Chapter II: Part 2

Bayard Keith was no saint. Far from it. Yet, for all his drifting about the world, he had kept a pretty clean and wholesome moral tone. Women of the Gloria Howard class did not appeal to his taste; that was all there was about it. But he knew men a-plenty who, for her sake, would have committed almost any crime in the calendar if she set it for them to do. There were men who would have faced the decree of judge and jury without a tremor, if the deed was done for her sake. He himself could not understand such things. Not that he felt himself better or stronger than his fellows; it was simply that he was made of a different sort of stuff.

Yet, in spite of his manifest indifference to the charm of her large, splendid beauty--dazzling as the sun at noon-day--and that marked personality which all others who ever came within the circle of her presence seemed to feel, Keith knew he could have this woman’s love for the asking--the love of a woman who, ’twas said, won love from all, yet giving love to none. Nay, but he knew it was already his. His very indifference had fanned a flame in her breast; a flame which had been lit as her eyes were first lifted to his own and she beheld her master, and burning steadily it had become the consuming passion of this strange creature’s existence. Hopeless, she knew it was; yet it was stronger than her love of life. Even stronger than her inordinate love of money was this passion for the man whose heart she had utterly failed to touch.

That he must know it to be so, was but an added pain for her fierce nature to bear. Keith wondered if Williston had ever suspected, as she played her part, the woman’s passionate and genuine attachment to himself. He hoped not, for the two men had been good comrades, though without the closer bond of a fine sympathy; and Keith’s wish was that their comradeship should continue, while he hoped the woman’s love, in time, would wear itself out. To Williston he had once tried to give a word of advice.

“Drop it, Keith,” came the quick answer to his warning, “I love her.”

“Granted that you do, why should you so completely enslave yourself to a woman of that type?”

“What do you mean by ‘that type?’ Take care! take care, Keith! I tell you I love her! Were I not already a married man I would make Mrs. Howard my wife.”

“Oh, no, you wouldn’t,” Keith answered quietly. “Howard refuses to get a divorce, and you know very well she cannot. Besides, Sid, it would be sheer madness for you to do such a thing, even were she free.”

“It makes no difference; I love her,” was again the reply, and said with the childish persistence of those with whom reiteration takes the place of argument.

Keith said no more, though he felt the shame of it that Sidney Williston’s fortune should be squandered on another woman, while--somewhere off there in the East--his wife waited for him to send for her. Keith’s shoulders shrugged with impatience over the whole pitiful affair. He was disgusted at Williston’s lack of principle and angered by his disregard of public censure. However, he reflected, trying to banish all thoughts of it, it was none of his business; he was not elected to be his brother’s keeper in this affair surely.

As for himself, he believed the only love worth having was that upon which the foundation of the hearthstone was laid. He believed, too, that to no man do the gods bring this priceless treasure more than once. When a man like Keith believes this, it becomes his religion.

Through the gateway to his big, honest heart, one summer in the years gone by, love had entered, and--finding it the dwelling of honor and truth--it abided there still.

Thinking of Williston’s infatuation for Gloria Howard, he could but compare it to his own entire, endless love for Kathryn Verrill. He recalled a day that would always stand out in bold relief from all others in memory’s gallery.

In fancy now he could see the wide veranda built around one of the loveliest summer homes of the beautiful Thousand Islands. Cushions--soft and silken--lay tossed about on easy chairs and divans that were scattered about here and there among tubs of palms and potted plants. On little tables up and down the veranda’s length were summer novels open and face downward as their readers had left them, or dainty and neglected bits of fancy-work. Cooling drinks and dishes of luscious fruits had been placed there within their reach. Keith closed his eyes with a sigh, as the memory of it all came back to him. Here, amid the sage and desert sands, it was like a dream of lost Paradise.

It had been a day of opalescent lights, and through its translucence they (he and--she) could see the rest of the party on the sparkling waters, among the pleasure craft from other wooded islands, full of charm, near by. Only these two--he and she--were here on the broad veranda. The echo of distant laughter came to them, but here was a languorous silence. Even the yellow-feathered warblers in the gilded cages above them had, for the time, hushed their songs.

Kathryn Verrill was swinging slowly back and forth in one of the hammocks swung along the veranda, the sunlight filtering through the slats of the lowered blinds streaking with gold her filmy draperies as they swept backward and forward on the polished floor. Her fingers had ceased their play on the mandolin strings, and there was now no sound about them louder than the hum of the big and gorgeous bumble-bee buzzing above their heads. Summer sweetness anywhere, and she the sweetest of it all! Then----

Ah, well! He had asked her to marry him, and the pained look that came into her face was his answer even before he heard her say that for two years she had been another’s--a secretly-wedded wife. Why she should now tell her carefully guarded secret to him she herself could hardly have told. No one else knew. Her husband had asked that it should be their dear secret until he could send for her to come to him out in the land of the setting sun, where he had gone alone in the hope that he would find enough of the yellow metal grains so that he could provide her with a fitting home. Her guardian had not liked the man of her choice--had made objections to his attentions. Then there was the clandestine marriage. And then he had gone away to make a home for her. But she loved him; oh, yes! he was her choice of all the world, her hero always--her husband now. She was glad to have done as she did--there was nothing to regret, except the enforced separation. So she was keeping their secret while feeding her soul with the hope of reunion that his rare letters brought. But she had faith. Some day--some day he would win the fortune that would pave the way to him; then he would send for her. Some day. And she was waiting. And she loved him; loved him. That was all.

