But Dave hardly seemed to hear him. "You must start things moving at once," he said, urgently. "Spread the news, get the story into the papers, notify the authorities. Get every influence at work, from here to headquarters; get your Senator and the Governor of the state at work. Ellsworth will help you. And now give me your last dollar."

Blaze emptied his pockets, shaking his s.h.a.ggy head the while. "La Feria is a hundred and fifty miles in," he remonstrated.

"By rail from Pueblo, yes. But it's barely a hundred, straight from here."

"You 'ain't got a chance, single-handed. You're crazy to try it."

The effect of these words was startling, for Dave laughed harshly.

"'Crazy' is the word," he agreed. "It's a job for a lunatic, and that's me. Yes, I've got bad blood in me, Blaze--bad blood--and I'm taking it back where I got it. But listen!" He turned a sick, colorless face to his friend. "They'll whittle a cross for Longorio if I do get through."

He called to Montrosa, and the mare came to him, holding her head to one side so as not to tread upon her dragging reins.

"I'm 'most tempted to go with you," Blaze stammered, uncertainly.

"No. Somebody has to stay here and stir things up, If we had twenty men like you we might cut our way in and out, but there's no time to organize, and, anyhow, the government would probably stop us. I've got a hunch that I'll make it. If I don't--why, it's all right."

The two men shook hands lingeringly, awkwardly; then Blaze managed to wish his friend luck. "If you don't come back," he said, with a peculiar catch in his voice, "I reckon there's enough good Texans left to follow your trail. I'll sure look forward to it."

Dave took the river-bank to Sangre de Cristo, where, by means of the dilapidated ferry, he gained the Mexican side. Once across, he rode straight up toward the village of Romero. When challenged by an under-sized soldier he merely spurred Montrosa forward, eyeing the sentry so grimly that the man did no more than finger his rifle uncertainly, cursing under his breath the overbearing airs of all Gringos. Nor did the rider trouble to make the slightest detour, but cantered the full length of Romero's dusty street, the target of more than one pair of hostile eyes. To those who saw him, soldiers and civilians alike, it was evident that this stranger had business, and no one felt called upon to question its nature. There are men who carry an air more potent than a bodyguard, and Dave Law was one of these. Before the village had thoroughly awakened to his coming he was gone, without a glance to the right or left, without a word to anyone.

When Romero was at his back he rode for a mile or two through a region of tiny scattered farms and neglected garden patches, after which he came out into the mesquite. For all the signs he saw, he might then have been in the heart of a foreign country. Mexico had swallowed him.

As the afternoon heat subsided, Montrosa let herself out into a freer gait and began to cover the distance rapidly, heading due west through a land of cactus and dagger, of thorn and barb and bramble.

The roads were unfenced, the meadows desolate; the huts were frequently untenanted. Ahead the sky burned splendidly, and the sunset grew more brilliant, more dazzling, until it glorified the whole mean, thirsty, cruel countryside.

Dave's eyes were set upon that riot of blazing colors, but for the time it failed to thrill him. In that welter of changing hues and tints he saw only red. Red! That was the color of blood; it stood for pa.s.sion, l.u.s.t, violence; and it was a fitting badge of color for this land of revolutions and alarms. At first he saw little else--except the hint of black despair to follow. But there was gold in the sunset, too--the yellow gold of ransom! That was Mexico--red and yellow, blood and gold, l.u.s.t and license. Once the rider's fancy began to work in this fashion, it would not rest, and as the sunset grew in splendor he found in it richer meanings. Red was the color of a woman's lips--yes, and a woman's hair. The deepening blue of the high sky overhead was the hue of a certain woman's eyes. A warm, soft breeze out of the west beat into his face, and he remembered how warm and soft Alaire's breath had been upon his cheek.

The woman of his desires was yonder, where those colors warred, and she was mantled in red and gold and purple for his coming. The thought aroused him; the sense of his unworthiness vanished, the blight fell from him; he felt only a throbbing eagerness to see her and to take her in his arms once more before the end.

With his head high and his face agleam, he rode into the west, into the heart of the sunset.

XXVII

LA FERIA

"What's this I hear about war?" Dolores inquired of her mistress, a few days after their arrival at La Feria. "They tell me that Mexico is invaded and that the American soldiers have already killed more than a thousand women and children."

