"Well," he continued aloud, addressing Felipe, "I sha'n't bear any malice against you, young 'un. I reckon that--well--that fellow just used you, and you aint much more to blame than an idiot--pity you hadn't got more sense; but that's enough--I'll never think of it again."
Felipe looked up at him with dumb gratitude in his eyes.
"And now," said the prospector, when the misunderstanding between them had been thus settled, "the morning star is up, and it will be dawn directly. We must take the body down to San Remo that it may be buried by his own people."
He went out to the meadow and brought up the horse and put the saddle on him. With no small difficulty they lifted the corpse on to it and made it fast there, and then, with Felipe at the horse's head, and Stephens holding the sad burden in place, they made their way back to the trail, and so down once more from the sierra to the village.
CHAPTER XXVII
AULD ACQUAINTANCE
The sun was already well up in the eastern sky when the strange funeral procession entered San Remo. The news of the event spread like wildfire, and friendly hands were ready to aid Stephens in lifting down the dead man's corpse at the door of what yesterday had been his home, while kind-hearted women full of sympathy went into the house to break the tidings to her whose hearth was made desolate. Then a dreadful sound broke upon his ears; it was the cry of agony that told that the wife knew that she was a wife no more but a widow. It was a piercing cry, that wounded the hearts of all who heard it, for the ring of mortal pain was there.
Unaccustomed to all violent appeals to feeling, Stephens found this heart-rending wail unbearable. Duty to the dead claimed him no longer, and he must hurry away.
"Thanks, friends," he said to the Mexicans who had aided him to lift the body down, "a thousand thanks for your kindness in this aid. _Adios, amigos_, I must be going. _Adios._" He led the horse, now lightened of his burden, away from the door, Felipe following. He could not mount in the saddle which Death had just vacated; it seemed to him as if it would be a sort of sacrilege. That agonised cry of the bereaved woman haunted him still. Loathing Backus though he did, this evidence that to one soul, at least, in this incomprehensible world, he had been all in all, struck home to him. Likely enough the man had been good to her, scoundrel though he was; but what an amazing thing must be this bond of marriage that could thus link heart to heart, even when one of the pair was no better than a treacherous coward.
At Don Nepomuceno's he found Manuelita, but not alone. Not only were her aunt and Juana there--that was of course--but the visits of interested friends had not yet ceased, seeing that everyone naturally wanted to hear the exciting story from her own lips. And now it came the American's turn to entertain the company; while food was being hospitably prepared for him, he had to come in and sit down among the ladies, and give some account of what had befallen him while searching for the bones of the murdered prospector. He passed over Felipe's attempt on his life in silence and merely spoke of having met him at the old ruined pueblo, where they heard through the darkness the cry of the dying victim of the rattlesnake, and vainly endeavoured to help him to resist the fatal venom. He told the tale at length, and with a freedom and fulness of detail that surprised himself. But all the time there was one thing present before his mind, and that was the very thing that he could whisper no word of to the eager circle around him; it must be kept for one and one only; but ever as he talked his eyes sought those of the Mexican girl, not once but many times, and they spoke to her silently and ardently.
"What is it that has come to him?" she asked herself. "Here is a look in his eyes to-day that never was there before. Perhaps he has a secret to keep--or to tell; perhaps he has found that mine that he is always searching for." She blushed and looked down as she caught his glance flashed quickly upon her. Her heart told her that he had a secret to tell--but that it did not concern any mine of silver or gold. Again their eyes met, and again unwillingly they parted; it seemed dangerous to look longer, as if the meaning that they had for each other must betray itself to all around. And this was the man that she had been deeming cold and hard! "_Hombre muy frio_," as her aunt had called him.
"Cold as the snows of his own frozen North," as her father had said--said it of him! Perhaps so, perhaps he had been cold, but if it were so, the ice had melted now.
Stephens lingered over his story longer than he had intended; questions flowed in upon him, and he had to answer them and fill in many things that he had omitted, for the storekeeper's strange and dreadful end was a matter that excited intense interest. He half hoped that by exciting their curiosity he might impel these people to go away and visit the house of the deceased in order to learn what more they could. Anything to make them move. But nothing seemed to have the desired effect. The more he told them the more they wanted to know. The chance to see the girl alone and tell her what was in his heart seemed to grow more remote than ever. He ached to speak to her, were it but a few words--a few words he told himself were all that were needful, so little did he know of love--and yet the opportunity was denied.
