"Hol' on! I ain't through yet! I only reckoned that ef thar was a gang of roughs kept thar on the premises they might be used for that purpose, and I only wanted to ketch em at thar work. So I jest meandered into the road when they war about comin' out, and kept my eye skinned for what might happen. Thar was a kind o' corral about a hundred yards down the road, half adobe wall, and a stockade o' palm's on top of it, about six feet high. Some of the palm's were off, and I peeped through, but thar warn't n.o.body thar. I stood thar, alongside the bank, leanin' my back agin one o' them openin's, and jest watched and waited.

"All of a suddent I felt myself grabbed by my coat collar behind, and my neck-handkercher and collar drawn tight around my throat till I couldn't breathe. The more I twisted round, the tighter the clinch seemed to get.

I couldn't holler nor speak, but thar I stood with my mouth open, pinned back agin that cursed stockade, and my arms and legs movin' up and down, like one o' them dancin' jacks! It seems funny, Mr. Grey--I reckon I looked like a darned fool--but I don't wanter feel ag'in as I did jest then. The clinch o' my throat got tighter; everything got black about me; I was jest goin' off and kalkilatin' it was about time for you to advertise for another foreman, when suthin broke--fetched away!

"It was my collar b.u.t.ton, and I dropped like a shot. It was a minute before I could get my breath ag'in, and when I did and managed to climb that darned stockade, and drop on the other side, thar warn't a soul to be seen! A few hosses that stampeded in my gettin' over the fence war all that was there! I was mighty shook up, you bet!--and to make the hull thing perfectly ridic'lous, when I got back to the road, after all I'd got through, darn my skin, ef thar warn't that pesky lot o' drunken men staggerin' along, jinglin' the scads they had won, and enjoyin'

themselves, and n.o.body a-followin' 'em! I jined 'em jest for kempany's sake, till we got back to town, but nothin' happened."

"But, my dear Richards," said the editor warmly, "this is no longer a matter of mere reporting, but of business for the police. You must see the deputy sheriff at once, and bring your complaint--or shall I? It's no joking matter."

"Hol' on, Mr. Grey," replied Richards slowly. "I've told this to n.o.body but you--nor am I goin' to--sabe? It's an affair of my own--and I reckon I kin take care of it without goin' to the Revised Statutes of the State of California, or callin' out the sheriff's posse."

His humorous blue eyes just then had certain steely points in them like glittering facets as he turned them away, which the editor had seen before on momentous occasions, and he was speaking slowly and composedly, which the editor also knew boded no good to an adversary.

"Don't be a fool, Richards," he said quietly. "Don't take as a personal affront what was a common, vulgar crime. You would undoubtedly have been robbed by that rascal had not the others come along."

Richards shook his head. "I might hev bin robbed a dozen times afore THEY came along--ef that was the little game. No, Mr. Grey,--it warn't no robbery."

"Had you been paying court to the Senora Ramierez, like Colonel Starbottle?" asked the editor, with a smile.

"Not much," returned Richards scornfully; "she ain't my style. But"--he hesitated, and then added, "thar was a mighty purty gal thar--and her darter, I reckon--a reg'lar pink fairy! She kem in only a minute, and they sorter hustled her out ag'in--for darn my skin ef she didn't look as much out o' place in that smoky old garlic-smellin' room as an angel at a bull-fight. And what got me--she was ez white ez you or me, with blue eyes, and a lot o' dark reddish hair in a long braid down her back.

Why, only for her purty sing-song voice and her 'Gracias, senor,'

you'd hev reckoned she was a Blue Gra.s.s girl jest fresh from across the plains."

A little amused at his foreman's enthusiasm, Mr. Grey gave an ostentatious whistle and said, "Come, now, Richards, look here! Really!"

"Only a little girl--a mere child, Mr. Grey--not more'n fourteen if a day," responded Richards, in embarra.s.sed depreciation.

"Yes, but those people marry at twelve," said the editor, with a laugh. "Look out! Your appreciation may have been noticed by some other admirer."

