CHAPTER I

Produced by Donald Lainson

ON THE FRONTIER

By Bret Harte

CONTENTS

AT THE MISSION OF SAN CARMEL

A BLUE GRASS PENELOPE

LEFT OUT ON LONE STAR MOUNTAIN

AT THE MISSION OF SAN CARMEL

PROLOGUE

It was noon of the 10th of August, 1838. The monotonous coast line

between Monterey and San Diego had set its hard outlines against the

steady glare of the Californian sky and the metallic glitter of

the Pacific Ocean. The weary succession of rounded, dome-like hills

obliterated all sense of distance; the rare whaling vessel or still

rarer trader, drifting past, saw no change in these rusty undulations,

barren of distinguishing peak or headland, and bald of wooded crest or

timbered ravine. The withered ranks of wild oats gave a dull procession

of uniform color to the hills, unbroken by any relief of shadow in their

smooth, round curves. As far as the eye could reach, sea and shore met

in one bleak monotony, flecked by no passing cloud, stirred by no sign

of life or motion. Even sound was absent; the Angelus, rung from the

invisible Mission tower far inland, was driven back again by the steady

northwest trades, that for half the year had swept the coast line and

left it abraded of all umbrage and color.

But even this monotony soon gave way to a change and another monotony as

uniform and depressing. The western horizon, slowly contracting before

a wall of vapor, by four o'clock had become a mere cold, steely strip of

sea, into which gradually the northern trend of the coast faded and was

lost. As the fog stole with soft step southward, all distance, space,

character, and locality again vanished; the hills upon which the sun

still shone bore the same monotonous outlines as those just wiped into

space. Last of all, before the red sun sank like the descending host,

it gleamed upon the sails of a trading vessel close in shore. It was the

last object visible. A damp breath breathed upon it, a soft hand passed

over the slate, the sharp pencilling of the picture faded and became a

confused gray cloud.

The wind and waves, too, went down in the fog; the now invisible and

hushed breakers occasionally sent the surf over the sand in a quick

whisper, with grave intervals of silence, but with no continuous murmur

as before. In a curving bight of the shore the creaking of oars in their

rowlocks began to be distinctly heard, but the boat itself, although

apparently only its length from the sands, was invisible.

“Steady, now; way enough.” The voice came from the sea, and was low, as

if unconsciously affected by the fog. “Silence!”

The sound of a keel grating the sand was followed by the order, “Stern

all!” from the invisible speaker.

“Shall we beach her?” asked another vague voice.

“Not yet. Hail again, and all together.”

“Ah hoy--oi--oi--oy!”

There were four voices, but the hail appeared weak and ineffectual, like

a cry in a dream, and seemed hardly to reach beyond the surf before

it was suffocated in the creeping cloud. A silence followed, but no

response.

“It's no use to beach her and go ashore until we find the boat,” said

the first voice, gravely; “and we'll do that if the current has brought

her here. Are you sure you've got the right bearings?”

“As near as a man could off a shore with not a blasted pint to take his

bearings by.”

There was a long silence again, broken only by the occasional dip of

oars, keeping the invisible boat-head to the sea.

“Take my word for it, lads, it's the last we'll see of that boat again,

or of Jack Cranch, or the captain's baby.”

“It DOES look mighty queer that the painter should slip. Jack Cranch

ain't the man to tie a granny knot.”

“Silence!” said the invisible leader. “Listen.”

A hail, so faint and uncertain that it might have been the

long-deferred, far-off echo of their own, came from the sea, abreast of

them.

“It's the captain. He hasn't found anything, or he couldn't be so far

north. Hark!”

The hail was repeated again faintly, dreamily. To the seamen's trained

ears it seemed to have an intelligent significance, for the first voice

gravely responded, “Aye, aye!” and then said softly, “Oars.”

The word was followed by a splash. The oars clicked sharply and

simultaneously in the rowlocks, then more faintly, then still fainter,

and then passed out into the darkness.

The silence and shadow both fell together; for hours sea and shore were

impenetrable. Yet at times the air was softly moved and troubled, the

surrounding gloom faintly lightened as with a misty dawn, and then was

dark again; or drowsy, far-off cries and confused noises seemed to grow

out of the silence, and, when they had attracted the weary ear, sank

away as in a mocking dream, and showed themselves unreal. Nebulous

gatherings in the fog seemed to indicate stationary objects that, even

as one gazed, moved away; the recurring lap and ripple on the shingle

sometimes took upon itself the semblance of faint articulate laughter

or spoken words. But towards morning a certain monotonous grating on the

sand, that had for many minutes alternately cheated and piqued the ear,

asserted itself more strongly, and a moving, vacillating shadow in the

gloom became an opaque object on the shore.

With the first rays of the morning light the fog lifted. As the undraped

hills one by one bared their cold bosoms to the sun, the long line of

coast struggled back to life again. Everything was unchanged, except

that a stranded boat lay upon the sands, and in its stern sheets a

sleeping child.

CHAPTER I.

The 10th of August, 1852, brought little change to the dull monotony

of wind, fog, and treeless coast line. Only the sea was occasionally

flecked with racing sails that outstripped the old, slow-creeping

trader, or was at times streaked and blurred with the trailing smoke of

a steamer. There were a few strange footprints on those virgin sands,

and a fresh track, that led from the beach over the rounded hills,

dropped into the bosky recesses of a hidden valley beyond the coast

range.

It was here that the refectory windows of the Mission of San Carmel had

for years looked upon the reverse of that monotonous picture presented

to the sea. It was here that the trade winds, shorn of their fury and

strength in the heated, oven-like air that rose from the valley, lost

their weary way in the tangled recesses of the wooded slopes, and

breathed their last at the foot of the stone cross before the Mission.

It was on the crest of those slopes that the fog halted and walled

in the sun-illumined plain below; it was in this plain that limitless

fields of grain clothed the fat adobe soil; here the Mission garden

smiled over its hedges of fruitful vines, and through the leaves of fig

and gnarled pear trees: and it was here that Father Pedro had lived for

fifty years, found the prospect good, and had smiled also.

Father Pedro's smile was rare. He was not a Las Casas, nor a Junipero

Serra, but he had the deep seriousness of all disciples laden with the

responsible wording of a gospel not their own. And his smile had an

ecclesiastical as well as a human significance, the pleasantest object

in his prospect being the fair and curly head of his boy acolyte and

chorister, Francisco, which appeared among the vines, and his sweetest

pastoral music, the high soprano humming of a chant with which the boy

accompanied his gardening.

Suddenly the acolyte's chant changed to a cry of terror. Running rapidly

to Father Pedro's side, he grasped his sotana, and even tried to hide

his curls among its folds.

“'St! 'st!” said the Padre, disengaging himself with some impatience.

“What new alarm is this? Is it Luzbel hiding among our Catalan vines, or

one of those heathen Americanos from Monterey? Speak!”

“Neither, holy father,” said the boy, the color struggling back into his

pale cheeks, and an apologetic, bashful smile lighting his clear eyes.

“Neither; but oh! such a gross, lethargic toad! And it almost leaped

upon me.”

“A toad leaped upon thee!” repeated the good father with evident

vexation. “What next? I tell thee, child, those foolish fears are most

unmeet for thee, and must be overcome, if necessary, with prayer and

penance. Frightened by a toad! Blood of the Martyrs! 'Tis like any

foolish girl!”

Father Pedro stopped and coughed.

