Frontier Stories

by Bret Harte

  A BLUE-GRASS PENELOPE

  I.

  She was barely twenty-three years old. It is probable that up to thatage, and the beginning of this episode, her life had been uneventful.Born to the easy mediocrity of such compensating extremes as a smallfarmhouse and large lands, a good position and no society, in that vastgrazing district of Kentucky known as the "Blue Grass" region, all thepossibilities of a Western American girl's existence lay before her. Apiano in the bare-walled house, the latest patented mower in thelimitless meadows, and a silk dress sweeping the rough floor of theunpainted "meeting-house," were already the promise of thosepossibilities. Beautiful she was, but the power of that beauty waslimited by being equally shared with her few neighbors. There weresmall, narrow, arched feet besides her own that trod the uncarpetedfloors of outlying log cabins with equal grace and dignity; bright,clearly opened eyes that were equally capable of looking unabashed uponprinces and potentates, as a few later did, and the heiress of thecounty judge read her own beauty without envy in the frank glances andunlowered crest of the blacksmith's daughter. Eventually she hadmarried the male of her species, a young stranger, who, as schoolmasterin the nearest town, had utilized to some local extent a scant capitalof education. In obedience to the unwritten law of the West, after themarriage was celebrated the doors of the ancestral home cheerfullyopened, and bride and bridegroom issued forth, without regret andwithout sentiment, to seek the further possibilities of a life beyondthese already too familiar voices. With their departure for Californiaas Mr. and Mrs. Spencer Tucker, the parental nest in the Blue Grassmeadows knew them no more.

  They submitted with equal cheerfulness to the privations and excessesof their new conditions. Within three years the schoolmaster developedinto a lawyer and capitalist, the Blue Grass bride supplying a graceand ease to these transitions that were all her own. She softened theabruptness of sudden wealth, mitigated the austerities of newlyacquired power, and made the most glaring incongruity picturesque. Onlyone thing seemed to limit their progress in the region of thesepossibilities. They were childless. It was as if they had exhausted thefuture in their own youth, leaving little or nothing for anothergeneration to do.

  * * * * *

  A southwesterly storm was beating against the dressing-room windows oftheir new house in one of the hilly suburbs of San Francisco, andthreatening the unseasonable frivolity of the stucco ornamentation ofcornice and balcony. Mrs. Tucker had been called from the contemplationof the dreary prospect without by the arrival of a visitor. On enteringthe drawing-room she found him engaged in a half admiring, halfresentful examination of its new furniture and hangings. Mrs. Tucker atonce recognized Mr. Calhoun Weaver, a former Blue Grass neighbor; withswift feminine intuition she also felt that his slight antagonism waslikely to be transferred from her furniture to herself. Waiving it withthe lazy amiability of Southern indifference, she welcomed him by thefamiliarity of a Christian name.

  "I reckoned that mebbee you opined old Blue Grass friends wouldn'tnaturally hitch on to them fancy doins," he said, glancing around theapartment to avoid her clear eyes, as if resolutely setting himselfagainst the old charm of her manner as he had against the more recentglory of her surroundings, "but I thought I'd just drop in for the sakeof old times."

  "Why shouldn't you, Cal?" said Mrs. Tucker with a frank smile.

  "Especially as I'm going up to Sacramento to-night with someinfluential friends," he continued, with an ostentation calculated toresist the assumption of her charms and her furniture. "Senator Dyce ofKentucky, and his cousin Judge Briggs; perhaps you know 'em, or maybeSpencer--I mean Mr. Tucker--does."

  "I reckon," said Mrs. Tucker smiling; "but tell me something about theboys and girls at Vineville, and about yourself. _You're_ looking well,and right smart too." She paused to give due emphasis to this latterrecognition of a huge gold chain with which her visitor was somewhatostentatiously trifling.

  "I didn't know as you cared to hear anything about Blue Grass," hereturned, a little abashed. "I've been away from there some timemyself," he added, his uneasy vanity taking fresh alarm at the faintsuspicion of patronage on the part of his hostess. "They're doin' wellthough; perhaps as well as some others."

  "And you're not married yet," continued Mrs. Tucker, oblivious of theinnuendo. "Ah Cal," she added archly, "I am afraid you are as fickle asever. What poor girl in Vineville have you left pining?"

  The simple face of the man before her flushed with foolishgratification at this old-fashioned, ambiguous flattery. "Now look yer,Belle," he said, chuckling, "if you're talking of old times and youthink I bear malice agin Spencer, why"--

  But Mrs. Tucker interrupted what might have been an inopportunesentimental retrospect with a finger of arch but languid warning. "Thatwill do! I'm dying to know all about it, and you must stay to dinnerand tell me. It's right mean you can't see Spencer too; but he isn'tback from Sacramento yet."

  Grateful as a _tete-a-tete_ with his old neighbor in her moreprosperous surroundings would have been, if only for the sake of latergossiping about it, he felt it would be inconsistent with his pride andhis assumption of present business. More than that, he was uneasilyconscious that in Mrs. Tucker's simple and unaffected manner there wasa greater superiority than he had ever noticed during their previousacquaintance. He would have felt kinder to her had she shown any "airsand graces," which he could have commented upon and forgiven. Hestammered some vague excuse of preoccupation, yet lingered in the hopeof saying something which, if not aggressively unpleasant, might atleast transfer to her indolent serenity some of his own irritation. "Ireckon," he said, as he moved hesitatingly toward the door, "thatSpencer has made himself easy and secure in them business risks he'staking. That 'ere Alameda ditch affair they're talking so much about isa mighty big thing, rather _too_ big if it ever got to falling back onhim. But I suppose he's accustomed to take risks?"

  "Of course he is," said Mrs. Tucker gayly. "He married _me_."

  The visitor smiled feebly, but was not equal to the opportunity offeredfor gallant repudiation. "But suppose _you_ ain't accustomed to risks?"

  "Why not? I married _him_," said Mrs. Tucker.

  Mr. Calhoun Weaver was human, and succumbed to this last charmingaudacity. He broke into a noisy but genuine laugh, shook Mrs. Tucker'shand with effusion, said, "Now that's regular Blue Grass and nomistake!" and retreated under cover of his hilarity. In the hall hemade a rallying stand to repeat confidentially to the servant who hadoverheard them, "Blue Grass all over, you bet your life," and, openingthe door, was apparently swallowed up in the tempest.

  Mrs. Tucker's smile kept her lips until she had returned to her room,and even then languidly shone in her eyes for some minutes after, asshe gazed abstractedly from her window on the storm-tossed bay in thedistance. Perhaps some girlish vision of the peaceful Blue Grass plainmomentarily usurped the prospect; but it is to be doubted if there wasmuch romance in that retrospect, or that it was more interesting to herthan the positive and sharply cut outlines of the practical life shenow led. Howbeit she soon forgot this fancy in lazily watching a boatthat, in the teeth of the gale, was beating round Alcatraz Island.Although at times a mere blank speck on the gray waste of foam, acloser scrutiny showed it to be one of those lateen-rigged Italianfishing-boats that so often flecked the distant bay. Lost in the suddendarkening of rain, or reappearing beneath the lifted curtain of thesquall, she watched it weather the island, and then turn its laboringbut persistent course toward the open channel. A rent in theIndian-inky sky, that showed the narrowing portals of the Golden Gatebeyond, revealed, as unexpectedly, the destination of the little craft,a tall ship that hitherto lay hidden in the mist of the Saucelitoshore. As the distance lessened between boat and ship, they were againlost in the downward swoop of another squall. When it lifted, the shipwas creeping under the headland towards the open sea, but the boat wasgone. Mrs. Tucker in vain rubbed the pane with her handkerchief, it hadvanished. Meanwhile the ship, as she neared the Gate, drew out
from theprotecting headland, stood outlined for a moment with spars and canvashearsed in black against the lurid rent in the horizon, and then seemedto sink slowly into the heaving obscurity beyond. A sudden onset ofrain against the windows obliterated the remaining prospect; theentrance of a servant completed the diversion.

  "Captain Poindexter, ma'am!"

  Mrs. Tucker lifted her pretty eyebrows interrogatively. CaptainPoindexter was a legal friend of her husband, and had dined therefrequently; nevertheless she asked, "Did you tell him Mr. Tucker wasnot at home?"

  "Yes, 'm."

  "Did he ask for _me_?"

  "Yes, 'm."

  "Tell him I'll be down directly."

  Mrs. Tucker's quiet face did not betray the fact that this secondvisitor was even less interesting than the first. In her heart she didnot like Captain Poindexter. With a clever woman's instinct, she hadearly detected the fact that he had a superior, stronger nature thanher husband; as a loyal wife, she secretly resented the occasionalunconscious exhibition of this fact on the part of his intimate friendin their familiar intercourse. Added to this slight jealousy there wasa certain moral antagonism between herself and the captain which nonebut themselves knew. They were both philosophers, but Mrs. Tucker'sserene and languid optimism would not tolerate the compassionate andkind-hearted pessimisms of the lawyer. "Knowing what Jack Poindexterdoes of human nature," her husband had once said, "it's mighty fine inhim to be so kind and forgiving. You ought to like him better, Belle.""And qualify myself to be forgiven," said the lady pertly. "I don't seewhat you're driving at, Belle; I give it up," had responded the puzzledhusband. Mrs. Tucker kissed his high but foolish forehead tenderly, andsaid, "I'm glad you don't, dear."

  Meanwhile her second visitor had, like the first, employed the intervalin a critical survey of the glories of the new furniture, but withapparently more compassion than resentment in his manner. Once only hadhis expression changed. Over the fireplace hung a large photograph ofMr. Spencer Tucker. It was retouched, refined, and idealized in thehighest style of that polite and diplomatic art. As Captain Poindexterlooked upon the fringed hazel eyes, the drooping raven mustache, theclustering ringlets, and the Byronic full throat and turned-down collarof his friend, a smile of exhausted humorous tolerance and affectionateimpatience curved his lips. "Well, you _are_ a fool, aren't you?" heapostrophized it half audibly.

  He was standing before the picture as she entered. Even in the tryingcontiguity of that peerless work he would have been called afine-looking man. As he advanced to greet her, it was evident that hismilitary title was not one of the mere fanciful sobriquets of thelocality. In his erect figure and the disciplined composure of limb andattitude there were still traces of the refined academic rigors of WestPoint. The pliant adaptability of Western civilization, which enabledhim, three years before, to leave the army and transfer his executiveability to the more profitable profession of the law, had loosed sashand shoulder-strap, but had not entirely removed the restraint of theone, nor the bearing of the other.

  "Spencer is in Sacramento," began Mrs. Tucker in languid explanation,after the first greetings were over.

  "I knew he was not here," replied Captain Poindexter gently, as he drewthe proffered chair towards her, "but this is business that concernsyou both." He stopped and glanced upwards at the picture. "I supposeyou know nothing of his business? Of course not," he addedreassuringly, "nothing, absolutely nothing, certainly." He said this sokindly, and yet so positively, as if to promptly dispose of thatquestion before going further, that she assented mechanically. "Well,then, he's taken some big risks in the way of business, and--well,things have gone bad with him, you know. Very bad! Really, theycouldn't be worse! Of course it was dreadfully rash and all that," hewent on, as if commenting upon the amusing waywardness of a child; "butthe result is the usual smash-up of everything, money, credit, andall!" He laughed and added, "Yes, he's got cut off--mules and baggageregularly routed and dispersed! I'm in earnest." He raised his eyebrowsand frowned slightly, as if to deprecate any corresponding hilarity onthe part of Mrs. Tucker, or any attempt to make _too_ light of thesubject, and then rising, placed his hands behind his back, beamedhalf-humorously upon her from beneath her husband's picture, andrepeated, "That's so."

  Mrs. Tucker instinctively knew that he spoke the truth, and that it wasimpossible for him to convey it in any other than his natural manner;but between the shock and the singular influence of that manner shecould at first only say, "You don't mean it!" fully conscious of theutter inanity of the remark, and that it seemed scarcely lesscold-blooded than his own.

  Poindexter, still smiling, nodded.

  She arose with an effort. She had recovered from the first shock, andpride lent her a determined calmness that more than equaledPoindexter's easy philosophy.

  "Where is he?" she asked.

  "At sea, and I hope by this time where he cannot be found or followed."

  Was her momentary glimpse of the outgoing ship a coincidence or only avision? She was confused and giddy, but, mastering her weakness, shemanaged to continue in a lower voice:

  "You have no message for me from him? He told you nothing to tell me?"

  "Nothing, absolutely nothing," replied Poindexter. "It was as much ashe could do, I reckon, to get fairly away before the crash came."

  "Then you did not see him go?"

  "Well, no," said Poindexter. "I'd hardly have managed things in thisway." He checked himself and added, with a forgiving smile, "but he wasthe best judge of what he needed, of course."

  "I suppose I will hear from him," she said quietly, "as soon as he issafe. He must have had enough else to think about, poor fellow."

