Chapter III: Part 3

In the course of time the military train came creaking along on the main track and stopped, to the great interest of the southbound travelers. It was made up of many stock cars crowded with cavalry horses. Each animal bore its equipment of saddle and bridle, and penned in with them were the women and the children. The soldiers themselves were clustered thickly upon the car roofs. Far down at the rear of the train was a rickety passenger-coach, and toward this Jose Sanchez made his way.

There began a noisy interchange of greetings between the occupants of the two trains, and meanwhile the hot sun glared balefully upon the huddled figures on the car tops. A half-hour passed, then occurred a commotion at the forward end of Alaire's coach.

A group of officers climbed aboard, and among them was one who could be none other than Luis Longorio. As he came down the passageway Alaire identified him without the aid of his insignia, for he stood head and shoulders above his companions and bore himself with an air of authority. He was unusually tall, at least six feet three, and very slim, very lithe; he was alert, keen; he was like the blade of a rapier. The leanness of his legs was accentuated by his stiff, starched riding-breeches and close-fitting pigskin puttees, while his face, apart from all else, would have challenged prompt attention.

Longorio was a young man; his cheeks were girlishly smooth and of a clear, pale, olive tint, which sun and weather apparently were powerless to darken; his eyes were large, bold, and brilliant; his nostrils thin and sensitive, like those of a blooded horse. He seemed almost immature until he spoke, then one realized with a curious shock that he was a man indeed, and a man, moreover, with all the ardor and passion of a woman. Such was Alaire's first hasty impression of Luis Longorio, the Tarleton of Potosi's army.

Disdain, hauteur, impatience, were stamped upon the general's countenance as he pushed briskly through the crowd, turning his head from side to side in search of the woman who had summoned him.

Not until she rose did he discover Alaire; then he halted; his eyes fixed themselves upon her with a stare of startled amazement.

Alaire felt herself color faintly, for the man seemed to be scanning her from head to foot, taking in every detail of her face and form, and as he did so his expression remained unaltered. For what seemed a full minute Longorio stood rooted; then the stiff-vizored cap was swept from his head; he bowed with the grace of a courtier until Alaire saw the part in his oily black hair.

"Senora! A thousand apologies for my delay," he said. "Caramba! I did not dream--I did not understand your message." He continued to regard her with that same queer intensity.

"You are General Longorio?" Alaire was surprised to note that her voice quavered uncertainly, and annoyed to feel her face still flushing.

"Your obedient servant."

With a gesture Mrs. Austin directed Dolores to vacate her seat, and invited the General to take it. But Longorio checked the maid's movement; then with a brusque command he routed out the occupants of the seat ahead, and, reversing the back, took a position facing Alaire. Another order, and the men who had accompanied him withdrew up the aisle. His luminous eyes returned once more to the woman, and there was no mistaking his admiration. He seemed enchanted by her pale beauty, her rich, red hair held him fascinated, and with Latin boldness he made his feelings crassly manifest.

VII

LUIS LONGORIO

"You probably know why I wished to see you," Alaire began.

Longorio shook his head in vague denial.

"It is regarding my ranch, La Feria." Seeing that the name conveyed nothing, she explained, "I am told that your army confiscated my cattle."

"Ah yes! Now I understand." The Mexican nodded mechanically, but it was plain that he was not heeding her words in the least. All his mental powers appeared to be concentrated in that disconcerting stare which he still bent upon her. "We confiscate everything--it is a necessity of war," he murmured.

"But this is different. The ranch is mine, and I am an American."

There was a pause. The General made a visible effort to gather his wits. It was now quite patent that the sight of Alaire, the sound of her voice, her first glance, had stricken him with an odd semi-paralysis. As if to shut out a vision or to escape some dazzling sight, he dosed his eyes. Alaire wondered if the fellow had been drinking. She turned to Dolores to find that good woman wearing an expression of stupefaction. It was very queer; it made Alaire extremely ill at ease.

Longorio opened his eyes and smiled. "It seems that I have seen you before--as if we were old friends--or as if I had come face to face with myself," said he. "I am affected strangely. It is unaccountable. I know you well--completely--everything about you is familiar to me, and yet we meet for the first time, eh? How do you explain that, unless a miracle--"

"It is merely your imagination."

"Such beauty--here among these common people! I was unprepared." Longorio passed a brown hand across his brow to brush away those perverse fancies that so interfered with his thoughts.

In moments of stress the attention often centers upon trivial things and the mind photographs unimportant objects. Alaire noticed now that one of Longorio's fingers was decorated with a magnificent diamond-and-ruby ring, and this interested her queerly. No ordinary man could fittingly have worn such an ornament, yet on the hand of this splendid barbarian it seemed not at all out of keeping.

"Dios! Let me take hold of myself, for my wits are in mutiny," Longorio continued. Then he added, more quietly: "I need not assure you, senora, that you have only to command me. Your ranch has been destroyed; your cattle stolen, eh?"

"Yes. At least--"

"We will shoot the perpetrators of this outrage at once. Bueno! Come with me and you shall see it with your own eyes."

"No, no! You don't understand."

"So? What then?"

"I don't want to see any one punished. I merely want your government to pay me for my cattle." Alaire laughed nervously.

"Ah! But a lady of refinement should not discuss such a miserable business. It is a matter for men. Bother your pretty head no more about it, and leave me to punish the guilty in my own way."

