The San Rosario Ranch Part 13

"Put up your shooting-irons, Horton, and I will open the door."

First striking a match and lighting his candle, Graham unfastened the bar, and the light door swung wide. The figure out in the darkness peered doubtfully into the room.

"Don't be afraid; I am alone," said the artist coolly, seating himself upon his bunk, and proceeding to fill his pipe. The man came cautiously into the cabin, looking about him once more to make sure that Graham had spoken the truth. He was a rough-looking fellow, with a sinister expression of countenance, in great part owing to the deep scar which seamed his face from temple to chin.

The stranger seemed a good deal disconcerted at finding the artist ensconced in the lodge.

"Did n't expect to find anybody--least of all you--in this shanty."

"I do not often occupy it; though I built it myself."

"Is that so? You ain't got a mouthful of bread as yer'd let a man have as has fasted since sunrise?"

Graham's answer was to hand him a couple of rounds of hard-tack, which he quickly devoured; and to pa.s.s his flask, filled with the rough, strong wine from the vineyards of Los Angeles. The fellow poured half its contents down his throat at one draught, wiping his mouth upon the sleeve of his rough jacket. Then, with a nod of acknowledgment, he handed back the flask with a regretful sigh, and seating himself on the floor by the fireplace, warmed his feet in the still hot ashes.

"You never came for those last sittings, Horton; my picture is not finished yet."

"You see, I got another job more to my taste than posturin'."

"Are you working in the neighborhood?"

"No; I am on my way to the Swindawl mines. Do you live in these yer parts?"

"Yes. You know the old church? I live in the tower."

"Rum place, that; pa.s.sed it to-day."

"If you want to earn a little money to pay your travelling expenses, I should like to finish that picture."

The man did not answer, but stretched his great limbs and yawned.

"It's blasted cold for the season."

Graham nodded a.s.sent, blowing a great cloud of tobacco-smoke from his lips, and composing in his mind, meanwhile, a picture in which this wild-looking fellow, with his rough hair and coa.r.s.e, strong outlines, formed the central figure. He was of a low type of humanity, with a narrow forehead and large, heavy features; his face was tanned where the skin was visible, the heavy beard growing high up on the cheeks, leaving little uncovered surface. His clothes were somewhat dilapidated, but his wide sombrero hat and high boots were strong and whole. His figure was superbly developed, and Herculean in type. As he sat crouching on the floor, hugging his knees, his back braced against the wall behind him, he nodded wearily, and, after various abortive attempts at conversation, finally fell into a sound sleep, his head resting against the wall behind him. Graham took a charred brand from the hearth, and with this rough tool drew, on a smooth board in the side of the cabin, a sketch of the man before him. As he looked narrowly at his model, he perceived that his face was disfigured by some recent scratches from which the blood was still unwashed. They were got while riding through a th.o.r.n.y thicket, the artist fancied, and thought no more about them, touching in the details of the desolate background. The man's expression was hardly human in his sleep, the fierce animal face was so stupid and brutish. It is wonderful how character is expressed in a sleeping countenance. The studied or unconscious control which we hold over our features when awake is overthrown in slumber, and the real nature is seen with no polite restraint or deceitful mask. A beautiful woman is beautiful no longer while sleeping, if she have a bad heart. It is a terrible thing to look upon one who is dear to us in sleep. Even when the countenance shadows forth holy dreams, it is awful to watch its still composure, so like death, and to feel that impa.s.sable distance between the unfettered soul and our own earth-bound spirit,--that distance which, but for the briefest s.p.a.ces, is never bridged over in our whole lives, though they flow quietly side by side through peaceful days and happy nights.

Though the man had closed his eyes in the knowledge that it was entirely safe for him to sleep in Graham's presence, his slumber was not an easy one. He started often and groaned more than once; while his hand nervously made the movement of striking with a weapon at some unseen foe. The artist watched him for some minutes.

"I should like to have another day's work on that rascal's torso," he said at last; "I suppose if I paid him enough he would come to the tower."

As he spoke he tore a leaf from his notebook, and writing a few lines upon it placed it in the fellow's nerveless hands, lest he should steal away before morning. Then he threw himself back and slept again long and heavily. When he awoke it was broad daylight in the cabin of which he found himself the sole occupant. At first he wondered if he had dreamed that his lodging had been shared by a rough companion; but no, there was the sketch upon the wall of the sleeping figure crouching by the fireplace. Besides, his visitor had left a trace of his presence.

Near the spot where he had sat lay a handkerchief. The artist carelessly picked up the square of white linen, somewhat surprised to find that it was of the finest quality. A red stain on one corner induced him to examine it more carefully. It was neatly st.i.tched with an odd pattern which was not unfamiliar to him, and in one corner was an embroidered monogram of an intricate form. The letters were cunningly twisted together, and it took him several minutes to distinguish them.

