CHAPTER XXXIII

A SPONSOR FOR THE FAT PADRE

"Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse."

--_Cervantes._

When Driscoll had gone, Jacqueline would not linger. Maximilian sought

to detain her, but something had happened that he could not fathom. She

was no more the same person.

"Not even a token to bid me be brave so far away in Austria?" he

pleaded.

"There have been tokens enough," she returned shortly. "I ask Your

Majesty's leave. Good-night."

She gained her room, and worked till late on a cipher dispatch to

Napoleon. Its purport was, that now, if ever, Maximilian must be

discouraged absolutely. Following on what she herself had done, such

would bring his abdication. She implored, above all things, that Bazaine

be kept from meddling, from extending false hopes. Poor girl, after what

it had cost, she was passionately bent on success. A courier took her

packet to the City the next day, whence the message was to be sped to

Paris.

"That foolish Prince Max," she thought, "if he does give it up and go, I

am really saving him from terrible sorrow. But, who will save me from

mine, I wonder? Mine, that is come already! God in Heaven cannot."

Maximilian had watched her as she left him, till her stately girlish

figure was lost in the dusk under the trees. Then with a sigh he turned

away. At the villa he found his wife. She was seated apart from her

maids, and Eloin was talking to her, in tones low and swift. Charlotte

only half listened. Her agitation was nearly hysterical. Her eyes

gleamed wildly, and sometimes they would close, as though they ached for

the soothing that tears might bring.

"Who," demanded Maximilian, "has had the presumption to introduce a spy

on these grounds?"

Eloin glanced quickly at the Empress. "A spy, sire?" he said uneasily.

"I mean that American, sir. But shall I ask the sentinels at the gate?"

"That, Ferdinand," Charlotte interposed icily, "is not necessary.

Monsieur Eloin, at my command, brought the American here. You should

know why."

"To save my play-empire, I suppose?"

"An empire," she cried, catching up the word the more hotly because she

knew it to be Jacqueline's own gage of battle, "an empire, August Sire,

to be gained by fighting, as your forefathers, as mine, won theirs. And

that is nobler, _I_ suppose, than puny inheritance. I do not know

what the Hapsburg may be fallen to, but a daughter of Orleans still has

the right to expect a crown from her husband. If not, she is unworthily

mated."

Maximilian thought of that other empire, which that other temptress

exacted of him. It seemed that he had many realms to conquer. But the

grimmest humor of all was that he blithely imagined himself capable of

satisfying the whims, not of one woman, but of two. Deluded Prince Max!

But the Emperor was not there to discuss empire building, much less to

face the tigerish light in his lady's eyes.

"Monsieur Eloin," he said, "this is my first personal complaint against

you, but there have been others, long, insistent ones, from French and

Mexicans alike. You lose me my friends, sir, however I assure them that

you have not the slightest influence over my policy. So, after the

awkward intrusion of to-day, I am resolved that you had best leave us."

"Your Majesty desires----"

"That you leave the country at once, Monsieur Eloin."

"But," protested Charlotte, "that is open disgrace. At least cover it

with the pretext of some mission."

The downcast courtier took heart. Watching his master with narrowed

sycophant eyes, he said, "But it need not be a pretext, sire. Since I

must leave Your Highness, permit me, then, to find my mission, and one

in which I can still serve my sovereign, though in spite of himself."

Imperceptibly Maximilian fell under the spell of the old fawning.

"And what mission could that be, my good friend?"

"To feel the Austrian pulse, sire. To know when the time is ripe, to

hasten the time----"

"The time for what?"

"For Your Majesty's return. Even now the unpopularity of His Imperial

Highness, Franz----"

"Eloin!" Maximilian stopped him sharply. But he could not hide the flash

of his own blue eyes.

"What would Your Majesty? In Vienna, in Budapest, in your own Venetia,

sire, they long for you; at least as regent till the crown prince shall

come of age. Would you rebuke them also, as you do me?"

Charlotte stared at the Belgian in amazement and distrust. He had only

just warned her how Jacqueline had kindled Maximilian's Austrian hopes

in order to get him out of Mexico, and here he was borrowing that

woman's guile. And here was Maximilian, too, softening under the

enervating blandishment, softening behind his frowns for the officious

meddler.

"There, there, Eloin," he said, "you know that I must be inexorable. But

in the Journal Officiel it will appear that you are gone on a secret

mission, though you have no mission at all. None at all, do you

understand, sir?"

Eloin protested that he understood.

"None," repeated the Emperor, "except to win back my confidence. When

you have taken leave of Her Majesty, you may come to my cabinet to bid

me farewell."

As Maximilian left them, Charlotte turned on the favorite. "Indeed,

Monsieur Eloin?" she said in utter scorn.

"But, Your Majesty----"

"Is Napoleon, then, so liberal a paymaster?"

"Your Majesty!" and in genuine distress the courtier hurried on. "If you

would listen, Madame! 'Tis true that Jeanne d'Aumerle has found the

surest lever to pry His Highness out of Mexico----"

"So good a lever, that you would use it too, to topple over my throne."

"Not so, Madame. It's a cunning lever, yes; but _I_ shall use

another fulcrum."

"Really, monsieur, if I were in the mood for riddles and such pretty

trifles, I'd ask you to favor Us with a chansonnette."

"But this is as plain as day. First, our little intrigante knows that if

His Majesty tries for the Austrian throne, he must leave Mexico.

_That_ is her lever to move him. But suppose we shift it to my

fulcrum. Then, whatever encourages his hopes for Austria, will make him

but the more determined to cling to Mexico. For to succeed in Austria,

he must triumph first in Mexico. He must prove to Europe that he can

reign brilliantly. But if he abandons Mexico, as Jacqueline would

persuade him, what of his prestige then? What of his glory to dazzle the

Austrians? If Your Majesty would suggest to him this phase----"

"And you, meanwhile in Europe?"

"Oh, I shall find his chances good over there, but conditional on his

success here."

"Monsieur Eloin, I find that I must congratulate you. More, I even

regret that you are going, for I dread that some other will replace you

in favor with the Emperor who----"

"Who may not be in accord with our views, Your Majesty would say? But if

you will permit, Madame, I believe I know quite a different man.

Moreover, he has already made an impression on His Highness, during our

brief stay at an hacienda in the Huasteca. Now he is here. I brought him

to commend as a future loyal follower."

"Pray, who is the paragon?"

"A priest, Madame, a German priest, who perhaps would not refuse the

Bishopric of Durango. The hope of that rich see would insure his

devotion. His name is Fischer. He is a clerical, he is an imperialist,

he is resourceful. Our Jacqueline will have much to do to outwit him.

This corpulent padre, Madame, would wheedle the sulky pope himself into

a good humor with us. If I might venture so far as to present him

before----"

"Oh, I suppose so," said Charlotte wearily.

PART SECOND

THE ROSE THAT WAS A THORN IN THE LAND OF ROSES

"The rugged battle of fate, where strength is born."

--Emerson.

CHAPTER I

MEAGRE SHANKS

"... and should a man full of talk be justified?"--_Book of Job_.

At the hotel in the City of Mexico where Driscoll stopped, the entrance

was big enough for a stage coach to drive through. But as to height, it

did not seem any too great for the attenuation of Mr. Daniel Boone, who

therein had propped himself at his ease, delightfully suggesting a

tropical gentleman lounging on a veranda under the live oaks. One

shoulder was impinged on the casing of the archway, from which contact

his spare frame drifted out and downward, to the supporting base of one

boot sole. The other boot crossed it over, and the edge of the toe

rested on the pavement of the Calle de los Plateros, familiarly

so-called.

Mr. Boone hailed from Boonville, but in Missouri, with Kentucky for

ancestral State, such was not a strained coincidence by any means. An

individual there of the name of Boone, and a bit of geography likewise

distinguished, are bound to fall together occasionally. For instance, a

flea's hop over the map, and Mr. Boone and Boonville both might have

claimed the county of Boone. Under the circumstances, Daniel's Christian

name was the most obviously Christian thing his parents could do, and

followed (to precede thereafter) as a matter of course.

Now, Missouri, in the beginning of the Civil War, was a very Flanders

for battles, and this sort of thing had ended by disturbing Mr. Boone

considerably in the manipulation of an old hand-press, dubbed his

Gutenberg, which worked with a lever and required some dozen processes

for each impression of the _Boonville Semi-Weekly Javelin_.

Finally, when Joe Shelby and his pack of fire-eaters were raiding

Missouri for the second time, Daniel plaintively laid down his stick in

the middle of an editorial on Black Republicans, and what should be done

to them. The shooting outside had gotten on his nerves at last. That

blazing away of Missourians back home made him homesick. He was like the

repressed boy called out by the gang to go coasting. And he went. An

editorial by example, he went to do unto the Black Republicans somewhat

personally. The Javelinier was a young man yet.

"There's been rumors hitherto about the pen and the sword," he mused,

"but type, now--that's _hot_!" Wherewith he emptied his cases into

a sack, took down a squirrel rifle, chased off his devil, locked in the

Gutenberg, and joined the raiders. Flinging his burden of metal at

General Shelby's feet, he said, "There sir, is _The Javelin_ in

embryo for months to come. Now it's pi, which we'll sho'ly feed out by

the bullet weight, sir."

From then on the newspaper man followed his proclivities and turned

scout, and it was a vigilant foe that could scoop him on the least of

their movements, whether in the field or in their very stronghold, St.

Louis itself.

At the present moment Mr. Boone was retrieving a lost familiarity with

good cigars. There was a black one of the Valle Nacional in his mouth,

and also in his mouth there was a wisp of straw. The steel-blue smoke

floated out lazily, which his steel-blue eyes regarded with

appreciation. It was an Elysium of indolence. The cigar, the not having

to kill anybody for a few minutes, and a place to lean against, these

were content. Troubadour phrases droned soothingly in his brain. Of

course he had to apostrophize the snow-clads:

"Popo, out there, grand, towering, whose frosty nose sniffs the vault of

heaven, whose mantle of fleecy cloud wraps him as the hoary locks of a

giant, whose--Sho', if I had some copy paper now, I'd get you fixed

_right_, you slippery old codger!"

The wisp of straw hardly tallied with poesy of soul, nor did the lank

figure and lean face, nor the cavalry uniform, badly worn, though lately

new, nor yet the sagging belt with dragoon pistols. But the eyes did.

Those eyes held the eloquence of the youth of a race. They were gentle,

or they flashed, according to what passed within. It did not matter

necessarily what might be going on without. They would as likely dart

sparks during prayer meeting, or soften as a lover's mid the charge on a

battery. Shaggy moustached Daniel, not yet thirty, was a scholar too, of

the true old school, where dead languages lived to consort familiarly

with men, and neither had to be buried out of the world because of the

comradeship. Once, in Pompeii, Daniel blundered suddenly on that mosaic

doormat which bears the warning, "Cave canem"; and before he thought, he

glanced anxiously around, half expecting a dog that could have barked at

Saint Peter himself. From which it appears that the editor had traveled,

and it would not be long in also appearing that he had gathered enough

of polite and variegated learning to fill a warehouse, in which

junk-shop he was constantly rummaging, and bringing forth queer

specimens of speech wherewith to flower his inspirations.

Streaming back and forth before the shops in lively Plateros street were

elegance and fashion and display, the languishing beauty of Spain, the

brilliancy of the Second Empire, the Teuton's martial strutting, the

Mexican's elation that Europe had come to him and with the money to pay

for it. The toughened Boone gazed on the bright morning parade of

ravishing shoppers and ogling cavaliers with the unterrified innocence

of a child, or of an American. He had the air of doing nothing, such as

only a newspaper man can have when really at work. He did not look as

though he were waiting for some one. But only a half-hour before he had

gotten from the saddle. He had just ridden four hundred and fifty miles

for the express purpose of waiting for someone now.