  She said this so naturally and quietly that Poindexter was deceived. Hehad no idea that the collected woman before him was thinking only ofsolitude and darkness, of her own room, and madly longing to be there.He said, "Yes, I dare say," in quite another voice, and glanced at thepicture. But as she remained standing, he continued more earnestly, "Ididn't come here to tell you what you might read in the newspapersto-morrow morning, and what everybody might tell you. Before that timeI want you to do something to save a fragment of your property from theruin; do you understand? I want you to make a rally, and bring offsomething in good order."

  "For him?" said Mrs. Tucker, with brightening eyes.

  "Well, yes, of course--if you like--but as if for yourself. Do you knowthe Rancho de los Cuervos?"

  "I do."

  "It's almost the only bit of real property your husband hasn't sold,mortgaged, or pledged. Why it was exempt, or whether only forgotten, Ican't say."

  "I'll tell you why," said Mrs. Tucker, with a slight return of color."It was the first land we ever bought, and Spencer always said itshould be mine and he would build a new house on it."

  Captain Poindexter smiled and nodded at the picture. "Oh, he did saythat, did he? Well, _that's_ evidence. But you see he never gave youthe deed, and by sunrise tomorrow his creditors will attachit--unless--

  "Unless"--repeated Mrs. Tucker, with kindling eyes.

  "Unless," continued Captain Poindexter, "they happen to find _you_ inpossession."

  "I'll go," said Mrs. Tucker.

  "Of course you will," returned Poindexter, pleasantly. "Only, as it's abig contract to take, suppose we see how you can fill it. It's fortymiles to Los Cuervos, and you can't trust yourself to steamboat orstage-coach. The steamboat left an hour ago."

  "If I had only known this then!" ejaculated Mrs. Tucker.

  "_I_ knew it, but you had company then," said Poindexter, with ironicalgallantry, "and I wouldn't disturb you." Without saying how he knew it,he continued, "In the stage-coach you might be recognized. You must goin a private conveyance and alone; even I cannot go with you, for Imust go on before and meet you there. Can you drive forty miles?"

  Mrs. Tucker lifted up her abstracted pretty lids. "I once drovefifty--at home," she returned simply.

  "Good! And I dare say you did it then for fun. Do it now for somethingreal and pe
rsonal, as we lawyers say. You will have relays and a planof the road. It's rough weather for a _pasear_, but all the better forthat. You'll have less company on the road."

  "How soon can I go?" she asked.

  "The sooner the better. I've arranged everything for you already," hecontinued with a laugh. "Come now, that's a compliment to you, isn'tit?" He smiled a moment in her steadfast, earnest face, and then said,more gravely, "You'll do. Now listen."

  He then carefully detailed his plan. There was so little of excitementor mystery in their manner that the servant, who returned to light thegas, never knew that the ruin and bankruptcy of the house was beingtold before her, or that its mistress was planning her secret flight.

  "Good afternoon. I will see you to-morrow then," said Poindexter,raising his eyes to hers as the servant opened the door for him.

  "Good afternoon," repeated Mrs. Tucker, quietly answering his look."You need not light the gas in my room, Mary," she continued in thesame tone of voice as the door closed upon him; "I shall lie down for afew moments, and then I may run over to the Robinsons for the evening."

  She regained her room composedly. The longing desire to bury her headin her pillow and "think out" her position had gone. She did notapostrophize her fate, she did not weep; few real women do in theaccess of calamity, or when there is anything else to be done. She feltthat she knew it all; she believed she had sounded the profoundestdepths of the disaster, and seemed already so old in her experiencethat she almost fancied she had been prepared for it. Perhaps she didnot fully appreciate it. To a life like hers it was only an incident,the mere turning of a page of the illimitable book of youth; thebreaking up of what she now felt had become a monotony. In fact, shewas not quite sure she had ever been satisfied with their presentsuccess. Had it brought her all she expected? She wanted to say this toher husband, not only to comfort him, poor fellow, but that they mightcome to a better understanding of life in the future. She was notperhaps different from other loving women, who, believing in thisunattainable goal of matrimony, have sought it in the various episodesof fortune or reverses, in the bearing of children, or the loss offriends. In her childless experience there was no other life that hadtaken root in her circumstances and might suffer transplantation; onlyshe and her husband could lose or profit by the change. The "perfect"understanding would come under other conditions than these.

  She would have gone superstitiously to the window to gaze in thedirection of the vanished ship, but another instinct restrained her.She would put aside all yearning for him until she had done somethingto help him, and earned the confidence he seemed to have withheld.Perhaps it was pride--perhaps she never really believed his exodus wasdistant or complete.

  With a full knowledge that to-morrow the various ornaments and prettytrifles around her would be in the hands of the law, she gathered onlya few necessaries for her flight and some familiar personal trinkets. Iam constrained to say that this self-abnegation was more fastidiousthan moral. She had no more idea of the ethics of bankruptcy than anyother charming woman; she simply did not like to take with her anycontagious memory of the chapter of the life just closing. She glancedaround the home she was leaving without a lingering regret; there wasno sentiment of tradition or custom that might be destroyed; her rootslay too near the surface to suffer dislocation; the happiness of herchildless union had depended upon no domestic center, nor was its flamesacred to any local hearthstone. It was without a sigh that, when nighthad fully fallen, she slipped unnoticed down the staircase. At the doorof the drawing-room she paused, and then entered with the first guiltyfeeling of shame she had known that evening. Looking stealthily around,she mounted a chair before her husband's picture, kissed theirreproachable mustache hurriedly, said, "You foolish darling, you!"and slipped out again. With this touching indorsement of the views of arival philosopher, she closed the door softly and left her homeforever.

  II.

  The wind and rain had cleared the unfrequented suburb of any observantlounger, and the darkness, lit only by far-spaced, gusty lamps, hid herhastening figure. She had barely crossed the second street when sheheard the quick clatter of hoofs behind her; a buggy drove up to thecurbstone, and Poindexter leaped out. She entered quickly, but for amoment he still held the reins of the impatient horse. "He's ratherfresh," he said, eying her keenly: "are you sure you can manage him?"

  "Give me the reins," she said simply.

  He placed them in the two firm, well-shaped hands that reached from thedepths of the vehicle, and was satisfied. Yet he lingered.

  "It's rough work for a lone woman," he said, almost curtly, "_I_ can'tgo with you, but, speak frankly, is there any man you know whom you cantrust well enough to take? It's not too late yet; think a moment!"

  He paused over the buttoning of the leather apron of the vehicle.

  "No, there is none," answered the voice from the interior; "and it'sbetter so. Is all ready?"

  "One moment more." He had recovered his half bantering manner. "You_have_ a friend and countryman already with you, do you know? Yourhorse is Blue Grass. Good-night."

  With these words ringing in her ears she began her journey. The horse,as if eager to maintain the reputation which his native district hadgiven his race, as well as the race of the pretty woman behind him,leaped impatiently forward. But pulled together by the fine and firmfingers that seemed to guide rather than check his exuberance, hepresently struck into the long, swinging pace of his kind, and kept itthroughout without "break" or acceleration. Over the paved streets thelight buggy rattled, and the slender shafts danced around his smoothbarrel, but when they touched the level high road, horse and vehicleslipped forward through the night, a swift and noiseless phantom. Mrs.Tucker could see his graceful back dimly rising and falling before herwith tireless rhythm, and could feel the intelligent pressure of hismouth until it seemed the responsive grasp of a powerful but kindlyhand. The faint glow of conquest came to her cold cheek; the slightstirrings of pride moved her preoccupied heart. A soft light filled herhazel eyes. A desolate woman, bereft of husband and home, and flyingthrough storm and night, she knew not where, she still leaned forwardtowards her horse. "Was he Blue Grass, then, dear old boy?" she gentlycooed at him in the darkness. He evidently _was_, and responded byblowing her an ostentatious equine kiss. "And he would be good to hisown forsaken Belle," she murmured caressingly, "and wouldn't let anyone harm her?" But here, overcome by the lazy witchery of her voice, heshook his head so violently that Mrs. Tucker, after the fashion of hersex, had the double satisfaction of demurely restraining the passionshe had evoked.

  To avoid the more traveled thoroughfare, while the evening was stillearly, it had been arranged that she should at first take a less directbut less frequented road. This was a famous pleasure-drive from SanFrancisco, a graveled and sanded stretch of eight miles to the sea, andan ultimate "cocktail," in a "stately pleasure-dome decreed" among thesurf and rocks of the Pacific shore. It was deserted now, and left tothe unobstructed sweep of the wind and rain. Mrs. Tucker would not havechosen this road. With the instinctive jealousy of a bucolic inlandrace born by great rivers, she did not like the sea; and again, the dimand dreary waste tended to recall the vision connected with herhusband's flight, upon which she had resolutely shut her eyes. But whenshe had reached it the road suddenly turned, following the trend of thebeach, and she was exposed to the full power of its dread fascinations.The combined roar of sea and shore was in her ears. As the direct forceof the gale had compelled her to furl the protecting hood of the buggyto keep the light vehicle from oversetting or drifting to leeward, shecould no longer shut out the heaving chaos on the right, from which thepallid ghosts of dead and dying breakers dimly rose and sank as if inawful salutation. At times through the darkness a white sheet appearedspread before the path and beneath the wheels of the buggy, which, whenwithdrawn with a reluctant hiss, seemed striving to drag the exhaustedbeach seaward with it. But the blind terror of her horse, who swervedat every sweep of the surge, shamed her own half supersti
tious fears,and with the effort to control his alarm she regained her ownself-possession, albeit with eyelashes wet not altogether with the saltspray from the sea. This was followed by a reaction, perhaps stimulatedby her victory over the beaten animal, when for a time, she knew nothow long, she felt only a mad sense of freedom and power, oblivious ofeven her sorrows, her lost home and husband, and with intense feminineconsciousness she longed to be a man. She was scarcely aware that thetrack turned again inland until the beat of the horse's hoofs on thefirm ground and an acceleration of speed showed her she had left thebeach and the mysterious sea behind her, and she remembered that shewas near the end of the first stage of her journey. Half an hour laterthe twinkling lights of the roadside inn where she was to change horsesrose out of the darkness.

  Happily for her, the hostler considered the horse, who had a localreputation, of more importance than the unknown muffled figure in theshadow of the unfurled hood, and confined his attention to the animal.After a careful examination of his feet and a few comments addressedsolely to the superior creation, he led him away. Mrs. Tucker wouldhave liked to part more affectionately from her four-footed compatriot,and felt a sudden sense of loneliness at the loss of her new friend,but a recollection of certain cautions of Captain Poindexter's kept hermute. Nevertheless, the hostler's ostentatious adjuration of "Now then,aren't you going to bring out that mustang for the Senora?" puzzledher. It was not until the fresh horse was put to, and she had flung apiece of gold into the attendant's hand, that the "_Gracias_" of hisunmistakable Saxon speech revealed to her the reason of the lawyer'scaution. Poindexter had evidently represented her to these people as anative Californian who did not speak English. In her inconsistency herblood took fire at this first suggestion of deceit, and burned in herface. Why should he try to pass her off as anybody else? Why should shenot use her own, her husband's name? She stopped and bit her lip.

  It was but the beginning of an uneasy train of thought. She suddenlyfound herself thinking of her visitor, Calhoun Weaver, and notpleasantly. He would hear of their ruin to-morrow, perhaps of her ownflight. He would remember his visit, and what would he think of herdeceitful frivolity? Would he believe that she was then ignorant of thefailure? It was her first sense of any accountability to others thanherself, but even then it was rather owing to an uneasy consciousnessof what her husband must feel if he were subjected to the criticisms ofmen like Calhoun. She wondered if others knew that he had kept her inignorance of his flight. Did Poindexter know it, or had he onlyentrapped her into the admission? Why had she not been clever enough tomake him think that she knew it already? For the moment she hatedPoindexter for sharing that secret. Yet this was again followed by anew impatience of her husband's want of insight into her ability tohelp him. Of course the poor fellow could not bear to worry her, couldnot bear to face such men as Calhoun, or even Poindexter (she addedexultingly to herself), but he might have sent her a line as he fled,only to prepare her to meet and combat the shame alone. It did notoccur to her unsophisticated singleness of nature that she wasaccepting as an error of feeling what the world would call cowardlyselfishness.

  At midnight the storm lulled and a few stars trembled through the rentclouds. Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, and her countryinstincts, a little overlaid by the urban experiences of the last fewyears, came again to the surface. She felt the fresh, cool radiationfrom outlying, upturned fields, the faint, sad odors from dim stretchesof pricking grain and quickening leaf, and wondered if at Los Cuervosit might be possible to reproduce the peculiar verdure of her nativedistrict. She beguiled her fancy by an ambitious plan of retrievingtheir fortunes by farming; her comfortable tastes had lately rebelledagainst the homeless mechanical cultivation of these desolate butteeming Californian acres, and for a moment indulged in a vision of avine-clad cottage home that in any other woman would have beensentimental. Her cramped limbs aching, she took advantage of thesecurity of the darkness and the familiar contiguity of the fields toget down from the vehicle, gather her skirts together, and run at thehead of the mustang, until her chill blood was thawed, night drawing amodest veil over this charming revelation of the nymph and woman. Butthe sudden shadow of a coyote checked the scouring feet of this swiftCamilla, and sent her back precipitately to the buggy. Nevertheless,she was refreshed and able to pursue her journey, until the cold grayof early morning found her at the end of her second stage.

