She had had SUCH a wonderfully interesting walk, all by herself, alone

on the plain. It was really so queer and elfish to find one's self where

one could see nothing above or around one anywhere but stars. Stars

above one, to right and left of one, and some so low down they seemed

as if they were picketed on the plain. It was so odd to find the horizon

line at one's very feet, like a castaway at sea. And the wind! it seemed

to move one this way and that way, for one could not see anything,

and might really be floating in the air. Only once she thought she saw

something, and was quite frightened.

“What was it?” asked Dick quickly.

“Well, it was a large black object; but--it turned out only to be a

horse.”

She laughed, although she had evidently noticed her cousin's eagerness,

and her own eyes had a nervous brightness.

“And where was Dick all this while?” asked Aunt Viney quietly.

Cecily interrupted, and answered for him briskly. “Oh, he was trying to

make attar of rose of himself in the garden. He's still stupefied by his

own sweetness.”

“If this means,” said Aunt Viney, with matter-of-fact precision, “that

you've been gallivanting all alone, Cecily, on that common plain, where

you're likely to meet all sorts of foreigners and tramps and savages,

and Heaven knows what other vermin, I shall set my face against a

repetition of it. If you MUST go out, and Dick can't go with you--and

I must say that even you and he going out together there at night

isn't exactly the kind of American Christian example to set to our

neighbors--you had better get Concepcion to go with you and take a

lantern.”

“But there is nobody one meets on the plain--at least, nobody likely to

harm one,” protested Cecily.

“Don't tell ME,” said Aunt Viney decidedly; “haven't I seen all sorts

of queer figures creeping along by the brink after nightfall between San

Gregorio and the next rancho? Aren't they always skulking backwards and

forwards to mass and aguardiente?”

“And I don't know why WE should set any example to our neighbors. We

don't see much of them, or they of us.”

“Of course not,” returned Aunt Viney; “because all proper Spanish young

ladies are shut up behind their grilles at night. You don't see THEM

traipsing over the plain in the darkness, WITH or WITHOUT cavaliers!

Why, Don Rafael would lock one of HIS sisters up in a convent and

consider her disgraced forever, if he heard of it.”

Dick felt his cheeks burning; Cecily slightly paled. Yet both said

eagerly together: “Why, what do YOU know about it, Aunty?”

“A great deal,” returned Aunt Viney quietly, holding her tatting up to

the light and examining the stitches with a critical eye. “I've got

my eyes about me, thank heaven! even if my ears don't understand the

language. And there's a great deal, my dears, that you young people

might learn from these Papists.”

“And do you mean to say,” continued Dick, with a glowing cheek and an

uneasy smile, “that Spanish girls don't go out alone?”

“No young LADY goes out without her duenna,” said Aunt Viney

emphatically. “Of course there's the Concha variety, that go out without

even stockings.”

As the conversation flagged after this, and the young people once or

twice yawned nervously, Aunt Viney thought they had better go to bed.

But Dick did not sleep. The beautiful face beamed out again from the

darkness of his room; the light that glimmered through his deep-set

curtainless windows had an odd trick of bringing out certain hanging

articles, or pieces of furniture, into a resemblance to a mantled

figure. The deep, velvety eyes, fringed with long brown lashes, again

looked into his with amused, childlike curiosity. He scouted the harsh

criticisms of Aunt Viney, even while he shrank from proving to her her

mistake in the quality of his mysterious visitant. Of course she was

a lady--far superior to any of her race whom he had yet met. Yet how

should he find WHO she was? His pride and a certain chivalry forbade his

questioning the servants--before whom it was the rule of the

household to avoid all reference to their neighbors. He would make the

acquaintance of the old padre--perhaps HE might talk. He would ride

early along the trail in the direction of the nearest rancho,--Don Jose

Amador's,--a thing he had hitherto studiously refrained from doing. It

was three miles away. She must have come that distance, but not ALONE.

Doubtless she had kept her duenna in waiting in the road. Perhaps it

was she who had frightened Cecily. Had Cecily told ALL she had seen? Her

embarrassed manner certainly suggested more than she had told. He felt

himself turning hot with an indefinite uneasiness. Then he tried to

compose himself. After all, it was a thing of the past. The fair unknown

had bribed the duenna for once, no doubt--had satisfied her girlish

curiosity--she would not come again! But this thought brought with

it such a sudden sense of utter desolation, a deprivation so new and

startling, that it frightened him. Was his head turned by the witcheries

of some black-eyed schoolgirl whom he had seen but once? Or--he felt his

cheeks glowing in the darkness--was it really a case of love at first

sight, and she herself had been impelled by the same yearning that now

possessed him? A delicious satisfaction followed, that left a smile on

his lips as if it had been a kiss. He knew now why he had so strangely

hesitated with Cecily. He had never really loved her--he had never known

what love was till now!

He was up early the next morning, skimming the plain on the back of

“Chu Chu,” before the hacienda was stirring. He did not want any one to

suspect his destination, and it was even with a sense of guilt that

he dashed along the swale in the direction of the Amador rancho. A

few vaqueros, an old Digger squaw carrying a basket, two little Indian

acolytes on their way to mass passed him. He was surprised to find that

there were no ruts of carriage wheels within three miles of the casa,

and evidently no track for carriages through the swale. SHE must have

come on HORSEBACK. A broader highway, however, intersected the trail at

a point where the low walls of the Amador rancho came in view. Here he

was startled by the apparition of an old-fashioned family carriage drawn

by two large piebald mules. But it was unfortunately closed. Then, with

a desperate audacity new to his reserved nature, he ranged close beside

it, and even stared in the windows. A heavily mantled old woman, whose

brown face was in high contrast to her snow-white hair, sat in the back

seat. Beside her was a younger companion, with the odd blonde hair and

blue eyes sometimes seen in the higher Castilian type. For an instant

the blue eyes caught his, half-coquettishly. But the girl was NOT at all

like his mysterious visitor, and he fell, discomfited, behind.

He had determined to explain his trespass on the grounds of his

neighbor, if questioned, by the excuse that he was hunting a strayed

mustang. But his presence, although watched with a cold reserve by the

few peons who were lounging near the gateway, provoked no challenge from

them; and he made a circuit of the low adobe walls, with their barred

windows and cinnamon-tiled roofs, without molestation--but equally

without satisfaction. He felt he was a fool for imagining that he would

see her in that way. He turned his horse towards the little Mission

half a mile away. There he had once met the old padre, who spoke a

picturesque but limited English; now he was only a few yards ahead of

him, just turning into the church. The padre was pleased to see Don

Ricardo; it was an unusual thing for the Americanos, he observed, to

be up so early: for himself, he had his functions, of course. No, the

ladies that the caballero had seen had not been to mass! They were Donna

Maria and her daughter, going to San Gregorio. They comprised ALL the

family at the rancho,--there were none others, unless the caballero, of

a possibility, meant Donna Inez, a maiden aunt of sixty--an admirable

woman, a saint on earth! He trusted that he would find his estray; there

was no doubt a mark upon it, otherwise the plain was illimitable; there

were many horses--the world was wide!

Dick turned his face homewards a little less adventurously, and it must

be confessed, with a growing sense of his folly. The keen, dry morning

air brushed away his fancies of the preceding night; the beautiful eyes

that had lured him thither seemed to flicker and be blown out by its

practical breath. He began to think remorsefully of his cousin, of his

aunt,--of his treachery to that reserve which the little alien household

had maintained towards their Spanish neighbors. He found Aunt Viney and

Cecily at breakfast--Cecily, he thought, looking a trifle pale. Yet (or

was it only his fancy?) she seemed curious about his morning ride. And

he became more reticent.

“You must see a good many of our neighbors when you are out so early?”

“Why?” he asked shortly, feeling his color rise.

“Oh, because--because we don't see them at any other time.”

“I saw a very nice chap--I think the best of the lot,” he began, with

assumed jocularity; then, seeing Cecily's eyes suddenly fixed on him, he

added, somewhat lamely, “the padre! There were also two women in a queer

coach.”

“Donna Maria Amador, and Dona Felipa Peralta--her daughter by her first

husband,” said Aunt Viney quietly. “When you see the horses you think

it's a circus; when you look inside the carriage you KNOW it's a

funeral.”

Aunt Viney did not condescend to explain how she had acquired her

genealogical knowledge of her neighbor's family, but succeeded in

breaking the restraint between the young people. Dick proposed a ride

in the afternoon, which was cheerfully accepted by Cecily. Their

intercourse apparently recovered its old frankness and freedom, marred

only for a moment when they set out on the plain. Dick, really to forget

his preoccupation of the morning, turned his horse's head AWAY from

the trail, to ride in another direction; but Cecily oddly, and with an

exhibition of caprice quite new to her, insisted upon taking the old

trail. Nevertheless they met nothing, and soon became absorbed in the

exercise. Dick felt something of his old tenderness return to this

wholesome, pretty girl at his side; perhaps he betrayed it in his voice,

or in an unconscious lingering by her bridle-rein, but she accepted it

with a naive reserve which he naturally attributed to the effect of

his own previous preoccupation. He bore it so gently, however, that it

awakened her interest, and, possibly, her pique. Her reserve relaxed,

and by the time they returned to the hacienda they had regained

something of their former intimacy. The dry, incisive breath of the

plains swept away the last lingering remnants of yesterday's illusions.

Under this frankly open sky, in this clear perspective of the remote

Sierras, which admitted no fanciful deception of form or distance--there

remained nothing but a strange incident--to be later explained or

forgotten. Only he could not bring himself to talk to HER about it.

After dinner, and a decent lingering for coffee on the veranda, Dick

rose, and leaning half caressingly, half mischievously, over his aunt's

rocking-chair, but with his eyes on Cecily, said:--

“I've been deeply considering, dear Aunty, what you said last evening

of the necessity of our offering a good example to our neighbors. Now,

although Cecily and I are cousins, yet, as I am HEAD of the house,

lord of the manor, and padron, according to the Spanish ideas I am her

recognised guardian and protector, and it seems to me it is my positive

DUTY to accompany her if she wishes to walk out this evening.”

A momentary embarrassment--which, however, changed quickly into an

answering smile to her cousin--came over Cecily's face. She turned to

her aunt.

“Well, don't go too far,” said that lady quietly.

When they closed the grille behind them and stepped into the lane,

Cecily shot a quick glance at her cousin.

“Perhaps you'd rather walk in the garden?”

“I? Oh, no,” he answered honestly. “But”--he hesitated--“would you?”

“Yes,” she said faintly.

He impulsively offered his arm; her slim hand slipped lightly through

it and rested on his sleeve. They crossed the lane together, and entered

the garden. A load appeared to be lifted from his heart; the moment

seemed propitious,--here was a chance to recover his lost ground, to

regain his self-respect and perhaps his cousin's affection. By a common

instinct, however, they turned to the right, and AWAY from the stone

bench, and walked slowly down the broad allee.

They talked naturally and confidingly of the days when they had met

before, of old friends they had known and changes that had crept into

their young lives; they spoke affectionately of the grim, lonely, but

self-contained old woman they had just left, who had brought them thus

again together. Cecily talked of Dick's studies, of the scientific work

on which he was engaged, that was to bring him, she was sure, fame and

fortune! They talked of the thoughtful charm of the old house, of its

quaint old-world flavor. They spoke of the beauty of the night, the

flowers and the stars, in whispers, as one is apt to do--as fearing to

disturb a super-sensitiveness in nature.

