Jessica, the Heiress

“Tell me what that means, Pedro! The thing is bewitched.”

“Ugh!” said the Indian, arousing from his contemplation, and, stooping began to dig amid the loose stones at his feet, with the only tools at his command–his own lean fingers. For these he sometimes substituted a bit of rock, and to Jessica it seemed as if he would never give over his strange task. When she had begun to really despair of the liberation which had seemed so near a while ago, he ceased his labor and stood upright, holding something shining toward the lantern’s light. To the girl it appeared as only another worthless stone, of a pretty, reddish hue, but wholly unworthy the toil which had been spent to secure it. She was further surprised, if anything could now surprise her, to see the Indian place the fragment carefully within his shirt front and tighten his belt afresh below it. Then he lifted the basket she had filled with the articles they had found and motioned her upwards again.

“Now, we’re really going, aren’t we, Pedro?”

“Yes, Sunny Face. We go.”

Indeed, he was as eager for departure as heretofore he had been loath. Releasing the dwarf’s feet from their bandages, he helped his prisoner to them and gently propelled him forward by a kick of his own moccasined toe. Thus compelled, Ferd led the way, the shepherd at his heels, carrying the basket slung upon the staff over his shoulder, and his free hand pressed closely against his breast where he had placed the gleaming stone. Behind him walked impatient Jessica, with the lantern, and in suchwise the little procession came swiftly and silently to the end of the passage and stood once more under the free air of heaven. Here they had to halt, for a moment, till their vision became accustomed to the dazzling light; then with a cry of rapture, the “captain” darted from her comrades and sped wildly down the rocky gorge.

CHAPTER V.

JESSICA’S STORY

Though it had seemed as a lifetime to impatient Jessica that she had been kept in the cave, after Pedro’s arrival there, in reality it was less than an hour; and it was yet early in the day when a cry she had expected never to hear again, rang through the room where Gabriella Trent was lying.

“Mother! My mother! Where are you?”

Another instant, and they were clasped in close embrace as if nothing should ever separate them again. Words were impossible, at first, and not till she saw that even joy was dangerous for her overwrought patient did Aunt Sally, the nurse, interpose and bodily lift the daughter from the parent’s arms. All at once her own calmness and courage forsook good Mrs. Benton, and now that she saw the lost girl restored, visibly present in the flesh, anger possessed her till she longed to shake, rather than caress, the little captain.

“Well, Jessica Trent! These are pretty goings on, now ain’t they?”

Gabriella sat up and her child nestled against her, their hands clasped and their eyes greedily fixed upon each other’s countenance. The unexpected brusqueness of the question was a relief to their high tension, and Jessica laughed, almost hysterically, as she answered:

“They didn’t seem very ‘pretty’ to me, Aunt Sally.”

“What a sight you be! Where you been?”

“In the canyon cave.”

“Didn’t know there was one.”

“Nor I–before.”

“What for? What made you stay? Didn’t you know you’d raised the whole countryside to hunt for you? Don’t believe there’s an able-bodied man left on a single ranch within fifty miles; all off huntin’ for you. You–you ought to be spanked!”

“Mrs. Benton!” warned Gabriella, in a tone of such distress that the reproved one promptly sank in a capacious heap on the floor and fell to weeping with the same vigor that she applied to all things. Jessica, too, began to cry softly, at intervals, with such shuddering bursts of sobs, that the mother’s tears, also, were soon dimming the eyes to which they had been denied during all the past anxiety. However, this simultaneous downpour was infinite relief to all; and presently the mother rose and with the strength happiness gave to her slight figure, carried her child away to rest.

“You are safe. You are here. I see that you have suffered no hurt, and bed is the place for you. When you have slept and rested you must tell us all. Oh! my darling! Many hearts have ached for you, and I thought my own was broken. But, thank God! thank God!”

Aunt Sally followed them, and, as if she had been a new-born baby, the two women washed and made ready for a long sleep the precious child that had been given back to them from the grave. Then the mother sat down to watch while Aunt Sally hurried to ring the ancient mission bell, whose harsh clanging had been agreed upon among the searchers as the signal of good news.

