Chapter 9

"Holy Virgin!" she cried, eyeing Chiquita critically. "What is the meaning of this; dressed in your very best? Is this the Sabbath, or one of the blessed Saints' days, or perhaps a Palm-Sunday that you should array yourself thus? Mother of God! when has it become the fashion for young ladies to disport themselves in their best clothes on common, ordinary week days? Why, 'tis not even a Fish-Friday! Merciful Heaven! to what are we coming?" she gasped between breaths, clasping her hands and glancing heavenward. "Do such dresses grow upon bushes that they are so easily obtained? Doubtless," she concluded with withering sarcasm, "when they are worn threadbare as they soon will be owing to such constant usage, you will purchase others with those golden _pesos_ which you earned so recently."

Chiquita, accustomed to the Señora's outbursts, did not deign an immediate reply, but sat quietly fanning herself, a faint smile wreathing her lips; she was thoroughly enjoying the Señora's discomfort. What would not the latter give to know something concerning those _pesos_? Chiquita's composure under the fire of her words only tended to increase her irritation.

"Oh, I know why you have thus suddenly turned the peacock! You do not deceive me! You have arrayed yourself thus for the grand Señor--_Capitan_ Forest."

"Bah!" ejaculated Chiquita composedly, as though nothing unusual were taking place. "Is that all you have to say Doña Fernandez?"

"All! Is that not enough? Holy God!" she cried with increasing vexation. "You are in love--in love, I say!" A ripple of laughter bubbled over the two rosy petals of Chiquita's lips, revealing the pearly whiteness of her teeth. Now that she realized the real cause of the Señora's anger, it was impossible to become angry herself. The Señora, however, was by no means abashed by Chiquita's indifference, and vigorously renewed the attack.

"So our little ring-dove is in love, is she?" she continued mockingly, strutting back and forth before her. "You think _Capitan_ Forest will notice you in that finery--that he will fall in love with you and will marry you, and that you will become a grand lady like the Señorita Lennox and ride in a fine carriage for the rest of your days. _Mercedes Dios!_ and all because you have succeeded in turning the heads of a few country bumpkins that hang about the place casting sheep's-eyes at you. Ha, ha, ha!" she laughed derisively. "Believe me, when _Capitan_ Forest makes up his mind to marry, he will not stoop so low to pick up so little."

"Doña Fernandez!" said Chiquita sharply rising from the bench with an ominous look in her eyes.

"Foolish child," Señora went on without heeding her, "to imagine that some day your hands will be white like a lady's! I suppose you have nothing further to do to-day but to pick flowers?" she added, pausing for breath.

"I have never worried about my color, Doña Fernandez," replied Chiquita indignantly. "Indeed, I sometimes think it holds its own better than that of some persons I might mention."

"Holy Mother! how your tongue runs on! Am I not to be allowed to say anything? Oh, you do not deceive me! I saw you give him the rose as I came here. If he's sensible, he'll throw it away."

Chiquita laughed derisively. "Perhaps it is well for the world that all people are not so sensible as you are, Doña Fernandez," and her fan closed with a sudden snap. "So this is the advice you came to give me, Doña Fernandez? How very considerate of you!"

Her words recalled the Señora to the purpose of her coming. For some time she paced up and down before Chiquita without replying. Then stopping and facing her, and watching closely for the effect her words would have upon her, she said: "I came to tell you--that Don Felipe Ramirez has returned."

Chiquita started. "Don Felipe here?"

"Aye. He's stopping at my house, and I came to warn you that perhaps it would be well to be cautious and exercise a little more self-control than is your wont when in his and _Capitan_ Forest's presence."

The Señora was satisfied with her morning's work; her words had had their effect. Besides, had she not had her say--unburdened her soul of many things which she had long been dying to give utterance to? All things considered she had scored.

"_Á Dios_, Señorita," she added sarcastically, her black eyes gleaming with malicious satisfaction as with mock courtesy she bowed and turned, leaving Chiquita silent and motionless, her eyes cast on the ground and lost in thought.

