"Swear!"

Cranch swore. Then to Father Pedro's intense astonishment she drew the

American's face towards her own by the ears and kissed him.

"But you might have loved her, and married a fortune," said Juanita,

after a pause.

"Where would have been my reparation--my duty?" returned Cranch, with a

laugh.

"Reparation enough for her to have had you," said Juanita, with that

rapid disloyalty of one loving woman to another in an emergency. This

provoked another kiss from Cranch, and then Juanita said demurely:

"But we are far from the trail. Let us return, or we shall miss Father

Pedro. Are you sure he will come?"

"A week ago he promised to be here to see the proofs to-day."

The voices were growing fainter and fainter; they were returning to the

trail.

Father Pedro remained motionless. A week ago! Was it a week ago

since--since what? And what had he been doing here? Listening! He!

Father Pedro, listening like an idle _peon_ to the confidences of two

lovers. But they had talked of him, of his crime, and the man had

pitied him. Why did he not speak? Why did he not call after them? He

tried to raise his voice. It sank in his throat with a horrible choking

sensation. The nearest heads of oats began to nod to him, he felt

himself swaying backward and forward. He fell--heavily, down, down,

down, from the summit of the mountain to the floor of the Mission

chapel, and there he lay in the dark.

* * * * *

"He moves."

"Blessed Saint Anthony preserve him!"

It was Antonio's voice, it was José's arm, it was the field of wild

oats, the sky above his head,--all unchanged.

"What has happened?" said the priest feebly.

"A giddiness seized your reverence just now, as we were coming to seek

you."

"And you met no one?"

"No one, your reverence."

Father Pedro passed his hand across his forehead.

"But who are these?" he said, pointing to two figures who now appeared

upon the trail.

Antonio turned.

"It is the Americano, Señor Cranch, and his adopted daughter, the

_mestiza_ Juanita, seeking your reverence, methinks."

"Ah!" said Father Pedro.

Cranch came forward and greeted the priest cordially.

"It was kind of you, Father Pedro," he said, meaningly, with a

significant glance at José and Antonio, "to come so far to bid me and

my adopted daughter farewell. We depart when the tide serves, but not

before you partake of our hospitality in yonder cottage."

Father Pedro gazed at Cranch and then at Juanita.

"I see," he stammered. "But she goes not alone.

She will be strange at first. She takes some friend, perhaps--some

companion?" he continued, tremulously.

"A very old and dear one, Father Pedro, who is waiting for us now."

He led the way to a little white cottage, so little and white and

recent, that it seemed a mere fleck of sea-foam cast on the sands.

Disposing of José and Antonio in the neighboring workshop and

outbuildings, he assisted the venerable Sanchicha to dismount, and,

together with Father Pedro and Juanita, entered a white palisaded

enclosure beside the cottage, and halted before what appeared to be a

large folding trap-door, covering a slight sandy mound. It was locked

with a padlock; beside it stood the American alcalde and Don Juan

Briones. Father Pedro looked hastily around for another figure, but it

was not there.

"Gentlemen," began Cranch, in his practical business way, "I reckon you

all know we've come here to identify a young lady, who"--he

hesitated--"was lately under the care of Father Pedro, with a foundling

picked up on this shore fifteen years ago by an Indian woman. How this

foundling came here, and how I was concerned in it, you all know. I've

told everybody here how I scrambled ashore, leaving the baby in the

dingy, supposing it would be picked up by the boat pursuing me. I've

told some of you," he looked at Father Pedro, "how I first discovered,

from one of the men, three years ago, that the child was not found by

its father. But I have never told any one, before now, I _knew_ it was

picked up here.

"I never could tell the exact locality where I came ashore, for the fog

was coming on as it is now. But two years ago I came up with a party of

gold hunters to work these sands. One day, digging near this creek, I

struck something embedded deep below the surface. Well, gentlemen, it

wasn't gold, but something worth more to me than gold or silver. Here

it is."

At a sign the alcalde unlocked the doors and threw them open. They

disclosed an irregular trench, in which, filled with sand, lay the

half-excavated stern of a boat.

"It was the dingy of the Trinidad, gentlemen; you can still read her

name. I found hidden away, tucked under the stern sheets, moldy and

water-worn, some clothes that I recognized to be the baby's. I knew

then that the child had been taken away alive for some purpose, and the

clothes were left so that she should carry no trace with her. I

recognized the hand of an Indian. I set to work quietly. I found

Sanchicha here, she confessed to finding a baby, but what she had done

with it she would not at first say. But since then she has declared

before the alcalde that she gave it to Father Pedro of San Carmel, and

that here it stands--Francisco that was! Francisca that it is!"

He stepped aside to make way for a tall girl, who had approached from

the cottage.

Father Pedro had neither noticed the concluding words nor the movement

of Cranch. His eyes were fixed upon the imbecile Sanchicha,--Sanchicha,

of whom, to render his rebuke more complete, the Deity seemed to have

worked a miracle, and restored intelligence to eye and lip. He passed

his hand tremblingly across his forehead, and turned away, when his eye

fell upon the last comer.

It was she. The moment he had longed for and dreaded had come. She

stood there, animated, handsome, filled with a hurtful consciousness in

her new charms, her fresh finery, and the pitiable trinkets that had

supplanted her scapulary, and which played under her foolish fingers.

The past had no place in her preoccupied mind; her bright eyes were

full of eager anticipation of a substantial future. The incarnation of

a frivolous world, even as she extended one hand to him in

half-coquettish embarrassment she arranged the folds of her dress with

the other. At the touch of her fingers he felt himself growing old and

cold. Even the penance of parting, which he had looked forward to, was

denied him; there was no longer sympathy enough for sorrow. He thought

of the empty chorister's robe in the little cell, but not now with

regret. He only trembled to think of the flesh that he had once caused

to inhabit it.

"That's all, gentlemen," broke in the practical voice of Cranch.

"Whether there are proofs enough to make Francisca the heiress of her

father's wealth, the lawyers must say. I reckon it's enough for me that

they give me the chance of repairing a wrong by taking her father's

place. After all, it was a mere chance."

"It was the will of God," said Father Pedro, solemnly.

They were the last words he addressed them. For when the fog had begun

to creep in-shore, hastening their departure, he only answered their

farewells by a silent pressure of the hand, mute lips, and far-off

eyes.

When the sound of their laboring oars grew fainter, he told Antonio to

lead him and Sanchicha again to the buried boat. There he bade her

kneel beside him. "We will do penance here, thou and I, daughter," he

said, gravely. When the fog had drawn its curtain gently around the

strange pair, and sea and shore were blotted out, he whispered, "Tell

me, it was even so, was it not, daughter, on the night she came?" When

the distant clatter of blocks and rattle of cordage came from the

unseen vessel, now standing out to sea, he whispered again, "So, this

is what thou didst hear, even then." And so during the night he marked,

more or less audibly to the half-conscious woman at his side, the low

whisper of the waves, the murmur of the far-off breakers, the

lightening and thickening of the fog, the phantoms of moving shapes,

and the slow coming of the dawn. And when the morning sun had rent the

veil over land and sea, Antonio and José found him, haggard but erect,

beside the trembling old woman, with a blessing on his lips, pointing

to the horizon where a single sail still glimmered:--

"_Va Usted con Dios_."

A BLUE-GRASS PENELOPE

I.

She was barely twenty-three years old. It is probable that up to that

age, and the beginning of this episode, her life had been uneventful.

Born to the easy mediocrity of such compensating extremes as a small

farmhouse and large lands, a good position and no society, in that vast

grazing district of Kentucky known as the "Blue Grass" region, all the

possibilities of a Western American girl's existence lay before her. A

piano in the bare-walled house, the latest patented mower in the

limitless meadows, and a silk dress sweeping the rough floor of the

unpainted "meeting-house," were already the promise of those

possibilities. Beautiful she was, but the power of that beauty was

limited by being equally shared with her few neighbors. There were

small, narrow, arched feet besides her own that trod the uncarpeted

floors of outlying log cabins with equal grace and dignity; bright,

clearly opened eyes that were equally capable of looking unabashed upon

princes and potentates, as a few later did, and the heiress of the

county judge read her own beauty without envy in the frank glances and

unlowered crest of the blacksmith's daughter. Eventually she had

married the male of her species, a young stranger, who, as schoolmaster

in the nearest town, had utilized to some local extent a scant capital

of education. In obedience to the unwritten law of the West, after the

marriage was celebrated the doors of the ancestral home cheerfully

opened, and bride and bridegroom issued forth, without regret and

without sentiment, to seek the further possibilities of a life beyond

these already too familiar voices. With their departure for California

as Mr. and Mrs. Spencer Tucker, the parental nest in the Blue Grass

meadows knew them no more.

They submitted with equal cheerfulness to the privations and excesses

of their new conditions. Within three years the schoolmaster developed

into a lawyer and capitalist, the Blue Grass bride supplying a grace

and ease to these transitions that were all her own. She softened the

abruptness of sudden wealth, mitigated the austerities of newly

acquired power, and made the most glaring incongruity picturesque. Only

one thing seemed to limit their progress in the region of these

possibilities. They were childless. It was as if they had exhausted the

future in their own youth, leaving little or nothing for another

generation to do.

* * * * *

A southwesterly storm was beating against the dressing-room windows of

their new house in one of the hilly suburbs of San Francisco, and

threatening the unseasonable frivolity of the stucco ornamentation of

cornice and balcony. Mrs. Tucker had been called from the contemplation

of the dreary prospect without by the arrival of a visitor. On entering

the drawing-room she found him engaged in a half admiring, half

resentful examination of its new furniture and hangings. Mrs. Tucker at

once recognized Mr. Calhoun Weaver, a former Blue Grass neighbor; with

swift feminine intuition she also felt that his slight antagonism was

likely to be transferred from her furniture to herself. Waiving it with

the lazy amiability of Southern indifference, she welcomed him by the

familiarity of a Christian name.

"I reckoned that mebbee you opined old Blue Grass friends wouldn't

naturally hitch on to them fancy doins," he said, glancing around the

apartment to avoid her clear eyes, as if resolutely setting himself

against the old charm of her manner as he had against the more recent

glory of her surroundings, "but I thought I'd just drop in for the sake

of old times."

"Why shouldn't you, Cal?" said Mrs. Tucker with a frank smile.

"Especially as I'm going up to Sacramento to-night with some

influential friends," he continued, with an ostentation calculated to

resist the assumption of her charms and her furniture. "Senator Dyce of

Kentucky, and his cousin Judge Briggs; perhaps you know 'em, or maybe

Spencer--I mean Mr. Tucker--does."

"I reckon," said Mrs. Tucker smiling; "but tell me something about the

boys and girls at Vineville, and about yourself. _You're_ looking well,

and right smart too." She paused to give due emphasis to this latter

recognition of a huge gold chain with which her visitor was somewhat

ostentatiously trifling.

"I didn't know as you cared to hear anything about Blue Grass," he

returned, a little abashed. "I've been away from there some time

myself," he added, his uneasy vanity taking fresh alarm at the faint

suspicion of patronage on the part of his hostess. "They're doin' well

though; perhaps as well as some others."

"And you're not married yet," continued Mrs. Tucker, oblivious of the

innuendo. "Ah Cal," she added archly, "I am afraid you are as fickle as

ever. What poor girl in Vineville have you left pining?"

The simple face of the man before her flushed with foolish

gratification at this old-fashioned, ambiguous flattery. "Now look yer,

Belle," he said, chuckling, "if you're talking of old times and you

think I bear malice agin Spencer, why"--

But Mrs. Tucker interrupted what might have been an inopportune

sentimental retrospect with a finger of arch but languid warning. "That

will do! I'm dying to know all about it, and you must stay to dinner

and tell me. It's right mean you can't see Spencer too; but he isn't

back from Sacramento yet."

