"I shall call it a mountain, an it please you better. The Devil take you and your little hills of gra.s.s, Miguel Alvarado!"

"And this?" Once again the policeman with the superior smile had moved on up the hillside. But this time he did not point at any hillock of dead herbage.

"That? Why, that is only a cross made by two sticks that have fallen by chance one upon the other."

"Which way does the longest arm point, Pascual?"

"Straight up and down the slope."

"_Muy bueno!_ I have pointed out everything to you, then. Chew upon what you have seen, Spaniard!"

He returned to his horse, mounted and started on. The apelike Pascual, his face a study in curiosity, drew alongside.

"You have asked me a lot of questions, Miguel Alvarado," he said. "Now I will thank you a thousand times if you will explain your great mystery away."

"Great mystery--za! It is only because you are a lunkhead that you perceive any great mystery here. There are Gitanos encamped in the hills ahead, that is all!"

"Did those hillocks of plucked gra.s.s spell out that for you?"

"Yes; and the crossed sticks, also. The hillocks and the crossed sticks are the Gypsies' trail--what they call their patteran. They leave them in their wake that their brethren, who have lagged behind, may be guided by them to the meeting-place."

"_Y pues?_" grunted Pascual. "Well, and what of that? It is a matter of no moment to me. But hola! why turn your horse to the right?"

"I am going to the camp of the Zincali. They may have word of these men we seek. Should they have seen Morales and the rest upon the plains, or even have heard of their presence abroad, they will tell me such news as they have by chance acquired. Do not come with me, Pascual Montara, if you do not wish to."

Now, it is against all orders and precedent for one of the Spanish constabulary to go where his fellow goes not; the men of the Guardia Civil hunt forever in braces. The apelike Pascual grumbled, but loyally he followed his arrogant and imperious camarada.

Their horses topped the rise and, suddenly taking heart, entered briskly a tiny _barranca_ set transverse between the hilltops. It was only a long gully or dingle, but it was cool and reposeful with wild olive and algarroba trees, white buckthorn, holly and arbutus. Through gutters strewn with moss-overgrown boulders, edged with rhododendrons and overarched by oleanders, raced down the whole length of it a glad, loud-chattering run of water.

Sighing their delight, the two surprised and pleasured policemen rode under an upstanding and ancient wild olive at its portal and plunged into the secret, beautiful place. Instantly a great flutter of b.u.t.terflies of all sizes and colors lifted in spangled clouds about them.

"But the Gypsies may be a great way ahead in the hills!" grumbled Pascual filled with a hasty but mighty desire to linger in this barranca, smoking cigarettes and dreaming the moments away in the cool of some shady tree.

All on the moment, the youthful Miguel Alvarado was off his horse again.

They were following a narrow, barely discernible trail up the canyon's deep long alley; along this trail he now ran, leading his pony by the bridle and looking ever to the left side. Soon he paused and looked back at Pascual Montara.

"The Gitanos have pitched their tents just beyond the first turn above,"

he announced.

"Hola! Have you seen more of their sign writing in gra.s.s-ricks and sticks?"

"Si, Pascual. Look well at the forked rod set upright in the soft loam to the left of the trail--one p.r.o.ng is broken off, the other points to the right. I knew, if it was here, it would be found to the left of the trail. It is a signpost only set up to guide night travelers. The Gitanos erected it here no more than an hour, or an hour and a half ago."

Pascual grunted noncommittally. But the younger man seemed possessed of a strange and febrile excitement.

"Let us bathe our faces and heads in the runlet," he suggested urgently.

"It would be an error of strategy if we failed to look as gallant as possible when we ride into the camp of the Zincali. Besides, the Gypsy girls may not be overclean themselves, Pascual, but greatly they admire a Busno--a White-blood--with a face freshly laved and as handsome as yours or mine!"

"Za! The Gypsy wenches are all jades and strumpets!"

But he went, this surly Pascual Montara, and bathed his head in the brook. Puffing prodigiously, he mounted and rode on beside the other.

Miguel Alvarado looked altogether the gay and haughty cavalier after his ablutions. Pascual could not help eyeing in admiration his camarada's lean, clean-cut youthful profile, his smooth, brown, handsome face.

Alvarado's cheeks were tinged with red, his eyes bright and sparkling as though with some concealed but hopeful expectancy.

"You bristle with eagerness, senor caballero of my soul!" remarked Pascual slyly.

Miguel Alvarado shrugged his shoulders, but did not answer. Suspicion growing in his glance, the apelike one continued to eye him. Then, as if he were accusing his camarada of something rather to be ashamed of, he said pointedly:

"It is because Gypsies are so near, that you burn and bristle--is it not? You are enamored of them; they captivate you with their uncouth glamors; towards them you are drawn, eh?

