with a slight gesture he indicated Manuelita, who was still absorbed in the muslins of her friends. Rack his memory as he would, he could not recall the occasion when he and Backus had met previously, yet he felt almost certain it had occurred.
"Why certainly, certainly," returned the storekeeper cheerily; "so long as you don't mind waitin' a few minutes," and he turned to the girl. "Then what may I have the pleasure of being allowed to show you, señorita?"
"Two peloncillos, Don Tomas, if you will be so kind," answered the young lady; and two conical loaves of the brown Mexican sugar so popular in the Territory were accordingly wrapped in paper and handed over to her; but it was manifest that the pretty frocks were what were nearest to her heart, and she and her three friends still continued to discuss the subject with all the ardour of connoisseurs.
Meantime Stephens became more and more convinced in his own mind not only that this was not his first encounter with Backus, but that the latter was also engaged in watching him as closely as possible. He chose, however, not to call attention to this by any inquiry when at length the storekeeper announced himself ready to wait upon him, contenting himself with simply explaining the object of his visit to the store.
"I just wanted to see," he said quietly, "if you happened to have a parcel here for me by the stage to-day from Santa Fé. Stephens is my name, John Stephens. It's a parcel from Spiegelberg's," he added explanatorily, "that I'm looking for; a small, heavy parcel; it's Winchester cartridges."
"Oh yes, they're here; the stage driver left 'em for you all right," said Mr. Backus promptly, reaching down for them under the counter and handing them over. "And I think there's some mail matter too for you; I'll just see"; with which remark he disappeared into the little post-office that was boarded off at one end of the store, returning from there presently with some papers in his hand. "I reckon this letter's for you"; he read out the address with the laboured enunciation of a man of limited education. "To Mr. John Stephens, living among the Pueblo Indians, Santiago, N.M."
"Yes, that'll be for me," said Stephens, putting out his hand for it.
"I reckoned as how you must be the man as soon as I seed you come in," answered Backus, handing over the letter along with a newspaper and a postal packet, "'cos by what I hear thar' aint no other American living in this valley."
"Just so," assented the prospector; "I'm the only one there is anywhere around here. I've been playing a lone hand down in these parts all winter. For six months I haven't spoken to an American except the stage-driver."
It was a relief to him to talk English to anyone again after so long an interval, although he was not exactly prepossessed by Mr. Backus's looks, nor by the only thing he knew for certain about him, namely, that he had gone and married a Mexican wife, a decidedly eccentric thing for an American to do, in Stephens's eyes. But the mere sound of his native language again was music in his ears, even though it were spoken by a man as illiterate as the storekeeper. For, compared to the other, Backus was illiterate. And it was a thing worth noting about Stephens, who had had the advantage of a high-school education, that though he now freely made use of the rude, vigorous colloquialism of the West,—so much so, indeed, that he talked to himself in it,—yet he could drop it in a moment on occasion. Before a stranger for whom he felt an instinctive distaste, he at once became formal, and his language took on a precision and his tone a punctiliousness that were foreign to his more familiar discourse. As he would have said of himself, "If I don't cotton to a man at once, I always feel like putting on a lot of frills."
"You bin long in these parts?" inquired Mr. Backus carelessly.
"About a year now in New Mexico," replied Stephens; "but I've been in this Western country a good deal longer than that. I'm not a tenderfoot, exactly, if I may say so; I didn't come to this country for my health."
Many men whose lungs are affected have hoped to shake off their dread malady by breathing the pure, thin, dry air of Colorado and New Mexico. The hardy Western pioneer pities the consumptive patient; he succours him freely in distress; and, above all things, he hates to be mistaken for one himself. Stephens was determined that his fellow-countryman should be under no misapprehension on this point.
"No," laughed Mr. Backus lightly, "nor you don't look much like one of them pore health-seekers neither. Say, though," he continued, more warily, "you'll excuse my axin', but was you never in New Mexico before this last year?"
"No," replied Stephens—"that is—yes, I should have said," correcting himself, "I was once, but only for a short time, and that was some years ago, and not in this part of the Territory." He shifted his position against the adobe wall a little, and laid down on the counter in a casual sort of way the parcel and the mail matter which he was holding, as if to indicate that he was ready for a long chat. In reality he was setting his hands free in case he might possibly need to use them. To be at all closely questioned about one's past life by an absolute stranger acts on the experienced Western man as a danger signal. He noted the intense glow in Backus's eyes, and as he did so he grew conscious of a strange sense of doubleness in his own brain, as if all this scene had been enacted once before, and he ought to know what was coming next. He shifted his waist-belt and left his thumbs resting lightly on the buckle in front; it was a perfectly natural thing to do, and yet it left his right hand within six inches of the trusty Colt's revolver at his hip. Assuredly Stephens was no tenderfoot; he was watching every motion of Backus out of the corner of his eye.