All, except that she was sorry for Keith, as all good women are sorry to hurt any human creature. No loyal, earnest, loving man ever offers his whole heart to any true and womanly woman (it matters not how little her own affections are moved by his appeal, or if they be stirred at all) that she does not feel touched and honored by the proffered gift. Womanly sympathy looked out of her gentle eyes, but she had for him no slightest feeling of other attraction. Keith gravely accepted his fate; but he knew that Love (that beautiful child born of Friendship--begot by Passion) would live forever in the inner chamber of his heart. To him, Kathryn Verrill would always be the one woman in all the world.

He went out of her life and back to the business routine of his own. In work he would try to forget his wounds. Later there were investments that turned out badly, and he lost heavily--lost all.

Then he came West. Here, in the Nevada mountains, he had found companionship in Sidney Williston who, like himself, was a seeker for gold. A general similarity of tastes brought about by their former ways of living (for Williston, too, was an eastern man) had been the one reason for each choosing the companionship of the other. So, here in the paintless pine cabin in Porcupine Gulch, each working his separate claim, they had been living under the same roof for nearly two years; but Fate, that sees fit to play us strange tricks sometimes, had laid a fortune in Williston’s hands, while Keith’s were yet empty.

Sidney Williston’s silence, when asked what he would do with his wealth, was answer enough. It would be for Gloria Howard. There he sat now, thinking of her--planning for her.

Millers, red-winged moths and flying ants fluttered around the candle, blindly batting at the burning wick and falling with singed wings on the table. The wind was rising again, and the blaze at times was nearly snuffed out, moth-beaten and blown by the strong breeze.

All the morning the sun had laid its hot hand heavily on the earth between the places where dense white clouds hung without a motion in the breathless sky. The clouds had spread great dark shadows on the cliffs below, where they clung to the rocks like time-blackened and century-old lichens. But in the shadowless spots the sun’s rays were intensely hot, as they so often are before a coming storm; while the fierce heat for the time prostrated plant-life, and sent the many tiny animals of the hills to those places where the darkest shadows lay. Flowers were wilting where they grew. White primroses growing in the sandy soil near the cabin had but the night before lifted their pale, sweet faces to the moon’s soft light--lovely evening primroses growing straight and strong. Noonday saw them drooping weakly on their stalks, blushing a rosy, shamed pink; kissed into color by the amorous caresses of that rough lover, the Sun. Night would find them faded and unlovely, their purity and sweetness ruthlessly wrested from them forever.

As the sun climbed to the zenith, there was not the slightest wind stirring; the terrible heat lay, fold on fold, upon the palpitating earth. But noon came and brought a breeze from out of the south. Stronger and stronger it swept toward the blue mountains lying away to the northward. It gathered up sand particles and dust, and shook them out into the air till the sunlight was dulled, and the great valley below showed through a mist of gold. All the afternoon the atmosphere was oppressively hot, while the wind hurried over valley and upland and mountain. All the afternoon the dust storm in billowy clouds hurried on, blowing--blowing--blowing. A whistling wind it was, keeping up its mournful song in the cracks of the unpainted cabin, and whipping the burlap awning over the door into ragged shreds at the edges. The dark green window shades flapped and rattled their length, carried out level from their fastenings by the force of the hot in-blowing wind.

Then with the down-going of the sun the wind died down also. When twilight came, the heavens were overcast with rain-clouds that told of a hastening storm which would leave the world fresh and cool when it had passed. The horizon line was brightened now and again by zigzags of lightning. Inside the cabin the close air was full of dust particles.

Sidney Williston tossed a photograph across the table, as he gathered his papers together preparatory to putting them away.

“There’s my wife’s picture, Keith,” he said; “I don’t think I ever showed it to you, did I?”

Keith got up--six feet, and more, of magnificent manhood; tall, he was, and straight as a pine, and holding his head in kingly wise. Leisurely he walked across the bare floor, which echoed loudly to his tread; leisurely he picked it up.

It was the pictured face of Kathryn Verrill!

* * * * *

He did not say anything; neither did he move.... If you come to think of it, those who sustain great shocks seldom do anything unusual except in novels. In real life people cry out and exclaim over trifles; but let a really stupendous thing happen, and you may be very sure that they will be proportionately silent. The mind, incapable of instantly grasping the magnitude of what has happened, makes one to stand immovable and in silence.

Keith said nothing. His breathing was quite as regular as usual, and his grasp on the picture was firm--untrembling. Yet in that instant of time he had received the greatest shock of his life, and myriad thoughts were running through his brain with the swiftness of the waters in the mining sluice. He held the bit of pasteboard so long that Williston at last looked up at him inquiringly.

When he handed it back his mind was made up. He knew what must be done. He knew what he must do--at once--for her sake.

