After the county attorney's departure Rod Norton rested more easily.

He was making rest.i.tution for all that he had done, he was getting well and strong again, he had been given such proof as comes to few men of the utter devotion of a woman. Through many a bright hour he and Virginia, daring to look confidently ahead, talked of life as it might be lived upon Las Flores when the lake was made, the lower lands irrigated, the big home built.

"And," she confessed to him at the last, her face hidden against his breast, "I never want to see a surgeon's lancet again in all of my life, Rod Norton!"

When at length the sheriff could bestride a horse he wondered impatiently what it could be that kept Jim Galloway so long away. And if he was never coming back. But he knew that high up among the cliffs, hidden away in the ancient caves, Jim Galloway's rifles were still lying.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE STRONG HAND OF GALLOWAY

"Oh, you will all dance and shout together very soon," said Ignacio wisely to his six bells in the old Mission garden. "You will see!

Captain and the Dancer and Lolita, the Little One, La Golondrina, and Ignacio Chavez, all of you together until far out across the desert men hear. For it is in the air that things will happen. And then, when it is all done . . . Why then, amigos, who but me is going to build a little roof over you that runs down both ways, to save you from the hot sun and the rains? . . . Oh, one knows. It is in the air. You will see!"

For Jim Galloway had returned, a new Galloway, a Galloway who carried himself up and down the street with bright, victorious eyes, and the stride of full confidence, who, at least in the eyes of Ignacio Chavez, was like a blood-l.u.s.ting lion "s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his muscles" to spring.

Galloway's return brought to Roderick Norton a fresh vigilance, to Virginia a sleepless anxiety, to Florence Engle unrest, uncertainty, very nearly pure panic. During the first few days of his absence she had allowed herself the romantic joy of floating unchecked upon the tide of a girlish fancy, dreaming dreams after the approved fashion which is youth's, dancing lightly upon foamy crests, seeing only blue water and no rocks under her. Then, with the potency of the man's character removed with the removal of his physical being, she grew to see the shoals and to draw back from them, shuddering somewhat pleasurably. Now that he was again in San Juan and that her eyes had been held by his in the first meeting upon the street, her heart fluttered, her vision clouded, she wondered what she would do.

There was to be no lost action in Galloway's campaign now. Within half a dozen hours of his arrival there was a gathering of various of his henchmen at the Casa Blanca. Just what pa.s.sed was not to be known; it was significant, however, that among those who had come to his call were the Mexican, del Rio, Antone, Kid Rickard, and a handful of the other most restless spirits of the county. Norton accepted the act in all that it implied to his suspicions and sent out word to Cutter, Brocky Lane, and those of his own and Brocky's cowboys whom he counted on.

Galloway's second step, known only to himself and Florrie, was a private meeting with the banker's daughter. It occurred upon the second evening following his return, just after dark among the cottonwoods, but a hundred yards from her home. He had made the opportunity with the despatch which marked him now; he had watched for her during the day, had appeared merely to pa.s.s her by chance on the street, and had paused just long enough to ask her to meet him.

"I have done all that I planned to do," he announced triumphantly, his eyes holding hers, forcing upon her spirit the mastery of his own.

"The power in Mexico is going to be Francisco Villa. I have seen him.

Let me talk with you to-night, Florence. History is in the making; it may be you and I together who shape the destiny of a people."

After all, she was but a little over sixteen, her head filled with the bright stuff of romance, and he was a forceful man who for his own purposes had long studied her. She came to the tryst, albeit half in trembling, a dozen tremulous times ready for a fleeing retreat.

Again he was all deference to her. He builded cunningly upon the fact that he trusted her; that he, a strong man, put his faith in her, a woman. He flattered her as she had never been flattered, not too subtly, yet not so broadly as to arouse her suspicion of his intent.

He spoke quietly at first, then his voice seeming charged with his leaping ambition set responsive chords within her thrilling. He pictured to her the state he was going to found, organize, rule, an uncertain number of fair miles stretching along a tropical coast; he made her see again a palatial dwelling with servants in livery, the blue waters of the Gulf, the white of dancing sails. He spoke of a peace which was going to be declared between warring factions below the border within thirty days, of the magnificence to be Francisco Villa's, of the position to be occupied by Jim Galloway at Villa's side. His planned development of a gold-mine he mentioned merely casually.

And then at length when Florrie was prepared for the pa.s.sionate declaration he humbled himself at her feet, lifted his hands to her in supplication, told her in burning words of his love. Whether the man did love her with all of the strength of his nature or whether he but meant to strike through her at John Engle, the richest man of this section of the State, it was for Jim Galloway alone to know. Certainly not for Florrie, who listened wide-eyed. . . . Once she thought that he was about to sweep her up into his arms; they had lifted suddenly from his sides. She had drawn back, crying sharply: "No, no!" But he had waited, had again grown deeply deferential, swerving immediately to further vividly colored pictures of life as it might be, of power and pomp, of a secure position from which a man and a woman might direct policies of state, shaping the lives of other men and women.

And in the end of that ardent interview Jim Galloway's caution was still with him, his knowledge of the girl's nature clear in his mind.

He did not ask her answer; he merely sought a third opportunity to speak with her, suggesting that upon the next night she slip out and meet him. He would have a horse for her, one for himself; they could ride for a half-hour. He had so much to tell her.