Finally the keen, lazy eyes singled out an immense yellow horse and

rider from among the luxurious turnouts. "Jack!" he exclaimed gladly.

"The Storm Centre," he improvised, as the new comer approached,

"straight as Tecumseh, a great bronzed Ajax, mighty thewed, as strong of

hand as of digestion--w'y, bless my soul, the boy looks pow'ful

dejected, knocked plum' galley-west! I never saw him look like that

before."

Man and horse had come all night from Cuernavaca. But Din Driscoll never

tired, wherefore Boone knew that _something_ was the matter. At the

doorway Driscoll flung himself from the saddle, gave the bridle to a

porter of the hotel, and was following, his face the picture of gloom,

when he heard the words, "How' yuh, Jack?" His brow cleared in the

instant. "Shanks!" he cried, gripping the other's hand.

Mr. Boone untwined his boots and for the first time during a half-hour

stood in them. As he shook Driscoll's hand, he shook his own head, and

at last observed, in the way of continuing a conversation, "It was the

almightiest soaking rain, Din, for the land's sake!" And he shook his

head again, quite mournfully.

Driscoll had not seen Mr. Boone since leaving Shelby's camp back in

Arkansas. He naturally wished to know what was being talked about. But

his woeful friend only kept on, "It wet all Texas, heavier'n a sponge,

and," he added, "they ain't coming."

"Shanks! You don't mean----"

"Don't I? But I do. They're a surrendered army. The whole

Trans-Mississippi Department of 'em, pretty near. But not quite, bear

that in----"

"But the rain? What in----"

"What did you come down here for, I'd like to know? To say how the

Trans-Mississippi wouldn't surrender, didn't you? Well?"

"Oh, go on!"

"Well, it rained, I tell you. Didn't it rain before Waterloo? Didn't it

now?"

Mr. Boone believed in trouble as an antidote for trouble. When he had

stirred Driscoll out of his dejection enough to make him want to fight,

he deigned to clear the atmosphere of that befogging downpour in Texas.

"You rec'lect, Din, that there war god we put up in Kirby Smith's place,

who so dashingly would lead us on to Mexico?"

"Buckner, yes."

"Him, Simon Bolivar B., whose gold lace glittered as though washed by

the dew and wiped with the sunshine----"

"Now, Shanks, drop it!" Driscoll was referring to the editorial pen

which Mr. Boone would clutch and get firmly in hand with the least rise

of emotion. Against his other conversation, the clutching always became

at once apparent.

"Anyhow," said Daniel meekly, "he wilted, did our Simon of B. B.

calibre, and he gave back the command to Smith. And Smith's first order,

his very first order, sir, was that the Department, the whole fifty

thousand, should march into Shrevepoht and--and _surrender_, by

thunder!"

"Dan, you're not going to tell me----"

"That _we_ surrendered, we, the Missourians, the flower of 'em all?

Now s'pose you just wait till Joe Shelby gets back to us in Arkansas,

after that conference with the other generals? Then you'll see what

_he_ does. He proclaims things, on wall paper. The Missouri Cavalry

Division will march to Shrevepoht, will depose Smith for good, will head

off the surrender, will lead the other divisions on to Mexico. And we

started to do it too. And then, and then--it rained. Rained, sir, till

our trains and guns were mired, and we couldn't budge! And all the time

we knew that regiment after regiment was stacking arms off there at

Shrevepoht. Did Little Joe rave? Opened Job his mouth? He did. His

fluency gave the rain pointers. I sho'ly absorbed some myself, me, that

have language tanks of my own. Well, I reckon all our hearts pretty near

broke. But we had our Missouri general and our Missouri governor, and

the Old Brigade just decided to come along anyhow. And we're a coming,

Din, we're a coming!"

Driscoll's face went blank. He thought of the scant welcome his homeless

comrades would get. But Mr. Boone did not notice. He had only stretched

his canvas, a big one, and there was a picture to paint. His long body

began to straighten out, and his eyes glowed. From Xenophon to Irving's

Astoria, from Hannibal crossing the Alps to Marching Through Georgia, he

ransacked both romance and the classics for adequate tints, but in vain.

The colors would have to be of his own mixing.

"Din Driscoll," he began solemnly, "_you_ know that devil breed? Of

coh'se, you're one of 'em. You're a chunk of brimstone, yourself. And

you'll maybe rec'lect they did some fighting off and on. There was that

raw company, f'r instance--boys, hardly a one broke in his yoke of oxen

yet--and they hadn't even gotten their firearms, but they took a battery

with their naked hands, and got themselves all tangled up in the fiery

woof of death. But you'll not be rec'lecting that that there Brigade

ever _lost_ a gun. And those raids, Din, back into Missouri, a

handful back into the Federal country, when men dozed and dropped from

their saddles and still did not wake up, and some went clean daft for

want of sleep, and fighting steady all around the clock too, fair and

square over into Kansas! And there was the night they buried eight

hundred!"

In all this Daniel might have said "We," but reportorial modesty

forbade.

"And," he went on, gaining momentum, "I don't reckon you'll be

forgetting Arkansas, and the ague and rattlesnakes? And how the

small-pox swooped down on that camp of cane shacks? And how the quinine

gave out, and--and the _tobacco_? Lawd!--And how those boys forgot

how to sew patches, their rags being so far gone! And how they made

bridles out of bark, and coffee out of corn! And how they kneaded dough

in old rubber blankets and cooked it on rocks! Well, Jack, there they

were, in Arkansas like that, and the War was over at last, and Missouri

was just a waiting for 'em. And then, to think that they had to face

square around another way entirely! Din, you'll just try to imagine that

there devil breed facing any other way except to'ds home!"

"Don't, Shanks, you----"

"Devils? They were the wildest things that are. It's a mighty good thing

they didn't go back. Think of their neighbors across the Kansas line,

getting ready for 'em with every sort of legal persecution under the

sun, and carpet-bag judges to help! Outlaw decrees? Well, I reckon those

decrees will make a few outlaws, all right, and there'll be

unsurrendered Johnny Rebs ten years from now. Shelby's boys had the look

of it. Your own Jackson county regiment would have flared into

desperadoes at sight of a United States marshal. They were all in just

that sort o' mood, as they turned their backs on Missouri. And after

four years, too! But there, it's a stiff wind that has no turning, so

cheer up! _They_ did, as soon as that deluge got done with and they

were headed for Mexico, one thousand of 'em. Soldiers mus'n't repine,

you know. For them, Fate arrays herself in April's capricious sunshine."

Driscoll had to smile. "Careful, there, Dan, don't stampede."

"I ain't, but if now 'I hold my tongue I shall give up the ghost,' and I

want to tell you first that Texas is a handsome state. We--they--were

considerable interested all the way through it."

"But, Meagre Shanks, where'd you leave 'em?"

"Back in Monterey, drinking champagne with Fat Jenny. Alas, 'who can

stay the bottles of heaven?'"

"Fat--who's she?"

"Now you wait. They've got heaps to do in Texas yet, before they get to

Fat Jenny. First, they helped themselves out of their own commissary

departments, horses, provisions trains, cannon, everything. Decently

uniformed for the first time, and the War over! You should of seen 'em,

a forest of Sharpe's carbines, a regular circulating library of Beecher

Bibles. There were four Colts and a dragoon sabre and thousands of

rounds of ammunition to each man. They had fighting tools to spare, and

they cached a lot of the stuff up in the state of Coahuila. And they

fed, and got sleek. This ain't editorial, my boy. It's God's own truth.

Adventures every step of the way only did 'em good. They saved whole

towns from renegade looters by just mentioning Shelby's name. They

fought all day and danced all night. San Antone was the best. There they

gathered in generals, governors, senators, and even Kirby Smith, all

yearning to join Old Joe--our Old Joe, who ain't thirty-four yet."

The speaker paused, and when he began again, there was a light ominous

of inspiration in his eyes.

"At the Rio Grande," he said, solemnly, "they crossed out of the

Confederacy forever, so it was meet and right that there, in midstream,

they should consign their old battle-flag to the past. They had not

surrendered it, but as a standard it existed for those gallant hearts no

more. Woman's loyal hand had bestowed it. Coy victory had caressed its

folds mid the powder pall and horror of ten score desperate fields. And

now it floated over the last of its followers, ere the waves should

close over it forevermore. With bowed heads, they gathered sadly

about----"

"Lay it down, Shanks, lay it down," Driscoll pleaded. He was referring

again to the pen in hand.

"All right, Din," Boone answered hastily. "Yes, I know, we all got kind

of weepy too. No wonder Colonel Slayback wrote some verses. Reckon you

can stand just one? This one?

'And that group of Missouri's valiant throng,

Who had fought for the weak against the strong--

Who had charged and bled

Where Shelby led,

Were the last who held above the wave

The glorious flag of the vanquished brave,

No more to rise from its watery grave!'

"And," he added savagely, "just let any parlor critic smile at the

sacred feet of those same lines!"

"Let him once!" said Driscoll. His eyes were moist.

Mr. Boone faithfully traversed the rest of the way with the "Iron

Brigade," and no company of errant knights, perhaps, ever had such a

junketing as those same lusty troopers. No sooner did they set foot in

the enchanted land of roses than a damsel in distress, the Republica

Mexicana herself, came to them for succor. Or more literally, a

dissident governor, backed by the authority of President Juarez, offered

Shelby military control of the three northern states and grants in the

fabulously rich Sonora mines, if he would hang high his shield and

recruit his countrymen in the republican cause. There is little doubt

that General Shelby could have raised an army and become henceforth a

power in Mexico, for Washington would have smiled on the undertaking and

all Texas would have afforded a base of supplies. But the Missourian's

Round Table voted it down. They awaited Maximilian's reply which

Driscoll was to bring. Perhaps, too, they would have a chance to wage

war against the United States again, and that was better than being

smiled on.

Henceforth they fought the forlorn damsel herself, fought every foot of

the way through desert mesquite thick enough to daunt a tarantula. There

were guerrillas, robbers, spies, deserters, and Indian tribes. It was

one eternal ambush, incessantly a skirmish, often a pitched battle. They

saved a French garrison. They rescued a real maiden by a night attack on

an hacienda stronghold, and did it with strictly de rigueur dash and

chivalry. Once or twice they were even stung, by some "langourous

dusky-eyed scorpion of a saynorita" to fight among themselves,

cavalryman's code. Daniel was never one to spoil a romance by mentioning

that a tropical maid was faced like a waffle-iron, though more than

likely she was. Finally, as a last stroke, Fat Jenny promised to shoot

Shelby and hang the rest.

"You've been derogatory about this lady before," Driscoll interposed,

"and I want to know who she is."

"She is the English for Jeanningros, the French general at Monterey,

who'd heard about those negotiations with the Republica. But Shelby

formed in battle line, to storm his old city, and at the same time sent

word explaining that he hadn't accepted any offer from the Republica.

So, instead of shooting and hanging, Jenny asked us around for supper.

That's where I left 'em."

"What for?"

"W'y," said Boone in surprise, "to see if you'd gotten here, and to take

back Maximilian's answer."

"But what's the use? The Trans-Mississippi went and surrendered."

"Gra-cious, but you're in a vicious humor! Now, here's the use. Instead

of fifty thousand, we're only one thousand, I know. But there are

hundreds and hundreds of Americans down here like us, and all of 'em

wanting service. There's that colony just starting at Cordova near Vera

Cruz. But they'd fight, if there was an American to lead them, and more

yet 'ud come from the States. Quicker'n that, Old Joe will have a

division."

Driscoll ruefully shook his head. "Maximilian wants us," he said, "if

we'll give up our arms first."

"If we----"

"If we will surrender, Dan."

