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The Light of the Western Stars

by Zane Grey · English · Gutenberg #1095 · 712,690 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Light of the Western Stars

Author: Zane Grey


        
Release date: November 1, 1997 [eBook #1095]
                Most recently updated: October 29, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1095

Credits: Produced by Nigel Lacey


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIGHT OF THE WESTERN STARS ***
THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS


by Zane Grey




Contents


     I.    A Gentleman of the Range
     II.   A Secret Kept
     III.  Sister and Brother
     IV.   A Ride From Sunrise to Sunset
     V.    The Round-up
     VI.   A Gift and a Purchase
     VII.  Her Majesty’s Rancho
     VIII. El Capitan
     IX.   The New Foreman
     X.    Don Carlo’s Vaqueros
     XI.   A Band of Guerrillas
     XII.  Friends from the East
     XIII. Cowboy Golf
     XIV.  Bandits
     XV.   The Mountain Trail
     XVI.  The Crags
     XVII. The Lost Mine of the Padres
     XVIII.Bonita
     XIX.  Don Carlos
     XX.   The Sheriff of El Cajon
     XXI.  Unbridled
     XXII. The Secret Told
     XXIII.The Light of Western Stars
     XXIV. The Ride
     XXV.  At the End of the Road




THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS




I. A Gentleman of the Range


When Madeline Hammond stepped from the train at El Cajon, New Mexico, it
was nearly midnight, and her first impression was of a huge dark space
of cool, windy emptiness, strange and silent, stretching away under
great blinking white stars.

“Miss, there’s no one to meet you,” said the conductor, rather
anxiously.

“I wired my brother,” she replied. “The train being so late—perhaps he
grew tired of waiting. He will be here presently. But, if he should not
come—surely I can find a hotel?”

“There’s lodgings to be had. Get the station agent to show you. If
you’ll excuse me—this is no place for a lady like you to be alone at
night. It’s a rough little town—mostly Mexicans, miners, cowboys.
And they carouse a lot. Besides, the revolution across the border has
stirred up some excitement along the line. Miss, I guess it’s safe
enough, if you—”

“Thank you. I am not in the least afraid.”

As the train started to glide away Miss Hammond walked towards the dimly
lighted station. As she was about to enter she encountered a Mexican
with sombrero hiding his features and a blanket mantling his shoulders.

“Is there any one here to meet Miss Hammond?” she asked.

“No sabe, Senora,” he replied from under the muffling blanket, and he
shuffled away into the shadow.

She entered the empty waiting-room. An oil-lamp gave out a thick yellow
light. The ticket window was open, and through it she saw there was
neither agent nor operator in the little compartment. A telegraph
instrument clicked faintly.

Madeline Hammond stood tapping a shapely foot on the floor, and with
some amusement contrasted her reception in El Cajon with what it was
when she left a train at the Grand Central. The only time she could
remember ever having been alone like this was once when she had missed
her maid and her train at a place outside of Versailles—an adventure
that had been a novel and delightful break in the prescribed routine of
her much-chaperoned life. She crossed the waiting-room to a window and,
holding aside her veil, looked out. At first she could descry only a few
dim lights, and these blurred in her sight. As her eyes grew accustomed
to the darkness she saw a superbly built horse standing near the window.
Beyond was a bare square. Or, if it was a street, it was the widest one
Madeline had ever seen. The dim lights shone from low, flat buildings.
She made out the dark shapes of many horses, all standing motionless
with drooping heads. Through a hole in the window-glass came a cool
breeze, and on it breathed a sound that struck coarsely upon her ear—a
discordant mingling of laughter and shout, and the tramp of boots to the
hard music of a phonograph.

“Western revelry,” mused Miss Hammond, as she left the window. “Now,
what to do? I’ll wait here. Perhaps the station agent will return soon,
or Alfred will come for me.”

As she sat down to wait she reviewed the causes which accounted for the
remarkable situation in which she found herself. That Madeline Hammond
should be alone, at a late hour, in a dingy little Western railroad
station, was indeed extraordinary.

The close of her debutante year had been marred by the only unhappy
experience of her life—the disgrace of her brother and his leaving
home. She dated the beginning of a certain thoughtful habit of mind from
that time, and a dissatisfaction with the brilliant life society offered
her. The change had been so gradual that it was permanent before
she realized it. For a while an active outdoor life—golf, tennis,
yachting—kept this realization from becoming morbid introspection.
There came a time when even these lost charm for her, and then she
believed she was indeed ill in mind. Travel did not help her.

There had been months of unrest, of curiously painful wonderment
that her position, her wealth, her popularity no longer sufficed. She
believed she had lived through the dreams and fancies of a girl to
become a woman of the world. And she had gone on as before, a part of
the glittering show, but no longer blind to the truth—that there was
nothing in her luxurious life to make it significant.

Sometimes from the depths of her there flashed up at odd moments
intimations of a future revolt. She remembered one evening at the opera
when the curtain had risen upon a particularly well-done piece of stage
scenery—a broad space of deep desolateness, reaching away under an
infinitude of night sky, illumined by stars. The suggestion it brought
of vast wastes of lonely, rugged earth, of a great, blue-arched vault of
starry sky, pervaded her soul with a strange, sweet peace.

When the scene was changed she lost this vague new sense of peace, and
she turned away from the stage in irritation. She looked at the long,
curved tier of glittering boxes that represented her world. It was a
distinguished and splendid world—the wealth, fashion, culture, beauty,
and blood of a nation. She, Madeline Hammond, was a part of it. She
smiled, she listened, she talked to the men who from time to time
strolled into the Hammond box, and she felt that there was not a moment
when she was natural, true to herself. She wondered why these people
could not somehow, some way be different; but she could not tell what
she wanted them to be. If they had been different they would not have
fitted the place; indeed, they would not have been there at all. Yet she
thought wistfully that they lacked something for her.

And suddenly realizing she would marry one of these men if she did not
revolt, she had been assailed by a great weariness, an icy-sickening
sense that life had palled upon her. She was tired of fashionable
society. She was tired of polished, imperturbable men who sought only to
please her. She was tired of being feted, admired, loved, followed,
and importuned; tired of people; tired of houses, noise, ostentation,
luxury. She was so tired of herself!

In the lonely distances and the passionless stars of boldly painted
stage scenery she had caught a glimpse of something that stirred her
soul. The feeling did not last. She could not call it back. She imagined
that the very boldness of the scene had appealed to her; she divined
that the man who painted it had found inspiration, joy, strength,
serenity in rugged nature. And at last she knew what she needed—to be
alone, to brood for long hours, to gaze out on lonely, silent, darkening
stretches, to watch the stars, to face her soul, to find her real self.

Then it was she had first thought of visiting the brother who had gone
West to cast his fortune with the cattlemen. As it happened, she had
friends who were on the eve of starting for California, and she made
a quick decision to travel with them. When she calmly announced her
intention of going out West her mother had exclaimed in consternation;
and her father, surprised into pathetic memory of the black sheep of the
family, had stared at her with glistening eyes. “Why, Madeline! You want
to see that wild boy!” Then he had reverted to the anger he still felt
for his wayward son, and he had forbidden Madeline to go. Her mother
forgot her haughty poise and dignity. Madeline, however, had exhibited
a will she had never before been known to possess. She stood her ground
even to reminding them that she was twenty-four and her own mistress. In
the end she had prevailed, and that without betraying the real state of
her mind.

Her decision to visit her brother had been too hurriedly made and acted
upon for her to write him about it, and so she had telegraphed him
from New York, and also, a day later, from Chicago, where her traveling
friends had been delayed by illness. Nothing could have turned her back
then. Madeline had planned to arrive in El Cajon on October 3d, her
brother’s birthday, and she had succeeded, though her arrival occurred
at the twenty-fourth hour. Her train had been several hours late.
Whether or not the message had reached Alfred’s hands she had no means
of telling, and the thing which concerned her now was the fact that she
had arrived and he was not there to meet her.

It did not take long for thought of the past to give way wholly to the
reality of the present.

“I hope nothing has happened to Alfred,” she said to herself. “He was
well, doing splendidly, the last time he wrote. To be sure, that was a
good while ago; but, then, he never wrote often. He’s all right. Pretty
soon he’ll come, and how glad I’ll be! I wonder if he has changed.”

As Madeline sat waiting in the yellow gloom she heard the faint,
intermittent click of the telegraph instrument, the low hum of wires,
the occasional stamp of an iron-shod hoof, and a distant vacant laugh
rising above the sounds of the dance. These commonplace things were
new to her. She became conscious of a slight quickening of her pulse.
Madeline had only a limited knowledge of the West. Like all of her
class, she had traveled Europe and had neglected America. A few letters
from her brother had confused her already vague ideas of plains and
mountains, as well as of cowboys and cattle. She had been astounded
at the interminable distance she had traveled, and if there had been
anything attractive to look at in all that journey she had passed it in
the night. And here she sat in a dingy little station, with telegraph
wires moaning a lonely song in the wind.

A faint sound like the rattling of thin chains diverted Madeline’s
attention. At first she imagined it was made by the telegraph wires.
Then she heard a step. The door swung wide; a tall man entered, and with
him came the clinking rattle. She realized then that the sound came from
his spurs. The man was a cowboy, and his entrance recalled vividly to
her that of Dustin Farnum in the first act of “The Virginian.”

“Will you please direct me to a hotel?” asked Madeline, rising.

The cowboy removed his sombrero, and the sweep he made with it and the
accompanying bow, despite their exaggeration, had a kind of rude grace.
He took two long strides toward her.

“Lady, are you married?”

In the past Miss Hammond’s sense of humor had often helped her to
overlook critical exactions natural to her breeding. She kept silence,
and she imagined it was just as well that her veil hid her face at the
moment. She had been prepared to find cowboys rather striking, and she
had been warned not to laugh at them.

This gentleman of the range deliberately reached down and took up her
left hand. Before she recovered from her start of amaze he had stripped
off her glove.

“Fine spark, but no wedding-ring,” he drawled. “Lady, I’m glad to see
you’re not married.”

He released her hand and returned the glove.

“You see, the only ho-tel in this here town is against boarding married
women.”

“Indeed?” said Madeline, trying to adjust her wits to the situation.

“It sure is,” he went on. “Bad business for ho-tels to have married
women. Keeps the boys away. You see, this isn’t Reno.”

Then he laughed rather boyishly, and from that, and the way he
slouched on his sombrero, Madeline realized he was half drunk. As
she instinctively recoiled she not only gave him a keener glance, but
stepped into a position where a better light shone on his face. It
was like red bronze, bold, raw, sharp. He laughed again, as if
good-naturedly amused with himself, and the laugh scarcely changed the
hard set of his features. Like that of all women whose beauty and charm
had brought them much before the world, Miss Hammond’s intuition had
been developed until she had a delicate and exquisitely sensitive
perception of the nature of men and of her effect upon them. This crude
cowboy, under the influence of drink, had affronted her; nevertheless,
whatever was in his mind, he meant no insult.

“I shall be greatly obliged if you will show me to the hotel,” she said.

“Lady, you wait here,” he replied, slowly, as if his thought did not
come swiftly. “I’ll go fetch the porter.”

She thanked him, and as he went out, closing the door, she sat down in
considerable relief. It occurred to her that she should have mentioned
her brother’s name. Then she fell to wondering what living with such
uncouth cowboys had done to Alfred. He had been wild enough in college,
and she doubted that any cowboy could have taught him much. She alone of
her family had ever believed in any latent good in Alfred Hammond, and
her faith had scarcely survived the two years of silence.

Waiting there, she again found herself listening to the moan of the wind
through the wires. The horse outside began to pound with heavy hoofs,
and once he whinnied. Then Madeline heard a rapid pattering, low
at first and growing louder, which presently she recognized as the
galloping of horses. She went to the window, thinking, hoping her
brother had arrived. But as the clatter increased to a roar, shadows
sped by—lean horses, flying manes and tails, sombreroed riders, all
strange and wild in her sight. Recalling what the conductor had said,
she was at some pains to quell her uneasiness. Dust-clouds shrouded the
dim lights in the windows. Then out of the gloom two figures appeared,
one tall, the other slight. The cowboy was returning with a porter.

Heavy footsteps sounded without, and lighter ones dragging along, and
then suddenly the door rasped open, jarring the whole room. The cowboy
entered, pulling a disheveled figure—that of a priest, a padre, whose
mantle had manifestly been disarranged by the rude grasp of his captor.
Plain it was that the padre was extremely terrified.

Madeline Hammond gazed in bewilderment at the little man, so pale and
shaken, and a protest trembled upon her lips; but it was never uttered,
for this half-drunken cowboy now appeared to be a cool, grim-smiling
devil; and stretching out a long arm, he grasped her and swung her back
to the bench.

“You stay there!” he ordered.

His voice, though neither brutal nor harsh nor cruel, had the
unaccountable effect of making her feel powerless to move. No man had
ever before addressed her in such a tone. It was the woman in her that
obeyed—not the personality of proud Madeline Hammond.

The padre lifted his clasped hands as if supplicating for his life, and
began to speak hurriedly in Spanish. Madeline did not understand the
language. The cowboy pulled out a huge gun and brandished it in the
priest’s face. Then he lowered it, apparently to point it at the
priest’s feet. There was a red flash, and then a thundering report that
stunned Madeline. The room filled with smoke and the smell of powder.
Madeline did not faint or even shut her eyes, but she felt as if she
were fast in a cold vise. When she could see distinctly through the
smoke she experienced a sensation of immeasurable relief that the
cowboy had not shot the padre. But he was still waving the gun, and now
appeared to be dragging his victim toward her. What possibly could be
the drunken fool’s intention? This must be, this surely was a cowboy
trick. She had a vague, swiftly flashing recollection of Alfred’s first
letters descriptive of the extravagant fun of cowboys. Then she vividly
remembered a moving picture she had seen—cowboys playing a monstrous
joke on a lone school-teacher. Madeline no sooner thought of it than
she made certain her brother was introducing her to a little wild West
amusement. She could scarcely believe it, yet it must be true. Alfred’s
old love of teasing her might have extended even to this outrage.
Probably he stood just outside the door or window laughing at her
embarrassment.

Anger checked her panic. She straightened up with what composure this
surprise had left her and started for the door. But the cowboy barred
her passage—grasped her arms. Then Madeline divined that her brother
could not have any knowledge of this indignity. It was no trick. It was
something that was happening, that was real, that threatened she knew
not what. She tried to wrench free, feeling hot all over at being
handled by this drunken brute. Poise, dignity, culture—all the
acquired habits of character—fled before the instinct to fight. She was
athletic. She fought. She struggled desperately. But he forced her back
with hands of iron. She had never known a man could be so strong. And
then it was the man’s coolly smiling face, the paralyzing strangeness
of his manner, more than his strength, that weakened Madeline until she
sank trembling against the bench.

“What—do you—mean?” she panted.

“Dearie, ease up a little on the bridle,” he replied, gaily.

Madeline thought she must be dreaming. She could not think clearly. It
had all been too swift, too terrible for her to grasp. Yet she not
only saw this man, but also felt his powerful presence. And the shaking
priest, the haze of blue smoke, the smell of powder—these were not
unreal.

Then close before her eyes burst another blinding red flash, and close
at her ears bellowed another report. Unable to stand, Madeline slipped
down onto the bench. Her drifting faculties refused clearly to record
what transpired during the next few moments; presently, however, as her
mind steadied somewhat, she heard, though as in a dream, the voice of
the padre hurrying over strange words. It ceased, and then the cowboy’s
voice stirred her.

“Lady, say Si—Si. Say it—quick! Say it—Si!”

From sheer suggestion, a force irresistible at this moment when her will
was clamped by panic, she spoke the word.

“And now, lady—so we can finish this properly—what’s your name?”

Still obeying mechanically, she told him.

He stared for a while, as if the name had awakened associations in a
mind somewhat befogged. He leaned back unsteadily. Madeline heard the
expulsion of his breath, a kind of hard puff, not unusual in drunken
men.

“What name?” he demanded.

“Madeline Hammond. I am Alfred Hammond’s sister.”

He put his hand up and brushed at an imaginary something before his
eyes. Then he loomed over her, and that hand, now shaking a little,
reached out for her veil. Before he could touch it, however, she swept
it back, revealing her face.

“You’re—not—Majesty Hammond?”

How strange—stranger than anything that had ever happened to her
before—was it to hear that name on the lips of this cowboy! It was a
name by which she was familiarly known, though only those nearest and
dearest to her had the privilege of using it. And now it revived her
dulled faculties, and by an effort she regained control of herself.

“You are Majesty Hammond,” he replied; and this time he affirmed
wonderingly rather than questioned.

Madeline rose and faced him.

“Yes, I am.”

He slammed his gun back into its holster.

“Well, I reckon we won’t go on with it, then.”

“With what, sir? And why did you force me to say Si to this priest?”

“I reckon that was a way I took to show him you’d be willing to get
married.”

“Oh!... You—you!...” Words failed her.

This appeared to galvanize the cowboy into action. He grasped the padre
and led him toward the door, cursing and threatening, no doubt enjoining
secrecy. Then he pushed him across the threshold and stood there
breathing hard and wrestling with himself.

“Here—wait—wait a minute, Miss—Miss Hammond,” he said, huskily. “You
could fall into worse company than mine—though I reckon you sure
think not. I’m pretty drunk, but I’m—all right otherwise. Just wait—a
minute.”

She stood quivering and blazing with wrath, and watched this savage
fight his drunkenness. He acted like a man who had been suddenly shocked
into a rational state of mind, and he was now battling with himself to
hold on to it. Madeline saw the dark, damp hair lift from his brows as
he held it up to the cool wind. Above him she saw the white stars in the
deep-blue sky, and they seemed as unreal to her as any other thing
in this strange night. They were cold, brilliant, aloof, distant; and
looking at them, she felt her wrath lessen and die and leave her calm.

The cowboy turned and began to talk.

“You see—I was pretty drunk,” he labored. “There was a fiesta—and a
wedding. I do fool things when I’m drunk. I made a fool bet I’d marry
the first girl who came to town.... If you hadn’t worn that veil—the
fellows were joshing me—and Ed Linton was getting married—and
everybody always wants to gamble.... I must have been pretty drunk.”

After the one look at her when she had first put aside her veil he had
not raised his eyes to her face. The cool audacity had vanished in what
was either excessive emotion or the maudlin condition peculiar to some
men when drunk. He could not stand still; perspiration collected in
beads upon his forehead; he kept wiping his face with his scarf, and he
breathed like a man after violent exertions.

“You see—I was pretty—” he began.

“Explanations are not necessary,” she interrupted. “I am very
tired—distressed. The hour is late. Have you the slightest idea what it
means to be a gentleman?”

His bronzed face burned to a flaming crimson.

“Is my brother here—in town to-night?” Madeline went on.

“No. He’s at his ranch.”

“But I wired him.”

“Like as not the message is over in his box at the P.O. He’ll be in town
to-morrow. He’s shipping cattle for Stillwell.”

“Meanwhile I must go to a hotel. Will you please—”

If he heard her last words he showed no evidence of it. A noise outside
had attracted his attention. Madeline listened. Low voices of men, the
softer liquid tones of a woman, drifted in through the open door. They
spoke in Spanish, and the voices grew louder. Evidently the speakers
were approaching the station. Footsteps crunching on gravel attested to
this, and quicker steps, coming with deep tones of men in anger, told
of a quarrel. Then the woman’s voice, hurried and broken, rising higher,
was eloquent of vain appeal.

The cowboy’s demeanor startled Madeline into anticipation of something
dreadful. She was not deceived. From outside came the sound of a
scuffle—a muffled shot, a groan, the thud of a falling body, a woman’s
low cry, and footsteps padding away in rapid retreat.

Madeline Hammond leaned weakly back in her seat, cold and sick, and for
a moment her ears throbbed to the tramp of the dancers across the way
and the rhythm of the cheap music. Then into the open door-place flashed
a girl’s tragic face, lighted by dark eyes and framed by dusky hair. The
girl reached a slim brown hand round the side of the door and held on as
if to support herself. A long black scarf accentuated her gaudy attire.

“Senor—Gene!” she exclaimed; and breathless glad recognition made a
sudden break in her terror.

“Bonita!” The cowboy leaped to her. “Girl! Are you hurt?”

“No, Senor.”

He took hold of her. “I heard—somebody got shot. Was it Danny?”

“No, Senor.”

“Did Danny do the shooting? Tell me, girl.”

“No, Senor.”

“I’m sure glad. I thought Danny was mixed up in that. He had Stillwell’s
money for the boys—I was afraid.... Say, Bonita, but you’ll get in
trouble. Who was with you? What did you do?”

“Senor Gene—they Don Carlos vaqueros—they quarrel over me. I only
dance a leetle, smile a leetle, and they quarrel. I beg they be
good—watch out for Sheriff Hawe... and now Sheriff Hawe put me in jail.
I so frighten; he try make leetle love to Bonita once, and now he hate
me like he hate Senor Gene.”

“Pat Hawe won’t put you in jail. Take my horse and hit the Peloncillo
trail. Bonita, promise to stay away from El Cajon.”

“Si, Senor.”

He led her outside. Madeline heard the horse snort and champ his bit.
The cowboy spoke low; only a few words were intelligible—“stirrups...
wait... out of town... mountain... trail ... now ride!”

A moment’s silence ensued, and was broken by a pounding of hoofs, a
pattering of gravel. Then Madeline saw a big, dark horse run into the
wide space. She caught a glimpse of wind-swept scarf and hair, a little
form low down in the saddle. The horse was outlined in black against the
line of dim lights. There was something wild and splendid in his flight.

Directly the cowboy appeared again in the doorway.

“Miss Hammond, I reckon we want to rustle out of here. Been bad
goings-on. And there’s a train due.”

She hurried into the open air, not daring to look back or to either
side. Her guide strode swiftly. She had almost to run to keep up with
him. Many conflicting emotions confused her. She had a strange sense of
this stalking giant beside her, silent except for his jangling spurs.
She had a strange feeling of the cool, sweet wind and the white stars.
Was it only her disordered fancy, or did these wonderful stars open and
shut? She had a queer, disembodied thought that somewhere in ages back,
in another life, she had seen these stars. The night seemed dark,
yet there was a pale, luminous light—a light from the stars—and she
fancied it would always haunt her.

