The Light of Western Stars

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Contents

I. A Gentleman of the Range
II. A Secret Kept
III. Sister and Brother
IV. A Ride From Sunrise to Sunset
V. The Round-up
VI. A Gift and a Purchase
VII. Her Majesty's Rancho
VIII. El Capitan
IX. The New Foreman
X. Don Carlo's Vaqueros
XI. A Band of Guerrillas
XII. Friends from the East
XIII. Cowboy Golf
XIV. Bandits
XV. The Mountain Trail
XVI. The Crags
XVII. The Lost Mine of the Padres
XVIII.Bonita
XIX. Don Carlos
XX. The Sheriff of El Cajon
XXI. Unbridled
XXII. The Secret Told
XXIII.The Light of Western Stars
XXIV. The Ride
XXV. At the End of the Road

The Light of Western Stars

I A Gentleman of the Range

When Madeline Hammond stepped from the train at El Cajon, New
Mexico, it was nearly midnight, and her first impression was of a
huge dark space of cool, windy emptiness, strange and silent,
stretching away under great blinking white stars.

"Miss, there's no one to meet you," said the conductor, rather
anxiously.

"I wired my brother," she replied. "The train being so late--
perhaps he grew tired of waiting. He will be here presently.
But, if he should not come--surely I can find a hotel?"

"There's lodgings to be had. Get the station agent to show you.
If you'll excuse me--this is no place for a lady like you to be
alone at night. It's a rough little town--mostly Mexicans,
miners, cowboys. And they carouse a lot. Besides, the revolution
across the border has stirred up some excitement along the line.
Miss, I guess it's safe enough, if you--"

"Thank you. I am not in the least afraid."

As the train started to glide away Miss Hammond walked towards
the dimly lighted station. As she was about to enter she
encountered a Mexican with sombrero hiding his features and a
blanket mantling his shoulders.

"Is there any one here to meet Miss Hammond?" she asked.

"No sabe, Senora," he replied from under the muffling blanket,
and he shuffled away into the shadow.

She entered the empty waiting-room. An oil-lamp gave out a thick
yellow light. The ticket window was open, and through it she saw
there was neither agent nor operator in the little compartment.
A telegraph instrument clicked faintly.

Madeline Hammond stood tapping a shapely foot on the floor, and
with some amusement contrasted her reception in El Cajon with
what it was when she left a train at the Grand Central. The only
time she could remember ever having been alone like this was once
when she had missed her maid and her train at a place outside of
Versailles--an adventure that had been a novel and delightful
break in the prescribed routine of her much-chaperoned life. She
crossed the waiting-room to a window and, holding aside her veil,
looked out. At first she could descry only a few dim lights, and
these blurred in her sight. As her eyes grew accustomed to the
darkness she saw a superbly built horse standing near the window.
Beyond was a bare square. Or, if it was a street, it was the
widest one Madeline had ever seen. The dim lights shone from
low, flat buildings. She made out the dark shapes of many
horses, all standing motionless with drooping heads. Through a
hole in the window-glass came a cool breeze, and on it breathed a
sound that struck coarsely upon her ear--a discordant mingling of
laughter and shout, and the tramp of boots to the hard music of a
phonograph.

"Western revelry," mused Miss Hammond, as she left the window.
"Now, what to do? I'll wait here. Perhaps the station agent
will return soon, or Alfred will come for me."

As she sat down to wait she reviewed the causes which accounted
for the remarkable situation in which she found herself. That
Madeline Hammond should be alone, at a late hour, in a dingy
little Western railroad station, was indeed extraordinary.

The close of her debutante year had been marred by the only
unhappy experience of her life--the disgrace of her brother and
his leaving home. She dated the beginning of a certain
thoughtful habit of mind from that time, and a dissatisfaction
with the brilliant life society offered her. The change had been
so gradual that it was permanent before she realized it. For a
while an active outdoor life--golf, tennis, yachting--kept this
realization from becoming morbid introspection. There came a
time when even these lost charm for her, and then she believed
she was indeed ill in mind. Travel did not help her.

There had been months of unrest, of curiously painful wonderment
that her position, her wealth, her popularity no longer sufficed.
She believed she had lived through the dreams and fancies of a
girl to become a woman of the world. And she had gone on as
before, a part of the glittering show, but no longer blind to the
truth--that there was nothing in her luxurious life to make it
significant.

