CHAPTER VII

THE PIONEERS

Life had altered greatly for Hope Bragdon since that far-away day when her father had decided that they would cross the plains in a Conestoga wagon. That crossing seemed now like a dusty nightmare. Hope did not like to think back to it, but rather to accustom herself to the new life here in the Villa de Santa Fe.

Sometimes it seemed that life had just begun for her that night at the dance. No one had ever paid much attention to her back home in Pottsville. She had never seen so much of gayety as during that one crowded hour. Hope would have liked to know the lovely-looking Spanish girl whom she had seen on the night of the dance, but she did not see Consuelo again during the weeks that followed. On the day following the dance Bragdon moved out to a house just outside of town.

How different these thick-walled houses, made from the very earth beneath one’s feet, from the cold frame and brick of her New England home. Cool in the heat of the day, warm in the cool of the evening, they were amazingly comfortable. How different, too, the life--easier for the natives, easier even for her, daughter of a Yankee, born to look for work. There was water in the well, there were no forests to be hewn, no fields to clear before they had grain; crops never failed if they were irrigated, it seemed.

Theirs were not the usual problems of the pioneer. This land had been lived in for centuries, and the leisurely ways of ancient peoples rested strangely upon her. Mrs. Trenour was very kind. The Mexican women were kind. Even the Indian women of the pueblos were friendly and brought her soft deerskin moccasins, ground corn meal, and beautiful autumn vegetables--as much as they could carry in exchange for a cupful of white sugar. No matter what Hope gave them as a gift, they always brought back more in return. As soon as he heard of it, however, Bragdon put a stop to Hope’s little attempts to requite their gifts. This did not accord with his idea of thrift and business. What were they there for, in this God-forsaken country, as he called it, if not to make a good profit?

Doren, who was recovering but slowly from the hardships of the long overland journey, was helping his father pick grapes in the sun. The sunshine was good for him, his father said, but Hope brought him into the house upon various pretexts to let him rest, as the heat tired him after a few hours.

James Bragdon had not sold out his entire stock. He still had some of the extra merchandise which fell to him when the goods of the men killed on the trail was divided among their fellows. He had disposed of his own more quickly than any of the other traders. Hope was surprised to find that he still had some bolts of bright gingham and a number of boxes of other things put away in the extra room at the end of the house. She said nothing, as she had learned from experience not to question her father. On the third night of their stay in the new house Hope sat alone on the doorstep, watching the moon rise over the mountains. Doren lay asleep inside; her father had gone into town to talk with the traders.

A rider drew up before the house, dismounted, and came toward her, bowing. It was the young man whom she had seen at the by-lee, who had asked her to dance when she could not. “Good evening, señorita,” he said, softly. She understood that much, and replied, “_Buenas noches_, señor,” a trifle timidly, yet deciding that to speak without introductions must be the custom of this country.

“May I sit down?” asked Luis, in his pleasant, suave voice, indicating a place beside her. She rose to bring out chairs, but, laughing, he seated himself on a low stone. The moon rose well above the treetops and the young Spanish gentleman looked with something of awe upon the aureole of silver fair hair surrounding the girl’s head. Never had he seen a girl like her. He would not have dared to touch her. She roused all that was best in his nature--and all that was worst, too, struggling passionately in the depths of his being. Everything he had ever wanted he had had without any difficulty, and now that he had outgrown the wants which his doting mother could supply, he _took_ what he wanted, if it were not forthcoming. No girl had ever flouted him. Was he not the young Don Luis Lopez, heir to Don Anabel himself?

So there was certainty behind his considered wooing that glamorous night. He must not frighten this silver flower; indeed, he did not want to.

He longed passionately to have Hope like him, and tried to amuse her with his broken bits of English. “You-are-jung-and-lowbely,” he said, carefully. She laughed when she saw that it did not hurt his feelings, and tried to follow the few words of Spanish which he repeated for her. Then she grew frightened at this unusual visit and for fear her father would return. Luis, too, felt he had stayed as long as he dared, and rose reluctantly to go. He wheeled his pony in the moonlight with a fine display of horsemanship, and after caracolling around the plazita before the house, swept off into the moonlight at a gallop.

Just in time, for James Bragdon came back along the same street within a few minutes. “I have bought this house,” he said, “and am going to take up some land, adjoining. I can make a trade for it and get it cheap, for the title is not clear. Then we shall have no rent to pay and we can raise our own garden stuff next year. We are right on the big ditch, and there is a little river yonder, a stream from the Tesuque.”