“I am saying that no Christian child should shrink from any of God's

harmless creatures. And only last week thou wast disdainful of poor

Murieta's pig, forgetting that San Antonio himself did elect one his

faithful companion, even in glory.”

“Yes, but it was so fat, and so uncleanly, holy father,” replied the

young acolyte, “and it smelt so.”

“Smelt so?” echoed the father doubtfully. “Have a care, child, that this

is not luxuriousness of the senses. I have noticed of late you gather

overmuch of roses and syringa, excellent in their way and in moderation,

but still not to be compared with the flower of Holy Church, the lily.”

“But lilies don't look well on the refectory table, and against the

adobe wall,” returned the acolyte, with a pout of a spoilt child; “and

surely the flowers cannot help being sweet, any more than myrrh or

incense. And I am not frightened of the heathen Americanos either NOW.

There was a small one in the garden yesterday, a boy like me, and he

spoke kindly and with a pleasant face.”

“What said he to thee, child?” asked Father Pedro, anxiously.

“Nay, the matter of his speech I could not understand,” laughed the boy,

“but the manner was as gentle as thine, holy father.”

“'St, child,” said the Padre impatiently. “Thy likings are as

unreasonable as thy fears. Besides, have I not told thee it ill becomes

a child of Christ to chatter with those sons of Belial? But canst thou

not repeat the words--the WORDS he said?” he continued suspiciously.

“'Tis a harsh tongue the Americanos speak in their throat,” replied the

boy. “But he said 'Devilishnisse' and 'pretty-as-a-girl,' and looked at

me.”

The good father made the boy repeat the words gravely, and as gravely

repeated them after him with infinite simplicity. “They are but

heretical words,” he replied in answer to the boy's inquiring look;

“it is well you understand not English. Enough. Run away, child, and be

ready for the Angelus. I will commune with myself awhile under the pear

trees.”

Glad to escape so easily, the young acolyte disappeared down the alley

of fig trees, not without a furtive look at the patches of chickweed

around their roots, the possible ambuscade of creeping or saltant

vermin. The good priest heaved a sigh and glanced round the darkening

prospect. The sun had already disappeared over the mountain wall that

lay between him and the sea, rimmed with a faint white line of outlying

fog. A cool zephyr fanned his cheek; it was the dying breath of the

vientos generales beyond the wall. As Father Pedro's eyes were raised to

this barrier, which seemed to shut out the boisterous world beyond, he

fancied he noticed for the first time a slight breach in the parapet,

over which an advanced banner of the fog was fluttering. Was it an omen?

His speculations were cut short by a voice at his very side.

He turned quickly and beheld one of those “heathens” against whom he

had just warned his young acolyte; one of that straggling band of

adventurers whom the recent gold discoveries had scattered along the

coast. Luckily the fertile alluvium of these valleys, lying parallel

with the sea, offered no “indications” to attract the gold seekers.

Nevertheless to Father Pedro even the infrequent contact with the

Americanos was objectionable; they were at once inquisitive and

careless; they asked questions with the sharp perspicacity of

controversy; they received his grave replies with the frank indifference

of utter worldliness. Powerful enough to have been tyrannical

oppressors, they were singularly tolerant and gentle, contenting

themselves with a playful, good-natured irreverence, which tormented

the good father more than opposition. They were felt to be dangerous and

subversive.

The Americano, however, who stood before him did not offensively suggest

these national qualities. A man of middle height, strongly built,

bronzed and slightly gray from the vicissitudes of years and exposure,

he had an air of practical seriousness that commended itself to Father

Pedro. To his religious mind it suggested self-consciousness; expressed

in the dialect of the stranger it only meant “business.”

“I'm rather glad I found you out here alone,” began the latter; “it

saves time. I haven't got to take my turn with the rest, in there”--he

indicated the church with his thumb--“and you haven't got to make an

appointment. You have got a clear forty minutes before the Angelus

rings,” he added, consulting a large silver chronometer, “and I reckon

I kin git through my part of the job inside of twenty, leaving you ten

minutes for remarks. I want to confess.”

Father Pedro drew back with a gesture of dignity. The stranger, however,

laid his hand upon the Padre's sleeve with the air of a man anticipating

objection, but never refusal, and went on.

“Of course, I know. You want me to come at some other time, and in

THERE. You want it in the reg'lar style. That's your way and your time.

My answer is: it ain't MY way and MY time. The main idea of confession,

I take it, is gettin' at the facts. I'm ready to give 'em if you'll

take 'em out here, now. If you're willing to drop the Church and

confessional, and all that sort o' thing, I, on my side, am willing

to give up the absolution, and all that sort o' thing. You might,” he

added, with an unconscious touch of pathos in the suggestion, “heave in

a word or two of advice after I get through; for instance, what YOU'D do

in the circumstances, you see! That's all. But that's as you please. It

ain't part of the business.”

Irreverent as this speech appeared, there was really no trace of such

intention in his manner, and his evident profound conviction that

his suggestion was practical, and not at all inconsistent with

ecclesiastical dignity, would alone have been enough to touch the Padre,

had not the stranger's dominant personality already overridden him. He

hesitated. The stranger seized the opportunity to take his arm, and lead

him with the half familiarity of powerful protection to a bench beneath

the refectory window. Taking out his watch again, he put it in the

passive hands of the astonished priest, saying, “Time me,” cleared his

throat, and began:--

“Fourteen years ago there was a ship cruisin' in the Pacific, jest off

this range, that was ez nigh on to a Hell afloat as anything rigged kin

be. If a chap managed to dodge the cap'en's belayin-pin for a time,

he was bound to be fetched up in the ribs at last by the mate's boots.

There was a chap knocked down the fore hatch with a broken leg in the

Gulf, and another jumped overboard off Cape Corrientes, crazy as a loon,

along a clip of the head from the cap'en's trumpet. Them's facts. The

ship was a brigantine, trading along the Mexican coast. The cap'en

had his wife aboard, a little timid Mexican woman he'd picked up at

Mazatlan. I reckon she didn't get on with him any better than the men,

for she ups and dies one day, leavin' her baby, a year-old gal. One of

the crew was fond o' that baby. He used to get the black nurse to put it

in the dingy, and he'd tow it astern, rocking it with the painter like

a cradle. He did it--hatin' the cap'en all the same. One day the black

nurse got out of the dingy for a moment, when the baby was asleep,

leavin' him alone with it. An idea took hold on him, jest from

cussedness, you'd say, but it was partly from revenge on the cap'en and

partly to get away from the ship. The ship was well inshore, and the

current settin' towards it. He slipped the painter--that man--and set

himself adrift with the baby. It was a crazy act, you'd reckon, for

there wasn't any oars in the boat; but he had a crazy man's luck, and

he contrived, by sculling the boat with one of the seats he tore out, to

keep her out of the breakers, till he could find a bight in the shore

to run her in. The alarm was given from the ship, but the fog shut down

upon him; he could hear the other boats in pursuit. They seemed to close

in on him, and by the sound he judged the cap'en was just abreast of

him in the gig, bearing down upon him in the fog. He slipped out of the

dingy into the water without a splash, and struck out for the breakers.

He got ashore after havin' been knocked down and dragged in four times

by the undertow. He had only one idea then, thankfulness that he had not

taken the baby with him in the surf. You kin put that down for him: it's

a fact. He got off into the hills, and made his way up to Monterey.”

“And the child?” asked the Padre, with a sudden and strange asperity

that boded no good to the penitent; “the child thus ruthlessly

abandoned--what became of it?”

