CHAPTER XXVI. A FRONTIER IDYL.

Our picnic was in the month of May and we started from Santa Fé in the early morning. On three sides the drowsy old town is guarded by mountains royal with purple and glittering with gold. Thirty miles away one snowy peak seemed an airy tent let down out of heaven, and across it the breeze blows as freshly as airs across Eden when the world was young.

The road wound beside the little river Santa Fé, whose waters go softly, after rippling down in icy cascades from a lake pure as Tahoe, formed by melting snows from the mountain top. Along its margin the red willow tosses its branches lightly as a lady’s plume, and back in the hill country the pine-trees sigh to each other their never ceasing song. Over the rocks clambering goats look down and shake their beards at the traveller, and the tinkle of a bell falls pleasantly on the ear as Mexican boys drive their flocks to the river; and where the sheep are drinking an Indian woman carrying a black jar on her head, erect and stately, comes to wash her poor rags in the stream.

It is all like the old Bible pictures. The somber landscape though sadly lacking color is serene and pastoral,--so filled with the beauty of peace and restful silence we thought of the ancient pilgrims journeying in the shining white light of the Delectable Mountains, and their talk with loving shepherds by the wayside. No fear of rain to spoil our pleasure; there will not be one drop, nor is there even dew. Yesterday we breathed balm and incense; to-morrow we know will be just like to-day. The south wind has “quieted the earth,” and the blue overhead is without spot of cloud, vapory mist or fog.

Our party was quite large. In advance a well mounted Lieutenant, in the glory of his first shoulder straps, rode close to the bridle rein of a young girl whose flying veil gave short glimpses of a beautiful face lighted with eyes of radiant hazel and the brightest smiles. They were a pair of lovers, loved by us at first sight. In an ambulance came a stout lady with color rather high than delicate, whose unhappy bonnet would not stick to her head but kept slipping down her back. Beside her sat a weak woman from Illinois, born tired and unable to find time to rest since that wearisome date, having barely life enough to be proud of her ten-year-old Rosa as though children were the rarest things in the world. On a little _burro_, or donkey, was a school teacher without special escort, but looked after by a dry old bachelor who had one romance in his life and still wore the miniature of a face, dearly loved and early lost, which has been only dust thirty years. For the old love’s sake he treated all women with delicate reserve, seeing in them kinship to the lost ideal they in some sort represent. A dream unbroken, for where death sets his seal the imprint is eternal and endureth forever. Then there rode along a blonde and pensive artist, the author of many rejected manuscripts, who carried sketching paper and a neat box of pencils. He wore his hair long and boots small, smoked cigarettes incessantly, and eyed the gay Lieutenant in bitterness of soul. Several light carriages whirled past us; and Brown, the photographer, dashed by on his own buckboard drawn by gallant gray mules. I had only time to notice the stranger beside him had the blackest eyes and wore a diamond ring of unusual size and brilliance which blazed in the sunlight as he courteously lifted his hat. Among the last to appear was an alumnus from Colorado College, who had electrified the whole board of trustees with his graduating speech entitled, “The Centennial State--a Nation’s Benediction.” This callow youth had made the eastern tour, had a nodding acquaintance with the crowned heads of Boston, and in conscious superiority overshadowed his companion, the Baptist minister, one of the meekest spirits that ever starved its way to heaven.

The army ambulance moved slowly through the sandy red soil but we did not care; the mountains--how grand they are!--were a perpetual delight. The fineness of the atmosphere gave exquisite tints to the near foothills and the vast horizon. Clusters of wild verbenas purpled the plain--a deeper shade of the far away hill purples--and strange flowers, yellow and pink, nestled in the short, moss-like grass. They never felt dew or rain, yet they did not appear stunted or starved, but looked up brightly in the sterile sand as from a garden bed.

