The Mystery of The Barranca

“Nevertheless,” Seyd mused, “I’d give three cents to know.”

Meanwhile, Don Luis pursued his quiet way, now at a heavy canter, again on a stately trot, through the jungle out to the first village beyond the forks of the trail. As he passed the little fonda Sebastien Rocha rode out from a group of rancheros who stood drinking at the rough bar.

“They told me of the passing,” he said, nodding backward. “And I waited. What news? Did the gringos go up with their furnace? No? Still they will now have their bellies full of Guerrero?”

But his face dropped at Don Luis’s answer. “No, they are to build again.”

“But I thought – was it not the agent at the station who said they had no money?”

“Neither had they.” It was always difficult to read the massive face, but now it expressed just a shade of malicious amusement. “I have lent them fifty thousand pesos.”

“Thou!” For once the man’s usual cynical calm was completely disrupted. In his vast astonishment he whispered it: “Thou? Fifty thousand pesos?”

“Yo.” Smiling slightly, he went on: “Now listen, Sebastien. Not to mention thy little attempt on their virtue, this is the third on their lives, and all badly bungled. So do not wonder that I thought it time to take them into my own hand. Now that they are there, let there be no mistake – the meddling finger is likely to be badly pinched. From this time – they are mine.”

“But – why give them money?”

“To forestall others.” Had he been there to hear, the following words would fully have answered Seyd’s question. “The elder of these lads is no common man. By hook or by crook he would have raised a company – if he had to rope and tie down his men on the run. Then, instead of these two, we should have a dozen gringos, with Porfirio and his rurales to back up their charter. But do not fear.”

From the cleared fields through which they were riding it was possible to see Santa Gertrudis, and, turning in his saddle, he extended his quirt toward its green scar.

“Do not fear.”

CHAPTER XI

It was in the middle of the rainy season. Stepping out of his office, where he had just added a few drops of Scotch to the water he was absorbing at every pore, the station agent came face to face with the engineer of the down train.

“Nine hours late?” The engineer gruffly repeated the other’s comment. “We are lucky to be here at all. Besides being sopping wet, the wood we’re burning is that dosey it’d make a fireproof curtain for hell. This kind of railroading don’t suit my book, and I’m telling you that if they don’t serve us out something pretty soon that smells like wood I know one fat engineer that will be missing on this line.” Jerking his thumb at the lone passenger who had descended at the station, he added: “But for that chap we’d never have got through. When the track went out from under us at La Puente he pitched in and showed us no end of wrinkles. If you’ve got anything inside just give him a nip for me.”

“Hullo, Mr. Seyd!” Coming face to face with the passenger after the train had gone on, the agent thrust out his hand. “What a pity you weren’t on the other train. She was twenty hours late – in fact, only pulled out a couple of hours ago. Miss Francesca was aboard, and she just left.”

“Not alone?”

The agent laughed. “Sure! She don’t care. Three weeks ago she came galloping in through one of the heaviest rains and took the up train.”

“So she has been home since I left?”

“Let me see – that’s nigh on three months, isn’t it? Sure, she came home just after you left.”

With this bit of information lingering in the forefront of his mind Seyd, a little later, rode out from the station. Not that it engrossed, by any means, the whole of his thought. Even had he been free, the hard work and bitter disappointment of the first venture, and the equally hard thought and careful planning for the second during his long absence in the States, would have been sufficient to keep her in the background. If he had never happened to see Francesca again she would probably have lingered as an unusually pretty face in the gallery of his mind. While it was only natural that he should wonder if the news that he sent in by Caliban had ever reached her ear, it was merely a passing thought. His mind soon turned again to his plans. Up to the moment that, four hours later, he came slipping and sliding downhill upon her she was altogether out of his thought.

For that very reason his fresh senses leaped to take the picture she made standing in the gray sheeting rain beside her fallen horse, and through its very difference from either the tan riding habit or virginal batiste of his memory her loose waterproof with its capote hood helped to stamp this figure upon his brain. Before she said a word he had gone back to the feelings of four months ago.

The pelting rain had washed all but a few clay streaks off her coat. Touching them, she explained: “The poor beast fell under me. I fear it has broken a leg.”

While speaking she offered her hand; and if that had not been sufficient, her friendly smile more than answered his speculation. Caliban’s niece had certainly done her duty! Indeed, while he was stooping over the fallen animal a quick glance upward would have given him a look evenly compounded of mischief and remorse. It gave place to sudden sorrow when he spoke.

“It is broken, all right. There is only one thing to be done. If you will lead my horse around the shoulder of the hill I will put the poor thing out of its pain.”

Her life had been cast too much in the open for her to be ignorant of the needs of the case. Nevertheless, he saw that her eyes were brimming as she led his horse away; and, remembering their black fire on the day that she had ordered the charcoal-burners flogged, he wondered. It would have been even harder to reconcile the two impressions had he seen the tears rolling down her cheeks when the muffled report of his pistol followed her around the hill. But she had wiped them away before he rejoined her. If the sensitive red mouth trembled, her voice was under control.

“No, I had not waited long,” she answered his question. “You see, the poor creature lost a shoe earlier in the day, and I had to ride back to have it replaced. It would have been better had I stayed there.”