“That's just it, the child,” assented the stranger, gravely. “Well, if

that man was on his death-bed instead of being here talking to you,

he'd swear that he thought the cap'en was sure to come up to it the

next minit. That's a fact. But it wasn't until one day that he--that's

me--ran across one of that crew in Frisco. 'Hallo, Cranch,' sez he to

me, 'so you got away, didn't you? And how's the cap'en's baby? Grown a

young gal by this time, ain't she?' 'What are you talkin about,' ez I;

'how should I know?' He draws away from me, and sez, 'D--- it,' sez he,

'you don't mean that you' . . . I grabs him by the throat and makes him

tell me all. And then it appears that the boat and the baby were never

found again, and every man of that crew, cap'en and all, believed I had

stolen it.”

He paused. Father Pedro was staring at the prospect with an

uncompromising rigidity of head and shoulder.

“It's a bad lookout for me, ain't it?” the stranger continued, in

serious reflection.

“How do I know,” said the priest harshly, without turning his head,

“that you did not make away with this child?”

“Beg pardon.”

“That you did not complete your revenge by--by--killing it, as your

comrade suspected you? Ah! Holy Trinity,” continued Father Pedro,

throwing out his hands with an impatient gesture, as if to take the

place of unutterable thought.

“How do YOU know?” echoed the stranger coldly.

“Yes.”

The stranger linked his fingers together and threw them over his knee,

drew it up to his chest caressingly, and said quietly, “Because you DO

know.”

The Padre rose to his feet.

“What mean you?” he said, sternly fixing his eyes upon the speaker.

Their eyes met. The stranger's were gray and persistent, with hanging

corner lids that might have concealed even more purpose than they

showed. The Padre's were hollow, open, and the whites slightly brown, as

if with tobacco stains. Yet they were the first to turn away.

“I mean,” returned the stranger, with the same practical gravity, “that

you know it wouldn't pay me to come here, if I'd killed the baby, unless

I wanted you to fix things right with me up there,” pointing skywards,

“and get absolution; and I've told you THAT wasn't in my line.”

“Why do you seek me, then?” demanded the Padre, suspiciously.

“Because I reckon I thought a man might be allowed to confess something

short of a murder. If you're going to draw the line below that--”

“This is but sacrilegious levity,” interrupted Father Pedro, turning as

if to go. But the stranger did not make any movement to detain him.

“Have you implored forgiveness of the father--the man you

wronged--before you came here?” asked the priest, lingering.

“Not much. It wouldn't pay if he was living, and he died four years

ago.”

“You are sure of that?”

“I am.”

“There are other relations, perhaps?”

“None.”

Father Pedro was silent. When he spoke again, it was with a changed

voice. “What is your purpose, then?” he asked, with the first indication

of priestly sympathy in his manner. “You cannot ask forgiveness of the

earthly father you have injured, you refuse the intercession of holy

Church with the Heavenly Father you have disobeyed. Speak, wretched man!

What is it you want?”

“I want to find the child.”

“But if it were possible, if she were still living, are you fit to seek

her, to even make yourself known to her, to appear before her?”

“Well, if I made it profitable to her, perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” echoed the priest, scornfully. “So be it. But why come here?”

“To ask your advice. To know how to begin my search. You know this

country. You were here when that boat drifted ashore beyond that

mountain.”

“Ah, indeed. I have much to do with it. It is an affair of the

alcalde--the authorities--of your--your police.”

“Is it?”

The Padre again met the stranger's eyes. He stopped, with the snuff box

he had somewhat ostentatiously drawn from his pocket still open in his

hand.

“Why is it not, Senor?” he demanded.

“If she lives, she is a young lady by this time, and might not want the

details of her life known to any one.”

“And how will you recognize your baby in this young lady?” asked Father

Pedro, with a rapid gesture, indicating the comparative heights of a

baby and an adult.

“I reckon I'll know her, and her clothes too; and whoever found her

wouldn't be fool enough to destroy them.”

“After fourteen years! Good! you have faith, Senor--”

“Cranch,” supplied the stranger, consulting his watch. “But time's up.

Business is business. Good-by; don't let me keep you.”

He extended his hand.

The Padre met it with a dry, unsympathetic palm, as sere and yellow

as the hills. When their hands separated, the father still hesitated,

looking at Cranch. If he expected further speech or entreaty from him he

was mistaken, for the American, without turning his head, walked in

the same serious, practical fashion down the avenue of fig trees, and

disappeared beyond the hedge of vines. The outlines of the mountain

beyond were already lost in the fog. Father Pedro turned into the

refectory.

“Antonio.”

A strong flavor of leather, onions, and stable preceded the entrance of

a short, stout vaquero from the little patio.

“Saddle Pinto and thine own mule to accompany Francisco, who will

take letters from me to the Father Superior at San Jose to-morrow at

daybreak.”

“At daybreak, reverend father?”

“At daybreak. Hark ye, go by the mountain trails and avoid the highway.

Stop at no posada nor fonda, but if the child is weary, rest then awhile

at Don Juan Briones' or at the rancho of the Blessed Fisherman. Have no

converse with stragglers, least of all those gentile Americanos.

So . . .”

The first strokes of the Angelus came from the nearer tower. With a

gesture Father Pedro waved Antonio aside, and opened the door of the

sacristy.

“Ad Majorem Dei Gloria.”

CHAPTER II

The hacienda of Don Juan Briones, nestling in a wooded cleft of the

foot-hills, was hidden, as Father Pedro had wisely reflected, from

the straying feet of travelers along the dusty highway to San Jose. As

Francisco, emerging from the canada, put spurs to his mule at the sight

of the whitewashed walls, Antonio grunted.

“Oh aye, little priest! thou wast tired enough a moment ago, and though

we are not three leagues from the Blessed Fisherman, thou couldst

scarce sit thy saddle longer. Mother of God! and all to see that little

mongrel, Juanita.”

“But, good Antonio, Juanita was my play-fellow, and I may not soon again

chance this way. And Juanita is not a mongrel, no more than I am.”

“She is a mestiza, and thou art a child of the Church, though this

following of gypsy wenches does not show it.”

“But Father Pedro does not object,” urged the boy.

“The reverend father has forgotten he was ever young,” replied Antonio,

sententiously, “or he wouldn't set fire and tow together.”

“What sayest thou, good Antonio?” asked Francisco quickly, opening his

blue eyes in frank curiosity; “who is fire, and who is tow?”

The worthy muleteer, utterly abashed and confounded by this display

of the acolyte's direct simplicity, contented himself by shrugging his

shoulders, and a vague “Quien sabe?”

“Come,” said the boy, gayly, “confess it is only the aguardiente of the

Blessed Fisherman thou missest. Never fear, Juanita will find thee some.

And see! here she comes.”

There was a flash of white flounces along the dark brown corridor, the

twinkle of satin slippers, the flying out of long black braids, and with

a cry of joy a young girl threw herself upon Francisco as he entered the

patio, and nearly dragged him from his mule.

“Have a care, little sister,” laughed the acolyte, looking at Antonio,

“or there will be a conflagration. Am I the fire?” he continued,

submitting to the two sounding kisses the young girl placed upon either

cheek, but still keeping his mischievous glance upon the muleteer.

“Quien sabe?” repeated Antonio, gruffly, as the young girl blushed under

his significant eyes. “It is no affair of mine,” he added to himself, as

he led Pinto away. “Perhaps Father Pedro is right, and this young twig

of the Church is as dry and sapless as himself. Let the mestiza burn if

she likes.”

