CHAPTER VIII

FOR HIS TREASURE

Don Tiburcio de Garcia was indeed all that Ceran St. Vrain had said of him. He knew how to move silently, unobserved. He knew how to wait. He had thus been delaying his departure from Santa Fe, despite his final dismissal by Consuelo, for two reasons. One reason was the message from ex-President Pedraza, delivered to him by Steven on the night of his arrival in Santa Fe. The other reason was Hope Bragdon. He had no intention of being dismissed from her company so briefly and summarily as on the first occasion of his seeing her.

On the afternoon after Bragdon had set the dog on Luis, Don Tiburcio, having made sure that the Yankee was not at home, had himself ridden by the house, stopping there for an hour. He had, however, previously prevailed upon Doña Katarina to precede him by half an hour in a call upon the American girl. The three of them chatted gayly with Doña Katarina as duenna and interpreter. The callers departed together, leaving Hope a little bewildered, but smiling. The Spanish gentleman had asked permission to call again upon herself and her father, as soon as he should have returned from a trip to Taos, whither he was going, he said, on the morrow.

Then had come Steven’s visit, and its disastrous outcome, and Hope saw no more of him for a time. On the evening before the terrible raid on their home Don Tiburcio again appeared, and though he regretted much the absence of Señor Bragdon from the house, he dismounted and sat down upon the doorstep, playing with Doren. He made the boy a present of a fine Indian bow and arrow, also of a pair of Mexican leather chaps. Doren was delighted and Hope’s heart warmed as it could not have been in any other way.

They did not see Don Tiburcio again until the day after the attack. He learned of the calamity from Doña Katarina as soon as he got back.

She had heard the news through Steven the morning following the fire and fight. Don Tiburcio hastened at once out to the parched ranchito. He came dressed in his most elegant clothes, with two servants riding behind, and with gifts of food and fine blankets. James Bragdon greeted him cordially from his bed in the living room--a wealthy Mexican gentleman, a merchant of Chihuahua too.

They talked of New Spain and Old Mexico. Don Tiburcio spoke of the silver placers south of Santa Fe, the bullion of Chihuahua, the riches of Old Mexico. In his eagerness to seek such wealth James Bragdon could have kicked off the bedclothes and started out at once, but for the wounded leg. He grew impatient with the thought of ranching, especially after the attack of the day before. He would go prospecting.

Don Tiburcio, who never lifted a finger to wait upon himself, whose servant followed him even upon the Trail, drew water from the little well for Hope. He spoke to her in his carefully rehearsed English and presently said: “You are like a white flower. But you are cold; you do not live; you do not love. I love you. I will care for you so that you will learn how to smile.”

But Hope remained as silent and impassive as ever. She seemed to shrink from such speech. Don Tiburcio went quietly away after a while. He must give her time. He would return. Later he sought Don Anabel in his garden. “Señor, _amigo_,” he began when they had drunk a glass each to the other’s health, “this youth, this American who came with the traders, Estevan Mercer,”--Don Anabel showed such signs of choler that Don Tiburcio hurried on--“he is not guilty of the charge brought against him by the _alguacil_. I had not spoken to you before, but it was concerning a matter of business with myself that the order for firing arms and ammunition was sent East by the youth. If ever it arrives it shall be shipped down to Mexico for the supporters of Pedraza.”

Don Anabel listened with the formal courtesy that is _decoroso_ between Spanish gentlemen. “The incident is then closed,” he answered. “I regret that the young man should have been forced to spend a day and a night in the _carcel_, and yet had you not spoken he would probably have spent another night there tonight. I had just learned that he had returned from Taos, whither he had escaped. The jailer here is no good; I have had him lashed.”

Don Tiburcio could not control his surprise. “Yes, while he may have ordered firing arms and ammunition at your request and for your purpose,” Don Anabel continued, “he has also provided himself with a shipment which may arrive in Santa Fe any day now, according to this letter to Colonel Bent intercepted by one of my guides and just brought down to me this week which could refer only to your young--associate. He was advised that, should a shipment of arms come by caravan to the Fort, he was to forward it to Taos, where it would be called for by the right party.”

Don Tiburcio flushed. “This is the inside of the matter, Don Anabel, which has come to your attention. The truth is that the boy has served me well bringing me a secret letter from Pedraza, whom you know our family supports, to the effect that I am to await here a shipment of arms which he is having sent from St. Louis by way of Westport Landing. As you know, the usurper holds all the ports of Mexico, so any help to our party must come through overland shipments from the north. I make no doubt but that Pedraza sent word also to Colonel Bent, in the event that aught should happen to the youth. It is this shipment for which I am waiting, señor, now that your beautiful daughter has rejected my suit.”

