EACH TO HIS OWN
A straggling train of pack mules followed by a six-mule wagon, trailed
past Yaqui Springs ten days later, and was met there by the faithful
Chappo and two villainous looking comrades, who had cleaned out the
water holes and stood guard over them until arrival of the ammunition
train.
"For beyond is a dry hell for us, and on the other side the Deliverer
is circled by enemy fighters who would trap him in his own land. He
lies hid like a fox in the hills waiting for this you bring. Water
must not fail, and mules must not fail; for that am I here to give the
word for haste."
"But even forty mule loads will not serve him long," said Kit
doubtfully.
"Like a fox in the hills I tell you, Senor Capitan,--and only one way
into the den! Beyond the enemy he has other supplies safe--this is to
fight his way to it. After that he will go like a blaze through dry
meadows of zacatan."
Kit would have made camp there for the night, but Chappo protested.
"No, senor! Every drop in the sand here is for the mules of the army.
It is not my word, it is the word of my general. Four hours north you
will find Little Coyote well. One day more and at the crossing of Rio
Seco, water will be waiting from the cold wells of La Partida. It is
so arrange, senor, and the safe trail is made for you and for
excellencia, the senora. In God's name, take all your own, and go in
peace!"
"But the senora is weary to death, and----"
"That is true, Capitan," spoke Dona Jocasta, who drooped in the saddle
like a wilted flower. "But the senora will not die, and if she does it
is not so much loss as the smallest of the soldiers of El Gavilan. We
will go on, and go quickly, see!--there is yet water in the cantin,
and four hours of trail is soon over."
Ugly Chappo came shyly forward and, uncovered, touched the hem of her
skirt to his lips.
"The high heart of the excellencia gives life to the men who fight,"
he said and thrust his hand in a pocket fastened to his belt. "This is
to you from the Deliverer, senora. His message is that it brought to
him the lucky trail, and he would wish the same to the Dona Jocasta
Perez."
It was the little cross, once sent back to her by a peon in bitterness
of soul, and now sent by a general of Mexico with the blessing of a
soldier.
"Tell him Jocasta takes it as a gift of God, and his name is in her
prayers," she said and turned away.
Clodomiro pushed forward,--a very different Clodomiro, for the
fluttering bands of color were gone from his arms and his hair--the
heart of the would-be bridegroom was no longer his. He was stripped as
for the trail or for war, and fastened to his saddle was the gun and
ammunition he had won from Cavayso who had gone quickly onward with
his detachment of the pack.
But Clodomiro halted beside Chappo, regardless of need for haste on
the trail, and asked him things in that subdued Indian tone without
light, shade, or accent, in which the brown brothers of the desert
veil their intimate discourse.
"There, beyond!" said Chappo, "two looks on the trail," and he pointed
west. "Two looks and one water hole, and if wind moves the sand no one
can find the way where we go. It is not a trail for boys."
"I am not now a boy," said Clodomiro, "and when the safety trail of
the senora is over----"
But Chappo waved him onward, for the wagon and the pack mules, and
even little gray Bunting had turned reluctant feet north.
Clodomiro had come from Soledad because Elena,--who never had been
out of sight of the old adobe walls,--sat on the ground wailing at
thought of leaving her old sick father and going to war, for despite
all the persuasions of Dona Jocasta, Elena knew what she knew, and did
not at all believe that any of them would see the lands of the
Americano,--not with pack mules of Ramon Rotil laden with guns!
"If Tula had lived, no other would have been asked," Rhodes had
stated. "But one is needed to make camp for the senora on the
trail,--and to me the work of the packs and the animals."
"That I can do," Clodomiro offered. "My thought was to go where Tula
said lovers of hers must go, and that was to El Gavilan. But this
different thing can also be my work to the safe wells of the American.
That far I go."
Thus the three turned north from the war trail, and Clodomiro
followed, after making a prayer that the desert wind would hear, and
be very still, and fill no track made by the mules with the
ammunition.
This slight discussion at the parting of the ways concerning two
definite things,--need of haste, and conserving of water,--left no
moment for thought or query of the packs of furnishings deemed of use
to Senora Perez in her removal to the north.
