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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Blood of the Conquerors by Harvey
+Fergusson
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: The Blood of the Conquerors
+
+Author: Harvey Fergusson
+
+Release Date: March 23, 2007 [Ebook #20888]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOOD OF THE CONQUERORS***
+
+
+
+
+
+                       The Blood of the Conquerors
+                                   by
+                            Harvey Fergusson
+
+New York
+Alfred · A · Knopf
+1921
+
+
+
+
+
+                           COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
+                          ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
+
+                 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+CHAPTER II
+CHAPTER III
+CHAPTER IV
+CHAPTER V
+CHAPTER VI
+CHAPTER VII
+CHAPTER VIII
+CHAPTER IX
+CHAPTER X
+CHAPTER XI
+CHAPTER XII
+CHAPTER XIII
+CHAPTER XIV
+CHAPTER XV
+CHAPTER XVI
+CHAPTER XVII
+CHAPTER XVIII
+CHAPTER XIX
+CHAPTER XX
+CHAPTER XXI
+CHAPTER XXII
+CHAPTER XXIII
+CHAPTER XXIV
+CHAPTER XXV
+CHAPTER XXVI
+CHAPTER XXVII
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+CHAPTER XXIX
+CHAPTER XXX
+CHAPTER XXXI
+CHAPTER XXXII
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+CHAPTER XXXV
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+EXTRA PAGES
+ERRATA
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I
+
+
+Whenever Ramon Delcasar boarded a railroad train he indulged a habit, not
+uncommon among men, of choosing from the women passengers the one whose
+appearance most pleased him to be the object of his attention during the
+journey. If the woman were reserved or well-chaperoned, or if she
+obviously belonged to another man, this attention might amount to no more
+than an occasional discreet glance in her direction. He never tried to
+make her acquaintance unless her eyes and mouth unmistakably invited him
+to do so.
+
+This conservatism on his part was not due to an innate lack of
+self-confidence. Whenever he felt sure of his social footing, his attitude
+toward women was bold and assured. But his social footing was a peculiarly
+uncertain thing for the reason that he was a Mexican. This meant that he
+faced in every social contact the possibility of a more or less covert
+prejudice against his blood, and that he faced it with an unduly proud and
+sensitive spirit concealed beneath a manner of aristocratic indifference.
+In the little southwestern town where he had lived all his life, except
+the last three years, his social position was ostensibly of the highest.
+He was spoken of as belonging to an old and prominent family. Yet he knew
+of mothers who carefully guarded their daughters from the peril of falling
+in love with him, and most of his boyhood fights had started when some one
+called him a “damned Mexican” or a “greaser.”
+
+Except to an experienced eye there was little in his appearance or in his
+manner to suggest his race. His swarthy complexion indicated perhaps a
+touch of the Moorish blood in his Spanish ancestry, but he was no darker
+than are many Americans bearing Anglo-Saxon names, and his eyes were grey.
+His features were aquiline and pleasing, and he had in a high degree that
+bearing, at once proud and unself-conscious, which is called aristocratic.
+He spoke English with a very slight Spanish accent.
+
+When he had gone away to a Catholic law school in St. Louis, confident of
+his speech and manner and appearance, he had believed that he was leaving
+prejudice behind him; but in this he had been disappointed. The raw spots
+in his consciousness, if a little less irritated at the college, were by
+no means healed. Some persons, it is true, seemed to think nothing of his
+race one way or the other; to some, mostly women, it gave him an added
+interest; but in the long run it worked against him. It kept him out of a
+fraternity, and it made his career in football slow and hard.
+
+When he finally won the coveted position of quarterback, in spite of team
+politics, he made a reputation by the merciless fashion in which he drove
+his eleven, and by the fury of his own playing.
