"Oh, _Madre de Dios_!" she exclaimed, "but can you doubt it for an instant? I would dance for joy"; and her eyes grew brighter on the instant with the thought.
"Very well," answered Stephens cautiously, "I'll see what can be done.
I'll promise you to do my best to bring about a peaceful settlement. I can't say more."
He went back into the sitting-room and wrote a third letter to the cashier of the First National Bank at Santa Fe, where he kept a small balance. He asked the cashier to telegraph to Rockyfeller at Denver to say that he, Stephens, was unavoidably detained at Santiago, and to ask Rockyfeller to send the thousand dollars to his account at the Santa Fe bank, and he likewise wrote a cordial answer to Rocky's letter, explaining matters at length. As soon as he had finished these he hastened with them to the post-office. The ambulance which brought the mail from Fort Wingate stood before the door, and a fresh team was being harnessed to it, while Mr. Backus was in the act of bringing out the little San Remo mail-bag, and at sight of Stephens stowed it hastily inside.
For the little San Remo mail-bag was all but empty. The two fat letters Stephens had entrusted to him for the governor and the general were not inside it; their thin papery ashes lay amid the glowing coals of the cedar-wood fire on Mr. Backus's kitchen hearth, and had helped to cook the stage-driver's dinner. The impeccable United States postmaster had opened and read them; decided on the spot that he did not want these Navajos interfered with just at present; and had taken this summary method of blocking the game.
"Here's a couple more letters," exclaimed Stephens, running up. "Can't you put them in?" and he held them out to Backus in total ignorance of his perfidy.
"Bag's sealed up now," said the postmaster officially. "Contrary to U.S.
regulations to open it again."
Stephens turned instantly to the mail-driver. "I wish you'd oblige me by posting these for me when you get to Santa Fe. They're stamped all right."
The driver held out his hand for the letters and shoved them carelessly into the pocket of his overcoat.
"Mind you don't forget to post them," repeated Stephens; "they're important." At this instant there came into his mind a thing that he had forgotten, so absorbed had he become in the troubles of the Sanchez family. Some stage-driver had libelled him to Sam Argles, and he had intended to find out who it was. Probably this was the man. "Say," he began, "do you remember driving a man named Sam Argles, a miner from Prescott, over this line a month or two back?"
"Can't say, I'm sure," replied the driver, who was shortening a trace with some difficulty. "You don't suppose as I can remember the names of all the passengers I take?"
"Well, Argles was over this line recently," said Stephens, "and he reports that a driver on it told him something about me."
"Likely he did," said the driver unconcernedly; "like as not, too, 't warn't me. I aint the only driver on this line."
"Then you deny having told him I was a squawman?" said Stephens.
"Dunno nawthin' about it," replied the driver, gathering up the lines and climbing to his perch. "It's no concern of mine." But he avoided meeting Stephens's eye.
"Well, so long," said the latter; "I'm obliged to you about the letters," and without further comment on the matter he started back towards the Sanchez house.
"A d----d highfalutin, tonified cuss he is," said Backus as soon as the prospector was out of earshot. "If you was to drop them letters in the Rio Grande it'd serve him right for bouncing you like that."
"He dursn't say nuthin' to me," said the driver, "or I'd mash his face in a minute. What do I know about his Sam Argleses? I reckon he is a squawman, aint he?"
"Wal', if he aint, what does he live with them Injuns for? That's what I say," said Backus with an evil laugh. "And I think, if I was you," he added, "I'd be apt to have an accident with them letters crossing the Rio Grande."
"There's a chance for it anyway," said the stage-driver; "the river was rising fast day before yesterday, and I judge 't will be booming by now.
I've got to rustle around, for I'm going straight across to San Miguel.
I can cross there with the mail, anyway. Get up there, mules." He raised the reins, cracked his whip and departed.
CHAPTER XIV
A STERN CHASE
Could Felipe but have known what the stage-driver knew, that the rise of the river had begun two days ago, he would never have made the sad mistake of taking the straight route to Ensenada. Alas, now, when he and Josefa reached the spot where the ford should have been, his cry, "_Valgame Dios_, the river is up," was only too true. As they passed through the grove of cottonwoods they beheld right from their feet to the farther bank, full a half-mile off, a turbid yellow flood, rolling rapidly southward towards Texas and the Gulf, twelve hundred miles away.
