The next night I had a dreadful dream about Eagle March. Somehow or
other, he had been condemned to death by Major Vandyke (who had
unbecomingly turned into a judge) and Eagle was to be executed unless I
could arrive in time to save him, armed with a reprieve or pardon--I
didn't quite know which--that I had got from Washington. I waked up
crying out, because a hand had been stretched forth through darkness to
clutch my shoulder, and prevent me from getting to El Paso until too
late. Even then, when I was wide awake, the dream had been so horribly
vivid that I couldn't persuade myself it wasn't true. I had always
laughed at superstitious people who believed in dreams, yet I couldn't
clear my mind of this one, or keep from asking myself in a panic, "What
if it's a warning?" It seemed that after all such things might
mysteriously be.
Alvarado Springs was as dull as a convent after the officers we liked
best had gone from the fort, and Kitty proposed subletting her cottage
to an invalid who, for a wonder, had really come to the place for
nothing but to take the cure. This rare creature was distressed by the
noises of the hotel, and was willing to pay more than Kitty had paid,
for the remaining few weeks of Mrs. Main's tenancy. Our hostess was
enchanted with the idea, clapped her fat, dimpled hands like a little
girl, and proposed to "blow" the money (this was slang she had
delightedly picked up from Father) on a motor tour to California. She
had no car of her own, but she could hire one, with a chauffeur we had
often taken for short runs, and at Los Angeles, Riverside, Santa
Barbara, San Francisco, and other places, she had friends who would
shower invitations. The trip would take from two to six weeks, according
to our own desire. Then, when we were tired of motoring and
country-house visiting, the car would be sent home, and we could have
the fun of going East together by the "Limited," which, Kitty said, was
one of the most wonderful trains in the world.
This was the proposal, and it suited Father and Di very well. Each had a
reason for wishing to prolong the tour in America, if it could be done
"on the cheap." Di, of course, wanted to see Major Vandyke or Captain
March--whichever she decided to take in the end--and settle her affairs
definitely before going home to prepare for the wedding. As to Father, I
began to ask myself about this time if he seriously thought of making
our "Main Chance" a countess, and counting her dollars into his own
pockets. In any case; travelling luxuriously in a land where poor Irish
earls weighed as well in the balance as a rich English variety, was
better than vegetating at Ballyconal or economizing in London; so he
smiled upon the plan, and I was the one obstacle. The only comfortable
car that Mrs. Main could get at short notice, was ideal for five,
counting a chauffeur and a maid, but close quarters for six. I couldn't
be put permanently with the chauffeur; and, besides, Kitty's looks were
of the sort that depend upon a maid. "Dear little Peggy must just
squeeze in somehow," was her verdict, although Di would temporarily have
done without my services rather than be cramped, if I could have been
disposed of elsewhere. She and Father put their heads together, and I
had begun to feel in my bones that an invitation for me from Mrs.
Kilburn was to be hinted at, when Mrs. Dalziel came to the rescue.
Her husband had gone back to New York long ago, and she and Milly had
been wondering ever since Tony's orders came, whether it might be
feasible to follow him to El Paso, and "see what was doing there." He
had now wired that all the women of the neighbourhood had refused to
leave the men; that the "scare" was dying down; that it looked as if the
imported troops would have nothing more exciting to do than guard the
concentration camp; and there was a gorgeous hotel in the town, full of
rich Spanish refugees, men who were celebrities, and women who were
beauties. Mrs. Dalziel had accordingly decided to venture; and Milly
would enjoy the trip immensely, if Father would let me go with them as
their guest. The eyes of my family lighted at this hope of liberation,
and I suddenly understood what Tony's last words to me had meant. This
was _his_ plan; but I wanted so violently to go to El Paso and was so
violently wanted to go by Father and Di, that I didn't stop to debate
whether or no it was right to say yes. I simply said it, and--hang the
consequences!
