Chapter Fifteen…

Chapter Fifteen

THE RUNAWAY OVERTAKEN.

For another mile the chase continued, without much change. The mares still swept on in full flight, though no longer screaming or in fear. The mustang still uttered an occasional neigh, which its old associates seemed not to notice; while its rider held her seat in the saddle unshaken, and without any apparent alarm.

The blood bay appeared more excited, though not so much as his master; who was beginning to show signs either of despondency or chagrin.

"Come, Castro!" he exclaimed, with a certain spitefulness of tone. "What the deuce is the matter with your heels--to-day of all others? Remember, you overtook her before--though not so easily, I admit. But now she's weighted. Look yonder, you dull brute! Weighted with that which is worth more than gold--worth every drop of your blood, and mine too. The yegua pinta seems to have improved her paces. Is it from training; or does a horse run faster when ridden?

"What if I lose sight of her? In truth, it begins to look queer! It would be an awkward situation for the young lady. Worse than that-- there's danger in it--real danger. If I should lose sight of her, she'd be in trouble to a certainty!"

Thus muttering, Maurice rode on: his eyes now fixed upon the form still flitting away before him; at intervals interrogating, with uneasy glances, the space that separated him from it.

Up to this time he had not thought of hailing the rider of the runaway.

His shouts might have been heard; but no words of warning, or instruction. He had refrained: partly on this account; partly because he was in momentary expectation of overtaking her; and partly because he knew that acts, not words, were wanted to bring the mustang to a stand.

All along he had been flattering himself that he would soon be near enough to fling his lazo over the creature's neck, and control it at discretion. He was gradually becoming relieved of this hallucination.

The chase now entered among copses that thickly studded the plain, fast closing into a continuous chapparal. This was a new source of uneasiness to the pursuer. The runaway might take to the thicket, or become lost to his view amid the windings of the wood.

The wild mares were already invisible--at intervals. They would soon be out of sight altogether. There seemed no chance of their old associate overtaking them.

"What mattered that? A lady lost on a prairie, or in a chapparal-- alone, or in the midst of a manada--either contingency pointed to certain danger."

A still more startling peril suggested itself to the mind of the mustanger--so startling as to find expression in excited speech.

"By heavens!" he ejaculated, his brow becoming more clouded than it had been from his first entering upon the chase. "If the stallions should chance this way! 'Tis their favourite stamping ground among these mottos. They were here but a week ago; and this--yes--'tis the month of their madness!"

The spur of the mustanger again drew blood, till its rowels were red; and Castro, galloping at his utmost speed, glanced back upbraidingly over his shoulder.

At this crisis the manada disappeared from, the sight both of the blood-bay and his master; and most probably at the same time from that of the spotted mustang and its rider. There was nothing mysterious in it. The mares had entered between the closing of two copses, where the shrubbery hid them from view.

The effect produced upon the runaway appeared to proceed from some magical influence. As if their disappearance was a signal for discontinuing the chase, it suddenly slackened pace; and the instant after came to a standstill!

Maurice, continuing his gallop, came up with it in the middle of a meadow-like glade--standing motionless as marble--its rider, reins in hand, sitting silent in the saddle, in an attitude of easy elegance, as if waiting for him to ride up!

"Miss Poindexter!" he gasped out, as he spurred his steed within speaking distance: "I am glad that you have recovered command of that wild creature. I was beginning to be alarmed about--"

"About what, sir?" was the question that startled the mustanger.

"Your safety--of course," he replied, somewhat stammeringly. "Oh, thank you, Mr Gerald; but I was not aware of having been in any danger. Was I really so?"

"Any danger!" echoed the Irishman, with increased astonishment. "On the back of a runaway mustang--in the middle of a pathless prairie!"

"And what of that? The thing couldn't throw me. I'm too clever in the saddle, sir."

"I know it, madame; but that accomplishment would have availed you very little had you lost yourself, a thing you were like enough to have done among these chapparal copses, where the oldest Texan can scarce find his way."

"Oh--lost myself! That was the danger to be dreaded?"

"There are others, besides. Suppose you had fallen in with--"

"Indians!" interrupted the lady, without waiting for the mustanger to finish his hypothetical speech. "And if I had, what would it have mattered? Are not the Comanches en paz at present? Surely they wouldn't have molested me, gallant fellows as they are? So the major told us, as we came along. 'Pon my word, sir, I should seek, rather than shun, such an encounter. I wish to see the noble savage on his native prairie, and on horseback; not, as I've hitherto beheld him, reeling around the settlements in a state of debasement from too freely partaking of our fire-water."

"I admire your courage, miss; but if I had the honour of being one of your friends, I should take the liberty of counselling a little caution. The `noble savage' you speak of, is not always sober upon the prairies; and perhaps not so very gallant as you've been led to believe. If you had met him--"

"If I had met him, and he had attempted to misbehave himself, I would have given him the go-by, and ridden, straight back to my friends. On such a swift creature as this, he must have been well mounted to have overtaken me. You found some difficulty--did you not?"

The eyes of the young Irishman, already showing astonishment, became expanded to increased dimensions--surprise and incredulity being equally blended in their glance.

"But," said he, after a speechless pause, "you don't mean to say that you could have controlled--that the mustang was not running away with you? Am I to understand--"

"No--no--no!" hastily rejoined the fair equestrian, showing some slight embarrassment. "The mare certainly made off with me--that is, at the first--but I--I found, that is--at the last--I found I could easily pull her up. In fact I did so: you saw it?"

"And could you have done it sooner?"

A strange thought had suggested the interrogatory; and with more than ordinary interest the questioner awaited the reply.

"Perhaps--perhaps--I might; no doubt, if I had dragged a little harder upon the rein. But you see, sir, I like a good gallop--especially upon a prairie, where there's no fear of running over pigs, poultry, or people."

Maurice looked amaze. In all his experience--even in his own native land, famed for feminine braverie--above all in the way of bold riding--he had met no match for the clever equestrian before him.

His astonishment, mixed with admiration, hindered him from making a ready rejoinder.

"To speak truth," continued the young lady, with an air of charming simplicity, "I was not sorry at being run off with. One sometimes gets tired of too much talk--of the kind called complimentary. I wanted fresh air, and to be alone. So you see, Mr Gerald, it was rather a bit of good fortune: since it saved explanations and adieus."

"You wanted to be alone?" responded the mustanger, with a disappointed look. "I am sorry I should have made the mistake to have intruded upon you. I assure you, Miss Poindexter, I followed, because I believed you to be in danger."

"Most gallant of you, sir; and now that I know there was danger, I am truly grateful. I presume I have guessed aright: you meant the Indians?"

"No; not Indians exactly--at least, it was not of them I was thinking."

"Some other danger? What is it, sir? You will tell me, so that I may be more cautious for the future?"

Maurice did not make immediate answer. A sound striking upon his ear had caused him to turn away--as if inattentive to the interrogatory.

The Creole, perceiving there was some cause for his abstraction, likewise assumed a listening attitude. She heard a shrill scream, succeeded by another and another, close followed by a loud hammering of hoofs--the conjunction of sounds causing the still atmosphere to vibrate around her.

It was no mystery to the hunter of horses. The words that came quick from his lips--though not designed--were a direct answer to the question she had put.

"The wild stallions!" he exclaimed, in a tone that betokened alarm. "I knew they must be among those mottes; and they are!"

"Is that the danger of which you have been speaking?"

"It is."

"What fear of them? They are only mustangs!"

"True, and at other times there is no cause to fear them. But just now, at this season of the year, they become as savage as tigers, and equally as vindictive. Ah! the wild steed in his rage is an enemy more to be dreaded than wolf, panther, or bear."

"What are we to do?" inquired the young lady, now, for the first time, giving proof that she felt fear--by riding close up to the man who had once before rescued her from a situation of peril, and gazing anxiously in his face, as she awaited the answer.

"If they should charge upon us," answered Maurice, "there are but two ways of escape. One, by ascending a tree, and abandoning our horses to their fury."

"The other?" asked the Creole, with a sang froid that showed a presence of mind likely to stand the test of the most exciting crisis. "Anything but abandon our animals! 'Twould be but a shabby way of making our escape!"

"We shall not have an opportunity of trying it, I perceive it is impracticable. There's not a tree within sight large enough to afford us security. If attacked, we have no alternative but to trust to the fleetness of our horses. Unfortunately," continued he, with a glance of inspection towards the spotted mare, and then at his own horse, "they've had too much work this morning. Both are badly blown. That will be our greatest source of danger. The wild steeds are sure to be fresh."

"Do you intend us to start now?"

"Not yet. The longer we can breathe our animals the better. The stallions may not come this way; or if so, may not molest us. It will depend on their mood at the moment. If battling among themselves, we may look out for their attack. Then they have lost their reason--if I may so speak--and will recklessly rush upon one of their own kind--even with a man upon his back. Ha! 'tis as I expected: they are in conflict. I can tell by their cries! And driving this way, too!"

"But, Mr Gerald; why should we not ride off at once, in the opposite direction?"

"'Twould be of no use. There's no cover to conceal us, on that side-- nothing but open plain. They'll be out upon it before we could get a sufficient start, and would soon overtake us. The place we must make for--the only safe one I can think of--lies the other way. They are now upon the direct path to it, if I can judge by what I hear; and, if we start too soon, we may ride into their teeth. We must wait, and try to steal away behind them. If we succeed in getting past, and can keep our distance for a two-mile gallop, I know a spot, where we shall be as safe as if inside the corrals of Casa del Corvo. You are sure you can control the mustang?"

"Quite sure," was the prompt reply: all idea of deception being abandoned in presence of the threatening peril.

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Chapter Sixteen

CHASED BY WILD STALLIONS.

The two sat expectant in their saddles--she, apparently, with more confidence than he: for she confided in him. Still but imperfectly comprehending it, she knew there must be some great danger. When such a man showed sign of fear, it could not be otherwise. She had a secret happiness in thinking: that a portion of this fear was for her own safety.

"I think we may venture now;" said her companion, after a short period spent in listening; "they appear to have passed the opening by which we must make our retreat. Look well to your riding, I entreat you! Keep a firm seat in the saddle, and a sure hold of the rein. Gallop by my side, where the ground will admit of it; but in no case let more than the length of my horse's tail be between us. I must perforce go ahead to guide the way. Ha! they are coming direct for the glade. They're already close to its edge. Our time is up!"

The profound stillness that but a short while before pervaded the prairie, no longer reigned over it. In its stead had arisen a fracas that resembled the outpouring of some overcrowded asylum; for in the shrill neighing of the steeds might have been fancied the screams of maniacs--only ten times more vociferous. They were mingled with a thunder-like hammering of hoofs--a swishing and crashing of branches-- savage snorts, accompanied by the sharp snapping of teeth--the dull "thud" of heels coming in contact with ribs and rounded hips--squealing that betokened spite or pain--all forming a combination of sounds that jarred harshly upon the ear, and caused the earth to quake, as if oscillating upon its orbit!

It told of a terrible conflict carried on by the wild stallions; who, still unseen, were fighting indiscriminately among themselves, as they held their way among the mottes.

Not much longer unseen. As Maurice gave the signal to start, the speckled crowd showed itself in an opening between two copses. In a moment more it filled the gangway-like gap, and commenced disgorging into the glade, with the impetus of an avalanche!

It was composed of living forms--the most beautiful known in nature: for in this man must give way to the horse. Not the unsexed horse of civilisation, with hunched shoulders, bandied limbs, and bowed frontlet--scarce one in a thousand of true equine shape--and this, still further, mutilated by the shears of the coper and gentleman jockey--but the wild steed of the savannas, foaled upon the green grass, his form left free to develop as the flowers that shed their fragrance around him.

Eye never beheld a more splendid sight than a cavallada of wild stallions, prancing upon a prairie; especially at that season when, stirred by strong passions, they seek to destroy one another. The spectacle is more than splendid--it is fearful--too fearful to be enjoyed by man, much less by timid woman. Still more when the spectator views it from an exposed position, liable to become the object of their attack.

In such situation were the riders of the blood bay and spotted mustang. The former knew it by past experience--the latter could not fail to perceive it by the evidence before her.

"This way!" cried Maurice, lancing his horse's flanks with the spur, and bending so as to oblique to the rear of the cavallada.

"By heaven--they've discovered us! On--on! Miss Poindexter! Remember you are riding for your life!"

The stimulus of speech was not needed. The behaviour of the stallions was of itself sufficient to show, that speed alone could save the spotted mustang and its rider.

On coming out into the open ground, and getting sight of the ridden horses, they had suddenly desisted from their internecine strife; and, as if acting under the orders of some skilled leader, come to a halt. In line, too, like cavalry checked up in the middle of a charge!

For a time their mutual hostility seemed to be laid aside--as if they felt called upon to attack a common enemy, or resist some common danger!

The pause may have proceeded from surprise; but, whether or no, it was favourable to the fugitives. During the twenty seconds it continued, the latter had made good use of their time, and accomplished the circuit required to put them on the path of safety.

Only on the path, however. Their escape was still problematical: for the steeds, perceiving their intention, wheeled suddenly into the line of pursuit, and went galloping after, with snorts and screams that betrayed a spiteful determination to overtake them.

From that moment it became a straight unchanging chase across country--a trial of speed between the horses without riders, and the horses that were ridden.

At intervals did Maurice carry his chin to his shoulder; and though still preserving the distance gained at the start, his look was not the less one of apprehension.

Alone he would have laughed to scorn his pursuers. He knew that the blood-bay--himself a prairie steed--could surpass any competitor of his race. But the mare was delaying him. She was galloping slower than he had ever seen her--as if unwilling, or not coveting escape--like a horse with his head turned away from home!

"What can it mean?" muttered the mustanger, as he checked his pace, to accommodate it to that of his companion. "If there should be any baulk at the crossing, we're lost! A score of seconds will make the difference."

"We keep our distance, don't we?" inquired his fellow-fugitive, noticing his troubled look.

"So far, yes. Unfortunately there's an obstruction ahead. It remains to be seen how we shall get over it. I know you are a clever rider, and can take a long leap. But your mount? I'm not so sure of the mare. You know her better than I. Do you think she can carry you over--"

"Over what, sir?"

"You'll see in a second. We should be near the place now."

The conversation thus carried on was between two individuals riding side by side, and going at a gallop of nearly a mile to the minute!

As the guide had predicted, they soon came within sight of the obstruction; which proved to be an arroyo--a yawning fissure in the plain full fifteen feet in width, as many in depth, and trending on each side to the verge of vision.

To turn aside, either to the right or left, would be to give the pursuers the advantage of the diagonal; which the fugitives could no longer afford.

The chasm must be crossed, or the stallions would overtake them.

It could only be crossed by a leap--fifteen feet at the least. Maurice knew that his own horse could go over it--he had done it before. But the mare?

"Do you think she can do it?" he eagerly asked, as, in slackened pace, they approached the edge of the barranca.

"I am sure she can," was the confident reply.

"But are you sure you can sit her over it?"

"Ha! ha! ha!" scornfully laughed the Creole. "What a question for an Irishman to ask! I'm sure, sir, one of your own countrywomen would be offended at your speech. Even I, a native of swampy Louisiana, don't regard it as at all gallant. Sit her over it! Sit her anywhere she can carry me."

"But, Miss Poindexter," stammered the guide, still doubting the powers of the spotted mustang, "suppose she cannot? If you have any doubts, had you not better abandon her? I know that my horse can bear us both to the other side, and with safety. If the mustang be left behind, in all likelihood we shall escape further pursuit. The wild steeds--"

"Leave Luna behind! Leave her to be trampled to death, or torn to pieces--as you say she would! No--no, Mr Gerald. I prize the spotted mare too much for that. She goes with me: over the chasm, if we can. If not, we both break our necks at the bottom. Come, my pretty pet! This is he who chased, captured, and conquered you. Show him you're not yet so subdued, but that you can escape, when close pressed, from the toils of either friend or enemy. Show him one of those leaps, of which you've done a dozen within the week. Now for a flight in the air!"

Without even waiting for the stimulus of example, the courageous Creole rode recklessly at the arroyo; and cleared it by one of those leaps of which she had "done a dozen within the week."

There were three thoughts in the mind of the mustanger--rather might they be called emotions--as he sate watching that leap. The first was simple astonishment; the second, intense admiration. The third was not so easily defined. It had its origin in the words--"I prize the spotted mare too much for that."

"Why?" reflected he, as he drove his spur-rowels into the flanks of the blood bay; and the reflection lasted as long as Castro was suspended in mid-air over the yawning abysm.

Cleverly as the chasm was crossed, it did not ensure the safety of the fugitives. It would be no obstruction to the steeds. Maurice knew it, and looked back with undiminished apprehension.

Rather was it increased. The delay, short as it was, had given the pursuers an advantage. They were nearer than ever! They would not be likely to make a moment's pause, but clear the crevasse at a single bound of their sure-footed gallop.

And then--what then?

The mustanger put the question to himself. He grew paler, as the reply puzzled him.

On alighting from the leap, he had not paused for a second, but gone galloping on--as before, close followed by his fugitive companion. His pace, however, was less impetuous. He seemed to ride with irresolution, or as if some half-formed resolve was restraining him.

When about a score lengths from the edge of the arroyo, he reined up and wheeled round--as if he had suddenly formed the determination to ride back!

"Miss Poindexter!" he called out to the young lady, at that moment just up with him. "You must ride on alone."

"But why, sir?" asked she, as she jerked the muzzle of the mustang close up to its counter, bringing it almost instantaneously to a stand.

"If we keep together we shall be overtaken. I must do something to stay those savage brutes. Here there is a chance--nowhere else. For heaven's sake don't question me! Ten seconds of lost time, and 'twill be too late. Look ahead yonder. You perceive the sheen of water. 'Tis a prairie pond. Ride straight towards it. You will find yourself between two high fences. They come together at the pond. You'll see a gap, with bars. If I'm not up in time, gallop through, dismount, and put the bars up behind you."

"And you, sir? You are going to undergo some great danger?"

"Have no fear for me! Alone, I shall run but little risk. 'Tis the mustang.--For mercy's sake, gallop forward! Keep the water under your eyes. Let it guide you like a beacon fire. Remember to close the gap behind you. Away--away!"

For a second or two the young lady appeared irresolute--as if reluctant to part company with the man who was making such efforts to ensure her safety--perhaps at the peril of his own.

By good fortune she was not one of those timid maidens who turn frantic at a crisis, and drag to the bottom the swimmer who would save them. She had faith in the capability of her counsellor--believed that he knew what he was about--and, once more spurring the mare into a gallop, she rode off in a direct line for the prairie pond.

At the same instant, Maurice had given the rein to his horse, and was riding in the opposite direction--back to the place where they had leaped the arroyo!

On parting from his companion, he had drawn from his saddle holster the finest weapon ever wielded upon the prairies--either for attack or defence, against Indian, buffalo, or bear. It was the six-chambered revolver of Colonel Colt--not the spurious improvement of Deane, Adams, and a host of retrograde imitators--but the genuine article from the "land of wooden nutmegs," with the Hartford brand upon its breech.

"They must get over the narrow place where we crossed," muttered he, as he faced towards the stallions, still advancing on the other side of the arroyo.

"If I can but fling one of them in his tracks, it may hinder the others from attempting the leap; or delay them--long enough for the mustang to make its escape. The big sorrel is leading. He will make the spring first. The pistol's good for a hundred paces. He's within range now!"

Simultaneous with the last words came the crack of the six-shooter. The largest of the stallions--a sorrel in colour--rolled headlong upon the sward; his carcass falling transversely across the line that led to the leap.

Half-a-dozen others, close following, were instantly brought to a stand; and then the whole cavallada!

The mustanger stayed not to note their movements. Taking advantage of the confusion caused by the fall of their leader, he reserved the fire of the other five chambers; and, wheeling to the west, spurred on after the spotted mustang, now far on its way towards the glistening pond.

Whether dismayed by the fall of their chief--or whether it was that his dead body had hindered them from approaching the only place where the chasm could have been cleared at a leap--the stallions abandoned the pursuit; and Maurice had the prairie to himself as he swept on after his fellow fugitive.

He overtook her beyond the convergence of the fences on the shore of the pond. She had obeyed him in everything--except as to the closing of the gap. He found it open--the bars lying scattered over the ground. He found her still seated in the saddle, relieved from all apprehension for his safety, and only trembling with a gratitude that longed to find expression in speech.

The peril was passed.

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Chapter Seventeen

THE MUSTANG TRAP.

No longer in dread of any danger, the young Creole looked interrogatively around her.

There was a small lake--in Texan phraseology a "pond"--with countless horse-tracks visible along its shores, proving that the place was frequented by wild horses--their excessive number showing it to be a favourite watering place. There was a high rail fence--constructed so as to enclose the pond, and a portion of the contiguous prairie, with two diverging wings, carried far across the plain, forming a funnel-shaped approach to a gap; which, when its bars were up, completed an enclosure that no horse could either enter or escape from.

"What is it for?" inquired the lady, indicating the construction of split rails.

"A mustang trap," said Maurice.

"A mustang trap?"

"A contrivance for catching wild horses. They stray between the wings; which, as you perceive, are carried far out upon the plain. The water attracts them; or they are driven towards it by a band of mustangers who follow, and force them on through the gap. Once within the corral, there is no trouble in taking them. They are then lazoed at leisure."

"Poor things! Is it yours? You are a mustanger? You told us so?"

"I am; but I do not hunt the wild horse in this way. I prefer being alone, and rarely consort with men of my calling. Therefore I could not make use of this contrivance, which requires at least a score of drivers. My weapon, if I may dignify it by the name, is this--the lazo."