Suddenly aware that she had been led beyond the line of houses, she
spoke:

“Where are you taking me?”

“To Florence Kingsley,” he replied.

“Who is she?”

“I reckon she’s your brother’s best friend out here.” Madeline kept pace
with the cowboy for a few moments longer, and then she stopped. It was
as much from necessity to catch her breath as it was from recurring
fear. All at once she realized what little use her training had been for
such an experience as this. The cowboy, missing her, came back the few
intervening steps. Then he waited, still silent, looming beside her.

“It’s so dark, so lonely,” she faltered. “How do I know... what warrant
can you give me that you—that no harm will befall me if I go farther?”

“None, Miss Hammond, except that I’ve seen your face.”




II. A Secret Kept


Because of that singular reply Madeline found faith to go farther with
the cowboy. But at the moment she really did not think about what he
had said. Any answer to her would have served if it had been kind. His
silence had augmented her nervousness, compelling her to voice her fear.
Still, even if he had not replied at all she would have gone on with
him. She shuddered at the idea of returning to the station, where she
believed there had been murder; she could hardly have forced herself to
go back to those dim lights in the street; she did not want to wander
around alone in the dark.

And as she walked on into the windy darkness, much relieved that he had
answered as he had, reflecting that he had yet to prove his words true,
she began to grasp the deeper significance of them. There was a revival
of pride that made her feel that she ought to scorn to think at all
about such a man. But Madeline Hammond discovered that thought was
involuntary, that there were feelings in her never dreamed of before
this night.

Presently Madeline’s guide turned off the walk and rapped at a door of a
low-roofed house.

“Hullo—who’s there?” a deep voice answered.

“Gene Stewart,” said the cowboy. “Call Florence—quick!”

Thump of footsteps followed, a tap on a door, and voices. Madeline heard
a woman exclaim: “Gene! here when there’s a dance in town! Something
wrong out on the range.” A light flared up and shone bright through a
window. In another moment there came a patter of soft steps, and the
door opened to disclose a woman holding a lamp.

“Gene! Al’s not—”

“Al is all right,” interrupted the cowboy.

Madeline had two sensations then—one of wonder at the note of alarm
and love in the woman’s voice, and the other of unutterable relief to be
safe with a friend of her brother’s.

“It’s Al’s sister—came on to-night’s train,” the cowboy was saying. “I
happened to be at the station, and I’ve fetched her up to you.”

Madeline came forward out of the shadow.

“Not—not really Majesty Hammond!” exclaimed Florence Kingsley. She
nearly dropped the lamp, and she looked and looked, astounded beyond
belief.

“Yes, I am really she,” replied Madeline. “My train was late, and for
some reason Alfred did not meet me. Mr.—Mr. Stewart saw fit to bring me
to you instead of taking me to a hotel.”

“Oh, I’m so glad to meet you,” replied Florence, warmly. “Do come in.
I’m so surprised, I forget my manners. Why, Al never mentioned your
coming.”

“He surely could not have received my messages,” said Madeline, as she
entered.

The cowboy, who came in with her satchel, had to stoop to enter the
door, and, once in, he seemed to fill the room. Florence set the lamp
down upon the table. Madeline saw a young woman with a smiling, friendly
face, and a profusion of fair hair hanging down over her dressing-gown.

“Oh, but Al will be glad!” cried Florence. “Why, you are white as a
sheet. You must be tired. What a long wait you had at the station! I
heard the train come in hours ago as I was going to bed. That station
is lonely at night. If I had known you were coming! Indeed, you are very
pale. Are you ill?”

“No. Only I am very tired. Traveling so far by rail is harder than I
imagined. I did have rather a long wait after arriving at the station,
but I can’t say that it was lonely.”

Florence Kingsley searched Madeline’s face with keen eyes, and then
took a long, significant look at the silent Stewart. With that she
deliberately and quietly closed a door leading into another room.

“Miss Hammond, what has happened?” She had lowered her voice.

“I do not wish to recall all that has happened,” replied Madeline.
“I shall tell Alfred, however, that I would rather have met a hostile
Apache than a cowboy.”

“Please don’t tell Al that!” cried Florence. Then she grasped Stewart
and pulled him close to the light. “Gene, you’re drunk!”

“I was pretty drunk,” he replied, hanging his head.

“Oh, what have you done?”

“Now, see here, Flo, I only—”

“I don’t want to know. I’d tell it. Gene, aren’t you ever going to learn
decency? Aren’t you ever going to stop drinking? You’ll lose all your
friends. Stillwell has stuck to you. Al’s been your best friend. Molly
and I have pleaded with you, and now you’ve gone and done—God knows
what!”

“What do women want to wear veils for?” he growled. “I’d have known her
but for that veil.”

“And you wouldn’t have insulted her. But you would the next girl who
came along. Gene, you are hopeless. Now, you get out of here and don’t
ever come back.”

“Flo!” he entreated.

“I mean it.”

“I reckon then I’ll come back to-morrow and take my medicine,” he
replied.

“Don’t you dare!” she cried.

Stewart went out and closed the door.

“Miss Hammond, you—you don’t know how this hurts me,” said Florence.
“What you must think of us! It’s so unlucky that you should have had
this happen right at first. Now, maybe you won’t have the heart to
stay. Oh, I’ve known more than one Eastern girl to go home without ever
learning what we really are cut here. Miss Hammond, Gene Stewart is a
fiend when he’s drunk. All the same I know, whatever he did, he meant no
shame to you. Come now, don’t think about it again to-night.” She took
up the lamp and led Madeline into a little room. “This is out West,”
 she went on, smiling, as she indicated the few furnishings; “but you can
rest. You’re perfectly safe. Won’t you let me help you undress—can’t I
do anything for you?”

“You are very kind, thank you, but I can manage,” replied Madeline.

“Well, then, good night. The sooner I go the sooner you’ll rest. Just
forget what happened and think how fine a surprise you’re to give your
brother to-morrow.”

With that she slipped out and softly shut the door.

As Madeline laid her watch on the bureau she noticed that the time was
past two o’clock. It seemed long since she had gotten off the train.
When she had turned out the lamp and crept wearily into bed she knew
what it was to be utterly spent. She was too tired to move a finger. But
her brain whirled.

She had at first no control over it, and a thousand thronging sensations
came and went and recurred with little logical relation. There were
the roar of the train; the feeling of being lost; the sound of pounding
hoofs; a picture of her brother’s face as she had last seen it five
years before; a long, dim line of lights; the jingle of silver spurs;
night, wind, darkness, stars. Then the gloomy station, the shadowy
blanketed Mexican, the empty room, the dim lights across the square, the
tramp of the dancers and vacant laughs and discordant music, the door
flung wide and the entrance of the cowboy. She did not recall how he
had looked or what he had done. And the next instant she saw him cool,
smiling, devilish—saw him in violence; the next his bigness, his
apparel, his physical being were vague as outlines in a dream. The white
face of the padre flashed along in the train of thought, and it brought
the same dull, half-blind, indefinable state of mind subsequent to that
last nerve-breaking pistol-shot. That passed, and then clear and vivid
rose memories of the rest that had happened—strange voices betraying
fury of men, a deadened report, a moan of mortal pain, a woman’s
poignant cry. And Madeline saw the girl’s great tragic eyes and the
wild flight of the big horse into the blackness, and the dark, stalking
figure of the silent cowboy, and the white stars that seemed to look
down remorselessly.

This tide of memory rolled over Madeline again and again, and gradually
lost its power and faded. All distress left her, and she felt herself
drifting. How black the room was—as black with her eyes open as it was
when they were shut! And the silence—it was like a cloak. There was
absolutely no sound. She was in another world from that which she knew.
She thought of this fair-haired Florence and of Alfred; and, wondering
about them, she dropped to sleep.

When she awakened the room was bright with sunlight. A cool wind blowing
across the bed caused her to put her hands under the blanket. She was
lazily and dreamily contemplating the mud walls of this little room when
she remembered where she was and how she had come there.

How great a shock she had been subjected to was manifest in a sensation
of disgust that overwhelmed her. She even shut her eyes to try and blot
out the recollection. She felt that she had been contaminated.

Presently Madeline Hammond again awoke to the fact she had learned the
preceding night—that there were emotions to which she had heretofore
been a stranger. She did not try to analyze them, but she exercised her
self-control to such good purpose that by the time she had dressed she
was outwardly her usual self. She scarcely remembered when she had found
it necessary to control her emotions. There had been no trouble, no
excitement, no unpleasantness in her life. It had been ordered for
her—tranquil, luxurious, brilliant, varied, yet always the same.

She was not surprised to find the hour late, and was going to make
inquiry about her brother when a voice arrested her. She recognized Miss
Kingsley’s voice addressing some one outside, and it had a sharpness she
had not noted before.

“So you came back, did you? Well, you don’t look very proud of yourself
this mawnin’. Gene Stewart, you look like a coyote.”

“Say, Flo if I am a coyote I’m not going to sneak,” he said.

“What ’d you come for?” she demanded.

“I said I was coming round to take my medicine.”

“Meaning you’ll not run from Al Hammond? Gene, your skull is as thick
as an old cow’s. Al will never know anything about what you did to his
sister unless you tell him. And if you do that he’ll shoot you. She
won’t give you away. She’s a thoroughbred. Why, she was so white last
night I thought she’d drop at my feet, but she never blinked an eyelash.
I’m a woman, Gene Stewart and if I couldn’t feel like Miss Hammond I
know how awful an ordeal she must have had. Why, she’s one of the most
beautiful, the most sought after, the most exclusive women in New York
City. There’s a crowd of millionaires and lords and dukes after her.
How terrible it’d be for a woman like her to be kissed by a drunken
cowpuncher! I say it—”

“Flo, I never insulted her that way,” broke out Stewart.

“It was worse, then?” she queried, sharply.

“I made a bet that I’d marry the first girl who came to town. I was on
the watch and pretty drunk. When she came—well, I got Padre Marcos and
tried to bully her into marrying me.”

“Oh, Lord!” Florence gasped. “It’s worse than I feared.... Gene, Al will
kill you.”

“That’ll be a good thing,” replied the cowboy, dejectedly.

“Gene Stewart, it certainly would, unless you turn over a new leaf,”
 retorted Florence. “But don’t be a fool.” And here she became
earnest and appealing. “Go away, Gene. Go join the rebels across the
border—you’re always threatening that. Anyhow, don’t stay here and ruin
any chance of stirring Al up. He’d kill you just the same as you would
kill another man for insulting your sister. Don’t make trouble for Al.
That’d only make sorrow for her, Gene.”

The subtle import was not lost upon Madeline. She was distressed because
she could not avoid hearing what was not meant for her ears. She made an
effort not to listen, and it was futile.

“Flo, you can’t see this a man’s way,” he replied, quietly. “I’ll stay
and take my medicine.”

“Gene, I could sure swear at you or any other pig-head of a cowboy.
Listen. My brother-in-law, Jack, heard something of what I said to you
last night. He doesn’t like you. I’m afraid he’ll tell Al. For Heaven’s
sake, man, go down-town and shut him up and yourself, too.”

Then Madeline heard her come into the house and presently rap on the
door and call softly:

“Miss Hammond. Are you awake?”

“Awake and dressed, Miss Kingsley. Come in.”

“Oh! You’ve rested. You look so—so different. I’m sure glad. Come out
now. We’ll have breakfast, and then you may expect to meet your brother
any moment.”

“Wait, please. I heard you speaking to Mr. Stewart. It was unavoidable.
But I am glad. I must see him. Will you please ask him to come into the
parlor a moment?”

“Yes,” replied Florence, quickly; and as she turned at the door she
flashed at Madeline a woman’s meaning glance. “Make him keep his mouth
shut!”

Presently there were slow, reluctant steps outside the front door, then
a pause, and the door opened. Stewart stood bareheaded in the
sunlight. Madeline remembered with a kind of shudder the tall form, the
embroidered buckskin vest, the red scarf, the bright leather wristbands,
the wide silver-buckled belt and chaps. Her glance seemed to run
over him swift as lightning. But as she saw his face now she did not
recognize it. The man’s presence roused in her a revolt. Yet something
in her, the incomprehensible side of her nature, thrilled in the look of
this splendid dark-faced barbarian.

“Mr. Stewart, will you please come in?” she asked, after that long
pause.

“I reckon not,” he said. The hopelessness of his tone meant that he knew
he was not fit to enter a room with her, and did not care or cared too
much.

Madeline went to the door. The man’s face was hard, yet it was sad, too.
And it touched her.

“I shall not tell my brother of your—your rudeness to me,” she began.
It was impossible for her to keep the chill out of her voice, to speak
with other than the pride and aloofness of her class. Nevertheless,
despite her loathing, when she had spoken so far it seemed that kindness
and pity followed involuntarily. “I choose to overlook what you did
because you were not wholly accountable, and because there must be no
trouble between Alfred and you. May I rely on you to keep silence and
to seal the lips of that priest? And you know there was a man killed or
injured there last night. I want to forget that dreadful thing. I don’t
want it known that I heard—”

“The Greaser didn’t die,” interrupted Stewart.

“Ah! then that’s not so bad, after all. I am glad for the sake of your
friend—the little Mexican girl.”

A slow scarlet wave overspread his face, and his shame was painful to
see. That fixed in Madeline’s mind a conviction that if he was a heathen
he was not wholly bad. And it made so much difference that she smiled
down at him.

“You will spare me further distress, will you not, please?” His hoarse
reply was incoherent, but she needed only to see his working face to
know his remorse and gratitude.

Madeline went back to her room; and presently Florence came for her, and
directly they were sitting at breakfast. Madeline Hammond’s impression
of her brother’s friend had to be reconstructed in the morning light.
She felt a wholesome, frank, sweet nature. She liked the slow Southern
drawl. And she was puzzled to know whether Florence Kingsley was pretty
or striking or unusual. She had a youthful glow and flush, the clear
tan of outdoors, a face that lacked the soft curves and lines of Eastern
women, and her eyes were light gray, like crystal, steady, almost
piercing, and her hair was a beautiful bright, waving mass.

Florence’s sister was the elder of the two, a stout woman with a strong
face and quiet eyes. It was a simple fare and service they gave to their
guest; but they made no apologies for that. Indeed, Madeline felt
their simplicity to be restful. She was sated with respect, sick of
admiration, tired of adulation; and it was good to see that these
Western women treated her as very likely they would have treated any
other visitor. They were sweet, kind; and what Madeline had at first
thought was a lack of expression or vitality she soon discovered to
be the natural reserve of women who did not live superficial lives.
Florence was breezy and frank, her sister quaint and not given much to
speech. Madeline thought she would like to have these women near her
if she were ill or in trouble. And she reproached herself for a
fastidiousness, a hypercritical sense of refinement that could not help
distinguishing what these women lacked.

“Can you ride?” Florence was asking. “That’s what a Westerner always
asks any one from the East. Can you ride like a man—astride, I mean?
Oh, that’s fine. You look strong enough to hold a horse. We have some
fine horses out here. I reckon when Al comes we’ll go out to Bill
Stillwell’s ranch. We’ll have to go, whether we want to or not, for when
Bill learns you are here he’ll just pack us all off. You’ll love old
Bill. His ranch is run down, but the range and the rides up in the
mountains—they are beautiful. We’ll hunt and climb, and most of all
we’ll ride. I love a horse—I love the wind in my face, and a wide
stretch with the mountains beckoning. You must have the best horse
on the ranges. And that means a scrap between Al and Bill and all
the cowboys. We don’t all agree about horses, except in case of Gene
Stewart’s iron-gray.”

“Does Mr. Stewart own the best horse in the country?” asked Madeline.
Again she had an inexplicable thrill as she remembered the wild flight
of Stewart’s big dark steed and rider.

“Yes, and that’s all he does own,” replied Florence. “Gene can’t keep
even a quirt. But he sure loves that horse and calls him—”

At this juncture a sharp knock on the parlor door interrupted the
conversation. Florence’s sister went to open it. She returned presently
and said:

“It’s Gene. He’s been dawdlin’ out there on the front porch, and he
knocked to let us know Miss Hammond’s brother is comin’.”

Florence hurried into the parlor, followed by Madeline. The door stood
open, and disclosed Stewart sitting on the porch steps. From down
the road came a clatter of hoofs. Madeline looked out over Florence’s
shoulder and saw a cloud of dust approaching, and in it she
distinguished outlines of horses and riders. A warmth spread over her, a
little tingle of gladness, and the feeling recalled her girlish love for
her brother. What would he be like after long years?

“Gene, has Jack kept his mouth shut?” queried Florence; and again
Madeline was aware of a sharp ring in the girl’s voice.

“No,” replied Stewart.

“Gene! You won’t let it come to a fight? Al can be managed. But Jack
hates you and he’ll have his friends with him.”

“There won’t be any fight.”

“Use your brains now,” added Florence; and then she turned to push
Madeline gently back into the parlor.

Madeline’s glow of warmth changed to a blank dismay. Was she to see
her brother act with the violence she now associated with cowboys? The
clatter of hoofs stopped before the door. Looking out, Madeline saw a
bunch of dusty, wiry horses pawing the gravel and tossing lean heads.
Her swift glance ran over the lithe horsemen, trying to pick out the one
who was her brother. But she could not. Her glance, however, caught the
same rough dress and hard aspect that characterized the cowboy Stewart.
Then one rider threw his bridle, leaped from the saddle, and came
bounding up the porch steps. Florence met him at the door.

“Hello, Flo. Where is she?” he called, eagerly. With that he looked over
her shoulder to espy Madeline. He actually jumped at her. She hardly
knew the tall form and the bronzed face, but the warm flash of blue eyes
was familiar. As for him, he had no doubt of his sister, it appeared,
for with broken welcome he threw his arms around her, then held her off
and looked searchingly at her.

“Well, sister,” he began, when Florence turned hurriedly from the door
and interrupted him.

“Al, I think you’d better stop the wrangling out there.” He stared at
her, appeared suddenly to hear the loud voices from the street, and
then, releasing Madeline, he said:

“By George! I forgot, Flo. There is a little business to see to. Keep my
sister in here, please, and don’t be fussed up now.”

He went out on the porch and called to his men:

“Shut off your wind, Jack! And you, too, Blaze! I didn’t want you
fellows to come here. But as you would come, you’ve got to shut up. This
is my business.”

Whereupon he turned to Stewart, who was sitting on the fence.

“Hello, Stewart!” he said.

It was a greeting; but there was that in the voice which alarmed
Madeline.

Stewart leisurely got up and leisurely advanced to the porch.

“Hello, Hammond!” he drawled.

“Drunk again last night?”

“Well, if you want to know, and if it’s any of your mix, yes, I
was-pretty drunk,” replied Stewart.

It was a kind of cool speech that showed the cowboy in control of
himself and master of the situation—not an easy speech to follow up
with undue inquisitiveness. There was a short silence.

“Damn it, Stewart,” said the speaker, presently, “here’s the situation:
It’s all over town that you met my sister last night at the station
and—and insulted her. Jack’s got it in for you, so have these other
boys. But it’s my affair. Understand, I didn’t fetch them here. They can
see you square yourself, or else—Gene, you’ve been on the wrong trail
for some time, drinking and all that. You’re going to the bad. But Bill
thinks, and I think, you’re still a man. We never knew you to lie. Now
what have you to say for yourself?”

“Nobody is insinuating that I am a liar?” drawled Stewart.

“No.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that. You see, Al, I was pretty drunk last
night, but not drunk enough to forget the least thing I did. I told Pat
Hawe so this morning when he was curious. And that’s polite for me to
be to Pat. Well, I found Miss Hammond waiting alone at the station. She
wore a veil, but I knew she was a lady, of course. I imagine, now that
I think of it, that Miss Hammond found my gallantry rather startling,
and—”

At this point Madeline, answering to unconsidered impulse, eluded
Florence and walked out upon the porch.

Sombreros flashed down and the lean horses jumped.

“Gentlemen,” said Madeline, rather breathlessly; and it did not add
to her calmness to feel a hot flush in her cheeks, “I am very new to
Western ways, but I think you are laboring under a mistake, which, in
justice to Mr. Stewart, I want to correct. Indeed, he was rather—rather
abrupt and strange when he came up to me last night; but as I understand
him now, I can attribute that to his gallantry. He was somewhat wild
and sudden and—sentimental in his demand to protect me—and it was not
clear whether he meant his protection for last night or forever; but I
am happy to say be offered me no word that was not honorable. And he saw
me safely here to Miss Kingsley’s home.”




III. Sister and Brother


Then Madeline returned to the little parlor with the brother whom she
had hardly recognized.

“Majesty!” he exclaimed. “To think of your being here!”

The warmth stole back along her veins. She remembered how that pet name
had sounded from the lips of this brother who had given it to her.

“Alfred!”

Then his words of gladness at sight of her, his chagrin at not being
at the train to welcome her, were not so memorable of him as the way he
clasped her, for he had held her that way the day he left home, and she
had not forgotten. But now he was so much taller and bigger, so dusty
and strange and different and forceful, that she could scarcely think
him the same man. She even had a humorous thought that here was another
cowboy bullying her, and this time it was her brother.

“Dear old girl,” he said, more calmly, as he let her go, “you haven’t
changed at all, except to grow lovelier. Only you’re a woman now, and
you’ve fulfilled the name I gave you. God! how sight of you brings back
home! It seems a hundred years since I left. I missed you more than all
the rest.”

Madeline seemed to feel with his every word that she was remembering
him. She was so amazed at the change in him that she could not believe
her eyes. She saw a bronzed, strong-jawed, eagle-eyed man, stalwart,
superb of height, and, like the cowboys, belted, booted, spurred. And
there was something hard as iron in his face that quivered with his
words. It seemed that only in those moments when the hard lines broke
and softened could she see resemblance to the face she remembered. It
was his manner, the tone of his voice, and the tricks of speech
that proved to her he was really Alfred. She had bidden good-by to a
disgraced, disinherited, dissolute boy. Well she remembered the handsome
pale face with its weakness and shadows and careless smile, with the
ever-present cigarette hanging between the lips. The years had passed,
and now she saw him a man—the West had made him a man. And Madeline
Hammond felt a strong, passionate gladness and gratefulness, and a
direct check to her suddenly inspired hatred of the West.

“Majesty, it was good of you to come. I’m all broken up. How did you
ever do it? But never mind that now. Tell me about that brother of
mine.”