Di bade me an affectionate farewell, with a plaintive reminder that a
girl not likely to be proposed to every day might do worse than Tony
Dalziel. I, in turn, reminded her that any knavish juggling with Captain
March's faith would be dealt with severely by me; and so we parted, she
to go her way to California _en automobile_, I to go mine to Texas by
Santa Fé trains.
I was grateful to Mrs. Dalziel and Milly for taking me, though I
couldn't help seeing that it was not for my _beaux yeux_ they had asked
me to be their guest. I was a handle, or cat's-paw; but I preferred the
part of usefulness to my hostesses to being carted about by them as an
expensive luxury. Mrs. Dalziel really wanted me for Tony, who had never
been denied anything short of the moon that he cried for. Milly wanted
people to think that she wanted me for Tony, in order to have an
invincible, ironproof excuse for the rush to El Paso, which her friends
of the cat tribe might attribute to a different motive. She had been
rather depressed at Alvarado, but began to bubble over with wild spirits
the moment we were off for El Paso. She said that this would be the
great adventure of our lives, and she was only sorry all danger along
the border was over, as we shouldn't get the chance to show how brave we
were.
It was an interesting journey, every stage of it; and at Las Cruces and
after, we began to realize how close we were to old Mexico. Only the
river ran between us and that mysterious, ancient land, as far removed
in thought from the United States as though it were an annex of Egypt.
Here and there, too, the Rio Grande (which I'd thought of geographically
as a vast stream, wide as a lake) was a mere water serpent, writhing in
its shallow bed of mud. This, we heard our fellow passengers say,
explained the late danger of a raid. It would be as "easy as falling off
a log" for a party of ill-advised Mexicans to make a dash across the
river, and already there had been small private expeditions of cattle
stealers. Staring out of the windows at little adobe villages, their
huddled houses turned from brown to cubes of gold by the afternoon sun,
we listened to all sorts of disquieting gossip. According to the
travellers, who talked loudly to each other across the car, the "scare"
was suddenly on again. Some more Federals had escaped the
Constitutionalist soldiers, and got into Del Rio, where they had been
protected by American soldiers, and there had been some shooting from
one side of the river to the other. Carranza was threatening reprisals;
no one seemed to know what Villa's attitude would be. A few American
women who had little children had decided after all to go north. At Las
Cruces and El Paso you could no longer buy a Browning, or arms of any
kind. All had been snapped up. Las Cruces men, remembering that the
militia was composed of Mexicans, had begun giving their wives lessons
in target practice. At El Paso there was the peril of the Mexican
population to be faced in case of attack from across the river; to say
nothing of the thousand Mexicans employed in the smelting works down on
the flats, and the five thousand refugees in the concentration camp, if
they should mutiny and get out of control.
Poor Mrs. Dalziel drooped more and more piteously as this ball of gossip
was tossed from one side of the car to the other, and Milly's ever white
face grew so pale that her freckles stood out conspicuously. She ceased
to exclaim with excitement over the cowboys galloping along the road on
the United States side of the river, or to count the automobiles and the
great alfalfa barns near small stations where black-veiled Mexican women
waved sad farewells to weedy, olive-faced youths, perhaps going to the
"war."
"Of course, we're not afraid for _ourselves_," said Mrs. Dalziel.
"We--we should want to be near Tony, whatever happened. It's of you
we're thinking, Peggy. I don't know if we ought to have brought you to
such a place. And I do wish Tony's father were with us, anyhow."
The nearer we came to El Paso, the more foreign and Mexican the country
seemed, with its wild purple mountains billowing along the sunset sky of
red and gold; its queer, Moorish-looking groups of brown huts, and its
dark-skinned men in sombreros or huge straw hats with steeple crowns. It
was quite a relief to draw into El Paso station where everything was
suddenly modern and American, and comfortably normal again.