Don Anabel started with surprise and disappointment. “Señor, I was not aware of that.”

“Partly to remove my presence from Consuelo,” Don Tiburcio continued, “and partly to confer with Colonel St. Vrain I went to Taos myself to learn whether he had news from Bent’s Fort of the caravan of guns, as it had not yet arrived here. I thought he might know whether it had taken the northern or the southern trail. I shall wait for still a few days, perhaps a few weeks, the arrival of the caravan. But I beg of you”--Don Tiburcio was genuinely disturbed--“I beg of you to permit that I remove my embarrassing presence from the so kind and lavish hospitality of your house.”

To this Don Anabel finally acceded with much regret. When Don Tiburcio had departed with all his personal possessions, Don Anabel sat for a long time smoking. He was tempted to send for Consuelo, but affection overcame his disappointment. Consuelo had been curiously subdued of late, at times pettish, at times gentle.

“The poor child does not know her own mind,” Doña Gertrudis excused. “She has no need to marry so young, like a common peona, after all. In Chihuahua they do not marry till eighteen, nineteen often. Let her take her time.”

No wonder that Consuelo was distracted. Each day of the week that had passed had dawned with hope and ended in despair. Secretly she looked for some word from the Americano. He had not been seen about the Villa. Felicita could vouch for that. The _alguacil_ had been looking for him for several days after his escape. Doña Katarina swore he was not there and all but spat in the face of the sheriff. Had he gone away again? Was he in trouble? Or had he simply neglected her? The uncertainty was maddening.

Don Anabel was deeply disturbed at learning from the lips of Don Tiburcio himself that Consuelo would not consent to marry him. He smoked for some time and then went in to his office, where shortly an evil-looking barefooted peon, clad only in his cotton camisa and pantaloons, was shown in to him. They were closeted for more than an hour, and when Don Anabel had dismissed the man he sent for Consuelo. She was only too glad to be excused from the necessity of sitting longer in the garden with Doña Gertrudis, Manuel, and their neighbors, Elena de Guevara and her brother Felipe Ladron de Guevara.

Don Anabel came at once sternly to the point. She, Consuelo, had been seen to talk, on a certain night, with the Americano from her balcony. And more recently, not ten days ago, she had been observed standing with him outside the garden gate. It was incredible. She must understand that not only she herself, but the foolish youth, too, must suffer for these indiscretions. Don Anabel would see that this youth received a flogging that same night. Consuelo repressed an involuntary scream. Flogged! With those blood-letting rawhides! But whipping had not been since she was a child of seven! Pride struggled within her. How could she confess that it was she who had made the first advances--that the American had come not to serenade her, but at her summons. No; he was a man, let him take the flogging. She tossed her head. Others had endured more for her sake!

But she could not. “Papa, it was not the fault of the Yanqui. I sent for him, to warn him to have a care, as I had heard threats for his safety. And the last time, he met me--he met me on the street, returning from Doña Katarina’s with Felicita I was--and like any _caballero_ would, he brought us home. Will you flog him for that?”

Deeply chagrined that his daughter had gone probably to a rendezvous with the American, Don Anabel sent her to her room till he should give her leave to join the family again. He left the house at once, riding away in great agitation on his fastest mare.

Consuelo wept, enduring such pain as only sixteen can feel. It was not alone the disgrace with the family. Alas, no. Everything faded before the fact that this golden youth, brought by the Trail to her very window, and whom she had liberated from the _carcel_, did not care for her. He had broken his promise. He had stayed at the house of the girl called Hope until way past the hour of their promised meeting. Consuelo had trembled at the window till nearly midnight, Felicita at her feet. Now Consuelo clung to her oft-abused Felicita as she had when a tiny imperious little thing, when Felicita had been slave indeed to her whims and charms. The caress of Consuelo’s tiny hands had enchained the childless bond-woman then, and through the years had softened the sting of Consuelo’s raging rebukes, the slaps and unreason. For all this Felicita was now repaid as Consuelo poured out her grief. At length she sat up and dried her tears.

“It is well, Felicita. Go take siesta, _pobre de ti_ [poor thee]. How good and kind to your wicked ungrateful one all these years.” She pushed her gently through the door.