And Madeline told him, and then about their sister Helen. Question after
question he fired at her; and she told him of her mother; of Aunt
Grace, who had died a year ago; of his old friends, married, scattered,
vanished. But she did not tell him of his father, for he did not ask.

Quite suddenly the rapid-fire questioning ceased; he choked, was silent
a moment, and then burst into tears. It seemed to her that a long,
stored-up bitterness was flooding away. It hurt her to see him—hurt her
more to hear him. And in the succeeding few moments she grew closer to
him than she had ever been in the past. Had her father and mother done
right by him? Her pulse stirred with unwonted quickness. She did not
speak, but she kissed him, which, for her, was an indication of unusual
feeling. And when he recovered command over his emotions he made no
reference to his breakdown, nor did she. But that scene struck deep
into Madeline Hammond’s heart. Through it she saw what he had lost and
gained.

“Alfred, why did you not answer my last letters?” asked Madeline. “I had
not heard from you for two years.”

“So long? How time flies! Well, things went bad with me about the last
time I heard from you. I always intended to write some day, but I never
did.”

“Things went wrong? Tell me.”

“Majesty, you mustn’t worry yourself with my troubles. I want you to
enjoy your stay and not be bothered with my difficulties.”

“Please tell me. I suspected something had gone wrong. That is partly
why I decided to come out.”

“All right; if you must know,” he began; and it seemed to Madeline that
there was a gladness in his decision to unburden himself. “You remember
all about my little ranch, and that for a while I did well raising
stock? I wrote you all that. Majesty, a man makes enemies anywhere.
Perhaps an Eastern man in the West can make, if not so many, certainly
more bitter ones. At any rate, I made several. There was a cattleman,
Ward by name—he’s gone now—and he and I had trouble over cattle. That
gave me a back-set. Pat Hawe, the sheriff here, has been instrumental in
hurting my business. He’s not so much of a rancher, but he has influence
at Santa Fe and El Paso and Douglas. I made an enemy of him. I never did
anything to him. He hates Gene Stewart, and upon one occasion I spoiled
a little plot of his to get Gene in his clutches. The real reason for
his animosity toward me is that he loves Florence, and Florence is going
to marry me.”

“Alfred!”

“What’s the matter, Majesty? Didn’t Florence impress you favorably?” he
asked, with a keen glance.

“Why—yes, indeed. I like her. But I did not think of her in relation
to you—that way. I am greatly surprised. Alfred, is she well born? What
connections?”

“Florence is just a girl of ordinary people. She was born in Kentucky,
was brought up in Texas. My aristocratic and wealthy family would
scorn—”

“Alfred, you are still a Hammond,” said Madeline, with uplifted head.

Alfred laughed. “We won’t quarrel, Majesty. I remember you, and in spite
of your pride you’ve got a heart. If you stay here a month you’ll love
Florence Kingsley. I want you to know she’s had a great deal to do
with straightening me up.... Well, to go on with my story. There’s Don
Carlos, a Mexican rancher, and he’s my worst enemy. For that matter,
he’s as bad an enemy of Bill Stillwell and other ranchers. Stillwell, by
the way, is my friend and one of the finest men on earth. I got in debt
to Don Carlos before I knew he was so mean. In the first place I lost
money at faro—I gambled some when I came West—and then I made unwise
cattle deals. Don Carlos is a wily Greaser, he knows the ranges, he
has the water, and he is dishonest. So he outfigured me. And now I am
practically ruined. He has not gotten possession of my ranch, but that’s
only a matter of time, pending lawsuits at Santa Fe. At present I have a
few hundred cattle running on Stillwell’s range, and I am his foreman.”

“Foreman?” queried Madeline.

“I am simply boss of Stillwell’s cowboys, and right glad of my job.”

Madeline was conscious of an inward burning. It required an effort for
her to retain her outward tranquillity. Annoying consciousness she had
also of the returning sense of new disturbing emotions. She began to see
just how walled in from unusual thought-provoking incident and sensation
had been her exclusive life.

“Cannot your property be reclaimed?” she asked. “How much do you owe?”

“Ten thousand dollars would clear me and give me another start. But,
Majesty, in this country that’s a good deal of money, and I haven’t been
able to raise it. Stillwell’s in worse shape than I am.”

Madeline went over to Alfred and put her hands on his shoulders.

“We must not be in debt.”

He stared at her as if her words had recalled something long forgotten.
Then he smiled.

“How imperious you are! I’d forgotten just who my beautiful sister
really is. Majesty, you’re not going to ask me to take money from you?”

“I am.”

“Well, I’ll not do it. I never did, even when I was in college, and then
there wasn’t much beyond me.”

“Listen, Alfred,” she went on, earnestly, “this is entirely different.
I had only an allowance then. You had no way to know that since I last
wrote you I had come into my inheritance from Aunt Grace. It was—well,
that doesn’t matter. Only, I haven’t been able to spend half the income.
It’s mine. It’s not father’s money. You will make me very happy if
you’ll consent. Alfred, I’m so—so amazed at the change in you. I’m
so happy. You must never take a backward step from now on. What is ten
thousand dollars to me? Sometimes I spend that in a month. I throw money
away. If you let me help you it will be doing me good as well as you.
Please, Alfred.”

He kissed her, evidently surprised at her earnestness. And indeed
Madeline was surprised herself. Once started, her speech had flowed.

“You always were the best of fellows, Majesty. And if you really
care—if you really want to help me I’ll be only too glad to accept. It
will be fine. Florence will go wild. And that Greaser won’t harass me
any more. Majesty, pretty soon some titled fellow will be spending your
money; I may as well take a little before he gets it all,” he finished,
jokingly.

“What do you know about me?” she asked, lightly.

“More than you think. Even if we are lost out here in the woolly West
we get news. Everybody knows about Anglesbury. And that Dago duke who
chased you all over Europe, that Lord Castleton has the running now and
seems about to win. How about it, Majesty?”

Madeline detected a hint that suggested scorn in his gay speech. And
deep in his searching glance she saw a flame. She became thoughtful. She
had forgotten Castleton, New York, society.

“Alfred,” she began, seriously, “I don’t believe any titled gentleman
will ever spend my money, as you elegantly express it.”

“I don’t care for that. It’s you!” he cried, passionately, and he
grasped her with a violence that startled her. He was white; his eyes
were now like fire. “You are so splendid—so wonderful. People called
you the American Beauty, but you’re more than that. You’re the American
Girl! Majesty, marry no man unless you love him, and love an American.
Stay away from Europe long enough to learn to know the men—the real men
of your own country.”

“Alfred, I’m afraid there are not always real men and real love for
American girls in international marriages. But Helen knows this. It’ll
be her choice. She’ll be miserable if she marries Anglesbury.”

“It’ll serve her just right,” declared her brother. “Helen was always
crazy for glitter, adulation, fame. I’ll gamble she never saw more of
Anglesbury than the gold and ribbons on his breast.”

“I am sorry. Anglesbury is a gentleman; but it is the money he wanted, I
think. Alfred, tell me how you came to know about me, ’way out here? You
may be assured I was astonished to find that Miss Kingsley knew me as
Majesty Hammond.”

“I imagine it was a surprise,” he replied, with a laugh, “I told
Florence about you—gave her a picture of you. And, of course, being a
woman, she showed the picture and talked. She’s in love with you. Then,
my dear sister, we do get New York papers out here occasionally, and we
can see and read. You may not be aware that you and your society friends
are objects of intense interest in the U. S. in general, and the West in
particular. The papers are full of you, and perhaps a lot of things you
never did.”

“That Mr. Stewart knew, too. He said, ‘You’re not Majesty Hammond?’”

“Never mind his impudence!” exclaimed Alfred; and then again he laughed.
“Gene is all right, only you’ve got to know him. I’ll tell you what he
did. He got hold of one of those newspaper pictures of you—the one
in the Times; he took it away from here, and in spite of Florence he
wouldn’t fetch it back. It was a picture of you in riding-habit with
your blue-ribbon horse, White Stockings—remember? It was taken at
Newport. Well, Stewart tacked the picture up in his bunk-house and named
his beautiful horse Majesty. All the cowboys knew it. They would see
the picture and tease him unmercifully. But he didn’t care. One day I
happened to drop in on him and found him just recovering from a carouse.
I saw the picture, too, and I said to him, ‘Gene, if my sister knew you
were a drunkard she’d not be proud of having her picture stuck up in
your room.’ Majesty, he did not touch a drop for a month, and when he
did drink again he took the picture down, and he has never put it back.”

Madeline smiled at her brother’s amusement, but she did not reply. She
simply could not adjust herself to these queer free Western’ ways. Her
brother had eloquently pleaded for her to keep herself above a sordid
and brilliant marriage, yet he not only allowed a cowboy to keep her
picture in his room, but actually spoke of her and used her name in a
temperance lecture. Madeline just escaped feeling disgust. She was saved
from this, however, by nothing less than her brother’s naive gladness
that through subtle suggestion Stewart had been persuaded to be good for
a month. Something made up of Stewart’s effrontery to her; of Florence
Kingsley meeting her, frankly as it were, as an equal; of the elder
sister’s slow, quiet, easy acceptance of this visitor who had been
honored at the courts of royalty; of that faint hint of scorn in
Alfred’s voice, and his amused statement in regard to her picture
and the name Majesty—something made up of all these stung Madeline
Hammond’s pride, alienated her for an instant, and then stimulated her
intelligence, excited her interest, and made her resolve to learn a
little about this incomprehensible West.

“Majesty, I must run down to the siding,” he said, consulting his watch.
“We’re loading a shipment of cattle. I’ll be back by supper-time and
bring Stillwell with me. You’ll like him. Give me the check for your
trunk.”

She went into the little bedroom and, taking up her bag, she got out a
number of checks.

“Six! Six trunks!” he exclaimed. “Well, I’m very glad you intend to stay
awhile. Say, Majesty, it will take me as long to realize who you really
are as it’ll take to break you of being a tenderfoot. I hope you packed
a riding-suit. If not you’ll have to wear trousers! You’ll have to do
that, anyway, when we go up in the mountains.”

“No!”

“You sure will, as Florence says.”

“We shall see about that. I don’t know what’s in the trunks. I never
pack anything. My dear brother, what do I have maids for?”

“How did it come that you didn’t travel with a maid?”

“I wanted to be alone. But don’t you worry. I shall be able to look
after myself. I dare say it will be good for me.”

She went to the gate with him.

“What a shaggy, dusty horse! He’s wild, too. Do you let him stand that
way without being haltered? I should think he would run off.”

“Tenderfoot! You’ll be great fun, Majesty, especially for the cowboys.”

“Oh, will I?” she asked, constrainedly.

“Yes, and in three days they will be fighting one another over you.
That’s going to worry me. Cowboys fall in love with a plain woman,
an ugly woman, any woman, so long as she’s young. And you! Good Lord!
They’ll go out of their heads.”

“You are pleased to be facetious, Alfred. I think I have had quite
enough of cowboys, and I haven’t been here twenty-four hours.”

“Don’t think too much of first impressions. That was my mistake when I
arrived here. Good-by. I’ll go now. Better rest awhile. You look tired.”

The horse started as Alfred put his foot in the stirrup and was running
when the rider slipped his leg over the saddle. Madeline watched him in
admiration. He seemed to be loosely fitted to the saddle, moving with
the horse.

“I suppose that’s a cowboy’s style. It pleases me,” she said. “How
different from the seat of Eastern riders!”

Then Madeline sat upon the porch and fell to interested observation of
her surrounding. Near at hand it was decidedly not prepossessing. The
street was deep in dust, and the cool wind whipped up little puffs. The
houses along this street were all low, square, flat-roofed structures
made of some kind of red cement. It occurred to her suddenly that this
building-material must be the adobe she had read about. There was no
person in sight. The long street appeared to have no end, though the
line of houses did not extend far. Once she heard a horse trotting at
some distance, and several times the ringing of a locomotive bell. Where
were the mountains, wondered Madeline. Soon low over the house-roofs she
saw a dim, dark-blue, rugged outline. It seemed to charm her eyes and
fix her gaze. She knew the Adirondacks, she had seen the Alps from the
summit of Mont Blanc, and had stood under the great black, white-tipped
shadow of the Himalayas. But they had not drawn her as these remote
Rockies. This dim horizon line boldly cutting the blue sky fascinated
her. Florence Kingsley’s expression “beckoning mountains” returned to
Madeline. She could not see or feel so much as that. Her impression was
rather that these mountains were aloof, unattainable, that if approached
they would recede or vanish like the desert mirage.

Madeline went to her room, intending to rest awhile, and she fell
asleep. She was aroused by Florence’s knock and call.

“Miss Hammond, your brother has come back with Stillwell.”

“Why, how I have slept!” exclaimed Madeline. “It’s nearly six o’clock.”

“I’m sure glad. You were tired. And the air here makes strangers sleepy.
Come, we want you to meet old Bill. He calls himself the last of the
cattlemen. He has lived in Texas and here all his life.”

Madeline accompanied Florence to the porch. Her brother, who was sitting
near the door, jumped up and said:

“Hello, Majesty!” And as he put his arm around her he turned toward a
massive man whose broad, craggy face began to ripple and wrinkle. “I
want to introduce my friend Stillwell to you. Bill, this is my sister,
the sister I’ve so often told you about—Majesty.”

“Wal, wal, Al, this’s the proudest meetin’ of my life,” replied
Stillwell, in a booming voice. He extended a huge hand. “Miss—Miss
Majesty, sight of you is as welcome as the rain an’ the flowers to an
old desert cattleman.”

Madeline greeted him, and it was all she could do to repress a cry
at the way he crunched her hand in a grasp of iron. He was old,
white-haired, weather-beaten, with long furrows down his checks and with
gray eyes almost hidden in wrinkles. If he was smiling she fancied it a
most extraordinary smile. The next instant she realized that it had been
a smile, for his face appeared to stop rippling, the light died, and
suddenly it was like rudely chiseled stone. The quality of hardness she
had seen in Stewart was immeasurably intensified in this old man’s face.

“Miss Majesty, it’s plumb humiliatin’ to all of us thet we wasn’t on
hand to meet you,” Stillwell said. “Me an’ Al stepped into the P. O.
an’ said a few mild an’ cheerful things. Them messages ought to hev been
sent out to the ranch. I’m sure afraid it was a bit unpleasant fer you
last night at the station.”

“I was rather anxious at first and perhaps frightened,” replied
Madeline.

“Wal, I’m some glad to tell you thet there’s no man in these parts
except your brother thet I’d as lief hev met you as Gene Stewart.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, an’ thet’s takin’ into consideration Gene’s weakness, too. I’m
allus fond of sayin’ of myself thet I’m the last of the old cattlemen.
Wal, Stewart’s not a native Westerner, but he’s my pick of the last of
the cowboys. Sure, he’s young, but he’s the last of the old style—the
picturesque—an’ chivalrous, too, I make bold to say, Miss Majesty, as
well as the old hard-ridin’ kind. Folks are down on Stewart. An’ I’m
only sayin’ a good word for him because he is down, an’ mebbe last night
he might hev scared you, you bein’ fresh from the East.”

Madeline liked the old fellow for his loyalty to the cowboy he evidently
cared for; but as there did not seem anything for her to say, she
remained silent.

“Miss Majesty, the day of the cattleman is about over. An’ the day of
the cowboy, such as Gene Stewart, is over. There’s no place for Gene. If
these weren’t modern days he’d come near bein’ a gun-man, same as we
had in Texas, when I ranched there in the ‘seventies. But he can’t fit
nowhere now; he can’t hold a job, an’ he’s goin’ down.”

“I am sorry to hear it,” murmured Madeline. “But, Mr. Stillwell, aren’t
these modern days out here just a little wild—yet? The conductor on
my train told me of rebels, bandits, raiders. Then I have had other
impressions of—well, that were wild enough for me.”

“Wal, it’s some more pleasant an’ excitin’ these days than for many
years,” replied Stillwell. “The boys hev took to packin’ guns again. But
thet’s owin’ to the revolution in Mexico. There’s goin’ to be trouble
along the border. I reckon people in the East don’t know there is a
revolution. Wal, Madero will oust Diaz, an’ then some other rebel will
oust Madero. It means trouble on the border an’ across the border, too.
I wouldn’t wonder if Uncle Sam hed to get a hand in the game. There’s
already been holdups on the railroads an’ raids along the Rio Grande
Valley. An’ these little towns are full of Greasers, all disturbed by
the fightin’ down in Mexico. We’ve been hevin’ shootin’-scrapes an’
knifin’-scrapes, an’ some cattle-raidin’. I hev been losin’ a few cattle
right along. Reminds me of old times; an’ pretty soon if it doesn’t
stop, I’ll take the old-time way to stop it.”

“Yes, indeed, Majesty,” put in Alfred, “you have hit upon an interesting
time to visit us.”

“Wal, thet sure ’pears to be so,” rejoined Stillwell. “Stewart got in
trouble down heah to-day, an’ I’m more than sorry to hev to tell you
thet your name figgered in it. But I couldn’t blame him, fer I sure
would hev done the same myself.”

“That so?” queried Alfred, laughing. “Well, tell us about it.”

Madeline simply gazed at her brother, and, though he seemed amused at
her consternation, there was mortification in his face.

It required no great perspicuity, Madeline thought, to see that
Stillwell loved to talk, and the way he squared himself and spread his
huge hands over his knees suggested that he meant to do this opportunity
justice.

“Miss Majesty, I reckon, bein’ as you’re in the West now, thet you must
take things as they come, an’ mind each thing a little less than the one
before. If we old fellers hedn’t been thet way we’d never hev lasted.

“Last night wasn’t particular bad, ratin’ with some other nights lately.
There wasn’t much doin’. But, I had a hard knock. Yesterday when we
started in with a bunch of cattle I sent one of my cowboys, Danny Mains,
along ahead, carryin’ money I hed to pay off hands an’ my bills, an’ I
wanted thet money to get in town before dark. Wal, Danny was held up.
I don’t distrust the lad. There’s been strange Greasers in town lately,
an’ mebbe they knew about the money comin’.

“Wal, when I arrived with the cattle I was some put to it to make ends
meet. An’ to-day I wasn’t in no angelic humor. When I hed my business
all done I went around pokin’ my nose beak an’ there, tryin’ to get
scent of thet money. An’ I happened in at a hall we hev thet does duty
fer’ jail an’ hospital an’ election-post an’ what not. Wal, just then
it was doin’ duty as a hospital. Last night was fiesta night—these
Greasers hev a fiesta every week or so—an’ one Greaser who hed been bad
hurt was layin’ in the hall, where he hed been fetched from the station.
Somebody hed sent off to Douglas fer a doctor, but be hedn’t come yet.
I’ve hed some experience with gunshot wounds, an’ I looked this
feller over. He wasn’t shot up much, but I thought there was danger of
blood-poison-in’. Anyway, I did all I could.

“The hall was full of cowboys, ranchers, Greasers, miners, an’ town
folks, along with some strangers. I was about to get started up this way
when Pat Hawe come in.

“Pat he’s the sheriff. I reckon, Miss Majesty, thet sheriffs are new to
you, an’ fer sake of the West I’ll explain to you thet we don’t hev many
of the real thing any more. Garrett, who killed Billy the Kid an’ was
killed himself near a year or so ago—he was the kind of sheriff thet
helps to make a self-respectin’ country. But this Pat Hawe—wal, I
reckon there’s no good in me sayin’ what I think of him. He come into
the hall, an’ he was roarin’ about things. He was goin’ to arrest Danny
Mains on sight. Wal, I jest polite-like told Pat thet the money was mine
an’ he needn’t get riled about it. An’ if I wanted to trail the thief
I reckon I could do it as well as anybody. Pat howled thet law was law,
an’ he was goin’ to lay down the law. Sure it ‘peared to me thet Pat was
daid set to arrest the first man he could find excuse to.

“Then he cooled down a bit an’ was askin’ questions about the wounded
Greaser when Gene Stewart come in. Whenever Pat an’ Gene come together
it reminds me of the early days back in the ‘seventies. Jest naturally
everybody shut up. Fer Pat hates Gene, an’ I reckon Gene ain’t very
sweet on Pat. They’re jest natural foes in the first place, an’ then the
course of events here in El Cajon has been aggravatin’.

“‘Hello, Stewart! You’re the feller I’m lookin’ fer,’ said Pat.

“Stewart eyed him an’ said, mighty cool an’ sarcastic, ‘Hawe, you look a
good deal fer me when I’m hittin’ up the dust the other way.’

“Pat went red at thet, but he held in. ‘Say, Stewart, you-all think a
lot of thet roan horse of yourn, with the aristocratic name?’

“‘I reckon I do,’ replied Gene, shortly.

“‘Wal, where is he?’

“‘Thet’s none of your business, Hawe.’

“‘Oho! it ain’t, hey? Wal, I guess I can make it my business. Stewart,
there was some queer goings-on last night thet you know somethin’ about.
Danny Mains robbed—Stillwell’s money gone—your roan horse gone—thet
little hussy Bonita gone—an’ this Greaser near gone, too. Now, seein’
thet you was up late an’ prowlin’ round the station where this Greaser
was found, it ain’t onreasonable to think you might know how he got
plugged—is it?’

“Stewart laughed kind of cold, an’ he rolled a cigarette, all the time
eyin’ Pat, an’ then he said if he’d plugged the Greaser it ’d never hev
been sich a bunglin’ job.

“‘I can arrest you on suspicion, Stewart, but before I go thet far
I want some evidence. I want to round up Danny Mains an’ thet little
Greaser girl. I want to find out what’s become of your hoss. You’ve
never lent him since you hed him, an’ there ain’t enough raiders across
the border to steal him from you. It’s got a queer look—thet hoss bein’
gone.’

“‘You sure are a swell detective, Hawe, an’ I wish you a heap of luck,’
replied Stewart.

“Thet ‘peared to nettle Pat beyond bounds, an’ he stamped around an’
swore. Then he had an idea. It jest stuck out all over him, an’ he shook
his finger in Stewart’s face.

“‘You was drunk last night?’

“Stewart never batted an eye.

“‘You met some woman on Number Eight, didn’t you?’ shouted Hawe.

“‘I met a lady,’ replied Stewart, quiet an’ menacin’ like.

“‘You met Al Hammond’s sister, an’ you took her up to Kingsley’s. An’
cinch this, my cowboy cavalier, I’m goin’ up there an’ ask this grand
dame some questions, an’ if she’s as close-mouthed as you are I’ll
arrest her!’