+
+The same bitter emulative spirit which had impelled him in football drove
+him to success in his study of the law. Books held no appeal for him, and
+he had no definite ambitions, but he had a good head and a great desire to
+show the gringos what he could do. So he had graduated high in his class,
+thrown his diploma into the bottom of his trunk, and departed from his
+alma mater without regret.
+
+The limited train upon which he took passage for home afforded specially
+good opportunity for his habit of mental philandering. The passengers were
+continually going up and down between the dining car at one end of the
+train and the observation car at the other, so that all of the women daily
+passed in review. They were an unusually attractive lot, for most of the
+passengers were wealthy easterners on their way to California. Ramon had
+never before seen together so many women of the kind that devotes time and
+money and good taste to the business of creating charm. Perfectly gowned
+and groomed, delicately scented, they filled him with desire and with envy
+for the men who owned them. There were two newly married couples among the
+passengers, and several intense flirtations were under way before the
+train reached Kansas City. Ramon felt as though he were a spectator at
+some delightful carnival. He was lonely and restless, yet fascinated.
+
+For no opportunity of becoming other than a spectator had come to him. He
+had chosen without difficulty the girl whom he preferred, but had only
+dared to admire her from afar. She was a little blonde person, not more
+than twenty, with angelic grey eyes, hair of the colour of ripe wheat and
+a complexion of perfect pink and white. The number of different costumes
+which she managed to don in two days filled him with amazement and gave
+her person an ever-varying charm and interest. She appeared always
+accompanied by a very placid-looking and portly woman, who was evidently
+her mother, and a tall, cadaverous sick man, whose indifferent and pettish
+attitude toward her seemed to indicate that he was either a brother or an
+uncle, for Ramon felt sure that she was not married. She acquired no male
+attendants, but sat most of the time very properly, if a little
+restlessly, with her two companions. Once or twice Ramon felt her look
+upon him, but she always turned it away when he glanced at her.
+
+Whether because she was really beautiful in her own petite way, or because
+she seemed so unattainable, or because her small blonde daintiness had a
+peculiar appeal for him, Ramon soon reached a state of conviction that she
+interested him more than any other girl he had ever seen. He discreetly
+followed her about the train, watching for the opportunity that never
+came, and consoling himself with the fact that no one else seemed more
+fortunate in winning her favour than he. The only strange male who
+attained to the privilege of addressing her was a long-winded and elderly
+gentleman of the British perpetual-travelling type, at least one
+representative of which is found on every transcontinental train, and it
+was plain enough that he bored the girl.
+
+Ramon took no interest in landscapes generally, but when he awoke on the
+last morning of his journey and found himself once more in the wide and
+desolate country of his birth, he was so deeply stirred and interested
+that he forgot all about the girl. Devotion to one particular bit of soil
+is a Mexican characteristic, and in Ramon it was highly developed because
+he had spent so much of his life close to the earth. Every summer of his
+boyhood he had been sent to one of the sheep ranches which belonged to the
+various branches of his numerous family. Each of these ranches was merely
+a headquarters where the sheep were annually dipped and sheared and from
+which the herds set out on their long wanderings across the open range.
+Often Ramon had followed them—across the deserts where the heat shimmered
+and the yellow dust hung like a great pale plume over the rippling backs
+of the herd, and up to the summer range in the mountains where they fed
+above the clouds in lush green pastures crowned with spires of rock and
+snow. He had shared the beans and mutton and black coffee of the herders
+and had gone to sleep on a pile of peltries to the evensong of the coyotes
+that hung on the flanks of the herd. Hunting, fishing, wandering, he had
+lived like a savage and found the life good.
+
+It was this life of primitive freedom that he had longed for in his exile.
+He had thought little of his family and less of his native town, but a
+nostalgia for open spaces and free wanderings had been always with him. He
+had come to hate the city with its hard walled-in ways and its dirty air,
+and also the eastern country-side with its little green prettiness
+surrounded by fences. He longed for a land where one can see for fifty
+miles, and not a man or a house. He thought that alkaline dust on his lips
+would taste sweet.