She endeavored to speak in a brisk, business-like tone. "La Feria belongs to me, personally, and I have managed it for several years, just as I manage Las Palmas, across the river. I am a woman of affairs, General Longorio, and you must talk to me as you would talk to a man. When I heard about this raid I came to look into it--to see you, or whoever is in charge of this district, and to make a claim for damages. Also, I intend to see that nothing similar occurs again. I have delayed making representations to my own government in the hope that I could arrange a satisfactory settlement, and so avoid serious complications. Now you understand why I am here and why I wished to see you."

"Valgame Dios! This is amazing. I become more bewildered momentarily."

"There is nothing extraordinary about it, that I can see."

"You think not? You consider such a woman as yourself ordinary? The men of my country enshrine beauty and worship it. They place it apart as a precious gift from God which nothing shall defile. They do not discuss such things with their women. Now this sordid affair is something for your husband--"

"Mr. Austin's business occupies his time; this is my own concern. I am not the only practical woman in Texas."

Longorio appeared to be laboriously digesting this statement. "So!" he said at last. "When you heard of this--you came, eh? You came alone into Mexico, where we are fighting and killing each other? Well! That is spirit. You are wonderful, superb!" He smiled, showing the whitest and evenest teeth.

Such extravagant homage was embarrassing, yet no woman could be wholly displeased by admiration so spontaneous and intense as that which Longorio manifested in every look and word. It was plain to Alaire that something about her had completely bowled him over; perhaps it was her strange red hair and her white foreign face, or perhaps something deeper, something behind all that. Sex phenomena are strange and varied in their workings. Who can explain the instant attraction or repulsion of certain types we meet? Why does the turn of a head, a smile, a glance, move us to the depths? Why does the touch of one stranger's hand thrill us, while another's leaves us quite impassive? Whence springs that personal magnetism which has the power to set the very atoms of our being into new vibrations, like a highly charged electric current?

Alaire knew the susceptibility of Mexican men, and was immune to ordinary flattery; yet there was something exciting about this martial hero's complete captivation. To have charmed him to the point of bewilderment was a unique triumph, and under his hungry eyes she felt an adventurous thrill.

It is true that Luis Longorio was utterly alien, and in that sense almost repellent to Alaire; moreover, she suspected him of being a monster so depraved that no decent woman could bring herself to accept his attentions. Nevertheless, in justice to the fellow, she had to acknowledge that externally, at least, he was immensely superior to the Mexicans she had met. Then, too, his aristocracy was unmistakable, and Alaire prided herself that she could recognize good blood in men as quickly as in horses. The fellow had been favored by birth, by breeding, and by education; and although military service in Mexico was little more than a form of banditry, nevertheless Longorio had developed a certain genius for leadership, nor was there any doubt as to his spectacular courage. In some ways he was a second Cid--another figure out of Castilian romance.

While he and Alaire were talking the passengers had returned to their seats; they were shouting good-byes to the soldiers opposite; the engine-bell was clanging loudly; and now the conductor approached to warn Longorio that the train was about to leave. But the railway official had learned a wholesome respect for uniforms, and therefore he hung back until, urged by necessity, he pushed forward and informed the general of his train orders.

Longorio favored him with a slow stare. "You may go when I leave," said he.

"Si, senor. But--"

The general uttered a sharp exclamation of anger, at which the conductor backed away, expressing by voice and gesture his most hearty approval of the change of plan.

"We mustn't hold the train," Alaire said, quickly. "I will arrange to see you in Nuevo Pueblo when I return."

Longorio smiled brilliantly and lifted a brown hand. "No, no! I am a selfish man; I refuse to deprive myself of this pleasure. The end must come all too soon, and as for these peladors, an hour more or less will make no difference. Now about these cattle. Mexico does not make war upon women, and I am desolated that the actions of my men have caused annoyance to the most charming lady in the world."

"Ah! You are polite." Knowing that in this man's help alone lay her chance of adjusting her loss, Alaire deliberately smiled upon him. "Can I count upon your help in obtaining my rights?" she asked.

"Assuredly."

"But how? Where?"

Longorio thought for a moment, and his tone altered as he said: "Senora, there seems to be an unhappy complication in our way, and this we must remove. First, may I ask, are you a friend to our cause?"

"I am an American, and therefore I am neutral."

"Ah! But Americans are not neutral. There is the whole difficulty. This miserable revolt was fostered by your government; American money supports it; and your men bear arms against us. Your tyrant President is our enemy; his hands itch for Mexico--"

"I can't argue politics with you," Alaire interrupted, positively. "I believe most Americans agree that you have cause for complaint, but what has that to do with my ranch and my cattle? This is something that concerns no one except you and me."

Longorio was plainly flattered by her words, and took no trouble to hide his pleasure. "Ah! If that were only true! We would arrange everything to your satisfaction without another word." His admiring gaze seemed to envelop her, and its warmth was unmistakable. "No one could have the cruelty to deny your slightest wish--I least of all."

"Why did you take my cattle?" she demanded, stubbornly.

"I was coming to that. It is what I meant when I said there was a complication. Your husband, senora, is an active Candelerista."

For a moment Alaire was at a loss; then she replied with some spirit: "We are two people, he and I. La Feria belongs to me."

"Nevertheless, his conduct is regrettable," Longorio went on. "Probably evil men have lied to him--San Antonio is full of rebels conspiring to give our country into the hands of outlaws. What a terrible spectacle it is! Enough to bring tears to the eyes of any patriot!" He turned his melancholy gaze from Alaire to her companion, and for the first time Dolores stirred.