When two or three hours later he heard Williston’s regular breathing coming from the bed across the room, he stole out in the darkness to the shed where the horses and buckboard were. It was their one vehicle of any sort, and the only means they had of reaching the valley. With the team gone, Williston would practically be a prisoner for several days. Keith had no hesitation in deciding which way his duty lay. It was thirty miles to the nearest town; to the telegraph; to Gloria Howard; to the railroad!

As he pulled the buckboard out of the shed and put the horses before it, the first raindrops began to fall. Big splashing drops they were, puncturing the parched dust as they beat down upon it. Flashes of lightning split the heavens, and each flash made the earth--for the instant--noon-bright. When he had buckled the last strap his hands tightened on the reins, and he swung himself up to the seat as the thunder’s batteries were turned loose on the earth in a tremendous volley that set the very ground trembling. The frightened horses, crouching, swerved aside an instant, and then leaped forward into the darkness. Along the winding road they swept, like part of the wild storm, toward the town that lay off in the darkness of the valley below.

It was past midnight, and thirty miles lay between him and the railroad. There was no time to spare. He drove the horses at a pace which kept time with his whirlwind thoughts and his pulses.

He had been cool and his thoughts had been collected when under another’s possible scrutiny. Now, alone, with the midnight storm about him, his brain was whirling, and a like storm was coursing through his veins.

The crashing thunder that had seemed like an avalanche of boulders shattered and flung earthward by the fury of the storm, began to spend itself, and close following on the peals and flashes came the earth-scent of rain-wetted dust as the big drops came down. By and by the thunder died away in distant grumbling, and the fiery zigzags went out. There was the sound of splashing hoofs pounding along the road; and the warm, wet smell of horses’ steaming hides, blown back by the night wind.

Fifteen miles--ten--five miles yet to go. Not once had Keith slackened speed.

When at length he found himself on the low levels bordering the river, the storm had passed over, and ere he reached the town the rain had ceased falling. A dim light was breaking through the darkness in places, and scudding clouds left rifts between which brilliant stars were beginning to shine.

As he drove across the bridge and into the lower town, he woke the echoes of a watch-dog’s barking; otherwise, the town was still. At the livery stable he roused the sleeping boy, who took his team; and flinging aside the water-soaked great-coat he wore, he walked rapidly toward the railroad station at the upper end of the town. The message he wrote was given to the telegraph operator with orders to “rush.” It read:

“I have found the fortune. Now I want my wife. Come.”

He signed it with Sidney Williston’s name.

“Is Number Two on time?” he asked.

“An hour late. It’ll be here about 4:10,” was the reply.

Leaving the office, he went back to the lower town. Down the hill and past the pleasant cottages half hidden under their thick poplar shade, and surrounded by neat, close-trimmed lawns. Leaf and grass-blade had been freshened by the summer storm; and the odor of sweet garden flowers--verbenas, mignonette and pinks--was wafted strongly to his nostrils on the night air. They were homes. He turned away from all the fragrance and sighed--the sigh of renunciation. Crickets were beginning to trill their night songs. Past the court-house he went, where it stood ghostly and still in the darkness; past the business buildings farther down, glistening with wet. He turned into a side street to the house where he had been told Gloria Howard lived. At the gate he hesitated a moment, then opening it, went inside. Stepping off the graveled walk, his feet pressed noiselessly into the rain-soaked turf as he turned a corner of the cottage, and--going to a side window--rapped on the casing.

There was silence, absolute and deep. Again he rapped. Sharply this time; and he softly called her name twice. He heard a startled movement in the room, then a pause, as though she were listening. A moment later her white gown gleamed against the darkness of the bedchamber, and she stood at the open window under its thick awning of green hop vines. Her face was on a level with his own. Her hair exhaled the odor of violets. He could hear her breathing.

“Gloria,”----he began, softly.

“Who are you----what is it?” Then, “Keith! You!” she exclaimed; and in a moment more flung wide the wire screen that had divided them.

“Sh!”----he whispered. “I want to speak to you. But----hark! listen!” He laid his hand lightly on her lips.

She caught it quickly between both her own, and laid a hot cheek against it for an instant; then she pressed it tightly against her heart.

The night watchman patrolling the streets was passing; and they stood--he and she together--without movement, in the moist, dusky warmth of the rain-washed summer night, until the footsteps echoed faintly on the wet boards half a block away; the sound mingling with the croaking of the river frogs. Keith could feel the fast beating of her heart. The wet hop leaves shook down a shower of drops as they were touched by a passing breeze.

“Gloria,”----he spoke rapidly, but scarcely above his breath----“I am going away tonight----(he felt her start) away from this part of the country forever; and I have come to ask you to go with me. Will you? Tell me, Gloria, will you go?”

She did not reply, but laying a hand on his still damp coat-sleeve, tried to draw him closer, leaning her face towards his, and striving to read in his own face the truth of his words.

Had there been light enough for him to see, he would have marvelled at the varying expressions that followed in quick succession across her face. Surprise, incredulity, wonderment, a dawning of the real meaning of his words, triumph as she heard, and then--finally--a look of fierce, absorbing, tigerish love. For whatever else there might be to her discredit, her love for him was no lie in her life. She had for this man a passion as strong as her nature was intense.

