"Men make plans, and the devil makes other plans--and the devil's plan
has always the luck with it."
Don Antonio had expressed himself thus to the army men, who fumed and
fretted at delays incident to the funeral ceremonies of Miguel Arteaga,
for whom the Mission bells clanged in the gray of a morning, and the
word went out that he lay trampled into the dust of the Santa Ana ranch.
A thousand head of stampeding cattle had gone over him, and the younger
brother--the handsome Rafael--was now the head of the Arteaga family.
And with half the horses selected for the government, the work had
stopped short. There was no head to anything now until Rafael arrived.
In vain the army men swore, and went farther south to secure mounts
for the regiment. They had to come back to San Juan, and then it was
that Keith Bryton, with his knowledge of the people and of the country,
came to their aid.
He heard that the debonair Rafael had landed at San Pedro the day of the
death, and had quietly lost himself from the dismal ceremonies awaiting
him in his own province. Miguel could not be seen; what use was it to
witness the howling mob of Indian retainers?
Bryton, knowing something and surmising more of the situation, held the
army men with some promise to "fix things," and secretly despatched a
trusted vaquero with a letter to San Pedro, allowing the new heir for
his return just the time necessary for the next ship to come into the
harbor, and the extra day's drive from Los Angeles. In the meantime a
personal letter giving orders to Don Antonio to hand over the stock as
per contract was needed badly in San Juan, if Don Rafael ever cared
again for government favors.
The vaquero rode back in forty-eight hours with the order. The work of
rounding-up began over again, and only Keith Bryton and Don Antonio knew
how it had come about.
Slowly affairs began to assume their usual routine. People began to talk
of other things; and only Dona Teresa, the widow of Miguel, continued to
go daily to the dark old chapel back of the Mission dining-room, and
kneel in prayer before the wooden saints in the niches. She sat in the
patio of Juan Alvara's house, and stared listlessly from one square of
tiling in the pavement to another. The priest had just left her after
the perfunctory words of solace, and was refreshing himself with a glass
of brandy preparatory to a game of _malilla_. The week had been one of
trial; it always is so when the death is one of accident--no one is
ready.
The Dona Teresa had been a pretty girl in the days when Miguel Arteaga
serenaded her endlessly, and her family had insisted that the marriage
should not be postponed to add to their sleepless nights. One year--two
years, and the serenades were a thing of a former life, and so was fat
Teresa's beauty. From the willows was brought again the Indian girl
whose two children had been christened in his name. She looked after the
servants who cooked for the vaqueros. Her manner was ever quiet and
submissive to Dona Teresa, who accepted her as better than any of the
others of the same class. Dona Teresa had no children, and envied though
she was not jealous of Aguada of the smoke-black eyes and the babies.
And it was Aguada who came to Dona Teresa in the patio, undid her
bonnet-strings, and bathed her face and hands with cool water.
Past the veranda of Juan Alvara, at San Juan, all the world of
Southern California found its way. There was a tavern down the street,
where the stages stopped between Los Angeles and San Diego, but Juan
Alvara's house was the one dwelling where distinguished travellers were
entertained, after the hospitality of the padres at the Mission was a
thing of the past. It was up to this veranda Keith Bryton rode from the
second round-up at Boca de la Playa. He was tired and dusty, and
accepted gratefully the wine for which the old man sent when he saw his
guest approaching.
Alvara did not usually like "Gringos"; but at the time the Juan Flores
bandits were holding up the town for ransom, it was Keith Bryton who had
gathered a posse of men, including the sheriff, and headed them again
for San Juan. Grain-sacks were piled along the roof of the Mission as a
barricade, and behind them some riflemen guarded, as best they could,
the several families who had fled to the walls of the church for
protection.
Only one store had been burned, and one store-keeper killed, when the
help came--thanks to Bryton, and that one ride broke down all barriers
for the young Gringo in San Juan. He now never rode past Alvara's
veranda without a halt for a glass of wine, or a chat, or even that best
test of understanding, a rest in silence together, looking out across
the river to the blue shadows of the hills.
This day as the young man sat smoking in such silence, viewing idly the
passing Indians whose dark faces were lit by the rosy glow of the
lowering sun, and watching the circling doves whose white wings caught
flashes of pink from pink clouds above, the older man, regarding his
thoughtful face, asked after a quiet interval, "What is it, my friend?"
The handsome bronzed young fellow stretched wide his arms with a great
sigh, and laughed shortly.