She had watched her countryman with a peculiar fascination, and she had listened breathlessly to his words. Now she inhaled deeply, as if freed from a spell; then she said:

"Pah! Nobody pays heed to Senor Ed. We do not consider him."

Dolores lacked diplomacy; her bluntness was often trying. Alaire turned upon her with a sharp exclamation, conscious meanwhile that the woman's tone, even more than her words, had enlightened Longorio to some extent. His lifted brows were eloquent of surprise and curiosity, but he held his tongue.

"Am I to understand, then, that you rob me because of my husband's action?" Alaire asked.

"No. But we must combat our enemies with the weapons we have--not only those who bear arms with Candeleria, but those who shelter themselves beyond the Rio Grande."

Alaire's face fell. "I had hoped that you would understand and help me, but I shall go to Mexico City and demand my rights, if necessary."

"Wait! I SHALL help." Longorio beamed enthusiastically. "It shall be the object of my life to serve you, and you and I shall arrange this matter satisfactorily. I have influence, believe me. A word from Luis Longorio will go further with my chief than a protest from your President. General Potosi is a man of the highest honor, and I am his right hand. Very well, then! Duty calls me to Nuevo Pueblo, and you shall return with me as the guest of my government. Dios! It is a miserable train, but you shall occupy the coach and travel as befits a queen of beauty--like a royal princess with her guard of honor." He rose to his feet, but his eagerness soon gave place to disappointment.

"Thank you," said Alaire, "but I must first go to La Feria and get all the facts."

"Senora! It is a wretched journey. See!" He waved a contemptuous gesture at the car, crowded to congestion. "There is no food; you have no one to wait upon you. In my company you will be safe. Upon my honor you will enjoy the highest courtesy--"

"Of course. But I must go on. I have Dolores and Jose to look after me." Alaire indicated Sanchez, who had edged his way close and now stood with admiring eyes fixed upon his hero.

"Yes, 'mi General," Jose exclaimed, eagerly, "I am here."

Longorio scrutinized the horse-breaker critically. "Your name is--?"

"Jose Sanchez."

"You look like a brave fellow."

Jose swelled at this praise, and no doubt would have made suitable answer, but his employer held out her hand, and General Longorio bent over it, raising it to his lips.

"Senora, one favor you can grant me. No! It is a right I shall claim." He called one of his subordinates closer and ordered that a lieutenant and six soldiers be detached to act as an escort to Mrs. Austin's party. "It is nothing," he assured her. "It is the least I can do. Have no uneasiness, for these men are the bravest of my command, and they shall answer with their lives for your safety. As for that teniente--ah, he is favored above his general!" Longorio rolled his eyes. "Think of it! I could be faithless to duty--a traitor to my country--for the privilege he is to enjoy. It is the sacred truth! Senora, the hours will drag until I may see you again and be of further service. Meanwhile I shall be tortured with radiant dreams. Go with God!" For a second time he bowed and kissed the hand he held, then, taking Jose Sanchez intimately by the arm, he turned to the door.

Dolores collapsed into her seat with an exclamation. "Caramba! The man is a demon! And such eyes. Uf! They say he was so furious at losing those two sisters I told you about that he killed the soldier with the very weapon--"

Dolores was interrupted by Longorio's voice beneath the open window. The general stood, cap in hand, holding up to Alaire a solitary wild flower which he had plucked beside the track.

"See!" he cried. "It is the color of your adorable eyes--blue like a sapphire gem. I saw it peeping at me, and it was lonely. But now, behold how it smiles--like a star that sees Paradise, eh? And I, too, have seen Paradise." He placed the delicate bloom in Alaire's fingers and was gone.

"Cuidado!" breathed Dolores. "There is blood on it; the blood of innocents. He will burn for a million years in hell, that man."

Longorio made good his promise; soon a grizzled old teniente, with six soldiers, was transferred as a bodyguard to the American lady, and then, after some further delay, the military train departed. Upon the rear platform stood a tall, slim, khaki-clad figure, and until the car had dwindled away down the track, foreshortening to a mere rectangular dot, Luis Longorio remained motionless, staring with eager eyes through the capering dust and the billowing heat waves.

Jose Sanchez came plowing into Alaire's car, tremendously excited. "Look, senora!" he cried. "Look what the general gave me," and he proudly displayed Longorio's service revolver. Around Jose's waist was the cartridge-belt and holster that went with the weapon. "With his own hands he buckled it about me, and he said, 'Jose, something tells me you are a devil for bravery. Guard your mistress with your life, for if any mishap befalls her I shall cut out your heart with my own hands.' Those were his very words, senora. Caramba! There is a man to die for."

Nor was this the last of Longorio's dramatic surprises. Shortly after the train had got under way the lieutenant in command of Alaire's guard brought her a small package, saying:

"The general commanded me to hand you this, with his deepest regard."

Alaire accepted the object curiously. It was small and heavy and wrapped in several leaves torn from a notebook, and it proved to be nothing less than the splendid diamond-and-ruby ring she had admired.

"God protect us, now!" murmured Dolores, crossing herself devoutly.

