Over the Border Part 19

"I know! I'm having a birthday next week. I'll make a little party and invite Ramon and Lee. You'll see to it that Gordon brings her here?"

"But then Bull won't be able to come," Betty's small voice piped, indignantly. "And you told me only yesterday that you weren't going to ask any one but him."

Now the widow blushed. But she braved it out. "So I did, dear, and I'd rather have him. But when Lee's happiness is at stake we'll have to give up our own pleasure. And you mustn't call him that. 'Tisn't respectful.

Say Mr. Perrin."

"But Jake and Sliver do it, and he said I could-didn't you, Bull? There, you see!" Thus triumphantly vindicated, she was proceeding with further revelations. "Mother will be thirty-sev-" when the widow clapped her hand over the small, traitorous mouth.

She broke into a little, conscious laugh. "I know it's silly. But was there ever a real woman that would own up to her age? I won't acknowledge to a day over thirty."

"And you look five years younger than that, ma'am," Bull gallantly replied.

He was paid, of course, with a brilliant smile, and, the conspiracy thus consummated, they gradually drifted into one of those pleasant talks, warm, intimate, communicative, which have been banished from the hectic, electric cities, but still linger where the habitants of the mountains, forest, desert, range, spend long evenings under the golden lamplight or flickering fire-blaze. From news of their countryside, rumors of raids and revolutions, neighborhood gossip, it pa.s.sed on to a closer, more personal note, touching their thoughts, hopes, aspirations.

In the course of it Betty exercised her usual privilege and went to sleep in Bull's arms. But though, when he retired, the warmth of the soft child-body enwrapped, as before, his heart, his thoughts were not of her. Long after the silence of midnight wrapped the dark house he dismissed a waking dream with the brusque comment:

"'Tain't for you, Bull. You killed all that years ago, with your own hand."

He repeated it next morning, looking back on the _rancho_ from the last rise. "No, Son, 'tain't for you."

At that moment Betty and her mother stood in the doorway watching his distant figure, and had he been close enough to see and hear he might have read denial of his thought in both the child's words and the widow's reflective smile. Said reflection was due to a lively memory of his sudden reddening when she had left her hand in his just a shade longer than was necessary. She blushed, now, and cut off Betty's words with a sudden squeeze.

"Mother, I just know he's falling in love with you. Wouldn't it be nice if he asked-"

XVI: ONE MAN CAN TAKE A HORSE TO WATER, BUT-

The sun shone brightly on the morning of the widow's birthday. Not that there was anything sensational in the fact. Except in the rainy season, the sun always shines brightly in Chihuahua-altogether too brightly for a white man's comfort, so while waiting for Lee, Gordon led their horses into the shade of the 'dobe where dwelt his little playmate. Seated in the doorway, under the pleased eyes of the brown mother, he was initiating the chubby thing into the mysteries of "cat's cradle" with a loop of string, when Lee came walking across from the house.

At the sight of the two heads bent over the "cradle," the girl's face lit up with a soft glow that was not belied by her mock severity.

"h.e.l.lo, Brother! What are you doing to my G.o.dchild?"

"Is this she?" Rising, he swung the child up on his shoulder. "I had just about made up my mind to adopt her myself."

"Let me see-" Lee's smooth brow achieved a thoughtful wrinkle. "She's about one-fiftieth of it. You know I am padrina to all that have been born here in the last fifteen years. But this is my favorite, and I cannot suffer you to steal her allegiance as you tried the other night.

Oh, you needn't blush! Maria brought the news with my coffee. She was loud in your praises. 'Don Gor-r-r-don sat with Refugio's sick babe all night. What a husband for some happy senorita!'"

"That was very nice of Maria." He laughed. "Only, I'm afraid there's nothing doing. Girls of this size get me going, but after they grow up-somehow I lose interest."

It was an awesome confession to make to a girl whose mirror reflected far more than the average of feminine looks. Like a stag of ten tines that paws the forest mold in the pride of freedom, he had marked himself for the slaughter. It was the due of her s.e.x that his pride be humbled.

The soft glow changed to a gleam; but her attention was drawn just then by the prattle of two children who, unaware of the proximity of the parties of the first and second part, were conducting a make-believe housekeeping around the corner.

"Now I shall be Don Gor-r-r-don, and thou the senorita," came a voice, gruff with masculine authority. "Only we be married."

"But will they be married, Pancho?" piped a softer treble.

"Si, that will they. Only an hour ago I heard thy mother and old 'Lupe talking at the well. 'Is not Don Gor-r-r-don a fine man, and she a woman with never a duenna to her name? 'Tis shocking, Amalia, but gringo blood runs colder than Spanish; their ways are not ours. Yet, cold or hot, this may not end without marriage.' This is what old 'Lupe said to thy mother."

Rich color swept from the roots of Lee's hair down to her neck. She hastily hid it from the observation of the party of the first part; then, remembering that his Spanish was still confined to a few jerky sentences, she regained her composure.

