visage of late, would have wondered at its tenderness.
Betty was still asleep when he mounted to leave next morning, but at the beat of hoofs she came running, bare feet and legs flying under her nightdress. Stooping, he swung her to the saddle before him. The pressure of her warm arms around his neck, soft lips on his cheek, put a thrill of earnestness into his farewell.
“Remember, ma’am, we’ll come whenever you call.”
A quarter-mile away he drew rein and looked back. Though smaller than Los Arboles, the rancho buildings grouped picturesquely in a pocket of the foot-hills. The rich purple and crimson blossoms of a bougainvillea vine that almost buried the house made a fine splash of color against the golden adobe walls and tawny pastures. Drenched in sunlight, roofed in by fleecy clouds sailing across the deep blue vault above, it seemed the abode of peace. But not so did Bull see it. It loomed through a dread mirage that squirmed with ugly fighting shapes.
Shaking his big head, he spoke aloud. “’Tain’t safe for them here, ’tain’t safe!”
So vivid was that dread feeling, presage of evil, the sweat broke on his brow. Into his mind shot a vivid picture of the miner hanging limply from the sahuaro, face turned up to the torrid sun. Around it, as in a whirling nightmare, revolved all of the horrors, outrages, and murders of three awful years. Turning, he shook his big fist at the northern horizon in fierce rebuke of the political lethargy and executive indifference on the other side of the border that had not only made the long list of outrages possible, but almost set the seal of approval upon it. Anger choked him. With the growl of a furious dog he turned again and rode on.
It may be laid down as a general principle that a woman never forgets and a man seldom remembers anniversaries. These tendencies are due to the fact that a woman lives principally in the past and present, a man in the future; while she observes past occasions, he creates new ones. Whether she be looking forward with youthful joy, or looking back with increasing regret, a woman specializes upon her birthdays. But, accustomed to her father’s bad memory, Lee had not expected any one to remember; was accordingly astonished and pleased when, coming to breakfast that morning, she found the table decorated with trailing vines and a bouquet of wild flowers at her plate that had been picked by Sliver.
“Why – ” she gave a little gasp. Then her shining glance accused the Three, whose sheepish grins loudly proclaimed their guilt. “How didyou know? What’s this?”
While she was unwrapping the tissue-paper in which Mrs. Mills had wrapped the cake the Three looked on with eager expectance, and were treated to a second bath of sunshine. “A real cake! Where did you get it?”
In a country where cakes, if not actually hanging on every tree, may be either home-grown or plucked from the counter of any pastry cook, her joy might have seemed exaggerated. But in that alien desert, stripped of its substance to the bare hot bones by repeated revolutions, the conjunction of a sure-enough cake with a girl’s birthday verged on the miraculous. Nor was Lee’s pleasure lessened after she heard at what pains it had been produced.
It was, of course, merely the first of the day’s surprises, some of which were purely accidental, as when William Benson rode in at noon. As a matter of fact, his visit pertained to a defensive alliance against raiders, but, being warned in time, he straightway credited his visit to the birthday. A bluff Englishman, almost as big as Bull, hot-tempered and overbearing in manner, he fell with great joviality into the spirit of the occasion; kissed and congratulated Lee with the license of old friendship. His big, hearty laugh was resounding in the patio when the second irruption of the Lovells and their fiancés– for Phyllis had conquered the smelter man in record time – occurred midway of the afternoon. And they were no more than settled under the portalesbefore, like some rich, dusky bird, Isabel Icarza came floating under the arched gateway into Lee’s arms.
“But you surely did not come alone?” Though that was exactly what she might have done herself, Lee looked at her in horror.
“Ah no, querida! Ramon escorted me, and will return to-morrow!”
“You don’t mean to say that he has – ” Lee stopped, for she had caught, just then, a glimpse of him riding away.
“Your father – you remember – he thought – ”
Isabel stopped in her embarrassed explanations for, like a scared white bird, Lee was flying through the gateway. Grabbing Isabel’s horse from the anciano who was just about to lead it around to the compound, she leaped into the saddle and went flying down the trail.
Turning at the sound of hoofs, Ramon waited for her. It was the first time they had met since the funeral, and though embarrassment would have been quite natural, Lee’s frank greeting put him at once at his ease.
“You were going away – on my saint’s day?”
“It was out of respect for – ”
She cut off his apology. “Yes, yes, but father was angry and unjust that day. He would have acknowledged it himself, had he lived. You must come back, at once, with me.”
Not knowing the cause of her sudden flight, Bull had followed to the gateway. As he stood there watching the two returning, Benson’s voice broke at his shoulder.
“That’s the hell of raising a girl in this country. I spoke often to Carleton about it, but he was a lonely man and couldn’t bear to have her away. I suppose that he felt she was perfectly safe with him.”
Knowing him for Lee’s sincere friend, Bull did not scruple to hand on the information he had gained from Mrs. Mills. Benson received it with a low, shocked whistle.
“And the poor man had to meet death with that on his mind? She hasn’t seen Ramon since the funeral, you say? That speaks well for him. He tried to go, just now, too. He’s not half bad. But when it’s a question of marrying Lee, no Mexican need apply. But come on back in. She’ll pick out in a second that we’re talking about them.”
During the lively chatter that whiled away the afternoon; at supper when the cake appeared in a glory of radiant candles; while the young folks laughed and chatted thereafter under the lighted portales, the two stealthily watched Lee and Ramon. Sliver and Jake having retired early, Bull and Benson engaged in an interminable game of poker which left them free to discuss the proposed defensive alliance without neglecting their watch.
Before night fell the girls had distributed candles here and there among the foliage which now transmuted their waxen gleam into a greenish incandescence. Behind the creeper that fell in a cascade from the roof, the lamplit portales gleamed in half-circles of gold. The massed cluster of a bougainvillea dripped clotted blood down the façade of the gate arch. As the girls moved under the golden arches opposite, their white dresses might easily have been the fluttering wings of giant tropical moths, and, noting it, Benson paused in filling his hand.
“It’s like a beautiful stage setting.”
Bull’s nod took in the bright faces, soft laughter, happy chatter. With a slow, indulgent smile he musingly watched the secret glances between the two pairs of lovers; artless subterfuges by which the girls achieved small personal contacts.
“Don’t take much to make ’em happy, does it? A little laughter an’ a little song; plenty of chatter an’ some pretty clothes; a baby to love and a man to boss; ’tain’t much, but Lordy, how many of ’em don’t get it. If men ’u’d on’y keep on admiring in their wives the things they liked in their sweethearts, the divorce courts ’u’d go out of business. If I had a daughter, I’d marry her to a boot-black that understood the nature of women ahead of a merchant prince; for a man that says to his wife at breakfast, ‘Why, how pretty you look this morning!’ is a-going to get a reward that can’t be bought with a million.”
Just then Phœbe Lovell’s clear voice floated across the patio. “What a lovely night! Let’s go for a walk.”
“All right. Wait till I get a shawl.”
As the others moved off, Lee ran back into her room. They had passed through the gateway when she came out again, except Ramon, who took the shawl and