"Foolishness, Don Juan, much foolishness. I was homesick for a something
I never knew, so I left Los Angeles and came here to find it. Can you
understand so crazy a thing as that?"
The old man nodded slowly.
"It is a girl--no?"
The young man laughed again, without mirth.
"Which of them?" and Bryton made a gesture toward a group of dark faces
across the plaza. "There is pretty Lizetta, Teresa; and if one wants the
other sort, there is Chola Martina staring at us both under her
mantilla."
"It is you she stares at. The Lieutenant danced with her last night. He
is just off the ranges, so she is to-day crazy over the Americanos.
No--it is not any of such girls you are for."
"I reckon not," agreed the young fellow. "I think it is just the
atmosphere, and perhaps the old monastery. The pictures of Mexican towns
paint themselves on the memory and stay there. Were you ever in Old
Mexico, Don Juan?"
"Not I; never have I been a travelled man. But you--?"
"I was down there a year ago," answered Bryton, looking hard at the
hills. "I found a town in a valley like this,--there were just the same
sort of 'dobes, and the same sort of big church walls,--only it was a
nuns' cloister, instead of a deserted monastery."
"And--?"
"I'll never go back, but--I'll never forget it! That old broken wall,
and Moorish chimney, and the doves--they all belong to the same sort of
picture. I come here to sit and moon over them once in a while, that's
all!"
The old man regarded him with shrewd, kindly eyes. He had the strain of
Spanish blood, condoning many follies of youth.
"So!" he said, kindly. "Thou comest here to dance with the girls of San
Juan, that the other girl may be forgotten? Ai--yi!--these other
sweethearts are fellows who make much trouble!--so?"
"It is something more than a sweetheart keeps me away," remarked the
young fellow after a slight pause. "A mere sweetheart is not such a
barricade; most of us are perverse enough to think it rather an
incentive."
"You too, my friend?"
"Who knows?"
The old man puffed out another cigaretto and threw the stump away before
he spoke.
"The wives of other men it is wise to go clear of, my friend."
Keith laughed more than the remark called for; in fact, his amusement
dispelled the murky thoughts by which he had been driven to the
hospitable veranda.
"True--very true; but which of us is always wise?"
Alvara made no reply to this, only shook his head, and the other, noting
the perplexity of it, chuckled.
"Don't lose sleep over my depravity," he suggested. "I am no blacker
than the rest of the sheep."
"Even then thou wouldst fall far short of whiteness," remarked the older
man. "The padre swears that San Juan will have worse than earthquakes if
there is no reform."
"That is bad," said Keith, with owl-like gravity.
"It is bad, senor--and it is true. I heard him say it but an hour ago.
He was playing _malilla_ with old Henrico and won three pesos. He says
it is wrong to race horses on Sunday, since Jose went under and had his
neck broke. Jose, like Miguel, had not confessed, and the padre wants
money for a mass."
"Will he get it?"
"Sure. The boys will not see him stay in purgatory for thirty pesos.
They are throwing dice at Don Eduardo's now, to see who will pay."
"If it was the horse of Don Eduardo, and Jose had ridden for him ten
years, why cannot Don Eduardo pay?"
"Don Eduardo is English. The Englishmen are used to going to hell."
"They would deserve to go for that, if for nothing else," commented
Bryton, as the report of a blast shook the ground, and across the plaza
the air was filled with flying rock and brick and plaster; and then a
great cloud of dust drifted upward as the Mexican workmen strolled back
to their task of tearing down the old church of San Juan Capistrano,
whose massive stone walls it had taken the padres and their neophytes so
many years of toil to complete.
"Not a church equal to it in the Californias; not a church equal to it
dreamed of in the States when it was being built!" and the young fellow
stared moodily at the devastation of it. "Can't the bishop stop that?"
"Ten years the Church fight to get it back. They must win some day--oh,
yes--sure!"
"But what will they have when the suit is won, if this is allowed to go
on?"
"Who knows?" queried Alvara, placidly. "We may be in our graves, senor,
and not here to see it. When Eduardo wants foundation for an adobe, he
blows down a stone wall; when he wants walls for a well, he blows down
the arches of the patio, until bricks enough fall. It is quicker than to
burn new ones."
"But the padre?"
"There is the man who is padre of San Juan Capistrano in these days,"
said Juan Alvara, briefly.
A man was coming up the middle of the road, his boots wet and muddy from
irrigating-ditches, a short black pipe between his teeth. He halted to
chaffer with an Indian woman who carried a basket of fish from the sea.