Grateful as a _tête-à-tête_ with his old neighbor in her more

prosperous surroundings would have been, if only for the sake of later

gossiping about it, he felt it would be inconsistent with his pride and

his assumption of present business. More than that, he was uneasily

conscious that in Mrs. Tucker's simple and unaffected manner there was

a greater superiority than he had ever noticed during their previous

acquaintance. He would have felt kinder to her had she shown any "airs

and graces," which he could have commented upon and forgiven. He

stammered some vague excuse of preoccupation, yet lingered in the hope

of saying something which, if not aggressively unpleasant, might at

least transfer to her indolent serenity some of his own irritation. "I

reckon," he said, as he moved hesitatingly toward the door, "that

Spencer has made himself easy and secure in them business risks he's

taking. That 'ere Alameda ditch affair they're talking so much about is

a mighty big thing, rather _too_ big if it ever got to falling back on

him. But I suppose he's accustomed to take risks?"

"Of course he is," said Mrs. Tucker gayly. "He married _me_."

The visitor smiled feebly, but was not equal to the opportunity offered

for gallant repudiation. "But suppose _you_ ain't accustomed to risks?"

"Why not? I married _him_," said Mrs. Tucker.

Mr. Calhoun Weaver was human, and succumbed to this last charming

audacity. He broke into a noisy but genuine laugh, shook Mrs. Tucker's

hand with effusion, said, "Now that's regular Blue Grass and no

mistake!" and retreated under cover of his hilarity. In the hall he

made a rallying stand to repeat confidentially to the servant who had

overheard them, "Blue Grass all over, you bet your life," and, opening

the door, was apparently swallowed up in the tempest.

Mrs. Tucker's smile kept her lips until she had returned to her room,

and even then languidly shone in her eyes for some minutes after, as

she gazed abstractedly from her window on the storm-tossed bay in the

distance. Perhaps some girlish vision of the peaceful Blue Grass plain

momentarily usurped the prospect; but it is to be doubted if there was

much romance in that retrospect, or that it was more interesting to her

than the positive and sharply cut outlines of the practical life she

now led. Howbeit she soon forgot this fancy in lazily watching a boat

that, in the teeth of the gale, was beating round Alcatraz Island.

Although at times a mere blank speck on the gray waste of foam, a

closer scrutiny showed it to be one of those lateen-rigged Italian

fishing-boats that so often flecked the distant bay. Lost in the sudden

darkening of rain, or reappearing beneath the lifted curtain of the

squall, she watched it weather the island, and then turn its laboring

but persistent course toward the open channel. A rent in the

Indian-inky sky, that showed the narrowing portals of the Golden Gate

beyond, revealed, as unexpectedly, the destination of the little craft,

a tall ship that hitherto lay hidden in the mist of the Saucelito

shore. As the distance lessened between boat and ship, they were again

lost in the downward swoop of another squall. When it lifted, the ship

was creeping under the headland towards the open sea, but the boat was

gone. Mrs. Tucker in vain rubbed the pane with her handkerchief, it had

vanished. Meanwhile the ship, as she neared the Gate, drew out from the

protecting headland, stood outlined for a moment with spars and canvas

hearsed in black against the lurid rent in the horizon, and then seemed

to sink slowly into the heaving obscurity beyond. A sudden onset of

rain against the windows obliterated the remaining prospect; the

entrance of a servant completed the diversion.

"Captain Poindexter, ma'am!"

Mrs. Tucker lifted her pretty eyebrows interrogatively. Captain

Poindexter was a legal friend of her husband, and had dined there

frequently; nevertheless she asked, "Did you tell him Mr. Tucker was

not at home?"

"Yes, 'm."

"Did he ask for _me_?"

"Yes, 'm."

"Tell him I'll be down directly."

Mrs. Tucker's quiet face did not betray the fact that this second

visitor was even less interesting than the first. In her heart she did

not like Captain Poindexter. With a clever woman's instinct, she had

early detected the fact that he had a superior, stronger nature than

her husband; as a loyal wife, she secretly resented the occasional

unconscious exhibition of this fact on the part of his intimate friend

in their familiar intercourse. Added to this slight jealousy there was

a certain moral antagonism between herself and the captain which none

but themselves knew. They were both philosophers, but Mrs. Tucker's

serene and languid optimism would not tolerate the compassionate and

kind-hearted pessimisms of the lawyer. "Knowing what Jack Poindexter

does of human nature," her husband had once said, "it's mighty fine in

him to be so kind and forgiving. You ought to like him better, Belle."

"And qualify myself to be forgiven," said the lady pertly. "I don't see

what you're driving at, Belle; I give it up," had responded the puzzled

husband. Mrs. Tucker kissed his high but foolish forehead tenderly, and

said, "I'm glad you don't, dear."

Meanwhile her second visitor had, like the first, employed the interval

in a critical survey of the glories of the new furniture, but with

apparently more compassion than resentment in his manner. Once only had

his expression changed. Over the fireplace hung a large photograph of

Mr. Spencer Tucker. It was retouched, refined, and idealized in the

highest style of that polite and diplomatic art. As Captain Poindexter

looked upon the fringed hazel eyes, the drooping raven mustache, the

clustering ringlets, and the Byronic full throat and turned-down collar

of his friend, a smile of exhausted humorous tolerance and affectionate

impatience curved his lips. "Well, you _are_ a fool, aren't you?" he

apostrophized it half audibly.

He was standing before the picture as she entered. Even in the trying

contiguity of that peerless work he would have been called a

fine-looking man. As he advanced to greet her, it was evident that his

military title was not one of the mere fanciful sobriquets of the

locality. In his erect figure and the disciplined composure of limb and

attitude there were still traces of the refined academic rigors of West

Point. The pliant adaptability of Western civilization, which enabled

him, three years before, to leave the army and transfer his executive

ability to the more profitable profession of the law, had loosed sash

and shoulder-strap, but had not entirely removed the restraint of the

one, nor the bearing of the other.

"Spencer is in Sacramento," began Mrs. Tucker in languid explanation,

after the first greetings were over.

"I knew he was not here," replied Captain Poindexter gently, as he drew

the proffered chair towards her, "but this is business that concerns

you both." He stopped and glanced upwards at the picture. "I suppose

you know nothing of his business? Of course not," he added

reassuringly, "nothing, absolutely nothing, certainly." He said this so

kindly, and yet so positively, as if to promptly dispose of that

question before going further, that she assented mechanically. "Well,

then, he's taken some big risks in the way of business, and--well,

things have gone bad with him, you know. Very bad! Really, they

couldn't be worse! Of course it was dreadfully rash and all that," he

went on, as if commenting upon the amusing waywardness of a child; "but

the result is the usual smash-up of everything, money, credit, and

all!" He laughed and added, "Yes, he's got cut off--mules and baggage

regularly routed and dispersed! I'm in earnest." He raised his eyebrows

and frowned slightly, as if to deprecate any corresponding hilarity on

the part of Mrs. Tucker, or any attempt to make _too_ light of the

subject, and then rising, placed his hands behind his back, beamed

half-humorously upon her from beneath her husband's picture, and

repeated, "That's so."

Mrs. Tucker instinctively knew that he spoke the truth, and that it was

impossible for him to convey it in any other than his natural manner;

but between the shock and the singular influence of that manner she

could at first only say, "You don't mean it!" fully conscious of the

utter inanity of the remark, and that it seemed scarcely less

cold-blooded than his own.

Poindexter, still smiling, nodded.

She arose with an effort. She had recovered from the first shock, and

pride lent her a determined calmness that more than equaled

Poindexter's easy philosophy.

"Where is he?" she asked.

"At sea, and I hope by this time where he cannot be found or followed."

Was her momentary glimpse of the outgoing ship a coincidence or only a

vision? She was confused and giddy, but, mastering her weakness, she

managed to continue in a lower voice:

"You have no message for me from him? He told you nothing to tell me?"

"Nothing, absolutely nothing," replied Poindexter. "It was as much as

he could do, I reckon, to get fairly away before the crash came."

"Then you did not see him go?"

"Well, no," said Poindexter. "I'd hardly have managed things in this

way." He checked himself and added, with a forgiving smile, "but he was

the best judge of what he needed, of course."

"I suppose I will hear from him," she said quietly, "as soon as he is

safe. He must have had enough else to think about, poor fellow."

She said this so naturally and quietly that Poindexter was deceived. He

had no idea that the collected woman before him was thinking only of

solitude and darkness, of her own room, and madly longing to be there.

He said, "Yes, I dare say," in quite another voice, and glanced at the

picture. But as she remained standing, he continued more earnestly, "I

didn't come here to tell you what you might read in the newspapers

to-morrow morning, and what everybody might tell you. Before that time

I want you to do something to save a fragment of your property from the

ruin; do you understand? I want you to make a rally, and bring off

something in good order."

"For him?" said Mrs. Tucker, with brightening eyes.

"Well, yes, of course--if you like--but as if for yourself. Do you know

the Rancho de los Cuervos?"

"I do."

"It's almost the only bit of real property your husband hasn't sold,

mortgaged, or pledged. Why it was exempt, or whether only forgotten, I

can't say."

"I'll tell you why," said Mrs. Tucker, with a slight return of color.

"It was the first land we ever bought, and Spencer always said it

should be mine and he would build a new house on it."

Captain Poindexter smiled and nodded at the picture. "Oh, he did say

that, did he? Well, _that's_ evidence. But you see he never gave you

the deed, and by sunrise tomorrow his creditors will attach

it--unless--

"Unless"--repeated Mrs. Tucker, with kindling eyes.

"Unless," continued Captain Poindexter, "they happen to find _you_ in

possession."

"I'll go," said Mrs. Tucker.

"Of course you will," returned Poindexter, pleasantly. "Only, as it's a

big contract to take, suppose we see how you can fill it. It's forty

miles to Los Cuervos, and you can't trust yourself to steamboat or

stage-coach. The steamboat left an hour ago."

"If I had only known this then!" ejaculated Mrs. Tucker.

"_I_ knew it, but you had company then," said Poindexter, with ironical

gallantry, "and I wouldn't disturb you." Without saying how he knew it,

he continued, "In the stage-coach you might be recognized. You must go

in a private conveyance and alone; even I cannot go with you, for I

must go on before and meet you there. Can you drive forty miles?"

Mrs. Tucker lifted up her abstracted pretty lids. "I once drove

fifty--at home," she returned simply.

"Good! And I dare say you did it then for fun. Do it now for something

real and personal, as we lawyers say. You will have relays and a plan

of the road. It's rough weather for a _pasear_, but all the better for

that. You'll have less company on the road."

"How soon can I go?" she asked.

"The sooner the better. I've arranged everything for you already," he

continued with a laugh. "Come now, that's a compliment to you, isn't

it?" He smiled a moment in her steadfast, earnest face, and then said,

more gravely, "You'll do. Now listen."

He then carefully detailed his plan. There was so little of excitement

or mystery in their manner that the servant, who returned to light the

gas, never knew that the ruin and bankruptcy of the house was being

told before her, or that its mistress was planning her secret flight.

"Good afternoon. I will see you to-morrow then," said Poindexter,

raising his eyes to hers as the servant opened the door for him.

"Good afternoon," repeated Mrs. Tucker, quietly answering his look.

"You need not light the gas in my room, Mary," she continued in the

same tone of voice as the door closed upon him; "I shall lie down for a

few moments, and then I may run over to the Robinsons for the evening."

She regained her room composedly. The longing desire to bury her head

in her pillow and "think out" her position had gone. She did not

apostrophize her fate, she did not weep; few real women do in the

access of calamity, or when there is anything else to be done. She felt

that she knew it all; she believed she had sounded the profoundest

depths of the disaster, and seemed already so old in her experience

that she almost fancied she had been prepared for it. Perhaps she did

not fully appreciate it. To a life like hers it was only an incident,

the mere turning of a page of the illimitable book of youth; the

breaking up of what she now felt had become a monotony. In fact, she

was not quite sure she had ever been satisfied with their present

success. Had it brought her all she expected? She wanted to say this to

her husband, not only to comfort him, poor fellow, but that they might

come to a better understanding of life in the future. She was not

perhaps different from other loving women, who, believing in this

unattainable goal of matrimony, have sought it in the various episodes

of fortune or reverses, in the bearing of children, or the loss of

friends. In her childless experience there was no other life that had

taken root in her circumstances and might suffer transplantation; only

she and her husband could lose or profit by the change. The "perfect"

understanding would come under other conditions than these.

She would have gone superstitiously to the window to gaze in the

direction of the vanished ship, but another instinct restrained her.

