AN "ADIOS"--AND AFTER
Two days later in the blue clear air of the Arizona morning a sage hen
slipped with her young through the coarse grass by the irrigation
ditch, and a flock of quail raised and fluttered before the quick
rhythmic beat of a loping horse along the trail in the mesquite
thicket.
The slender gallant figure of his rider leaned forward looking,
listening at every turn, and at the forks of the trail where a clump
of squat mesquite and giant sahuarro made a screen, she checked the
horse, and held her breath.
"Good Pat, good horse!" she whispered. "They've got nothing that can
run away from us. We'll show them!"
Then a man's quavering old voice came to her through the winding trail
of the arroya. It was lifted tunefully insistent in an old-time song
of the mining camps:
_Oh, Mexico! we're coming, Mexico!
Our six mule team,
Will soon be seen,
On the trail to Mexico!_
"We made it, Pat!" confided the girl grimly. "We made it. Quiet
now--quiet!"
She peered out through the green mesquite as Captain Pike emerged from
the west arroya on a gray burro, herding two other pack animals ahead
of him into the south trail.
He rode jauntily, his old sombrero at a rakish angle, his eyes bright
with enthusiasm supplied by that which he designated as a morning
"bracer," and his long gray locks bobbed in the breeze as he swayed in
the saddle and droned his cheerful epic of the trail:
_A--and when we've been there long enough,
And back we wish to go,
We'll fill our pockets with the shining dust
And then leave Mexico!
Oh--Mexico!
Good-bye my Mexico!
Our six mule team will then be seen
On the trail from Mexico._
"Hi there! you Balaam--get into the road and keep a-going, you ornery
little rat-tailed son-of-a-gun! Pick up your feet and travel, or I'll
yank out your back bone and make a quirt out of it! For----"
_My name was Captain Kidd as I sailed
As I sailed,
My name was Captain Kidd,
As I sailed!
My name was Captain Kidd
And most wickedly I di-i-id
All holy laws forbid
As I sailed!_
The confessor of superlative wickedness droned his avowal in
diminishing volume as the burros pattered along the white dust of the
valley road, then the curve to the west hid them, and all was silence
but for the rustle of the wind in the mesquite and the far bay of
Singleton's hounds circling a coyote.
But Pat pricked up his ears, and lifted his head as if feeling rather
than hearing the growing thud of coming hoofs. The girl waited until
they were within fifty feet, when she pursed up her lips and whistled
the call of the meadow lark. It sounded like a fairy bugle call across
the morning, and the roan was halted quickly at the forks of the
road.
"Howdy, senorita?" he called softly. "I can't see you, but your song
beats the birds. Got a flag of truce? Willing to parley with the
enemy?"
Then she emerged, eyeing him sulkily.
"You were going without seeing me!" she stated with directness, and
without notice of the quizzical smile of comradeship.
"Certainly was," he agreed. "When I got through the scrap with your
disciple of _kultur_, my mug didn't strike me as the right decoration
for a maiden's bower. I rode out of the scrap with my scratches,
taking joy and comfort in the fact that he had to be carried."
"There was no reason for your being so--so brutal!" she decided
austerely.
"Lord love you, child, I didn't need a reason--I only wanted an
excuse. Give me credit! I got away for fear I'd go loco and smash
Singleton for interfering."
"Papa Phil only did his duty, standing for peace."
"Huh, let the Neutral League do it! The trouble with Singleton is he
hasn't brains enough to lubricate a balance wheel,--he can't savvy a
situation unless he has it printed in a large-type tract. Conrad was
scared for fear I'd stumbled on a crooked trail of his and would tell
the boss, so he beat me to it with the lurid report that I made an
assault on him! This looks like it--not!" and he showed the slashes in
his sombrero to make room for the blue banda around his head. "Suppose
you tell that Hun of yours to carry a gun like a real hombre instead
of the tools of a second-story man. The neighbors could hear a gun,
and run to my rescue."
The girl regarded his flippancy with disapproval.
"He isn't my Hun," she retorted. "I could worry along without him on
our map,--but after all, I don't know a single definite thing against
him. Anyway, it's decided I've got to go away somewhere to school and
be out of the ranch squabbles. Papa Phil thinks I get in bad company
out here."
"Meaning me?"
"Well, he _said_ Captain Pike was demoralizing to the youthful mind.
He didn't mention you. And Cap certainly did go the limit yesterday!"
