The Mystery of The Barranca Part 28

"Senor!" Her face flaming with the scarlet of shame, Francesca was moving forward.

He stopped her with a shake of his heavy head. "This is between me and--your husband. The papers, Paulo. Hand them to the senor."

It was a legal process, signed and sealed according to Mexican law, and before opening it Seyd knew it for the end. More out of curiosity than for information, he rapidly scanned the terms which had taken Santa Gertrudis and its mined riches forever out of his hands. While he read, Don Luis studied his face. If he looked for signs of deep hurt there were none to be seen, for in the long game between them Seyd was confronted for the first time by the expected. He looked up, squaring his shoulders.

"The victory is yours, senor."

To Francesca's anxious eyes it seemed that the old man's gravity lightened by a shade. "You will concede, senor, that I warned you--that no gringo would ever force himself in on my lands?"

"Yes, and I did my best to disprove it. For my partner's sake I am sorry. For my own"--he looked at his wife--"I am glad."

"Well spoken, senor." The shadow of a smile illumined the old man's dark reserve. "But if I warned you, it does not follow that I have not watched with some sympathy your struggle. In watching, too, my old eyes have been opened upon truths that I had refused to see, though they lay under my nose. We are an old people, senor, we Mexicans. The old blood of Spain added no effervescence to the Aztec strains that were grown stagnant long before Cortez landed, and when a people ages nature removes it to make way for younger stock. _Si_, though I refused to acknowledge it, I have known many years that just as the Moors overran Spain, and the Spanish overran the Aztecs, so will your people overrun Mexico from the Northern Sierras to the Gulf.

"Once I had thought to stay it. But time cools the hottest blood, and the one I had counted upon to uphold my old hands is gone to his place forever. Also I have seen that no man can dam the tide or shut the gates that Porfirio Diaz opened. As it went with Texas and Alta California so will it go with all our states. Against your Yankee our softer people can never stand. In the time to come only those of us that mix blood with shrewder strains will be able to withstand the flood, and thus it is I, who would have killed once the man that said I should ever take a gringo for kinsman, accept you with resignation. Perhaps it is the easier because one such mixture gave us this bright girl. And if you took time by the forelock 'tis not for me to grumble. One word more--"

He threw one arm around Francesca, who had crossed to his side. "It has never been the habit of the Garcias to overlook a good dower to one of the house, and the fact that my niece has given you herself in exchange for her life does not cancel _my_ debt. Give me the papers. The others, Paulo--to the senor."

While Seyd gazed at the t.i.tle deeds to Santa Gertrudis, made out to himself and Billy, the old man slowly tore up the forfeiture. Applying a match to the pieces, he threw them on the hearth, and, blazing up, they added warmth to the grim smile that accompanied his words.

"I told you, senor, that no gringo should ever _force_ himself in on my land."

THE END