“Gene Stewart turned white. I fer one expected to see him jump like
lightnin’, as he does when he’s riled sudden. But he was calm an’ he was
thinkin’ hard. Presently he said:

“‘Pat, thet’s a fool idee, an’ if you do the trick it’ll hurt you all
the rest of your life. There’s absolutely no reason to frighten Miss
Hammond. An’ tryin’ to arrest her would be such a damned outrage as
won’t be stood fer in El Cajon. If you’re sore on me send me to jail.
I’ll go. If you want to hurt Al Hammond, go an’ do it some man kind of
way. Don’t take your spite out on us by insultin’ a lady who has come
hyar to hev a little visit. We’re bad enough without bein’ low-down as
Greasers.’

“It was a long talk for Gene, an’ I was as surprised as the rest of the
fellers. Think of Gene Stewart talkin’ soft an’ sweet to thet red-eyed
coyote of a sheriff! An’ Pat, he looked so devilishly gleeful thet
if somethin’ about Gene hedn’t held me tight I’d hev got in the game
myself. It was plain to me an’ others who spoke of it afterwards thet
Pat Hawe hed forgotten the law an’ the officer in the man an’ his hate.

“‘I’m a-goin’, an’ I’m a-goin’ right now!’” he shouted. “An’ after thet
any one could hev heerd a clock tick a mile off. Stewart seemed kind
of chokin’, an’ he seemed to hev been bewildered by the idee of Hawe’s
confrontin’ you.

“An’ finally he burst out: ‘But, man, think who it is! It’s Miss
Hammond! If you seen her, even if you was locoed or drunk, you—you
couldn’t do it.’

“‘Couldn’t I? Wal, I’ll show you damn quick. What do I care who she is?
Them swell Eastern women—I’ve heerd of them. They’re not so much. This
Hammond woman—’

“Suddenly Hawe shut up, an’ with his red mug turnin’ green he went for
his gun.”

Stillwell paused in his narrative to get breath, and he wiped his moist
brow. And now his face began to lose its cragginess. It changed, it
softened, it rippled and wrinkled, and all that strange mobility focused
and shone in a wonderful smile.

“An’ then, Miss Majesty, then there was somethin’ happened. Stewart took
Pat’s gun away from him and throwed it on the floor. An’ what followed
was beautiful. Sure it was the beautifulest sight I ever seen. Only it
was over so soon! A little while after, when the doctor came, he hed
another patient besides the wounded Greaser, an’ he said thet this new
one would require about four months to be up an’ around cheerful-like
again. An’ Gene Stewart hed hit the trail for the border.”




IV. A Ride From Sunrise To Sunset


Next morning, when Madeline was aroused by her brother, it was not yet
daybreak; the air chilled her, and in the gray gloom she had to feel
around for matches and lamp. Her usual languid manner vanished at a
touch of the cold water. Presently, when Alfred knocked on her door and
said he was leaving a pitcher of hot water outside, she replied, with
chattering teeth, “Th-thank y-you, b-but I d-don’t ne-need any now.” She
found it necessary, however, to warm her numb fingers before she could
fasten hooks and buttons. And when she was dressed she marked in the dim
mirror that there were tinges of red in her cheeks.

“Well, if I haven’t some color!” she exclaimed.

Breakfast waited for her in the dining-room. The sisters ate with her.
Madeline quickly caught the feeling of brisk action that seemed to be
in the air. From the back of the house sounded the tramp of boots and
voices of men, and from outside came a dull thump of hoofs, the rattle
of harness, and creak of wheels. Then Alfred came stamping in.

“Majesty, here’s where you get the real thing,” he announced, merrily.
“We’re rushing you off, I’m sorry to say; but we must hustle back to
the ranch. The fall round-up begins to-morrow. You will ride in the
buck-board with Florence and Stillwell. I’ll ride on ahead with the boys
and fix up a little for you at the ranch. Your baggage will follow, but
won’t get there till to-morrow sometime. It’s a long ride out—nearly
fifty miles by wagon-road. Flo, don’t forget a couple of robes. Wrap her
up well. And hustle getting ready. We’re waiting.”

A little later, when Madeline went out with Florence, the gray gloom was
lightening. Horses were champing bits and pounding gravel.

“Mawnin’, Miss Majesty,” said Stillwell, gruffly, from the front seat of
a high vehicle.

Alfred bundled her up into the back seat, and Florence after her, and
wrapped them with robes. Then he mounted his horse and started off.
“Gid-eb!” growled Stillwell, and with a crack of his whip the team
jumped into a trot. Florence whispered into Madeline’s ear:

“Bill’s grouchy early in the mawnin’. He’ll thaw out soon as it gets
warm.”

It was still so gray that Madeline could not distinguish objects at any
considerable distance, and she left El Cajon without knowing what the
town really looked like. She did know that she was glad to get out of
it, and found an easier task of dispelling persistent haunting memory.

“Here come the cowboys,” said Florence.

A line of horsemen appeared coming from the right and fell in behind
Alfred, and gradually they drew ahead, to disappear from sight. While
Madeline watched them the gray gloom lightened into dawn. All about her
was bare and dark; the horizon seemed close; not a hill nor a tree broke
the monotony. The ground appeared to be flat, but the road went up and
down over little ridges. Madeline glanced backward in the direction of
El Cajon and the mountains she had seen the day before, and she saw only
bare and dark ground, like that which rolled before.

A puff of cold wind struck her face and she shivered. Florence noticed
her and pulled up the second robe and tucked it closely round her up to
her chin.

“If we have a little wind you’ll sure feel it,” said the Western girl.

Madeline replied that she already felt it. The wind appeared to
penetrate the robes. It was cold, pure, nipping. It was so thin she had
to breathe as fast as if she were under ordinary exertion. It hurt her
nose and made her lungs ache.

“Aren’t you co-cold?” asked Madeline.

“I?” Florence laughed. “I’m used to it. I never get cold.”

The Western girl sat with ungloved hands on the outside of the robe she
evidently did not need to draw up around her. Madeline thought she had
never seen such a clear-eyed, healthy, splendid girl.

“Do you like to see the sun rise?” asked Florence.

“Yes, I think I do,” replied Madeline, thoughtfully. “Frankly, I have
not seen it for years.”

“We have beautiful sunrises, and sunsets from the ranch are glorious.”

Long lines of pink fire ran level with the eastern horizon, which
appeared to recede as day brightened. A bank of thin, fleecy clouds was
turning rose. To the south and west the sky was dark; but every moment
it changed, the blue turning bluer. The eastern sky was opalescent. Then
in one place gathered a golden light, and slowly concentrated till it
was like fire. The rosy bank of cloud turned to silver and pearl, and
behind it shot up a great circle of gold. Above the dark horizon gleamed
an intensely bright disk. It was the sun. It rose swiftly, blazing out
the darkness between the ridges and giving color and distance to the
sweep of land.

“Wal, wal,” drawled Stillwell, and stretched his huge arms as if he had
just awakened, “thet’s somethin’ like.”

Florence nudged Madeline and winked at her.

“Fine mawnin’, girls,” went on old Bill, cracking his whip. “Miss
Majesty, it’ll be some oninterestin’ ride all mawnin’. But when we get
up a bit you’ll sure like it. There! Look to the southwest, jest over
thet farthest ridge.”

Madeline swept her gaze along the gray, sloping horizon-line to where
dark-blue spires rose far beyond the ridge.

“Peloncillo Mountains,” said Stillwell. “Thet’s home, when we get
there. We won’t see no more of them till afternoon, when they rise up
sudden-like.”

Peloncillo! Madeline murmured the melodious name. Where had she heard
it? Then she remembered. The cowboy Stewart had told the little Mexican
girl Bonita to “hit the Peloncillo trail.” Probably the girl had ridden
the big, dark horse over this very road at night, alone. Madeline had a
little shiver that was not occasioned by the cold wind.

“There’s a jack!” cried Florence, suddenly.

Madeline saw her first jack-rabbit. It was as large as a dog, and its
ears were enormous. It appeared to be impudently tame, and the horses
kicked dust over it as they trotted by. From then on old Bill and
Florence vied with each other in calling Madeline’s attention to many
things along the way. Coyotes stealing away into the brush; buzzards
flapping over the carcass of a cow that had been mired in a wash; queer
little lizards running swiftly across the road; cattle grazing in the
hollows; adobe huts of Mexican herders; wild, shaggy horses, with heads
high, watching from the gray ridges—all these things Madeline looked
at, indifferently at first, because indifference had become habitual
with her, and then with an interest that flourished up and insensibly
grew as she rode on. It grew until sight of a little ragged Mexican boy
astride the most diminutive burro she had ever seen awakened her to
the truth. She became conscious of faint, unmistakable awakening of
long-dead feelings—enthusiasm and delight. When she realized that, she
breathed deep of the cold, sharp air and experienced an inward joy. And
she divined then, though she did not know why, that henceforth there was
to be something new in her life, something she had never felt before,
something good for her soul in the homely, the commonplace, the natural,
and the wild.

Meanwhile, as Madeline gazed about her and listened to her companions,
the sun rose higher and grew warm and soared and grew hot; the horses
held tirelessly to their steady trot, and mile after mile of rolling
land slipped by.

From the top of a ridge Madeline saw down into a hollow where a few of
the cowboys had stopped and were sitting round a fire, evidently busy at
the noonday meal. Their horses were feeding on the long, gray grass.

“Wal, smell of thet burnin’ greasewood makes my mouth water,” said
Stillwell. “I’m sure hungry. We’ll noon hyar an’ let the hosses rest.
It’s a long pull to the ranch.”

He halted near the camp-fire, and, clambering down, began to unharness
the team. Florence leaped out and turned to help Madeline.

“Walk round a little,” she said. “You must be cramped from sitting still
so long. I’ll get lunch ready.”

Madeline got down, glad to stretch her limbs, and began to stroll about.
She heard Stillwell throw the harness on the ground and slap his horses.
“Roll, you sons-of-guns!” he said. Both horses bent their fore legs,
heaved down on their sides, and tried to roll over. One horse succeeded
on the fourth try, and then heaved up with a satisfied snort and shook
off the dust and gravel. The other one failed to roll over, and gave it
up, half rose to his feet, and then lay down on the other side.

“He’s sure going to feel the ground,” said Florence, smiling at
Madeline. “Miss Hammond, I suppose that prize horse of yours—White
Stockings—would spoil his coat if he were heah to roll in this
greasewood and cactus.”

During lunch-time Madeline observed that she was an object of manifestly
great interest to the three cowboys. She returned the compliment,
and was amused to see that a glance their way caused them painful
embarrassment. They were grown men—one of whom had white hair—yet
they acted like boys caught in the act of stealing a forbidden look at a
pretty girl.

“Cowboys are sure all flirts,” said Florence, as if stating an
uninteresting fact. But Madeline detected a merry twinkle in her clear
eyes. The cowboys heard, and the effect upon them was magical. They
fell to shamed confusion and to hurried useless tasks. Madeline found
it difficult to see where they had been bold, though evidently they were
stricken with conscious guilt. She recalled appraising looks of critical
English eyes, impudent French stares, burning Spanish glances—gantlets
which any American girl had to run abroad. Compared with foreign eyes
the eyes of these cowboys were those of smiling, eager babies.

“Haw, haw!” roared Stillwell. “Florence, you jest hit the nail on the
haid. Cowboys are all plumb flirts. I was wonderin’ why them boys nooned
hyar. This ain’t no place to noon. Ain’t no grazin’ or wood wuth burnin’
or nuthin’. Them boys jest held up, throwed the packs, an’ waited
fer us. It ain’t so surprisin’ fer Booly an’ Ned—they’re young an’
coltish—but Nels there, why, he’s old enough to be the paw of both you
girls. It sure is amazin’ strange.”

A silence ensued. The white-haired cowboy, Nels, fussed aimlessly over
the camp-fire, and then straightened up with a very red face.

“Bill, you’re a dog-gone liar,” he said. “I reckon I won’t stand to be
classed with Booly an’ Ned. There ain’t no cowboy on this range thet’s
more appreciatin’ of the ladies than me, but I shore ain’t ridin’ out
of my way. I reckon I hev enough ridin’ to do. Now, Bill, if you’ve sich
dog-gone good eyes mebbe you seen somethin’ on the way out?”

“Nels, I hevn’t seen nothin’,” he replied, bluntly. His levity
disappeared, and the red wrinkles narrowed round his searching eyes.

“Jest take a squint at these hoss tracks,” said Nels, and he drew
Stillwell a few paces aside and pointed to large hoofprints in the dust.
“I reckon you know the hoss thet made them?”

“Gene Stewart’s roan, or I’m a son-of-a-gun!” exclaimed Stillwell, and
he dropped heavily to his knees and began to scrutinize the tracks. “My
eyes are sure pore; but, Nels, they ain’t fresh.”

“I reckon them tracks was made early yesterday mornin’.”

“Wal, what if they was?” Stillwell looked at his cowboy. “It’s sure as
thet red nose of yourn Gene wasn’t ridin’ the roan.”

“Who’s sayin’ he was? Bill, its more ’n your eyes thet’s gettin’ old.
Jest foller them tracks. Come on.”

Stillwell walked slowly, with his head bent, muttering to himself.
Some thirty paces or more from the camp-fire he stopped short and again
flopped to his knees. Then he crawled about, evidently examining horse
tracks.

“Nels, whoever was straddlin’ Stewart’s hoss met somebody. An’ they
hauled up a bit, but didn’t git down.”

“Tolerable good for you, Bill, thet reasonin’,” replied the cowboy.

Stillwell presently got up and walked swiftly to the left for some rods,
halted, and faced toward the southwest, then retraced his steps. He
looked at the imperturbable cowboy.

“Nels, I don’t like this a little,” he growled. “Them tracks make
straight fer the Peloncillo trail.”

“Shore,” replied Nels.

“Wal?” went on Stillwell, impatiently.

“I reckon you know what hoss made the other tracks?”

“I’m thinkin’ hard, but I ain’t sure.”

“It was Danny Mains’s bronc.”

“How do you know thet?” demanded Stillwell, sharply. “Bill, the left
front foot of thet little hoss always wears a shoe thet sets crooked.
Any of the boys can tell you. I’d know thet track if I was blind.”

Stillwell’s ruddy face clouded and he kicked at a cactus plant.

“Was Danny comin’ or goin’?” he asked.

“I reckon he was hittin’ across country fer the Peloncillo trail. But I
ain’t shore of thet without back-trailin’ him a ways. I was jest waitin’
fer you to come up.”

“Nels, you don’t think the boy’s sloped with thet little hussy, Bonita?”

“Bill, he shore was sweet on Bonita, same as Gene was, an’ Ed Linton
before he got engaged, an’ all the boys. She’s shore chain-lightnin’,
that little black-eyed devil. Danny might hev sloped with her all right.
Danny was held up on the way to town, an’ then in the shame of it he got
drunk. But he’ll shew up soon.”

“Wal, mebbe you an’ the boys are right. I believe you are. Nels, there
ain’t no doubt on earth about who was ridin’ Stewart’s hoss?”

“Thet’s as plain as the hoss’s tracks.”

“Wal, it’s all amazin’ strange. It beats me. I wish the boys would ease
up on drinkin’. I was pretty fond of Danny an’ Gene. I’m afraid Gene’s
done fer, sure. If he crosses the border where he can fight it won’t
take long fer him to get plugged. I guess I’m gettin’ old. I don’t stand
things like I used to.”

“Bill, I reckon I’d better hit the Peloncillo trail. Mebbe I can find
Danny.”

“I reckon you had, Nels,” replied Stillwell. “But don’t take more ’n a
couple of days. We can’t do much on the round-up without you. I’m short
of boys.”

That ended the conversation. Stillwell immediately began to hitch up his
team, and the cowboys went out to fetch their strayed horses. Madeline
had been curiously interested, and she saw that Florence knew it.

“Things happen, Miss Hammond,” she said, soberly, almost sadly.

Madeline thought. And then straightway Florence began brightly to hum a
tune and to busy herself repacking what was left of the lunch. Madeline
conceived a strong liking and respect for this Western girl. She admired
the consideration or delicacy or wisdom—what-ever it was—which kept
Florence from asking her what she knew or thought or felt about the
events that had taken place.

Soon they were once more bowling along the road down a gradual incline,
and then they began to climb a long ridge that had for hours hidden what
lay beyond. That climb was rather tiresome, owing to the sun and the
dust and the restricted view.

When they reached the summit Madeline gave a little gasp of pleasure. A
deep, gray, smooth valley opened below and sloped up on the other side
in little ridges like waves, and these led to the foothills, dotted with
clumps of brush or trees, and beyond rose dark mountains, pine-fringed
and crag-spired.

“Wal, Miss Majesty, now we’re gettin’ somewhere,” said Stillwell,
cracking his whip. “Ten miles across this valley an’ we’ll be in the
foothills where the Apaches used to run.”

“Ten miles!” exclaimed Madeline. “It looks no more than half a mile to
me.”

“Wal, young woman, before you go to ridin’ off alone you want to get
your eyes corrected to Western distance. Now, what’d you call them black
things off there on the slope?”

“Horsemen. No, cattle,” replied Madeline, doubtfully.

“Nope. Jest plain, every-day cactus. An’ over hyar—look down the
valley. Somethin’ of a pretty forest, ain’t thet?” he asked, pointing.

Madeline saw a beautiful forest in the center of the valley toward the
south.

“Wal, Miss Majesty, thet’s jest this deceivin’ air. There’s no forest.
It’s a mirage.”

“Indeed! How beautiful it is!” Madeline strained her gaze on the dark
blot, and it seemed to float in the atmosphere, to have no clearly
defined margins, to waver and shimmer, and then it faded and vanished.

The mountains dropped down again behind the horizon, and presently the
road began once more to slope up. The horses slowed to a walk. There was
a mile of rolling ridge, and then came the foothills. The road ascended
through winding valleys. Trees and brush and rocks began to appear in
the dry ravines. There was no water, yet all along the sandy washes were
indications of floods at some periods. The heat and the dust stifled
Madeline, and she had already become tired. Still she looked with all
her eyes and saw birds, and beautiful quail with crests, and rabbits,
and once she saw a deer.

“Miss Majesty,” said Stillwell, “in the early days the Indians made this
country a bad one to live in. I reckon you never heerd much about them
times. Surely you was hardly born then. I’ll hev to tell you some day
how I fought Comanches in the Panhandle—thet was northern Texas—an’ I
had some mighty hair-raisin’ scares in this country with Apaches.”

He told her about Cochise, chief of the Chiricahua Apaches, the most
savage and bloodthirsty tribe that ever made life a horror for the
pioneer. Cochise befriended the whites once; but he was the victim of
that friendliness, and he became the most implacable of foes. Then,
Geronimo, another Apache chief, had, as late as 1885, gone on the
war-path, and had left a bloody trail down the New Mexico and Arizona
line almost to the border. Lone ranchmen and cowboys had been killed,
and mothers had shot their children and then themselves at the approach
of the Apache. The name Apache curdled the blood of any woman of the
Southwest in those days.

Madeline shuddered, and was glad when the old frontiersman changed
the subject and began to talk of the settling of that country by the
Spaniards, the legends of lost gold-mines handed down to the Mexicans,
and strange stories of heroism and mystery and religion. The Mexicans
had not advanced much in spite of the spread of civilization to the
Southwest. They were still superstitious, and believed the legends of
treasures hidden in the walls of their missions, and that unseen hands
rolled rocks down the gullies upon the heads of prospectors who dared to
hunt for the lost mines of the padres.

“Up in the mountains back of my ranch there’s a lost mine,” said
Stillwell. “Mebbe it’s only a legend. But somehow I believe it’s there.
Other lost mines hev been found. An’ as fer’ the rollin’ stones, I sure
know thet’s true, as any one can find out if he goes trailin’ up the
gulch. Mebbe thet’s only the weatherin’ of the cliffs. It’s a sleepy,
strange country, this Southwest, an’, Miss Majesty, you’re a-goin’ to
love it. You’ll call it ro-mantic, Wal, I reckon ro-mantic is correct. A
feller gets lazy out hyar an’ dreamy, an’ he wants to put off work till
to-morrow. Some folks say it’s a land of manana—a land of to-morrow.
Thet’s the Mexican of it.

“But I like best to think of what a lady said to me onct—an eddicated
lady like you, Miss Majesty. Wal, she said it’s a land where it’s always
afternoon. I liked thet. I always get up sore in the mawnin’s, an’ don’t
feel good till noon. But in the afternoon I get sorta warm an’ like
things. An’ sunset is my time. I reckon I don’t want nothin’ any finer
than sunset from my ranch. You look out over a valley that spreads wide
between Guadalupe Mountains an’ the Chiricahuas, down across the red
Arizona desert clear to the Sierra Madres in Mexico. Two hundred miles,
Miss Majesty! An’ all as clear as print! An’ the sun sets behind all
thet! When my time comes to die I’d like it to be on my porch smokin’ my
pipe an’ facin’ the west.”

So the old cattleman talked on while Madeline listened, and Florence
dozed in her seat, and the sun began to wane, and the horses climbed
steadily. Presently, at the foot of the steep ascent, Stillwell got out
and walked, leading the team. During this long climb fatigue claimed
Madeline, and she drowsily closed her eyes, to find when she opened them
again that the glaring white sky had changed to a steel-blue. The sun
had sunk behind the foothills and the air was growing chilly. Stillwell
had returned to the driving-seat and was chuckling to the horses.
Shadows crept up out of the hollows.

“Wal, Flo,” said Stillwell, “I reckon we’d better hev the rest of thet
there lunch before dark.”

“You didn’t leave much of it,” laughed Florence, as she produced the
basket from under the seat.

While they ate, the short twilight shaded and gloom filled the hollows.
Madeline saw the first star, a faint, winking point of light. The sky
had now changed to a hazy gray. Madeline saw it gradually clear and
darken, to show other faint stars. After that there was perceptible
deepening of the gray and an enlarging of the stars and a brightening of
new-born ones. Night seemed to come on the cold wind. Madeline was glad
to have the robes close around her and to lean against Florence. The
hollows were now black, but the tops of the foothills gleamed pale in
a soft light. The steady tramp of the horses went on, and the creak of
wheels and crunching of gravel. Madeline grew so sleepy that she could
not keep her weary eyelids from falling. There were drowsier spells in
which she lost a feeling of where she was, and these were disturbed by
the jolt of wheels over a rough place. Then came a blank interval, short
or long, which ended in a more violent lurch of the buckboard. Madeline
awoke to find her head on Florence’s shoulder. She sat up laughing and
apologizing for her laziness. Florence assured her they would soon reach
the ranch.

