CHAPTER II

HOME AGAIN

Down at the end of the corral in the hot sunshine of midday, Panchito Esquibal was energetically currying his burro.

“It is necessary, for the _padroncita_ comes. But thou art going to be most beautiful, my little one; therefore do not budge.”

He spoke reassuringly, judging no doubt that the burro had the same objections as he had himself to submitting to such an operation.

“Rest tranquil,” advised Pancho the elder, who watched his son from the shadow of the corral sheds, a lazy cigarette drooping from his lips. “He will not run. It would take more than currying.”

“Hey, you Pancho Esquibal,” yelled a voice from inside the shed, “I wish I knew what would make you run, or work, once. Not a pinny do you get this month till you get these here saddles every one worked over.

“Here. Supple up them cinch straps on Raquel’s saddle. They’ll be here any minute now.”

Russell--if he had another name no one knew it--was polishing, as he spoke, the silver fittings on a beautiful saddle of Spanish leather, with an energy that made his red face even more fiery.

“Russell certainly ain’t purty,” Mr. Daniels had often said of the gangling cowboy, “but he’s as faithful as that ole houn’ dawg, an’ a durn good hand.”

At the bunkhouse an extraordinary activity was going on, currying of heads and grooming of beds.

“Chuck them dirty shirts under your bunk, Ang-hel,” shouted Jami Jamison. “D’ye want the boss to see ’m?”

Jami had washed and washed on the bunkhouse veranda until even his fingernails were clean. He was now struggling into new boots, which fitted so tightly over the instep that the operation was excruciating. But the boots were the finishing touch to a superb costume--cowhide chaps, buff corduroy shirt, beaver hat limbered up to a picturesque limpness, and a blue and orange silk neckerchief, the loose elegance of the whole artfully filling out six feet two of incredibly thin cowboy.

“’Pears to me,” observed Ole Hossfoot Cantnor, who, having oiled his hair, now sat on the edge of a bunk oiling a gun, “you’re takin’ a awful lot o’ trouble fer just seein’ Raquel again.” He squinted down the barrel of the gun, a pretty little twenty-two that he himself had given Raquel two years ago.

“Brr-rr,” snarled Jami, “I see you shaved your chin first time in twenty years, stid of mowin’ it off with a pair o’ sheep shears.” And, having at last worked into the boots, for which he had spent the whole of his past two months’ salary, namely forty dollars, Jami examined his own chin for any fugitive blonde down that might not have been revealed the first time. He scorned notice of Hossfoot’s new red flannel shirt and his best corduroy breeches.

Up at the ranch house there was an air “_de fiesta_,” as Mariquita Esquibal confided to her little sister. Mrs. Daniels, a green apron over her fresh gingham, knelt before the open oven turning a pan of light bread. On the long kitchen table twelve big golden-brown loaves cooled, giving off a delicious odor. They never baked less than twenty-four loaves at a time at Los Ranchos, and they baked every other day.

The verandas had been swept and scoured with lava sand and buckets of hot water, the kitchen floor freshly oiled. A clean red cloth covered the kitchen table. There were three smaller rooms opening from the kitchen, pantries and storerooms, and in the middle one of these there lay on a massive table a full haunch of venison, which Ole Hossfoot had brought down with him from the mountains the day before.

Beside it were spread some three dozen plump little birds, all skinned, ready for the frying pan--late quail that Russell had shot at daybreak that morning. Mrs. Daniels rose and passed through the three rooms to an outer one, where, over a spring bubbling from the virgin rock floor, the milk shelves were hung. Lifting down one of the blue pans, she unrolled from the top of the milk a little blanket of cream half an inch thick, popped it into a glass churn standing near, and returned to the kitchen with the clabber.

“Think I’ll make a mess of gingerbread,” she explained to the resplendent Jami, who lounged into the kitchen just then. “Raquel always did like it. Expect I have time before they git here.” She smiled a crinkly-eyed, patient little smile. “Them prune pies aren’t goin’ to last very long.”

Mrs. Daniels was a short, plump woman, small-boned. Her cheeks were round, and rosy under the brown skin, thin and smooth like a baby’s, except around the eyes where tiny wrinkles protested against the desert glare.

She stooped to take out the second pan of bread, and the smell of roasting venison escaped as the oven door was opened. The mingling of meat odors and fresh bread brought the hound dogs sniffing at the kitchen screens. On the back of the stove the inevitable frijole beans simmered.