Perhaps a much more important factor than she realized in her action was Florrie's new riding-habit. It had been acquired but three days before and she knew very well just how she looked in it. There would be a moon, almost at the full. The full moon and the new riding-habit were the allies given by fate to Jim Galloway.

Besides all of this, she had not seen Elmer Page for a month. Further, she knew that Elmer had gone riding upon at least one occasion with a girl of Las Palmas, Superintendent Kemble's daughter. And finally, there lies much rich adventure in just doing that which we know we should leave alone. So Florrie, while her mother and father thought that she had gone early to bed, was on her way to meet Galloway.

They rode out of the cottonwood fringed arroyo just before moonrise, circling the town, Florrie scarcely marking whether they rode north or south. But Galloway knew what he was doing and they turned slowly toward the southwest. As they rode, his horse drawn in close to hers, he talked as he had never talked before; his voice rang from the first word with triumphant a.s.surance.

"When he calls she will follow!" Virginia had thought fearfully of them. To-night he was calling eloquently, she was following, frightened and yet obedient to his mastery.

Galloway's influence over the girl, that of a strong will over a weak and fluttering one, was quite naturally the stronger when they were alone together. She had always been willing, sometimes a bit eager, to make a hero of him; he had long thoroughly understood her. To-night was the brief battle of wills, with him summoning all of his strength, flushed with victory. Abruptly now he urged that she marry him; a moment later his insistent pleading was subtly tinged with command. He was the arbiter of the hour; he told her of a priest waiting for them at a little village a dozen miles away. They would be married to-night; they were eloping even at this palpitant instant!

When Florence would have stopped, of two balancing minds, he urged the horses on. When she would have procrastinated, he beat down her opposition with the rush of his words. Even while she struggled she was yielding; Galloway was quick to see how her resistance was growing fainter. And all the time, while he spoke vehemently and she for the most part listened in a fascinated silence, they were riding on through the moonlit night. . . . It seemed to her that surely he must love her as few men had loved before. . . .

The village he had promised her was in reality but two poor houses at a crossroads, inhabited by two Mexican men and dowdy women. On the way they encountered but one horseman; Galloway turned his own and Florence's animals out so that, though seen, they might escape recognition. At the nearest of the two hovels he dismounted, raising his arms to her. When she cried out and shrank back trembling, he laughed softly, caught her in his arms, and lifted her free of the saddle; when he would have kissed her she put her face into her two hands.

"I . . . I want to go back!" she whispered. "I am afraid! Please, Mr.

Galloway, please let me go home."

Dogs were barking, a man and woman came out. The man laughed. Then he gathered up the bridle-reins and led the horses to the barn. Florrie, shrinking out of Galloway's embrace, looked particularly little and helpless in her pretty riding-habit.

She went with Galloway into the lamplighted room. The woman looked at her curiously, then to Galloway, something of wonder and upstanding admiration in her beady eyes.

"Has the priest come?" demanded Galloway.

"No, senor. Not yet."

She added by way of explanation that word had been sent; that the priest was delayed; a man was dying and he must stay a little at the bedside. She muttered the tale like a child repeating a lesson.

Galloway, watching Florence, who sat rigid in her chair by the table, waited for her to finish.

At the end he gave the woman a sharp, significant look. She said something about a cup of coffee for the senorita and went hastily into the kitchen. Florrie sprang to her feet, her hands clasped.

"You must let me go," she cried wildly. "The priest isn't here. I am going home."

"No," said Galloway steadily. "You are not going home, Florence. You must listen to me. I love you more than anything else In the world, my dear. I want you, want you all for mine."

She saw a sudden light flare up in his eyes and it seemed to her that her heart would beat through the walls of her breast. "I am not a boy, but a man. A strong man, a man who, when he wants a thing, wants it with his whole heart and body and soul, a man who takes what he wants.

Wait; just listen to me! You love me now; you will love me more and more when I give you all that I have promised you. To-night, in an hour, I will have made the beginning; I will have gathered about me fifty men who will do exactly what I tell them to do! Then they will go with us down into Mexico; they will be the beginning of a little army whose one thought will be loyalty . . . loyalty to you and to me."

"No," said Florence, her voice shaking. "I am going. . . ."

"You will marry me when the priest comes," he cut in sternly.

"Otherwise, if you make me, I will take you with me anyway, unmarried.

And I will make you marry me when we have crossed the border. And now . . . now you will kiss me. I have waited long, Florence."

He came toward her; she slipped behind the table, crying out to him to stop. But he came on, caught her, drew her into his arms. And Florrie, some new pa.s.sionate, terrified Florrie, beat at him with her fists, tore at him with her nails, hid her face from him, and with the agility born of her terror slipped away from him again, again put the table between them. Galloway, a thin line of blood across his cheek, thrust the table aside. As he did so the man came back into the room and stood watching, a twisted smile upon his lips. Galloway lifted his thick shoulders in a shrug and stood staring at the girl cowering in her corner.

"Married or unmarried, you go with me," he told her. "Your kisses you may save for me. Think it over. You had better ask for the priest when I come back." He turned toward the Mexican. "All ready, Feliz?"

The man nodded.

"Tell Castro, then. It's time to be in the saddle."

With no other word to Florrie he went out. But his last look was for her, the look of a victor.

CHAPTER XXIV

IN THE OPEN