Madeline observed then that the horses were once more trotting. The wind
was colder, the night darker, the foot-hills flatter. And the sky was
now a wonderful deep velvet-blue blazing with millions of stars. Some
of them were magnificent. How strangely white and alive! Again Madeline
felt the insistence of familiar yet baffling associations. These white
stars called strangely to her or haunted her.




V. The Round-Up


It was a crackling and roaring of fire that awakened Madeline next
morning, and the first thing she saw was a huge stone fireplace in which
lay a bundle of blazing sticks. Some one had kindled a fire while she
slept. For a moment the curious sensation of being lost returned to her.
She just dimly remembered reaching the ranch and being taken into a huge
house and a huge, dimly lighted room. And it seemed to her that she had
gone to sleep at once, and had awakened without remembering how she had
gotten to bed.

But she was wide awake in an instant. The bed stood near one end of an
enormous chamber. The adobe walls resembled a hall in an ancient feudal
castle, stone-floored, stone-walled, with great darkened rafters running
across the ceiling. The few articles of furniture were worn out and
sadly dilapidated. Light flooded into the room from two windows on the
right of the fireplace and two on the left, and another large window
near the bedstead. Looking out from where she lay, Madeline saw a dark,
slow up-sweep of mountain. Her eyes returned to the cheery, snapping
fire, and she watched it while gathering courage to get up. The room was
cold. When she did slip her bare feet out upon the stone floor she very
quickly put them back under the warm blankets. And she was still in
bed trying to pluck up her courage when, with a knock on the door and a
cheerful greeting, Florence entered, carrying steaming hot water.

“Good mawnin’, Miss Hammond. Hope you slept well. You sure were tired
last night. I imagine you’ll find this old rancho house as cold as a
barn. It’ll warm up directly. Al’s gone with the boys and Bill. We’re to
ride down on the range after a while when your baggage comes.”

Florence wore a woolen blouse with a scarf round her neck, a
short corduroy divided skirt, and boots; and while she talked she
energetically heaped up the burning wood in the fireplace, and laid
Madeline’s clothes at the foot of the bed, and heated a rug and put that
on the floor by the bedside. And lastly, with a sweet, direct smile, she
said:

“Al told me—and I sure saw myself—that you weren’t used to being
without your maid. Will you let me help you?”

“Thank you, I am going to be my own maid for a while. I expect I do
appear a very helpless individual, but really I do not feel so. Perhaps
I have had just a little too much waiting on.”

“All right. Breakfast will be ready soon, and after that we’ll look
about the place.”

Madeline was charmed with the old Spanish house, and the more she saw of
it the more she thought what a delightful home it could be made. All
the doors opened into a courtyard, or patio, as Florence called it. The
house was low, in the shape of a rectangle, and so immense in size that
Madeline wondered if it had been a Spanish barracks. Many of the rooms
were dark, without windows, and they were empty. Others were full of
ranchers’ implements and sacks of grain and bales of hay. Florence
called these last alfalfa. The house itself appeared strong and well
preserved, and it was very picturesque. But in the living-rooms were
only the barest necessities, and these were worn out and comfortless.

However, when Madeline went outdoors she forgot the cheerless, bare
interior. Florence led the way out on a porch and waved a hand at a
vast, colored void. “That’s what Bill likes,” she said.

At first Madeline could not tell what was sky and what was land. The
immensity of the scene stunned her faculties of conception. She sat down
in one of the old rocking-chairs and looked and looked, and knew that
she was not grasping the reality of what stretched wondrously before
her.

“We’re up at the edge of the foothills,” Florence said. “You remember we
rode around the northern end of the mountain range? Well, that’s behind
us now, and you look down across the line into Arizona and Mexico. That
long slope of gray is the head of the San Bernardino Valley. Straight
across you see the black Chiricahua Mountains, and away down to the
south the Guadalupe Mountains. That awful red gulf between is the
desert, and far, far beyond the dim, blue peaks are the Sierra Madres in
Mexico.”

Madeline listened and gazed with straining eyes, and wondered if this
was only a stupendous mirage, and why it seemed so different from all
else that she had seen, and so endless, so baffling, so grand.

“It’ll sure take you a little while to get used to being up high and
seeing so much,” explained Florence. “That’s the secret—we’re up high,
the air is clear, and there’s the whole bare world beneath us. Don’t
it somehow rest you? Well, it will. Now see those specks in the valley.
They are stations, little towns. The railroad goes down that way. The
largest speck is Chiricahua. It’s over forty miles by trail. Here round
to the north you can see Don Carlos’s rancho. He’s fifteen miles off,
and I sure wish he were a thousand. That little green square about
half-way between here and Don Carlos—that’s Al’s ranch. Just below us
are the adobe houses of the Mexicans. There’s a church, too. And here to
the left you see Stillwell’s corrals and bunk-houses and his stables all
falling to pieces. The ranch has gone to ruin. All the ranches are going
to ruin. But most of them are little one-horse affairs. And here—see
that cloud of dust down in the valley? It’s the round-up. The boys are
there, and the cattle. Wait, I’ll get the glasses.”

By their aid Madeline saw in the foreground a great, dense herd of
cattle with dark, thick streams and dotted lines of cattle leading in
every direction. She saw streaks and clouds of dust, running horses, and
a band of horses grazing; and she descried horsemen standing still like
sentinels, and others in action.

“The round-up! I want to know all about it—to see it,” declared
Madeline. “Please tell me what it means, what it’s for, and then take me
down there.”

“It’s sure a sight, Miss Hammond. I’ll be glad to take you down, but I
fancy you’ll not want to go close. Few Eastern people who regularly eat
their choice cuts of roast beef and porterhouse have any idea of the
open range and the struggle cattle have to live and the hard life of
cowboys. It’ll sure open your eyes, Miss Hammond. I’m glad you care to
know. Your brother would have made a big success in this cattle business
if it hadn’t been for crooked work by rival ranchers. He’ll make it yet,
in spite of them.”

“Indeed he shall,” replied Madeline. “But tell me, please, all about the
round-up.”

“Well, in the first place, every cattleman has to have a brand to
identify his stock. Without it no cattleman, nor half a hundred cowboys,
if he had so many, could ever recognize all the cattle in a big herd.
There are no fences on our ranges. They are all open to everybody. Some
day I hope we’ll be rich enough to fence a range. The different herds
graze together. Every calf has to be caught, if possible, and branded
with the mark of its mother. That’s no easy job. A maverick is an
unbranded calf that has been weaned and shifts for itself. The maverick
then belongs to the man who finds it and brands it. These little calves
that lose their mothers sure have a cruel time of it. Many of them die.
Then the coyotes and wolves and lions prey on them. Every year we have
two big round-ups, but the boys do some branding all the year. A calf
should be branded as soon as it’s found. This is a safeguard against
cattle-thieves. We don’t have the rustling of herds and bunches of
cattle like we used to. But there’s always the calf-thief, and always
will be as long as there’s cattle-raising. The thieves have a good many
cunning tricks. They kill the calf’s mother or slit the calf’s tongue
so it can’t suck and so loses its mother. They steal and hide a calf
and watch it till it’s big enough to fare for itself, and then brand it.
They make imperfect brands and finish them at a later time.

“We have our big round-up in the fall, when there’s plenty of grass and
water, and all the riding-stock as well as the cattle are in fine shape.
The cattlemen in the valley meet with their cowboys and drive in all the
cattle they can find. Then they brand and cut out each man’s herd
and drive it toward home. Then they go on up or down the valley, make
another camp, and drive in more cattle. It takes weeks. There are
so many Greasers with little bands of stock, and they are crafty and
greedy. Bill says he knows Greaser cowboys, vaqueros, who never owned
a steer or a cow, and now they’ve got growing herds. The same might be
said of more than one white cowboy. But there’s not as much of that as
there used to be.”

“And the horses? I want to know about them,” said Madeline, when
Florence paused.

“Oh, the cow-ponies! Well, they sure are interesting. Broncos, the boys
call them. Wild! they’re wilder than the steers they have to chase.
Bill’s got broncos heah that never have been broken and never will be.
And not every boy can ride them, either. The vaqueros have the finest
horses. Don Carlos has a black that I’d give anything to own. And he
has other fine stock. Gene Stewart’s big roan is a Mexican horse, the
swiftest and proudest I ever saw. I was up on him once and—oh, he can
run! He likes a woman, too, and that’s sure something I want in a horse.
I heard Al and Bill talking at breakfast about a horse for you. They
were wrangling. Bill wanted you to have one, and Al another. It was
funny to hear them. Finally they left the choice to me, until the
round-up is over. Then I suppose every cowboy on the range will offer
you his best mount. Come, let’s go out to the corrals and look over the
few horses left.”

For Madeline the morning hours flew by, with a goodly part of the time
spent on the porch gazing out over that ever-changing vista. At noon
a teamster drove up with her trunks. Then while Florence helped the
Mexican woman get lunch Madeline unpacked part of her effects and got
out things for which she would have immediate need. After lunch she
changed her dress for a riding-habit and, going outside, found Florence
waiting with the horses.

The Western girl’s clear eyes seemed to take stock of Madeline’s
appearance in one swift, inquisitive glance and then shone with
pleasure.

“You sure look—you’re a picture, Miss Hammond. That riding-outfit is
a new one. What it ’d look like on me or another woman I can’t imagine,
but on you it’s—it’s stunning. Bill won’t let you go within a mile of
the cowboys. If they see you that’ll be the finish of the round-up.”

While they rode down the slope Florence talked about the open ranges of
New Mexico and Arizona.

“Water is scarce,” she said. “If Bill could afford to pipe water down
from the mountains he’d have the finest ranch in the valley.”

She went on to tell that the climate was mild in winter and hot in
summer. Warm, sunshiny days prevailed nearly all the year round. Some
summers it rained, and occasionally there would be a dry year, the
dreaded ano seco of the Mexicans. Rain was always expected and prayed
for in the midsummer months, and when it came the grama-grass sprang
up, making the valleys green from mountain to mountain. The intersecting
valleys, ranging between the long slope of foothills, afforded the best
pasture for cattle, and these were jealously sought by the Mexicans
who had only small herds to look after. Stillwell’s cowboys were always
chasing these vaqueros off land that belonged to Stillwell. He owned
twenty thousand acres of unfenced land adjoining the open range. Don
Carlos possessed more acreage than that, and his cattle were always
mingling with Stillwell’s. And in turn Don Carlos’s vaqueros were always
chasing Stillwell’s cattle away from the Mexican’s watering-place. Bad
feeling had been manifested for years, and now relations were strained
to the breaking-point.

As Madeline rode along she made good use of her eyes. The soil was
sandy and porous, and she understood why the rain and water from the
few springs disappeared so quickly. At a little distance the grama-grass
appeared thick, but near at hand it was seen to be sparse. Bunches of
greasewood and cactus plants were interspersed here and there in
the grass. What surprised Madeline was the fact that, though she and
Florence had seemed to be riding quite awhile, they had apparently not
drawn any closer to the round-up. The slope of the valley was noticeable
only after some miles had been traversed. Looking forward, Madeline
imagined the valley only a few miles wide. She would have been sure she
could walk her horse across it in an hour. Yet that black, bold range
of Chiricahua Mountains was distant a long day’s journey for even a
hard-riding cowboy. It was only by looking back that Madeline could
grasp the true relation of things; she could not be deceived by distance
she had covered.

Gradually the black dots enlarged and assumed shape of cattle and horses
moving round a great dusty patch. In another half-hour Madeline rode
behind Florence to the outskirts of the scene of action. They drew rein
near a huge wagon in the neighborhood of which were more than a hundred
horses grazing and whistling and trotting about and lifting heads to
watch the new-comers. Four cowboys stood mounted guard over this drove
of horses. Perhaps a quarter of a mile farther out was a dusty melee.
A roar of tramping hoofs filled Madeline’s ears. The lines of marching
cattle had merged into a great, moving herd half obscured by dust.

“I can make little of what is going on,” said Madeline. “I want to go
closer.”

They trotted across half the intervening distance, and when Florence
halted again Madeline was still not satisfied and asked to be taken
nearer. This time, before they reined in again, Al Hammond saw them and
wheeled his horse in their direction. He yelled something which Madeline
did not understand, and then halted them.

“Close enough,” he called; and in the din his voice was not very clear.
“It’s not safe. Wild steers! I’m glad you came, girls. Majesty, what do
you think of that bunch of cattle?”

Madeline could scarcely reply what she thought, for the noise and dust
and ceaseless action confused her.

“They’re milling, Al,” said Florence.

“We just rounded them up. They’re milling, and that’s bad. The vaqueros
are hard drivers. They beat us all hollow, and we drove some, too.” He
was wet with sweat, black with dust, and out of breath. “I’m off now.
Flo, my sister will have enough of this in about two minutes. Take her
back to the wagon. I’ll tell Bill you’re here, and run in whenever I get
a minute.”

The bawling and bellowing, the crackling of horns and pounding of hoofs,
the dusty whirl of cattle, and the flying cowboys disconcerted Madeline
and frightened her a little; but she was intensely interested and meant
to stay there until she saw for herself what that strife of sound and
action meant. When she tried to take in the whole scene she did not make
out anything clearly and she determined to see it little by little.

“Will you stay longer?” asked Florence; and, receiving an affirmative
reply, she warned Madeline: “If a runaway steer or angry cow comes this
way let your horse go. He’ll get out of the way.”

That lent the situation excitement, and Madeline became absorbed. The
great mass of cattle seemed to be eddying like a whirlpool, and from
that Madeline understood the significance of the range word “milling.”
 But when Madeline looked at one end of the herd she saw cattle standing
still, facing outward, and calves cringing close in fear. The motion
of the cattle slowed from the inside of the herd to the outside and
gradually ceased. The roar and tramp of hoofs and crack of horns and
thump of heads also ceased in degree, but the bawling and bellowing
continued. While she watched, the herd spread, grew less dense, and
stragglers appeared to be about to bolt through the line of mounted
cowboys.

From that moment so many things happened, and so swiftly, that Madeline
could not see a tenth of what was going on within eyesight. It seemed
horsemen darted into the herd and drove out cattle. Madeline pinned her
gaze on one cowboy who rode a white horse and was chasing a steer. He
whirled a lasso around his head and threw it; the rope streaked out
and the loop caught the leg of the steer. The white horse stopped with
wonderful suddenness, and the steer slid in the dust. Quick as a flash
the cowboy was out of the saddle, and, grasping the legs of the steer
before it could rise, he tied them with a rope. It had all been done
almost as quickly as thought. Another man came with what Madeline
divined was a branding-iron. He applied it to the flank of the steer.
Then it seemed the steer was up with a jump, wildly looking for some way
to run, and the cowboy was circling his lasso. Madeline saw fires in the
background, with a man in charge, evidently heating the irons. Then this
same cowboy roped a heifer which bawled lustily when the hot iron seared
its hide. Madeline saw the smoke rising from the touch of the iron,
and the sight made her shrink and want to turn away, but she resolutely
fought her sensitiveness. She had never been able to bear the sight of
any animal suffering. The rough work in men’s lives was as a sealed book
to her; and now, for some reason beyond her knowledge, she wanted to
see and hear and learn some of the every-day duties that made up those
lives.

“Look, Miss Hammond, there’s Don Carlos!” said Florence. “Look at that
black horse!”

Madeleine saw a dark-faced Mexican riding by. He was too far away for
her to distinguish his features, but he reminded her of an Italian
brigand. He bestrode a magnificent horse.

Stillwell rode up to the girls then and greeted them in his big voice.

“Right in the thick of it, hey? Wal, thet’s sure fine. I’m glad to see,
Miss Majesty, thet you ain’t afraid of a little dust or smell of burnin’
hide an’ hair.”

“Couldn’t you brand the calves without hurting them?” asked Madeline.

“Haw, haw! Why, they ain’t hurt none. They jest bawl for their mammas.
Sometimes, though, we hev to hurt one jest to find which is his mamma.”

“I want to know how you tell what brand to put on those calves that are
separated from their mothers,” asked Madeline.

“Thet’s decided by the round-up bosses. I’ve one boss an’ Don Carlos
has one. They decide everything, an’ they hev to be obyed. There’s Nick
Steele, my boss. Watch him! He’s ridin’ a bay in among the cattle there.
He orders the calves an’ steers to be cut out. Then the cowboys do the
cuttin’ out an’ the brandin’. We try to divide up the mavericks as near
as possible.”

At this juncture Madeline’s brother joined the group, evidently in
search of Stillwell.

“Bill, Nels just rode in,” he said.

“Good! We sure need him. Any news of Danny Mains?”

“No. Nels said he lost the trail when he got on hard ground.”

“Wal, wal. Say, Al, your sister is sure takin’ to the round-up. An’ the
boys are gettin’ wise. See thet sun-of-a-gun Ambrose cuttin’ capers
all around. He’ll sure do his prettiest. Ambrose is a ladies’ man, he
thinks.”

The two men and Florence joined in a little pleasant teasing of
Madeline, and drew her attention to what appeared to be really
unnecessary feats of horsemanship all made in her vicinity. The cowboys
evinced their interest in covert glances while recoiling a lasso or
while passing to and fro. It was all too serious for Madeline to be
amused at that moment. She did not care to talk. She sat her horse and
watched.

The lithe, dark vaqueros fascinated her. They were here, there,
everywhere, with lariats flying, horses plunging back, jerking calves
and yearlings to the grass. They were cruel to their mounts, cruel to
their cattle. Madeline winced as the great silver rowels of the spurs
went plowing into the flanks of their horses. She saw these spurs
stained with blood, choked with hair. She saw the vaqueros break the
legs of calves and let them lie till a white cowboy came along and shot
them. Calves were jerked down and dragged many yards; steers were pulled
by one leg. These vaqueros were the most superb horsemen Madeline had
ever seen, and she had seen the Cossacks and Tatars of the Russian
steppes. They were swift, graceful, daring; they never failed to catch
a running steer, and the lassoes always went true. What sharp dashes
the horses made, and wheelings here and there, and sudden stops, and how
they braced themselves to withstand the shock!

The cowboys, likewise, showed wonderful horsemanship, and, reckless as
they were, Madeline imagined she saw consideration for steed and cattle
that was wanting in the vaqueros. They changed mounts oftener than the
Mexican riders, and the horses they unsaddled for fresh ones were not so
spent, so wet, so covered with lather. It was only after an hour or more
of observation that Madeline began to realize the exceedingly toilsome
and dangerous work cowboys had to perform. There was little or no rest
for them. They were continually among wild and vicious and wide-horned
steers. In many instances they owed their lives to their horses. The
danger came mostly when the cowboy leaped off to tie and brand a calf he
had thrown. Some of the cows charged with lowered, twisting horns. Time
and again Madeline’s heart leaped to her throat for fear a man would be
gored. One cowboy roped a calf that bawled loudly. Its mother dashed in
and just missed the kneeling cowboy as he rolled over. Then he had to
run, and he could not run very fast. He was bow-legged and appeared
awkward. Madeline saw another cowboy thrown and nearly run over by a
plunging steer. His horse bolted as if it intended to leave the range.
Then close by Madeline a big steer went down at the end of a lasso.
The cowboy who had thrown it nimbly jumped down, and at that moment his
horse began to rear and prance and suddenly to lower his head close to
the ground and kick high. He ran round in a circle, the fallen steer on
the taut lasso acting as a pivot. The cowboy loosed the rope from the
steer, and then was dragged about on the grass. It was almost frightful
for Madeline to see that cowboy go at his horse. But she recognized the
mastery and skill. Then two horses came into collision on the run. One
horse went down; the rider of the other was unseated and was kicked
before he could get up. This fellow limped to his mount and struck at
him, while the horse showed his teeth in a vicious attempt to bite.

All the while this ceaseless activity was going on there was a strange
uproar—bawl and bellow, the shock of heavy bodies meeting and falling,
the shrill jabbering of the vaqueros, and the shouts and banterings of
the cowboys. They took sharp orders and replied in jest. They went about
this stern toil as if it were a game to be played in good humor. One
sang a rollicking song, another whistled, another smoked a cigarette.
The sun was hot, and they, like their horses, were dripping with sweat.
The characteristic red faces had taken on so much dust that cowboys
could not be distinguished from vaqueros except by the difference in
dress. Blood was not wanting on tireless hands. The air was thick,
oppressive, rank with the smell of cattle and of burning hide.

Madeline began to sicken. She choked with dust, was almost stifled
by the odor. But that made her all the more determined to stay there.
Florence urged her to come away, or at least move back out of the
worst of it. Stillwell seconded Florence. Madeline, however, smilingly
refused. Then her brother said: “Here, this is making you sick. You’re
pale.” And she replied that she intended to stay until the day’s work
ended. Al gave her a strange look, and made no more comment. The kindly
Stillwell then began to talk.

“Miss Majesty, you’re seein’ the life of the cattleman an’ cowboy—the
real thing—same as it was in the early days. The ranchers in Texas an’
some in Arizona hev took on style, new-fangled idees thet are good,
an’ I wish we could follow them. But we’ve got to stick to the
old-fashioned, open-range round-up. It looks cruel to you, I can see
thet. Wal, mebbe so, mebbe so. Them Greasers are cruel, thet’s certain.
Fer thet matter, I never seen a Greaser who wasn’t cruel. But I reckon
all the strenuous work you’ve seen to-day ain’t any tougher than most
any day of a cowboy’s life. Long hours on hossback, poor grub, sleepin’
on the ground, lonesome watches, dust an’ sun an’ wind an’ thirst, day
in an’ day out all the year round—thet’s what a cowboy has.