“Quick, Pancho,” said the young girl, eagerly leading him along the

corridor. “This way. I must talk with thee before thou seest Don Juan;

that is why I ran to intercept thee, and not as that fool Antonio would

signify, to shame thee. Wast thou ashamed, my Pancho?”

The boy threw his arm familiarly round the supple, stayless little

waist, accented only by the belt of the light flounced saya, and said,

“But why this haste and feverishness, 'Nita? And now I look at thee,

thou hast been crying.”

They had emerged from a door in the corridor into the bright sunlight of

a walled garden. The girl dropped her eyes, cast a quick glance around

her, and said,--

“Not here, to the arroyo,” and half leading, half dragging him, made her

way through a copse of manzanita and alder until they heard the faint

tinkling of water. “Dost thou remember,” said the girl, “it was here,”

pointing to an embayed pool in the dark current, “that I baptized thee,

when Father Pedro first brought thee here, when we both played at being

monks? They were dear old days, for Father Pedro would trust no one with

thee but me, and always kept us near him.”

“Aye and he said I would be profaned by the touch of any other, and so

himself always washed and dressed me, and made my bed near his.”

“And took thee away again, and I saw thee not till thou camest with

Antonio, over a year ago, to the cattle branding. And now, my Pancho, I

may never see thee again.” She buried her face in her hands and sobbed

aloud.

The little acolyte tried to comfort her, but with such abstraction of

manner and inadequacy of warmth that she hastily removed his caressing

hand.

“But why? What has happened?” he asked eagerly.

The girl's manner had changed. Her eyes flashed, and she put her brown

fist on her waist and began to rock from side to side.

“But I'll not go,” she said viciously.

“Go where?” asked the boy.

“Oh, where?” she echoed, impatiently. “Hear me, Francisco; thou knowest

I am, like thee, an orphan; but I have not, like thee, a parent in the

Holy Church. For, alas,” she added, bitterly, “I am not a boy, and

have not a lovely voice borrowed from the angels. I was, like thee, a

foundling, kept by the charity of the reverend fathers, until Don Juan,

a childless widower, adopted me. I was happy, not knowing and caring who

were the parents who had abandoned me, happy only in the love of him who

became my adopted father. And now--” She paused.

“And now?” echoed Francisco, eagerly.

“And now they say it is discovered who are my parents.”

“And they live?”

“Mother of God! no,” said the girl, with scarcely filial piety. “There

is some one, a thing, a mere Don Fulano, who knows it all, it seems, who

is to be my guardian.”

“But how? tell me all, dear Juanita,” said the boy with a feverish

interest, that contrasted so strongly with his previous abstraction that

Juanita bit her lips with vexation.

“Ah! How? Santa Barbara! an extravaganza for children. A necklace of

lies. I am lost from a ship of which my father--Heaven rest him--is

General, and I am picked up among the weeds on the sea-shore, like Moses

in the bulrushes. A pretty story, indeed.”

“Oh, how beautiful!” exclaimed Francisco, enthusiastically. “Ah,

Juanita, would it had been me.”

“THEE!” said the girl bitterly,--“thee! No!--it was a girl wanted.

Enough, it was me.”

“And when does the guardian come?” persisted the boy, with sparkling

eyes.

“He is here even now, with that pompous fool the American alcalde from

Monterey, a wretch who knows nothing of the country or the people, but

who helped the other American to claim me. I tell thee, Francisco, like

as not it is all a folly, some senseless blunder of those Americanos

that imposes upon Don Juan's simplicity and love for them.”

“How looks he, this Americano who seeks thee?” asked Francisco.

“What care I how he looks,” said Juanita, “or what he is? He may have

the four S's, for all I care. Yet,” she added with a slight touch of

coquetry, “he is not bad to look upon, now I recall him.”

“Had he a long moustache and a sad, sweet smile, and a voice so gentle

and yet so strong that you felt he ordered you to do things with out

saying it? And did his eye read your thoughts?--that very thought that

you must obey him?”

“Saints preserve thee, Pancho! Of whom dost thou speak?”

“Listen, Juanita. It was a year ago, the eve of Natividad, he was in the

church when I sang. Look where I would, I always met his eye. When the

canticle was sung and I was slipping into the sacristy, he was beside

me. He spoke kindly, but I understood him not. He put into my hand gold

for an aguinaldo. I pretended I understood not that also, and put it

into the box for the poor. He smiled and went away. Often have I seen

him since, and last night, when I left the Mission, he was there again

with Father Pedro.”

“And Father Pedro, what said he of him?” asked Juanita.

“Nothing.” The boy hesitated. “Perhaps--because I said nothing of the

stranger.”

Juanita laughed. “So thou canst keep a secret from the good father when

thou carest. But why dost thou think this stranger is my new guardian?”

“Dost thou not see, little sister? he was even then seeking thee,” said

the boy with joyous excitement. “Doubtless he knew we were friends and

playmates--may be the good father has told him thy secret. For it is no

idle tale of the alcalde, believe me. I see it all! It is true!”

“Then thou wilt let him take me away,” exclaimed the girl bitterly,

withdrawing the little hand he had clasped in his excitement.

“Alas, Juanita, what avails it now? I am sent to San Jose, charged with

a letter to the Father Superior, who will give me further orders. What

they are, or how long I must stay, I know not. But I know this: the good

Father Pedro's eyes were troubled when he gave me his blessing, and

he held me long in his embrace. Pray Heaven I have committed no fault.

Still it may be that the reputation of my gift hath reached the Father

Superior, and he would advance me.” And Francisco's eyes lit up with

youthful pride at the thought.

Not so Juanita. Her black eyes snapped suddenly with suspicion, she

drew in her breath, and closed her little mouth firmly. Then she began a

crescendo.

Mother of God! was that all? Was he a child, to be sent away for such

time or for such purpose as best pleased the fathers? Was he to know

no more than that? With such gifts as God had given him, was he not at

least to have some word in disposing of them? Ah! SHE would not stand

it.

The boy gazed admiringly at the piquant energy of the little figure

before him, and envied her courage. “It is the mestizo blood,” he

murmured to himself. Then aloud, “Thou shouldst have been a man, 'Nita.”

“And thou a woman.”

“Or a priest. Eh, what is that?”

They had both risen, Juanita defiantly, her black braids flying as she

wheeled and suddenly faced the thicket, Francisco clinging to her with

trembling hands and whitened lips. A stone, loosened from the hillside,

had rolled to their feet; there was a crackling in the alders on the

slope above them.

“Is it a bear, or a brigand?” whispered Francisco, hurriedly, sounding

the uttermost depths of his terror in the two words.

“It is an eavesdropper,” said Juanita, impetuously; “and who and why, I

intend to know,” and she started towards the thicket.

“Do not leave me, good Juanita,” said the young acolyte, grasping the

girl's skirt.

“Nay; run to the hacienda quickly, and leave me to search the thicket.

Run!”

The boy did not wait for a second injunction, but scuttled away, his

long coat catching in the brambles, while Juanita darted like a

kitten into the bushes. Her search was fruitless, however, and she was

returning impatiently when her quick eye fell upon a letter lying amidst

the dried grass where she and Francisco had been seated the moment

before. It had evidently fallen from his breast when he had risen

suddenly, and been overlooked in his alarm. It was Father Pedro's letter

to the Father Superior of San Jose.