Contemptuously viewing the modest sea bass, he said: "Fish only a foot
long--what good are they? Who is fool enough to buy such?"
"It is not to sell, father. Tia Concepcion, who is much sick, ask for
these; they are to give, for she is sick."
"Humph! a sick woman to eat ten fish! They will be sending for me in the
middle of the night for prayers. You go to my cook, and leave seven of
these with him in the kitchen for my supper."
The Indian lowered her head and passed on to the Mission. The padre
crossed the plaza to where the group of girls stood chatting at the open
gate of a patio. At his approach they fell silent, but a few brief words
scattered them quickly toward their several homes, and the man of the
church tramped on, the dust of the road sticking to his wet boots.
"All what brings a price and is overlooked by the Englishmen, this padre
will dig up," said Juan Alvara. "He is getting rich from many fields."
"Many fields?"
"Many fields--the church, the little ranch he has picked up, and the
game of _monte_ or _malilla_. He is the new sort of priest they send
these days from Catalonia. No one in San Juan confesses now until Padre
Sanchez comes past. If the church wins, the Mission will be blown down
all the same, so long while some one pay four bits a load for brick. All
is much changed. Father Sanchez is another kind--a holy man and of God."
Alvara lifted his sombrero reverently.
"The vaqueros coming with the band of horses from the beach soon," he
observed. "We will go to the corrals, and help you to forget the
girl--no?"
"I'm not so anxious to forget, I reckon--the girl is only a sort of
dream girl. This trip was not so much to forget a girl as to--you
remember Teddy, my half-brother?"
"Don Teddy? Sure--he was the life of the valley when he came to San
Juan."
"Yes. Well, Teddy's married; he has married the woman who, you said, had
the face of some angel."
"Not Angela, the senora who is Don Eduardo's English cousin?"
The other nodded his head grimly.
"But--" the old man stared at him sharply, and then suddenly recovered
himself.
"Teddy says his wife wants to come down here while he is in Mexico,"
grunted Bryton. "What the devil can I do with her if she comes now?"
"You are a relative now--is it not so?" asked the old man, with an
affectionate smile. "She is your sister."
"Sister be--" If he meant blessed, he did not look it as he tramped the
veranda. "I start just the same for the south ranch to-morrow. If she
comes, she can go to Mac's tavern, or to the Mission with the ghosts!"
"That would not be good to do," said Alvara seriously. "The wife of your
brother must come to my house. Teresa, the widow of Miguel, is here;
her English is not anything, but it is good that your sister have a lady
with her in the house. Teresa, she feel very bad. Don Teddy's wife was
once a widow; she will understand."
[Illustration: DONA ANGELA]
"Will it make many changes in the business--his death?" asked Bryton.
"It will lose the ranches more quickly to the English and the
Americans," stated the older man. "Rafael will have all the money now,
and--it is good that he gets married quick. The girl--she is Estevan's
daughter--she likes no English--so they say."
"Oh!--Estevan's daughter--Estevan's! I heard a queer story of that name
once--a queer story!"
"He left when the Americanos came to California. Always he fought
against the Americanos. He was a strong soldier, and he die there in
Mexico, and all his money is for the girl if she marry; for the convent
if she not marry at all."
"It was another Estevan," said Keith. "It was a story of an old Aztec
temple that would make your hair curl! Might have been a relation of
your soldier Estevan."
"There may be the same name in Mexico, but Felipe Estevan had no
brothers."
Keith rolled a cigarro, and did not notice that the old man's hand
trembled as he did the same, and that his eyes were striving in vain to
appear careless.
"My Spanish was pretty queer those days, and I did not grasp the details
of the story. You find all sorts of half-buried towns and temples and
palaces in the country--queer places no one on earth can tell who built.
But the temple was a plain fact. Stonework cut for all the world like
that," he added, pointing to the gray Mission ruin. "Zig-zags on the
cornices and Aztec suns just the same over the portals. There were great
old walls left, but no roof. Trees grew all through it, and right in the
open was something like a bench covered with queer Indian figures of
fight, and sacrifices, and the only one I ever saw down there carved out
of marble."
"Yes--a bench of marble!" Alvara was listening intently, nodding his
head, and forgetting to smoke.
"Well, an old miner down there told me a lurid story of the last Indian
sacrifice offered up on that altar. He found the body and helped to bury
it--the name was Estevan."
"It is a good name," said the old man.
