There was work in plenty to be done this afternoon; but grinding grain, carrying water, cooking and baking had long since palled on her. Let the old crones, who had a heart for such things, bestir themselves! On account of her dictatorial airs they called her a no-good, anyway. It mattered but little to the girl. The men about the rancho paid her homage of an ardor only limited by her own pleasure, and Suzanna, for all her lack of education and culture, had long since digested the fact that it was the men who mattered.
Suzanna had often stolen away for an afternoon along the San Carmelo, and once she was within the protecting hills which bordered the stream, she allowed her burro to make his own pace. It was an afternoon well suited for day dreaming, and she had an endless number of air-castles to build.
A week gone she had met a stranger in these very hills,—a knightly man, for all that he had proven overly bold. Suzanna had scorned him, but the thought that she might meet him again intruded on her revery more than once as she rode along.
Pico, her burro, was in perfect accord with the lazy day, and he dragged himself and his burden over the hot trail. Eventually, however, he brought Suzanna to the river’s edge, where he stood lackadaisically switching his tail. Suzanna prodded him, but he refused to move. With darkening eyes, she brought her pole into play. Pico only flicked an indifferent ear in answer.
Where the burro had stopped, it was intolerably hot. Across the river was a cool, shady, moss-covered bank, agreeable to the eye and inviting to the body. Remained but to ford the stream to attain it. The water was delightfully cool and the fording shallow; but Pico had no liking for it.
The girl’s temper rose as she sought to drive the stubborn beast across. “Madre de Dios, Pico,” she stormed, “I’ll put this rod into your vitals if you don’t make haste.”
Pico silently dared her to do her worst. Suzanna found his hide an excellent barrier against her efforts. Ten minutes must have elapsed as the struggle went on. Suddenly the roar of a gun in the burro’s immediate rear broke the stillness of the river bottom. Pico bounded for the opposite bank in punishing leaps, Suzanna clinging to him as best she could.
A laugh, and the sound of someone fording the stream, reached her as she slipped from the burro’s back. With pounding heart and eyes wide with fear she turned to protect herself. Before her, hat in hand as he bowed to the ground, stood the stranger whom she had met before, Benito Pérez!
“Buenas tardes, querida mia,” he murmured unctiously. “You are a ravishing surprise for so hot a day.”
CHAPTER V
“DOES THE NAME MATTER?”
SUZANNA’S eyes flashed as she saw who addressed her, even though she did not by any chance suspect him to be the outlaw Pérez. As has been said, the man had a way with him which caught the fancy. Suzanna had not escaped it, neither had she failed to recognize the unbroken spirit of him. She had trimmed her sails accordingly, for, to a certainty, the man was little likely to pay heed once he was out of hand.
Seeing in him but an over-ripe caballero, Suzanna felt no great fear at his discovery of her so far from the casério. The manner of his approach and his terms of endearment deserved a rebuke however, and she was not slow in acquainting him with as much.
“ ‘Querida mia?’ ” she echoed sarcastically. “Since when? Do you lie in hiding like a wolf, ready to pounce upon me the minute I stir from the casério? Answer me!” she snapped. “You are more presumptuous than ever.”
Pérez gazed at her good-naturedly, if Impudently, delighting in her show of temper.
“Come little one,” he said chidingly, “why scold me for being presumptuous when it is the very quality a woman most admires in a man? You would do well not to turn those flashing eyes on me, for they but match your lips, and steal away my senses.”
“Pretty words,” Suzanna answered with fine contempt. “I shall know how you found me here.”
“That’s easily told,” Pérez grinned; “from the top of that brown hill in back of us. I had but stopped in the shade of those live-oaks to breathe my horse when I caught sight of you. But those clothes,—they are no fit garb for one of your surpassing beauty.”
“Madre de Dios!” Suzanna exclaimed. “And now you are to tell me what I shall wear, eh?” Stepping close to Pérez, she snapped her fingers within an inch of his face. “Suppose you go back to your hill and your own business,” she cried. “I have busybodies enough watching me already.”