  Her route was changed again from the main highway, rendered dangerousby the approach of day and the contiguity of the neighboring_rancheros_. The road was rough and hilly, her new horse and vehicle inkeeping with the rudeness of the route--by far the most difficult ofher whole journey. The rare wagon tracks that indicated her road wereoften scarcely discernible; at times they led her through openings inthe half-cleared woods, skirted suspicious morasses, painfully climbedthe smooth, domelike hills, or wound along perilous slopes at adangerous angle. Twice she had to alight and cling to the slidingwheels on one of those treacherous inclines, or drag them fromimpending ruts or immovable mire. In the growing light she coulddistinguish the distant, low-lying marshes eaten by encroaching sloughsand insidious channels, and beyond them the faint gray waste of theLower Bay. A darker peninsula in the marsh she knew to be the extremeboundary of her future home: the Rancho de los Cuervos. In another hourshe began to descend to the plain, and once more to approach the mainroad, which now ran nearly parallel with her track. She scanned itcautiously for any early traveler; it stretched north and south inapparent unending solitude. She struck into it boldly, and urged herhorse to the top of his speed, until she reached the cross-road thatled to the rancho. But here she paused and allowed the reins to dropidly on the mustang's back. A singular and unaccountable irresolutionseized her. The difficulties of her journey were over; the rancho layscarcely two miles away; she had achieved the most important part ofher task in the appointed time; but she hesitated. What had she comefor? She tried to recall Poindexter's words, even her own enthusiasm,but in vain. She was going to take possession of her husband'sproperty, she knew, that was all. But the means she had taken seemednow so exaggerated and mysterious for that simple end, that she beganto dread an impending something, or some vague danger she had notconsidered, that she was rushing blindly to meet. Full of this strangefeeling, she almost mechanically stopped her horse as she entered thecross-road.

  From this momentary hesitation a singular sound aroused her. It seemedat first like the swift hurrying by of some viewless courier of theair, the vague alarm of some invisible flying herald, or like theinarticulate cry that precedes a storm. It seemed to rise and fallaround her as if with some changing urgency of purpose. Raising hereyes she suddenly recognized the two far-stretching lines of telegraphwire above her head, and knew the aeolian cry of the morning wind alongits vibrating chords. But it brought another and more practical fear toher active brain. Perhaps even now the telegraph might be anticipatingher! Had Poindexter thought of that? She hesitated no longer, butlaying the whip on the back of her jaded mustang, again hurriedforward.

  As the level horizon grew more distinct, her attention was attracted bythe white sail of a small boat lazily threading the sinuous channel ofthe slough. It might be Poindexter arriving by the more direct routefrom the steamboat that occasionally laid off the ancient _embarcadero_of the Los Cuervos Rancho. But even while watching it her quick earcaught the sound of galloping hoofs behind her. She turned quickly andsaw she was followed by a horseman. But her momentary alarm wassucceeded by a feeling of relief as she recognized the erect figure andsquare shoulders of Poindexter. Yet she could not help thinking that helooked more like a militant scout, and less like a cautious legaladviser, than ever.

  With unaffected womanliness she rearranged her slightly disordered hairas he drew up beside her. "I thought you were in yonder boat," shesaid.

  "Not I," he laughed; "I distanced you by the highroad two hours, andhave been reconnoitering, until I saw you hesitate at the cross-roads."

  "But who is in the boat?"
asked Mrs. Tucker, partly to hide herembarrassment.

  "Only some early Chinese market gardener, I dare say. But you are safenow. You are on your own land. You passed the boundary monument of therancho five minutes ago. Look! All you see before you is yours from the_embarcadero_ to yonder Coast Range."

  The tone of half raillery did not, however, cheer Mrs. Tucker. Sheshuddered slightly and cast her eyes over the monotonous sea of _tule_and meadow.

  "It doesn't look pretty, perhaps," continued Poindexter, "but it's therichest land in the State, and the _embarcadero_ will some day be atown. I suppose you'll call it Blue Grassville. But you seem tired!" hesaid, suddenly dropping his voice to a tone of half humorous sympathy.

  Mrs. Tucker managed to get rid of an impending tear under the pretenseof clearing her eyes. "Are we nearly there?" she asked.

  "Nearly. You know," he added, with the same half mischievous, halfsympathizing gayety, "it's not exactly a palace you're comingto,--hardly. It's the old _casa_ that has been deserted for years, butI thought it better you should go into possession there than take upyour abode at the shanty where your husband's farm-hands are. No onewill know when you take possession of the _casa_, while the very hourof your arrival at the shanty would be known; and if they should makeany trouble"--

  "If they should make any trouble?" repeated Mrs. Tucker, lifting herfrank, inquiring eyes to Poindexter.

  His horse suddenly rearing from an apparently accidental prick of thespur, it was a minute or two before he was able to explain. "I mean ifthis ever comes up as a matter of evidence, you know. But here we are!"

  What had seemed to be an overgrown mound rising like an island out ofthe dead level of the grassy sea now resolved itself into a collectionof adobe walls, eaten and incrusted with shrubs and vines, that boresome resemblance to the usual uninhabited-looking exterior of aSpanish-American dwelling. Apertures that might have been lance-shapedwindows or only cracks and fissures in the walls were choked up withweeds and grass, and gave no passing glimpse of the interior. Enteringa ruinous corral they came to a second entrance, which proved to be the_patio_ or courtyard. The deserted wooden corridor, with beams,rafters, and floors whitened by the sun and wind, contained a fewwithered leaves, dryly rotting skins, and thongs of leather, as ifundisturbed by human care. But among these scattered debris of formerlife and habitation there was no noisome or unclean suggestion ofdecay. A faint spiced odor of desiccation filled the bare walls. Therewas no slime on stone or sun-dried brick. In place of fungus ordiscolored moisture the dust of efflorescence whitened in the obscuredcorners. The elements had picked clean the bones of the old andcrumbling tenement ere they should finally absorb it.

  A withered old _peon_ woman, who in dress, complexion, and fibrous hairmight have been an animated fragment of the debris, rustled out of alow vaulted passage and welcomed them with a feeble crepitation.Following her into the dim interior, Mrs. Tucker was surprised to findsome slight attempt at comfort and even adornment in the two or threehabitable apartments. They were scrupulously clean and dry, twoqualities which in her feminine eyes atoned for poverty of material.

  "I could not send anything from San Bruno, the nearest village, withoutattracting attention," explained Poindexter; "but if you can manage topicnic here for a day longer, I'll get one of our Chinese friendshere," he pointed to the slough, "to bring over, for his return cargofrom across the bay, any necessaries you may want. There is no dangerof his betraying you," he added, with an ironical smile; "Chinamen andIndians are, by an ingenious provision of the statute of California,incapable of giving evidence against a white person. You can trust yourhandmaiden perfectly--even if she can't trust _you_. That is yoursacred privilege under the constitution. And now, as I expect to catchthe up boat ten miles from hence. I must say 'good-by' until to-morrownight. I hope to bring you then some more definite plans for thefuture. The worst is over." He held her hand for a moment, and with agraver voice continued, "You have done it very well--do you know--verywell!"

  In the slight embarrassment produced by his sudden change of manner shefelt that her thanks seemed awkward and restrained. "Don't thank me,"he laughed, with a prompt return of his former levity; "that's mytrade. I only advised. You have saved yourself like a pluckywoman--shall I say like Blue Grass? Good-by!" He mounted his horse,but, as if struck by an after-thought, wheeled and drew up by her sideagain. "If I were you I wouldn't see many strangers for a day or two,and listen to as little news as a woman possibly can." He laughedagain, waved her a half gallant, half military salute, and was gone.The question she had been trying to frame, regarding the probability ofcommunication with her husband, remained unasked. At least she hadsaved her pride before him.

  Addressing herself to the care of her narrow household, shemechanically put away the few things she had brought with her, andbegan to read just the scant furniture. She was a little discomposed atfirst at the absence of bolts, locks, and even window-fastenings untilassured, by Concha's evident inability to comprehend her concern, thatthey were quite unknown at Los Cuervos. Her slight knowledge of Spanishwas barely sufficient to make her wants known, so that the relief ofconversation with her only companion was debarred her, and she wasobliged to content herself with the sapless, crackling smiles andwithered genuflexions that the old woman dropped like dead leaves inher path. It was staring noon when, the house singing like an emptyshell in the monotonous wind, she felt she could stand the solitude nolonger, and, crossing the glaring _patio_ and whistling corridor, madeher way to the open gateway.

  But the view without seemed to intensify her desolation. The broadexpanse of the shadowless plain reached apparently to the Coast Range,trackless and unbroken save by one or two clusters of dwarfed oaks,which at that distance were but mossy excrescences on the surface,barely raised above the dead level. On the other side the marsh took upthe monotony and carried it, scarcely interrupted by undefinedwater-courses, to the faintly marked-out horizon line of the remotebay. Scattered and apparently motionless black spots on the meadowsthat gave a dreary significance to the title of "the Crows" which therancho bore, and sudden gray clouds of sandpipers on the marshes, thatrose and vanished down the wind, were the only signs of life. Even thewhite sail of the early morning was gone.

  She stood there until the aching of her straining eyes and thestiffening of her limbs in the cold wind compelled her to seek thesheltered warmth of the courtyard. Here she endeavored to make friendswith a bright-eyed lizard, who was sunning himself in the corridor; agraceful little creature in blue and gold, from whom she felt at othertimes she might have fled, but whose beauty and harmlessness solitudehad made known to her. With misplaced kindness she tempted it withbread-crumbs, with no other effect than to stiffen it into stonyastonishment. She wondered if she should become like the prisoners shehad read of in books, who poured out their solitary affections onnoisome creatures, and she regretted even the mustang, which with thebuggy had disappeared under the charge of some unknown retainer on herarrival. Was she not a prisoner? The shutterless windows, yawningdoors, and open gate refuted the suggestion, but the encompassingsolitude and trackless waste still held her captive. Poindexter hadtold her it was four miles to the shanty; she might walk there. Why hadshe given her word that she would remain at the rancho until hereturned?

  The long day crept monotonously away, and she welcomed the night whichshut out the dreary prospect. But it brought no cessation of theharassing wind without, nor surcease of the nervous irritation itsperpetual and even activity wrought upon her. It haunted her pilloweven in her exhausted sleep, and seemed to impatiently beckon her torise and follow it. It brought her feverish dreams of her husband,footsore and weary, staggering forward under its pitiless lash andclamorous outcry; she would have gone to his assistance, but when shereached his side and held out her arms to him it hurried her past withmerciless power, and, bearing her away, left him hopelessly behind. Itwas broad day when she awoke. The usual night showers of the waningrainy season had left no trace in sky or meadow; the fervid
morning sunhad already dried the _patio_; only the restless, harrying windremained.

  Mrs. Tucker arose with a resolve. She had learned from Concha on theprevious evening that a part of the shanty was used as a _tienda_ orshop for the laborers and _rancheros_. Under the necessity ofpurchasing some articles, she would go there and for a moment minglewith those people, who would not recognize her. Even if they did, herinstinct told her it would be less to be feared than the hopelessuncertainty of another day. As she left the house the wind seemed toseize her as in her dream, and hurry her along with it, until in a fewmoments the walls of the low _casa_ sank into the earth again and shewas alone, but for the breeze on the solitary plain. The level distanceglittered in the sharp light, a few crows with slant wings dipped andran down the wind before her, and a passing gleam on the marsh wasexplained by the far-off cry of a curlew.

  She had walked for an hour, upheld by the stimulus of light and morningair, when the cluster of scrub oaks, which was her destination, openedenough to show two rambling sheds, before one of which was a woodenplatform containing a few barrels and bones. As she approached nearer,she could see that one or two horses were tethered under the trees,that their riders were lounging by a horse-trough, and that over anopen door the word _Tienda_ was rudely painted on a board, and asrudely illustrated by the wares displayed at door and window.Accustomed as she was to the poverty of frontier architecture, even thecrumbling walls of the old _hacienda_ she had just left seemedpicturesque to the rigid angles of the thin, blank, unpainted shellbefore her. One of the loungers, who was reading a newspaper aloud asshe advanced, put it aside and stared at her; there was an evidentcommotion in the shop as she stepped upon the platform, and when sheentered, with breathless lips and beating heart, she found herself theobject of a dozen curious eyes. Her quick pride resented the scrutinyand recalled her courage, and it was with a slight coldness in herusual lazy indifference that she leaned over the counter and asked forthe articles she wanted.

  The request was followed by a dead silence. Mrs. Tucker repeated itwith some _hauteur_.