Dona Jocasta herself had asked no question and taken no interest in
them. Stripped of all sign of wealth and in chains, she had ridden
into Soledad, and in comfort and much courtesy she was being conducted
elsewhere. How long it might endure she did not know, and no power of
hers could change the fact that she had been made wife of Jose
Perez;--and at any turn of any road luck might again be with his
wishes, and her estate fall to any level he choose to enforce.
At dusk they reached the Little Coyote well, and had joy to find water
for night and morning, and greasewood and dead mesquite wood for a
fire. The night had turned chill and Clodomiro spread the _serape_ of
Dona Jocasta over a heap of flowering greasewood branches. It was very
quiet compared with the other camps on the trail, and had a restful
air of comfort, and of that Jocasta spoke.
"Always the fear is here, senor," she said touching her breast. "All
the men and guns of Ramon Rotil did not make that fear go quiet.
Every canon we crossed I was holding my breath for fear of hidden men
of Jose Perez! You did not see him in the land where he is strong; but
men of power are bound to him there in the south, and--against one
woman----"
"Senora, I do not think you have read the papers given to you by Padre
Andreas to put with the others given by General Rotil," was Kit's
quiet comment. He glanced toward the well where the boy was dipping
water into a wicker bottle. "Have you?"
"No, senor, it is my permit to be passed safely by all the men of
Ramon Rotil," she said. "That I have not had need of. Also there is
the record that the American murder at Granados was the crime of
Conrad."
"But, senora, there is one other paper among them.--I would have told
you yesterday if I had known your fear. I meant to wait until the
trail was ended, but----"
"Senor!" she breathed leaning toward him, her great eyes glowing with
dreadful question, "_Senor!_"
"I know the paper, for I signed it," said Kit staring in the leaping
blaze. "So did the padre. It is the certificate of the burial of Jose
Perez."
"Senor! _Madre de Dios!_" she whispered.
"Death reached him on his own land, senora. We passed the grave the
first day of the trail."
Her face went very white as she made the sign of the cross.
"Then he--Ramon----?"
"No,--the general did not see Perez on the trail. He tried to escape
from Cavayso and the man sent a bullet to stop him. It was the end."
She shuddered and covered her eyes.
Kit got up and walked away. He looked back from where he tethered the
mules for the night, but she had not moved. The little crucifix was in
her hand, he thought she was praying. There were no more words to be
said, and he did not go near her again that night. He sent Clodomiro
with her _serape_ and pillow, and when the fire died down to glowing
ash, she arose and went to the couch prepared. She went without glance
to right or left--the great fear had taken itself away!
Clodomiro rolled himself in a _serape_ not far from her place of rest,
but Kit Rhodes slept with the packs and with two guns beside him. From
the start on the trail no man had touched his outfit but himself. He
grinned sometimes at thought of the favorable report the men of Rotil
would deliver to their chief,--for the Americano had taken all
personal care of the packs and chests of Dona Jocasta! He was as an
owl and had no human need of sleep, and let no man help him.
The trail to the canon of the Rio Seco was a hard trail, and a long
day, and night caught them ere they reached the rim of the dry wash
where, at long intervals, rain from the hills swept down its age-old
channel for a brief hour.
Dona Jocasta, for the first time, had left the saddle and crept to the
rude couch afforded by the piled-up blankets in the wagon; Clodomiro
drove; and Kit, with the mules, led the way.
A little water still swished about in their water bottles, but not
enough for the mules. He was more anxious than he dared betray, for it
was twenty miles to the lower well of La Partida, and if by any
stroke of fortune Cap Pike had failed to make good--Cap was old, and
liable to----
Then through the dusk of night he heard, quite near in the trail
ahead, a curious thing, the call of a bird--and not a night bird!
It was a tremulous little call, and sent a thrill of such wild joy
through his heart that he drew back the mule with a sharp cruel jerk,
and held his breath to listen. Was he going _loco_ from lack of
sleep,--lack of water,--and dreams of----
It came again, and he answered it as he plunged forward down a
barranca and up the other side where a girl sat on a roan horse under
the stars:--his horse! also his girl!
