The Light of Western Stars

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"It was a long talk for Gene, an' I was as surprised as the rest
of the fellers. Think of Gene Stewart talkin' soft an' sweet to
thet red-eyed coyote of a sheriff! An' Pat, he looked so
devilishly gleeful thet if somethin' about Gene hedn't held me
tight I'd hev got in the game my-self. It was plain to me an'
others who spoke of it afterwards thet Pat Hawe hed forgotten the
law an' the officer in the man an' his hate.

"'I'm a-goin', an' I'm a-goin' right now!' he shouted. "An' after
thet any one could hev heerd a clock tick a mile off. Stewart
seemed kind of chokin', an' he seemed to hev been bewildered by
the idee of Hawe's confrontin' you.

"An' finally he burst out: 'But, man, think who it is! It's Miss
Hammond! If you seen her, even if you was locoed or drunk, you--
you couldn't do it.'

"'Couldn't I? Wal, I'll show you damn quick. What do I care who
she is? Them swell Eastern women--I've heerd of them. They're
not so much. This Hammond woman--'

"Suddenly Hawe shut up, an' with his red mug turnin' green he
went for his gun."

Stillwell paused in his narrative to get breath, and he wiped his
moist brow. And now his face began to lose its cragginess. It
changed, it softened, it rippled and wrinkled, and all that
strange mobility focused and shone in a wonderful smile.

"An' then, Miss Majesty, then there was somethin' happened.
Stewart took Pat's gun away from him and throwed it on the floor.
An' what followed was beautiful. Sure it was the beautifulest
sight I ever seen. Only it was over so soon! A little while
after, when the doctor came, he hed another patient besides the
wounded Greaser, an' he said thet this new one would require
about four months to be up an' around cheerful-like again. An'
Gene Stewart hed hit the trail for the border."

IV A Ride From Sunrise To Sunset

Next morning, when Madeline was aroused by her brother, it was
not yet daybreak; the air chilled her, and in the gray gloom she
had to feel around for matches and lamp. Her usual languid
manner vanished at a touch of the cold water. Presently, when
Alfred knocked on her door and said he was leaving a pitcher of
hot water outside, she replied, with chattering teeth, "Th-thank
y-you, b-but I d-don't ne-need any now." She found it necessary,
however, to warm her numb fingers before she could fasten hooks
and buttons. And when she was dressed she marked in the dim
mirror that there were tinges of red in her cheeks.

"Well, if I haven't some color!" she exclaimed.

Breakfast waited for her in the dining-room. The sisters ate
with her. Madeline quickly caught the feeling of brisk action
that seemed to be in the air. From the back of the house sounded
the tramp of boots and voices of men, and from outside came a
dull thump of hoofs, the rattle of harness, and creak of wheels.
Then Alfred came stamping in.

"Majesty, here's where you get the real thing," he announced,
merrily. "We're rushing you off, I'm sorry to say; but we must
hustle back to the ranch. The fall round-up begins to-morrow.
You will ride in the buck-board with Florence and Stillwell.
I'll ride on ahead with the boys and fix up a little for you at
the ranch. Your baggage will follow, but won't get there till
to-morrow sometime. It's a long ride out--nearly fifty miles by
wagon-road. Flo, don't forget a couple of robes. Wrap her up
well. And hustle getting ready. We're waiting."

A little later, when Madeline went out with Florence, the gray
gloom was lightening. Horses were champing bits and pounding
gravel.

"Mawnin', Miss Majesty," said Stillwell, gruffly, from the front
seat of a high vehicle.

Alfred bundled her up into the back seat, and Florence after her,
and wrapped them with robes. Then he mounted his horse and
started off. "Gid-eb!" growled Stillwell, and with a crack of
his whip the team jumped into a trot. Florence whispered into
Madeline's ear:

"Bill's grouchy early in the mawnin'. He'll thaw out soon as it
gets warm."