"You use it with great skill? I've heard that you do; besides having myself witnessed the proof."

"It is complimentary of you to say so. But you are mistaken. There are men on these prairies `to the manner born'--Mexicans--who regard, what you are pleased to call skill, as sheer clumsiness."

"Are you sure, Mr Gerald, that your modesty is not prompting you to overrate your rivals? I have been told the very opposite."

"By whom?"

"Your friend, Mr Zebulon Stump."

"Ha--ha! Old Zeb is but indifferent authority on the subject of the lazo."

"I wish I could throw the lazo," said the young Creole. "They tell me 'tis not a lady-like accomplishment. What matters--so long as it is innocent, and gives one a gratification?"

"Not lady-like! Surely 'tis as much so as archery, or skating? I know a lady who is very expert at it."

"An American lady?"

"No; she's Mexican, and lives on the Rio Grande; but sometimes comes across to the Leona--where she has relatives."

"A young lady?"

"Yes. About your own age, I should think, Miss Poindexter."

"Size?"

"Not so tall as you."

"But much prettier, of course? The Mexican ladies, I've heard, in the matter of good looks, far surpass us plain Americanos."

"I think Creoles are not included in that category," was the reply, worthy of one whose lips had been in contact with the famed boulder of Blarney.

"I wonder if I could ever learn to fling it?" pursued the young Creole, pretending not to have been affected by the complimentary remark. "Am I too old? I've been told that the Mexicans commence almost in childhood; that that is why they attain to such wonderful skill?"

"Not at all," replied Maurice, encouragingly. "'Tis possible, with a year or two's practice, to become a proficient lazoer. I, myself, have only been three years at; and--"

He paused, perceiving he was about to commit himself to a little boasting.

"And you are now the most skilled in all Texas?" said his companion, supplying the presumed finale of his speech.

"No, no!" laughingly rejoined he. "That is but a mistaken belief on the part of Zeb Stump, who judges my skill by comparison, making use of his own as a standard."

"Is it modesty?" reflected the Creole. "Or is this man mocking me? If I thought so, I should go mad!"

"Perhaps you are anxious to get back to your party?" said Maurice, observing her abstracted air. "Your father may be alarmed by your long absence? Your brother--your cousin--"

"Ah, true!" she hurriedly rejoined, in a tone that betrayed either pique, or compunction. "I was not thinking of that. Thanks, sir, for reminding me of my duty. Let us go back!"

Again in the saddle, she gathered up her reins, and plied her tiny spur--both acts being performed with an air of languid reluctance, as if she would have preferred lingering a little longer in the "mustang trap."

Once more upon the prairie, Maurice conducted his protegee by the most direct route towards the spot where they had parted from the picnic party.

Their backward way led them across a peculiar tract of country--what in Texas is called a "weed prairie," an appellation bestowed by the early pioneers, who were not very choice in their titles.

The Louisianian saw around her a vast garden of gay flowers, laid out in one grand parterre, whose borders were the blue circle of the horizon--a garden designed, planted, nurtured, by the hand of Nature.

The most plebeian spirit cannot pass through such a scene without receiving an impression calculated to refine it. I've known the illiterate trapper--habitually blind to the beautiful--pause in the midst of his "weed prairie," with the flowers rising breast high around him, gaze for a while upon their gaudy corollas waving beyond the verge of his vision; then continue his silent stride with a gentler feeling towards his fellow-man, and a firmer faith in the grandeur of his God.

"Pardieu! 'tis very beautiful!" exclaimed the enthusiastic Creole, reining up as if by an involuntary instinct.

"You admire these wild scenes, Miss Poindexter?"

"Admire them? Something more, sir! I see around me all that is bright and beautiful in nature: verdant turf, trees, flowers, all that we take such pains to plant or cultivate; and such, too, as we never succeed in equalling. There seems nothing wanting to make this picture complete--'tis a park perfect in everything!"

"Except the mansion?"

"That would spoil it for me. Give me the landscape where there is not a house in sight--slate, chimney, or tile--to interfere with the outlines of the trees. Under their shadow could I live; under their shadow let me--"

The word: "love" uppermost in her thoughts--was upon the tip of her tongue.

She dexterously restrained herself from pronouncing it--changing it to one of very different signification--"die."

It was cruel of the young Irishman not to tell her that she was speaking his own sentiments--repeating them to the very echo. To this was the prairie indebted for his presence. But for a kindred inclination-- amounting almost to a passion--he might never have been known as Maurice the mustanger.

The romantic sentiment is not satisfied with a "sham." It will soon consume itself, unless supported by the consciousness of reality. The mustanger would have been humiliated by the thought, that he chased the wild horse as a mere pastime--a pretext to keep him upon the prairies. At first, he might have condescended to make such an acknowledgment--but he had of late become thoroughly imbued with the pride of the professional hunter.

His reply might have appeared chillingly prosaic.

"I fear, miss, you would soon tire of such a rude life--no roof to shelter you--no society--no--"

"And you, sir; how is it you have not grown tired of it? If I have been correctly informed--your friend, Mr Stump, is my authority--you've been leading this life for several years. Is it so?"

"Quite true: I have no other calling."

"Indeed! I wish I could say the same. I envy you your lot. I'm sure I could enjoy existence amid these beautiful scene for ever and ever!"

"Alone? Without companions? Without even a roof to shelter you?"

"I did not say that. But, you've not told me. How do you live? Have you a house?"

"It does not deserve such a high-sounding appellation," laughingly replied the mustanger. "Shed would more correctly serve for the description of my jacale, which may be classed among the lowliest in the land."

"Where is it? Anywhere near where we've been to-day?"

"It is not very far from where we are now. A mile, perhaps. You see those tree-tops to the west? They shade my hovel from the sun, and shelter it from the storm."

"Indeed! How I should like to have a look at it! A real rude hut, you say?"

"In that I have but spoken the truth."

"Standing solitary?"

"I know of no other within ten miles of it."

"Among trees, and picturesque?"

"That depends upon the eye that beholds it."

"I should like to see it, and judge. Only a mile you say?"

"A mile there--the same to return--would be two."

"That's nothing. It would not take us a score of minutes."

"Should we not be trespassing on the patience of your people?"

"On your hospitality, perhaps? Excuse me, Mr Gerald!" continued the young lady, a slight shadow suddenly overcasting her countenance. "I did not think of it! Perhaps you do not live alone? Some other shares your--jacale--as you call it?"

"Oh, yes, I have a companion--one who has been with me ever since I--"

The shadow became sensibly darker.

Before the mustanger could finish his speech, his listener had pictured to herself a certain image, that might answer to the description of his companion: a girl of her own age--perhaps more inclining to embonpoint--with a skin of chestnut brown; eyes of almond shade, set piquantly oblique to the lines of the nose; teeth of more than pearly purity; a tinge of crimson upon the cheeks; hair like Castro's tail; beads and bangles around neck, arms, and ankles; a short kirtle elaborately embroidered; mocassins covering small feet; and fringed leggings, laced upon limbs of large development. Such were the style and equipments of the supposed companion, who had suddenly become outlined in the imagination of Louise Poindexter.

"Your fellow tenant of the jacale might not like being intruded upon by visitors--more especially a stranger?"

"On the contrary, he's but too glad to see visitors at any time--whether strangers or acquaintances. My foster-brother is the last man to shun society; of which, poor fellow! he sees precious little on the Alamo."

"Your foster-brother?"

"Yes. Phelim O'Neal by name--like myself a native of the Emerald Isle, and shire of Galway; only perhaps speaking a little better brogue than mine."

"Oh! the Irish brogue. I should so like to hear it spoken by a native of Galway. I am told that theirs is the richest. Is it so, Mr Gerald?"

"Being a Galwegian myself, my judgment might not be reliable; but if you will condescend to accept Phelim's hospitality for half-an-hour, he will, no doubt, give you an opportunity of judging for yourself."

"I should be delighted. 'Tis something so new. Let papa and the rest of them wait. There are plenty of ladies without me; or the gentlemen may amuse themselves by tracing up our tracks. 'Twill be as good a horse hunt as they are likely to have. Now, sir, I'm ready to accept your hospitality."

"There's not much to offer you, I fear. Phelim has been several days by himself, and as he's but an indifferent hunter, his larder is likely to be low. 'Tis fortunate you had finished luncheon before the stampede."

It was not Phelim's larder that was leading Louise Poindexter out of her way, nor yet the desire to listen to his Connemara pronunciation. It was not curiosity to look at the jacale of the mustanger; but a feeling of a far more irresistible kind, to which she was yielding, as if she believed it to be her fate!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

She paid a visit to the lone hut, on the Alamo; she entered under its roof; she scanned with seeming interest its singular penates; and noted, with pleased surprise, the books, writing materials, and other chattels that betokened the refinement of its owner; she listened with apparent delight to the palthogue of the Connemara man, who called her a "coleen bawn;" she partook of Phelim's hospitality--condescendingly tasting of everything offered, except that which was most urgently pressed upon her, "a dhrap of the crayther, drawn fresh from the dimmyjan;" and finally made her departure from the spot, apparently in the highest spirits.

Alas! her delight was short-lived: lasting only so long as it was sustained by the excitement of the novel adventure. As she recrossed the flower prairie, she found time for making a variety of reflections; and there was one that chilled her to the very core of her heart.

Was it the thought that she had been acting wrongly in keeping her father, her brother, and friends in suspense about her safety? Or had she become conscious of playing a part open to the suspicion of being unfeminine?

Not either. The cloud that darkened her brow in the midst of that blossoming brightness, was caused by a different, and far more distressing, reflection. During all that day, in the journey from the fort, after overtaking her in the chase, in the pursuit while protecting her, lingering by her side on the shore of the lake, returning across the prairie, under his own humble roof--in short everywhere--her companion had only been polite--had only behaved as a gentleman!

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Chapter Eighteen

JEALOUSY UPON THE TRAIL.

Of the two-score rescuers, who had started in pursuit of the runaway, but few followed far. Having lost sight of the wild mares, the mustang, and the mustanger, they began to lose sight of one another; and before long became dispersed upon the prairie--going single, in couples, or in groups of three and four together. Most of them, unused to tracking up a trail, soon strayed from that taken by the manada; branching off upon others, made, perhaps, by the same drove upon some previous stampede.

The dragoon escort, in charge of a young officer--a fresh fledgling from West Point--ran astray upon one of these ramifications, carrying the hindmost of the field along with it.

It was a rolling prairie through which the pursuit was conducted, here and there intersected by straggling belts of brushwood. These, with the inequalities of the surface, soon hid the various pursuing parties from one another; and in twenty minutes after the start, a bird looking from the heavens above, might have beheld half a hundred horsemen, distributed into half a score of groups--apparently having started from a common centre--spurring at full speed towards every quarter of the compass!

But one was going in the right direction--a solitary individual, mounted upon a large strong-limbed chestnut horse; that, without any claim to elegance of shape, was proving the possession both of speed and bottom. The blue frock-coat of half military cut, and forage cap of corresponding colour, were distinctive articles of dress habitually worn by the ex-captain of volunteer cavalry--Cassius Calhoun. He it was who directed the chestnut on the true trail; while with whip and spur he was stimulating the animal to extraordinary efforts. He was himself stimulated by a thought--sharp as his own spurs--that caused him to concentrate all his energies upon the abject in hand.

Like a hungry hound he was laying his head along the trail, in hopes of an issue that might reward him for his exertions.

What that issue was he had but vaguely conceived; but on occasional glance towards his holsters--from which protruded the butts of a brace of pistols--told of some sinister design that was shaping itself in his soul.

But for a circumstance that assisted him, he might, like the others, have gone astray. He had the advantage of them, however, in being guided by two shoe-tracks he had seen before. One, the larger, he recollected with a painful distinctness. He had seen it stamped upon a charred surface, amid the ashes of a burnt prairie. Yielding to an undefined instinct, he had made a note of it in his memory, and now remembered it.

Thus directed, the ci-devant captain arrived among the copses, and rode into the glade where the spotted mustang had been pulled up in such a mysterious manner. Hitherto his analysis had been easy enough. At this point it became conjecture. Among the hoof-prints of the wild mares, the shoe-tracks were still seen, but no longer going at a gallop. The two animals thus distinguished must have been halted, and standing in juxtaposition.

Whither next? Along the trail of the manada, there was no imprint of iron; nor elsewhere! The surface on all sides was hard, and strewn with pebbles. A horse going in rude gallop, might have indented it; but not one passing over it at a tranquil pace.

And thus had the spotted mustang and blood bay parted from that spot. They had gone at a walk for some score yards, before starting on their final gallop towards the mustang trap.

The impatient pursuer was puzzled. He rode round and round, and along the trail of the wild mares, and back again, without discovering the direction that had been taken by either of the ridden horses.

He was beginning to feel something more than surprise, when the sight of a solitary horseman advancing along the trail interrupted his uncomfortable conjectures.

It was no stranger who was drawing near. The colossal figure, clad in coarse habiliments, bearded to the buttons of his blanket coat, and bestriding the most contemptible looking steed that could have been found within a hundred miles of the spot, was an old acquaintance. Cassius Calhoun knew Zebulon Stump, and Zeb Stump knew Cash Calhoun, long before either had set foot upon the prairies of Texas.

"You hain't seed nuthin' o' the young lady, hev ye, Mister Calhoun?" inquired the hunter, as he rode up, with an unusual impressiveness of manner. "No, ye hain't," he continued, as if deducing his inference from the blank looks of the other. "Dog-gone my cats! I wonder what the hell hev becomed o' her! Kewrious, too; sech a rider as she air, ter let the durned goat o' a thing run away wi' her. Wal! thur's not much danger to be reeprehended. The mowstanger air putty sartin to throw his rope aroun' the critter, an that 'll put an eend to its capers. Why hev ye stopped hyur?"

"I'm puzzled about the direction they've taken. Their tracks show they've been halted here; but I can see the shod hoofs no farther."

"Whoo! whoo! yur right, Mister Cashus! They hev been halted hyur; an been clost thegither too. They hain't gone no further on the trail o' the wild maars. Sartin they hain't. What then?"

The speaker scanned the surface of the plain with an interrogative glance; as if there, and not from Cassius Calhoun, expecting an answer to his question.

"I cannot see their tracks anywhere," replied the ex-captain.

"No, kan't ye? I kin though. Lookee hyur! Don't ye see them thur bruises on the grass?"

"No."

"Durn it! thur plain es the nose on a Jew's face. Thur's a big shoe, an a little un clost aside o' it. Thet's the way they've rud off, which show that they hain't follered the wild maars no further than hyur. We'd better keep on arter them?"

"By all means!"

Without further parley, Zeb started along the new trail; which, though still undiscernible to the eye of the other, was to him as conspicuous as he had figuratively declared it.

In a little while it became visible to his companion--on their arrival at the place where the fugitives had once more urged their horses into a gallop to escape from the cavallada, and where the shod tracks deeply indented the turf.

Shortly after their trail was again lost--or would have been to a scrutiny less keen than that of Zeb Stump--among the hundreds of other hoof-marks seen now upon the sward.

"Hilloo!" exclaimed the old hunter, in some surprise at the new sign. "What's been a doin' hyur? This air some 'at kewrious."

"Only the tracks of the wild mares!" suggested Calhoun. "They appear to have made a circuit, and come round again?"

"If they hev it's been arter the others rud past them. The chase must a changed sides, I reck'n."

"What do you mean, Mr Stump?"

"That i'stead o' them gallupin' arter the maars, the maars hev been gallupin' arter them."

"How can you tell that?"

"Don't ye see that the shod tracks air kivered by them o' the maars? Maars--no! By the 'turnal airthquake!--them's not maar-tracks. They air a inch bigger. Thur's been studs this way--a hul cavayurd o' them. Geehosofat! I hope they hain't--"

"Haven't what?"

"Gone arter Spotty. If they hev, then thur will be danger to Miss Peintdexter. Come on!"

Without waiting for a rejoinder, the hunter started off at a shambling trot, followed by Calhoun, who kept calling to him for an explanation of his ambiguous words.

Zeb did not deign to offer any--excusing himself by a backward sweep of the hand, which seemed to say, "Do not bother me now: I am busy."

For a time he appeared absorbed in taking up the trail of the shod horses--not so easily done, as it was in places entirely obliterated by the thick trampling of the stallions. He succeeded in making it out by piecemeal--still going on at a trot.

It was not till he had arrived within a hundred yards of the arroyo that the serious shadow disappeared from his face; and, checking the pace of his mare, he vouchsafed the explanation once more demanded from him.

"Oh! that was the danger," said Calhoun, on hearing the explanation. "How do you know they have escaped it?"

"Look thur!"

"A dead horse! Freshly killed, he appears? What does that prove?"

"That the mowstanger hes killed him."

"It frightened the others off, you think, and they followed no further?"

"They follered no further; but it wa'n't adzackly thet as scared 'em off. Thur's the thing as kep them from follerin'. Ole Hickory, what a jump!"

The speaker pointed to the arroyo, on the edge of which both riders had now arrived.

"You don't suppose they leaped it?" said Calhoun. "Impossible."

"Leaped it clur as the crack o' a rifle. Don't ye see thur toe-marks, both on this side an the t'other? An' Miss Peintdexter fust, too! By the jumpin' Geehosofat, what a gurl she air sure enuf! They must both a jumped afore the stellyun war shot; else they kedn't a got at it. Thur's no other place whar a hoss ked go over. Geeroozalem! wa'n't it cunnin' o' the mowstanger to throw the stud in his tracks, jest in the very gap?"

"You think that he and my cousin crossed here together?"

"Not adzackly thegither," explained Zeb, without suspecting the motive of the interrogatory. "As I've sayed, Spotty went fust. You see the critter's tracks yonner on t'other side?"

"I do."

"Wal--don't ye see they air kivered wi' them o' the mowstanger's hoss?"

"True--true."

"As for the stellyuns, they hain't got over--ne'er a one o' the hul cavayurd. I kin see how it hez been. The young fellur pulled up on t'other side, an sent a bullet back inter this brute's karkidge. 'Twar jest like closin' the gap ahint him; an the pursooers, seein' it shet, guv up the chase, an scampered off in a different direckshun. Thur's the way they hev gone--up the side o' the gully!"

"They may have crossed at some other place, and continued the pursuit?"

"If they dud, they'd hev ten mile to go, afore they ked git back hyur-- five up, an five back agin. Not a bit o' that, Mister Calhoun. To needn't be uneezy 'bout Miss Lewaze bein' pursooed by them any further. Arter the jump, she's rud off along wi' the mowstanger--both on 'em as quiet as a kupple o' lambs. Thur wa'n't no danger then; an by this time, they oughter be dog-goned well on torst rejoinin' the people as stayed by the purvision waggon."

"Come on!" cried Calhoun, exhibiting as much impatience as when he believed his cousin to be in serious peril. "Come on, Mr Stump! Let us get back as speedily as possible!"

"Not so fast, if you pleeze," rejoined Zeb, permitting himself to slide leisurely out of his saddle, and then drawing his knife from his sheath. "I'll only want ye to wait for a matter o' ten minutes, or thereabout."

"Wait! For what?" peevishly inquired Calhoun.

"Till I kin strip the hide off o' this hyur sorrel. It appear to be a skin o' the fust qualerty; an oughter fetch a five-dollar bill in the settlements. Five-dollar bills ain't picked up every day on these hyur purayras."

"Damn the skin!" angrily ejaculated the impatient Southerner. "Come on, an leave it!"

"Ain't a goin' to do anythin' o' the sort," coolly responded the hunter, as he drew the sharp edge of his blade along the belly of the prostrate steed. "You kin go on if ye like, Mister Calhoun; but Zeb Stump don't start till he packs the hide of this hyur stellyun on the krupper o' his old maar. Thet he don't."

"Come, Zeb; what's the use of talking about my going back by myself? You know I can't find my way?"

"That air like enough. I didn't say ye ked."

"Look here, you obstinate old case! Time's precious to me just at this minute. It 'll take you a full half-hour to skin the horse."

"Not twenty minutes."

"Well, say twenty minutes. Now, twenty minutes are of more importance to me than a five-dollar bill. You say that's the value of the skin? Leave it behind; and I agree to make good the amount."

"Wal--that air durned gin'rous, I admit--dog-goned gin'rous. But I mussent except yur offer. It 'ud be a mean trick o' me--mean enuf for a yeller-bellied Mexikin--to take yur money for sech a sarvice as thet: the more so es I ain't no stranger to ye, an myself a goin' the same road. On the t'other hand, I kan't afford to lose the five dollars' worth o' hoss-hide which ud be rotten as punk--to say nuthin' o' it's bein' tored into skreeds by the buzzarts and coyoats--afore I mout find a chance to kum this way agin."

"'Tis very provoking! What am I to do?"

"You air in a hurry? Wal--I'm sorry to discommerdate ye. But--stay! Thur's no reezun for yur waitin' on me. Thur's nuthin' to hinder ye from findin' yur way to the waggon. Ye see that tree stannin' up agin the sky-line--the tall poplar yonner?"

"I do."

"Wal; do you remember ever to hev seed it afore? It air a queery lookin' plant, appearin' more like a church steeple than a tree."

"Yes--yes!" said Calhoun. "Now you've pointed it out, I do remember it. We rode close past it while in pursuit of the wild mares?"

"You dud that very thing. An' now, as ye know it, what air to hinder you from ridin' past it agin; and follering the trail o' the maars back'ard? That ud bring ye to yur startin'-peint; where, ef I ain't out o' my reck'nin', ye'll find yur cousin, Miss Peintdexter, an the hul o' yur party enjoying themselves wi' that 'ere French stuff, they call shampain. I hope they'll stick to it, and spare the Monongaheela--of which licker I shed like to hev a triflin' suck arter I git back myself."