"How so?"
"Well, he went to the Junction for his outfit stuff----"
"Yes, and never showed up at the adobe until the morning star was in
the sky!"
[Illustration: "You poor kid, you have a hard time with the disreputables
you pick up."]
"I know," she confessed. "I went with him. We stayed to see a Hart
picture at the theater, and had the time of our young lives. At supper
I announced that I was going to adopt Cap as a grandfather,--and then
of course he had to go and queer me by filling up on some rank whiskey
he had smuggled in with the other food! My stars!--he was put to bed
singing that he'd 'Hang his harp on a willow tree, and be off to the
wars again'--You needn't laugh!"
But he did laugh, his blue eyes twinkling at her recital.
"You poor kid! You have a hard time with the disreputables you pick
up. Sure they didn't warn you against speaking to this reprobate?"
"Sure nothing!" was the boyish reply. "I was to be docked a month's
spending money if I dared go near Pedro Vijil's adobe again while you
were there, which was very foolish of Papa Phil!" she added
judicially. "I reckon he forgot they tried that before."
"And what happened?"
"I went down and borrowed double the amount from old Estevan, the
trader at the Junction, and gave him an order against the ranch. Then
Cap and I sneaked out a couple of three-year-olds and raced them down
in the cottonwood flats against some colts brought down by an old
Sierra Blanca Apache. We backed our nags with every peso, and that old
brown murderer won! But Cap and I had a wonderful day while our coin
lasted, and--and you were going away without saying good-bye!"
Kit Rhodes, who had blankly stated that he owned his horse and saddle
and little beyond, looked at the spoiled plucky heiress of Granados
ranches, and the laughter went out of his eyes.
She was beyond reason loveable even in her boyish disdain of
restriction, and some day she would come back from the schools a very
finished product, and thank the powers that be for having sent her out
of knowledge of happy-go-lucky chums of the ranges.
Granados ranches had been originally an old Spanish grant reaching
from a branch of the intermittent Rio Altar north into what is now
Arizona, and originally was about double the size of Rhode Island. It
was roughly divided into the home or hacienda ranch in Arizona, and La
Partida, the cattle range portion, reaching far south into Sonora.
Even the remnant of the grant, if intelligently managed, would earn an
income satisfactory for a most extravagant princess royal such as its
present chatelaine seemed to Rhodes.
But he had noted dubiously that the management was neither intelligent
nor, he feared, square. The little rancherias scattered over it in the
fertile valleys, were worked on the scratch gravel, ineffective Mexic
method by the Juans and Pedros whose family could always count on
mesquite beans, and _camotes_ if the fields failed. There was seed to
buy each year instead of raising it. There was money invested in
farming machinery, and a bolt taken at will from a thresher to mend a
plow or a buggy as temporarily required. The flocks of sheep on the
Arizona hills were low grade. The cattle and horse outfits were south
in La Partida, and the leakage was beyond reason, even in a danger
zone of the border land.
All this Kit had milled around and around many times in the brief
while he had ranged La Partida. A new deal was needed and needed
badly, else Wilfreda Bernard would have debts instead of revenue if
Singleton let things drift much longer. Her impish jest that she was
a damsel in distress in need of a valiant knight was nearer to truth
than she suspected. He had an idiotic hungry desire to be that knight,
but his equipment of one horse, one saddle, and one sore head appeared
inadequate for the office.
Thus Kit Rhodes sat his horse and looked at her, and saw things other
than the red lips of the girl, and the chiding gray eyes, and the
frank regret at his going.
It was more profitable not to see that regret, or let it thrill a man
in that sweet warm way, especially not if the man chanced to be a
drifting ranger. She was only a gallant little girl with a genius for
friendships, and her loyalty to Pike extended to Pike's chum--that was
what Rhodes told himself!
"Yes," he agreed, "I was going without any tooting of horns. No use in
Cap Pike and me hanging around, and getting you in bad with your
outfit."
"As if I care!" she retorted.
"You might some day," he said quietly. "School may make a lot of
difference; that, and changed surroundings for a year or two. But some
day you will be your own manager, and if I'm still on the footstool
and can be of service--just whistle, senorita."
"Sure!" she agreed cheerfully. "I'll whistle the lark call, and you'll
know I need you, so that's settled, and we'll always be--be friends,
Trail-hunter."
"We'll always be friends, Lark-child."