In an instant she had pounced upon it as viciously as if it had been the

interloper she was seeking. She knew that she held in her fingers the

secret of Francisco's sudden banishment. She felt instinctively that

this yellowish envelope, with its red string and its blotch of red seal,

was his sentence and her own. The little mestiza had not been brought up

to respect the integrity of either locks or seals, both being unknown

in the patriarchal life of the hacienda. Yet with a certain feminine

instinct she looked furtively around her, and even managed to dislodge

the clumsy wax without marring the pretty effigy of the crossed keys

impressed upon it. Then she opened the letter and read.

Suddenly she stopped and put back her hair from her brown temples. Then

a succession of burning blushes followed each other in waves from her

neck up, and died in drops of moisture in her eyes. This continued until

she was fairly crying, dropping the letter from her hands and rocking

to and fro. In the midst of this she quickly stopped again; the clouds

broke, a sunshine of laughter started from her eyes, she laughed shyly,

she laughed loudly, she laughed hysterically. Then she stopped again as

suddenly, knitted her brows, swooped down once more upon the letter, and

turned to fly. But at the same moment the letter was quietly but firmly

taken from her hand, and Mr. Jack Cranch stood beside her.

Juanita was crimson, but unconquered. She mechanically held out her hand

for the letter; the American took her little fingers, kissed them, and

said:--

“How are you again?”

“The letter,” replied Juanita, with a strong disposition to stamp her

foot.

“But,” said Cranch, with business directness, “you've read enough to

know it isn't for you.”

“Nor for you either,” responded Juanita.

“True. It is for the Reverend Father Superior of San Jose Mission. I'll

give it to him.”

Juanita was becoming alarmed, first at this prospect, second at

the power the stranger seemed to be gaining over her. She recalled

Francisco's description of him with something like superstitious awe.

“But it concerns Francisco. It contains a secret he should know.”

“Then you can tell him it. Perhaps it would come easier from you.”

Juanita blushed again. “Why?” she asked, half dreading his reply.

“Because,” said the American, quietly, “you are old playmates; you are

attached to each other.”

Juanita bit her lips. “Why don't you read it yourself?” she asked

bluntly.

“Because I don't read other people's letters, and if it concerns me

you'll tell me.”

“What if I don't?”

“Then the Father Superior will.”

“I believe you know Francisco's secret already,” said the girl, boldly.

“Perhaps.”

“Then, Mother of God! Senor Crancho, what do you want?”

“I do not want to separate two such good friends as you and Francisco.”

“Perhaps you'd like to claim us both,” said the girl, with a sneer that

was not devoid of coquetry.

“I should be delighted.”

“Then here is your occasion, Senor, for here comes my adopted father,

Don Juan, and your friend, Senor Br--r--own, the American alcalde.”

Two men appeared in the garden path below them. The stiff, glazed,

broad-brimmed black hat, surmounting a dark face of Quixotic gravity

and romantic rectitude, indicated Don Juan Briones. His companion, lazy,

specious, and red-faced, was Senor Brown, the American alcalde.

“Well, I reckon we kin about call the thing fixed,” said Senor Brown,

with a large wave of the hand, suggesting a sweeping away of all trivial

details. “Ez I was saying to the Don yer, when two high-toned gents like

you and him come together in a delicate matter of this kind, it ain't no

hoss trade nor sharp practice. The Don is that lofty in principle that

he's willin' to sacrifice his affections for the good of the gal; and

you, on your hand, kalkilate to see all he's done for her, and go your

whole pile better. You'll make the legal formalities good. I reckon that

old Injin woman who can swear to the finding of the baby on the shore

will set things all right yet. For the matter o' that, if you want

anything in the way of a certificate, I'm on hand always.”

“Juanita and myself are at your disposition, caballeros,” said Don Juan,

with a grave exaltation. “Never let it be said that the Mexican nation

was outdone by the great Americanos in deeds of courtesy and affection.

Let it rather stand that Juanita was a sacred trust put into my hands

years ago by the goddess of American liberty, and nurtured in the

Mexican eagle's nest. Is it not so, my soul?” he added, more humanly, to

the girl, when he had quite recovered from the intoxication of his own

speech. “We love thee, little one, but we keep our honor.”

“There's nothing mean about the old man,” said Brown, admiringly, with a

slight dropping of his left eyelid; “his head is level, and he goes with

his party.”

“Thou takest my daughter, Senor Cranch,” continued the old man, carried

away by his emotion; “but the American nation gives me a son.”

“You know not what you say, father,” said the young girl, angrily,

exasperated by a slight twinkle in the American's eye.

“Not so,” said Cranch. “Perhaps one of the American nation may take him

at his word.”

“Then, caballeros, you will, for the moment at least, possess yourselves

of the house and its poor hospitality,” said Don Juan, with time-honored

courtesy, producing the rustic key of the gate of the patio. “It is

at your disposition, caballeros,” he repeated, leading the way as his

guests passed into the corridor.

Two hours passed. The hills were darkening on their eastern slopes; the

shadows of the few poplars that sparsedly dotted the dusty highway were

falling in long black lines that looked like ditches on the dead level

of the tawny fields; the shadows of slowly moving cattle were mingling

with their own silhouettes, and becoming more and more grotesque. A keen

wind rising in the hills was already creeping from the canada as from

the mouth of a funnel, and sweeping the plains. Antonio had forgathered

with the servants, had pinched the ears of the maids, had partaken of

aguardiente, had saddled the mules,--Antonio was becoming impatient.

And then a singular commotion disturbed the peaceful monotony of the

patriarchal household of Don Juan Briones. The stagnant courtyard was

suddenly alive with peons and servants, running hither and thither. The

alleys and gardens were filled with retainers. A confusion of questions,

orders, and outcrys rent the air, the plains shook with the galloping of

a dozen horsemen. For the acolyte Francisco, of the Mission San Carmel,

had disappeared and vanished, and from that day the hacienda of Don Juan

Briones knew him no more.

CHAPTER III

When Father Pedro saw the yellow mules vanish under the low branches

of the oaks beside the little graveyard, caught the last glitter of the

morning sun on Pinto's shining headstall, and heard the last tinkle of

Antonio's spurs, something very like a mundane sigh escaped him. To

the simple wonder of the majority of early worshipers--the half-breed

converts who rigorously attended the spiritual ministrations of the

Mission, and ate the temporal provisions of the reverend fathers--he

deputed the functions of the first mass to a coadjutor, and, breviary in

hand, sought the orchard of venerable pear trees. Whether there was

any occult sympathy in his reflections with the contemplation of their

gnarled, twisted, gouty, and knotty limbs, still bearing gracious and

goodly fruit, I know not, but it was his private retreat, and under one

of the most rheumatic and misshapen trunks there was a rude seat. Here

Father Pedro sank, his face towards the mountain wall between him and

the invisible sea. The relentless, dry, practical Californian sunlight

falling on his face grimly pointed out a night of vigil and suffering.

The snuffy yellow of his eyes was injected yet burning, his temples were

ridged and veined like a tobacco leaf; the odor of desiccation which

his garments always exhaled was hot and feverish, as if the fire had

suddenly awakened among the ashes.

Of what was Father Pedro thinking?

He was thinking of his youth, a youth spent under the shade of those

pear trees, even then venerable as now. He was thinking of his youthful

dreams of heathen conquest, emulating the sacrifices and labors of

Junipero Serra; a dream cut short by the orders of the archbishop, that

sent his companion, Brother Diego, north on a mission to strange lands,

and condemned him to the isolation of San Carmel. He was thinking of

that fierce struggle with envy of a fellow creature's better fortune

that, conquered by prayer and penance, left him patient, submissive, and

devoted to his humble work; how he raised up converts to the faith, even

taking them from the breast of heretic mothers.