"Say, stranger," began the latter, leaning forward over the counter, and speaking low and clear, "no offence, but I want to ax you a certain question. It's a little sudden-like, but I have a reason for it; allers no offence, you understand?"
"You can ask me any question you have a mind to, Mr. Backus," said Stephens coolly. "Of course, whether I answer it or not is my choice."
Mr. Backus might be his fellow-countryman, but he must learn not to be presuming. Almost unconsciously to himself his tone hardened. Stephens could stand the easy familiarity of races that were not his own, and treat the Indians of Santiago with a friendliness that was all the more kindly for his own underlying sense of superiority, but for an American to treat him lightly was another matter. The pride and reserve that had grown up in solitude revolted at this man's inquisitiveness.
"Wal' then, stranger," continued Backus, with an apologetic manner that was due to the other's change of voice, "allers, as I said before, meanin' no offence, did you ever happen to kill a man?"
Manuelita, though apparently absorbed in a rose-sprigged muslin, caught a note in the Texan's tone that aroused her vigilance. She knew no English, but her quick brain divined that when he asked, "Did you ever kill a man?" he was putting no common question.
Stephens started at the abrupt query, and his face flushed. He paused a moment, looking hard at the other; then he slowly answered, "I don't know that I have ever killed anyone."
"Meanin', I take it," rejoined the other, "that you don't know for certain, neither, that you haven't. I ax yer pardon again, stranger, but as sure as God made little apples I've got a reason for what I'm saying. That ar' time you was in New Mexico years ago that you spoke of just now, was you, by any chance, at the battle of Apache Cañon?"
The words "Apache Cañon" sent a thrill through Manuelita; she knew well that there had been a bloody fight there.
"Yes," answered Stephens, a strange new light beginning to dawn upon him; "I fought at Apache Cañon, if you must know."
"You was on the Northern side, warn't you?" queried the storekeeper again.
"Yes," said the prospector quietly; "I was a volunteer in the Second Colorado Regiment."
"By gum, then, I knowed it!" cried the Texan excitedly; "you was one of the Pet Lambs."
At the beginning of the Civil War the Colorado troops, a pretty tough lot, were sometimes sportively alluded to as the "Pet Lambs."
A dry smile came to Stephens's lips at the sound of the old name. "I was a Lamb," said he.
"And I was one of Baylor's Babes," returned the other.
"Baylor's Babes" was the nickname bestowed upon a force of Texas rangers who invaded New Mexico, and had the audacity to propose to conquer the whole Rocky Mountain country for Jefferson Davis off their own bats.
"Yes, you bet I was a Babe," he repeated, "and a whale of a Babe at that, and hurrahed for Jeff Davis as long as I could stand. But that's all over and done with now, and we've buried the war hatchet. But say, stranger, do you happen to recollect what kind of a wepping you was carrying at Apache Cañon? There warn't no Winchesters in them days," he added, patting the parcel of cartridges that lay on the counter.
"I was armed with a muzzle-loading Springfield U.S. rifle, altered in Denver to fire with a tape cap," replied Stephens. His nerves grew tense, and he braced himself for a possible struggle to the death, for he thought the Texan was about to spring on him; but he only asked with quaint earnestness:
"Du tell; what's a tape cap, mister?"
"Why, did you never see one?" said Stephens. "But of course they're out of date now. It was a dodge for capping a gun automatically. There was a tape fitted with caps that was fed forward on top of the tube in front of the hammer. It worked like a charm. You bet there was no time lost fumbling around in your pouch for a cap with your fingers if you had one of them fixed on your gun."
"Great Scot!" cried Backus, "then now I know how't was."
He raised his hands so suddenly to the neck of his shirt that he made Stephens think he was reaching for the bowie-knife which some fighting men carry in a sheath under the coat at the back of the neck. Manuelita thought the same thing, and drew her breath hard, feeling her heart leap with terror. Instinctively Stephens's fingers found the butt of his revolver, but he felt paralysed at the thought of the defenceless women by the counter. If there was to be a fuss, how could they make their escape before it began?
But Mr. Backus was not preparing to start a fuss, and he was not feeling for a weapon. He tore open the front of his shirt excitedly and bared his breast, and showed a livid bluish mark close beside the collarbone.
"Strange!" he cried, "'t was you as give me that; 't was that darned tape cap of yourn as done me. Now, don't you remember?"
"By thunder, I do!" exclaimed Stephens. "You were the man I shot that day at close quarters. I recall your face now. I thought I'd seen you before."
"I knowed you the minute you set foot inside this door," answered the Texan, drawing himself up, and eyeing Stephens keenly. "You see, you give me a good argyment for remembering you that day. Shake, partner," he added quickly, thrusting out his bony right hand across the counter. "Bygones is bygones. As I said just now, we've buried the war hatchet for good, and I don't bear you no ill-will."