"I wanted Cap Pike to let me in on this prospecting trip, wanted to
put in money," she said rather hesitant, "and he turned me down cold,
except for a measly ten dollars, 'smoke money' he called it. I reckon
he only took that to get rid of me, which I don't call friendly, do
you? And if things should go crooked with him, and he--well--sort of
needs help to get out, you'll let me know, won't you?"
"Yes, if it seems best," he agreed, "but you won't be here; you'll be
shipped to a school, _pronto_!"
"I won't be so far off the map that a letter can't reach me. Cap Pike
won't ever write, but I thought maybe you----"
"Sure," agreed Rhodes easily. "We'll send out a long yell for help
whenever we get stuck."
She eyed him darkly and without faith.
"Wish I knew how to make that certain," she confessed. "You're only
dodging me with any kind of a promise to keep me quiet, just as Cap
did. I know! I'm jealous, too, because you're taking a trail I've
always wanted to take with Cap, and they won't let me because I'm a
girl."
"Cheer up! When you are boss of the range you can outfit any little
_pasear_ you want to take, but you and I won't be in the same class
then, Lark-child."
"Are you really going it blind, trailing with Cap into the Painted
Hills after that fascinating gold legend?" she demanded. "Or have you
some inside trail blazed for yourself? Daddy Pike is the best ever,
but he always goes broke, and if he isn't broke, he has a jug at his
saddle horn, so----"
"Oh it's only a little jug this time, and he's had a fare-you-well
drink out of it with everyone in sight, so there's only one hilarious
evening left in the jug now. Just enough for a gladsome memory of
civilization."
"Are you in deep on this prospect plan?" she persisted.
"Well, not that you could notice. That is, I've got a three months'
job offered me down at Whitely's; that will serve the captain as
headquarters to range from until we add to our stake. Whitely is
rounding up stock for the Allies down Mesa Blanca way, and Pike will
feel at home there. Don't you worry, I'll keep an eye on Pike. He is
hilariously happy to get into that region with a partner."
"I don't like it," she grumbled at him with sulky gray eyes. "Pedro
Vijil just came back from the south, and brought his sister's family
from San Rafael. They're refugees from the Federals because their men
joined Ramon Rotil, the rebel leader, and Merced is crying herself
crazy over the tales of war they tell. One of their girls was stolen,
and the mother and Tia Luz are both crying over that. So Papa Phil
says he's going to send me away where I won't hear such horrors. I
wish I was a man, and I'd join the army and get a chance to go over
and fight."
"Huh!" grunted Rhodes skeptically, "some more of us had hopes! Our
army officers are both praying and cursing to get a chance to do the
same thing, but they are not getting it! So you and I, little girl,
will wait till some one pitches a bomb into that dovery on the
Potomac. Then we'll join the volunteers and swarm over after our
people."
"Oh, yes, _you_ can! Men can do anything they like. I told you I was
jealous."
"Never mind, Lark-child," he returned soothingly. "If I get over with
a gun, you can come along and toot a horn. There now, that's a
bargain, and you can practice tooting the lark's call until the time
comes."
"I reckon I'll have plenty of time to toot myself black in the face
before you show up again at Granados," she prophesied ruefully, and he
laughed.
"Whistle an' I'll come to you, Lassie," he said with sudden
recklessness, "and that's for _adios_, Billie."
He held out his hand.
"That's enough, Rhodes," said a voice back of them, and Singleton
walked forward. "When you got your time, you were supposed to leave
Granados. Is this what you've been hanging around for during the past
week?"
Rhodes flamed red to his hair as he stared down at the elder man.
"I reckon I'll not answer that now, Mr. Singleton," he said quietly.
"You may live to see you made a mistake. I hope you do, but you're
traveling with a rotten bunch, and they are likely to use a knife or a
rope on you any time you've played the goat long enough for them to
get their innings. I'm going without any grudge, but if I was an
insurance agent, trying to save money for my company, I'd sure pass
you by as an unsafe bet! Keep on this side of the line, Singleton,
while the revolution is whirling, and whatever you forget, don't
forget I said it! _Adios_, senorita, and--good luck!"
"Good luck, Kit," she half whispered, "and _adios_!"
She watched him as he rode away, watched him as he halted at the turn
of the trail and waved his hand, and Singleton was quietly observing
her the while. She frowned as she turned and caught him at it.