  "I reckon you don't seem to know this store is in the hands of thesheriff," said one of the loungers.

  Mrs. Tucker was not aware of it.

  "Well, I don't know any one who's a better right to know than SpenceTucker's wife," said another with a coarse laugh. The laugh was echoedby the others. Mrs. Tucker saw the pit into which she had deliberatelywalked, but did not flinch.

  "Is there any one to serve here?" she asked, turning her clear eyesfull upon the bystanders.

  "You'd better ask the sheriff. He was the last one to _sarve_ here. Hesarved an attachment," replied the inevitable humorist of allCalifornian assemblages.

  "Is he here?" asked Mrs. Tucker, disregarding the renewed laughterwhich followed this subtle witticism.

  The loungers at the door made way for one of their party, who was halfdragged, half pushed into the shop. "Here he is," said half a dozeneager voices, in the fond belief that his presence might impartadditional humor to the situation. He cast a deprecating glance at Mrs.Tucker and said, "It's so, madam! This yer place _is_ attached; but ifthere's anything you're wanting, why I reckon, boys,"--he turned halfappealingly to the crowd, "we could oblige a lady." There was a vaguesound of angry opposition and remonstrance from the back door of theshop, but the majority, partly overcome by Mrs. Tucker's beauty,assented. "Only," continued the officer explanatorily, "ez these yergoods are in the hands of the creditors, they ought to be representedby an equivalent in money. If you're expecting they should becharged"--

  "But I wish to, _pay_ for them," interrupted Mrs. Tucker, with a slightflush of indignation; "I have the money."

  "Oh, I bet you have!" screamed a voice, as, overturning all opposition,the malcontent at the back door, in the shape of an infuriated woman,forced her way into the shop. "I'll bet you have the money! Look ather, boys! Look at the wife of the thief, with the stolen money indiamonds in her ears and rings on her fingers. _She's_ got money if_we've_ none. _She_ can pay for what she fancies, if we haven't a centto redeem the bed that's stolen from under us. Oh yes, buy it all, Mrs.Spencer Tucker! buy the whole shop, Mrs. Spencer Tucker, do you hear?And if you ain't satisfied then, buy my clothes, my wedding ring, theonly things your husband hasn't stolen."

  "I don't understand you," said Mrs. Tucker coldly, turning towards thedoor. But with a flying leap across the counter her relentlessadversary stood between her and retreat.

  "You don't understand! Perhaps you don't understand that your husbandnot only stole the hard labor of these men, but even the little moneythey brought here and trusted to his thieving hands. Perhaps you don'tknow that he stole my husband's hard earnings, mortgaged these verygoods you want to buy, and that he is to-day a convicted thief, aforger, and a runaway coward. Perhaps, if you can't understand _me_,you can read the newspaper. Look!" She exultingly opened the paper thesheriff had been reading aloud, and pointed to the displayed headlines."Look! there are the very words, 'Forgery, Swindling, Embezzlement!' Doyou see? And perhaps you can't understand this. Look! 'Shameful Flight.Abandons his Wife. Runs off with a Notorious'"--

  "Easy, old gal, easy now. D--n it! Will you dry up? I say. _Stop_!"

  It was too late! The sheriff had dashed the paper from the woman'shand, but not until Mrs. Tucker had read a single line, a line such asshe had sometimes turned from with weary scorn in her careless perusalof the daily shameful chronicle of domestic infelicity. Then she hadcoldly wondered if there could be any such men and women. And now! Thecrowd fell back before her; even the virago was silenced as she lookedat her face. The humorist's face was as white, but not as immobile, ashe gasped, "Christ! if I don't believe she knew nothin' of it!"

  For a moment the full force of such a supposition, with all itspoignancy, its dramatic intensity, and its pathos, possessed the crowd.In the momentary clairvoyance of enthusiasm they caught a glimpse ofthe truth, and by one of the strange reactions of human passion theyonly waited for a word of appeal or explanation from her lips to throwthemselves at her feet. Had she simply told her story they would havebelieved her; had she cried, fainted, or gone into hysterics, theywould have pitied her. She did neither. Perhaps she thought of neither,or indeed of anything that was then before her eyes. She walked erectto the door and turned upon the threshold. "I mean what I say," shesaid calmly. "I don't understand you. But whatever just claims you haveupon my husband will be paid by me, or by his lawyer, CaptainPoindexter."

  She had lost the sympathy but not the respect of her hearers. They madeway for her with sullen deference as she passed out on the platform.But her adversary, profiting by the last opportunity, burst into anironical laugh.

  "Captain Poindexter, is it? Well, perhaps he's safe to pay _your_ bill;but as for your husband's"--

  "That's another matter," interrupted a familiar voice with the greatestcheerfulness; "that's what you were going to say, wasn't it? Ha! ha!Well, Mrs. Patterson," continued Poindexter, stepping from his buggy,"you never spoke a truer word in your life.--One moment, Mrs. Tucker.Let me send you back in the buggy. Don't mind _me_. I can get a freshhorse of the sheriff. I'm quite at home here." Then, turning to one ofthe bystanders, "I say, Patterson, step a few paces this way, will you?A little further from your wife, please. That will do. You've got aclaim of five thousand dollars against the property, haven't you?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, that woman just driving away is your one solitary chance ofgetting a cent of it. If your wife insults her again, that chance isgone. And if _you_ do"--

  "Well?"

  "As sure as there is a God in Israel and a Supreme Court of the Stateof California, I'll kill you in your tracks!.... Stay!"

  Patterson turned. The irrepressible look of humorous tolerance of allhuman frailty had suffused Poindexter's black eyes with mischievousmoisture. "If you think it quite safe to confide to your wife thisprospect of her improvement by widowhood, you may!"

  III.

  Mr. Patterson did not inform his wife of the l
awyer's personal threatto himself. But he managed, after Poindexter had left, to make herconscious that Mrs. Tucker might be a power to be placated and feared."You've shot off your mouth at her," he said argumentatively, "andwhether you've hit the mark or not you've had your say. Ef you thinkit's worth a possible five thousand dollars and interest to keep on,heave ahead. Ef you rather have the chance of getting the rest in cash,you'll let up on her." "You don't suppose," returned Mrs. Pattersoncontemptuously, "that she's got anything but what that man ofhers--Poindexter--lets her have?" "The sheriff says," retortedPatterson surlily, "that she's notified him that she claims the_rancho_ as a gift from her husband three years ago, and she's in_possession_ now, and was so when the execution was out. It don't makeno matter," he added, with gloomy philosophy, "who's got a full hand aslong as _we_ ain't got the cards to chip in. I wouldn't 'a' minded it,"he continued meditatively, "ef Spence Tucker had dropped a hint to meafore he put out." "And I suppose," said Mrs. Patterson angrily, "you'dhave put out too?" "I reckon," said Patterson simply.

  Twice or thrice during the evening he referred, more or less directly,to this lack of confidence shown by his late debtor and employer, andseemed to feel it more keenly than the loss of property. He confidedhis sentiments quite openly to the sheriff in possession, over thewhiskey and euchre with which these gentlemen avoided the difficultiesof their delicate relations. He brooded over it as he handed the keysof the shop to the sheriff when they parted for the night, and wasstill thinking of it when the house was closed, everybody gone to bed,and he was fetching a fresh jug of water from the well. The moon was attimes obscured by flying clouds, the _avant-couriers_ of the regularevening shower. He was stooping over the well, when he sprang suddenlyto his feet again. "Who's there?" he demanded sharply.

  "Hush!" said a voice so low and faint it might have been a whisper ofthe wind in the palisades of the corral. But, indistinct as it was, itwas the voice of a man he was thinking of as far away, and it sent athrill of alternate awe and pleasure through his pulses.

  He glanced quickly round. The moon was hidden by a passing cloud, andonly the faint outlines of the house he had just quitted were visible."Is that you, Spence?" he said tremulously.

  "Yes," replied the voice, and a figure dimly emerged from the corner ofthe corral.

  "Lay low, lay low, for God's sake," said Patterson, hurriedly throwinghimself upon the apparition. "The sheriff and his posse are in there."

  "But I must speak to you a moment," said the figure.

  "Wait," said Patterson, glancing toward the building. Its blank,shutterless windows revealed no inner light; a profound silenceencompassed it. "Come quick," he whispered. Letting his grasp slip downto the unresisting hand of the stranger, he half dragged, half led him,brushing against the wall, into the open door of the deserted bar-roomhe had just quitted, locked the inner door, poured a glass of whiskeyfrom a decanter, gave it to him, and then watched him drain it at asingle draught.

  The moon came out, and falling through the bare windows full upon thestranger's face, revealed the artistic but slightly disheveled curlsand mustache of the fugitive, Spencer Tucker.

  Whatever may have been the real influence of this unfortunate man uponhis fellows, it seemed to find expression in a singular unanimity ofcriticism. Patterson looked at him with a half dismal, half welcomingsmile. "Well, you are a h--ll of a fellow, ain't you?"

  Spencer Tucker passed his hand through his hair and lifted it from hisforehead, with a gesture at once emotional and theatrical. "I am a manwith a price on me!" he said bitterly. "Give me up to the sheriff, andyou'll get five thousand dollars. Help me, and you'll get nothing.That's my d--d luck, and yours too, I suppose."

  "I reckon you're right there," said Patterson gloomily. "But I thoughtyou got clean away,--went off in a ship"--

  "Went off in a boat to a ship," interrupted Tucker savagely; "went offto a ship that had all my things on board--everything. The cursed boatcapsized in a squall just off the Heads. The ship, d--n her, sailedaway, the men thinking I was drowned, likely, and that they'd make agood thing off my goods, I reckon."

  "But the girl, Inez, who was with you, didn't she make a row?"

  "_Quien sabe?_" returned Tucker, with a reckless laugh. "Well, I hungon like grim death to that boat's keel until one of those Chinesefishermen, in a 'dug-out,' hauled me in opposite Saucelito. I charteredhim and his dug-out to bring me down here."

  "Why here?" asked Patterson, with a certain ostentatious caution thatill concealed his pensive satisfaction.

  "You may well ask," returned Tucker, with an equal ostentation ofbitterness, as he slightly waved his companion away. "But I reckoned Icould trust a white man that I'd been kind to, and who wouldn't go backon me. No, no, let me go! Hand me over to the sheriff!"

  Patterson had suddenly grasped both the hands of the picturesque scampbefore him, with an affection that for an instant almost shamed the manwho had ruined him. But Tucker's egotism whispered that this affectionwas only a recognition of his own superiority, and felt flattered. Hewas beginning to believe that he was really the injured party.

  "What I _have_ and what I have _had_ is yours, Spence," returnedPatterson, with a sad and simple directness that made any furtherdiscussion a gratuitous insult. "I only wanted to know what youreckoned to do here."

  "I want to get over across the Coast Range to Monterey," said Tucker."Once there, one of those coasting schooners will bring me down toAcapulco, where the ship will put in."

  Patterson remained silent for a moment. "There's a mustang in thecorral you can take--leastways, I shan't know that it's gone--untilto-morrow afternoon. In an hour from now," he added, looking from thewindow, "these clouds will settle down to business. It will rain; therewill be light enough for you to find your way by the regular trail overthe mountain, but not enough for any one to know you. If you can't pushthrough to-night, you can lie over at the _posada_ on the summit. Themgreasers that keep it won't know you, And if they did they won't goback on you. And if they did go back on you, nobody would believe them.It's mighty curious," he added, with gloomy philosophy, "but I reckonit's the reason why Providence allows this kind of cattle to live amongwhite men and others made in his image. Take a piece of pie, won'tyou?" he continued, abandoning this abstract reflection and producinghalf a flat pumpkin pie from the bar. Spencer Tucker grasped the piewith one hand and his friend's fingers with the other, and for a fewmoments was silent from the hurried deglutition of viand and sentiment."_You're_ a white man, Patterson, any way," he resumed. "I'll take yourhorse, and put it down in our account at your own figure. As soon asthis cursed thing is blown over, I'll be back here and see you through,you bet! I don't desert my friends, however rough things go with me."

  "I see you don't," returned Patterson, with an unconscious and serioussimplicity that had the effect of the most exquisite irony. "I was onlyjust saying to the sheriff that if there was anything I could have donefor you, you wouldn't have cut away without letting me know." Tuckerglanced uneasily at Patterson, who continued, "Ye ain't wantinganything else?" Then observing that his former friend and patron wasroughly but newly clothed, and betrayed no trace of his last escapade,he added, "I see you've got a fresh harness."

  "That d--d Chinaman bought me these at the landing. They're not much instyle or fit," he continued, trying to get a moonlight view of himselfin the mirror behind the bar, "but that don't matter here." He filledanother glass of spirits, jauntily settled himself back in his chair,and added, "I don't suppose there are any girls around, anyway."

  "'Cept your wife; she was down here this afternoon," said Pattersonmeditatively.

  Mr. Tucker paused with the pie in his hand. "Ah, yes!" He essayed areckless laugh, but that evident simulation failed before Patterson'smelancholy. With an assumption of falling in with his friend's manner,rather than from any personal anxiety, he continued, "Well?"

