Westy thanked him and the man walked on and disappeared in one of the
picturesque adobes.
The young Señor Mitchell bid his companion adieu also and they went in
opposite directions, so Westy hurried after him.
As he got near him he walked slow on purpose and passed in front of him
leisurely. He could feel the close scrutiny that young Mitchell gave him
as he passed.
“Hello, Scout!”
Westy turned and smiled.
“Hello!”
“Stranger?”
“Sure. Martin, Bridgeboro, N. J.”
“Go on! Mitchell--I go to Crestwood.”
“N. J.?”
“Betcha.”
“What luck!” said Westy. “Crestwood Boys’ School isn’t far from my
house.”
“I’m hardly ever home,” said Mitchell.
Westy could tell it by his New Jersey accent. It was true his manner was
a trifle snobbish, but Westy rather liked him.
“What you doing in town, Martin?”
He told him and they walked on through the streets. They exchanged views
on scout matters and after a while they came to a curio shop and Westy
stopped a minute to look in the show window. Navajo blankets and silver
jewelry, Pueblo pottery and moccasins and all the other little
fascinating things one sees in the Santa Fe shops. He remarked about the
skill of the Indians in making those things.
“Yes, they are!” Mitchell agreed. “Still, none of my family have ever
had much use for Indians and yet we’ve lived with them around us all our
lives.”
Getting warmer, Westy thought.
“How’s that, Mitchell?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Guess they don’t know themselves.”
They reached the hotel and Westy invited him up to his room. He
accepted. He seemed to want to hear all about the adventures Rip and he
had had with the members of Educational Films.
Westy related to him about the hold-up and how he and Rip had kept it so
quiet. In the middle of his recital he jumped up out of the chair in
which he was sitting and whipped out his watch.
“You’ll have to excuse me, Martin. ’S almost dinner time and Dad’s a
terrible fusser when we’re late. Come up to the house to-morrow
afternoon and let’s hear the rest.” He shook hands with Westy and was
gone.
The next afternoon Westy was on the job and admitted into the Mitchell
home by a Mexican butler with an expressionless face.
Young Mitchell came forward to meet him and greeted him cordially,
leading Westy out into a spacious plazita and introduced him to his
father and mother. They actually seemed to unbend from their assumed
mental stiffness as he smiled in his naive way.
Westy was the kind of a boy that made people act natural. He had that
genuineness of spirit and character that forced them to drop the
artificialities and smile at the realities.
Indeed, the Mitchells were so taken with Westy’s boyish charm and
ruggedness that they insisted on his staying to dinner.
After the dinner hour was over and they sat out in the plazita again,
Westy watched the setting sun throwing its rose-colored shadows through
the trees and hollyhocks along the yonder wall.
It was a quaint, charming place, this Santa Fe, with its Spanish
atmosphere and alluring traditions. It all made him think of two lonely
people in a little mountain shack who had put their entire trust in a
boy.
He was wondering if they, too, were thinking and watching the sunset
shadows against the mountain walls while they stood amongst the charred
embers that had been their home. He was startled out of his reveries by
Mr. Mitchell’s voice.
“I hear you’ve had some thrilling experiences in the mountains, Westy!
Tell us about them!”
Westy thought a moment and wondered if the occasion was propitious. He
hadn’t much time! Nothing like getting it over with, he reasoned, as
Mrs. Mitchell laid down the book she was reading to listen to him.
He told them of their strange meeting with Lola and the charming little
ivy-covered cottage with its flower garden and related her story of Lone
Star with its touch of sweet romance. He was careful not to divulge the
names of either young men in the story whom the Indian Princess had
aided.
And he went on to tell of those two lonely creatures who were living in
poverty now, a lady approaching old age and a girl who had all the
charming quaintness of the old world.
He didn’t omit a detail even down to old Mitchell’s prejudice, having
kept them from having what was rightfully theirs.
Their own terrible ordeal in the forest Westy told him, but skimming it
over lightly and laying more stress on the plight of Lola and her
grandmother.
When he came to the part in this real-life narrative of the cottage
burning and all their homely possessions going, Westy actually saw a
tear fall on Mrs. Mitchell’s cheek.
“They have been shamefully treated,” Mr. Mitchell finally said. “Who are
these people?”
“Their name is Redmond,” Westy answered, and waited to see the effect it
had. But he was disappointed, for the name meant nothing to them.
“Who did you say the man was who so misused the confidence of the first
John Redmond?”
“It’s quite coincidental,” Westy said, feeling his way over thin ice,
“but it is said his descendants also live in Santa Fe.”
“And his name?”
“Paul Mitchell!”