XXIV

In a land of class privilege and official graft it is often only in

times of anarchy that a poor man can get his rights. For eight months

Hooker had battled against the petty intrigue of Aragon and the _agente

mineral_, and then suddenly, when the times turned to war and fear

gripped at their hearts, he rose up and claimed his own, holding out

his brawny right hand and demanding the concession to his mine.

In a day the whirligig of fortune had turned, and it was the fighting

man who dominated. He spoke quietly and made no threats, but the look

in his eye was enough, and the _agente_ gave him his papers.

With his concession inside his shirt and a belt of gold around his

waist Bud stepped forth like a king, for there was nothing left in

Mexico for him. Once on his horse and headed for the line and he could

laugh at them all. In Gadsden he could show title to Kruger, he could

give answer for his trust and look the world in the eye.

Yes, he was a man now--but his work was not quite done. Up at the big

house, with the screeching women around her, was Gracia Aragon, and he

owed her something for his rough words. To pay her for that he would

stay. Whatever she asked now he would grant it; and if worst came to

worst he would take her with him and make good his promise to Phil. He

had given his word and that was enough. Now he had only to wait.

The boy lieutenant, the brothers Mendoza, the superintendent, and

Manuel del Rey, all were out on the hillside talking terms with

Bernardo Bravo and his chiefs. With the rebels it was largely a bluff,

since field-glasses had shown them to be short of cartridges; but they

had over a thousand men massed along the ridges and, with courage,

could easily take the town.

As for the Mendozas and their Sonoran miners, they were properly

chagrined at their waste of ammunition and swore by Santa Guadalupe

to fight it out with hand-grenades. Even as their leaders wrangled

the Mexican powder-men were busily manufacturing bombs, and all the

while the superintendent was glancing to the south, for swift couriers

had been sent to Alvarez, the doughty Spanish _haciendado_ of the hot

country, to beg him to come to their relief.

Twice before Alvarez had met the rebels. The first time he spoke them

well and they ran off all his horses. The second time he armed his

Yaquis and Yaqui Mayo _rancheros_ against them and drove them from his

domain, inflicting a sanguinary punishment.

Since then he had been itching to engage them in a pitched battle, and

when the word reached him he would come. Two hundred and forty Yaquis,

all armed with repeating rifles, would follow at his back, and even

with his boasted thousands Bernardo Bravo could hardly withstand their

valor. So, while the rebels parleyed, demanding a ransom of millions

and threatening to destroy the town, the defenders argued and reasoned

with them, hoping to kill the time until Alvarez should arrive.

In the open space in front of the house the refugees gathered in an

anxious group, waiting for messengers from the front, and as Hooker

walked among them he was aware of the malignant glances of Aragon.

There were other glances as well, for he had won great favor with the

ladies by ditching the powder-train, but none from Gracia or her mother.

From the beginning the Señora Aragon had treated him as a stranger,

according to the code of her class, and Hooker had never attempted

to intrude. But if Gracia still remembered that she was an American

girl at heart, she forgot to show it to him. To all she was now the

proud Spanish lady, thrown with the common people by the stress of

circumstances, but far away from them in her thoughts.

The conference between the leaders dragged on and messengers came and

went with the news--then, after hours of debate, it broke up suddenly

in a row and the emissaries came back on the run. Even at that they

narrowly escaped, for the rebels opened fire upon them from the ridges,

and before they could get back to cover the dandy, Manuel del Rey,

received a bullet-hole through the crown of his hat.

A grim smile flickered across Bud's face as he saw the damage it had

wrought, for he knew that Amigo was in the hills--and a bullet shot

down-hill goes high! Some trace of what was in his mind must have come

to Del Rey as he halted in the shelter of the house, for he regarded

the American sternly as Aragon spoke rapidly in his ear. But if they

planned vengeance between them the times were not right, for a rattle

of arms came from the lower town and the captain was up and away to

marshal his men to the defense.

So far in the siege Del Rey had kept under cover, patrolling the

streets and plaza and letting the volunteers fight, but now the war

had shifted to his territory and his _rurales_ were running like mad.

For, matching treachery against deceit, the rebel leaders had sent men

around to slip up near the town and at the first fusillade from the

hillside they came charging up the creek.

Then it was that the ever-watchful _rurales_ proved their worth. As

the rebels appeared in the open they ran to the outlying houses and,

fighting from the flat roofs, checked the advance until the miners

could come to their aid.

But in the confusion another party of rebels had rushed down the gulch

from the west, and while the fight was going on in the lower town they

found lodgment in a big adobe house. And now for the first time there

was fighting in earnest--the house-to-house fighting that is seen at

its worst in Mexico. While women screamed in the _casa grande_ and the

Americans paced to and fro on the hill, the boom of a dynamite bomb

marked the beginning of hand-to-hand.

With a fearlessness born of long familiarity with

explosives the Sonoran miners advanced valiantly with their

hand-grenades--baking-powder cans filled with dynamite and studded

with fulminating caps. Digging fiercely through wall after wall they

approached unperceived by the enemy and the first bomb flung from a

roof filled the adobe with wounded and dead.