Now and then a Pueblo Indian strode silently across our way, and a Mexican in picturesque striped blanket saluted us in Spanish fashion with a “_Buenos dias señoras_,” as he drove his cruelly loaded donkey toward the city. Lazy Mexicans squatted in rows, sunned themselves against the low walls of their houses; and on a chimney a flock of pigeons tamely perched, and watched the movements of a mower cutting the grass which grew scantily on the flat mud roof of his miserable hut.

When we reached the chosen ground a fire was already kindled from the resinous boughs of the _piñon_, and lovers were straying off in shady places to find out what words the daisies are saying to youth and beauty.

Brown, the photographer, introduced his guest, a fine old Spaniard named Oreto. He wore the easy air of a man familiar with good society, and the lofty courtesy which marks the true Castilian, I may say the true gentleman, anywhere. He claimed to be hidalgo--literally, son of a Goth--by which is meant pure Catholic Spanish blood, without a taint of Jew or Moor; was educated at Salamanca, and by training conservative was quick to denounce Castelar and his politics as highly pernicious. In a quiet way he was a great talker; the flashing eyes alone betrayed the intensity of his feeling, and as no one entered into debate with him, he fell to extolling the glory of old Castile. Gradually the whole party was attracted to him, and he became the centre of a circle of interested listeners.

The fair rider with fluffy curls blown by the mountain breeze against the arm she leaned on, bent forward and asked, “Why leave your own country for this wild New World?”

“It is long to tell the state troubles which drove me from home and made me a wanderer, for out of Spain every land is exile; too long for even a summer day.”

“But not too long for our interest,” she answered with a charming animation; “you are alone in life,” she added with a glance at the band of mourning crape on his _sombrero_.

“Catalina and my niñita are with the saints,”--he crossed his breast reverently. “When I laid them in the vault at Valladolid my heart felt heavy and cold. I thought the long voyage and sight of new places might warm it, and I might find some diversion, or as our neighbors over the Pyrenees say ‘distraction,’ by imitating my ancient countryman in a chase after ‘the fountain of youth.’”

“That is in our own hearts,” said Romeo, with an arch glance at Juliet.

“Yes, so experience teaches. I am last of my name and house, and”--his voice sunk mournfully--“I had buried the wife of my youth, whom I loved with a great love, after we had lived together twenty years.”

He sighed and turned his eyes toward the mountain-top shining like silver in the keen, clear light, and the artist fell to sketching Oreto’s profile.

“Time is the great consoler,” said the languid Illinoisian, trying to adapt her harsh English to the spoken music of the stranger. A southern sky makes a gentle voice, and the Spanish tongue has a matchless trick of melting all it touches into a melody.

“_La Señora_ is most kind, but it is too late; the heart has no second spring. Do you see the white line down the mountain-side?” he asked, abruptly changing the subject evidently painful to dwell upon.

“Yes, it is a brook rising in a spring, cold as ice, clear as glass.”

“Then, instead of my dull, sad story let me tell you the tradition of the Blue Fountain, the name of the spring,--_Fontaine-bleu_, as the French Fathers used to call it.”

“By all means; a story, a story!” the ladies cried in chorus.

“You do me proud,” said Oreto with a sweeping bow, “and since you honor me with your attention I promise not to weary it.”

We disposed ourselves in various attitudes about the speaker. The rising generation gathered in graceful groups under the stunted pines, and the setting generation sat on buffalo robes and cushions against the gnarled and twisted trunks of the _piñones_. Little Rosa was coaxed to her mother’s lap, and the stout lady reclined on the back seat of the ambulance, loosened her bonnet strings and made herself extremely comfortable while we listened to the

LEGEND OF THE BLUE FOUNTAIN.

“Once upon a time,” the Spaniard began, with his grave smile, “away to the North in the country you call Montana lived a young Indian hunter, tall and straight and very handsome. From boyhood he had heard stories of happy hunting-grounds where the _pasturas_ were always fresh and game was always in sight. So one bitter cold morning he put on his snow-shoes and fur mittens, wrapped himself in his warmest bearskin, and struck southward, following the stony mountain ranges till he reached this lonesome region.”