+
+Now he saw again the scorched tawny levels, the red hills dotted with
+little gnarled _pinon_ trees, the purple mystery of distant mountains. A
+great friendly warmth filled his body, and his breath came a little
+quickly with eagerness. When he saw a group of Mexicans jogging along the
+road on their scrawny mounts he wanted to call out to them: “_Como lo va,
+amigos?_” He would have liked to salute this whole country, which was his
+country, and to tell it how glad he was to see it again. It was the one
+thing in the world that he loved, and the only thing that had ever given
+him pleasure without tincture of bitterness.
+
+He heard two men in the seat behind him talking.
+
+“Did you ever see anything so desolate?” one asked.
+
+“I wouldn’t live in this country if they gave it to me,” said the other.
+
+Ramon turned and looked at them. They were solid, important-looking men,
+and having visited upon the country their impressive disapproval, they
+opened newspapers and shut it away from their sight. Dull fools, thought
+Ramon, who do not know God’s country when they see it.
+
+And then he continued to look right over their heads and their newspapers,
+for tripping down the aisle all by herself at last, came the girl of his
+fruitless choice. His eyes, deep with dreams, met hers. She smiled upon
+him, radiantly, blushed a little, and hurried on through the car.
+
+He sat looking after her with a foolish grin on his face. He was pleased
+and shaken. So she had noticed him after all. She had been waiting for a
+chance, as well as he. And now that it had come, he was getting off the
+train in an hour. It was useless to follow her.… He turned to the window
+again.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER II
+
+
+Usually in each generation of a large and long-established family there is
+some one individual who stands out from the rest as a leader and as the
+most perfect embodiment of the family traditions and characteristics. This
+was especially true of the Delcasar family. It was established in this
+country in the year 1790 by Don Eusabio Maria Delcasar y Morales, an
+officer in the army of the King of Spain, who distinguished himself in the
+conquest of New Mexico, and especially in certain campaigns against the
+Navajos. As was customary at that time, the King rewarded his faithful
+soldier with a grant of land in the new province. This Delcasar estate lay
+in the Rio Grande Valley and the surrounding _mesa_ lands. By the
+provisions of the King’s grant, its dimensions were each the distance that
+Don Delcasar could ride in a day. The Don chose good horses and did not
+spare them, so that he secured to his family more than a thousand square
+miles of land with a strip of rich valley through the middle and a
+wilderness of desert and mountain on either side. Much of this
+principality was never seen by Don Eusabio, and even the four sons who
+divided the estate upon his death had each more land than he could well
+use.
+
+The outstanding figure of this second generation was Don Solomon Delcasar,
+who was noted for the magnificence of his establishment, and for his
+autocratic spirit.
+
+No Borgia or Bourbon ever ruled more absolutely over his own domain than
+did Don Solomon over the hundreds of square miles which made up his
+estate. He owned not only lands and herds but also men and women. The
+_peones_ who worked his lands were his possessions as much as were his
+horses. He had them beaten when they offended him and their daughters were
+his for the taking. He could not sell them, but this restriction did not
+apply to the Navajo and Apache slaves whom he captured in war. These were
+his to be sold or retained for his own use as he preferred. Adult Indians
+were seldom taken prisoner, as they were untameable, but boys and girls
+below the age of fifteen were always taken alive, when possible, and were
+valued at five hundred _pesos_ each. Don Solomon usually sold the boys, as
+he had plenty of _peones_, but he never sold a comely Indian girl.
+
+The Don was a man of proud and irascible temper, but kindly when not
+crossed. He had been known to kill a _peon_ in a fit of anger, and then
+afterward to bestow all sorts of benefits upon the man’s wife and
+children.