It was still so gray that Madeline could not distinguish objects
at any considerable distance, and she left El Cajon without
knowing what the town really looked like. She did know that she
was glad to get out of it, and found an easier task of dispelling
persistent haunting memory.

"Here come the cowboys," said Florence.

A line of horsemen appeared coming from the right and fell in
behind Alfred, and gradually they drew ahead, to disappear from
sight. While Madeline watched them the gray gloom lightened into
dawn. All about her was bare and dark; the horizon seemed close;
not a hill nor a tree broke the monotony. The ground appeared to
be flat, but the road went up and down over little ridges.
Madeline glanced backward in the direction of El Cajon and the
mountains she had seen the day before, and she saw only bare and
dark ground, like that which rolled before.

A puff of cold wind struck her face and she shivered. Florence
noticed her and pulled up the second robe and tucked it closely
round her up to her chin.

"If we have a little wind you'll sure feel it," said the Western
girl.

Madeline replied that she already felt it. The wind appeared to
penetrate the robes. It was cold, pure, nipping. It was so thin
she had to breathe as fast as if she were under ordinary
exertion. It hurt her nose and made her lungs ache.

"Aren't you co-cold?" asked Madeline.

"I?" Florence laughed. "I'm used to it. I never get cold."

The Western girl sat with ungloved hands on the outside of the
robe she evidently did not need to draw up around her. Madeline
thought she had never seen such a clear-eyed, healthy, splendid
girl.

"Do you like to see the sun rise?" asked Florence.

"Yes, I think I do," replied Madeline, thoughtfully. "Frankly, I
have not seen it for years."

"We have beautiful sunrises, and sunsets from the ranch are
glorious."

Long lines of pink fire ran level with the eastern horizon, which
appeared to recede as day brightened. A bank of thin, fleecy
clouds was turning rose. To the south and west the sky was dark;
but every moment it changed, the blue turning bluer. The eastern
sky was opalescent. Then in one place gathered a golden light,
and slowly concentrated till it was like fire. The rosy bank of
cloud turned to silver and pearl, and behind it shot up a great
circle of gold. Above the dark horizon gleamed an intensely
bright disk. It was the sun. It rose swiftly, blazing out the
darkness between the ridges and giving color and distance to the
sweep of land.

"Wal, wal," drawled Stillwell, and stretched his huge arms as if
he had just awakened, "thet's somethin' like."

Florence nudged Madeline and winked at her.

"Fine mawnin', girls," went on old Bill, cracking his whip.
"Miss Majesty, it'll be some oninterestin' ride all mawnin'. But
when we get up a bit you'll sure like it. There! Look to the
southwest, jest over thet farthest ridge."

Madeline swept her gaze along the gray, sloping horizon-line to
where dark-blue spires rose far beyond the ridge.

"Peloncillo Mountains," said Stillwell. "Thet's home, when we
get there. We won't see no more of them till afternoon, when
they rise up sudden-like."

Peloncillo! Madeline murmured the melodious name. Where had she
heard it? Then she remembered. The cowboy Stewart had told the
little Mexican girl Bonita to "hit the Peloncillo trail."
Probably the girl had ridden the big, dark horse over this very
road at night, alone. Madeline had a little shiver that was not
occasioned by the cold wind.

"There's a jack!" cried Florence, suddenly.

Madeline saw her first jack-rabbit. It was as large as a dog,
and its ears were enormous. It appeared to be impudently tame,
and the horses kicked dust over it as they trotted by. From then
on old Bill and Florence vied with each other in calling
Madeline's attention to many things along the way. Coyotes
stealing away into the brush; buzzards flapping over the carcass
of a cow that had been mired in a wash; queer little lizards
running swiftly across the road; cattle grazing in the hollows;
adobe huts of Mexican herders; wild, shaggy horses, with heads
high, watching from the gray ridges--all these things Madeline
looked at, indifferently at first, because indifference had
become habitual with her, and then with an interest that
flourished up and insensibly grew as she rode on. It grew until
sight of a little ragged Mexican boy astride the most diminutive
burro she had ever seen awakened her to the truth. She became
conscious of faint, unmistakable awakening of long-dead feelings--
enthusiasm and delight. When she realized that, she breathed
deep of the cold, sharp air and experienced an inward joy. And
she divined then, though she did not know why, that henceforth
there was to be something new in her life, something she had
never felt before, something good for her soul in the homely, the
commonplace, the natural, and the wild.