  "That man Poindexter was down here with her. Put her in the _hacienda_to hold possession afore the news came out."

 
; "Impossible!" said Tucker, rising hastily. "It don't belong--thatis"--he hesitated.

  "Yer thinking the creditors'll get it, mebbe," returned Patterson,gazing at the floor. "Not as long as she's in it; no sir! Whether it'sreally hers, or she's only keeping house for Poindexter, she's afixture, you bet. They are a team when they pull together, they are!"

  The smile slowly faded from Tucker's face, that now looked quite rigidin the moonlight. He put down his glass and walked to the window asPatterson gloomily continued: "But that's nothing to you. You've gotahead of 'em both, and had your revenge by going off with the gal.That's what I said all along. When folks--specially womenfolks--wondered how you could leave a woman like your wife, and go offwith a scallawag like that gal, I allers said they'd find out there wasa reason. And when your wife came flaunting down here with Poindexterbefore she'd quite got quit of you, I reckon they began to see thewhole little game. No, sir! I knew it wasn't on account of the gal!Why, when you came here to-night and told me quite nat'ral-like andeasy how she went off in the ship, and then calmly ate your pie anddrank your whiskey after it, I knew you didn't care for her. There's myhand, Spence; you're a trump, even if you are a little looney, eh? Why,what's up?"

  Shallow and selfish as Tucker was, Patterson's words seemed like arevelation that shocked him as profoundly as it might have shocked anobler nature. The simple vanity and selfishness that made him unableto conceive any higher reason for his wife's loyalty than his ownpersonal popularity and success, now that he no longer possessed that_eclat_, made him equally capable of the lowest suspicions. He was adishonored fugitive, broken in fortune and reputation--why should shenot desert him? He had been unfaithful to her from wildness, fromcaprice, from the effect of those fascinating qualities; it seemed tohim natural that she should be disloyal from more deliberate motives,and he hugged himself with that belief. Yet there was enough doubt,enough of haunting suspicion, that he had lost or alienated a powerfulaffection, to make him thoroughly miserable. He returned his friend'sgrasp convulsively and buried his face upon his shoulder. But he wasabove feeling a certain exultation in the effect of his misery upon thedog-like, unreasoning affection of Patterson, nor could he entirelyrefrain from slightly posing his affliction before that sympathetic butmelancholy man. Suddenly he raised his head, drew back, and thrust hishand into his bosom with a theatrical gesture.

  "What's to keep me from killing Poindexter in his tracks?" he saidwildly.

  "Nothin' but _his_ shooting first," returned Patterson, with dismalpracticality. "He's mighty quick, like all them army men. It's abouteven, I reckon, that he don't get _me_ first," he added in an ominousvoice.

  "No!" returned Tucker, grasping his hand again. "This is not youraffair, Patterson; leave him to me when I come back."

  "If he ever gets the drop on me, I reckon he won't wait," continuedPatterson lugubriously. "He seems to object to my passin' criticism onyour wife, as if she was a queen or an angel."

  The blood came to Spencer's cheek, and he turned uneasily to thewindow. "It's dark enough now for a start," he said hurriedly, "and ifI could get across the mountain without lying over at the summit, itwould be a day gained."

  Patterson arose without a word, filled a flask of spirit, handed it tohis friend, and silently led the way through the slowly falling rainand the now settled darkness. The mustang was quickly secured andsaddled; a heavy _poncho_ afforded Tucker a disguise as well as aprotection from the rain. With a few hurried, disconnected words, andan abstracted air, he once more shook his friend's hand and issuedcautiously from the corral. When out of earshot from the house he putspurs to the mustang, and dashed into a gallop.

  To intersect the mountain road he was obliged to traverse part of thehighway his wife had walked that afternoon, and to pass within a mileof the _casa_ where she was. Long before he reached that point his eyeswere straining the darkness in that direction for some indication ofthe house which was to him familiar. Becoming now accustomed to theeven obscurity, less trying to the vision than the alternate light andshadow of cloud or the full glare of the moonlight, he fancied he coulddistinguish its low walls over the monotonous level. One of thoseimpulses which had so often taken the place of resolution in hischaracter suddenly possessed him to diverge from his course andapproach the house. Why, he could not have explained. It was not fromany feeling of jealous suspicion or contemplated revenge--that hadpassed with the presence of Patterson; it was not from any vaguelingering sentiment for the woman he had wronged--he would have shrunkfrom meeting her at that moment. But it was full of these and morepossibilities by which he might or might not be guided, and was atleast a movement towards some vague end, and a distraction from certainthoughts he dared not entertain and could not entirely dismiss.Inconceivable and inexplicable to human reason, it might have beenacceptable to the Divine omniscience for its predestined result.

  He left the road at a point where the marsh encroached upon the meadow,familiar to him already as near the spot where he had debarked from theChinaman's boat the day before. He remembered that the walls of the_hacienda_ were distinctly visible from the _tules_ where he had hiddenall day, and he now knew that the figures he had observed near thebuilding, which had deterred his first attempts at landing, must havebeen his wife and his friend. He knew that a long tongue of the sloughfilled by the rising tide followed the marsh, and lay between him andthe _hacienda_. The sinking of his horse's hoofs in the spongy soildetermined its proximity, and he made a detour to the right to avoidit. In doing so, a light suddenly rose above the distant horizon aheadof him, trembled faintly, and then burned with a steady lustre. It wasa light at the _hacienda_. Guiding his horse half abstractedly in thisdirection, his progress was presently checked by the splashing of theanimal's hoofs in the water. But the turf below was firm, and a saltdrop that had spattered to his lips told him that it was only theencroaching of the tide in the meadow. With his eyes on the light, heagain urged his horse forward. The rain lulled, the clouds began tobreak, the landscape alternately lightened and grew dark; the outlinesof the crumbling _hacienda_ walls that enshrined the light grew morevisible. A strange and dreamy resemblance to the long blue-grass plainbefore his wife's paternal house, as seen by him during his eveningrides to courtship, pressed itself upon him. He remembered, too, thatshe used to put a light in the window to indicate her presence.Following this retrospect, the moon came boldly out, sparkled upon theoverflow of silver at his feet, seemed to show the dark, opaque meadowbeyond for a moment, and then disappeared. It was dark now, but thelesser earthly star still shone before him as a guide, and pushingtowards it, he passed in the all-embracing shadow.

  IV.

  As Mrs. Tucker, erect, white, and rigid, drove away from the _tienda_,it seemed to her to sink again into the monotonous plain, with all itshorrible realities. Except that there was now a new and heart-breakingsignificance to the solitude and loneliness of the landscape, all thathad passed might have been a dream. But as the blood came back to hercheek, and little by little her tingling consciousness returned, itseemed as if her life had been the dream, and this last scene theawakening reality. With eyes smarting with the moisture of shame, thescarlet blood at times dyeing her very neck and temples, she muffledher lowered crest in her shawl and bent over the reins. Bit by bit sherecalled, in Poindexter's mysterious caution and strange allusions, thecorroboration of her husband's shame and her own disgrace. This was whyshe was brought hither--the deserted wife, the abandoned confederate!The mocking glitter of the concave vault above her, scoured by theincessant wind, the cold stare of the shining pools beyond, the hardoutlines of the Coast Range, and the jarring accompaniment of herhorse's hoofs and rattling buggy-wheels, alternately goaded anddistracted her. She found herself repeating "No! no! no!" with thedogged reiteration of fever. She scarcely knew when or how she reachedthe _hacienda_. She was only conscious that as she entered the _patio_the dusky solitude that had before filled her with unrest now came toher like balm. A benumbing peace seemed to fall from the crumblingwalls; the
peace of utter seclusion, isolation, oblivion, death!Nevertheless, an hour later, when the jingle of spurs and bridle wereagain heard in the road, she started to her feet with bent brows and akindling eye, and confronted Captain Poindexter in the corridor.

  "I would not have intruded upon you so soon again," he said gravely,"but I thought I might perhaps spare you a repetition of the scene ofthis morning. Hear me out, please," he added, with a gentle, halfdeprecating gesture, as she lifted the beautiful scorn of her eyes tohis. "I have just heard that your neighbor, Don Jose Santierra, of LosGatos, is on his way to this house. He once claimed this land, andhated your husband, who bought of the rival claimant, whose grant wasconfirmed. I tell you this," he added, slightly flushing as Mrs. Tuckerturned impatiently away, "only to show you that legally he has norights, and you need not see him unless you choose. I could not stophis coming without perhaps doing you more harm than good; but when hedoes come, my presence under this roof as your legal counsel willenable you to refer him to me." He stopped. She was pacing the corridorwith short, impatient steps, her arms dropped, and her hands claspedrigidly before her. "Have I your permission to stay?"

  She suddenly stopped in her walk, approached him rapidly, and fixingher eyes on his, said:

  "Do I know _all_, now--everything?"

  He could only reply that she had not yet told him what she had heard.

  "Well," she said scornfully, "that my husband has been cruelly imposedupon--imposed upon by some wretched woman, who has made him sacrificehis property, his friends, his honor--everything but me!"

  "Everything but whom?" gasped Poindexter.

  "But ME!"

  Poindexter gazed at the sky, the air, the deserted corridor, the stonesof the _patio_ itself, and then at the inexplicable woman before him.Then he said gravely, "I think you know everything."

  "Then if my husband has left me all he could--this property," she wenton rapidly, twisting her handkerchief between her fingers, "I can dowith it what I like, can't I?"

  "You certainly can."

  "Then sell it," she said, with passionate vehemence. "Sell it--all!everything! And sell these." She darted into her bedroom, and returnedwith the diamond rings she had torn from her fingers and ears when sheentered the house. "Sell them for anything they'll bring, only sellthem at once."

  "But for what?" asked Poindexter, with demure lips but twinkling eyes.

  "To pay the debts that this--this--woman has led him into; to returnthe money she has stolen!" she went on rapidly; "to keep him fromsharing infamy! Can't you understand?"

  "But, my dear madam," began Poindexter, "even if this could be done"--

  "Don't tell me 'if it could'--it _must_ be done. Do you think I couldsleep under this roof, propped up by the timbers of that ruined_tienda_? Do you think I could wear those diamonds again, while thattermagant shop-woman can say that her money bought them? No! If you aremy husband's friend you will do this--for--for his sake." She stopped,locked and interlocked her cold fingers before her, and said,hesitating and mechanically, "You meant well, Captain Poindexter, inbringing me here, I know! You must not think that I blame you for it,or for the miserable result of it that you have just witnessed. But ifI have gained anything by it, for God's sake let me reap it quickly,that I may give it to these people and go! I have a friend who can aidme to get to my husband or to my home in Kentucky, where Spencer willyet find me, I know. I want nothing more." She stopped again. Withanother woman the pause would have been one of tears. But she kept herhead above the flood that filled her heart, and the clear eyes fixedupon Poindexter, albeit pained, were undimmed.

  "But this would require time," said Poindexter, with a smile ofcompassionate explanation; "you could not sell now, nobody would buy.You are safe to hold this property while you are in actual possession,but you are not strong enough to guarantee it to another. There maystill be litigation; your husband has other creditors than these peopleyou have talked with. But while nobody could oust you--the wife whowould have the sympathies of judge and jury--it might be a differentcase with any one who derived title from you. Any purchaser would knowthat you could not sell, or if you did, it would be at a ridiculoussacrifice."

  She listened to him abstractedly, walked to the end of the corridor,returned, and without looking up, said:

  "I suppose you know her?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "This woman. You have seen her?"

  "Never, to my knowledge."

  "And you are his friend! That's strange." She raised her eyes to his."Well," she continued impatiently, "who is she? and what is she? Youknow that surely."

  "I know no more of her than what I have said." said Poindexter. "She isa notorious woman."

  The swift color came to Mrs. Tucker's face as if the epithet had beenapplied to herself. "I suppose," she said in a dry voice, as if shewere asking a business question, but with an eye that showed her risinganger,--"I suppose there is some law by which creatures of this kindcan be followed and brought to justice--some law that would keepinnocent people from suffering for their crimes?"

  "I am afraid," said Poindexter, "that arresting her would hardly helpthese people over in the _tienda_."

  "I am not speaking of them," responded Mrs. Tucker, with a suddensublime contempt for the people whose cause she had espoused; "I amtalking of my husband."

  Poindexter bit his lip. "You'd hardly think of bringing back thestrongest witness against him," he said bluntly.

  Mrs. Tucker dropped her eyes and was silent. A sudden shame suffusedPoindexter's cheek; he felt as if he had struck that woman a blow. "Ibeg your pardon," he said hastily; "I am talking like a lawyer to alawyer." He would have taken any other woman by the hand in the honestfullness of his apology, but something restrained him here. He onlylooked down gently on her lowered lashes, and repeated his question ifhe should remain during the coming interview with Don Jose. "I must begyou to determine quickly," he added, "for I already hear him enteringthe gate."