They had come out later than on the previous night; and the moon,

already risen above the high walls of the garden, seemed a vast silver

shield caught in the interlacing tops of the old pear-trees, whose

branches crossed its bright field like dark bends or bars. As it rose

higher, it began to separate the lighter shrubbery, and open white lanes

through the olive-trees. Damp currents of air, alternating with drier

heats, on what appeared to be different levels, moved across the

whole garden, or gave way at times to a breathless lull and hush of

everything, in which the long rose alley seemed to be swooning in its

own spices. They had reached the bottom of the garden, and had turned,

facing the upper moonlit extremity and the bare stone bench. Cecily's

voice faltered, her hand leaned more heavily on his arm, as if she were

overcome by the strong perfume. His right hand began to steal towards

hers. But she had stopped; she was trembling.

“Go on,” she said in a half whisper. “Leave me a moment; I'll join you

afterwards.”

“You are ill, Cecily! It's those infernal flowers!” said Dick earnestly.

“Let me help you to the bench.”

“No--it's nothing. Go on, please. Do! Will you go!”

She spoke with imperiousness, unlike herself. He walked on mechanically

a dozen paces and turned. She had disappeared. He remembered there was a

smaller gate opening upon the plain near where they had stopped. Perhaps

she had passed through that. He continued on, slowly, towards the upper

end of the garden, occasionally turning to await her return. In this way

he gradually approached the stone bench. He was facing about to continue

his walk, when his heart seemed to stop beating. The beautiful visitor

of last night was sitting alone on the bench before him!

She had not been there a moment before; he could have sworn it. Yet

there was no illusion now of shade or distance. She was scarcely six

feet from him, in the bright moonlight. The whole of her exquisite

little figure was visible, from her lustrous hair down to the tiny,

black satin, low-quartered slipper, held as by two toes. Her face was

fully revealed; he could see even the few minute freckles, like powdered

allspice, that heightened the pale satin sheen of her beautifully

rounded cheek; he could detect even the moist shining of her parted red

lips, the white outlines of her little teeth, the length of her curved

lashes, and the meshes of the black lace veil that fell from the yellow

rose above her ear to the black silk camisa; he noted even the thick

yellow satin saya, or skirt, heavily flounced with black lace and

bugles, and that it was a different dress from that worn on the

preceding night, a half-gala costume, carried with the indescribable air

of a woman looking her best and pleased to do so: all this he had noted,

drawing nearer and nearer, until near enough to forget it all and drown

himself in the depths of her beautiful eyes. For they were no

longer childlike and wondering: they were glowing with expectancy,

anticipation--love!

He threw himself passionately on the bench beside her. Yet, even if he

had known her language, he could not have spoken. She leaned towards

him; their eyes seemed to meet caressingly, as in an embrace. Her little

hand slipped from the yellow folds of her skirt to the bench. He eagerly

seized it. A subtle thrill ran through his whole frame. There was

no delusion here; it was flesh and blood, warm, quivering, and even

tightening round his own. He was about to carry it to his lips, when she

rose and stepped backwards. He pressed eagerly forward. Another backward

step brought her to the pear-tree, where she seemed to plunge into its

shadow. Dick Bracy followed--and the same shadow seemed to fold them in

its embrace.

*****

He did not return to the veranda and chocolate that evening, but sent

word from his room that he had retired, not feeling well.

Cecily, herself a little nervously exalted, corroborated the fact of

his indisposition by telling Aunt Viney that the close odors of the rose

garden had affected them both. Indeed, she had been obliged to leave

before him. Perhaps in waiting for her return--and she really was not

well enough to go back--he was exposed to the night air too long. She

was very sorry.

Aunt Viney heard this with a slight contraction of her brows and a

renewed scrutiny of her knitting; and, having satisfied herself by

a personal visit to Dick's room that he was not alarmingly ill, set

herself to find out what was really the matter with the young people;

for there was no doubt that Cecily was in some vague way as disturbed

and preoccupied as Dick. He rode out again early the next morning,

returning to his studies in the library directly after breakfast; and

Cecily was equally reticent, except when, to Aunt Viney's perplexity,

she found excuses for Dick's manner on the ground of his absorption in

his work, and that he was probably being bored by want of society. She

proposed that she should ask an old schoolfellow to visit them.

“It would give Dick a change of ideas, and he would not be perpetually

obliged to look so closely after me.” She blushed slightly under Aunt

Viney's gaze, and added hastily, “I mean, of course, he would not feel

it his DUTY.”

She even induced her aunt to drive with her to the old mission church,

where she displayed a pretty vivacity and interest in the people they

met, particularly a few youthful and picturesque caballeros. Aunt Viney

smiled gravely. Was the poor child developing an unlooked-for coquetry,

or preparing to make the absent-minded Dick jealous? Well, the idea was

not a bad one. In the evening she astonished the two cousins by offering

to accompany them into the garden--a suggestion accepted with eager and

effusive politeness by each, but carried out with great awkwardness by

the distrait young people later. Aunt Viney clearly saw that it was not

her PRESENCE that was required. In this way two or three days elapsed

without apparently bringing the relations of Dick and Cecily to any more

satisfactory conclusion. The diplomatic Aunt Viney confessed herself

puzzled.

One night it was very warm; the usual trade winds had died away before

sunset, leaving an unwonted hush in sky and plain. There was something

so portentous in this sudden withdrawal of that rude stimulus to the

otherwise monotonous level, that a recurrence of such phenomena was

always known as “earthquake weather.” The wild cattle moved uneasily in

the distance without feeding; herds of unbroken mustangs approached

the confines of the hacienda in vague timorous squads. The silence and

stagnation of the old house was oppressive, as if the life had really

gone out of it at last; and Aunt Viney, after waiting impatiently for

the young people to come in to chocolate, rose grimly, set her lips

together, and went out into the lane. The gate of the rose garden

opposite was open. She walked determinedly forward and entered.

In that doubly stagnant air the odor of the roses was so suffocating

and overpowering that she had to stop to take breath. The whole garden,

except a near cluster of pear-trees, was brightly illuminated by the

moonlight. No one was to be seen along the length of the broad allee,

strewn an inch deep with scattered red and yellow petals--colorless in

the moonbeams. She was turning away, when Dick's familiar voice, but

with a strange accent of entreaty in it, broke the silence. It seemed to

her vaguely to come from within the pear-tree shadow.

“But we must understand one another, my darling! Tell me all. This

suspense, this mystery, this brief moment of happiness, and these hours

of parting and torment, are killing me!”

A slight cough broke from Aunt Viney. She had heard enough--she did not

wish to hear more. The mystery was explained. Dick loved Cecily; the

coyness or hesitation was not on HIS part. Some idiotic girlish caprice,

quite inconsistent with what she had noticed at the mission church,

was keeping Cecily silent, reserved, and exasperating to her lover. She

would have a talk with the young lady, without revealing the fact that

she had overheard them. She was perhaps a little hurt that affairs

should have reached this point without some show of confidence to her

from the young people. Dick might naturally be reticent--but Cecily!

She did not even look towards the pear-tree, but turned and walked

stiffly out of the gate. As she was crossing the lane she suddenly

started back in utter dismay and consternation! For Cecily, her

niece,--in her own proper person,--was actually just coming OUT OF THE

HOUSE!

Aunt Viney caught her wrist. “Where have you been?” she asked quickly.

“In the house,” stammered Cecily, with a frightened face.

“You have not been in the garden with Dick?” continued Aunt Viney

sharply--yet with a hopeless sense of the impossibility of the

suggestion.

“No, I was not even going there. I thought of just strolling down the

lane.”

The girl's accents were truthful; more than that, she absolutely looked

relieved by her aunt's question. “Do you want me, Aunty?” she added

quickly.

“Yes--no. Run away, then--but don't go far.”

At any other time Aunt Viney might have wondered at the eagerness with

which Cecily tripped away; now she was only anxious to get rid of her.

She entered the casa hurriedly.

“Send Josefa to me at once,” she said to Manuel.

Josefa, the housekeeper,--a fat Mexican woman,--appeared. “Send Concha

and the other maids here.” They appeared, mutely wondering. Aunt Viney

glanced hurriedly over them--they were all there--a few comely, but not

too attractive, and all stupidly complacent. “Have you girls any friends

here this evening--or are you expecting any?” she demanded. Of a surety,

no!--as the padrona knew--it was not night for church. “Very well,”

returned Aunt Viney; “I thought I heard your voices in the garden;

understand, I want no gallivanting there. Go to bed.”

She was relieved! Dick certainly was not guilty of a low intrigue with

one of the maids. But who and what was she?

Dick was absent again from chocolate; there was unfinished work to do.

Cecily came in later, just as Aunt Viney was beginning to be anxious.

Had she appeared distressed or piqued by her cousin's conduct, Aunt

Viney might have spoken; but there was a pretty color on her cheek--the

result, she said, of her rapid walking, and the fresh air; did Aunt

Viney know that a cool breeze had just risen?--and her delicate lips

were wreathed at times in a faint retrospective smile. Aunt Viney

stared; certainly the girl was not pining! What young people were made

of now-a-days she really couldn't conceive. She shrugged her shoulders

and resumed her tatting.

Nevertheless, as Dick's unfinished studies seemed to have whitened his

cheek and impaired his appetite the next morning, she announced her

intention of driving out towards the mission alone. When she returned at

luncheon she further astonished the young people by casually informing

them they would have Spanish visitors to dinner--namely, their

neighbors, Donna Maria Amador and the Dona Felipa Peralta.

Both faces were turned eagerly towards her; both said almost in the same

breath, “But, Aunt Viney! you don't know them! However did you--What

does it all mean?”

“My dears,” said Aunt Viney placidly, “Mrs. Amador and I have always

nodded to each other, and I knew they were only waiting for the

slightest encouragement. I gave it, and they're coming.”

It was difficult to say whether Cecily's or Dick's face betrayed the

greater delight and animation. Aunt Viney looked from the one to the

other. It seemed as if her attempt at diversion had been successful.

“Tell us all about it, you dear, clever, artful Aunty!” said Cecily

gayly.

“There's nothing whatever to tell, my love! It seems, however, that the

young one, Dona Felipa, has seen Dick, and remembers him.” She shot a

keen glance at Dick, but was obliged to admit that the rascal's face

remained unchanged. “And I wanted to bring a cavalier for YOU, dear, but

Don Jose's nephew isn't at home now.” Yet here, to her surprise, Cecily

was faintly blushing.

Early in the afternoon the piebald horses and dark brown chariot of the

Amadors drew up before the gateway. The young people were delighted

with Dona Felipa, and thought her blue eyes and tawny hair gave an added

piquancy to her colorless satin skin and otherwise distinctively

Spanish face and figure. Aunt Viney, who entertained Donna Maria, was

nevertheless watchful of the others; but failed to detect in Dick's

effusive greeting, or the Dona's coquettish smile of recognition, any

suggestion of previous confidences. It was rather to Cecily that

Dona Felipa seemed to be characteristically exuberant and childishly

feminine. Both mother and stepdaughter spoke a musical infantine

English, which the daughter supplemented with her eyes, her eyebrows,

her little brown fingers, her plump shoulders, a dozen charming

intonations of voice, and a complete vocabulary in her active and

emphatic fan.

The young lady went over the house with Cecily curiously, as if

recalling some old memories. “Ah, yes, I remember it--but it was long

ago and I was very leetle--you comprehend, and I have not arrive mooch

when the old Don was alone. It was too--too--what you call melank-oaly.

And the old man have not make mooch to himself of company.”

“Then there were no young people in the house, I suppose?” said Cecily,

smiling.

“No--not since the old man's father lif. Then there were TWO. It is a

good number, this two, eh?” She gave a single gesture, which took in,

with Cecily, the distant Dick, and with a whole volume of suggestion

in her shoulders, and twirling fan, continued: “Ah! two sometime make

one--is it not? But not THEN in the old time--ah, no! It is a sad story.

I shall tell it to you some time, but not to HIM.”

But Cecily's face betrayed no undue bashful consciousness, and she only

asked, with a quiet smile, “Why not to--to my cousin?”