She would put aside all yearning for him until she had done something

to help him, and earned the confidence he seemed to have withheld.

Perhaps it was pride--perhaps she never really believed his exodus was

distant or complete.

With a full knowledge that to-morrow the various ornaments and pretty

trifles around her would be in the hands of the law, she gathered only

a few necessaries for her flight and some familiar personal trinkets. I

am constrained to say that this self-abnegation was more fastidious

than moral. She had no more idea of the ethics of bankruptcy than any

other charming woman; she simply did not like to take with her any

contagious memory of the chapter of the life just closing. She glanced

around the home she was leaving without a lingering regret; there was

no sentiment of tradition or custom that might be destroyed; her roots

lay too near the surface to suffer dislocation; the happiness of her

childless union had depended upon no domestic center, nor was its flame

sacred to any local hearthstone. It was without a sigh that, when night

had fully fallen, she slipped unnoticed down the staircase. At the door

of the drawing-room she paused, and then entered with the first guilty

feeling of shame she had known that evening. Looking stealthily around,

she mounted a chair before her husband's picture, kissed the

irreproachable mustache hurriedly, said, "You foolish darling, you!"

and slipped out again. With this touching indorsement of the views of a

rival philosopher, she closed the door softly and left her home

forever.

II.

The wind and rain had cleared the unfrequented suburb of any observant

lounger, and the darkness, lit only by far-spaced, gusty lamps, hid her

hastening figure. She had barely crossed the second street when she

heard the quick clatter of hoofs behind her; a buggy drove up to the

curbstone, and Poindexter leaped out. She entered quickly, but for a

moment he still held the reins of the impatient horse. "He's rather

fresh," he said, eying her keenly: "are you sure you can manage him?"

"Give me the reins," she said simply.

He placed them in the two firm, well-shaped hands that reached from the

depths of the vehicle, and was satisfied. Yet he lingered.

"It's rough work for a lone woman," he said, almost curtly, "_I_ can't

go with you, but, speak frankly, is there any man you know whom you can

trust well enough to take? It's not too late yet; think a moment!"

He paused over the buttoning of the leather apron of the vehicle.

"No, there is none," answered the voice from the interior; "and it's

better so. Is all ready?"

"One moment more." He had recovered his half bantering manner. "You

_have_ a friend and countryman already with you, do you know? Your

horse is Blue Grass. Good-night."

With these words ringing in her ears she began her journey. The horse,

as if eager to maintain the reputation which his native district had

given his race, as well as the race of the pretty woman behind him,

leaped impatiently forward. But pulled together by the fine and firm

fingers that seemed to guide rather than check his exuberance, he

presently struck into the long, swinging pace of his kind, and kept it

throughout without "break" or acceleration. Over the paved streets the

light buggy rattled, and the slender shafts danced around his smooth

barrel, but when they touched the level high road, horse and vehicle

slipped forward through the night, a swift and noiseless phantom. Mrs.

Tucker could see his graceful back dimly rising and falling before her

with tireless rhythm, and could feel the intelligent pressure of his

mouth until it seemed the responsive grasp of a powerful but kindly

hand. The faint glow of conquest came to her cold cheek; the slight

stirrings of pride moved her preoccupied heart. A soft light filled her

hazel eyes. A desolate woman, bereft of husband and home, and flying

through storm and night, she knew not where, she still leaned forward

towards her horse. "Was he Blue Grass, then, dear old boy?" she gently

cooed at him in the darkness. He evidently _was_, and responded by

blowing her an ostentatious equine kiss. "And he would be good to his

own forsaken Belle," she murmured caressingly, "and wouldn't let any

one harm her?" But here, overcome by the lazy witchery of her voice, he

shook his head so violently that Mrs. Tucker, after the fashion of her

sex, had the double satisfaction of demurely restraining the passion

she had evoked.

To avoid the more traveled thoroughfare, while the evening was still

early, it had been arranged that she should at first take a less direct

but less frequented road. This was a famous pleasure-drive from San

Francisco, a graveled and sanded stretch of eight miles to the sea, and

an ultimate "cocktail," in a "stately pleasure-dome decreed" among the

surf and rocks of the Pacific shore. It was deserted now, and left to

the unobstructed sweep of the wind and rain. Mrs. Tucker would not have

chosen this road. With the instinctive jealousy of a bucolic inland

race born by great rivers, she did not like the sea; and again, the dim

and dreary waste tended to recall the vision connected with her

husband's flight, upon which she had resolutely shut her eyes. But when

she had reached it the road suddenly turned, following the trend of the

beach, and she was exposed to the full power of its dread fascinations.

The combined roar of sea and shore was in her ears. As the direct force

of the gale had compelled her to furl the protecting hood of the buggy

to keep the light vehicle from oversetting or drifting to leeward, she

could no longer shut out the heaving chaos on the right, from which the

pallid ghosts of dead and dying breakers dimly rose and sank as if in

awful salutation. At times through the darkness a white sheet appeared

spread before the path and beneath the wheels of the buggy, which, when

withdrawn with a reluctant hiss, seemed striving to drag the exhausted

beach seaward with it. But the blind terror of her horse, who swerved

at every sweep of the surge, shamed her own half superstitious fears,

and with the effort to control his alarm she regained her own

self-possession, albeit with eyelashes wet not altogether with the salt

spray from the sea. This was followed by a reaction, perhaps stimulated

by her victory over the beaten animal, when for a time, she knew not

how long, she felt only a mad sense of freedom and power, oblivious of

even her sorrows, her lost home and husband, and with intense feminine

consciousness she longed to be a man. She was scarcely aware that the

track turned again inland until the beat of the horse's hoofs on the

firm ground and an acceleration of speed showed her she had left the

beach and the mysterious sea behind her, and she remembered that she

was near the end of the first stage of her journey. Half an hour later

the twinkling lights of the roadside inn where she was to change horses

rose out of the darkness.

Happily for her, the hostler considered the horse, who had a local

reputation, of more importance than the unknown muffled figure in the

shadow of the unfurled hood, and confined his attention to the animal.

After a careful examination of his feet and a few comments addressed

solely to the superior creation, he led him away. Mrs. Tucker would

have liked to part more affectionately from her four-footed compatriot,

and felt a sudden sense of loneliness at the loss of her new friend,

but a recollection of certain cautions of Captain Poindexter's kept her

mute. Nevertheless, the hostler's ostentatious adjuration of "Now then,

aren't you going to bring out that mustang for the Señora?" puzzled

her. It was not until the fresh horse was put to, and she had flung a

piece of gold into the attendant's hand, that the "_Gracias_" of his

unmistakable Saxon speech revealed to her the reason of the lawyer's

caution. Poindexter had evidently represented her to these people as a

native Californian who did not speak English. In her inconsistency her

blood took fire at this first suggestion of deceit, and burned in her

face. Why should he try to pass her off as anybody else? Why should she

not use her own, her husband's name? She stopped and bit her lip.

It was but the beginning of an uneasy train of thought. She suddenly

found herself thinking of her visitor, Calhoun Weaver, and not

pleasantly. He would hear of their ruin to-morrow, perhaps of her own

flight. He would remember his visit, and what would he think of her

deceitful frivolity? Would he believe that she was then ignorant of the

failure? It was her first sense of any accountability to others than

herself, but even then it was rather owing to an uneasy consciousness

of what her husband must feel if he were subjected to the criticisms of

men like Calhoun. She wondered if others knew that he had kept her in

ignorance of his flight. Did Poindexter know it, or had he only

entrapped her into the admission? Why had she not been clever enough to

make him think that she knew it already? For the moment she hated

Poindexter for sharing that secret. Yet this was again followed by a

new impatience of her husband's want of insight into her ability to

help him. Of course the poor fellow could not bear to worry her, could

not bear to face such men as Calhoun, or even Poindexter (she added

exultingly to herself), but he might have sent her a line as he fled,

only to prepare her to meet and combat the shame alone. It did not

occur to her unsophisticated singleness of nature that she was

accepting as an error of feeling what the world would call cowardly

selfishness.

At midnight the storm lulled and a few stars trembled through the rent

clouds. Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, and her country

instincts, a little overlaid by the urban experiences of the last few

years, came again to the surface. She felt the fresh, cool radiation

from outlying, upturned fields, the faint, sad odors from dim stretches

of pricking grain and quickening leaf, and wondered if at Los Cuervos

it might be possible to reproduce the peculiar verdure of her native

district. She beguiled her fancy by an ambitious plan of retrieving

their fortunes by farming; her comfortable tastes had lately rebelled

against the homeless mechanical cultivation of these desolate but

teeming Californian acres, and for a moment indulged in a vision of a

vine-clad cottage home that in any other woman would have been

sentimental. Her cramped limbs aching, she took advantage of the

security of the darkness and the familiar contiguity of the fields to

get down from the vehicle, gather her skirts together, and run at the

head of the mustang, until her chill blood was thawed, night drawing a

modest veil over this charming revelation of the nymph and woman. But

the sudden shadow of a coyote checked the scouring feet of this swift

Camilla, and sent her back precipitately to the buggy. Nevertheless,

she was refreshed and able to pursue her journey, until the cold gray

of early morning found her at the end of her second stage.

Her route was changed again from the main highway, rendered dangerous

by the approach of day and the contiguity of the neighboring

_rancheros_. The road was rough and hilly, her new horse and vehicle in

keeping with the rudeness of the route--by far the most difficult of

her whole journey. The rare wagon tracks that indicated her road were

often scarcely discernible; at times they led her through openings in

the half-cleared woods, skirted suspicious morasses, painfully climbed

the smooth, domelike hills, or wound along perilous slopes at a

dangerous angle. Twice she had to alight and cling to the sliding

wheels on one of those treacherous inclines, or drag them from

impending ruts or immovable mire. In the growing light she could

distinguish the distant, low-lying marshes eaten by encroaching sloughs

and insidious channels, and beyond them the faint gray waste of the

Lower Bay. A darker peninsula in the marsh she knew to be the extreme

boundary of her future home: the Rancho de los Cuervos. In another hour

she began to descend to the plain, and once more to approach the main

road, which now ran nearly parallel with her track. She scanned it

cautiously for any early traveler; it stretched north and south in

apparent unending solitude. She struck into it boldly, and urged her

horse to the top of his speed, until she reached the cross-road that

led to the rancho. But here she paused and allowed the reins to drop

idly on the mustang's back. A singular and unaccountable irresolution

seized her. The difficulties of her journey were over; the rancho lay

scarcely two miles away; she had achieved the most important part of

her task in the appointed time; but she hesitated. What had she come

for? She tried to recall Poindexter's words, even her own enthusiasm,

but in vain. She was going to take possession of her husband's

property, she knew, that was all. But the means she had taken seemed

now so exaggerated and mysterious for that simple end, that she began

to dread an impending something, or some vague danger she had not

considered, that she was rushing blindly to meet. Full of this strange

feeling, she almost mechanically stopped her horse as she entered the

cross-road.

From this momentary hesitation a singular sound aroused her. It seemed

at first like the swift hurrying by of some viewless courier of the

air, the vague alarm of some invisible flying herald, or like the

inarticulate cry that precedes a storm. It seemed to rise and fall

around her as if with some changing urgency of purpose. Raising her

eyes she suddenly recognized the two far-stretching lines of telegraph

wire above her head, and knew the aeolian cry of the morning wind along

its vibrating chords. But it brought another and more practical fear to

her active brain. Perhaps even now the telegraph might be anticipating

her! Had Poindexter thought of that? She hesitated no longer, but

laying the whip on the back of her jaded mustang, again hurried

forward.

As the level horizon grew more distinct, her attention was attracted by

the white sail of a small boat lazily threading the sinuous channel of

the slough. It might be Poindexter arriving by the more direct route

from the steamboat that occasionally laid off the ancient _embarcadero_

of the Los Cuervos Rancho. But even while watching it her quick ear

caught the sound of galloping hoofs behind her. She turned quickly and

saw she was followed by a horseman. But her momentary alarm was

succeeded by a feeling of relief as she recognized the erect figure and

square shoulders of Poindexter. Yet she could not help thinking that he

looked more like a militant scout, and less like a cautious legal

adviser, than ever.

With unaffected womanliness she rearranged her slightly disordered hair

as he drew up beside her. "I thought you were in yonder boat," she

said.