VIII

BLAZE JONES'S NEMESIS

Blaze Jones rode up to his front gate and dismounted in the shade of the big ebony-tree. He stepped back and ran an approving eye over another animal tethered there. It was a thoroughbred bay mare he had never seen, and as he scanned her good points he reflected that the time had come when he would have to accustom himself to the sight of strange horses along his fence and strange automobiles beside the road, for Paloma was a woman now, and the young men of the neighborhood had made the discovery. Yes, and Paloma was a pretty woman; therefore the hole under the ebony-tree would probably be worn deep by impatient hoofs. He was glad that most of the boys preferred saddles to soft upholstery, for it argued that some vigor still remained in Texas manhood, and that the country had not been entirely ruined by motors, picture-shows, low shoes, and high collars. Of course the youths of this day were nothing like the youths of his own, and yet--Blaze let his gaze linger fondly on the high-bred mare and her equipment--here at least was a person who knew a good horse, a good saddle, and a good gun.

As he came up the walk he heard Paloma laugh, and his own face lightened, for Paloma's merriment was contagious. Then as he mounted the steps and turned the corner of the "gallery" he uttered a hearty greeting.

"Dave Law! Where in the world did you drop from?"

Law uncoiled himself and took the ranchman's hand. "Hello, Blaze! I been ordered down here to keep you straight."

"Pshaw! Now who's giving you orders, Dave?"

"Why, I'm with the Rangers."

"Never knew a word of it. Last I heard you was filibustering around with the Maderistas."

Blaze seated himself with a grateful sigh where the breeze played over him. He was a big, bearlike, swarthy man with the square-hewn, deep-lined face of a tragedian, and a head of long, curly hair which he wore parted in a line over his left ear. Jones was a character, a local landmark. This part of Texas had grown up with Blaze, and, inasmuch as he had sprung from a free race of pioneers, he possessed a splendid indifference to the artificial fads of dress and manners. It was only since Paloma had attained her womanhood that he had been forced to fight down his deep-seated distrust of neckwear and store clothes and the like; but now that his daughter had definitely asserted her rights, he had acquired numerous unwelcome graces, and no longer ventured among strangers without the stamp of her approval upon his appearance. Only at home did he maintain what he considered a manly independence of speech and habit. To-day, therefore, found him in a favorite suit of baggy, wrinkled linen and with a week's stubble of beard upon his chin. He was so plainly an outdoor man that the air of erudition lent him by the pair of gold-rimmed spectacles owlishly perched upon his sunburned nose was strangely incongruous.

"So you're a Ranger, and got notches on your gun." Blaze rolled and lit a tiny cigarette, scarcely larger than a wheat straw. "Well, you'd ought to make a right able thief-catcher, Dave, only for your size--you're too long for a man and you ain't long enough for a snake. Still, I reckon a thief would have trouble getting out of your reach, and once you got close to him--How many men have you killed?"

"Counting Mexicans?" Law inquired, with a smile.

"Hell! Nobody counts them."

"Not many."

"That's good." Blaze nodded and relit his cigarette, which he had permitted promptly to smolder out. "The Force ain't what it was. Most of the boys nowadays join so they can ride a horse cross-lots, pack a pair of guns, and give rein to the predilections of a vicious ancestry. They're bad rams, most of 'em."

"There aren't many," said Paloma. "Dave tells me the whole Force has been cut down to sixteen."

"That's plenty," her father averred. "It's like when Cap'n Bill McDonald was sent to stop a riot in Dallas. He came to town alone, and when the citizens asked him where his men was, he said, 'Hell! 'Ain't I enough? There's only one riot.' Are you workin' up a case, Dave?"

"Um-m--yes! People are missing a lot of stock hereabouts."

"It's these blamed refugees from the war! A Mexican has to steal something or he gets run down and pore. If it ain't stock, it's something else. Why, one morning I rode into Jonesville in time to see four Greasers walkin' down the main street with feed-sacks over their shoulders. Each one of those gunnie's had something long and flat and heavy in it, and I growed curious. When I investigated, what d'you suppose I found? Tombstones! That's right; four marble beauties fresh from the cemetery. Well, it made me right sore, for I'd helped to start Jonesville. I was its city father. I'd made the place fit to live in, and I aimed to keep it safe to die in, and so, bein' a sort of left-handed, self-appointed deppity-sheriff, I rounded up those ghouls and drove 'em to the county-seat in my spring wagon. I had the evidence propped up against the front of our real-estate office--'Sacred to the Memory' of four of our leading citizens--so I jailed 'em. But that's all the good it did."

"Couldn't convict, eh?"

Blaze lit his cigarette for the third time. "The prosecuting attorney and I wasn't very good friends, seeing as how I'd had to kill his daddy, so he turned 'em loose. I'm damned if those four Greasers didn't beat me back to Jonesville." Blaze shook his head ruminatively. "This was a hard country, those days. There wasn't but two honest men in this whole valley--and the other one was a nigger."

Dave Law's duties as a Ranger rested lightly upon him; his instructions were vague, and he had a leisurely method of "working up" his evidence. Since he knew that Blaze possessed a thorough knowledge of this section and its people, it was partly business which had brought him to the Jones home this afternoon.

Strictly speaking, Blaze was not a rancher, although many of his acres were under cultivation and he employed a sizable army of field-hands. His disposition was too adventurous, his life had been too swift and varied, for him to remain interested in slow agricultural pursuits; therefore, he had speculated heavily in raw lands, and for several years past he had devoted his energies to a gigantic colonization scheme. Originally Blaze had come to the Rio Grande valley as a stock-raiser, but the natural advantages of the country had appealed to his gambling instinct, and he had "gone broke" buying land.