"Fine! but wherever he had lived he was used to a different sort of
woman from the one he met at the old temple. She was of pure Spanish and
Aztec stock. The women in those temples don't usually appear to count,
but she came of a long line of Aztec priests. After the Catholic Church
got hold of them, they became Catholic priests instead of Aztec ones,
and served the same God under a different name."
"So?" remarked Alvara.
"It seems Estevan drifted into the country with considerable
money--cattle-man, I think; anyway, he had a ranch of some sort--and
fell dead in love with the sister of one of these hereditary priests,
and they were married. The old miner said a lot of queer old Indians
gathered from the Lord only knew where, and had a great bonfire and
crazy dances and ceremonies at the temple the night she was married.
They were waiting for a new priest of their own old religion to be born
some day and every marriage in that family was of interest."
"Well?"
"Well--I don't know how to make clear that there are wives in the world
to whom brown girls in the willows are--well--they are absolutely taboo
to the husbands--understand?"
Alvara nodded silently.
"This Estevan was not used to women like that. He was crazy over the
priest's sister till he got her, and then he was like many other men--he
went back to the brown girls."
"And then?"
"Then that old Aztec tribe seemed to hear of it on the wind--no one
knows. A brown girl was caught by the Indians one night, her long hair
cut short to her head; and the next day Estevan was found tied on that
altar with the same hair plaited into ropes. The heart had been cut from
the body and rested in a little urn or vase carved in the stone of the
wall. There were no other mutilations or signs of cruelty--it was more
like a pagan ceremony than anything else. The girl's hair was the only
clue as to what the cause might have been."
"And the wife and the child--what did the man tell you of them?"
"Child?" Keith stared at the old man. "I did not mention a child; never
heard there was one. The widow of Estevan entered a convent and was
never heard of again. The old miner said the priest took charge of the
property--for the Church, he supposed! I think of that old temple every
time I see the cactus and Aztec sun cut in this gray-green stone of your
church here; but I had forgotten the name of Estevan until you mentioned
it."
"It is a good name," added Alvara again. "Felipe Estevan was wild and a
fighter, but he was not a bad man in California. He had no wife, and the
girls all wore beads he bought--but why not? He knew we have only one
life to live here!"
"True, senor; and the story of the tragedy made me forget poor Teddy's
comedy--one I can't laugh at yet."
"Some day you ask us to a wedding, and you will forget that marriage is
a madness," said Alvara.
And then Dona Teresa came slowly out on the veranda in her many folds of
black. There was a hard glitter in her little black eyes, but her lips
curved ever so slightly in a courteous greeting as Keith Bryton bent
over her hand.
"I hear how you telling that story, senor," she remarked, pleasantly.
"You think that it is good to tie a gentleman on a bench, and put his
heart on a shelf--no?"
"Good? Why, it was the most ghastly heathenish thing I ever heard of.
But--"
"But you Americanos think most of the women who do such things," she
persisted; "you think it better than to let him live where there are the
brown girls."
"Oh--senora?"
He saw that he had irrevocably damned himself in her eyes. She might
speak to him courteously through a long lifetime, but one of the
institutions of their pastoral life--an institution ignored by the usual
guest in the land--had been referred to in a sarcastic manner, and he
knew that never again could he expect the good will of Teresa Arteaga.
The allusion had been the most distant, the most unintentional, but at
the first word the blood of the Mexican was arrayed against the Gringo.
"You think it well when that wife put the knife in the heart of the
husband?" she continued. "(Yes, Aguada, I will have a cup of orange
juice, and you may bring wine for the gentlemen.) You think your
American ladies do that same thing--no?"
"Oh--the old miner never suggested that it was the woman did it--the
wife!" he protested. "It was thought to be the work of the old hill
tribe of Indians."
"It was not alone the Indians," stated Dona Teresa, with sudden insight.
"Men would not think to tie him with girl's hair. No, it was the wife."
Alvara looked at her warningly over his glass.
"If there are such wives in Mexico, we hope they stay there," he said.
"Our own Indians make trouble enough for the padre and the alcalde. The
kind you tell of are best left with their tribes in the hills."
For a little longer they talked of the new horses needed for the
frontier warfare, and touched upon the chance of the Capitan's stealing
them before they got across the divide.
"But there is no danger even of El Capitan now, when the Senor Don
Bryton have put himself to help guard," remarked Teresa, eyeing him with
a cat-like glance to discover if her sarcasm was appreciated. "We all
feel very safe now in San Juan valley."