They all came flocking back, singly or in groups, from wherever the summons, which could be heard for miles in that clear air, chanced to find them. Impatience was natural enough, too, on their part, since to their eager questions Mrs. Benton could not give answer beyond the simple statement:

“Yes, she’s back, safe and sound. Says she’s been in a cave, though where it is or whether she’s just flighty in her head, land knows. She’s sleepin’ now, and it won’t be healthy for any you lumberin’ men to be makin’ a noise round the house before she wakes up, of her own accord.”

Nor when Pedro and the subdued dwarf came slowly over the road would they make any further explanation. Indeed, they were both utterly silent; the Indian forcing his captive before him into the deserted office where he intrenched himself, with his basket and staff, until such time as it should be his mistress’ pleasure to receive him.

Thus, with time on her hands and nothing else to do, Aunt Sally collared Wun Lung and withdrew to her kitchen, whence, presently, there arose such various and appetizing odors that the weary ranchmen scented a feast, and sought repose for themselves till it was ready. Samson and John, however, were called upon for aid, and, whereas they were ordered to “dress six of the plumpest fowl in the hennery,” they brought a dozen, and for “one likely shoat,” they made ready two. Nor, when they were upbraided for wastefulness, were they a whit abashed, but John demanded, with unfilial directness:

“Why, mother, what’s got your common sense? Tisn’t only our own folks you’re cookin’ for, but fifty others, more or less. Do you s’pose Cassius Trent would skimp victuals on such a day as this? My advice to you is: Put on all the pork and bacon you’ve got, to bile; and roast the lamb that was butchered for our mess; and set to bakin’ biscuit by the cartload, and–”

“John Benton, hold your tongue, or I’ll–”

“No, you won’t, mother! I’ve outgrown spankin’ though I’d be most willin’ to submit if ’twould be any relief to your feelin’s, or mine either. I tell you this here’s the greatest day ever shone on Sobrante Ranch, not barrin’ even the one when the ‘captain’ came home with the title in her hand.”

“You misguided boy, don’t I know it? Ain’t I clean druv out my wits a-thinkin’ ever’thing over, and where in the name of natur’ am I goin’ to do it all, with them horrid gasoline stoves no bigger’n an old maid’s thimble, and Pasqually gone off s’archin’ with the rest, and no’count the heft of the time and my sins!”

“Had to take breath, or bust, hadn’t you?” cried her disrespectful son, catching the portly matron about the spot where her waist should have been and hilariously whirling her about in a waltz which his own lameness rendered the more grotesque. “And where can you cook ’em? Why, right square in them old ovens at the mission. Full now of saddles and truck, but Samson and me’ll clear ’em out lively. I’ll make you a fire in ’em, and they’ll see cookin’ like they haven’t since the padres put out their own last fires. They weren’t any fools, them fellers. They knew a good thing when they saw it, and if they tackled a job they did it square. The ovens they built, just out of baked mud and a few stones, are as tight to-day as they were a hundred years ago; and, whew! won’t old Pedro, that found her, relish his meat cooked in ’em?”

Nor was Benton to be outdone in suggestion on the matter of providing. Some of the searchers had brought back a quantity of game, with which the country teemed, and which it had delayed them but little to shoot. This was levied upon without ado, and in the preparation of the great feast Aunt Sally’s helpers forgot their fatigue, and were as deftly efficient as women would have been.

Indeed, between sleep and labor, the hours of Jessica’s unbroken rest passed quickly, after all; and the good news having spread almost as swiftly as the ill, the grounds were full of people when, at last, she awoke. But, even yet, Mrs. Trent’s consideration for others refused a prior or full hearing of the story to which her faithful helpers had as good a right as she, if not as intense an interest in it. She made the child eat and drink, and went with her to her favorite rostrum when addressing her “company” of soldierly “boys”–the horse block. Here the girl stood up and told her simple tale.

“You see, dear folks, it was just this way: Aunt Sally and I were on the porch, and we found Elsa’s ring, all crooked. We couldn’t guess how it came there, and I’d just been made pretty angry about the way you felt toward ‘Forty-niner.’ Oh! it was dreadful, dreadful of you all, and I never was so ashamed of my ‘boys,’ not in all my life.”