If he had entertained any doubts concerning the last--but he knew now
he never had; a rather surprising fact considering that no word had
ever been spoken of such ownership!--they would have been dispelled by
the way she slipped from the saddle into his arms.
"Oh, and you didn't forget! you didn't forget!" she whimpered with her
head hidden against his breast. "I--I'm mighty glad of that. Neither
did I!"
"Why, Lark-child, you've been right alongside wherever I heard that
call ever since I rode away," he said patting her head and holding her
close. He had a horrible suspicion that she was crying,--girls were
mysterious! "Now, now, now," he went on with a comforting pat to each
word, "don't worry about anything. I'm back safe, though in big need
of a drink,--and luck will come your way, and----"
She tilted her cantin to him, and began to laugh.
"But it has come my way!" she exulted. "O Kit, I can't keep it a
minute, Kit--we did find that sheepskin!"
"What? A sheepskin?" He had no recollection of a lost sheepskin.
"Yes, Cap Pike and I! In the bottom of an old chest of daddy's! We're
all but crazy because it came just when we were planning to give up
the ranch if we had to, and now that you are here--!" her sentence
ended in a happy sigh of utter content.
"Sure, now that I'm here," he assented amicably, "we'll stop all that
moving business--_pronto_. That is if we live to get to water. What do
you know about any?"
"Two barrels waiting for you, and Cap rustling firewood, but I heard
the wagon, and----"
"Sure," he assented again. "Into the saddle with you and we'll get
there. The folks are all right, but the cayuses----"
A light began to blaze on the level above, and the mules, smelling
water, broke into a momentary trot and were herded ahead of the two
who followed more slowly, and very close together.
Cap Pike left the fire to stand guard over the water barrels and shoo
the mules away.
"Look who's here?" he called waving his hat in salute. "The patriots
of Sonora have nothing on you when it comes to making collections on
their native heath! I left you a poor devil with a runt of a burro, a
cripple, and an Indian kid, and you've bloomed out into a bloated
aristocrat with a batch of high-class army mules. And say, you're just
in time, and you don't know it! We're in at last, by Je-rusalem, we're
_in_!"
Kit grinned at him appreciatively, but was too busy getting water to
ask questions. The wagon was rattling through the dry river bed and
would arrive in a few minutes, and the first mules had to be got out
of the way.
"You don't get it," said Billie alongside of him. "He means war. We're
in!"
"With Mexico? _Again?_" smiled Kit skeptically.
"No--something real--helping France!"
"No!" he protested with radiant eyes. "Me for it! Say, children, this
is some homecoming!"
The three shook hands, all talking at once, and Kit and Billie forgot
to let go.
"Of course you know Cap swore an alibi for you against that suspicion
Conrad tried to head your way," she stated a bit anxiously. "You
stayed away so long!"
"Yes, yes, Lark-child," he said reassuringly, "I know all that, and a
lot more. I've brought letters of introduction for the government to
some of Conrad's useful pacifist friends along the border. Don't you
fret, Billie boy; the spoke we put in their wheel will overturn their
applecart! The only thing worrying me just now,--beautifullest!--is
whether you'll wait for me till I enlist, get to France, do my stunt
to help clean out the brown rats of the world, and come back home to
marry you."
"Yip-pee!" shrilled Pike who was slicing bacon into a skillet. "I'm
getting a line now on how you made your other collections!"
Billie laughed and looked up at him a bit shyly.
"I waited for you before without asking, and I reckon I can do it
again! I'm--I'm wonderfully happy--for I didn't want you to worry over
coming home broke--and----"
"Whisper, Lark-child. _I'm not!_"
"What?"
"Whisper, I said," and he put one hand over her mouth and led her over
to the little gray burro. "Now, not even to Pike until we get home,
Billie,--but I've come out alive with the goods, while every other
soul who knew went 'over the range'! Buntin' carries your share. I
knew you were sure to find the sheepskin map sooner or later," he lied
glibly, "but luck didn't favor me hanging around for it. I had to get
it while the getting was good, but we three are partners for keeps,
Buntin' is yours, and I'll divide with Pike out of the rest."