He recalled how once, with the zeal of propagandism quickening in the

instincts of a childless man, he had dreamed of perpetuating his work

through some sinless creation of his own; of dedicating some virgin

soul, one over whom he could have complete control, restricted by no

human paternal weakness, to the task he had begun. But how? Of all the

boys eagerly offered to the Church by their parents there seemed none

sufficiently pure and free from parental taint. He remembered how one

night, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin herself, as he

firmly then believed, this dream was fulfilled. An Indian woman brought

him a Waugee child--a baby-girl that she had picked up on the sea-shore.

There were no parents to divide the responsibility, the child had no

past to confront, except the memory of the ignorant Indian woman, who

deemed her duty done, and whose interest ceased in giving it to the

Padre. The austere conditions of his monkish life compelled him to the

first step in his adoption of it--the concealment of its sex. This was

easy enough, as he constituted himself from that moment its sole nurse

and attendant, and boldly baptized it among the other children by the

name of Francisco. No others knew its origin, nor cared to know. Father

Pedro had taken a muchacho foundling for adoption; his jealous seclusion

of it and his personal care was doubtless some sacerdotal formula at

once high and necessary.

He remembered with darkening eyes and impeded breath how his close

companionship and daily care of this helpless child had revealed to him

the fascinations of that paternity denied to him; how he had deemed it

his duty to struggle against the thrill of baby fingers laid upon his

yellow cheeks, the pleading of inarticulate words, the eloquence of

wonder-seeing and mutely questioning eyes; how he had succumbed

again and again, and then struggled no more, seeing only in them the

suggestion of childhood made incarnate in the Holy Babe. And yet, even

as he thought, he drew from his gown a little shoe, and laid it beside

his breviary. It was Francisco's baby slipper, a duplicate to those worn

by the miniature waxen figure of the Holy Virgin herself in her niche in

the transept.

Had he felt during these years any qualms of conscience at this

concealment of the child's sex? None. For to him the babe was sexless,

as most befitted one who was to live and die at the foot of the altar.

There was no attempt to deceive God; what mattered else? Nor was he

withholding the child from the ministrations of the sacred sisters;

there was no convent near the Mission, and as each year passed, the

difficulty of restoring her to the position and duties of her sex became

greater and more dangerous. And then the acolyte's destiny was sealed

by what again appeared to Father Pedro as a direct interposition of

Providence. The child developed a voice of such exquisite sweetness and

purity that an angel seemed to have strayed into the little choir, and

kneeling worshipers below, transported, gazed upwards, half expectant of

a heavenly light breaking through the gloom of the raftered ceiling.

The fame of the little singer filled the valley of San Carmel; it was a

miracle vouchsafed the Mission; Don Jose Peralta remembered, ah yes, to

have heard in old Spain of boy choristers with such voices!

And was this sacred trust to be withdrawn from him? Was this life which

he had brought out of an unknown world of sin, unstained and pure,

consecrated and dedicated to God, just in the dawn of power and promise

for the glory of the Mother Church, to be taken from his side? And at

the word of a self-convicted man of sin--a man whose tardy repentance

was not yet absolved by the Holy Church. Never! never! Father Pedro

dwelt upon the stranger's rejection of the ministrations of the Church

with a pitiable satisfaction; had he accepted it, he would have had a

sacred claim upon Father Pedro's sympathy and confidence. Yet he rose

again, uneasily and with irregular steps returned to the corridor,

passing the door of the familiar little cell beside his own. The window,

the table, and even the scant toilette utensils were filled with the

flowers of yesterday, some of them withered and dry; the white gown of

the little chorister was hanging emptily against the wall. Father Pedro

started and trembled; it seemed as if the spiritual life of the child

had slipped away with its garments.

In that slight chill, which even in the hottest days in California

always invests any shadow cast in that white sunlight, Father Pedro

shivered in the corridor. Passing again into the garden, he followed

in fancy the wayfaring figure of Francisco, saw the child arrive at

the rancho of Don Juan, and with the fateful blindness of all dreamers

projected a picture most unlike the reality. He followed the pilgrims

even to San Jose, and saw the child deliver the missive which gave

the secret of her sex and condition to the Father Superior. That the

authority at San Jose might dissent with the Padre of San Carmel,

or decline to carry out his designs, did not occur to the one-idea'd

priest. Like all solitary people, isolated from passing events, he made

no allowances for occurrences outside of his routine. Yet at this moment

a sudden thought whitened his yellow cheek. What if the Father Superior

deemed it necessary to impart the secret to Francisco? Would the child

recoil at the deception, and, perhaps, cease to love him? It was the

first time, in his supreme selfishness, he had taken the acolyte's

feelings into account. He had thought of him only as one owing implicit

obedience to him as a temporal and spiritual guide.

“Reverend Father!”

He turned impatiently. It was his muleteer, Jose. Father Pedro's sunken

eye brightened.

“Ah, Jose! Quickly, then; hast thou found Sanchicha?”

“Truly, your reverence! And I have brought her with me, just as she is;

though if your reverence make more of her than to fill the six-foot hole

and say a prayer over her, I'll give the mule that brought her here for

food for the bull's horns. She neither hears nor speaks, but whether

from weakness or sheer wantonness, I know not.”

“Peace, then! and let thy tongue take example from hers. Bring her with

thee into the sacristy and attend without. Go!”

Father Pedro watched the disappearing figure of the muleteer and

hurriedly swept his thin, dry hand, veined and ribbed like a brown

November leaf, over his stony forehead, with a sound that seemed almost

a rustle. Then he suddenly stiffened his fingers over his breviary,

dropped his arms perpendicularly before him, and with a rigid step

returned to the corridor and passed into the sacristy.

For a moment in the half-darkness the room seemed to be empty. Tossed

carelessly in the corner appeared some blankets topped by a few

straggling black horse tails, like an unstranded riata. A trembling

agitated the mass as Father Pedro approached. He bent over the heap

and distinguished in its midst the glowing black eyes of Sanchicha,

the Indian centenarian of the Mission San Carmel. Only her eyes lived.

Helpless, boneless, and jelly-like, old age had overtaken her with a

mild form of deliquescence.

“Listen, Sanchicha,” said the father, gravely. “It is important that

thou shouldst refresh thy memory for a moment. Look back fourteen years,

mother; it is but yesterday to thee. Thou dost remember the baby--a

little muchacha thou broughtest me then--fourteen years ago?”

The old woman's eyes became intelligent, and turned with a quick look

towards the open door of the church, and thence towards the choir.

The Padre made a motion of irritation. “No, no! Thou dost not

understand; thou dost not attend me. Knowest thou of any mark of

clothing, trinket, or amulet found upon the babe?”

The light of the old woman's eyes went out. She might have been dead.

Father Pedro waited a moment, and then laid his hand impatiently on her

shoulder.

“Dost thou mean there are none?”

A ray of light struggled back into her eyes.

“None.”

“And thou hast kept back or put away no sign nor mark of her parentage?

Tell me, on this crucifix.”

The eyes caught the crucifix, and became as empty as the orbits of the

carven Christ upon it.

Father Pedro waited patiently. A moment passed; only the sound of the

muleteer's spurs was heard in the courtyard.

“It is well,” he said at last, with a sigh of relief. “Pepita shall

give thee some refreshment, and Jose will bring thee back again. I will

summon him.”