“Gloria, Gloria, tell me! Will you leave all--everything and everybody--and go away with me?” he demanded impatiently. “Number Two is late--an hour late tonight, and you will have time to make yourself ready if you hasten. Come, Gloria, come!”

“Do----you----mean----it, Bayard Keith?” she breathed.

“I mean it. Yes.”

She knew his yea was yea; still she missed a certain quality in what he said--a certain something (she could not say what) in his tone.

She inhaled a long breath as she drew away from him.

“You are a strange man--a very, very strange man. Do you know it? All these many months you have shunned me; yet now you ask me to cast my lot with yours. Why?”

“Because I find I want you--at last.”

His answer seemed to satisfy her.

“For how long?” she asked.

Just for the imperceptible part of a second he hesitated. His answer would be another unbreakable link in the chain he was forging for himself. Only the fraction of a second, though, he paused. Then his reply came, firm and decided:

“Forever, Gloria, if you will have it so.”

For answer she dropped her head on her folded arms while a dry, hard sob forced its way through her lips. It struck upon the chord within him that always thrilled to the sight or sound of anything, even remotely, touching grief. This sudden, unexpected joy of hers was so near akin to sorrow--ay, and she had had much sorrow, God knows! in her misspent life--it was cause enough for calling forth the gentle touch he laid upon her bowed head.

“Don’t, Gloria, girl! Don’t! It isn’t worth this, believe me. Yet, if you come, you shall never have cause for regret, if there’s anything left in a man’s honor.”

He stroked her hair silently a moment before he said:

“There are some things yet to be done before train time; so I must go now. Will you be there--at the station?”

“Yes.”

So it was that the thing was settled; and Keith accepted his fate in silence.

An evil thing done? Perhaps. Evil, that good might come of it. And he himself to be the sole sufferer. He was removing this woman beyond Sidney Williston’s reach forever. When the weak, erring husband should find himself free once more from the toils which had held him, his love (if love it was) would return to the neglected wife; and she, dear, faithful, loving woman that she was, would never, thank heaven! guess his unfaithfulness.

Bayard Keith did not feel himself to be a hero. Such men as he are never vainglorious; and Keith had no thought of questioning Life’s way of spelling “duty” as he saw it written. He was being loyal for the sake of loyalty, a sacrifice for love’s own sake than which no man can make greater, for he knew that his martyrdom would be in forever being misjudged by the woman for whose dear sake it was done. He would be misjudged, of course, by Sidney Williston, and by all the world, for that matter; but for them he did not care. He was simply doing what he thought was right that he himself should do--for Kathryn Verrill’s sake. Her love had been denied him. Now he must even forfeit her respect. All for love’s sake. None must ever know why he had done this hideous thing. They must be made to think that he--like others--had yielded to a mad love for the bad, beautiful woman. In his very silence under condemnation lay security for Kathryn Verrill’s happiness. Only he himself would ever know how great would be his agony in bearing the load he had undertaken. Oh, if there might be some other way than this! If there could be but some still unthought-of means of escape whereby he could serve his dear lady, and yet be freed from yoking his life with a woman from whom his whole being would revolt. How would he be able through all the years to come--years upon years--to bear his life, with her?

As he walked past the darkened buildings he breathed heavily, each breath indrawn with a sibilant sound, like a badger at bay. Yet he had no thought of turning aside from his self-imposed immolation.

No one was astir in the lower town, save himself and the night watchman. Now and then he passed a dim light burning--here a low-turned burner in store or bank building; there the brighter glow of lamps behind the ground glass of some saloon door. Halfway up the long street leading to the upper town he heard the rumble of an incoming train. Was Number Two on time, after all? Was a pitying Fate taking matters away from him, and into its own hands? Was escape being offered him?

If he hurried--if he ran--he could reach the station in time, but--alone! There would be no time to go back for Gloria Howard. He almost yielded for a moment to the coward’s impulse to shrink from responsibility, but the thought of Kathryn Verrill, waiting by the eastern sea for a message to come from the man she loved, roused him to his better self. He resolutely slackened his pace till the minutes had gone by wherein he could have become a deserter; then he went on up to the station.

“No, that was a freight train that just pulled out,” said the telegraph operator. “Number Two will be here pretty soon, though. Less’n half an hour. She’s made up a little time now.”

Keith went to the office counter and began to write. It was not a long letter, but it told all there was to say:

“Sid: I have wired to your wife to come to you, and I have signed your name. By the time this reaches you she will be on her way here. It will be wiser, of course, for you to assume the sending of the message, and to give her the welcome she will expect. It will be wiser, too--if I may offer suggestions--to travel about with her for a while; to go away from this place, where she certainly would hear of your unfaithfulness should she remain. Then go back with her to your friends, and live out the balance of your life, in the old home, as you ought. I know you will feel I am not a fit one to preach, for I myself am going away tonight, taking Gloria Howard with me. I know, too, how you will look at what I am doing; but I have neither excuses nor explanations to offer.

Bayard Keith.”

That was all.