Mr. Boone's jaw fell. The phrase that would measure the depth of the

proposed ignominy would not come. Finally, he dug from his pocket a

bright new gold coin, twenty pesos, and contemplated reflectively the

side that bore Maximilian's effigy.

"I've got the cub repohter's superstition," he said at last. "You get

your cards printed," here he tapped the coin significantly, "and you're

sure to lose your job--still we might of helped him."

There was nothing, though, for Daniel but to turn back and meet the

Brigade. Learning Maximilian's decision, the Missourians would probably

join the Cordova colony. Boone reckoned that _he_ would. He

discovered that he was tired of fighting. Perhaps the new citizens at

Cordova would want an organ, a weekly at least; and already his nostrils

were sniffing the pungent, fascinating aroma of printer's ink. Then he

asked Driscoll what he thought of doing, now that he was free.

"Don't know," came the reply lonesomely. "Stir around, I guess. There's

a flying column leaving this week to capture Juarez. Maybe that'll do

me."

CHAPTER II

THE BLACK DECREE

"So may heaven's grace clear whatso'er of foam

Floats turbid on the conscience."--_Dante._

That unleashed hawk which was the flying column failed to clutch its

prey. From the City of Mexico across the far northwestern desert the

Chasseurs and cuirassiers rode their swift Arabian steeds, and into the

town of Chihuahua at last. But the old Indian for whom they came was not

there. Benito Juarez had fled. He must have known. Yet how, no one might

conjecture. It was as though some watchful Republican fairy had marked

the sturdy, squat patriot as the one hope of the Empire's overthrow, and

did not propose to have him taken. Scouts, spies, the entire French

secret service, delved, gestured, and sweated. But they laid bare next

to nothing. At the Palacio Municipal a number of functionaries told of a

peon in breech clout, a wretch coated with alkali dust till the muscles

of his legs looked like grayish ropes, who had emerged from the cacti

plain ten days before and come running into Chihuahua. The peon had made

direct for the Palacio, where, in some way, he had contrived a secret

word with Don Benito; and that very day Don Benito with his one

minister, Lerdo, had set out toward the north.

Afterward the functionaries had questioned the messenger, but he knew

next to nothing. A senor chaparro had sent him, was all he said. It was

a ridiculous anti-climax. A senor chaparro, "El Chaparrito," "Shorty,"

such a one to be the omniscient guardian of the Republic! But for all

that "El Chaparrito" was to be heard of again and many times, and always

as an enigma to both sides alike, until the absurd word became freighted

on the lips of men with superstitious awe. There was an inscrutable,

long-fingered providence at work in the blood-strife of the nation. The

warning to Juarez at Chihuahua was its first manifestation.

Their quarry had escaped, but Driscoll was not sorry. More than once he

had felt a vague shame for the unsportsmanlike chase after one lone,

indomitable old man. Driscoll held a commission, which Michel Ney,

happily recovering, had procured for him from the marshal. But as the

American's healthy spirits, like cleansing by vigorous blood, swept the

gloom from his mind, he began to wonder at the craving for bustle and

forgetfulness which had made him snatch at such an offer. The corners of

his mouth twisted in whimsical self-scorn. He, one of your drooping,

unrequited lovers! "Shucks!" that is what he thought. And he persuaded

himself that it was all over. Quite, quite persuaded himself. But as a

matter of fact, he hoped that he might never have to see her again.

It was not until October of the same year that Driscoll saw actual

battle in his new service. With the Fifth Lancers under Colonel Mendez,

the best of the few native regiments in the field, he had been assisting

at a manner of pacification. That is, they marched from town to town,

and received allegiance. Guerrillas of course punished the towns later,

but Maximilian would not be induced to organize a native army, and

thirty thousand French could not garrison fifteen thousand leagues. They

could only promenade, through sand storms, through cacti. Then the

battle took place. It was the last vestige of Liberal resistance to the

Empire. A few hundred men near Uruapan in Michoacan flaunted their

defiance. Driscoll noticed an expectant and wolfish look in his

colonel's eyes. Mendez was a strikingly handsome and gallant Indian, but

his expectancy now was not for battle. It was for the battle's sequel.

Michel Ney and a squad of Chasseurs had just brought him an Imperial

packet from the City, and the packet contained general orders very much

to his Indian taste.

The fight was a rousing one, and Driscoll enjoyed himself for the first

time in many days. His Mexicans behaved as he could have wished, better

than he had hoped. At the start in the familiar uproarious hell, he

missed the hard set, exultant faces of his old Jackson county troop, and

seeing only tawny visages through the smoke and hearing only foreign

yells, he felt a queer twinge of homesickness. But he was at once

ashamed, for the humble little chocolate centaurs whom he had been set

to train were dying about him with lethargic cynicism, just as they were

bidden. Wearing a charm, either the Virgin's picture in a tin frame, or

the cross, they might have worn the crescent. They were as effective as

Moslems. They were ruthless fatalists.

Michel Ney also spent a diverting half-hour. He had lingered for the

fray. Waving a broken sabre snapped off at the hilt, he charged with

Gallic verve and got himself knocked under his kicking and wounded

horse, and pummeled by Liberal muskets on every side. Driscoll saw, and

straightened out matters. Handing the Frenchman a whole sabre, he

reproved him soberly, as a carpenter might an apprentice caught using a

plane for a ripsaw.

After it was over, the living of the enemy were prisoners. The victors

marched them to Uruapan near by, because it was charged that at this

place two of the captured Liberals, Generals Arteaga and Salazar, had

lately shot two Imperialists. Here, in their turn, they were promptly

executed.

Driscoll heard the volleys, ran to the spot, and saw the last horrid

spasms.

"What--what----"

Ney turned on him a sickened look.

"Don't you know, it's the new decree."

"What new decree? These dead men were prisoners of war. If murderers,

they weren't tried."

"It's the decree I brought from Maximilian, the decree of general

amnesty."

Driscoll glared fiercely at such a jest, but to his utter amazement Ney

was quite in earnest.

He who had commanded the shooting squad stooped over the corpses, a

smoking pistol in his hand. Now he glanced up at Driscoll. "Pues, si

senores," he said, "of amnesty, yes," and chuckling, he indicated the

bodies with his pistol. "But wait----" He thought he saw a form quiver,

one he had overlooked. Remedying this with a belated coup de grace

through the brain, he shoved back his white gold-bordered sombrero and

mopped his forehead as a laborer whose labor is done.

"Under which general amnesty, caballeros," he went on merrily, "you have

just witnessed the first act. My loyalty to the Emperor grows. His

Majesty has a sense of humor."

It was Don Tiburcio. He had deserted the Contras to waylay the rich

bullion convoy of which Rodrigo Galan had told him. But the convoy never

came. Rodrigo, the "sin vergueenza," had not levied toll at all. He had

swallowed it whole, a luscious morsel of several millions in silver and

gold. The coup was of a humor the less appreciated by Don Tiburcio

because he had figured on doing the very same thing himself. At present

he was chief of scouts under Mendez, and commanded the Exploradores,

audacious barbarians who were invaluable for their knowledge of the

country.

From Tiburcio and Ney Driscoll finally gathered the meaning of the

decree. It was the keynote to the Imperialist hopes. Its cause was the

flight of Juarez across the border. Maximilian was surcharged anew with

enthusiasm. Even the United States must now recognize his empire, he

believed. And confounding flurry with activity, as usual, he fervently

proclaimed the courage and constancy of Don Benito Juarez, but added

that the Republican hegira finally and definitely stamped all further

resistance to the Empire as useless. Then, august and Caesar-like, he

allowed amnesty for those who submitted immediately; he prescribed death

for all others. Rebels taken in battle were not even to have trial.

Maximilian believed that ink, thus sagaciously besmeared by a

statesman's fingers, would blot out further revolution. But it was so

fatuous, so stupidly unnecessary! The court martials, or French gardens

of acclimatization, as the dissidents called them, were already doing

the work of the decree. The poet prince merely lifted the odium of it to

his own shoulders. His amnesty became infamy, and was called the Bando

Negro, a nefast Decree to blacken his gentleness and well-meaning for

all time.

Driscoll left his informants, and walked up and down, up and down,

alone. It did not occur to him to fill the cob pipe between his teeth. A

scowl settled between his eyes, and it deepened and grew ugly. The

desperado was forming in the man--desperado, as contrast to polite

conventions. Desperado, as primitive man, who hews straight, cutting

whom or what he might, cutting first of all through the veneered bark of

civilization. For this reason, in this sense, he might be termed outlaw.

And walking up and down, up and down, he hewed till he had laid bare the

core of the matter. And he saw it naked, without the polish. Thereupon

he knew what he was going to do.

He saddled Demijohn, and Demijohn followed at his shoulder to the

jefetura. Here, at the entrance, under the brick-red portales, Driscoll

left the horse, untied, and opened the door and passed within.

The jefetura, or prefecture, was at present the headquarters of the

command, and in the long front room were assembled a number of officers,

including Ney and Tiburcio, besides the jefe of the place and several

town magistrates, all chatting with Colonel Mendez about the recent

victory. They greeted the American cordially, and poured out tequila for

him. He had done as much as any to win the fight. Michel laid a hand on

his shoulder.

"Monsieur," he said with mock formality, "to-day, when you permitted

yourself to save my skin, you called me a fool. But I would have you

observe, monsieur, that only my patron divinity, the god of fools, is

permitted to know so much."

Driscoll loosed himself from the affectionate grip, and turned to

Mendez.

"Colonel," he said, "I'm going to get out of this."

"_What?_ Oh come, mi capitan, find a better one!"

"It's not a joke, sir. Profiting by a commission that does not bind me,

I am here to tell you good-bye."

"Jean, mon ami!" Ney cried in protest.

Don Tiburcio waited with keen appreciation, as he always did when the

unexpectedness of this Gringo was unfolding. The others stared agape at

the man between them and the door. Mendez saw too that he was in

earnest, and he began to argue, almost to entreat. The Mexican leader

had lost the quality of mercy in civil wars that had touched him

cruelly, that had exacted many near to him, but there was sincerity in

the man, and men were won by the stirring sound of his voice.

"You would retire now," he exclaimed, "now, when every soul here may

look for promotion, and none of them more than you, Senor Dreescol?"

But he did not stop there. He conjured up a tempting vista of long and

honored life under an empire that was now supreme. Even the scum of

rebellion yet left on the calm surface was that day swept away, and

naught remained but to enjoy the favors of his grateful Majesty.

"Which only makes it," said Driscoll, "a good time to quit. I should

mention, too, that I intend to join the Republic, that is," he added,

"if there's any of the Republic left."

Don Tiburcio was not disappointed.

Mendez sprang to his feet and his voice was stentorian, as when he

rallied his men by the magnet of fury and hatred.

"It's desertion!" he roared.

"Or simple honesty," Driscoll corrected him. "But it doesn't matter. The

penalty is no worse for a deserter, if you catch him."

Mendez curbed his rage. He did not wish to lose this man. That is, he

would regret deeply having to kill him.

"_Why_ do you mean to change?" he demanded.

"Because I can't feel _right_! It's like--somehow it's like being

an accomplice of murderers."

"Dios mio, I suppose Your Mercy and his tender heart refers to the

Decree?"

"Partly. That thing is a blanket warrant of death. Just because your

enemy can't fight any longer----"

"But you forget, senor, the mines that exploded in the highways. You

forget the poisoned springs, the ambuscades, the massacres. Would they

not shoot prisoners too, your new friends?"

"Si senor, as you and others may some day experience personally."

"Then, mighty judge, condemn them also."

"Don't I? But I can't blame them. They are punishing crime."

"But not of murder, as we did to-day."

"That too, for that was murder to-day. But I was thinking of a worse

crime. I was thinking of theft, sir."

