The Light of Western Stars

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When Castleton finished his narrative there was a trenchant
silence. All eyes were upon Monty. He looked beaten, disgraced,
a disgusted man. Yet there shone from his face a wonderful
admiration for Castleton.

"Dook, you win!" he said; and, dropping his head, he left the
camp-fire circle with the manner of a deposed emperor.

Then the cowboys exploded. The quiet, serene, low-voiced Nels
yelled like a madman and he stood upon his head. All the other
cowboys went through marvelous contortions. Mere noise was
insufficient to relieve their joy at what they considered the
fall and humiliation of the tyrant Monty.

The Englishman stood there and watched them in amused
consternation. They baffled his understanding. Plain it was to
Madeline and her friends that Castleton had told the simple
truth. But never on the earth, or anywhere else, could Nels and
his comrades have been persuaded that Castleton had not lied
deliberately to humble their great exponent of Ananias.

Everybody seemed reluctant to break the camp-fire spell. The
logs had burned out to a great heap of opal and gold and red
coals, in the heart of which quivered a glow alluring to the
spirit of dreams. As the blaze subsided the shadows of the pines
encroached darker and darker upon the circle of fading light. A
cool wind fanned the embers, whipped up flakes of white ashes,
and moaned through the trees. The wild yelps of coyotes were
dying in the distance, and the sky was a wonderful dark-blue dome
spangled with white stars.

"What a perfect night!" said Madeline. "This is a night to
understand the dream, the mystery, the wonder of the Southwest.
Florence, for long you have promised to tell us the story of the
lost mine of the padres. It will give us all pleasure, make us
understand something of the thrall in which this land held the
Spaniards who discovered it so many years ago. It will be
especially interesting now, because this mountain hides somewhere
under its crags the treasures of the lost mine of the padres."

* * *

"In the sixteenth century," Florence began, in her soft, slow
voice so suited to the nature of the legend, "a poor young padre
of New Spain was shepherding his goats upon a hill when the
Virgin appeared before him. He prostrated himself at her feet,
and when he looked up she was gone. But upon the maguey plant
near where she had stood there were golden ashes of a strange and
wonderful substance. He took the incident as a good omen and
went again to the hilltop. Under the maguey had sprung up
slender stalks of white, bearing delicate gold flowers, and as
these flowers waved in the wind a fine golden dust, as fine as
powdered ashes, blew away toward the north. Padre Juan was
mystified, but believed that great fortune attended upon him and
his poor people. So he went again and again to the hilltop in
hope that the Virgin would appear to him.

"One morning, as the sun rose gloriously, he looked across the
windy hill toward the waving grass arid golden flowers under the
maguey, and he saw the Virgin beckoning to him. Again he fell
upon his knees; but she lifted him and gave him of the golden
flowers, and bade him leave his home and people to follow where
these blowing golden ashes led. There he would find gold--pure
gold--wonderful fortune to bring back to his poor people to build
a church for them, and a city.

"Padre Juan took the flowers and left his home, promising to
return, and he traveled northward over the hot and dusty desert,
through the mountain passes, to a new country where fierce and
warlike Indians menaced his life. He was gentle and good, and of
a persuasive speech. Moreover, he was young and handsome of
person. The Indians were Apaches, and among them he became a
missionary, while always he was searching for the flowers of
gold. He heard of gold lying in pebbles upon the mountain
slopes, but he never found any. A few of the Apaches he
converted; the most of them, however, were prone to be hostile to
him and his religion. But Padre Juan prayed and worked on.

"There came a time when the old Apache chief, imagining the padre
had designs upon his influence with the tribe, sought to put him
to death by fire. The chief's daughter, a beautiful, dark-eyed
maiden, secretly loved Juan and believed in his mission, and she
interceded for his life and saved him. Juan fell in love with
her. One day she came to him wearing golden flowers in her dark
hair, and as the wind blew the flowers a golden dust blew upon
it. Juan asked her where to find such flowers, and she told him
that upon a certain day she would take him to the mountain to
look for them. And upon the day she led up to the mountain-top
from which they could see beautiful valleys and great trees and
cool waters. There at the top of a wonderful slope that looked
down upon the world, she showed Juan the flowers. And Juan found
gold in such abundance that he thought he would go out of his
mind. Dust of gold! Grains of gold! Pebbles of gold! Rocks of
gold! He was rich beyond all dreams. He remembered the Virgin
and her words. He must return to his people and build their
church, and the great city that would bear his name.

