"Ah! I never thought of that," replied d.i.c.k, flicking the ash from his cigar and exchanging glances with Jose. "I always said you had the imagination of a poet, Jack. But it takes an Indian to think of such things; the horses are concealed already in the canon, a quarter of a mile from the trail."

"_Si, Capitan._ I took them there last night," said Jose.

"Last night?"

"Yes. You see, it was this way. I saw the fight last night--"

"You did?"

"_Si, Capitan._ It was a glorious fight, the greatest fight I ever saw.

I followed Don Felipe last night and surely would have killed him had I not seen the Senorita draw her weapon. I knew that it was her right to kill him."

"You observe Jose's exquisite sense of discrimination," interrupted d.i.c.k. "It's the etiquette of the land," he added with a twinkle in his eye, his face betraying not so much as the suggestion of a smile.

Captain Forest could have laughed at d.i.c.k's irresistible humor were it not for the terrible tragedy which rested heavily upon him.

"Well," continued Jose, "while you and the Senorita stood beside the beautiful _Americana_, I bethought me that it was about time we were leaving this place. You did not know that the two women, Manuela and Juana, and the Padre's gardener, Sebastiano, also witnessed the shooting. I told Sebastiano to get the Senorita's horse out of the stable at once and wait outside in the shadow of the wall on the far side of the garden until I returned. I then hurried back here and got away un.o.bserved with our horses, picking up the Senorita's and Sebastiano on the way to the canon where I left them in the latter's charge. They will hardly be missed to-day, I think," he added; "the excitement is too great. Go now quietly to Padre Antonio's and wait there until Manuela gives you the word to depart." Jose paused. Then casting a quick glance about him, he took a fresh puff at his _cigarillo_ and said: "Until then, _a Dios_, Senor _Capitan_!" and a.s.suming an indifferent air, as though nothing unusual had occurred, he sauntered quietly away.

"That man's a genius!" said d.i.c.k, looking after him until he disappeared around the corner of the house.

"It was a lucky day for you when you picked him up. If you get away at all to-night, you'll owe your lives to him. Nothing but his wits could have saved you. You had better be going now," he added. "Go directly to the Padre's and attract as little attention as possible on the way.

"_Este noche, amigo mio_--to-night, my friend," he concluded in Spanish, and turning, lounged carelessly through the doorway into the house.

x.x.xVII

"I hear nothing," said Jose, rising from the ground where he had been lying flat with his ear close to the earth.

"They have given us up!" exclaimed the Captain, turning in the saddle and addressing Chiquita who also had been scanning their back trail in the effort to discover a sign of their lost pursuers.

"We have tired them out," she answered, lowering her hand from her eyes.

They had escaped--they were free. Padre Antonio had married them on the afternoon of the previous day.

"If I am still alive, and G.o.d grant that it may be so," he said on parting, "I shall see you next spring when I visit the Missions in the North."

The flight had been a swift and perilous one. They had traveled the entire night and day, pausing only long enough to allow their horses short breathing spells and time to slake their thirst at the springs and streams they encountered in their flight. Like their horses, all three were thoroughly tired, and their clothes torn and dust begrimed.

"We'll camp yonder, Jose," said the Captain, pointing to a thick group of pines that grew on the opposite side of the stream on whose bank they had halted. They had arrived at the foot of the Sierra Madres from whose side the stream burst and along whose banks their trail led to the upper world where it dropped down again on the other side of the great mountainous divide into Sonora.

"It's like the old days!" cried Chiquita, laughing as they splashed through the stream to the opposite bank, the water rising to their saddle-girths. Drawing rein at the outer rim of the pines, they dismounted and removed their saddles and packs, the latter consisting of a pair of blankets apiece and a week's rations equally distributed among them; coffee, sugar, bacon, beans and flour and a few necessary utensils. These they carried into the center of the grove and deposited in a circle on the ground.

Jose led away the horses and while he was occupied in picketing them, the Captain gathered an armful of dry wood for the fire, and then picking up a canvas bucket, strolled to the river and filled it with water.

Chiquita had already lit the fire when he returned. She filled the coffee pot with water, cut some slices of bacon and tossed them into a pan which she placed on the fire and then began to mix some flour and water. The Captain leaned against the trunk of one of the trees and rolling a cigarette, lit it, watching her the while. Chiquita laughed softly, but said nothing while engaged in the process of bread-making.

This homely touch of camp-life told plainer than words how thoroughly they had come down to earth and again were facing the wholesome realities of life. When the dough was of the right consistency, she molded it into biscuits, placed them in a deep pan, and raking some coals from the fire, set the pan upon them, also depositing some coals on the top of the cover. After giving the bacon a final turn in the pan, she set it to one side close to the fire where it would keep warm.