Sometimes from the depths of her there flashed up at odd moments
intimations of a future revolt. She remembered one evening at
the opera when the curtain had risen upon a particularly
well-done piece of stage scenery--a broad space of deep
desolateness, reaching away under an infinitude of night sky,
illumined by stars. The suggestion it brought of vast wastes of
lonely, rugged earth, of a great, blue-arched vault of starry
sky, pervaded her soul with a strange, sweet peace.

When the scene was changed she lost this vague new sense of
peace, and she turned away from the stage in irritation. She
looked at the long, curved tier of glittering boxes that
represented her world. It was a distinguished and splendid
world--the wealth, fashion, culture, beauty, and blood of a
nation. She, Madeline Hammond, was a part of it. She smiled, she
listened, she talked to the men who from time to time strolled
into the Hammond box, and she felt that there was not a moment
when she was natural, true to herself. She wondered why these
people could not somehow, some way be different; but she could
not tell what she wanted them to be. If they had been different
they would not have fitted the place; indeed, they would not have
been there at all. Yet she thought wistfully that they lacked
something for her.

And suddenly realizing she would marry one of these men if she
did not revolt, she had been assailed by a great weariness, an
icy-sickening sense that life had palled upon her. She was tired
of fashionable society. She was tired of polished, imperturbable
men who sought only to please her. She was tired of being feted,
admired, loved, followed, and importuned; tired of people; tired
of houses, noise, ostentation, luxury. She was so tired of
herself!

In the lonely distances and the passionless stars of boldly
painted stage scenery she had caught a glimpse of something that
stirred her soul. The feeling did not last. She could not call it
back. She imagined that the very boldness of the scene had
appealed to her; she divined that the man who painted it had
found inspiration, joy, strength, serenity in rugged nature. And
at last she knew what she needed--to be alone, to brood for long
hours, to gaze out on lonely, silent, darkening stretches, to
watch the stars, to face her soul, to find her real self.

Then it was she had first thought of visiting the brother who had
gone West to cast his fortune with the cattlemen. As it
happened, she had friends who were on the eve of starting for
California, and she made a quick decision to travel with them.
When she calmly announced her intention of going out West her
mother had exclaimed in consternation; and her father, surprised
into pathetic memory of the black sheep of the family, had stared
at her with glistening eyes. "Why, Madeline! You want to see
that wild boy!" Then he had reverted to the anger he still felt
for his wayward son, and he had forbidden Madeline to go. Her
mother forgot her haughty poise and dignity. Madeline, however,
had exhibited a will she had never before been known to possess.
She stood her ground even to reminding them that she was
twenty-four and her own mistress. In the end she had prevailed,
and that without betraying the real state of her mind.

Her decision to visit her brother had been too hurriedly made and
acted upon for her to write him about it, and so she had
telegraphed him from New York, and also, a day later, from
Chicago, where her traveling friends had been delayed by illness.
Nothing could have turned her back then. Madeline had planned to
arrive in El Cajon on October 3d, her brother's birthday, and she
had succeeded, though her arrival occurred at the twenty-fourth
hour. Her train had been several hours late. Whether or not the
message had reached Alfred's hands she had no means of telling,
and the thing which concerned her now was the fact that she had
arrived and he was not there to meet her.

It did not take long for thought of the past to give way wholly
to the reality of the present.

"I hope nothing has happened to Alfred," she said to herself.
"He was well, doing splendidly, the last time he wrote. To be
sure, that was a good while ago; but, then, he never wrote often.
He's all right. Pretty soon he'll come, and how glad I'll be! I
wonder if he has changed."

As Madeline sat waiting in the yellow gloom she heard the faint,
intermittent click of the telegraph instrument, the low hum of
wires, the occasional stamp of an iron-shod hoof, and a distant
vacant laugh rising above the sounds of the dance. These
commonplace things were new to her. She became conscious of a
slight quickening of her pulse. Madeline had only a limited
knowledge of the West. Like all of her class, she had traveled
Europe and had neglected America. A few letters from her brother
had confused her already vague ideas of plains and mountains, as
well as of cowboys and cattle. She had been astounded at the
interminable distance she had traveled, and if there had been
anything attractive to look at in all that journey she had passed
it in the night. And here she sat in a dingy little station,
with telegraph wires moaning a lonely song in the wind.

A faint sound like the rattling of thin chains diverted
Madeline's attention. At first she imagined it was made by the
telegraph wires. Then she heard a step. The door swung wide; a
tall man entered, and with him came the clinking rattle. She
realized then that the sound came from his spurs. The man was a
cowboy, and his entrance recalled vividly to her that of Dustin
Farnum in the first act of "The Virginian."