A dense pall of yellowish smoke rose high above the town and, as

bomb after bomb was exploded and the yells of the miners grew louder

with each success, the stunned invaders broke from cover and rushed

helter-skelter up the gulch. Then there was a prodigious shouting from

the Sonorans and more than one triumphant grenadier swung his can

of giant powder by the sling and let it smash against the hill in a

terrific detonation.

In the big house all was confusion. Soon the cheers of the defenders

heralded victory and, in spite of all efforts to restrain them, the

wives of the miners rushed into the open to gaze upon the triumph of

their menfolk.

On the hilltops the ineffective rebel riflemen rose up from behind

their stone wall to stare, until suddenly they, too, were seized with

a panic and ran to and fro like ants. Then, around the curve below the

concentrator, a tall man came dashing up on a pure white horse, and

behind him, charging as he charged, came the swarthy Yaquis of Alvarez,

their new rifles gleaming in the sun.

Up along the hillside and after the fugitives they ran with vengeful

eagerness, racing one another for the higher ground and the first shot

at the rebels. First Alvarez on his white horse would be ahead and

then, as they encountered rocks, the Yaquis would surge to the front.

It was a race and at the same time it was a rout, for, at the first

glimpse of that oncoming body of warriors, the cowardly followers of

Bernardo Bravo took to their heels and fled.

But over the rocks no Chihuahuan, no matter how scared, can hope to

outdistance a Yaqui, and soon the _pop, pop_ of rifles told the fate

of the first luckless stragglers. For the Yaquis, after a hundred and

sixty years of guerrilla warfare, never waste a shot; and as savage

yells and the crash of a sudden volley drifted down from the rocky

heights the men who had been besieged in Fortuna knew that death was

abroad in the hills.

Fainter and fainter came the shots as the pursuit led on to the north

and, as Hooker strained his eyes to follow a huge form that intuition

told him was Amigo, he was wakened suddenly from his preoccupation

by the touch of some unseen hand. He was in the open with people

all about him--Spanish refugees, Americans, triumphant miners and

their wives--but that touch made him forget the battle above him and

instantly think of Gracia.

He turned and hurried back to the corral where Copper Bottom was kept,

and there he found her waiting, with her roan all saddled, and she

challenged him with her eyes. The sun gleamed from a pistol that she

held in her hand, and again from her golden hair, but he saw only her

eyes, so brave and daring, and the challenge to mount and ride.

Only for a moment did he stand before her gaze, and then he caught up

his saddle and spoke soothingly to his horse. They rode out of the

corral together, closing the gates behind them and passing down a gulch

to the rear. All the town lay silent below them as they turned toward

the western pass.

Soldiers, miners, and refugees, men, women, and children, every soul

in Fortuna was on the hill to see the last of the battle. It had been

a crude affair, but bravely ended, and something in the dramatic

suddenness of this victory had held all eyes to the close. Bud and

Gracia passed out of town unnoticed, and as soon as they had rounded

the point they spurred on till they gained the pass.

"I knew you would come!" said Gracia, smiling radiantly as they paused

at the fork.

"Sure!" answered Hooker with his good-humored smile. "Count me in on

anything--which way does this trail go; do you know?"

"It goes west twelve miles toward Arispe," replied Gracia confidently,

"and then it comes into the main road that leads north to Nogales and

Gadsden."

"What is there up here?" inquired Bud, pointing at a fainter trail that

led off toward the north. "This country is new to me. Don't know, eh?

Well, if we followed that trail we'd run into them rebels, anyway, so

we might as well go to the west. Is your saddle all right? We'll hit it

up then--I'd like to strike a road before dark."

They hurried on, following a well-marked trail that alternately climbed

ridges and descended into arroyos, until finally it dropped down into

a precipitous cañon where a swollen stream rushed and babbled and,

while they still watched expectantly for the road, the evening quickly

passed.

First the slanting rays of the sun struck fire from high yellow crags,

then the fire faded and the sky glowed an opal-blue; then, through dark

blues and purples the heavens turned to black above them and all the

stars came out. Thousands of frogs made the cañon resound with their

throaty songs and strange animals crashed through the brush at their

approach, but still Hooker stayed in the saddle and Gracia followed on

behind.

If she had thought in her dreams of an easier journey she made no

comment now and, outside of stopping to cinch up her saddle, Bud seemed

hardly to know she was there. The trail was not going to suit him--it

edged off too far to the south--and yet, in the tropical darkness, he

could not search out new ways to go.

At each fork he paused to light a match, and whichever way the

mule-tracks went he went also, for pack-mules would take the main

trail. For two hours and more they followed on down the stream and then

Hooker stopped his horse.

"You might as well get down and rest a while," he said quietly. "This

trail is no good--it's taking us south. We'll let our horses feed until

the moon comes up and I'll try to work north by landmarks."