“A fiesta,” said thirteen-year-old Mariquita, who sat in a corner peeling a mound of potatoes. Beside her on the floor sat her little sister, in her lap a bowl of scarlet chili which she was crushing with bare hands.

“Gimme that chili, Josefita; you’ll burn your little hands with that old hot stuff.” Mrs. Daniels’ voice had the caressing drawl of the Oklahoma born. She took the dish from the little girl, and gave her a sack of tiny piñon nuts to crack instead.

“They’re coming! They’re coming!” shouted Jami from the front veranda, and yells of announcement were heard from corral and bunkhouse. Mrs. Daniels hurried out to the piazza where Jami, his eyes glued to a pair of field glasses, was looking towards the pass through which ran the road to town.

“They’re only six miles away. Just hit the pass,” he yelled. “Guess I’ll ride out to meet ’em at the pasture gate,” and he threw down the glass and bolted for his horse.

But Russell was ahead of him, and already clattering out of the corral.

As the big Pathfinder struck the top of the Organ pass and began to coast down the mountain slope, a full view of the Daniels’ ranch spread before the returning party.

Beneath them the road fell away, and with the roar of the Pathfinder’s engines shut off, they seemed to float down through the clear air. Below lay the ranch, resting on the eastern slope of one of those sharp, sheer spurs of the southern-most Rockies.

Away, almost as far as you could see, stretched mile after square mile, the fenced acres of the Ranch of the Lazy L. In those days Los Ranchos boasted thirty-five square miles, besides ten thousand acres of rented range, a feudal domain, larger by far than that ruled over by many a baron or prince of old.

In that land Dad Daniels’ word was law, though there were few men to heed it, and the wild creatures that warred against cattle and cattlemen had a law of their own.

For thirty-five miles to the north or east you might travel and neither see smoke in a chimney nor speak to a man. For there would be neither chimney nor man, and for twenty miles to the south only the cowboy or an overland car; but westward it was just eight miles to the little mining town over the pass. From there it was fifteen miles to the nearest railroad station, bank, and ice cream fountain.

“Well, there’s home, Rakie.” Old Man Daniels leaned forward from the back seat, where he sat with Georgie, whose round face belied the man’s estate claimed by a pistol holster on the hip. “That’s your’n from now on for a spell, by right of eminent domain.”

As the scent of the mesa blew fresh in her face, and the familiar sight of the ranch house and its outlying buildings, their cream-plastered walls vivid in the late afternoon sun, came nearer and nearer, Raquel drew a sigh of content. Her eyes sparkled as she called over her shoulder, “I pretty nearly forgot what the sun looked like back there.”

“What!” Jimmy Hovey, back on a three days’ leave, beamed from the driver’s seat beside her. “What, didn’t the sun go with you then? Why, it’s been much darker since you went away. This is a special illumination in your honor.”

“Aw, cut it out, Jimmy,” growled Georgie. “Rakie’s gonta have an awful swelled head anyways. Say, Sis, thought you were goin’ to be wearin’ some real purty clothes, velvet or silk or somep’n.” He looked with disdain at her homespun. “That coat looks just like Jimmy’s.”

They were nearing the upper pasture, where the radiant Jami waited, swinging wide the gate to let the Pathfinder through. Had it not been for a deep arroyo between the upper and the lower pastures, the car could have coasted straight to the ranch house door, but Jimmy deftly threw in his clutch and started the engine just as they struck heavy sand. Roaring boastfully of its eighty horsepower, the car slid through the outer gate and rolled quietly to a stop before the patio door.

“Howdy, howdy, Raquel.” There was the canny Russell, redder than ever, who had ridden back through a short cut so that he might be the first to shake Raquel’s hand, which he was now awkwardly pumping up and down. And Ole Hossfoot. And if there wasn’t Angel, and Pancho Esquibal, extending the most ceremonious and courtly greeting of them all to his “_muy querida padroncita_.”

“Where’s Mom?” Raquel’s eyes looked eagerly ahead through the open patio door, across the courtyard and into the house.

“Oh, that poor old mother-woman,” Mr. Daniels answered, “most likely she’s a-hidin’ out like she always does when any one comes home. ’Fraid she’ll cry. Guess I’ll have to go and drag her out of the ice house.”

And in fact they did. Even when Dad and Raquel appeared in the ice house door, their eyes searching the dark recesses, Mom was so busy with imaginary duties that she could not hear them.

“Mother, you in there?” they called.

“Yes’m,” she answered desperately. “You back, Raquel?--Did you have a good time? Sure has been a dry winter here.”