"Theft? How can that be worse?"

"Theft of their country, I mean, and as your accomplice I owe

restitution. Leaving after a victory ain't so bad, but if I'd known that

I was fighting for that Black Decree, I'd of dropped out before the

fight. But look at it anyway you please. _How_ it looks be damned!"

"Senor, lay down your pistols and sabre, there, on that table, because,

by Heaven, I shall stop you! But if you are armed, I--I shall have to

shoot you, too."

"Hang it, Mendez, you're a good fellow! But--I can't help it."

"Lay them down, you renegade!"

Driscoll removed his sabre and gravely placed it on the table.

"The guns are my own," he said. "Dupin had them returned to me.

_He_ took them. Suppose _you_ take them, Colonel Mendez!"

He was in the doorway, and from there he faced them. The day was hot,

and Mendez had taken off his belt with his weapons. But the others were

armed. Yet they hesitated. They were brave enough for death, but before

the certainty of death for at least one among them and the uncertainty

of which one, they paused. Driscoll had not touched the black

six-shooters under his ribs. That would have snapped the psychological

fetter. As he expected, Mendez sprang first. This put an unarmed man

between himself and the others. In the instant he wheeled, was in the

saddle, and clattering down the street.

Back in the room Mendez saw his blunder and made way. Ney passed him

first, reached the door, aimed and fired. But someone behind him touched

his arm, and the ball sped high. Ney turned, and saw Tiburcio filling

the door against the others, and regarding him with evil challenge in

his eye.

"Oh, don't think that I hold it against you," Ney cried gratefully.

Tiburcio half laughed.

"A man who don't want prisoners shot is better with the enemy than

dead," he said.

Tiburcio's chuckle was prophetic. The enemy invariably executed

Exploradores, and would certainly do as much for Don Tiburcio if they

caught him.

Ney heard the hoof beats, already far away.

"May the god of fools look after him too," he murmured heavily.

The fugitive swept round the first corner of the street and on through

the town. None thought to stop him. Soldiers and townsmen supposed him

on the Empire's urgent business, and when they knew better, there was no

longer hope for their ponies against the great Missouri buckskin, now a

diminishing dusty speck mid cacti and maguey.

"The devil of it is," Driscoll muttered ruefully, "I don't know where

there's anybody to desert _to_!"

However, he was feeling much better.

CHAPTER III

AS BETWEEN WOMEN

"A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market."--_Lamb._

Jacqueline had wrought close to success during that May twilight on the

edge of the Cuernavaca pond. She had won a promise of abdication. Yet in

the end it was not the Emperor that left Mexico, but the Empress. And

Jacqueline was to accompany her, to leave despite herself the scene of

her labors. Such was the case precisely, and it all came to pass in this

wise.

Maddened by the distance which his temptress kept, also goaded to it by

the sorry state of his empire, Maximilian thought only of abdication.

Napoleon responded to Jacqueline's cipher dispatch with orders to

Bazaine. But Bazaine, urged thereto by Empress and marechale, ignored

the orders, and advanced Maximilian more money. And Maximilian, having

no longer his excuse to quit, stayed on to spend the money. Jacqueline

sighed, and--began all over again. Consequently Bazaine, hearing once

more from Napoleon, found himself a defaulter, and virtually recalled.

Consequently, Napoleon set dates for evacuation. Consequently the

rebellion sprang into new life, and the Empire lost armies and cities,

and thousands of men by desertion. But the darkest cloud was formed by

one hundred thousand Yankees massed along the Rio Grande. Napoleon took

heed. He ordered that the French troops should leave at once, unless

half the Mexican customs were turned over to the French administrator.

This was during the summer of 1866, only six months after the bright

hopes embodied in the Black Decree of general amnesty. Utterly appalled,

Maximilian took up his pen again to sign his abdication.

But there was Charlotte. Even yet she pettishly clung to her crown. The

Mexican agents in Paris had availed nothing with Napoleon. Bien, she

would herself go to Paris. She would get the ultimatum recalled, and

Bazaine as well, because Bazaine no longer advanced money. The imperial

favorites, among them the sleek-jowled padre recommended by Eloin,

seconded her intention. And as they all talked so well, Maximilian

quaffed of hope. With a spite hardly noble though entirely royal, he

predicted that soon the marshal would find himself in a sadder fix than

himself, the Emperor.

Suddenly, secretly, a little after midnight, Charlotte left the capital.

Maximilian bade her good-bye with a solemn promise to rejoin her in

Europe if she failed. Three days later Dupin and his Contra Guerrillas

met her in the Tierra Caliente, and offered to join her French cavalry

escort. The Empress took his presence as an affront. Of late small

things excited her to a feverish agitation which she was unable to

control. The Tiger bowed over his saddle, and kept his gray hair bared

to a torrential downpour while her carriage passed on. It was the

tropical rainy season. The clouds hung low around the mountain base and

truncated the more distant peaks, while the valley below was a bright

contrast in wet, tender green. The wheels sank deep, and mired in the

black, soggy earth. Men tugged constantly at the spokes, and the

steaming mules reared and plunged under the angry crack of whips.

The Tiger of the Tropics waited as carriage after carriage toiled past

him and creaked and was forced on its way. Behind the dripping

windowpane of the very last he saw a face he knew, a beautiful, saddened

face, puckered just now by some immediate ill-humor. She frowned on

recognizing the French barbarian, but unlike Charlotte, she did not jerk

down the shutter. Instead, she lowered the glass by the length of her

pretty nose.

"Is it dotage already, monsieur? Then put on your hat!"

"Name of a name, yet another petulant grande dame!" But the Frenchman

turned his horse and rode beside her coach.

"Did Her Majesty pout, then?" inquired the lady within.

"Almost as superbly as Mademoiselle la Marquise."

"Thank you well, but I have a superb reason for it."

"Because you return to Paris, surely not? Yet, if that is the reason,

you need not quite despair."

"Why, what--what do you mean?"

"Only brigands, mademoiselle. When everyone is looking for abdication, a

cortege mysteriously leaving the City must be the Emperor who goes back

to Austria. The news travels like wildfire. The Indito runners go as

fast as when they brought Moctezuma fresh fish from the Gulf. I rather

think they have carried the news to an old friend of ours. It's my

chance to catch him."

"Not my Fra Diavolo--Rodrigo Galan?"

"None other. But Rodrigo is stirred by more than patriotism these days.

Upon it he has grafted a deep wrong, and he swears lofty vengeance by a

little ivory cross such as these Mexican girls wear. The conceited

cut-throat imagines there is a blood feud between himself and His

Majesty. So if he hears that Prince Max comes this way----"

"He will find Charlotte instead? But he must not detain her."

"Tonnerre!" exclaimed the Cossack chief. "Why not? She goes to Europe to

sustain the Empire, while we French----"

"All the same, let her go. She will gain nothing there. Listen to me,

monsieur. She leaves that he may _not_ abdicate, while if I stay,

she fears that----"

"He _will_ abdicate?"

"Your wits, mon colonel, are entirely satisfactory. And so she invited

me to go with her, and as first lady of her household, I could not

refuse. I wonder, now, if Fra Diavolo would deign to capture just me,

alone!"

The sharp look which Dupin gave her from behind the streams tumbling off

his sombrero was the sixth of a half-dozen. But it was this last one

that seemed to satisfy him.

"Put up the window, mademoiselle," he said, "you're getting wet."

Ten minutes later Jacqueline felt the coach lurch heavily and sink to

the hub on one side.

"Go on with your nap, Berthe," she said to her one companion. "They'll

pull us out, as usual."

The customary yelling and straining began, and men grunted as they

heaved against an axle. After a long seance of such effort there came a

sharp exclamation, like an oath, and the confusion fell to a murmur of

dismay. Someone jerked open the door, and Dupin's grizzled head

appeared.

"Mademoiselle, I regret to have to announce that a wheel is dished in."

Jacqueline's gray eyes regarded him quizzically. The sardonic old face

spread to a grin, but deftly readjusted itself to the requisite despair.

Not a carriage except the wrecked one was in sight. Only the Tiger's

whelps, by the hundred, surrounded her.

"And the others? Her Majesty?"

"The others did the sensible thing. They know that you will catch up

with them when they themselves are mired. Her Majesty, being ahead, is

probably still in ignorance of your accident."

"But the wheel?"

"If mademoiselle wishes it mended?"

"Is it so bad?"

Dupin caught her expression. "It will take six hours," he said

mercilessly.

"Oh dear!" said Jacqueline.

"There's a settler's cabin a mile from here. If you will accept my

horse, and Mademoiselle Berthe can mount behind----"

"Poor Berthe," sighed Jacqueline. But she nodded eagerly.

CHAPTER IV

THE LACKING COINCIDENCE

"Achilles absent was Achilles still."--_The Iliad._

Colonel Dupin helped first one and then the other of his charges upon

the same horse and wrapped them about in the same gaudy serape till only

two pair of pretty eyes peeped forth at the rain. The Vera Cruz highway

clung to the mountain side, but the Contra Guerrillas took a venturesome

little bridle path which dropped abruptly down into the rich valley of a

thousand or more feet below. Emerging from the dense tropical growth of

the highland, they beheld a vast emerald checkerboard of cultivation,

field after field of sugar cane, and set in each bright square a little

house of bamboo with a roof of red piping. After the dreary black gorges

behind them, the light of the sun seemed boxed in here under a leaden

cover of cloud. Coming suddenly out of the chill and mist, the two girls

felt the very rain gratefully warm and the fragrant smells of the wet

earth a thing of comfort. As the beauty and the cheer of it subtly

gladdened her mood, Jacqueline thought that here at any rate was an

adequate mise-en-scene for whatever tremors might befall.

There was one circumstance that already seemed a portent, and got on a

person's nerves like the stillness of nature just before a Kansas

cyclone. This was the curious absence of all human life. Except for the

grimly expectant troop around her, and the clanking of metal as the

Contras rode, she had no token of a fellow creature. The first of the

plantations was deserted, and likewise the next. But the house doors

were open. Nothing showed preparation for departure. The riddle was

uncanny. At the third Jacqueline stated that she would go no farther.

She hated to tramp down a man's field when the man himself was not about

to express an opinion, and the ruthless swath made by her escort through

the cane gave her shame. Besides, it was too much like wading, the way

her skirts brushed the long leaves and knocked off glistening drops by

myriads.

The third cabin was abandoned too, but there were inducements within for

any houseless creature. A hammock was hanging from corner to corner in

the front room, probably to thwart the fauna of tropical stingers, and

there was that comfort unfamiliar to French women, a rocking chair,

before a most inviting fireplace, itself a luxury rare in Mexico. The

two girls removed their cloaks, and settled themselves to dry their

shoes before a roaring fire which the men lighted for them. Then the

Cossacks, including their colonel, left on some stealthy business

without, and Jacqueline and Berthe were alone.

Jacqueline tried the rocker, found it good, and smoothed her skirts over

her knees to the warmth of the blaze. "We've only to yawn at the flies,

eh, ma cherie?" said she.

"Not a thing else, madame," came a cheery voice from the hammock.

Jacqueline was at once suspicious. "You absurd little mouse," she cried,

"don't I understand that gaiety of yours! And all the while you are

really trembling in fear of terrible bandits. For months now you grieve

because you imagine that I--well, that I am sad. But you'll not make me

hilarious, you won't, Berthe, as long as it's 'madame.' Child, child,

will you not let me have my friend in you, I who have none, nor a mother

or sister! There now, if I'm not to be--ah--pensive--remember there's no

'madame' between thee and me, dear!"