"Will you please direct me to a hotel?" asked Madeline, rising.

The cowboy removed his sombrero, and the sweep he made with it
and the accompanying bow, despite their exaggeration, had a kind
of rude grace. He took two long strides toward her.

"Lady, are you married?"

In the past Miss Hammond's sense of humor had often helped her to
overlook critical exactions natural to her breeding. She kept
silence, and she imagined it was just as well that her veil hid
her face at the moment. She had been prepared to find cowboys
rather striking, and she had been warned not to laugh at them.

This gentleman of the range deliberately reached down and took up
her left hand. Before she recovered from her start of amaze he
had stripped off her glove.

"Fine spark, but no wedding-ring," he drawled. "Lady, I'm glad
to see you're not married."

He released her hand and returned the glove.

"You see, the only ho-tel in this here town is against boarding
married women."

"Indeed?" said Madeline, trying to adjust her wits to the
situation.

"It sure is," he went on. "Bad business for ho-tels to have
married women. Keeps the boys away. You see, this isn't Reno."

Then he laughed rather boyishly, and from that, and the way he
slouched on his sombrero, Madeline realized he was half drunk.
As she instinctively recoiled she not only gave him a keener
glance, but stepped into a position where a better light shone on
his face. It was like red bronze, bold, raw, sharp. He laughed
again, as if good-naturedly amused with himself, and the laugh
scarcely changed the hard set of his features. Like that of all
women whose beauty and charm had brought them much before the
world, Miss Hammond's intuition had been developed until she had
a delicate and exquisitely sensitive perception of the nature of
men and of her effect upon them. This crude cowboy, under the
influence of drink, had affronted her; nevertheless, whatever was
in his mind, he meant no insult.

"I shall be greatly obliged if you will show me to the hotel,"
she said.

"Lady, you wait here," he replied, slowly, as if his thought did
not come swiftly. "I'll go fetch the porter."

She thanked him, and as he went out, closing the door, she sat
down in considerable relief. It occurred to her that she should
have mentioned her brother's name. Then she fell to wondering
what living with such uncouth cowboys had done to Alfred. He had
been wild enough in college, and she doubted that any cowboy
could have taught him much. She alone of her family had ever
believed in any latent good in Alfred Hammond, and her faith had
scarcely survived the two years of silence.

Waiting there, she again found herself listening to the moan of
the wind through the wires. The horse outside began to pound
with heavy hoofs, and once he whinnied. Then Madeline heard a
rapid pattering, low at first and growing louder, which presently
she recognized as the galloping of horses. She went to the
window, thinking, hoping her brother had arrived. But as the
clatter increased to a roar, shadows sped by--lean horses,
flying manes and tails, sombreroed riders, all strange and wild
in her sight. Recalling what the conductor had said, she was at
some pains to quell her uneasiness. Dust-clouds shrouded the dim
lights in the windows. Then out of the gloom two figures
appeared, one tall, the other slight. The cowboy was returning
with a porter.

Heavy footsteps sounded without, and lighter ones dragging along,
and then suddenly the door rasped open, jarring the whole room.
The cowboy entered, pulling a disheveled figure--that of a
priest, a padre, whose mantle had manifestly been disarranged by
the rude grasp of his captor. Plain it was that the padre was
extremely terrified.

Madeline Hammond gazed in bewilderment at the little man, so pale
and shaken, and a protest trembled upon her lips; but it was
never uttered, for this half-drunken cowboy now appeared to be a
cool, grim-smiling devil; and stretching out a long arm, he
grasped her and swung her back to the bench.

"You stay there!" he ordered.

His voice, though neither brutal nor harsh nor cruel, had the
unaccountable effect of making her feel powerless to move. No
man had ever before addressed her in such a tone. It was the
woman in her that obeyed--not the personality of proud Madeline
Hammond.

The padre lifted his clasped hands as if supplicating for his
life, and began to speak hurriedly in Spanish. Madeline did not
understand the language. The cowboy pulled out a huge gun and
brandished it in the priest's face. Then he lowered it,
apparently to point it at the priest's feet. There was a red
flash, and then a thundering report that stunned Madeline. The
room filled with smoke and the smell of powder. Madeline did not
faint or even shut her eyes, but she felt as if she were fast in
a cold vise. When she could see distinctly through the smoke she
experienced a sensation of immeasurable relief that the cowboy
had not shot the padre. But he was still waving the gun, and now
appeared to be dragging his victim toward her. What possibly
could be the drunken fool's intention? This must be, this surely
was a cowboy trick. She had a vague, swiftly flashing
recollection of Alfred's first letters descriptive of the
extravagant fun of cowboys. Then she vividly remembered a moving
picture she had seen--cowboys playing a monstrous joke on a lone
school-teacher. Madeline no sooner thought of it than she made
certain her brother was introducing her to a little wild West
amusement. She could scarcely believe it, yet it must be true.
Alfred's old love of teasing her might have extended even to this
outrage. Probably he stood just outside the door or window
laughing at her embarrassment.