“Imbecile!” responded that lively young lady.

After dinner the young people proposed to take Dona Felipa into the rose

garden, while Aunt Viney entertained Donna Maria on the veranda. The

young girl threw up her hands with an affectation of horror. “Santa

Maria!--in the rose garden? After the Angelus, you and him? Have you not

heard?”

But here Donna Maria interposed. Ah! Santa Maria! What was all that!

Was it not enough to talk old woman's gossip and tell vaqueros tales at

home, without making uneasy the strangers? She would have none of it.

“Vamos!”

Nevertheless Dona Felipa overcame her horror of the rose garden at

infelicitous hours, so far as to permit herself to be conducted by the

cousins into it, and to be installed like a rose queen on the stone

bench, while Dick and Cecily threw themselves in submissive and

imploring attitudes at her little feet. The young girl looked

mischievously from one to the other.

“It ees very pret-ty, but all the same I am not a rose: I am what you

call a big goose-berry! Eh--is it not?”

The cousins laughed, but without any embarrassed consciousness. “Dona

Felipa knows a sad story of this house,” said Cecily; “but she will not

tell it before you, Dick.”

Dick, looking up at the coquettish little figure, with Heaven knows what

OTHER memories in his mind, implored and protested.

“Ah! but this little story--she ees not so mooch sad of herself as she

ees str-r-r-ange!” She gave an exaggerated little shiver under her lace

shawl, and closed her eyes meditatively.

“Go on,” said Dick, smiling in spite of his interested expectation.

Dona Felipa took her fan in both hands, spanning her knees, leaned

forward, and after a preliminary compressing of her lips and knitting of

her brows, said:--

“It was a long time ago. Don Gregorio he have his daughter Rosita here,

and for her he will fill all thees rose garden and gif to her; for she

like mooch to lif with the rose. She ees very pret-ty. You shall have

seen her picture here in the casa. No? It have hang under the crucifix

in the corner room, turn around to the wall--WHY, you shall comprehend

when I have made finish thees story. Comes to them here one day Don

Vincente, Don Gregorio's nephew, to lif when his father die. He was

yong, a pollio--same as Rosita. They were mooch together; they have

make lofe. What will you?--it ees always the same. The Don Gregorio have

comprehend; the friends have all comprehend; in a year they will make

marry. Dona Rosita she go to Monterey to see his family. There ees

an English warship come there; and Rosita she ees very gay with the

officers, and make the flirtation very mooch. Then Don Vincente he is

onhappy, and he revenge himself to make lofe with another. When Rosita

come back it is very miserable for them both, but they say nossing. The

warship he have gone away; the other girl Vincente he go not to no more.

All the same, Rosita and Vincente are very triste, and the family will

not know what to make. Then Rosita she is sick and eat nossing, and walk

to herself all day in the rose garden, until she is as white and

fade away as the rose. And Vincente he eat nossing, but drink mooch

aguardiente. Then he have fever and go dead. And Rosita she have

fainting and fits; and one day they have look for her in the rose

garden, and she is not! And they poosh and poosh in the ground for her,

and they find her with so mooch rose-leaves--so deep--on top of her. SHE

has go dead. It is a very sad story, and when you hear it you are very,

very mooch dissatisfied.”

It is to be feared that the two Americans were not as thrilled by this

sad recital as the fair narrator had expected, and even Dick ventured to

point out that those sort of things happened also to his countrymen, and

were not peculiar to the casa.

“But you said that there was a terrible sequel,” suggested Cecily

smilingly: “tell us THAT. Perhaps Mr. Bracy may receive it a little more

politely.”

An expression of superstitious gravity, half real, half simulated, came

over Dona Felipa's face, although her vivacity of gesticulation and

emphasis did not relax. She cast a hurried glance around her, and leaned

a little forward towards the cousins.

“When there are no more young people in the casa because they are dead,”

she continued, in a lower voice, “Don Gregorio he is very melank-oaly,

and he have no more company for many years. Then there was a rodeo near

the hacienda, and there came five or six caballeros to stay with him

for the feast. Notabilimente comes then Don Jorge Martinez. He is a bad

man--so weeked--a Don Juan for making lofe to the ladies. He lounge in

the garden, he smoke his cigarette, he twist the moustache--so! One day

he came in, and he laugh and wink so and say, 'Oh, the weeked, sly Don

Gregorio! He have hid away in the casa a beautiful, pret-ty girl, and

he will nossing say.' And the other caballeros say, 'Mira! what is this?

there is not so mooch as one young lady in the casa.' And Don Jorge he

wink, and he say, 'Imbeciles! pigs!' And he walk in the garden and twist

his moustache more than ever. And one day, behold! he walk into the

casa, very white and angry, and he swear mooch to himself; and he orders

his horse, and he ride away, and never come back no more, never-r-r!

And one day another caballero, Don Esteban Briones, he came in, and say,

'Hola! Don Jorge has forgotten his pret-ty girl: he have left her over

on the garden bench. Truly I have seen.' And they say, 'We will too.'

And they go, and there is nossing. And they say, 'Imbecile and pig!' But

he is not imbecile and pig; for he has seen, and Don Jorge has seen; and

why? For it is not a girl, but what you call her--a ghost! And they will

that Don Esteban should make a picture of her--a design; and he make

one. And old Don Gregorio he say, 'madre de Dios! it is Rosita'--the

same that hung under the crucifix in the big room.”

“And is that all?” asked Dick, with a somewhat pronounced laugh, but a

face that looked quite white in the moonlight.

“No, it ees NOT all. For when Don Gregorio got himself more company

another time--it ees all yonge ladies, and my aunt she is invite too;

for she was yonge then, and she herself have tell to me this:--

“One night she is in the garden with the other girls, and when they want

to go in the casa one have say, 'Where is Francisca Pacheco? Look,

she came here with us, and now she is not.' Another one say, 'She have

conceal herself to make us affright.' And my aunt she say, 'I will

go seek that I shall find her.' And she go. And when she came to the

pear-tree, she heard Francisca's voice, and it say to some one she see

not, 'Fly! vamos! some one have come.' And then she come at the moment

upon Francisca, very white and trembling, and--alone. And Francisca she

have run away and say nossing, and shut herself in her room. And one of

the other girls say: 'It is the handsome caballero with the little black

moustache and sad white face that I have seen in the garden that make

this. It is truly that he is some poor relation of Don Gregorio, or

some mad kinsman that he will not we should know.' And my aunt ask Don

Gregorio; for she is yonge. And he have say: 'What silly fool ees thees?

There is not one caballero here, but myself.' And when the other young

girl have tell to him how the caballero look, he say: 'The saints save

us! I cannot more say. It ees Don Vincente, who haf gone dead.' And

he cross himself, and--But look! Madre de Dios! Mees Cecily, you are

ill--you are affrighted. I am a gabbling fool! Help her, Don Ricardo;

she is falling!”

But it was too late: Cecily had tried to rise to her feet, had staggered

forward and fallen in a faint on the bench.

*****

Dick did not remember how he helped to carry the insensible Cecily to

the casa, nor what explanation he had given to the alarmed inmates of

her sudden attack. He recalled vaguely that something had been said of

the overpowering perfumes of the garden at that hour, that the lively

Felipa had become half hysterical in her remorseful apologies, and that

Aunt Viney had ended the scene by carrying Cecily into her own

room, where she presently recovered a still trembling but reticent

consciousness. But the fainting of his cousin and the presence of a real

emergency had diverted his imagination from the vague terror that

had taken possession of it, and for the moment enabled him to control

himself. With a desperate effort he managed to keep up a show of

hospitable civility to his Spanish friends until their early departure.

Then he hurried to his own room. So bewildered and horrified he had

become, and a prey to such superstitious terrors, that he could not at

that moment bring himself to the test of looking for the picture of the

alleged Rosita, which might still be hanging in his aunt's room. If

it were really the face of his mysterious visitant--in his present

terror--he felt that his reason might not stand the shock. He would look

at it to-morrow, when he was calmer! Until then he would believe that

the story was some strange coincidence with what must have been his

hallucination, or a vulgar trick to which he had fallen a credulous

victim. Until then he would believe that Cecily's fright had been only

the effect of Dona Felipa's story, acting upon a vivid imagination, and

not a terrible confirmation of something she had herself seen. He threw

himself, without undressing, upon his bed in a benumbing agony of doubt.

The gentle opening of his door and the slight rustle of a skirt started

him to his feet with a feeling of new and overpowering repulsion. But it

was a familiar figure that he saw in the long aisle of light which led

from his recessed window, whose face was white enough to have been a

spirit's, and whose finger was laid upon its pale lips, as it softly

closed the door behind it.

“Cecily!”

“Hush!” she said, in a distracted whisper: “I felt I must see you

to-night. I could not wait until day--no, not another hour! I could

not speak to you before them. I could not go into that dreadful garden

again, or beyond the walls of this house. Dick, I want to--I MUST tell

you something! I would have kept it from every one--from you most of

all! I know you will hate me, and despise me; but, Dick, listen!”--she

caught his hand despairingly, drawing it towards her--“that girl's awful

story was TRUE!” She threw his hand away.

“And you have seen HER!” said Dick, frantically. “Good God!”

The young girl's manner changed. “HER!” she said, half scornfully, “you

don't suppose I believe THAT story? No. I--I--don't blame me, Dick,--I

have seen HIM.”

“Him?”

She pushed him nervously into a seat, and sat down beside him. In the

half light of the moon, despite her pallor and distraction, she was

still very human, womanly, and attractive in her disorder.

“Listen to me, Dick. Do you remember one afternoon, when we were riding

together, I got ahead of you, and dashed off to the casa. I don't know

what possessed me, or WHY I did it. I only know I wanted to get home

quickly, and get away from you. No, I was not angry, Dick, at YOU;

it did not seem to be THAT; I--well, I confess I was FRIGHTENED--at

something, I don't know what. When I wheeled round into the lane, I

saw--a man--a young gentleman standing by the garden-wall. He was very

picturesque-looking, in his red sash, velvet jacket, and round silver

buttons; handsome, but oh, so pale and sad! He looked at me very

eagerly, and then suddenly drew back, and I heard you on Chu Chu coming

at my heels. You must have seen him and passed him too, I thought: but

when you said nothing of it, I--I don't know why, Dick, I said nothing

of it too. Don't speak!” she added, with a hurried gesture: “I know NOW

why you said nothing,--YOU had not seen him.”

She stopped, and put back a wisp of her disordered chestnut hair.

“The next time was the night YOU were so queer, Dick, sitting on that

stone bench. When I left you--I thought you didn't care to have me

stay--I went to seek Aunt Viney at the bottom of the garden. I was very

sad, but suddenly I found myself very gay, talking and laughing with

her in a way I could not account for. All at once, looking up, I saw HIM

standing by the little gate, looking at me very sadly. I think I would

have spoken to Aunt Viney, but he put his finger to his lips--his

hand was so slim and white, quite like a hand in one of those Spanish

pictures--and moved slowly backwards into the lane, as if he wished to

speak with ME only--out there. I know I ought to have spoken to Aunty; I

knew it was wrong what I did, but he looked so earnest, so appealing, so

awfully sad, Dick, that I slipped past Aunty and went out of the gate.

Just then she missed me, and called. He made a kind of despairing

gesture, raising his hand Spanish fashion to his lips, as if to say

good-night. You'll think me bold, Dick, but I was so anxious to know

what it all meant, that I gave a glance behind to see if Aunty was

following, before I should go right up to him and demand an explanation.

But when I faced round again, he was gone! I walked up and down the lane

and out on the plain nearly half an hour, seeking him. It was strange, I

know; but I was not a bit FRIGHTENED, Dick--that was so queer--but I was

only amazed and curious.”