The next day he was watering his new possessions, having shut down the headgate below in the “sakey,” and the muddy water had already run over his field when an irate Mexican followed by two others came posthaste through the fields, gesticulating and threatening. Bragdon realized that he was in trouble and made no objection when they opened the gates in the ditch below him and went off muttering to shut the water off from his ditch above.

Ceran St. Vrain endeavored to explain to the Yankee, that afternoon, that the rules of irrigating in that country were sacred and that only the master of the _acequias_ could say when to open the gates and when not, and where the water was to be distributed. He warned him not to use water until permitted. “But his crops he had bought in the land needed it,” protested the man, indignantly. That might be, St. Vrain conceded, but they knew best what could be used, and it was possible that Bragdon’s place had no right to that water.

Bragdon that night sat outside his door, himself, and seeing some young man riding past he ordered his daughter within the house, although the night was glorious. So Luis had no such fortunate meeting with the girl that night.

Hope was disappointed, for she had hoped that perhaps the dark handsome boy would come back to amuse her and teach her some more Spanish. Mrs. Trenour was going up to Taos the next morning with Colonel St. Vrain to meet her husband, and Hope would be left alone except for Doren. A number of black-shawled Mexican women had come in to see her that morning and had talked rapidly and made polite-sounding expressions which she could not in the least understand. Had she but known it they were telling her about the water, warning her that her papa must not take it, that it was not his, that at this time of the year it belonged indeed to the Indians of the Tesuque pueblo above them. One of the women brought an earthen jar filled with _tortillas_, wrapped in a clean white cloth. This Hope could understand, and smiled one of her rare but sweet smiles in gratitude. They got along famously after that, and when the women left, each took Hope by the shoulders and laid her left cheek against the girl’s in farewell.

Hope was thinking of this with pleasure as she sat watching the moon riding high over the mountains. It was all very strange to this Puritan girl. And yet her changed surroundings did not affect her as much as they would have affected most people. Hope lived an inner life that was inarticulate, that had built up a defensive barrier against the disappointments of a rigorous upbringing, and that was moved only by what happened to Doren. And by the memory of her tender, silent mother, who had put the tiny baby brother into her arms when she was dying, having the little girl promise always to take care of him.

Hope had no idea of being beautiful in the eyes of this new world, nor of the excitement of which she had been the cause on the night of the _baile_. But her father had heard of it through the traders next day, and through St. Vrain. He was furious and swore that no Greaser rakes should annoy his girl. Hope had been asleep for some time when a soft strain of music crept upon her consciousness, again and again, a repeated strain. She sprung to her feet and crept toward the window. Never before in her life had she been serenaded, yet she knew that that was what this must be; that this music was for her. A man’s voice was singing. She caught the words that Luis had been trying to teach her the night before.

“Oh, Anita, _como te amo, a ti_, ----”

But before the copleta could be finished there was a burst of profanity from the front door of the house, and James Bragdon with a gun, shouting and loosing his powerful mongrel dog, half wolf from the plains, at the serenader, who perforce took to his heels. Leaping to the horse tethered somewhere out of sight, the serenader made his escape in a volley of flying hoofs that grew fainter and fainter and died away.

The girl, listening nervously behind the curtains, heard her father say: “Well, I guess that will be the end of him. I’ll be troubled with him no more.”

But to Luis the indignity of such an ignominious rout was a never-to-be-forgotten insult. Frustrated, he strode his room in such a fury as he had never before felt himself possessed of. His handsome young face was suffused with blood, his ordinarily weak mouth drawn into a straight hard line. He looked into the mirror as he passed and saw that his white shirt was covered with the muddy footprints of Bragdon’s dog, which had run over the freshly irrigated fields. With shaking hand Luis brushed off the dirt and fastidiously flecked his beautiful light cloth trousers.

“I will finish that cur of a Yankee,” he swore. He waited till he heard Don Anabel complete his rounds of the casa, locking every door or bolting it. When the house was quiet once more Luis slipped out through the window and away to his familiars.