The Bretonne's gentle eyes filled suddenly. Jacqueline had before sought

to change their relations, ever since Berthe's part in Driscoll's rescue

from execution, but she had always tried to bring it about by playful

bantering. Now, however, Berthe was given to see the utter loneliness of

an orphaned girl in one who for all the rest of the world was the

disdainfully independent little aristocrat, who had met the proffered

intimacy of the French empress with a sneer, who was the cold princess

when among princesses of the Blood. The loyal child of simple Breton

folk sprang impulsively to the arm of the rocker, and was herself

clasped no less impulsively.

"But there," said Jacqueline, laughing rather brokenly, "we're

forgetting the flies."

A belt over the fireplace caught her eye, and she unexpectedly

discovered that her breath had quickened. She stared fascinated at the

letters on the buckle. "C. S. A.," she murmured. Then her startled gaze

roved hurriedly over the walls. It became even frightened before a faded

gray cape-coat of the Confederate cavalry and a battered white gauntlet

sticking from the pocket. Involuntarily, trembling foolishly, she looked

to see if there might not be an old cob pipe also. There was not, but

the other familiar objects made her imagination leap fearfully to what

might be. Both hope and dread will always override common sense, and

convoy imagination perforce. If _he_ did live here--if they should

meet! Could such a coincidence happen, could it, outside the neat

ordering of a book or play?

She sprang to her feet and began investigating. She went awesomely as

one would tiptoe over a haunted house. In the next room she came upon

what was an odd treasure trove for an isolated bamboo cabin tucked far

away under the Tropic of Cancer. It was a printer's shop, after a

fashion. The case was a block of stone, in whose surface the little

compartments had been chiseled. They were sparsely accoutred with type

and plentifully with cigar ashes. As for a press, there was none. But a

form had been made up on a slab of marble, and near by were a tiny

hillock of ink, a roller and a mallet. The mysterious printer could at

least take proofs. There was one now on a file. Jacqueline pulled it

off, and contemplated a miniature American newspaper, of one sheet,

printed on one side only, and no larger than a magazine cover. At the

top she read the legend, in German caps: "_The Cordova

Colonist_--_Weekly Independent_."

"Is that a pun?" she wondered.

But now at least she could identify the ghostly company of the valley,

though not its scribe. That word "Cordova" gave the clue. A year ago one

thousand hardy men had ridden into the capital from the north. Their

leader was a fiery, black-whiskered little man with a plume in his hat

and the buff sash of a brigadier general around his waist. They were the

Missourians, defamed as "Shelby's horse thieves and judges of whiskey,"

honored as "The Old Brigade," and so feared and respected under any name

that the City fairly buzzed and stared goggle-eyed. But Maximilian again

refused their offers to enlist under his standard, and they could only

disband. Some took ship to hunt for Kidd's treasure in the Pacific,

others went to Japan and the Sandwich Islands, and a number joined a

congenial regiment of veterans, the Zouaves. But the majority, she

remembered now, had been settlers, persuaded thereto by their

countryman, Commodore Maury, who was Imperial Commissioner of

Immigration. Maury had secured a grant of land near the town of Cordova,

within a hundred miles of Vera Cruz. There were one-half million acres

of rich land, suitable for the three Big C's of southern countries,

cotton, cane and coffee. But until now the strip had not been

cultivated. The Church had held it fallow. Then the Republic had

nationalized it; and the Empire was selling it to the Americans at $1.25

an acre. The hopeful settlement bore the name of Carlota.

So the cape-coat and those other things were explained. She was denied

her coincidence. But as there was so much of a plot forward anyway, she

ought to have been satisfied--as an artist, she ought. She craved an

ecstasy of peril or of terror, not as the former dilettante of emotions,

but as the lotus eater who exacts forgetfulness.

Meantime she read editorials, and got interested. The _Colonist_

never advanced beyond the proof-sheet stage, but as such it circulated

with avidity over the valley. Eloquence flowed serene under mashed type

and variegated fonts. The editor persisted in viewing the Empire and

Republic as political parties, and the horrors of civil warfare as

incidents of an electoral campaign. He had congenial scope for his

unpartisan and independent pen, advising with owl-like sagacity or

abusing with peppery virulence, and either, for either side, with blithe

impartiality. At times, though, the strained analogy between ballots and

bullets evidently cracked, and rather floored the editor. For instance,

in a pot-pourri of long primer and pica with a dash of Old English

lower-case was the following:

As we wen[t] to press last week we paused to entertain a torchlight

procession of the Young Imperialists' Flambeau [C]lub, which was

collecting a campaign contribution in the semblance of our alfalfa

stack. The spectacle of citizens taking an active [p]art in the issues

before their country ne'er fails to rouse in us a spirit of

collaboration, so [w]hat could we do but join heartily in the

celebration, so that a most excellent time was had. Later our

editorial staff, a score who in our canefields teach the tender

sprouts [h]ow to shoot, knowing t[h]e same so well themselves, gently

laid to rest a score and one Cossacks, past members of the [F]lambeau

Club, wh[o] had lingered behind for the reason that they _were_ past.

But, we ask, _ad quod damnum_?--i.e., isn't it as futile as

cauterizing a wooden leg? How much longer, O Jove, must we let our

public-opinion moulds cool off while we chase enthusiastic young

patriots away from our alfal[f]a!!!... In conclusion, with a cool

brow, we are constrained to say that if the party in power cannot

discourage the depredations above ci[t]ed, we shall have to fortify

ourselves to the contemplation of a c[h]ange of administration.

[Transcriber's note: characters in brackets were originally printed

as bold Old English lower-case as explained above.]

"Why," cried Jacqueline, "what an _animal disputans_ it is!" She

perceived an ink bottle, and exclaimed, "Ah, more milk from the black

cow!" Taking up a wad of copy paper, on which a future editorial was

already begun, she read, and quickly her amusement changed to a livelier

interest.

"Rumor goes," she read under the caption, _Ardentia Verba_, "that

Father Augustine, political manager for the administration, vice Eloin,

is soon to leave for Europe. He goes to have a pourparler with the Pope.

He will concede everything, since the Empire no longer hopes to win over

the moderate Mexicans. But the obstinate though Holy Father will

negotiate a concordat on one basis only, and that is the return to the

Mexican church of all nationalized church lands.

"Men of the colony, attention now! We each own something like three

hundred acres apiece of these lands. And we are paying for them, we are

cultivating them, and we have to defend them against both guerrillas and

contra-guerrillas. And now they are to be confiscated! Our new homes are

to be taken from us!! Alas, we who are peaceful settlers, to think that

we were Trojans on a time!!! Fellow citizens, with us it's a severe case

of _e pluribus unum_. Oh, for a leader! But our incomparable chief

of yore will not stir. Yet there _was_ one, gallant cavalier of the

South, peerless captain, just the dauntless heart for any forlorn hope

under the starry vault of heaven, if he were only here! If he, John D.

Driscoll, were only----"

The matter stopped abruptly. More than that, by force of habit the

scribe had ringed the figures "30" underneath. They meant "finis." The

editor had known, then, that he would not return to end his harangue.

"A flea bite," mused Jacqueline, "would interrupt the penning of an

Alexandrian line. Now, I wonder who or what the flea could have been,

and what----"

But there, she would ask herself no question concerning the editorially

mentioned "John D. Driscoll."

It was mid afternoon when Colonel Dupin, like a shaggy, dripping bear,

returned to the house and begged leave to dry himself. Standing before

the fire, he reloaded his holster pistols. They were tremendous, elegant

utensils of French make, with a nine-chambered cylinder, and a second

barrel underneath that carried a rifle ball. Where no prisoners were

taken on either side, the owner of such a weapon usually reserved the

murderous slug for himself, and the loading of that lower barrel became

a sort of ghastly rite. Jacqueline shuddered as she watched him fix on

the cap.

"How do you explain your desertion of Her Majesty?" she asked. "Our Fra

Diavolo should thank me for drawing you off."

The Tiger adjusted the double hammer so that it would play on the

cylinder first. A rumbling chuckle came from the depths of his throat.

"I should be honored with mademoiselle's approval," he said, "for at

court mademoiselle is a guileful warrior. The casualties there may not

be so sanguinary, but the strategic principle is the same. Know, then,

that Rodrigo Galan employs a spy whom I own, body and soul. By now

Rodrigo has learned from this spy that the Imperial coach broke down,

and that to-night Her Majesty rests--here. So you see that she is not

likely to be attacked----"

"But I see that _we_ are, parbleu!"

"Of course," and the Tiger unctuously rubbed his hands in the blaze.

"It's my chance to trap him. He has only three hundred men."

"And you, monsieur?"

"Our mutual spy has told him that I have less than two hundred men. The

brigand knows that I was forced to leave a garrison at Tampico."

"But how many have you, really?"

Dupin motioned her to the window. But she saw not a man, not a musket.

She saw only the wet fields of cane, and the black mist-shrouded

mountains beyond.

"Just the same," the Frenchman assured her pleasantly, "they are there,

full five hundred of my little tribe. Does mademoiselle approve?"

"It looks like the curtain on 'Fra Diavolo,'" she replied, shuddering.

CHAPTER V

THE MISSOURIANS

"Men sententious of speech and quick of pistol practice."

--_Major John N. Edwards._

An hour before nightfall the guerrillas attacked. Jacqueline was

standing at the window, when she heard a jubilant din and saw a tawny

troop charging through the fields toward the house. They yelled as they

came, waving machetes and carbines. It was the usual theatrical dash of

Mexicans. Like savages, they thought first to frighten their

adversaries.

"Won't you come and see, Berthe? It's like a hippodrome."

She felt sorry for them. The dulcet cane grew thorns. Under the leaves

the black soil was become clay red with leather jackets. The Cossacks

had fixed sword-bayonets to their muskets, and were waiting on their

knees.

Stung by the hidden barbs, the first horses reared in air, pawing and

screeching frantically. Many sank down again, and they were limp as the

life ebbed. Others crashed backward, their riders underneath, and those

behind plunged over them, unable to stop. Soon it was a fearful jumble;

men and beasts, hoofs and steel, curses and shrill neighing. Then the

firing began, a woof of fine red threads through the warp of pale-green

reeds. The guerrillas yet fought. The myth of their own heavier numbers

kept them from panic. Ragged fellows with feet bare in the stirrups

leaned over to slash at heads between the tasselled stalks. They

squirmed like snakes from under kicking horses, and fainting, got a

carbine to the shoulder at aim, and someway, pulled the trigger. Then

they were taken in the rear. One-half of the Contra forces, mounted, had

waited under the sapling growth of the nearest foothill. Now they sprang

from cover, bloodthirsty whelps trailing the Tiger. The guerrillas could

not turn back. To retreat they must cleave the way in front, and they

did, by sheer desperation. Falling in the mesh at every step, they at

last gained the large open space around the cabin.

Then it was that Jacqueline got a near view of Don Rodrigo. He was

superbly mounted, and his long body made a heroic figure on the

curveting charger. He frowned, and his mustachios bristled fiercely, and

his shouts of command were heavily ominous. The wind turned the folds of

his black cloak. It was faced with scarlet silk; and the charro elegance

beneath was black and resplendent. All told, he was a very outburst of

glitter; breeches, jacket, sombrero, saddle, stirrups, and bridle; not

of silver, but of gold. Good carbines for his vagabond Inditos,

magnificence for himself, these had come from that fabulous theft of the

bullion convoy. And he had arrayed himself this rainy day to dazzle a

princess of the Blood. So now he wielded his sword with a conscious

flourish, glancing toward the window to see if he were seen.

"The poseur, never out of his role," murmured his audience there. "How

will he enjoy running, I wonder?"

But to her astonishment he did not run, though Dupin was cutting closer

and closer through tangled bodies, eager to grapple with his old-time

slippery foe. Don Rodrigo raised in his saddle, and looked anxiously in

all directions. Suddenly his dark face lighted, and wheeling round, he

called to his men, and in his turn strove as furiously to reach the

Tiger as the Tiger had striven to reach him. Jacqueline could not now

tell which side to feel sorry for. But she exulted in the thrill of it,

even as she wrung her hands at sight of the red agony.