"But Juan tarried. Always he was going manana. He loved the
dark-eyed Apache girl so well that he could not leave her. He
hated himself for his infidelity to his Virgin, to his people.
He was weak and false, a sinner. But he could not go, and he
gave himself up to love of the Indian maiden.

"The old Apache chief discovered the secret love of his daughter
and the padre. And, fierce in his anger, he took her up into the
mountains and burned her alive and cast her ashes upon the wind.
He did not kill Padre Juan. He was too wise, and perhaps too
cruel, for he saw the strength of Juan's love. Besides, many of
his tribe had learned much from the Spaniard.

"Padre Juan fell into despair. He had no desire to live. He
faded and wasted away. But before he died he went to the old
Indians who had burned the maiden, and he begged them, when he
was dead, to burn his body and to cast his ashes to the wind from
that wonderful slope, where they would blow away to mingle
forever with those of his Indian sweetheart.

"The Indians promised, and when Padre Juan died they burned his
body and took his ashes to the mountain heights and cast them to
the wind, where they drifted and fell to mix with the ashes of
the Indian girl he had loved.

"Years passed. More padres traveled across the desert to the
home of the Apaches, and they heard the story of Juan. Among
their number was a padre who in his youth had been one of Juan's
people. He set forth to find Juan's grave, where he believed he
would also find the gold. And he came back with pebbles of gold
and flowers that shed a golden dust, and he told a wonderful
story. He had climbed and climbed into the mountains, and he had
come to a wonderful slope under the crags. That slope was yellow
with golden flowers. When he touched them golden ashes drifted
from them and blew down among the rocks. There the padre found
dust of gold, grains of gold, pebbles of gold, rocks of gold.

"Then all the padres went into the mountains. But the discoverer
of the mine lost his way. They searched and searched until they
were old and gray, but never found the wonderful slope and
flowers that marked the grave and the mine of Padre Juan.

"In the succeeding years the story was handed down from father to
son. But of the many who hunted for the lost mine of the padres
there was never a Mexican or an Apache. For the Apache the
mountain slopes were haunted by the spirit of an Indian maiden
who had been false to her tribe and forever accursed. For the
Mexican the mountain slopes were haunted by the spirit of the
false padre who rolled stones upon the heads of those adventurers
who sought to find his grave and his accursed gold."

XVIII Bonita

Florence's story of the lost mine fired Madeline's guests with
the fever for gold-hunting. But after they had tried it a few
times and the glamour of the thing wore off they gave up and
remained in camp. Having exhausted all the resources of the
mountain, such that had interest for them, they settled quietly
down for a rest, which Madeline knew would soon end in a desire
for civilized comforts. They were almost tired of roughing it.
Helen's discontent manifested itself in her remark, "I guess
nothing is going to happen, after all."

Madeline awaited their pleasure in regard to the breaking of
camp; and meanwhile, as none of them cared for more exertion, she
took her walks without them, sometimes accompanied by one of the
cowboys, always by the stag-hounds. These walks furnished her
exceeding pleasure. And, now that the cowboys would talk to her
without reserve, she grew fonder of listening to their simple
stories. The more she knew of them the more she doubted the
wisdom of shut-in lives. Companionship with Nels and most of the
cowboys was in its effect like that of the rugged pines and crags
and the untainted wind. Humor, their predominant trait when a
person grew to know them, saved Madeline from finding their
hardness trying. They were dreamers, as all men who lived lonely
lives in the wilds were dreamers.

The cowboys all had secrets. Madeline learned some of them. She
marveled most at the strange way in which they hid emotions,
except of violence of mirth and temper so easily aroused. It was
all the more remarkable in view of the fact that they felt
intensely over little things to which men of the world were blind
and dead. Madeline had to believe that a hard and perilous life
in a barren and wild country developed great principles in men.
Living close to earth, under the cold, bleak peaks, on the
dust-veiled desert, men grew like the nature that developed them
--hard, fierce, terrible, perhaps, but big--big with elemental
force.

But one day, while out walking alone, before she realized it she
had gone a long way down a dim trail winding among the rocks. It
was the middle of a summer afternoon, and all about her were
shadows of the crags crossing the sunlit patches. The quiet was
undisturbed. She went on and on, not blind to the fact that she
was perhaps going too far from camp, but risking it because she
was sure of her way back, and enjoying the wild, craggy recesses
that were new to her. Finally she came out upon a bank that broke
abruptly into a beautiful little glade. Here she sat down to
rest before undertaking the return trip.