"Ah, I understand now, Miguel, that which heretofore has made you seem mysterious in my eyes--your trick of reading cabalistic signs written in chalk on the stonework of bridges and the adobe of posadas and _providencias_; your trick of reading hillocks of gra.s.s and crosses of sticks placed beside the road; and your trick, too, of ordering your pony about in the thieves' Latin of the Gitanos. You are like so many other Moors of Andalusia, Miguel Alvarado. You are one of _Los del Aficion_--Those of the Predilection! I have guessed rightly, have I not?"

Miguel Alvarado shrugged his shoulders once again, and smiled his superior smile. Lightly, he remarked, "The Gypsy wenches are like she-leopards, soft and caressing of movement, but free and bold of eye.

I cannot resist the lure in their golden glances."

The other snorted and spat disgustedly down into the watercourse. He drew a little away from Miguel Alvarado. After that, he rode on, through the gathering dusk, very much in the manner of a man companioned by one possessed of a demon--full of a certain respect but also full of reserve and caution. Scarcely could you say he became more at his ease, more the boon companero and dorado. Was not the man he rode with one of Those of the Predilection?

In Spain, especially in Andalusia, there has long existed a large cla.s.s of men given over utterly to a zest for Gitanos, their ways of life, their dances and their songs. These admirers of the Gypsies cannot shake off the fascination; they follow after the wandering Roms like the slaves of an evil eye; they cultivate the Cales, the Black Men of Zend, wherever met; they delight to watch the strange obscene dances of the Gypsy maids that are like nothing so much as writhings of snakes in an ecstasy of desire. These men are Those of the Predilection.

In the hushed and golden gloaming, they came at last, those two of the Guardia Civil, to a turning of the narrow canyon and then, beyond, to a Gypsy camp set in an opening among the trees. The brown tents were patched with rags of a hundred hues, and strings of rags, slovenly washed and as variegated, hung drooping and gathering smoke between the ridgepoles and the trees.

There were seven dusty dun wagons in a wide circle, and great huddles of gaunt and hungry dogs lazying about, and horses, foals, and burros coming and going at will among the trees. From the limbs of the trees dangled all manner of saddles, traces, and other odds and ends of harness. There were three fires sending black smoke and dancing sparks up into the lines of washing and the overarching greenery; and there were a dozen men and women, and three times that many children, postured about the fires and beneath the wagons.

"Alto a la Guardia Civil!" bellowed thunderously Pascual Montara, thinking to give the Gypsies a start with this dread call of the police.

The men about the fires did not move. The golden-skinned sloe-eyed women, stooped above the pots and kettles, looked up idly. Only the rabble of children seemed affrighted; they scurried away, those tousle-headed, chocolate-brown, ragged brats, some of even five and six years old stark naked, and hid themselves in the black insides of the wagons.

A young man, his shirt open to the waist, a yellow _faja_ or scarf wound about his middle, was busily engaged with winding a battered accordion.

It was outlandishly sweet under his hands. Nearby, a Gypsy woman of seventeen nursed a new-born bantling, her breast uncovered. A slim young girl leaned against the trunk of an algarroba, pensively brushing the calf of one nut-brown leg with the toes of the other. A man, tall, ma.s.sive and n.o.bly upright of port, got up from beside one of the fires and advanced slowly toward the two policemen on the edge of the clearing.

A red kerchief tightly bound his head, and he wore the leather slop of a blacksmith. He had a short, curly grizzled beard. What with his gigantic body, herculean shoulders, monolithic throat, and haughty, savagely beautiful head, he looked like some Byzantine emperor of the old Roman strain. He was sixty, but he had every appearance of being under forty-eight.

Even as the colossal one approached, Miguel Alvarado caught sight of the slim young nut-brown girl under the algarroba tree. He went deathly pale. He clutched at his throat, devouring her with his gaze. His eyes were like two hot pulsing embers.

"Go forward to meet this man, Pascual Montara," at length he stuttered.

"His name is Pepe Flammenca. He is a Gypsy count and lords it over the clan encamped here. Find out what he knows of Morales and the others.

Question him shrewdly; he may know much!"

Without realizing that Miguel Alvarado was not to follow, Pascual pressed forward obediently. Meanwhile, the other policeman turned his horse in between the trees, skirted the clearing, and approached the spot where the Gypsy girl stood.

CHAPTER XI

Dismounting, Miguel Alvarado stepped swiftly to the girl's side, threw his arms about her shoulder and waist, and drew her back among the trees and out of sight of those about the fires. She did not scream; she did not seem affrighted in the least. Only when he strove to kiss her, she put a slow but determined hand upon his forehead and pushed away his impetuous lips.

He forebore to combat her for that which she would not give. Crushing her to him, he whispered triumphantly, "Ah, my Paquita, maiden of my soul! Did I not say rightly, when I said we should meet again?"