Tony had got off duty to come and meet us; and after the first
"how-do-you-dos," his mother began bombarding him with questions. What
had happened? What was likely to happen? Wouldn't it have been better to
telegraph us not to come?
She and Milly both had the air of eagerly hoping that he might after all
be able to sweep away their fears with a word or a laugh; but for once,
Tony kept as solemn a face as the conformation of his benevolent
Billiken features permitted.
"There's nothing at all to worry about, if you don't get silly and
panicky," said he. "I did think of telegraphing, not because there's any
real danger, but because I was afraid that when you got down here, if
things hadn't cleared up, the newspaper 'extras' and the way they talk
at the hotels might give you the jumps. I couldn't have wired till after
you'd started, though, because there was nothing doing before that,
worth a telegram. I thought it would scare you blue if you got a message
delivered to you in the train saying better not come, or words to that
effect; so it seemed best to let things rip. Now you're on the spot, you
just keep your hair on, and don't believe anything you read or hear;
then you'll be all right."
"My hair doesn't come off, dearest," objected Mrs. Dalziel mildly, which
made us laugh; and that did everybody good.
"I bet Lady Peggy isn't afraid worth a cent," Tony remarked.
"Rather not!" said I. "I wouldn't go away--no, not if you set _mice_ at
me! Even if Mrs. Dalziel and Milly went, I'd stay on and volunteer as a
nurse. I can do first aid, and I don't mind the sight of blood if there
isn't too much; though, of course, it would be better if it were a
peaceful green or blue instead of that terrifying red."
Tony took us in a taxi to the Paso del Norte, a big hotel good enough
for New York or London; and even in that short spin through the streets,
we saw the newspaper "extras" being hawked about by yelling boys who
waved the papers to show off their huge scarlet headlines. The marble
entrance hall of the hotel was crowded with people who had just bought
these extras, and were reading aloud tit-bits of "scare" news to each
other, or discussing the situation in groups. Some looked very Spanish,
and Tony said they were refugees, from the heart of Mexico; but the
women seemed to have had plenty of time to sort out and pack their
prettiest clothes before they fled.
That night Eagle March was asked to dine with us at the hotel. He sat
between Mrs. Dalziel and Milly, and more than once I caught his eyes
resting on me thoughtfully, almost wistfully. I wondered if there were
something that he was particularly anxious to say, but Milly kept him
occupied even after dinner was over and we were having coffee in the
hall. I was resigning myself to the idea that we shouldn't be given time
for a word together, when out of the crowd appeared Major Vandyke. He
was with friends, but escaped, and crossed the hall to shake hands with
us. I noticed what stiff, grudging nods he and Eagle gave each other,
just enough of a nod not to be a cut. Something disagreeable had
evidently happened between them since they left us at Fort Alvarado; for
in those days, no matter how they felt, they always kept up the pretence
of being good enough friends.
When Major Vandyke had been civil to me and asked after my "people," he
began telling Mrs. Dalziel and Milly things about the state of affairs
in El Paso. "You may have come in for a small adventure, after all,"
said he. "We've had to warn the occupants of some of the tallest
buildings in town that they may be called on to clear out at five
minutes' notice, if we have trouble, for their houses would be in range
of gunfire from both sides. But you'll be all right here at the hotel,
whatever happens. We're strong enough to protect you."
He laughed, and I saw that he enjoyed teasing timid little Mrs. Dalziel.
I thought that haughty "we," constantly coming in, was characteristic of
the man, and judging by the odd expression which just flickered lightly
across Eagle's face, he was thinking the same thing. Tony joined
boyishly in the conversation, to reassure his mother and Milly, and
Eagle promptly seized the moment for a word with me.
"Any message?" he asked in a low voice. I shook my head.
"Oh, well," he said, "I'm mighty glad to see you, anyhow, little girl.
Lucky Tony! I'm rather jealous of him, you know. I'd got sort of in the
habit of thinking I had the only claim."