"Oh--are we lost?" gasped Gracia, dropping stiffly to the ground. "But

of course we are," she added. "I've been thinking so for some time."

"Oh, that's all right," observed Hooker philosophically; "I don't mind

being lost as long as I know where I'm at. We'll ride back until we get

out of this dark cañon and then I'll lay a line due north."

They sat for a time in the darkness while their horses champed at the

rich grass and then, unable to keep down her nerves, Gracia declared

for a start. A vision of angry pursuers rose up in her mind--of Manuel

del Rey and his keen-eyed _rurales_, hot upon their trail--and it would

not let her rest.

Nor was the vision entirely the result of nervous imagination, for they

had lost half the advantage of their start, as Hooker well knew, and if

he made one more false move he would find himself called on to fight.

As they rode back through the black cañon he asked himself for the

hundredth time how it had all happened--why, at a single glance from

her, he had gone against his better judgment and plunged himself into

this tangle. And then, finally, what was he going to do about it?

Alone, he would have taken to the mountains with a fine disregard for

trails, turning into whichever served his purpose best and following

the lay of the land. Even with her in his care it would be best to do

that yet, for there would be trailers on their track at sun-up, and it

was either ride or fight.

Free at last from the pent-in cañon, they halted at the forks,

while Bud looked out the land by moonlight. Dim and ghostly, the

square-topped peaks and buttes rose all about him, huge and impassable

except for the winding trails. He turned up a valley between two

ridges, spurring his horse into a fast walk.

From one cow trail to another he picked out a way to the north, but

the lay of the ground threw him to the east and there were no passes

between the hills. The country was rocky, with long parallel ridges

extending to the northeast, and when he saw where the way was taking

him Bud called a halt till dawn.

By the very formation he was being gradually edged back toward Fortuna,

and it would call for fresh horses and a rested Gracia to outstrip

their pursuers by day. If the _rurales_ traveled by landmarks, heading

for the northern passes in an effort to outride and intercept him, they

might easily cut him off at the start; but if they trailed him--and

he devoutly hoped they would--then they would have a tangled skein to

follow and he could lose them in the broken country to the north.

So thinking, he cut grass among the rocks, spread down their

saddle-blankets, and watched over the browsing horses while Gracia

stretched out on the bed. After a day of excitement and a night of hard

riding there is no call for a couch of down, and as the morning star

appeared in the east she slept while Bud sat patiently by.

It was no new task to him, this watching and waiting for the dawn.

For weeks at a time, after a hard day's work at the branding, he had

stood guard half the night. Sleep was a luxury to him, like water to a

mountain-sheep--and so were all the other useless things that town-bred

people required.

People like Gracia, people like Phil--they were different in all their

ways. To ride, to fight, to find the way--there he was a better man

than Phil; but to speak to a woman, to know her ways, and to enter into

her life--there he was no man at all.

He sighed now as he saw the first flush of dawn and turned to where she

slept, calm and beautiful, in the solemn light. How to waken her, even

that was a question, but the time had come to start.

Already, from Fortuna, Del Rey and his man-killing _rurales_ would be

on the trail. He would come like the wind, that dashing little captain,

and nothing but a bullet would stop him, for his honor was at stake.

Nay, he had told Bud in so many words:

"She is mine, and no man shall come between us!"

It would be hard now if the _rurales_ should prove too many for him--if

a bullet should check him in their flight and she be left alone. But

how to wake her! He tramped near as he led up the unwilling mounts;

then, as time pressed, he spoke to her, and at last he knelt at her

side.

"Say!" he called, and when that did not serve he laid his hand on her

shoulder.

"Wake up!" he said, shaking her gently. "Wake up, it's almost day!"

Even as he spoke he went back to the phrase of the cow-camp--where men

rise before it is light. But Gracia woke up wondering and stared about

her strangely, unable to understand.

"Why--what is it?" she cried. Then, as he spoke again and backed away,

she remembered him with a smile.

"Oh," she said, "is it time to get up? Where are we, anyway?"

"About ten miles from Fortuna," answered Hooker soberly. "Too close--we

ought to be over that divide."

He pointed ahead to where the valley narrowed and passed between two

hills, and Gracia sat up, binding back her hair that had fallen from

its place.

"Yes, yes!" she said resolutely. "We must go on--but why do you look at

me so strangely?"

"Don't know," mumbled Bud. "Didn't know I was. Say, let me get them

saddle-blankets, will you?"

He went about his work with embarrassed swiftness, slapping on saddles

and bridles, coiling up ropes, and offering her his hand to mount. When

he looked at her again it was not strangely.

"Hope you can ride," he said. "We got to get over that pass before

anybody else makes it--after that we can take a rest."

"As fast as you please," she answered steadily. "Don't think about me.

But what will happen if--they get there first?"

She was looking at him now as he searched out the trail ahead, but he

pretended not to hear. One man in that pass was as good as a hundred,

and there were only two things he could do--shoot his way through, or

turn back. He believed she would not want to turn back.