All autumn and winter long, a broad expanse of dry water-worn pebbles and boulders, and beds of shingle and sand, through which ran half a dozen easily forded streams of clear water, had been all that lay between La Boca on the west bank and Ensenada on the east. During those seasons both horses and waggons, and people on foot by picking their way through the shallows, could cross almost anywhere without wading much above knee-deep. But all autumn and winter long, on the great mountain ranges of Colorado, two hundred miles away to the north where the river had its sources, the snows of successive storms had been piled up deeper and deeper. And now the sun was well past the vernal equinox, and his growing heat had loosened those snows and was sending their cold floods down ten thousand gulches and tributaries to swell the current of the Rio Grande. This takes place every April, and Felipe ought to have thought of it, but he was young and had not yet learned to think of everything. This was a possibility he had forgotten.
"It must have come down in the last two days," he groaned, as he looked hopelessly at the flood. "I know Juan and Miguel passed here only three days ago from Santa Fe, and it was all light then, and now it is like this."
"We are lost," said Josefa. "What shall we do, Felipe?"--even her brave heart succumbing to this unexpected calamity.
"Don't cry, dear heart, don't cry," said he tenderly, taking her in his arms, and lifting her from the horse. "Perhaps there is a boat. I will go and see." He pulled the bridle from the horse's head. "Do you rest here a minute," he said, spreading his blanket for her to rest her weary limbs, "and let him feed here on the green grass, but don't let him drink. I will run back to La Boca and ask." He threw her the rope, and darted back like the wind in the direction of the houses they had lately passed. The unkempt Mexican was milking a cow in the corral as Felipe dashed up breathless. "Where is the boat?" he asked eagerly. "Is it running? Is it this side?"
"The boat?" said the Mexican slowly, going on with his milking. "No, friend. The river only came down like this yesterday. It was high the day before, but we could still ford it up above. It was yesterday it came down big."
The leisurely manner of the man, and the indefiniteness of his reply, were maddening to the excited Indian.
"Yes, but the boat," he almost shouted, "the boat, where is it?"
The Mexican had finished milking his cow, and putting down the milk jar he began to unfasten the rawhide strap with which her hind legs were tied.
"The boat, friend?" said he; "there is no boat here now. Last year Don Leandro had the boat, but she is hauled up, and they say there is a hole in her. Perhaps he will talk of getting it mended after a while. I suppose the Americano at the mail station in Ensenada will be wanting to send the mail across next week."
"_Valgame Dios!_" cried the boy. "And will there be no way of getting over the river till next week?"
"The water will have run by in a month, or perhaps in three weeks, if God wills it," remarked the Mexican piously; "and then, friend, you can cross without a boat."
"And is there no boat anywhere up or down the river on this side?"
exclaimed Felipe. "Is there no way over?"
"There are the Indians at San Miguel, eight leagues below," said the man, proceeding to take down the bars of the corral for the purpose of turning out the cow to pasture. "They have a bridge of single logs to cross on foot by. I do not know if the river will have carried it down.
Probably not. They have land on both sides, and are always crossing."
"Eight leagues below!" cried the young Indian in a despairing voice.
"And a sandy road from here they say--deep sand, is it not?" He followed the man and the cow outside the corral.
"Yes, friend," said the man, "it is deep sand along the river. But there is a better way: to take the trail to Santiago as far as the Banded Mesa and then turn to the left. So you keep up on the mesas the whole way, and it is better going."
"Thanks, sir; _adios_," said Felipe; and without waiting for more discourse he tore along back towards Josefa as fast as he could run.
She was lying on the blanket where he had left her, and holding the end of the lariat. Felipe rushed up to the horse and began to bridle him.
"There is no boat, sweetheart," he panted, "but there is a bridge of the Indians at San Miguel. Let us go there. We can leave the horse with the Indians on this side, and get a horse from some of them on the other, and come on to Ensenada that way. Make haste."
Once more he lifted her to the saddle, and springing up behind her turned the horse's head.
"They must be after us long ago," said he wearily, looking at the sun, which was already well up. "I expect they are half-way here by this time. They will be here in a little while."
"My father will have no horse," suggested Josefa, trying to make the best of it.
"Oh, he will take the Americano's. Don Estevan will lend it to _him_,"
said Felipe bitterly. "The cacique can take what he wants."