Steven rode out to Bragdon’s house the next afternoon. He thought that Hope might be lonely, now that Mrs. Trenour was leaving for Taos, and he had not yet called upon the Bragdons in their new home. Hope was very much pleased, but she greeted the young man somewhat nervously, looking at her father to see what his reception of their caller would be. James Bragdon, however, was most cordial. He held Steven a long time talking business.

“I should think that you could persuade your father, with his great wealth and vast business interests,” he said, ingratiatingly, “to send out a caravan. If he would outfit you for a trip every six months I would gladly be your agent at this end of the line and handle all your business.”

“If I arrived alive,” said Steven, with grim humor. “But what makes you think my father has such vast interests?”

Oh, St. Vrain had told him, and everyone knew of Mercer & Co. of New Orleans. Well, his father would have to be the judge of his business ventures; Steven could only report conditions to him. It was already getting dark, the days were growing shorter, when at last Steven was able to break away. It was with a feeling of relief that he pressed his heels against the mare’s flanks as she raced down the road, past low pines and cedars. Something struck Steven across the chest, knocking his breath clear out of him. He was swept from his mare and fell heavily to the road, his head striking a rock so that consciousness went out with a blaze of starry glory. The mare ran on from sheer momentum, slowing up in a few paces and coming to a standstill; a good little beast. Then she returned and stood patiently for a while beside the form on the road. It did not move, and after a while she trotted along in the direction in which she was turned, back over the road, to the place where she had been tethered before Bragdon’s door, and stood there.

Bragdon, seated in the doorway, looked with surprise at the mare, rose, and went over to her. Why, it was Steven Mercer’s horse! Had she run away? Could he have been thrown? At any rate, he would want her back again. Well, let him come and get her. A not too friendly young puppy, anyway. But then, he was the son of a great merchant; and business must be cultivated. Bragdon took the mare’s bridle in his hand and walked along the road.

He was rather pleased than not when he came upon Steven, that is, after he had ascertained that the boy’s heart was still beating. He would be putting Steven in his debt. He lifted the inert figure with difficulty into the saddle and, mounting behind, walked the mare back to his casa. He carried the boy in and called Hope. “Some one has it in for him. There was rope tied between trees chest-high across the road; a narrow place between two trees. Guess he never knew what hit him, in the dark and all.”

Steven came to himself painfully, with a splitting head, to find a fair, anxious face bending over him. Strange, somehow he had expected a dark, piquante, young person to be there, though he could not imagine why. There was a painfully sprained arm, and Hope was surprising clever at binding it to ease the hurt. They made him a fresh bed in a spare room and Hope and her father helped him in. He was glad to be allowed to lie quietly. A rope stretched across the road, eh? Who could have done it, and was it intended for him?

He pondered this the next afternoon as he rode slowly back to his quarters. He was still staying in Colonel St. Vrain’s place, and boarding with Mrs. Trenour’s sister-in-law, a capable and friendly Spanish lady with a handsome past, though she was not yet forty. The señora shook her head when Steven came in.

“Why are you staying, señor?” she asked. “You can stay in Taos with Ceran St. Vrain until the traders’ caravan returns next week.”

“But I am not going back on this trip, señora,” he replied. “I have no reason to go, and several reasons for staying, as well as that I want to. I would, if I returned to New Orleans for goods to trade, have to convince my parents and persuade them to my return--a difficult thing--and there is no wagonful of goods on hand at Westport Landing. No, I am sending messages to my father, of my safety and my hope that he will now see fit to enter into a half partnership with me”--the lad had the grace to smile--“he supplying the goods, and I----”

“And you your life,” snorted the good Spanish lady. “Fair enough. Well, I am glad we are not to lose you so soon.”

“You may at that, if I get any more such traps set for me as that of last night,” Steven replied. “Well, I think I shall get a good night’s rest, for this head gave me little sleep last night, and my arm did not enjoy the trotting of my mare on the way back here.” The Señora Katarina brought him a bowl of soup rich with chili and ground meat balls, and with this warming his ribs, he stretched himself gratefully between cooling sheets, thinking what a hard lot the poor girl Hope had, and wondering how he should manage to see Señorita Consuelo again. She had been right; he _was_ in danger, apparently. And she had run the risk of letting him know--he must show her that--that he appreciated--that he appreciated-- Steven was asleep.

He woke some time later because a light was shining right into his eyes and a hard hand was shaking his shoulder. He struggled to throw off the heavy slumber into which he had sunk. A bearded Mexican hung over him, a man he had never seen before. Behind this man stood two other Mexicans, and behind them he could see the agitated face of Señora Katarina. What was it all about?