He had located, some fifteen miles below the borders of Las Palmas, and there he had sunk a large fortune; then as a first step in his colonization project he had founded the town of Jonesville. Next he had caused the branch line of the Frisco railroad to be extended until it linked his holdings with the main system, after which he had floated a big irrigation company; and now the feat of paying interest on its bonds and selling farms under the ditch to Northern people kept him fully occupied. It was by no means a small operation in which he was engaged. The venture had taken foresight, courage, infinite hard work; and Blaze was burdened with responsibilities that would have broken down a man of weaker fiber.

But his pet relaxation was reminiscence. His own experience had been wide, he knew everybody in his part of the state, and although events in his telling were sometimes colored by his rich imagination, the information he could give was often of the greatest value--as Dave Law knew.

After a time the latter said, casually, "Tell me something about Tad Lewis."

Blaze looked up quickly. "What d'you want to know?"

"Anything. Everything."

"Tad owns a right nice ranch between here and Las Palmas," Blaze said, cautiously.

Paloma broke out, impatiently: "Why don't you say what you think?" Then to Dave: "Tad Lewis is a bad neighbor, and always has been. There's a ford on his place, and we think he knows more about 'wet' cattle than he cares to tell."

"It's a good place to cross stock at low water," her father agreed, "and Lewis's land runs back from the Rio Grande in its old Spanish form. It's a natural outlet for those brush-country ranchos. But I haven't anything against Tad except a natural dislike. He stands well with some of our best people, so I'm probably wrong. I usually am."

"You can't call Ed Austin one of our best people," sharply objected Paloma. "They claim that arms are being smuggled across to the Rebels, Dave, and, if it's true, Ed Austin--"

"Now, Paloma," her father remonstrated mildly. "The Regulars and the River Guards watched Lewis's ranch till the embargo was lifted, and they never saw anything."

"I believe Austin is a strong Rebel sympathizer," Law ventured.

"Sure! And him and the Lewis outfit are amigos. If you go pirootin' around Tad's place you're more'n apt to make yourself unpopular, Dave. I'd grieve some to see you in a wooden kimono. Tad's too well fixed to steal cattle, and if he runs arms it's because of his sympathy for those noble, dark-skinned patriots we hear so much about in Washington. Tad's a 'galvanized Gringo' himself--married a Mexican, you know."

"Nobody pays much attention to the embargo," Law agreed. "I ran arms myself, before I joined the Force."

When meal-time drew near, both Jones and his daughter urged their guest to stay and dine with them, and Dave was glad to accept.

"After supper I'm going to show you our town," Blaze declared. "It's the finest city in South Texas, and growing like a weed. All we need is good farmers. Those we've got are mostly back-to-nature students who leaped a drug-counter expecting to 'light in the lap of luxury. In the last outfit we sold there wasn't three men that knew which end of a mule to put the collar on. But they'll learn. Nature's with 'em, and so am I. God supplies 'em with all the fresh air and sunshine they need, and when they want anything else they come to Old Blaze. Ain't that right, Paloma?"

"Yes, father."

Paloma Jones had developed wonderfully since Dave Law had last seen her. She had grown into a most wholesome and attractive young woman, with an unusually capable manner, and an honest, humorous pair of brown eyes. During dinner she did her part with a grace that made watching her a pleasure, and the Ranger found it a great treat to sit at her table after his strenuous scouting days in the mesquite.

"I'm glad to hear Jonesville is prosperous," he told his host. "And they say you're in everything."

"That's right; and prosperity's no name for it. Every-body wants Blaze to have a finger in the pie. I'm interested in the bank, the sugar-mill, the hardware-store, the ice-plant--Say, that ice-plant's a luxury for a town this size. D'you know what I made out of it last year?"

"I've no idea."

"Twenty-seven thousand dollars!" The father of Jonesville spoke proudly, impressively, and then through habit called upon his daughter for verification. "Didn't I, Paloma?"

Miss Paloma's answer was unexpected, and came with equal emphasis: "No, you didn't, father. The miserable thing lost money."

Blaze was only momentarily dismayed. Then he joined in his visitor's laughter. "How can a man get along without the co-operation of his own household?" he inquired, naively. "Maybe it was next year I was thinking about." Thereafter he confined himself to statements which required no corroboration.

Dave had long since learned that to hold Blaze Jones to a strict accountability with fact was to rob his society of its greatest charm. A slavish accuracy in figures, an arid lack of imagination, reduces conversation to the insipidness of flat wine, and Blaze's talk was never dull. He was a keen, shrewd, practical man, but somewhere in his being there was concealed a tremendous, lop-sided sense of humor which took the form of a bewildering imagery. An attentive audience was enough for him, and, once his fancy was in full swing, there was no limit to his outrageous exaggerations. A light of credulity in a hearer's eye filled him with prodigious mirth, and it is doubtful if his listeners ever derived a fraction of the amusement from his fabrications that he himself enjoyed. Paloma's spirit of contradiction was the only fly in his ointment; now that his daughter was old enough to "keep books" on him, much of the story-teller's joy was denied him.

Of course his proclivities occasionally led to misapprehensions; chance acquaintances who recognized him as an artful romancer were liable to consider him generally untruthful. But even in this misconception Blaze took a quiet delight, secure in the knowledge that all who knew him well regarded him as a rock of integrity. As a matter of fact, his genuine exploits were quite as sensational as those of his manufacture.

When, after supper, Blaze had hitched a pair of driving-mules to his buckboard, preparatory to showing his guest the glories of Jonesville, Dave said:

"Paloma's getting mighty pretty."