Meanwhile, as Madeline gazed about her and listened to her
companions, the sun rose higher and grew warm and soared and grew
hot; the horses held tirelessly to their steady trot, and mile
after mile of rolling land slipped by.

From the top of a ridge Madeline saw down into a hollow where a
few of the cowboys had stopped and were sitting round a fire,
evidently busy at the noonday meal. Their horses were feeding on
the long, gray grass.

"Wal, smell of thet burnin' greasewood makes my mouth water,"
said Stillwell. "I'm sure hungry. We'll noon hyar an' let the
hosses rest. It's a long pull to the ranch."

He halted near the camp-fire, and, clambering down, began to
unharness the team. Florence leaped out and turned to help
Madeline.

"Walk round a little," she said. "You must be cramped from
sitting still so long. I'll get lunch ready."

Madeline got down, glad to stretch her limbs, and began to stroll
about. She heard Stillwell throw the harness on the ground and
slap his horses. "Roll, you sons-of-guns!" he said. Both horses
bent their fore legs, heaved down on their sides, and tried to
roll over. One horse succeeded on the fourth try, and then
heaved up with a satisfied snort and shook off the dust and
gravel. The other one failed to roll over, and gave it up, half
rose to his feet, and then lay down on the other side.

"He's sure going to feel the ground," said Florence, smiling at
Madeline. "Miss Hammond, I suppose that prize horse of yours--
White Stockings--would spoil his coat if he were heah to roll in
this greasewood and cactus."

During lunch-time Madeline observed that she was an object of
manifestly great interest to the three cowboys. She returned the
compliment, and was amused to see that a glance their way caused
them painful embarrassment. They were grown men--one of whom had
white hair--yet they acted like boys caught in the act of
stealing a forbidden look at a pretty girl.

"Cowboys are sure all flirts," said Florence, as if stating an
uninteresting fact. But Madeline detected a merry twinkle in her
clear eyes. The cowboys heard, and the effect upon them was
magical. They fell to shamed confusion and to hurried useless
tasks. Madeline found it difficult to see where they had been
bold, though evidently they were stricken with conscious guilt.
She recalled appraising looks of critical English eyes, impudent
French stares, burning Spanish glances--gantlets which any
American girl had to run abroad. Compared with foreign eyes the
eyes of these cowboys were those of smiling, eager babies.

"Haw, haw!" roared Stillwell. "Florence, you jest hit the nail
on the haid. Cowboys are all plumb flirts. I was wonderin' why
them boys nooned hyar. This ain't no place to noon. Ain't no
grazin' or wood wuth burnin' or nuthin'. Them boys jest held up,
throwed the packs, an' waited fer us. It ain't so surprisin' fer
Booly an' Ned--they're young an' coltish--but Nels there, why,
he's old enough to be the paw of both you girls. It sure is
amazin' strange."

A silence ensued. The white-haired cowboy, Nels, fussed
aimlessly over the camp-fire, and then straightened up with a
very red face.

"Bill, you're a dog-gone liar," he said. "I reckon I won't stand
to be classed with Booly an' Ned. There ain't no cowboy on this
range thet's more appreciatin' of the ladies than me, but I shore
ain't ridin' out of my way. I reckon I hev enough ridin' to do.
Now, Bill, if you've sich dog-gone good eyes mebbe you seen
somethin' on the way out?"

"Nels, I hevn't seen nothin'," he replied, bluntly. His levity
disappeared, and the red wrinkles narrowed round his searching
eyes.

"Jest take a squint at these hoss tracks," said Nels, and he drew
Stillwell a few paces aside and pointed to large hoofprints in
the dust. "I reckon you know the hoss thet made them?"