Billie touched the pack, tried to lift it, and stared.
"You're crazy, Kit Rhodes!"
"Too bad you've picked a crazy man to marry!" he laughed, and took off
the pack. "Seventy-five pounds in that. I've over three hundred.
Lark-child, if you remember the worth of gold per ounce, I reckon
you'll see that there won't need to be any delay in clearing off the
ranch debts,--not such as you would notice! and maybe I might qualify
as a ranch hand when I come back,--even if I couldn't hold the job the
first time."
"O Kit! O Cap! O me!" she whispered chantingly. "Don't you dare wake
me up, for I'm having the dream of my life!"
But he caught her, drew her close and kissed her hair rumpled in the
desert wind.
And as the wagon drew into the circle of light, that was the picture
Dona Jocasta saw from the shadows of the covered wagon:--young love,
radiant and unashamed!
She stared at them a moment strangely in a sudden mist of tears, as
Clodomiro jumped down and arranged for her to alight. Cap Pike looking
up, all but dropped the coffeepot.
"Some little collector--that boy!" he muttered, and then aloud, "You
_Kit_!"
Kit turned and came forward leading Billie, who suddenly developed
panic at vision of the most beautiful, tragic face she had ever seen.
"Some collector!" murmured Cap Pike forgetting culinary operations to
stare. "Shades of Sheba's queen!"
But Kit, whose days and nights of Mesa Blanca and Soledad had rather
unfitted him for hasty adjustments to conventions, or standardized
suspicion regarding the predatory male, held the little hand of Billie
very tightly, and did not notice her gasp of amazement. He went
forward to assist Dona Jocasta, whose hesitating half glance about her
only enhanced the wonder of jewel-green eyes whose beauty had been
theme of many a Mexic ballad.
For these were the first Americanos she had ever met, and it was said
in the south that Americanos might be wild barbaros,--though the senor
of the songs----
The senor of the songs reached his hand and made his best bow as he
noted her sudden shrinking.
"Here, Dona Jocasta, are friends of good heart. We are now on the edge
of the lands of La Partida, and this little lady is its padrona
waiting to give you welcome at the border. Folks, this is Senora Perez
who has escaped from hell by help of the guns of El Gavilan."
"Dona Jocasta!" repeated Cap Pike standing in amazed incredulity with
the forgotten skillet at an awkward angle dripping grease into the
camp fire, but his amazement regarding personality did not at all
change his mental attitude as to the probable social situation. "Some
collector, Brother, but hell in Sonora isn't the only hell you can
blaze the trail to with the wrong combination!"
Kit turned a silencing frown on the philosopher of the skillet, but
Billie went toward the guest with outstretching hands.
"Dona Jocasta, oh!" she breathed as if one of her fairy tales of
beauty had come true, and then in Spanish she added the sweet gracious
old Castillian welcome, "Be at home with us on your own estate, Senora
Perez."
Jocasta laid her hands on the shoulder of the girl, and looked in the
clear gray eyes.
"You are Spanish, Senorita?"
"My grandmother was."
"Thanks to the Mother of God that you are not a strange Americana!"
sighed Jocasta in sudden relief. Then she turned to her American
courier and guard and salvation over the desert trails.
"I saw," she said briefly. "She is as the young sister of me who--who
is gone to God! Make yourself her guard forever, Don Pajarito. May you
sing many songs together, and have no sorrows."
After the substantial supper, Kit heard at first hand all the veiled
suspicion against himself as voiced in the fragment of old newspaper
wrapped around Fidelio's tobacco, and he and Dona Jocasta spread out
the records written by the padre, and signed by Jocasta and the
others, as witness of how Philip Singleton met death in the arroya of
the cottonwoods.
"It is all here in this paper," said Jocasta, "and that is best. I can
tell the alcalde, yes, but if an--an accident had come to me on the
trail, the words on the paper would be the safer thing."
"But fear on the trail is gone for you now," said Kit smiling at her
across the camp fire. Neither of them had said any word of life at
Mesa Blanca or Soledad, or of the work of Tula at the death.
