The Splendid Idle Forties Part 29

"He danced very well--aha!"

Aunt Anastacia gurgled like an idiot. Dona Pomposa gave a terrific shriek, which Eulogia cut in two with her hand. A man had crawled out of the brush near them. His face was black with powder, one arm hung limp at his side. Dona Pomposa half raised her arm to signal the men on the hill, but her daughter gave it such a pinch that she fell back on the seat, faint for a moment.

"Let him go," said Eulogia. "Do you want to see a man cut in pieces before your eyes? You would have to say rosaries for the rest of your life." She leaned over the side of the wagon and spoke to the dazed man, whose courage seemed to have deserted him.

"Don Abel Hudson, you do not look so gallant as at the ball last night, but you helped us to get there, and I will save you now. Get into the wagon, and take care you crawl in like a snake that you may not be seen."

"No--no!" cried the two older women, but in truth they were too terrified not to submit. Power swung himself mechanically over the wheel, and lay on the floor of the wagon. Eulogia, in spite of a protesting whimper from Aunt Anastacia, loosened that good dame's ample outer skirt and threw it over the fallen bandit. Then the faithful Benito turned his horse and drove as rapidly toward the town as the rough roads would permit. They barely had started when they heard a great shouting behind them, and turned in apprehension, whilst the man on the floor groaned aloud in his fear. But the Vigilantes rode by them unsuspecting. Across their saddles they carried the blackened and dripping bodies of Lenares and his lieutenants; through the willows galloped the caballeros in search of John Power. But they did not find him, then nor after. Dona Pomposa hid him in her woodhouse until midnight, when he stole away and was never seen near San Luis again. A few years later came the word that he had been a.s.sa.s.sinated by one of his lieutenants in Lower California, and his body eaten by wild hogs.

IX

"Al contado plasentero Del primer beso de amor, Un fuego devorador Que en mi pecho siento ardor.

"Y no me vuelvas a besar Por que me quema tu aliento, Ya desfayeserme siento, Mas enbriagada de amor.

"Si a cuantas estimas, das Beso en pruebas de amor; Si me amas hasme el favor De no besarme jamas."

A caballero on a prancing horse sang beneath Eulogia's window, his jingling spurs keeping time to the tinkling of his guitar. Eulogia turned over in bed, pulling the sheet above her ears, and went to sleep.

The next day, when Don Tomas Garfias asked her hand of her mother, Dona Coquetta accepted him with a shrug of her shoulders.

"And thou lovest me, Eulogia?" murmured the enraptured little dandy as Dona Pomposa and Aunt Anastacia good-naturedly discussed the composition of American pies.

"No."

"Ay! senorita! Why, then, dost thou marry me? No one compels thee."

"It pleases me. What affair of thine are my reasons if I consent to marry you?"

"Oh, Eulogia, I believe thou lovest me! Why not? Many pretty girls have done so before thee. Thou wishest only to tease me a little."

"Well, do not let me see too much of you before the wedding-day, or I may send you back to those who admire you more than I do."

"Perhaps it is well that I go to San Francisco to remain three months,"

said the young man, sulkily; he had too much vanity to be enraged. "Wilt thou marry me as soon as I return?"

"As well then as any other time."

Garfias left San Luis a few days later to attend to important business in San Francisco, and although Dona Pomposa and Aunt Anastacia began at once to make the wedding outfit, Eulogia appeared to forget that she ever had given a promise of marriage. She was as great a belle as ever, for no one believed that she would keep faith with any man, much less with such a ridiculous sc.r.a.p as Garfias. Her flirtations were more calmly audacious than ever, her dancing more spirited; in every frolic she was the leader.

Suddenly Dona Pomposa was smitten with rheumatism. She groaned by night and shouted by day. Eulogia, whose patience was not great, organized a camping party to the sulphur springs of the great rancho, Paso des Robles. The young people went on horseback; Dona Pomposa and Aunt Anastacia in the wagon with the tents and other camping necessities.

Groans and shrieks mingled with the careless laughter of girls and caballeros, who looked upon rheumatism as the inevitable sister of old age; but when they entered the park-like valley after the ride over the beautiful chrome mountains, Dona Pomposa declared that the keen dry air had already benefited her.

That evening, when the girls left their tents, hearts fluttered, and gay muslin frocks waved like agitated banners. Several Americans were pitching their tents by the spring. They proved to be a party of mining engineers from San Francisco, and although there was only one young man among them, the greater was the excitement. Many of the girls were beautiful, with their long braids and soft eyes, but Eulogia, in her yellow gown, flashed about like a succession of meteors, as the Americans drew near and proffered their services to Dona Pomposa.

The young man introduced himself as Charles Rogers. He was a good-looking little fellow, in the lighter American style. His well-attired figure was slim and active, his mouse-coloured hair short and very straight, his shrewd eyes were blue. After a few moments'

critical survey of the charming faces behind Dona Pomposa, he went off among the trees, and returning with a bunch of wild flowers walked straight over to Eulogia and handed them to her.

She gave him a roguish little courtesy. "Much thanks, senor. You must scuse my English; I no spik often. The Americanos no care for the flores?"

"I like them well enough, but I hope you will accept these."

"Si, senor." She put them in her belt. "You like California?"

"Very much. It is full of gold, and, I should say, excellent for agriculture."

"But it no is beautiful country?"

"Oh, yes, it does very well, and the climate is pretty fair in some parts."

"You living in San Francisco?"

"I am a mining engineer, and we have got hold of a good thing near here."

"The mine--it is yours?"

"Only a part of it."

"The Americanos make all the money now."

"The gold was put here for some one to take out. You Californians had things all your own way for a hundred years, but you let it stay there."

"Tell me how you take it out."

He entered into a detailed and somewhat technical description, but her quick mind grasped the meaning of unfamiliar words.

"You like make the money?" she asked, after he had finished.

"Of course. What else is a man made for? Life is a pretty small affair without money."

"We no have much now, but we live very happy. The Americanos love the money, though. Alway I see that."

"Americans have sense."

He devoted himself to her during the ten days of their stay, and his business shrewdness and matter-of-fact conversation attracted the keen-witted girl, satiated with sighs and serenades. Always eager for knowledge, she learned much from him of the Eastern world. She did not waste a glance on her reproachful caballeros, but held long practical conversations with Rogers under the mending wing of Dona Pomposa, who approved of the stranger, having ascertained his abilities and prospects from the older men of his party.

On the morning of their return to San Luis Obispo, Rogers and Eulogia were standing somewhat apart, whilst the vaqueros rounded up the horses that had strayed at will through the valley. Rogers plucked one of the purple autumn lilies and handed it to her.

"Senorita," he said, "suppose you marry me. It is a good thing for a man to be married in a wild country like this; he is not so apt to gamble and drink. And although I've seen a good many pretty girls, I've seen no one so likely to keep me at home in the evening as yourself. What do you say?"

Eulogia laughed. His wooing interested her.

"I promise marry another man; not I think much I ever go to do it."

"Well, let him go, and marry me."

"I no think I like you much better. But I spose I must get marry some day. Here my mother come. Ask her. I do what she want."