He would soon learn. He was under arrest. Get up, get his clothes on, and exchange these quarters for the _carcel_. But what for? With what was he charged? That was all right. He would know soon enough. The young Mexican standing in the background threw back his serape and indicated an emblem of authority on his chest. Steven was handicapped with his wrenched left arm, and besides, there were three of them and another outside. Best go along now, he decided reluctantly, and see what happened. And so when he had pulled on his clothes they filed down the dark and crooked little street and came at length to the jail, a stupid low building no whit different outside from the corral beside it or the houses about it, except that there were no windows at all on the street, only the door, which was strongly barred after them as they entered.

But the “cell” into which he was thrown--for the jailer booted him in from behind and closed the door so quickly that Steven had no chance to make his protests felt--that was different indeed from the room he had just left. Pitch dark, not a window in it as far as he could judge, close and filthy. He scarcely dared stir, but, his hand encountering a small stick, he scraped away at the dirt floor until he had cleared a place large enough to lie down upon. Probably just as well he couldn’t see, he consoled himself, and then proceeded to get what slumber he could, execrating himself, meanwhile, for having disregarded the wise advice of Colonel Bent certainly as regarding politics.

“De Garcia is responsible for this,” he thought. “I should not have believed it of him. I should have thought he was genuine, a gentleman of his word.”

But Steven was wrong. Don Tiburcio de Garcia had gone to Taos several days before to see Charles Bent. Had Don Tiburcio remained in Santa Fe all that happened might have been quite different. Luis Lopez had ways of knowing many things. His followers were numerous and swift to report whatever they thought might concern him. That is how he knew that Steven Mercer had not broken his neck by that swift fall from the horse--a simple device, the stretched rope, but one which is often successful--but, to the contrary, had been carried back to the house of James Bragdon. The result was that Luis went wild with jealousy and proceeded, after some thought and a little more information from the outside, straight to his father. He talked with him for some time. Don Anabel was a ready listener.

“But how do you know that this American is a spy,” he asked, “and what proof have you that he is arranging to ship arms into New Mexico for an insurrection, or to take Santa Fe, as you say?”

“This,” replied Luis, triumphantly. “He comes first with no merchandise of his own at all. He is no _mercader_.”

“He sold me cloth for twenty duros,” put in Don Anabel, skeptically.

“_Esta bien._ He sold only for Colonel St. Vrain, as a blind. But he sends back way to New Orleans for a shipment of two thousand _pistoles, entiende Ud., Señor_? Two thousand pistols, of the new kind, he specifies, whatever they may be; revolver, to turn around, he writes.”

“How do you know this?” Don Anabel turned a shade paler under his fine brown skin and leaned tensely forward.

“Because the letter which he intrusted to one of the traders who left here five days ago, and which was to have been carried to Fort Leavenworth and from there sent down the Great River somehow to the father of the boy, a _mercader_ himself, says so. Here it is.” He spread on the table before his father a folded paper that he had drawn from his sash.

“How did you come into possession of this letter?” asked Don Anabel, after he had read it.

“Well, frankly, it was brought to me by one of my _arrieros_ who accompanied the returning caravan part way on the Trail.”

“You mean he held it up?” demanded Don Anabel. “At your orders?”

Luis nodded. “I suspected the Yankees, señor, and--_you see_?” he shrugged eloquently, and struck nonchalantly one of the new matches to light his cigarette.

Don Anabel did not reply. He was thinking fast. The _jefe politico_ had not yet returned. He was still off fighting Texans. As an influential private citizen he, Don Anabel, could get the sheriff, _el alguacil mayor_, to arrest the suspected youth and put him in the _carcel_. That would keep him safe, and it would be a thousand times harder for him to get out again than for them to get him in. Yet Don Anabel would not give the order till after dinner. Luis chafed, but he knew enough to hide any undue eagerness. The matter was discussed at the table.

“What, the handsome Americano a spy!” The sentimental Doña Gertrudis could scarcely believe it. “_Un espio, un emisario secreto!_” Consuelo ceased the busy and healthful plying of spoon and fork from plate to mouth. Her eyes widened, her lips parted, she put down her sopped piece of tortilla. _Ay, madrecita de Dios!_ They were actually going to arrest him and put him in that filthy _carcel_, with the _piojos_, yes fleas, from every unwashed peon ready to leap upon him. But what for, what for, papa? They had a letter which proved that he was a spy? But how could one know the Americano had written that same letter? Even after Luis had departed with his father in search of the _alguacil_ Consuelo would not believe it.