As the hot afternoon wore on the house of Don Anabel lay steeped in its customary respite from the trials of this world. The rooms were silent, deep in siesta. Lupe slept, Doña Gertrudis snored, Consuelo tossed. But there was one who did not take siesta. A figure stood in the darkened sala in stockinged feet, motionless. There was not a sound. Good; the family slept. Consuelo, however, was finding no repose that hot September afternoon. Something urged her out into the patio. The smell of water on earth came refreshingly to her aching head. She leaned against the leafy trellis of the trumpet vines, looking idly beyond toward an open window of the sala. Who had carelessly left it open during the heat?

A moving shadow caught her eye. Quick as a flash she slipped along the wall and peered round the casement. Ah, it was only Luis. What was he doing, thrusting out that long rolled-up package through the window bars so quietly. Before Consuelo could speak a waiting hand had grasped the package and Luis had slipped into his shoes and stepped quickly through the _zaguan_ to his own room. Consuelo, left alone, returned to hers.

She did not dress that afternoon. Her pillow was wet with tears when Felicita crept in again. As the woman moved softly about the room, pouring out the tepid water from Consuelo’s silver basin, laying away her clothes in the carven chest, she talked in a low voice. At what she had to say Consuelo sat bolt upright, clenching the down pillow in her fists, her face paling with new misery. Then she sank back with a moan, covering her eyes.

“Felicita, it cannot be true. Luis! What will he do next! Tell me, tell me carefully.” Luis had sent two men after the Yankee Bragdon, who had gone South prospecting, to overtake and kill him. He wanted to get him out of the way so that he could have the daughter. It was revenge, too, Felicita said. The Yankee trader had insulted Luis unforgivably. The little boy? Well, if he died or if he survived it did not matter. He would be abandoned. They would not actually kill him.

But the stain of foul murder would be on Luis’s soul. Luis, he was only twenty. How happily they had played together on the banks of the stream such a few short years ago. Luis had always been kind to her then. She looked up to him, was so proud of him, and suffered so when he was punished. A rush of feeling from deep wells within her rose--tenderness for Luis, a weakness toward his sins.

Then suddenly something else smote her. He must be saved from this. And the little boy, the helpless little boy, he must be saved. She had a plan. “Quick, Felicita. Come, we will go to Father Filemon Hubert. He will tell me what to do.” Vespers was tolling from the old bell as they ascended the steps of the church at the end of the plaza.

Steven had indeed not been seen about the streets of the Villa. He had kept close to his rooms, tossing with a fever ever since the night of the fire and fight, guarded by the good Doña Katarina much more effectually and comfortably than by the jailer. Some infection, Doña Katarina swore, from the filthy _carcel_; probably the water he was given to drink there, for he had been ill within a week afterward.

He was surprised, on the afternoon after his return from Taos, to receive a visit from Don Tiburcio.

“I regret very much,” said that gentleman, earnestly, “that our business together should have been the cause of your having spent so uncomfortable a twenty-four hours. I have just come from Don Anabel Lopez and have explained the nature of the letter which you sent back East and also of the message which you brought to me. I am sure that, as a man of his word, he will cause you no more trouble on that score.”

Steven was glad of that. He felt, indeed, that he would be unable to cause any one else any trouble for a time himself. He was sick, wretched, and a part of his wretchedness was caused by the thought of having failed to meet Consuelo the night before. And she had helped him to escape. He did not like to owe that to a girl. His head would surely stop whirling so dizzily by evening and he would go to Consuelo’s house; get some word to her.

But Doña Katarina came in and put him back on his bed, where he stayed unromantically put for a week, slightly out of his head, caring little about intrigue of any sort for the weakness and nausea that held him. But his hardy youth was not to be disposed of by whatever lurking illness had poisoned him. When he was able to sit up again and gaze with some slight degree of enthusiasm at a bowl of chicken soup, Don Tiburcio, who had come to his room every day, came in and sat down rather wearily.

The seasoned _caballero_ seemed rather depressed, but he was more friendly, more confiding, than he had ever been. “My young friend,” said he, “I am leaving Santa Fe tonight. I trust that fate may again bring us together. I am your debtor and I would gladly discharge the debt.”

They parted with sincere regret, and Steven determined that it must be because of Consuelo that Don Tiburcio was leaving.

Three nights later Doña Katarina came in when Steven was sitting in a chair, bearing fresh news. Señor Bragdon had gone off prospecting with the boy, in spite of his daughter’s protests. Señorita Bragdon was nearly crazy. The Yanqui said he needed the boy to drive the mule, and it would do him good. Doña Katarina was all fury and sympathy.