"Gene Stewart's roan, or I'm a son-of-a-gun!" exclaimed
Stillwell, and he dropped heavily to his knees and began to
scrutinize the tracks. "My eyes are sure pore; but, Nels, they
ain't fresh."

"I reckon them tracks was made early yesterday mornin'."

"Wal, what if they was?" Stillwell looked at his cowboy. "It's
sure as thet red nose of yourn Gene wasn't ridin' the roan."

"Who's sayin' he was? Bill, its more 'n your eyes thet's gettin'
old. Jest foller them tracks. Come on."

Stillwell walked slowly, with his head bent, muttering to
himself. Some thirty paces or more from the camp-fire he stopped
short and again flopped to his knees. Then he crawled about,
evidently examining horse tracks.

"Nels, whoever was straddlin' Stewart's hoss met somebody. An'
they hauled up a bit, but didn't git down."

"Tolerable good for you, Bill, thet reasonin'," replied the
cowboy.

Stillwell presently got up and walked swiftly to the left for
some rods, halted, and faced toward the southwest, then retraced
his steps. He looked at the imperturbable cowboy.

"Nels, I don't like this a little," he growled. "Them tracks make
straight fer the Peloncillo trail."

"Shore," replied Nels.

"Wal?" went on Stillwell, impatiently.

"I reckon you know what hoss made the other tracks?"

"I'm thinkin' hard, but I ain't sure"

"It was Danny Mains's bronc."

"How do you know thet?" demanded Stillwell, sharply. "Bill, the
left front foot of thet little hoss always wears a shoe thet sets
crooked. Any of the boys can tell you. I'd know thet track if I
was blind."

Stillwell's ruddy face clouded and he kicked at a cactus plant.

"Was Danny comin' or goin'?" he asked.

"I reckon he was hittin' across country fer the Peloncillo trail.
But I ain't shore of thet without back-trailin' him a ways. I
was jest waitin' fer you to come up."

"Nels, you don't think the boy's sloped with thet little hussy,
Bonita?"

"Bill, he shore was sweet on Bonita, same as Gene was, an' Ed
Linton before he got engaged, an' all the boys. She's shore
chain-lightnin', that little black-eyed devil. Danny might hev
sloped with her all right. Danny was held up on the way to town,
an' then in the shame of it he got drunk. But he'll shew up
soon."

"Wal, mebbe you an' the boys are right. I believe you are.
Nels, there ain't no doubt on earth about who was ridin'
Stewart's hoss?"

"Thet's as plain as the hoss's tracks."

"Wal, it's all amazin' strange. It beats me. I wish the boys
would ease up on drinkin'. I was pretty fond of Danny an' Gene.
I'm afraid Gene's done fer, sure. If he crosses the border where
he can fight it won't take long fer him to get plugged. I guess
I'm gettin' old. I don't stand things like I used to."

"Bill, I reckon I'd better hit the Peloncillo trail. Mebbe I can
find Danny."

"I reckon you had, Nels," replied Stillwell. "But don't take
more 'n a couple of days. We can't do much on the round-up
without you. I'm short of boys."

That ended the conversation. Stillwell immediately began to
hitch up his team, and the cowboys went out to fetch their
strayed horses. Madeline had been curiously interested, and she
saw that Florence knew it.

"Things happen, Miss Hammond," she said, soberly, almost sadly.

Madeline thought. And then straightway Florence began brightly
to hum a tune and to busy herself repacking what was left of the
lunch. Madeline conceived a strong liking and respect for this
Western girl. She admired the consideration or delicacy or
wisdom--what-ever it was--which kept Florence from asking her
what she knew or thought or felt about the events that had taken
place.

Soon they were once more bowling along the road down a gradual
incline, and then they began to climb a long ridge that had for
hours hidden what lay beyond. That climb was rather tiresome,
owing to the sun and the dust and the restricted view.