Calhoun had not waited for the wind-up of this characteristic speech. On the instant after recognising the tree, he had struck the spurs into the sides of his chestnut, and gone off at a gallop, leaving old Zeb at liberty to secure the coveted skin.

"Geeroozalem!" ejaculated the hunter, glancing up, and noticing the quick unceremonious departure. "It don't take much o' a head-piece to tell why he air in sech a durned hurry. I ain't myself much guv torst guessin'; but if I ain't doggonedly mistaken it air a clur case o' jellacy on the trail!"

Zeb Stump was not astray in his conjecture. It was jealousy that urged Cassius Calhoun to take that hasty departure--black jealousy, that had first assumed shape in a kindred spot--in the midst of a charred prairie; that had been every day growing stronger from circumstances observed, and others imagined; that was now intensified so as to have become his prevailing passion.

The presentation and taming of the spotted mustang; the acceptance of that gift, characteristic of the giver, and gratifying to the receiver, who had made no effort to conceal her gratification; these, and other circumstances, acting upon the already excited fancy of Cassius Calhoun, had conducted him to the belief: that in Maurice the mustanger he would find his most powerful rival.

The inferior social position of the horse-hunter should have hindered him from having such belief, or even a suspicion.

Perhaps it might have done so, had he been less intimately acquainted with the character of Louise Poindexter. But, knowing her as he did-- associating with her from the hour of childhood--thoroughly understanding her independence of spirit--the braverie of her disposition, bordering upon very recklessness--he could place no reliance on the mere idea of gentility. With most women this may be depended upon as a barrier, if not to mesalliance, at least to absolute imprudence; but in the impure mind of Cassius Calhoun, while contemplating the probable conduct of his cousin, there was not even this feeble support to lean upon!

Chafing at the occurrences of the day--to him crookedly inauspicious--he hurried back towards the spot where the pic-nic had been held. The steeple-like tree guided him back to the trail of the manada; and beyond that there was no danger of straying. He had only to return along the path already trodden by him.

He rode at a rapid pace--faster than was relished by his now tired steed--stimulated by bitter thoughts, which for more than an hour were his sole companions--their bitterness more keenly felt in the tranquil solitude that surrounded him.

He was but little consoled by a sight that promised other companionship: that of two persons on horseback, riding in advance, and going in the same direction as himself, upon the same path. Though he saw but their backs--and at a long distance ahead--there was no mistaking the identity of either. They were the two individuals that had brought that bitterness upon his spirit.

Like himself they were returning upon the trail of the wild mares; which, when first seen, they had just struck, arriving upon it from a lateral path. Side by side--their saddles almost chafing against each other--to all appearance absorbed in a conversation of intense interest to both, they saw not the solitary horseman approaching them in a diagonal direction.

Apparently less anxious than he to rejoin the party of picknickers, they were advancing at a slow pace--the lady a little inclining to the rear.

Their proximity to one another--their attitudes in the saddle--their obvious inattention to outward objects--the snail-like pace at which they were proceeding--these, along with one or two other slighter circumstances observed by Calhoun, combined to make an impression on his mind--or rather to strengthen one already made--that almost drove him mad.

To gallop rapidly up, and rudely terminate the tete-a-tete, was but the natural instinct of the chivalric Southerner. In obedience to it he spitefully plied the spur; and once more forced his jaded chestnut into an unwilling canter.

In a few seconds, however, he slackened pace--as if changing his determination. The sound of his horse's hoofs had not yet warned the others of his proximity--though he was now less than two hundred yards behind them! He could hear the silvery tones of his cousin's voice bearing the better part of the conversation. How interesting it must be to both to have hindered them from perceiving his approach!

If he could but overhear what they were saying?

It seemed a most unpropitious place for playing eavesdropper; and yet there might be a chance?

The seeming interest of the dialogue to the individuals engaged in it gave promise of such opportunity. The turf of the savannah was soft as velvet. The hoof gliding slowly over it gave forth not the slightest sound.

Calhoun was still too impatient to confine himself to a walk; but his chestnut was accustomed to that gait, peculiar to the horse of the South-Western States--the "pace"; and into this was he pressed.

With hoofs horizontally striking the sward--elevated scarce an inch above the ground--he advanced swiftly and noiselessly; so quick withal, that in a few seconds he was close upon the heels of the spotted mustang, and the red steed of the mustanger!

He was then checked to a pace corresponding to theirs; while his rider, leaning forward, listened with an eagerness that evinced some terrible determination. His attitude proclaimed him in the vein for vituperation of the rudest kind--ready with ribald tongue; or, if need be, with knife and pistol!

His behaviour depended on a contingency--on what might be overheard.

As chance, or fate, willed it, there was nothing. If the two equestrians were insensible to external sounds, their steeds were not so absorbed. In a walk the chestnut stepped heavily--the more so from being fatigued. His footfall proclaimed his proximity to the sharp ears, both of the blood-bay and spotted mustang; that simultaneously flung up their heads, neighing as they did so.

Calhoun was discovered.

"Ha! cousin Cash!" cried the lady, betraying more of pique than surprise; "you there? Where's father, and Harry, and the rest of the people?"

"Why do you ask that, Loo? I reckon you know as well as I."

"What! haven't you come out to meet us? And they too--ah! your chestnut is all in a sweat! He looks as if you had been riding a long race--like ourselves?"

"Of coarse he has. I followed you from the first--in hopes of being of some service to you."

"Indeed! I did not know that you were after us. Thank you, cousin! I've just been saying thanks to this gallant gentleman, who also came after, and has been good enough to rescue both Luna and myself from a very unpleasant dilemma--a dreadful danger I should rather call it. Do you know that we've been chased by a drove of wild steeds, and had actually to ride for our lives?"

"I am aware of it."

"You saw the chase then?"

"No. I only knew it by the tracks."

"The tracks! And were you able to tell by that?"

"Yes--thanks to the interpretation of Zeb Stump."

"Oh! he was with you? But did you follow them to--to--how far did you follow them?"

"To a crevasse in the prairie. You leaped over it, Zeb said. Did you?"

"Luna did."

"With you on her back?"

"I wasn't anywhere else! What a question, cousin Cash! Where would you expect me to have been? Clinging to her tail? Ha! ha! ha!"

"Did you leap it?" inquired the laugher, suddenly changing tone. "Did you follow us any farther?"

"No, Loo. From the crevasse I came direct here, thinking you had got back before me. That's how I've chanced to come up with you."

The answer appeared to give satisfaction.

"Ah! I'm glad you've overtaken us. We've been riding slowly. Luna is so tired. Poor thing! I don't know how I shall ever get her back to the Leona."

Since the moment of being joined by Calhoun, the mustanger had not spoken a word. However pleasant may have been his previous intercourse with the young Creole, he had relinquished it, without any apparent reluctance; and was now riding silently in the advance, as if by tacit understanding he had returned to the performance of the part for which he had been originally engaged.

For all that, the eye of the ex-captain was bent blightingly upon him-- at times in a demoniac glare--when he saw--or fancied--that another eye was turned admiringly in the same direction.

A long journey performed by that trio of travellers might have led to a tragical termination. Such finale was prevented by the appearance of the picknickers; who soon after surrounding the returned runaway, put to flight every other thought by the chorus of their congratulations.

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Chapter Nineteen

WHISKY AND WATER.

In the embryo city springing up under the protection of Fort Inge, the "hotel" was the most conspicuous building. This is but the normal condition of every Texan town--whether new or founded forty years ago; and none are older, except the sparse cities of Hispano-Mexican origin-- where the presidio and convent took precedence, now surpassed by, and in some instances transformed into, the "tavern."

The Fort Inge establishment, though the largest building in the place, was, nevertheless, neither very grand nor imposing. Its exterior had but little pretence to architectural style. It was a structure of hewn logs, having for ground-plan the letter T according to the grotesque alphabet--the shank being used for eating and sleeping rooms, while the head was a single apartment entirely devoted to drinking--smoking and expectorating included. This last was the bar-room, or "saloon."

The sign outside, swinging from the trunk of a post-oak, that had been pollarded some ten feet above the ground, exhibited on both sides the likeness of a well known military celebrity--the hero of that quarter of the globe--General Zachariah Taylor. It did not need looking at the lettering beneath to ascertain the name of the hotel. Under the patronage of such a portrait it could only be called "Rough and Ready."

There was a touch of the apropos about this designation. Outside things appeared rough enough; while inside, especially if you entered by the "saloon," there was a readiness to meet you half way, with a mint julep, a sherry cobbler, a gin sling, or any other mixed drink known to trans-Mississippian tipplers--provided always that you were ready with the picayunes to pay for them.

The saloon in question would not call for description, had you ever travelled in the Southern, or South-Western, States of America. If so, no Lethean draught could ever efface from your memory the "bar-room" of the hotel or tavern in which you have had the unhappiness to sojourn. The counter extending longitudinally by the side; the shelved wall behind, with its rows of decanters and bottles, containing liquors, of not only all the colours of the prism, but every possible combination of them; the elegant young fellow, standing or sidling between counter and shelves, ycleped "clerk"--don't call him a "barkeeper," or you may get a decanter in your teeth--this elegant young gentleman, in blouse of blue cottonade, or white linen coat, or maybe in his shirt sleeves--the latter of finest linen and lace--ruffled, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and fifty--this elegant young gentleman, who, in mixing you a sherry cobbler, can look you straight in the face, talk to you the politics of the day, while the ice, and the wine, and the water, are passing from glass to glass, like an iris sparkling behind his shoulders, or an aureole surrounding his perfumed head! Traveller through the Southern States of America you; cannot fail to remember him?

If so, my words will recall him, along with his surroundings--the saloon in which he is the presiding administrator, with its shelves and coloured decanters; its counter; its floor sprinkled with white sand, at times littered with cigar stumps, and the brown asterisks produced by expectoration--its odour of mint, absinthe, and lemon-peel, in which luxuriate the common black fly, the blue-bottle, and the sharp-tongued mosquito. All these must be sharply outlined on the retina of your memory.

The hotel, or tavern, "Rough and Ready," though differing but little from other Texan houses of entertainment, had some points in particular. Its proprietor, instead of being a speculative Yankee, was a German--in this part of the world, as elsewhere, found to be the best purveyors of food. He kept his own bar; so that on entering the saloon, instead of the elegant young gentleman with ruffled shirt and odorous chevelure, your "liquor" was mixed for you by a staid Teuton, who looked as sober as if he never tasted--notwithstanding the temptation of wholesale price--the delicious drinks served out to his customers. Oberdoffer was the name he had imported with him from his fatherland; transformed by his Texan customers into "Old Duffer."

There was one other peculiarity about the bar-room of the "Rough and Ready," though it scarce deserved to be so designated; since it was not uncommon elsewhere. As already stated, the building was shaped like a capital T; the saloon representing the head of the letter. The counter extended along one side, that contiguous to the shank; while at each end was a door that opened outward into the public square of the incipient city.

This arrangement had been designed to promote the circulation of the air--a matter of primary importance in an atmosphere where the thermometer for half the year stands at 90 degrees in the shade.

The hotels of Texas or the South-Western States--I may say every part of the American Union--serve the double purpose of exchange and club-house. Indeed, it is owing to the cheap accommodation thus afforded--often of the most convenient kind--that the latter can scarce be said to exist.

Even in the larger cities of the Atlantic states the "club" is by no means a necessity. The moderate charges of the hotels, along with their excellent cuisine and elegant accommodations, circumscribe the prosperity of this institution; which in America is, and ever must be, an unhealthy exotic.

The remark is still more true of the Southern and South-western cities; where the "saloon" and "bar-room" are the chief places of resort and rendezvous.

The company, too, is there of a more miscellaneous character. The proud planter does not disdain--for he does not dare--to drink in the same room with the "poor white trash;" often as proud as himself.

There is no peasant in that part of the world--least of all in the state called Texas; and in the saloon of "Rough and Ready" might often be seen assembled representatives of every class and calling to be met with among the settlements.

Perhaps not upon any occasion since "Old Duffer" had hung out the sign of his tavern, was he favoured with a larger company, or served more customers across his counter, than upon that night, after the return of the horse-hunting party to Fort Inge.

With the exception of the ladies, almost every one who had taken part in the expedition seemed to think that a half-hour spent at the "Rough and Ready" was necessary as a "nightcap" before retiring to rest; and as the Dutch clock, quaintly ticking among the coloured decanters, indicated the hour of eleven, one after another--officers of the Fort--planters living near along the river--Sutlers--commissariat contractors--"sportsmen"--and others who might be called nondescripts-- came dropping in; each as he entered marching straight up to the counter, calling for his favourite drink, and then falling back to converse with some group already occupying the floor.

One of these groups was conspicuous. It consisted of some eight or ten individuals, half of them in uniform. Among the latter were the three officers already introduced; the captain of infantry, and the two lieutenants--Hancock of the dragoons, and Crossman of the mounted rifles.

Along with these was an officer older than any of them, also higher in authority, as could be told by the embroidery on his shoulder-strap, that proclaimed him of the rank of major. As he was the only "field officer" at Fort Inge, it is unnecessary to say he was the commandant of the cantonment.

These gentlemen were conversing as freely as if all were subalterns of equal rank--the subject of the discourse being the incidents of the day.

"Now tell us, major!" said Hancock: "you must know. Where did the girl gallop to?"

"How should I know?" answered the officer appealed to. "Ask her cousin, Mr Cassius Calhoun."

"We have asked him, but without getting any satisfaction. It's clear he knows no more than we. He only met them on the return--and not very far from the place where we had our bivouac. They were gone a precious long time; and judging by the sweat of their horses they must have had a hard ride of it. They might have been to the Rio Grande, for that matter, and beyond it."

"Did you notice Calhoun as he came back?" inquired the captain of infantry. "There was a scowl upon his face that betokened some very unpleasant emotion within his mind, I should say."

"He did look rather unhappy," replied the major; "but surely, Captain Sloman, you don't attribute it to--?"

"Jealousy. I do, and nothing else."

"What! of Maurice the mustanger? Poh--poh! impossible--at least, very improbable."

"And why, major?"

"My dear Sloman, Louise Poindexter is a lady, and Maurice Gerald--"

"May be a gentleman for aught that is known to the contrary."

"Pshaw!" scornfully exclaimed Crossman; "a trader in horses! The major is right--the thing's improbable--impossible."

"Ah, gentlemen!" pursued the officer of infantry, with a significant shake of the head. "You don't know Miss Poindexter, so well as I. An eccentric young lady--to say the least of her. You may have already observed that for yourselves."

"Come, come, Sloman!" said the major, in a bantering way; "you are inclined to be talking scandal, I fear. That would be a scandal. Perhaps you are yourself interested in Miss Poindexter, notwithstanding your pretensions to be considered a Joseph? Now, I could understand your being jealous if it were handsome Hancock here, or Crossman-- supposing him to be disengaged. But as for a common mustanger--poh-- poh!"

"He's an Irishman, major, this mustanger; and if he be what I have some reason to suspect--"

"Whatever he be," interrupted the major, casting a side glance towards the door, "he's there to answer for himself; and as he's a sufficiently plain-spoken fellow, you may learn from him all about the matter that seems to be of so much interest to you."

"I don't think you will," muttered Sloman, as Hancock and two or three others turned towards the new-comer, with the design of carrying out the major's suggestion.

Silently advancing across the sanded floor, the mustanger had taken his stand at an unoccupied space in front of the counter.

"A glass of whisky and water, if you please?" was the modest request with which to saluted the landlord.

"Visky und vachter!" echoed the latter, without any show of eagerness to wait upon his new guest. "Ya, woe, visky und vachter! It ish two picayunsh the glass."

"I was not inquiring the price," replied the mustanger, "I asked to be served with a glass of whisky and water. Have you got any?"

"Yesh--yesh," responded the German, rendered obsequious by the sharp rejoinder. "Plenty--plenty of visky und vachter. Here it ish."

While his simple potation was being served out to him, Maurice received nods of recognition from the officers, returning them with a free, but modest air. Most of them knew him personally, on account of his business relations with the Fort.

They were on the eve of interrogating him--as the major had suggested-- when the entrance of still another individual caused them to suspend their design.

The new-comer was Cassius Calhoun. In his presence it would scarce have been delicacy to investigate the subject any further.

Advancing with his customary swagger towards the mixed group of military men and civilians, Calhoun saluted them as one who had spent the day in their company, and had been absent only for a short interval. If not absolutely intoxicated, it could be seen that the ex-officer of volunteers was under the influence of drink. The unsteady sparkle of his eyes, the unnatural pallor upon his forehead--still further clouded by two or three tossed tresses that fell over it--with the somewhat grotesque set of his forage cap--told that he had been taking one beyond the limits of wisdom.

"Come, gentlemen!" cried he, addressing himself to the major's party, at the same time stepping up to the counter; "let's hit the waggon a crack, or old Dunder-und-blitzen behind the bar will say we're wasting his lights. Drinks all round. What say you?"

"Agreed--agreed!" replied several voices.

"You, major?"

"With pleasure, Captain Calhoun."

According to universal custom, the intended imbibers fell into line along the counter, each calling out the name of the drink most to his liking at the moment.

Of these were ordered almost as many kinds as there were individuals in the party; Calhoun himself shouting out--"Brown sherry for me;" and immediately adding--"with a dash of bitters."

"Prandy und pitters, you calls for, Mishter Calhoun?" said the landlord, as he leant obsequiously across the counter towards the reputed partner of an extensive estate.

"Certainly, you stupid Dutchman! I said brown sherry, didn't I?"

"All rights, mein herr; all rights! Prandy und pitters--prandy und pitters," repeated the German Boniface, as he hastened to place the decanter before his ill-mannered guest.

With the large accession of the major's party, to several others already in the act of imbibing, the whole front of the long counter became occupied--with scarce an inch to spare.

Apparently by accident--though it may have been design on the part of Calhoun--he was the outermost man on the extreme right of those who had responded to his invitation.

This brought him in juxtaposition with Maurice Gerald, who alone--as regarded boon companionship--was quietly drinking his whisky and water, and smoking a cigar he had just lighted.

The two were back to back--neither having taken any notice of the other.

"A toast!" cried Calhoun, taking his glass from the counter.

"Let us have it!" responded several voices.

"America for the Americans, and confusion to all foreign interlopers-- especially the damned Irish!"

On delivering the obnoxious sentiment, he staggered back a pace; which brought his body in contact with that of the mustanger--at the moment standing with the glass raised to his lips.

The collision caused the spilling of a portion of the whisky and water; which fell over the mustanger's breast.

Was it an accident? No one believed it was--even for a moment. Accompanied by such a sentiment the act could only have been an affront intended and premeditated.

All present expected to see the insulted man spring instantly upon his insulter. They were disappointed, as well as surprised, at the manner in which the mustanger seemed to take it. There were some who even fancied he was about to submit to it.

"If he does," whispered Hancock in Sloman's ear, "he ought to be kicked out of the room."

"Don't you be alarmed about that," responded the infantry officer, in the same sotto voce. "You'll find it different. I'm not given to betting, as you know; but I'd lay a month's pay upon it the mustanger don't back out; and another, that Mr Cassius Calhoun will find him an ugly customer to deal with, although just now he seems more concerned about his fine shirt, than the insult put upon him. Odd devil he is!"

While this whispering was being carried on, the man to whom it related was still standing by the bar--to use a hackneyed phrase, "the observed of all observers."

Having deposited his glass upon the counter, he had drawn a silk handkerchief from his pocket, and was wiping from his embroidered shirt bosom the defilement of the spilt whisky.

There was an imperturbable coolness about the action, scarce compatible with the idea of cowardice; and those who had doubted him perceived that they had made a mistake, and that there was something to come. In silence they awaited the development.

They had not long to wait. The whole affair--speculations and whisperings included--did not occupy twenty seconds of time; and then did the action proceed, or the speech which was likely to usher it in.

"I am an Irishman," said the mustanger, as he returned his handkerchief to the place from which he had taken it.

Simple as the rejoinder may have appeared, and long delayed as it had been, there was no one present who mistook its meaning. If the hunter of wild horses had tweaked the nose of Cassius Calhoun, it would not have added emphasis to that acceptance of his challenge. Its simplicity but proclaimed the serious determination of the acceptor.

"You?" scornfully retorted Calhoun, turning round, and standing with his arms akimbo. "You?" he continued, with his eye measuring the mustanger from head to foot, "you an Irishman? Great God, sir, I should never have thought so! I should have taken you for a Mexican, judging by your rig, and the elaborate stitching of your shirt."

"I can't perceive how my rig should concern you, Mr Cassius Calhoun; and as you've done my shirt no service by spilling half my liquor upon it, I shall take the liberty of unstarching yours in a similar fashion."

So saying, the mustanger took up his glass; and, before the ex-captain of volunteers could duck his head, or get out of the way, the remains of the mixed Monongahela were "swilled" into his face, sending him off into a fit of alternate sneezing and coughing that appeared to afford satisfaction to more than a majority of the bystanders.

The murmur of approbation was soon suppressed. The circumstances were not such as to call for speech; and the exclamations that accompanied the act were succeeded by a hush of silence. All saw that the quarrel could not be otherwise than a serious one. The affair must end in a fight. No power on earth could prevent it from coming to that conclusion.

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Chapter Twenty

AN UNSAFE POSITION.

On receiving the alcoholic douche, Calhoun had clutched his six-shooter, and drawn it from its holster. He only waited to get the whisky out of his eyes before advancing upon his adversary.

The mustanger, anticipating this action, had armed himself with a similar weapon, and stood ready to return the fire of his antagonist-- shot for shot.