"Not I," he laughed; "I distanced you by the highroad two hours, and

have been reconnoitering, until I saw you hesitate at the cross-roads."

"But who is in the boat?" asked Mrs. Tucker, partly to hide her

embarrassment.

"Only some early Chinese market gardener, I dare say. But you are safe

now. You are on your own land. You passed the boundary monument of the

rancho five minutes ago. Look! All you see before you is yours from the

_embarcadero_ to yonder Coast Range."

The tone of half raillery did not, however, cheer Mrs. Tucker. She

shuddered slightly and cast her eyes over the monotonous sea of _tule_

and meadow.

"It doesn't look pretty, perhaps," continued Poindexter, "but it's the

richest land in the State, and the _embarcadero_ will some day be a

town. I suppose you'll call it Blue Grassville. But you seem tired!" he

said, suddenly dropping his voice to a tone of half humorous sympathy.

Mrs. Tucker managed to get rid of an impending tear under the pretense

of clearing her eyes. "Are we nearly there?" she asked.

"Nearly. You know," he added, with the same half mischievous, half

sympathizing gayety, "it's not exactly a palace you're coming

to,--hardly. It's the old _casa_ that has been deserted for years, but

I thought it better you should go into possession there than take up

your abode at the shanty where your husband's farm-hands are. No one

will know when you take possession of the _casa_, while the very hour

of your arrival at the shanty would be known; and if they should make

any trouble"--

"If they should make any trouble?" repeated Mrs. Tucker, lifting her

frank, inquiring eyes to Poindexter.

His horse suddenly rearing from an apparently accidental prick of the

spur, it was a minute or two before he was able to explain. "I mean if

this ever comes up as a matter of evidence, you know. But here we are!"

What had seemed to be an overgrown mound rising like an island out of

the dead level of the grassy sea now resolved itself into a collection

of adobe walls, eaten and incrusted with shrubs and vines, that bore

some resemblance to the usual uninhabited-looking exterior of a

Spanish-American dwelling. Apertures that might have been lance-shaped

windows or only cracks and fissures in the walls were choked up with

weeds and grass, and gave no passing glimpse of the interior. Entering

a ruinous corral they came to a second entrance, which proved to be the

_patio_ or courtyard. The deserted wooden corridor, with beams,

rafters, and floors whitened by the sun and wind, contained a few

withered leaves, dryly rotting skins, and thongs of leather, as if

undisturbed by human care. But among these scattered débris of former

life and habitation there was no noisome or unclean suggestion of

decay. A faint spiced odor of desiccation filled the bare walls. There

was no slime on stone or sun-dried brick. In place of fungus or

discolored moisture the dust of efflorescence whitened in the obscured

corners. The elements had picked clean the bones of the old and

crumbling tenement ere they should finally absorb it.

A withered old _peon_ woman, who in dress, complexion, and fibrous hair

might have been an animated fragment of the débris, rustled out of a

low vaulted passage and welcomed them with a feeble crepitation.

Following her into the dim interior, Mrs. Tucker was surprised to find

some slight attempt at comfort and even adornment in the two or three

habitable apartments. They were scrupulously clean and dry, two

qualities which in her feminine eyes atoned for poverty of material.

"I could not send anything from San Bruno, the nearest village, without

attracting attention," explained Poindexter; "but if you can manage to

picnic here for a day longer, I'll get one of our Chinese friends

here," he pointed to the slough, "to bring over, for his return cargo

from across the bay, any necessaries you may want. There is no danger

of his betraying you," he added, with an ironical smile; "Chinamen and

Indians are, by an ingenious provision of the statute of California,

incapable of giving evidence against a white person. You can trust your

handmaiden perfectly--even if she can't trust _you_. That is your

sacred privilege under the constitution. And now, as I expect to catch

the up boat ten miles from hence. I must say 'good-by' until to-morrow

night. I hope to bring you then some more definite plans for the

future. The worst is over." He held her hand for a moment, and with a

graver voice continued, "You have done it very well--do you know--very

well!"

In the slight embarrassment produced by his sudden change of manner she

felt that her thanks seemed awkward and restrained. "Don't thank me,"

he laughed, with a prompt return of his former levity; "that's my

trade. I only advised. You have saved yourself like a plucky

woman--shall I say like Blue Grass? Good-by!" He mounted his horse,

but, as if struck by an after-thought, wheeled and drew up by her side

again. "If I were you I wouldn't see many strangers for a day or two,

and listen to as little news as a woman possibly can." He laughed

again, waved her a half gallant, half military salute, and was gone.

The question she had been trying to frame, regarding the probability of

communication with her husband, remained unasked. At least she had

saved her pride before him.

Addressing herself to the care of her narrow household, she

mechanically put away the few things she had brought with her, and

began to read just the scant furniture. She was a little discomposed at

first at the absence of bolts, locks, and even window-fastenings until

assured, by Concha's evident inability to comprehend her concern, that

they were quite unknown at Los Cuervos. Her slight knowledge of Spanish

was barely sufficient to make her wants known, so that the relief of

conversation with her only companion was debarred her, and she was

obliged to content herself with the sapless, crackling smiles and

withered genuflexions that the old woman dropped like dead leaves in

her path. It was staring noon when, the house singing like an empty

shell in the monotonous wind, she felt she could stand the solitude no

longer, and, crossing the glaring _patio_ and whistling corridor, made

her way to the open gateway.

But the view without seemed to intensify her desolation. The broad

expanse of the shadowless plain reached apparently to the Coast Range,

trackless and unbroken save by one or two clusters of dwarfed oaks,

which at that distance were but mossy excrescences on the surface,

barely raised above the dead level. On the other side the marsh took up

the monotony and carried it, scarcely interrupted by undefined

water-courses, to the faintly marked-out horizon line of the remote

bay. Scattered and apparently motionless black spots on the meadows

that gave a dreary significance to the title of "the Crows" which the

rancho bore, and sudden gray clouds of sandpipers on the marshes, that

rose and vanished down the wind, were the only signs of life. Even the

white sail of the early morning was gone.

She stood there until the aching of her straining eyes and the

stiffening of her limbs in the cold wind compelled her to seek the

sheltered warmth of the courtyard. Here she endeavored to make friends

with a bright-eyed lizard, who was sunning himself in the corridor; a

graceful little creature in blue and gold, from whom she felt at other

times she might have fled, but whose beauty and harmlessness solitude

had made known to her. With misplaced kindness she tempted it with

bread-crumbs, with no other effect than to stiffen it into stony

astonishment. She wondered if she should become like the prisoners she

had read of in books, who poured out their solitary affections on

noisome creatures, and she regretted even the mustang, which with the

buggy had disappeared under the charge of some unknown retainer on her

arrival. Was she not a prisoner? The shutterless windows, yawning

doors, and open gate refuted the suggestion, but the encompassing

solitude and trackless waste still held her captive. Poindexter had

told her it was four miles to the shanty; she might walk there. Why had

she given her word that she would remain at the rancho until he

returned?

The long day crept monotonously away, and she welcomed the night which

shut out the dreary prospect. But it brought no cessation of the

harassing wind without, nor surcease of the nervous irritation its

perpetual and even activity wrought upon her. It haunted her pillow

even in her exhausted sleep, and seemed to impatiently beckon her to

rise and follow it. It brought her feverish dreams of her husband,

footsore and weary, staggering forward under its pitiless lash and

clamorous outcry; she would have gone to his assistance, but when she

reached his side and held out her arms to him it hurried her past with

merciless power, and, bearing her away, left him hopelessly behind. It

was broad day when she awoke. The usual night showers of the waning

rainy season had left no trace in sky or meadow; the fervid morning sun

had already dried the _patio_; only the restless, harrying wind

remained.

Mrs. Tucker arose with a resolve. She had learned from Concha on the

previous evening that a part of the shanty was used as a _tienda_ or

shop for the laborers and _rancheros_. Under the necessity of

purchasing some articles, she would go there and for a moment mingle

with those people, who would not recognize her. Even if they did, her

instinct told her it would be less to be feared than the hopeless

uncertainty of another day. As she left the house the wind seemed to

seize her as in her dream, and hurry her along with it, until in a few

moments the walls of the low _casa_ sank into the earth again and she

was alone, but for the breeze on the solitary plain. The level distance

glittered in the sharp light, a few crows with slant wings dipped and

ran down the wind before her, and a passing gleam on the marsh was

explained by the far-off cry of a curlew.

She had walked for an hour, upheld by the stimulus of light and morning

air, when the cluster of scrub oaks, which was her destination, opened

enough to show two rambling sheds, before one of which was a wooden

platform containing a few barrels and bones. As she approached nearer,

she could see that one or two horses were tethered under the trees,

that their riders were lounging by a horse-trough, and that over an

open door the word _Tienda_ was rudely painted on a board, and as

rudely illustrated by the wares displayed at door and window.

Accustomed as she was to the poverty of frontier architecture, even the

crumbling walls of the old _hacienda_ she had just left seemed

picturesque to the rigid angles of the thin, blank, unpainted shell

before her. One of the loungers, who was reading a newspaper aloud as

she advanced, put it aside and stared at her; there was an evident

commotion in the shop as she stepped upon the platform, and when she

entered, with breathless lips and beating heart, she found herself the

object of a dozen curious eyes. Her quick pride resented the scrutiny

and recalled her courage, and it was with a slight coldness in her

usual lazy indifference that she leaned over the counter and asked for

the articles she wanted.

The request was followed by a dead silence. Mrs. Tucker repeated it

with some _hauteur_.

"I reckon you don't seem to know this store is in the hands of the

sheriff," said one of the loungers.

Mrs. Tucker was not aware of it.

"Well, I don't know any one who's a better right to know than Spence

Tucker's wife," said another with a coarse laugh. The laugh was echoed

by the others. Mrs. Tucker saw the pit into which she had deliberately

walked, but did not flinch.

"Is there any one to serve here?" she asked, turning her clear eyes

full upon the bystanders.

"You'd better ask the sheriff. He was the last one to _sarve_ here. He

sarved an attachment," replied the inevitable humorist of all

Californian assemblages.

"Is he here?" asked Mrs. Tucker, disregarding the renewed laughter

which followed this subtle witticism.

The loungers at the door made way for one of their party, who was half

dragged, half pushed into the shop. "Here he is," said half a dozen

eager voices, in the fond belief that his presence might impart

additional humor to the situation. He cast a deprecating glance at Mrs.

Tucker and said, "It's so, madam! This yer place _is_ attached; but if

there's anything you're wanting, why I reckon, boys,"--he turned half

appealingly to the crowd, "we could oblige a lady." There was a vague

sound of angry opposition and remonstrance from the back door of the

shop, but the majority, partly overcome by Mrs. Tucker's beauty,

assented. "Only," continued the officer explanatorily, "ez these yer

goods are in the hands of the creditors, they ought to be represented

by an equivalent in money. If you're expecting they should be

charged"--

"But I wish to, _pay_ for them," interrupted Mrs. Tucker, with a slight

flush of indignation; "I have the money."

"Oh, I bet you have!" screamed a voice, as, overturning all opposition,

the malcontent at the back door, in the shape of an infuriated woman,

forced her way into the shop. "I'll bet you have the money! Look at

her, boys! Look at the wife of the thief, with the stolen money in

diamonds in her ears and rings on her fingers. _She's_ got money if

_we've_ none. _She_ can pay for what she fancies, if we haven't a cent

to redeem the bed that's stolen from under us. Oh yes, buy it all, Mrs.

Spencer Tucker! buy the whole shop, Mrs. Spencer Tucker, do you hear?

And if you ain't satisfied then, buy my clothes, my wedding ring, the

only things your husband hasn't stolen."

"I don't understand you," said Mrs. Tucker coldly, turning towards the

door. But with a flying leap across the counter her relentless

adversary stood between her and retreat.

"You don't understand! Perhaps you don't understand that your husband

not only stole the hard labor of these men, but even the little money

they brought here and trusted to his thieving hands. Perhaps you don't

know that he stole my husband's hard earnings, mortgaged these very

goods you want to buy, and that he is to-day a convicted thief, a

forger, and a runaway coward. Perhaps, if you can't understand _me_,

you can read the newspaper. Look!" She exultingly opened the paper the

sheriff had been reading aloud, and pointed to the displayed headlines.