He half regretted this speech the next moment in the quick flush--the male instinct of rivalry--that brought back the glitter of Richards's eyes. "I reckon I kin take care of that, sir," he said slowly, "and I kalkilate that the next time I meet that chap--whoever he may be--he won't see so much of my back as he did."

The editor knew there was little doubt of this, and for an instant believed it his duty to put the matter in the hands of the police.

Richards was too good and brave a man to be risked in a bar-room fight.

But reflecting that this might precipitate the scandal he wished to avoid, he concluded to make some personal investigation. A stronger curiosity than he had felt before was possessing him. It was singular, too, that Richards's description of the girl was that of a different and superior type--the hidalgo, or fair-skinned Spanish settler. If this was true, what was she doing there--and what were her relations to the Ramierez?

PART II

The next afternoon he went to the fonda. Situated on the outskirts of the town which had long outgrown it, it still bore traces of its former importance as a hacienda, or smaller farm, of one of the old Spanish landholders. The patio, or central courtyard, still existed as a stable-yard for carts, and even one or two horses were tethered to the railings of the inner corridor, which now served as an open veranda to the fonda or inn. The opposite wing was utilized as a tienda, or general shop,--a magazine for such goods as were used by the Mexican inhabitants,--and belonged also to Ramierez.

Ramierez himself--round-whiskered and Sancho Panza-like in build--welcomed the editor with fat, perfunctory urbanity. The fonda and all it contained was at his disposicion.

The senora coquettishly bewailed, in rising and falling inflections, his long absence, his infidelity and general perfidiousness. Truly he was growing great in writing of the affairs of his nation--he could no longer see his humble friends! Yet not long ago--truly that very week--there was the head impresor of Don Pancho's imprenta himself who had been there!

A great man, of a certainty, and they must take what they could get!

They were only poor innkeepers; when the governor came not they must welcome the alcalde. To which the editor--otherwise Don Pancho--replied with equal effusion. He had indeed recommended the fonda to his impresor, who was but a courier before him. But what was this? The impresor had been ravished at the sight of a beautiful girl--a mere muchacha--yet of a beauty that deprived the senses--this angel--clearly the daughter of his friend! Here was the old miracle of the orange in full fruition and the lovely fragrant blossom all on the same tree--at the fonda. And this had been kept from him!

"Yes, it was but a thing of yesterday," said the senora, obviously pleased. "The muchacha--for she was but that--had just returned from the convent at San Jose, where she had been for four years. Ah! what would you? The fonda was no place for the child, who should know only the litany of the Virgin--and they had kept her there. And now--that she was home again--she cared only for the horse. From morning to night!

Caballeros might come and go! There might be a festival--all the same to her, it made nothing if she had the horse to ride! Even now she was with one in the fields. Would Don Pancho attend and see Cota and her horse?"

The editor smilingly a.s.sented, and accompanied his hostess along the corridor to a few steps which brought them to the level of the open meadows of the old farm inclosure. A slight white figure on horseback was careering in the distance. At a signal from Senora Ramierez it wheeled and came down rapidly towards them. But when within a hundred yards the horse was suddenly pulled up vaquero fashion, and the little figure leaped off and advanced toward them on foot, leading the horse.

To his surprise, Mr. Grey saw that she had been riding bareback, and from her discreet halt at that distance he half suspected ASTRIDE! His effusive compliments to the mother on this exhibition of skill were sincere, for he was struck by the girl's fearlessness. But when both horse and rider at last stood before him, he was speechless and embarra.s.sed.

For Richards had not exaggerated the girl's charms. She was indeed dangerously pretty, from her tawny little head to her small feet, and her figure, although comparatively diminutive, was perfectly proportioned. Gray eyed and blonde as she was in color, her racial peculiarities were distinct, and only the good-humored and enthusiastic Richards could have likened her to an American girl.