When they reached the summit Madeline gave a little gasp of
pleasure. A deep, gray, smooth valley opened below and sloped up
on the other side in little ridges like waves, and these led to
the foothills, dotted with clumps of brush or trees, and beyond
rose dark mountains, pine-fringed and crag-spired.

"Wal, Miss Majesty, now we're gettin' somewhere," said Stillwell,
cracking his whip. "Ten miles across this valley an' we'll be in
the foothills where the Apaches used to run."

"Ten miles!" exclaimed Madeline. "It looks no more than half a
mile to me."

"Wal, young woman, before you go to ridin' off alone you want to
get your eyes corrected to Western distance. Now, what'd you
call them black things off there on the slope?"

"Horsemen. No, cattle," replied Madeline, doubtfully.

"Nope. Jest plain, every-day cactus. An' over hyar--look down
the valley. Somethin' of a pretty forest, ain't thet?" he asked,
pointing.

Madeline saw a beautiful forest in the center of the valley
toward the south.

"Wal, Miss Majesty, thet's jest this deceivin' air. There's no
forest. It's a mirage."

"Indeed! How beautiful it is!" Madeline strained her gaze on
the dark blot, and it seemed to float in the atmosphere, to have
no clearly defined margins, to waver and shimmer, and then it
faded and vanished.

The mountains dropped down again behind the horizon, and
presently the road began once more to slope up. The horses
slowed to a walk. There was a mile of rolling ridge, and then
came the foothills. The road ascended through winding valleys.
Trees and brush and rocks began to appear in the dry ravines.
There was no water, yet all along the sandy washes were
indications of floods at some periods. The heat and the dust
stifled Madeline, and she had already become tired. Still she
looked with all her eyes and saw birds, and beautiful quail with
crests, and rabbits, and once she saw a deer.

"Miss Majesty," said Stillwell, "in the early days the Indians
made this country a bad one to live in. I reckon you never heerd
much about them times. Surely you was hardly born then. I'll
hev to tell you some day how I fought Comanches in the Panhandle-
-thet was northern Texas--an' I had some mighty hair-raisin'
scares in this country with Apaches."

He told her about Cochise, chief of the Chiricahua Apaches, the
most savage and bloodthirsty tribe that ever made life a horror
for the pioneer. Cochise befriended the whites once; but he was
the victim of that friendliness, and he became the most
implacable of foes. Then, Geronimo, another Apache chief, had,
as late as 1885, gone on the war-path, and had left a bloody
trail down the New Mexico and Arizona line almost to the border.
Lone ranchmen and cowboys had been killed, and mothers had shot
their children and then themselves at the approach of the Apache.
The name Apache curdled the blood of any woman of the Southwest
in those days.

Madeline shuddered, and was glad when the old frontiersman
changed the subject and began to talk of the settling of that
country by the Spaniards, the legends of lost gold-mines handed
down to the Mexicans, and strange stories of heroism and mystery
and religion. The Mexicans had not advanced much in spite of the
spread of civilization to the Southwest. They were still
superstitious, and believed the legends of treasures hidden in
the walls of their missions, and that unseen hands rolled rocks
down the gullies upon the heads of prospectors who dared to hunt
for the lost mines of the padres.

"Up in the mountains back of my ranch there's a lost mine," said
Stillwell. "Mebbe it's only a legend. But somehow I believe
it's there. Other lost mines hev been found. An' as fer' the
rollin' stones, I sure know thet's true, as any one can find out
if he goes trailin' up the gulch. Mebbe thet's only the
weatherin' of the cliffs. It's a sleepy, strange country, this
Southwest, an', Miss Majesty, you're a-goin' to love it. You'll
call it ro-mantic, Wal, I reckon ro-mantic is correct. A feller
gets lazy out hyar an' dreamy, an' he wants to put off work till
to-morrow. Some folks say it's a land of manana--a land of
to-morrow. Thet's the Mexican of it.