"Look! there are the very words, 'Forgery, Swindling, Embezzlement!' Do

you see? And perhaps you can't understand this. Look! 'Shameful Flight.

Abandons his Wife. Runs off with a Notorious'"--

"Easy, old gal, easy now. D--n it! Will you dry up? I say. _Stop_!"

It was too late! The sheriff had dashed the paper from the woman's

hand, but not until Mrs. Tucker had read a single line, a line such as

she had sometimes turned from with weary scorn in her careless perusal

of the daily shameful chronicle of domestic infelicity. Then she had

coldly wondered if there could be any such men and women. And now! The

crowd fell back before her; even the virago was silenced as she looked

at her face. The humorist's face was as white, but not as immobile, as

he gasped, "Christ! if I don't believe she knew nothin' of it!"

For a moment the full force of such a supposition, with all its

poignancy, its dramatic intensity, and its pathos, possessed the crowd.

In the momentary clairvoyance of enthusiasm they caught a glimpse of

the truth, and by one of the strange reactions of human passion they

only waited for a word of appeal or explanation from her lips to throw

themselves at her feet. Had she simply told her story they would have

believed her; had she cried, fainted, or gone into hysterics, they

would have pitied her. She did neither. Perhaps she thought of neither,

or indeed of anything that was then before her eyes. She walked erect

to the door and turned upon the threshold. "I mean what I say," she

said calmly. "I don't understand you. But whatever just claims you have

upon my husband will be paid by me, or by his lawyer, Captain

Poindexter."

She had lost the sympathy but not the respect of her hearers. They made

way for her with sullen deference as she passed out on the platform.

But her adversary, profiting by the last opportunity, burst into an

ironical laugh.

"Captain Poindexter, is it? Well, perhaps he's safe to pay _your_ bill;

but as for your husband's"--

"That's another matter," interrupted a familiar voice with the greatest

cheerfulness; "that's what you were going to say, wasn't it? Ha! ha!

Well, Mrs. Patterson," continued Poindexter, stepping from his buggy,

"you never spoke a truer word in your life.--One moment, Mrs. Tucker.

Let me send you back in the buggy. Don't mind _me_. I can get a fresh

horse of the sheriff. I'm quite at home here." Then, turning to one of

the bystanders, "I say, Patterson, step a few paces this way, will you?

A little further from your wife, please. That will do. You've got a

claim of five thousand dollars against the property, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, that woman just driving away is your one solitary chance of

getting a cent of it. If your wife insults her again, that chance is

gone. And if _you_ do"--

"Well?"

"As sure as there is a God in Israel and a Supreme Court of the State

of California, I'll kill you in your tracks!.... Stay!"

Patterson turned. The irrepressible look of humorous tolerance of all

human frailty had suffused Poindexter's black eyes with mischievous

moisture. "If you think it quite safe to confide to your wife this

prospect of her improvement by widowhood, you may!"

III.

Mr. Patterson did not inform his wife of the lawyer's personal threat

to himself. But he managed, after Poindexter had left, to make her

conscious that Mrs. Tucker might be a power to be placated and feared.

"You've shot off your mouth at her," he said argumentatively, "and

whether you've hit the mark or not you've had your say. Ef you think

it's worth a possible five thousand dollars and interest to keep on,

heave ahead. Ef you rather have the chance of getting the rest in cash,

you'll let up on her." "You don't suppose," returned Mrs. Patterson

contemptuously, "that she's got anything but what that man of

hers--Poindexter--lets her have?" "The sheriff says," retorted

Patterson surlily, "that she's notified him that she claims the

_rancho_ as a gift from her husband three years ago, and she's in

_possession_ now, and was so when the execution was out. It don't make

no matter," he added, with gloomy philosophy, "who's got a full hand as

long as _we_ ain't got the cards to chip in. I wouldn't 'a' minded it,"

he continued meditatively, "ef Spence Tucker had dropped a hint to me

afore he put out." "And I suppose," said Mrs. Patterson angrily, "you'd

have put out too?" "I reckon," said Patterson simply.

Twice or thrice during the evening he referred, more or less directly,

to this lack of confidence shown by his late debtor and employer, and

seemed to feel it more keenly than the loss of property. He confided

his sentiments quite openly to the sheriff in possession, over the

whiskey and euchre with which these gentlemen avoided the difficulties

of their delicate relations. He brooded over it as he handed the keys

of the shop to the sheriff when they parted for the night, and was

still thinking of it when the house was closed, everybody gone to bed,

and he was fetching a fresh jug of water from the well. The moon was at

times obscured by flying clouds, the _avant-couriers_ of the regular

evening shower. He was stooping over the well, when he sprang suddenly

to his feet again. "Who's there?" he demanded sharply.

"Hush!" said a voice so low and faint it might have been a whisper of

the wind in the palisades of the corral. But, indistinct as it was, it

was the voice of a man he was thinking of as far away, and it sent a

thrill of alternate awe and pleasure through his pulses.

He glanced quickly round. The moon was hidden by a passing cloud, and

only the faint outlines of the house he had just quitted were visible.

"Is that you, Spence?" he said tremulously.

"Yes," replied the voice, and a figure dimly emerged from the corner of

the corral.

"Lay low, lay low, for God's sake," said Patterson, hurriedly throwing

himself upon the apparition. "The sheriff and his posse are in there."

"But I must speak to you a moment," said the figure.

"Wait," said Patterson, glancing toward the building. Its blank,

shutterless windows revealed no inner light; a profound silence

encompassed it. "Come quick," he whispered. Letting his grasp slip down

to the unresisting hand of the stranger, he half dragged, half led him,

brushing against the wall, into the open door of the deserted bar-room

he had just quitted, locked the inner door, poured a glass of whiskey

from a decanter, gave it to him, and then watched him drain it at a

single draught.

The moon came out, and falling through the bare windows full upon the

stranger's face, revealed the artistic but slightly disheveled curls

and mustache of the fugitive, Spencer Tucker.

Whatever may have been the real influence of this unfortunate man upon

his fellows, it seemed to find expression in a singular unanimity of

criticism. Patterson looked at him with a half dismal, half welcoming

smile. "Well, you are a h--ll of a fellow, ain't you?"

Spencer Tucker passed his hand through his hair and lifted it from his

forehead, with a gesture at once emotional and theatrical. "I am a man

with a price on me!" he said bitterly. "Give me up to the sheriff, and

you'll get five thousand dollars. Help me, and you'll get nothing.

That's my d--d luck, and yours too, I suppose."

"I reckon you're right there," said Patterson gloomily. "But I thought

you got clean away,--went off in a ship"--

"Went off in a boat to a ship," interrupted Tucker savagely; "went off

to a ship that had all my things on board--everything. The cursed boat

capsized in a squall just off the Heads. The ship, d--n her, sailed

away, the men thinking I was drowned, likely, and that they'd make a

good thing off my goods, I reckon."

"But the girl, Inez, who was with you, didn't she make a row?"

"_Quien sabe?_" returned Tucker, with a reckless laugh. "Well, I hung

on like grim death to that boat's keel until one of those Chinese

fishermen, in a 'dug-out,' hauled me in opposite Saucelito. I chartered

him and his dug-out to bring me down here."

"Why here?" asked Patterson, with a certain ostentatious caution that

ill concealed his pensive satisfaction.

"You may well ask," returned Tucker, with an equal ostentation of

bitterness, as he slightly waved his companion away. "But I reckoned I

could trust a white man that I'd been kind to, and who wouldn't go back

on me. No, no, let me go! Hand me over to the sheriff!"

Patterson had suddenly grasped both the hands of the picturesque scamp

before him, with an affection that for an instant almost shamed the man

who had ruined him. But Tucker's egotism whispered that this affection

was only a recognition of his own superiority, and felt flattered. He

was beginning to believe that he was really the injured party.

"What I _have_ and what I have _had_ is yours, Spence," returned

Patterson, with a sad and simple directness that made any further

discussion a gratuitous insult. "I only wanted to know what you

reckoned to do here."

"I want to get over across the Coast Range to Monterey," said Tucker.

"Once there, one of those coasting schooners will bring me down to

Acapulco, where the ship will put in."

Patterson remained silent for a moment. "There's a mustang in the

corral you can take--leastways, I shan't know that it's gone--until

to-morrow afternoon. In an hour from now," he added, looking from the

window, "these clouds will settle down to business. It will rain; there

will be light enough for you to find your way by the regular trail over

the mountain, but not enough for any one to know you. If you can't push

through to-night, you can lie over at the _posada_ on the summit. Them

greasers that keep it won't know you, And if they did they won't go

back on you. And if they did go back on you, nobody would believe them.

It's mighty curious," he added, with gloomy philosophy, "but I reckon

it's the reason why Providence allows this kind of cattle to live among

white men and others made in his image. Take a piece of pie, won't

you?" he continued, abandoning this abstract reflection and producing

half a flat pumpkin pie from the bar. Spencer Tucker grasped the pie

with one hand and his friend's fingers with the other, and for a few

moments was silent from the hurried deglutition of viand and sentiment.

"_You're_ a white man, Patterson, any way," he resumed. "I'll take your

horse, and put it down in our account at your own figure. As soon as

this cursed thing is blown over, I'll be back here and see you through,

you bet! I don't desert my friends, however rough things go with me."

"I see you don't," returned Patterson, with an unconscious and serious

simplicity that had the effect of the most exquisite irony. "I was only

just saying to the sheriff that if there was anything I could have done

for you, you wouldn't have cut away without letting me know." Tucker

glanced uneasily at Patterson, who continued, "Ye ain't wanting

anything else?" Then observing that his former friend and patron was

roughly but newly clothed, and betrayed no trace of his last escapade,

he added, "I see you've got a fresh harness."

"That d--d Chinaman bought me these at the landing. They're not much in

style or fit," he continued, trying to get a moonlight view of himself

in the mirror behind the bar, "but that don't matter here." He filled

another glass of spirits, jauntily settled himself back in his chair,

and added, "I don't suppose there are any girls around, anyway."

"'Cept your wife; she was down here this afternoon," said Patterson

meditatively.

Mr. Tucker paused with the pie in his hand. "Ah, yes!" He essayed a

reckless laugh, but that evident simulation failed before Patterson's

melancholy. With an assumption of falling in with his friend's manner,

rather than from any personal anxiety, he continued, "Well?"

"That man Poindexter was down here with her. Put her in the _hacienda_

to hold possession afore the news came out."

"Impossible!" said Tucker, rising hastily. "It don't belong--that

is"--he hesitated.

"Yer thinking the creditors'll get it, mebbe," returned Patterson,

gazing at the floor. "Not as long as she's in it; no sir! Whether it's

really hers, or she's only keeping house for Poindexter, she's a

fixture, you bet. They are a team when they pull together, they are!"

The smile slowly faded from Tucker's face, that now looked quite rigid

in the moonlight. He put down his glass and walked to the window as

Patterson gloomily continued: "But that's nothing to you. You've got

ahead of 'em both, and had your revenge by going off with the gal.

That's what I said all along. When folks--specially women

folks--wondered how you could leave a woman like your wife, and go off

with a scallawag like that gal, I allers said they'd find out there was

a reason. And when your wife came flaunting down here with Poindexter

before she'd quite got quit of you, I reckon they began to see the

whole little game. No, sir! I knew it wasn't on account of the gal!

Why, when you came here to-night and told me quite nat'ral-like and

easy how she went off in the ship, and then calmly ate your pie and

drank your whiskey after it, I knew you didn't care for her. There's my

hand, Spence; you're a trump, even if you are a little looney, eh? Why,

what's up?"