"She's as pretty as a blue-bonnet flower," her father agreed. "And she runs me around something scandalous. I 'ain't got the freedom of a peon." Blaze sighed and shook his shaggy head. "You know me, Dave; I never used to be scared of nobody. Well, it's different now. She rides me with a Spanish bit, and my soul ain't my own." With a sudden lightening of his gloom, he added: "Say, you're going to stay right here with us as long as you're in town; I want you to see how I cringe." In spite of Blaze's plaintive tone it was patent that he was inordinately proud of Paloma and well content with his serfdom.

Jonesville proved to be a typical Texas town of the modern variety, and altogether different to the pictured frontier village. There were no one-storied square fronts, no rows of saloons with well-gnawed hitching-rails, no rioting cowboys. On the contrary, the larger buildings were of artificial stone, the sidewalks of concrete, and the store fronts of plate-glass. Arc-lights shed a bluish-white glare over the wide street-crossings, and all in all the effect was much like that of a prosperous, orderly Northern farming town.

Not that Jonesville would have filled an eye for beauty. It was too new and crude and awkward for that. It fitted loosely into its clothes, for its citizens had patterned it with regard for the future, and it sprawled over twice its legitimate area. But to its happy founder it seemed well-nigh perfect, and its destiny roused his maddest enthusiasm. He showed Dave the little red frame railroad station, distinguished in some mysterious way above the hundred thousand other little red frame railroad stations of the identical size and style; he pointed out the Odd Fellows Hall, the Palace Picture Theater, with its glaring orange lights and discordant electric piano; he conducted Law to the First National Bank, of which Blaze was a proud but somewhat ornamental director; then to the sugar-mill, the ice-plant, and other points of equally novel interest.

Everywhere he went, Jones was hailed by friends, for everybody seemed to know him and to want to shake his hand.

"SOME town and SOME body of men, eh?" he inquired, finally, and Dave agreed:

"Yes. She's got a grand framework, Blaze. She'll be most as big as Fort Worth when you fatten her up."

Jones waved his buggy-whip in a wide circle that took in the miles of level prairie on all sides. "We've got the whole blamed state to grow in. And, Dave, I haven't got an enemy in the place! It wasn't many years ago that certain people allowed I'd never live to raise this town. Why, it used to be that nobody dared to ride with me--except Paloma, and she used to sleep with a shot-gun at her bedside."

"You sure have been a responsibility to her."

"But I'm as safe now as if I was in church."

Law ventured to remark that none of Blaze's enemies had grown fat in prosecuting their feuds, but this was a subject which the elder man invariably found embarrassing, and now he said:

"Pshaw! I never was the blood-letter people think. I'm as gentle as a sheep." Then to escape further curiosity on that point he suggested that they round out their riotous evening with a game of pool.

Law boasted a liberal education, but he was no match for the father of Jonesville, who wielded a cue with a dexterity born of years of devotion to the game. In consequence, Blaze's enjoyment was in a fair way to languish when the proprietor of the Elite Billiard Parlor returned from supper to say:

"Mr. Jones, there's a real good pool-player in town, and he wants to meet you."

Blaze uttered a triumphant cry. "Get him, quick! Send the brass-band to bring him. Dave, you hook your spurs over the rung of a chair and watch your uncle clean this tenderfoot. If he's got class, I'll make him mayor of the town, for a good pool-shooter is all this metropolis lacks. Why, sometimes I go plumb to San Antone for a game." He whispered in his friend's ear, "Paloma don't let me gamble, but if you've got any dinero, get it down on me." Then, addressing the bystanders, he proclaimed, "Boys, if this pilgrim is good enough to stretch me out we'll marry him off and settle him down."

"No chance, Uncle Blaze; he's the most married person in town," some one volunteered. "His wife is the new dressmaker--and she's got a mustache." For some reason this remark excited general mirth.

"That's too bad. I never saw but one woman with a mustache, and she licked me good. If he's yoked up to that kind of a lady, I allow his nerves will be wrecked before he gets here. I hope to God he ain't entirely done for." Blaze ran the last three balls from a well-nigh impossible position, then racked up the whole fifteen with trembling eagerness and eyed the door expectantly. He was wiping his spectacles when the proprietor returned with a slim, sallow man whom he introduced as Mr. Strange.

"Welcome to our city!" Blaze cried, with a flourish of his glasses. "Get a prod, Mr. Strange, and bust 'em, while I clean my wind-shields. These fellow-townsmen of mine handle a cue like it was an ox-gad."

Mr. Strange selected a cue, studied the pyramid for an instant, then called the three ball for the upper left-hand corner, and pocketed it, following which he ran the remaining fourteen. Blaze watched this procedure near-sightedly, and when the table was bare he thumped his cue loudly upon the floor. He beamed upon his opponent; he appeared ready to embrace him.

"Bueno! There's art, science, and natural aptitude! Fly at 'em again, Mr. Strange, and take your fill." He finished polishing his spectacles, and readjusted them. "I aim to make you so comfortable in Jonesville that---" Blaze paused, he started, and a peculiar expression crept over his face.

It seemed to Law that his friend actually turned pale; at any rate, his mouth dropped open and his gaze was no longer hypnotically following the pool-balls, but was fixed upon his opponent.

Now there were chapters in the life of Blaze Jones that had never been fully written, and it occurred to Dave that such a one had been suddenly reopened; therefore he prepared himself for some kind of an outburst. But Blaze appeared to be numbed; he even jumped nervously when Mr. Strange missed a shot and advised him that his chance had come.