The look of spiritual terror in Dick's face here seemed to give way to a

less exalted disturbance, as he fixed his eyes on Cecily's.

“You remember I met YOU coming in: you seemed so queer then that I

did not say anything to you, for I thought you would laugh at me, or

reproach me for my boldness; and I thought, Dick, that--that--that--this

person wished to speak only to ME.” She hesitated.

“Go on,” said Dick, in a voice that had also undergone a singular

change.

The chestnut head was bent a little lower, as the young girl nervously

twisted her fingers in her lap.

“Then I saw him again--and--again,” she went on hesitatingly. “Of course

I spoke to him, to--to--find out what he wanted; but you know, Dick, I

cannot speak Spanish, and of course he didn't understand me, and didn't

reply.”

“But his manner, his appearance, gave you some idea of his meaning?”

said Dick suddenly.

Cecily's head drooped a little lower. “I thought--that is, I fancied I

knew what he meant.”

“No doubt,” said Dick, in a voice which, but for the superstitious

horror of the situation, might have impressed a casual listener as

indicating a trace of human irony.

But Cecily did not seem to notice it. “Perhaps I was excited that night,

perhaps I was bolder because I knew you were near me; but I went up to

him and touched him! And then, Dick!--oh, Dick! think how awful--”

Again Dick felt the thrill of superstitious terror creep over him. “And

he vanished!” he said hoarsely.

“No--not at once,” stammered Cecily, with her head almost buried in her

lap; “for he--he--he took me in his arms and--”

“And kissed you?” said Dick, springing to his feet, with every trace

of his superstitious agony gone from his indignant face. But Cecily,

without raising her head, caught at his gesticulating hand.

“Oh, Dick, Dick! do you think he really did it? The horror of it, Dick!

to be kissed by a--a--man who has been dead a hundred years!”

“A hundred fiddlesticks!” said Dick furiously. “We have been deceived!

No,” he stammered, “I mean YOU have been deceived--insulted!”

“Hush! Aunty will hear you,” murmured the girl despairingly.

Dick, who had thrown away his cousin's hand, caught it again, and

dragged her along the aisle of light to the window. The moon shone upon

his flushed and angry face.

“Listen!” he said; “you have been fooled, tricked--infamously tricked

by these people, and some confederate, whom--whom I shall horsewhip if I

catch. The whole story is a lie!”

“But you looked as if you believed it--about the girl,” said Cecily;

“you acted so strangely. I even thought, Dick,--sometimes--you had seen

HIM.”

Dick shuddered, trembled; but it is to be feared that the lower, more

natural human element in him triumphed.

“Nonsense!” he stammered; “the girl was a foolish farrago of

absurdities, improbable on the face of things, and impossible to prove.

But that infernal, sneaking rascal was flesh and blood.”

It seemed to him to relieve the situation and establish his own

sanity to combat one illusion with another. Cecily had already been

deceived--another lie wouldn't hurt her. But, strangely enough, he was

satisfied that Cecily's visitant was real, although he still had doubts

about his own.

“Then you think, Dick, it was actually some real man?” she said

piteously. “Oh, Dick, I have been so foolish!”

Foolish she no doubt had been; pretty she certainly was, sitting there

in her loosened hair, and pathetic, appealing earnestness. Surely the

ghostly Rosita's glances were never so pleading as these actual honest

eyes behind their curving lashes. Dick felt a strange, new-born sympathy

of suffering, mingled tantalizingly with a new doubt and jealousy, that

was human and stimulating.

“Oh, Dick, what are WE to do?”

The plural struck him as deliciously sweet and subtle. Had they

really been singled out for this strange experience, or still stranger

hallucination? His arm crept around her; she gently withdrew from it.

“I must go now,” she murmured; “but I couldn't sleep until I told you

all. You know, Dick, I have no one else to come to, and it seemed to me

that YOU ought to know it first. I feel better for telling you. You will

tell me to-morrow what you think we ought to do.”

They reached the door, opening it softly. She lingered for a moment on

the threshold.

“Tell me, Dick” (she hesitated), “if that--that really were a spirit,

and not a real man,--you don't think that--that kiss” (she shuddered)

“could do me harm!”

He shuddered too, with a strange and sympathetic consciousness that,

happily, she did not even suspect. But he quickly recovered himself

and said, with something of bitterness in his voice, “I should be more

afraid if it really were a man.”

“Oh, thank you, Dick!”

Her lips parted in a smile of relief; the color came faintly back to her

cheek.

A wild thought crossed his fancy that seemed an inspiration. They would

share the risks alike. He leaned towards her: their lips met in their

first kiss.

“Oh, Dick!”

“Dearest!”

“I think--we are saved.”

“Why?”

“It wasn't at all like that.”

He smiled as she flew swiftly down the corridor. Perhaps he thought so

too.

*****

No picture of the alleged Rosita was ever found. Dona Felipa, when the

story was again referred to, smiled discreetly, but was apparently too

preoccupied with the return of Don Jose's absent nephew for further

gossiping visits to the hacienda; and Dick and Cecily, as Mr. and Mrs.

Bracy, would seem to have survived--if they never really solved--the

mystery of the Hacienda de los Osos. Yet in the month of June, when the

moon is high, one does not sit on the stone bench in the rose garden

after the last stroke of the Angelus.

CHU CHU.

I do not believe that the most enthusiastic lover of that “useful and

noble animal,” the horse, will claim for him the charm of geniality,

humor, or expansive confidence. Any creature who will not look you

squarely in the eye--whose only oblique glances are inspired by fear,

distrust, or a view to attack; who has no way of returning caresses, and

whose favorite expression is one of head-lifting disdain, may be “noble”

or “useful,” but can be hardly said to add to the gayety of nations.

Indeed it may be broadly stated that, with the single exception of

gold-fish, of all animals kept for the recreation of mankind the

horse is alone capable of exciting a passion that shall be absolutely

hopeless. I deem these general remarks necessary to prove that my

unreciprocated affection for “Chu Chu” was not purely individual or

singular. And I may add that to these general characteristics she

brought the waywardness of her capricious sex.

She came to me out of the rolling dust of an emigrant wagon, behind

whose tailboard she was gravely trotting. She was a half-broken colt--in

which character she had at different times unseated everybody in the

train--and, although covered with dust, she had a beautiful coat, and

the most lambent gazelle-like eyes I had ever seen. I think she kept

these latter organs purely for ornament--apparently looking at things

with her nose, her sensitive ears, and, sometimes, even a slight lifting

of her slim near fore-leg. On our first interview I thought she favored

me with a coy glance, but as it was accompanied by an irrelevant “Look

out!” from her owner, the teamster, I was not certain. I only know that

after some conversation, a good deal of mental reservation, and the

disbursement of considerable coin, I found myself standing in the dust

of the departing emigrant-wagon with one end of a forty-foot riata in my

hand, and Chu Chu at the other.

I pulled invitingly at my own end, and even advanced a step or two

towards her. She then broke into a long disdainful pace, and began to

circle round me at the extreme limit of her tether. I stood admiring

her free action for some moments--not always turning with her, which was

tiring--until I found that she was gradually winding herself up ON ME!

Her frantic astonishment when she suddenly found herself thus brought up

against me was one of the most remarkable things I ever saw, and nearly

took me off my legs. Then when she had pulled against the riata until

her narrow head and prettily arched neck were on a perfectly straight

line with it, she as suddenly slackened the tension and condescended to

follow me, at an angle of her own choosing. Sometimes it was on one

side of me, sometimes on the other. Even then the sense of my dreadful

contiguity apparently would come upon her like a fresh discovery, and

she would become hysterical. But I do not think that she really SAW me.

She looked at the riata and sniffed it disparagingly, she pawed some

pebbles that were near me tentatively with her small hoof; she started

back with a Robinson Crusoe-like horror of my footprints in the wet

gully, but my actual personal presence she ignored. She would sometimes

pause, with her head thoughtfully between her fore-legs, and apparently

say: “There is some extraordinary presence here: animal, vegetable, or

mineral--I can't make out which--but it's not good to eat, and I loathe

and detest it.”

When I reached my house in the suburbs, before entering the “fifty vara”

lot inclosure, I deemed it prudent to leave her outside while I informed

the household of my purchase; and with this object I tethered her by the

long riata to a solitary sycamore which stood in the centre of the road,

the crossing of two frequented thoroughfares. It was not long, however,

before I was interrupted by shouts and screams from that vicinity, and

on returning thither I found that Chu Chu, with the assistance of her

riata, had securely wound up two of my neighbors to the tree, where they

presented the appearance of early Christian martyrs. When I released

them it appeared that they had been attracted by Chu Chu's graces,

and had offered her overtures of affection, to which she had

characteristically rotated with this miserable result. I led her, with

some difficulty, warily keeping clear of the riata, to the inclosure,

from whose fence I had previously removed several bars. Although the

space was wide enough to have admitted a troop of cavalry she affected

not to notice it, and managed to kick away part of another section on

entering. She resisted the stable for some time, but after carefully

examining it with her hoofs, and an affectedly meek outstretching of

her nose, she consented to recognize some oats in the feed-box--without

looking at them--and was formally installed. All this while she had

resolutely ignored my presence. As I stood watching her she suddenly

stopped eating; the same reflective look came over her. “Surely I am not

mistaken, but that same obnoxious creature is somewhere about here!” she

seemed to say, and shivered at the possibility.

It was probably this which made me confide my unreciprocated affection

to one of my neighbors--a man supposed to be an authority on horses, and

particularly of that wild species to which Chu Chu belonged. It was he

who, leaning over the edge of the stall where she was complacently and,

as usual, obliviously munching, absolutely dared to toy with a pet lock

of hair which she wore over the pretty star on her forehead. “Ye see,

captain,” he said with jaunty easiness, “hosses is like wimmen; ye don't

want ter use any standoffishness or shyness with THEM; a stiddy but

keerless sort o' familiarity, a kind o' free but firm handlin', jess

like this, to let her see who's master”--

We never clearly knew HOW it happened; but when I picked up my neighbor

from the doorway, amid the broken splinters of the stall rail, and a

quantity of oats that mysteriously filled his hair and pockets, Chu Chu

was found to have faced around the other way, and was contemplating her

forelegs, with her hind ones in the other stall. My neighbor spoke of

damages while he was in the stall, and of physical coercion when he

was out of it again. But here Chu Chu, in some marvelous way, righted

herself, and my neighbor departed hurriedly with a brimless hat and an

unfinished sentence.

My next intermediary was Enriquez Saltello--a youth of my own age,

and the brother of Consuelo Saltello, whom I adored. As a Spanish

Californian he was presumed, on account of Chu Chu's half-Spanish

origin, to have superior knowledge of her character, and I even vaguely

believed that his language and accent would fall familiarly on her ear.

There was the drawback, however, that he always preferred to talk in

a marvelous English, combining Castilian precision with what he fondly

believed to be Californian slang.

“To confer then as to thees horse, which is not--observe me--a Mexican

plug! Ah, no! you can your boots bet on that. She is of Castilian

stock--believe me and strike me dead! I will myself at different times

overlook and affront her in the stable, examine her as to the assault,

and why she should do thees thing. When she is of the exercise I will

also accost and restrain her. Remain tranquil, my friend! When a few

days shall pass much shall be changed, and she will be as another. Trust

your oncle to do thees thing! Comprehend me? Everything shall be lovely,

and the goose hang high!”