Shallow and selfish as Tucker was, Patterson's words seemed like a

revelation that shocked him as profoundly as it might have shocked a

nobler nature. The simple vanity and selfishness that made him unable

to conceive any higher reason for his wife's loyalty than his own

personal popularity and success, now that he no longer possessed that

_éclat_, made him equally capable of the lowest suspicions. He was a

dishonored fugitive, broken in fortune and reputation--why should she

not desert him? He had been unfaithful to her from wildness, from

caprice, from the effect of those fascinating qualities; it seemed to

him natural that she should be disloyal from more deliberate motives,

and he hugged himself with that belief. Yet there was enough doubt,

enough of haunting suspicion, that he had lost or alienated a powerful

affection, to make him thoroughly miserable. He returned his friend's

grasp convulsively and buried his face upon his shoulder. But he was

above feeling a certain exultation in the effect of his misery upon the

dog-like, unreasoning affection of Patterson, nor could he entirely

refrain from slightly posing his affliction before that sympathetic but

melancholy man. Suddenly he raised his head, drew back, and thrust his

hand into his bosom with a theatrical gesture.

"What's to keep me from killing Poindexter in his tracks?" he said

wildly.

"Nothin' but _his_ shooting first," returned Patterson, with dismal

practicality. "He's mighty quick, like all them army men. It's about

even, I reckon, that he don't get _me_ first," he added in an ominous

voice.

"No!" returned Tucker, grasping his hand again. "This is not your

affair, Patterson; leave him to me when I come back."

"If he ever gets the drop on me, I reckon he won't wait," continued

Patterson lugubriously. "He seems to object to my passin' criticism on

your wife, as if she was a queen or an angel."

The blood came to Spencer's cheek, and he turned uneasily to the

window. "It's dark enough now for a start," he said hurriedly, "and if

I could get across the mountain without lying over at the summit, it

would be a day gained."

Patterson arose without a word, filled a flask of spirit, handed it to

his friend, and silently led the way through the slowly falling rain

and the now settled darkness. The mustang was quickly secured and

saddled; a heavy _poncho_ afforded Tucker a disguise as well as a

protection from the rain. With a few hurried, disconnected words, and

an abstracted air, he once more shook his friend's hand and issued

cautiously from the corral. When out of earshot from the house he put

spurs to the mustang, and dashed into a gallop.

To intersect the mountain road he was obliged to traverse part of the

highway his wife had walked that afternoon, and to pass within a mile

of the _casa_ where she was. Long before he reached that point his eyes

were straining the darkness in that direction for some indication of

the house which was to him familiar. Becoming now accustomed to the

even obscurity, less trying to the vision than the alternate light and

shadow of cloud or the full glare of the moonlight, he fancied he could

distinguish its low walls over the monotonous level. One of those

impulses which had so often taken the place of resolution in his

character suddenly possessed him to diverge from his course and

approach the house. Why, he could not have explained. It was not from

any feeling of jealous suspicion or contemplated revenge--that had

passed with the presence of Patterson; it was not from any vague

lingering sentiment for the woman he had wronged--he would have shrunk

from meeting her at that moment. But it was full of these and more

possibilities by which he might or might not be guided, and was at

least a movement towards some vague end, and a distraction from certain

thoughts he dared not entertain and could not entirely dismiss.

Inconceivable and inexplicable to human reason, it might have been

acceptable to the Divine omniscience for its predestined result.

He left the road at a point where the marsh encroached upon the meadow,

familiar to him already as near the spot where he had debarked from the

Chinaman's boat the day before. He remembered that the walls of the

_hacienda_ were distinctly visible from the _tules_ where he had hidden

all day, and he now knew that the figures he had observed near the

building, which had deterred his first attempts at landing, must have

been his wife and his friend. He knew that a long tongue of the slough

filled by the rising tide followed the marsh, and lay between him and

the _hacienda_. The sinking of his horse's hoofs in the spongy soil

determined its proximity, and he made a detour to the right to avoid

it. In doing so, a light suddenly rose above the distant horizon ahead

of him, trembled faintly, and then burned with a steady lustre. It was

a light at the _hacienda_. Guiding his horse half abstractedly in this

direction, his progress was presently checked by the splashing of the

animal's hoofs in the water. But the turf below was firm, and a salt

drop that had spattered to his lips told him that it was only the

encroaching of the tide in the meadow. With his eyes on the light, he

again urged his horse forward. The rain lulled, the clouds began to

break, the landscape alternately lightened and grew dark; the outlines

of the crumbling _hacienda_ walls that enshrined the light grew more

visible. A strange and dreamy resemblance to the long blue-grass plain

before his wife's paternal house, as seen by him during his evening

rides to courtship, pressed itself upon him. He remembered, too, that

she used to put a light in the window to indicate her presence.

Following this retrospect, the moon came boldly out, sparkled upon the

overflow of silver at his feet, seemed to show the dark, opaque meadow

beyond for a moment, and then disappeared. It was dark now, but the

lesser earthly star still shone before him as a guide, and pushing

towards it, he passed in the all-embracing shadow.

IV.

As Mrs. Tucker, erect, white, and rigid, drove away from the _tienda_,

it seemed to her to sink again into the monotonous plain, with all its

horrible realities. Except that there was now a new and heart-breaking

significance to the solitude and loneliness of the landscape, all that

had passed might have been a dream. But as the blood came back to her

cheek, and little by little her tingling consciousness returned, it

seemed as if her life had been the dream, and this last scene the

awakening reality. With eyes smarting with the moisture of shame, the

scarlet blood at times dyeing her very neck and temples, she muffled

her lowered crest in her shawl and bent over the reins. Bit by bit she

recalled, in Poindexter's mysterious caution and strange allusions, the

corroboration of her husband's shame and her own disgrace. This was why

she was brought hither--the deserted wife, the abandoned confederate!

The mocking glitter of the concave vault above her, scoured by the

incessant wind, the cold stare of the shining pools beyond, the hard

outlines of the Coast Range, and the jarring accompaniment of her

horse's hoofs and rattling buggy-wheels, alternately goaded and

distracted her. She found herself repeating "No! no! no!" with the

dogged reiteration of fever. She scarcely knew when or how she reached

the _hacienda_. She was only conscious that as she entered the _patio_

the dusky solitude that had before filled her with unrest now came to

her like balm. A benumbing peace seemed to fall from the crumbling

walls; the peace of utter seclusion, isolation, oblivion, death!

Nevertheless, an hour later, when the jingle of spurs and bridle were

again heard in the road, she started to her feet with bent brows and a

kindling eye, and confronted Captain Poindexter in the corridor.

"I would not have intruded upon you so soon again," he said gravely,

"but I thought I might perhaps spare you a repetition of the scene of

this morning. Hear me out, please," he added, with a gentle, half

deprecating gesture, as she lifted the beautiful scorn of her eyes to

his. "I have just heard that your neighbor, Don José Santierra, of Los

Gatos, is on his way to this house. He once claimed this land, and

hated your husband, who bought of the rival claimant, whose grant was

confirmed. I tell you this," he added, slightly flushing as Mrs. Tucker

turned impatiently away, "only to show you that legally he has no

rights, and you need not see him unless you choose. I could not stop

his coming without perhaps doing you more harm than good; but when he

does come, my presence under this roof as your legal counsel will

enable you to refer him to me." He stopped. She was pacing the corridor

with short, impatient steps, her arms dropped, and her hands clasped

rigidly before her. "Have I your permission to stay?"

She suddenly stopped in her walk, approached him rapidly, and fixing

her eyes on his, said:

"Do I know _all_, now--everything?"

He could only reply that she had not yet told him what she had heard.

"Well," she said scornfully, "that my husband has been cruelly imposed

upon--imposed upon by some wretched woman, who has made him sacrifice

his property, his friends, his honor--everything but me!"

"Everything but whom?" gasped Poindexter.

"But ME!"

Poindexter gazed at the sky, the air, the deserted corridor, the stones

of the _patio_ itself, and then at the inexplicable woman before him.

Then he said gravely, "I think you know everything."

"Then if my husband has left me all he could--this property," she went

on rapidly, twisting her handkerchief between her fingers, "I can do

with it what I like, can't I?"

"You certainly can."

"Then sell it," she said, with passionate vehemence. "Sell it--all!

everything! And sell these." She darted into her bedroom, and returned

with the diamond rings she had torn from her fingers and ears when she

entered the house. "Sell them for anything they'll bring, only sell

them at once."

"But for what?" asked Poindexter, with demure lips but twinkling eyes.

"To pay the debts that this--this--woman has led him into; to return

the money she has stolen!" she went on rapidly; "to keep him from

sharing infamy! Can't you understand?"

"But, my dear madam," began Poindexter, "even if this could be done"--

"Don't tell me 'if it could'--it _must_ be done. Do you think I could

sleep under this roof, propped up by the timbers of that ruined

_tienda_? Do you think I could wear those diamonds again, while that

termagant shop-woman can say that her money bought them? No! If you are

my husband's friend you will do this--for--for his sake." She stopped,

locked and interlocked her cold fingers before her, and said,

hesitating and mechanically, "You meant well, Captain Poindexter, in

bringing me here, I know! You must not think that I blame you for it,

or for the miserable result of it that you have just witnessed. But if

I have gained anything by it, for God's sake let me reap it quickly,

that I may give it to these people and go! I have a friend who can aid

me to get to my husband or to my home in Kentucky, where Spencer will

yet find me, I know. I want nothing more." She stopped again. With

another woman the pause would have been one of tears. But she kept her

head above the flood that filled her heart, and the clear eyes fixed

upon Poindexter, albeit pained, were undimmed.

"But this would require time," said Poindexter, with a smile of

compassionate explanation; "you could not sell now, nobody would buy.

You are safe to hold this property while you are in actual possession,

but you are not strong enough to guarantee it to another. There may

still be litigation; your husband has other creditors than these people

you have talked with. But while nobody could oust you--the wife who

would have the sympathies of judge and jury--it might be a different

case with any one who derived title from you. Any purchaser would know

that you could not sell, or if you did, it would be at a ridiculous

sacrifice."

She listened to him abstractedly, walked to the end of the corridor,

returned, and without looking up, said:

"I suppose you know her?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"This woman. You have seen her?"

"Never, to my knowledge."

"And you are his friend! That's strange." She raised her eyes to his.

"Well," she continued impatiently, "who is she? and what is she? You

know that surely."

"I know no more of her than what I have said." said Poindexter. "She is

a notorious woman."

The swift color came to Mrs. Tucker's face as if the epithet had been

applied to herself. "I suppose," she said in a dry voice, as if she

were asking a business question, but with an eye that showed her rising

anger,--"I suppose there is some law by which creatures of this kind

can be followed and brought to justice--some law that would keep

innocent people from suffering for their crimes?"

"I am afraid," said Poindexter, "that arresting her would hardly help

these people over in the _tienda_."

"I am not speaking of them," responded Mrs. Tucker, with a sudden

sublime contempt for the people whose cause she had espoused; "I am

talking of my husband."

Poindexter bit his lip. "You'd hardly think of bringing back the

strongest witness against him," he said bluntly.

Mrs. Tucker dropped her eyes and was silent. A sudden shame suffused

Poindexter's cheek; he felt as if he had struck that woman a blow. "I

beg your pardon," he said hastily; "I am talking like a lawyer to a

lawyer." He would have taken any other woman by the hand in the honest

fullness of his apology, but something restrained him here. He only

looked down gently on her lowered lashes, and repeated his question if

he should remain during the coming interview with Don José. "I must beg

you to determine quickly," he added, "for I already hear him entering

the gate."

"Stay," said Mrs. Tucker, as the ringing of spurs and clatter of hoofs

came from the corral. "One moment." She looked up suddenly, and said,

"How long had he known her?" But before he could reply there was a step

in the doorway, and the figure of Don José Santierra emerged from the

archway.

He was a man slightly past middle age, fair, and well shaven, wearing a

black broadcloth _serape_, the deeply embroidered opening of which

formed a collar of silver rays around his neck, while a row of silver

buttons down the side seams of his riding-trousers, and silver spurs

completed his singular equipment. Mrs. Tucker's swift feminine glance

took in these details, as well as the deep salutation, more formal than

the exuberant frontier politeness she was accustomed to, with which he

greeted her. It was enough to arrest her first impulse to retreat. She

hesitated and stopped as Poindexter stepped forward, partly interposing

between them, acknowledging Don José's distant recognition of himself

with an ironical accession of his usual humorous tolerance. The

Spaniard did not seem to notice it, but remained gravely silent before

Mrs. Tucker, gazing at her with an expression of intent and unconscious

absorption.