I felt myself go scarlet. What a good thing one doesn't blush all
colours of the rainbow!--for I had the sensation of a prism. "Tony
Dalziel may be lucky," I stammered. "I hope he is. But his luck has
nothing to do with me. Neither has he--except as a friend. That's quite
understood between us."
"Oh, is it?" smiled Eagle. "I'm a selfish beast to be glad, but I am. I
was feeling quite low in my mind and 'out of it' at dinner."
So the wistful looks had been for me! It seemed too good to be true,
even to have so much place in Eagle's heart that he didn't want to lose
me.
When Milly turned to him, as she did almost instantly, for consolation
after Major Vandyke's teasing, Eagle told her, while I listened, how
very little, in his opinion, there was for any one to fear. It was true,
of course, that the troops had come to El Paso for a purpose. Every one
thought it had been served by frightening out of a certain faction of
Mexicans such vague, secret hopes as they might foolishly have
cherished. Now to be sure, the "scare act" was being read again, but the
big field guns pointing across the river were in any case powerful
enough to keep the peace. Captain March wanted to know if we would care
to visit the camps next day. If so, he would help Dalziel arrange the
visit. This suggestion saved Milly the trouble of hinting for it, and
she was happy; but her happiness was destined to be short-lived. It was
destroyed in the night by a band of vicious microbes with which she had
been fighting a silent battle during the long journey to El Paso. They
won, and kept her in bed with a pink nose and eyes overflowing with
grief and influenza.
I nobly offered to stay with her, but Mrs. Dalziel had a son as well as
a daughter. She said we must go and take a look at Tony's tent, if we
did nothing else; and perhaps it would have ended in our doing not much
more if it hadn't been for Eagle.
El Paso was one of the most deliciously exciting places in America just
then, and there were many things which I wanted far more to see than
Tony Dalziel's tent. There was the town itself, with its broad streets
and tall buildings (which made me shiver with the wildly absurd thought
of their being smashed by silly rebel guns from across the river); its
shady avenues of alluring bungalows, and its parks--all so gay and
peaceful in the warm spring sunshine that the very suggestion of war
within a thousand miles seemed fantastic melodrama, despite the shouting
newspaper boys with a fearsome "extra" coming out every fifteen minutes.
There was new Fort Bliss, the cavalry post, and old Fort Bliss, famous,
they told me, as long ago as the days of Indian warfare. There was the
concentration camp where five thousand Mexicans were guarded by
soldiers, and there were the camps of the reinforcing troops, artillery,
cavalry, and infantry. I wanted to miss nothing, but when we had motored
to old Fort Bliss down by the river and the smelting works, and seen the
faded houses in temporary occupation of visiting officers; when we had
spun out to new Fort Bliss to admire the smart quarters and barracks,
and when we had trailed about a little in "Tony's camp," Mrs. Dalziel
was tired. The sun was very hot, and she thought she ought to go home to
poor Milly. Captain March, however, was certain that what I ought to do
was to see his tent before deserting camp. He had something there which
he particularly wished to show me. Tony volunteered to take his mother
back to our hired automobile, waiting near the Zoo, and to return for
me. I hoped that he might be away a long time, and looked forward to my
few minutes alone with Eagle as to a taste of paradise, having no idea
that those moments would be long enough to decide the fate of two men.
The camp was a neat, khaki-coloured town of canvas houses, big and
little, seemingly countless rows of them, set in rough grass, and sandy
earth of the same yellow brown as the tents. How the officers and men
knew their narrow lanes and low-browed dwellings apart, I could not
imagine, for they all bore the most remarkable family resemblance to one
another in shape and feature, except those which boasted mosquito-net
draperies to keep out the flies.
Among these more luxurious soldier houses was Eagle's. His tent,
prepared for the day, consisted of a canvas wall with a wide-open space
all around, between it and the roof; and the whole internal economy was
ingenuously open to public gaze. Not that it mattered, for everything
was as neat as a model doll's house: the narrow bed, the pathetically
meagre toilet arrangements, the one chair, the small trunk which was the
sole wardrobe, and the ridiculous shaving mirror stuck up on a pole,
above a miniature arsenal.