Then something happened, which even the Tiger, who knew his warfare so

well, had never known; which got into even his dried and toughened

marrow. It was the Rebel yell. It rose over a sudden thunderous rush of

hoof beats. And next, as a puff of air, a herd of horsemen, a wild

mud-spattering streak, surged past the house. On across the open, and

straight upon the fray, they merged everywhere, and made bigger and

livelier the blotch of mad swarming. Some wore slouch hats, others straw

sombreros, and all were ruddily burned. They fought with revolvers, and

often one would pause between shots to spit tobacco. They brought to the

battle one thing above all else, and that was vim, vim unbounded, vim

that simply had to have vent.

Jacqueline caught her breath. What race of men were these? Exalted,

quivering, she watched them doing as workmen what fell to their hands,

yet ever with that whirlwind of vim.

"The Missourians--of course!" she cried.

Through powder smoke and misty rain the figure of one horseman slowly

grew familiar. She caught fleeting glimpses of him, as he darted into a

melee, as he spurred round to find a hotter field. Suddenly her eyes

widened, and she pressed a hand hard against her breast.

"The coincidence!" she gasped, trembling from head to foot. "It is the

coincidence!"

Her nose flattened against the wet pane. She remembered how that general

of the Missourians had told Charlotte about this man, for the Empress

had asked. And the general had related how the troop had dubbed him the

Storm Centre.

"And no wonder!" she breathed. "Mon Dieu, how he _enjoys_ it!--But,

oh--he will be killed--oh!"

Yet nothing of the kind happened. When she uncovered her eyes, his

assailants were in flight. Every Cossack survivor was in flight. The

Storm Centre wheeled and confronted Don Rodrigo, who raised his sombrero

effusively.

"Rebellion makes strange comrades," thought Jacqueline. "But no,

my--the--chevalier--does not take his hand."

Indeed Driscoll was looking the guerrilla over with little favor. "So,"

he exclaimed, "it was you I was to help here!"

"And what better patriot, senor----"

"Never mind that. Why didn't you wait till dark to attack? Weren't those

the orders, or--that is, the suggestion?"

"But whose suggestion? Perhaps, senor, _you_ know who El Chaparrito

is?"

"Haven't the least idea, nor anyone else. But it's certain, Rod, that

this is your first experience of Shorty. Another time, and you'll have

sense enough to take his hints. Now then, where's the emperor we were to

catch?"

Fra Diavolo's smile was Satanic. "Your Chaparrito was either mistaken

about the Emperor, or," and he glanced toward the window, "or he

deceived you into helping me capture a beautiful young woman."

"How? What----"

"I mean that His Cautious Majesty did not come, however much El

Chaparrito seems to want him. But--" and Rodrigo's tone lowered heavily,

"but his August Spouse came instead. She is in that cabin now. It is

well, senor, for vengeance in kind is just. It is righteous, it is

biblical. Since fate has thrown----"

"E-a-s-y! Eas-y, boy. Of course, if we've gone and netted an empress,

we'll ask 'em to please take her back. This ain't a woman's game."

"Give up a queen's ransom?"

Driscoll nodded cheerfully.

"I believe, caballero," said the brigand with awful dignity, "that I

command here."

Driscoll looked at his Missourians returning from the chase. "Well," he

laughed, "you might try it on, and see how they take it."

Behind Jacqueline the door opened. She almost jumped. Of the hundreds

likely to enter there, her startled fancy pictured only one. But the new

comer was a stranger.

"Oh-ho, come a-visiting, eh?"

The voice was cordial, robust, Western.

"Missour-_i_!" she exclaimed involuntarily.

"Yes'm, Cooper county."

She turned, won to friendliness, and beheld a man who, to use her mental

ejaculation, was "of a leanness!"

"Monsieur----" and she paused.

"Boone, ma'am. Daniel, your most obedient servant. If I'd known--Sho',

we might of had things spruced up a bit. Are you the queen, maybe?"

The lady's laugh rang as clear as a bell. Taken aback, Boone sought to

correct his mistake. He saw that Berthe was seated in the hammock. She,

then, must be the Empress.

"I'm downright sorry we went and captured Your Majesty," he began.

"Her Imperial Highness does not understand English," Jacqueline

explained.

Then to her surprise the man proceeded in French. He was evidently

greatly disturbed because Missouri hospitality did not harmonize with

war. "It was a blunder," he apologized earnestly, "come of our deciding

just this morning to make you Europeans vacate our continent. But don't

let that worry Your Majesty. Here, under my roof, the decision doesn't

hold, _at_ all!"

Berthe lifted her head quickly. It was her second promotion in the

social scale that day. She had trembled when the door opened, for she

knew that Rodrigo's side had triumphed. But this tall stranger brought

relief to one's nerves, and somehow she had watched him trustingly. He

was of the same race as Monsieur Driscoll, to whom also she had once

turned instinctively for help. But when the tremendous young fellow

addressed her with reverence due a queen, she felt only the respectful

admiration due a pretty young woman. It unexpectedly awakened in her the

knowledge that she was a pretty young woman; and with a winsomeness that

amazed and delighted Jacqueline, to say nothing of its effect on Daniel,

she gently put him right as to her identity.

"It doesn't matter," Boone protested stoutly, "you ought to be one!"

The door opened again. It struck the wall with an insolent bang, and in

strode Don Rodrigo. Jacqueline noted who it was and indifferently seated

herself in the rocking chair, with her back toward him. The Mexican

advanced to the centre of the room. The brief twilight had fallen, and

the place was in half light except for the blazing logs. He stopped

rigid and flung his scarlet-lined cloak back over his shoulder.

"Where," he demanded in the huge tones of a victorious general, "is the

tyrant's empress?"

No one volunteered as to where the tyrant's empress might be. The toe of

Jacqueline's boot was indolently busy with the embers on the hearth. The

heads of both girls were in shadow.

Rodrigo's furrowed brow creased more deeply. "Which of you is she?" The

heavy syllables dropped one by one. He stepped tentatively toward

Berthe. So did Boone.

"Stand aside, senor!"

"Can't, dear brigand," said Daniel.

Then Berthe spoke. "Please, messieurs," she began, "Her Majesty is

not----"

"It's only a maidservant," Rodrigo exclaimed in chagrin.

"Don't make any difference," said Boone, "she's come a-visiting."

"If, Seigneur Brigand," spoke a clear voice, "you had not interrupted

Mademoiselle Berthe, you would stand informed by now that Her Majesty is

not here. Will you deign to close the door?"

Rodrigo knew well those bell-like tones. Forgetting the question of an

empress, he drew nearer to the lady of the rocker. She gave him no heed,

but her profile against the red glow was very soft and beautiful. His

chagrin vanished. Here was a more ravishing triumph.

"A vengeance in kind," he muttered, wetting his lips. "Ha, he took

nobody's wife, as to that; and his wife may go. But in the matter of

sweethearts--ah!"

Bending, he laid a hand caressingly on her neck, against the tendrils.

At the touch she sprang to her feet, and Boone leaped forward with fist

drawn back. But both stopped. Her face changed from fury to pallor.

Boone's expressed approval.

The room had filled through the open door with men and torches, but the

first man among them had come as far as Rodrigo's shoulder even as the

insult occurred. From behind, the man's arm had straightened under

Rodrigo's chin, and twisting to a lever, was gradually forcing back his

head. Rodrigo groped for a knife, but half way to his waist the fingers

clutched vainly in a sharp spasm, and all involuntarily flew up and

gripped at the vise under his chin. Yet another ounce of pressure, and

it seemed his neck must snap like a dry twig. Suddenly his spine bent

limp. Muscles relaxed. The whole body capitulated. Then the man behind

stooped a little, and Rodrigo began to rise. Slowly at first, and next,

as from a catapult, the brigand shot backward over the man's shoulder

and struck his length on the floor.

"No, not that, boys," said the man. "Don't kick him. Laugh at him, it

hurts more."

He spoke more particularly to one "Tall Mose" Bledsoe of Pike county who

was purple with indignation that a "saddle-colored Greaser should dare

lay hands on a white woman."

But there were also "Rube" Marmaduke of Platte, "Mac" Crittenden of

Nodaway, the "Doc" of Benton, "Cal" Grinders from the Ozarks, Clay of

Carroll, and Carroll of Clay, besides a ruddy sprinkling from the county

of Jackson. Among the latter was "Old Brothers and Sisters," a plump

little young man with cherubic eyes behind round brass spectacles. Clem

Douglas had been ordained in the M. E. Church (South), and became

thereupon the Rev. Mr. Douglas. "Old Brothers and Sisters" was a

theological degree of later acquirement, lovingly bestowed by the Iron

Brigade. But in his more recent gospel of pistol practice, Clem Douglas

was not a backslider. He was simply all things Southern to all men. Like

the others in the cabin, his hat was off, his muddy boots scraped; and

like the others, he was not unaware of the two girls.

"Rather showery out," he observed genially, wiping the mist off his

glasses, and imagining weather a livelier topic than battle.

Jacqueline did not hear. Her eyes were still on the man who had

disdained to strike Rodrigo from behind, who had flung him away instead,

as one would a dog. She stood motionless, and her face was very white.

She saw that he wore loose leather "chaps," a woolen shirt, and an old

coat, with only stained shoulder straps, green braid on dark blue, to

indicate a uniform. His wet black hair was curly. His brown eyes flashed

whimsical contempt on the resplendent guerrilla at his feet. He was the

Coincidence; he was the Storm Centre. He turned, expecting to see the

Empress, and he met her eyes. His own darkened with a new anger, and

involuntarily, he swung round, himself to kick the Mexican who had

insulted her. But a flood of memory swept over him, the memory of what

he had seen at Cuernavaca. Not for her could he touch a fallen man.

"Take him into the back room, two of you."

Red, red to the neck, he was turning to follow, when he saw Berthe.

"Miss Burt!" he exclaimed.

Heartily he shook hands with her. "It's my first chance, you know, to

mention what you did for me over a year ago. But I sure appreciate

having my life saved, you know that. There now, you're not to worry over

this present mess. We'll have it straightened out, just in no time."

He stammered as he spoke, and when he turned and left the room, his

bearing was constrained. Jacqueline's eyes followed him until the inner

door closed behind him. Then, with a half shrug, she sat down and

pensively resumed the building of fiery mounds on the hearth.

CHAPTER VI

IF A KISS WERE ALL

"A man, a woman, a passion--what else matters?"--_Sardou._

"Tall Mose" Bledsoe and the Rev. Mr. Douglas conveyed Don Rodrigo to the

back room, and here Driscoll and Boone joined them. They did not disarm

the Mexican. It did not occur to them that any man would risk drawing a

weapon in such company. And as to Fra Diavolo they surmised correctly.

He sulked a little at first, for there were sore tendons that ached. But

in the end he grew reasonable, and his white teeth gleamed acquiescence

to all that the senores were pleased to say. He agreed to bivouac his

men apart from the Missourians and go his own way at daybreak. The

Contras were routed. The Tiger had barely escaped. There was no further

need of combined forces. Indeed, Don Rodrigo feared a night attack so

little that he meant to reward his men with many copitas of aguardiente.

Might he send a barrel over to his esteemed allies?

Mose Bledsoe turned a pleading look on the parson, and to his surprise

the Rev. Mr. Douglas beamed tolerant benevolence. "Why yes, my friend,"

he himself said to Don Rodrigo, "good liquor is always acceptable,

especially when soldiers must sleep on the wet ground."