"You thought he waited here, or planned to--to meet me," she flared.
"He was too square to tell you the truth, but it was I rode out here
to say good-bye, rode out and held him up! But I did not reckon anyone
would try to insult him for it!"
Her stepfather regarded her grimly. She was angry, and very near to
tears.
"Time you had your breakfast," he observed, "and all signs indicate I
should have sent you East last year, and kept you out of the
promiscuous mixups along the border. It's the dumping ground for all
sorts of stray adventurers, and no place for a girl to ride alone."
"He seemed to think I am as able to look after myself as you," she
retorted. "You aren't fair to him because you take the word of Conrad,
but Conrad lies, and I'm glad he got thrashed good and plenty! Now
I've got that off my mind, I'll go eat a cheerful breakfast."
Singleton walked silent beside her back to where his horse was grazing
by the roadside.
"Huh!" grunted the girl with frank scorn. "So you got out of the
saddle to spy? Haven't you some black-and-tan around the ranch to do
your dirty work?"
"It's just as well to be civil till you know what you are talking
about," he reminded her with a sort of trained patience. "I came out
without my breakfast just to keep the ranchmen from thinking what Tia
Luz thinks. She told me I'd find that fellow waiting for you. I didn't
believe it, but I see she is not so far wrong."
He spoke without heat or feeling, and his tone was that of quiet
discussion with a man or boy, not at all that of a guardian to a girl.
His charge was evidently akin to the horse ranch of Granados as
described by the old ranger: Singleton had acquired them, but never
understood them.
"Look here," said his protegee with boyish roughness, "that Dutchman
sees everything crooked, especially if there's an American in range,
and he prejudices you. Why don't you wake up long enough to notice
that he's framing some excuse to run off every decent chap who comes
on the place? I knew Rhodes was too white to be let stay. I saw that
as soon as he landed, and I told him so! What I can't understand is
that you won't see it."
"A manager has to have a free hand, Billie, or else be let go,"
explained Singleton. "Conrad knows horses, he knows the market, and is
at home with the Mexicans. Also he costs less than we used to pay, and
that is an item in a bad year."
"I'll bet we lose enough cattle to his friends to make up the
difference," she persisted. "Rhodes was right when he called them a
rotten bunch."
"Let us hope that when you return from school you will have lost the
major portion of your unsavory vocabulary," he suggested. "That will
be worth a herd of cattle."
"It would be worth another herd to see you wake up and show you had
one good fight in you!" she retorted. "Conrad has all of the ranch
outfit locoed but me; that's why he passes on this school notion to
you. He wants me out of sight."
"I should have been more decided, and insisted that you go last year.
Heaven knows you need it badly enough," sighed Singleton, ignoring her
disparaging comment on his own shortcomings. And then as they rode
under the swaying fronds of the palm drive leading to the ranch house
he added, "Those words of your bronco busting friend concerning the
life insurance risk sounded like a threat. I wonder what he meant by
it?"
The telephone bell on the Granados Junction line was ringing when they
entered the patio. Singleton glanced at the clock.
"A night letter probably," he remarked. "Go get your coffee, child,
it's a late hour for breakfast."
Billie obeyed, sulkily seating herself opposite Tia Luz--who was bolt
upright behind the coffee urn, with a mien expressing dignified
disapproval. She inhaled a deep breath for forceful speech, but Billie
was ahead of her.
"So it was you! You were the spy, and sent him after me!"
"_Madre de Dios!_ and why not?" demanded the competent Luz. "You
stealing your own horse at the dawn to go with the old Captain Pike. I
ask of you what kind of a girl is that? Also Mercedes was here last
night tearing her hair because of the girls, her sister's daughters,
stolen away over there in Sonora. Well! is that not enough? That Senor
Kit is also too handsome. I was a fool to send the medicine with you
to Pedro's house. He looked a fine caballero but even a fine caballero
will take a girl when she follows after. _I_ know! And once in Sonora
all trails of a girl are lost. I know that too!"
"You are all crazy, and I never saw him at Pedro's house, never!" said
the girl reaching for her coffee, and then suddenly she began to
laugh. "Did you think, did you make Papa Philip think, that I was
eloping like this?" and she glanced down at her denim riding dress.