Was this a move to get him off his guard? Stephens felt more than half doubtful, but he decided to chance it, especially as he had a stout sheath-knife handy at his left hip. He loosed his fingers from the ready revolver butt, and the two strong hands met in a vigorous clasp.
If it was a strange coincidence that had thus suddenly brought these two old foes together, face to face, in this remote quarter of New Mexico, it was a coincidence no less strange that they were both there for the same object. For Mr. Backus, too, was after the lost silver mine. Ever since his marriage with the daughter of a Mexican peasant he had made a tolerably easy living in a small way by keeping a country store, and in the knowledge which he thus gained of the common pursuits and dominant ideas among the Mexicans, what fascinated him particularly were the tales of hidden mines and buried treasures so often to be heard amongst them. Of all these tales, the legend of the secret mine of the Indians of Santiago had excited his interest most, so that when he learned that the San Remo stage station in their immediate neighbourhood was vacant, and afforded an opening for a store such as his, he speedily arranged to take charge of it and to transfer himself, his family, and his goods to the spot. He had as yet no definite plan of operations beyond keeping his ears open for every scrap of information that might come into his way from any quarter, and doing all he knew to ingratiate himself with the Indians themselves; but the very first step he had proposed to take was to find out about this white man who was said to be living among them, and to discover what his objects were and how much he knew. Fortune had favoured him so far, and here he was shaking hands with the man himself, who had thus unexpectedly proved to be no other than his ancient enemy.
At the moment when the pair were thus exchanging signs of amity, the doorway was darkened by the form of a tall, swarthy, well-dressed Mexican. Mr. Backus hailed the new-comer instantly.
"Welcome, Don Nepomuceno. You come at a good hour. See the wonderful thing that has happened. This American señor that you were telling me of only yesterday, who lives with the Indians of Santiago, has turned out to be the very same man that plugged me in the great fight at Apache Cañon nine years ago. We were just shaking hands over it as you came in, and I've been showing him a little mark over my lungs that he gave me as a remembrancer." Mr. Backus was speaking in Spanish, and Manuelita was drinking in every syllable with intense interest.
"Well, if you come to that," returned Stephens, baring his left arm and displaying the scar of an old bullet wound between the elbow and wrist, "I can do ditto. Perhaps you didn't know that your bullet took me through the fleshy part of the arm here," and he pointed with his finger to the place where the ball had entered.
Don Nepomuceno Sanchez, who had seen fighting in the wars with the Navajos, and knew well what wounds were, came forward to examine the scars of either man with critical eyes. "Truly these are honourable scars," he said; "tell me about it, please, if you don't mind talking over old war times."
"Well, señor," said Backus, in his rapid, fluent Spanish, "it was like this: we were fighting there in the hills, on opposite sides, as of course you know; and naturally, being all frontiersmen on both sides, we advanced under cover as much as ever we could, firing as we got a chance. And so it came about that he and I, sudden-like, found ourselves quite close to one another in the brush, and we both fired as it might be at the same moment. He must have missed me clean that time, but according to the way he tells it, I must have plugged him right through that left arm of his; I didn't even know as I'd touched him though, for it never seemed to phase him, and we both of us set to reloading in a hurry, you bet. We both put in the powder, and both rammed down the bullets, and I had got a trifle ahead of him as I brought up my gun to the hip in order to have it ready to put on the cap. Wal', I'm jiggered if he didn't leave out the capping part of the business, and brought his piece straight up to his shoulder to draw a bead on me. You bet I just thought I knowed as I'd got the deadwood on him then. 'Got ye, Yank,' I called out, slipping the cap on my tube, 'ye haint capped yer gun.' 'Don't want to,' sez he; and whang-g-g! she went, and took me right here through the lung; and that was the last I ever knowed of anything for about a day and a half. You see, he had some kind of a gol-durned, stem-winding trick on his gun that did the capping for him, that I didn't know nothing about."
"Well, now it's all over," said Stephens frankly, "I'm real glad to learn that your wound wasn't mortal. My company fell back directly after we exchanged shots, so that I never knew what had become of you."
"Oh," said the Texan, "they patched me up in the hospital somehow or another, and then I was took in and nursed in a Mexican family, and the end of it was I married one of the darters and settled in the Territory, and here I am with a wife and three kids, and running a store. I do keep a little good whisky, too, you may like to know. Say, won't you take a drink? It's my treat. You'll join us in a tragito, won't you, Don Nepomuceno?"
"I'll drink with you with pleasure," said Stephens, "if you'll allow me to take it in something like a lemon soda. Whisky's a thing I don't use, if you'll excuse me."
"Surely, surely," in amiable tones remarked Mr. Backus, who was setting out on the counter a three-parts full decanter and some glasses. "I'll try and mix something of the lemon-soda order as near as I can fix it." He had hoped to get Stephens into a loquacious mood and pump him over a few social drinks, but he was too cunning to show any trace of disappointment. "Every man has a right to choose his own liquor; I don't quarrel with no man's taste," he said, as he passed the decanter to Don Nepomuceno, with a familiar "Help yourself, friend," and busied himself in searching for materials for concocting some kind of a temperance drink for his other guest.