The more timid of the spectators had already commenced making their escape out of doors tumbling over one another, in their haste to get out of harm's way.

A few stayed in the saloon from sheer irresolution; a few others, of cooler courage, from choice; or, perhaps, actuated by a more astute instinct, which told them that in attempting to escape they might get a bullet in the back.

There was an interval--some six seconds--of silence, during which a pin might have been heard falling upon the floor. It was but the interlude that often occurs between resolution and action; when the mind has completed its task, and the body has yet to begin.

It might have been more brief with other actors on the scene. Two ordinary men would have blazed away at once, and without reflection. But the two now confronting each other were not of the common kind. Both had seen street fighting before--had taken part in it--and knew the disadvantage of an idle shot. Each was determined to take sure aim on the other. It was this that prolonged the interval of inaction.

To those outside, who dared not even look through the doors, the suspense was almost painful. The cracking of the pistols, which they expected every moment to hear, would have been a relief. It was almost a disappointment when, instead, they heard the voice of the major--who was among the few who had stayed inside--raised in a loud authoritative tone.

"Hold!" commanded he, in the accent of one accustomed to be obeyed, at the same time whisking his sabre out of its scabbard, and interposing its long blade between the disputants.

"Hold your fire--I command you both. Drop your muzzles; or by the Almighty I'll take the arm off the first of you that touches trigger! Hold, I say!"

"Why?" shouted Calhoun, purple with angry passion. "Why, Major Ringwood? After an insult like that, and from a low fellow--"

"You were the first to offer it, Captain Calhoun."

"Damn me if I care! I shall be the last to let it pass unpunished. Stand out of the way, major. The quarrel is not yours--you have no right to interfere!"

"Indeed! Ha! ha! Sloman! Hancock! Crossman! hear that? I have no right to interfere! Hark ye, Mr Cassius Calhoun, ex-captain of volunteers! Know you where you are, sir? Don't fancy yourself in the state of Mississippi--among your slave-whipping chivalry. This, sir, is a military post--under military law--my humble self its present administrator. I therefore command you to return your six-shooter to the holster from which you have taken it. This instant too, or you shall go to the guard-house, like the humblest soldier in the cantonment!"

"Indeed!" sneeringly replied the Mississippian. "What a fine country you intend Texas to become! I suppose a man mustn't fight, however much aggrieved, without first obtaining a licence from Major Ringwood? Is that to be the law of the land?"

"Not a bit of it," retorted the major. "I'm not the man--never was--to stand in the way of the honest adjustment of a quarrel. You shall be quite at liberty--you and your antagonist--to kill one another, if it so please you. But not just now. You must perceive, Mr Calhoun, that your sport endangers the lives of other people, who have not the slightest interest in it. I've no idea of being bored by a bullet not intended for me. Wait till the rest of us can withdraw to a safe distance; and you may crack away to your heart's content. Now, sir, will that be agreeable to you?"

Had the major been a man of ordinary character his commands might have been disregarded. But to his official weight, as chief officer of the post, was added a certain reverence due to seniority in age--along with respect for one who was himself known to wield a weapon with dangerous skill, and who allowed no trilling with his authority.

His sabre had not been unsheathed by way of empty gesticulation. The disputants knew it; and by simultaneous consent lowered the muzzles of their pistols--still holding them in hand.

Calhoun stood, with sullen brow, gritting his teeth, like a beast of prey momentarily withheld from making attack upon its victim; while the mustanger appeared to take things as coolly as if neither angry, nor an Irishman.

"I suppose you are determined upon fighting?" said the major, knowing that, there was not much chance of adjusting the quarrel.

"I have no particular wish for it," modestly responded Maurice. "If Mr Calhoun will apologise for what he has said, and also what he has done--"

"He ought to do it: he began the quarrel!" suggested several of the bystanders.

"Never!" scornfully responded the ex-captain. "Cash Calhoun ain't accustomed to that sort of thing. Apologise indeed! And to a masquerading monkey like that!"

"Enough!" cried the young Irishman, for the first time showing serious anger; "I gave him a chance for his life. He refuses to accept it: and now, by the Mother of God, we don't both leave this room alive! Major! I insist that you and your friends withdraw. I can stand his insolence no longer!"

"Ha--ha--ha!" responded the Southerner, with a yell of derisive laughter; "a chance for my life! Clear out, all of ye--clear out; and let me at him!"

"Stay!" cried the major, hesitating to turn his back upon the duellist. "It's not quite safe. You may fancy to begin your game of touch-trigger a second too soon. We must get out of doors before you do. Besides, gentlemen!" he continued, addressing himself to those around him, "there should be some system about this. If they are to fight, let it be fair for both sides. Let them be armed alike; and go at it on the square!"

"By all means!" chorused the half-score of spectators, turning their eyes towards the disputants, to see if they accepted the proposal.

"Neither of you can object?" continued the major, interrogatively.

"I sha'n't object to anything that's fair," assented the Irishman--"devil a bit!"

"I shall fight with the weapon I hold in my hand," doggedly declared Calhoun.

"Agreed! the very weapon for me!" was the rejoinder of his adversary.

"I see you both carry Colt's six-shooter Number 2," said the major, scanning the pistols held in hand. "So far all right! you're armed exactly alike."

"Have they any other weapons?" inquired young Hancock, suspecting that under the cover of his coat the ex-captain had a knife.

"I have none," answered the mustanger, with a frankness that left no doubt as to his speaking the truth.

All eyes were turned upon Calhoun, who appeared to hesitate about making a reply. He saw he must declare himself.

"Of course," he said, "I have my toothpick as well. You don't want me to give up that? A man ought to be allowed to use whatever weapon he has got."

"But, Captain Calhoun," pursued Hancock, "your adversary has no knife. If you are not afraid to meet him on equal terms you should surrender yours."

"Certainly he should!" cried several of the bystanders. "He must! he must!"

"Come, Mr Calhoun!" said the major, in a soothing tone. "Six shots ought to satisfy any reasonable man; without having recourse to the steel. Before you finish firing, one or the other of you--"

"Damn the knife!" interrupted Calhoun, unbuttoning his coat. Then drawing forth the proscribed weapon, and flinging it to the farthest corner of the saloon, he added, in a tone of bravado, intended to encowardice his adversary. "I sha'n't want it for such a spangled jay-bird as that. I'll fetch him out of his boots at the first shot."

"Time enough to talk when you've done something to justify it. Cry boo to a goose; but don't fancy your big words are going to frighten me, Mr Calhoun! Quick, gentlemen! I'm impatient to put an end to his boasting and blasphemy!"

"Hound!" frantically hissed out the chivalric Southerner. "Low dog of an Irish dam! I'll send you howling to your kennel! I'll--"

"Shame, Captain Calhoun!" interrupted the major, seconded by other voices. "This talk is idle, as it is unpolite in the presence of respectable company. Have patience a minute longer; and you may then say what you like. Now, gentlemen!" he continued, addressing himself to the surrounding, "there is only one more preliminary to be arranged. They must engage not to begin firing till we have got out of their way?"

A difficulty here presented itself. How was the engagement to be given? A simple promise would scarce be sufficient in a crisis like that? The combatants--one of them at least--would not be over scrupulous as to the time of pulling trigger.

"There must be a signal," pursued the major. "Neither should fire till that be given. Can any one suggest what it is to be?"

"I think. I can," said the quiet Captain Sloman, advancing as he spoke. "Let the gentlemen go outside, along with us. There is--as you perceive--a door at each end of the room. I see no difference between them. Let them enter again--one at each door, with the understanding that neither is to fire before setting foot across the threshold."

"Capital! the very thing!" replied several voices. "And what for a signal?" demanded the major. "A shot?"

"No. Ring the tavern bell!"

"Nothing could be better--nothing fairer," conclusively declared the major, making for one of the doors, that led outward into the square.

"Mein Gott, major!" screamed the German Boniface, rushing out from behind his bar; where, up to this time, he had been standing transfixed with fear. "Mein Gott--surely the shentlemens pe not going to shoot their pisthols inside the shaloon: Ach! they'll preak all my pottles, and my shplendid looking-glashes, an my crystal clock, that hash cost me von--two hundred dollars. They'll shpill my pesht liquors--ach! Major, it'll ruin me--mein Gott--it will!"

"Never fear, Oberdoffer!" rejoined the major, pausing to reply. "No doubt you'll be paid for the damage. At all events, you had better betake yourself to some place of safety. If you stay in your saloon you'll stand a good chance of getting a bullet through your body, and that would be worse than the preaking of your pottles."

Without further parley the major parted from the unfortunate landlord, and hurried across the threshold into the street, whither the combatants, who had gone out by separate doors, had already preceded him.

"Old Duffer," left standing in the middle of his sanded floor, did not remain long in that perilous position. In six seconds after the major's coat-tail had disappeared through the outer door, an inner one closed upon his own skirts; and the bar-room, with its camphine lamps, its sparkling decanters, and its costly mirrors, was left in untenanted silence--no other sound being heard save the ticking of its crystal clock.

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Chapter Twenty One

A DUEL WITHIN DOORS.

Once outside, the major took no further part in the affair. As the commanding officer of the post, it would have been out of place for him to have given encouragement to a fight--even by his interfering to see that it should be a fair one. This, however, was attended to by the younger officers; who at once set about arranging the conditions of the duel.

There was not much time consumed. The terms had been expressed already; and it only remained to appoint some one of the party to superintend the ringing of the bell, which was to be the signal for the combat to commence.

This was an easy matter, since it made no difference who might be entrusted with the duty. A child might have sounded the summons for the terrible conflict that was to follow.

A stranger, chancing at that moment to ride into the rude square of which the hotel "Rough and Ready" formed nearly a side, would have been sorely puzzled to comprehend what was coming to pass. The night was rather dark, though there was still light enough to make known the presence of a conglomeration of human beings, assembled in the proximity of the hotel. Most were in military garb: since, in addition to the officers who had lately figured inside the saloon, others, along with such soldiers as were permitted to pass the sentries, had hastened down from the Fort on receiving intelligence that something unusual was going on within the "square." Women, too, but scantily robed--soldiers' wives, washerwomen, and "senoritas" of more questionable calling--had found their way into the street, and were endeavouring to extract from those who had forestalled them an explanation of the fracas.

The conversation was carried on in low tones. It was known that the commandant of the post was present, as well as others in authority; and this checked any propensity there might have been for noisy demonstration.

The crowd, thus promiscuously collected, was not in close proximity with the hotel; but standing well out in the open ground, about a dozen yards from the building. Towards it, however, the eyes of all were directed, with that steady stare which tells of the attention being fixed on some engrossing spectacle. They were watching the movements of two men, whose positions were apart--one at each end of the heavy blockhouse, known to be the bar-room of the hotel; and where, as already stated, there was a door.

Though separated by the interposition of two thick log walls, and mutually invisible, these men were manoeuvring as if actuated by a common impulse. They stood contiguous to the entrance doors, at opposite ends of the bar-room, through both of which glared the light of the camphine lamps--falling in broad divergent bands upon the rough gravel outside. Neither was in front of the contiguous entrance; but a little to one side, just clear of the light. Neither was in an upright attitude, but crouching--not as if from fear, but like a runner about to make a start, and straining upon the spring.

Both were looking inwards--into the saloon, where no sound could be heard save the ticking of a clock. Their attitudes told of their readiness to enter it, and that they were only restrained by waiting for some preconcerted signal.

That their purpose was a serious one could be deduced from several circumstances. Both were in their shirt sleeves, hatless, and stripped of every rag that might form an impediment to action; while on their faces was the stamp of stern determination--alike legible in the attitudes they had assumed.

But there was no fine reflection needed to discover their design. The stranger, chancing to come into the square, could have seen at a glance that it was deadly. The pistols in their hands, cocked and tightly clutched; the nervous energy of their attitudes; the silence of the crowd of spectators; and the concentrated interest with which the two men were regarded, proclaimed more emphatically than words, that there was danger in what they were doing--in short, that they were engaged in some sort of a strife, with death for its probable consummation!

So it was at that moment when the crisis had come. The duellists stood, each with eye intent upon the door, by which he was to make entrance-- perhaps into eternity! They only waited for a signal to cross the threshold; and engage in a combat that must terminate the existence of one or the other--perhaps both.

Were they listening for that fatal formulary:--One--two--fire?

No. Another signal had been agreed upon; and it was given.

A stentorian voice was heard calling out the simple monosyllable--

"Ring!"

Three or four dark figures could be seen standing by the shorn trunk on which swung the tavern bell. The command instantly set them in motion; and, along with the oscillation of their arms--dimly seen through the darkness--could be heard the sonorous tones of a bell. That bell, whose sounds had been hitherto heard only as symbols of joy--calling men together to partake of that which perpetuates life--was now listened to as a summons of death!

The "ringing in" was of short duration. The bell had made less than a score of vibrations, when the men engaged at the rope saw that their services were no longer required. The disappearance of the duellists, who had rushed inside the saloon, the quick, sharp cracking of pistols; the shivering of broken glass, admonished the ringers that theirs was but a superfluous noise; and, dropping the rope, they stood like the rest of the crowd, listening to the conflict inside.

No eyes--save those of the combatants themselves--were witnesses to that strange duel.

At the first dong of the bell both combatants had re-entered the room. Neither made an attempt to skulk outside. To have done so would have been a ruin to reputation. A hundred eyes were upon them; and the spectators understood the conditions of the duel--that neither was to fire before crossing the threshold.

Once inside, the conflict commenced, the first shots filling the room with smoke. Both kept their feet, though both were wounded--their blood spurting out over the sanded floor.

The second shots were also fired simultaneously, but at random, the smoke hindering the aim.

Then came a single shot, quickly followed by another, and succeeded by an interval of quiet.

Previous to this the combatants had been heard rushing about through the room. This noise was no longer being made.

Instead there was profound silence. Had they killed one another? Were both dead? No! Once more the double detonation announced that both still lived. The suspension had been caused as they stood peering through the smoke in the endeavour to distinguish one another. Neither spoke or stirred in fear of betraying his position.

Again there was a period of tranquillity similar to the former, but more prolonged.

It ended by another exchange of shots, almost instantly succeeded by the falling of two heavy bodies upon the floor.

There was the sound of sprawling--the overturning of chairs--then a single shot--the eleventh--and this was the last that was fired!

The spectators outside saw only a cloud of sulphurous smoke oozing out of both doors, and dimming the light of the camphine lamps. This, with an occasional flash of brighter effulgence, close followed by a crack, was all that occurred to give satisfaction to the eye.

But the ear--that was gratified by a greater variety. There were heard shots--after the bell had become silent, other sounds: the sharp shivering of broken glass, the duller crash of falling furniture, rudely overturned in earnest struggle--the trampling of feet upon the boarded floor--at intervals the clear ringing crack of the revolvers; but neither of the voices of the men whose insensate passions were the cause of all this commotion! The crowd in the street heard the confused noises, and noted the intervals of silence, without being exactly able to interpret them. The reports of the pistols were all they had to proclaim the progress of the duel. Eleven had been counted; and in breathless silence they were listening for the twelfth.

Instead of a pistol report their ears were gratified by the sound of a voice, recognised as that of the mustanger.

"My pistol is at your head! I have one shot left--an apology, or you die!"

By this the crowd had become convinced that the fight was approaching its termination. Some of the more fearless, looking in, beheld a strange scene. They saw two men lying prostrate on the plank floor; both with bloodstained habiliments, both evidently disabled; the white sand around them reddened with their gore, tracked with tortuous trails, where they had crawled closer to get a last shot at each other--one of them, in scarlet scarf and slashed velvet trousers, slightly surmounting the other, and holding a pistol to his head that threatened to deprive him of life.

Such was the tableau that presented itself to the spectators, as the sulphurous smoke, drifted out by the current between the two doors, gave them a chance of distinguishing objects within the saloon.

At the same instant was heard a different voice from the one which had already spoken. It was Calhoun's--no longer in roistering bravado, but in low whining accents, almost a whisper. "Enough, damn it! Drop your shooting-iron--I apologise."

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Chapter Twenty Two

AN UNKNOWN DONOR.

In Texas a duel is not even a nine days' wonder. It oftener ceases to be talked about by the end of the third day; and, at the expiration of a week, is no longer thought of, except by the principals themselves, or their immediate friends and relatives.

This is so, even when the parties are well known, and of respectable standing in society. When the duellists are of humble position--or, as is often the case, strangers in the place--a single day may suffice to doom their achievement to oblivion; to dwell only in the memory of the combatant who has survived it--oftener one than both--and perhaps some ill-starred spectator, who has been bored by a bullet, or received the slash of a knife, not designed for him.

More than once have I been witness to a "street fight"--improvised upon the pavement--where some innocuous citizen, sauntering carelessly along, has become the victim--even unto death--of this irregular method of seeking "satisfaction."

I have never heard of any punishment awarded, or damages demanded, in such cases. They are regarded as belonging to the "chapter of accidents!"

Though Cassius Calhoun and Maurice Gerald were both comparatively strangers in the settlement--the latter being only seen on occasional visits to the Fort--the affair between them caused something more than the usual interest; and was talked about for the full period of the nine days, the character of the former as a noted bully, and that of the latter as a man of singular habitudes, gave to their duello a certain sort of distinction; and the merits and demerits of the two men were freely discussed for days after the affair had taken place nowhere with more earnestness than upon the spot where they had shed each other's blood--in the bar-room of the hotel.

The conqueror had gained credit and friends. There were few who favoured his adversary; and not a few who were gratified at the result for, short as had been the time since Calhoun's arrival, there was more than one saloon lounger who had felt the smart of his insolence. For this it was presumed the young Irishman had administered a cure; and there was almost universal satisfaction at the result.

How the ex-captain carried his discomfiture no one could tell. He was no longer to be seen swaggering in the saloon of the "Rough and Ready;" though the cause of his absence was well understood. It was not chagrin, but his couch; to which he was confined by wounds, that, if not skilfully treated, might consign him to his coffin.

Maurice was in like manner compelled to stay within doors. The injuries he had received, though not so severe as those of his antagonist, were nevertheless of such a character as to make it necessary for him to keep to his chamber--a small, and scantily furnished bedroom in "Old Duffer's" hotel; where, notwithstanding the eclat derived from his conquest, he was somewhat scurvily treated.

In the hour of his triumph, he had fainted from loss of blood. He could not be taken elsewhere; though, in the shabby apartment to which he had been consigned, he might have thought of the luxurious care that surrounded the couch of his wounded antagonist. Fortunately Phelim was by his side, or he might have been still worse attended to.

"Be Saint Pathrick! it's a shame," half soliloquised this faithful follower. "A burnin' shame to squeeze a gintleman into a hole like this, not bigger than a pig-stoy! A gintleman like you, Masther Maurice. An' thin such aytin' and drinkin'. Och! a well fid Oirish pig wud turn up its nose at such traytment. An' fwhat div yez think I've heerd Owld Duffer talkin' about below?"

"I hav'n't the slightest idea, my dear Phelim; nor do I care straw to know what you've heard Mr Oberdoffer saying below; but if you don't want him to hear what you are saying above, you'll moderate your voice a little. Remember, ma bohil, that the partitions in this place are only lath and plaster."

"Divil take the partitions; and divil burn them, av he loikes. Av yez don't care fur fwhat's sed, I don't care far fwhat's heeurd--not the snappin' av me fingers. The Dutchman can't trate us any worse than he's been doin' already. For all that, Masther Maurice, I thought it bist to lit you know."

"Let me know then. What is it he has been saying?"

"Will, thin; I heerd him tellin' wan av his croneys that besoides the mate an the dhrink, an the washin', an lodgin', he intinded to make you pay for the bottles, and glasses, an other things, that was broke on the night av the shindy."

"Me pay?"

"Yis, yerself, Masther Maurice; an not a pinny charged to the Yankee. Now I call that downright rascally mane; an nobody but a dhirty Dutchman wud iver hiv thought av it. Av there be anythin' to pay, the man that's bate should be made to showldor the damage, an that wasn't a discindant av the owld Geralds av Ballyballagh. Hoo--hooch! wudn't I loike to shake a shaylaylah about Duffer's head for the matther of two minutes? Wudn't I?"

"What reason did he give for saying that I should pay? Did you hear him state any?"

"I did, masther--the dhirtiest av all raisuns. He sid that you were the bird in the hand; an he wud kape ye till yez sittled the score."

"He'll find himself slightly mistaken about that; and would perhaps do better by presenting his bill to the bird in the bush. I shall be willing to pay for half the damage done; but no more. You may tell him so, if he speak to you about it. And, in troth, Phelim, I don't know how I am to do even that. There must have been a good many breakages. I remember a great deal of jingling while we were at it. If I don't mistake there was a smashed mirror, or clock dial, or something of the kind."

"A big lookin'-glass, masther; an a crystal somethin', that was set over the clock. They say two hunderd dollars. I don't belave they were worth wan half av the money."

"Even so, it is a serious matter to me--just at this crisis. I fear, Phelim, you will have to make a journey to the Alamo, and fetch away some of the household gods we have hidden there. To get clear of this scrape I shall have to sacrifice my spurs, my silver cup, and perhaps my gun!"

"Don't say that, masther! How are we to live, if the gun goes?"

"As we best can, ma bohil. On horseflesh, I suppose: and the lazo will supply that."

"Be Japers! it wudn't be much worse than the mate Owld Duffer sits afore us. It gives me the bellyache ivery time I ate it."

The conversation was here interrupted by the opening of the chamber door; which was done without knocking. A slatternly servant--whose sex it would have been difficult to determine from outward indices--appeared in the doorway, with a basket of palm sinnet held extended at the termination of a long sinewy arm.