"With those brilliant army officers in town, you certainly should," he
remarked, easily. "The women have always been the Capitan's best
friends, and the officers are cutting him out!"
"He see too much--and he talk too much," said Teresa, as Bryton left
them and walked leisurely down the road toward the inn and post-office.
"He means no harm," remarked Alvara. "The ways of the Americano are not
our ways, but I like him better than the army men. He makes no
scandals."
"If the army men make love to the girls, they keep quiet about it,"
returned Teresa. "But this man--he thinks himself too good for the
'brown girls' he talks of. Men who are too good should go to stay in the
church and pray for the sinners!"
Alvara knew that no remark of Bryton's had been meant to reflect in the
least on social conditions in San Juan. But what use to argue with an
angry, jealous woman hunting for a grievance?
The widow of Miguel had gone through the years of jealous bitterness,
the shock of Miguel's death, the knowledge that she would inherit but a
widow's share, the nerve-wrenching strain of a Mexican funeral, the
sight of her husband's Indian children beside the bier; but that had all
been in the midst of the people who understood--where house-servants
were often legacies to the estate from brother, or uncle, or cousin. But
this man, who told of a wife that revenged herself, had unconsciously
flung in her face a new standard; she hated him, and hated the sort of
women he knew in his own country,--the white-faced women who had snow in
their blood and did not understand!
Bryton tried in vain to think what he had said to annoy Teresa so
exceedingly; could it have been his inquiring as to the estate? Surely,
she must know that many persons were asking the same questions. Her
brother-in-law, Rafael Arteaga, was such an uncertain quantity that
wagers were plentiful as to his management of the several ranches. If he
left them as Miguel had done, principally to the lawyers, it might not
be so bad, but Rafael's disposition to make his own bargains made older
people shake their heads. His mother, Dona Luisa, was old and ill. He
could have time to make very bad bargains before she could make the
journey from Mexico; and even then would she be physically able to take
note of business details? All those questions Bryton had heard talked
over and over. Also, the matter of the wedding,--would it be postponed
because of the funeral? No one knew whether Dona Luisa and the bride
were not on the way when the death occurred. Rafael had, it was
understood, come ahead that he might make the preparations for their
reception. A letter had also arrived saying that all things must be put
in order at the dwelling-rooms of the Mission; it stated that the
"donas"--the bride gifts--he had selected in Mexico might arrive any
day. They had come by sea to San Pedro, and San Juan was in quite a
flutter of excitement over its most important wedding in a generation.
The alcalde met Bryton, and incidentally mentioned that it was a pity
the horse deal had not been held over for the week of the wedding; there
would be barbecues and horse races for the latter part of the week.
"Sorry I can't stay," observed Bryton. "I'm keeping tab for the
contractor on those cavalry horses, and must stay with the bunch, at
least until they reach Los Angeles. Teddy has gone down into Mexico; if
he stays, I may follow."
"Now that one of you boys is married, you should settle down and be a
permanent citizen of some district,--what is the matter with this
place?"
"It's the most beautiful valley I ever saw," agreed Bryton. "But for
getting Teddy to locate sixty miles from town--never! And as to the
lady in the case, she will insist always on an audience more--"
What more it would have to be was interrupted by the clatter of the
stage down the street, and on the seat beside the driver was a little
woman in pale blue flounces thick with dust, and a white hat with pink
rosebuds dancing and swaying with the rock of the stage.
"God--" began Bryton, and then checked himself.
The alcalde smiled.
"Mrs. Ordway--or Mrs. Teddy Bryton now--looks pretty well satisfied with
this as a temporary audience," he remarked, as he sauntered across the
street to his own abode. Bryton's exclamation showed that he was by no
means pleased to see her, and the alcalde did not care to witness a
family reunion of that sort, so he walked away smiling.
The lady waved her hand and flung a bright smile toward the half-brother
of her husband. He lifted his hat, but did not move from his tracks
until the horses came to a halt, brought suddenly to their haunches by
the driver, who was making a showy entrance into the village for the
gratification of the lady.
"I've had a delightful trip from Los Angeles--thanks to Don Rafael," she
called, gaily. "I never--never expect to drive so fast again. Come and
help me down!"
But the slender, handsome Mexican beside her had leaped to the ground,
and, sombrero in hand, was ready to perform that service before the
American reached the stage.
"You are always the day after the fair, Keith," she remarked, her eyes
narrowing in a smile. "I am a thousand times obliged to Senor Arteaga!"