Sanchez poured a little of the strong spirit into a glass and filled it up with water. "You are coming to take dinner in my house presently, are you not, Don Estevan?" he said in his courteous tones, addressing Stephens, who accepted the invitation cordially. "Manuelita, my child," he turned to his eldest daughter, "run home now quick with Altagracia, and tell your aunt that Don Estevan is coming and to have dinner ready soon."
The temperance drink was compounded, and the three men clinked glasses and pledged each other.
"And what have you bin' doing ever since our last meeting?" said Mr. Backus genially to his former foe. "I've give ye my story; now let's hear yourn."
"Mining," said Stephens with curt emphasis. The word made the Texan give a start of surprise. "Yes," he continued, "it's mining and prospecting for gold and silver that has been my trade ever since; and, what's more, I've travelled over a good part of the Pacific slope at it, too. It's a game you get terribly stuck on after once you take to it."
"Mining, eh?" said the Texan with affected indifference. "Wal', that ar's a thing as I dunno nothin' at all about."
He gave a careless laugh. "Oh, by the way," he said, turning his back on the two men and rummaging on the shelf behind him for a couple of cans of oysters which he displayed with a great show of earnestness, "that's the brand of oysters, Don Nepomuceno, that I meant to bring to your notice, first chance. I can recommend 'em; they're prime."
"Yes," he continued, turning again to Stephens, "you was saying as how you was interested in mines; but as far as that goes, why there ain't no mines being worked in this part of the country, not as I know of." A suspicious man might have guessed that Backus's interest in the possibility of a mine in the neighbourhood of Santiago was a good deal stronger than he chose to let appear, but John Stephens was not of a suspicious nature.
"No," he said in reply, "there aren't any now, but there have been, and there will be again, if I'm any judge." Then, reflecting that he might say too much, and checking himself he went on more cautiously. "But I don't see any opening here myself. I guess I'm about through with New Mexico for the present, and I calculate to light out for Colorado pretty soon. The railroads have got in there, and there's a boom on."
Mr. Backus was sharp at reading other people's motives, and saw in an instant that Stephens was trying to disguise his. So much the more reason for finding out what they were.
"What! going off to Colorado?" he exclaimed with an air of surprise. "Why, I'd understood from the folks here that you had settled down in Santiago for keeps. That's really how I come to hear of you; I heard that you was a white man living amongst them Indians, and had joined the tribe; so I supposed you was adopted by them, and had gone and got hitched up with a squaw."
Stephens's eyes flashed.
"Shouldn't wonder if that drawed him out a bit," reflected Mr. Backus privately to himself.
"If anyone told you so," said the prospector stiffly, "let me tell you that you have been misinformed. No sir, squaws aren't in my line; I'm not that sort of a man. I never have proposed to go outside of my own colour, and I never will."
Mr. Backus gave a short laugh. The word colour touched him on the raw. He was married to a Mexican, and many Americans are undiscriminating enough to class the Mexicans with coloured people. The Mexicans themselves naturally resent such a slight on their race; although a part of them have more or less Indian blood in their veins, they prefer to ignore that side of their pedigree and trace their descent solely back to the conquering cavaliers of Spain. But Mr. Backus was himself a quarter-blooded Indian. He called himself a Texan, and passed as such; though he was born in the Indian Territory and his mother had been a half-breed Cherokee.
He changed the subject abruptly. "Fill your glass again, Don," he said, pushing the decanter towards the Mexican. "It's good whiskey, real old Bourbon. 'There isn't a headache in a hogshead of it,' as the Irishman said."
"A thousand thanks, no, if you will excuse me," replied the Mexican, "I have sufficient. I think I must be going," he went on, for indeed he felt a little out of it, seeing that the two Americans had dropped back instinctively into talking in their own language, of which he knew but a few words. "I shall see you again, then, presently, Don Estevan, at my house," and bowing politely he departed homewards.
"That man's darned well fixed, I can tell you," remarked the storekeeper, refilling his own glass and tossing it off as soon as the Mexican had gone. "And what's more, he's a square man, too. I don't mind saying that Nepomuceno Sanchez can just have all the credit he wants at this store. He's one of the heirs to the Sanchez grant, and that gives him the use of all the pasture land he needs for his sheep. He's a very peart business man, for a Mexican. I used to come across him over in Peña Blanca, you know. He's a relation of old man Baca's by marriage, and he's got a lot of his sheep on shares and makes a good thing of it."
The personage irreverently referred to by the Texan as "old man Baca" was the head of the family of that name, and a man of no small position and wealth. The old families of New Mexico own immense flocks of hardy little Mexican sheep, whose numbers often run into hundreds of thousands. Their flocks are divided into bands of a few thousand and let out on shares to retainers, who return a rent in kind of the wool and the increase. The relation between these retainers and the heads of the great families is semi-feudal.