“Oh, you are adorable when you frown,” Pérez whispered. “Come, see what I have here for you,—a marvelous silk, a true mogador! I—ah—acquired it but to-day. Can you resist it, Suzanna?”
Suzanna’s frown disappeared as she regarded the silk held so temptingly in the bandit’s hands. She dropped her head and glanced up coquettishly at Pérez. The man’s eyes held hers as a smile parted her lips.
“It’s yours, niña mia,” he said softly. “I asked the gentleman from whom I secured it for something of surpassing beauty because it was for one I held surpassingly fair. The silk is beautiful, but not more so than you.”
Suzanna reached out her hands and ran her fingers over the gay mogador. As she did, Pérez tossed the piece of goods into her arms and caught her around the waist.
“Come,” he murmured passionately, “is there no pay for poor me?”
Suzanna sunk her nails into his flesh as he held his mouth so provokingly close to hers. “So, that’s the way you give, eh?” she screamed. “Before the gift is cold you are asking for pay!”
“Truly it is a coarse word, niña mia,” Pérez said with a great show of penitence. “Let’s call it reward; and since you withhold it, poor me must collect for himself.”
Suzanna struggled and clawed, but the robber chief crushed her in his arms and planted a kiss upon her lips.
“Hast no one told you that stolen fruit is sweetest?” he asked boldly.
“Yes; but even the sweetest fruit turns sour!” Suzanna cried menacingly. “Do you feel that gun boring into your thick skin, señor?” The fact that Pérez’ smile froze upon his lips was proof enough that he did. “It is your own pistol,” she warned. “You unhand me or we’ll see how well it shoots!”
He continued to hold her for a second, daring her to fire, and then, with courtly air he released her. “You make me love you, little one,” he murmured, as he stepped back. “I’ll treasure those scratches you have put upon my face.”
“You make great haste with your love, don’t you?” Suzanna said bitingly. “You must have great success with it.”
“No measure but what I’d trade for a smile from you.”
“The words fly too easily to your lips,” Suzanna taunted him. “I’ve not even the name of you yet.”
“And does the name matter?” Pérez asked seriously. “Is it not enough that you see I am no belted friar? I am a free-man—the while, at least—is not that enough for you, pretty one?”
“Well you know that it is not,” Suzanna answered coldly. “And now that I see it is by design and not accident that you withhold it, I am doubly warned. When free-man bows his head to peon girl the reason is not far to seek. Take your precious silk, and begone.”
Pérez shook his head as she held out his gift.
“Very well,” Suzana exclaimed angrily. “Since you will have it no other way, take it from the ground!” And she tossed the goods at his feet.
“There are other pieces, querida, even finer than that one, which I shall bring to you,” he said evenly. “Another time I shall please you better.”
Pérez had dropped his boasting tone, and as he turned to his horse and mounted, Suzanna sighed uneasily. This man understood the art of love! She called to him as he reached the middle of the stream. Pérez wheeled his horse at sound of her voice.
“Your pistol, señor,” Suzanna cried. With a muscular toss she hurled it through the air to him. Pérez caught it deftly, and bowing, rode off without backward glance.
The man had his audience, as he half-suspected. Suzanna had not been pr
epared for his manner of leave-taking, and her eyes followed him as he rode away. Even when he was well across the stream, she believed that he would turn back, for a word at least. In this she was disappointed, for Pérez surmised her thought, and he was well enough versed in the ways of women to know that the unusual always succeeds with them.
Suzanna drew a deep breath as he passed out of sight. “Madre de Dios,” she murmured, “There goes a real caballero!”
Suzanna stood where she was for a spell, contemplating the fact that life along the San Carmelo River was vastly more interesting than it was at the Rancho de Gutierrez. The man had taken her breath away, a sensation hard work had never produced.
As the minutes passed, and she realized that the stranger was not coming back, she fell to her knees, and picking up the mogador, brushed away the sand which clung to it. And then, with a purely feminine gesture, she held it up to her waist to get the effect of it.