"It is I who am honored, senora," he returned with a sweep of the
sombrero, and one brief yet steady look into her eyes. Mrs. Bryton
turned away with a pleased little smile, and proceeded to shake the dust
from the ruffles of her sleeve.
Keith Bryton saw both the look and the smile, and it gave a tinge of
coldness to his greeting.
"How do you do, Senor Arteaga?" he remarked. "Thank you for looking
after Mrs."--the word seemed hard to say--"Bryton. Are you adding
stage-driving to your other accomplishments?"
Rafael Arteaga had caused too much jealousy in his day not to suspect he
recognized it in the attitude of the American, whom it was something of
a victory to outrival.
"Only when there is extra precious cargo on board," he said, meaningly.
"American ladies are rare in San Juan. I was the only one present to
show our appreciation of such a visit."
"But I am not an American--never in this world!" she insisted. "It was
only the accident of marriage took me to your Mexican America. I was
born in London, and am a subject of the Queen! Don't ever fancy me an
American!"
"Few people will make that mistake," said Bryton, dryly. "I suppose you
know that your cousin and his wife are not here?"
"Oh, yes, I discovered that through Senor Arteaga when I was part way
down. But he tells me the army men are here, and that there are always
dances, horse races, and a general festival while they stay. I thought
it might be worth while. Senor Arteaga will look after me if you are too
busy."
"With many thanks for the honor, senora."
"The barbecues are over," said Bryton; "they were rather subdued this
time, because of the funeral of Don Rafael's brother. I leave with the
army men to-morrow for a trip farther north, and you had best return to
Los Angeles, or go to your cousin in San Diego."
She pretended to busy herself concerning a bandbox on which the cord had
broken, but her little white teeth bit into her lip. Rafael had entered
the post-office with the driver of the stage.
"I am not interested in San Diego," she observed. "There must be
somewhere in this row of adobes a place where a lady could stay."
"There is the tavern kept by Mac. You may be able to retain a room there
alone, if no other women stop over."
"Share a room with strangers? But Don Rafael offered--"
"Don Rafael has only several adobes here, where the vaqueros eat and
sleep--neither he nor his brother has lived here as a regular thing;
when they do, they share the house of the major-domo, who has an Indian
wife. The only privacy Don Rafael could assure you of would be to give
you the key of the Mission."
"That graveyard! I must say you are not very brotherly, amigo--I learned
some more words of Spanish on the way down! Well, if I must go to the
awful tavern, I must! Do you suppose that villanous-looking
black-and-tan in the serape will carry my boxes into the hotel? You've
not said one civil word, Keith! Are Teddy and I to do the best we can
without your blessing?" she asked, mockingly.
He looked at her slowly from head to foot, and back to her innocent
wide-open blue eyes.
"I congratulate you," he said, briefly. "I will see that your
belongings are taken to your room. The gentleman in the serape chances
to be a Mexican Don, not accustomed to carting bandboxes."
"You are not very cordial in your congratulations," she observed, as if
determined to break down his cold unconcern,--to make him _say_
something.
"No, I'm not," he agreed, tersely. "If Teddy had given me any idea of
it, you know he would not have been a married man now."
"Oh, I knew you would be jealous, no matter whom he married," she
replied; "I told him so!"
"So I supposed. But if you want to secure a room alone, you'd better not
delay. Apartments are rather at a premium in San Juan."
He walked with her past the admiring group of prominent citizens toward
the patio of the inn. Several of the men swept sombreros to the earth as
she passed. The cousin of Don Eduardo was a lady they must show special
deference to, even if she had been ugly, which she certainly was not.
Most of them envied the tall, rather good-looking fellow swinging along
by her side, but he did not seem as happy in the privilege as others
would have been. Alvara, seeing himself forgotten for Don Eduardo's
pretty blonde cousin, smiled a little, and continued his walk alone to
the corral.
"She make him forget,--but she is not the woman," he said, shrewdly.
Mrs. Bryton surveyed the coarse furnishings of the adobe with disgust as
she was led to the one room where she could secure sleeping
accommodation. It contained three beds with as many different-colored
spreads, queer little pillows, and drawn-work on one towel hanging on a
nail. The floor had once been tiled with square Mission bricks; but many
were broken, some were gone, and the empty spaces were so many traps for
unwary feet. Names of former occupants were scratched in the whitewashed
wall. There was no window, and but one door opening on the patio and to
be fastened from within by a wooden bar.
"But this--there must be something better than this!" she exclaimed.