Conformably with this he “overlooked” her the next day, with a cigarette

between his yellow-stained finger-tips, which made her sneeze in a

silent pantomimic way, and certain Spanish blandishments of speech which

she received with more complacency. But I don't think she ever even

looked at him. In vain he protested that she was the “dearest” and

“littlest” of his “little loves”--in vain he asserted that she was his

patron saint, and that it was his soul's delight to pray to her; she

accepted the compliment with her eyes fixed upon the manger. When he had

exhausted his whole stock of endearing diminutives, adding a few playful

and more audacious sallies, she remained with her head down, as if

inclined to meditate upon them. This he declared was at least an

improvement on her former performances. It may have been my own

jealousy, but I fancied she was only saying to herself, “Gracious! can

there be TWO of them?”

“Courage and patience, my friend,” he said, as we were slowly quitting

the stable. “Thees horse is yonge, and has not yet the habitude of the

person. To-morrow, at another season, I shall give to her a foundling”

(“fondling,” I have reason to believe, was the word intended by

Enriquez)--“and we shall see. It shall be as easy as to fall away from

a log. A leetle more of this chin music which your friend Enriquez

possesses, and some tapping of the head and neck, and you are there.

You are ever the right side up. Houp la! But let us not precipitate this

thing. The more haste, we do not so much accelerate ourselves.”

He appeared to be suiting the action to the word as he lingered in the

doorway of the stable. “Come on,” I said.

“Pardon,” he returned, with a bow that was both elaborate and evasive,

“but you shall yourself precede me--the stable is YOURS.”

“Oh, come along!” I continued impatiently. To my surprise he seemed to

dodge back into the stable again. After an instant he reappeared.

“Pardon! but I am re-strain! Of a truth, in this instant I am grasp by

the mouth of thees horse in the coat-tail of my dress! She will that I

should remain. It would seem”--he disappeared again--“that”--he was out

once more--“the experiment is a sooccess! She reciprocate! She is, of a

truth, gone on me. It is lofe!”--a stronger pull from Chu Chu here sent

him in again--“but”--he was out now triumphantly with half his garment

torn away--“I shall coquet.”

Nothing daunted, however, the gallant fellow was back next day with

a Mexican saddle, and attired in the complete outfit of a vaquero.

Overcome though HE was by heavy deerskin trousers, open at the side

from the knees down, and fringed with bullion buttons, an enormous

flat sombrero, and a stiff, short embroidered velvet jacket, I was more

concerned at the ponderous saddle and equipments intended for the slim

Chu Chu. That these would hide and conceal her beautiful curves and

contour, as well as overweight her, seemed certain; that she would

resist them all to the last seemed equally clear. Nevertheless, to my

surprise, when she was led out, and the saddle thrown deftly across her

back, she was passive. Was it possible that some drop of her old Spanish

blood responded to its clinging embrace? She did not either look at it

nor smell it. But when Enriquez began to tighten the “cinch” or girth

a more singular thing occurred. Chu Chu visibly distended her slender

barrel to twice its dimensions; the more he pulled the more she swelled,

until I was actually ashamed of her. Not so Enriquez. He smiled at us,

and complacently stroked his thin moustache.

“Eet is ever so! She is the child of her grandmother! Even when you

shall make saddle thees old Castilian stock, it will make large--it will

become a balloon! Eet is a trick--eet is a leetle game--believe me. For

why?”

I had not listened, as I was at that moment astonished to see the saddle

slowly slide under Chu Chu's belly, and her figure resume, as if by

magic, its former slim proportions. Enriquez followed my eyes, lifted

his shoulders, shrugged them, and said smilingly, “Ah, you see!”

When the girths were drawn in again with an extra pull or two from the

indefatigable Enriquez, I fancied that Chu Chu nevertheless secretly

enjoyed it, as her sex is said to appreciate tight-lacing. She drew a

deep sigh, possibly of satisfaction, turned her neck, and apparently

tried to glance at her own figure--Enriquez promptly withdrawing to

enable her to do so easily. Then the dread moment arrived. Enriquez,

with his hand on her mane, suddenly paused and, with exaggerated

courtesy, lifted his hat and made an inviting gesture.

“You will honor me to precede.”

I shook my head laughingly.

“I see,” responded Enriquez gravely. “You have to attend the obsequies

of your aunt who is dead, at two of the clock. You have to meet your

broker who has bought you feefty share of the Comstock lode--at thees

moment--or you are loss! You are excuse! Attend! Gentlemen, make your

bets! The band has arrived to play! 'Ere we are!”

With a quick movement the alert young fellow had vaulted into the

saddle. But, to the astonishment of both of us, the mare remained

perfectly still. There was Enriquez bolt upright in the stirrups,

completely overshadowing by his saddle-flaps, leggings, and gigantic

spurs the fine proportions of Chu Chu, until she might have been a

placid Rosinante, bestridden by some youthful Quixote. She closed her

eyes, she was going to sleep! We were dreadfully disappointed. This

clearly would not do. Enriquez lifted the reins cautiously! Chu Chu

moved forward slowly--then stopped, apparently lost in reflection.

“Affront her on thees side.”

I approached her gently. She shot suddenly into the air, coming down

again on perfectly stiff legs with a springless jolt. This she instantly

followed by a succession of other rocket-like propulsions, utterly

unlike a leap, all over the inclosure. The movements of the unfortunate

Enriquez were equally unlike any equitation I ever saw. He appeared

occasionally over Chu Chu's head, astride of her neck and tail, or in

the free air, but never IN the saddle. His rigid legs, however, never

lost the stirrups, but came down regularly, accentuating her springless

hops. More than that, the disproportionate excess of rider, saddle,

and accoutrements was so great that he had, at times, the appearance of

lifting Chu Chu forcibly from the ground by superior strength, and of

actually contributing to her exercise! As they came towards me, a wild

tossing and flying mass of hoofs and spurs, it was not only difficult

to distinguish them apart, but to ascertain how much of the jumping was

done by Enriquez separately. At last Chu Chu brought matters to a close

by making for the low-stretching branches of an oak-tree which stood at

the corner of the lot. In a few moments she emerged from it--but without

Enriquez.

I found the gallant fellow disengaging himself from the fork of a branch

in which he had been firmly wedged, but still smiling and confident, and

his cigarette between his teeth. Then for the first time he removed it,

and seating himself easily on the branch with his legs dangling down, he

blandly waved aside my anxious queries with a gentle reassuring gesture.

“Remain tranquil, my friend. Thees does not count! I have conquer--you

observe--for why? I have NEVER for once ARRIVE AT THE GROUND! Consequent

she is disappoint! She will ever that I SHOULD! But I have got her when

the hair is not long! Your oncle Henry”--with an angelic wink--“is fly!

He is ever a bully boy, with the eye of glass! Believe me. Behold! I am

here! Big Injin! Whoop!”

He leaped lightly to the ground. Chu Chu, standing watchfully at a

little distance, was evidently astonished at his appearance. She threw

out her hind hoofs violently, shot up into the air until the stirrups

crossed each other high above the saddle, and made for the stable in a

succession of rabbit-like bounds--taking the precaution to remove the

saddle, on entering, by striking it against the lintel of the door. “You

observe,” said Enriquez blandly, “she would make that thing of ME. Not

having the good occasion, she ees dissatisfied. Where are you now?”

Two or three days afterwards he rode her again with the same

result--accepted by him with the same heroic complacency. As we did not,

for certain reasons, care to use the open road for this exercise, and as

it was impossible to remove the tree, we were obliged to submit to the

inevitable. On the following day I mounted her--undergoing the same

experience as Enriquez, with the individual sensation of falling from a

third-story window on top of a counting-house stool, and the variation

of being projected over the fence. When I found that Chu Chu had not

accompanied me, I saw Enriquez at my side. “More than ever is become

necessary that we should do thees things again,” he said gravely, as

he assisted me to my feet. “Courage, my noble General! God and Liberty!

Once more on to the breach! Charge, Chestare, charge! Come on, Don

Stanley! 'Ere we are!”

He helped me none too quickly to catch my seat again, for it apparently

had the effect of the turned peg on the enchanted horse in the Arabian

Nights, and Chu Chu instantly rose into the air. But she came down this

time before the open window of the kitchen, and I alighted easily on the

dresser. The indefatigable Enriquez followed me.

“Won't this do?” I asked meekly.

“It ees BETTER--for you arrive NOT on the ground,” he said cheerfully;

“but you should not once but a thousand times make trial! Ha! Go and

win! Nevare die and say so! 'Eave ahead! 'Eave! There you are!”

Luckily, this time I managed to lock the rowels of my long spurs under

her girth, and she could not unseat me. She seemed to recognize the fact

after one or two plunges, when, to my great surprise, she suddenly

sank to the ground and quietly rolled over me. The action disengaged

my spurs, but, righting herself without getting up, she turned her

beautiful head and absolutely LOOKED at me!--still in the saddle. I felt

myself blushing! But the voice of Enriquez was at my side.

“Errise, my friend; you have conquer! It is SHE who has arrive at the

ground! YOU are all right. It is done; believe me, it is feenish! No

more shall she make thees thing. From thees instant you shall ride her

as the cow--as the rail of thees fence--and remain tranquil. For she is

a-broke! Ta-ta! Regain your hats, gentlemen! Pass in your checks! It is

ovar! How are you now?” He lit a fresh cigarette, put his hands in his

pockets, and smiled at me blandly.

For all that, I ventured to point out that the habit of alighting in the

fork of a tree, or the disengaging of one's self from the saddle on the

ground, was attended with inconvenience, and even ostentatious display.

But Enriquez swept the objections away with a single gesture. “It is

the PREENCIPAL--the bottom fact--at which you arrive. The next come of

himself! Many horse have achieve to mount the rider by the knees, and

relinquish after thees same fashion. My grandfather had a barb of thees

kind--but she has gone dead, and so have my grandfather. Which is sad

and strange! Otherwise I shall make of them both an instant example!”

I ought to have said that although these performances were never

actually witnessed by Enriquez's sister--for reasons which he and I

thought sufficient--the dear girl displayed the greatest interest in

them, and, perhaps aided by our mutually complimentary accounts of each

other, looked upon us both as invincible heroes. It is possible also

that she over-estimated our success, for she suddenly demanded that I

should RIDE Chu Chu to her house, that she might see her. It was

not far; by going through a back lane I could avoid the trees which

exercised such a fatal fascination for Chu Chu. There was a pleading,

child-like entreaty in Consuelo's voice that I could not resist, with

a slight flash from her lustrous dark eyes that I did not care to

encourage. So I resolved to try it at all hazards.

My equipment for the performance was modeled after Enriquez's previous

costume, with the addition of a few fripperies of silver and stamped

leather out of compliment to Consuelo, and even with a faint hope

that it might appease Chu Chu. SHE certainly looked beautiful in her

glittering accoutrements, set off by her jet-black shining coat. With an

air of demure abstraction she permitted me to mount her, and even for

a hundred yards or so indulged in a mincing maidenly amble that was not

without a touch of coquetry. Encouraged by this, I addressed a few terms

of endearment to her, and in the exuberance of my youthful enthusiasm I

even confided to her my love for Consuelo, and begged her to be “good”

and not disgrace herself and me before my Dulcinea. In my foolish

trustfulness I was rash enough to add a caress, and to pat her soft

neck. She stopped instantly with a hysteric shudder. I knew what was

passing through her mind: she had suddenly become aware of my baleful

existence.

The saddle and bridle Chu Chu was becoming accustomed to, but who was

this living, breathing object that had actually touched her? Presently

her oblique vision was attracted by the fluttering movement of a fallen

oak-leaf in the road before her. She had probably seen many oak-leaves

many times before; her ancestors had no doubt been familiar with them on

the trackless hills and in field and paddock, but this did not alter her

profound conviction that I and the leaf were identical, that our baleful

touch was something indissolubly connected. She reared before that

innocent leaf, she revolved round it, and then fled from it at the top

of her speed.

The lane passed before the rear wall of Saltello's garden.