Suddenly Russ, the keener of the stag-hounds, raised his head and
growled. Madeline feared he might have scented a mountain-lion
or wildcat. She quieted him and carefully looked around. To
each side was an irregular line of massive blocks of stone that
had weathered from the crags. The little glade was open and
grassy, with here a pine-tree, there a boulder. The outlet seemed
to go down into a wilderness of canyons and ridges. Looking in
this direction, Madeline saw the slight, dark figure of a woman
coming stealthily along under the pines. Madeline was amazed,
then a little frightened, for that stealthy walk from tree to
tree was suggestive of secrecy, if nothing worse.

Presently the woman was joined by a tall man who carried a
package, which he gave to her. They came on up the glade and
appeared to be talking earnestly. In another moment Madeline
recognized Stewart. She had no greater feeling of surprise than
had at first been hers. But for the next moment she scarcely
thought at all--merely watched the couple approaching. In a
flash came back her former curiosity as to Stewart's strange
absences from camp, and then with the return of her doubt of him
the recognition of the woman. The small, dark head, the brown
face, the big eyes--Madeline now saw distinctly--belonged to the
Mexican girl Bonita. Stewart had met her there. This was the
secret of his lonely trips, taken ever since he had come to work
for Madeline. This secluded glade was a rendezvous. He had her
hidden there.

Quietly Madeline arose, with a gesture to the dogs, and went back
along the trail toward camp. Succeeding her surprise was a
feeling of sorrow that Stewart's regeneration had not been
complete. Sorrow gave place to insufferable distrust that while
she had been romancing about this cowboy, dreaming of her good
influence over him, he had been merely base. Somehow it stung
her. Stewart had been nothing to her, she thought, yet she had
been proud of him. She tried to revolve the thing, to be fair to
him, when every instinctive tendency was to expel him, and all
pertaining to him, from her thoughts. And her effort at
sympathy, at extenuation, failed utterly before her pride.
Exerting her will-power, she dismissed Stewart from her mind.

Madeline did not think of him again till late that afternoon,
when, as she was leaving her tent to join several of her guests,
Stewart appeared suddenly in her path.

"Miss Hammond, I saw your tracks down the trail," he began,
eagerly, but his tone was easy and natural. "I'm thinking--well,
maybe you sure got the idea--"

"I do not wish for an explanation," interrupted Madeline.

Stewart gave a slight start. His manner had a semblance of the
old, cool audacity. As he looked down at her it subtly changed.

What effrontery, Madeline thought, to face her before her guests
with an explanation of his conduct! Suddenly she felt an inward
flash of fire that was pain, so strange, so incomprehensible,
that her mind whirled. Then anger possessed her, not at Stewart,
but at herself, that anything could rouse in her a raw emotion.
She stood there, outwardly cold, serene, with level, haughty eyes
upon Stewart; but inwardly she was burning with rage and shame.

"I'm sure not going to have you think--" He began passionately,
but he broke off, and a slow, dull crimson blotted over the
healthy red-brown of his neck and cheeks.

"What you do or think, Stewart, is no concern of mine."

"Miss--Miss Hammond! You don't believe--" faltered Stewart.

The crimson receded from his face, leaving it pale. His eyes were
appealing. They had a kind of timid look that struck Madeline
even in her anger. There was something boyish about him then.
He took a step forward and reached out with his hand open-palmed
in a gesture that was humble, yet held a certain dignity.

"But listen. Never mind now what you--you think about me.
There's a good reason--"

"I have no wish to hear your reason."

"But you ought to," he persisted.

"Sir!"

Stewart underwent another swift change. He started violently. A
dark tide shaded his face and a glitter leaped to his eyes. He
took two long strides--loomed over her.

"I'm not thinking about myself," he thundered. "Will you
listen?"

"No," she replied; and there was freezing hauteur in her voice.
With a slight gesture of dismissal, unmistakable in its finality,
she turned her back upon him. Then she joined her guests.

Stewart stood perfectly motionless. Then slowly he began to lift
his right hand in which he held his sombrero. He swept it up and
up high over his head. His tall form towered. With fierce
suddenness he flung his sombrero down. He leaped at his black
horse and dragged him to where his saddle lay. With one pitch he
tossed the saddle upon the horse's back. His strong hands
flashed at girths and straps. Every action was swift, decisive,
fierce. Bounding for his bridle, which hung over a bush, he ran
against a cowboy who awkwardly tried to avoid the onslaught.

"Get out of my way!" he yelled.

Then with the same savage haste he adjusted the bridle on his
horse.

"Mebbe you better hold on a minnit, Gene, ole feller," said Monty
Price.

"Monty, do you want me to brain you?" said Stewart, with the
short, hard ring in his voice.