"It is the one home where you could make yourself understood. The
proprietor chances to speak English. If you come without notifying
your--relatives, you must take what you find, or go on to San Diego.
Your cousin is there--also his wife."
She shrugged her shoulders, and dropped wearily to a wooden bench.
"I can't ride another mile--I'm dead tired. But you don't ask why I
came!"
"That is your husband's affair, not mine," he returned. "If there is
nothing else I can do for you, I will go and look after my own affairs.
I start south in the morning."
"Because I came?" she demanded, with a slight smile. At sight of it his
face flushed, and then the color receded while he regarded her steadily.
"Don't make any mistake about that," he suggested. "I did leave town out
of impatience with another friend of mine, who was wasting his time with
you. Of course he would not listen to me, and he has evidently told you.
I liked him, and did not want to see him made a fool of."
"Oh, you are a silly!" she replied, unfastening her hat-string and
glancing at him strangely. "It never was that man for one little minute;
you, of all the men, ought to know."
"I, of all the men, have been the one who did not guess that it was
Teddy," he retorted. "But since it is, there is one thing to
remember,--Teddy is the best fellow in the world, and the easiest mark,
and you are not to forget it!"
"I did not promise to honor and obey you!" she retorted, petulantly.
"But if you don't in this case--" he halted abruptly and walked away.
Her high, sweet voice called after him, but he did not turn his head. He
evidently realized that he had come very near threatening her; and,
after all, if Teddy chose to make a fool of himself for a pretty doll--
For she was undeniably pretty, and she had created quite a flurry a year
before when she reached San Pedro by steamer from Mexico, a girlish
widow with one child, and waited there until the English cousin of her
husband, Eduardo Downing, had been notified and came up in state from
his ranches, with his Mexican wife, to receive her.
One child more or less never made any difference on the ranch of
Eduardo, and his wife rather liked the little white doll that was alive,
for her own brown-skinned grandchildren to play with. It was better than
an Indian baby--more of a novelty, so that the family affairs of the
young widow were easily adjusted. She accepted invitations to visit
friends of her cousin on ranches and in town. For a year she had earned
the reputation of being a rather gay flirt, and she could have married
several times. Keith Bryton's friends had more than hinted that she was
waiting for him, and when the word went abroad that it was his
half-brother, eyes were opened wide in Los Angeles. There were lifted
brows, and smiles. Keith knew how the marriage would be commented upon,
and he was filled with rage that she should assume at once her
care-free attitude, and fraternize with Rafael Arteaga, as she evidently
had done on the ride down. And Teddy trusted her absolutely--good old
Teddy, who had been infatuated from the first sight of her, and had
loved without hope until lately, very lately indeed!
They had been married on the eve of his trip to Mexico. His letter,
written that night, and given her to mail, had been held back by the
bride until she was ready to follow it on the next stage. What mad idea
had she in thus coming to the last village likely to be attractive to
her? Was it to enjoy her victory?--to show him that his years of
devotion to Teddy went for nothing when she chose to turn the light of
her countenance his way?
Something like that it must have been,--the freakish defiance of a
spoiled child. Not innocent, despite the big baby-blue eyes, but too
ignorant of social conditions in this Mexican town for him to leave her
to the guardianship of Rafael Arteaga when he should ride away
to-morrow. The only American men in the place were unmarried. For
Teddy's sake he must see that she went too. For Teddy's sake--that was
the devil of it!
Rafael was lounging in the door of the post-office smoking, when Bryton
emerged from the patio. There was a smile in his eyes as he noted the
annoyed face of the American.
"I was waiting for you, amigo," he said, walking beside him. "I have no
wish to object to the hotel of our friend Mac; but I believe it may be
possible to secure a better place for senora, your sister. The widow of
my brother is still here, Mac has just told me. I can turn over to them
a house of plenty of room to-morrow."
"Many thanks to you, Don Rafael; but the lady will probably remain only
until the next stage passes. It will not be necessary to inconvenience
any of your people."
He nodded good-naturedly and left Rafael at the gate of Alvara. Teresa
was yet on the veranda, interested in the one event of the day, the
arrival of the stage, and the lady who was its most noticeable
passenger. Alvara did not think it could have been Don Eduardo's cousin,
for if so, surely Senor Bryton would have brought her at once to the
Alvara home. Teresa, on the other hand, insisted that it was the English
cousin; she had seen her once, and was sure that no other white woman
would look so much like a white doll.
They at once appealed to Rafael to settle the question. Teresa pushed a
chair toward him and suggested a glass of wine.
