“Who was it, you greaser? Speak, damn you! You were here with him!”
“Sonora Bill,” said José, shaking from head to foot.
Then there came the sound of pistol shots out toward the corral, and then the louder bang of a cavalry carbine.
“What is it?” asked Rawlins of a soldier who came running back.
“Can we have the doctor, sir? It was Mr. Staines. He shot the corporal, who was chasing him, but he got a carbine bullet through the heart.”
Four days afterward, lying in a little white room, Mr. Adriance listened to the story of Leon’s confession. It was brief enough. Staines had acquired an ascendency over him in Tucson, and it was not difficult to induce him to become a confederate in every plot. It was Staines who sent him to Manuel and Garcia to warn them that the paymaster’s ambulance would not reach Canyon del Muerto until morning. It was Staines who murdered Sergeant Dinsmore after a quarrel and then had had his throat cut and the body thrown into the Gila near the ranch. Staines had fallen in love with Isabel when she first came from Sonora, but the girl shrank from him; neither would she listen to Sergeant Dinsmore.
After it was safe for Leon to return to the ranch, he found that his mother and Isabel were practically prisoners. His father was furious at the failure of the plan, and daily accused his wife of having, in some way, given warning to Adriance, and swore that he would have the blood of the man or woman who had betrayed the scheme; and then Staines himself came back and wrung from José that he had seen Isabel scurrying from Adri-ance’s tent at daybreak, and so denounced her to Leon as the mistress of an accursed Gringo. Staines wrote the note that was to lure Adriance to the bower, where Leon was to take the guitar and rebosa and the two, with José’s help, were to overpower him. It was his life or theirs said Staines. Pedro was not in the project, for he had prohibited bloodshed about the place – “It would ruin his business” he said. But both Pedro and Leon were now in irons, and Rawlins’ troop was in camp around gloomy old Rancho Ruiz.
A day or two later he heard another story, this time from the lips of Senora Dolores herself: Isabel was not the daughter of Pedro Ruiz.
With sobs and tears the poor, broken woman told her tale. She had been married when quite a young girl to Senor Moreno, an officer of distinction in the Mexican army. Her brave husband made her life a happy one, and the birth of the little daughter strengthened the ties that bound them. Alas! Moreno, colonel of lancers, was killed before Queretaro; and in two years more the widow, with her winsome little girl, had not where to lay her head. It was in the city of Mexico that Senora Dolores then met Ruiz, a widower with an only son, prosperous and apparently respected. He promised to educate Isabel and provide for her as his own, and sought the widow as his wife. For a time all went well; then she learned his true character. He was compelled to leave the city and flee up the coast to Mazatlan, while she remained with little Isabel, who was being educated at the convent. At last they had to join him at Hermosillo, whence he was soon after driven to Tucson. Their lives were wrecked by his scoundrelism. Her papers clearly established the truth of her story.
One soft, still evening, not a week after the tragic events of that rueful night, Captain Rawlins sat by the lieutenant’s side, reading aloud some letters just received from department headquarters. Major Sherrick had been in a state of dismay ever since the news of the death of Staines had reached him, but his dismay changed to wonderment, even gratitude, as he learned the true character of the man. It was Sonora Bill himself, beyond doubt.
“What a blessing you left that note for me to see!” said Rawlins. “How came it you never saw it was a forgery, Phil? Had she never written to you before?”
“Never a line, nor have I seen her to thank her. By Heaven, Rawlins! why am I forbidden?”
“You are not – now, Phil,” was the smiling answer.
Perhaps an hour later, Adriance limped slowly out of the room and down the narrow passageway to the side door. Yonder stood the little summer house “in the gloaming,” and he was right – he had heard women’s voices there – Dolores and her daughter. There were tears in the maiden’s words, and he could not withstand the longing of his heart. He would have hobbled thither, but suddenly there came the sound of rustling skirt and a tiny footfall. It was she – his dark-eyed, dark-haired sweetheart, hastening toward him, her face hidden in her hands. One instant more and he had torn the hands away and had clasped her to his breast.
“Isabel! darling! I have found you at last! No, you shall not go – you shall not until you promise – promise to be my wife!
“O, senor, you cannot – you do not mean it,” she sobbed, Struggling to be free.
“Do not mean it! Why, sweet one, you do not dream how I love you – how I long for you! Not mean it? Isabel, look in my eyes. Look for yourself.” He laughed low and happily. He was brimming over with hope and gladness, for now at last without a struggle she nestled on his heart.
Despite his grizzled beard old Rawlins was best man when that strange, very quiet, yet very happy wedding came off in the Old Mission Church at Tucson early in the spring. Pedro was not there to give the bride away. With considerable escort and much reluctance he had traversed “Cutthroat Crossing” some months before. He went to Yavapai, and Yavapai – we have his own words for it – was “too damn close to ‘ell.” The rancho passed within the year to other hands. It, too, had taken on another name – a grewsome one —Rancho del Muerto.
A MIGHTY HUNTER BEFORE THE LORD, By Virginius Dabney
FIRST PART
THE man unacquainted with the joys of the chase would be surprised if told, as he sauntered through some city market, that there was far more pleasure in hunting those plump little brown birds hanging in bunches around the stalls than in pursuing that imposing beast whose antlers reach the pavement. Yet it would be true.
Deer hunting under its usual conditions leaves something, often much, to be desired. If a dozen men are placed on isolated “stands” the solitary hours of waiting are long and weary. And should you happen to be a tyro the knowing ones hide you away in some unlikely spot, where hardly by any possibility will the chance come to you of seeing and, in the shivers of “buck ague,” missing the game. “Still hunting,” another mode, is well named. As a rule it may be depended upon to afford no end of stillness, and little else. And to be rowed up by a hired guide on a lake to within a few feet of a poor, helpless buck, swimming for dear life, and blow out his brains is almost as bad as shooting pheasants in an English preserve or poultry in a barnyard. Under all these methods deer hunting lacks what is the conspicuous charm of partridge (quail) shooting – vivid and continuous excitement.
For, from the moment when you enter, on a sparkling autumn morning, a brown stubble field, fresh of limb and eager for the fray, till you limp back at sunset, wolfish for dinner, and broken with a delicious fatigue, you have not had one dull moment. You may not have been firing steadily; the birds may even have been a little scarce; but every instant of the day, as you have watched your dogs sweeping to and fro, you have been buoyed up by an ever lively hope that the next moment your heart will be gladdened by seeing them halt – frozen as it were – in their tracks. Ah, there they are! You hurry up, you and your friend, breathing short. Up bursts the brown covey, with startling buzz! You bang away – innocuously it may be, but no matter, you have made a prodigious noise, at any rate – that’s some comfort. And see now! The little brown balls have dropped into the weeds, one here, one there, along the ditch, and a little bunch, all together, in that clump of briars on the hillside. Better luck next time!
Still, after all, “Bob White,” for all his bustle, is but a small chap. It would take hundreds, nay, bushels of him, to outweigh one “antlered monarch.” Toothsome though he be (on toast) he tips the scales at a beggarly half pound. On the other hand, it often takes you a week or so to get one chance at a deer.
Now, it so happens that it was once my fortune to take part in a deer hunt, where the excitement was as continuous as that in a stubble field, and, naturally, far more intense. This was years ago, and in Scott