As water escapes from a leaky pail, so had Jones's fondness for pool oozed away, and with it had gone his accustomed skill. He shot blindly, and, much to the general surprise, missed an easy attempt.

"Can't expect to get 'em all," comfortingly observed Mr. Strange as he executed a combination that netted him two balls and broke the bunch. After that he proved the insincerity of his statement by clearing the cloth for a second time. The succeeding frames went much the same, and finally Blaze put up his cue, mumbling:

"I reckon I must have another chill coming on. My feet are plumb dead."

"Cold feet are sure bad." Strange favored the crowd with a wink.

"I'm sort of sick."

"That's tough!" the victor exclaimed, regretfully. "But I'll tell you what we'll do--we'll take a little look into the future."

"What d'you mean?"

"Simply this: Nature has favored me with second sight and the ability to read fortunes. I foretell good an' evil, questions of love and mattermony by means of numbers, cards, dice, dominoes, apple-parings, egg-shells, tea-leaves, an' coffee-grounds." The speaker's voice had taken on the brazen tones of a circus barker. "I pro'nosticate by charms, ceremonies, omens, and moles; by the features of the face, lines of the hand, spots an' blemishes of the skin. I speak the language of flowers. I know one hundred and eighty-seven weather signs, and I interpet dreams. Now, ladies and gents, this is no idle boast. Triflin' incidents, little marks on the cuticle, although they appear to be the effect of chance, are nevertheless of the utmost consequence, an' to the skilled interpeter they foretell the temper of, an' the events that will happen to, the person bearin' 'em. Now let us take this little deck of common playing-cards---"

The monologist, suiting the action to the word, conjured a deck of cards from somewhere, and extended them to Blaze. "Select one; any one---"

"Hell!" snorted Jones, slipping into his coat.

"You are a skeptic! Very well. I convince nobody against his will. But wait! You have a strong face. Stand where you are." Extracting from another pocket a tiny pair of scissors and a sheet of carbon paper, Mr. Strange, with the undivided attention of the audience upon him, began to cut Blaze's silhouette. He was extraordinarily adept, and despite his subject's restlessness he completed the likeness in a few moments; then, fixing it upon a plain white cardboard, he presented it with a flourish.

Blaze accepted the thing and plunged for the open air.

IX

A SCOUTING TRIP

"What ails you?" Law inquired as he and Blaze rolled away in the buckboard.

"Serves me right for leaving my six-shooter at home," panted the rancher. "Well, I might have known they'd find me some day."

"'They'? Who?"

"That hombre and his wife--the woman with the mustache. They swore they'd get me, and it looks like they will, for I daresn't raise my hand to protect myself."

This was very mystifying to Dave, and he said so.

"The woman'll recognize me, quick enough," Blaze asserted, and then, "God knows what Paloma will do."

"Really! Is it that bad?"

"It's a vile story, Dave, and I never expected to tell anybody; but it's bound to come out on me now, so you better hear my side. Last summer I attended a convention at Galveston, and one hot day I decided to take a swim, so I hired a suit and a room to cache my six-shooter in. It was foolish proceedings for a man my age, but the beach was black with people and I wasn't altogether myself. You see, we'd had an open poker game running in my room for three days, and I hadn't got any sleep. I was plumb feverish, and needed a dip. Well, I'm no water-dog, Dave; I can't swim no better than a tarrapin with its legs cut off, but I sloshed around some in the surf, and then I took a walk to dreen off and see the sights. It was right interesting when I got so I could tell the women from the men--you see I'd left my glasses in the bath-house.

"Now I'd sort of upheld the general intemperance of that poker game for three days and nights--but I don't offer my condition as an excuse for what follows. No gentleman ought to lay his indecencies onto John Barley corn when they're nothing more nor less than the outcroppin's of his own orneriness. Liquor has got enough to answer for without being blamed for human depravities. I dare say I was friendlier than I had any right to be; I spoke to strangers, and some of the girls hollered at me, but I wouldn't have harmed a soul.

"Well, in the course of my promenade I came to a couple of fellers setting half-buried in the sand, and just as I was passing one of them got up--sort of on all-fours and--er--facing away from me--sabe? That's where the trouble hatched. I reached out and, with nothing but good-will in my heart, I--sort of pinched this party-sort of on the hip, or thereabouts. I didn't mean a thing by it, Dave. I just walked on, smiling, till something run into me from behind. When I got up and squared around, there was that man we just left cutting didos out of black paper.

"'What d'you mean by pinching my wife?' he says, and he was r'arin' mad.

"'Your WIFE?' I stammers, and with that he climbs me. Dave, I was weak with shame and surprise, and all I could do was hold him off. Sure enough, the man I'd pinched was a long, ga'nt woman with a little black mustache, and here she came!

"We started in right there. I never saw such a poisonous person as that woman. She was coiled, her head was up, and her rattles agoing, and so I finally lit out But I'm sort of fat, and they over-ran me. They bayed me against the sea-wall, and all I had the heart to do was to hold 'em off some more. Soon as I got my wind I shook 'em off a second time and run some more, but they downed me. By that time we'd begun to gather quite a crowd. ...