Raquel threw her arms around her mother’s neck and kissed her cheeks and Mrs. Daniels pulled her apron over her head and wept.

Later, as they walked together towards the ranch living-room, Mrs. Daniels said, “That’s sure a purty suit and coat you brought back, Raquel honey. Did you get you a red dress while you were away?” that having been the fondest fancy of Raquel’s childhood.

“Yes’m.” Raquel remembered the pink and flame-colored chiffon, an ethereal realization of that red dress of her early dreams, and as different from it as that other world which it brought back for a moment--so far away that already it seemed like a dream.

The thought of her school life had been with her constantly on the train, but now it slipped from her mind completely as her father called her out to the veranda to point out how dry the grass was over the mesa at their feet. The sun was setting in a splendor of unbroken crimson that faded through the spectrum into the dark blue of the overhead sky. In the east another spur of mountains glowed like living opals with reflected color. Across the great mesa rolling away from their door stretched an unbroken vista of thirty-five miles.

“I’d hoped to ride the range with ye tomorrow, Raquel,” said Mr. Daniels, “but I’m due to sail any minute. Everything’s in good shape but--feed’s scarce. And looks like there’ll be little seed for spring.” Mr. Daniels spoke wistfully. “Seems I’m due along to catch some vessels goin’ straight over, transportin’ cattle.

“It’s time to bring down that bunch of cattle up t’ the Ruidoso. They’s five, six, hundred, up there. They should bring a fancy price on all that good grass--seventy-five dollars a head. I cleaned up this fall, sold twenty thousand head for feeders from forty-five dollars to fifty dollars on the hoof, which cleared up every cent we owed on bank stock, and that herd of thoroughbreds I bought last year. Not more’n five thousand left now.”

“Where’s all the boys?” asked Raquel.

“Oh, I had to let ’em go when Custer and Grant enlisted. They was ’leven of ’em down in the bunk house. Guess you c’n make out with Russell an’ Jami.

“Poor Russ had flat feet, bad eyes, boils, an’ what not, which don’t seem to interfere none with his bein’ as good a roper as ever forked saddle leather. And Jami--well even a high instep and a good fittin’ boot didn’t get him past. Underweight, they says, even with shot sewed in his pockets, an’ him the fightinest young catamount an’ the toughest, in these here parts.

“Pancho Esquibal, he’s on the commissary same as usual. Hasn’t no use for legal shootin’, Pancho hasn’t, and the draft ain’t drawed him yet. Watch that thievin’ coyote--but I never found his beat for brandin’, saddle work, an’ the like.

“An’ Ole Hossfoot stands ready on call to look after my gal. But I guess you don’t need much lookin’ after, Rakie. You’ll about do all the lookin’ after yourself. Girl’s brains’re as good as man’s brains any time, and you been brung up on the runnin’ of the Rancho. They’s nothin’ new to you in the cattle business.”

Dad looked fondly and sentimentally at Raquel. Stern overlord, shrewd cattleman and financier, Old Man Daniels was tender, if strict, with his family; and proud, particularly of his only daughter.

“I’m not tellin’ ye to be a man, Rakie. I don’t want for ye to be. We got men enough in the fam’ly. And Georgie here is the man of the place to look after the women folks. He’s been as good as two hands since Grant and Custer left.”

It was true that Raquel knew each trick of grazing, branding, the business of the roundup, the horses. She had been keeping books for her father after a crude way of her own before she left for school, and the three months’ training in accounting she had taken would make it infinitely easier now.

She knew the packing houses and commission merchants with whom her father dealt; she followed the market quotations on beef which he read laboriously from the Sunday paper every week, as a matter of course--as other girls follow hat sales. She knew the business of shipping, from the drive down to the railroad yards to the telegram announcing the shipment of the cattle.

But this would be an unusually hard year. Before Raquel lay the problem of looking after the herd that remained, with four boys instead of the twelve or fourteen they usually had in the summer; bringing the leaner cattle or the weaklings down to the corrals to be fed up, riding the range to keep an eye on the new calves in the spring, especially if it should be a cold or late season; and then, after the rodeo and branding, the job of selling, feeding the cattle before shipping, and delivering safely to the yards. But that was all work which a good overseer could handle. Today Dad’s business had grown to such proportions that the financial end of it was half the work.

“The main thing you’ll have to handle, Raquel,” Dad said, looking keenly at her, “is meetin’ our notes. Thirty thousand dollars on the Valley Grant land, due April first, and the interest on our other two loans.