“Did he travel all alone?” asked little Rosa.

“Only the travelling winds went with him. But he did not know what fear is, though at night he heard the coyote’s cry, the bellowing of the bison and the howl of the prairie wolf. The sun, which he worshipped, shone friendly all the way; gradually the breeze blew softer, the earth grew warmer and greener. After one long day’s march he drank deep of the spring in yon hillside, laid his bent bow and quiver of arrows on the rock, and went to sleep in the soft warm sand by the Blue Fountain.

“An Indian warrior sleeps lightly, and in his slumber appeared a form--a woman’s, such a shape as is seen nowhere but in dreams and Andalusia.” The stranger paused and looked dreamily on the ground like one busy with memory, and in sympathy I thought of the lost Catalina and the little one lying in the gloomy vault of Valladolid. We respected his silence, and after a moment he continued:

“The spirit spoke to the dreamer in words of infinite tenderness, and appeared to watch and guard him. On waking he took a long draught of the cool snow water, and gazed searchingly into its blue depths.”

“Was it really blue?” broke in Rosa.

“Sky blue and silver,” said the Castilian, adding one of the endearing diminutives in which his language is so rich and which I did not quite comprehend. “Many times he tried to catch a glance of the fairy face which came into his sleep, making it better than any waking. Long he gazed into the watery mirror; it reflected only his own tawny face and the spotless sky above it. The white sand boiled from unknown depths below, bubbles came to the top and broke on the stony brim, but the ceaseless gush and flow of the waters was a chime in his ears without meaning.

“He lingered about this spot, so runs the tale, many weeks, praying for the appearance of the water maiden. She came into his sleep but never blest his waking eyes, and when the rainy season, which is so very dreary, set in, the disappointed youth went back to his tribe. The vision haunted him; in vain he tried to shake it off; the _vega_, so lone, so dim, so untrodden, was filled with strange enchantment. The brook went flowing through his memory, glancing now in sun, now in shadow, as it gushed from the mountain side, vanishing at last like fairy gold in the sand. The laughing girls of the tribe tried to rouse him from indifference, but could not stir him to join in their songs and games. In the time of the corn harvest the present of a blood-red ear, the Indian’s _rose d’amour_, did not move him to any feeling, and he turned with glance averted from the flying feet in the bewitching _cachina_ dance.

“‘He is moonstruck,’ said the girls; ‘give him the crooked ear, for the fool is fit for nothing but to sit in the sun with the very old men.’” He heeded neither jest nor laugh, and determined to come back to the Blue Fountain. When he set out an airy figure seemed to go before and beckon him on, as the swan maidens of the German lakes beckon young knights into their little boats drawn by snowy swans harnessed with silver chains.

“Southward, southward he strode, following the ancient march of Azatlan, and, in sight of the beloved spring, he climbed the steep, fleet and untired as the red deer, to find the same sparkling fountain, and the shining brook below it running into the valley as it will run on forever.

“Again he lay down on the soft, warm sand, and once more the delicate phantom appeared to his closed eyes, whispered gently in his ear, and bent above his head as if to kiss him.”

Here the lovers “changed eyes,” leaned a trifle closer together, and I saw Romeo pick up a blue ribbon dropped from Juliet’s sleeve and slip it into his watch pocket.

“Then a frantic love took possession of the hunter. Day after day, night after night, his wasting form was laid beside the singing cascade; ever he sighed, murmured, dreamed. The strength left his limbs, his blood beat hotly: summer waned and cold winds blew, but never cooled the fever of his brow. Sometimes after a day’s hunt, returning at evening he fancied he saw a misty outline against the dark steep, but it melted away as he neared it and instead of a living woman he reached out to clasp the empty air. Then the warrior began to understand this water spirit was of the race of Souls, and as such could not wed a mortal; to possess her, therefore, he must be like her--must die. So one day when the world was all bright and his soul all dark, while she sung a song of wonderful music he stretched his arms to reach the shadowy siren and plunged from the black ledge you see yonder into the unknown depths below.”

