"Pedro has departed, may I take his place?" a.s.suming an affirmative answer, he stretched himself at her feet.

"Helen, what's wrong?" he asked anxiously.

"Nothing, that I know of." She replied evasively.

"Is it the office?" persisted Winston.

"Why can't you believe me?" There was a trace of annoyance in her manner.

"Because when your eyes tell me one thing and your lips another, I'm going to take my choice."

"I really don't like to ask you to attend to your own business, Ralph."

There was a flash of the old humor in her voice.

"You oughtn't to say that to me, Helen, for the sake of old times--if for nothing more," he added deliberately.

Helen understood the conditional "if", as well as the expression of his eyes. A suggestion of red tinged the clear olive of her cheeks.

"This is no place for confidences, even if I had any to exchange!"

"Later on then." Ralph's lips were decided. "Who is your friend?" he added.

"Uncle Sid? He is an old friend of Elijah's. He and his sister are stopping at the Vista."

There sounded the leisurely chut-chut of the lumbering wagons. Ralph rose to his feet.

"There come the wagons."

At the wagon, Helen insisted upon riding in the driver's seat. Uncle Sid was stowed in the rear. Ralph flashed a look toward Helen.

"My horse won't lead," he declared. "You ride him in, Jim, and I'll drive."

If Ralph had counted upon a quiet talk with Helen during the ride to Ysleta, he was certainly disappointed. Uncle Sid's position in the background was the only thing in the rear which he accepted. In the matter of conversation, he was well to the front.

"What's 'Lige Berl doin' in this country anyway?" he questioned Ralph.

"'Lige?" repeated Ralph. "Oh, he dreamed a dream; was five years at it.

He dreamed of oranges, big fellows without seeds; of mountains with too much water and of deserts without enough. Then he dreamed of bunching the three together for their mutual benefit. He convinced some Eastern capital that it was no dream after all. Now we are trying to make good."

Uncle Sid grunted.

"That's tolerably condensed."

Ralph laughed at Uncle Sid's disapproval.

"If you are really interested, you'd better let us show you around a little. You can see a good deal better than I can tell you."

Uncle Sid's face had lost its humorous wrinkles.

"'Lige is really doin' something worth while out here, is he?"

"He's got me on the jump. That's a good deal in itself."

"What are you doin'?"

"Oh," Ralph laughed. "I'm being bossed."

Uncle Sid looked sharply at Ralph.

"If I was on the quarter deck as I used to be, an' saw you afore the mast, I'd think over my orders before I handed 'em to you. If 'Lige has any sense with his dreamin', he'll do the same."

"Helen's helping 'Lige to boss me. When he isn't around, she does it alone."

Uncle Sid looked at Helen. The humorous wrinkles returned to his face.

"What's the matter with you? You swallowed your tongue?"

"No; I'm holding it." She answered Uncle Sid's look as well as his words.

The lumbering wagon drew up in front of the Rio Vista. Before Ralph could dispose of the reins, Helen was on the ground and ascending the steps of the hotel. At the top she paused, speaking to Ralph.

"I'm going to take Uncle Sid out to the works before long." Then she entered the door.

Uncle Sid turned to Ralph.

"I don't guess you're bein' bossed quite so much as you say." He slowly clambered from the wagon and stood, looking at Ralph, his hand on the wheel. "I ain't askin' questions just for fun," he began.

Ralph interrupted.

"I won't answer your questions in fun either. But you do what Helen says. Come out to the works."

Perhaps it was because she had expected too much, but Helen was disappointed in the morning. Certain things had been disquieting.

Ralph's words "For the sake of old times, if for nothing else"--had at first annoyed her. The annoyance changed to a questioning disquietude.

The very annoyance suggested possibilities which had never distinctly occurred to her before. She did not, she could not resent it as she would like to do. She could not avoid a comparison between the clear, steady eyes of Ralph Winston and the glowing, shifting ones of Elijah Berl which had moved her so profoundly.

The contrast between the two men forced itself upon her. The convincing alertness of Ralph Winston, clear and cool and bracing, the glowing mystical enthusiasm of Elijah Berl that breathed upon her, laid hold upon her like languorous exhalations from a tropic growth. She recalled her childhood days with Ralph Winston. His masterful ways which flashed out in open revolt against her impetuous temper, that took her in his arms and in spite of her panting protests, soothed her into forgiving smiles. There was no yielding to her wrongs, no tyranny in his right, but a subtle stimulating air that suggested no personality, rather an impersonal force which compelled him, even as it did her.

There were tears in her eyes now. There was a great longing to go to Ralph as she had gone years ago, to hear again the words which had melted her darkness into clear light. An almost irresistible impulse came to her. "Why not go to him now?" He had opened the way. A word, a motion, a glance from her eyes and the way would open again. She rose to her feet and laid her hand upon the door.

Had Winston been in the hotel that night! But he was miles away and she returned to her seat. Her brain went on and on, twisting and turning the same old problem. Ralph knew Elijah Berl, yet he had cast in his lot with him. Ralph trusted in his own strength, why should not she trust in hers? She drew a long, shuddering breath. Elijah had asked her for bread. Could she give him a stone?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Winston had been in earnest when he invited the old sea captain to make him a visit. He had felt as strongly attracted to the kindly old man as Uncle Sid had been to him. To a certain extent he was curious to know just why Elijah's affairs so deeply interested him. The chance remark of the old captain to the effect that he had known Elijah from childhood up, was a partial explanation that opened the door to the desire to know the cause in full. Evidently the youthful Elijah had displayed the same characteristics which maturer years had developed in California. Winston guessed that the weak spots in Elijah which had aroused his own opposition, had not escaped the eyes of the captain. As day after day pa.s.sed by, he concluded that Uncle Sid was waiting for Helen and that Helen was too busy to accompany him.