"Yes," said Stephens, "taking sheep on shares is a good business. I've seen his son, young Andrés Sanchez, up there on that Sanchez grant with their sheep herd when I've been out on the mountains."
"Oh, you've been up on the mountains round here?" said Backus, who saw his chance to lead the conversation once more in the direction he wanted. "Mining, I suppose?" he added, as if it were an afterthought.
"Well, I've prospected some," returned the other. "But you've heard me say I didn't think much of the opening here."
"Ever take any of the Indians out prospecting with you?" inquired the Texan. "They've bin here so long they'd ought to know if there's anything lying around worth looking at. Did they never tell you anything about mines?" He let these last words fall after a pause with studied carelessness.
"No, sir," said the prospector, "I've learnt nothing from the Indians, and it's highly possible that they've nothing to tell."
"You never thought to ask 'em, I suppose?" suggested Backus.
"Why should I?" returned the other quietly. "May I ask, Mr. Backus, if you've any special reason for these questions?"
The Texan hesitated; he felt sure now that his old antagonist was not at Santiago by mere chance, but had an object in view which he did not care to disclose. He quickly decided to try and gain his confidence by a show of openness.
"Wal', yes, I have," he admitted; "I guess I've got some information that might be of value to anyone as knew how to use it."
"What could he mean?" Stephens thought. "Was this information the knowledge of the secret mine? If so, it might be worth while to make terms with him, as the Indians seemed to be so impracticable."
"If anyone will show me a mine," said the prospector, "I can tell him if it's worth working, and how to work it."
"Yes," returned Backus, "and if so what terms would you expect?"
"A half-interest," said Stephens. "If I thought it good enough I'd take a half-interest and bear my share of the expenses."
"That's a square offer," replied the Texan. "Now look at here. Now, s'posin' I was to tell you of a mine in this neighbourhood, you'd be willing to do that with me?"
"Are you referring to the lost mine of the Indians?" asked the prospector. It was not worth while to make any further mystery of the matter, for the Texan had obviously heard the story.
"That's just what I am," said Backus. "I thought as how you must have heard some talk about it. Now you allow as you don't know where it is."
"I do not," said the other.
"Wal', I do," said Backus. "And I'll tell it to you on your own terms, and that's a half-interest for each of us. It's on the Indian grant up in the mountains."
"Well, I knew that much," said Stephens.
"Ah," returned the Texan, "but I can tell you more'n that. The Indians haint got no right to keep it; that grant haint been confirmed to them by act of Congress."
"But, my dear sir," returned Stephens, with something that savoured of contempt, "you're revealing to me as your precious secret what's matter of common knowledge. If you ask anyone in the office at Santa Fé, they'll tell you that the grant to the Indians of four square leagues round the pueblo has been confirmed to them, and that they own it from grass-roots to Hades by a perfectly indefeasible title; but they'll tell you there, too, in the office, that the twenty miles square that they claim in the mountains has never been confirmed, and for that matter is overlapped by half a dozen unconfirmed Mexican grants as well. The real title to that land is in the United States Government. That's as old as a last year's bird's-nest."
"I see you're well posted in the business," said Backus; "but maybe you don't know that the secret mine's on the Cerro de las Viboras. I can tell you that."
"If you can show it to me up there on that Rattlesnake Mountain, Mr. Backus," was Stephens's reply, "I'm ready to acknowledge at once that you'll show me something I don't know. But as you know so much you are probably aware that the mine has been closed for a hundred years or more, and that rumour locates it in a dozen different places, and that to look for it on the Cerro without knowing where it is is to look for a needle in a haystack. I've been all around that Cerro, you can bet, but I haven't run across the mine. The Cerro's a mountain five miles round and five thousand feet high, and a precious rough mountain at that. I'm willing to go up there again; I'm ready to start to-morrow if you like; and if you'll show me the mine there I'm ready to do as I said with you about working it; but unless you can do that I don't consider that what has passed constitutes any claim between us on either side."
"Wal'," said the Texan, "I couldn't leave the store here just yet, not till I get things straightened out and settled down. Nor I won't swear for sartin as I can put you right on to the exact spot, seein' as how I've not been up thar myself yet; but mebbe I can before long, and I reckon that ought to be enough for ye. Say, look here, couldn't we work it between us, somehow, to get them Indians to show us the spot?"
This intrusive Texan had so far told Stephens nothing he did not know already, and now here he was wanting to poach on the prospector's private preserve—his personal influence with the Indians.
"That's what I've been trying to do already, Mr. Backus," said Stephens irritably; "and, to be plain with you, I'm not looking out for a partner in this matter."