“Look at Nels there. See, what little hair he has is snow-white. He’s
red an’ thin an’ hard—burned up. You notice thet hump of his shoulders.
An’ his hands, when he gets close—jest take a peep at his hands. Nels
can’t pick up a pin. He can’t hardly button his shirt or untie a knot in
his rope. He looks sixty years—an old man. Wal, Nels ‘ain’t seen forty.
He’s a young man, but he’s seen a lifetime fer every year. Miss Majesty,
it was Arizona thet made Nels what he is, the Arizona desert an’ the
work of a cowman. He’s seen ridin’ at Canyon Diablo an’ the Verdi an’
Tonto Basin. He knows every mile of Aravaipa Valley an’ the Pinaleno
country. He’s ranged from Tombstone to Douglas. He hed shot bad white
men an’ bad Greasers before he was twenty-one. He’s seen some life, Nels
has. My sixty years ain’t nothin’; my early days in the Staked Plains
an’ on the border with Apaches ain’t nothin’ to what Nels has seen an’
lived through. He’s just come to be part of the desert; you might say
he’s stone an’ fire an’ silence an’ cactus an’ force. He’s a man, Miss
Majesty, a wonderful man. Rough he’ll seem to you. Wal, I’ll show you
pieces of quartz from the mountains back of my ranch an’ they’re thet
rough they’d cut your hands. But there’s pure gold in them. An’ so it is
with Nels an’ many of these cowboys.

“An’ there’s Price—Monty Price. Monty stands fer Montana, where he
hails from. Take a good look at him, Miss Majesty. He’s been hurt, I
reckon. Thet accounts fer him bein’ without hoss or rope; an’ thet limp.
Wal, he’s been ripped a little. It’s sure rare an seldom thet a cowboy
gets foul of one of them thousands of sharp horns; but it does happen.”

Madeline saw a very short, wizened little man, ludicrously bow-legged,
with a face the color and hardness of a burned-out cinder. He was
hobbling by toward the wagon, and one of his short, crooked legs
dragged.

“Not much to look at, is he?” went on Stillwell. “Wal; I know it’s
natural thet we’re all best pleased by good looks in any one, even a
man. It hedn’t ought to be thet way. Monty Price looks like hell. But
appearances are sure deceivin’. Monty saw years of ridin’ along the
Missouri bottoms, the big prairies, where there’s high grass an’
sometimes fires. In Montana they have blizzards that freeze cattle
standin’ in their tracks. An’ hosses freeze to death. They tell me thet
a drivin’ sleet in the face with the mercury forty below is somethin’ to
ride against. You can’t get Monty to say much about cold. All you hev
to do is to watch him, how he hunts the sun. It never gets too hot fer
Monty. Wal, I reckon he was a little more prepossessin’ once. The story
thet come to us about Monty is this: He got caught out in a prairie fire
an’ could hev saved himself easy, but there was a lone ranch right in
the line of fire, an’ Monty knowed the rancher was away, an’ his wife
an’ baby was home. He knowed, too, the way the wind was, thet the
ranch-house would burn. It was a long chance he was takin’. But he went
over, put the woman up behind him, wrapped the baby an’ his hoss’s haid
in a wet blanket, an’ rode away. Thet was sure some ride, I’ve heerd.
But the fire ketched Monty at the last. The woman fell an’ was lost,
an’ then his hoss. An’ Monty ran an’ walked an’ crawled through the fire
with thet baby, an’ he saved it. Monty was never much good as a cowboy
after thet. He couldn’t hold no jobs. Wal, he’ll have one with me as
long as I have a steer left.”




VI. A Gift and A Purchase


For a week the scene of the round-up lay within riding-distance of
the ranch-house, and Madeline passed most of this time in the saddle,
watching the strenuous labors of the vaqueros and cowboys. She
overestimated her strength, and more than once had to be lifted from her
horse. Stillwell’s pleasure in her attendance gave place to concern. He
tried to persuade her to stay away from the round-up, and Florence grew
even more solicitous.

Madeline, however, was not moved by their entreaties. She grasped only
dimly the truth of what it was she was learning—something infinitely
more than the rounding up of cattle by cowboys, and she was loath to
lose an hour of her opportunity.

Her brother looked out for her as much as his duties permitted; but for
several days he never once mentioned her growing fatigue and the strain
of excitement, or suggested that she had better go back to the house
with Florence. Many times she felt the drawing power of his keen blue
eyes on her face. And at these moments she sensed more than brotherly
regard. He was watching her, studying her, weighing her, and the
conviction was vaguely disturbing. It was disquieting for Madeline to
think that Alfred might have guessed her trouble. From time to time
he brought cowboys to her and introduced them, and laughed and jested,
trying to make the ordeal less embarrassing for these men so little used
to women.

Before the week was out, however, Alfred found occasion to tell her that
it would be wiser for her to let the round-up go on without gracing it
further with her presence. He said it laughingly; nevertheless, he was
serious. And when Madeline turned to him in surprise he said, bluntly:

“I don’t like the way Don Carlos follows you around. Bill’s afraid
that Nels or Ambrose or one of the cowboys will take a fall out of the
Mexican. They’re itching for the chance. Of course, dear, it’s absurd to
you, but it’s true.”

Absurd it certainly was, yet it served to show Madeline how intensely
occupied she had been with her own feelings, roused by the tumult and
toil of the round-up. She recalled that Don Carlos had been presented to
her, and that she had not liked his dark, striking face with its bold,
prominent, glittering eyes and sinister lines; and she had not liked his
suave, sweet, insinuating voice or his subtle manner, with its slow
bows and gestures. She had thought he looked handsome and dashing on
the magnificent black horse. However, now that Alfred’s words made her
think, she recalled that wherever she had been in the field the noble
horse, with his silver-mounted saddle and his dark rider, had been
always in her vicinity.

“Don Carlos has been after Florence for a long time,” said Alfred. “He’s
not a young man by any means. He’s fifty, Bill says; but you can seldom
tell a Mexican’s age from his looks. Don Carlos is well educated and a
man we know very little about. Mexicans of his stamp don’t regard women
as we white men do. Now, my dear, beautiful sister from New York, I
haven’t much use for Don Carlos; but I don’t want Nels or Ambrose to
make a wild throw with a rope and pull the Don off his horse. So you had
better ride up to the house and stay there.”

“Alfred, you are joking, teasing me,” said Madeline. “Indeed not,”
 replied Alfred. “How about it, Flo?” Florence replied that the cowboys
would upon the slightest provocation treat Don Carlos with less ceremony
and gentleness than a roped steer. Old Bill Stillwell came up to be
importuned by Alfred regarding the conduct of cowboys on occasion, and
he not only corroborated the assertion, but added emphasis and evidence
of his own.

“An’, Miss Majesty,” he concluded, “I reckon if Gene Stewart was ridin’
fer me, thet grinnin’ Greaser would hev hed a bump in the dust before
now.”

Madeline had been wavering between sobriety and laughter until
Stillwell’s mention of his ideal of cowboy chivalry decided in favor of
the laughter.

“I am not convinced, but I surrender,” she said. “You have only some
occult motive for driving me away. I am sure that handsome Don Carlos
is being unjustly suspected. But as I have seen a little of cowboys’
singular imagination and gallantry, I am rather inclined to fear their
possibilities. So good-by.”

Then she rode with Florence up the long, gray slope to the ranch-house.
That night she suffered from excessive weariness, which she attributed
more to the strange working of her mind than to riding and sitting her
horse. Morning, however, found her in no disposition to rest. It was
not activity that she craved, or excitement, or pleasure. An unerring
instinct, rising dear from the thronging sensations of the last few
days, told her that she had missed something in life. It could not have
been love, for she loved brother, sister, parents, friends; it could not
have been consideration for the poor, the unfortunate, the hapless; she
had expressed her sympathy for these by giving freely; it could not have
been pleasure, culture, travel, society, wealth, position, fame, for
these had been hers all her life. Whatever this something was, she
had baffling intimations of it, hopes that faded on the verge of
realizations, haunting promises that were unfulfilled. Whatever it was,
it had remained hidden and unknown at home, and here in the West it
began to allure and drive her to discovery. Therefore she could not
rest; she wanted to go and see; she was no longer chasing phantoms; it
was a hunt for treasure that held aloof, as intangible as the substance
of dreams.

That morning she spoke a desire to visit the Mexican quarters lying at
the base of the foothills. Florence protested that this was no place to
take Madeline. But Madeline insisted, and it required only a few words
and a persuading smile to win Florence over.

From the porch the cluster of adobe houses added a picturesque touch of
color and contrast to the waste of gray valley. Near at hand they proved
the enchantment lent by distance. They were old, crumbling, broken down,
squalid. A few goats climbed around upon them; a few mangy dogs barked
announcement of visitors; and then a troop of half-naked, dirty,
ragged children ran out. They were very shy, and at first retreated in
affright. But kind words and smiles gained their confidence, and then
they followed in a body, gathering a quota of new children at each
house. Madeline at once conceived the idea of doing something to better
the condition of these poor Mexicans, and with this in mind she decided
to have a look indoors. She fancied she might have been an apparition,
judging from the effect her presence had upon the first woman she
encountered. While Florence exercised what little Spanish she had
command of, trying to get the women to talk, Madeline looked about the
miserable little rooms. And there grew upon her a feeling of sickness,
which increased as she passed from one house to another. She had not
believed such squalor could exist anywhere in America. The huts reeked
with filth; vermin crawled over the dirt floors. There was absolutely no
evidence of water, and she believed what Florence told her—that these
people never bathed. There was little evidence of labor. Idle men and
women smoking cigarettes lolled about, some silent, others jabbering.
They did not resent the visit of the American women, nor did they show
hospitality. They appeared stupid. Disease was rampant in these houses;
when the doors were shut there was no ventilation, and even with the
doors open Madeline felt choked and stifled. A powerful penetrating odor
pervaded the rooms that were less stifling than others, and this odor
Florence explained came from a liquor the Mexicans distilled from
a cactus plant. Here drunkenness was manifest, a terrible inert
drunkenness that made its victims deathlike.

Madeline could not extend her visit to the little mission-house. She saw
a padre, a starved, sad-faced man who, she instinctively felt, was
good. She managed to mount her horse and ride up to the house; but, once
there, she weakened and Florence had almost to carry her in-doors. She
fought off a faintness, only to succumb to it when alone in her room.
Still, she did not entirely lose consciousness, and soon recovered to
the extent that she did not require assistance.

Upon the morning after the end of the round-up, when she went out on
the porch, her brother and Stillwell appeared to be arguing about the
identity of a horse.

“Wal, I reckon it’s my old roan,” said Stillwell, shading his eyes with
his hand.

“Bill, if that isn’t Stewart’s horse my eyes are going back on me,”
 replied Al. “It’s not the color or shape—the distance is too far to
judge by that. It’s the motion—the swing.”

“Al, mebbe you’re right. But they ain’t no rider up on thet hoss. Flo,
fetch my glass.”

Florence went into the house, while Madeline tried to discover the
object of attention. Presently far up the gray hollow along a foothill
she saw dust, and then the dark, moving figure of a horse. She was
watching when Florence returned with the glass. Bill took a long look,
adjusted the glasses carefully, and tried again.

“Wal, I hate to admit my eyes are gettin’ pore. But I guess I’ll hev to.
Thet’s Gene Stewart’s hoss, saddled, an’ comin’ at a fast clip without
a rider. It’s amazin’ strange, an’ some in keepin’ with other things
concernin’ Gene.”

“Give me the glass,” said Al. “Yes, I was right. Bill, the horse is not
frightened. He’s coming steadily; he’s got something on his mind.”

“Thet’s a trained hoss, Al. He has more sense than some men I know. Take
a look with the glasses up the hollow. See anybody?”

“No.”

“Swing up over the foothills—where the trail leads. Higher—along thet
ridge where the rocks begin. See anybody?”

“By Jove! Bill—two horses! But I can’t make out much for dust. They are
climbing fast. One horse gone among the rocks. There—the other’s gone.
What do you make of that?”

“Wal, I can’t make no more ’n you. But I’ll bet we know somethin’ soon,
fer Gene’s hoss is comin’ faster as he nears the ranch.”

The wide hollow sloping up into the foothills lay open to unobstructed
view, and less than half a mile distant Madeline saw the riderless
horse coming along the white trail at a rapid canter. She watched him,
recalling the circumstances under which she had first seen him, and then
his wild flight through the dimly lighted streets of El Cajon out into
the black night. She thrilled again and believed she would never think
of that starry night’s adventure without a thrill. She watched the horse
and felt more than curiosity. A shrill, piercing whistle pealed in.

“Wal, he’s seen us, thet’s sure,” said Bill.

The horse neared the corrals, disappeared into a lane, and then,
breaking his gait again, thundered into the inclosure and pounded to a
halt some twenty yards from where Stillwell waited for him.

One look at him at close range in the clear light of day was enough
for Madeline to award him a blue ribbon over all horses, even her
prize-winner, White Stockings. The cowboy’s great steed was no lithe,
slender-bodied mustang. He was a charger, almost tremendous of build,
with a black coat faintly mottled in gray, and it shone like polished
glass in the sun. Evidently he had been carefully dressed down for this
occasion, for there was no dust on him, nor a kink in his beautiful
mane, nor a mark on his glossy hide.

“Come hyar, you son-of-a-gun,” said Stillwell.

The horse dropped his head, snorted, and came obediently up. He was
neither shy nor wild. He poked a friendly nose at Stillwell, and then
looked at Al and the women. Unhooking the stirrups from the pommel,
Stillwell let them fall and began to search the saddle for something
which he evidently expected to find. Presently from somewhere among the
trappings he produced a folded bit of paper, and after scrutinizing it
handed it to Al.

“Addressed to you; an’ I’ll bet you two bits I know what’s in it,” he
said.

Alfred unfolded the letter, read it, and then looked at Stillwell.

“Bill, you’re a pretty good guesser. Gene’s made for the border. He sent
the horse by somebody, no names mentioned, and wants my sister to have
him if she will accept.”

“Any mention of Danny Mains?” asked the rancher.

“Not a word.”

“Thet’s bad. Gene’d know about Danny if anybody did. But he’s a
close-mouthed cuss. So he’s sure hittin’ for Mexico. Wonder if Danny’s
goin’, too? Wal, there’s two of the best cowmen I ever seen gone to hell
an’ I’m sorry.”

With that he bowed his head and, grumbling to himself, went into the
house. Alfred lifted the reins over the head of the horse and, leading
him to Madeline, slipped the knot over her arm and placed the letter in
her hand.

“Majesty, I’d accept the horse,” he said. “Stewart is only a cowboy now,
and as tough as any I’ve known. But he comes of a good family. He was a
college man and a gentleman once. He went to the bad out here, like so
many fellows go, like I nearly did. Then he had told me about his sister
and mother. He cared a good deal for them. I think he has been a source
of unhappiness to them. It was mostly when he was reminded of this in
some way that he’d get drunk. I have always stuck to him, and I would do
so yet if I had the chance. You can see Bill is heartbroken about Danny
Mains and Stewart. I think he rather hoped to get good news. There’s
not much chance of them coming back now, at least not in the case of
Stewart. This giving up his horse means he’s going to join the rebel
forces across the border. What wouldn’t I give to see that cowboy break
loose on a bunch of Greasers! Oh, damn the luck! I beg your pardon,
Majesty. But I’m upset, too. I’m sorry about Stewart. I liked him
pretty well before he thrashed that coyote of a sheriff, Pat Hawe, and
afterward I guess I liked him more. You read the letter, sister, and
accept the horse.”

In silence Madeline bent her gaze from her brother’s face to the letter:

Friend Al,—I’m sending my horse down to you because I’m going away and
haven’t the nerve to take him where he’d get hurt or fall into strange
hands.

If you think it’s all right, why, give him to your sister with my
respects. But if you don’t like the idea, Al, or if she won’t have him,
then he’s for you. I’m not forgetting your kindness to me, even if I
never showed it. And, Al, my horse has never felt a quirt or a spur, and
I’d like to think you’d never hurt him. I’m hoping your sister will take
him. She’ll be good to him, and she can afford to take care of him. And,
while I’m waiting to be plugged by a Greaser bullet, if I happen to have
a picture in mind of how she’ll look upon my horse, why, man, it’s not
going to make any difference to you. She needn’t ever know it. Between
you and me, Al, don’t let her or Flo ride alone over Don Carlos’s way.
If I had time I could tell you something about that slick Greaser. And
tell your sister, if there’s ever any reason for her to run away from
anybody when she’s up on that roan, just let her lean over and yell in
his ear. She’ll find herself riding the wind. So long.

Gene Stewart.


Madeline thoughtfully folded the letter and murmured, “How he must love
his horse!”

“Well, I should say so,” replied Alfred. “Flo will tell you. She’s the
only person Gene ever let ride that horse, unless, as Bill thinks, the
little Mexican girl, Bonita, rode him out of El Cajon the other night.
Well, sister mine, how about it—will you accept the horse?”

“Assuredly. And very happy indeed am I to get him. Al, you said, I
think, that Mr. Stewart named him after me—saw my nickname in the New
York paper?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I will not change his name. But, Al, how shall I ever climb up
on him? He’s taller than I am. What a giant of a horse! Oh, look at
him—he’s nosing my hand. I really believe he understood what I said.
Al, did you ever see such a splendid head and such beautiful eyes? They
are so large and dark and soft—and human. Oh, I am a fickle woman, for
I am forgetting White Stockings.”

“I’ll gamble he’ll make you forget any other horse,” said Alfred.
“You’ll have to get on him from the porch.”

As Madeline was not dressed for the saddle, she did not attempt to
mount.

“Come, Majesty—how strange that sounds!—we must get acquainted. You
have now a new owner, a very severe young woman who will demand loyalty
from you and obedience, and some day, after a decent period, she will
expect love.”

Madeline led the horse to and fro, and was delighted with his
gentleness. She discovered that he did not need to be led. He came at
her call, followed her like a pet dog, rubbed his black muzzle against
her. Sometimes, at the turns in their walk, he lifted his head and with
ears forward looked up the trail by which he had come, and beyond the
foothills. He was looking over the range. Some one was calling to him,
perhaps, from beyond the mountains. Madeline liked him the better for
that memory, and pitied the wayward cowboy who had parted with his only
possession for very love of it.

That afternoon when Alfred lifted Madeline to the back of the big roan
she felt high in the air.

“We’ll have a run out to the mesa,” said her brother, as he mounted.
“Keep a tight rein on him and ease up when you want him to go faster.
But don’t yell in his ear unless you want Florence and me to see you
disappear on the horizon.”

He trotted out of the yard, down by the corrals, to come out on the
edge of a gray, open flat that stretched several miles to the slope of a
mesa. Florence led, and Madeline saw that she rode like a cowboy. Alfred
drew on to her side, leaving Madeline in the rear. Then the leading
horses broke into a gallop. They wanted to run, and Madeline felt with a
thrill that she would hardly be able to keep Majesty from running, even
if she wanted to. He sawed on the tight bridle as the others drew away
and broke from pace to gallop. Then Florence put her horse into a run.
Alfred turned and called to Madeline to come along.

“This will never do. They are running away from us,” said Madeline, and
she eased up her hold on the bridle. Something happened beneath her just
then; she did not know at first exactly what. As much as she had been on
horseback she had never ridden at a running gait. In New York it was not
decorous or safe. So when Majesty lowered and stretched and changed the
stiff, jolting gallop for a wonderful, smooth, gliding run it required
Madeline some moments to realize what was happening. It did not take
long for her to see the distance diminishing between her and her
companions. Still they had gotten a goodly start and were far advanced.
She felt the steady, even rush of the wind. It amazed her to find how
easily, comfortably she kept to the saddle. The experience was new.
The one fault she had heretofore found with riding was the violent
shaking-up. In this instance she experienced nothing of that kind, no
strain, no necessity to hold on with a desperate awareness of work. She
had never felt the wind in her face, the whip of a horse’s mane, the
buoyant, level spring of a tanning gait. It thrilled her, exhilarated
her, fired her blood. Suddenly she found herself alive, throbbing; and,
inspired by she knew not what, she loosened the bridle and, leaning far
forward, she cried, “Oh, you splendid fellow, run!”

She heard from under her a sudden quick clattering roar of hoofs, and
she swayed back with the wonderfully swift increase in Majesty’s speed.
The wind stung her face, howled in her ears, tore at her hair. The gray
plain swept by on each side, and in front seemed to be waving toward
her. In her blurred sight Florence and Alfred appeared to be coming
back. But she saw presently, upon nearer view, that Majesty was
overhauling the other horses, was going to pass them. Indeed, he did
pass them, shooting by so as almost to make them appear standing still.
And he ran on, not breaking his gait till he reached the steep side of
the mesa, where he slowed down and stopped.

“Glorious!” exclaimed Madeline. She was all in a blaze, and every muscle
and nerve of her body tingled and quivered. Her hands, as she endeavored
to put up the loosened strands of hair, trembled and failed of
their accustomed dexterity. Then she faced about and waited for her
companions.

Alfred reached her first, laughing, delighted, yet also a little
anxious.

“Holy smoke! But can’t he run? Did he bolt on you?”

“No, I called in his ear,” replied Madeline.

“So that was it. That’s the woman of you, and forbidden fruit. Flo said
she’d do it the minute she was on him. Majesty, you can ride. See if Flo
doesn’t say so.”

The Western girl came up then with her pleasure bright in her face.

“It was just great to see you. How your hair burned in the wind! Al, she
sure can ride. Oh, I’m so glad! I was a little afraid. And that horse!
Isn’t he grand? Can’t he run?”

Alfred led the way up the steep, zigzag trail to the top of the mesa.
Madeline saw a beautiful flat surface of short grass, level as a floor.
She uttered a little cry of wonder and enthusiasm.

“Al, what a place for golf! This would be the finest links in the
world.”

“Well, I’ve thought of that myself,” he replied. “The only trouble would
be—could anybody stop looking at the scenery long enough to hit a ball?
Majesty, look!”

And then it seemed that Madeline was confronted by a spectacle too
sublime and terrible for her gaze. The immensity of this red-ridged,
deep-gulfed world descending incalculable distances refused to be
grasped, and awed her, shocked her.

“Once, Majesty, when I first came out West, I was down and
out—determined to end it all,” said Alfred. “And happened to climb up
here looking for a lonely place to die. When I saw that I changed my
mind.”

Madeline was silent. She remained so during the ride around the rim of
the mesa and down the steep trail. This time Alfred and Florence failed
to tempt her into a race. She had been awe-struck; she had been exalted
she had been confounded; and she recovered slowly without divining
exactly what had come to her.