+
+The life of his home, like that of all the other Mexican gentlemen in his
+time, was an easy and pleasant one. He owned a great _adobe_ house, built
+about a square courtyard like a fort, and shaded pleasantly by cottonwood
+trees. There he dwelt with his numerous family, his _peones_ and his
+slaves. In the spring and summer every one worked in the fields, though
+not too hard. In the fall the men went east to the great plains to kill a
+supply of buffalo meat for the winter, and often after the hunt they
+travelled south into Sonora and Chihuahua to trade mustangs and buffalo
+hides for woven goods and luxuries.
+
+There was a pleasant social life among the aristocrats of dances and
+visits. Marriages, funerals and christenings were occasions of great
+ceremony and social importance. Indeed everything done by the Dons was
+characterized by much formality and ceremony, the custom of which had been
+brought over from Spain. But they were no longer really in touch with
+Spanish civilization. They never went back to the mother country. They had
+no books save the Bible and a few other religious works, and many of them
+never learned to read these. Their lives were made up of fighting, with
+the Indians and also among themselves, for there were many feuds; of
+hunting and primitive trade; and of venery upon a generous and patriarchal
+scale. They were Spanish gentlemen by descent, all for honour and
+tradition and sentiment; but by circumstance they were barbarian lords,
+and their lives were full of lust and blood.
+
+Circumstance somewhat modified the vaunted purity of their Spanish blood,
+too. The Indian slave girls who lived in their houses bore the children of
+their sons, and some of these half-bred and quarter-bred children were
+eventually accepted by the _gente de razon_, as the aristocrats called
+themselves. In this way a strain of Navajo blood got into the Delcasar
+family, and doubtless did much good, as all of the Spanish stock was
+weakened by much marrying of cousins.
+
+Dona Ameliana Delcasar, a sister of Don Solomon, was responsible for
+another alien infusion which ultimately percolated all through the family,
+and has been thought by some to be responsible for the unusual mental
+ability of certain Delcasars. Dona Ameliana, a beautiful but somewhat
+unruly girl, went into a convent in Durango, Mexico, at the age of
+fifteen. At the age of eighteen she eloped with a French priest named
+Raubien, who was a man of unusual intellect and a poet. The errant couple
+came to New Mexico and took up lands. They were excommunicated, of course,
+and both of them were buried in unconsecrated ground; but despite their
+spiritual handicaps they raised a family of eleven comely daughters, all
+of whom married well, several of them into the Delcasar family. Thus some
+of the Delcasars who boasted of their pure Castilian blood were really of
+a mongrel breed, comprising along with the many strains that have mingled
+in Spain, those of Navajo and French.
+
+Don Solomon Delcasar played a brilliant part in the military activities
+which marked the winning of Mexican Independence from Spain in the
+eighteen-twenties, and also in the incessant Indian wars. He was a fighter
+by necessity, but also by choice. They shed blood with grace and
+nonchalance in those days, and the Delcasars were always known as
+dangerous men.
+
+The most curious thing about this r�gime of the old-time Dons was the
+way in which it persisted. It received its first serious blow in 1845 when
+the military forces of the United States took possession of New Mexico.
+Don Jesus Christo Delcasar, who was then the richest and most powerful of
+the family, was suspected of being a party to the conspiracy which brought
+about the Taos massacre—the last organized resistance made to the gringo
+domination. At this time some of the Delcasars went to Old Mexico to live,
+as did a good many others among the Dons, feeling that the old ways of
+life in New Mexico were sure to change, and having the Spanish aversion to
+any departure from tradition. But their fears were not realized, and life
+went on as before. In 1865 the _peones_ and Indian slaves were formally
+set free, but all of them immediately went deeply in debt to their former
+masters and thus retained in effect the same status as before. So it
+happened that in the seventies, when New York was growing into a
+metropolis, and the factory system was fastening itself upon New England,
+and the middle west was getting fat and populous and tame, life in the
+Southwest remained much as it had been a century before.