When he had sealed and directed it, he went to the livery stable and waked up Pete Dudley.

“See here, Pete,” he said, “I want you to do something for me.”

“Sure, Mr. Keith!” said Pete, rubbing his eyes.

“Here’s a letter for Mr. Williston out at our camp in Porcupine Gulch. I want you to take it to him, and take the buckboard, too.”

“All right, I’ll go in the morning.”

“No, no! Listen! Not till day after tomorrow. Wait, let me think---- You’d better wait a day longer----go the next day. Do you understand?”

“I guess I savvy. Not till Friday. Take the letter and the buckboard. Is that the racket?”

“Yes, that’s what I want, Pete. Here! Take them to him without fail on Friday. Good-night, Pete. Good bye!”

Keith walked back to the station and went in the waiting-room, where he sat down. His heart felt as heavy as lead. He had burned all his bridges behind him, and it made his soul sick to contemplate the long vista of the coming years.

As he sat there, the coward hope that she--Gloria--might not come, shot up in his heart, trying to make of him a traitor. He said to himself: “If----if----” Presently he heard the train whistle. He got up and went to the door. He felt he was choking. Daylight was coming fast; day-dawn in the eastern sky. The town, rain-cleansed and freshened, would soon awake and lift its face to the greeting of another morn.

The ticket-office window was shoved up. It was nearing train time.

“Hello, Mr. Keith, going away?”

“Yes, I want a----” he hesitated.

“Where to?”

But Keith did not answer. A ticket? One, or two? If she should not come---- Was Fate----? What was he to do? But, no! Yet he hesitated, while the man at the window waited his reply. Two tickets, or only one? Or not any? Nay, but he must go; and there must be two.

Then the train thundered into the station, and almost at the same moment he heard, through the sound made by the clanging bell, the rustle of a woman’s rich garments. He turned. Gloria Howard stood there, beautiful and eager, panting from her hurried walk.

“Where to?” repeated the man at the window.

“San Francisco--two tickets,” said Keith.

“‘Two,’ did you say?” asked the man, looking up quickly at him and then glancing sideways at the radiant, laughing woman who had taken her place so confidently at Keith’s side.

Keith’s voice did not falter, nor did his eyes fall:

“Two.”

But the telegraph operator smiled to himself as he shoved the tickets across the window sill. To him, Keith was simply “Another one!” So, too, would the world judge him after he was gone.

* * * * *

Bayard Keith was no saint; but as he crossed to the cars in the waxing light of day-dawn, his countenance was transfigured by an indescribable look we do not expect to see--ever--on the face of mortal man.

“For her dear sake!” he whispered softly to himself, as he looked away to the reddening East--to the eastward where “she” was. “For the sake of the woman I love.”

And “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

IN NANNA’S PALM

It all happened years ago. Before there was any railroad; even before there were any overland stages crossing the plains. Only the emigrant teams winding slowly down the valley on the road stretching westward.

Some there were, though, that had worked their way back from the Western sea, to stop at those Nevada cañons where there was silver to be had for the delving.

The cañons were beautiful with dashing, dancing streams, and blossoming shrubbery, and thick-leafed trees; and there grew up in the midst of these, tiny towns that called themselves “cities,” where the miners lived who came in with the return tide from the West.

There in one of the busiest, prettiest mining camps on a great mountain’s side, in one of the stone cabins set at the left of the single long street, dwelt Tony and his cousin Bruno--Italians, both. Bruno worked in the mines; but Tony, owning an ox team, hauled loads for the miners to and from the other settlements. A dangerous calling it was in those days, because an Indian in ambush had ever to be watched for when a White Man came down from the cañons to travel alone through the valley.

Tony was willing, however, to take risks. Teaming brought him more money than anything else he could do; and the more he earned, the sooner he could go back to Nanna--to Nanna waiting for him away on the other side of the world.

He and Bruno both loved her--had loved her ever since the days when, long ago, in their childhood, they had played at being lovers down among the fishing boats drawn up on the beach of their beloved Italian home. Black-browed Bruno had then quarreled with him in jealous hatred time and again; but the little Nanna (who loved peace, and to whom both playfellows were dear) would kiss each and say:

“Come! Let us play that you are my twin brothers, and I your only sister!” And so harmony would be restored.

Thus it went on, and at last they were no longer little children, but men who love a woman as men may love. And Bruno’s parents came to the father and mother of Nanna and settled that their children should be man and wife; so in that way Bruno was made glad, and no longer jealous of Tony--poor Tony, who had not a single small coin that he could call his own. Yet it was Tony whom Nanna loved--Tony whose wife she wanted to be. But what can a young girl do when the one she loves is poor, and there is another whom her parents have chosen for her who has a little farm promised him by his father the day he shall bring home the wife they would have him marry? Nanna neither resisted nor rebelled; but only went to Tony who was as helpless as herself, and there against his breast wept her heart out.

It was only when Bruno declared that he was going to America to make a great deal of money (saying that the farm was not enough--that when he and Nanna were married he wanted they should be rich) that a ray of hope shone for Tony.

“I, too, will go to America,” Tony whispered to Nanna, “and perhaps there I also may find a fortune. Then--when I come back--I may marry thee; may I not, little dear one?”