The brigand was then allowed to depart, and Old Brothers and Sisters

explained. It was best to let Rodrigo send the brandy, for then one knew

what to expect. Otherwise the Christian brother and rascal would hatch

up some other plot, and any other plot might take them off their guard.

When an hour later, Rodrigo did in fact attack the presumably somnolent

Americans, more happened than either he or they expected. A third was

also waiting to strike for the sake of a woman. He was Dupin, who wanted

nothing better than the allies at each other's throat. Crouching warily

near, the Tiger sprang at both of them. In the rain and the black night,

the three-cornered fight raged like firecrackers under a tin bucket. The

guerrillas, repulsed by the Americans, fled upon the Contras, whereat

the Americans swept them both back indiscriminately. Instead of a lady,

the Tiger carried off Don Rodrigo, and was quite glad to carry himself

off. But Boone, scouting near, reported that Rodrigo was held a prisoner

instead of being executed at once. This meant something. It meant beyond

any doubt that the Mexican and the Frenchman would combine, Rodrigo for

his life, Dupin to rescue Jacqueline.

The Missourians held council in Daniel's sanctum. To restore the

captives to Dupin had been Driscoll's intention from the first. But now

it was a question of trading them against Rodrigo. Dupin must know the

American offer before he and Rodrigo should attack. Driscoll proposed

for himself alone the errand to the Tiger's camp. Rising to his feet, he

left his protesting friends without a word further. But he had to pass

through the front room first, to get the cape coat hanging there. It

was, in fact, his own. The two girls were seated before the fire,

Jacqueline still in revery, Berthe nervously agitated from the late

racket of battle. Daniel Boone had laid before them a ranchman's supper

with tropical garnishing, but it was untouched. Driscoll nodded, crossed

the room, took the coat from its nail, and started for the outer door as

he drew it on.

"Snubbing--an acquaintance," spoke an impersonal little voice, "is

cheap."

He stopped, waited.

"Of a gentleman, I reckon you'd say," he interrupted uneasily. "Maybe

not, but a ruffian's got his instincts too. When he's afraid of hurting

someone, he hides himself."

"I was mistaken," she said gravely, with that quaintest inflection of

the English he had ever heard, "yes, mistaken. He mais--but it is just

that the complaint. You hurt more by _not_ speaking."

"But there's nothing to say," he faltered. "I'm just going to Old

Tige's--to Dupin's camp, and get him to come here for you."

"Monsieur, monsieur, you fight for your captives only--only to give them

up?"

"That's not the question. You can overtake the Empress yet. Dupin

will----"

"But it is not that I want to overtake empresses at all. I--Berthe,

would you mind carrying back these supper things?--I," she continued,

when they were alone, "have no wish to go back to Paris. I shall return

to the City."

Again the liaison with Maximilian, he thought bitterly. And Charlotte

away! It was infamous. However, he had no right to be concerned.

"Very well," he said, "then Dupin can take you to the City, or wherever

you wish."

"Ma foi, what trouble to be rid of your prisoners, monsieur, and after

two battles too!"

"That's got nothing to do with it."

She meant, though, to have him confess that she had had a great deal to

do with it. She was taken with the self-cruel fancy to lay bare and

contemplate his love for her, that she might feel more poignantly the

happiness she had lost. But he abruptly turned again to leave, and all

else was forgotten in terror.

"You go to that Tiger!" she cried. "Do you not know that----" She darted

between him and the door--"that he recognizes no rules of war? He will

shoot you, he will, he will!"

Driscoll laughed.

"Oh, I'll be safe enough all right, thank you. Dupin holds Rodrigo, we

hold you. So it's simply an exchange of prisoners. And he'll not do

anything to me, for fear of what might happen to you here. You're not a

hostage, sure not, but as long as he thinks so, I'll profit by it."

"You are right," she admitted, yet not heeding his anxiety to pass.

"Dupin will not even detain you. He will judge you Missou-riens by

himself. So, voila, he frees Diavolo. He comes for me. And--and you,

monsieur?"

"Me? W'y, I'll wait for the boys at Dupin's camp, after he takes charge

here. Then we'll march."

"And--you do not come back?"

"No need to. Now will you please get away from that door?"

"Not coming back!" she repeated. Could the Coincidence be for naught

after all? Could not real life be for once as complacent as art? He was

going, and when, where, in the wide world, in all time, might they ever

meet again? And he was going, like that! Except for her, he would not

even have spoken.

But--if he were the man to hold her, despite herself? If he were primal

man of primal nature, the demigod raptor who seizes his mate? Yes, she

would forgive him--if only he were that man. If, as such, he would but

hold her from her duty, from her sacrifice, despite herself,

if--if--if----And so her daring fancy raced, raced as desire and hope to

outrun sorrow. And why not? She could look him in the eye with that

honesty which pertains to woman, for she knew that the shame he thought

of her was only in the evidence of what he had seen, of what he had

heard the world say, and not--no, not in fact. And for the kindness of

that fact she thanked Providence. Then, daring to the end, her insane

hope for happiness gave her to remember that there was a clergyman among

these Americans, and to see in that the ordering of fate.

But Reality was still there, grim and greater than either Providence or

Art. The man was waiting for her to step aside, and when she did, he

would pass through the door and out of her life. She gazed, as for the

last time, on his stalwart shoulders, on his splendid head, the head of

a young Greek, on his flushed face, his mouth, and those obstinate

little waves of his hair. How good he was to look upon--for her, that

is! No, no, she could not let him go.

And she tempted him. With all her woman's beauty she tempted him. If

beauty were aught, it must win her now what she held dear. Afterward,

when she should tell him why, he would forgive her the unmaidenly

strategy. She had noted with a passionate joy that the lines of his face

were tightly drawn, were even haggard, that his breath came short; in a

word, that he suffered. It told her that his gruff manner was not

indifference, but the rugged front of self-control. What a will the man

had! Knowing that strength, she must have been an odd young woman indeed

not to try to break it.

"I suppose," she said, lowering her head and shaking it in demure

resignation, "no, I suppose a captive has not the littlest thing to say

of her disposal? But if the poor child has curiosity, monsieur? If, for

the instant, she wonders why a monsieur fights for her, and then why he

hazards his life to be rid of her?" With which she raised her eyes

inquiringly. It was disconcerting.

"We'll not talk of that any more," he grumbled. "Are you going to let me

pass?"

Frail creature between him and the door, how easy to remove her! But he

feared the warmth of her hand, should he but touch it, or the faint odor

from her hair, should a stray lock no more than brush his cheek.

"Even a captive will wonder why she is so little prized," observed the

perverse maid.

She considered with glee that the window was too small, and with yet

keener delight that his wits for strategy had left him. He did not once

think of exit by the inner door.

"Why do you keep me?" he demanded.

His tone was harsh command, and for the moment it frightened her. She

all but gave way, when she perceived that the menacing growl was really

a plea. The poor fellow was at bay. She very nearly laughed. Then, too,

he would not meet her eye again.

"Oh, am _I_ keeping you?" she exclaimed in innocent dismay.

It provoked him to what she wanted. He came toward her angrily, while

she stepped back against the door and spread her arms across it. Her

pose was a dare; and the trouble was, he had to look. He had to see the

girlish, the wonderful line of head and shoulder, the color flooding

cheek and neck, and most dangerous of all, the challenging gray eyes.

His teeth snapped to, and his hand closed over her wrist. He pulled, she

yielded. He felt her other hand laid on his. The touch seemed to sear

his flesh.

"You must not go," she whispered, "must not!"

He drew her farther from the door, toward himself.

"Must not!" she repeated. He could feel the breath of her whisper.

"Don't--Jack-leen!"

She barely heard the words, but she knew the agony there. And he, as he

gripped her wrist, sensed the throbbing that passed through her whole

body. For pity, he was powerless to thrust aside a lass who pitied him.

"It is that common, yes. It is not the instinct of----"

Yet, all the while, like another Brunhilde, she was praying in her heart

that she had not taunted him in vain. A very eerie Valkyrie, she had

taunted him to be the stronger, stronger than his will, stronger than

herself, to strive with her, to master her. And now she saw a fury of

love and hate aroused in him, a fury against herself for making him love

her more than his great will could bear. In her lust for seeing this

anger of his, she forgot her mission absolutely, forgot why she had come

to Mexico, forgot all but the prayer in her heart.

Nothing was left her but to learn the answer, and this she did, by

tugging firmly, coyly, to free her wrist. The answer was rapture; his

grip had tightened. She pulled harder, and felt herself being drawn

toward him. Yes, yes, her triumph was a fact. Slowly an arm of iron, a

tremulous, masterful vandal, circled her waist.

She pushed at him with her fists, and panting, tried to fight him off,

however the blood stung in her veins and coursed hot as in his. The

matter had gone far enough. It was time for explanations, for an

adjustment. But he did not seem to think so. He was relentless.

Barbarian Siegfried with the warrior virgin was not more so. The tendons

in that arm of his suddenly went rigid, and crushed her body against

him. It was then that a sudden horror took her, and she struggled like a

tigress. She gasped out a cry for help, but the scream had no volume.

Before she could try again, his hand covered her mouth.

And then, and then--oh, the words he was whispering! Even as he

smothered her shriek, she heard them.

"Well--we'll just have in Clem Douglas. You've seen Clem, little girl?

He's our parson."

His life long, Driscoll had never dreamed of heaven as he saw it then in

her eyes. Never, his whole life long, as she raised those eyes to his.

And the sweet relaxing of herself, the trustful pillowing of her head on

his breast, the soulful content as she softly breathed there, instead of

that wild panting of a moment before! Blinded to the world, he fervently

thanked God that he had been made.

He touched her white brow lovingly, and gently tilted back her chin.

Again her eyes lifted, confidingly. His head bent. She waited. His lips

drew nearer to hers, very slowly. He was held in a deep reverence, in an

awe of something sacred. It was a rite of adoration before a shrine. And

she, seeing that look in his eyes, wanted him to know that the shrine

was truly as pure as in his oblivion to the world he for the moment

believed. For later memory would come to him, and that she could not

bear. He must know now, before their lips met. Yet a good woman may not

brazenly avow that rumor and evidence speak what is false. But for all

that he still must know, in some way. With a playful gesture she

intercepted his lips against the soft palm of her hand, her eyes the

while holding his in their communion of soul. And thus she spoke,

prettily, saucily, and blushing the while,

"And are you so sure, sir, that you are the first?"

She had looked for protestation, and she would have answered. And he

would have believed. He must have believed. But instead the spell of

faith broke sharply. Poisoned memory rushed in before it could be

belied. She could see the tragedy of it in his changed look, in his

ashen face, cold and gray. He thought her question a gloating over his

weakness, and it revolted him. He was, then, but a caprice for her. He

remembered that after all he had only happened by, and that she was

returning to Maximilian. But still she was hardly less tempting. He had

a moment of cruel conflict with himself, which left him with a sullen

rage against the princelet in Mexico, against the order of princelets,

that thus fell a deathly pall between an honest man and a true love

kiss. Yet, she was there in his arms, dear and fearfully clinging

and--no less tempting.

"Take this woman to my mother?" the question rose.

As one might close the eyes of his dead wife, he loosed the arms about

his neck, and let them fall at her side. Once free, he leaped to the

door, flung it open, and was gone.

CHAPTER VII

A CROP OF COLONELS

"And thus they led a quiet life

During their princely raine."

--_Ballad of King Cophetua and the Beggar-Maid._

Some years after the events recorded here, there appeared in the

Boonville Javelin (post-bellum and revived) a serial of reminiscences,

which, behind an opalescent gossamer of romance, pictured the

Missourians and the chivalrous role they played around that forlornly

chastened and be-chased damsel, la Republica Mexicana.

Quite aside from the prodigious deeds set forth therein, the

journalistic epic is of itself naively prodigious, as anyone knowing Mr.