+
+Laws and governments were powerless there to change ways of life, as they
+have always been, but two parallel bars of steel reaching across the
+prairies brought change with them, and it was great and sudden. The
+railroad reached the Rio Grande Valley early in the eighties, and it
+smashed the colourful barbaric pattern of the old life as the ruthless
+fist of an infidel might smash a stained glass window. The metropolis of
+the northern valley in those days was a sleepy little _adobe_ town of a
+few hundred people, reclining about its dusty _plaza_ near the river. The
+railroad, scorning to notice it, passed a mile away. Forthwith a new town
+began growing up between, the old one and the railroad. And this new town
+was such a town as had never before been seen in all the Southwest. It was
+built of wood and only half painted. It was ugly, noisy and raw. It was
+populated largely by real estate agents, lawyers, politicians and
+barkeepers. It cared little for joy, leisure, beauty or tradition. Its God
+was money and its occupation was business.
+
+This thing called business was utterly strange to the Delcasars and to all
+of the other Dons. They were men of the saddle, fighting men, and traders
+only in a primitive way. Business seemed to them a conspiracy to take
+their lands and their goods away from them, and a remarkably successful
+conspiracy. Debt and mortgage and speculation were the names of its
+weapons. Some of the Dons, including many of the Delcasars, who were now a
+very numerous family, owning each a comfortable homestead but no more,
+sold out and went to Old Mexico. Many who stayed lost all they had in a
+few years, and degenerated into petty politicians or small storekeepers.
+Some clung to a bit of land and went on farming, making always less and
+less money, sinking into poverty and insignificance, until some of them
+were no better off than the men who had once been their _peones_.
+
+Diego Delcasar and Felipe Delcasar, brothers, were two who owned houses in
+the Old Town and farms nearby, who stayed in the country and held their
+own for a time and after a fashion. Diego Delcasar was far the more able
+of the two, and a true scion of his family. He caught onto the gringo
+methods to a certain extent. He divided some farm land on the edge of town
+into lots and sold them for a good price. With the money he bought a great
+area of mountain land in the northern part of the state, where he raised
+sheep and ruled with an iron hand, much as his forbears had ruled in the
+valley. He also went into politics, learned to make a good stump speech
+and got himself elected to the highly congenial position of sheriff. In
+this place he made a great reputation for fearlessness and for the
+ruthless and skilful use of a gun. He once kicked down the locked door of
+a saloon and arrested ten armed gamblers, who had threatened to kill him.
+He was known and feared all over the territory and was a tyrant in his own
+section of it. When a gringo prospector ventured to dispute with him the
+ownership of a certain mine, the gringo was found dead in the bottom of
+the shaft. It was reported that he had fallen in and broken his neck and
+no one dared to look at the bullet hole in his back.
+
+Don Diego’s wife died without leaving him any children, but he had
+numerous children none-the-less. It was said that one could follow his
+wanderings about the territory by the sporadic occurrence of the
+unmistakable Delcasar nose among the younger inhabitants. All of his sons
+and daughters by the left hand he treated with notable generosity. He was
+a sort of hero to the native people—a great fighter, a great lover—and
+songs about his adventures were composed and sung around the fires in
+sheep camps and by gangs of trackworkers.
+
+Don Diego, in a word, was a true Delcasar and a great man. Had he used his
+opportunities wisely he might have been a millionaire. But at the age of
+sixty he owned little besides his house and his wild mountain lands. He
+drank a good deal and played poker almost every night. Once he had been a
+famous winner, but in these later years he generally lost. He also formed
+a partnership with a real estate broker named MacDougall, for the
+development of his wild lands, and it was predicted by some that the
+leading development would be an ultimate transfer of title to Mr.
+MacDougall, who was known to be lending the Don money and taking land as
+security.
+
+Don Felipe’s career was far less spectacular than that of his brother. He
+owned more than Don Diego to start with, and he spent his life slowly
+losing it, so that when he died he left nothing but a house in Old Town
+and a single small sheep ranch, which afforded his widow, two daughters
+and one son a scant living.