"Fwhat is it, Gertrude?" asked Phelim, who, from some previous information, appeared to be acquainted with the feminine character of the intruder.

"A shentlemans prot this."

"A gentleman! Who, Gertrude?"

"Not know, mein herr; he wash a stranger shentlemans."

"Brought by a gentleman. Who can he be? See what it in, Phelim."

Phelim undid the fastenings of the lid, and exposed the interior of the basket. It was one of considerable bulk: since inside were discovered several bottles, apparently containing wines and cordials, packed among a paraphernalia of sweetmeats, and other delicacies--both of the confectionery and the kitchen. There was no note accompanying the present--not even a direction--but the trim and elegant style in which it was done up, proved that it had proceeded from the hands of a lady.

Maurice turned over the various articles, examining each, as Phelim supposed, to take note of its value. Little was he thinking of this, while searching for the "invoice."

There proved to be none--not a scrap of paper--not so much as a card!

The generosity of the supply--well-timed as it was--bespoke the donor to be some person in affluent circumstances. Who could it be?

As Maurice reflected, a fair image came uppermost in his mind; which he could not help connecting with that of his unknown benefactor. Could it be Louise Poindexter?

In spite of certain improbabilities, he was fain to believe it might; and, so long as the belief lasted, his heart was quivering with a sweet beatitude.

As he continued to reflect, the improbabilities appeared too strong for this pleasant supposition; his faith became overturned; and there remained only a vague unsubstantial hope.

"A gintleman lift it," spoke the Connemara man, in semi-soliloquy. "A gintleman, she sez; a kind gintleman, I say! Who div yez think he was, masther?"

"I haven't the slightest idea; unless it may have been some of the officers of the Port; though I could hardly expect one of them to think of me in this fashion."

"Nayther yez need. It wasn't wan av them. No officer, or gintleman ayther, phut them things in the basket."

"Why do you think that?"

"Pwhy div I think it! Och, masther! is it yerself to ask the quistyun? Isn't there the smell av swate fingers about it? Jist look at the nate way them papers is tied up. That purty kreel was niver packed by the hand av a man. It was done by a wuman; and I'll warrant a raal lady at that."

"Nonsense, Phelim! I know no lady who should take so much interest in me."

"Aw, murdher! What a thumpin' big fib! I know won that shud. It wud be black ungratytude av she didn't--afther what yez did for her. Didn't yez save her life into the bargain?"

"Of whom are you speaking?"

"Now, don't be desateful, masther. Yez know that I mane the purty crayther that come to the hut ridin' Spotty that you presinted her, widout resavin' a dollar for the mare. If it wasn't her that sint ye this hamper, thin Phaylim Onale is the biggest numskull that was iver born about Ballyballagh. Be the Vargin, masther, speakin' of the owld place phuts me in mind of its paple. Pwhat wud the blue-eyed colleen say, if she knew yez were in such danger heeur?"

"Danger! it's all over. The doctor has said so; and that I may go out of doors in a week from this time. Don't distress yourself about that."

"Troth, masther, yez be only talkin'. That isn't the danger I was drhamin' av. Yez know will enough what I mane. Maybe yez have resaved a wound from bright eyes, worse than that from lid bullets. Or, maybe, somebody ilse has; an that's why ye've had the things sint ye."

"You're all wrong, Phelim. The thing must have come from the Fort; but whether it did, or not, there's no reason why we should stand upon ceremony with its contents. So, here goes to make trial of them!"

Notwithstanding the apparent relish with which the invalid partook of the products--both of collar and cuisine--while eating and drinking, his thoughts were occupied with a still more agreeable theme; with a string of dreamy conjectures, as to whom he was indebted for the princely present.

Could it be the young Creole--the cousin of his direst enemy as well as his reputed sweetheart?

The thing appeared improbable.

If not she, who else could it be?

The mustanger would have given a horse--a whole drove--to have been assured that Louise Poindexter was the provider of that luxurious refection.

Two days elapsed, and the donor still remained unknown.

Then the invalid was once more agreeably surprised, by a second present--very similar to the first--another basket, containing other bottles, and crammed with fresh "confections."

The Bavarian wench was again questioned; but with no better result. A "shentlemans" had "prot" it--the same "stranger shentlemans" as before. She could only add that "the shentlemans" was very "Schwartz," wore a glazed hat, and came to the tavern mounted upon a mule.

Maurice did not appear to be gratified with this description of the unknown donor; though no one--not even Phelim--was made the confidant of his thoughts.

In two days afterwards they were toned down to their former sobriety--on the receipt of a third basket, "prot by the Schwartz gentleman" in the glazed hat, who came mounted upon a mule.

The change could not be explained by the belongings in the basket-- almost the counterpart of what had been sent before. It might be accounted for by the contents of a billet doux, that accompanied the gift--attached by a ribbon to the wickerwork of palm-sinnet.

"'Tis only Isidora!" muttered the mustanger, as he glanced at the superscription upon the note.

Then opening it with an air of indifference, he read:--

"Querido Senor!

"Soy quedando por una semana en la casa del tio Silvio. De questra desfortuna he oido--tambien que V. esta mal ciudado en la fonda. He mandado algunas cositas. Sea graciosa usarlos, coma una chiquitita memoria del servicio grande de que vuestra deudor estoy. En la silla soy escribando, con las espuelas preparadas sacar sangre de las ijadas del mio cavallo. En un momento mas, partira por el Rio Grande.

"Bienhichor--de mi vida Salvador--y de que a una mujer esa mas querida, la honra--adios--adios!

"Isidora Covarubio De Los Llanos.

"Al Senor Don Mauricio Gerald."

Literally translated, and in the idiom of the Spanish language, the note ran thus:--

"Dear Sir,--I have been staying for a week at the house of Uncle Silvio. Of your mischance I have heard--also, that you are indifferently cared for at the hotel. I have sent you some little things. Be good enough to make use of them, as a slight souvenir of the great service for which I am your debtor. I write in the saddle, with my spurs ready to draw blood from the flanks of my horse. In another moment I am off for the Rio Grande!

"Benefactor--preserver of my life--of what to a woman is dearer--my honour--adieu! adieu!

"Isidora Covarubio De Los Llanos."

"Thanks--thanks, sweet Isidora!" muttered the mustanger, as he refolded the note, and threw it carelessly upon the coverlet of his couch. "Ever grateful--considerate--kind! But for Louise Poindexter, I might have loved you!"

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Chapter Twenty Three

VOWS OF VENGEANCE.

Calhoun, chafing in his chamber, was not the object of such assiduous solicitude. Notwithstanding the luxurious appointments that surrounded him, he could not comfort himself with the reflection: that he was cared for by living creature. Truly selfish in his own heart, he had no faith in friendships; and while confined to his couch--not without some fears that it might be his death-bed--he experienced the misery of a man believing that no human being cared a straw whether he should live or die.

Any sympathy shown to him, was upon the score of relationship. It could scarce have been otherwise. His conduct towards his cousins had not been such as to secure their esteem; while his uncle, the proud Woodley Poindexter, felt towards him something akin to aversion, mingled with a subdued fear.

It is true that this feeling was only of recent origin; and rose out of certain relations that existed between uncle and nephew. As already hinted, they stood to one another in the relationship of debtor and creditor--or mortgagor and mortgagee--the nephew being the latter. To such an extent had this indebtedness been carried, that Cassius Calhoun was in effect the real owner of Casa del Corvo; and could at any moment have proclaimed himself its master.

Conscious of his power, he had of late been using it to effect a particular purpose: that is, the securing for his wife, the woman he had long fiercely loved--his cousin Louise. He had come to know that he stood but little chance of obtaining her consent: for she had taken but slight pains to conceal her indifference to his suit. Trusting to the peculiar influence established over her father, he had determined on taking no slight denial.

These circumstances considered, it was not strange that the ex-officer of volunteers, when stretched upon a sick bed, received less sympathy from his relatives than might otherwise have been extended to him.

While dreading, death--which for a length of time he actually did--he had become a little more amiable to those around him. The agreeable mood, however, was of short continuance; and, once assured of recovery, all the natural savageness of his disposition was restored, along with the additional bitterness arising from his recent discomfiture.

It had been the pride of his life to exhibit himself as a successful bully--the master of every crowd that might gather around him. He could no longer claim this credit in Texas; and the thought harrowed his heart to its very core.

To figure as a defeated man before all the women of the settlement-- above all in the eyes of her he adored, defeated by one whom he suspected of being his rival in her affections--a more nameless adventurer--was too much to be endured with equanimity. Even an ordinary man would have been pained by the infliction. Calhoun writhed under it.

He had no idea of enduring it, as an ordinary man would have done. If he could not escape from the disgrace, he was determined to revenge himself upon its author; and as soon as he had recovered from the apprehensions entertained about the safety of his life, he commenced reflecting upon this very subject.

Maurice, the mustanger, must die! If not by his (Calhoun's) own hand, then by the hand of another, if such an one was to be found in the settlement. There could not be much difficulty in procuring a confederate. There are bravoes upon the broad prairies of Texas, as well as within the walls of Italian cities. Alas! there is no spot upon earth where gold cannot command the steel of the assassin.

Calhoun possessed gold--more than sufficient for such a purpose; and to such purpose did he determine upon devoting at least a portion of it.

In the solitude of his sick chamber he set about maturing his plans; which comprehended the assassination of the mustanger. He did not purpose doing the deed himself. His late defeat had rendered him fearful of chancing a second encounter with the same adversary--even under the advantageous circumstances of a surprise. He had become too much encowardised to play the assassin. He wanted an accomplice--an arm to strike for him. Where was he to find it?

Unluckily he knew, or fancied he knew, the very man. There was a Mexican at the time making abode in the village--like Maurice himself--a mustanger; but one of those with whom the young Irishman had shown a disinclination to associate.

As a general rule, the men of this peculiar calling are amongst the greatest reprobates, who have their home in the land of the "Lone Star." By birth and breed they are mostly Mexicans, or mongrel Indians; though, not unfrequently, a Frenchman, or American, finds it a congenial calling. They are usually the outcasts of civilised society--oftener its outlaws--who, in the excitement of the chase, and its concomitant dangers, find, perhaps, some sort of salvo for a conscience that has been severely tried.

While dwelling within the settlements, these men are not unfrequently the pests of the society that surrounds them--ever engaged in broil and debauch; and when abroad in the exercise of their calling, they are not always to be encountered with safety. More than once is it recorded in the history of Texas how a company of mustangers has, for the nonce, converted itself into a band of cuadrilla of salteadores; or, disguised as Indians, levied black mail upon the train of the prairie traveller.

One of this kidney was the individual who had become recalled to the memory of Cassius Calhoun. The latter remembered having met the man in the bar-room of the hotel; upon several occasions, but more especially on the night of the duel. He remembered that he had been one of those who had carried him home on the stretcher; and from some extravagant expressions he had made use of, when speaking of his antagonist, Calhoun had drawn the deduction, that the Mexican was no friend to Maurice the mustanger.

Since then he had learnt that he was Maurice's deadliest enemy--himself excepted.

With these data to proceed upon the ex-captain had called the Mexican to his counsels, and the two were often closeted together in the chamber of the invalid.

There was nothing in all this to excite suspicion--even had Calhoun cared for that. His visitor was a dealer in horses and horned cattle. Some transaction in horseflesh might be going on between them. So any one would have supposed. And so for a time thought the Mexican himself: for in their first interview, but little other business was transacted between them. The astute Mississippian knew better than to declare his ultimate designs to a stranger; who, after completing an advantageous horse-trade, was well supplied with whatever he chose to drink, and cunningly cross-questioned as to the relations in which he stood towards Maurice the mustanger.

In that first interview, the ex-officer volunteers learnt enough, to know that he might depend upon his man for any service he might require--even to the committal of murder.

The Mexican made no secret of his heartfelt hostility to the young mustanger. He did not declare the exact cause of it; but Calhoun could guess, by certain innuendos introduced during the conversation, that it was the same as that by which he was himself actuated--the same to which may be traced almost every quarrel that has occurred among men, from Troy to Texas--a woman!

The Helen in this case appeared to be some dark-eyed doncella dwelling upon the Rio Grande, where Maurice had been in the habit of making an occasional visit, in whose eyes he had found favour, to the disadvantage of her own conpaisano.

The Mexican did not give the name; and Calhoun, as he listened to his explanations, only hoped in his heart that the damsel who had slighted him might have won the heart of his rival.

During his days of convalescence, several interviews had taken place between the ex-captain and the intended accomplice in his purposes of vengeance--enough, one might suppose, to have rendered them complete.

Whether they were so, or not, and what the nature of their hellish designs, were things known only to the brace of kindred confederates. The outside world but knew that Captain Cassius Calhoun and Miguel Diaz--known by the nickname "El Coyote," appeared to have taken a fancy for keeping each other's company; while the more respectable portion of it wondered at such an ill-starred association.

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Chapter Twenty Four

ON THE AZOTEA.

There are no sluggards on a Texan plantation. The daybreak begins the day; and the bell, conch, or cow-horn, that summons the dark-skinned proletarians to their toil, is alike the signal for their master to forsake his more luxurious couch.

Such was the custom of Casa del Corvo under its original owners: and the fashion was followed by the family of the American planter--not from any idea of precedent, but simply in obedience to the suggestions of Nature. In a climate of almost perpetual spring, the sweet matutinal moments are not to be wasted in sleep. The siesta belongs to the hours of noon; when all nature appears to shrink under the smiles of the solar luminary--as if surfeited with their superabundance.

On his reappearance at morn the sun is greeted with renewed joy. Then do the tropical birds spread their resplendent plumage--the flowers their dew-besprinkled petals--to receive his fervent kisses. All nature again seems glad, to acknowledge him as its god.

Resplendent as any bird that flutters among the foliage of south-western Texas--fair as any flower that blooms within it--gladdest was she who appeared upon the housetop of Casa del Corvo.

Aurora herself, rising from her roseate couch, looked not fresher than the young Creole, as she stood contemplating the curtains of that very couch, from which a Texan sun was slowly uplifting his globe of burning gold.

She was standing upon the edge of the azotea that fronted towards the east; her white hand resting upon the copestone of the parapet still wet with the dews of the night, under her eyes was the garden, enclosed within a curve of the river; beyond the bluff formed by the opposite bank; and further still, the wide-spreading plateau of the prairie.

Was she looking at a landscape, that could scarce fail to challenge admiration? No.

Equally was she unconscious of the ascending sun; though, like some fair pagan, did she appear to be in prayer at its apprising!

Listened she to the voices of the birds, from garden and grove swelling harmoniously around her?

On the contrary, her ear was not bent to catch any sound, nor her eye intent upon any object. Her glance was wandering, as if her thoughts went not with it, but were dwelling upon some theme, neither present nor near.

In contrast with the cheerful brightness of the sky, there was a shadow upon her brow; despite the joyous warbling of the birds, there was the sign of sadness on her cheek.

She was alone. There was no one to take note of this melancholy mood, nor inquire into its cause.

The cause was declared in a few low murmured words, that fell, as if involuntarily, from her lips.

"He may be dangerously wounded--perhaps even to death?"

Who was the object of this solicitude so hypothetically expressed?

The invalid that lay below, almost under her feet, in a chamber of the hacienda--her cousin Cassius Calhoun?

It could scarce be he. The doctor had the day before pronounced him out of danger, and on the way to quick recovery. Any one listening to her soliloquy--after a time continued in the same sad tone--would have been convinced it was not he.

"I may not send to inquire. I dare not even ask after him. I fear to trust any of our people. He may be in some poor place--perhaps uncourteously treated--perhaps neglected? Would that I could convey to him a message--something more--without any one being the wiser! I wonder what has become of Zeb Stump?"

As if some instinct whispered her, that there was a possibility of Zeb making his appearance, she turned her eyes towards the plain on the opposite side of the river--where a road led up and down. It was the common highway between Fort Inge and the plantations on the lower Leona. It traversed the prairie at some distance from the river bank; approaching it only at one point, where the channel curved in to the base of the bluffs. A reach of the road, of half a mile in length, was visible in the direction of the Fort; as also a cross-path that led to a ford; thence running on to the hacienda. In the opposite direction-- down the stream--the view was open for a like length, until the chapparal on both sides closing in, terminated the savanna.

The young lady scanned the road leading towards Fort Inge. Zeb Stump should come that way. He was not in sight; nor was any one else.

She could not feel disappointment. She had no reason to expect him. She had but raised her eyes in obedience to an instinct.

Something more than instinct caused her, after a time, to turn round, and scrutinise the plain in the opposite quarter.

If expecting some one to appear that way, she was not disappointed. A horse was just stepping out from among the trees, where the road debouched from the chapparal. He was ridden by one, who, at first sight, appeared to be a man, clad in a sort of Arab costume; but who, on closer scrutiny, and despite the style of equitation--a la Duchesse de Berri--was unquestionably of the other sex--a lady. There was not much of her face to be seen; but through the shadowy opening of the rebozo--rather carelessly tapado--could be traced an oval facial outline, somewhat brownly "complected," But with a carmine tinting upon the cheeks, and above this a pair of eyes whose sparkle appeared to challenge comparison with the brightest object either on the earth, or in the sky.

Neither did the loosely falling folds of the lady's scarf, nor her somewhat outre attitude in the saddle, hinder the observer from coming to the conclusion, that her figure was quite as attractive as her face.

The man following upon the mule, six lengths of his animal in the rear, by his costume--as well as the respectful distance observed--was evidently only an attendant.

"Who can that woman be?" was the muttered interrogatory of Louise Poindexter, as with quick action she raised the lorgnette to her eyes, and directed it upon the oddly apparelled figure. "Who can she be?" was repeated in a tone of greater deliberation, as the glass came down, and the naked eye was entrusted to complete the scrutiny. "A Mexican, of course; the man on the mule her servant. Some grand senora, I suppose? I thought they had all gone to the other side of the Rio Grande. A basket carried by the attendant. I wonder what it contains; and what errand she can have to the Port--it may be the village. 'Tis the third time I've seen her passing within this week? She must be from some of the plantations below!"

What an outlandish style of riding! Par Dieu! I'm told it's not uncommon among the daughters of Anahuac. What if I were to take to it myself? No doubt it's much the easiest way; though if such a spectacle were seen in the States it would be styled unfeminine. How our Puritan mammas would scream out against it! I think I hear them. Ha, ha, ha!

The mirth thus begotten was but of momentary duration. There came a change over the countenance of the Creole, quick as a drifting cloud darkens the disc of the sun. It was not a return to that melancholy so late shadowing it; though something equally serious--as might be told by the sudden blanching of her cheeks.

The cause could only be looked for in the movements of the scarfed equestrian on the other side of the river. An antelope had sprung up, out of some low shrubbery growing by the roadside. The creature appeared to have made its first bound from under the counter of the horse--a splendid animal, that, in a moment after, was going at full gallop in pursuit of the affrighted "pronghorn;" while his rider, with her rebozo suddenly flung from her face, its fringed ends streaming behind her back, was seen describing, with her right arm, a series of circular sweeps in the air!

"What is the woman going to do?" was the muttered interrogatory of the spectator upon the house-top. "Ha! As I live, 'tis a lazo!"

The senora was not long in giving proof of skill in the use of the national implement:--by flinging its noose around the antelope's neck, and throwing the creature in its tracks!

The attendant rode up to the place where it lay struggling; dismounted from his mule; and, stooping over the prostrate pronghorn, appeared to administer the coup de grace. Then, flinging the carcass over the croup of his saddle, he climbed back upon his mule, and spurred after his mistress--who had already recovered her lazo, readjusted her scarf, and was riding onward, as if nothing had occurred worth waiting for!

It was at that moment--when the noose was seen circling in the air--that the shadow had reappeared upon the countenance or the Creole. It was not surprise that caused it, but an emotion of a different character--a thought far more unpleasant.

Nor did it pass speedily away. It was still there--though a white hand holding the lorgnette to her eye might have hindered it from being seen--still there, as long as the mounted figures were visible upon the open road; and even after they had passed out of sight behind the screening of the acacias.

"I wonder--oh, I wonder if it be she! My own age, he said--not quite so tall. The description suits--so far as one may judge at this distance. Has her home on the Rio Grande. Comes occasionally to the Leona, to visit some relatives. Who are they? Why did I not ask him the name? I wonder--oh, I wonder if it be she!"

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Chapter Twenty Five

A GIFT UNGIVEN.

For some minutes after the lady of the lazo and her attendant had passed out of sight, Louise Poindexter pursued the train of reflection--started by the somewhat singular episode of which she had been spectator. Her attitude, and air, of continued dejection told that her thoughts had not been directed into a more cheerful channel.

Rather the reverse. Once or twice before had her mind given way to imaginings, connected with that accomplished equestrienne; and more than once had she speculated upon her purpose in riding up the road. The incident just witnessed had suddenly changed her conjectures into suspicions of an exceedingly unpleasant nature.

It was a relief to her, when a horseman appeared coming out of the chapparal, at the point where the others had ridden in; a still greater relief, when he was seen to swerve into the cross path that conducted to the hacienda, and was recognised, through the lorgnette, as Zeb Stump the hunter.

The face of the Creole became bright again--almost to gaiety. There was something ominous of good in the opportune appearance of the honest backwoodsman.

"The man I was wanting to see!" she exclaimed in joyous accents. "He can bear me a message; and perhaps tell who she is. He must have met her on the road. That will enable me to introduce the subject, without Zeb having any suspicion of my object. Even with him I must be circumspect--after what has happened. Ah, me! Not much should I care, if I were sure of his caring for me. How provoking his indifference! And to me--Louise Poindexter! Par dieu! Let it proceed much further, and I shall try to escape from the toils if--if--I should crush my poor heart in the attempt!"