"And why not? Did I myself not steal out in a shift and petticoat the
first time I tried to run away with my Andreas? And beyond that not a
thing under God had I on but my coral beads, and the red satin
slippers of my sister Dorotea! She pulled my hair wickedly for those
slippers, and I got a _reata_ on my back from my grandmother for that
running away. I was thirteen years old then! But when I was nearly
sixteen we did get away, Andreas and I, and after that it was as well
for the grandmother to pay a priest for us, and let us alone. Ai-ji!
senorita, I am not forgetting what I know! And while I am here in
Granados there must be nothing less than a grand marriage, and may the
saints send the right man, for a wrong one makes hell in any house!"
Billie forgot her sulkiness in her joy at the elopements of Tia Luz.
No wonder she distrusted an American girl who was allowed to ride
alone!
But in the midst of her laughter she was reminded that Singleton was
still detained at the telephone in the adjoining room, and that his
rather high-pitched tones betrayed irritation.
"Well, why can't you give the telegram to me? Addressed to Conrad? Of
course if it's a personal message I don't want it, but you say it is a
ranch matter--and important. Horses? What about them?"
Billie, listening, sped from the table to his side, and putting her
hand over the telephone, whispered:
"If Brehman, the secretary, was here, they'd give it to him. They
always do."
Singleton nodded to her, and grew decided.
"See here, Webster, one of our men was hurt, and Brehman took his
place and went East with that horse shipment. Mr. Conrad had to go
down in Sonora on business, and I am the only one here to take his
place. Just give me the message as you would give it to the secretary.
But you'd better type a copy and send by mail that I can put it on
file. All right? Yes, go ahead."
Billie had quickly secured paper and pencil, but instead of taking
them, Singleton motioned for her to write the message.
Adolf Conrad, Granados Ranch, Granados Junction, Arizona. Regret
to report September shipment horses developed ailment aboard
vessel, fifty per cent dead, balance probably of no military use,
OGDEN, BURNS & CO.
Word by word Singleton took the message and word by word Billie wrote
it down, while they stared at each other.
"Developed ailment aboard vessel!" repeated Singleton. "Then there was
something wrong on shipboard, for there certainly is not here. We have
no sick horses on the ranch, never do have!"
"But these people?" and Billie pointed to the signature.
"Oh, they are the men who buy stock for the Allies, agents for the
French. They paid for the horses on delivery. They are safe,
substantial people. I can't understand----"
But Billie caught his arm with a gasp of horror and enlightenment.
"Papa Phil! Think--_think_ what Kit Rhodes said! _'Ground glass in the
feed at the other end of the road! Conrad's game--Herrara knows!'_
Papa Phil,--Miguel Herrara was killed--killed! And Conrad tried to
kill Kit! Oh he did, he did! None of the Mexicans thought he would get
well, but Tia Luz cured him. And Cap Pike never went out of sight of
that adobe until Conrad had left the ranch, and I know Kit was right.
I know it, I know it! Oh, my horses, my beautiful horses!"
"There, there! Why, child you're hysterical over this, which is--is
too preposterous for belief!"
"Nothing is too preposterous for belief. You know that. Everybody
knows it in these days! Is Belgium too preposterous? Is that record of
poison and powdered glass in hospital supplies too preposterous? In
_hospital_ supplies! If they do that to wounded men, why not to
cavalry horses? Why Papa Phil----"
"Hush--hush--hush!" he said pacing the floor, clasping his head in
both hands. "It is too terrible! What can we do? What? Who dare we
trust to even help investigate?"
"Well, you might wire those agents for particulars, this is rather
skimpy," suggested Billie. "Come and get some breakfast and think it
over."
"I might wire the office of the Peace Society in New York to----"
"Don't you do it!" protested Billie. "They may have furnished the
poison for all _you_ know! Cap Pike says they are a lot of traitors,
and Cap is wise in lots of things. You telegraph, and you tell them
that if the sickness is proven to have started in Granados, that we
will pay for every dead horse, tell them we have no sick horses here,
and ask them to answer, _pronto!_"
"That seems rather reckless, child, to pay for all----"
"I _am_ reckless! I am crazy mad over those horses, and over Conrad,
and over Kit whom he tried to kill!"
"Tut--tut! The language and behavior of Rhodes was too wicked for
anyone to believe him innocent. He was a beastly looking object, and I
still believe him entirely in the wrong. This loss of the horses is
deplorable, but you will find that no one at Granados is to blame."
"Maybe so, but you just send that telegram and see what we see!"