The German had strangled a priest, and escaped, and in ignorance of
trails had ridden into a quicksand, and that was all the outer world
need know of his end!
The fascinated eyes of Billie dwelt on Jocasta with endless wonder.
"And you came north with the guns and soldiers of Ramon Rotil,--how
wonderful!" she breathed. "And if the newspapers tell the truth I
reckon he needs the guns all right! Cap dear, where is that one Jose
Ortego rode in with from the railroad as we were leaving La Partida?"
"In my coat, Honey. You go get it--you are younger than this
old-timer."
Jocasta followed Billie with her eyes, though she had not understood
the English words between them. It was not until the paper was
unfolded with an old and very bad photograph of Ramon Rotil staring
from the front page that she whispered a prayer and reached out her
hand. The headline to the article was only three words in heavy type
across the page: "Trapped at last!"
But the words escaped her, and that picture of him in the old days
with the sombrero of a peon on his head and his audacious eyes smiling
at the world held her. No picture of him had ever before come her way;
strange that it should be waiting for her there at the border!
The Indian boy at sight of it, stepped nearer, and stood a few paces
from her, looking down.
"It calls," he said.
It was the first time he had spoken except to make reply since
entering the American camp. Dona Jocasta frowned at him and he moved a
little apart, leaning,--a slender dark, semi-nude figure, against the
green and yellow mist of a palo verde tree,--listening with downcast
eyes.
Dona Jocasta looked from the pictured face to the big black letters
above.
"Is it a victorious battle, for him?" she asked and Kit hesitated to
make reply, but Billie, not knowing reason for silence, blurted out
the truth even while her eyes were occupied by another column.
"Not exactly, senora. But here is something of real interest to you,
something of Soledad--oh, I _am_ sorry!"
"What does it say,--Soledad?"
"See!--I forgot you don't know the English!"
* * * * *
Troops from the south to rescue Don Jose Perez from El Gavilan at
Soledad turn guns on that survival of old mission days, and level it
to the ground. Soledad was suspected as an ammunition magazine for the
bandit chief, and it is feared Senor Perez is held in the mountains
for ransom, as no trace of him has been found.
* * * * *
"Now you've done it," remarked Kit, and Billie turned beseeching eyes
on the owner of Soledad, and repeated miserably--"I _am_ so sorry!"
But Dona Jocasta only lifted her head with a certain disdain, and
veiled the emerald eyes slightly.
"So!" she murmured with a shrug of the shoulder. "It is then a bandit
he is called in the words of the American newspaper?"
Cap Pike not comprehending the rapid musical Spanish, leaned forward
fishing for a coal to light his pipe, noting her voice and watching
her eyes.
"There you have it already!" he muttered to Kit. "All velvet, and mad
as hell!"
Billie, much bewildered, turned to Kit as for help, but the slender
hand of Dona Jocasta reached out pointing to the headlines.
"And--this?" she said coldly. "It is, you say, not victorious for
Ramon Rotil, that--bandit?"
"It says, senora," hesitated Billie, "that he is hid in the hills,
and----"
"That we know," stated Dona Jocasta, "what other thing?"
"'He has a wound and was carried by his men to one of his retreats, a
hidden place,'" read Billie slowly, translating into Spanish as she
went on. "That is all except that the Federals had to retreat
temporarily because a storm caused trouble and washed out a bridge
over which their ammunition train has to go. The place of the accident
is very bad. Timber and construction engineers are being rushed to
service there, but for a few days luck is with the Hawk."
"So!--For a few days!" repeated Dona Jocasta in the cool sweet voice.
"In a few days Ramon Rotil could cross Mexico. He is El Gavilan!"
Things were coming too fast for Billie. She regarded the serenity of
Dona Jocasta with amazement, and tried to imagine how she would feel
if enemy guns battered down the old walls of Granados, or--thought of
terror--if Kit should be held in the hills and tortured for ransom!
"Speaking of floods," remarked Pike in amiable desire to bridge over
an awkward pause, "we've used half the water we brought, and need to
make a bright and early start tomorrow. Rio Seco is no garden spot to
get caught in short of water. Our La Partida mules are fresh as
daisies right off a month of range, but yours sure look as if they had
made the trip."