+
+This son, Ramon Delcasar, was the hope of the family. He would inherit the
+estate of Don Diego, if the old Don died before spending it all, which it
+did not seem likely that he would do. But Ramon early demonstrated that he
+had a more important heritage in the sharp intelligence, and the proud,
+plucky and truculent spirit which had characterized the best of the
+Delcasars throughout the family history.
+
+As there was no considerable family estate for him to settle upon, he was
+sent to law school at the age of twenty, and returned three years later to
+take up the practice of his profession in his native town. Thus he was the
+first of the Delcasars to face life with his bare hands. And he was also
+the last of them in a sense, to face the gringos. All the others of his
+name, save the senile Don, had either died, departed or sunk from sight
+into the mass of the peasantry.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER III
+
+
+The year that Ramon returned to his native town the annual fair, which
+took place at the fair-grounds in Old Town, was an especially gorgeous and
+throngful event, rich in spectacle and incident. A steer was roped and
+hog-tied in record time by Clay MacGarnigal of Lincoln County. A
+seven-mile relay race was won by a buck named Slonny Begay. In the bronco
+busting contest two men were injured to the huge enjoyment of the crowd.
+The twenty-seventh cavalry from Fort Bliss performed a sham battle. The
+home team beat several other teams. Enormous apples raised by irrigation
+in the Pecos Valley attracted much attention, and a hungry Mexican
+absconded with a prize Buff Orpington rooster.
+
+Twice a day the single narrow street which connected the neat brick and
+frame respectability of New Town with the picturesque _adobe_ squalor of
+Old Town was filled by a curiously varied crowd. The tourist from the
+East, distinguished by his camera and his unnecessary umbrella, jostled
+the Pueblo squaw from Isleta, with her latest-born slung over her shoulder
+in a fold of red blanket. Mexican families from the country marched in
+single file, the men first, then the women enveloped in huge black shawls,
+carrying babies and leading older children by the hand. Cowboys, Indians
+and soldiers raced their horses through the swarming street with reckless
+skill. Automobiles honked and fretted. The street cars, bulging humanity
+at every door and window, strove in vain to relieve the situation. Several
+children and numerous pigs and chickens were run over. From the unpaved
+street to the cloudless sky rose a vast cloud of dust, such as only a
+rainless country made of sand can produce. Dust was in every one’s eyes
+and mouth and upon every one’s clothing. It was the unofficial badge of
+the gathering. It turned the green of the cottonwood trees to grey, and
+lay in wait for unsuspecting teeth between the halves of hamburger
+sandwiches sold at corner booths.
+
+Ramon, who had obtained a pass to the grounds through the influence of his
+uncle, went to the fair every day, although he was not really pleased with
+it. He was assured by every one that it was the greatest fair ever held in
+the southwest, but to him it seemed smaller, dustier and less exciting
+than the fairs he had attended in his boyhood.
+
+This impression harmonized with a general feeling of discontent which had
+possessed him since his return. He had obtained a position in the office
+of a lawyer at fifty dollars a month, and spent the greater part of each
+day making out briefs and borrowing books for his employer from other
+lawyers. It seemed to him a petty and futile occupation, and the way to
+anything better was long and obscure. The town was full of other young
+lawyers who were doing the same things and doing them with a better grace
+than he. They were impelled by a great desire to make money. He, too,
+would have liked a great deal of money, but he had no taste for piling it
+up dollar by dollar. The only thing that cheered him was the prospect of
+inheriting his uncle’s wealth, and that was an uncertain prospect. Don
+Diego seemed to be doing what he could to get rid of his property before
+he died.
+
+Local society did not please Ramon either. The girls of the gringo
+families were not nearly as pretty, for the most part, as the ones he had
+seen in the East. The dryness and the scorching sun had a bad effect on
+their complexions. The girls of his own race did not much interest him;
+his liking was for blondes. And besides, girls were relatively scarce in
+the West because of the great number of men who came from the East.