At last in despair he rose; he would go away himself for a little and then return. Perhaps meantime the visitors might disperse. "I have to take my leave now, ladies," he said, excusing himself. "It is already the hour for the mail to arrive from Santa Fe, and I am expecting letters of importance. I do not know how they will manage in view of the unhappy death of the postmaster, but I had better be there to see what is to be done about opening the mail-bag. By your permission, then, Don Nepomuceno," and he bowed himself out. The words he had come to say to her were still unsaid. The thought occurred to him as he moved away,--should he speak to the girl's father? To speak to the girl's father first would be quite the correct thing according to Mexican fashions; or, rather, if he wanted to do the thing in proper style, he should go and get a friend to take a message to her father for him. But no; he was not a Mexican, and why should he adopt their fashions in this? He was an American, and he would woo his wife in American style for himself.
Faro started to come with him, but was ordered back.
"Stay where you are, old man, till I come for you. I see you're not so tender-footed as you were, but you stay here." He felt a sort of prejudice against taking the dog to the house of mourning. He hated to go there at all, but he had to have his mail and there was no other way to get it. And he would see if he could find out anything about the fate of the letters he had entrusted to Backus.
He went out and saddled up Morgana, who put her pretty head round and pretended to bite him as he pulled on the latigo strap to draw the cinch.
"Easy, old lady, now; come, none of that"; as she nearly nipped him.
"Pedro's been giving you too much of Don Nepomuceno's corn, I'm thinking, and it's got into your head." He slung his Winchester into its case under the off-stirrup leather, and swinging himself into the saddle departed on his errand.
The mail waggon had just drawn up as usual before the door of the post-office, now shut and locked, and the stage-driver was leading his team around the back of the house towards the stable as Stephens came in sight. Two passengers had dismounted from the waggon, and were stretching their tired limbs and looking disconsolately at the closed house with its shuttered window, which seemed to offer small promise of a meal.
Stephens loped forward with the idea of relieving their discomfiture. As he did so one of the figures seemed strangely familiar. "Was it--could it be possible? No. Yes. By George, it was!" With a shout of welcome he sprang off the mare, slipping her bridle over the saddle-horn, and reached out both hands to the newcomer.
"Rocky! well, by gum!"
"Jack, old pard! why, you haint changed a mite!"
Stephens and Rockyfeller shook hands for about three minutes by the clock.
"Say," said Stephens, when the first greetings were over, "what brings you down here so sudden-like? Thar aint nothing wrong?"
"Not with me," answered Rocky; "I got your telegram, though, and it struck me that as you thought it worth while telegraphing for them dollars, you might p'r'aps be in some sort of a fix, so as I happened to be free and foot-loose I just jumped on the cars as far as South Pueblo, and took the stage, and here I am. And I was curious to see how you were making it down here. You're looking A1, I will say. New Mexico kinder seems to agree with you. Say, look at here,"--he dropped his voice slightly,--"how about them velvet-eyed Mexican senoritas? Aint none of them been too much for you yet?" He gave his former partner a rallying look as he spoke.
"Ah, I may have a word to say to you about that presently," rejoined the other in a guarded tone. "But say, you're going to stop here, aint you?
You're not bound for Wingate?"
"No, of course I'm not," laughed Rocky, "not unless you turn me adrift.
I've come down to see you--that is, if it's quite convenient." It was characteristic of Rocky that it only now occurred to him that if his former partner had started an establishment down here a casual visitor might be _de trop_. "Of course," he added hastily, "I can go on to Wingate with the stage, quite well, along with my friend here, Doctor Benton. Excuse me, Doctor,"--he turned to his fellow-traveller, who had been regarding the meeting of the two old friends with no other interest than considering how it affected his chances of getting a meal,--"allow me to introduce you two gentlemen. Doctor, this is my old friend, Mr.
John Stephens, at present a resident of this neighbourhood. Jack, this is Doctor Benton, who is doctor to the Post at Fort Wingate and is now on his way there."
The army doctor and the prospector exchanged greetings.
"Perhaps, Mr. Stephens," said the doctor, who was uncommonly hungry, "you can inform me of what I am anxious to discover, namely, what possibility there is of our getting a meal here before proceeding."
