CHAPTER XV

WHAT BECAME OF RAQUEL

Where was Raquel? When she realized, as Paintbrush raced through the darkness, that she had outdistanced not only the _teniente_ but Georgie also, she stopped and gathered the flimsy skirts tightly about her waist so that they would no longer terrify the pinto. Making a wide circle, she returned in the direction from which she had fled.

But in the dark she could not find her way, and after an hour she came to the bank of the river that flows west of Moctezuma. Here in the trees she was forced to hide till daylight. As soon as she could see she changed back into her boy’s clothes, having discovered the bundle which Georgie had thrust into the saddle bag.

Alas, when morning actually came she found she was north of the town, and could not go back again, for a cordon of soldiers rode back and forth across the outskirts all day.

She was hungry and thought thankfully of the lunches she had providently packed in both Georgie’s and her own saddle bags the afternoon before. Her saddle bag now looked curiously lumpy. “Mom’s sterno,” she thought ruefully. But investigation brought to light some delicacies which Georgie had evidently filched from the party the night before--delicious loaves of brown cane sugar and sweet native cakes.

As soon as it grew dark she crept into town afoot and ventured upon the streets. Not a soul was abroad. The soldiers had the occupants thoroughly well scared, and Raquel was roughly ordered to get back into the house when she peered from the shadow of a sheltering doorway. So she had to retire within a strange house, climb over a wall, and make her way through dark lanes down to the spot on the riverbank where she had left Paintbrush tethered.

That was perhaps the most precarious experience of the entire adventure, that careful, creeping journey, stumbling from bush to bush; and what joy finally to hear the pinto’s nicker, to fall upon his neck! She slept on the ground near him; if he had lain down she would have pillowed her head upon his flank. As it was, when she woke in the morning he was standing almost over her, keeping watch.

And so it was every day, hiding by day, hunting by night. Finally hunger forced her away in search of food, which she bought easily at far-away houses, returning always to her covert among the trees by the river.

Finally on the evening of the fourth day the detachment of _Carrancistas_ left Moctezuma, and that night she slipped into town to make a thorough search for Georgie. First to the priest’s house, of course. The housekeeper was irate at being roused after dark.

What, a miserable child! Yes, one had hung around there for a few days, three days, but she had sent it away. An ugly little girl in a gingham dress--yes, _color-de-rosa_.

Well, Georgie wasn’t held by her _teniente_ then. Somewhat relieved, Raquel gave the woman a piece of money that made her gasp, and a note for the child should she come back. “He,” Raquel amended, confiding that it was really a boy, and that he might be dressed as one if he came back.

Hardly knowing what to do next she found her way to the Hotel Moctezuma, and under its flower-hung balconies found rest for the night. While she waited for the man servant to carry water up to her room she inquired from the _moso_ in a low voice if he had seen anything the last few days of a boy of twelve--a _guero_, a blonde, with front teeth wide apart.

At that description the man started involuntarily, and then shook his head stupidly without answering. Raquel pressed upon him a piece of money which loosened his tongue. He motioned her to follow, picking up her saddle and bags to carry them to her room. When they had entered he whispered cautiously, “What do you wish to know, _gracioso Señorito_?” Yes, such a lad had been at the hotel last night and had been attached as orderly for the officers and soldiers. The lad had inquired of him, old Pacifico, where a Rancho Escondido was. He had never heard of such a place. And the soldiers had departed that day, taking the boy with them.

Raquel went to bed trembling with relief. Sleep came at once, but she woke before dawn. There was a plentiful breakfast served on a white cloth by candle light, and then she was off.

Before her lay seventy-five miles before she could reach the Ranch of the Desert, their hidden rendezvous. Good old Paintbrush--how splendid were his sinewy legs! At regular intervals she dismounted, took off his saddle, cooled his back, smoothed the blanket. When they came to a stream she washed him off.

Late the next afternoon the road brought them up to one of those ruined houses that lay in the wake of soldiers, dotting the revolution-ridden land. The whole front of the dwelling had been torn away. There it stood, its poor mutilated interior still adorned with framed pictures, a cupboard still standing in the corner, a table in the center of the floor. It looked like a stage set, its homely intimacies bared to the passer-by. It must have been a good country home once, like the comfortable peasant homes of Europe.

“I’ll sleep on the other side,” thought Raquel. She wanted to reach Nacozari before noon the next day; to start out from there again for El Escondido. How would she find the ranch if she did not run across some one to guide her again?

On the other side of the house she found the remnants of a family living in what remained of the house. She stood upon a threshold that remained with no enclosing walls.

“_Entra, entra_, come in,” an old crone cooking over a little fire in a corner called hospitably. Through a far doorway Raquel caught a momentary glimpse of an exquisite madonna face, its perfect oval framed in long braids. It vanished with terror-stricken swiftness.

“Could I perhaps get something to eat, and rest here tonight?” Raquel asked wearily. “I am on my way north. Do you perhaps know where El Rancho Escondido is?”

The old woman looked up at the lad, dressed like a peon in his denim _pantalones_, in the _teguas_ of the mountaineer. Something in the fine tired face, the sweetness of expression, assured her of the innocence of their prospective guest and she swept a place by the hearth.

But surely! And what did the lad know of the Ranch of the Desert? It was long since she had heard of that place, she said, but right well did she know where it lay.

With the despatch of the ever-ready bean pot she set a plate of food before Raquel, talking to her while she ate. The girl with the madonna face slipped timidly out of her room.

And so strangely, in this chance manner, Raquel learned the way to the Hidden Ranch. The old woman had once gone there, years ago, when she lived in Nacozari as a servant to the _padrona_.

The _muchacho_ must follow this road up the stream bed, said the old woman, until he came to the canyon of Nacozari, not twenty _leguas_ above. He should go through the town, she said, and above the place where the houses of the American superintendents had since been built Raquel would see a fair road leading east over the hills.

“Follow it across the sand dunes,” she said, “and when you come to the stream, ford it. But be careful of quicksands. A desert of sand dunes lies beyond, with not a palmetto, not a cactus on it, unlike most of our Mexican deserts. Go straight across it,” she continued, “a few miles only. Keep the trees of the river at your back and two dark dunes ahead for a guide. Over the last dune El Escondido spreads before you, a paradise, as well you know if you have been there.

“There is another way. But it is much longer, and only those who know it well and have traveled the road could possibly find the way among the trees and the hills. It was made after my time, this road, and I do not know it. That is where the _rancho_ gets its name. It is indeed _escondido_.

“You are fatigued,” added the old woman. “Spread your blanket in that corner.”

Raquel slept, grateful in the thought that Georgie was ahead of her rather than behind. But where was he? And where the steers she had come to find?