"Thou art tired, of course, and choked with the dust; a desert wind
blew to-day! And who was your pretty senorita? Don Juan Alvara and I
could not agree; he said it could not be the cousin of Don Eduardo, or
she would certainly have accepted the very kind invitation he gave her
to live here while waiting for her relations."
"Invitation?" Rafael looked quickly from one to the other. "I am very
sure Senora Bryton failed to receive your invitation. She confessed
herself in despair if her cousin should not be here on her arrival."
"But Senor? Bryton was told to bring her here."
"Oh--h!" He was silent a moment and then he smiled reassuringly. "I see
how it is! He thinks she will remain over only one day and does not like
to put you to trouble; but the poor lady down there alone is no doubt
very uncomfortable--perhaps unhappy. If your daughters could call and
see her--I would accompany them. In fact, for the cousin of Don Eduardo
I will do anything I may be allowed to do."
"Sure," agreed Alvara; "it is the right thing for a lady to ask her;--if
only Dolores and Madalena have not ridden to the beach--"
He went into the house to see, and Teresa looked at Rafael and shrugged
her shoulders.
"Thou hast told a part, but not all, my Rafael," she said, quietly. "Is
the so good Senor Bryton not so good at last? Does he want his
brother's wife to see only himself?"
"You don't like him?" he said, quickly.
"Well--if not?"
"Then we could play him a fine trick--fine! He is jealous, that is all.
She rode down with me, and of course, when I learned who she was, we
talked--you saw! Well, our Americano likes to be the only man. He means
to send her away to-morrow,--he is so angry because she marry his
brother! Of course she goes, unless we keep her. It would be a good
trick to play if we could walk down there, and--"
"We will go," decided Teresa, promptly; "at once we will go before he
comes back from the corral. His brother's wife--eh? I ask myself if
those people--the Americanos--are so much better than our own men,
Rafael. I want no scandal and will help you with none; but if you take
from him the woman he wants, I will make you a present--a fine one."
"It is a bargain!" he agreed. "I promise to earn the gift. He is a good
enough fellow, but much too conceited; we will cure him!"
As Alvara came out on the veranda to tell them Dolores and Madalena were
away, and to ask Teresa to call on the stranger in their stead, Teresa
and Rafael were on the street.
"It is a good thing to do," he thought, contentedly rolling a cigarro
and looking after them. "It is a kindness to Don Eduardo's cousin, and
it is good for Teresa. For the first time since the death of Miguel she
is smiling. Yes, it is a good thing."
When Bryton left the corrals, the evening had come; the afterglow was
flooding the hills with pale rose, and Indian boys were driving home
cows through the village street. The more time he had to consider the
matter, the more impatient he grew at the reckless disregard of his new
sister-in-law for the conventionalities.
Since she had married Teddy, she might at least have remained decently
and quietly where he had left her. Or she might have continued her
journey and joined her cousin at San Diego; but to do so mad a thing as
to stop off here--he determined she should go either north or south
to-morrow, if he had to carry her to the stage. He would tell her so at
once.
He had arrived at that determination as he crossed the plaza and heard
her laugh through the door of Alvara's house. The door was open; she was
trying to teach Alvara English, at which his daughters laughed very
much. It was the sharp eyes of Teresa that caught sight of Bryton first,
as he involuntarily halted in the road.
"Yes, Senor Bryton, it is all true; we have robbed the Senor Mac's hotel
of your sister!" she called to him with a new air of elation,--of
victory.
Alvara appeared and invited him to supper, which he declined for a
previous engagement with Don Antonio. His sister-in-law came out and
listened to his excuses, and smiled quietly at him with the baby-blue
eyes, in which he read a certain defiance.
"I would have smothered in that awful cell you took me to!" she pouted.
"These people are charming to me; they are friends of Cousin Edward's.
It was Don Rafael took them to me. He looks like a hero in a
picture-book! How does it come I never met him before?"
"Perhaps because during your last visit down here he was in Mexico,
making love to the girl he is to marry very soon."
"Oh! is _that_ why you are guarding him so carefully?" she said,
laughingly. "Well, since I am married, I am willing to stay and dance at
his wedding; but, Keith, if I had seen him first--"
She broke off, laughing at the quick anger in his eyes.
And Teresa, listening, understood the game of Rafael and the mocking
laughter, and the anger of Bryton, and was as happy as she was likely to
be, with Miguel under the ground.
[Music: _Danza Mexicana._]