And for answer, the little Nanna lifted her arms to his neck and her lips to his own.

* * * * *

The night before the two men sailed away to the strange, far-off land, Nanna and Tony walked together under the oaks and ilexes.

“Thou wilt miss me, little one, but thou wilt be true, I know. I shall think of thee all the time--every hour. Thou wilt long for me, as I for thee. Thou wilt miss my kisses; is it not so? But I----! Ah, Nanna! Nanna! Here----” And bowing over her hand he pressed kiss after kiss in the upturned little brown palm, closing her fingers tightly upon them as he raised his head and smiled in her eyes.

“There! These I give thee, sweet one, so that when I am gone it shall be that thy Tony’s kisses are with thee, and are thine whenever thou wilt.”

All the morrow, when the ship had sailed away, Nanna lay on her cot up in the little whitewashed bedroom under the eaves, and with lips pressed close upon the palm that Tony’s lips had touched, sobbed her grief out, till she sank into exhausted slumber.

One year; two years; three, came and went. Tony off in America was making money, and soon he could go home and they would be married in spite of her parents or Bruno. The fourth year he wrote her how the sum had grown--it was almost enough. Then she began checking off the months ere he would return to her. Eighteen--sixteen--fourteen--now only twelve months more! A year, and Tony would be with her! Then half that year was gone. Six months, only, to wait! Happy little Nanna! And Tony was not less happy, away off there in his little stone cabin in the mountains, or hauling goods for the miners across the valley. His heart was so full of her that--almost--he forgot to think of the Indians when he was traveling along the road.

“Thou art a fool,” said Bruno to him over and over again. “Thou art a fool, indeed. It is more money--this hauling--yes! But some day--ping!--and it is the arrow of an Indian. Then what good is it, the money? Thou art a fool, I say. As for me, I will work here with the many in the mines.”

Bruno had just said this to him for the hundredth time, as Tony was yoking his oxen for the long journey up the wide valley to the North. And his answer had been as always, that the saints would protect him. Yet, should he not return the thirteenth day, then indeed might Bruno think all was not well with him, and could send some of the men from the mines to go to him. He was not afraid, though. Had not the saints protected him for nearly five years? He was soon to go back to Italy, and (he whispered to himself) to Nanna! So with a light heart, and a laugh on his lip, he went down the cañon beside the oxen, cracking his whip as he warbled a song he and Nanna had sung together when they had played by the boats and among the fishing nets in the long, long ago.

The wagon jolted and rattled on its way down the rocky road to the plain; and Tony’s big, beautiful St. Bernard dog, Bono, followed in the dust sent skyward by the heavy wheels as they came upon the softer earth of the lowlands.

* * * * *

Everyone was Tony’s friend in the little mining town. Therefore everyone was anxious when the thirteenth day came, yet not Tony. With few words (at such times such men do not say much) they selected a dozen from among the town’s bravest and best, and with heavy hearts set out on their journey that was to follow Tony’s trail till they should find him.

Down into the hot valley--a-quiver under the summer heat, over a road of powdered alkali, along the Humboldt’s banks--through mile after mile of sagebrush and greasewood--under the glaring, white sun, they rode two and two. And so riding they spoke seldom.

When they were nearing the place they knew Tony must have reached the third day out (now more than ten days gone) they saw outlined against the blue--high, high in the air--circling spots of black. Dark things that swept with a majesty of motion that was appalling. Round and round, in great curves half a mile wide, they swam through the ether, and dipped and tilted without so much as the quiver of a wing or other motion than that given by their marvelous self-poise; sailing through mid-air as only a vulture can.

They swept and circled over a spot that was awful in its silence under the metallic brightness of the hot August sun. The men looked at each other; looked without speaking--for they understood. So without speech they rode on to the place where the warped irons from the burned wagon lay, and where a gaunt, nearly starved St. Bernard howled over something that had once been his master. He had guarded the dead man through ten hot days--through ten long nights. Bono’s wail sounded long and mournful through the narrow pass where the whistling arrows had found them. Tony had never been neglectful before, and the dog could not understand it.

Alas, poor Tony!

When Bruno went back to Italy that fall he told Nanna that Tony was dead. And Nanna who came of a race more or less stoical in time of stress did not cry out, but simply shut her sorrow up close in her heart where the others could not see. It had been their secret--hers and Tony’s--and they had guarded it well. Henceforth it would be hers alone. So she gave no sign except such as she might for an old playmate’s death.

By and by she married Bruno. What would you? Her father and mother wished it; Bruno loved her; he had money now to provide well for a wife; and there was the little farm that his parents would give him the day when he should bring home his bride. So, after the manner of her kind, she finally yielded to his wooing; and one day they were wed in the little church on the hill where they had both been christened when babies.

She bore him children, and was a good mother--a good wife. She lived to be an old woman, and her hair grew streaked with gray; yet to the last day of her life she had a way of falling asleep with the fingers of her left hand slipped under her cheek, and her lips touching the upturned palm.

It was her one disloyalty to Bruno.

And so it was they found her lying on that morning that she did not waken.