"What does he say,--the old senor?" asked Dona Jocasta.
Billie translated for her, whereupon she arose and summoned Clodomiro
by a gesture.
"My bed," she said briefly, "over there," and she indicated a thicket
of greasewood the wagon had passed on their arrival. "Also this first
night of safety you will be the sentinel to keep guard that Senor
Rhodes may at last have sleep. All the danger trail he had none."
Cap Pike protested that he do guard duty, but the smile of Dona
Jocasta won her way.
"He is younger and not weary, senor. It is good for him, and it
pleases me," she said.
"The camp is yours," he agreed weakly, and against his better
judgment. He did not like Indians who were like "sulky slim brown dumb
snakes"; that was what he muttered when he looked at Clodomiro. In his
irritation at the Indian's silence it didn't even occur to him that he
never had known any snakes but dumb ones.
But if the voice of Clodomiro was uncannily silent, his eyes spoke for
him as they followed Dona Jocasta. Kit could only think of a lost,
homesick dog begging for the scent of the trail to his own kennel. He
said so to Billie as he made her bed in the camp wagon.
"Cap and I will be right here at the hind wheels," he promised.
"Yes,--sure, I'll let the Indian ride herd for the night. Dona Jocasta
is right, it's his turn, and we seem to have passed the danger line."
"Knock wood!" cautioned Billie.
So he rapped his head with his knuckles, and they laughed together as
young happy things do at trifles. Then he stretched himself for sleep
under the stars and almost within arm's reach of the girl--the girl
who had ridden to meet him in the night, the wonderful girl who had
promised to wait until he came back from France ... of course he could
get into the army _now_! They would need men too badly to turn him
down again. If there was a trifle of discrepancy in sight of his
eyes--which he didn't at all believe--he had the dust now, also the
nuggets, to buy any and all treatment to adjust _that_ little matter.
He had nearly four hundred pounds, aside from giving all he dared give
at once as Tula's gift to those women of the slave raid. After the
war was over he would find ways of again crossing over to the great
treasure chest in the hidden canon. The little information Pike had
managed to convey to him about that sheepskin map told him that the
most important indications had been destroyed during those years it
had been buried for safe-keeping. The only true map in existence was
the one in his own memory,--no use to tell Pike and Billie that! He
could leave them in comfort and content, and when he got back from
France--He wondered how long it would last--the war. Hadn't the
greatest of Americans tried three years ago to hammer the fact into
the alleged brain pans of the practical politicians that the sooner
the little old United States made guns, and ships, and flying machines
for _herself_, the sooner she could help end that upheaval of hell in
Europe?... and they wouldn't listen! Listen?--They brought every ounce
of influence they could round up to silence those facts,--the
eternally condemned ostriches sticking their own heads in the sand to
blind the world to the situation! Now they were in, and he wondered if
they had even ten rounds of ammunition for the cartridge belts of the
few trained soldiers in service? They had not had even three rounds
for the showy grand review attempted in Texas not long since; also the
transportation had been a joke, some of the National Guards started,
but never did arrive--and France was a longer trail than Texas. God!
they should be ready to fight as the French were ready, in twelve
hours--and it would have to be months--a long unequal hell for a time
over there, but only one finish, and the brown rats driven back to
their den! After that the most wonderful girl would--would--would----
Then all the sleep due him on the sleepless trail settled over him
like a net weighted, yet very caressing, and the world war and the
wonderful girl drifted far away!
Beyond, on the other side of the fire, and out of the circle of light,
Clodomiro bore the _serape_ of Dona Jocasta, and made clear the place
for her couch. She had returned to the light of the fire and was
scanning again the annoying paper of the Americanos. Especially that
remembered face of the audacious eyes. They were different eyes in
these latter days, level and cynical, and sometimes cruel.
"He calls," said Clodomiro again beside her. She had not heard him,
and turned in anger that he dare startle her.
"Who does he call?" she asked irritably tossing aside the paper.
"All Mexico, I think. All Mexico's heart," and he touched his breast.