“That means you’ll ship at least a thousand head of cattle early in March.

“I wouldn’t have expanded so much, takin’ in extra range, if I’d realized I’d have to be leavin’ it all to you like this.

“Bein’ as we’re borrowed up to the hilt, if anything should come up unexpected we’d have to turn over our cattle quick. The banks have all loaned the limit to the stockmen this fall, and although I stood to make a fortune, I’m afeared there’s trouble ahead for the stockmen.

“A. B. Meyers has been made director in our bank to succeed me. You know he’s swore to git me for callin’ that note of his two years ago?” Dad chewed his long mustache. “As a matter of fact if he hadn’t been forced to draw in and sell some o’ his stock, he’d be broke and most likely rustlin’ cattle to start a new herd today.

“But that don’t make him feel no better, knowin’ that. And he may cause some trouble. So remember you got to have thirty-five thousand dollars by April first. You’d better ship the first week in March.”

“Don’t worry, Dad. Leave it to me. We’ll ship ’em. I’ve got ’em off before. I can do it again.”

A. B. Meyers, known in that part of the country as “A. B.,” himself an old-timer, figured with Old Man Daniels as one of the biggest cattlemen in that part of Texas. He had disputed the open range with Dad for twenty years, and the enmities of the cattle country were still bitter at the time of the Great War.

A. B.’s range touched Los Ranchos land at two points. And A. B. fought secretly and openly for every piece of property that Daniels would be likely to want. It had been nip and tuck, with Dad getting the best of it two-thirds of the time.

Two years before, the Valley Grant, a rich range that Meyers had been after for five years, had been granted by the Land Office to Old Man Daniels. Neither his popularity nor his influence had succeeded in winning him this new range, but the fact that he was a sounder business man than A. B., and one whose dealings were absolutely square.

Dad had then borrowed money from the bank to acquire the intervening land, thus extending his range enormously. He had also bought some new stock, and for two years had not sold any cattle in order to increase the stock on the fresh range. Then the War had come and he had had to begin selling his cattle.

“But when it comes to sellin’, have nothin’ to do with these travelin’ commission men,” Dad impressed Raquel for the fiftieth time. “There’s bound to be a lot of ’em prowlin’ around durin’ this war, or I miss my guess. Beware of ’em.

“You sell straight to Cudalow’s in Kansas City or Shift’s in Chicago, an’ rest content at the market price. Bank everything an’ go slow. Guess that’s all.

“Jimmy,” as Jimmy himself came round the veranda end, “Jimmy here, says he’ll be able to get off maybe every couple of months, an’ he’ll come out an’ cheer you all up.”

On the stillness of the December air, chill with the penetrating cold that steals into your bones with sundown in that altitude, clanged the welcome note of the dinner bell.

Not all ranch houses boast a dining-room, but Los Ranchos had rooms to spare. The rambling old building, once a fort, later a road house, was high-ceilinged, deep-walled, to the width of three full adobe bricks, and built around a fifty-foot square patio, in the fashion of the country.

Old Man Daniels led the way through the house to the patio, and along the veranda to the dining-room. As he opened the door a wave of warmth and light streamed out. A large baseburner glowed where once had been a fireplace, and this, with the heat from the kitchen and from an acetylene lamp hanging over the table, made the big room comfortable.

The feudal board bore up sturdily under the food that Mother Daniels had prepared in honor of Raquel’s return and Dad’s last night at home. The juicy haunch of venison was at one end, a platter of golden brown quail at the other, flanked with savory bacon. Huge bowls of flaky potatoes, chili and beans, winter squash, and Mother Daniels’ sweet-pickled peaches, made a continuous round of the table. The mounds of bread would have appalled a camp baker. And the dishes of gravy seemed like never-failing pitchers of Baucis and Philemon.

In a moment they were all seated, taking the fringed napkins from the glasses, and piling the plates with unpampered appetite.

“My goodness,” thought Raquel, as Ole Hossfoot speared a piece of bread, deftly reaching across Jimmy’s face. Jami’s smooth cheek was bulging, and Georgie’s face was bisected with a whole slice of bread and butter. Angel’s eyes followed lovingly the bowl of beans, which, never stopping its circuit of the table, was now in Dad’s hands.

“’Pears like some one’s missin’.” Mr. Daniels peered down the table, counting ten heads. “Where’s Russell?”

There was a momentary pause in the clatter of fork and knife against plate long enough to hear a pounding on the dining-room floor from beneath.