  "Stay," said Mrs. Tucker, as the ringing of spurs and clatter of hoofscame from the corral. "One moment." She looked up suddenly, and said,"How long had he known her?" But before he could reply there was a stepin the doorway, and the figure of Don Jose Santierra emerged from thearchway.

  He was a man slightly past middle age, fair, and well shaven, wearing ablack broadcloth _serape_, the deeply embroidered opening of whichformed a collar of silver rays around his neck, while a row of silverbuttons down the side seams of his riding-trousers, and silver spurscompleted his singular equipment. Mrs. Tucker's swift feminine glancetook in these details, as well as the deep salutation, more formal thanthe exuberant frontier politeness she was accustomed to, with which hegreeted her. It was enough to arrest her first impulse to retreat. Shehesitated and stopped as Poindexter stepped forward, partly interposingbetween them, acknowledging Don Jose's distant recognition of himselfwith an ironical accession of his usual humorous tolerance. TheSpaniard did not seem to notice it, but remained gravely silent beforeMrs. Tucker, gazing at her with an expression of intent and unconsciousabsorption.

  "You are quite right, Don Jose," said Poindexter, with ironicalconcern, "it _is_ Mrs. Tucker. Your eyes do _not_ deceive you. She willbe glad to do the honors of her house," he continued, with a simulationof appealing to her, "unless you visit her on business, when I need notsay _I_ shall be only too happy to attend you, as before."

  Don Jose, with a slight lifting of the eyebrows, allowed himself tobecome conscious of the lawyer's meaning. "It is not of business that Icome to kiss the Senora's hand to-day," he replied, with a melancholysoftness; "it is as her neighbor, to put myself at her disposition. Ah!what have we here fit for a lady?" he continued, raising his eyes indeprecation of the surroundings; "a house of nothing, a place of windsand dry bones, without refreshments, or satisfaction, or delicacy. TheSenora will not refuse to make us proud this day to send her of thatwhich we have in our poor home at Los Gatos, to make her more complete.Of what shall it be? Let her make choice. Or if she would co
mmemoratethis day by accepting of our hospitality at Los Gatos, until she shallarrange herself the more to receive us here, we shall have too muchhonor."

  "The Senora would only find it the more difficult to return to thishumble roof again, after once leaving it for Don Jose's hospitality,"said Poindexter, with a demure glance at Mrs. Tucker. But the innuendoseemed to lapse equally unheeded by his fair client and the stranger.Raising her eyes with a certain timid dignity which Don Jose's presenceseemed to have called out, she addressed herself to him.

  "You are very kind and considerate, Mister Santierra, and I thank you.I know that my husband"--she let the clear beauty of her translucenteyes rest full on both men--"would thank you too. But I shall not behere long enough to accept your kindness in this house nor in your own.I have but one desire and object now. It is to dispose of thisproperty, and indeed all I possess, to pay the debt of my husband. Itis in your power, perhaps, to help me. I am told that you wish topossess Los Cuervos," she went on, equally oblivious of theconsciousness that appeared in Don Jose's face, and a humorousperplexity on the brow of Poindexter. "If you can arrange it with Mr.Poindexter, you will find me a liberal vendor. That much you can do,and I know you will believe I shall be grateful. You can do no more,unless it be to say to your friends that Mrs. Belle Tucker remains hereonly for that purpose, and to carry out what she knows to be the wishesof her husband." She paused, bent her pretty crest, dropped a quaintcurtsey to the superior age, the silver braid, and the gentlemanlybearing of Don Jose, and with the passing sunshine of a smiledisappeared from the corridor.

  The two men remained silent for a moment, Don Jose gazing abstractedlyon the door through which she had vanished, until Poindexter, with areturn of his tolerant smile, said, "You have heard the views of Mrs.Tucker. You know the situation as well as she does."

  "Ah, yes; possibly better."

  Poindexter darted a quick glance at the grave, sallow face of Don Jose,but detecting no unusual significance in his manner, continued, "As yousee, she leaves this matter in my hands. Let us talk like business men.Have you any idea of purchasing this property?"

  "Of purchasing? ah, no."

  Poindexter bent his brows, but quickly relaxed them with a smile ofhumorous forgiveness. "If you have any other idea, Don Jose, I ought towarn you, as Mrs. Tucker's lawyer, that she is in legal possessionhere, and that nothing but her own act can change that position."

  "Ah, so."

  Irritated at the shrug which accompanied this, Poindexter continuedhaughtily, "If I am to understand, you have nothing to say"--

  "To say, ah, yes, possibly. But"--he glanced toward the door of Mrs.Tucker's room--"not here." He stopped, appeared to recall himself, andwith an apologetic smile and a studied but graceful gesture ofinvitation, he motioned to the gateway, and said, "Will you ride?"

  "What can the fellow be up to?" muttered Poindexter, as with anassenting nod he proceeded to remount his horse. "If he wasn't an old_hidalgo_, I'd mistrust him. No matter! here goes!"

  The Don also remounted his half-broken mustang; they proceeded insolemn silence through the corral, and side by side emerged on the openplain. Poindexter glanced round; no other being was in sight. It wasnot until the lonely _hacienda_ had also sunk behind them that Don Josebroke the silence.

  "You say just now we shall speak as business men. I say no, Don Marco;I will not. I shall speak, we shall speak, as gentlemen."

  "Go on," said Poindexter, who was beginning to be amused.

  "I say just now I will not purchase the _rancho_ from the Senora. Andwhy? Look you, Don Marco;" he reined in his horse, thrust his handunder his _serape_, and drew out a folded document: "this is why."

  With a smile, Poindexter took the paper from his hand and opened it.But the smile faded from his lips as he read. With blazing eyes hespurred his horse beside the Spaniard, almost unseating him, and saidsternly, "What does this mean?"

  "What does it mean?" repeated Don Jose, with equally flashing eyes;"I'll tell you. It means that your client, this man Spencer Tucker, isa Judas, a traitor! It means that he gave Los Cuervos to his mistress ayear ago, and that she sold it to me--to me, you hear!--_me_, JoseSantierra, the day before she left! It means that the coyote of aSpencer, the thief, who bought these lands of a thief and gave them toa thief, has tricked you all. Look," he said, rising in his saddle,holding the paper like a _baton_, and defining with a sweep of his armthe whole level plain, "all these lands were once mine, they are mineagain to-day. Do I want to purchase Los Cuervos? you ask, for you willspeak of the _business_. Well, listen. I _have_ purchased Los Cuervos,and here is the deed."

  "But it has never been recorded," said Poindexter, with a carelessnesshe was far from feeling.

  "Of a verity, no. Do you wish that I should record it?" asked Don Jose,with a return of his simple gravity.

  Poindexter bit his lip. "You said we were to talk like gentlemen," hereturned. "Do you think you have come into possession of this allegeddeed like a gentleman?"

  Don Jose shrugged his shoulders, "I found it tossed in the lap of aharlot. I bought it for a song. Eh, what would you?"

  "Would you sell it again for a song?" asked Poindexter.

  "Ah! what is this?" said Don Jose, lifting his iron-gray brows; "but amoment ago we would sell everything, for any money. Now we would buy.Is it so?"

  "One moment, Don Jose," said Poindexter, with a baleful light in hisdark eyes. "Do I understand that you are the ally of Spencer Tucker andhis mistress, that you intend to turn this doubly betrayed wife fromthe only roof she has to cover her?"

  "Ah, I comprehend not. You heard her say she wished to go. Perhaps itmay please _me_ to distribute largess to these cattle yonder, I do notsay no. More she does not ask. But _you_, Don Marco, of whom are youadvocate? You abandon your client's mistress for the wife, is it so?"

  "What I may do you will learn hereafter," said Poindexter, who hadregained his composure, suddenly reining up his horse. "As our pathsseem likely to diverge, they had better begin now. Good morning."

  "Patience, my friend, patience! Ah, blessed St. Anthony, what theseAmericans are! Listen. For what _you_ shall do, I do not inquire. Thequestion is to me what I"--he emphasized the pronoun by tapping himselfon the breast--"I, Jose Santierra, will do. Well, I shall tell you.To-day, nothing. To-morrow, nothing. For a week, for a month, nothing!After, we shall see."

  Poindexter paused thoughtfully. "Will you give your word, Don Jose,that you will not press the claim for a month?"

  "Truly, on one condition. Observe! I do not ask you for an equalpromise, that you will not take this time to defend yourself." Heshrugged his shoulder. "No! It is only this. You shall promise thatduring that time the Senora Tucker shall remain ignorant of thisdocument."

  Poindexter hesitated a moment. "I promise," he said at last.

  "Good. Adios, Don Marco."

  "Adios, Don Jose"

  The Spaniard put spurs to his mustang and galloped off in the directionof Los Gatos. The lawyer remained for a moment gazing on his retreatingbut victorious figure. For the first time the old look of humoroustoleration with which Mr. Poindexter was in the habit of regarding allhuman infirmity gave way to something like bitterness. "I might haveguessed it," he said, with a slight rise of color. "He's an old fool;and she--well, perhaps it's all the better for her!" He glancedbackwards almost tenderly in the direction of Los Cuervos, and thenturned his head towards the _embarcadero_.

  As the afternoon wore on, a creaking, antiquated oxcart arrived at LosCuervos, bearing several articles of furniture, and some tastefulornaments from Los Gatos, at the same time that a young Mexican girlmysteriously appeared in the kitchen, as a temporary assistant to thedecrepit Concha. These were both clearly attributable to Don Jose,whose visit was not so remote but that these delicate attentions mighthave been already projected before Mrs. Tucker had declined them, andshe could not, without marked discourtesy, return them now. She did notwish to seem discourteous; she would like to have been more civil tothis old gentleman, who stil
l retained the evidences of a picturesqueand decorous past, and a repose so different from the life that wasperplexing her. Reflecting that if he bought the estate these thingswould be ready to his hand, and with a woman's instinct recognizingtheir value in setting off the house to other purchasers' eyes, shetook a pleasure in tastefully arranging them, and even found herselfspeculating how she might have enjoyed them herself had she been ableto keep possession of the property. After all, it would not have beenso lonely if refined and gentle neighbors, like this old man, wouldhave sympathized with her; she had an instinctive feeling that, intheir own hopeless decay and hereditary unfitness for this newcivilization, they would have been more tolerant of her husband'sfailure than his own kind. She could not believe that Don Jose reallyhated her husband for buying of the successful claimant, as there wasno other legal title. Allowing herself to become interested in theguileless gossip of the new handmaiden, proud of her broken English,she was drawn into a sympathy with the grave simplicity of Don Jose'scharacter, a relic of that true nobility which placed this descendantof the Castilians and the daughter of a free people on the same level.

  In this way the second day of her occupancy of Los Cuervos closed, withdumb clouds along the gray horizon, and the paroxysms of hystericalwind growing fainter and fainter outside the walls; with the moonrising after nightfall, and losing itself in silent and mysteriousconfidences with drifting scud. She went to bed early, but woke pastmidnight, hearing, as she thought, her own name called. The impressionwas so strong upon her that she rose, and, hastily enwrapping herself,went to the dark embrasures of the oven-shaped windows, and looked out.The dwarfed oak beside the window was still dropping from a pastshower, but the level waste of marsh and meadow beyond seemed toadvance and recede with the coming and going of the moon. Again sheheard her name called, and this time in accents so strangely familiarthat with a slight cry she ran into the corridor, crossed the _patio_,and reached the open gate. The darkness that had, even in this briefinterval, again fallen upon the prospect she tried in vain to piercewith eye and voice. A blank silence followed. Then the veil wassuddenly withdrawn; the vast plain, stretching from the mountain to thesea, shone as clearly as in the light of day; the moving current of thechannel glittered like black pearls, the stagnant pools like moltenlead; but not a sign of life nor motion broke the monotony of the broadexpanse. She must have surely dreamed it. A chill wind drove her backto the house again; she entered her bedroom, and in half an hour shewas in a peaceful sleep.

  V.

  The two men kept their secret. Mr. Poindexter convinced Mrs. Tuckerthat the sale of Los Cuervos could not be effected until the notorietyof her husband's flight had been fairly forgotten, and she was forcedto accept her fate. The sale of her diamonds, which seemed to her tohave realized a singularly extravagant sum, enabled her to quietlyreinstate the Pattersons in the _tienda_ and to discharge in full herhusband's liabilities to the _rancheros_ and his humbler retainers.