"Me, I do not sleep. I do your work and when the end of the trail is
yours, I ask, Excellencia, that you send me back that I find him
again,--the Deliverer!"
"What did Ramon Rotil ever do for you that you fret like a chained
coyote because his enemies are strong?"
"Not anything, Excellencia. Me, he would not know if I told him my
name, but--he is the Deliverer who will help the clans. Also, _she_
would go,--Tula. _Sangre de Christo!_ there would be no chain strong
enough to hold her back if his wounds cried for help."
"If--his wounds cried for help!" repeated Dona Jocasta mechanically.
"It is true, Excellencia, El Gavilan was giving help to many people in
the lands he crossed. Now the many will forget, and like a hawk with
the weight of an arrow in his breast he will fly alone to a high nest
of the hills. Death will nest with him there some night or some day,
Excellencia. And the many will forget."
"Quiet you!" ordered Dona Jocasta angrily.
Abashed, Clodomiro went silent, and with a murmured apology took
himself into the shadows.
She lifted the pictured face barely discernible now in the diminished
light.
"And--the many will forget!" she repeated irritably. "The boy has the
truth of it, but if _she_ had lived, so terribly wicked,--so lost of
God, I wonder if----"
She lifted her face looking up at the still stars as if for light on a
thought, then flung her hands out despairingly and turned away to the
couch by the green bush of fragrant yellow bloom.
But not to sleep. Long after the Americanos were wrapped in slumber a
little blaze sent glimmer of light through the undergrowth, and she
saw Clodomiro stretched beside the fire. He had tossed a bit of
greasewood on the coals that he might again study the face of El
Gavilan.
She had heard him say that if no desert wind lifted the sand he could
follow to that hidden nest of the Hawk. It was very dark now except
for glimmer of stars through lacy, slow-drifting clouds,--there was no
wind. Later there would be a waning moon! Much of every waking life
is a dream, and her dreams were of the No Man's Land of the
desert,--the waterless trail from which she had been rescued for
peace!
Twice during the night Kit roused from the depths sufficiently to
realize that sleep is one of the greatest gifts to man. Once Clodomiro
was stretched by the little fire inspecting the paper he could not
read, the second time he thought Baby Bunting was nosing around trying
to get close to human things. Both times he reached out his hands to
the precious packs beside which he slept on the trail. All were safe,
and he drifted again into a great ocean of slumber.
He was wakened at dawn by the voice of Cap Pike, keyed high for an
ultra display of profanity.
"By the jumping Je-hosophat, I knew it!" he shrilled. "That's your
latest collection, begod! I hoped he wouldn't, and knew he would! The
all-firedest finest pair of mules on Granados, and every water bag in
the outfit! Can you beat it?"
At the first shout Kit jumped to his feet, his eyes running rapidly
over his pack saddle outfit. All was safe there, and as Billie lifted
her head and looked at him drowsily over the edge of the wagon bed he
realized that in the vital things of life all was well with his
world.
"Let Sheba run your camp, and run it to hell, will you?" went on Cap
Pike accusingly. He was thrashing around among the growth back of
the Soledad outfit wagon where the mules had been tethered.
"Two--four--six, and Baby Buntin'--yes sir! Lit out by the dark of
the moon, and left neither hide nor hair,--"
"Oh, be reasonable, Cap!" protested Kit. "Buntin' isn't gone--she's
right alongside here, waiting for breakfast."
"You're shoutin' she's here; so is every dragged-to-death skate you
hit camp with! It's Billie's crackerjack mules, the pick of the ranch,
that the bare-legged greasy heathen hit the trail with! And every
water bag!"
"Well," decided Kit, verifying the water statement by a glance at the
barrels, "no one is to blame. The boy didn't want to come this trail.
He stuck until we were over the rough of it, and then he cut loose. A
pair of mules isn't so bad."
"Now, of course not!" agreed Cap sarcastically. "A mere A-number-one
pair of mules belonging to another fellow is only a flea bite to offer
a visitor for supper! Well, all _I_ got to say----"
"Don't say it, Cap dear," suggested Billie. "The Indian was here
because of Dona Jocasta, and _she_ can't help it! As she doesn't
understand English, she'll probably think you're murdering some of us
over here. Whist now, and put your muzzle on! We'll get home without
the two mules. I'll go and tell her that the hysterics is your way of
offering morning prayers!"