It need scarce be said that the individual, whose esteem was so coveted, was not Zeb Stump.

Her next speech, however, was addressed to Zeb, as he reined up in front of the hacienda.

"Dear Mr Stump!" hailed a voice, to which the old hunter delighted to listen. "I'm so glad to see you. Dismount, and come up here! I know you're a famous climber, and won't mind a flight of stone stairs. There's a view from this housetop that will reward you for your trouble."

"Thur's suthin' on the house-top theear," rejoined the hunter, "the view o' which 'ud reward Zeb Stump for climbin' to the top o' a steamboat chimbly; 'an thet's yurself, Miss Lewaze. I'll kum up, soon as I ha' stabled the ole maar, which shall be dud in the shakin' o' a goat's tail. Gee-up, ole gal!" he continued, addressing himself to the mare, after he had dismounted, "Hold up yur head, an may be Plute hyur 'll gie ye a wheen o' corn shucks for yur breakfist."

"Ho--ho! Mass 'Tump," interposed the sable coachman, making his appearance in the patio. "Dat same do dis nigga--gub um de shucks wi' de yaller corn inside ob dem. Ho--ho! You gwup 'tairs to de young missa; an Plute he no 'gleck yar ole mar."

"Yur a dod-rotted good sample o' a nigger, Plute; an the nix occashun I shows about hyur, I'll fetch you a 'possum--wi' the meat on it as tender as a two-year old chicken. Thet's what I'm boun' ter do."

After delivering himself of this promise, Zeb commenced ascending the stone stairway; not by single steps, but by two, and sometimes three, at a stride.

He was soon upon the housetop; where he was once more welcomed by the young mistress of the mansion.

Her excited manner, and the eagerness with which she conducted him to a remote part of the azotea, told the astute hunter, that he had been summoned thither for some other purpose than enjoying the prospect.

"Tell me, Mr Stump!" said she, as she clutched the sleeve of the blanket coat in her delicate fingers, and looked inquiringly into Zeb's grey eye--"You must know all. How is he? Are his wounds of a dangerous nature?"

"If you refar to Mister Cal-hoon--"

"No--no--no. I know all about him. It's not of Mr Calhoun I'm speaking."

"Wall, Miss Lewasse; thur air only one other as I know of in these parts thet hev got wownds; an thet air's Maurice the mowstanger. Mout it be thet ere individooal yur inquirin' abeout?"

"It is--it is! You know I cannot be indifferent to his welfare, notwithstanding the misfortune of his having quarrelled with my cousin. You are aware that he rescued me--twice I may say--from imminent peril. Tell me--is he in great danger?"

Such earnestness could no longer be trifled with. Zeb without further parley, made reply:--

"Ne'er a morsel o' danger. Thur's a bullet-hole jest above the ankle-jeint. It don't signerfy more'n the scratch o' a kitting. Thur's another hev goed through the flesh o' the young fellur's left arm. It don't signerfy neyther--only thet it drawed a good sup o' the red out o' him. Howsomdever, he's all right now; an expecks to be out o' doors in a kupple o' days, or tharabout. He sez that an hour in the seddle, an a skoot acrosst the purayra, 'ud do him more good than all the docters in Texas. I reckon it wud; but the docter--it's the surgint o' the Fort as attends on him--he won't let him git to grass yit a bit."

"Where is he?"

"He air stayin' at the hotel--whar the skrimmage tuk place."

"Perhaps he is not well waited upon? It's a rough place, I've heard. He may not have any delicacies--such as an invalid stands in need of? Stay here, Mr Stump, till I come up to you again. I have something I wish to send to him. I know I can trust you to deliver it. Won't you? I'm sure you will. I shall be with you in six seconds."

Without waiting to note the effect of her speech, the young lady tripped lightly along the passage, and as lightly descended the stone stairway.

Presently she reappeared--bringing with her a good-sized hamper; which was evidently filled with eatables, with something to send them down.

"Now dear old Zeb, you will take this to Mr Gerald? It's only some little things that Florinda has put up; some cordials and jellies and the like, such as sick people at times have a craving for. They are not likely to be kept in the hotel. Don't tell him where they come from--neither him, nor any one else. You won't? I know you won't, you dear good giant."

"He may depend on Zeb Stump for thet, Miss Lewaze. Nobody air a goin' to be a bit the wiser about who sent these hyur delekissies; though, for the matter o' cakes an kickshaws, an all that sort o' thing, the mowstanger hain't had much reezun to complain. He hev been serplied wi' enuf o' them to hev filled the bellies o' a hul school o' shugar-babbies."

"Ha! Supplied already! By whom?"

"Wal, thet theer this chile can't inform ye, Miss Lewaze; not be-knowin' it hisself. I on'y hyurd they wur fetched to the tavern in baskets, by some sort o' a sarving-man as air a Mexikin. I've seed the man myself. Fact, I've jest this minnit met him, ridin' arter a wuman sot stridy legs in her seddle, as most o' these Mexikin weemen ride. I reck'n he be her sarvingt, as he war keepin' a good ways ahint, and toatin' a basket jest like one o' them Maurice hed got arready. Like enuf it air another lot o' Rickshaws they wur takin' to the tavern."

There was no need to trouble Zeb Stump with further cross-questioning. A whole history was supplied by that single speech. The case was painfully clear. In the regard of Maurice Gerald, Louise Poindexter had a rival--perhaps something more. The lady of the lazo was either his fiancee, or his mistress!

It was not by accident--though to Zeb Stump it may have seemed so--that the hamper, steadied for a time, upon the coping of the balustrade, and still retained in the hand of the young Creole, escaped from her clutch, and fell with a crash upon the stones below. The bottles were broken, and their contents spilled into the stream that surged along the basement of the wall.

The action of the arm that produced this effect, apparently springing from a spasmodic and involuntary effort, was nevertheless due to design; and Louise Poindexter, as she leant over the parapet, and contemplated the ruin she had caused, felt as if her heart was shattered like the glass that lay glistening below!

"How unfortunate!" said she, making a feint to conceal her chagrin. "The dainties are destroyed, I declare! What will Florinda say? After all, if Mr Gerald be so well attended to, as you say he is, he'll not stand in need of them. I'm glad to hear he hasn't been neglected--one who has done me a service. But, Mr Stump, you needn't say anything of this, or that I inquired after him. You know his late antagonist is our near relative; and it might cause scandal in the settlement. Dear Zeb, you promise me?"

"Swa-ar it ef ye like. Neery word, Miss Lewaze, neery word; ye kin depend on ole Zeb."

"I know it. Come! The sun is growing hot up here. Let as go down, and see whether we can find you such a thing as a glass of your favourite Monongahela. Come!"

With an assumed air of cheerfulness, the young Creole glided across the azotea; and, trilling the "New Orleans Waltz," once more commenced descending the escalera.

In eager acceptance of the invitation, the old hunter followed close upon her skirts; and although, by habit, stoically indifferent to feminine charms--and with his thoughts at that moment chiefly bent upon the promised Monongahela--he could not help admiring those ivory shoulders brought so conspicuously under his eyes.

But for a short while was he permitted to indulge in the luxurious spectacle. On reaching the bottom of the stair his fair hostess bade him a somewhat abrupt adieu. After the revelations he had so unwittingly made, his conversation seemed no longer agreeable; and she, late desirous of interrogating, was now contented to leave him alone with the Monongahela, as she hastened to hide her chagrin in the solitude of her chamber.

For the first time in her life Louise Poindexter felt the pangs of jealousy. It was her first real love: for she was in love with Maurice Gerald.

A solicitude like that shown for him by the Mexican senora, could scarce spring from simple friendship? Some closer tie must have been established between them? So ran the reflections of the now suffering Creole.

From what Maurice had said--from what she had herself seen--the lady of the lazo was just such a woman as should win the affections of such a man. Hers were accomplishments he might naturally be expected to admire.

Her figure had appeared perfect under the magnifying effect of the lens. The face had not been so fairly viewed, and was still undetermined. Was it in correspondence with the form? Was it such as to secure the love of a man so much master of his passions, as the mustanger appeared to be?

The mistress of Casa del Corvo could not rest, till she had satisfied herself on this score. As soon as Zeb Stump had taken his departure, she ordered the spotted mare to be saddled; and, riding out alone, she sought the crossing of the river; and thence proceeded to the highway on the opposite side.

Advancing in the direction of the Fort, as she expected, she soon encountered the Mexican senora on her return; no senora according to the exact signification of the term, but a senorita--a young lady, not older than herself.

At the place of their meeting, the road ran under the shadow of the trees. There was no sun to require the coifing of the rebozo upon the crown of the Mexican equestrian. The scarf had fallen upon her shoulders, laying bare a head of hair, in luxuriance rivalling the tail of a wild steed, in colour the plumage of a crow. It formed the framing of a face, that, despite a certain darkness of complexion, was charmingly attractive.

Good breeding permitted only a glance at it in passing; which was returned by a like courtesy on the part of the stranger. But as the two rode on, back to back, going in opposite directions, neither could restrain herself from turning round in the saddle, and snatching a second glance at the other.

Their reflections were not very dissimilar: if Louise Poindexter had already learnt something of the individual thus encountered, the latter was not altogether ignorant of her existence.

We shall not attempt to portray the thoughts of the senorita consequent on that encounter. Suffice it to say, that those of the Creole were even more sombre than when she sallied forth on that errand of inspection; and that the young mistress of Casa del Corvo rode back to the mansion, all the way seated in her saddle in an attitude that betokened the deepest dejection.

"Beautiful!" said she, after passing her supposed rival upon the road. "Yes; too beautiful to be his friend!"

Louise was speaking to her own conscience; or she might have been more chary of her praise.

"I cannot have any doubt," continued she, "of the relationship that exists between them--He loves her!--he loves her! It accounts for his cold indifference to me? I've been mad to risk my heart's happiness in such an ill-starred entanglement!

"And now to disentangle it! Now to banish him from my thoughts! Ah! 'tis easily said! Can I?"

"I shall see him no more. That, at least, is possible. After what has occurred, he will not come to our house. We can only meet by accident; and that accident I must be careful to avoid. Oh, Maurice Gerald! tamer of wild steeds! you have subdued a spirit that may suffer long--perhaps never recover from the lesson!"

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Chapter Twenty Six

STILL ON THE AZOTEA.

To banish from the thoughts one who has been passionately loved is a simple impossibility. Time may do much to subdue the pain of an unreciprocated passion, and absence more. But neither time, nor absence, can hinder the continued recurrence of that longing for the lost loved one--or quiet the heart aching with that void that has never been satisfactorily filled.

Louise Poindexter had imbibed a passion that could not be easily stifled. Though of brief existence, it had been of rapid growth-- vigorously overriding all obstacles to its indulgence. It was already strong enough to overcome such ordinary scruples as parental consent, or the inequality of rank; and, had it been reciprocated, neither would have stood in the way, so far as she herself was concerned. For the former, she was of age; and felt--as most of her countrywomen do-- capable of taking care of herself. For the latter, who ever really loved that cared a straw for class, or caste? Love has no such meanness in its composition. At all events, there was none such in the passion of Louise Poindexter.

It could scarce be called the first illusion of her life. It was, however, the first, where disappointment was likely to prove dangerous to the tranquillity of her spirit.

She was not unaware of this. She anticipated unhappiness for a while-- hoping that time would enable her to subdue the expected pain.

At first, she fancied she would find a friend in her own strong will; and another in the natural buoyancy of her spirit. But as the days passed, she found reason to distrust both: for in spite of both, she could not erase from her thoughts the image of the man who had so completely captivated her imagination.

There were times when she hated him, or tried to do so--when she could have killed him, or seen him killed, without making an effort to save him! They were but moments; each succeeded by an interval of more righteous reflection, when she felt that the fault was hers alone, as hers only the misfortune.

No matter for this. It mattered not if he had been her enemy--the enemy of all mankind. If Lucifer himself--to whom in her wild fancy she had once likened him--she would have loved him all the same!

And it would have proved nothing abnormal in her disposition--nothing to separate her from the rest of womankind, all the world over. In the mind of man, or woman either, there is no connection between the moral and the passional. They are as different from each other as fire from water. They may chance to run in the same channel; but they may go diametrically opposite. In other words, we may love the very being we hate--ay, the one we despise!

Louise Poindexter could neither hate, nor despise, Maurice Gerald. She could only endeavour to feel indifference.

It was a vain effort, and ended in failure. She could not restrain herself from ascending to the azotea, and scrutinising the road where she had first beheld the cause of her jealousy. Each day, and almost every hour of the day, was the ascent repeated.

Still more. Notwithstanding her resolve, to avoid the accident of an encounter with the man who had made her miserable, she was oft in the saddle and abroad, scouring the country around--riding through the streets of the village--with no other object than to meet him.

During the three days that followed that unpleasant discovery, once again had she seen--from the housetop as before--the lady of the lazo en route up the road, as before accompanied by her attendant with the pannier across his arm--that Pandora's box that had bred such mischief in her mind--while she herself stood trembling with jealousy--envious of the other's errand.

She knew more now, though not much. Only had she learnt the name and social standing of her rival. The Dona Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos--daughter of a wealthy haciendado, who lived upon the Rio Grande, and niece to another whose estate lay upon the Leona, a mile beyond the boundaries of her father's new purchase. An eccentric young lady, as some thought, who could throw a lazo, tame a wild steed, or anything else excepting her own caprices.

Such was the character of the Mexican senorita, as known to the American settlers on the Leona.

A knowledge of it did not remove the jealous suspicions of the Creole. On the contrary, it tended to confirm them. Such practices were her own predilections. She had been created with an instinct to admire them. She supposed that others must do the same. The young Irishman was not likely to be an exception.

There was an interval of several days--during which the lady of the lazo was not seen again.

"He has recovered from his wounds?" reflected the Creole. "He no longer needs such unremitting attention."

She was upon the azotea at the moment of making this reflection-- lorgnette in hand, as she had often been before.

It was in the morning, shortly after sunrise: the hour when the Mexican had been wont to make her appearance. Louise had been looking towards the quarter whence the senorita might have been expected to come.

On turning her eyes in the opposite direction, she beheld--that which caused her something more than surprise. She saw Maurice Gerald, mounted on horseback, and riding down the road!

Though seated somewhat stiffly in the saddle, and going at a slow pace, it was certainly he. The glass declared his identity; at the same time disclosing the fact, that his left arm was suspended in a sling.

On recognising him, she shrank behind the parapet--as she did so, giving utterance to a suppressed cry.

Why that anguished utterance? Was it the sight of the disabled arm, or the pallid face: for the glass had enabled her to distinguish both?

Neither one nor the other. Neither could be a cause of surprise. Besides, it was an exclamation far differently intoned to those of either pity or astonishment. It was an expression of sorrow, that had for its origin some heartfelt chagrin.

The invalid was convalescent. He no longer needed to be visited by his nurse. He was on the way to visit her!

Cowering behind the parapet--screened by the flower-spike of the yucca--Louise Poindexter watched the passing horseman. The lorgnette enabled her to note every movement made by him--almost to the play of his features.

She felt some slight gratification on observing that he turned his face at intervals and fixed his regard upon Casa del Corvo. It was increased, when on reaching a copse, that stood by the side of the road, and nearly opposite the house, he reined up behind the trees, and for a long time remained in the same spot, as if reconnoitring the mansion.

She almost conceived a hope, that he might be thinking of its mistress!

It was but a gleam of joy, departing like the sunlight under the certain shadow of an eclipse. It was succeeded by a sadness that might be appropriately compared to such shadow: for to her the world at that moment seemed filled with gloom.

Maurice Gerald had ridden on. He had entered the chapparal; and become lost to view with the road upon which he was riding.

Whither was he bound? Whither, but to visit Dona Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos?

It mattered not that he returned within less than an hour. They might have met in the woods--within eyeshot of that jealous spectator--but for the screening of the trees. An hour was sufficient interview--for lovers, who could every day claim unrestricted indulgence.

It mattered not, that in passing upwards he again cast regards towards Casa del Corvo; again halted behind the copse, and passed some time in apparent scrutiny of the mansion.

It was but mockery--or exultation. He might well feel triumphant; but why should he be cruel, with kisses upon his lips--the kisses he had received from the Dona Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos?

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Chapter Twenty Seven

I LOVE YOU!--I LOVE YOU!

Louise Poindexter upon the azotea again--again to be subjected to a fresh chagrin! That broad stone stairway trending up to the housetop, seemed to lead only to spectacles that gave her pain. She had mentally vowed no more to ascend it--at least for a long time. Something stronger than her strong will combatted--and successfully--the keeping of that vow. It was broken ere the sun of another day had dried the dew from the grass of the prairie.

As on the day before, she stood by the parapet scanning the road on the opposite side of the river; as before, she saw the horseman with the slung arm ride past; as before, she crouched to screen herself from observation.

He was going downwards, as on the day preceding. In like manner did he cast long glances towards the hacienda, and made halt behind the clump of trees that grew opposite.

Her heart fluttered between hope and fear. There was an instant when she felt half inclined to show herself. Fear prevailed; and in the next instant he was gone.

Whither?

The self-asked interrogatory was but the same as of yesterday. It met with a similar response.

Whither, if not to meet Dona Isidora Covarubio de los Llanos?

Could there be a doubt of it?

If so, it was soon to be determined. In less than twenty minutes after, a parded steed was seen upon the same road--and in the same direction-- with a lady upon its back.

The jealous heart of the Creole could hold out no longer. No truth could cause greater torture than she was already suffering through suspicion. She had resolved on assuring herself, though the knowledge should prove fatal to the last faint remnant of her hopes.

She entered the chapparal where the mustanger had ridden in scarce twenty minutes before. She rode on beneath the flitting shadows of the acacias. She rode in silence upon the soft turf--keeping close to the side of the path, so that the hoof might not strike against stones. The long pinnate fronds, drooping down to the level of her eyes, mingled with the plumes in her hat. She sate her saddle crouchingly, as if to avoid being observed--all the while with earnest glance scanning the open space before her.

She reached the crest of a hill which commanded a view beyond. There was a house in sight surrounded by tall trees. It might have been termed a mansion. It was the residence of Don Silvio Martinez, the uncle of Dona Isidora. So much had she learnt already.

There were other houses to be seen upon the plain below; but on this one, and the road leading to it, the eyes of the Creole became fixed in a glance of uneasy interrogation.

For a time she continued her scrutiny without satisfaction. No one appeared either at the house, or near it. The private road leading to the residence of the haciendado, and the public highway, were alike without living forms. Some horses were straying over the pastures; but not one with a rider upon his back.

Could the lady have ridden out to meet him, or Maurice gone in?

Were they at that moment in the woods, or within the walls of the house? If the former, was Don Silvio aware of it? If the latter, was he at home--an approving party to the assignation?

With such questions was the Creole afflicting herself, when the neigh of a horse broke abruptly on her ear, followed by the chinking of a shod hoof against the stones of the causeway. She looked below: for she had halted upon the crest, a steep acclivity. The mustanger was ascending it--riding directly towards her. She might have seen him sooner, had she not been occupied with the more distant view.

He was alone, as he had ridden past Casa del Corvo. There was nothing to show that he had recently been in company--much less in the company of an inamorata.

It was too late for Louise to shun him. The spotted mustang had replied to the salutation of an old acquaintance. Its rider was constrained to keep her ground, till the mustanger came up.

"Good day, Miss Poindexter?" said he--for upon the prairies it is not etiquette for the lady to speak first. "Alone?"

"Alone, sir. And why not?"

"'Tis a solitary ride among the chapparals. But true: I think I've heard you say you prefer that sort of thing?"

"You appear to like it yourself, Mr Gerald. To you, however, it is not so solitary, I presume?"

"In faith I do like it; and just for that very reason. I have the misfortune to live at a tavern, or `hotel,' as mine host is pleased to call it; and one gets so tired of the noises--especially an invalid, as I have the bad luck to be--that a ride along this quiet road is something akin to luxury. The cool shade of these acacias--which the Mexicans have vulgarised by the name of mezquites--with the breeze that keeps constantly circulating through their fan-like foliage, would invigorate the feeblest of frames. Don't you think so, Miss Poindexter?"

"You should know best, sir," was the reply vouchsafed, after some seconds of embarrassment. "You, who have so often tried it."

"Often! I have been only twice down this road since I have been able to sit in my saddle. But, Miss Poindexter, may I ask how you knew that I have been this way at all?"

"Oh!" rejoined Louise, her colour going and coming as she spoke, "how could I help knowing it? I am in the habit of spending much time on the housetop. The view, the breeze, the music of the birds, ascending from the garden below, makes it a delightful spot--especially in the cool of the morning. Our roof commands a view of this road. Being up there, how could I avoid seeing you as you passed--that is, so long as you were not under the shade of the acacias?"

"You saw me, then?" said Maurice, with an embarrassed air, which was not caused by the innuendo conveyed in her last words--which he could not have comprehended--but by a remembrance of how he had himself behaved while riding along the reach of open road.

"How could I help it?" was the ready reply. "The distance is scarce six hundred yards. Even a lady, mounted upon a steed much smaller than yours, was sufficiently conspicuous to be identified. When I saw her display her wonderful skill, by strangling a poor little antelope with her lazo, I knew it could be no other than she whose accomplishments you were so good as to give me an account of."

"Isidora?"

"Isidora!"

"Ah; true! She has been here for some time."

"And has been very kind to Mr Maurice Gerald?"

