There was a dirty little settlement, a mile or two to the south, consisting of a collection of tumble-down adobe houses which looked like a blotch on the brown hillside; a few cattle were browsing near by, and the locality seemed to be well supplied with lizards, which darted over the dusty ground in all directions. But the startling point of the landscape was that it showed no sign of human life, and Pancho’s orders had been to have Señor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega and his wood-cart on hand promptly at half-past twelve.
‘Can Pancho have forgotten?’
‘Can he have lost his way and never arrived here at all?’
‘Can Señor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega have grown tired of waiting and gone off?’
‘Has Señor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega been drinking too much aguardiente and so forgotten to come?’
‘Has Pancho been murdered by highway robbers, and served up into stew for their evening meal?’
‘With Hop Yet for dessert! Oh, horrible!’ These were some of the questions and exclamations that greeted the ears of the lizards, and caused them to fly over the ground in a more excited fashion than ever.
‘One thing is certain. If Pancho has been stupid enough to lose his way coming fifty miles down the coast, I’ll discharge him,’ said Dr. Winship, with decision.
‘When you find him,’ added Aunt Truth, prudently.
‘Of course. But really, mamma, this looks discouraging; I am afraid we can’t get into camp this evening. Shall we go up to the nearest ranch house for the night, and see what can be done to-morrow?’
‘Never!’ exclaimed the young people, with one deafening shout.
‘Never,’ echoed Philip separately. ‘I have vowed that a bed shall not know me for three months, and I’ll keep my vow.’
‘What do you say to this, Uncle Doc?’ said Geoffrey. ‘Suppose you go up to the storehouse and office,—it’s about a mile,—and see if the goods are there all right, and whether the men saw Pancho on his way up to the cañon. Meanwhile, Phil and I will ride over here somewhere to get a team, or look up Señor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega. Jack can stay with Aunt Truth and the girls, to watch developments.’
‘But, papa, can’t we pitch the camp to-night, somehow?’ asked Bell, piteously.
‘I don’t see how. We are behindhand already; and if we get started within an hour we can’t reach the ground I selected before dark and we can’t choose any nearer one, because if Pancho is anywhere in creation he is on the identical spot I sent him to.’
‘But, Dr. Paul, I’ll tell you what we could do,’ suggested Jack. ‘If we get any kind of a start, we can’t fail to reach camp by seven or eight o’clock at latest. Now it’s bright moonlight, and if we find Pancho, he’ll have the baggage unloaded, and Hop Yet will have a fire lighted. What’s to prevent our swinging the hammocks for the ladies? And we’ll just roll up in our blankets by the fire, for to-night. Then we’ll get to housekeeping in the morning.’
This plan received a most enthusiastic reception.
‘Very well,’ replied the Doctor. ‘If you are all agreed, I suppose we may as well begin roughing it now as at any time.’
You may have noticed sometimes, after having fortified yourself against a terrible misfortune which seemed in store for you, that it didn’t come, after all. Well, it was so in this case; for just as Dr. Winship and the boys started out over the hillside at a brisk pace, an immense cloud of dust, some distance up the road, attracted their attention, and they came to a sudden standstill.
The girls held their breath in anxious expectation, and at length gave an irrepressible shout of joy and relief when there issued from the dense grey cloud the familiar four-horse team, with Daisy, Tule Molly, Villikins, and Dinah, looking as fresh as if they had not been driven a mile, tough little mustangs that they were.
A long conversation in Spanish ensued, which, being translated by Dr. Winship, furnished all necessary information concerning the delay.
S. D. M. F. H. N. stated that Pancho was neither faithless nor stupid, but was waiting for them on the camping-ground, and that as the goods were already packed in his wood-cart he would follow them immediately. So the whole party started without more delay; Dr. and Mrs. Winship, Master Paul, Jack Howard, and the three girls riding in the wagon, while Geoffrey and Philip galloped ahead on horseback.
It was a long, dusty, tiresome ride; and Dicky, who had been as good all day as any saint ever carved in marble and set in a niche, grew rather warm, cross, and hungry, although he had been consuming ginger-snaps and apricots since early morning. After asking plaintively for the fiftieth time how long it would be before dinner, he finally succumbed to his weariness, and dropping his yellow head, that was like a cowslip ball, in his mother’s lap, he fell asleep.
But the young people, whose eyes were not blinded by hunger and sleep, found more than enough to interest them on this dusty California road, winding as it did through grand old growths of trees, acres and acres of waving grain, and endless stretches of gorgeous yellow mustard, the stalks of which were five or six feet high, almost hiding from view the boys who dashed into the golden forest from time to time.
At the foot of the hill they passed an old adobe hut, with a crowd of pretty, swarthy, frowzy Mexican children playing in the sunshine, while their mother, black-haired and ample of figure, occupied herself in hanging great quantities of jerked beef on a sort of clothes-line running between the eucalyptus-trees.
The father, a wild-looking individual in a red shirt and enormous hat, came from behind the hut, unhitched the stout little broncho tied to the fence, gave the poor animal a desperately tight ‘cinch,’ threw himself into the saddle without touching his foot to the lumbering wooden stirrups, and, digging his spurs well into the horse’s sides, was out of sight in an instant, leaving only a huge cloud of dust to cover his disappearance.
‘How those fellows do ride!’ exclaimed Dr. Winship, savagely. ‘I wish they were all obliged to walk until they knew how to treat a horse.’
‘Then they’d walk straight into the millennium,’ said Jack, sagely, ‘for their cruelty seems to be an instinct.’
‘But how beautifully they ride, too!’ said Polly. ‘Mamma and I were sitting on the hotel piazza the other day, watching two young Spaniards who were performing feats of horsemanship. They dropped four-bit pieces on the dusty road, and riding up to them at full speed clutched them from the ground in some mysterious way that was perfectly wonderful. Then Nick Gutierrez mounted a bucking horse, and actually rolled and lighted a cigarette while the animal bucked with all his might.’
‘See that cunning, cunning muchachita, mamma!’ cried Bell; for, as they stopped at the top of the hill to let the horses breathe, one of the little Mexican children ran after them, holding out a handful of glowing yellow poppies.
She was distractingly pretty, with a beauty that is short-lived with the people of her race. The afternoon sun shone down fiercely on her waving coal-black locks, and brought a rich colour to her nut-brown cheek; she had one little flimsy, ragged garment, neither long, broad, nor thick, which hung about her picturesquely; and, with her soft, dark, sleepy eyes, the rows of little white teeth behind her laughing red mouth, and the vivid yellow blossoms in her tiny outstretched hand, she was a very charming vision.
‘Como te llamas, muchachita?’ (What is your name, little one?) asked Bell, airing her Spanish, which was rather good.
‘Teresita,’ she answered, with a pretty accent, as she scratched a set of five grimy little toes to and fro in the dusty ground.
‘Throw her a bit, papa,’ whispered Bell; and, as he did so, Teresita caught the piece of silver very deftly, and ran excitedly back to the centre of the chattering group in front of the house.
‘How