Unfortunately, at the angle of the fence stood a beautiful Madrono-tree,

brilliant with its scarlet berries, and endeared to me as Consuelo's

favorite haunt, under whose protecting shade I had more than once avowed

my youthful passion. By the irony of fate Chu Chu caught sight of it,

and with a succession of spirited bounds instantly made for it. In

another moment I was beneath it, and Chu Chu shot like a rocket into the

air. I had barely time to withdraw my feet from the stirrups, to throw

up one arm to protect my glazed sombrero and grasp an overhanging branch

with the other, before Chu Chu darted off. But to my consternation, as

I gained a secure perch on the tree, and looked about me, I saw

her--instead of running away--quietly trot through the open gate into

Saltello's garden.

Need I say that it was to the beneficent Enriquez that I again owed my

salvation? Scarcely a moment elapsed before his bland voice rose in

a concentrated whisper from the corner of the garden below me. He had

divined the dreadful truth!

“For the love of God, collect to yourself many kinds of thees berry! All

you can! Your full arms round! Rest tranquil. Leave to your ole oncle to

make for you a delicate exposure. At the instant!”

He was gone again. I gathered, wonderingly, a few of the larger clusters

of parti-colored fruit and patiently waited. Presently he reappeared,

and with him the lovely Consuelo--her dear eyes filled with an adorable

anxiety.

“Yes,” continued Enriquez to his sister, with a confidential lowering

of tone but great distinctness of utterance, “it is ever so with the

American! He will ever make FIRST the salutation of the flower or the

fruit, picked to himself by his own hand, to the lady where he call. It

is the custom of the American hidalgo! My God--what will you? I make it

not--it is so! Without doubt he is in this instant doing thees thing.

That is why he have let go his horse to precede him here; it is always

the etiquette to offer these things on the feet. Ah! Behold! it is

he!--Don Francisco! Even now he will descend from thees tree! Ah! You

make the blush, little sister (archly)! I will retire! I am discreet;

two is not company for the one! I make tracks! I am gone!”

How far Consuelo entirely believed and trusted her ingenious brother

I do not know, nor even then cared to inquire. For there was a pretty

mantling of her olive cheek, as I came forward with my offering, and a

certain significant shyness in her manner that were enough to throw

me into a state of hopeless imbecility. And I was always miserably

conscious that Consuelo possessed an exalted sentimentality, and a

predilection for the highest mediaeval romance, in which I knew I was

lamentably deficient. Even in our most confidential moments I was

always aware that I weakly lagged behind this daughter of a gloomily

distinguished ancestry, in her frequent incursions into a vague

but poetic past. There was something of the dignity of the Spanish

chatelaine in the sweetly grave little figure that advanced to accept my

specious offering. I think I should have fallen on my knees to present

it, but for the presence of the all seeing Enriquez. But why did I even

at that moment remember that he had early bestowed upon her the nickname

of “Pomposa”? This, as Enriquez himself might have observed, was “sad

and strange.”

I managed to stammer out something about the Madrono berries being at

her “disposicion” (the tree was in her own garden!), and she took the

branches in her little brown hand with a soft response to my unutterable

glances.

But here Chu Chu, momentarily forgotten, executed a happy diversion. To

our astonishment she gravely walked up to Consuelo and, stretching out

her long slim neck, not only sniffed curiously at the berries, but even

protruded a black underlip towards the young girl herself. In another

instant Consuelo's dignity melted. Throwing her arms around Chu Chu's

neck she embraced and kissed her. Young as I was, I understood the

divine significance of a girl's vicarious effusiveness at such a moment,

and felt delighted. But I was the more astonished that the usually

sensitive horse not only submitted to these caresses, but actually

responded to the extent of affecting to nip my mistress's little right

ear.

This was enough for the impulsive Consuelo. She ran hastily into the

house, and in a few moments reappeared in a bewitching riding-skirt

gathered round her jimp waist. In vain Enriquez and myself joined in

earnest entreaty: the horse was hardly broken for even a man's riding

yet; the saints alone could tell what the nervous creature might do

with a woman's skirt flapping at her side! We begged for delay, for

reflection, for at least time to change the saddle--but with no avail!

Consuelo was determined, indignant, distressingly reproachful! Ah, well!

if Don Pancho (an ingenious diminutive of my Christian name) valued

his horse so highly--if he were jealous of the evident devotion of the

animal to herself, he would--but here I succumbed! And then I had the

felicity of holding that little foot for one brief moment in the hollow

of my hand, of readjusting the skirt as she threw her knee over

the saddle-horn, of clasping her tightly--only half in fear--as I

surrendered the reins to her grasp. And to tell the truth, as Enriquez

and I fell back, although I had insisted upon still keeping hold of the

end of the riata, it was a picture to admire. The petite figure of the

young girl, and the graceful folds of her skirt, admirably harmonized

with Chu Chu's lithe contour, and as the mare arched her slim neck and

raised her slender head under the pressure of the reins, it was so like

the lifted velvet-capped toreador crest of Consuelo herself, that they

seemed of one race.

“I would not that you should hold the riata,” said Consuelo petulantly.

I hesitated--Chu Chu looked certainly very amiable--I let go. She began

to amble towards the gate, not mincingly as before, but with a freer and

fuller stride. In spite of the incongruous saddle the young girl's seat

was admirable. As they neared the gate she cast a single mischievous

glance at me, jerked at the rein, and Chu Chu sprang into the road at

a rapid canter. I watched them fearfully and breathlessly, until at the

end of the lane I saw Consuelo rein in slightly, wheel easily, and come

flying back. There was no doubt about it; the horse was under perfect

control. Her second subjugation was complete and final!

Overjoyed and bewildered, I overwhelmed them with congratulations;

Enriquez alone retaining the usual brotherly attitude of criticism, and

a superior toleration of a lover's enthusiasm. I ventured to hint to

Consuelo (in what I believed was a safe whisper) that Chu Chu only

showed my own feelings towards her. “Without doubt,” responded Enriquez

gravely. “She have of herself assist you to climb to the tree to pull

to yourself the berry for my sister.” But I felt Consuelo's little hand

return my pressure, and I forgave and even pitied him.

From that day forward, Chu Chu and Consuelo were not only firm friends

but daily companions. In my devotion I would have presented the horse

to the young girl, but with flattering delicacy she preferred to call it

mine. “I shall erride it for you, Pancho,” she said; “I shall feel,” she

continued with exalted although somewhat vague poetry, “that it is of

YOU! You lofe the beast--it is therefore of a necessity YOU, my Pancho!

It is YOUR soul I shall erride like the wings of the wind--your lofe in

this beast shall be my only cavalier for ever.” I would have preferred

something whose vicarious qualities were less uncertain than I still

felt Chu Chu's to be, but I kissed the girl's hand submissively. It was

only when I attempted to accompany her in the flesh, on another horse,

that I felt the full truth of my instinctive fears. Chu Chu would not

permit any one to approach her mistress's side. My mounted presence

revived in her all her old blind astonishment and disbelief in my

existence; she would start suddenly, face about, and back away from me

in utter amazement as if I had been only recently created, or with an

affected modesty as if I had been just guilty of some grave indecorum

towards her sex which she really could not stand. The frequency of these

exhibitions in the public highway were not only distressing to me as

a simple escort, but as it had the effect on the casual spectators of

making Consuelo seem to participate in Chu Chu's objections, I felt

that, as a lover, it could not be borne. Any attempt to coerce Chu Chu

ended in her running away. And my frantic pursuit of her was open to

equal misconstruction. “Go it, Miss, the little dude is gainin' on you!”

shouted by a drunken teamster to the frightened Consuelo, once checked

me in mid career. Even the dear girl herself saw the uselessness of my

real presence, and after a while was content to ride with “my soul.”

Notwithstanding this, I am not ashamed to say that it was my custom,

whenever she rode out, to keep a slinking and distant surveillance of

Chu Chu on another horse, until she had fairly settled down to her pace.

A little nod of Consuelo's round black-and-red toreador hat or a kiss

tossed from her riding-whip was reward enough!

I remember a pleasant afternoon when I was thus awaiting her in the

outskirts of the village. The eternal smile of the Californian summer

had begun to waver and grow less fixed; dust lay thick on leaf and

blade; the dry hills were clothed in russet leather; the trade winds

were shifting to the south with an ominous warm humidity; a few days

longer and the rains would be here. It so chanced that this afternoon my

seclusion on the roadside was accidentally invaded by a village belle--a

Western young lady somewhat older than myself, and of flirtatious

reputation. As she persistently and--as I now have reason to

believe--mischievously lingered, I had only a passing glimpse of

Consuelo riding past at an unaccustomed speed which surprised me at

the moment. But as I reasoned later that she was only trying to avoid

a merely formal meeting, I thought no more about it. It was not until I

called at the house to fetch Chu Chu at the usual hour, and found that

Consuelo had not yet returned, that a recollection of Chu Chu's furious

pace again troubled me. An hour passed--it was getting towards sunset,

but there were no signs of Chu Chu nor her mistress. I became seriously

alarmed. I did not care to reveal my fears to the family, for I felt

myself responsible for Chu Chu. At last I desperately saddled my horse,

and galloped off in the direction she had taken. It was the road to

Rosario and the hacienda of one of her relations, where she sometimes

halted.

The road was a very unfrequented one, twisting like a mountain river;

indeed, it was the bed of an old watercourse, between brown hills of

wild oats, and debouching at last into a broad blue lake-like expanse of

alfalfa meadows. In vain I strained my eyes over the monotonous level;

nothing appeared to rise above or move across it. In the faint hope that

she might have lingered at the hacienda, I was spurring on again when I

heard a slight splashing on my left. I looked around. A broad patch

of fresher-colored herbage and a cluster of dwarfed alders indicated

a hidden spring. I cautiously approached its quaggy edges, when I was

shocked by what appeared to be a sudden vision! Mid-leg deep in the

centre of a greenish pool stood Chu Chu! But without a strap or buckle

of harness upon her--as naked as when she was foaled!

For a moment I could only stare at her in bewildered terror. Far from

recognizing me, she seemed to be absorbed in a nymph-like contemplation

of her own graces in the pool. Then I called “Consuelo!” and galloped

frantically around the spring. But there was no response, nor was there

anything to be seen but the all-unconscious Chu Chu. The pool, thank

Heaven! was not deep enough to have drowned any one; there were no signs

of a struggle on its quaggy edges. The horse might have come from a

distance! I galloped on, still calling. A few hundred yards further

I detected the vivid glow of Chu Chu's scarlet saddle-blanket, in the

brush near the trail. My heart leaped--I was on the track. I called

again; this time a faint reply, in accents I knew too well, came from

the field beside me!

Consuelo was there! reclining beside a manzanita bush which screened

her from the road, in what struck me, even at that supreme moment, as a

judicious and picturesquely selected couch of scented Indian grass and

dry tussocks. The velvet hat with its balls of scarlet plush was laid

carefully aside; her lovely blue-black hair retained its tight coils

undisheveled, her eyes were luminous and tender. Shocked as I was at her

apparent helplessness, I remember being impressed with the fact that it

gave so little indication of violent usage or disaster.

I threw myself frantically on the ground beside her.

“You are hurt, Consita! For Heaven's sake, what has happened?”

She pushed my hat back with her little hand, and tumbled my hair gently.

“Nothing. YOU are here, Pancho--eet is enofe! What shall come after

thees--when I am perhaps gone among the grave--make nothing! YOU are

here--I am happy. For a little, perhaps--not mooch.”

“But,” I went on desperately, “was it an accident? Were you thrown? Was

it Chu Chu?”--for somehow, in spite of her languid posture and voice, I

could not, even in my fears, believe her seriously hurt.

“Beat not the poor beast, Pancho. It is not from HER comes thees thing.