XIV

"Don Felipe here? The coward, the cur! How dare he return?" she cried with a sudden outburst, her words ringing with indignation and resentment. She impatiently tapped the palm of her hand with her fan as she began to realize what his return might mean to her.

She knew that Señora had come to warn her not on her own account, but solely on Don Felipe's. Knowing as she did the reckless character of the man, she thoroughly realized the danger, and knew that she must be on her guard, not only for her own sake, but for Captain Forest's as well. Like the bird of ill omen that he was, his presence boded no good to her. Already she felt his baleful shadow fall across her path.

The unusual attention which Chiquita had begun to pay to her personal appearance did not escape the observant eye of Padre Antonio. Knowing the nature of woman as few men did, he was wise enough not to question her, experience having taught him that the majority of women can only keep a secret for a certain length of time. He smiled and admired, or twitted her with the simple remark: "For whom are we dressing this morning, Chiquita _mia_?" But she only laughed in reply, or shaking her finger at him with a mysterious air, would say: "What woman would not dress for Padre Antonio?" But Padre Antonio was not so innocent as he tried to appear. Instinct, reënforced by long experience, told him that these were the first real symptoms of love which his wild little Indian girl, as he chose to call her, had shown.

He had always suspected that she never really cared for Don Felipe, and had done his best to break off the engagement before the catastrophe had overtaken the latter; but this was different. That of which he was loath to think, yet which he knew must inevitably happen, had come to pass.

His knowledge of human nature told him that she had at last met the man worthy of her love, but, he asked himself, would Captain Forest, of a different race and reared under totally different conditions, reciprocate that love? He could not endure the thought that his little girl might be made unhappy should the Captain fail to respond to her love.

He, too, had seen Chiquita give him the rose from his study window which overlooked the garden. So, when the sermon upon which he was engaged was completed, he quietly descended to the garden with the intention of administering to her a gentle admonition as well as giving her a little wholesome advice. Chiquita, hearing the sound of his measured tread on the gravel as he approached along the pathway, reseated herself on the bench and began to fan herself unconcernedly.

What a picture she made against the pale plumy branches of the tamarisk, thought Padre Antonio.

"I thought I heard voices," he said, seating himself beside her. "Has any one been here?"

"Doña Fernandez has just gone," replied Chiquita absently. "She has been giving me some of her advice."

"Advice?" echoed Padre Antonio, realizing the moment of his arrival to be most opportune. "That's just what I have come to give you, my child--advice!"

"What! You, too, Padre?" she exclaimed petulantly, looking at him inquiringly. "_Dios!_ what have I done that everybody comes to give me advice when I have so many other things to think of?"

"Chiquita," slowly began Padre Antonio, laying his hand gently on her own, "I have always known you to be wiser than most women, the result no doubt, of your early life and training in the wilds where people must live by their wits for self-preservation if for nothing else." He paused that he might the better collect his thoughts. She guessed what was coming and began toying with her fan, an arch smile playing about her delicate, sensitive mouth as she regarded him out of the corners of her large dark eyes.

"Chiquita," he continued, "I do not like your extravagance. Have a care, child, lest you become addicted to vanity."

"Again, just what the Señora said! Am I so vain as all that, Padre _mio_, that you should be obliged to remind me of it?"

"Then why this continual display?" he asked pointedly. "You never used to show such consideration for your admirers." She felt that it would be not only foolish, but worse than useless to attempt to fence about the truth with him.

"Ah, Padre _mio_," she sighed softly, blushing and laying her hand lightly on his shoulder and looking up into his face with deep lustrous eyes that softened with her words, "you--you forget--that I have never been in love before."

"In love!" echoed Padre Antonio in turn. "Ah! I knew it was that," and into his eyes there came an expression of tenderness and a far-away look as though the word recalled memories of other days. Memories which music or the glories of the sunset, or the cooing of the wood-dove at eventide might awaken within the soul. The sunlight played along the path at their feet. The breeze wafted the fragrance of the roses about them and a linnet, perched on the swaying branch of a tree overhead, gave voice to his song, singing of the joy of life. Again he sighed, and Chiquita looking up quickly, saw in his eyes that which she had never suspected.