+Competition for their favours was keen, and he could not compete
+successfully because he had so little money.
+
+The fair held but one new experience for him, and that was the Montezuma
+ball. This took place on the evening of the last day, and was an exclusive
+invitation event, designed to give elegance to the fair by bringing
+together prominent persons from all parts of the state. Ramon had never
+attended a Montezuma ball, as he had been considered a mere boy before his
+departure for college and had not owned a dress suit. But this lack had
+now been supplied, and he had obtained an invitation through the Governor
+of the State, who happened to be a Mexican.
+
+He went to the ball with his mother and his eldest sister in a carriage
+which had been among the family possessions for about a quarter of a
+century. It had once been a fine equipage, and had been drawn by a
+spirited team in the days before Felipe Delcasar lost all his money, but
+now it had a look of decay, and the team consisted of a couple of rough
+coated, low-headed brutes, one of which was noticeably smaller than the
+other. The coachman was a ragged native who did odd jobs about the
+Delcasar house.
+
+The Montezuma ball took place in the new Eldorado Hotel which had recently
+been built by the railroad company for the entertainment of its
+transcontinental passengers. It was not a beautiful building, but it was
+an apt expression of the town’s personality. Designed in the ancient style
+of the early Spanish missions, long, low and sprawling, with deep
+verandahs, odd little towers and arched gateways it was made of cement and
+its service and prices were of the Manhattan school. A little group of
+Pueblo Indians, lonesomely picturesque in buck-skin and red blankets, with
+silver and turquoise rings and bracelets, were always seated before its
+doors, trying to sell fruit and pottery to well-tailored tourists. It had
+a museum of Southwestern antiquities and curios, where a Navajo squaw
+sulkily wove blankets on a handloom for the edification of the guilded
+stranger from the East. On the platform in front of it, perspiring
+Mexicans smashed baggage and performed the other hard labour of a modern
+terminal.
+
+Thus the Eldorado Hotel was rich in that contrast between the old and the
+new which everywhere characterized the town. Generally speaking, the old
+was on exhibition or at work, while the new was at leisure or in charge.
+
+When the Delcasar carriage reached the hotel, it had to take its place in
+a long line of crawling vehicles, most of which were motor cars. Ramon
+felt acutely humiliated to arrive at the ball in a decrepit-looking rig
+when nearly every one else came in an automobile. He hoped that no one
+would notice them. But the smaller of the two horses, which had spent most
+of his life in the country, became frightened, reared, plunged, and
+finally backed the rig into one of the cars, smashing a headlight,
+blocking traffic, and making the Delcasars a target for searchlights and
+oaths. The Dona Delcasar, a ponderous and swarthy woman in voluminous
+black silk, became excited and stood up in the carriage, shouting shrill
+and useless directions to the coachman in Spanish. People began to laugh.
+Ramon roughly seized his mother by the arm and dragged her down. He was
+trembling with rage and embarassment.
+
+It was an immense relief to him when he had deposited the two women on
+chairs and was able to wander away by himself. He took up his position in
+a doorway and watched the opening of the ball with a cold and disapproving
+eye. The beginning was stiff, for many of those present were unknown to
+each other and had little in common. Most of them were “Americans,” Jews
+and Mexicans. The men were all a good deal alike in their dress suits, but
+the women displayed an astonishing variety. There were tall gawky blonde
+wives of prominent cattlemen; little natty black-eyed Jewesses, best
+dressed of all; swarthy Mexican mothers of politically important families,
+resplendent in black silk and diamonds; and pretty dark Mexican girls of
+the younger generation, who did not look at all like the se�oritas of
+romance, but talked, dressed and flirted in a thoroughly American manner.
+
+The affair finally got under way in the form of a grand march, which
+toured the hall a couple of times and disintegrated into waltzing couples.