“Go on with the story, captain. Never mind us,” cried somebody.

“And a little way farther I found a piece of Elsa’s knitted bag. That made me think a lot. Then the tackers came, all paint, and with Mr. Hale’s horse, that had been on the mesa ever since he was here. That made me think some more, and I told auntie if she wouldn’t scold the little ones I’d try to find their clothes. I didn’t find them, though, Aunt Sally.”

“Go on! Go on! What next?” demanded an impatient listener.

“Then I saw Ferd. Oh, mother! If I tell I’m afraid they’ll hurt him.”

“He shall be protected, daughter, and you must tell,” said the mother, though she now shrank from the hearing.

“I asked him about the horse and the children, and he said ‘yes,’ he had fixed them. He had driven Prince down from the mesa, when Pedro didn’t see him, and had ‘showed that old carpenter’ something to pay for kicks and hard words. He knew something I’d like to know. So I asked him what, and he said it was Elsa’s money. But if I didn’t go with him without saying anything to anybody he wouldn’t tell me how to find it. I begged to tell my mother, but he said her least of all. It wouldn’t take long, only a few rods up the canyon; so, of course, I went. I thought I should be back long before dinner-time, and that mother would tell me to do anything which would clear old Ephraim’s name from your cruel suspicions. And, oh, boys! You were wrong, you were wrong! He never took a cent that wasn’t his own, and Elsa’s money is found!”

Absolute silence followed this announcement, then Samson’s great voice started the wild “Hurrahs” which made the wide valley ring. The cheers were long and lusty, but when they subsided at last, Mrs. Trent bade her daughter finish the tale.

“It wasn’t a little, but a long way up the canyon; yet I was so eager to right Ephraim’s wrong that I didn’t feel afraid, though I never have liked Ferd. He can’t help being queer, maybe, with his queer body to keep his half mind in–”

The hisses that interrupted her were almost as loud as the cheers had been, and it would have fared ill with the dwarf had he at that moment been visible. Fortunately, he was still under the surveillance of the grim shepherd, in the locked office, and the majority of those present were ignorant of his whereabouts.

“Quit hindering the captain. Her story is what we want!” cried “Marty.” “The dwarf can wait.”

“So we went on and on, and into a strange, dark tunnel, that scared me a little, yet made me more curious than ever to see the end of it all. The tunnel led to a cave, and in the cave there was a deep hole; and before I knew what he was doing, Ferd had slung a lariat about me and dropped me into it.”

Again an interruption of groans and howls, that were promptly suppressed by a wave of the mistress’ white hand; then Jessica continued:

“As soon as he had put me there, he told me he would keep me till my mother paid him great money to let me up. Yet he wouldn’t even go to her and ask for it. He said I must promise, and that she would do anything I said. He told about a boy in ’Frisco, he’d heard the men say, was taken from his folks and kept till they paid lots for his release–even thousands of dollars! Antonio had taught him that money was the best thing to have. He believed it. He took it whenever he could find it. That’s what made him take Elsa’s, and blame it upon Ephraim. And I wouldn’t promise. How could I? My dear has no money to give wicked men, and I knew the dear God would take me back to her when He saw fit. As He did, indeed. For it must have been He who put it into Pedro’s heart to seek the cave just when I needed him most. Only the Lord could see through all that darkness and lead the shepherd by that crooked way.”

She paused, and, turning to her mother, laid her sunny head upon the shoulder that was shaken by such sobs as moved her faithful ranchmen to thoughts of deep revenge. Eyes that had not wept for years grew dim, and out of that circle of listening men rose a low and ominous sound. Some, remembering their own idle talk of kidnaping and the like, shuddered at the practical application the dwarf’s dim mind had made of their words; and various plans for punishment were forming when the captain clapped her hands for fresh attention.

“Hear me, ‘boys.’Do you belong to me?”

“Ay, ay! Heart and soul!”

“Then you must mind me. You must let Ferd alone. You must do even more to please me–and teach him to be good, not bad.”