"Indeed, it is true. She has been very kind; though I have had no chance of thanking her. With all her friendship for poor me, she is a great hater of us foreign invaders; and would not condescend to step over the threshold of Mr Oberdoffer's hotel."

"Indeed! I suppose she preferred meeting you under the shade of the acacias!"

"I have not met her at all; at least, not for many months; and may not for months to come--now that she has gone back to her home on the Rio Grande."

"Are you speaking the truth, sir? You have not seen her since--she is gone away from the house of her uncle?"

"She has," replied Maurice, exhibiting surprise. "Of course, I have not seen her. I only knew she was here by her sending me some delicacies while I was ill. In truth, I stood in need of them. The hotel cuisine is none of the nicest; nor was I the most welcome of Mr Oberdoffer's guests. The Dona Isidora has been but too grateful for the slight service I once did her."

"A service! May I ask what it was, Mr Gerald?"

"Oh, certainly. It was merely a chance. I had the opportunity of being useful to the young lady, in once rescuing her from some rude Indians-- Wild Oat and his Seminoles--into whose hands she had fallen, while making a journey from the Rio Grande to visit her uncle on the Leona-- Don Silvio Martinez, whose house you can see from here. The brutes had got drunk; and were threatening--not exactly her life--though that was in some danger, but--well, the poor girl was in trouble with them, and might have had some difficulty in getting away, had I not chanced to ride up."

"A slight service, you call it? You are modest in your estimate, Mr Gerald. A man who should do that much for me!"

"What would you do for him?" asked the mustanger, placing a significant emphasis on the final word.

"I should love him," was the prompt reply.

"Then," said Maurice, spurring his horse close up to the side of the spotted mustang, and whispering into the ear of its rider, with an earnestness strangely contrasting to his late reticence, "I would give half my life to see you in the hands of Wild Cat and his drunken comrades--the other half to deliver you from the danger."

"Do you mean this, Maurice Gerald? Do not trifle with me: I am not a child. Speak the truth! Do you mean it?"

"I do! As heaven is above me, I do!"

The sweetest kiss I ever had in my life, was when a woman--a fair creature, in the hunting field--leant over in her saddle and kissed me as I sate in mine.

The fondest embrace ever received by Maurice Gerald, was that given by Louise Poindexter; when, standing up in her stirrup, and laying her hand upon his shoulder, she cried in an agony of earnest passion--

"Do with me as thou wilt: I love you, I love you!"

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Chapter Twenty Eight

A PLEASURE FORBIDDEN.

Ever since Texas became the scene of an Anglo-Saxon immigration--I might go a century farther back and say, from the time of its colonisation by the descendants of the Conquistadores--the subject of primary importance has been the disposition of its aborigines.

Whether these, the lawful lords of the soil, chanced to be in a state of open war--or whether, by some treaty with the settlers they were consenting to a temporary peace--made but slight difference, so far as they were talked about. In either case they were a topic of daily discourse. In the former it related to the dangers to be hourly apprehended from them; in the latter, to the probable duration of such treaty as might for the moment be binding them to hold their tomahawks entombed.

In Mexican times these questions formed the staple of conversation, at desayuno, almuerzo, comida, y cena; in American times, up to this present hour, they have been the themes of discussion at the breakfast, dinner, and supper tables. In the planter's piazza, as in the hunter's camp, bear, deer, cougar, and peccary, are not named with half the frequency, or half the fear-inspiring emphasis, allotted to the word "Indian." It is this that scares the Texan child instead of the stereotyped nursery ghost, keeping it awake upon its moss-stuffed mattress--disturbing almost as much the repose of its parent.

Despite the surrounding of strong walls--more resembling those of a fortress than a gentleman's dwelling--the inmates of Casa del Corvo were not excepted from this feeling of apprehension, universal along the frontier. As yet they knew little of the Indians, and that little only from report; but, day by day, they were becoming better acquainted with the character of this natural "terror" that interfered with the slumbers of their fellow settlers.

That it was no mere "bogie" they had begun to believe; but if any of them remained incredulous, a note received from the major commanding the Fort--about two weeks after the horse-hunting expedition--was calculated to cure them of their incredulity. It came in the early morning, carried by a mounted rifleman. It was put into the hands of the planter just as he was about sitting down to the breakfast-table, around which were assembled the three individuals who composed his household--his daughter Louise, his son Henry, and his nephew Cassius Calhoun.

"Startling news!" he exclaimed, after hastily reading, the note. "Not very pleasant if true; and I suppose there can be no doubt of that, since the major appears convinced."

"Unpleasant news, papa?" asked his daughter, a spot of red springing to her cheek as she put the question.

The spoken interrogatory was continued by others, not uttered aloud.

"What can the major have written to him? I met him yesterday while riding in the chapparal. He saw me in company with--Can it be that? Mon Dieu! if father should hear it--"

"`The Comanches on the war trail'--so writes the major."

"Oh, that's all!" said Louise, involuntarily giving voice to the phrase, as if the news had nothing so very fearful in it. "You frightened us, sir. I thought it was something worse."

"Worse! What trifling, child, to talk so! There is nothing worse, in Texas, than Comanches on the war trail--nothing half so dangerous."

Louise might have thought there was--a danger at least as difficult to be avoided. Perhaps she was reflecting upon a pursuit of wild steeds-- or thinking of the trail of a lazo.

She made no reply. Calhoun continued the conversation.

"Is the major sure of the Indians being up? What does he say, uncle?"

"That there have been rumours of it for some days past, though not reliable. Now it is certain. Last night Wild Cat, the Seminole chief, came to the Fort with a party of his tribe; bringing the news that the painted pole has been erected in the camps of the Comanches all over Texas, and that the war dance has been going on for more than a month. That several parties are already out upon the maraud, and may be looked for among the settlements at any moment."

"And Wild Cat himself--what of him?" asked Louise, an unpleasant reminiscence suggesting the inquiry. "Is that renegade Indian to be trusted, who appears to be as much an enemy to the whites as to the people of his own race?"

"Quite true, my daughter. You have described the chief of the Seminoles almost in the same terms as I find him spoken of, in a postscript to the major's letter. He counsels us to beware of the two-faced old rascal, who will be sure to take sides with the Comanches, whenever it may suit his convenience to do so."

"Well," continued the planter, laying aside the note, and betaking himself to his coffee and waffles, "I trust we sha'n't see any redskins here--either Seminoles or Comanches. In making their marauds, let us hope they will not like the look of the crenelled parapets of Casa del Corvo, but give the hacienda a wide berth."

Before any one could respond, a sable face appearing at the door of the dining-room--which was the apartment in which breakfast was being eaten--caused a complete change in the character of the conversation.

The countenance belonged to Pluto, the coachman.

"What do you want, Pluto?" inquired his owner.

"Ho, ho! Massr Woodley, dis chile want nuffin 't all. Only look in t' tell Missa Looey dat soon's she done eat her brekfass de spotty am unner de saddle, all ready for chuck de bit into him mouf. Ho! ho! dat critter do dance 'bout on de pave stone as ef it wa' mad to 'treak it back to de smoove tuff ob de praira."

"Going out for a ride, Louise?" asked the planter with a shadow upon his brow, which he made but little effort to conceal.

"Yes, papa; I was thinking of it."

"You must not."

"Indeed!"

"I mean, that you must not ride out alone. It is not proper."

"Why do you think so, papa? I have often ridden out alone."

"Yes; perhaps too often."

This last remark brought the slightest tinge of colour to the cheeks of the young Creole; though she seemed uncertain what construction she was to put upon it.

Notwithstanding its ambiguity, she did not press for an explanation. On the contrary, she preferred shunning it; as was shown by her reply.

"If you think so, papa, I shall not go out again. Though to be cooped up here, in this dismal dwelling, while you gentlemen are all abroad upon business--is that the life you intend me to lead in Texas?"

"Nothing of the sort, my daughter. I have no objection to your riding out as much as you please; but Henry must be with you, or your cousin Cassius. I only lay an embargo on your going alone. I have my reasons."

"Reasons! What are they?"

The question came involuntarily to her lips. It had scarce passed them, ere she regretted having asked it. By her uneasy air it was evident she had apprehensions as to the answer.

The reply appeared partially to relieve her.

"What other reasons do you want," said the planter, evidently endeavouring to escape from the suspicion of duplicity by the Statement of a convenient fact--"what better, than the contents of this letter from the major? Remember, my child, you are not in Louisiana, where a lady may travel anywhere without fear of either insult or outrage; but in Texas, where she may dread both--where even her life may be in danger. Here there are Indians."

"My excursions don't extend so far from the house, that I need have any fear of Indians. I never go more than five miles at the most."

"Five miles!" exclaimed the ex-officer of volunteers, with a sardonic smile; "you would be as safe at fifty, cousin Loo. You are just as likely to encounter the redskins within a hundred yards of the door, as at the distance of a hundred miles. When they are on the war trail they may be looked for anywhere, and at any time. In my opinion, uncle Woodley is rights you are very foolish to ride out alone."

"Oh! you say so?" sharply retorted the young Creole, turning disdainfully towards her cousin. "And pray, sir, may I ask of what service your company would be to me in the event of my encountering the Comanches, which I don't believe there's the slightest danger of my doing? A pretty figure we'd cut--the pair of us--in the midst of a war-party of painted savages! Ha! ha! The danger would be yours, not mine: since I should certainly ride away, and leave you to your own devices. Danger, indeed, within five miles of the house! If there's a horseman in Texas--savages not excepted--who can catch up with my little Luna in a five mile stretch, he must ride a swift steed; which is more than you do, Mr Cash!"

"Silence, daughter!" commanded Poindexter. "Don't let me hear you talk in that absurd strain. Take no notice of it, nephew. Even if there were no danger from Indians, there are other outlaws in these parts quite as much to be shunned as they. Enough that I forbid you to ride abroad, as you have of late been accustomed to do."

"Be it as you will, papa," rejoined Louise, rising from the breakfast-table, and with an air of resignation preparing to leave the room. "Of course I shall obey you--at the risk of losing my health for want of exercise. Go, Pluto!" she added, addressing herself to the darkey, who still stood grinning in the doorway, "turn Luna loose into the corral--the pastures--anywhere. Let her stray back to her native prairies, if the creature be so inclined; she's no longer needed here."

With this speech, the young lady swept out of the sala, leaving the three gentlemen, who still retained their seats by the table, to reflect upon the satire intended to be conveyed by her words.

They were not the last to which she gave utterance in that same series. As she glided along the corridor leading to her own chamber, others, low murmured, mechanically escaped from her lips. They were in the shape of interrogatories--a string of them self-asked, and only to be answered by conjecture.

"What can papa have heard? Is it but his suspicions? Can any one have told him? Does he knew that we have met?"

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Chapter Twenty Nine

EL COYOTE AT HOME.

Calhoun took his departure from the breakfast-table, almost as abruptly as his cousin; but, on leaving the sala instead of returning to his own chamber, he sallied forth from the house.

Still suffering from wounds but half healed, he was nevertheless sufficiently convalescent to go abroad--into the garden, to the stables, the corrals--anywhere around the house.

On the present occasion, his excursion was intended to conduct him to a more distant point. As if under the stimulus of what had turned up in the conversation--or perhaps by the contents of the letter that had been read--his feebleness seemed for the time to have forsaken him; and, vigorously plying his crutch, he proceeded up the river in the direction of Fort Inge.

In a barren tract of land, that lay about half way between the hacienda and the Fort--and that did not appear to belong to any one--he arrived at the terminus of his limping expedition. There was a grove of mezquit, with, some larger trees shading it; and in the midst of this, a rude hovel of "wattle and dab," known in South-Western Texas as a jacale.

It was the domicile of Miguel Diaz, the Mexican mustanger--a lair appropriate to the semi-savage who had earned for himself the distinctive appellation of El Coyote ("Prairie Wolf.")

It was not always that the wolf could be found in his den--for his jacale deserved no better description. It was but his occasional sleeping-place; during those intervals of inactivity when, by the disposal of a drove of captured mustangs, he could afford to stay for a time within the limits of the settlement, indulging in such gross pleasures as its proximity afforded.

Calhoun was fortunate in finding him at home; though not quite so fortunate as to find him in a state of sobriety. He was not exactly intoxicated--having, after a prolonged spell of sleep, partially recovered from this, the habitual condition of his existence.

"H'la nor!" he exclaimed in his provincial patois, slurring the salutation, as his visitor darkened the door of the jacale. "P'r Dios! Who'd have expected to see you? Sientese! Be seated. Take a chair. There's one. A chair! Ha! ha! ha!"

The laugh was called up at contemplation of that which he had facetiously termed a chair. It was the skull of a mustang, intended to serve as such; and which, with another similar piece, a rude table of cleft yucca-tree, and a couch of cane reeds, upon which the owner of the jacale was reclining, constituted the sole furniture of Miguel Diaz's dwelling.

Calhoun, fatigued with his halting promenade, accepted the invitation of his host, and sate down upon the horse-skull.

He did not permit much time to pass, before entering upon the object of his errand.

"Senor Diaz!" said he, "I have come for--"

"Senor Americano!" exclaimed the half-drunken horse-hunter, cutting short the explanation, "why waste words upon that? Carrambo! I know well enough for what you've come. You want me to wipe out that devilish Irlandes!"

"Well!"

"Well; I promised you I would do it, for five hundred pesos--at the proper time and opportunity. I will. Miguel Diaz never played false to his promise. But the time's not come, nor capitan; nor yet the opportunity, Carajo! To kill a man outright requires skill. It can't be done--even on the prairies--without danger of detection; and if detected, ha! what chance for me? You forget, nor capitan, that I'm a Mexican. If I were of your people, I might slay Don Mauricio; and get clear on the score of its being a quarrel. Maldita! With us Mexicans it is different. If we stick our machete into a man so as to let out his life's blood, it is called murder; and you Americanos, with your stupid juries of twelve honest men, would pronounce it so: ay, and hang a poor fellow for it. Chingaro! I can't risk that. I hate the Irlandes as much as you; but I'm not going to chop off my nose to spite my own face. I must wait for the time, and the chance--carrai, the time and the chance."

"Both are come!" exclaimed the tempter, bending earnestly towards the bravo. "You said you could easily do it, if there was any Indian trouble going on?"

"Of course I said so. If there was that--"

"You have not heard the news, then?"

"What news?"

"That the Comanches are starting on the war trail."

"Carajo!" exclaimed El Coyote, springing up from his couch of reeds, and exhibiting all the activity of his namesake, when roused by the scent of prey. "Santissima Virgen! Do you speak the truth, nor capitan?"

"Neither more nor less. The news has just reached the Fort. I have it on the best authority--the officer in command."

"In that case," answered the Mexican reflecting!--"in that case, Don Mauricio may die. The Comanches can kill him. Ha! ha! ha!"

"You are sure of it?"

"I should be surer, if his scalp were worth a thousand dollars, instead of five hundred."

"It is worth that sum."

"What sum?"

"A thousand dollars."

"You promise it?"

"I do."

"Then the Comanches shall scalp him, nor capitan. You may return to Casa del Corvo, and go to sleep with confidence that whenever the opportunity arrives, your enemy will lose his hair. You understand?"

"I do."

"Get ready your thousand pesos."

"They wait your acceptance."

"Carajo! I shall earn them in a trice. Adios! Adios!"

"Santissima Virgen!" exclaimed the profane ruffian, as his visitor limped out of sight. "What a magnificent fluke of fortune! A perfect chiripe. A thousand dollars for killing the man I intended to kill on my own account, without charging anybody a single claco for the deed!

"The Comanches upon the war trail! Chingaro! can it be true? If so, I must look up my old disguise--gone to neglect through these three long years of accursed peace. Viva la guerra de los Indios! Success to the pantomime of the prairies!"

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Chapter Thirty

A SAGITTARY CORRESPONDENCE.

Louise Poindexter, passionately addicted to the sports termed "manly," could scarce have overlooked archery.

She had not. The how, and its adjunct the arrow, were in her hands as toys which she could control to her will.

She had been instructed in their manege by the Houma Indians; a remnant of whom--the last descendants of a once powerful tribe--may still be encountered upon the "coast" of the Mississippi, in the proximity of Point Coupe and the bayou Atchafalaya.

For a long time her bow had lain unbent--unpacked, indeed, ever since it had formed part of the paraphernalia brought overland in the waggon train. Since her arrival at Casa del Corvo she had found no occasion to use the weapon of Diana; and her beautiful bow of Osage-orange wood, and quiver of plumed arrows, had lain neglected in the lumber-room.

There came a time when they were taken forth, and honoured with some attention. It was shortly after that scene at the breakfast table; when she had received the paternal command to discontinue her equestrian excursions.

To this she had yielded implicit obedience, even beyond what was intended: since not only had she given up riding out alone, but declined to do so in company.

The spotted mustang stood listless in its stall, or pranced frantically around the corral; wondering why its spine was no longer crossed, or its ribs compressed, by that strange caparison, that more than aught else reminded it of its captivity.

It was not neglected, however. Though no more mounted by its fair mistress, it was the object of her daily--almost hourly--solicitude. The best corn in the granaderias of Casa del Corvo was selected, the most nutritions grass that grows upon the lavanna--the gramma-- furnished for its manger; while for drink it had the cool crystal water from the current of the Leona.

Pluto took delight in grooming it; and, under his currycomb and brushes, its coat had attained a gloss which rivalled that upon Pluto's own sable skin.

While not engaged attending upon her pet, Miss Poindexter divided the residue of her time between indoor duties and archery. The latter she appeared to have selected as the substitute for that pastime of which she was so passionately fond, and in which she was now denied indulgence.

The scene of her sagittary performances was the garden, with its adjacent shrubbery--an extensive enclosure, three sides of which were fenced in by the river itself, curving round it like the shoe of a racehorse, the fourth being a straight line traced by the rearward wall of the hacienda.

Within this circumference a garden, with ornamental grounds, had been laid out, in times long gone by--as might have been told by many ancient exotics seen standing over it. Even the statues spoke of a past age-- not only in their decay, but in the personages they were intended to represent. Equally did they betray the chisel of the Spanish sculptor. Among them you might see commemorated the figure and features of the great Conde; of the Campeador; of Ferdinand and his energetic queen; of the discoverer of the American world; of its two chief conquistadores--Cortez and Pizarro; and of her, alike famous for her beauty and devotion, the Mexican Malinche.

It was not amidst these sculptured stones that Louise Poindexter practised her feats of archery; though more than once might she have been seen standing before the statue of Malinche, and scanning the voluptuous outline of the Indian maiden's form; not with any severe thought of scorn, that this dark-skinned daughter of Eve had succumbed to such a conqueror as Cortez.

The young creole felt, in her secret heart, that she had no right to throw a stone at that statue. To one less famed than Cortez--though in her estimation equally deserving of fame--she had surrendered what the great conquistador had won from Marina--her heart of hearts.

In her excursions with the bow, which were of diurnal occurrence, she strayed not among the statues. Her game was not there to be found; but under the shadow of tall trees that, keeping the curve of the river, formed a semicircular grove between it and the garden. Most of these trees were of indigenous growth--wild Chinas, mulberries, and pecans-- that in the laying out of the grounds had been permitted to remain where Nature, perhaps some centuries ago, had scattered their seed.

It was under the leafy canopy of these fair forest trees the young Creole delighted to sit--or stray along the edge of the pellucid river, that rolled dreamily by.

Here she was free to be alone; which of late appeared to be her preference. Her father, in his sternest mood, could not have denied her so slight a privilege. If there was danger upon the outside prairie, there could be none within the garden--enclosed, as it was, by a river broad and deep, and a wall that could not have been scaled without the aid of a thirty-round ladder. So far from objecting to this solitary strolling, the planter appeared something more than satisfied that his daughter had taken to these tranquil habits; and the suspicions which he had conceived--not altogether without a cause--were becoming gradually dismissed from his mind.

After all he might have been misinformed? The tongue of scandal takes delight in torturing; and he may have been chosen as one of its victims? Or, perhaps, it was but a casual thing--the encounter of which he had been told, between his daughter and Maurice the mustanger? They may have met by accident in the chapparal? She could not well pass, without speaking to, the man who had twice rescued her from a dread danger. There might have been nothing in it, beyond the simple acknowledgment of her gratitude?

It looked well that she had, with such willingness, consented to relinquish her rides. It was but little in keeping with her usual custom, when crossed. Obedience to that particular command could not have been irksome; and argued innocence uncontaminated, virtue still intact.

So reasoned the fond father; who, beyond conjecture, was not permitted to scrutinise too closely the character of his child. In other lands, or in a different class of society, he might possibly have asked direct questions, and required direct answers to them. This is not the method upon the Mississippi; where a son of ten years old--a daughter of less than fifteen--would rebel against such scrutiny, and call it inquisition.

Still less might Woodley Poindexter strain the statutes of parental authority--the father of a Creole belle--for years used to that proud homage whose incense often stills, or altogether destroys, the simpler affections of the heart.

Though her father, and by law her controller, he knew to what a short length his power might extend, if exerted in opposition to her will. He was, therefore, satisfied with her late act of obedience--rejoiced to find that instead of continuing her reckless rides upon the prairie, she now contented herself within the range of the garden--with bow and arrow slaying the small birds that were so unlucky as to come under her aim.

Father of fifty years old, why reason in this foolish fashion? Have you forgotten your own youth--the thoughts that then inspired you--the deceits you practised under such inspiration--the counterfeits you assumed--the "stories" you told to cloak what, after all, may have been the noblest impulse of your nature?

The father of the fair Louise appeared to have become oblivious to recollections of this kind: for his early life was not without facts to have furnished them. They must have been forgotten, else he would have taken occasion to follow his daughter into the garden, and observe her-- himself unobserved--while disporting herself in the shrubbery that bordered the river bank.