He passed out of the sacristy door, leaving it open. A ray of sunlight

darted eagerly in, and fell upon the grotesque heap in the corner.

Sanchicha's eyes lived again; more than that, a singular movement came

over her face. The hideous caverns of her toothless mouth opened--she

laughed. The step of Jose was heard in the corridor, and she became

again inert.

The third day, which should have brought the return of Antonio, was

nearly spent. Father Pedro was impatient but not alarmed. The good

fathers at San Jose might naturally detain Antonio for the answer, which

might require deliberation. If any mischance had occurred to Francisco,

Antonio would have returned or sent a special messenger. At sunset he

was in his accustomed seat in the orchard, his hands clasped over the

breviary in his listless lap, his eyes fixed upon the mountain between

him and that mysterious sea that had brought so much into his life. He

was filled with a strange desire to see it, a vague curiosity hitherto

unknown to his preoccupied life; he wished to gaze upon that strand,

perhaps the very spot where she had been found; he doubted not his

questioning eyes would discover some forgotten trace of her; under his

persistent will and aided by the Holy Virgin, the sea would give up its

secret. He looked at the fog creeping along the summit, and recalled the

latest gossip of San Carmel; how that since the advent of the Americanos

it was gradually encroaching on the Mission. The hated name vividly

recalled to him the features of the stranger as he had stood before him

three nights ago, in this very garden; so vividly that he sprang to

his feet with an exclamation. It was no fancy, but Senor Cranch himself

advancing from under the shadow of a pear tree.

“I reckoned I'd catch you here,” said Mr. Cranch, with the same dry,

practical business fashion, as if he was only resuming an interrupted

conversation, “and I reckon I ain't going to keep you a minit longer

than I did t'other day.” He mutely referred to his watch, which he

already held in his hand, and then put it back in his pocket. “Well! we

found her!”

“Francisco,” interrupted the priest with a single stride, laying his

hand upon Cranch's arm, and staring into his eyes.

Mr. Cranch quietly removed Father Pedro's hand. “I reckon that wasn't

the name as I caught it,” he returned dryly. “Hadn't you better sit

down?”

“Pardon me--pardon me, Senor,” said the priest, hastily sinking back

upon his bench, “I was thinking of other things. You--you--came upon me

suddenly. I thought it was the acolyte. Go on, Senor! I am interested.”

“I thought you'd be,” said Cranch, quietly. “That's why I came. And then

you might be of service too.”

“True, true,” said the priest, with rapid accents; “and this girl,

Senor, this girl is--”

“Juanita, the mestiza, adopted daughter of Don Juan Briones, over on

the Santa Clare Valley,” replied Cranch, jerking his thumb over his

shoulder, and then sitting down upon the bench beside Father Pedro.

The priest turned his feverish eyes piercingly upon his companion for a

few seconds, and then doggedly fixed them upon the ground. Cranch drew

a plug of tobacco from his pocket, cut off a portion, placed it in his

cheek, and then quietly began to strap the blade of his jack-knife upon

his boot. Father Pedro saw it from under his eyelids, and even in his

preoccupation despised him.

“Then you are certain she is the babe you seek?” said the father,

without looking up.

“I reckon as near as you can be certain of anything. Her age tallies;

she was the only foundling girl baby baptized by you, you know,”--he

partly turned round appealingly to the Padre,--“that year. Injin woman

says she picked up a baby. Looks like a pretty clear case, don't it?”

“And the clothes, friend Cranch?” said the priest, with his eyes still

on the ground, and a slight assumption of easy indifference.

“They will be forthcoming, like enough, when the time comes,” said

Cranch; “the main thing at first was to find the girl; that was MY job;

the lawyers, I reckon, can fit the proofs and say what's wanted, later

on.”

“But why lawyers,” continued Padre Pedro, with a slight sneer he could

not repress, “if the child is found and Senor Cranch is satisfied?”

“On account of the property. Business is business!”

“The property?”

Mr. Cranch pressed the back of his knife-blade on his boot, shut it up

with a click, and putting it in his pocket said calmly,--

“Well, I reckon the million of dollars that her father left when he

died, which naturally belongs to her, will require some proof that she

is his daughter.”

He had placed both his hands in his pockets, and turned his eyes full

upon Father Pedro. The priest arose hurriedly.

“But you said nothing of this before, Senor Cranch,” said he, with a

gesture of indignation, turning his back quite upon Cranch, and taking a

step towards the refectory.

“Why should I? I was looking after the girl, not the property,” returned

Cranch, following the Padre with watchful eyes, but still keeping his

careless, easy attitude.

“Ah, well! Will it be said so, think you? Eh! Bueno. What will the world

think of your sacred quest, eh?” continued the Padre Pedro, forgetting

himself in his excitement, but still averting his face from his

companion.

“The world will look after the proofs, and I reckon not bother if the

proofs are all right,” replied Cranch, carelessly; “and the girl won't

think the worse of me for helping her to a fortune. Hallo! you've

dropped something.” He leaped to his feet, picked up the breviary which

had fallen from the Padre's fingers, and returned it to him with a

slight touch of gentleness that was unsuspected in the man.

The priest's dry, tremulous hand grasped the volume without

acknowledgment.

“But these proofs?” he said hastily; “these proofs, Senor?”

“Oh, well, you'll testify to the baptism, you know.”

“But if I refuse; if I will have nothing to do with this thing! If I

will not give my word that there is not some mistake,” said the priest,

working himself into a feverish indignation. “That there are not slips

of memory, eh? Of so many children baptized, is it possible for me to

know which, eh? And if this Juanita is not your girl, eh?”

“Then you'll help me to find who is,” said Cranch, coolly.

Father Pedro turned furiously on his tormentor. Overcome by his vigil

and anxiety. He was oblivious of everything but the presence of the man

who seemed to usurp the functions of his own conscience. “Who are

you, who speak thus?” he said hoarsely, advancing upon Cranch with

outstretched and anathematizing fingers. “Who are you, Senor Heathen,

who dare to dictate to me, a Father of Holy Church? I tell you, I

will have none of this. Never! I will not. From this moment, you

understand--nothing. I will never . . .”

He stopped. The first stroke of the Angelus rang from the little tower.

The first stroke of that bell before whose magic exorcism all human

passions fled, the peaceful bell that had for fifty years lulled the

little fold of San Carmel to prayer and rest, came to his throbbing

ear. His trembling hands groped for the crucifix, carried it to his

left breast; his lips moved in prayer. His eyes were turned to the cold,

passionless sky, where a few faint, far-spaced stars had silently

stolen to their places. The Angelus still rang, his trembling ceased, he

remained motionless and rigid.

The American, who had uncovered in deference to the worshiper rather

than the rite, waited patiently. The eyes of Father Pedro returned

to the earth, moist as if with dew caught from above. He looked half

absently at Cranch.

“Forgive me, my son,” he said, in a changed voice. “I am only a worn

old man. I must talk with thee more of this--but not to-night--not

to-night;--to-morrow--to-morrow--to-morrow.”

He turned slowly and appeared to glide rather than move under the trees,

until the dark shadow of the Mission tower met and encompassed him.

Cranch followed him with anxious eyes. Then he removed the quid of

tobacco from his cheek.

“Just as I reckoned,” remarked he, quite audibly. “He's clean gold on

the bed rock after all!”

CHAPTER IV

That night Father Pedro dreamed a strange dream. How much of it was

reality, how long it lasted, or when he awoke from it, he could not

tell. The morbid excitement of the previous day culminated in a febrile

exaltation in which he lived and moved as in a separate existence.