"Padre _mio_," she said at length, lowering her eyes and slowly opening and shutting her fan, "have--have you ever been in love?"

"My child!" he cried with a start, suddenly recollecting where he was. "You forget what I am! What are you thinking of?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing!" she returned quietly. "Only it's so--so sweet to be in love, Padre _mio_. And yet so--"

"So what, my child?" he interrupted hurriedly, as if to get through with the subject as quickly as possible.

"So terrible," she answered.

"So terrible?"

"Yes, terrible, Padre _mio_, for I never knew before how ugly I am."

"My poor child, you have quite lost your head!" he answered sympathetically.

"Ah, no," she said rising and facing him, "you do not understand; I have a most dangerous rival. To win the Señor I am compelled to use every means and strategy within my power. Can you not see?" she continued passionately; "she has everything; I have nothing. She is not only beautiful, but rich, and Blessed Virgin, what dresses she has, and jewels enough to cover an altar-cloth!"

"My child!" he cried. "You are merely jealous of the Señorita's beauty. For shame, that you should set such store upon worldly things!"

"Padre _mio_, you would not have your little Chiquita unhappy, would you?" she went on without heeding his words, a beseeching tone in her voice. "Should I fail to win Captain Forest's love, my heart will break!" She stood with downcast eyes before him, an expression of pain on her face.

"Ah, yes, my child, I understand," he answered compassionately, also rising from the bench. "Your temptation is great. Beware of pride and the vanities of this world, for he that exalteth himself shall be humbled.

"Chiquita," he continued earnestly, "my greatest care in bringing you up has ever been to keep you the pure and simple being that you were when you came to me. Do not forget--God demandeth that the souls which he gave into our keeping should be returned unto him again in the same pure unblemished state that we received them. Therefore, take heed, my child, for although God has endowed you with great beauty of both mind and body, do not foolishly imagine that, by arraying yourself in the vanities of this world, you can add an atom to the natural beauty He has bestowed upon you already. Be but pleasing in God's sight and it must follow that you will please all men as well."

"Oh! you really do think me beautiful, Padre?" she cried, a radiant look on her face.

"My child, my child, you do not listen to what I have to say!" he groaned despairingly.

"Oh, yes, I do, Padre _mio_! But you forget that, when God endowed woman with a soul, he gave her a heart as well. Willingly we render our souls unto God, but our hearts belong to men." The logic of her argument was too much for Padre Antonio, and he laughed as she had never seen him laugh before.

"Verily," he said at length, wiping the tears from his eyes and reseating himself on the bench, "the spirit and flesh must ever contend for the mastery of the soul on earth; it is our fate--the good Lord intended that it should be so."

"Ah, yes," she returned. "It's not always the good that seems to please us most in this world."

"Aye, verily!" he rejoined, relapsing into silence. Again the linnet gave voice to his song, and the cooling breeze sighed among the tamarisk plumes that waved about their heads.

"Do you remember when you first came to me, Chiquita _mia_?" he asked at last.

"That was ten years ago, Padre."

"I then thought," he went on, "that the good Lord had sent you to me to make a little angel out of you, but--"

"Ah, Padre _mio_," she interrupted, "it's too bad! I'm afraid I'm still the little devil that I was!" and laughing, she rose from her seat and passing around to his end of the bench, stood beside him and began to pull the leaves from a rose-bush.

"Padre _mio_," she said softly, looking down at him with mischievous lights dancing in her eyes, "you don't really regret that I have remained what I am, do you?"

"Oh, I didn't mean to infer that, my child!" he answered with a note of reproach in his voice, looking up into her shadowy, downcast face. She gave a little laugh, and tapping him gently on one shoulder with her fan, said: "Do you know what you are, Padre _mio_?"