Two L's, an I, a T, an E, an N, and a C, all enclosed in a large M.

n.o.body in the world could have so many initials, not even a Spanish grandee. It must be a name, probably one beginning with M, as that was the most prominent letter in the _chiffre_. He studied it for an instant, and suddenly cried aloud that name which had become so dear to him,--"Millicent!"

What could it mean? Millicent's handkerchief in the possession of that ruffianly fellow, the dark crimson stain of blood marring its whiteness?

What could have befallen her? He dared not even think of what this portended; and thrusting it into his breast, he ran to the door and looked all about him. Silence everywhere; no movement in the copse before the door; no trace of his late visitor save the broken branch of a buckeye near which his horse had been tethered.

Graham was a brave man, with nerves at once sensitive and strong; but the picture which rose before his eyes unmanned him for the moment completely. He leaned against the door-post quaking with terror, too much confused to know what next to do. He could not think; he only saw that villanous face before him in its heavy sleep, that clinching of the hand, that motion as of stabbing with a knife. In the breast of what victim had that weapon been buried? At the recollection of what crime had he groaned aloud?

The neighing of his horse in the thicket near by roused him from the benumbing horror which had bound him like a trance. He mounted the fiery animal, and struck him fiercely with his spur. The mustang darted forward at a breakneck speed, and with flying hoofs carried his rider over the steep trail which led from the cabin to the house of the San Rosario Ranch. It was a rude road, sometimes merely indicated by signs on the trees, at other places worn by the feet of cattle; it led through dry river-courses and down precipitous planes, through tangled brakes and over desolate, blackened s.p.a.ces where fire had pa.s.sed and blasted the trees, leaving them dead and gray, with naked branches and bare roots. No vegetation was here; only black, dry soil. It was a dangerous journey, none too safe at any time; but neither rider nor steed hesitated at sharp turns or steep descents; and the pace slackened not, though the horse foamed at the mouth and the man's face and hands were cut to bleeding by the low-hanging branches of the thorn-tree.

Twenty-five miles, at the lowest rating, lay between the cabin and the house. How well Graham knew the way! How often he had pa.s.sed over it with Hal and O'Neil!--a jolly trio of sportsmen. The very day before he had loitered along the same route, taking the whole day to accomplish the distance, walking sometimes with his horse following him, and never travelling at a greater speed than an easy trot. How different his thoughts had been then, when he had fancied that he had found a closer companionship than that of a loving woman's heart. Now he saw not the trees nor the wood creatures,--only that one villanous face, with its freshly bleeding wounds, with its old scar red and ugly.

Five miles accomplished: here is the great oak-tree which the lightning had struck half a century ago; but twenty miles now lie before him.

Another landmark is pa.s.sed,--the iron spring, with its red mouth framed in green ferns, where he had once journeyed to bring _her_ a flask of the strengthening water. On and on they fly, startling the birds in the thickets and the foxes in their coverts, racing with the lazy breeze which puffs slowly along and is soon left behind by the horse's speed.

At the spring on the hillside, where Millicent's hand had checked his shooting of the deer, the rider draws rein and springs to the ground; while the gasping horse stands for a brief breathing-s.p.a.ce, drawing long, painful breaths. Graham cools his heated brow in the rocky basin, and gives his horse a mouthful of the refreshing water. Then they start away again towards the house where so many happy hours of his life have been spent; where he first saw Millicent! It is a terrible ride, and one that the man never will forget to his dying day. The anguish of doubt and fear, the awful pace at which he rides, which makes every mile he accomplishes seem like to be the last, will never be forgotten by him in the quiet after-years. Now but ten miles separate him from the vine-clad house; quickly are they accomplished; and in a s.p.a.ce of time too short to be credited by those towards whom he rides, he reaches the high hill which looks down upon the valley. The familiar look of the surroundings surprises him. A blue feather of smoke curls about the red chimney; the trees in the orchard, the cattle browsing on the hills, look just as he has seen them a thousand times before; nothing betokens any unusual state of affairs within the quiet house. The brave horse gathers himself together for a last gallop; and the stones of the hillside fly from his hoofs as man and beast thunder down the rocky path which loses itself in the wide farm-road at the edge of the orchard.

From this point he commands a view of Millicent's window. He gives a low groan as he looks up for some sign of life,--the heavy blinds are tightly closed.

CHAPTER XII.

"Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence The life o' the building."

The breakfast table at the San Rosario Ranch was usually a merry one; but on the morning after what Hal had called Millicent's "magnetic exhibition," the usual good spirits were missing. Millicent took her accustomed place at Deering's side; and Galbraith marked the extraordinary change which she had suffered since she had bade him good-night the evening before. Her face had blanched to a whiteness which made the ebon lines of eyebrows and lashes seem unnatural. Her mouth was pale and contracted, and her expression of horrified antic.i.p.ation reminded him of the look in the eyes of a deer at bay.