  Meanwhile the winter rains had ceased. It seemed to her as if theclouds had suddenly one night struck their white tents and stolen away,leaving the unvanquished sun to mount the vacant sky the next morningalone, and possess it thenceforward unchallenged. One afternoon shethought the long sad waste before her window had caught some tint ofgrayer color from the sunset; a week later she found it a blazinglandscape of poppies, broken here and there by blue lagoons of lupine,by pools of daisies, by banks of dog-roses, by broad outlying shores ofdandelions that scattered their lavish gold to the foot of the hills,where the green billows of wild oats carried it on and upwards to thedarker crests of pines. For two months she was dazzled and bewilderedwith color. She had never before been face to face with thisspendthrift Californian Flora, in her virgin wastefulness, her morethan goddess-like prodigality. The teeming earth seemed to quicken andthrob beneath her feet; the few circuits of a plow around the outlyingcorral was enough to call out a jungle growth of giant grain thatalmost hid the low walls of the _hacienda_. In this glorious fecundityof the earth, in this joyous renewal of life and color, in this opulentyouth and freshness of soil and sky, it alone remained, the dead andsterile Past, left in the midst of buoyant rejuvenescence andresurrection, like an empty churchyard skull upturned on the springingturf. Its bronzed adobe walls mocked the green vine that embraced them,the crumbling dust of its courtyard remained ungerminating andunfruitful; to the thousand; stirring voices without, its dry lipsalone remained mute, unresponsive, and unchanged.

  During this time Don Jose had become a frequent visitor at Los Cuervos,bringing with him at first his niece and sister in a stately precisionof politeness that was not lost on the proud Blue Grass stranger. Shereturned their visit at Los Gatos, and there made the formalacquaintance of Don Jose's grandmother, a lady who still regarded thedecrepit Concha as a giddy _muchacha_, and who herself glittered aswith the phosphorescence of refined decay. Through this circumstanceshe learned that Don Jose was not yet fifty, and that his gravity ofmanner and sedateness was more the result of fastidious isolation andtemperament than years. She could not tell why the information gave hera feeling of annoyance, but it caused her to regret the absence ofPoindexter, and to wonder, also somewhat nervously, why he had latelyavoided her presence. The thought that he might be doing so from arecollection of the innuendoes of Mrs. Patterson caused a little tremorof indignation in her pulses. "As if"--but she did not finish thesentence even to herself, and her eyes filled with bitter tears.

  Yet she had thought of the husband who had so cruelly wronged her lessfeverishly, less impatiently than before. For she thought she loved himnow the more deeply, because, although she was not reconciled to hisabsence, it seemed to keep alive the memory of what he had been beforehis one wild act separated them. She had never seen the reflection ofanother woman's eyes in his; the past contained no hauntingrecollection of waning or alienated affection; she could meet himagain, and, clasping her arms around him, awaken as if from a troubleddream without reproach or explanation. Her strong belief in this madeher patient; she no longer sought to know the particulars of hisflight, and never dreamed that her passive submission to his absencewas partly due to a fear that something in his actual presence at thatmoment would have destroyed that belief forever.

  For this reason the delicate reticence of the people at Los Gatos, andtheir seclusion from the world which knew of her husband's fault, hadmade her encourage the visits of Don Jose, until from the instinctalready alluded to she one day summoned Poindexter to Los Cuervos, onthe day that Don Jose usually called. But to her surprise the two menmet more or less awkwardly and coldly, and her tact as hostess wastried to the utmost to keep their evident antagonism from being tooapparent. The effort to reconcile their mutual discontent, and someother feeling she did not quite understand, produced a nervousexcitement which called the blood to her cheek and gave a dangerousbrilliancy to her eyes, two circumstances not unnoticed norunappreciated by her two guests. But instead of reuniting them, theprettier Mrs. Tucker became, the more distant and reserved grew themen, until Don Jose rose before his usual hour, and with more thanusual ceremoniousness departed.

  "Then my business does not seem to be with _him_!" said Poindexter,with quiet coolness, as Mrs. Tucker turned her somewhat mystified facetowards him. "Or have you anything to say to me about him in private?"

  "I am sure I don't know what you both mean," she returned with a slighttremor of voice. "I had no idea you were not on good terms. I thoughtyou were! It's very awkward." Without coquetry and unconsciously sheraised her blue eyes under her lids until the clear pupils coyly andsoftly hid themselves in the corners of the brown lashes, and added,"You have both been so kind to me."

  "Perhaps that is the reason," said Poindexter, gravely. But Mrs. Tuckerrefused to accept the suggestion with equal gravity, and began tolaugh. The laugh, which was at first frank, spontaneous, and almostchild-like, was becoming hysterical and nervous as she went on, untilit was suddenly checked by Poindexter.

  "I have had no difficulties with Don Jose Santier
ra," he said, somewhatcoldly ignoring her hilarity, "but perhaps he is not inclined to be aspolite to the friend of the husband as he is to the wife."

  "Mr. Poindexter!" said Mrs. Tucker quickly, her face becoming paleagain.

  "I beg your pardon!" said Poindexter, flushing; "but"--

  "You want to say," she interrupted coolly, "that you are not friends, Isee. Is that the reason why you have avoided this house?" she continuedgently.

  "I thought I could be of more service to you elsewhere," he repliedevasively. "I have been lately following up a certain clue ratherclosely. I think I am on the track of a confidante of--of--that woman."

  A quick shadow passed over Mrs. Tucker's face. "Indeed!" she saidcoldly. "Then I am to believe that you prefer to spend your leisuremoments in looking after that creature to calling here?"

  Poindexter was stupefied. Was this the woman who only four months agowas almost vindictively eager to pursue her husband's paramour! Therecould be but one answer to it--Don Jose! Four months ago he would havesmiled compassionately at it from his cynical preeminence. Now hemanaged with difficulty to stifle the bitterness of his reply.

  "If you do not wish the inquiry carried on," he began, "of course"--

  "I? What does it matter to me?" she said coolly. "Do as you please."

  Nevertheless, half an hour later, as he was leaving, she said, with acertain hesitating timidity, "Do not leave me so much alone here, andlet that woman go."

  This was not the only unlooked-for sequel to her innocent desire topropitiate her best friends. Don Jose did not call again upon his usualday, but in his place came Dona Clara, his younger sister. When Mrs.Tucker had politely asked after the absent Don Jose, Dona Clara woundher swarthy arms around the fair American's waist and replied, "But whydid you send for the _abogado_ Poindexter when my brother called?"

  "But Captain Poindexter calls as one of my friends," said the amazedMrs. Tucker. "He is a gentleman, and has been a soldier and anofficer," she added with some warmth.

  "Ah, yes, a soldier of the law, what you call an _oficial de policia_,a chief of _gendarmes_, my sister, but not a gentleman--a _camarero_ toprotect a lady."

  Mrs. Tucker would have uttered a hasty reply, but the perfect andgood-natured simplicity of Dona Clara withheld her. Nevertheless, shetreated Don Jose with a certain reserve at their next meeting, until itbrought the simple-minded Castilian so dangerously near the point ofdemanding an explanation which implied too much that she was obliged torestore him temporarily to his old footing. Meantime she had abrilliant idea. She would write to Calhoun Weaver, whom she had avoidedsince that memorable day. She would say she wished to consult him. Hewould come to Los Cuervos; he might suggest something to lighten thisweary waiting; at least she would show them all that she had still oldfriends. Yet she did not dream of returning to her Blue Grass home; herparents had died since she left; she shrank from the thought ofdragging her ruined life before the hopeful youth of her girlhood'scompanions.

  Mr. Calhoun Weaver arrived promptly, ostentatiously, oracularly, andcordially, but a little coarsely. He had--did she remember?--expectedthis from the first. Spercer had lost his head through vanity, and hadattempted too much. It required foresight and firmness, as hehimself--who had lately made successful "combinations" which she mightperhaps have heard of--well knew. But Spencer had got the "big head.""As to that woman--a devilish handsome woman too!--well, everybody knewthat Spencer always had a weakness that way, and he would say--but ifshe didn't care to hear any more about her--well, perhaps she wasright. That was the best way to take it." Sitting before her,prosperous, weak, egotistical, incompetent, unavailable, and yet filledwith a vague kindliness of intent, Mrs. Tucker loathed him. A sickeningperception of her own weakness in sending for him, a new and achingsense of her utter isolation and helplessness, seemed to paralyze her.

  "Nat'rally you feel bad," he continued, with the large air of aprofound student of human nature. "Nat'rally, nat'rally you're kept inan uncomfortable state, not knowing jist how you stand. There ain't butone thing to do. Jist rise up, quiet like, and get a divorce aginSpencer. Hold on! There ain't a judge or jury in California thatwouldn't give it to you right off the nail, without asking questions.Why, you'd get it by default if you wanted to; you'd just have to walkover the course! And then, Belle," he drew his chair still nearer her,"when you've settled down again--well!--I don't mind renewing thatoffer I once made ye, before Spencer ever came round ye--I don't mind,Belle, I swear I don't! Honest Injin! I'm in earnest, there's my hand."

  Mrs. Tucker's reply has not been recorded. Enough that half an hourlater Mr. Weaver appeared in the courtyard with traces of tears on hisfoolish face, a broken falsetto voice, and other evidence of mental andmoral disturbance. His cordiality and oracular predisposition remainedsufficiently to enable him to suggest the magical words "Blue Grass"mysteriously to Concha, with an indication of his hand to the erectfigure of her pale mistress in the doorway, who waved to him a silentbut half compassionate farewell.

  At about this time a slight change in her manner was noticed by the fewwho saw her more frequently. Her apparently invincible girlishness ofspirit had given way to a certain matronly seriousness. She appliedherself to her household cares and the improvement of the _hacienda_with a new sense of duty and a settled earnestness, until by degreesshe wrought into it not only her instinctive delicacy and taste, butpart of her own individuality. Even the rude _rancheros_ and tradesmenwho were permitted to enter the walls in the exercise of their callingbegan to speak mysteriously of the beauty of this garden of the_almarjal_. She went out but seldom, and then accompanied by one or theother of her female servants, in long drives on unfrequented roads. OnSundays she sometimes drove to the half ruined mission church of SantaInez, and hid herself, during mass, in the dim monastic shadows of thechoir. Gradually the poorer people whom she met in these journeys beganto show an almost devotional reverence for her, stopping in the roadswith uncovered heads for her to pass, or making way for her in the_tienda_ or _plaza_ of the wretched town with dumb courtesy. She beganto feel a strange sense of widowhood, that, while it at times broughttears to her eyes, was not without a certain tender solace. In thesympathy and simpleness of this impulse she went as far as to revivethe mourning she had worn for her parents, but with such a fatalaccenting of her beauty, and dangerous misinterpreting of her conditionto eligible bachelors strange to the country, that she was obliged toput it off again. Her reserved and dignified manner caused others tomistake her nationality for that of the Santierras, and in "Dona Bella"the simple Mrs. Tucker was for a while forgotten. At times she evenforgot it herself. Accustomed now almost entirely to the accents ofanother language and the features of another race, she would sit forhours in the corridor, whose massive bronzed enclosure even hertasteful care could only make an embowered mausoleum of the Past, orgaze abstractedly from the dark embrasures of her windows across thestretching _almarjal_ to the shining lagoon beyond that terminated theestuary. She had a strange fondness for this tranquil mirror, whichunder sun or stars always retained the passive reflex of the sky above,and seemed to rest her weary eyes. She had objected to one of the plansprojected by Poindexter to redeem the land and deepen the water at the_embarcadero_, as it would have drained the lagoon, and the lawyer hadpostponed the improvement to gratify her fancy. So she kept it throughthe long summer unchanged save by the shadows of passing wings or thelazy files of sleeping sea-fowl.

  On one of these afternoons she noticed a slowly moving carriage leavethe highroad and cross the _almarjal_ skirting the edge of the lagoon.If it contained visitors for Los Cuervos they had evidently taken ashorter cut without waiting to go on to the regular road whichintersected the highway at right angles a mile farther on. It was withsome sense of annoyance and irritation that she watched the trespass,and finally saw the vehicle approach the house. A few moments later theservant informed her that Mr. Patterson would like to see her alone.When she entered the corridor, which in the dry season served as areception hall, she was sur
prised to see that Patterson was not alone.Near him stood a well-dressed handsome woman, gazing about her withgood-humored admiration of Mrs. Tucker's taste and ingenuity.

  "It don't look much like it did two years ago," said the strangercheerfully. "You've improved it wonderfully."

  Stiffening slightly, Mrs. Tucker turned inquiringly to Mr. Patterson.But that gentleman's usual profound melancholy appeared to beintensified by the hilarity of his companion. He only sighed deeply andrubbed his leg with the brim of his hat in gloomy abstraction.

  "Well! go on, then," said the woman, laughing and nudging him. "Goon--introduce me--can't you? Don't stand there like a tombstone. Youwon't? Well, I'll introduce myself." She laughed again, and then, withan excellent imitation of Patterson's lugubrious accents, said, "Mr.Spencer Tucker's wife that _is_, allow me to introduce you to Mr.Spencer Tucker's sweetheart that _was_! Hold on! I said _that was_. Fortrue as I stand here, ma'am--and I reckon I wouldn't stand here if itwasn't true--I haven't set eyes on him since the day he left you."

  "It's the gospel truth, every word," said Patterson, stirred into asudden activity by Mrs. Tucker's white and rigid face. "It's the frozentruth, and I kin prove it. For I kin swear that when that there youngwoman was sailin' outer the Golden Gate, Spencer Tucker was in mybar-room; I kin swear that I fed him, lickered him, give him a hoss andset him in his road to Monterey that very night."