"What, my child?" he asked innocently, his face brightening at the question.

"You're the dearest old goose that ever lived!" and bending over him, she kissed him lightly on the crown of his head before he could prevent it.

"Chiquita, my child--you're too impulsive! Have I not repeatedly forbade you--" but the sound of her laughter and retreating footsteps on the pathway leading to the house was the only response his words invoked. "_Dios!_" he exclaimed, recovering his breath. "I sometimes think that God created man, but woman--the devil! They never listen to anything one has to tell them!"

Chiquita went quietly to her room, walked straight to her bureau and opening the lower drawer, took out a small pistol which lay concealed beneath a chemise in one corner. Examining it carefully with the practiced eye and hand of one who has been accustomed to the use of firearms all her life, she loaded it and then placed it inside her breast. She knew Don Felipe as no one else did, and thoroughly realized the danger that threatened her. From that hour, waking or sleeping, the weapon must never leave her.

XV

Who was Richard Yankton? Many had asked that question, foremost of whom was Dick himself; but years of unremitting search had failed to reveal his origin.

In the spring of 1870 Colonel Yankton, who with his regiment of cavalry was stationed in Arizona, came one day upon the smoldering remains of an immigrant train--the work of the Apache Indians.

The scalped and mutilated remains of men, women and children lay scattered over the plain where they had fallen. It was a melancholy sight; one with which the Colonel had long become familiar during years of campaigning against the Red man. His scouts had picked up the trail and just as he was about to start in pursuit of the depredators, he fancied he heard a cry, causing him to pause and listen.

Presently the cry was repeated, and riding in the direction whence the sound proceeded, he came upon a little child of about two and a half years of age sitting on the ground among the sage-brush; the sole survivor of the disaster. It was a pretty, rosy-cheeked, dark-eyed baby--a boy. He was frightened at being left alone so long and was crying bitterly. But when he saw the Colonel looking down at him from the back of his horse, the little fellow brightened up. He forgot his troubles, and ceasing to cry, began to laugh and stretch out his tiny hands, and in his incoherent baby way, began to babble.

"Horsie, horsie, widie!" he cried, in the most beseeching, irresistible manner, just as he must have been accustomed to ask the men of the camp for a ride whenever they appeared with a horse. In an instant the Colonel was on the ground and had the little fellow in his arms. As no clew to the child's parents or relatives was ever found, the Colonel adopted him, giving him his own name.

Dick received an excellent schooling up to his sixteenth year and probably would have entered West Point had not his benefactor suddenly died. Strange to say, the life of a soldier with which he had become familiar during the years spent at the different posts assigned to the Colonel, did not appeal to him. The restraint and routine of the life appeared irksome, and a year later the then great undeveloped West numbered him among her sons.

Indeed, as subsequent events proved, it was fortunate that he had renounced the life of a soldier. The success which later attended his efforts in the search for wealth far overshadowed that which he probably would have attained in the army, especially as his heart was not in the life.

Dick was a born miner and prospector, and passed successively through New Mexico, Arizona and California in his search for the precious metals, finally drifting into old Mexico where he met with his first important success.

It seemed as though he were directed by an invisible power. For weeks and months at a time he would idle--read and smoke and ride or travel. Then suddenly the spirit would move him, and without saying a word to any one, he would quietly slip away into the mountains by himself in whichever direction he seemed most impelled to go. Where other men paused and lingered in the hope of finding gold, he passed on and discovered the metal where others least expected to find it.

Perhaps one of the chief reasons for his success lay in the fact that he did not assert his own will by planning a systematic search for the metal, but allowed himself to be drawn by that mysterious, attractive affinity that existed between him and the precious metals. Dick became aware of the existence of this strange affinity early in his career and acted upon it. Already at the age of thirty he possessed two of the greatest gold and silver mines in the world and began to find it difficult to know what to do with his income.