THE VENGEANCE OF LUCAS

The little adobe house stood flush with the street, halfway between the business houses and the residence portion of the town which turned its back on the sand and sage-covered hills that--breaking into gray waves--far off cast themselves on the beach of blue skyland in great breakers of snow-crested mountains.

At the side of the house was a dooryard--so small!--beaten hard and smooth as a floor, and without a tree or a bush. There was no grass even at the edge of the sturdy little stream that ran across the square enclosure, talking all day to the old-faced baby in its high chair under the shake-covered kitchen porch. All day the stream laughed and chattered noisily to the owl-eyed baby, and chuckled and gurgled as it hurried across the yard and burrowed under the weather-bleached boards of the high fence, to find its way along the edge of the street, and so on to the river a quarter of a mile below. But the wee woman-child, owl-eyed and never complaining, sat through the long sunshine hours without one smile on its little old face, and never heeding the stream.

As the days grew hotter, its little thin hands became thinner, and it ate less and less of the boiled arroz and papas the young mother sometimes brought when she came to dip water.

“Of a truth, there is no niña so good as my ’Stacia; she never, never cries! She is no trouble to me at all,” Carmelita would exclaim, and clap her hands at the baby. But the baby only grew rounder eyed as it stared unsmilingly at its mother’s pretty plumpness, and laughing red lips, and big black eyes, whenever she stopped to talk to the little one.

Carmelita--pretty, shallow-pated Carmelita--never stayed long with the tiny ’Stacia, for the baby was so good left alone; and there was always Anton or Luciano and Monico to drop in for a laugh with the young wife of stupid old Lucas; or Josefa coming in for a game of “coyote y gallos.”

It was Lucas who went out to the porch whenever he could spare the time from earning money that he might buy the needed arroz and papas, or the rose-colored dresses he liked to see her wear.

It was for Lucas she said her first word--the only word she had learned yet--“papa!” And she said it, he thought, as if she knew it was a love in no wise different from a father’s love that he gave her, poor little Anastacia, whose father--well, Lucas had never asked Carmelita to tell him. How could he? Poor child, let her keep her secret. Pobre Carmelita! Only sixteen and no mother. And could he--Lucas--see her beaten and abused by that old woman who took the labor of her hands and gave her nothing in return?--could he stand by when he saw the big welts and bruises, and not beg her to let him care for her and the niña?--such a little niña it was, too! Of a verity, he was no longer young; and there was his ugly pock-marked face, to say nothing of the scars the oso had given him that day when he, a youth, had sent his knife to the hilt in the bear that so nearly cost him his life. The scars were horrible to see--horrible! But Carmelita (so young--so pretty!) did not seem to mind; and when the priest came again they were married, so that Carmelita had a husband and the pobrecita a father.

And such a father! How Lucas loved his little ’Stacia! How tender he was with her; how his heart warmed to the touch of her lips and hands! Why, he grew almost jealous of the red-breasted robin that came daily to sit by the edge of her plate and eat arroz with her! He begrudged the bird its touch of the little sticky hand covered with grains of rice which the robin pecked at so fearlessly. And when the sharp bill hurt the tender flesh, how she would scold! She was not his ’Stacia then at all--no, some other baby very different from the solemn little one he knew. There seemed something unearthly in it, and Lucas would feel a sinking of his heart and wish the bird would stay away. It never came when others were there. Only from the shelter of window or doorway did he and the others see the little bright bird-eyes watch--with head aslant--the big black ones; or hear the baby bird-talk between the two. Every day throughout the long, hot summer the robin came to eat from the niña’s plate of rice as she sat in her high chair under the curling shake awning; and all the while she grew more owl-eyed and thin. A good niña, she was, and so little trouble!

One day the robin did not come. That night, through the open windows of the front room, passers-by could see a table covered with a folded sheet. A very small table--it did not need to be large; but the bed had been taken out of the small, mean room to give space to those who came to look at the poor, little, pinched face under a square of pink mosquito bar. There were lighted candles at the head and feet. Moths, flying in and out of the wide open window, fluttered about the flames. The rose-colored dress had been exchanged for one that was white and stiffly starched. Above the wee gray face was a wreath of artificial orange blossoms, but the wasted baby-fingers had been closed upon some natural sprays of lovely white hyacinths. The cloying sweetness of the blossoms mingled with the odor of cigarette smoke coming from the farther corners of the room, and the smell of a flaring kerosene lamp which stood near the window. It flickered uncertainly in the breeze, and alternately lighted or threw into shadow the dark faces clustered about the doorway of the second room. Those who in curiosity lingered for a moment outside the little adobe house could hear voices speaking in the soft language of Spain.

To them who peered within with idle interest, it was “only some Mexican woman’s baby dead.” Tomorrow, in a little white-painted coffin, it would be born down the long street, past the saloons and shops where the idle and the curious would stare at the procession. Over the bridge across the now muddy river they would go to the unfenced graveyard on the bluff, and there the little dead mite of illegitimacy would be lowered into the dust from whence it came. Then each mourner in turn would cast a handful of earth into the open grave, and the clods would rattle dully on the coffin lid. (Ah, pobre, pobre Lucas!) Then they would come away, leaving Carmelita’s baby there underground.