She then rose to her feet and stood erect. As she did so, one of the great strands of her hair which had become loosened during their flight, fell in a soft curling ma.s.s of blue jet down her back to within a few inches of her ankles. Captain Forest did not know then that it was a sign of her royal lineage.

Once upon a time in the dim past, so far back that n.o.body could remember when it had occurred, a Tewana woman had given birth to a beautiful girl child with wonderful hair in the same year that a wandering star with a great tail had appeared in the heavens. The coincidence seemed nothing short of miraculous to the people. The Sachems of the tribe p.r.o.nounced the child to be consecrated and chosen to rule over them by the G.o.ds. So it had been decreed, and ever since then, all Tewana women who had ruled over the people had possessed this distinctive mark of their royal lineage and bore the name, "Flaming Star."

Chiquita crossed over to where the Captain still stood leaning against the tree and, pausing before him, looked up into his face and said: "What are you thinking of, Sweetheart?" He flung his arms about her and kissed her.

"I am still wondering," he answered, "how it all happened. It seems so strange, and yet so natural."

"Just what I, too, have been thinking," she returned. "And yet it is no more remarkable than what our entire lives have been. It could not be otherwise."

"No," he replied. "I would not have it different for worlds. It's just as it should be--just as it has been decreed."

"Come!" she said, leading him over to where her pack lay on the ground.

"I've got something for you," and kneeling on the ground, she began unrolling her blankets, out of which she took a small package which, on being opened, contained two pairs of beautifully beaded moccasins; one pair of which she handed to him.

"It's just like you, Chiquita _mia_!" he exclaimed. "I always wear them in camp, but in the hurry to get away, I forgot mine. I'm glad I forgot them though," he added, holding up the moccasins and admiring them. "How did you come to think of them?"

"I can't say," she answered. "One afternoon about a month ago while at the _Posada_, I noticed your footprint in the gravel path in the garden where you had been talking to the girls but a few moments before.

Things, as you know, were rather uncertain then, nevertheless, something impelled me to take the measure and make them; thinking that possibly you might want them some day. Besides, it was such sweet work, you know," she added with a little laugh.

"Chiquita--you're a wonderful woman! You not only seem to be able to do everything, but you think of everything as well," and kneeling on the ground before her, he drew off her riding boots and slipped her moccasins on her feet.

"It is the bridal gift of an Indian girl to her husband," she said caressingly. "And signifies that they shall tread the same path together through life."

"What could be more beautiful!" he returned, pulling off his boots and drawing on his own. "Ah!" he continued, "it was worth waiting for you Chiquita _mia_! The long years of uncertainty and suffering seem as nothing, now that I look back upon them and you have come into my life."

Just then Jose returned from the work of picketing the horses and the three sat down to supper.

x.x.xVIII

"Isn't it strange how easily one can return to the natural life if one has known it before?" said Chiquita later in the evening, as the three lay stretched on their blankets around the small fire which Jose had kindled in the center of the grove, and watched the flickering flames and dancing shadows against the dark pine boughs surrounding them.

"The life of yesterday has fallen from me," she continued, gazing pensively into the fire whose red glare illumined her beautiful bronze features.

"Yes, you are an Indian once more, Chiquita _mia_," said the Captain.

"Ah! you are as much of an Indian as Jose or myself!" she retorted gayly. "What a pity you didn't know the life before the land was conquered and tamed by the White man! Verily, a glory has pa.s.sed from this earth!" A peculiar light shone in Jose's eyes as he listened to her words. He seemed on the point of speaking, but did not. He smiled and rolled a fresh _cigarillo_, lighting it with a pine twig which he took from the fire.

"Tell me why you insisted on our coming this way, Chiquita?" asked the Captain, disposing himself comfortably on his blanket.

"Because I want to see my people again. They are the strongest and most advanced people in Mexico, and we will be safe with them until things have quieted down. Because I wanted you to see where I came from and how I lived before Padre Antonio introduced me to a new world and made of me a woman that you could love. Besides, we can start from their country on our camping trip as well as from any other place. My people are not quite the savages you probably think them. But there is something else,"

she continued after a pause. "I was impelled, drawn this way. Why, I can not say, but something always kept pointing me toward the northwest. I feel as though the climax of our lives is yet to come; that we are on the verge of something great; that our work in life may begin with them."

"Perhaps it may be so!" interrupted Jose, no longer able to conceal the agitation her words aroused in him. "That is, if the vision of the White Cloud prove to be true. At any rate, my people await your coming," he added. At the mention of the White Cloud, Chiquita sat bolt upright, regarding Jose intently the while--then rose to her feet.