Part 52

"Si, Capitan. I took them there last night," said José.

"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 Señorita draw her weapon. I knew that it was her right to kill him."

"You observe José's exquisite sense of discrimination," interrupted Dick. "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 Dick's irresistible humor were it not for the terrible tragedy which rested heavily upon him.

"Well," continued José, "while you and the Señorita 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 Señorita'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 unobserved with our horses, picking up the Señorita's and Sebastiano on the way to the cañon 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." José paused. Then casting a quick glance about him, he took a fresh puff at his cigarillo and said: "Until then, á Dios, Señor Capitan!" and assuming an indifferent air, as though nothing unusual had occurred, he sauntered quietly away.

"That man's a genius!" said Dick, 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.

XXXVII

"I hear nothing," said José, 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 God 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, José," 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.

José 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 mass 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 nobody 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 pronounced the child to be consecrated and chosen to rule over them by the gods. 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.