“He’s down in the storm cellar,” and Mr. Daniels, pushing back his chair, strode towards an inner wall, stopped, and pulled up a trap door in the floor. It was like releasing a jack-in-the-box, for simultaneously Russell’s red and agitated face popped up, and he clambered out, bearing a big jug and a little jug.

Every one roared, except Russell and Georgie, who sank down in his seat. “I forgot to let him out,” he mumbled.

Russell had brought his contribution to the feast, some sparkling hard cider, and a peach brandy which he had buried in the earth more than a year before.

In spite of the mighty prowess of the diners scarcely a dent seemed to be made in Mother Daniels’ provisions. When the meal was over, Raquel and Georgie rushed to their mother’s side, and each seized an arm.

“No, you don’t, Mom. Come on. The boys will wash dishes tonight.”

“Well, mind you don’t chip ’em any, Ang-hel,” Mom cautioned, “an’ don’t rub the gold hard.” For Mom had got out the best dishes, with a gold band and a large gold D initialed on each piece. It was an elegant set, all right, and Dad sure liked the looks of that gold.

So they went into the sitting-room, where Dad was already sitting with his shoes off, warming his feet before the open fire.

The ranch sitting-room was magnificent by firelight. It was long and fairly wide, with heavy, irregular beams studding its ceiling. Mesquite roots and dried tulas burned in an uncommonly large fireplace, built with a projecting hood by some Mexican craftsman with a cunning hand. The firelight leaped ruddily on the cream plastered walls, and on trophies of ranch hunts hanging there.

On the floor were Navajo rugs, black and white, gray and red, and angora sheep pelts, dyed to inconceivable Mexican hues. The furniture was of various kinds, mostly ugly, except for a set of willow which belonged on the porch, a couch covered with a fine old Chimayo rug, blue and white as only those Indians can make them, and a battered old Spanish table, hand-carved, but, alas, not valued by any one but Jimmy Hovey.

Raquel sank upon the sofa and Jimmy seated himself beside her, lighting a cigarette.

“Just one, old Jim,” warned Raquel.

Jimmy grinned. “Bossing me straight off, aren’t you? But honestly, Big Boss, I haven’t coughed in six months.”

“That’s because I made you cut it out.”

Jimmy smiled gently and nodded. Jimmy had a most gentle way. It might deceive you unless you saw him angry, the way he got that time when Pancho Esquibal’s brother beat the Alezan mare over the head. Ugh-h-h. It made her shiver to think of it. But she had liked Jimmy ever since. Now she noticed for the first time how good-looking he was. His head was so round and so straight on his shoulders. And he seemed taller than she remembered him, bigger.

“I’ve gained twenty pounds, you know, since last year.” Jimmy’s eyes twinkled. “You mustn’t tell all you think, Raquel--with your eyes.”

Jimmy’s hair was crisp and wavy, rather blonde, and his eyes were extremely blue. He had a cleft in his chin when he smiled, and he smiled often. Yes, Raquel decided, he was the same old Jimmy, and the only reason she hadn’t thought about how he looked was that he was just so nice that she had never thought of anything else. And then he was thin and ever so sick when he first came.

Jimmy was studying Raquel thoughtfully and appreciatively. He had done little else since her return. By George, what a development in three months! First of all, the clothes. Jimmy’s city-bred eye could scarcely fail to take them in at once. By George, the right clothes, cloth, cut, color, and all that, certainly did show a pretty girl off to advantage!

But the other change, inside, he was studying now. The same Raquel in most ways--her smile was as warm and unaffected as when she had left. But she didn’t talk as much as one would expect of Raquel on getting back from school. And she seemed to avoid him somehow, in little strange evasions.

“Tell me a bit about it, Raquel,” he begged, “about school. How did it go off? I had only one letter from you, you know, and that was largely taken up describing the difference in the training of the eastern girls’ high school horse, and our western horses!”

“Oh, Jimmy, I did too write you another letter!”

“Yes, that one was all about how much further advanced we were in our Medieval History. But not a word of yourself.” Jimmy knocked out his cigarette.

“What of my little cousin?”

Raquel knew no arts. Three months before she would have said, “Well, she and I kept to opposite sides of the corral.” But three months had tempered her frankness with consideration. Three months of association with Anne had added ease to her forthright manners.

“Lois is even more beautiful than when you saw her, Jimmy,” she answered, “and she is so popular. All the girls in the school were crazy about her.”

“She would be, she would be,” Jimmy nodded as a matter of course. A sharp pang of something or other set Raquel’s blood racing. “I haven’t heard from Uncle in some time. I wonder how they are.”