"You are quite right, Don José," said Poindexter, with ironical

concern, "it _is_ Mrs. Tucker. Your eyes do _not_ deceive you. She will

be glad to do the honors of her house," he continued, with a simulation

of appealing to her, "unless you visit her on business, when I need not

say _I_ shall be only too happy to attend you, as before."

Don José, with a slight lifting of the eyebrows, allowed himself to

become conscious of the lawyer's meaning. "It is not of business that I

come to kiss the Señora's hand to-day," he replied, with a melancholy

softness; "it is as her neighbor, to put myself at her disposition. Ah!

what have we here fit for a lady?" he continued, raising his eyes in

deprecation of the surroundings; "a house of nothing, a place of winds

and dry bones, without refreshments, or satisfaction, or delicacy. The

Señora will not refuse to make us proud this day to send her of that

which we have in our poor home at Los Gatos, to make her more complete.

Of what shall it be? Let her make choice. Or if she would commemorate

this day by accepting of our hospitality at Los Gatos, until she shall

arrange herself the more to receive us here, we shall have too much

honor."

"The Señora would only find it the more difficult to return to this

humble roof again, after once leaving it for Don José's hospitality,"

said Poindexter, with a demure glance at Mrs. Tucker. But the innuendo

seemed to lapse equally unheeded by his fair client and the stranger.

Raising her eyes with a certain timid dignity which Don José's presence

seemed to have called out, she addressed herself to him.

"You are very kind and considerate, Mister Santierra, and I thank you.

I know that my husband"--she let the clear beauty of her translucent

eyes rest full on both men--"would thank you too. But I shall not be

here long enough to accept your kindness in this house nor in your own.

I have but one desire and object now. It is to dispose of this

property, and indeed all I possess, to pay the debt of my husband. It

is in your power, perhaps, to help me. I am told that you wish to

possess Los Cuervos," she went on, equally oblivious of the

consciousness that appeared in Don José's face, and a humorous

perplexity on the brow of Poindexter. "If you can arrange it with Mr.

Poindexter, you will find me a liberal vendor. That much you can do,

and I know you will believe I shall be grateful. You can do no more,

unless it be to say to your friends that Mrs. Belle Tucker remains here

only for that purpose, and to carry out what she knows to be the wishes

of her husband." She paused, bent her pretty crest, dropped a quaint

curtsey to the superior age, the silver braid, and the gentlemanly

bearing of Don José, and with the passing sunshine of a smile

disappeared from the corridor.

The two men remained silent for a moment, Don José gazing abstractedly

on the door through which she had vanished, until Poindexter, with a

return of his tolerant smile, said, "You have heard the views of Mrs.

Tucker. You know the situation as well as she does."

"Ah, yes; possibly better."

Poindexter darted a quick glance at the grave, sallow face of Don José,

but detecting no unusual significance in his manner, continued, "As you

see, she leaves this matter in my hands. Let us talk like business men.

Have you any idea of purchasing this property?"

"Of purchasing? ah, no."

Poindexter bent his brows, but quickly relaxed them with a smile of

humorous forgiveness. "If you have any other idea, Don José, I ought to

warn you, as Mrs. Tucker's lawyer, that she is in legal possession

here, and that nothing but her own act can change that position."

"Ah, so."

Irritated at the shrug which accompanied this, Poindexter continued

haughtily, "If I am to understand, you have nothing to say"--

"To say, ah, yes, possibly. But"--he glanced toward the door of Mrs.

Tucker's room--"not here." He stopped, appeared to recall himself, and

with an apologetic smile and a studied but graceful gesture of

invitation, he motioned to the gateway, and said, "Will you ride?"

"What can the fellow be up to?" muttered Poindexter, as with an

assenting nod he proceeded to remount his horse. "If he wasn't an old

_hidalgo_, I'd mistrust him. No matter! here goes!"

The Don also remounted his half-broken mustang; they proceeded in

solemn silence through the corral, and side by side emerged on the open

plain. Poindexter glanced round; no other being was in sight. It was

not until the lonely _hacienda_ had also sunk behind them that Don José

broke the silence.

"You say just now we shall speak as business men. I say no, Don Marco;

I will not. I shall speak, we shall speak, as gentlemen."

"Go on," said Poindexter, who was beginning to be amused.

"I say just now I will not purchase the _rancho_ from the Señora. And

why? Look you, Don Marco;" he reined in his horse, thrust his hand

under his _serape_, and drew out a folded document: "this is why."

With a smile, Poindexter took the paper from his hand and opened it.

But the smile faded from his lips as he read. With blazing eyes he

spurred his horse beside the Spaniard, almost unseating him, and said

sternly, "What does this mean?"

"What does it mean?" repeated Don José, with equally flashing eyes;

"I'll tell you. It means that your client, this man Spencer Tucker, is

a Judas, a traitor! It means that he gave Los Cuervos to his mistress a

year ago, and that she sold it to me--to me, you hear!--_me_, José

Santierra, the day before she left! It means that the coyote of a

Spencer, the thief, who bought these lands of a thief and gave them to

a thief, has tricked you all. Look," he said, rising in his saddle,

holding the paper like a _bâton_, and defining with a sweep of his arm

the whole level plain, "all these lands were once mine, they are mine

again to-day. Do I want to purchase Los Cuervos? you ask, for you will

speak of the _business_. Well, listen. I _have_ purchased Los Cuervos,

and here is the deed."

"But it has never been recorded," said Poindexter, with a carelessness

he was far from feeling.

"Of a verity, no. Do you wish that I should record it?" asked Don José,

with a return of his simple gravity.

Poindexter bit his lip. "You said we were to talk like gentlemen," he

returned. "Do you think you have come into possession of this alleged

deed like a gentleman?"

Don José shrugged his shoulders, "I found it tossed in the lap of a

harlot. I bought it for a song. Eh, what would you?"

"Would you sell it again for a song?" asked Poindexter.

"Ah! what is this?" said Don José, lifting his iron-gray brows; "but a

moment ago we would sell everything, for any money. Now we would buy.

Is it so?"

"One moment, Don José," said Poindexter, with a baleful light in his

dark eyes. "Do I understand that you are the ally of Spencer Tucker and

his mistress, that you intend to turn this doubly betrayed wife from

the only roof she has to cover her?"

"Ah, I comprehend not. You heard her say she wished to go. Perhaps it

may please _me_ to distribute largess to these cattle yonder, I do not

say no. More she does not ask. But _you_, Don Marco, of whom are you

advocate? You abandon your client's mistress for the wife, is it so?"

"What I may do you will learn hereafter," said Poindexter, who had

regained his composure, suddenly reining up his horse. "As our paths

seem likely to diverge, they had better begin now. Good morning."

"Patience, my friend, patience! Ah, blessed St. Anthony, what these

Americans are! Listen. For what _you_ shall do, I do not inquire. The

question is to me what I"--he emphasized the pronoun by tapping himself

on the breast--"I, José Santierra, will do. Well, I shall tell you.

To-day, nothing. To-morrow, nothing. For a week, for a month, nothing!

After, we shall see."

Poindexter paused thoughtfully. "Will you give your word, Don José,

that you will not press the claim for a month?"

"Truly, on one condition. Observe! I do not ask you for an equal

promise, that you will not take this time to defend yourself." He

shrugged his shoulder. "No! It is only this. You shall promise that

during that time the Señora Tucker shall remain ignorant of this

document."

Poindexter hesitated a moment. "I promise," he said at last.

"Good. Adios, Don Marco."

"Adios, Don José"

The Spaniard put spurs to his mustang and galloped off in the direction

of Los Gatos. The lawyer remained for a moment gazing on his retreating

but victorious figure. For the first time the old look of humorous

toleration with which Mr. Poindexter was in the habit of regarding all

human infirmity gave way to something like bitterness. "I might have

guessed it," he said, with a slight rise of color. "He's an old fool;

and she--well, perhaps it's all the better for her!" He glanced

backwards almost tenderly in the direction of Los Cuervos, and then

turned his head towards the _embarcadero_.

As the afternoon wore on, a creaking, antiquated oxcart arrived at Los

Cuervos, bearing several articles of furniture, and some tasteful

ornaments from Los Gatos, at the same time that a young Mexican girl

mysteriously appeared in the kitchen, as a temporary assistant to the

decrepit Concha. These were both clearly attributable to Don José,

whose visit was not so remote but that these delicate attentions might

have been already projected before Mrs. Tucker had declined them, and

she could not, without marked discourtesy, return them now. She did not

wish to seem discourteous; she would like to have been more civil to

this old gentleman, who still retained the evidences of a picturesque

and decorous past, and a repose so different from the life that was

perplexing her. Reflecting that if he bought the estate these things

would be ready to his hand, and with a woman's instinct recognizing

their value in setting off the house to other purchasers' eyes, she

took a pleasure in tastefully arranging them, and even found herself

speculating how she might have enjoyed them herself had she been able

to keep possession of the property. After all, it would not have been

so lonely if refined and gentle neighbors, like this old man, would

have sympathized with her; she had an instinctive feeling that, in

their own hopeless decay and hereditary unfitness for this new

civilization, they would have been more tolerant of her husband's

failure than his own kind. She could not believe that Don José really

hated her husband for buying of the successful claimant, as there was

no other legal title. Allowing herself to become interested in the

guileless gossip of the new handmaiden, proud of her broken English,

she was drawn into a sympathy with the grave simplicity of Don José's

character, a relic of that true nobility which placed this descendant

of the Castilians and the daughter of a free people on the same level.

In this way the second day of her occupancy of Los Cuervos closed, with

dumb clouds along the gray horizon, and the paroxysms of hysterical

wind growing fainter and fainter outside the walls; with the moon

rising after nightfall, and losing itself in silent and mysterious

confidences with drifting scud. She went to bed early, but woke past

midnight, hearing, as she thought, her own name called. The impression

was so strong upon her that she rose, and, hastily enwrapping herself,

went to the dark embrasures of the oven-shaped windows, and looked out.

The dwarfed oak beside the window was still dropping from a past

shower, but the level waste of marsh and meadow beyond seemed to

advance and recede with the coming and going of the moon. Again she

heard her name called, and this time in accents so strangely familiar

that with a slight cry she ran into the corridor, crossed the _patio_,

and reached the open gate. The darkness that had, even in this brief

interval, again fallen upon the prospect she tried in vain to pierce

with eye and voice. A blank silence followed. Then the veil was

suddenly withdrawn; the vast plain, stretching from the mountain to the

sea, shone as clearly as in the light of day; the moving current of the

channel glittered like black pearls, the stagnant pools like molten

lead; but not a sign of life nor motion broke the monotony of the broad

expanse. She must have surely dreamed it. A chill wind drove her back

to the house again; she entered her bedroom, and in half an hour she

was in a peaceful sleep.

V.

The two men kept their secret. Mr. Poindexter convinced Mrs. Tucker

that the sale of Los Cuervos could not be effected until the notoriety

of her husband's flight had been fairly forgotten, and she was forced

to accept her fate. The sale of her diamonds, which seemed to her to

have realized a singularly extravagant sum, enabled her to quietly

reinstate the Pattersons in the _tienda_ and to discharge in full her

husband's liabilities to the _rancheros_ and his humbler retainers.

Meanwhile the winter rains had ceased. It seemed to her as if the

clouds had suddenly one night struck their white tents and stolen away,

leaving the unvanquished sun to mount the vacant sky the next morning

alone, and possess it thenceforward unchallenged. One afternoon she

thought the long sad waste before her window had caught some tint of

grayer color from the sunset; a week later she found it a blazing

landscape of poppies, broken here and there by blue lagoons of lupine,

by pools of daisies, by banks of dog-roses, by broad outlying shores of

dandelions that scattered their lavish gold to the foot of the hills,

where the green billows of wild oats carried it on and upwards to the

darker crests of pines. For two months she was dazzled and bewildered

with color. She had never before been face to face with this

spendthrift Californian Flora, in her virgin wastefulness, her more

than goddess-like prodigality. The teeming earth seemed to quicken and

throb beneath her feet; the few circuits of a plow around the outlying

corral was enough to call out a jungle growth of giant grain that

almost hid the low walls of the _hacienda_. In this glorious fecundity

of the earth, in this joyous renewal of life and color, in this opulent

youth and freshness of soil and sky, it alone remained, the dead and

sterile Past, left in the midst of buoyant rejuvenescence and

resurrection, like an empty churchyard skull upturned on the springing

turf. Its bronzed adobe walls mocked the green vine that embraced them,

the crumbling dust of its courtyard remained ungerminating and

unfruitful; to the thousand; stirring voices without, its dry lips

alone remained mute, unresponsive, and unchanged.