By doing so, he would have discovered that her disposition was not so cruel as may have been supposed. Instead of transfixing the innocent birds that fluttered in such foolish confidence around her, her greatest feat in archery appeared to be the impaling of a piece of paper upon the point of her arrow, and sending the shaft thus charged across the river, to fall harmlessly into a thicket on the opposite side.

He would have witnessed an exhibition still more singular. He would have seen the arrow thus spent--after a short interval, as if dissatisfied with the place into which it had been shot, and desirous of returning to the fair hand whence it had taken its departure--come back into the garden with the same, or a similar piece of paper, transfixed upon its shaft!

The thing might have appeared mysterious--even supernatural--to an observer unacquainted with the spirit and mechanism of that abnormal phenomenon. There was no observer of it save the two individuals who alternately bent the bow, shooting with a single arrow; and by them it was understood.

"Love laughs at locksmiths." The old adage is scarce suited to Texas, where lock-making is an unknown trade.

"Where there's a will, there's a way," expresses pretty much the same sentiment, appropriate to all time and every place. Never was it more correctly illustrated than in that exchange of bow-shots across the channel of the Leona.

Louise Poindexter had the will; Maurice Gerald had suggested the way.

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Chapter Thirty One

A STREAM CLEVERLY CROSSED.

The sagittary correspondence could not last for long. They are but lukewarm lovers who can content themselves with a dialogue carried on at bowshot distance. Hearts brimful of passion must beat and burn together--in close proximity--each feeling the pulsation of the other. "If there be an Elysium on earth, it is this!"

Maurice Gerald was not the man--nor Louise Poindexter the woman--to shun such a consummation.

It came to pass: not under the tell-tale light of the sun, but in the lone hour of midnight, when but the stars could have been witnesses of their social dereliction.

Twice had they stood together in that garden grove--twice had they exchanged love vows--under the steel-grey light of the stars; and a third interview had been arranged between them.

Little suspected the proud planter--perhaps prouder of his daughter than anything else he possessed--that she was daily engaged in an act of rebellion--the wildest against which parental authority may pronounce itself.

His own daughter--his only daughter--of the best blood of Southern aristocracy; beautiful, accomplished, everything to secure him a splendid alliance--holding nightly assignation with a horse-hunter!

Could he have but dreamt it when slumbering upon his soft couch, the dream would have startled him from his sleep like the call of the eternal trumpet!

He had no suspicion--not the slightest. The thing was too improbable-- too monstrous, to have given cause for one. Its very monstrosity would have disarmed him, had the thought been suggested.

He had been pleased at his daughter's compliance with his late injunctions; though he would have preferred her obeying them to the letter, and riding out in company with her brother or cousin--which she still declined to do. This, however, he did not insist upon. He could well concede so much to her caprice: since her staying at home could be no disadvantage to the cause that had prompted him to the stern counsel.

Her ready obedience had almost influenced him to regret the prohibition. Walking in confidence by day, and sleeping in security by night, he fancied, it might be recalled.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was one of those nights known only to a southern sky, when the full round moon rolls clear across a canopy of sapphire; when the mountains have no mist, and look as though you could lay your hand upon them; when the wind is hushed, and the broad leaves of the tropical trees droop motionless from their boughs; themselves silent as if listening to the concert of singular sounds carried on in their midst, and in which mingle the voices of living creatures belonging to every department of animated nature--beast, bird, reptile, and insect.

Such a night was it, as you would select for a stroll in company with the being--the one and only being--who, by the mysterious dictation of Nature, has entwined herself around your heart--a night upon which you feel a wayward longing to have white arms entwined around your neck, and bright eyes before your face, with that voluptuous gleaming that can only be felt to perfection under the mystic light of the moon.

It was long after the infantry drum had beaten tattoo, and the cavalry bugle sounded the signal for the garrison of Fort Inge to go to bed--in fact it was much nearer the hour of midnight--when a horseman rode away from the door of Oberdoffer's hotel; and, taking the down-river road, was soon lost to the sight of the latest loiterer who might have been strolling through the streets of the village.

It is already known, that this road passed the hacienda of Casa del Corvo, at some distance from the house, and on the opposite side of the river. It is also known that at the same place it traversed a stretch of open prairie, with only a piece of copsewood midway between two extensive tracts of chapparal.

This clump of isolated timber, known in prairie parlance as a "motte" or "island" of timber, stood by the side of the road, along which the horseman had continued, after taking his departure from the village.

On reaching the copse he dismounted; led his horse in among the underwood; "hitched" him, by looping his bridle rein around the topmost twigs of an elastic bough; then detaching a long rope of twisted horsehair from the "horn" of his saddle, and inserting his arm into its coil, he glided out to the edge of the "island," on that side that lay towards the hacienda.

Before forsaking the shadow of the copse, he cast a glance towards the sky, and at the moon sailing supremely over it. It was a glance of inquiry, ending in a look of chagrin, with some muttered phrases that rendered it more emphatic.

"No use waiting for that beauty to go to bed? She's made up her mind, she won't go home till morning--ha! ha!"

The droll conceit, which has so oft amused the nocturnal inebriate of great cities, appeared to produce a like affect upon the night patroller of the prairie; and for a moment the shadow, late darkening his brow, disappeared. It returned anon; as he stood gazing across the open space that separated him from the river bottom--beyond which lay the hacienda of Casa del Corvo, clearly outlined upon the opposite bluff, "If there should be any one stirring about the place? It's not likely at this hour; unless it be the owner of a bad conscience who can't sleep. Troth! there's one such within those walls. If he be abroad there's a good chance of his seeing me on the open ground; not that I should care a straw, if it were only myself to be compromised. By Saint Patrick, I see no alternative but risk it! It's no use waiting upon the moon, deuce take her! She don't go down for hours; and there's not the sign of a cloud. It won't do to keep her waiting. No; I must chance it in the clear light. Here goes?"

Saying this, with a swift but stealthy step, the dismounted horseman glided across the treeless tract, and soon readied the escarpment of the cliff, that formed the second height of land rising above the channel of the Leona.

He did not stay ten seconds in this conspicuous situation; but by a path that zigzagged down the bluff--and with which he appeared familiar--he descended to the river "bottom."

In an instant after he stood upon the bank; at the convexity of the river's bend, and directly opposite the spot where a skiff was moored, under the sombre shadow of a gigantic cotton-tree.

For a short while he stood gazing across the stream, with a glance that told of scrutiny. He was scanning the shrubbery on the other side; in the endeavour to make out, whether any one was concealed beneath its shadow.

Becoming satisfied that no one was there, he raised the loop-end of his lazo--for it was this he carried over his arm--and giving it half a dozen whirls in the air, cast it across the stream.

The noose settled over the cutwater of the skiff; and closing around the stem, enabled him to tow the tiny craft to the side on which he stood.

Stepping in, he took hold of a pair of oars that lay along the planking at the bottom; and, placing them between the thole-pins, pulled the boat back to its moorings.

Leaping out, he secured it as it had been before, against the drift of the current; and then, taking stand under the shadow of the cotton-tree, he appeared to await either a signal, or the appearance of some one, expected by appointment.

His manoeuvres up to this moment, had they been observed, might have rendered him amenable to the suspicion that he was a housebreaker, about to "crack the crib" of Casa del Corvo.

The phrases that fell from his lips, however, could they have been heard, would have absolved him of any such vile or vulgar intention. It is true he had designs upon the hacienda; but these did not contemplate either its cash, plate, or jewellery--if we except the most precious jewel it contained--the mistress of the mansion herself.

It is scarce necessary to say, that the man who had hidden his horse in the "motte," and so cleverly effected the crossing of the stream, was Maurice the mustanger.

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Chapter Thirty Two

LIGHT AND SHADE.

He had not long to chafe under the trysting-tree, if such it were. At the very moment when he was stepping into the skiff, a casement window that looked to the rear of the hacienda commenced turning upon its hinges, and was then for a time held slightly ajar; as if some one inside was intending to issue forth, and only hesitated in order to be assured that the "coast was clear."

A small white hand--decorated with jewels that glistened under the light of the moon--grasping the sash told that the individual who had opened the window was of the gentler sex; the tapering fingers, with their costly garniture, proclaimed her a lady; while the majestic figure--soon after exhibited outside, on the top of the stairway that led down to the garden--could be no other than that of Louise Poindexter.

It was she.

For a second or two the lady stood listening. She heard, or fancied she heard, the dip of an oar. She might be mistaken; for the stridulation of the cicadas filled the atmosphere with confused sound. No matter. The hour of assignation had arrived; and she was not the one to stand upon punctilios as to time--especially after spending two hours of solitary expectation in her chamber, that had appeared like as many. With noiseless tread descending the stone stairway, she glided sylph-like among the statues and shrubs; until, arriving under the shadow of the cotton-wood, she flung herself into arms eagerly outstretched to receive her.

Who can describe the sweetness of such embrace--strange to say, sweeter from being stolen? Who can paint the delicious emotions experienced at such a moment--too sacred to be touched by the pen?

It is only after long throes of pleasure had passed, and the lovers had begun to converse in the more sober language of life, that it becomes proper, or even possible to report them.

Thus did they speak to each other, the lady taking the initiative:--

"To-morrow night you will meet me again--to-morrow night, dearest Maurice?"

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,--if I were free to say the word."

"And why not? Why are you not free to say it?"

"To-morrow, by break of day, I am off for the Alamo."

"Indeed! Is it imperative you should go?"

The interrogatory was put in a tone that betrayed displeasure. A vision of a sinister kind always came before the mind of Louise Poindexter at mention of the lone hut on the Alamo.

And why? It had afforded her hospitality. One would suppose that her visit to it could scarce fail to be one of the pleasantest recollections of her life. And yet it was not!

"I have excellent reasons for going," was the reply she received.

"Excellent reasons! Do you expect to meet any one there?"

"My follower Phelim--no one else. I hope the poor fellow is still above the grass. I sent him out about ten days ago--before there was any tidings of these Indian troubles."

"Only Phelim you expect to meet? Is it true, Gerald? Dearest! do not deceive me! Only him?"

"Why do you ask the question, Louise?"

"I cannot tell you why. I should die of shame to speak my secret thoughts."

"Do not fear to speak them! I could keep no secret from you--in truth I could not. So tell me what it is, love!"

"Do you wish me, Maurice?"

"I do--of course I do. I feel sure that whatever it may be, I shall be able to explain it. I know that my relations with you are of a questionable character; or might be so deemed, if the world knew of them. It is for that very reason I am going back to the Alamo."

"And to stay there?"

"Only for a single day, or two at most. Only to gather up my household gods, and bid a last adieu to my prairie life."

"Indeed!"

"You appear surprised."

"No! only mystified. I cannot comprehend you. Perhaps I never shall!"

"'Tis very simple--the resolve I have taken. I know you will forgive me, when I make it known to you."

"Forgive you, Maurice! For what do you ask forgiveness?"

"For keeping it a secret from you, that--that I am not what I seem."

"God forbid you should be otherwise than what you seem to me--noble, grand, beautiful, rare among men! Oh, Maurice! you know not how I esteem--how I love you!"

"Not more than I esteem and love you. It is that very esteem that now counsels me to a separation."

"A separation?"

"Yes, love; but it is to be hoped only for a short time."

"How long?"

"While a steamer can cross the Atlantic, and return."

"An age! And why this?"

"I am called to my native country--Ireland, so much despised, as you already know. 'Tis only within the last twenty hours I received the summons. I obey it the more eagerly, that it tells me I shall be able soon to return, and prove to your proud father that the poor horse-hunter who won his daughter's heart--have I won it, Louise?"

"Idle questioner! Won it? You know you have more than won it-- conquered it to a subjection from which it can never escape. Mock me not, Maurice, nor my stricken heart--henceforth, and for evermore, your slave!"

During the rapturous embrace that followed this passionate speech, by which a high-born and beautiful maiden confessed to have surrendered herself--heart, soul, and body--to the man who had made conquest of her affections, there was silence perfect and profound.

The grasshopper amid the green herbage, the cicada on the tree-leaf, the mock-bird on the top of the tall cotton-wood, and the nightjar soaring still higher in the moonlit air, apparently actuated by a simultaneous instinct, ceased to give utterance to their peculiar cries: as though one and all, by their silence, designed to do honour to the sacred ceremony transpiring in their presence!

But that temporary cessation of sounds was due to a different cause. A footstep grating upon the gravelled walk of the garden--and yet touching it so lightly, that only an acute ear could have perceived the contact-- was the real cause why the nocturnal voices had suddenly become stilled.

The lovers, absorbed in the sweet interchange of a mutual affection, heard it not. They saw not that dark shadow, in the shape of man or devil, flitting among the flowers; now standing by a statue; now cowering under cover of the shrubbery, until at length it became stationary behind the trunk of a tree, scarce ten paces from the spot where they were kissing each other!

Little did they suspect, in that moment of celestial happiness when all nature was hushed around them, that the silence was exposing their passionate speeches, and the treacherous moon, at the same time, betraying their excited actions.

That shadowy listener, crouching guilty-like behind the tree, was a witness to both. Within easy earshot, he could hear every word--even the sighs and soft low murmurings of their love; while under the silvery light of the moon, with scarce a sprig coming between, he could detect their slightest gestures.

It is scarce necessary to give the name of the dastardly eavesdropper. That of Cassius Calhoun will have suggested itself.

It was he.

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Chapter Thirty Three

A TORTURING DISCOVERY.

How came the cousin of Louise Poindexter to be astir at that late hour of the night, or, as it was now, the earliest of the morning? Had he been forewarned of this interview of the lovers; or was it merely some instinctive suspicion that had caused him to forsake his sleeping-chamber, and make a tour of inspection within the precincts of the garden?

In other words, was he an eavesdropper by accident, or a spy acting upon information previously communicated to him?

The former was the fact. Chance alone, or chance aided by a clear night, had given him the clue to a discovery that now filled his soul with the fires of hell.

Standing upon the housetop at the hour of midnight--what had taken him up there cannot be guessed--breathing vile tobacco-smoke into an atmosphere before perfumed with the scent of the night-blooming cereus; the ex-captain of cavalry did not appear distressed by any particular anxiety. He had recovered from the injuries received in his encounter with the mustanger; and although that bit of evil fortune did not fail to excite within him the blackest chagrin, whenever it came up before his mind, its bitterness had been, to some extent, counteracted by hopes of revenge--towards a plan for which he had already made some progress.

Equally with her father, he had been gratified that Louise was contented of late to stay within doors: for it was himself who had secretly suggested the prohibition to her going abroad. Equally had he remained ignorant as to the motive of that garden archery, and in a similar manner had misconceived it. In fact, he had begun to flatter himself, that, after all, her indifference to himself might be only a feint on the part of his cousin, or an illusion upon his. She had been less cynical for some days; and this had produced upon him the pleasant impression, that he might have been mistaken in his jealous fears.

He had as yet discovered no positive proof that she entertained a partiality for the young Irishman; and as the days passed without any renewed cause for disquiet, he began to believe that in reality there was none.

Under the soothing influence of this restored confidence, had he mounted up to the azotea; and, although it was the hour of midnight, the careless insouciance with which he applied the light to his cigar, and afterwards stood smoking it, showed that he could not have come there for any very important purpose. It may have been to exchange the sultry atmosphere of his sleeping-room for the fresher air outside; or he may have been tempted forth by the magnificent moon--though he was not much given to such romantic contemplation.

Whatever it was, he had lighted his cigar, and was apparently enjoying it, with his arms crossed upon the coping of the parapet, and his face turned towards the river.

It did not disturb his tranquillity to see a horseman ride out from the chapparal on the opposite side, and proceed onward across the open plain.

He knew of the road that was there. Some traveller, he supposed, who preferred taking advantage of the cool hours of the night--a night, too, that would have tempted the weariest wayfarer to continue his journey. It might be a planter who lived below, returning home from the village, after lounging an hour too long in the tavern saloon.

In daytime, the individual might have been identified; by the moonlight, it could only be made out that there was a man on horseback.

The eyes of the ex-officer accompanied him as he trotted along the road; but simply with mechanical movement, as one musingly contemplates some common waif drifting down the current of a river.

It was only after the horseman had arrived opposite the island of timber, and was seen to pull up, and then ride into it, that the spectator upon the housetop became stirred to take an interest in his movements.

"What the devil can that mean?" muttered Calhoun to himself, as he hastily plucked the cigar stump from between his teeth. "Damn the man, he's dismounted!" continued he, as the stranger re-appeared, on foot, by the inner edge of the copse.

"And coming this way--towards the bend of the river--straight as he can streak it!

"Down the bluff--into the bottom--and with a stride that shows him well acquainted with the way. Surely to God he don't intend making his way across into the garden? He'd have to swim for that; and anything he could get there would scarce pay him for his pains. What the old Scratch can be his intention? A thief?"

This was Calhoun's first idea--rejected almost as soon as conceived. It is true that in Spanish-American countries even the beggar goes on horseback. Much more might the thief?

For all this, it was scarce probable, that a man would make a midnight expedition to steal fruit, or vegetables, in such cavalier style.

What else could he be after?

The odd manoeuvre of leaving his horse under cover of the copse, and coming forward on foot, and apparently with caution, as far as could be seen in the uncertain light, was of itself evidence that the man's errand could scarce be honest and that he was approaching the premises of Casa del Corvo with some evil design.

What could it be?

Since leaving the upper plain he had been no longer visible to Calhoun upon the housetop. The underwood skirting the stream on the opposite side, and into which he had entered, was concealing him.

"What can the man be after?"

After putting this interrogatory to himself, and for about the tenth time--each with increasing emphasis--the composure of the ex-captain was still further disturbed by a sound that reached his ear, exceedingly like a plunge in the river. It was slight, but clearly the concussion of some hard substance brought in contact with water.

"The stroke of an oar," muttered he, on hearing it. "Is, by the holy Jehovah! He's got hold of the skiff, and's crossing over to the garden. What on earth can he be after?"

The questioner did not intend staying on the housetop to determine. His thought was to slip silently downstairs--rouse the male members of the family, along with some of the servants; and attempt to capture the intruder by a clever ambuscade.

He had raised his arm from the copestone, and was in the act of stepping back from the parapet, when his ear was saluted by another sound, that caused him again to lean forward and look into the garden below.

This new noise bore no resemblance to the stroke of an oar; nor did it proceed from the direction of the river. It was the creaking of a door as it turned upon its hinge, or, what is much the same, a casement window; while it came from below--almost directly underneath the spot where the listener stood.

On craning over to ascertain the cause, he saw, what blanched his cheeks to the whiteness of the moonlight that shone upon them--what sent the blood curdling through every corner of his heart.

The casement that had been opened was that which belonged to the bed-chamber of his cousin Louise. He knew it. The lady herself was standing outside upon the steps that led to the level of the garden, her face turned downward, as if she was meditating a descent.

Loosely attired in white, as though in the neglige of a robe de chambre, with only a small kerchief coifed over her crown, she resembled some fair nymph of the night, some daughter of the moon, whom Luna delighted to surround with a silvery effulgence!

Calhoun reasoned rapidly. He could not do otherwise than connect her appearance outside the casement with the advent of the man who was making his way across the river.

And who could this man be? Who but Maurice the mustanger?

A clandestine meeting! And by appointment!

There could be no doubt of it; and if there had, it would have been dissolved, at seeing the white-robed figure glide noiselessly down the stone steps, and along the gravelled walks, till it at length disappeared among the trees that shadowed the mooring-place of the skiff.

Like one paralysed with a powerful stroke, the ex-captain continued for some time upon the azotea--speechless and without motion. It was only after the white drapery had disappeared, and he heard the low murmur of voices rising from among the trees, that he was stimulated to resolve upon some course of proceeding.

He thought no longer of awaking the inmates of the house--at least not then. Better first to be himself the sole witness of his cousin's disgrace; and then--and then--

In short, he was not in a state of mind to form any definite plan; and, acting solely under the blind stimulus of a fell instinct, he hurried down the escalera, and made his way through the house, and out into the garden.

He felt feeble as he pressed forward. His legs had tottered under him while descending the stone steps. They did the same as he glided along the gravelled walk. They continued to tremble as he crouched behind the tree trunk that hindered him from being seen--while playing spectator of a scene that afflicted him to the utmost depths of his soul.

He heard their vows; their mutual confessions of love; the determination of the mustanger to be gone by the break of the morrow's day; as also his promise to return, and the revelation to which that promise led.

With bitter chagrin, he heard how this determination was combated by Louise, and the reasons why she at length appeared to consent to it.

He was witness to that final and rapturous embrace, that caused him to strike his foot nervously against the pebbles, and make that noise that had scared the cicadas into silence.

Why at that moment did he not spring forward--put a termination to the intolerable tete-a-tete--and with a blow of his bowie-knife lay his rival low--at his own feet and that of his mistress? Why had he not done this at the beginning--for to him there needed no further evidence, than the interview itself, to prove that his cousin had been dishonoured?

There was a time when he would not have been so patient. What, then, was the punctilio that restrained him? Was it the presence of that piece of perfect mechanism, that, with a sheen of steel, glistened upon the person of his rival, and which under the bright moonbeams, could be distinguished as a "Colt's six-shooter?"

Perhaps it may have been. At all events, despite the terrible temptation to which his soul was submitted, something not only hindered him from taking an immediate vengeance, but in the mid-moments of that maddening spectacle--the final embrace--prompted him to turn away from the spot, and with an earnestness, even keener than he had yet exhibited, hurry back in the direction of the house: leaving the lovers, still unconscious of having been observed, to bring their sweet interview to an ending--sure to be procrastinated.

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