Raquel started to speak. Anne had told her on the way to the train that Lois was gone, and why.

But as she hesitated, Jimmy pressed, “Did she make a good roommate? That’s what I want to know. She didn’t answer my letter, but Uncle wrote me a note in which he said that he knew Lois would do all she could.”

“Jimmy, I had the nicest roommate in the whole school,” Raquel looked straight at Jimmy with disarming candor.

And Jimmy, mere man that he was, was foiled by this newly developed astuteness. Raquel had a sense of shame. Never before had she deceived, unless it were unintentionally by silence. A confusion of pressing reasons flooded her mind. If they didn’t think enough of Jimmy to let him know, why should she do it? Maybe he’d get a letter any day now--he’d have to go straight where they were then. Oh, he mustn’t do that! He mustn’t go to Lois again. And she heard herself talking of the war, of her Thanksgiving vacation, and Anne and the Marvin family.

“Their house was just like a palace inside. But you’re used to that. You’d understand them, too. They were just folks. After you got used to their ways you could see how they were just human beings like us Texans underneath.”

Jimmy laughed. “Well, I guess we are all pretty much alike under the skin.”

“No, we aren’t, Jimmy. Take Dad for instance. He thinks honor is dearer than life, and that justice is his, not the Lord’s--nor the state’s. When he shot those three men who killed his Dad he said he was going to get them the same way they got him--in the back. And he did. Every one of them.

“When he had to serve three years he didn’t complain. Said it was worth it. But he thought a year of his life was worth more to the community than any one of the men, living.”

“It was, at that,” Jimmy agreed.

“Well, I think people should pay up for what they do.” She said it so fiercely that Jimmy looked at her in mock amazement.

They had been talking in low tones, but Dad was reminiscing, and his narrative filled the room.

“Yes,” he recounted, “I’ve fit to make this country a place for white men to live in; Indians, varmints, bad men an’ killers, are pretty near cleaned out. I never thought we’d have to go clear back across them plains, and across the ocean, to a country where cows, I hear, is family pets tied up in the parlor, and men tote knives instid of guns, to keep it fittin’.

“Fightin’ is goin’ to be a sight different than what we see in the old days when we fit the Indians and the rustlers.

“I remember when my father carried me along up into the Carrizozo country in New Mexico. I was about eleven year old. At the hot springs there we was set upon by the sneakiest bunch o’ Navajos I ever see. We fit and fit, for three days, never stoppin’ to eat more’n a chew of tobaccy (that’s why I never could tolerate chewin’ since) an’ the only water we had to drink was what we could dip out the boilin’ springs an’ cool in the sun.

“Then we got out o’ water an’ Everett Eames--he was a good ole scout--slipped out easy after dark to the springs. We heard a splash an’ a fearful screech, and Paw says, ‘Poor ole Eames, the varmints have boiled him alive.’

“An’ just then ole Eames comes crawlin’ in, drippin’ an madder’n wet wildcats. It was the first time water had touched his hide in nigh on thutty years, an’ hot at that!

“By mornin’ we had got down to nothin’ but rabbit shot and we was pepperin’ away at a bush where a few Indians still held out, when out tumbles a young feller, full o’ buck shot, an’ the fight was over an’ so was our shot.

“Well, I spent the rest o’ the mornin’ pickin’ shot out o’ that young Navajo’s back and easin’ him o’ the lead, an’ he was the gratefullest Indian you ever see. Used to bring me presents every year up till a couple o’ years ago. An’ I was grateful too, for we needed the shot to go out an git us some breakfast.

“Them were cruel days in some ways. When this very house was a sort o’ fortified hotel still, I was stayin’ here and there stopped a sickly lookin’ young feller, real dapper, who had a holler cough. Tuber-coo-losis, in the last stages, I says to myself.

“From the East he was, he says, an’ afeared o’ shootin’ irons. Towards the third day there rode in from the west the Sheriff o’ Doña Ana County, and from the east the Sheriff o’ Alamogordo, Lincoln County.

“They was bent their man was there an’ started round the house. The young feller was comin’ up from the corral when they seed him and he seed them an’ was scared stiff I reckon. He dodged round the corner. We was lookin’ out the dinin’-room window an’ we seed the two Sheriffs start to stalk him round the house, one side, t’other.