She reached the ranch-house far behind her companions, and at
supper-time was unusually thoughtful. Later, when they assembled on the
porch to watch the sunset, Stillwell’s humorous complainings inspired
the inception of an idea which flashed up in her mind swift as
lightning. And then by listening sympathetically she encouraged him to
recite the troubles of a poor cattleman. They were many and long and
interesting, and rather numbing to the life of her inspired idea.

“Mr. Stillwell, could ranching here on a large scale, with up-to-date
methods, be made—well, not profitable, exactly, but to pay—to run
without loss?” she asked, determined to kill her new-born idea at birth
or else give it breath and hope of life.

“Wal, I reckon it could,” he replied, with a short laugh. “It’d sure be
a money-maker. Why, with all my bad luck an’ poor equipment I’ve lived
pretty well an’ paid my debts an’ haven’t really lost any money except
the original outlay. I reckon thet’s sunk fer good.”

“Would you sell—if some one would pay your price?”

“Miss Majesty, I’d jump at the chance. Yet somehow I’d hate to leave
hyar. I’d jest be fool enough to go sink the money in another ranch.”

“Would Don Carlos and these other Mexicans sell?”

“They sure would. The Don has been after me fer years, wantin’ to sell
thet old rancho of his; an’ these herders in the valley with their stray
cattle, they’d fall daid at sight of a little money.”

“Please tell me, Mr. Stillwell, exactly what you would do here if you
had unlimited means?” went on Madeline.

“Good Lud!” ejaculated the rancher, and started so he dropped his pipe.
Then with his clumsy huge fingers he refilled it, relighted it, took a
few long pulls, puffed great clouds of smoke, and, squaring round, hands
on his knees, he looked at Madeline with piercing intentness. His hard
face began to relax and soften and wrinkle into a smile.

“Wal, Miss Majesty, it jest makes my old heart warm up to think of sich
a thing. I dreamed a lot when I first come hyar. What would I do if I
hed unlimited money? Listen. I’d buy out Don Carlos an’ the Greasers.
I’d give a job to every good cowman in this country. I’d make them
prosper as I prospered myself. I’d buy all the good horses on the
ranges. I’d fence twenty thousand acres of the best grazin’. I’d drill
fer water in the valley. I’d pipe water down from the mountains. I’d dam
up that draw out there. A mile-long dam from hill to hill would give me
a big lake, an’ hevin’ an eye fer beauty, I’d plant cottonwoods around
it. I’d fill that lake full of fish. I’d put in the biggest field of
alfalfa in the Southwest. I’d plant fruit-trees an’ garden. I’d tear
down them old corrals an’ barns an’ bunk-houses to build new ones. I’d
make this old rancho some comfortable an’ fine. I’d put in grass an’
flowers all around an’ bring young pine-trees down from the mountains.
An’ when all thet was done I’d sit in my chair an’ smoke an’ watch the
cattle stringin’ in fer water an’ stragglin’ back into the valley. An’
I see the cowboys ridin’ easy an’ heah them singin’ in their bunks. An’
thet red sun out there wouldn’t set on a happier man in the world than
Bill Stillwell, last of the old cattlemen.”

Madeline thanked the rancher, and then rather abruptly retired to her
room, where she felt no restraint to hide the force of that wonderful
idea, now full-grown and tenacious and alluring.

Upon the next day, late in the afternoon, she asked Alfred if it would
be safe for her to ride out to the mesa.

“I’ll go with you,” he said, gaily.

“Dear fellow, I want to go alone,” she replied.

“Ah!” Alfred exclaimed, suddenly serious. He gave her just a quick
glance, then turned away. “Go ahead. I think it’s safe. I’ll make it
safe by sitting here with my glass and keeping an eye on you. Be careful
coming down the trail. Let the horse pick his way. That’s all.”

She rode Majesty across the wide flat, up the zigzag trail, across the
beautiful grassy level to the far rim of the mesa, and not till then did
she lift her eyes to face the southwest.

Madeline looked from the gray valley at her feet to the blue Sierra
Madres, gold-tipped in the setting sun. Her vision embraced in that
glance distance and depth and glory hitherto unrevealed to her. The gray
valley sloped and widened to the black sentinel Chiricahuas, and beyond
was lost in a vast corrugated sweep of earth, reddening down to the
west, where a golden blaze lifted the dark, rugged mountains into bold
relief. The scene had infinite beauty. But after Madeline’s first swift,
all-embracing flash of enraptured eyes, thought of beauty passed away.
In that darkening desert there was something illimitable. Madeline saw
the hollow of a stupendous hand; she felt a mighty hold upon her heart.
Out of the endless space, out of silence and desolation and mystery and
age, came slow-changing colored shadows, phantoms of peace, and they
whispered to Madeline. They whispered that it was a great, grim,
immutable earth; that time was eternity; that life was fleeting. They
whispered for her to be a woman; to love some one before it was too
late; to love any one, every one; to realize the need of work, and in
doing it to find happiness.

She rode back across the mesa and down the trail, and, once more upon
the flat, she called to the horse and made him run. His spirit seemed to
race with hers. The wind of his speed blew her hair from its fastenings.
When he thundered to a halt at the porch steps Madeline, breathless and
disheveled, alighted with the mass of her hair tumbling around her.

Alfred met her, and his exclamation, and Florence’s rapt eyes shining
on her face, and Stillwell’s speechlessness made her self-conscious.
Laughing, she tried to put up the mass of hair.

“I must—look a—fright,” she panted.

“Wal, you can say what you like,” replied the old cattleman, “but I know
what I think.”

Madeline strove to attain calmness.

“My hat—and my combs—went on the wind. I thought my hair would go,
too.... There is the evening star.... I think I am very hungry.”

And then she gave up trying to be calm, and likewise to fasten up her
hair, which fell again in a golden mass.

“Mr. Stillwell,” she began, and paused, strangely aware of a hurried
note, a deeper ring in her voice. “Mr. Stillwell, I want to buy your
ranch—to engage you as my superintendent. I want to buy Don Carlos’s
ranch and other property to the extent, say, of fifty thousand acres.
I want you to buy horses and cattle—in short, to make all those
improvements which you said you had so long dreamed of. Then I have
ideas of my own, in the development of which I must have your advice and
Alfred’s. I intend to better the condition of those poor Mexicans in the
valley. I intend to make life a little more worth living for them and
for the cowboys of this range. To-morrow we shall talk it all over, plan
all the business details.”

Madeline turned from the huge, ever-widening smile that beamed down upon
her and held out her hands to her brother.

“Alfred, strange, is it not, my coming out to you? Nay, don’t smile. I
hope I have found myself—my work—my happiness—here under the light of
that western star.”




VII. Her Majesty’s Rancho


FIVE months brought all that Stillwell had dreamed of, and so many more
changes and improvements and innovations that it was as if a magic touch
had transformed the old ranch. Madeline and Alfred and Florence had
talked over a fitting name, and had decided on one chosen by Madeline.
But this instance was the only one in the course of developments in
which Madeline’s wishes were not compiled with. The cowboys named the
new ranch “Her Majesty’s Rancho.” Stillwell said the names cowboys
bestowed were felicitous, and as unchangeable as the everlasting hills;
Florence went over to the enemy; and Alfred, laughing at Madeline’s
protest, declared the cowboys had elected her queen of the ranges, and
that there was no help for it. So the name stood “Her Majesty’s Rancho.”

The April sun shone down upon a slow-rising green knoll that nestled in
the lee of the foothills, and seemed to center bright rays upon the long
ranch-house, which gleamed snow-white from the level summit. The grounds
around the house bore no semblance to Eastern lawns or parks; there had
been no landscape-gardening; Stillwell had just brought water and grass
and flowers and plants to the knoll-top, and there had left them, as it
were, to follow nature. His idea may have been crude, but the result
was beautiful. Under that hot sun and balmy air, with cool water daily
soaking into the rich soil, a green covering sprang into life, and
everywhere upon it, as if by magic, many colored flowers rose in the
sweet air. Pale wild flowers, lavender daisies, fragile bluebells, white
four-petaled lilies like Eastern mayflowers, and golden poppies, deep
sunset gold, color of the West, bloomed in happy confusion. California
roses, crimson as blood, nodded heavy heads and trembled with the weight
of bees. Low down in bare places, isolated, open to the full power of
the sun, blazed the vermilion and magenta blossoms of cactus plants.

Green slopes led all the way down to where new adobe barns and sheds had
been erected, and wide corrals stretched high-barred fences down to the
great squares of alfalfa gently inclining to the gray of the valley. The
bottom of a dammed-up hollow shone brightly with its slowly increasing
acreage of water, upon which thousands of migratory wildfowl whirred and
splashed and squawked, as if reluctant to leave this cool, wet surprise
so new in the long desert journey to the northland. Quarters for the
cowboys—comfortable, roomy adobe houses that not even the lamest cowboy
dared describe as crampy bunks—stood in a row upon a long bench of
ground above the lake. And down to the edge of the valley the cluster of
Mexican habitations and the little church showed the touch of the same
renewing hand.


All that had been left of the old Spanish house which had been
Stillwell’s home for so long was the bare, massive structure, and
some of this had been cut away for new doors and windows. Every modern
convenience, even to hot and cold running water and acetylene light,
had been installed; and the whole interior painted and carpentered and
furnished. The ideal sought had not been luxury, but comfort. Every door
into the patio looked out upon dark, rich grass and sweet-faced flowers,
and every window looked down the green slopes.

Madeline’s rooms occupied the west end of the building and comprised
four in number, all opening out upon the long porch. There was a
small room for her maid, another which she used as an office, then her
sleeping-apartment; and, lastly, the great light chamber which she had
liked so well upon first sight, and which now, simply yet beautifully
furnished and containing her favorite books and pictures, she had come
to love as she had never loved any room at home. In the morning the
fragrant, balmy air blew the white curtains of the open windows; at
noon the drowsy, sultry quiet seemed to creep in for the siesta that was
characteristic of the country; in the afternoon the westering sun peeped
under the porch roof and painted the walls with gold bars that slowly
changed to red.

Madeline Hammond cherished a fancy that the transformation she had
wrought in the old Spanish house and in the people with whom she had
surrounded herself, great as that transformation had been, was as
nothing compared to the one wrought in herself. She had found an object
in life. She was busy, she worked with her hands as well as mind, yet
she seemed to have more time to read and think and study and idle
and dream than ever before. She had seen her brother through his
difficulties, on the road to all the success and prosperity that he
cared for. Madeline had been a conscientious student of ranching and an
apt pupil of Stillwell. The old cattleman, in his simplicity, gave her
the place in his heart that was meant for the daughter he had never had.
His pride in her, Madeline thought, was beyond reason or belief or
words to tell. Under his guidance, sometimes accompanied by Alfred and
Florence, Madeline had ridden the ranges and had studied the life and
work of the cowboys. She had camped on the open range, slept under the
blinking stars, ridden forty miles a day in the face of dust and wind.
She had taken two wonderful trips down into the desert—one trip to
Chiricahua, and from there across the waste of sand and rock and alkali
and cactus to the Mexican borderline; and the other through the Aravaipa
Valley, with its deep, red-walled canyons and wild fastnesses.

This breaking-in, this training into Western ways, though she had been
a so-called outdoor girl, had required great effort and severe pain; but
the education, now past its grades, had become a labor of love. She
had perfect health, abounding spirits. She was so active hat she had to
train herself into taking the midday siesta, a custom of the country
and imperative during the hot summer months. Sometimes she looked in
her mirror and laughed with sheer joy at sight of the lithe, audacious,
brown-faced, flashing-eyed creature reflected there. It was not so much
joy in her beauty as sheer joy of life. Eastern critics had been wont to
call her beautiful in those days when she had been pale and slender and
proud and cold. She laughed. If they could only see her now! From the
tip of her golden head to her feet she was alive, pulsating, on fire.

Sometimes she thought of her parents, sister, friends, of how they had
persistently refused to believe she could or would stay in the West.
They were always asking her to come home. And when she wrote, which was
dutifully often, the last thing under the sun that she was likely to
mention was the change in her. She wrote that she would return to her
old home some time, of course, for a visit; and letters such as this
brought returns that amused Madeline, sometimes saddened her. She meant
to go back East for a while, and after that once or twice every year.
But the initiative was a difficult step from which she shrank. Once
home, she would have to make explanations, and these would not be
understood. Her father’s business had been such that he could not leave
it for the time required for a Western trip, or else, according to his
letter, he would have come for her. Mrs. Hammond could not have been
driven to cross the Hudson River; her un-American idea of the wilderness
westward was that Indians still chased buffalo on the outskirts of
Chicago. Madeline’s sister Helen had long been eager to come, as much
from curiosity, Madeline thought, as from sisterly regard. And at length
Madeline concluded that the proof of her breaking permanent ties might
better be seen by visiting relatives and friends before she went back
East. With that in mind she invited Helen to visit her during the
summer, and bring as many friends as she liked.

    *       *       *

No slight task indeed was it to oversee the many business details of Her
Majesty’s Rancho and to keep a record of them. Madeline found the course
of business training upon which her father had insisted to be invaluable
to her now. It helped her to assimilate and arrange the practical
details of cattle-raising as put forth by the blunt Stillwell. She split
up the great stock of cattle into different herds, and when any of these
were out running upon the open range she had them closely watched. Part
of the time each herd was kept in an inclosed range, fed and watered,
and carefully handled by a big force of cowboys. She employed three
cowboy scouts whose sole duty was to ride the ranges searching for
stray, sick, or crippled cattle or motherless calves, and to bring these
in to be treated and nursed. There were two cowboys whose business was
to master a pack of Russian stag-hounds and to hunt down the coyotes,
wolves, and lions that preyed upon the herds. The better and tamer
milch cows were separated from the ranging herds and kept in a pasture
adjoining the dairy. All branding was done in corrals, and calves were
weaned from mother-cows at the proper time to benefit both. The old
method of branding and classing, that had so shocked Madeline, had been
abandoned, and one had been inaugurated whereby cattle and cowboys and
horses were spared brutality and injury.

Madeline established an extensive vegetable farm, and she planted
orchards. The climate was superior to that of California, and, with
abundant water, trees and plants and gardens flourished and bloomed in
a way wonderful to behold. It was with ever-increasing pleasure that
Madeline walked through acres of ground once bare, now green and bright
and fragrant. There were poultry-yards and pig-pens and marshy quarters
for ducks and geese. Here in the farming section of the ranch Madeline
found employment for the little colony of Mexicans. Their lives had been
as hard and barren as the dry valley where they had lived. But as the
valley had been transformed by the soft, rich touch of water, so their
lives had been transformed by help and sympathy and work. The children
were wretched no more, and many that had been blind could now see, and
Madeline had become to them a new and blessed virgin.

Madeline looked abroad over these lands and likened the change in them
and those who lived by them to the change in her heart. It may have
been fancy, but the sun seemed to be brighter, the sky bluer, the wind
sweeter. Certain it was that the deep green of grass and garden was not
fancy, nor the white and pink of blossom, nor the blaze and perfume of
flower, nor the sheen of lake and the fluttering of new-born leaves.
Where there had been monotonous gray there was now vivid and changing
color. Formerly there had been silence both day and night; now during
the sunny hours there was music. The whistle of prancing stallions
pealed in from the grassy ridges. Innumerable birds had come and, like
the northward-journeying ducks, they had tarried to stay. The song
of meadow-lark and blackbird and robin, familiar to Madeline from
childhood, mingled with the new and strange heart-throbbing song
of mocking-bird and the piercing blast of the desert eagle and the
melancholy moan of turtle-dove.

          *****

One April morning Madeline sat in her office wrestling with a problem.
She had problems to solve every day. The majority of these were
concerned with the management of twenty-seven incomprehensible cowboys.
This particular problem involved Ambrose Mills, who had eloped with her
French maid, Christine.

Stillwell faced Madeline with a smile almost as huge as his bulk.

“Wal, Miss Majesty, we ketched them; but not before Padre Marcos had
married them. All thet speedin’ in the autoomoobile was jest a-scarin’
of me to death fer nothin’. I tell you Link Stevens is crazy about
runnin’ thet car. Link never hed no sense even with a hoss. He ain’t
afraid of the devil hisself. If my hair hedn’t been white it ’d be white
now. No more rides in thet thing fer me! Wal, we ketched Ambrose an’
the girl too late. But we fetched them back, an’ they’re out there now,
spoonin’, sure oblivious to their shameless conduct.”

“Stillwell, what shall I say to Ambrose? How shall I punish him? He has
done wrong to deceive me. I never was so surprised in my life. Christine
did not seem to care any more for Ambrose than for any of the other
cowboys. What does my authority amount to? I must do something.
Stillwell, you must help me.”

Whenever Madeline fell into a quandary she had to call upon the
old cattleman. No man ever held a position with greater pride than
Stillwell, but he had been put to tests that steeped him in humility.
Here he scratched his head in great perplexity.

“Dog-gone the luck! What’s this elopin’ bizness to do with
cattle-raisin’? I don’t know nothin’ but cattle. Miss Majesty, it’s
amazin’ strange what these cowboys hev come to. I never seen no cowboys
like these we’ve got hyar now. I don’t know them any more. They dress
swell an’ read books, an’ some of them hev actooly stopped cussin’ an’
drinkin’. I ain’t sayin’ all this is against them. Why, now, they’re
jest the finest bunch of cow-punchers I ever seen or dreamed of. But
managin’ them now is beyond me. When cowboys begin to play thet game
gol-lof an’ run off with French maids I reckon Bill Stillwell has got to
resign.”

“Stillwell! Oh, you will not leave me? What in the world would I do?”
 exclaimed Madeline, in great anxiety.

“Wal, I sure won’t leave you, Miss Majesty. No, I never’ll do thet. I’ll
run the cattle bizness fer you an’ see after the hosses an’ other stock.
But I’ve got to hev a foreman who can handle this amazin’ strange bunch
of cowboys.”

“You’ve tried half a dozen foremen. Try more until you find the man who
meets your requirements,” said Madeline. “Never mind that now. Tell me
how to impress Ambrose—to make him an example, so to speak. I must have
another maid. And I do not want a new one carried off in this summary
manner.”

“Wal, if you fetch pretty maids out hyar you can’t expect nothin’ else.
Why, thet black-eyed little French girl, with her white skin an’ pretty
airs an’ smiles an’ shrugs, she had the cowboys crazy. It’ll be wuss
with the next one.”

“Oh dear!” sighed Madeline.

“An’ as fer impressin’ Ambrose, I reckon I can tell you how to do thet.
Jest give it to him good an’ say you’re goin’ to fire him. That’ll fix
Ambrose, an’ mebbe scare the other boys fer a spell.”

“Very well, Stillwell, bring Ambrose in to see me, and tell Christine to
wait in my room.”

It was a handsome debonair, bright-eyed cowboy that came tramping
into Madeline’s presence. His accustomed shyness and awkwardness had
disappeared in an excited manner. He was a happy boy. He looked straight
into Madeline’s face as if he expected her to wish him joy. And Madeline
actually found that expression trembling to her lips. She held it back
until she could be severe. But Madeline feared she would fail of much
severity. Something warm and sweet, like a fragrance, had entered the
room with Ambrose.

“Ambrose, what have you done?” she asked.

“Miss Hammond, I’ve been and gone and got married,” replied Ambrose, his
words tumbling over one another. His eyes snapped, and there was a kind
of glow upon his clean-shaven brown cheek. “I’ve stole a march on the
other boys. There was Frank Slade pushin’ me close, and I was havin’
some runnin’ to keep Jim Bell back in my dust. Even old man Nels made
eyes at Christine! So I wasn’t goin’ to take any chances. I just packed
her off to El Cajon and married her.”

“Oh, so I heard,” said Madeline, slowly, as she watched him. “Ambrose,
do you—love her?”

He reddened under her clear gaze, dropped his head, and fumbled with
his new sombrero, and there was a catch in his breath. Madeline saw
his powerful brown hand tremble. It affected her strangely that this
stalwart cowboy, who could rope and throw and tie a wild steer in less
than one minute, should tremble at a mere question. Suddenly he raised
his head, and at the beautiful blase of his eyes Madeline turned her own
away.

“Yes, Miss Hammond, I love her,” he said. “I think I love her in the
way you’re askin’ about. I know the first time I saw her I thought how
wonderful it’d be to have a girl like that for my wife. It’s all been
so strange—her comin’ an’ how she made me feel. Sure I never knew many
girls, and I haven’t seen any girls at all for years. But when she came!
A girl makes a wonderful difference in a man’s feelin’s and thoughts.
I guess I never had any before. Leastways, none like I have now.
My—it—well, I guess I have a little understandin’ now of Padre
Marcos’s blessin’.”

“Ambrose, have you nothing to say to me?” asked Madeline.

“I’m sure sorry I didn’t have time to tell you. But I was in some
hurry.”

“What did you intend to do? Where were you going when Stillwell found
you?”

“We’d just been married. I hadn’t thought of anything after that.
Suppose I’d have rustled back to my job. I’ll sure have to work now and
save my money.”

“Oh, well, Ambrose, I am glad you realize your responsibilities. Do you
earn enough—is your pay sufficient to keep a wife?”

“Sure it is! Why, Miss Hammond, I never before earned half the salary
I’m gettin’ now. It’s some fine to work for you. I’m goin’ to fire the
boys out of my bunk-house and fix it up for Christine and me. Say, won’t
they be jealous?”

“Ambrose, I—I congratulate you. I wish you joy,” said Madeline. “I—I
shall make Christine a little wedding-present. I want to talk to her for
a few moments. You may go now.”

It would have been impossible for Madeline to say one severe word
to that happy cowboy. She experienced difficulty in hiding her own
happiness at the turn of events. Curiosity and interest mingled with her
pleasure when she called to Christine.

“Mrs. Ambrose Mills, please come in.”

No sound came from the other room.

“I should like very much to see the bride,” went on Madeline.

Still there was no stir or reply

“Christine!” called Madeline.