“And was he never heard of afterward?” asked Juliet, while the roses on her cheek deepened in betrayal of her thoughts.

“Never, _hermosura_,” said the Spaniard with an admiring gesture, “but old Pueblos about here say two shapes rise out of the spring where there used to be but one, float in the air and hover above it. They are oftenest seen about dusk in the rainy season. I have never seen them myself.”

“I wonder if they do show that way,” said Rosa with a puzzled face.

“_Quien sabe_,” said Oreto mysteriously, at the same time handing her the kernel of a _piñon_ nut which he cracked in his white front teeth.

And here let me record that the words “_Quien sabe_,” “who knows,” are the end of controversy, the finish of debate, the limit of human understanding, having a very different meaning according to the persons speaking. With Oreto it was as much as to say, there is room for argument on both sides.

All this time our stew had been simmering, gypsy fashion, over the fire, keeping a friendly and impatient knocking at the pot lid, and was now pronounced done. The stout lady roused up from her nap, set her bonnet bias across her eyebrows, said she was glad the young Comanche came to his senses at last, and then addressed herself to the making of coffee.

I met Oreto frequently, and never saw him unbend from the Hamlet air--“Man delights not me, no, nor woman either,”--except on this one holiday. So to speak, he flavored the whole picnic. He gayly insisted on seasoning every dish. “I will not ruin the _olla_ for Americans, with too much red pepper,” he said; “the merest _soupçon_, as the French put it.” Then he contrived a nice, cool-looking salad from some crisp leaves, to me unknown, and served it with a deftness and tact that would have graced a courtier. To tell the whole truth, the elegant Castilian had so much manner it was rather fatiguing to keep up with him.

Dinner over, he took a large silk handkerchief and showed how two prisoners of the Inquisition were once knotted together with ropes, and allowed their freedom if they could untie them, trying the puzzle on the lovers, who, of course, struggled violently to be free,--I need hardly add without success. Had he experimented on some of the married couples possibly the result might have been different. Following this was a gay barcarole about strolling on the Prado, glancing eyes, winged feet and envious veils. “It should have castanets in the chorus; if Señor Brown will lend me his hat it will answer.”

Thus appealed to, the photographer could not choose but offer his brand new stovepipe to his guest, who thumped it vigorously, greatly to Señor Brown’s annoyance, who stood looking foolish, bareheaded in the sunshine. And again I marked the size and lustre of the diamond ring.

The singer’s voice was a trifle cracked, but we were not fastidious, the ladies hung on every word, and when the song ended, the applause was hearty and genuine. The blonde artist produced a flute which luckily for us had a missing joint, and insinuated he could be prevailed upon to sing; but we knew “The Raven” would be his doleful strain and upon the hint no one spoke.

“Now a thousand pardons,” said Oreto, “for consuming your time and courtesy. I must have a _siesta_, without which you know a Spaniard is lost forever and a day.” From under the seat of the buckboard he unrolled a short cloak and threw it in Moorish style across his shoulders, lifted his _sombrero_, revealing a nobly turned head with dashes of gray in the blue-black hair, and his face resumed its expression of habitual melancholy. As he walked off to the shadow of a great rock the alumnus from Colorado college, who knows it all, said in a loud whisper, “There goes Don Pomposo. He feels like the Corliss engine at the Centennial.”

The old bachelor shot the fledgling a glance that should have killed him, but the youth, though poor by nature and exhausted by cultivation, was wiry and did not fall asunder. In fact he never flinched. My thoughts wandered from the gay company and the man who had no respect for “the stranger within the gates,” to the lone exile and the varied fortunes at which he had hinted, and I said aloud, “The Señor Oreto looks like a man who has a history.”

And he has.