“That is pretty bad,” agreed Steven, seriously. “Which way did he go? Does anyone know?”

It was south, she thought, following the trail of Don Tiburcio Garcia. He expected to overtake the Spaniard; began to get ready as soon as he heard Don Tiburcio had left Santa Fe, and started out, himself, the next night although his leg was still not well enough to walk much on. Señorita ’Ope Bragdon had told Doña Katarina that Don Tiburcio had been telling her father all about the placers south of Santa Fe, the silver bullion of Chihuahua, and some strange silver sands he had seen on the way up. The Yanqui got all excited about it.

“Do you know,” Doña Katarina beamed in the knowledge she was about to impart, “Don Tiburcio asked the Yanqui for Señorita ’Ope’s hand in marriage, and Senorita ’Ope would not. The Señor father was very angry at her.”

“Why, then it was not Consuelo?” Steven was amazed. He was sorry for Don Tiburcio, and for Hope, too. She was a good little thing.

“Yes, she is good,” Doña Katarina put in, warmly. “Her father left some goods here. He was keeping them till he could get higher prices, after all the other merchandise had gotten worn out, but ’Ope--Esperanza, I call her--has already given it to the Indians who got flour mixed with their sugar, in place of the money or skins they traded for it.”

Steven had passed a restless afternoon. His recovery had been very rapid. Doña Katarina had insisted, however, that he remain inside until after sundown. But now the sun was set, it was already growing dark and he made ready to go out. As he reached his door Doña Katarina returned, “An Indian is waiting here to see you, Señor Estevan,” she said.

It was the silent Juan, who squatted on the floor beside Steven’s chair and rolled his cigarette without saying a word. He rolled another which he offered Steven and smoked for a few minutes before he spoke. The Señorita Lopez wished the young gentleman to come, Juan said, if he would be so kind, on a matter of importance concerning one he loved--to come that night at the tenth hour. He, Juan, would escort him to the place. Steven’s heart leaped. Adventure had been kind to him. But this, ah, this was something new and strangely sweet.

How soft a little town can be under moonlight, under starlight. What is more endearing than little houses with candlelit windows, glowing whitely under the moon! How lovely a garden; a nightingale singing in a flowering tamarack above the _acequia_. Down the banks of the little silver river, to the foot of the garden, went Juan and Steven, and up over the wall. _Caramba!_ There was broken glass set there. Careful, señor. Had he cut his hand? A _bagatela_.

Then down on the other side of the wall and Consuelo standing in the starlight, hooded but unmistakable. Steven stepped eagerly forward, but the straight figure, something in the poise of her head, restrained him.

“Señor Ess-tev-an,” she spoke almost in a whisper, “I would not send for you again, thus boldly, but that I have learned something touching us both most closely.”

“May I not tell you first, Consuelo,” Steven pleaded, “what befell me the night I was to have met you?”

“I have already heard, señor,” she replied, with vast dignity. “It is unnecessary to speak of it further when time presses so. Señor, I have heard from my faithful Felicita that the father of the Americana, Señor Bragdon, has gone off to prospect for gold and silver, with the young one, the boy.”

Steven nodded. “I know.” But Consuelo hurried on. “He is--he is to be followed, to be killed, you understand. To be gotten out of the way so that his daughter may be married by some one. The man has enemies. He is not pleasant, it seems, nor just. But the child will be left to perish if the man is killed.”

“Who, who would do such a thing?” Steve gasped. “Murder, murder an innocent child!”

Consuelo nodded violently; her hand clutched her throat; she could scarcely speak. “But they can be overtaken, for Juan knows how to follow by the river much faster than they can go by land. They go to the Silver Sand of which Don Tiburcio told us; and the men who follow left but this afternoon. Juan knows them. It is an even chance to overtake them, and buy them off, for they have been pledged silver. Or to overtake the Yanqui and save him.... Ess-tevan, will you go?

“It is not for myself I ask this, señor, but for those who are dear to us both. I know no one else I can trust, but you and Juan.” She could whisper only. How tall, how fair, how fine, he looked standing there. And he loved the Yanqui girl; she had even refused Don Tiburcio for him. “Did we love one another I could not ask such a sacrifice, but”--she could not see the sudden hurt that came over the face of the tall youth before her--“but, for the sake of that girl and the boy you will go, you will follow Bragdon tonight, and save them if you can?”