It is not strange that Consuelo should have been a headstrong product of the same upbringing as her brother. From an adored infancy she had had her way. A wave of small fat arms and two nurses scurried to bring what she wanted. Tears, and even Don Anabel gave her anything she wept for. As she grew older almost every wish was gratified before she had time to pout about it, and it was nothing short of a miracle that with all this, still the Spanish virtues of filial courtesy, respect to one’s elders, and strict observance of the manners of the day were instilled into her. Though she rebelled, she observed them. When she was most rebellious Father Filemon Hubert, the French padre, could always quiet her; a walk in the peace of his lovely quaint garden, a talk with his quiet, gentle, saintly self, and the tantrum would pass.

But she could not seek Father Filemon tonight, and she wanted this youth to play with. She wanted him. He was the first interesting thing that had happened in her life, but yes. He should not be taken away from her. She had been extraordinarily good on the day after her incarceration in her room, and the day after that had wondered all day long what the Americano was doing, where he was. He had told her that he did not love the pale girl. _Muy bien_, she could not free this youth by crying, but she could perhaps by trying.

She kept Doña Gertrudis up by one pretext and another till her father and Luis returned, well satisfied with the evening’s work. Well, that was that. The plotter had been taken and was even now in the _calabozo_. He had exchanged his comfortable bed at Señora Katarina’s for the bare floor of the _carcel_, as a reward for his scheming.

Don Anabel set forth on the nightly round of his house, locking up.

“Did he not fight, the Americano?” Consuelo questioned Luis, as Doña Gertrudis slumped back in her chair.

“He was asleep,” grinned Luis, “and also has a bad arm--hurt by a fall.”

“_Covardes!_” hissed Consuelo, and made a face that her mother might not see. “Cowards, not satisfied with arresting him you must take him asleep. I knew it!”

Luis gazed at his sister in astonishment. “_Valgame dios!_ What do you care? What is he to you, this Americano _espiador_? He was visiting his country woman the night before; was coming from there when he was hurt, strangely, and they carried him back to her house, where she herself bound his wounds and cared for him. He returned to his quarters but this evening.”

It gave Luis a peculiar cruel relief to stab Consuelo, as his sharp sense told him he was doing, thereby sharing and relieving his own stabbing jealousy. He watched her face as he spoke and then coolly lit a cigarette while she glared at him, her hands clenching under his nose. “What is it to me?” she gasped, in fury. “I will show you. I will prove that he is no spy. It is _you_ who love the _Guerita_. Did I not see you the night of the _baile_? Have I not heard of your threats? Bah!” Tears trembled in her eyes.

Unmoved, Luis replied, cynically, “Ah, so it is you who are the little spy, eh?”

“It would take no spy to know that you were angry at the _baile_,” came the hot retort. “Oh, Luis, he does not want the Americanita. He has told me. Why did you do it?” She wept openly.

This put a different light on the matter. Luis was genuinely sorry. He put his arms sympathetically about his sister and kissed her. “Don’t, little one. See, Luis will help you.” At this moment Doña Gertrudis roused from her napping, Don Anabel returned, and the family bid one another a formal goodnight.

The following night, after the longest day that he had ever spent in his life, Steven lay in momentary cessation of his attack upon strange little scorpions that kept running out from a corner into the one shaft of light that came through one window which daylight had discovered. The jailer, who had thrust a plate of beans and a jar of water through the door around noon had vouchsafed no information except that Steven would stay right where he was till the _jefe politico_ returned; maybe one month, maybe two. _Quien sabe?_ May be the _jefe_ might be killed and never return.

A careful inspection showed Steven that there was no way to get out, short of digging through five feet of sunbaked adobe with his finger nails. In addition to that was the trifling consideration of his feet being chained together. He spent the time examining the walls of his jail by the ray of sunlight that came through the little high barred window. Various rings were inbedded in massive beams sunk in the adobe. One for the throat, two for wrists, very suggestively. The dirty walls still held here and there bits of whitewash, which were scratched up with verses and threats inscribed by prisoners. From the ceiling hung two rings that also suggested possibilities from which Steven turned with a sick feeling at the stomach. In one of them a lock of human hair could still be seen. There were bloodstains upon the wall.

