"So terrible?"

"Yes, terrible, Padre _mio_, for I never knew before how ugly I am."

"My poor child, you have quite lost your head!" he answered sympathetically.

"Ah, no," she said rising and facing him, "you do not understand; I have a most dangerous rival. To win the Senor I am compelled to use every means and strategy within my power. Can you not see?" she continued pa.s.sionately; "she has everything; I have nothing. She is not only beautiful, but rich, and Blessed Virgin, what dresses she has, and jewels enough to cover an altar-cloth!"

"My child!" he cried. "You are merely jealous of the Senorita's beauty.

For shame, that you should set such store upon worldly things!"

"Padre _mio_, you would not have your little Chiquita unhappy, would you?" she went on without heeding his words, a beseeching tone in her voice. "Should I fail to win Captain Forest's love, my heart will break!" She stood with downcast eyes before him, an expression of pain on her face.

"Ah, yes, my child, I understand," he answered compa.s.sionately, also rising from the bench. "Your temptation is great. Beware of pride and the vanities of this world, for he that exalteth himself shall be humbled.

"Chiquita," he continued earnestly, "my greatest care in bringing you up has ever been to keep you the pure and simple being that you were when you came to me. Do not forget--G.o.d demandeth that the souls which he gave into our keeping should be returned unto him again in the same pure unblemished state that we received them. Therefore, take heed, my child, for although G.o.d has endowed you with great beauty of both mind and body, do not foolishly imagine that, by arraying yourself in the vanities of this world, you can add an atom to the natural beauty He has bestowed upon you already. Be but pleasing in G.o.d's sight and it must follow that you will please all men as well."

"Oh! you really do think me beautiful, Padre?" she cried, a radiant look on her face.

"My child, my child, you do not listen to what I have to say!" he groaned despairingly.

"Oh, yes, I do, Padre _mio_! But you forget that, when G.o.d endowed woman with a soul, he gave her a heart as well. Willingly we render our souls unto G.o.d, but our hearts belong to men." The logic of her argument was too much for Padre Antonio, and he laughed as she had never seen him laugh before.

"Verily," he said at length, wiping the tears from his eyes and reseating himself on the bench, "the spirit and flesh must ever contend for the mastery of the soul on earth; it is our fate--the good Lord intended that it should be so."

"Ah, yes," she returned. "It's not always the good that seems to please us most in this world."

"Aye, verily!" he rejoined, relapsing into silence. Again the linnet gave voice to his song, and the cooling breeze sighed among the tamarisk plumes that waved about their heads.

"Do you remember when you first came to me, Chiquita _mia_?" he asked at last.

"That was ten years ago, Padre."

"I then thought," he went on, "that the good Lord had sent you to me to make a little angel out of you, but--"

"Ah, Padre _mio_," she interrupted, "it's too bad! I'm afraid I'm still the little devil that I was!" and laughing, she rose from her seat and pa.s.sing around to his end of the bench, stood beside him and began to pull the leaves from a rose-bush.

"Padre _mio_," she said softly, looking down at him with mischievous lights dancing in her eyes, "you don't really regret that I have remained what I am, do you?"

"Oh, I didn't mean to infer that, my child!" he answered with a note of reproach in his voice, looking up into her shadowy, downcast face. She gave a little laugh, and tapping him gently on one shoulder with her fan, said: "Do you know what you are, Padre _mio_?"

"What, my child?" he asked innocently, his face brightening at the question.

"You're the dearest old goose that ever lived!" and bending over him, she kissed him lightly on the crown of his head before he could prevent it.

"Chiquita, my child--you're too impulsive! Have I not repeatedly forbade you--" but the sound of her laughter and retreating footsteps on the pathway leading to the house was the only response his words invoked.

"_Dios!_" he exclaimed, recovering his breath. "I sometimes think that G.o.d created man, but woman--the devil! They never listen to anything one has to tell them!"

Chiquita went quietly to her room, walked straight to her bureau and opening the lower drawer, took out a small pistol which lay concealed beneath a chemise in one corner. Examining it carefully with the practiced eye and hand of one who has been accustomed to the use of firearms all her life, she loaded it and then placed it inside her breast. She knew Don Felipe as no one else did, and thoroughly realized the danger that threatened her. From that hour, waking or sleeping, the weapon must never leave her.

XV

Who was Richard Yankton? Many had asked that question, foremost of whom was d.i.c.k himself; but years of unremitting search had failed to reveal his origin.

In the spring of 1870 Colonel Yankton, who with his regiment of cavalry was stationed in Arizona, came one day upon the smoldering remains of an immigrant train--the work of the Apache Indians.

The scalped and mutilated remains of men, women and children lay scattered over the plain where they had fallen. It was a melancholy sight; one with which the Colonel had long become familiar during years of campaigning against the Red man. His scouts had picked up the trail and just as he was about to start in pursuit of the depredators, he fancied he heard a cry, causing him to pause and listen.

Presently the cry was repeated, and riding in the direction whence the sound proceeded, he came upon a little child of about two and a half years of age sitting on the ground among the sage-brush; the sole survivor of the disaster. It was a pretty, rosy-cheeked, dark-eyed baby--a boy. He was frightened at being left alone so long and was crying bitterly. But when he saw the Colonel looking down at him from the back of his horse, the little fellow brightened up. He forgot his troubles, and ceasing to cry, began to laugh and stretch out his tiny hands, and in his incoherent baby way, began to babble.