"Now, considerin' the high class of my brains, I oughter be real
careful to keep 'em," replied Monty. "You can betcher life,
Gene, I ain't goin' to git in front of you. But I jest says--
Listen!"

Stewart raised his dark face. Everybody listened. And everybody
heard the rapid beat of a horse's hoofs. The sun had set, but
the park was light. Nels appeared down the trail, and his horse
was running. In another moment he was in the circle, pulling his
bay back to a sliding halt. He leaped off abreast of Stewart.

Madeline saw and felt a difference in Nels's presence.

"What's up, Gene?" he queried, sharply.

"I'm leaving camp," replied Stewart, thickly. His black horse
began to stamp as Stewart grasped bridle and mane and kicked the
stirrup round.

Nels's long arm shot out, and his hand fell upon Stewart, holding
him down.

"Shore I'm sorry," said Nels, slowly. "Then you was goin' to hit
the trail?"

"I am going to. Let go, Nels."

"Shore you ain't goin', Gene?"

"Let go, damn you!" cried Stewart, as he wrestled free.

"What's wrong?" asked Nels, lifting his hand again.

"Man! Don't touch me!"

Nels stepped back instantly. He seemed to become aware of
Stewart's white, wild passion. Again Stewart moved to mount.

"Nels, don't make me forget we've been friends," he said.

"Shore I ain't fergettin'," replied Nels. "An' I resign my job
right here an' now!"

His strange speech checked the mounting cowboy. Stewart stepped
down from the stirrup. Then their hard faces were still and cold
while their eyes locked glances.

Madeline was as much startled by Nels's speech as Stewart. Quick
to note a change in these men, she now sensed one that was
unfathomable.

"Resign?" questioned Stewart.

"Shore. What 'd you think I'd do under circumstances sich as has
come up?"

"But see here, Nels, I won't stand for it."

"You're not my boss no more, an' I ain't beholdin' to Miss
Hammond, neither. I'm my own boss, an' I'll do as I please.
Sabe, senor?"

Nels's words were at variance with the meaning in his face.

"Gene, you sent me on a little scout down in the mountains,
didn't you?" he continued.

"Yes, I did," replied Stewart, with a new sharpness in his voice.

"Wal, shore you was so good an' right in your figgerin', as
opposed to mine, that I'm sick with admirin' of you. If you
hedn't sent me--wal, I'm reckonin' somethin' might hev happened.
As it is we're shore up against a hell of a proposition!"

How significant was the effect of his words upon all the cowboys!
Stewart made a fierce and violent motion, terrible where his
other motions had been but passionate. Monty leaped straight up
into the air in a singular action as suggestive of surprise as it
was of wild acceptance of menace. Like a stalking giant Nick
Steele strode over to Nels and Stewart. The other cowboys rose
silently, without a word.

Madeline and her guests, in a little group, watched and listened,
unable to divine what all this strange talk and action meant.

"Hold on, Nels, they don't need to hear it," said Stewart,
hoarsely, as he waved a hand toward Madeline's silent group.

"Wal, I'm sorry, but I reckon they'd as well know fust as last.
Mebbe thet yearnin' wish of Miss Helen's fer somethin' to happen
will come true. Shore I--"

"Cut out the joshin'," rang out Monty's strident voice.

It had as decided an effect as any preceding words or action.
Perhaps it was the last thing needed to transform these men,
doing unaccustomed duty as escorts of beautiful women, to their
natural state as men of the wild.

"Tell us what's what," said Stewart, cool and grim.

"Don Carlos an' his guerrillas are campin' on the trails thet lead
up here. They've got them trails blocked. By to-morrer they'd hed us
corralled. Mebbe they meant to surprise us. He's got a lot of
Greasers an' outlaws. They're well armed. Now what do they mean?
You-all can figger it out to suit yourselves. Mebbe the Don wants to
pay a sociable call on our ladies. Mebbe his gang is some hungry, as
usual. Mebbe they want to steal a few hosses, or anythin' they can
lay hands on. Mebbe they mean wuss, too. Now my idee is this, an'
mebbe it's wrong. I long since separated from love with Greasers.
Thet black-faced Don Carlos has got a deep game. Thet two-bit of a
revolution is hevin' hard times. The rebels want American
intervention. They'd stretch any point to make trouble. We're only
ten miles from the border. Suppose them guerrillas got our crowd
across thet border? The U. S. cavalry would foller. You-all know
what thet'd mean. Mebbe Don Carlos's mind works thet way. Mebbe it
don't. I reckon we'll know soon. An' now, Stewart, whatever the
Don's game is, shore you're the man to outfigger him. Mebbe it's
just as well you're good an' mad about somethin'. An' I resign my
job because I want to feel unbeholdin' to anybody. Shore it struck
me long since thet the old days hed come back fer a little spell,
an' there I was trailin' a promise not to hurt any Greaser."