Then it was as if a little whirlwind of flying feet and entreating
hands and beseeching eyes blew in upon Madeline. Christine was small,
graceful, plump, with very white skin and very dark hair. She had been
Madeline’s favorite maid for years and there was sincere affection
between the two. Whatever had been the blissful ignorance of Ambrose, it
was manifestly certain that Christine knew how she had transgressed.
Her fear and remorse and appeal for forgiveness were poured out in an
incoherent storm. Plain it was that the little French maid had been
overwhelmed. It was only after Madeline had taken the emotional girl in
her arms and had forgiven and soothed her that her part in the elopement
became clear. Christine was in a maze. But gradually, as she talked and
saw that she was forgiven, calmness came in some degree, and with it
a story which amused yet shocked Madeline. The unmistakable, shy,
marveling love, scarcely realized by Christine, gave Madeline relief
and joy. If Christine loved Ambrose there was no harm done. Watching the
girl’s eyes, wonderful with their changes of thought, listening to her
attempts to explain what it was evident she did not understand, Madeline
gathered that if ever a caveman had taken unto himself a wife, if ever
a barbarian had carried off a Sabine woman, then Ambrose Mills had acted
with the violence of such ancient forebears. Just how it all happened
seemed to be beyond Christine.

“He say he love me,” repeated the girl, in a kind of rapt awe. “He ask
me to marry him—he kees me—he hug me—he lift me on ze horse—he ride
with me all night—he marry me.”

And she exhibited a ring on the third finger of her left hand. Madeline
saw that, whatever had been the state of Christine’s feeling for Ambrose
before this marriage, she loved him now. She had been taken forcibly,
but she was won.

After Christine had gone, comforted and betraying her shy eagerness
to get back to Ambrose, Madeline was haunted by the look in the girl’s
eyes, and her words. Assuredly the spell of romance was on this sunny
land. For Madeline there was a nameless charm, a nameless thrill
combating her sense of the violence and unfitness of Ambrose’s wooing.
Something, she knew not what, took arms against her intellectual
arraignment of the cowboy’s method of getting himself a wife. He had
said straight out that he loved the girl—he had asked her to marry
him—he kissed her—he hugged her—he lifted her upon his horse—he rode
away with her through the night—and he married her. In whatever light
Madeline reviewed this thing she always came back to her first natural
impression; it thrilled her, charmed her. It went against all the
precepts of her training; nevertheless, it was somehow splendid and
beautiful. She imagined it stripped another artificial scale from her
over-sophisticated eyes.

Scarcely had she settled again to the task on her desk when Stillwell’s
heavy tread across the porch interrupted her. This time when he entered
he wore a look that bordered upon the hysterical; it was difficult to
tell whether he was trying to suppress grief or glee.

“Miss Majesty, there’s another amazin’ strange thing sprung on me.
Hyars Jim Bell come to see you, an’, when I taxed him, sayin’ you was
tolerable busy, he up an’ says he was hungry an’ he ain’t a-goin’ to eat
any more bread made in a wash-basin! Says he’ll starve first. Says Nels
hed the gang over to big bunk an’ feasted them on bread you taught him
how to make in some new-fangled bucket-machine with a crank. Jim says
thet bread beat any cake he ever eat, an’ he wants you to show him how
to make some. Now, Miss Majesty, as superintendent of this ranch I ought
to know what’s goin’ on. Mebbe Jim is jest a-joshin’ me. Mebbe he’s gone
clean dotty. Mebbe I hev. An’ beggin’ your pardon, I want to know if
there’s any truth in what Jim says Nels says.”

Whereupon it became necessary for Madeline to stifle her mirth and to
inform the sadly perplexed old cattleman that she had received from the
East a patent bread-mixer, and in view of the fact that her household
women had taken fright at the contrivance, she had essayed to operate
it herself. This had turned out to be so simple, so saving of time and
energy and flour, so much more cleanly than the old method of mixing
dough with the hands, and particularly it had resulted in such good
bread, that Madeline had been pleased. Immediately she ordered more
of the bread-mixers. One day she had happened upon Nels making biscuit
dough in his wash-basin, and she had delicately and considerately
introduced to him the idea of her new method. Nels, it appeared, had a
great reputation as a bread-maker, and he was proud of it. Moreover,
he was skeptical of any clap-trap thing with wheels and cranks. He
consented, however, to let her show how the thing worked and to sample
some of the bread. To that end she had him come up to the house, where
she won him over. Stillwell laughed loud and long.

“Wal, wal, wal!” he exclaimed, at length. “Thet’s fine, an’ it’s
powerful funny. Mebbe you don’t see how funny? Wal, Nels has jest been
lordin’ it over the boys about how you showed him, an’ now you’ll hev
to show every last cowboy on the place the same thing. Cowboys are the
jealousest kind of fellers. They’re all crazy about you, anyway. Take
Jim out hyar. Why, thet lazy cowpuncher jest never would make bread.
He’s notorious fer shirkin’ his share of the grub deal. I’ve knowed Jim
to trade off washin’ the pots an’ pans fer a lonely watch on a rainy
night. All he wants is to see you show him the same as Nels is crowin’
over. Then he’ll crow over his bunkie, Frank Slade, an’ then Frank’ll
get lonely to know all about this wonderful bread-machine. Cowboys are
amazin’ strange critters, Miss Majesty. An’ now thet you’ve begun with
them this way, you’ll hev to keep it up. I will say I never seen such a
bunch to work. You’ve sure put heart in them.”

“Indeed, Stillwell, I am glad to hear that,” replied Madeline. “And I
shall be pleased to teach them all. But may I not have them all up here
at once—at least those off duty?”

“Wal, I reckon you can’t onless you want to hev them scrappin’,”
 rejoined Stillwell, dryly. “What you’ve got on your hands now, Miss
Majesty, is to let ’em come one by one, an’ make each cowboy think
you’re takin’ more especial pleasure in showin’ him than the feller who
came before him. Then mebbe we can go on with cattle-raisin’.”

Madeline protested, and Stillwell held inexorably to what he said was
wisdom. Several times Madeline had gone against his advice, to her utter
discomfiture and rout. She dared not risk it again, and resigned herself
gracefully and with subdued merriment to her task. Jim Bell was ushered
into the great, light, spotless kitchen, where presently Madeline
appeared to put on an apron and roll up her sleeves. She explained the
use of the several pieces of aluminum that made up the bread-mixer and
fastened the bucket to the table-shelf. Jim’s life might have depended
upon this lesson, judging from his absorbed manner and his desire to
have things explained over and over, especially the turning of the
crank. When Madeline had to take Jim’s hand three times to show him the
simple mechanism and then he did not understand she began to have faint
misgivings as to his absolute sincerity. She guessed that as long as
she touched Jim’s hand he never would understand. Then as she began
to measure out flour and milk and lard and salt and yeast she saw with
despair that Jim was not looking at the ingredients, was not paying the
slightest attention to them. His eyes were covertly upon her.

“Jim, I am not sure about you,” said Madeline, severely. “How can you
learn to make bread if you do not watch me mix it?”

“I am a-watchin’ you,” replied Jim, innocently.

Finally Madeline sent the cowboy on his way rejoicing with the
bread-mixer under his arm. Next morning, true to Stillwell’s prophecy,
Frank Slade, Jim’s bunkmate, presented himself cheerfully to Madeline
and unbosomed himself of a long-deferred and persistent desire to
relieve his overworked comrade of some of the house-keeping in their
bunk.

“Miss Hammond,” said Frank, “Jim’s orful kind wantin’ to do it all
hisself. But he ain’t very bright, an’ I didn’t believe him. You see,
I’m from Missouri, an’ you’ll have to show me.”

For a whole week Madeline held clinics where she expounded the
scientific method of modern bread-making. She got a good deal of
enjoyment out of her lectures. What boys these great hulking fellows
were! She saw through their simple ruses. Some of them were grave as
deacons; others wore expressions important enough to have fitted the
faces of statesmen signing government treaties. These cowboys were
children; they needed to be governed; but in order to govern them they
had to be humored. A more light-hearted, fun-loving crowd of boys could
not have been found. And they were grown men. Stillwell explained that
the exuberance of spirits lay in the difference in their fortunes.
Twenty-seven cowboys, in relays of nine, worked eight hours a day. That
had never been heard of before in the West. Stillwell declared that
cowboys from all points of the compass would head their horses toward
Her Majesty’s Rancho.




VIII. El Capitan


Stillwell’s interest in the revolution across the Mexican line had
manifestly increased with the news that Gene Stewart had achieved
distinction with the rebel forces. Thereafter the old cattleman sent
for El Paso and Douglas newspapers, wrote to ranchmen he knew on the big
bend of the Rio Grande, and he would talk indefinitely to any one
who would listen to him. There was not any possibility of Stillwell’s
friends at the ranch forgetting his favorite cowboy. Stillwell always
prefaced his eulogy with an apologetic statement that Stewart had gone
to the bad. Madeline liked to listen to him, though she was not always
sure which news was authentic and which imagination.

There appeared to be no doubt, however, that the cowboy had performed
some daring feats for the rebels. Madeline found his name mentioned in
several of the border papers. When the rebels under Madero stormed and
captured the city of Juarez, Stewart did fighting that won him the
name of El Capitan. This battle apparently ended the revolution. The
capitulation of President Diaz followed shortly, and there was a feeling
of relief among ranchers on the border from Texas to California. Nothing
more was heard of Gene Stewart until April, when a report reached
Stillwell that the cowboy had arrived in El Cajon, evidently hunting
trouble. The old cattleman saddled a horse and started post-haste for
town. In two days he returned, depressed in spirit. Madeline happened to
be present when Stillwell talked to Alfred.

“I got there too late, Al,” said the cattleman. “Gene was gone. An’ what
do you think of this? Danny Mains hed jest left with a couple of burros
packed. I couldn’t find what way he went, but I’m bettin’ he hit the
Peloncillo trail.”

“Danny will show up some day,” replied Alfred. “What did you learn about
Stewart? Maybe he left with Danny.”

“Not much,” said Stillwell, shortly. “Gene’s hell-bent fer election! No
mountains fer him.”

“Well tell us about him.”

Stillwell wiped his sweaty brow and squared himself to talk.

“Wal, it’s sure amazin’ strange about Gene. Its got me locoed. He
arrived in El Cajon a week or so ago. He was trained down like as if
he’d been ridin’ the range all winter. He hed plenty of money—Mex, they
said. An’ all the Greasers was crazy about him. Called him El Capitan.
He got drunk an’ went roarin’ round fer Pat Hawe. You remember that
Greaser who was plugged last October—the night Miss Majesty arrived?
Wal, he’s daid. He’s daid, an’ people says thet Pat is a-goin’ to lay
thet killin’ onto Gene. I reckon thet’s jest talk, though Pat is mean
enough to do it, if he hed the nerve. Anyway, if he was in El Cajon he
kept mighty much to hisself. Gene walked up an’ down, up an’ down, all
day an’ night, lookin’ fer Pat. But he didn’t find him. An’, of course,
he kept gettin’ drunker. He jest got plumb bad. He made lots of trouble,
but there wasn’t no gun-play. Mebbe thet made him sore, so he went an’
licked Flo’s brother-in-law. Thet wasn’t so bad. Jack sure needed a good
lickin’. Wal, then Gene met Danny an’ tried to get Danny drunk. An’
he couldn’t! What do you think of that? Danny hedn’t been
drinkin’—wouldn’t touch a drop. I’m sure glad of thet, but it’s amazin’
strange. Why, Danny was a fish fer red liquor. I guess he an’ Gene had
some pretty hard words, though I’m not sure about thet. Anyway, Gene
went down to the railroad an’ he got on an engine, an’ he was in the
engine when it pulled out. Lord, I hope he doesn’t hold up the train! If
he gets gay over in Arizona he’ll go to the pen at Yuma. An’ thet pen
is a graveyard fer cowboys. I wired to agents along the railroad to look
out fer Stewart, an’ to wire back to me if he’s located.”

“Suppose you do find him, Stillwell, what can you do?” inquired Alfred.

The old man nodded gloomily.

“I straightened him up once. Mebbe I can do it again.” Then, brightening
somewhat, he turned to Madeline. “I jest hed an idee, Miss Majesty. If
I can get him, Gene Stewart is the cowboy I want fer my foreman. He
can manage this bunch of cow-punchers thet are drivin’ me dotty. What’s
more, since he’s fought fer the rebels an’ got that name El Capitan,
all the Greasers in the country will kneel to him. Now, Miss Majesty, we
hevn’t got rid of Don Carlos an’ his vaqueros yet. To be sure, he sold
you his house an’ ranch an’ stock. But you remember nothin’ was put
in black and white about when he should get out. An’ Don Carlos ain’t
gettin’ out. I don’t like the looks of things a little bit. I’ll tell
you now thet Don Carlos knows somethin’ about the cattle I lost, an’
thet you’ve been losin’ right along. Thet Greaser is hand an’ glove with
the rebels. I’m willin’ to gamble thet when he does get out he an’
his vaqueros will make another one of the bands of guerrillas thet
are harassin’ the border. This revolution ain’t over’ yet. It’s jest
commenced. An’ all these gangs of outlaws are goin’ to take advantage
of it. We’ll see some old times, mebbe. Wal, I need Gene Stewart. I
need him bad. Will you let me hire him, Miss Majesty, if I can get him
straightened up?”

The old cattleman ended huskily.

“Stillwell, by all means find Stewart, and do not wait to straighten him
up. Bring him to the ranch,” replied Madeline.

Thanking her, Stillwell led his horse away.

“Strange how he loves that cowboy!” murmured Madeline.

“Not so strange, Majesty,” replied her brother. “Not when you know.
Stewart has been with Stillwell on some hard trips into the desert
alone. There’s no middle course of feeling between men facing death
in the desert. Either they hate each other or love each other. I don’t
know, but I imagine Stewart did something for Stillwell—saved us life,
perhaps. Besides, Stewart’s a lovable chap when he’s going straight.
I hope Stillwell brings him back. We do need him, Majesty. He’s a born
leader. Once I saw him ride into a bunch of Mexicans whom we suspected
of rustling. It was fine to see him. Well, I’m sorry to tell you that we
are worried about Don Carlos. Some of his vaqueros came into my yard the
other day when I had left Flo alone. She had a bad scare. These vaqueros
have been different since Don Carlos sold the ranch. For that matter,
I never would have trusted a white woman alone with them. But they are
bolder now. Something’s in the wind. They’ve got assurance. They can
ride off any night and cross the border.”

During the succeeding week Madeline discovered that a good deal of
her sympathy for Stillwell in his hunt for the reckless Stewart had
insensibly grown to be sympathy for the cowboy. It was rather a paradox,
she thought, that opposed to the continual reports of Stewart’s wildness
as he caroused from town to town were the continual expressions of good
will and faith and hope universally given out by those near her at the
ranch. Stillwell loved the cowboy; Florence was fond of him; Alfred
liked and admired him, pitied him; the cowboys swore their regard for
him the more he disgraced himself. The Mexicans called him El Gran
Capitan. Madeline’s personal opinion of Stewart had not changed in the
least since the night it had been formed. But certain attributes of his,
not clearly defined in her mind, and the gift of his beautiful horse,
his valor with the fighting rebels, and all this strange regard for him,
especially that of her brother, made her exceedingly regret the cowboy’s
present behavior.

Meanwhile Stillwell was so earnest and zealous that one not familiar
with the situation would have believed he was trying to find and reclaim
his own son. He made several trips to little stations in the valley, and
from these he returned with a gloomy face. Madeline got the details from
Alfred. Stewart was going from bad to worse—drunk, disorderly, savage,
sure to land in the penitentiary. Then came a report that hurried
Stillwell off to Rodeo. He returned on the third day, a crushed man. He
had been so bitterly hurt that no one, not even Madeline, could get
out of him what had happened. He admitted finding Stewart, failing to
influence him; and when the old cattleman got so far he turned purple in
the face and talked to himself, as if dazed: “But Gene was drunk. He was
drunk, or he couldn’t hev treated old Bill like thet!”

Madeline was stirred with an anger toward the brutal cowboy that was
as strong as her sorrow for the loyal old cattleman. And it was when
Stillwell gave up that she resolved to take a hand. The persistent faith
of Stillwell, his pathetic excuses in the face of what must have been
Stewart’s violence, perhaps baseness, actuated her powerfully, gave
her new insight into human nature. She honored a faith that remained
unshaken. And the strange thought came to her that Stewart must somehow
be worthy of such a faith, or he never could have inspired it. Madeline
discovered that she wanted to believe that somewhere deep down in the
most depraved and sinful wretch upon earth there was some grain of good.
She yearned to have the faith in human nature that Stillwell had in
Stewart.

She sent Nels, mounted upon his own horse, and leading Majesty, to Rodeo
in search of Stewart. Nels had instructions to bring Stewart back to the
ranch. In due time Nels returned, leading the roan without a rider.

“Yep, I shore found him,” replied Nels, when questioned. “Found him half
sobered up. He’d been in a scrap, an’ somebody hed put him to sleep, I
guess. Wal, when he seen thet roan hoss he let out a yell an’ grabbed
him round the neck. The hoss knowed him, all right. Then Gene hugged the
hoss an’ cried—cried like—I never seen no one who cried like he did. I
waited awhile, an’ was jest goin’ to say somethin’ to him when he turned
on me red-eyed, mad as fire. ‘Nels,’ he said, ‘I care a hell of a lot
fer thet boss, an’ I liked you pretty well, but if you don’t take him
away quick I’ll shoot you both.’ Wal, I lit out. I didn’t even git to
say howdy to him.”

“Nels, you think it useless—any attempt to see him—persuade him?”
 asked Madeline.

“I shore do, Miss Hammond,” replied Nels, gravely. “I’ve seen a few
sun-blinded an’ locoed an’ snake-poisoned an’ skunk-bitten cow-punchers
in my day, but Gene Stewart beats ’em all. He’s shore runnin’ wild fer
the divide.”

Madeline dismissed Nels, but before he got out of earshot she heard him
speak to Stillwell, who awaited him on the porch.

“Bill, put this in your pipe an’ smoke it—none of them scraps Gene has
hed was over a woman! It used to be thet when he was drank he’d scrap
over every pretty Greaser girl he’d run across. Thet’s why Pat Hawe
thinks Gene plugged the strange vaquero who was with little Bonita thet
night last fall. Wal, Gene’s scrappin’ now jest to git shot up hisself,
for some reason thet only God Almighty knows.”

Nels’s story of how Stewart wept over his horse influenced Madeline
powerfully. Her next move was to persuade Alfred to see if he could not
do better with this doggedly bent cowboy. Alfred needed only a word
of persuasion, for he said he had considered going to Rodeo of his own
accord. He went, and returned alone.

“Majesty, I can’t explain Stewart’s singular actions,” said Alfred. “I
saw him, talked with him. He knew me, but nothing I said appeared to get
to him. He has changed terribly. I fancy his once magnificent strength
is breaking. It—it actually hurt me to look at him. I couldn’t have
fetched him back here—not as he is now. I heard all about him, and
if he isn’t downright out of his mind he’s hell-bent, as Bill says, on
getting killed. Some of his escapades are—are not for your ears.
Bill did all any man could do for another. We’ve all done our best for
Stewart. If you’d been given a chance perhaps you could have saved him.
But it’s too late. Put it out of mind now, dear.”

Madeline, however, did not forget nor give it up. If she had forgotten
or surrendered, she felt that she would have been relinquishing
infinitely more than hope to aid one ruined man. But she was at a loss
to know what further steps to take. Days passed, and each one brought
additional gossip of Stewart’s headlong career toward the Yuma
penitentiary. For he had crossed the line into Cochise County, Arizona,
where sheriffs kept a stricter observance of law. Finally a letter came
from a friend of Nels’s in Chiricahua saying that Stewart had been hurt
in a brawl there. His hurt was not serious, but it would probably
keep him quiet long enough to get sober, and this opportunity, Nels’s
informant said, would be a good one for Stewart’s friends to take him
home before he got locked up. This epistle inclosed a letter to Stewart
from his sister. Evidently, it had been found upon him. It told a story
of illness and made an appeal for aid. Nels’s friend forwarded this
letter without Stewart’s knowledge, thinking Stillwell might care to
help Stewart’s family. Stewart had no money, he said.

The sister’s letter found its way to Madeline. She read it, tears in
her eyes. It told Madeline much more than its brief story of illness and
poverty and wonder why Gene had not written home for so long. It told of
motherly love, sisterly love, brotherly love—dear family ties that had
not been broken. It spoke of pride in this El Capitan brother who had
become famous. It was signed “your loving sister Letty.”

Not improbably, Madeline revolved in mind, this letter was one reason
for Stewart’s headstrong, long-continued abasement. It had been received
too late—after he had squandered the money that would have meant so
much to mother and sister. Be that as it might, Madeline immediately
sent a bank-draft to Stewart’s sister with a letter explaining that
the money was drawn in advance on Stewart’s salary. This done, she
impulsively determined to go to Chiricahua herself.

The horseback-rides Madeline had taken to this little Arizona hamlet had
tried her endurance to the utmost; but the journey by automobile, except
for some rocky bits of road and sandy stretches, was comfortable, and
a matter of only a few hours. The big touring-car was still a kind of
seventh wonder to the Mexicans and cowboys; not that automobiles were
very new and strange, but because this one was such an enormous machine
and capable of greater speed than an express-train. The chauffeur who
had arrived with the car found his situation among the jealous cowboys
somewhat far removed from a bed of roses. He had been induced to remain
long enough to teach the operating and mechanical technique of the car.
And choice fell upon Link Stevens, for the simple reason that of all the
cowboys he was the only one with any knack for mechanics. Now Link
had been a hard-riding, hard-driving cowboy, and that winter he had
sustained an injury to his leg, caused by a bad fall, and was unable to
sit his horse. This had been gall and wormwood to him. But when the big
white automobile came and he was elected to drive it, life was once more
worth living for him. But all the other cowboys regarded Link and his
machine as some correlated species of demon. They were deathly afraid of
both.

It was for this reason that Nels, when Madeline asked him to accompany
her to Chiricahua, replied, reluctantly, that he would rather follow on
his horse. However, she prevailed over his hesitancy, and with Florence
also in the car they set out. For miles and miles the valley road
was smooth, hard-packed, and slightly downhill. And when speeding was
perfectly safe, Madeline was not averse to it. The grassy plain sailed
backward in gray sheets, and the little dot in the valley grew larger
and larger. From time to time Link glanced round at unhappy Nels, whose
eyes were wild and whose hands clutched his seat. While the car was
crossing the sandy and rocky places, going slowly, Nels appeared
to breathe easier. And when it stopped in the wide, dusty street of
Chiricahua Nels gladly tumbled out.

“Nels, we shall wait here in the car while you find Stewart,” said
Madeline.

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