The fact that he cared nothing for money beyond the simple comforts of life which it afforded, was perhaps another inscrutable reason why he was permitted during the course of the next eight years to add two more rich mines to his possessions.

At thirty-eight he owned four mines, the possession of any one of which would have caused the average man to see visions. For example, Dick would have regarded Colonel Van Ashton's fortune, handsome though it was, as mere loose change in his pocket.

But this modern young Croesus was not unworthy of the fortune that had been showered upon him so bountifully as the majority of men who acquire great wealth invariably become. He not only constantly strove to improve his mind, but maintained a pension-roll and list of public charities and beneficiaries that would have done credit to a small European Principality. In short, he thoroughly realized what the responsibility of great wealth entailed.

True to his supersensitive nature and fastidious taste, he always dressed in the height of fashion. This was the only extravagance he allowed himself which, considering his fortune, was reasonable enough.

Experience had taught him that the majority of men and women were fakirs pure and simple, whose chief motives were prompted solely by self-interest; and any suggestion to reform the world he invariably greeted with laughter. In fact, the world in his opinion, was not worth reforming; yet, in spite of this melancholy truth, he had remained human to the core, and took a live interest in that world of men which he knew to be nothing more nor less than a great gamble. And therein lay the chief distinction between him and Captain Forest, for they were otherwise strangely alike. Dick was still more or less interested in molding the clay--the Captain had done with it. Possibly because the latter had fallen heir to that which Dick had acquired through effort and, therefore, set less store upon it.

There were few countries which he had not visited. After making his first rich strike, he attempted to settle in New York, but was unable to do so. To use his own words, "he was only able to sit down, but there wasn't room enough for him to stretch his arms and legs."

During his travels he had collected numerous works of art; tapestries, paintings, marbles and bronzes by the best modern masters, which he placed in a beautiful Spanish _hacienda_ especially designed by one of the foremost architects of the day. The house occupied the site of an old Spanish _rancho_ situated in a beautiful valley about ten miles from Santa Fé and was generally conceded to be the most attractive estate in Chihuahua, though not the largest and most valuable; Don Felipe Ramirez possessed that. Both house and garden were a living monument to Dick's natural refinement and good taste. There were no jarring notes or lavish, tawdry display, the pitfalls into which the parvenue and petit bourgeois invariably fall. This was his only hobby, and just why he indulged it, he himself would have found it difficult to answer, for in reality, he cared but little for it.

He regarded it chiefly as a precaution against old age. He would continue to improve and beautify the place until the day arrived when he would retire from the world to pass the few remaining years of life amid the quiet and seclusion which the country afforded. And he often pictured himself when alone and musing over his cigar, as a lonely, white-haired patriarch, without offspring to perpetuate his name, seated in the center of his _patio_, smiling benignly upon the frolicsome little brown children of his Indian retainers as they laughed and disported themselves about him.

"Ah!" cries the world. "Mr. Yankton has a history!" Of course. What man or woman has not, even though they dare not admit it? Had he loved too much or too little? There were even some who attributed that exquisite vein of melancholy in his nature to the shadow of a married woman. Was he haunted by the fear that some fair, false one might marry him for his fortune, not for himself? Or, was his aversion to marriage due solely to the fact that the right woman had not yet arrived?

These and many other questions had been asked and thoroughly discussed by the matrons and daughters of Santa Fé, especially by the latter, to all of whom he had made love and sent flowers and serenaded in turn until, out of sheer desperation, they called alternately upon God and the devil to keep or punish this gay Lothario who loved all and yet none, and who gave such exquisite _fiestas_ in his beautiful _hacienda_.

Now it so chanced that, at the same hour Don Felipe was conducting Blanch and Bessie to the cañon, Dick was returning to Santa Fé on horseback from his _hacienda_ where he had passed the night. As there was no particular reason why he should reach the _Posada_ before noon, he decided to indulge his fancy by lingering in the cooling shade of the cañon close to the river's edge, where he might listen to the voices of the waters as they went singing by him on their way to the old town and thence to the sea.