Stephens explained that the keeper of the stage station had just been killed by a rattlesnake. "But I think," he continued, "that if you will put yourself in my hands I can manage to procure you a meal with some friends of mine near here. I'd like to ask you to come up to my place at Santiago, but the stage don't wait but an hour here, and there wouldn't be time, as it's a good three miles off." He paused and hesitated for a moment. "I should like to say that these friends of mine are Mexicans,"
he added; "there are no Americans resident in this part of the Territory." The fact was, that he felt slightly embarrassed for two reasons. He was afraid that Doctor Benton would try to offer payment to Don Nepomuceno for his meal, which wouldn't do at all; and he wanted to explain to Rocky his footing in the house, and his position with regard to Manuelita, before taking him there, so as to shut off beforehand any further unseasonable jests about velvet-eyed senoritas. But to explain this to him before a stranger like Doctor Benton was an impossibility.
He must contrive somehow to get a chance to speak to Rocky for a few minutes alone.
His eye fell upon Felipe, who had followed him from the Sanchez house.
"See here, young 'un," he said, "I wish you'd go back to Don Nepomuceno's for me, and tell him, with my compliments, that two friends of mine have just come, and that by his permission I should like to bring them to his house, and that I should be very much obliged if he could give them something to eat. Off you go. We'll follow you."
Felipe was off like a shot.
"That'll be all right now, I guess," said Stephens, looking after his retreating figure, "but if you'll excuse me a moment, Doctor Benton, before we follow him, I've got to see about my mail first. I expect there may be something of importance for me, but I feel there may be a little difficulty about getting it, seeing that the responsible postmaster's dead, and the poor woman in yonder,"--he dropped his voice slightly,--"who represents him now, is in no condition to transact business. I guess I'll go and speak to the stage-driver first. Will you come around with me, Rocky?"
"Why, the mail-bags are in here," cut in the doctor, pointing to the stage, "and the driver never has the key. You'll have to get it out of the widow, somehow, I expect."
"Ah," said the prospector suddenly, a fresh idea flashing across him, "you might be able to tell me perhaps about one thing that I'm curious to know. You are just from headquarters at Santa Fe, Doctor, aren't you?"
The doctor nodded assent.
"Well, do you know of any detail of soldiers being despatched in this direction to look after the Navajos? There's a band of Navajos have left their reservation, and there was very serious trouble with them here some four days back, and I wrote to the governor and the general who is in command of the troops at Santa Fe to ask for protection for the citizens here. I wrote by the last mail that went in from here on this same stage, driven by this man. I know that he must have delivered a letter I gave him addressed to the First National Bank of Santa Fe, because I had enclosed in it a telegram to my old pard here, and the bank forwarded it to him all O. K. But I'm a little doubtful as to what became of those letters to the governor and the general. I want to know why those soldiers weren't sent."
"Hm-m," said the army doctor; "it so happens that I was conversing with both Governor Stone and General Merewether only yesterday before starting, and we were talking about the route by here to Wingate, and the difficulty of the Rio Grande being in flood, but they never said a word about any report of trouble with the Navajos."
"You don't say!" said Stephens; "and you didn't pass any troops on the road anywhere along?"
"Certainly not," said the other; "in fact, if any troops had been coming this way, I should probably have accompanied them. But I am in a position to state that no detail of troops of any kind has left Santa Fe for a week or more."
"Well, I'm dashed!" said the prospector; "they would have said something to you about it, sure, if they ever got my letters." He was silent.
"Mahletonkwa must have told the straight truth for once in his life," he reflected, "and that rascal of a postmaster must have actually had the face to burn those letters I gave him, and, what's more, now he's dead we'll never prove it on him in God's world. Not that it would be any use if we could. The mischief's done now so far as he could do it, but it's the last he'll ever do, sure. The letter I gave the stage-driver was all right. He couldn't get at that."
Stephens never knew how near his letter to the Bank, with the telegram for Rocky, had come to sharing the fate of the others. But the stage-driver, though he might talk and bluster, had no real motive for destroying it, and he did have a healthy fear of the Post-Office Department. Mr. Backus had a motive, and did not share the other's wholesome dread of his official superiors.
While Stephens was pondering over the fate of his letters, he slipped one hand in an absent-minded way into his side pocket, and there he stumbled on exactly what he most wanted at that moment, a good excuse for taking Rocky apart. The first thing his fingers had encountered was the paper containing the specimens of the outcrop at the Lone Pine rock that he had brought away with him. Excellent! here was the very thing; he produced it somewhat mysteriously, and handing it to Rocky, said apologetically to the other man, "One moment by your leave, Doctor, if you please. There's something here I want just to have my old partner look at," and he drew Rocky a little to one side.
"Why, certainly," said the Doctor, turning round and proceeding to climb into the stage; "I'll just see if I can rout out that mail-bag for you before the stage-driver comes."