What could have come to the girl? he asked himself in dismay; with a strange consciousness that whatever should befall her of good or evil from that time forth would have to him an interest beyond all else in the world. She ate her breakfast mechanically, and answered all that was said in which she could be supposed to have an interest. She laughed once, too, at one of Hal's jokes; but the sound was rough and strained. Mrs. Deering and Barbara, occupied with some household complication, merely noticed that Millicent seemed tired; and Hal put her odd look and manner down to the score of her being in love, which in his eyes accounted for every freak or unexplained symptom of hers.

It had been proposed that the day should be spent out-of-doors, at a place which Millicent had long wished to visit,--the little island in the river, below the deserted mill. Galbraith had remained to be of the party; and his two friends had promised to ride over from the camp and join them at the appointed place. Just before they started, old John arrived with a note to Mrs. Deering from Graham, who wrote that he should not be able to be of the party. Hal and Millicent drove together, as they had done on that day when Graham, in accordance with California etiquette, had stopped to kill the rattlesnakes. Old Sphinx was doing his best to keep up with the mule team, when Millicent's sensitive ears detected the sound of horses' hoofs behind them.

Presently, through the thick cloud of dust, she descried two hors.e.m.e.n riding at full gallop towards them. The sunlight and the veil of dust made it impossible to see what manner of men they were until Millicent observed that each carried over his shoulder a long object, which glittered in the sunlight.

"Have you brought your pistols?" she asked.

"Yes, Princess, but they are in the wagon. I expected till the last moment that Graham would turn up to take you, and that I should drive the team. Why do you ask? There is no danger of our being molested."

"Look at those men. Are not those gun barrels I see on their shoulders?"

"Yes; but they are probably peaceful hunters."

The young man spoke in a perfectly careless tone, to rea.s.sure his companion; but Millicent noticed that he occasionally looked behind him as the riders gained on them. Finally, as the men drew near, Millicent saw the rider nearest her shift the gun from his shoulder and rest it across the saddle-bow, as if preparing to take aim. Hal, who had seen the action, instantly called to Millicent to catch the reins, and held up both his hands. By this time the men were close upon them, and the one who had shifted his weapon called out in a rough voice,--

"All right, boss; we know you ain't got no money, and we don't want your life to-day." His companion laughed aloud, and striking spurs to their horses, they galloped down the high-road. Hal laughed as heartily as the supposed highwayman, saying,--

"Well, that's a greaser's idea of a joke, I suppose. Adventure number one has befallen us with few bad consequences. I don't think you were half as frightened as you were the other day by the snakes."

"No, I fancy I was not. I should not much mind being killed to-day."

This with a little, bitter laugh.

"And why? Let us wait till after luncheon. Barbara has put up a capital venison pasty,--a real English one, out of the Queen's own receipt book."

"Well, we will wait for the pie, to please you."

The drive was accomplished with the usual desultory chit-chat, Hal doing rather more than his share of the joking. As they pa.s.sed the little hovel, the wild children ran out, as they had upon the day when they had visited the camp in the woods; and soon the gray bridge and the little island were reached. The baskets were unpacked and the luncheon spread upon the gra.s.s by the time the guests arrived. Among them were O'Neil, Hartley, Ferrara, and Mrs. Shallop, who had come over by the train; with a party of people from the village, in whom Millicent had never taken much interest. Galbraith never left Millicent's side; sparing her the necessity of talking by keeping up an incessant stream of conversation which she heard vaguely, and of which she understood not one word. In after days the import of all the young man said came back to her; and she remembered the quaint Indian legends, the reminiscences of life on the two edges of the continent, with which Maurice Galbraith kept the others of the party from her side. She realized what he was doing, and knew that he only, in all the company, understood and sympathized with her half-dazed mood; and for his efforts he received more than one little smile, sadder than tears.

This is one of the stories which the lawyer told her:--

"In the old days, when Father Junipero and his small band of priests and soldiers came into the wilderness of California, with the cross uplifted in one hand, the sword grasped in the other, there lived on this island where we now sit, a beautiful Indian maiden. Her name was a very long one, and its meaning in our language is the Smile of the Morning. She lived with the old chief, her father, in a wigwam, where also lived her sisters and brothers and various of her cousins and distant relatives.

The old chief had many daughters, but the Smile of the Morning was his favorite child; and she it was who cooked his food for him, when he did not eat it raw, and brought him his bow and arrows when he started on a hunting party. The sisters of the favorite daughter all found mates among the sons of the tribe, but she lived alone with only the wild bird in the madrone tree for her lover. Her sisters, each of whom carried a pappoose upon her back, laughed at the Smile of the Morning, and said that she would die without a husband; but the girl did not mind them.