“The kid came runnin’ in, skeered. Never carried a shootin’ iron, he said, an’ I hid him in that very cellar where Russell got shut up this evenin’. The Sheriffs ran round the house and shot each other through their two-gallon hats, an’ when I opened the cellar door Billy the Kid had made a clean get-away. Though we never figgered how, for I was a-sittin’ on the lid all the time, an there’s nary other openin’.”

“Well, sir,” said Jimmy, amidst the general shout over the story, “I never heard you tell that one about the famous boy bandit of New Mexico before.”

“Oh, I got a passel of stories you never heard me tell yet.” Old Man Daniels’ eyes twinkled.

“Ever tell you about Pecos Bill an’ the time he rid a Kansas cyclone clear through these parts an’ on into Arizony? He came so fast an’ raised up such a dust he carried a part o’ Texas clear into New Mexico. You c’n see it there yet, down in the corner. Pecos Bill he could step clear over that peak yonder an’ never notice it, accordin’ to them that seed him at the time, an’ he flavored his beans with tarantulas.”

Amidst the laugh that followed, Ole Hossfoot Cantnor spoke up from the bench by the fireplace where he sat working at a piece of leather, as he always was.

“I kin tell ye a tale more stranger than that, an’ a true one. You recollec’, Jim, that the last bounty the Govinmint put on the Custer wolf brought the price on that outlaw’s head up to five hundid dollars. Well, Bill Marsden, owner the Bar X, swears, or has swore, to git that animal for six or seven years past.

“Bill’s killed a couple litters of the old Lobo but can’t get the wolf himself. He’s tore up more prize ewes for Bill, an’ more yearlin’s, than they could keep track of. Sixty sheep one night that bloody devil killed an’ et nary a bite hisself.

“But he’s too cute for all of ’em, hunters and trappers. Won’t touch pizen, won’t let his pack bite bait. Smells a trap under a snowfall. Many’s the trap he’s sprung with his forepaw. I seed him with my field glasses, a-strikin’ as light an’ powerful as a cat an’ then jumpin’ away.

“He’s four inches between the eyes, an’ his paws’re as big’s my hand, an’ it ain’t no trouble at all to him to fell a two-year-old bull by hisself.

“Well, Marsdens has got a little girl, on’y one left o’ six babies. She’s up in the mountings last summer durin’ the drouth, at the ranger’s cabin. Plays with his police dog. Strays off one day an’ gits lost. But they’s a cloud burst bustin’ the drouth that night an’ the ranger’s off over the mountain an’ don’t find it out till next mornin’.

“They starts out on a hunt, fearin’ to hope, what with the rain an’ the wolves, and Bill scared she’s fallen into a trap he rigged for the Lobo. Found the trap sprung all right, but no Lobo, no Lutie.

“Well, to make a long story short, they finds her, asleep, in a cave, with the Custer wolf lyin’ down beside her.

“Bill shoots, thinkin’ maybe she’s dead. But she’s all right. Wakes up as the wolf leaps outen the cave, an’ up over the rocks an’ gits away agin. An’ the little girl cries after her ‘doggie’; seems she’d been playin’ with him in the woods. Give him water when he was caught in the trap; rolled off a log Bill rigged so he got free; an’ when the rain burst, the Lobo carries her in his teeth to an ole lair.

“Bill swears he’ll never set hand nor hound to him agin.”

“Well, I always did say there was more dog than coyote in a lobo,” Dad observed. “Come on, boys, give us some songs. Let’s have some music for remembrance. Mother here looks a little sad.”

Blushing and scraping, Jami and Russell got out their mandolin and guitar and, after some tuning and picking, began--Russell in a surprisingly sweet light tenor, and Jami in a disconcerting voice that was trying to be a deep baritone, and would be, when he grew to full manhood. A stirring cowboy ballad, an epic of frontier days; _The Cattle Rustler’s Daughter_, a mournful ditty with the tender passion which strikes the sentimental cowboy--Russell and Jami warbled them all feelingly.

Then the soft-eyed Angel, sitting back of the others, and plucking a vibrant guitar, sang _La Paloma_ and _Sobre Las Olas_ (_Over the Waves_), so beautiful a barcarole that Mom rocked in her chair in time, Dad’s foot waved, and every one swayed to the air.

Home again. Raquel, sitting beside her mother, was seeing it all with new eyes. Yet everything was the same. Oh, it was dear; close to her--yes, that was it.