“Bless the saints,” she whispered to herself, “there cannot be anything more beautiful. And yet, he talks of even finer things. Truly, the man who selected this was no fool. He must have looked at many before he made his choice.”
CHAPTER VI
THE SURPRISING HISTORY OF A PIECE OF SILK
SUZANNA’S thoughts were far from fishing as she stretched her length upon the moss-covered bank. beside the sluggish San Carmelo. As she lay there, day-dreaming, a crackling of brush behind her caused her to sit up in some agitation. Her first thought was that Pérez was returning. Quickly hiding the silk, she sat stiffly and waited. Imagine her surprise, then, when a six months’ old cinnamon cub broke from cover almost at her feet.
The bear was not less frightened than she. Turning tail, he dashed back into the manzanita which bordered the river.
Suzanna’s fear soon left her, and she became possessed of a mad desire to own that little cub. A large field of wheat lay beyond the narrow strip of underbrush, and she knew if she could drive the cub into it, that he would have little chance of getting away. Seizing Pico’s lead rope, and fashioning it into a crude lariat, she dashed after the fleeing bear.
The cub made slower progress through the chaparral than did the girl. The noise of her coming, and her cries of pain as briars and thorns tore her skin, cost the bear his wits, and abandoning his native caution he bounded into the wheat field. The grain had been harvested some weeks ago, and the new shoots were only up some foot and a half.
Suzanna caught sight of the bear as soon as she was out of the brush, and with a wild halloo she set after him.
Thanks to her masculine attire, she soon managed to draw up on the cub. Judging herself close enough to slip the noose over his head, she sailed it through the air. The treacherous ground upset her, and she sprawled her length. The force with which she landed rung a grunt from her lips.
The sound was a new one to the cub’s ears, and his curiosity not to be denied, he turned, impudently, and surveyed her. When Suzanna sat up the bear was still there, resting on his haunches.
The girl grinned at him as she rubbed her tortured body. “So, my fine fellow,” she cried, “you sit and laugh at me, eh? You wait!”
Cautiously regaining her rope and coiling it, she sprang toward him, but the bear was not caught unaware. With a bound, he was off for the other end of the field. The King’s Highway passed there, and the cub, hesitating to cross where there was no cover at all, circled back toward a huge straw stack fairly in line with the girl.
A game of tag began as they dashed round and round the stack. Suzanna’s dog had joined the pair and the chase. Hearing a noise behind her, the girl felt that the bear had started to chase her, and without stopping to reason, ran for an old cypress tree, which stood beside the road, and took refuge in it.
The cub, however, had tired of the game some minutes before and had taken refuge in the same tree. At the moment that Suzanna was scrambling up, the cub was perched on a limb above her calmly surveying the scene.
Suzanna, having reached the first limb, backed out on it a few feet and then came to a sudden halt. Something was pressing against her back! Exactly what it was, she couldn’t have told, but she knew it was alive! Casting a backward glance across her shoulder, she saw the bear. With a scream, she began moving out upon the limb. For now, that she was within a hair’s breadth of it, she became the quarry, and not the cub. Roping a bear was one thing; capturing it with bare hands while astride the limb of a tree, fifteen feet above the ground, was something else again. Suzanna decided to continue retreating—and did—onto another limb on the other side of the tree. The cub, sensing Suzanna’s waning interest, became playfully inclined, and started in pursuit. Suzanna slid backward toward the lower end of the limb. The cub crept toward her. Not realizing its intentions, the girl began shouting for help. She was in no particular danger, a moment’s thought would have assured her of that, but she had become panic-stricken, and her cries carried conviction.
Ramon, riding at the head of his wagon-train, stood in his stirrups as he caught the faint sound of someone calling for help. The boy cast an anxious look ahead of him, and then turned to his peons to see if they betrayed any sign of having heard that strange call. The poor devils had crawled back to the wagon soon after Pérez and his band had disappeared, asking for the punishment they so richly deserved. Ramon had left their punishment to Ruiz, knowing that he would exact many extra hours in the fields from them for their cowardice.