Anger checked her panic. She straightened up with what composure
this surprise had left her and started for the door. But the
cowboy barred her passage--grasped her arms. Then Madeline
divined that her brother could not have any knowledge of this
indignity. It was no trick. It was something that was
happening, that was real, that threatened she knew not what. She
tried to wrench free, feeling hot all over at being handled by
this drunken brute. Poise, dignity, culture--all the acquired
habits of character--fled before the instinct to fight. She was
athletic. She fought. She struggled desperately. But he forced
her back with hands of iron. She had never known a man could be
so strong. And then it was the man's coolly smiling face, the
paralyzing strangeness of his manner, more than his strength,
that weakened Madeline until she sank trembling against the
bench.

"What--do you--mean?" she panted.

"Dearie, ease up a little on the bridle," he replied, gaily.

Madeline thought she must be dreaming. She could not think
clearly. It had all been too swift, too terrible for her to
grasp. Yet she not only saw this man, but also felt his powerful
presence. And the shaking priest, the haze of blue smoke, the
smell of powder--these were not unreal.

Then close before her eyes burst another blinding red flash, and
close at her ears bellowed another report. Unable to stand,
Madeline slipped down onto the bench. Her drifting faculties
refused clearly to record what transpired during the next few
moments; presently, however, as her mind steadied somewhat, she
heard, though as in a dream, the voice of the padre hurrying over
strange words. It ceased, and then the cowboy's voice stirred
her.

"Lady, say Si--Si. Say it--quick! Say it--Si!"

From sheer suggestion, a force irresistible at this moment when
her will was clamped by panic, she spoke the word.

"And now, lady--so we can finish this properly--what's your
name?"

Still obeying mechanically, she told him.

He stared for a while, as if the name had awakened associations
in a mind somewhat befogged. He leaned back unsteadily.
Madeline heard the expulsion of his breath, a kind of hard puff,
not unusual in drunken men.

"What name?" he demanded.

"Madeline Hammond. I am Alfred Hammond's sister."

He put his hand up and brushed at an imaginary something before
his eyes. Then he loomed over her, and that hand, now shaking a
little, reached out for her veil. Before he could touch it,
however, she swept it back, revealing her face.

"You're--not--Majesty Hammond?"

How strange--stranger than anything that had ever happened to her
before--was it to hear that name on the lips of this cowboy! It
was a name by which she was familiarly known, though only those
nearest and dearest to her had the privilege of using it. And
now it revived her dulled faculties, and by an effort she
regained control of herself.

"You are Majesty Hammond," he replied; and this time he affirmed
wonderingly rather than questioned.

Madeline rose and faced him.

"Yes, I am."

He slammed his gun back into its holster.

"Well, I reckon we won't go on with it, then."

"With what, sir? And why did you force me to say Si to this
priest?"

"I reckon that was a way I took to show him you'd be willing to
get married."

"Oh! . . . You--you! . . ." Words failed her.

This appeared to galvanize the cowboy into action. He grasped the
padre and led him toward the door, cursing and threatening, no
doubt enjoining secrecy. Then he pushed him across the threshold
and stood there breathing hard and wrestling with himself.

"Here--wait--wait a minute, Miss--Miss Hammond," he said,
huskily. "You could fall into worse company than mine--though I
reckon you sure think not. I'm pretty drunk, but I'm--all right
otherwise. Just wait--a minute."

She stood quivering and blazing with wrath, and watched this
savage fight his drunkenness. He acted like a man who had been
suddenly shocked into a rational state of mind, and he was now
battling with himself to hold on to it. Madeline saw the dark,
damp hair lift from his brows as he held it up to the cool wind.
Above him she saw the white stars in the deep-blue sky, and they
seemed as unreal to her as any other thing in this strange night.
They were cold, brilliant, aloof, distant; and looking at them,
she felt her wrath lessen and die and leave her calm.

The cowboy turned and began to talk.