Steven would not have hesitated a moment in any event, except to learn the way to find a guide. “I will go,” he replied, “for the sake of the child and Hope Bragdon and--” he swayed toward her, and she, who had with difficulty restrained her sobs, toward him, but at his words she recoiled. Only the young, only first love, can be so mistaken.

“Señorita,” Steven tried again, “when last we met I made you a promise that I was unable to carry out. Please----”

A tiny light appeared in a window in the silent house at the garden’s end. Consuelo lifted a warning finger, and with a warm pressure upon his hand fled down the banks of the irrigating ditch and disappeared within the shadow of the tamaracks.

Steven heard Juan whistle on the other side of the wall and vaulted over quickly. They walked rapidly up the street. In his rooms Steven wrote a note to his father, another to Doña Katarina. There was nothing to write to Consuelo; she did not love him.

On the same morning that Doña Katarina stepped into the spotlessly kept room where her lodger slept and found the bed unrumpled and a note upon the chest of drawers, Don Anabel Lopez awoke and went through his house, having been absent during the preceding afternoon and late into the night at his ranch below in the valley. And shortly thereafter the noise of his wrath went through the house like a storm bursting.

The household was assembled in the sala and its awed gaze directed to an empty frame where once had hung the Murillo “Madonna and Child.” Don Anabel’s face was white with anger and deep concern. He spoke quietly to his household now, describing what would be the consequences to the thief if he did not at once repent, and promised lenience if he did. Then began a rigorous examination into all the circumstances surrounding the moment when the picture had last been seen by each member of the hacienda. Consuelo had been in her room all week. Luis and Doña Gertrudis had together seen the picture just before siesta the day before. Doña Gertrudis had herself wakened Luis, but they noticed nothing later, for they had gone to supper through the patio and had sat at dinner late. It all came to nothing. He himself had been the last to see his cherished canvas, as far as he could learn.

“_Dios mio!_ Had Don Tiburcio not departed four days before, I should be tempted even to think that his love for the thing had overpowered him.”

Who else had left the Villa? Come, here was a path to follow. At length, among sundry trappers, Indians, peons, and one Franciscan friar, it was learned that the American youth was missing. Don Anabel seized upon his name at once as being in very likelihood the thief. To Consuelo the knowledge had come in a flash the moment her eyes rested upon the empty frame. Luis, the afternoon before. He had rolled up the canvas and passed it through the window. From that ordeal, Consuelo the child emerged Consuelo the woman. Luis did not leave the house that day, curiously enough, but lounged about in his room. Consuelo sent for him late in the afternoon.

He heard her brave accusation brazenly, flippantly, but at the end he broke like a bad small boy. Yes, he had taken the painting, since she had seen him. But he pleaded on his knees that she would not betray him. He wept. He kissed her hands and face. Luis feared only one person in the world--his father. Consuelo, in turn, pleaded with her brother to get the painting back again. It would age their father. He could not, he swore. It was impossible. Impossible, he told her. But he would not say what he had done with it, why he could not get it back.

When she had promised with grief, not to betray him, for the sake of their father, she came to the greater guilt. But feeling safe now, Luis grew hard. Murder? The dog of an American deserved it. The man had set the dogs on him, Luis. The girl would be better off without this father, anyhow. “She likes me,” Luis swelled. He had called upon her the night before and was to go again tonight.

“But the child, the child?” Consuelo almost screamed. Luis shrugged. They would not harm him. He’d told his men to let the boy go. Luis would stay for no more words, but went off impatiently. Consuelo took her black shawl--her father had given her leave now to go out--and as she passed through the sala was very gentle with the querulous questioning of Doña Gertrudis, sitting plump and pathetic alone there, totally upset by the calamity to her husband.

Consuelo passed out into the heat that still rose from the dust of the streets and radiated from the sun-soaked walls about. She came to the garden of Father Filemon. Her face was stricken. In these few days life had turned from a soft easy round of hot chocolate, cool wine, fresh frocks, a looking for new gifts to be brought to her through the unconsidered labor and pain and bloodshed of others, to this sorrow and shame and sacrifice, so near to the hearth and the heart.

And she had sent away the brave and honest American to do what Luis himself should have done. She’d sent him down into a dangerous land unknown to him, where the Apache and the Sioux and the very corn-growing Pueblos were unfriendly. In her pride she had sent him away, this tall young man whom she loved, without listening to a word he had to say to her. She had shielded her brother with his good name, and he unable to defend himself because he had gone on her mission. And now she knew that he had loved her. She knelt before the padre.