"Woman!" "Don Gor-r-r-don" was speaking again. "What is this-the tortillas burned once more? Have I not told thee to be more sparing of the wood I gain with my sweat? And this chile? 'Tis sour as swill, fit only for swine."

"Then it should suit thee very well," came the softer voice, with unexpected spirit.

"A-r-r-r-h!" It was an excellent imitation of the angry howl with which Don Gor-r-r-don's father resented household rebellions. "Thou wouldst answer me? Thy mouth is too big! Take this to fill it!"

Followed a wail and as Lee rushed around the corner to the rescue, Don Gor-r-r-don scuttled like a little pig under her arm and dived into the house. Having comforted the small housewife, Lee returned to Gordon.

"Panchito is not quite so afraid of girls as you," she teased him. "They were playing house. Because the beans were not quite to his liking, he handed Dolores one on the mouth."

He laughed. "The young dog! At least he has a good working idea of the proper relation of the s.e.xes."

This, indeed, was tempting Providence! The little gleam appeared again and lingered till, taking her foot in one hand, he lifted her to the saddle without perceptible effort, when it was wiped out by pleased surprise.

Strength and tenderness? Age-long experience has taught woman to value these above all else in man! A skilful diagnostician-the widow, for instance-would have noted and approved her unconscious content as they rode out through the gates and followed the trail up and down the long earth rolls. Sometimes, when the vagaries of travel forced him ahead, her little stealthy glances were not nearly so unconscious; displayed a curiosity both healthy and sincere. And when, as occurred quite frequently, their frank interest was broken by a return of the little gleam, the diagnostician would still have concurred. For it displayed nothing more than the pride proper in a s.e.x which has handled-and mishandled-man, directed his policies and intrigues, set him at the wars, made his peaces, used him as a catspaw to pull its private chestnuts out of the fires of love and hate, while the poor, blinded being imagined all the time that he was following his own ends.

He "lost interest in them after they grew up." Indeed! Why, the freshness of the morning, the creak and odor of hot leather, rhythmic beat of hoofs, sunlit roll of pastures within the hedging mountains, all the sights and sensations which he mistook for joy in the ride, were nothing more than a setting for her lovely youth. The ebb and flow of her color, easy flexures of her lithe body, counted as much in nature's cosmogony as the rush of the winds, flush of sunset skies; only, as yet, he did not know it. The "fire and tow" still lacked a "wind."

They headed, at first, out on the trail which led through Lovell's _rancho_ to the widow's; but presently Lee swerved toward the hills. "It is rougher," she said, "with a few bits of stiff climbing, but both shorter and prettier. It follows an old, old mule trail up a wooded canon past a country _fonda_. There I'll show you the prettiest Mexican girl in all Chihuahua."

"At the _fonda_? Then I have seen her."

Her quick look said quite plainly, "Oh, _you have_?"

"Sliver took me there the day we caught the raiders. Pretty? I should say!" He added, laughing, "She made me a very nice proposal of marriage, adding the _fonda_ as an extra inducement."

Her expression now said, "Oh, she _did_?" But as she looked away, he failed to see it, got only her words, "And you had the heart to refuse?"

"Sad to relate."

"And you haven't even been to see her again?"

"No time."

She took her answer from his unconcern rather than the words. And yet, as they rode along, she gave him little brooding looks that expressed-perhaps not altogether disbelief so much as that rooted and reasonable doubt which her s.e.x invariably entertains when another woman is in question. As they rode around the end of the spur and proceeded up the canon her glances grew in frequency; finally settled in a stealthy watch as they approached the _fonda_.

"There's your beauty-attired like a bride for her groom."

Lee nodded at Felicia, who was coming up from the stream with an _olla_ of water gracefully poised on her head. For a cushion she had twisted a handful of scarlet runners into a thick chaplet, and, escaping from under the _olla_, half a dozen vivid tendrils streaked the black wavy ma.s.s of her hair. With her velvet pools of eyes, satiny arms and shoulders, pliant, shapely figure, she might have been a golden Hebe bearing wine to Aztec G.o.ds. Small wonder if Gordon stared at the pretty picture overmuch for his companion's taste.

His interest undoubtedly instigated her addition, "Perhaps she hasn't lost hope?"

She did not, either, like his laugh, for it seemed just a bit conscious.

While drinking a gla.s.s of native concoction, barley water flavored with seeds, she kept a stealthy watch that was none the less efficient because masked by gay chatter with the old man and woman who came hobbling out of the house. She saw not only the dark glance that followed and enfolded Gordon in a lingering embrace, but as the girl reached up, handing the gla.s.s, she caught a glimpse of Gordon's fob dangling within the golden bosom at the end of a chain of beads.

At first she recognized it only for an American-made trinket. But under pretense of admiring the hand-made lace edging on the girl's chemisette, she managed another peep and saw the leather worked with Gordon's monogram in gold.