"But I like best to think of what a lady said to me onct--an
eddicated lady like you, Miss Majesty. Wal, she said it's a land
where it's always afternoon. I liked thet. I always get up sore
in the mawnin's, an' don't feel good till noon. But in the
afternoon I get sorta warm an' like things. An' sunset is my
time. I reckon I don't want nothin' any finer than sunset from
my ranch. You look out over a valley that spreads wide between
Guadalupe Mountains an' the Chiricahuas, down across the red
Arizona desert clear to the Sierra Madres in Mexico. Two hundred
miles, Miss Majesty! An' all as clear as print! An' the sun
sets behind all thet! When my time comes to die I'd like it to be
on my porch smokin' my pipe an' facin' the west."

So the old cattleman talked on while Madeline listened, and
Florence dozed in her seat, and the sun began to wane, and the
horses climbed steadily. Presently, at the foot of the steep
ascent, Stillwell got out and walked, leading the team. During
this long climb fatigue claimed Madeline, and she drowsily closed
her eyes, to find when she opened them again that the glaring
white sky had changed to a steel-blue. The sun had sunk behind
the foothills and the air was growing chilly. Stillwell had
returned to the driving-seat and was chuckling to the horses.
Shadows crept up out of the hollows.

"Wal, Flo," said Stillwell, "I reckon we'd better hev the rest of
thet there lunch before dark."

"You didn't leave much of it," laughed Florence, as she produced
the basket from under the seat.

While they ate, the short twilight shaded and gloom filled the
hollows. Madeline saw the first star, a faint, winking point of
light. The sky had now changed to a hazy gray. Madeline saw it
gradually clear and darken, to show other faint stars. After
that there was perceptible deepening of the gray and an enlarging
of the stars and a brightening of new-born ones. Night seemed to
come on the cold wind. Madeline was glad to have the robes close
around her and to lean against Florence. The hollows were now
black, but the tops of the foothills gleamed pale in a soft
light. The steady tramp of the horses went on, and the creak of
wheels and crunching of gravel. Madeline grew so sleepy that she
could not keep her weary eyelids from falling. There were
drowsier spells in which she lost a feeling of where she was, and
these were disturbed by the jolt of wheels over a rough place.
Then came a blank interval, short or long, which ended in a more
violent lurch of the buckboard. Madeline awoke to find her head
on Florence's shoulder. She sat up laughing and apologizing for
her laziness. Florence assured her they would soon reach the
ranch.

Madeline observed then that the horses were once more trotting.
The wind was colder, the night darker, the foot-hills flatter.
And the sky was now a wonderful deep velvet-blue blazing with
millions of stars. Some of them were magnificent. How strangely
white and alive! Again Madeline felt the insistence of familiar
yet baffling associations. These white stars called strangely to
her or haunted her.

V The Round-Up

It was a crackling and roaring of fire that awakened Madeline
next morning, and the first thing she saw was a huge stone
fireplace in which lay a bundle of blazing sticks. Some one had
kindled a fire while she slept. For a moment the curious
sensation of being lost returned to her. She just dimly
remembered reaching the ranch and being taken into a huge house
and a huge, dimly lighted room. And it seemed to her that she
had gone to sleep at once, and had awakened without remembering
how she had gotten to bed.

But she was wide awake in an instant. The bed stood near one end
of an enormous chamber. The adobe walls resembled a hall in an
ancient feudal castle, stone-floored, stone-walled, with great
darkened rafters running across the ceiling. The few articles of
furniture were worn out and sadly dilapidated. Light flooded
into the room from two windows on the right of the fireplace and
two on the left, and another large window near the bedstead.
Looking out from where she lay, Madeline saw a dark, slow
up-sweep of mountain. Her eyes returned to the cheery, snapping
fire, and she watched it while gathering courage to get up. The
room was cold. When she did slip her bare feet out upon the
stone floor she very quickly put them back under the warm
blankets. And she was still in bed trying to pluck up her
courage when, with a knock on the door and a cheerful greeting,
Florence entered, carrying steaming hot water.

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