"Ah, but mebbe that's just what you want," returned the storekeeper imperturbably; "mebbe the reason as you haint won nary trick so far is that you've bin playing a lone hand. Now, I'll gamble from what you said just now that you've bin trying to get the secret out of the bucks over there, and that you haven't tried the women for it at all. Now, aint I right?" and he gave the other a cunning look.
"I've never seen any reason to think that the women know anything about it," returned Stephens. "It isn't likely they would." The idea had never even occurred to him.
"Ah, and I'll gamble they do," replied Backus. "I know a thing or two about Indians myself, and it's a great trick of theirs to let some of the squaws—only some, mind you—keep some of the secrets of the tribe. You see they don't go and get killed off like the bucks, so it acts as a kind of safeguard against losing the knowledge of a thing entirely that way. Aint there some extra high-toned women, now, in the Santiago tribe,—chief's darters and the like, eh?" His keen black eyes were turned on the other with a cunning inquisitiveness. "Yes, by the way, aint there a white squaw in the tribe somewheres?"
Stephens was startled. "You've taken a lot of trouble to find out things, I fancy, Mr. Backus," he said rather suspiciously; "a great deal more, indeed, than you seemed inclined to let on at first. But you're quite right. Yes, there is a white squaw in the tribe, and she's the daughter of the cacique."
Backus listened with extreme interest. "You reckon she's an Indian, then?" he said. "You don't think she's a white girl they've picked up and adopted, by any chance? I've seen a good few sorts of Indians, but never any white ones yet."
"Oh no, she's Indian, right enough," said Stephens; "she's a natural Indian blonde, as fair-complected as I am. They're none so rare among these Pueblo Indians. There's twenty or thirty of them over in Zuñi."
"I wanter know!" exclaimed the Texan, by which phrase he indicated extreme surprise. "Wal', she might be worth trying. The cacique had ought to know the secret if anybody does, and she'd be as likely as any of the squaws to be let into it. Why shouldn't you tackle her? Is she married?"
"No, she's not married yet," replied the other.
"Wal', there's yer chance," said the storekeeper, with a knowing grin; "but I forgot, you draw the line pretty close in the matter of colour; or mebbe, she being light-complected as yourself, you'd reckon she was white enough to suit you."
Stephens flushed; he had given this man no right to intrude these familiarities upon him; in silence he picked up his parcels to go. When you have just been forgiven by a man for shooting him through the lungs, you can hardly blaze out at him for being a trifle too personal in his conversation.
"Wal', I'm going to be up there right along," continued the storekeeper, seeing that Stephens volunteered no further comment, and was preparing to start, "and then you can introduce me. I'm going to make a bid for the trade of the pueblo anyhow, and I'll have to get on the right side of the cacique for that, and I might as well get the inside track with the girl, too. It's all in the family, eh?" He grinned again with a kind of a grin that Stephens loathed. "And't won't be trespassing on your property neither, I s'pose?"
"I leave the Indian women alone, Mr. Backus, as I think I told you before," said Stephens haughtily, and he drew himself up and moved to the door.
"Oh, no offence," cried the other quickly, following him; "I see you're high-toned, of course. I didn't mean nothing low-down, nohow"; he attended the prospector out to the hitching-post, where the mule was fastened, and watched him as he put the parcels into his saddle-bags.
"That's a real nice California saddle of yourn," he said in a propitiatory tone, "and an A1 mule wearing it. Wal', when are you going to ask me to come and meet Miss Pocahontas?"
"I'm afraid I'm off to the sierra to-morrow on a hunt," was the somewhat ungracious reply, "but we may meet again later on when I come back, before I start for Colorado, if I decide after all to go there"; and he swung himself into his saddle and raised his bridle rein.
"What makes ye so sot on leavin' this Territory?" queried Backus, laying his hand on the mule's neck and walking a few paces alongside the parting guest. "Aint it most time for ye to quit all this rovin' round, and settle down? Why don't you ask Don Nepomuceno, now, for his darter? She's gone on you already, if you only knowed it. When you was fingering your revolver there in the store just now—oh, I seen what your little game was, right enough—her eyes was just glued to you. Oh yes; if I was watching you close, right along the hull time, you bet I kept my little eye open for what the women thought of it all as well. You bet I aint no innercent; I aint bin and lived here these seven years in New Mexico without learning to watch the women every time. I'm on the spot there, and no mistake. I know how a girl looks when she thinks as how her man's in danger that she's gone on. You ask her father for her, and you'll find you've got the inside track there, or my name aint Tom Backus."
"Really, Mr. Backus," replied Stephens, "you've set yourself to discuss a matter I prefer not to talk about. I think I'll say good morning now."
With a regretful air Mr. Backus removed his hand from the mule's neck, and remained there still looking at Stephens's back, while the animal he bestrode, feeling its rider's spurs, quickened its pace.