"Dave, was you ever treed by wild hogs? That's how them two people kept after me. You'd have thought I'd deprived 'em of their young. I didn't want to hurt 'em, but whenever I'd run they'd tangle my legs. By and by I got so short of breath that I couldn't run, so I fell on top of the man. But the woman got me by the legs and rolled me under. I busted out and hoofed it again, but they caught me and down we went, me on top. Then that man's helpmate grabbed my legs and rolled me over, like she did before. Finally I got too tired to do anything but paw like a puppy. It seems like we must have fought that way all the morning, Dave. Anyhow, people gathered from long distances and cheered the woman. I got desperate toward the last, and I unraveled the right hip of my bathing suit grabbing for my gun. I couldn't see the bath-house for the sand in my eyes, so I must have led 'em up across the boulevard and into the tent colony, for after a while we were rolling around among tent-pegs and tangling up in guy-ropes, and all the time our audience was growing. Dave, those tent-ropes sounded like guitar strings."

Blaze paused to wipe the sweat from his brow, whereupon his listener inquired in a choking voice:

"How did you come out?"

"I reckon I'd have got shed of 'em somehow, for I was resting up on top of my man, but that stinging lizard of a woman got her claws into the neck of my bathing-suit and r'ared back on it. Dave, she skinned me out of that garment the way you'd skin out an eel, and--there I was! You never heard such a yelling as went up. And I didn't hear all of it, either, for I just laid back my ears and went through those sight-seers like a jack-rabbit. I never knew a man could run like I did. I could hear people holler, 'Here he comes,' 'There he goes,' 'Yonder he went,' but I was never headed. I hurdled the sea-wall like an antelope, and before they got eyes on me I was into my bath-house.

"When I'd got dressed, I sneaked up to the Galvez for a drink. In the bar were a lot of stockmen, and they asked me where I'd been. I told 'em I'd been nursing a sick lodge member, and they said:

"'Too bad! You missed the damnedest fight since Custer was licked. We couldn't get very close, for the jam, but it was great!'

"The story went all over Galveston. The husband swore he'd kill the man who attacked his wife, and the newspapers called on the police to discover the ruffian."

There was a protracted silence; then Law controlled his voice sufficiently to say: "It's fortunate he didn't recognize you to-night."

"Maybe he did. Anyhow, his wife is the new dressmaker Paloma's hired. I 'ain't got a chance, Dave. That story will ruin me in the community, and Paloma will turn me out when she learns I'm a--a lady-pincher."

"What are you going to do about it?"

Blaze sighed. "I don't know, yet. Probably I'll end by running from those scorpions, like I did before."

The next morning at breakfast Paloma announced, "Father, you must help Dave hunt down these cattle thieves."

"Ain't that sort of a big order?" Blaze queried.

"Perhaps, but you're the very man to do it. Ricardo Guzman is the only person who knows the Lewis gang as well as you do."

Jones shook his head doubtfully. "Don Ricardo has been working up his own private feud with that outfit. If I was the kind that went looking for a fight, I wouldn't have paid freight on myself from the Panhandle down here. I could have got one right at home, any morning before breakfast."

"Ricardo Guzman is something of a black sheep himself," Law spoke up.

"Pshaw! He's all right. I reckon he has changed a few brands in his time, but so has everybody else. Why, that's how 'Old Ed' Austin got his start. If a cowman tells you he never stole anything, he's either a dam' good liar or a dam' bad roper. But Ricardo's going straight enough now."

"He has lost his share of stock," Paloma explained, "and he'll work with you if father asks him. You go along with Dave---"

"I'm too busy," Blaze demurred, "and I ain't feeling good. I had bad dreams all night."

"I don't want you around here this morning. That new dressmaker is coming."

Jones rose abruptly from the table. "I reckon my business can wait. Hustle up, Dave." A few moments later, as they were saddling their horses, he lamented: "What did I tell you? Here I go, on the dodge from a dressmaker. I s'pose I've got to live like a road-agent now, till something happens."

Don Ricardo Guzman was an American, but he spoke no English. An accident of birth had made him a citizen of the United States--his father having owned a ranch which lay north instead of south of the Rio Grande. Inasmuch as the property had fallen to Ricardo, his sons, too, were Yankees in the eyes of the law. But in all other respects Don Ricardo and his family differed not at all from the many Guzmans who lived across the border. The Guzman ranch comprised a goodly number of acres, and, since live stock multiply rapidly, its owner had in some sort prospered. On the bank of a resaca---a former bed of the Rio Grande--stood the house, an adobe structure, square, white, and unprotected from the sun by shrub or tree. Behind it were some brush corrals and a few scattered mud jacals, in which lived the help.

Ricardo had just risen from a siesta when his two visitors rode up, and he made them welcome with the best he had. There followed a complimentary exchange of greetings and the usual flow of small talk. Ricardo had suffered a severe toothache--the same abominable affliction that had lost Porfirio Diaz an empire. It had been a dry spring, but, praise God, the water still held in the resaca--his two sons were branding calves in one of the outer pastures--and there had been a very good calf crop indeed. Blaze recounted his own doings; Law told of Ranger activities along the lower border. In the cool of the afternoon Ricardo rode with his visitors, and then, cordial relations being now established, he began to divulge information of value to Law.

Yes, he had endured many depredations from thieves. It was shameful, but doubtless God willed that a certain amount of stealing should go on in the world. The evil-doers were certainly favored by nature, in this locality, for the great expanse of brush country to the north and east offered almost perfect security, and the river, to the south, gave immunity from pursuit or prosecution. The beeves were driven north into the wilderness, but the horses went to Mexico, where the war had created a market for them. The Federals had plenty of money to buy mounts.

Whom did Don Ricardo suspect?