But he was the more astonished in noticing that her mustang was as distinct and peculiar as herself--a mongrel mare of the extraordinary type known as a "pinto," or "calico" horse, mottled in lavender and pink, Arabian in proportions, and half broken! Her greenish gray eyes, in which too much of the white was visible, had, he fancied, a singular similarity of expression to Cota's own!

Utterly confounded, and staring at the girl in her white, many flounced frock, bare head, and tawny braids, as she stood beside this incarnation of equine barbarism, Grey could remember nothing like it outside of a circus.

He stammered a few words of admiration of the mare. Miss Cota threw out her two arms with a graceful gesture and a profound curtsey, and said--

"A la disposicion de le Usted, senor."

Grey was quick to understand the malicious mischief which underlay this formal curtsey and danced in the girl's eyes, and even fancied it shared by the animal itself. But he was a singularly good rider of untrained stock, and rather proud of his prowess. He bowed.

"I accept that I may have the honor of laying the senorita's gift again at her little feet."

But here the burly Ramierez intervened. "Ah, Mother of G.o.d! May the devil fly away with all this nonsense! I will have no more of it," he said impatiently to the girl. "Have a care, Don Pancho," he turned to the editor; "it is a trick!"

"One I think I know," said Grey sapiently. The girl looked at him curiously as he managed to edge between her and the mustang, under the pretense of stroking its glossy neck. "I shall keep MY OWN spurs,"

he said to her in a lower voice, pointing to the sharp, small-roweled American spurs he wore, instead of the large, blunt, five-pointed star of the Mexican pattern.

The girl evidently did not understand him then--though she did a moment later! For without attempting to catch hold of the mustang's mane, Grey in a single leap threw himself across its back. The animal, utterly unprepared, was at first stupefied. But by this time her rider had his seat. He felt her sensitive spine arch like a cat's beneath him as she sprang rocket-wise into the air.

But here she was mistaken! Instead of clinging tightly to her flanks with the inner side of his calves, after the old vaquero fashion to which she was accustomed, he dropped his spurred heels into her sides and allowed his body to rise with her spring, and the cruel spur to cut its track upward from her belly almost to her back.

She dropped like a shot, he dexterously withdrawing his spurs, and regaining his seat, jarred but not discomfited. Again she essayed a leap; the spurs again marked its height in a scarifying track along her smooth barrel. She tried a third leap, but this time dropped halfway as she felt the steel sc.r.a.ping her side, and then stood still, trembling.

Grey leaped off!

There was a sound of applause from the innkeeper and his wife, a.s.sisted by a lounging vaquero in the corridor. Ashamed of his victory, Grey turned apologetically to Cota. To his surprise she glanced indifferently at the trickling sides of her favorite, and only regarded him curiously.

"Ah," she said, drawing in her breath, "you are strong--and you comprehend!"

"It was only a trick for a trick, senorita," he replied, reddening; "let me look after those scratches in the stable," he added, as she was turning away, leading the agitated and excited animal toward a shed in the rear.

He would have taken the riata which she was still holding, but she motioned him to precede her. He did so by a few feet, but he had scarcely reached the stable door before she suddenly caught him roughly by the shoulders, and, shoving him into the entrance, slammed the door upon him.

Amazed and a little indignant, he turned in time to hear a slight sound of scuffling outside, and to see Cota re-enter with a flushed face.

"Pardon, senor," she said quickly, "but I feared she might have kicked you. Rest tranquil, however, for the servant he has taken her away."

She pointed to a slouching peon with a malevolent face, who was angrily driving the mustang toward the corral.

"Consider it no more! I was rude! Santa Maria! I almost threw you, too; but," she added, with a dazzling smile, "you must not punish me as you have her! For you are very strong--and you comprehend."

But Grey did not comprehend, and with a few hurried apologies he managed to escape his fair but uncanny tormentor. Besides, this unlooked-for incident had driven from his mind the more important object of his visit,--the discovery of the a.s.sailants of Richards and Colonel Starbottle.