For the moment he was puzzled. An hour ago he had ridden past the last habitation, a flimsy hut already overcrowded with the peon, his wife, their children, chickens, and pigs. All around them stretched wide wastes of volcanic rock and scrub. They were, as he knew, on the hacienda San Angel, but the buildings lay five leagues to the north. With hard riding he had expected to make the inn at the foot of the Barranca wall that night. She might do it by taking his horse. But if anything went wrong? She would be alone – all night – in the rain! He felt easier when she refused the offer of his beast.

“And leave you to walk? No, sir.”

A second offer to walk by her side not only ran counter to the prejudice of a race of riders, but also aroused her sympathies. “I could never think of it!” After a moment of thought she propounded her own solution. “Your beast is strong. I have ridden double on an animal half his size. We will both ride.”

Now, though Seyd had long ago grown to the sight of rancheros on their way to market in the embrace of their buxom brown wives, the suddenness of it made him gasp. But by a quick mounting he succeeded in hiding the rush of blood to his face. Also he managed to control his voice.

“Fine idea! Give me your hand.”

Just touching his foot, she rose like a bird to the croup. When, as the horse moved on, she slid an arm around his waist his demoralization was full and complete. If he glanced down it was to see her fingers resting like small white butterflies on his raincoat. Did he look up, then a faint perfume of damp hair would come floating over his shoulder. He thrilled when her clasp tightened as the horse broke into a gentle trot, and was altogether in a bad way when her merry laugh restored order among his senses.

“Now we can play Rosa and Rosario on their way to market. It will be for you to grumble at prices while I rail at the government tax that puts woolens beyond the purse of a peon.”

“I prefer to ask what brought you out in such weather.” He returned her laugh. “A pretty pickle you would have been in if I had not come along.”

He felt the vigorous shake of her head. “I should have walked back to the last hut, and an oxcart would have taken me in to the station.”

“But then you would have been out all night.”

“I should have loved it.” Though he did not see the sudden blooming under her hood, he felt the unconscious squeeze which testified to the sincerity of her feeling. “I love them – the roar of the wind, black darkness, the beat of the rain in my face. Mother would have had me stay in Mexico till the rains were over, but when Don Luis wrote that the river was at flood nothing could hold me.” He had thrilled under her unconscious pressure, but her conclusion proved an excellent corrective. “I am afraid that the site for your new buildings must be under water.”

“How can that be?” He spoke quickly. “We are building well back from last year’s mark, and Don Luis said that it was the highest known.”

“But this year it has gone even higher – and all because of the Yankee companies that are stripping the upper valley of timber. There were great fires, too, last year which broke away from their servants and burned hundreds of miles of woods.”

Her quiet answer went far to allay his sudden suspicion, but not his anxiety. He spoke of Billy. “It is over a month since he came out to the station for stores, and the agent told me that none of your people had seen him for weeks.”

“But he has with him Angelo” – she gave Caliban his correct name – “and he, as I once told you, was counted Sebastien’s best man in his war against the brigands. Though he may not show it to you, he is not ungrateful for the gift of his life. If food is to be had in the country, Mr. Thornton will not go lacking.”

He spoke more cheerfully. “Then I don’t care; though if the site is flooded we shall be thrown back at least three months with our work.”

“And what is three months?” she added, laughing.

To him it was a great deal. Before paying over the loan Don Luis’s lawyers had taken Seyd’s signatures upon certain instruments which exhibited the General in the new light of a shrewd and conservative business man. Withal, having still plenty of time, he answered quite cheerfully when she turned the conversation with a question concerning his plans. Under the stimulation of her curiosity, which surprised him by its intelligence, he went into details, talking and answering her questions while the horse trudged steadily on into the darkening rain. If the trail had not suddenly faded out, night would have caught them unnoticed.

In that volcanic country, where for long stretches a hoof left no impression, the loss of a trail was a common experience, and, trusting to the instinct of the beast, Seyd gave it the rein. Left to its own devices, however, it gradually swerved from the beating rain and presently turned on to a cattle track which swung away into gum copal trees and scrub oak at an imperceptible angle. Had he been alone Seyd would have soon noticed the absence of the Aztec ruin. As it was, but not until an hour later, Francesca was the first to speak.

“That’s so,” he agreed, when she drew his attention. “We ought to have passed it long ago. The animal evidently picked up a wrong track coming out from the rocks.” After a moment’s reflection he said: “It would be worse than foolish to try to go back. We could never find the trail in this black rain. Better follow on and see where it will bring us.” With a sudden remembrance of what it might mean to her, a young girl brought up in the rigid conventions of the country, he repentantly added: “I’m awfully sorry for you. I ought to be kicked for my carelessness.”

“No, I have traveled this trail much oftener than you,” she quietly protested. “If any one is blamed I should be the one.”

Sitting there in black darkness, lost in those lonely volcanic hills, with the rain dashing in his face and the roar of the wind in his ears, he was prepared to appreciate her quiet answer. “You are a brick!” he exclaimed. “Nevertheless, I feel my guilt.”

“Then you need not.” She gave a little laugh. “Did I not say that I enjoyed being out at night in the rain?”