Boone with pen in hand will at once suspect. All the little Trojan

band--call them Gascons if you will, but own that if they boasted they

were ever keen to substantiate the bluff--all of them, then, strove and

blazed away invariably as heroes and were just as peerless as could be.

You wouldn't look for anything else from Mr. Boone. He must, however, be

credited with one peculiarity, that he never hinted at himself as one of

the glorious company. Daniel knew his newspaper ethics. He knew that the

newspaper man is _not_ the story, however they may regard it in

France, for instance, where the reporter is ever the bright particular

cynosure of any interview that bears his signature.

A few strokes of the Meagre Shanks brush in the way of excerpts from his

narrative, with plenty of extenuating dots in between, should make an

impression, even though impressionistic, and serve perhaps as a sketch

of what befell after Din Driscoll had bearded the Tiger, freed Don

Rodrigo, and surrendered his own two captives. To begin:

A retreat was had [Daniel always got under way slowly, as though

fore-resolved not to stampede.] Echo demands, "Retreat?--The Iron

Brigade in retreat?" 'Twas true. Rallied once again, but under another

flag than the Bars, the Missourians rode all that dank, wet night lest

they meet and have to fight their new friends, the guerrillas under

Rodrigo Galan. It was a weird predicament. Two days before, they were

peaceful settlers in the land--_omne solum forti patria_--their

blood-flecked swords as ploughshares fleshed in earth's warm bosom....

But tyrannical confiscation of the soil they tilled loomed

foreboding.... Pestered nigh unto forceful phrases with shooing robbers

of both sides out of their melon patches, and fired at last by the

sentiment that it behooved them to sally forth and regulate things

themselves.... They only lacked a Cincinnatus. Their old general would

not lead them. Wearing his bright chaplet of renown, Joe Shelby now

drove mules, a captain over long wagon trains....

Then gallant Din Driscoll appeared among them, the dry-humored, reckless

Jack Driscoll of other days, attired now in the brave, dashing

regimentals of the Republic[!] From out the wilds of distant Michoacan

he came with the long gallop that never would tire, and pausing at cabin

after cabin in the Colony's broad acres, summoned his old comrades to

arms ... to arms against the invader.... Who, now, will argue bucolic

content? Those lusty young planters smelled the battle from afar. What

now were waving tassels to the glory of deeds?--_a cuspide

corona_--to a wreath of powder-burned laurel? That very day the Iron

Brigade rallied again, gathered once again at the oft remembered bugle's

full, resonant blare.

Fighting came sooner than the Missourians hoped. Even as they started

for Michoacan, a ragged Indito, whose village had been razed by the

Cossacks, met the command and asked for the Senor Coronel Gringo.

Driscoll heard what he had to tell, and was greatly concerned, though

the others laughed at first and scoffed. For it seemed that the Indito

did not know who sent him, except that it was a senor chaparrito, a

short little senor. "Then you must be a Shorter Yet?" said Driscoll.

"Well, what do you bring?" The Indito produced from his ragged shirt a

bit of parchment, whereon Colonel Driscoll was urged to join with his

new recruits in an attack on Maximilian's escort, for Maximilian was on

his way to Vera Cruz. The parchment was signed, "El Chaparrito."

"Shorty! That word means 'Shorty'," the troopers guffawed. But Driscoll

showed them another handwriting at the bottom. The parchment had been

countersigned in blank, thus: "Benito Juarez, Libertad y Reforma." The

Missourians were respectful after that. Many thought that the mysterious

guardian angel of the Republic's battles must be the Presidente himself,

though the Presidente was thousands of miles away.

* * * * *

After the victory won against Dupin's Contra Guerrillas [so the

chronicle goes on], the Missourians found their ally to be none other

than that picturesque buccaneer of the Sierras, Don Rodrigo, wild as a

prairie wolf, handsome as Lucifer; and their captives to be not the

Emperor and suite but two beautiful women....

When the prisoners had been exchanged--i. e., the two fair girls

restored to Dupin, and Rodrigo freed--and Rodrigo had hurried away to

gather his scattered vagabonds from among the foothills, the Missourians

realized their predicament. That day they had fought the Empire. Then

they had turned and fought the Republic in the person of the guerrilla

chief, Rodrigo Galan. They had rebelled against the rebels, so were

doubly rebel, doubly outlawed. Ye gods, it _was_ bizarre! And as

morning dawned on them trailing along a dreary inferno gorge of the

Sierra Gorda, they blinked at each other ruefully. Poor waifs, they had

lost their native country. And now, one rainy morning, they found they

had lost an adopted one. But each man looked into a face likewise so

rueful that his own broke into a grin.

"We'll just start a _new_ country," cried Driscoll abruptly.

His voice sounded strange and very unlike him, but the inspiration was

characteristic of the man, and true to the old irrepressible Storm

Centre they had known. Hunted outlaws, they too were in the mood for any

desperate venture. Spontaneous as wildfire, they seconded this one ere

they had asked a question. They never did ask "How?"

"A new country," roared Tall Mose, "but where?"

"And when?" Old Brothers and Sisters inquired gently.

"We'll start right after breakfast," their intrepid leader replied. "And

right here in Mexico. It's anybody's country yet, and we might as well

slice off a little private republic for ourselves."

"And won't we fight, by Jiminy!" drawled Cal Grinders, with Ozarkian

deliberation.

"And it don't matter whom we fight," Marmaduke added. "Let 'em show

themselves, Slim Max or Don Benito. We'll meet all comers."

That was the mood they were in, and they were in it to the chin. Submit

a wholesale fighting order, and they bid for it like neither bulls nor

bears, but like wolves.

"About taxation?" asked Clay of Carroll dubiously.

But as a good general, or as another Romulus, Driscoll had figured it

all out. His answer brought comfort.

"We'll not have any. We will levy on commerce, as republics have the

right to do."

"Then," said Carroll of Clay, "we'll need a seaport?"

"Of course. Ain't Tampico simply waiting for us? The French aren't there

now. They are concentrating in Mexico City for evacuation. There's no

more of a garrison than what Old Tige left, a few hundred Cossacks. If

we get there before the Liberals----" ...

... And why not? They were nearly five hundred and greater than Romulus.

They were Missourians, sir. They were from that State which gave the

best fighters to both sides; which, population considered, gave more to

the North than any other Northern state, more to the South than any

other Southern state, and yet as a state would be a Republic unto

herself. What, then, might not be possible to these her sons on a

foreign shore? Intrepid youngsters, they were of royal State lineage,

Missourians from Kentucky, Kentuckians from Virginia, which was in the

beginning. Dauntless cavaliers of the Blood, if they chose to carve

themselves a kingdom, why not?

But they themselves answered the questions, questions that had men's

lives in them thicker than hard words in the Blue-back speller. The

business was as already done, and Mose Bledsoe could go back to his

chant with an easy mind. And once more Missouri's revered saga echoed

among the crags:

"I come from old Missouri,

Yes, all the way from Pike.

I'll tell you why I left there,

And why I came to roam

And leave my poor old mammy,

So far away from home."

Then, the bard leading in a fashion vociferous, the whole command helped

out:

"Says she to me, 'Joe Bowers,

You are the man to win;

Here's a kiss to bind the bargain,'

And she hove a dozen in...."

... Bivouacked under the black-lipped howitzers of Tampico's sullen

heights.... Dismal fens ... where fever exhaled its dread gray breath

thick over swamp and lagoon ... above, the vast aegis of the firmament,

wrought in a diamond dust of stars ... a sickly, jaundiced, moon tilted

drunkenly.... Through ooze and fetid slime the Americans crept

stealthily out of the reeds; and on, over cypress roots, silently in the

silent night; on, up the hill under the low walls of Fort Iturbide.

Gently and fleeting as a dark beauty's sigh in old Castile, they were

come in canister range.

"Steady, men," their leader whispered.

"Unto death," came the low-breathed response.

[No such words were uttered, as Daniel knew perfectly well, but he knew

that they should be--in the telling.].... A sharp cry ... fearful

alarums from the crest of the hill ... next a belching fury of grape....

But Tall Mose was happier for it. The seal was off his lips at last, and

out thundered his stentorian war-song:

"O Sally! dearest Sally!

O Sally! for your sake...."

... still upward, until the cannon fumes broke as a dun-colored wave

over pennant and plume ... and grimy troops fell as spring blossoms in a

balmy south breeze.... Dying as they loved to die, game to the last ...

they stumbled back to the river, which swept over the gallant stranger

slain....

"... It's enough to make me swear!--

That Sally had a baby,

And the baby had red hair...."

... Then piercing and wildly plaintive, the clarions rang out, clamoring

for victory and _vae victis_ ... and Din Driscoll's hoarse voice....

"We are the last of the race, let us be the best as well."... "Back at

'em, fellows!" Bledsoe bellows.... And the parson murmurs, "He prays

best who fights best, both great and small" ... his soft voice tremulous

enough for Glory, his superb trigger finger disturbing enough for

Chaos.... At last, the supreme command "like volley'd lightning"--"Give

'em the revolver. _Charge!_"...

Not until the story is told shall ... for over the battered masonry, in

through the splintered doors, felling shadowy foes on every hand....

When well within-side ... the prowess of each unto himself ... tempest

of pistol cracking ... bleeding deathfully ... ah, the killing is fast

and desperate ... and not a candle over the pitiless fray.... Huddled

together for a brief last stand, the Cossacks ... panic, flight....

_The fort is taken!_

When the incarnadine embers of sunrise glowed in the east, the

Missourians stood on the battlements and surveyed their domain. "You are

the man to win, Joe Bowers," Mose hummed with an I-told-you-so air, but

softly, for many of his comrades were wounded, though he was not, as

usual, for all his seven feet of perpendicular target. But "the Doc," of

Benton, was, of course. Getting wounded was the greatest trouble with

Doc. If he attacked a hornet's nest, he would contrive some way to get a

leg shot off. But with him such things had become to be a matter of

course, so now he crated himself together enough to move around and

attend to the others. Driscoll was most innumerably barked, with a

perforated humerus as climax. [The modest Boone might have catalogued

similarly his own casualties.] Old Brothers and Sisters, that cool

Christian, had lost a lens out of his spectacles, and was now replacing

it from a supply he always carried. What, though, were fractured arms

and busted specs to becoming a republic over night?

But eternal vigilance is ever ... and menace was not long in coming.

Three French gunboats, like sluggish water beetles, crossed the bar and

steamed up the river.... Promptly the howitzers on the ramparts were

trained.... But there was no need ... a white flag ... a naval

lieutenant at the fortress gate.... The gunboats had not come to fight.

Bazaine had sent them to carry off the endangered garrison, it being

expected that a Liberal army under a General Pavon would shortly besiege

the place. The Frenchman was astounded to find that the Liberals, as he

imagined the Missourians, had already arrived. Driscoll allowed him to

embark the dislodged garrison, as well as the defenders of the other

fort, Casa Mata; that is, all except those who might want to change

sides. And nearly every Mexican among the Cossacks did change. It was a

sign of the panic that had spread throughout the Empire. Driscoll also

insisted on the burial of certain guerrilla corpses which Dupin had left

hanging to the town's lamp posts. After which the gunboats took

themselves out of republican waters.

Yet they left behind expectancy. So, a Liberal army two thousand strong

was approaching? The Missourians provisioned themselves from the town

and rested on their arms. The Liberal host appeared, variegated of

costume, piratical of aspect.... Again a flag of truce.... "If the

senores Imperialistas desired to surrender?"... "We are not

Imperialists," came the reply from the fort, "and we're blessedly d-n-d

if we desire to surrender."... "Then, the saints bless us, _who_

are you?"... "The Republic of Tampico, de facto and determined."