During this time Don José had become a frequent visitor at Los Cuervos,

bringing with him at first his niece and sister in a stately precision

of politeness that was not lost on the proud Blue Grass stranger. She

returned their visit at Los Gatos, and there made the formal

acquaintance of Don José's grandmother, a lady who still regarded the

decrepit Concha as a giddy _muchacha_, and who herself glittered as

with the phosphorescence of refined decay. Through this circumstance

she learned that Don José was not yet fifty, and that his gravity of

manner and sedateness was more the result of fastidious isolation and

temperament than years. She could not tell why the information gave her

a feeling of annoyance, but it caused her to regret the absence of

Poindexter, and to wonder, also somewhat nervously, why he had lately

avoided her presence. The thought that he might be doing so from a

recollection of the innuendoes of Mrs. Patterson caused a little tremor

of indignation in her pulses. "As if"--but she did not finish the

sentence even to herself, and her eyes filled with bitter tears.

Yet she had thought of the husband who had so cruelly wronged her less

feverishly, less impatiently than before. For she thought she loved him

now the more deeply, because, although she was not reconciled to his

absence, it seemed to keep alive the memory of what he had been before

his one wild act separated them. She had never seen the reflection of

another woman's eyes in his; the past contained no haunting

recollection of waning or alienated affection; she could meet him

again, and, clasping her arms around him, awaken as if from a troubled

dream without reproach or explanation. Her strong belief in this made

her patient; she no longer sought to know the particulars of his

flight, and never dreamed that her passive submission to his absence

was partly due to a fear that something in his actual presence at that

moment would have destroyed that belief forever.

For this reason the delicate reticence of the people at Los Gatos, and

their seclusion from the world which knew of her husband's fault, had

made her encourage the visits of Don José, until from the instinct

already alluded to she one day summoned Poindexter to Los Cuervos, on

the day that Don José usually called. But to her surprise the two men

met more or less awkwardly and coldly, and her tact as hostess was

tried to the utmost to keep their evident antagonism from being too

apparent. The effort to reconcile their mutual discontent, and some

other feeling she did not quite understand, produced a nervous

excitement which called the blood to her cheek and gave a dangerous

brilliancy to her eyes, two circumstances not unnoticed nor

unappreciated by her two guests. But instead of reuniting them, the

prettier Mrs. Tucker became, the more distant and reserved grew the

men, until Don José rose before his usual hour, and with more than

usual ceremoniousness departed.

"Then my business does not seem to be with _him_!" said Poindexter,

with quiet coolness, as Mrs. Tucker turned her somewhat mystified face

towards him. "Or have you anything to say to me about him in private?"

"I am sure I don't know what you both mean," she returned with a slight

tremor of voice. "I had no idea you were not on good terms. I thought

you were! It's very awkward." Without coquetry and unconsciously she

raised her blue eyes under her lids until the clear pupils coyly and

softly hid themselves in the corners of the brown lashes, and added,

"You have both been so kind to me."

"Perhaps that is the reason," said Poindexter, gravely. But Mrs. Tucker

refused to accept the suggestion with equal gravity, and began to

laugh. The laugh, which was at first frank, spontaneous, and almost

child-like, was becoming hysterical and nervous as she went on, until

it was suddenly checked by Poindexter.

"I have had no difficulties with Don José Santierra," he said, somewhat

coldly ignoring her hilarity, "but perhaps he is not inclined to be as

polite to the friend of the husband as he is to the wife."

"Mr. Poindexter!" said Mrs. Tucker quickly, her face becoming pale

again.

"I beg your pardon!" said Poindexter, flushing; "but"--

"You want to say," she interrupted coolly, "that you are not friends, I

see. Is that the reason why you have avoided this house?" she continued

gently.

"I thought I could be of more service to you elsewhere," he replied

evasively. "I have been lately following up a certain clue rather

closely. I think I am on the track of a confidante of--of--that woman."

A quick shadow passed over Mrs. Tucker's face. "Indeed!" she said

coldly. "Then I am to believe that you prefer to spend your leisure

moments in looking after that creature to calling here?"

Poindexter was stupefied. Was this the woman who only four months ago

was almost vindictively eager to pursue her husband's paramour! There

could be but one answer to it--Don José! Four months ago he would have

smiled compassionately at it from his cynical preeminence. Now he

managed with difficulty to stifle the bitterness of his reply.

"If you do not wish the inquiry carried on," he began, "of course"--

"I? What does it matter to me?" she said coolly. "Do as you please."

Nevertheless, half an hour later, as he was leaving, she said, with a

certain hesitating timidity, "Do not leave me so much alone here, and

let that woman go."

This was not the only unlooked-for sequel to her innocent desire to

propitiate her best friends. Don José did not call again upon his usual

day, but in his place came Doña Clara, his younger sister. When Mrs.

Tucker had politely asked after the absent Don José, Doña Clara wound

her swarthy arms around the fair American's waist and replied, "But why

did you send for the _abogado_ Poindexter when my brother called?"

"But Captain Poindexter calls as one of my friends," said the amazed

Mrs. Tucker. "He is a gentleman, and has been a soldier and an

officer," she added with some warmth.

"Ah, yes, a soldier of the law, what you call an _oficial de policia_,

a chief of _gendarmes_, my sister, but not a gentleman--a _camarero_ to

protect a lady."

Mrs. Tucker would have uttered a hasty reply, but the perfect and

good-natured simplicity of Doña Clara withheld her. Nevertheless, she

treated Don José with a certain reserve at their next meeting, until it

brought the simple-minded Castilian so dangerously near the point of

demanding an explanation which implied too much that she was obliged to

restore him temporarily to his old footing. Meantime she had a

brilliant idea. She would write to Calhoun Weaver, whom she had avoided

since that memorable day. She would say she wished to consult him. He

would come to Los Cuervos; he might suggest something to lighten this

weary waiting; at least she would show them all that she had still old

friends. Yet she did not dream of returning to her Blue Grass home; her

parents had died since she left; she shrank from the thought of

dragging her ruined life before the hopeful youth of her girlhood's

companions.

Mr. Calhoun Weaver arrived promptly, ostentatiously, oracularly, and

cordially, but a little coarsely. He had--did she remember?--expected

this from the first. Spercer had lost his head through vanity, and had

attempted too much. It required foresight and firmness, as he

himself--who had lately made successful "combinations" which she might

perhaps have heard of--well knew. But Spencer had got the "big head."

"As to that woman--a devilish handsome woman too!--well, everybody knew

that Spencer always had a weakness that way, and he would say--but if

she didn't care to hear any more about her--well, perhaps she was

right. That was the best way to take it." Sitting before her,

prosperous, weak, egotistical, incompetent, unavailable, and yet filled

with a vague kindliness of intent, Mrs. Tucker loathed him. A sickening

perception of her own weakness in sending for him, a new and aching

sense of her utter isolation and helplessness, seemed to paralyze her.

"Nat'rally you feel bad," he continued, with the large air of a

profound student of human nature. "Nat'rally, nat'rally you're kept in

an uncomfortable state, not knowing jist how you stand. There ain't but

one thing to do. Jist rise up, quiet like, and get a divorce agin

Spencer. Hold on! There ain't a judge or jury in California that

wouldn't give it to you right off the nail, without asking questions.

Why, you'd get it by default if you wanted to; you'd just have to walk

over the course! And then, Belle," he drew his chair still nearer her,

"when you've settled down again--well!--I don't mind renewing that

offer I once made ye, before Spencer ever came round ye--I don't mind,

Belle, I swear I don't! Honest Injin! I'm in earnest, there's my hand."

Mrs. Tucker's reply has not been recorded. Enough that half an hour

later Mr. Weaver appeared in the courtyard with traces of tears on his

foolish face, a broken falsetto voice, and other evidence of mental and

moral disturbance. His cordiality and oracular predisposition remained

sufficiently to enable him to suggest the magical words "Blue Grass"

mysteriously to Concha, with an indication of his hand to the erect

figure of her pale mistress in the doorway, who waved to him a silent

but half compassionate farewell.

At about this time a slight change in her manner was noticed by the few

who saw her more frequently. Her apparently invincible girlishness of

spirit had given way to a certain matronly seriousness. She applied

herself to her household cares and the improvement of the _hacienda_

with a new sense of duty and a settled earnestness, until by degrees

she wrought into it not only her instinctive delicacy and taste, but

part of her own individuality. Even the rude _rancheros_ and tradesmen

who were permitted to enter the walls in the exercise of their calling

began to speak mysteriously of the beauty of this garden of the

_almarjal_. She went out but seldom, and then accompanied by one or the

other of her female servants, in long drives on unfrequented roads. On

Sundays she sometimes drove to the half ruined mission church of Santa

Inez, and hid herself, during mass, in the dim monastic shadows of the

choir. Gradually the poorer people whom she met in these journeys began

to show an almost devotional reverence for her, stopping in the roads

with uncovered heads for her to pass, or making way for her in the

_tienda_ or _plaza_ of the wretched town with dumb courtesy. She began

to feel a strange sense of widowhood, that, while it at times brought

tears to her eyes, was not without a certain tender solace. In the

sympathy and simpleness of this impulse she went as far as to revive

the mourning she had worn for her parents, but with such a fatal

accenting of her beauty, and dangerous misinterpreting of her condition

to eligible bachelors strange to the country, that she was obliged to

put it off again. Her reserved and dignified manner caused others to

mistake her nationality for that of the Santierras, and in "Doña Bella"

the simple Mrs. Tucker was for a while forgotten. At times she even

forgot it herself. Accustomed now almost entirely to the accents of

another language and the features of another race, she would sit for

hours in the corridor, whose massive bronzed enclosure even her

tasteful care could only make an embowered mausoleum of the Past, or

gaze abstractedly from the dark embrasures of her windows across the

stretching _almarjal_ to the shining lagoon beyond that terminated the

estuary. She had a strange fondness for this tranquil mirror, which

under sun or stars always retained the passive reflex of the sky above,

and seemed to rest her weary eyes. She had objected to one of the plans

projected by Poindexter to redeem the land and deepen the water at the

_embarcadero_, as it would have drained the lagoon, and the lawyer had

postponed the improvement to gratify her fancy. So she kept it through

the long summer unchanged save by the shadows of passing wings or the

lazy files of sleeping sea-fowl.

On one of these afternoons she noticed a slowly moving carriage leave

the highroad and cross the _almarjal_ skirting the edge of the lagoon.

If it contained visitors for Los Cuervos they had evidently taken a

shorter cut without waiting to go on to the regular road which

intersected the highway at right angles a mile farther on. It was with

some sense of annoyance and irritation that she watched the trespass,

and finally saw the vehicle approach the house. A few moments later the

servant informed her that Mr. Patterson would like to see her alone.

When she entered the corridor, which in the dry season served as a

reception hall, she was surprised to see that Patterson was not alone.

Near him stood a well-dressed handsome woman, gazing about her with

good-humored admiration of Mrs. Tucker's taste and ingenuity.

"It don't look much like it did two years ago," said the stranger

cheerfully. "You've improved it wonderfully."

Stiffening slightly, Mrs. Tucker turned inquiringly to Mr. Patterson.

But that gentleman's usual profound melancholy appeared to be

intensified by the hilarity of his companion. He only sighed deeply and

rubbed his leg with the brim of his hat in gloomy abstraction.

"Well! go on, then," said the woman, laughing and nudging him. "Go

on--introduce me--can't you? Don't stand there like a tombstone. You

won't? Well, I'll introduce myself." She laughed again, and then, with

an excellent imitation of Patterson's lugubrious accents, said, "Mr.

Spencer Tucker's wife that _is_, allow me to introduce you to Mr.

Spencer Tucker's sweetheart that _was_! Hold on! I said _that was_. For

true as I stand here, ma'am--and I reckon I wouldn't stand here if it

wasn't true--I haven't set eyes on him since the day he left you."