"Horsie, horsie, widie!" he cried, in the most beseeching, irresistible manner, just as he must have been accustomed to ask the men of the camp for a ride whenever they appeared with a horse. In an instant the Colonel was on the ground and had the little fellow in his arms. As no clew to the child's parents or relatives was ever found, the Colonel adopted him, giving him his own name.

d.i.c.k received an excellent schooling up to his sixteenth year and probably would have entered West Point had not his benefactor suddenly died. Strange to say, the life of a soldier with which he had become familiar during the years spent at the different posts a.s.signed to the Colonel, did not appeal to him. The restraint and routine of the life appeared irksome, and a year later the then great undeveloped West numbered him among her sons.

Indeed, as subsequent events proved, it was fortunate that he had renounced the life of a soldier. The success which later attended his efforts in the search for wealth far overshadowed that which he probably would have attained in the army, especially as his heart was not in the life.

d.i.c.k was a born miner and prospector, and pa.s.sed successively through New Mexico, Arizona and California in his search for the precious metals, finally drifting into old Mexico where he met with his first important success.

It seemed as though he were directed by an invisible power. For weeks and months at a time he would idle--read and smoke and ride or travel.

Then suddenly the spirit would move him, and without saying a word to any one, he would quietly slip away into the mountains by himself in whichever direction he seemed most impelled to go. Where other men paused and lingered in the hope of finding gold, he pa.s.sed on and discovered the metal where others least expected to find it.

Perhaps one of the chief reasons for his success lay in the fact that he did not a.s.sert his own will by planning a systematic search for the metal, but allowed himself to be drawn by that mysterious, attractive affinity that existed between him and the precious metals. d.i.c.k became aware of the existence of this strange affinity early in his career and acted upon it. Already at the age of thirty he possessed two of the greatest gold and silver mines in the world and began to find it difficult to know what to do with his income.

The fact that he cared nothing for money beyond the simple comforts of life which it afforded, was perhaps another inscrutable reason why he was permitted during the course of the next eight years to add two more rich mines to his possessions.

At thirty-eight he owned four mines, the possession of any one of which would have caused the average man to see visions. For example, d.i.c.k would have regarded Colonel Van Ashton's fortune, handsome though it was, as mere loose change in his pocket.

But this modern young Croesus was not unworthy of the fortune that had been showered upon him so bountifully as the majority of men who acquire great wealth invariably become. He not only constantly strove to improve his mind, but maintained a pension-roll and list of public charities and beneficiaries that would have done credit to a small European Princ.i.p.ality. In short, he thoroughly realized what the responsibility of great wealth entailed.

True to his supersensitive nature and fastidious taste, he always dressed in the height of fashion. This was the only extravagance he allowed himself which, considering his fortune, was reasonable enough.

Experience had taught him that the majority of men and women were fakirs pure and simple, whose chief motives were prompted solely by self-interest; and any suggestion to reform the world he invariably greeted with laughter. In fact, the world in his opinion, was not worth reforming; yet, in spite of this melancholy truth, he had remained human to the core, and took a live interest in that world of men which he knew to be nothing more nor less than a great gamble. And therein lay the chief distinction between him and Captain Forest, for they were otherwise strangely alike. d.i.c.k was still more or less interested in molding the clay--the Captain had done with it. Possibly because the latter had fallen heir to that which d.i.c.k had acquired through effort and, therefore, set less store upon it.

There were few countries which he had not visited. After making his first rich strike, he attempted to settle in New York, but was unable to do so. To use his own words, "he was only able to sit down, but there wasn't room enough for him to stretch his arms and legs."

During his travels he had collected numerous works of art; tapestries, paintings, marbles and bronzes by the best modern masters, which he placed in a beautiful Spanish _hacienda_ especially designed by one of the foremost architects of the day. The house occupied the site of an old Spanish _rancho_ situated in a beautiful valley about ten miles from Santa Fe and was generally conceded to be the most attractive estate in Chihuahua, though not the largest and most valuable; Don Felipe Ramirez possessed that. Both house and garden were a living monument to d.i.c.k's natural refinement and good taste. There were no jarring notes or lavish, tawdry display, the pitfalls into which the parvenue and pet.i.t bourgeois invariably fall. This was his only hobby, and just why he indulged it, he himself would have found it difficult to answer, for in reality, he cared but little for it.

He regarded it chiefly as a precaution against old age. He would continue to improve and beautify the place until the day arrived when he would retire from the world to pa.s.s the few remaining years of life amid the quiet and seclusion which the country afforded. And he often pictured himself when alone and musing over his cigar, as a lonely, white-haired patriarch, without offspring to perpetuate his name, seated in the center of his _patio_, smiling benignly upon the frolicsome little brown children of his Indian retainers as they laughed and disported themselves about him.

"Ah!" cries the world. "Mr. Yankton has a history!" Of course. What man or woman has not, even though they dare not admit it? Had he loved too much or too little? There were even some who attributed that exquisite vein of melancholy in his nature to the shadow of a married woman. Was he haunted by the fear that some fair, false one might marry him for his fortune, not for himself? Or, was his aversion to marriage due solely to the fact that the right woman had not yet arrived?

These and many other questions had been asked and thoroughly discussed by the matrons and daughters of Santa Fe, especially by the latter, to all of whom he had made love and sent flowers and serenaded in turn until, out of sheer desperation, they called alternately upon G.o.d and the devil to keep or punish this gay Lothario who loved all and yet none, and who gave such exquisite _fiestas_ in his beautiful _hacienda_.

Now it so chanced that, at the same hour Don Felipe was conducting Blanch and Bessie to the canon, d.i.c.k was returning to Santa Fe on horseback from his _hacienda_ where he had pa.s.sed the night. As there was no particular reason why he should reach the _Posada_ before noon, he decided to indulge his fancy by lingering in the cooling shade of the canon close to the river's edge, where he might listen to the voices of the waters as they went singing by him on their way to the old town and thence to the sea.