She slipped away, laughing at his protests, but when a little past the
fire place she halted, standing very still, peering beyond at
something on the ground under the greasewood where the _serape_ of
Dona Jocasta had been spread. No _serape_ or sleeper was there!
Kit noted her startled pause, and in a few strides was beside her;
then, without a word, the two went forward together and he picked up
the package of papers laid carefully under the greasewood. He knew
without opening them what they were,--the records made for her safety,
and for his, in Soledad, place of tragedies.
"They are the papers I was to put on record for her in case--Well,
I'll do it, and you'll take care of the copies for her, Billie,
and--and do your best for the girl if a chance ever comes. We owe her
a lot more than she will ever guess,--our gold come out of Mexico
under the guard arranged for her, and when I come back----"
"But Kit," protested Billie, "to think of her alone with that thieving
Indian! He took flour and bacon too! And if she hopes to find her
husband----"
"She doesn't," concluded Kit thoughtfully turning over the certificate
signed by the padre and him, of the husband's safe burial in the sands
of Soledad. He glanced at Billie in doubt. One never knew how safe it
was to tell things,--some things,--to a woman; also Billie was so
enchanted by Jocasta's sad beauty, and----
"No, I reckon she doesn't hope much along that line. She has probably
gone back to the wilderness for another reason,--one I never suspected
until last night. And Lark-child, we won't talk about that, not at
least till I return from the 'back of beyond' over there," and he
pointed eastward where shafts of copper light touched the gray veil of
the morning.
After his first explosion of amazement Cap Pike regarded the
elopement, as he called it, very philosophically, considering his
disgust over lost mules and flour and bacon.
"What did I tell you right here last night?" he demanded of Kit. "Soft
as velvet and hard as hell,--that's what I said! She looks to me like
a cross between a saint in a picture frame and a love bird in a tree,
and her eyes! Yet after all no man can reckon on that blood,--she is
only a girl of the hills down there, and the next we hear of her
she'll likely be leaden' a little revolution of her own."
The young chap made no reply, but busied himself hastening a scant
breakfast in order that the worn mules be got to water before the
worst heat of a dry day. Also the losses to the culinary outfit did
make problems for the trip.
Cap eyed him askance for a space, and then with a chuckle wilfully
misconstrued his silence and lowered his tone.
"I don't blame you for feeling downhearted on your luck, Bub, for she
sure was a looker! But it's all in a lifetime, and as you ramble along
in years, you'll find that most any hombre can steal them, and take
them home, but when it comes to getting a permanent clinch on the
female affections----"
Billie, who was giving a short ration of water to the burro, called
across to ask what Kit was laughing at in that hilarious way. She also
stated that she did not think it a morning for hilarity, not at all!
That wonderful, beautiful, mystery woman might be going to her death!
After the packs were all on, Cap Pike swung the mules of the first
wagon into the home trail and passed over the mesa singing rakishly.
_Oh-h! Biddy McGee has been after me,
Since I've been in the army!_
And Billie turned in the saddle to take a last look over the trail
where the woman of the emerald eyes had passed in the night.
"All my life I have looked, and looked into the beautiful mirages of
the south desert wondering what would come out of it--and _she_ was
the answer," she said, smiling at Kit. "Tomorrow I'll feel as if it
was all a dream, all but the wonderful red gold, and you! Some fine
day we'll take a little _pasear_ down there, I'll follow that dream
trail, and----"
"You will not!" decided the chosen of her heart with rude certainty.
"The dreams of that land of mirages are likely to breed nightmares.
You are on the right side of the border for women to stay. Our old
American eagle is a pretty safe bird to roost with."
"Well," debated the only girl, "if it comes to that, Mexico also has
the eagle, and had it first!"
"Yes, contrary child," he conceded, herding the mules into line, "so
it has,--but the eagle of Mexico is still philandering with a helmeted
serpent. Wise gamblers reserve their bets on that game, we can only
hope that the eagle fights its way free!"