She have make nothing--believe me! I have come upon your assignation

with Miss Essmith! I make but to pass you--to fly--to never come back!

I have say to Chu Chu, 'Fly!' We fly many miles. Sometimes together,

sometimes not so mooch! Sometimes in the saddle, sometimes on the neck!

Many things remain in the road; at the end, I myself remain! I have

say, 'Courage, Pancho will come!' Then I say, 'No, he is talk with Miss

Essmith!' I remember not more. I have creep here on the hands. Eet is

feenish!”

I looked at her distractedly. She smiled tenderly, and slightly smoothed

down and rearranged a fold of her dress to cover her delicate little

boot.

“But,” I protested, “you are not much hurt, dearest. You have broken no

bones. Perhaps,” I added, looking at the boot, “only a slight sprain.

Let me carry you to my horse; I will walk beside you, home. Do, dearest

Consita!”

She turned her lovely eyes towards me sadly. “You comprehend not, my

poor Pancho! It is not of the foot, the ankle, the arm, or the head that

I can say, 'She is broke!' I would it were even so. But”--she lifted her

sweet lashes slowly--“I have derrange my inside. It is an affair of my

family. My grandfather have once toomble over the bull at a rodeo. He

speak no more; he is dead. For why? He has derrange his inside. Believe

me, it is of the family. You comprehend? The Saltellos are not as the

other peoples for this. When I am gone, you will bring to me the berry

to grow upon my tomb, Pancho; the berry you have picked for me. The

little flower will come too, the little star will arrive, but Consuelo,

who lofe you, she will come not more! When you are happy and talk in the

road to the Essmith, you will not think of me. You will not see my eyes,

Pancho; thees little grass”--she ran her plump little fingers through a

tussock--“will hide them; and the small animals in the black coats that

lif here will have much sorrow--but you will not. It ees better so! My

father will not that I, a Catholique, should marry into a camp-meeting,

and lif in a tent, and make howl like the coyote.” (It was one

of Consuelo's bewildering beliefs that there was only one form of

dissent--Methodism!) “He will not that I should marry a man who possess

not the many horses, ox, and cow, like him. But I care not. YOU are my

only religion, Pancho! I have enofe of the horse, and ox, and cow when

YOU are with me! Kiss me, Pancho. Perhaps it is for the last time--the

feenish! Who knows?”

There were tears in her lovely eyes; I felt that my own were growing

dim; the sun was sinking over the dreary plain to the slow rising of the

wind; an infinite loneliness had fallen upon us, and yet I was miserably

conscious of some dreadful unreality in it all. A desire to laugh, which

I felt must be hysterical, was creeping over me; I dared not speak. But

her dear head was on my shoulder, and the situation was not unpleasant.

Nevertheless, something must be done! This was the more difficult as it

was by no means clear what had already been done. Even while I supported

her drooping figure I was straining my eyes across her shoulder for

succor of some kind. Suddenly the figure of a rapid rider appeared

upon the road. It seemed familiar. I looked again--it was the blessed

Enriquez! A sense of deep relief came over me. I loved Consuelo; but

never before had lover ever hailed the irruption of one of his beloved's

family with such complacency.

“You are safe, dearest; it is Enriquez!”

I thought she received the information coldly. Suddenly she turned upon

me her eyes, now bright and glittering. “Swear to me at the instant,

Pancho, that you will not again look upon Miss Essmith, even for once.”

I was simple and literal. Miss Smith was my nearest neighbor, and,

unless I was stricken with blindness, compliance was impossible. I

hesitated--but swore.

“Enofe--you have hesitate--I will no more.”

She rose to her feet with grave deliberation. For an instant, with the

recollection of the delicate internal organization of the Saltellos

on my mind, I was in agony lest she should totter and fall, even then,

yielding up her gentle spirit on the spot. But when I looked again she

had a hairpin between her white teeth, and was carefully adjusting her

toreador hat. And beside us was Enriquez--cheerful, alert, voluble, and

undaunted.

“Eureka! I have found! We are all here! Eet is a leetle public--eh! a

leetle too much of a front seat for a tete-a-tete, my yonge friends,”

he said, glancing at the remains of Consuelo's bower, “but for the

accounting of taste there is none. What will you? The meat of the one

man shall envenom the meat of the other. But” (in a whisper to me)

“as to thees horse--thees Chu Chu, which I have just pass--why is she

undress? Surely you would not make an exposition of her to the traveler

to suspect! And if not, why so?”

I tried to explain, looking at Consuelo, that Chu Chu had run away, that

Consuelo had met with a terrible accident, had been thrown, and I feared

had suffered serious internal injury. But to my embarrassment Consuelo

maintained a half scornful silence, and an inconsistent freshness of

healthful indifference, as Enriquez approached her with an engaging

smile. “Ah, yes, she have the headache, and the molligrubs. She will sit

on the damp stone when the gentle dew is falling. I comprehend. Meet

me in the lane when the clock strike nine! But,” in a lower voice,

“of thees undress horse I comprehend nothing! Look you--it is sad and

strange.”

He went off to fetch Chu Chu, leaving me and Consuelo alone. I do not

think I ever felt so utterly abject and bewildered before in my life.

Without knowing why, I was miserably conscious of having in some way

offended the girl for whom I believed I would have given my life, and

I had made her and myself ridiculous in the eyes of her brother. I had

again failed in my slower Western nature to understand her high romantic

Spanish soul! Meantime she was smoothing out her riding-habit, and

looking as fresh and pretty as when she first left her house.

“Consita,” I said hesitatingly, “you are not angry with me?”

“Angry?” she repeated haughtily, without looking at me. “Oh, no! Of a

possibility eet is Mees Essmith who is angry that I have interroopt her

tete-a-tete with you, and have send here my brother to make the same

with me.”

“But,” I said eagerly, “Miss Smith does not even know Enriquez!”

Consuelo turned on me a glance of unutterable significance. “Ah!” she

said darkly, “you TINK!”

Indeed I KNEW. But here I believed I understood Consuelo, and was

relieved. I even ventured to say gently, “And you are better?”

She drew herself up to her full height, which was not much. “Of my

health, what is it? A nothing. Yes! Of my soul let us not speak.”

Nevertheless, when Enriquez appeared with Chu Chu she ran towards her

with outstretched arms. Chu Chu protruded about six inches of upper

lip in response--apparently under the impression, which I could quite

understand, that her mistress was edible. And, I may have been mistaken,

but their beautiful eyes met in an absolute and distinct glance of

intelligence!

During the home journey Consuelo recovered her spirits, and parted from

me with a magnanimous and forgiving pressure of the hand. I do not know

what explanation of Chu Chu's original escapade was given to Enriquez

and the rest of the family; the inscrutable forgiveness extended to me

by Consuelo precluded any further inquiry on my part. I was willing

to leave it a secret between her and Chu Chu. But, strange to say, it

seemed to complete our own understanding, and precipitated, not only our

lovemaking, but the final catastrophe which culminated that romance.

For we had resolved to elope. I do not know that this heroic remedy was

absolutely necessary from the attitude of either Consuelo's family or

my own; I am inclined to think we preferred it, because it involved no

previous explanation or advice. Need I say that our confidant and firm

ally was Consuelo's brother--the alert, the linguistic, the ever-happy,

ever-ready Enriquez! It was understood that his presence would not only

give a certain mature respectability to our performance--but I do not

think we would have contemplated this step without it. During one of our

riding excursions we were to secure the services of a Methodist minister

in the adjoining county, and, later, that of the Mission padre--when the

secret was out. “I will gif her away,” said Enriquez confidently, “it

will on the instant propitiate the old shadbelly who shall perform the

affair, and withhold his jaw. A little chin-music from your oncle 'Arry

shall finish it! Remain tranquil and forgot not a ring! One does not

always, in the agony and dissatisfaction of the moment, a ring remember.

I shall bring two in the pocket of my dress.”

If I did not entirely participate in this roseate view it may have

been because Enriquez, although a few years my senior, was much

younger-looking, and with his demure deviltry of eye, and his upper lip

close shaven for this occasion, he suggested a depraved acolyte rather

than a responsible member of a family. Consuelo had also confided to

me that her father--possibly owing to some rumors of our previous

escapade--had forbidden any further excursions with me alone. The

innocent man did not know that Chu Chu had forbidden it also, and that

even on this momentous occasion both Enriquez and myself were obliged to

ride in opposite fields like out flankers. But we nevertheless felt the

full guilt of disobedience added to our desperate enterprise. Meanwhile,

although pressed for time, and subject to discovery at any moment, I

managed at certain points of the road to dismount and walk beside Chu

Chu (who did not seem to recognize me on foot), holding Consuelo's hand

in my own, with the discreet Enriquez leading my horse in the distant

field. I retain a very vivid picture of that walk--the ascent of a

gentle slope towards a prospect as yet unknown, but full of glorious

possibilities; the tender dropping light of an autumn sky, slightly

filmed with the promise of the future rains, like foreshadowed tears,

and the half frightened, half serious talk into which Consuelo and I

had insensibly fallen. And then, I don't know how it happened, but as we

reached the summit Chu Chu suddenly reared, wheeled, and the next moment

was flying back along the road we had just traveled, at the top of her

speed! It might have been that, after her abstracted fashion, she only

at that moment detected my presence; but so sudden and complete was

her evolution that before I could regain my horse from the astonished

Enriquez she was already a quarter of a mile on the homeward stretch,

with the frantic Consuelo pulling hopelessly at the bridle. We started

in pursuit. But a horrible despair seized us. To attempt to overtake

her, to even follow at the same rate of speed would only excite Chu

Chu and endanger Consuelo's life. There was absolutely no help for

it, nothing could be done; the mare had taken her determined long,

continuous stride, the road was a straight, steady descent all the way

back to the village, Chu Chu had the bit between her teeth, and there

was no prospect of swerving her. We could only follow hopelessly,

idiotically, furiously, until Chu Chu dashed triumphantly into the

Saltellos' courtyard, carrying the half-fainting Consuelo back to the

arms of her assembled and astonished family.

It was our last ride together. It was the last I ever saw of Consuelo

before her transfer to the safe seclusion of a convent in Southern

California. It was the last I ever saw of Chu Chu, who in the confusion

of that rencontre was overlooked in her half-loosed harness, and allowed

to escape though the back gate to the fields. Months afterwards it was

said that she had been identified among a band of wild horses in the

Coast Range, as a strange and beautiful creature who had escaped the

brand of the rodeo and had become a myth. There was another legend that

she had been seen, sleek, fat, and gorgeously caparisoned, issuing from

the gateway of the Rosario patio, before a lumbering Spanish cabriole in

which a short, stout matron was seated--but I will have none of it. For

there are days when she still lives, and I can see her plainly still

climbing the gentle slope towards the summit, with Consuelo on her back,

and myself at her side, pressing eagerly forward towards the illimitable

prospect that opens in the distance.

MY FIRST BOOK.

When I say that my “First Book” was NOT my own, and contained beyond the

title-page not one word of my own composition, I trust that I will not

be accused of trifling with paradox, or tardily unbosoming myself of

youthful plagiary. But the fact remains that in priority of publication

the first book for which I became responsible, and which probably

provoked more criticism than anything I have written since, was a small

compilation of Californian poems indited by other hands.