"Who tells you this?" Alaire asked.

"The men--everybody," Dolores waved a hand in the direction of the other ranch buildings. "Our people are buzzing like bees with the news, and, of course, no one cares to work when the Americans are coming."

"I shall have to put an end to such talk."

"This morning the word came that the revolution is ended and that the soldiers of both parties are uniting to fight for their liberties. They say the Gringos are killing all the old people--every one, in fact, except the girls, whom they take with them. Already they have begun the most horrible practices. Why, at Espinal"--Dolores's eyes were round--"would you believe it?--those Yankee soldiers ate a baby! They roasted the little dear like a cabrito and ate it! I tell you, it makes wild talk among the peladors."

"Do you believe such stories?" Alaire inquired, with some amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Um-m--not altogether. But, all the same, I think it is time we were going home."

"This is home, for me, Dolores."

"Yes, but now that war--"

"There isn't any war, and there won't be any. However, if you are nervous I'll send you back to Las Palmas at once."

"Glory of G.o.d! It would be the end of me. These Mexicans would recognize me instantly as an American, for I have the appearance and the culture. You can imagine what would happen to me. They would tear me from the train. It was nothing except General Longorio's soldiers that brought us safely through from Nuevo Pueblo."

"Then I'm glad that he insisted upon sending them with us. Now tell the ranch-hands to put no faith in these ridiculous stories. If they wish the truth let them ask General Longorio; he will be here today and quiet their fears."

"You think he intends to pay us for our cattle?"

"Yes."

Dolores pondered a moment. "Well, perhaps he does--it is not his money.

For that matter, he would give all Mexico if you asked it. Tse! His love consumes him like a fever."

Alaire stirred uneasily; then she rose and went to an open window, which looked out into the tiny patio with its trickling fountain and its rank, untended plants. "Why do you insist that he loves me?" she asked. "All Mexicans are gallant and pay absurd compliments. It's just a way they have. He has never spoken a word that could give offense."

As Dolores said nothing, she went on, hesitatingly, "I can't very well refuse to see him, for I don't possess even a receipt to show that he took those cattle."

"Oh, you must not offend him," Dolores agreed, hastily, "or we'd never leave Mexico alive." With which cheering announcement the housekeeper heaved a deep sigh and went about her duties with a gloomy face.

Longorio arrived that afternoon, and Alaire received him in the great naked living room of the hacienda, with her best attempt at formality.

But her coolness served not in the least to chill his fervor.

"Senora," he cried, eagerly, "I have a thousand things to tell you, things of the greatest importance. They have been upon my tongue for hours, but now that I behold you I grow drunk with delight and my lips frame nothing but words of admiration for your beauty. So! I feast my eyes." He retained his warm clasp of her fingers, seeming to envelop her uncomfortably with his ardor.

"What is it you have to tell me?" she asked him, withdrawing her hand.

"Well, I hardly know where to begin--events have moved so swiftly, and such incredible things have happened. Even now I am in a daze, for history is being made every hour--history for Mexico, for you, and for me. I bring you good news and bad news; something to startle you and set your brain in a whirl. I planned to send a messenger ahead of me, and then I said: 'No, this is a crisis; therefore no tongue but mine shall apprise her, no hand but mine shall comfort her. Only a coward shrinks from the unpleasant; I shall lighten her distress and awaken in her breast new hope, new happiness'--"

"What do you mean?" Alaire inquired, sharply. "You say you bring bad news?"

The general nodded. "In a way, terrible, shocking! And yet I look beyond the immediate and see in it a blessing. So must you. To me it spells the promise of my unspoken longings, my whispered prayers."

Noting his hearer's growing bewilderment, he laid a hand familiarly upon her arm. "No matter how I tell you, it will be a blow, for death is always sudden; it always finds us unprepared."

"Death? Who--is dead?"

"Restrain yourself. Allow for my clumsiness."

"Who? Please tell me?"

"Some one very close to you and very dear to you at one time. My knowledge of your long unhappiness alone gives me courage to speak."

Alaire raised her fluttering fingers to her throat; her eyes were wide as she said: "You don't mean--Mr. Austin?"