XIX Don Carlos

Stewart took Nels, Monty, and Nick Steele aside out of earshot,
and they evidently entered upon an earnest colloquy. Presently
the other cowboys were called. They all talked more or less, but
the deep voice of Stewart predominated over the others. Then the
consultation broke up, and the cowboys scattered.

"Rustle, you Indians!" ordered Stewart.

The ensuing scene of action was not reassuring to Madeline and
her friends. They were quiet, awaiting some one to tell them
what to do. At the offset the cowboys appeared to have forgotten
Madeline. Some of them ran off into the woods, others into the
open, grassy places, where they rounded up the horses and burros.
Several cowboys spread tarpaulins upon the ground and began to
select and roll small packs, evidently for hurried travel. Nels
mounted his horse to ride down the trail. Monty and Nick Steele
went off into the grove, leading their horses. Stewart climbed
up a steep jumble of stone between two sections of low, cracked
cliff back of the camp.

Castleton offered to help the packers, and was curtly told he
would be in the way. Madeline's friends all importuned her: Was
there real danger? Were the guerrillas coming? Would a start be
made at once for the ranch? Why had the cowboys suddenly become
so different? Madeline answered as best she could; but her
replies were only conjecture, and modified to allay the fears of
her guests. Helen was in a white glow of excitement.

Soon cowboys appeared riding barebacked horses, driving in others
and the burros. Some of these horses were taken away and
evidently hidden in deep recesses between the crags. The string
of burros were packed and sent off down the trail in charge of a
cowboy. Nick Steele and Monty returned. Then Stewart appeared,
clambering down the break between the cliffs.

His next move was to order all the baggage belonging to Madeline
and her guests taken up the cliff. This was strenuous toil,
requiring the need of lassoes to haul up the effects.

"Get ready to climb," said Stewart, turning to Madelines party.

"Where?" asked Helen.

He waved his hand at the ascent to be made. Exclamations of
dismay followed his gesture.

"Mr. Stewart, is there danger?" asked Dorothy; and her voice
trembled.

This was the question Madeline had upon her lips to ask Stewart,
but she could not speak it.

"No, there's no danger," replied Stewart, "but we're taking
precautions we all agreed on as best."

Dorothy whispered that she believed Stewart lied. Castleton asked
another question, and then Harvey followed suit. Mrs. Beck made
a timid query.

"Please keep quiet and do as you're told," said Stewart, bluntly.

At this juncture, when the last of the baggage was being hauled
up the cliff, Monty approached Madeline and removed his sombrero.
His black face seemed the same, yet this was a vastly changed
Monty.

"Miss Hammond, I'm givin' notice I resign my job," he said.

"Monty! What do you mean? What does Nels mean now, when danger
threatens?"

"We jest quit. Thet's all," replied Monty, tersely. He was stern
and somber; he could not stand still; his eyes roved everywhere.

Castleton jumped up from the log where he had been sitting, and
his face was very red.

"Mr. Price, does all this blooming fuss mean we are to be robbed
or attacked or abducted by a lot of ragamuffin guerrillas?"

"You've called the bet."

Dorothy turned a very pale face toward Monty.

"Mr. Price, you wouldn't--you couldn't desert us now? You and Mr.
Nels--"

"Desert you?" asked Monty, blankly.

"Yes, desert us. Leave us when we may need you so much, with
something dreadful coming."

Monty uttered a short, hard laugh as he bent a strange look upon
the girl.

"Me an' Nels is purty much scared, an' we're goin' to slope.
Miss Dorothy, bein' as we've rustled round so much; it sorta
hurts us to see nice young girls dragged off by the hair."

Dorothy uttered a little cry and then became hysterical.
Castleton for once was fully aroused.

"By Gad! You and your partner are a couple of blooming cowards.
Where now is that courage you boasted of?"

Monty's dark face expressed extreme sarcasm.

"Dook, in my time I've seen some bright fellers, but you take the
cake. It's most marvelous how bright you are. Figger'n' me an'
Nels so correct. Say, Dook, if you don't git rustled off to
Mexico an' roped to a cactus-bush you'll hev a swell story fer
your English chums. Bah Jove! You'll tell 'em how you seen two
old-time gun-men run like scared jack-rabbits from a lot of
Greasers. Like hell you will! Unless you lie like the time you
told about proddin' the lion. That there story allus--"

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