A well-known bookseller of San Francisco one day handed me a collection

of certain poems which had already appeared in Pacific Coast magazines

and newspapers, with the request that I should, if possible, secure

further additions to them, and then make a selection of those which I

considered the most notable and characteristic, for a single volume to

be issued by him. I have reason to believe that this unfortunate man was

actutated by a laudable desire to publish a pretty Californian book--HIS

first essay in publication--and at the same time to foster Eastern

immigration by an exhibit of the Californian literary product; but,

looking back upon his venture, I am inclined to think that the little

volume never contained anything more poetically pathetic or touchingly

imaginative than that gentle conception. Equally simple and trustful

was his selection of myself as compiler. It was based somewhat, I think,

upon the fact that “the artless Helicon” I boasted “was Youth,” but I

imagine it was chiefly owing to the circumstance that I had from the

outset, with precocious foresight, confided to him my intention of not

putting any of my own verses in the volume. Publishers are appreciative;

and a self-abnegation so sublime, to say nothing of its security, was

not without its effect.

We settled to our work with fatuous self-complacency, and no suspicion

of the trouble in store for us, or the storm that was to presently

hurtle around our devoted heads. I winnowed the poems, and he exploited

a preliminary announcement to an eager and waiting press, and we moved

together unwittingly to our doom. I remember to have been early struck

with the quantity of material coming in--evidently the result of some

popular misunderstanding of the announcement. I found myself in daily

and hourly receipt of sere and yellow fragments, originally torn from

some dead and gone newspaper, creased and seamed from long folding in

wallet or pocketbook. Need I say that most of them were of an emotional

or didactic nature; need I add any criticism of these homely souvenirs,

often discolored by the morning coffee, the evening tobacco, or, heaven

knows! perhaps blotted by too easy tears! Enough that I knew now what

had become of those original but never recopied verses which filled the

“Poet's Corner” of every country newspaper on the coast. I knew now

the genesis of every didactic verse that “coldly furnished forth the

marriage table” in the announcement of weddings in the rural press. I

knew now who had read--and possibly indited--the dreary hic jacets of

the dead in their mourning columns. I knew now why certain letters

of the alphabet had been more tenderly considered than others, and

affectionately addressed. I knew the meaning of the “Lines to Her who

can best understand them,” and I knew that they HAD been understood.

The morning's post buried my table beneath these withered leaves of

posthumous passion. They lay there like the pathetic nosegays of

quickly fading wild flowers, gathered by school children, inconsistently

abandoned upon roadsides, or as inconsistently treasured as limp and

flabby superstitions in their desks. The chill wind from the Bay blowing

in at the window seemed to rustle them into sad articulate appeal. I

remember that when one of them was whisked from the window by a stronger

gust than usual, and was attaining a circulation it had never known

before, I ran a block or two to recover it. I was young then, and in an

exalted sense of editorial responsibility which I have since survived,

I think I turned pale at the thought that the reputation of some unknown

genius might have thus been swept out and swallowed by the all-absorbing

sea.

There were other difficulties arising from this unexpected wealth of

material. There were dozens of poems on the same subject. “The Golden

Gate,” “Mount Shasta,” “The Yosemite,” were especially provocative. A

beautiful bird known as the “Californian Canary” appeared to have been

shot at and winged by every poet from Portland to San Diego. Lines to

the “Mariposa” flower were as thick as the lovely blossoms themselves in

the Merced valley, and the Madrone tree was as “berhymed” as Rosalind.

Again, by a liberal construction of the publisher's announcement,

MANUSCRIPT poems, which had never known print, began to coyly unfold

their virgin blossoms in the morning's mail. They were accompanied by

a few lines stating, casually, that their sender had found them lying

forgotten in his desk, or, mendaciously, that they were “thrown off” on

the spur of the moment a few hours before. Some of the names appended

to them astonished me. Grave, practical business men, sage financiers,

fierce speculators, and plodding traders, never before suspected of

poetry, or even correct prose, were among the contributors. It seemed as

if most of the able-bodied inhabitants of the Pacific Coast had been in

the habit at some time of expressing themselves in verse. Some sought

confidential interviews with the editor. The climax was reached when,

in Montgomery Street, one day, I was approached by a well known and

venerable judicial magnate. After some serious preliminary conversation,

the old gentleman finally alluded to what he was pleased to call a task

of “great delicacy and responsibility laid upon my young shoulders.”

“In fact,” he went on paternally, adding the weight of his judicial

hand to that burden, “I have thought of speaking to you about it. In

my leisure moments on the Bench I have, from time to time, polished and

perfected a certain college poem begun years ago, but which may now be

said to have been finished in California, and thus embraced in the scope

of your proposed selection. If a few extracts, selected by myself, to

save you all trouble and responsibility, be of any benefit to you, my

dear young friend, consider them at your service.”

In this fashion the contributions had increased to three times the

bulk of the original collection, and the difficulties of selection

were augmented in proportion. The editor and publisher eyed each other

aghast. “Never thought there were so many of the blamed things alive,”

said the latter with great simplicity, “had you?” The editor had not.

“Couldn't you sorter shake 'em up and condense 'em, you know? keep their

ideas--and their names--separate, so that they'd have proper credit.

See?” The editor pointed out that this would infringe the rule he had

laid down. “I see,” said the publisher thoughtfully; “well, couldn't

you pare 'em down; give the first verse entire and sorter sample the

others?” The editor thought not. There was clearly nothing to do but to

make a more rigid selection--a difficult performance when the material

was uniformly on a certain dead level, which it is not necessary to

define here. Among the rejections were, of course, the usual plagiarisms

from well-known authors imposed upon an inexperienced country press;

several admirable pieces detected as acrostics of patent medicines,

and certain veiled libels and indecencies such as mark the “first”

publications on blank walls and fences of the average youth. Still the

bulk remained too large, and the youthful editor set to work reducing

it still more with a sympathizing concern which the good-natured, but

unliterary, publisher failed to understand, and which, alas! proved to

be equally unappreciated by the rejected contributors.

The book appeared--a pretty little volume typographically, and

externally a credit to pioneer book-making. Copies were liberally

supplied to the press, and authors and publishers self-complacently

awaited the result. To the latter this should have been satisfactory;

the book sold readily from his well-known counters to purchasers who

seemed to be drawn by a singular curiosity, unaccompanied, however, by

any critical comment. People would lounge in to the shop, turn over the

leaves of other volumes, say carelessly, “Got a new book of California

poetry out, haven't you?” purchase it, and quietly depart. There were

as yet no notices from the press; the big dailies were silent; there was

something ominous in this calm.

Out of it the bolt fell. A well-known mining weekly, which I here

poetically veil under the title of the Red Dog “Jay Hawk,” was first to

swoop down upon the tuneful and unsuspecting quarry. At this century-end

of fastidious and complaisant criticism, it may be interesting to

recall the direct style of the Californian “sixties.” “The hogwash and

'purp'-stuff ladled out from the slop-bucket of Messrs. ---- and Co., of

'Frisco, by some lop-eared Eastern apprentice, and called 'A Compilation

of Californian Verse,' might be passed over, so far as criticism goes. A

club in the hands of any able-bodied citizen of Red Dog, and a steamboat

ticket to the Bay, cheerfully contributed from this office, would

be all-sufficient. But when an imported greenhorn dares to call his

flapdoodle mixture 'Californian,' it is an insult to the State that has

produced the gifted 'Yellow Hammer,' whose lofty flights have from time

to time dazzled our readers in the columns of the 'Jay Hawk.' That this

complacent editorial jackass, browsing among the dock and thistles which

he has served up in this volume, should make no allusion to California's

greatest bard, is rather a confession of his idiocy than a slur upon the

genius of our esteemed contributor.” I turned hurriedly to my pile of

rejected contributions--the nom de plume of “Yellow Hammer” did NOT

appear among them; certainly I had never heard of its existence. Later,

when a friend showed me one of that gifted bard's pieces, I was inwardly

relieved! It was so like the majority of the other verses, in and out of

the volume, that the mysterious poet might have written under a hundred

aliases. But the Dutch Flat “Clarion,” following, with no uncertain

sound, left me small time for consideration. “We doubt,” said that

journal, “if a more feeble collection of drivel could have been made,

even if taken exclusively from the editor's own verses, which we note he

has, by an equal editorial incompetency, left out of the volume. When

we add that, by a felicity of idiotic selection, this person has chosen

only one, and the least characteristic, of the really clever poems of

Adoniram Skaggs, which have so often graced these columns, we have

said enough to satisfy our readers.” The Mormon Hill “Quartz Crusher”

relieved this simple directness with more fancy: “We don't know

why Messrs. ---- and Co. send us, under the title of 'Selections of

Californian Poetry,' a quantity of slumgullion which really belongs

to the sluices of a placer mining camp, or the ditches of the rural

districts. We have sometimes been compelled to run a lot of tailings

through our stamps, but never of the grade of the samples offered,

which, we should say, would average about 33-1/3 cents per ton. We have,

however, come across a single specimen of pure gold evidently overlooked

by the serene ass who has compiled this volume. We copy it with

pleasure, as it has already shone in the 'Poet's Corner' of the

'Crusher' as the gifted effusion of the talented Manager of the

Excelsior Mill, otherwise known to our delighted readers as 'Outcrop.'”

The Green Springs “Arcadian” was no less fanciful in imagery: “Messrs.

---- and Co. send us a gaudy green-and-yellow, parrot-colored volume,

which is supposed to contain the first callow 'cheepings' and 'peepings'

of Californian songsters. From the flavor of the specimens before us we

should say that the nest had been disturbed prematurely. There seems to

be a good deal of the parrot inside as well as outside the covers, and

we congratulate our own sweet singer 'Blue Bird,' who has so often made

these columns melodious, that she has escaped the ignominy of being

exhibited in Messrs. ---- and Co.'s aviary.” I should add that this

simile of the aviary and its occupants was ominous, for my tuneful choir

was relentlessly slaughtered; the bottom of the cage was strewn with

feathers! The big dailies collected the criticisms and published them

in their own columns with the grim irony of exaggerated head-lines. The

book sold tremendously on account of this abuse, but I am afraid that

the public was disappointed. The fun and interest lay in the criticisms,

and not in any pointedly ludicrous quality in the rather commonplace

collection, and I fear I cannot claim for it even that merit. And it

will be observed that the animus of the criticism appeared to be the

omission rather than the retention of certain writers.

But this brings me to the most extraordinary feature of this singular

demonstration. I do not think that the publishers were at all troubled

by it; I cannot conscientiously say that I was; I have every reason to

believe that the poets themselves, in and out of the volume, were not

displeased at the notoriety they had not expected, and I have long since

been convinced that my most remorseless critics were not in earnest, but

were obeying some sudden impulse started by the first attacking journal.

The extravagance of the Red Dog “Jay Hawk” was emulated by others:

it was a large, contagious joke, passed from journal to journal in

a peculiar cyclonic Western fashion. And there still lingers, not

unpleasantly, in my memory the conclusion of a cheerfully scathing

review of the book which may make my meaning clearer: “If we have

said anything in this article which might cause a single pang to the

poetically sensitive nature of the youthful individual calling himself

Mr. Francis Bret Harte--but who, we believe, occasionally parts his name

and his hair in the middle--we will feel that we have not labored in

vain, and are ready to sing Nunc Dimittis, and hand in our checks. We

have no doubt of the absolutely pellucid and lacteal purity of Franky's

intentions. He means well to the Pacific Coast, and we return the

compliment. But he has strayed away from his parents and guardians while

he was too fresh. He will not keep without a little salt.”

It was thirty years ago. The book and its Rabelaisian criticisms have

been long since forgotten. Alas! I fear that even the capacity for that

Gargantuan laughter which met them, in those days, exists no longer.

The names I have used are necessarily fictitious, but where I have been

obliged to quote the criticisms from memory I have, I believe, only

softened their asperity. I do not know that this story has any moral.

The criticisms here recorded never hurt a reputation nor repressed a

single honest aspiration. A few contributors to the volume, who were

of original merit, have made their mark, independently of it or its

critics. The editor, who was for two months the most abused man on the

Pacific slope, within the year became the editor of its first successful

magazine. Even the publisher prospered, and died respected!