  "Then, where is he now?" said Mrs. Tucker, suddenly facing them.

  They looked at each other, and then looked at Mrs. Tucker. Then bothtogether replied slowly and in perfect unison,"That's--what--we--want--to--know." They seemed so satisfied with thiseffect that they as deliberately repeated,"Yes--that's--what--we--want--to--know."

  Between the shock of meeting the partner of her husband's guilt and theunexpected revelation to her inexperience, that in suggestion andappearance there was nothing beyond the recollection of that guilt thatwas really shocking in the woman--between the extravagant extremes ofhope and fear suggested by their words, there was something sogrotesquely absurd in the melodramatic chorus that she with difficultysuppressed an hysterical laugh.

  "That's the way to take it," said the woman, putting her owngood-humored interpretation upon Mrs. Tucker's expression. "Now, lookhere! I'll tell you all about it," She carefully selected the mostcomfortable chair, and sitting down, lightly crossed her hands in herlap. "Well, I left here on the 13th of last January on the ship Argo,calculating that your husband would join the ship just inside theHeads. That was our arrangement, but if anything happened to preventhim, he was to join me at Acapulco. Well! he didn't come aboard, and wesailed without him. But it appears now he did attempt to join the ship,but his boat was capsized. There now, don't be alarmed! he wasn'tdrowned, as Patterson can swear to--no, catch _him_! not a hair of himwas hurt. But _I_--_I_ was bundled off to the end of the earth inMexico alone, without a cent to bless me. For true as you live, thathound of a captain, when he found, as he thought, that Spencer wasnabbed, he just confiscated all his trunks and valuables and left me inthe lurch. If I had not met a man down there that offered to marry meand brought me here, I might have died there, I reckon. But I did, andhere I am. I went down there as your husband's sweetheart, I've comeback as the wife of an honest man, and I reckon it's about square!"

  There was something so startlingly frank, so hopelessly self-satisfied,so contagiously good-humored in the woman's perfect moralunconsciousness, that even if Mrs. Tucker had been less preoccupied herresentment would have abated. But her eyes were fixed on the gloomyface of Patterson, who was beginning to unlock the sepulchers of hismemory and disinter his deeply buried thoughts.

  "You kin bet your whole pile on what this Mrs. Capting Baxter--ez usedto be French Inez of New Orleans--hez told ye. Ye kin take everythingshe's onloaded. And it's only doin' the square thing to her to say, shehain't done it out o' no cussedness, but just to satisfy herself, nowshe's a married woman and past such foolishness. But that ain't neitherhere nor there. The gist of the whole matter is that Spencer Tucker wasat the _tienda_ the day after she sailed and after his boat capsized."He then gave a detailed account of the interview, with the unnecessarybut truthful minutiae of his class, adding to the particulars alreadyknown that the following week he visited the Summit House and wassurprised to find that Spencer had never been there, nor had he eversailed from Monterey.

  "But why was this not told to me before?" said Mrs. Tucker, suddenly."Why not at the time? Why," she demanded almost fiercely, turning fromthe one to the other, "has this been kept from me?"

  "I'll tell ye why," said Patterson, sinking with crashed submissioninto a chair. "When I found he wasn't where he ought to be, I got tolookin' elsewhere. I knew the track of the hoss I lent him by a looseshoe. I examined, and found he had turned off the highroad somewherebeyond the lagoon, jist as if he was makin' a bee line here."

  "Well," said Mrs. Tucker breathlessly.

  "Well," said Patterson, with the resigned tone of an accustomed martyr,"mebbe I'm a God-forsaken idiot, but I reckon he _did_ come yer. Andmebbe I'm that much of a habitooal lunatic, but thinking so, Icalkilated you'd know it without tellin'."

  With their eyes fixed upon her, Mrs. Tucker felt the quick blood rushto her cheeks, although she knew not why. But they were apparentlysatisfied with her ignorance, for Patterson resumed, yet more gloomily:

  "Then if he wasn't hidin' here beknownst to you, he must have changedhis mind agin and got away by the _embarcadero_. The only thing wantin'to prove that idea is to know how he got a boat, and what he did withthe hoss. And thar's one more idea, and ez that can't be proved,"continued Patterson, sinking his voice still lower, "mebbe it'saccordin' to God's laws."

  Unsympathetic to her as the speaker had always been and still was, Mrs.Tucker felt a vague chill creep over her that seemed to be the resultof his manner more than his words. "And that idea is--?" she suggestedwith pale lips.

  "It's this! Fust, I don't say it means much to anybody but me. I'veheard of these warnings afore now, ez comin' only to folks ez hear themfor themselves alone, and I reckon I kin stand it, if it's the will o'God. The idea is then--that--Spencer Tucker--_was drownded_ in thatboat; the idea is"--his voice was almost lost in a hoarsewhisper--"that it was no living man that kem to me that night, but aspirit that kem out of the darkness and went back into it! No eye sawhim but mine--no ears heard him but mine. I reckon it weren't intendedit should." He paused, and passed the flap of his hat across his eyes."The pie, you'll say, is agin it," he continued in the same tone ofvoice,--"the whiskey is agin it--a few cuss words that dropped fromhim, accidental like, may have been agin it. All the same they mouthave been only the little signs and tokens that it was him."

  But Mrs. Baxter's ready laugh somewhat rudely dispelled the infectionof Patterson's gloom. "I reckon the only spirit was that which you andSpencer consumed," she said, cheerfully. "I don't wonder you're alittle mixed. Like as not you've misunderstood his plans."

  Patterson shook his head. "He'll turn up yet, alive and kicking! Likeas not, then, Poindexter knows where he is all the time."

  "Impossible! He would have told me," said Mrs. Tucker, quickly.

  Mrs. Baxter looked at Patterson without speaking. Patterson replied bya long lugubrious whistle.

  "I don't understand you," said Mrs. Tucker, drawing back with colddignity.

  "You don't?" returned Mrs. Baxter. "Bless your innocent heart! Why washe so keen to hunt me up at first, shadowing my friends and all that,and why has he dropped it now he knows I'm here, if he didn't knowwhere Spencer was?"

  "I can explain that," interrupted Mrs. Tucker, hastily, with a blush ofconfusion. "That is--I"--

  "Then mebbe you kin explain too," broke in Patterson with gloomysignificance, "why he has bought up most of Spencer's debts himself,and perhaps you're satisfied it _is n't_ to hold the whip hand of himand keep him from coming back openly. Pr'aps you know why he's movin'heaven and earth to make Don Jose Santierra sell the ranch, and why theDon don't see it all."
/>   "Don Jose sell Los Cuervos! Buy it, you mean?" said Mrs. Tucker. "_I_offered to sell it to him."

  Patterson arose from the chair, looked despairingly around him, passedhis hand sadly across his forehead, and said: "It's come! I knew itwould. It's the warning! It's suthing betwixt jim-jams and dodderingidjiocy. Here I'd hev been willin' to swear that Mrs. Baxter here toldme _she_ had sold this yer ranch nearly two years ago to Don Jose, andnow you"--

  "Stop!" said Mrs. Tucker, in a voice that chilled them.

  She was standing upright and rigid, as if stricken to stone. "I commandyou to tell me what this means!" she said, turning only her blazingeyes upon the woman.

  Even the ready smile faded from Mrs. Baxter's lips as she repliedhesitatingly and submissively: "I thought you knew already that Spencerhad given this ranch to me. I sold it to Don Jose to get the money forus to go away with. It was Spencer's idea"--

  "You lie!" said Mrs. Tucker.

  There was a dead silence. The wrathful blood that had quickly mountedto Mrs. Baxter's cheek, to Patterson's additional bewilderment, fadedas quickly. She did not lift her eyes again to Mrs. Tucker's, but,slowly raising herself from her seat, said, "I wish to God I did lie;but it's true. And it's true that I never touched a cent of the money,but gave it all to him!" She laid her hand on Patterson's arm, andsaid, "Come! let us go," and led him a few steps toward the gateway.But here Patterson paused, and again passed his hand over hismelancholy brow. The necessity of coherently and logically closing theconversation impressed itself upon his darkening mind. "Then you don'thappen to have heard anything of Spencer?" he said sadly, and vanishedwith Mrs. Baxter through the gate.

  Left alone to herself, Mrs. Tucker raised her hands above her head witha little cry, interlocked her rigid fingers, and slowly brought herpalms down upon her upturned face and eyes, pressing hard as if tocrush out all light and sense of life before her. She stood thus for amoment motionless and silent, with the rising wind whispering withoutand flecking her white morning dress with gusty shadows from the arbor.Then, with closed eyes, dropping her hands to her breast, stillpressing hard, she slowly passed them down the shapely contours of herfigure to the waist, and with another cry cast them off as if she werestripping herself of some loathsome garment. Then she walked quickly tothe gateway, looked out, returned to the corridor, unloosening andtaking off her wedding-ring from her finger as she walked. Here shepaused, then slowly and deliberately rearranged the chairs and adjustedthe gay-colored rugs that draped them, and quietly reentered herchamber.

  Two days afterwards the sweating steed of Captain Poindexter was turnedloose in the corral, and a moment later the captain entered thecorridor. Handing a letter to the decrepit Concha, who seemed to beutterly disorganized by its contents and the few curt words with whichit was delivered, he gazed silently upon the vacant bower, still freshand redolent with the delicacy and perfume of its graceful occupant,until his dark eyes filled with unaccustomed moisture. But his reveriewas interrupted by the sound of jingling spurs without, and the oldhumor struggled back into his eyes as Don Jose impetuously entered. TheSpaniard started back, but instantly recovered himself.

  "So, I find you here. Ah! it is well!" he said passionately, producinga letter from his bosom. "Look! Do you call this honor? Look how youkeep your compact!"

  Poindexter coolly took the letter. It contained a few words of gentledignity from Mrs. Tucker, informing Don Jose that she had only thatinstant learned of his just claims upon Los Cuervos, tendering him hergratitude for his delicate intentions, but pointing out with respectfulfirmness that he must know that a moment's further acceptance of hiscourtesy was impossible.

  "She has gained this knowledge from no word of mine," said Poindexter,calmly. "Right or wrong, I have kept my promise to you. I have as muchreason to accuse you of betraying my secret in this," he added coldly,as he took another letter from his pocket and handed it to Don Jose.

  It seemed briefer and colder, but was neither. It reminded Poindexterthat as he had again deceived her she must take the government of heraffairs in her own hands henceforth. She abandoned all the furnitureand improvements she had put in Los Cuervos to him, to whom she nowknew she was indebted for them. She could not thank him for what hishabitual generosity impelled him to do for any woman, but she couldforgive him for misunderstanding her like any other woman, perhaps sheshould say, like a child. When he received this she would be already onher way to her old home in Kentucky, where she still hoped to be ableby her own efforts to amass enough to discharge her obligations to him.

  "She does not speak of her husband, this woman," said Don Jose,scanning Poindexter's face. "It is possible she rejoins him, eh?"

  "Perhaps in one way she has never left him, Don Jose," said Poindexter,with grave significance.

  Don Jose's face flushed, but he returned carelessly, "And the _rancho_,naturally you will not buy it now?"

  "On the contrary, I shall abide by my offer," said Poindexter, quietly.

  Don Jose eyed him narrowly, and then said, "Ah, we shall consider ofit."

  He did consider it, and accepted the offer. With the full control ofthe land, Captain Poindexter's improvements, so indefinitely postponed,were actively pushed forward. The thick walls of the _hacienda_ werethe first to melt away before them; the low lines of corral wereeffaced, and the early breath of the summer trade winds sweptuninterruptedly across the now leveled plain to the _embarcadero_,where a newer structure arose. A more vivid green alone marked the spotwhere the crumbling adobe walls of the _casa_ had returned to theparent soil that gave it. The channel was deepened, the lagoon wasdrained, until one evening the magic mirror that had so long reflectedthe weary waiting of the Blue Grass Penelope lay dull, dead,lusterless, an opaque quagmire of noisome corruption and decay to beput away from the sight of man forever. On this spot the crows, thetitular tenants of Los Cuervos, assembled in tumultuous congress,coming and going in mysterious clouds, or laboring in thick andwrithing masses, as if they were continuing the work of improvementbegun by human agency. So well had they done the work that by the endof a week only a few scattered white objects remained glittering on thesurface of the quickly drying soil. But they were the bones of themissing outcast, Spencer Tucker!

  The same spring a breath of war swept over a foul, decaying quagmire ofthe whole land, before which such passing deeds as these were blown asvapor. It called men of all rank and condition to battle for a nation'slife, and among the first to respond were those into whose boyish handshad been placed the nation's honor. It returned the epaulets toPoindexter's shoulder with the addition of a double star, carried himtriumphantly to the front, and left him, at the end of a summer's dayand a hard-won fight, sorely wounded, at the door of a Blue Grassfarmhouse. And the woman who sought him out and ministered to his wantssaid timidly, as she left her hand in his, "I told you I should live torepay you."