"I should think you'd cut yourself to pieces," said I, giggling
impolitely as I stood on tiptoe, and peered into my own eyes in the tiny
looking-glass. "There isn't room to see more than half a feature at a
time. I've always been glad I wasn't a man, for two reasons: because I'd
hate to have to shave, or to marry a woman. Both are horrid
necessities."
"That depends on the razor--and the woman," laughed Eagle. "But as a
matter of fact, I value that six-inch square of glass more than any of
my other possessions. It's the thing I expressly wanted to show you.
Stand back a minute, Lady Vanity, and you'll see why."
I stood back. Eagle did something to the plain dark frame of the mirror,
which had a gold rim inside. Then he pulled out the glass from the
bottom, and there instead, framed in black and gold, was a photograph of
Diana--a lovely photograph: just a head, lips faintly smiling, eyes
gazing straight at you and saying in plain eye language, "I love you
dearly."
I had never seen the photograph before, and seeing it now gave me a
strange frightened feeling, as if I had found out something about Diana
which I wasn't supposed to know. It was such an _intimate_ portrait,
intended to be revealing, yet really concealing! I felt it was wicked of
those beautiful eyes to say what they did not mean, or, perhaps, did not
know how to mean; and for my critical stare, behind that "I love you,"
calculation hid, like the cold glint deep down in the jewel eyes of a
Persian cat, when she doesn't want a mouse to guess that she knows it is
there.
"Now you can understand why I'm glad to be a man," said Eagle, "in spite
of--no, _because_ of--well, anyway one of the two 'necessities' you
think so 'horrid,' my child. What glory to be chosen out of all the rest
who love her by such a woman! And I hope she _is_ going to choose me. I
don't believe she's the kind of girl to have a photograph like that
taken expressly for a man, if she didn't feel a little of what the
picture seems to say she feels, do you?"
I suppose men's ignorance of what she is at heart is a Providence-given
suit of chain armour for every woman. But I wasn't myself sure enough
yet of what Di might decide to do, to try and disturb Eagle's happy
confidence in her. So, instead of answering his questions, I asked him
one: "_Did_ she have that photograph taken expressly for you?"
"Yes," Eagle answered triumphantly. "I don't think she'd mind my
repeating to her own sister that she told me so, or that there's only
this one copy, and she gave orders to have the negative destroyed."
He had hardly got these words out of his mouth when we heard footsteps,
and Major Vandyke stopped suddenly in front of the doorway. In an
instant, Eagle had unhooked the frame from the pole, and holding the
face of the portrait toward his breast, quietly slipped the mirror into
its place again, as, with _sang-froid_ apparently unruffled, he called
out: "Hullo, Vandyke! Have you come to see Lady Peggy or me?"
"I didn't know Lady Peggy was here. I was only passing by, on my way to
the colonel's," explained Vandyke. "But seeing her, I thought I might be
allowed to stop and say 'how do you do?'"
He spoke rather brusquely, but it was impossible to tell from his tone
whether it covered anger or expressed only the coolness which had grown
up between him and Captain March. As I shook hands with Major Vandyke, I
was asking myself anxiously if he could have seen the photograph in
passing? If not--and it did seem as if Eagle's head and mine ought to
have hidden it from him--our tell-tale words would have meant nothing to
his intelligence, even if he had overheard them as he came. If, however,
he had snatched a glimpse of Diana's face, and at the same time caught
what Eagle said, I was afraid there might be trouble. Provided it were
only for Di, I didn't much care, because she thoroughly deserved to have
trouble, and it would give her a lesson; but something warned my
instinct that the consequences might spread and spread until others
suffered, as a ring forever widens in smooth water when the tiniest
pebble is thrown.