The boy saw that they were on edge now, and with a call to his sobrestante, he dashed away toward the low ridge that topped the wide draw in which the wagon moved. On the crest, he stopped for an instant to better locate the source of those cries. He was near enough the tree to which Suzanna and the bear had retreated to be able to see a form dangling from a lower limb. Giving his horse the spurs, he sped toward the old cypress.
“Hold there!” he called to what he believed to be a full-grown boy: “Let go when I give the word. Now!”
Suzanna’s face had been turned upward as she clung to the limb, and due to her excitement she had not recognized Ramon’s voice. He was equally ignorant of whom he rescued. And so, when he caught her and they looked into each other’s eyes, astonishment gripped both of them.
“Holy Mother,” Suzanna gasped. “You?”
“None other, marimacho,” Ramon answered vexedly. “What is it you do here?”
“Hast eyes, petulant one?” Suzanna scolded.
The boy’s teeth flashed in a wide grin as he caught sight of the cub. “Oh, hoi” he chuckled the while he nodded his head mockingly. “You best be careful whose trees you climb. Were you trying to capture him?”
“Humph! I was trying to get away from him.”
Ramon’s laughter grew as she told him of the incident.
“Your father and his men can take care of the cub. I’ll carry you back to Pico, and see you safely to the hacienda. The country is too unsettled these days for you to be wandering off in this manner. And how, by the way, do you make of this a holiday?”
“Are you cross with me, my Ramon?” Suzanna asked naïvely.
“Have I ever been, camarada?”
Suzanna pinched his cheek playfully and ended by giving it an affectionate pat. “My father will scold when he hears that I have been away since noon.” She stopped speaking until her eyes held the boy’s. “He does not scold—much—when you tell him that your father is not displeased.”
“Si, I understand,” Ramon nodded. “I shall intercede for you, once more!”
He reached for her playfully, and Suzanna in trying to dodge away from his arms dropped the piece of silk which had been hidden in her blouse. Ramon’s hand shot out and captured it before it reached the ground. The boy instantly recognized the mogador. “How do you come by this?” he demanded sharply.
“Art jealous?” Suzanna asked saucily. “And surprised, my Ramon? Am I so plain that you marvel to find others making presents to me?”
The boy had gripped her wrists savagely. The pressure of his finge
rs, as well as the grim set of his jaw, sobered the girl. Open-mouthed she stared at him.
“Present?” Ramon whipped out angrily. “I selected that piece of silk for you myself,—this very day aboard a smuggling ship from Boston, now anchored in Monterey Bay!”
“You selected it?” Suzanna gasped, unable to understand the boy’s words. “You say that you selected it for me,” she exclaimed, “and yet I have it here,—the gift of one who is a stranger to you. If you selected it how came it out of your possession?”
“It was taken from me not an hour since,” cried Ramon, his anger unabated. “We were attacked by the bandit, Benito Pérez, as we came to El Paso del Viento.”
“Benito Pérez!” Suzanna let the man’s name tremble upon her tongue.
“Holy Mother of God!” she muttered chokingly as she crossed herself. “I’ve been kissed by the most famous robber in California!”
CHAPTER VII
CHIQUITA DE SOLA
ALTHOUGH Don Fernando had not communicated his misgivings to his friend, Diego de Sola, that gentleman was most miserable on his own account; life in Mexico City having proved anything but what he had anticipated. His interests were largely centered in his hacienda in California, and however blue the day, he drew solace from the fact that he would soon be returning to that land of sunshine, where, God be praised, his daughter would soon be safely wed.
Disquieting news at this time would have been too much, for Don Diego’s cup of misery was already overflowing, his daughter’s education proving a greater task than his gray hairs could manage. He paced his tastefully appointed study on this particular night, agitation and worry plainly written upon his handsome face.
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