"You see--I was pretty drunk," he labored. "There was a fiesta--
and a wedding. I do fool things when I'm drunk. I made a fool
bet I'd marry the first girl who came to town. . . . If you
hadn't worn that veil--the fellows were joshing me--and Ed Linton
was getting married--and everybody always wants to gamble. . . .
I must have been pretty drunk."

After the one look at her when she had first put aside her veil
he had not raised his eyes to her face. The cool audacity had
vanished in what was either excessive emotion or the maudlin
condition peculiar to some men when drunk. He could not stand
still; perspiration collected in beads upon his forehead; he kept
wiping his face with his scarf, and he breathed like a man after
violent exertions.

"You see--I was pretty--" he began.

"Explanations are not necessary," she interrupted. "I am very
tired--distressed. The hour is late. Have you the slightest
idea what it means to be a gentleman?"

His bronzed face burned to a flaming crimson.

"Is my brother here--in town to-night?" Madeline went on.

"No. He's at his ranch."

"But I wired him."

"Like as not the message is over in his box at the P.O. He'll be
in town to-morrow. He's shipping cattle for Stillwell."

"Meanwhile I must go to a hotel. Will you please--"

If he heard her last words he showed no evidence of it. A noise
outside had attracted his attention. Madeline listened. Low
voices of men, the softer liquid tones of a woman, drifted in
through the open door. They spoke in Spanish, and the voices
grew louder. Evidently the speakers were approaching the
station. Footsteps crunching on gravel attested to this, and
quicker steps, coming with deep tones of men in anger, told of a
quarrel. Then the woman's voice, hurried and broken, rising
higher, was eloquent of vain appeal.

The cowboy's demeanor startled Madeline into anticipation of
something dreadful. She was not deceived. From outside came the
sound of a scuffle--a muffled shot, a groan, the thud of a
falling body, a woman's low cry, and footsteps padding away in
rapid retreat.

Madeline Hammond leaned weakly back in her seat, cold and sick,
and for a moment her ears throbbed to the tramp of the dancers
across the way and the rhythm of the cheap music. Then into the
open door-place flashed a girl's tragic face, lighted by dark
eyes and framed by dusky hair. The girl reached a slim brown
hand round the side of the door and held on as if to support
herself. A long black scarf accentuated her gaudy attire.

"Senor--Gene!" she exclaimed; and breathless glad recognition
made a sudden break in her terror.

"Bonita!" The cowboy leaped to her. "Girl! Are you hurt?"

"No, Senor."

He took hold of her. "I heard--somebody got shot. Was it Danny?"

"No, Senor."

"Did Danny do the shooting? Tell me, girl."

"No, Senor."

"I'm sure glad. I thought Danny was mixed up in that. He had
Stillwell's money for the boys--I was afraid. . . . Say, Bonita,
but you'll get in trouble. Who was with you? What did you do?"

"Senor Gene--they Don Carlos vaqueros--they quarrel over me. I
only dance a leetle, smile a leetle, and they quarrel. I beg
they be good--watch out for Sheriff Hawe . . . and now Sheriff
Hawe put me in jail. I so frighten; he try make leetle love to
Bonita once, and now he hate me like he hate Senor Gene."

"Pat Hawe won't put you in jail. Take my horse and hit the
Peloncillo trail. Bonita, promise to stay away from El Cajon."

"Si, Senor."

He led her outside. Madeline heard the horse snort and champ his
bit. The cowboy spoke low; only a few words were intelligible--
"stirrups . . . wait . . . out of town . . . mountain . . . trail
. . . now ride!"

A moment's silence ensued, and was broken by a pounding of hoofs,
a pattering of gravel. Then Madeline saw a big, dark horse run
into the wide space. She caught a glimpse of wind-swept scarf
and hair, a little form low down in the saddle. The horse was
outlined in black against the line of dim lights. There was
something wild and splendid in his flight.

Directly the cowboy appeared again in the doorway.

"Miss Hammond, I reckon we want to rustle out of here. Been bad
goings-on. And there's a train due."

She hurried into the open air, not daring to look back or to
either side. Her guide strode swiftly. She had almost to run to
keep up with him. Many conflicting emotions confused her. She
had a strange sense of this stalking giant beside her, silent
except for his jangling spurs. She had a strange feeling of the
cool, sweet wind and the white stars. Was it only her disordered
fancy, or did these wonderful stars open and shut? She had a
queer, disembodied thought that somewhere in ages back, in
another life, she had seen these stars. The night seemed dark,
yet there was a pale, luminous light--a light from the stars--and
she fancied it would always haunt her.

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