"Wal', so long," he cried after him as the distance between them rapidly increased. "You'd better think over that idea of mine. Take care of yerself now. Good men is scarce"—"and prospectors who know a mine when they see it are scarcer, just now, in this part of the world," he continued to himself. "I've no fancy to have you putting out for Colorado till you've done my bit of work for me down here, Mister Stephens. If I can once get you to fooling with that squaw girl, I'll bet a dollar you can get the secret of the Indians' silver mine out of her; and if she ain't enough to keep you here you may sport around after Miss Manuelita, but stop here you must till you've found that mine for me. You find it and I take the profits, that's fair division," and he gave a chuckle of satisfaction; "and when the time comes for paying you your share, you'll find I haint forgotten how to shoot. Lord! what luck to drop on you like this, and you as innercent as a new-born babby, for all your fingering your six-shooter the way you did. I reckon you'll just play the cards as I deal 'em, and never spot me a-raising a cold deck on you, as I will."
It was but slowly that Manuelita obeyed her father's order to return home; her little feet lagged as the girl dwelt on the scene she had just witnessed, and wondered what it meant. Somehow this American always set her wondering about something. His very unlikeness to the men whom she had hitherto lived among made him appear almost as strange to her as a visitor from another world. He had begun by half repelling, and had ended by fascinating her; on this point the guess of the coarse-minded but quick-witted Texan was not mistaken. Although in speech and manners, in all his tastes and habits, Stephens offered a complete contrast to her Mexican fellow-countrymen, he himself with his light hair and fair complexion was not a type absolutely new to this girl, for in the place of honour in her grandfather's dining-room had hung a portrait of a golden-haired caballero, the great Manuel Sanchez, the friend of Cortez; and Manuelita had woven so many romantic dreams about her glorious ancestor that this fair-haired American had come to seem to her a sort of copy of her hero of romance. It was only in dreams and traditions that the girl had met with heroes; the secluded life led by Mexican ladies was in her case more solitary than usual, for the Sanchez family was poor (poor for its position, that is) but proud, and Manuelita turned up her pretty nose at the few young rancheros of the neighbourhood, and held them beneath the notice of the daughter of a conquistador. The girl's passionate southern nature, with all its capacity for devotion, had slept longer than was usual among her people, and when her heart should awake it would be the heart of a woman, not of a schoolgirl. The young rancheros flaunted their silver spurs and velvet jackets at the Fiestas in vain; they swore the señorita was as wild as an antelope; and, like an antelope, she was caught by her curiosity. She could not keep from speculating on the strange character of this American who bore the golden locks of her great ancestor. The character of a handsome young man is a dangerous study for the peace of mind of a girl, and her interest in the stranger grew so rapidly that soon it seemed to her that there was little else worth studying "beneath the visiting moon."
Nor was the opportunity lacking. Stephens had struck up quite a friendship with her father in the course of the winter, and had got into the way, especially on mail days, of dropping in for a chat with his Mexican crony, who, within his somewhat narrow intellectual limits, was a man both of strong character and active mind. She had listened to them talking together by the hour. The Mexican had many incidents to tell of the ceaseless struggles of his people with the marauding Navajo Indians, who had been but lately reduced to subjection, and of the hardly less constant struggle between the rival great families, the Bacas, the Armijos, the Chavez, and the rest, for supremacy among themselves. The American found no lack of matter in the tale of his wanderings between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains, and of the toils and hopes of a seeker after gold. To her, directly, he had not spoken very much; as an unmarried girl, under the watchful tutelage of her aunt, she was not expected to take a prominent part in conversation, but she went and came freely between the living-room where her father entertained his guest, and the sleeping-chambers which opened off it and the kitchen communicating with it on the other side.
Once, too, it had been her luck to see the American perform a feat that impressed her not a little. She had gone out one evening with Juana, the Navajo captive who had been brought up in the house as a bondservant, to bring in the milk from the corral, when she caught sight in the dusk of an animal prowling near that seemed like a dog, and yet was assuredly something other than a dog. The two girls ran indoors, crying out that there was a wild beast of some kind, a wolf they thought, close by, and Stephens, who was sitting with her father, sprang up, seized his Winchester, which stood in the corner, and hastily threw a cartridge into it as he stepped forth, while she followed to point out the marauder. There, in the dim light, some seventy yards away, the animal stood, hesitating whether to advance or to fly. She well remembered the quick, smooth, steady action with which the rifle came up, came level, went off; the loud clap of the bullet hitting the object; and the nonchalant way in which the tall American had turned on his heel and, without any apparent interest in the effect of his shot, had gone in and replaced the rifle in its corner, merely remarking, "I reckon it's nothing but a coyote."
Pedro, the peon, had run to see, and presently brought in the limp body of the animal, a coyote as he had guessed, its skull shattered to a pulp by the deadly hollow bullet. But what impressed her more than the death-dealing powers of the terrible weapon, was the quiet confidence exhibited by the marksman in his rapid aim, a confidence so entirely justified by the event; and it was this that struck deep into her imagination.