From these gloomy contemplations and from a thousand plans for making his escape on the morrow, Steven was roused some time after dark by a turning of the lock in the one door. The bolts were shot back and the jailer appeared, with a covered candle lantern.

“Get up,” he ordered, “_Seguido._ In a hurry. Follow me.”

“How can I?” Steven protested. “Undo this thing.” The jailer stooped and fumbled with a rusty and primitive padlock. Steven stood up and followed the man out. He stood in a small bare courtyard in the light of the sinking moon. “Over there,” pointed the jailer. Steven saw a cloaked figure, a woman, who came quickly forward to meet him.

“Señorita Consuelo! Again you have thought for me!” Steven really trembled as he looked down upon her. She _was_ small, he remembered, though he had not stood beside her before. She told him briefly, and with creditable clarity, all she had heard at dinner of the circumstances of his arrest. So they had held up poor Twombley, the trader from St. Louis, and taken his letter. Steven smiled grimly.

“What did Señor Don Tiburcio have to say?--Oh, he was in Taos?”

“But you are not a spy?” Consuelo pressed.

Steven laughed. “I have never had a thought of such an office. That was just some business.”

“It doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t care if you were,” she said, softly, looking away. Steven peered in amazement upon the small shadowed face; he looked over his shoulder. The jailer had disappeared. He put an arm around Consuelo’s shoulders and with one hand turned her face up to his. “Consuelo, when I am out of this, and can--I will tell you something. Will you trust me meanwhile? Since I first saw you in the window--I--I--I wanted to dance with you that night, awfully. But I could not, for Colonel Ceran insisted on my leaving and I had to go for fear of causing trouble. There was a lady with us, you know. My countrywoman. I shall get away from here tonight, and go to Taos, to see St. Vrain and Don Tiburcio, but I shall get back as soon as possible.”

She would send Felicita’s husband, Juan, to guide him. Juan would be waiting at Estevan’s door in an hour. “You will be back?” murmured Consuelo. “When? In a week? Ten days?”

“In a week.” His ears were thrumming, his heart violently knocking his ribs, “unless I am shot through the back, I shall see you. No?” He longed to say, “I love you; I have just realized that I loved you from the moment I saw you in the window.”

She nodded solemnly. “In a week, then, from tonight. At ten. At my balcony?”

He must not come home with her now lest they be seen. Felicita waited beyond the wall to escort her. Consuelo snatched a blanket from under Felicita’s _reboso_ and Steven threw it over himself and walked calmly out of the corral beside the two, through the dark lanes, out upon a moonlight-flooded street--to the garden gate of Don Anabel’s house. He lingered but a moment to bend over Consuelo’s hand, then strode away to his own place, where he had nearly to pound the door down to waken the good Doña Katarina and get in.

Two days later Steven was riding through groves of golden, trembling aspen down the mountain slope into Taos. Juan had taken him by the upper trail so that they could ride under cover. The mountain-side was a glory of autumnal yellow, each leaf like beaten gold. The streams ran cold and clear, and full of rainbow trout. The beauty of the world fitted well with Steven’s mood. He was joyously, rapturously, in love. Past the white pyramid of the pueblo of Taos, rising against sky and mountain in great steps, they rode through low thickets of willow and copper-tinted cottonwood, into San Fernando de Taos. The little Spanish town snuggled in the valley, its houses festooned with ropes of scarlet chili, its fields stacked with golden grain and yellow corn.

Steven sat, the next morning, at breakfast with Ceran St. Vrain and told of what happened. “But six of the traders carried letters in duplicate,” he boasted, “so unless all perish my father will have news of me.”

St. Vrain nodded approval, pulling on his long pipe. “Señor Garcia has already returned to Santa Fe. He left yesterday morning, but by the lower route; yet I would not trust him overmuch. He is a wise, secretive man, and would do as much as suited his purpose. No more.”

“You mean he would use me? And then I might pay the piper?”

“I think so. As you have missed the return trip, I would stay here with us in Taos until another caravan comes, when you can return East, or stay and cast in your lot here, trapping, trading, building up a business yourself in case your father does not care to send you any merchandise. I will take you on as an _engagé_ if you decide so.”