This is what he remembered. He thought he had risen at night in a sudden

horror of remorse, and making his way to the darkened church had fallen

upon his knees before the high altar, when all at once the acolyte's

voice broke from the choir, but in accents so dissonant and unnatural

that it seemed a sacrilege, and he trembled. He thought he had confessed

the secret of the child's sex to Cranch, but whether the next morning

or a week later he did not know. He fancied, too, that Cranch had also

confessed some trifling deception to him, but what, or why, he could not

remember; so much greater seemed the enormity of his own transgression.

He thought Cranch had put in his hands the letter he had written to the

Father Superior, saying that his secret was still safe, and that he

had been spared the avowal and the scandal that might have ensued. But

through all, and above all, he was conscious of one fixed idea: to

seek the seashore with Sanchicha, and upon the spot where she had found

Francisco, meet the young girl who had taken his place, and so part from

her forever. He had a dim recollection that this was necessary to some

legal identification of her, as arranged by Cranch, but how or why he

did not understand; enough that it was a part of his penance.

It was early morning when the faithful Antonio, accompanied by Sanchicha

and Jose, rode forth with him from the Mission of San Carmel. Except

on the expressionless features of the old woman, there was anxiety

and gloom upon the faces of the little cavalcade. He did not know how

heavily his strange abstraction and hallucinations weighed upon their

honest hearts. As they wound up the ascent of the mountain he noticed

that Antonio and Jose conversed with bated breath and many pious

crossings of themselves, but with eyes always wistfully fixed upon him.

He wondered if, as part of his penance, he ought not to proclaim his sin

and abase himself before them; but he knew that his devoted followers

would insist upon sharing his punishment; and he remembered his promise

to Cranch, that for HER sake he would say nothing. Before they reached

the summit he turned once or twice to look back upon the Mission. How

small it looked, lying there in the peaceful valley, contrasted with the

broad sweep of the landscape beyond, stopped at the further east only

by the dim, ghost-like outlines of the Sierras. But the strong breath of

the sea was beginning to be felt; in a few moments more they were facing

it with lowered sombreros and flying serapes, and the vast, glittering,

illimitable Pacific opened out beneath them.

Dazed and blinded, as it seemed to him, by the shining, restless

expanse, Father Pedro rode forward as if still in a dream. Suddenly he

halted, and called Antonio to his side.

“Tell me, child, didst thou not say that this coast was wild and

desolate of man, beast, and habitation?”

“Truly I did, reverend father.”

“Then what is that?” pointing to the shore.

Almost at their feet nestled a cluster of houses, at the head of an

arroyo reaching up from the beach. They looked down upon the smoke of a

manufactory chimney, upon strange heaps of material and curious engines

scattered along the sands, with here and there moving specks of human

figures. In a little bay a schooner swung at her cables.

The vaquero crossed himself in stupefied alarm. “I know not, your

reverence; it is only two years ago, before the rodeo, that I was here

for strayed colts, and I swear by the blessed bones of San Antonio that

it was as I said.”

“Ah! it is like these Americanos,” responded the muleteer. “I have it

from my brother Diego that he went from San Jose to Pescadero two months

ago, across the plains, with never a hut nor fonda to halt at all the

way. He returned in seven days, and in the midst of the plain there were

three houses and a mill, and many people. And why was it? Ah! Mother of

God! one had picked up in the creek where he drank that much of gold;”

and the muleteer tapped one of the silver coins that fringed his jacket

sleeves in place of buttons.

“And they are washing the sands for gold there now,” said Antonio,

eagerly pointing to some men gathered round a machine like an enormous

cradle. “Let us hasten on.”

Father Pedro's momentary interest had passed. The words of his

companions fell dull and meaningless upon his dreaming ears. He was

conscious only that the child was more a stranger to him as an outcome

of this hard, bustling life, than when he believed her borne to him over

the mysterious sea. It perplexed his dazed, disturbed mind to think that

if such an antagonistic element could exist within a dozen miles of

the Mission, and he not know it, could not such an atmosphere have been

around him, even in his monastic isolation, and he remain blind to it?

Had he really lived in the world without knowing it? Had it been in his

blood? Had it impelled him to--He shuddered and rode on.

They were at the last slope of the zigzag descent to the shore, when he

saw the figures of a man and woman moving slowly through a field of wild

oats, not far from the trail. It seemed to his distorted fancy that the

man was Cranch. The woman! His heart stopped beating. Ah! could it be?

He had never seen her in her proper garb: would she look like that?

Would she be as tall? He thought he bade Jose and Antonio go on slowly

before with Sanchicha, and dismounted, walking slowly between the high

stalks of grain, lest he should disturb them. They evidently did not

hear his approach, but were talking earnestly. It seemed to Father Pedro

that they had taken each other's hands, and as he looked Cranch slipped

his arm round her waist. With only a blind instinct of some dreadful

sacrilege in this act, Father Pedro would have rushed forward, when

the girl's voice struck his ear. He stopped, breathless. It was not

Francisco, but Juanita, the little mestiza.

“But are you sure you are not pretending to love me now, as you

pretended to think I was the muchacha you had run away with and lost?

Are you sure it is not pity for the deceit you practiced upon me--upon

Don Juan--upon poor Father Pedro?”

It seemed as if Cranch had tried to answer with a kiss, for the girl

drew suddenly away from him with a coquettish fling of the black braids,

and whipped her little brown hands behind her.

“Well, look here,” said Cranch, with the same easy, good-natured,

practical directness which the priest remembered, and which would have

passed for philosophy in a more thoughtful man, “put it squarely, then.

In the first place, it was Don Juan and the alcalde who first suggested

you might be the child.”

“But you have said you knew it was Francisco all the time,” interrupted

Juanita.

“I did; but when I found the priest would not assist me at first, and

admit that the acolyte was a girl, I preferred to let him think I

was deceived in giving a fortune to another, and leave it to his own

conscience to permit it or frustrate it. I was right. I reckon it was

pretty hard on the old man, at his time of life, and wrapped up as he

was in the girl; but at the moment he came up to the scratch like a

man.”

“And to save him you have deceived me? Thank you, Senor,” said the girl

with a mock curtsey.

“I reckon I preferred to have you for a wife than a daughter,” said

Cranch, “if that's what you mean. When you know me better, Juanita,” he

continued, gravely, “you'll know that I would never have let you believe

I sought in you the one if I had not hoped to find in you the other.”

“Bueno! And when did you have that pretty hope?”

“When I first saw you.”

“And that was--two weeks ago.”

“A year ago, Juanita. When Francisco visited you at the rancho. I

followed and saw you.”

Juanita looked at him a moment, and then suddenly darted at him, caught

him by the lapels of his coat and shook him like a terrier.

“Are you sure that you did not love that Francisco? Speak!” (She shook

him again.) “Swear that you did not follow her!”

“But--I did,” said Cranch, laughing and shaking between the clenching of

the little hands.

“Judas Iscariot! Swear you do not love her all this while.”

“But, Juanita!”

“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 backwards and forwards. 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 Jose'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, Senor 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

Jose 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 Jose 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 that 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, mouldy 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,

on 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 inshore, 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 Jose 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

CHAPTER 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 may be 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 tete-a-tete 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 towards 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 Glass 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

held. 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

towards 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 moustache, 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, or 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 can not 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 to-morrow 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 can not 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 from dislocation; the happiness of her childless

union had depended upon no domestic centre, 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

moustache 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.