I dismiss the picnic in the brilliant periods of the Pharos of the Occident. The editor-in-chief, being also an insurance agent, naturally dealt in large figures, and gave free rein to his warm, not to say fiery imagination: “The picnic of last week was an event long to be remembered. The day was beautiful, nature enchanting, woman divine. Old Baldy lifted his rugged front and snowy crown before us, and the river sung its sweetest cadence. Among distinguished guests present we name the fascinating Gonzalez Felipe Oreto, a cosmopolitan born in old Castile, the friend of our artist, James Brown. For æsthetic culture, refinement of manner and general elegance the versatile Castilian has few equals and no superiors. Rumor has it he will soon lead to the altar a fair widow well known to our city, and we learn with extreme pleasure that he has been prevailed on to cast in his lot with us and become a citizen of the most desirable of all the territories.”

From this time the popularity of the delightful Gonzalez Felipe Oreto steadily increased. The young ladies gazed at him with undisguised admiration, the mothers smiled on him, but his attentions were too evenly distributed to indicate the least preference. One day he dashed all hopes by publishing in the _Pharos of the Occident_ the poem given below. He told his landlady, in the deepest confidence, it was addressed to a noble lady of Valencia, who had deigned to give him a sweet souvenir in return for his verses and present.

My reader need hardly be told it was all over town before night--that pretty secret of Oreto’s.

TO ISABELLA RASCON--WITH A SHELL.

The years have brought you many gifts Since first you heard them tell How the voice of the sea is hid In the windings of a shell. And where’er it may be exiled, From its own warm Eastern main, Bend your ear to the crystal cell, And you hear the sea again.

I list to the murmurous sound But it never shapes one word. I cannot guess what it would tell, That echo always heard. Does it speak of the strange, rich life Far down in the surging waves, Where purple mullet and gold fish rove The depths of coral caves?

Where Ocean’s throbbing heart is stilled, And wandering Peri’s rest, ’Mid the pearl and amber jewels He loves to wear in his breast? Perchance the mellow strain was caught From the song of mermaid fair, Dreamily chanting, as she smoothed The rings of her long, wet hair.

Or, lingering yet, the echo faint Of a life once held within. Some hidden shape that breathed and died Afar from the breakers din. Never had Sultan roof like this, Never king such castle wall, What was it wrought this wondrous dome And filled this crystal hall?

Deserted now, but whispering low The secret hid in the sea. Ask what the mystic music means, And it answers, ceaselessly, With that weird song,--tender and low As the voice of brooding dove Who murmurs but a single note, Keynote of life--it is Love.

Ah, when you hear that pleading sound, Dream not of siren or sea. Believe it the spirit of Love, Forever singing--of me.

Some weeks after the picnic I sat working a highly useless lamp mat in my parlor, which in pleasant Mexican fashion is divided from the office by a curtained doorway. There passed the barred window a dapper little man, whipping his boot with a short riding whip as he went along, whom I recognized as a government agent from Los Indios. I heeded not the conversation, easily overheard, or rather the monologue which languished, till a sudden animation of voice betrayed the true purpose of the visitor as he asked, “Was there a fellow hangin’ ‘round here not long ago, calling himself Oreto; a sort of literary and sentimental adventurer, pretending to be in heavy mourning?”

“Yes, he had quite a turn for story telling and amusing children. The _caballero_ appears to have fallen on evil times--a sad face, wouldn’t be a bad model for the Master of Ravenswood.”

“Exactly; his face is mighty sad about this time. Interested friends have taken secure boarding for him and relieved him of his wig and big diamond ring--the property of a lady in Zuloago. His real name is Gomez, a gambler and murderer from the city of Mexico. He ran off to Chihuahua, which soon got too hot to hold him and his little games, moved on to Los Indios, where he played three card montè once too often for even territorial morality, and the noble _hidalgo_ is now smiling his melancholy smile behind the grated windows of the county jail.”

“He had rather an agreeable manner,” said the listener with a long yawn, “but I never took much stock in the man.”