There was Mom; her plain hair, combed straight back, her calico dress, her silent ways. Of course she could see now the difference between Mom and a woman like Mrs. Marvin. The difference in the things she had had! What Mom had gone without all these years! Yet she was sweet, sweet. Almost a pang of jealousy for Mom swept over Raquel. Who would change Mom for anything? And what would Los Ranchos be without Mom? Why, the whole range centered round Mom in her kitchen, and every trail led straight back home.

And Dad, he was just as she had always seen him when she shut her eyes--and heard him talking as he was now. You loved Dad--and obeyed him. Of course you couldn’t do anything with him when he’d made up his mind. Raquel began to realize dimly that there was prejudice in the opinions she’d always accepted as gospel. But he was big; there was nothing petty about Dad. The eyes of his mind saw things from afar just as his eagle blue eyes, accustomed to distances, saw across the mesas, detecting the true water hole from the mirage.

Tonight it all seemed more like real living, happier even than on that far-off day when she had left for school. Yet how different it was from life back there! Why, back there Ole Hossfoot would never get any further than the garage door. He’d never get to set a foot inside the parlor.

And nobody would ever know what a wonderful hand with horses he was, nor hear his good stories, nor go to him for advice on almost any subject, for if he didn’t know about it first hand he’d be sure to have read about it when it was first invented ’way back the year of the World’s Fair.

Jimmy was the one unchanged quantity, the only person that linked up with that other world, her new knowledge of which had laid a claim on her. Some day, of course, she’d like to have some things different at Los Ranchos, now since she’d been _back there_. Jimmy could understand. And yet he “wouldn’t go back there now to live if he could.”

Raquel turned suddenly to him with a shy smile of mutual understanding. Jimmy smiled back and reached out to pat her hand.

“I’ve been waiting all evening for that smile, Raquel,” he said. “Began to fear it wasn’t going to come.”

“Raquel, give us a tune, can’t you, daughter? Let’s hear somethin’ sweet and sad.” Dad remembered that this would be his last night at home for a long time, perhaps a very long time. Indeed, this knowledge weighed on every one, though no one spoke of it, and no one mentioned that Grant’s ship had sailed the day before.

“Raquel’s awful tired, Father; she’s had a hard trip,” said Mom. “I don’t guess she’s even been to her room yet, and I think she ought to get to bed.” They were the first words she had spoken since dinner. But when Mom did speak it was law.

Sleepily they dragged themselves up from before the dying fire, Georgie had already said goodnight and disappeared. Mrs. Daniels went with Raquel to her room, leading the way with a kerosene lamp.

“Everything’s just as you left it, Raquel, ’cept for one thing,” she said, shy now at this new Raquel, whom she felt had changed ’way off at school there “in the East.”

“Oh, Mom! it sure looks lovely.”

The big, high-ceilinged room, which had been hers since she was a little girl, was both strange and familiar. A warm fire had been kindled in the corner fireplace, so cozy with its raised hearth, where you could dry your boots or toast your cold toes. The crackling flames threw rosy lights on the painted bedroom set.

Yes, it was as pretty, prettier, than she remembered it. Lovely apple green--oh, wait until Anne saw it--with sprays of flowers and dull, yellow-gold shadows. And now at the windows which had been bare always, hung chintz curtains, soft yellow, with green and black, and dashes of cunning cherry color.

“Mom! Did you make them?”

“Yes’m. Miz Sperry, over in town, at the Emporium you know, she come out and looked at the furniture an’ then sent me the goods. The hems aren’t so good.... I didn’t expect to get ’em up till Spring. I--I don’t suppose they look anything like those curtains of Anne’s you wrote about?”

“Mom, they’re just as pretty as any I ever did see.”

After Mom had said good night, tucking her in and blowing out the light, Raquel lay snugly in bed, enjoying the firelight, looking about, up at the high ceiling where the same old mud dauber’s nest still clung in a corner; up over her head where the five-foot rattlesnake skin was looped around an old musket. It had twelve rattles; she could count them all from where she lay. Then she laughed out loud. It did look funny, a snake skin, over a Louis Quinze bed. She used to think it was Louis Kahn’s, after the store in San Antone. And those deer antlers on each side her dressing table! They didn’t go so well either.

A wonder Jimmy had never told her. Good old Jimmy. He always gave a fellow a chance to find out for himself. How had he ever stood table manners at Los Ranchos? Specially Russell, though Ole Hossfoot was pretty bad.

And how was she ever going to take the place of Dad, and Custer and Grant--all three. But Mom had had to take the place of three--she had done the work of three women--without runnin’ water, for so long, and--things must be easier for Mom, from now on.

Raquel fell into dreamless sleep.