Carmelita herself was now sitting apathetically by the coffin. She dully realized what tomorrow was to be; but she could not understand what this meant. She had cried a little at first, but now her eyes were dry. Still, she was sorry--it had been such a good little baby, and no trouble at all!

“A good niña, and never sick; such a good little ’Stacia!” she murmured. Carmelita felt very sorry for herself.

Outside, in the darkness of the summer night, Lucas sat on the kitchen porch leaning his head against the empty high chair of the pobrecita, and sobbed as if his heart would break.

* * * * *

That had happened in August. Through September, pretty Carmelita cried whenever she remembered what a good baby the little Anastacia had been. Then Josefa began coming to the house again to play “coyote y gallos” with her, so that she forgot to cry so often.

As for Lucas, he worked harder than ever. Though, to be sure, there were only two now to work for where there had been three. With Anton, and Luciano, and Monico, he had been running in wild horses from the mountains; and among others which had fallen to his share was an old blaze-face roan stallion, unmanageable and full of vicious temper. They had been put--these wild ones--in a little pasture on the other side of the river; a pasture in the rancho of Señor Metcalf, the Americano. And the señor, who laughed much and liked fun, had said he wanted to see the sport when Lucas should come to ride the old roan.

Today, Lucas--on his sleek little cow-horse, Topo--was riding along the river road leading to the rancho; but not today would he rope the old blaze-face. There were others to be broken. Halfway from the bridge he met little Nicolás, who worked for the señor, and passed him with a pleasant “Buenos dias!” without stopping. The boy had been his good amigo since the time he got him away from the maddened steer that would have gored him to death. There was nothing ’Colás would not do for his loved Lucas. But the older man cared not to stop and talk to him today, as was his custom; for he was gravely thinking of the little dead ’Stacia, and rode on. A hundred yards farther, and he heard the clatter of a horse’s hoofs behind him, and Nicolás calling:

“Lucas! Lucas!”

He turned the rein on Topo’s neck, and waited till the boy came. In the pleasant, warm October sunlight he waited, while Nicolás told him that which would always make him shiver and feel cold when afterward he should remember that half-hour in the stillness and sunshine of the river road. He waited, even after Nicolás (frightened at having dared to tell his friend) had gone.

The señor and Carmelita! It was the truth--Nicolás would not lie. The truth; for the boy had listened behind the high fence of weather-beaten boards, and had heard them talk together. He, and the little stream that gurgled and laughed all day, had heard how they--the señor and Carmelita--would go away to the north when the month should end. For many months they two had loved--the Señor Metcalf and the wife of Lucas; had loved before Lucas had made her his wife--ay! even before the little ’Stacia had come. And the little ’Stacia was the señor’s---- Ah, Lucas would not say it of the dead pobrecita! For she was his--Lucas’s--by right of his love for her. Poor little Anastacia! And but that the little one would have been a trouble to the Americano, they--the woman and the man--would have gone away together before; but he would not have it so. Now that the little one was no longer to trouble them, he would take the mother and go away to the new rancho he had just bought far over on the other side of the mountains.

“Go!”--said Lucas, when the boy had finished telling all he had overheard--“Go and tell the señor that I go now to the corral to ride the roan stallion. And--’Colás, give to me thy riata for today.”

* * * * *

Lucas had driven the horses into one of the corrals. Alone there he had lassoed the old blaze-face; and then had driven the others out. Unaided, he had tied the old stallion down. As he lay there viciously biting and trying to strike out with his hind feet, Lucas had fastened a halter on his head and had drawn a riata (sixty feet long, and strong as the thews of a lion) tight about him just back of the forelegs. Twice he had passed it about the heaving girth of the old roan, whose reeking body was muddy with sweat and the grime and dust of the corral. The knots were tied securely and well. The rope would not break. Had he not made it himself from the hide of an old toro? From jaw-piece to jaw-piece of the halter he drew his crimson silk handkerchief, bandaging the eyes that gleamed red under swollen and skinned lids. Then, cautiously, Lucas unbound the four hoofs that had been tied together. The horse did not attempt to move, though he was consumed by a rage against his captor that was fiendish--the fury of a wild beast that has never yet been conquered.

Lucas struck him across the ribs with the end of the rope he was holding. The big roan head was lifted from the ground a second and then let fall, as he squealed savagely. Again the rope made a hollow sound against the heaving sides. Again the maddened horse squealed. When the rope struck the third time, he gathered himself together uncertainly--hesitated--struggled an instant--staggered to his feet, and stood quivering in every muscle of his great body. His legs shook under him; and his head--with the bandaged eyes--moved from side to side unsteadily.

Then Lucas wound the halter-rope--which was heavy and a long one--around the center-post of the corral where they were standing.

As he finished, he heard someone singing; the voice coming nearer and nearer. A man’s voice it was, full and rich, caroling a love song, the sound mingling with that of clattering hoofs.

Lucas, stooping, picked up the riata belonging to Nicolás. He was carefully re-coiling it when Guy Metcalf, riding up to the enclosure, looked down into the corral.