Yes, in her eyes, without doubt, the American was a hero; and yet he was but a cold-hearted hero after all. He could turn a compliment because he had picked up the trick of it from the young Mexicans whom he met occasionally in Don Nepomuceno's house, but his compliments lacked the fanciful gallantry of the words of her countrymen; yes, he was hard, she was sure of it, hard and cold as the ice-bound soil of his own frozen North; she would waste no more thoughts on him, she resolved; and then she thought of him more than ever, and it was in such a mood as this that she re-entered her father's door.
* * * * * * *
When Stephens turned his back somewhat ungraciously on Mr. Backus in front of the stage station, he rode off without casting a look behind him, and urged his mule forward at an easy amble towards the house where he was expected. Those last words of the storekeeper had jarred on him very unpleasantly. Who had asked this intruder to spy on the expression of the girl's face? What business was it of his anyhow? Of course it was all rubbish. He himself had never said a single word to Manuelita that all the world might not hear. Of course he had to pay her a compliment once in a while; he could hardly do less, coming and going at the house as he did, and all these Mexican señoras and señoritas expected it, just as the girls back in Ohio expected you to treat them to candy and ice-cream. That never meant anything particular, neither did his compliments, and she was much too sensible a girl to think they did. It was characteristic of the man that he never for a moment thought of himself as likely by his person and his character to make an impression on a girl's heart. The idea that came into his head when Backus made the suggestion was that if there was anything in it it must be due to this precious art of paying compliments, which was about the only point in Mexican manners that he had taken any special pains to acquire. But the whole thing was rubbish, so he assured himself again and again. Sanchez was no fool, and no more was his daughter. They were kindly people, who had behaved with true Mexican hospitality to a stranger—but they were people of another race: their customs, their beliefs, their ideals, were all strange to him. Between an American and a Mexican there could be no real community of feeling. And yet some Americans did marry Mexicans, and did not seem to repent it. Even that low-down skunk of a storekeeper, who was an American of sorts, had a Mexican wife. Probably she was not much to boast of, a mere peon's daughter most likely,—well, that was his taste. But there were other Americans who had Mexican wives; he could count up several whom he had seen in Santa Fé,—traders, Government employés, and the like,—and they had as comfortable homes as if they had gone back to the States and married American girls. But confound that Backus's impudence! What should he know about these Sanchez folks anyway?
Beneath all this anger lay two very uncomfortable suspicions. One was that the storekeeper was a man with a great deal of low cunning, and might have, as indeed he boasted, most confoundedly sharp eyes for prying into other people's affairs; and the other was that he, Stephens, had never given such an affair as this a serious thought before, and knew precious little about womankind in general; and this last thought of his was much truer than he himself realised.
There are no men whose experience of women, as a rule, is so small as the pioneers of a new country. In older countries there are unmarried men in plenty, but they are brought into frequent daily contact with the other sex unless they take deliberate pains to prevent it, and not seldom they prove to understand women better than those who might be supposed to have a better right. But the celibates of a new country are quite different. In their case it is not choice but necessity that makes the mere sight of a woman's face a rare thing. In the wild, remote mining camps where Stephens's years of adventure had been mostly passed, among a thousand men there would barely be a score or so who ever brought their women-folks along. True enough, where the miners had struck it rich, and hundreds and thousands of dollars were being taken out by eager crowds of men, another class of women did not delay long in appearing upon the scene; but that was a class from which Stephens studiously kept aloof. He had not even the perverted experience that may be thus gained; and he positively knew less at nine-and-twenty about the ways in which girls think and feel than he had known before he left home at nineteen. If he knew little he had been contented with his ignorance, but now this random shaft of the storekeeper had gone home, and he was contented no longer.
Alighting from Captain Jinks before Don Nepomuceno's door, he was welcomed by the Mexican, who insisted on unsaddling the mule for him himself, loudly calling meanwhile for Pedro to come and take him round to the corral and give him some corn. The house was built in Mexican style, of sun-dried bricks, in the form of a hollow square, with a patio, or courtyard, in the centre on which all the doors and windows gave, the outer wall being blank except for a peephole or two high up. It had a flat clay roof, with a low parapet all round. It was, in fact, a miniature castle, as was every house in the country of any pretensions built during the days when the Navajos and Apaches were a constant terror in the land. Stephens followed his host inside after taking off his spurs, Spanish fashion. He had unbuckled his belt and handed it, revolver and all, to his host, begging him to take charge of it. This, too, he had learned was a piece of Spanish etiquette. You give him your arms to keep, for you are under his protection. Don Nepomuceno bustled around, laying the saddle with its "cantines" neatly in a corner, with the saddle blanket over it, and hanging up the belt on a peg, while he kept calling out to his sister to bring in the dinner, and to the Navajo captive, Juana, to bring water for washing. There were no chairs or tables, but a broad divan covered with gaily striped serapes ran all along one side of the room and served as a seat.