“I will stay--for two or three days,” Steven smiled, “but I must return to Santa Fe in any event.” He could scarcely wait for the night of his meeting with Consuelo. “After that we shall see.” At any rate, Don Tiburcio had told no one of his transactions with Steven, and Steven would for his part keep his word, too, and not reveal them. St. Vrain regarded Steven keenly. “Do not break your heart over a Spanish girl, _mon fils_. Nothing can come of it.”

But no persuasion, nor the fascination of the lovely and peaceful upland valley where Charles Bent and Ceran St. Vrain were doing flourishing business could keep him from starting back on the morning of the fourth day. Juan rode with him, solemn, yet friendly; but they talked little as Juan was a Pueblo from the Indian village of Santo Domingo, and his Spanish was even less fluent than his English.

The sun hung low the following afternoon as they came down through Tesuque and approached the western road into Santa Fe. Juan became more talkative. Indians did not like all Americanos, he vouchsafed. The man with the white daughter he was one they did not like. He Juan, had heard that they would drive that man out, and the two other traders who had settled next him. All of them, _si_. They were thieves; they took the water of the Indians. They sold flour for sugar, and water in whisky. Sometime this day they would be driven out, he thought.

“What makes you say that?” Steven pressed. Had Juan heard for sure?

Don Luis had said it; he had told the Indians to go ahead. They must make haste, then, for the American girl might be in danger. Juan was not eager to press ahead, but followed Steven, and they covered the last few miles at a quick canter. The sun had set and it was growing dark when, on the last stretch before they came to the ranchitos where the Americans had taken up their homesteads, they saw smoke beyond.

Spurring ahead with impatience, Steven saw that Bragdon’s place was belching flames and that clouds of smoke were rolling up from his fields. Juan rode up beside him, interested but not concerned. They saw that there was fighting, heard an occasional shot. “Stop here,” Juan insisted. “No good go straight to the door. We come up behind. No good to be dead.” They skirted the base of the hill under cover of the smoke.

Behind the L of the adobe house Hope cowered with Doren, dry-eyed, their clothing drenched. She had fought fire in the fields with her father and the other white men until she saw flames coming out of the house. Then she had carried water from the little well in the yard and thrown it on the woodwork, till there was no more water. They did not know when the fire had started, or how, until, as they fought the flames and began to drive them back, a row of Indian heads rose up from the _acequia’s_ rim and a tomahawk neatly swept Bragdon’s hat from his head. The Indians pushed the handful of white men back and back. Hope emptied her father’s shotgun down the hill without avail, and now the men had their backs to the flaming house and the last shot had been fired at the assailants, who still kept under cover.

The Pueblos saw that the white men had no more ammunition with them, and a half dozen men sprang forward. Hope, peering round the corner, did not know whether to snatch this opportunity to run towards Santa Fe with Doren or to try to hide among the hills. Just as the Indians and white men grappled, a new fighter appeared suddenly and sprang into the fray, tripping, kicking, shooting. After a few minutes of panting struggle the Indians melted away, the shouting died down. It was quite dark now. Hope ran around the house with Doren and up to her father. Bragdon sat on the ground, a bullet sunk in his leg. Juan came running out of the house, bearing in his arms the remainder of the fire--a mass of inflammable stuff which had been carried in and set in flames inside--and when he and Steven had beaten out the flaming, smoldering cloth and woodwork within they all retreated into the house. The Americans all were exhausted. The skirmish had been going on all day. They had not eaten since early in the morning. The walls were standing, but the place was ruined, and the rancho of the settlers below was probably in ashes. The two other Americans had come to Bragdon’s help when they saw fire, and, unable to get back, had had to watch their own places go up in smoke. Theirs was the greater loss, for they had worked for two years now at their homesteads.

One of these neighbors kept watch with Steve’s loaded gun while Juan and Steven helped the trembling Hope to prepare some food. They covered the two windows with blankets and stuffed the chinks in the door. In the hot, stifling, smoky room, Hope cleaned and bound her father’s leg. The bullet had been probed for and extracted. Bragdon moaned for a drink from the jug which he had secreted; he took his drink and fell asleep. Doren was fed and made to lie down on the last blanket, and then Hope, Steven, and the men made their supper from the beans and tortillas. The moon was sinking behind the mountains when at last Steven peered out. It was at least twelve o’clock. He had missed his rendezvous with Consuelo.