+Ramon watched this proceeding and several other dances without feeling any
+desire to take part. He was in a state of grand and gloomy discontent,
+which was not wholly unpleasant, as is often the case with youthful
+glooms. He even permitted himself to smile at some of the capers cut by
+prominent citizens. But presently his gaze settled upon one couple with a
+real sense of resentment and uneasiness. The couple consisted of his
+uncle, Diego Delcasar, and the wife of James MacDougall, the lawyer and
+real estate operator with whom the Don had formed a partnership, and whom
+Ramon believed to be systematically fleecing the old man.
+
+Don Diego was a big, paunchy Mexican with a smooth brown face, strikingly
+set off by fierce white whiskers. His partner was a tall, tight-lipped,
+angular woman, who danced painfully, but with determination. The two had
+nothing to say to each other, but both of them smiled resolutely, and the
+Don visibly perspired under the effort of steering his inflexible friend.
+
+Although he did not formulate the idea, this couple was to Ramon a symbol
+of the disgust with which the life of his native town inspired him. Here
+was the Mexican sedulously currying favour with the gringo, who robbed him
+for his pains. And here was the specific example of that relation which
+promised to rob Ramon of his heritage.
+
+For the gringos he felt a cold hostility—a sense of antagonism and
+difference—but it was his senile and fatuous uncle, the type of his own
+defeated race, whom he despised.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER IV
+
+
+When the music stopped Ramon left the hall for the hotel lobby, where he
+soothed his sensibilities with a small brown cigarette of his own making.
+In one of the swinging benches covered with Navajo blankets two other
+dress-suited youths were seated, smoking and talking. One of them was a
+short, plump Jew with a round and gravely good-natured face; the other a
+tall, slender young fellow with a great mop of curly brown hair, large
+soft eyes and a sensitive mouth.
+
+“She’s good looking, all right,” the little fellow assented, as Ramon came
+up.
+
+“Good looking!” exclaimed the other with enthusiasm. “She’s a little
+queen! Nothing like her ever hit this town before.”
+
+“Who’s all the excitement about?” Ramon demanded, thrusting himself into
+the conversation with the easy familiarity which was his right as one of
+“the bunch.”
+
+Sidney Felberg turned to him in mock amazement.
+
+“Good night, Ramon! Where have you been? Asleep? We’re talking about Julia
+Roth, same as everybody else.…”
+
+“Who’s she?” Ramon queried coolly, discharging a cloud of smoke from the
+depths of his lungs. “Never heard of her.”
+
+“Well, she’s our latest social sensation … sister of some rich lunger that
+recently hit town; therefore very important. But that’s not the only
+reason. Wait till you see her.”
+
+“All right; introduce me to her,” Ramon suggested.
+
+“Go on; knock him down to the lady,” Sidney proposed to his companion.
+
+“No, you,” Conny demurred. “I refuse to take the responsibility. He’s too
+good looking.”
+
+“All right,” Sidney assented. “Come on. It’s the only way I can get a look
+at her anyway—introducing somebody else. A good-looking girl in this town
+can start a regular stampede. We ought to import a few hundred.…”
+
+It was during an intermission. They forced their way through a phalanx of
+men brandishing programs and pencils, each trying to bring himself
+exclusively to the attention of a small blonde person who seemed to have
+some such quality of attractiveness for men as spilled honey has for
+insects.
+
+When Ramon saw her he felt as though something inside of him had bumped up
+against his diaphragm, taking away his breath for a moment, agitating him
+strangely. And he saw an answering surprised recognition in her wide grey
+eyes.
+
+“You … you’re the girl on the train,” he remarked idiotically, as he took
+her hand.
+
+She turned pink and laughed.
+
+“You’re the man that wouldn’t look up,” she mocked.
+
+“What’s all this about?” demanded Sidney. “You two met before?”
+
+“May I have a dance?” Ramon inquired, suddenly recovering his presence of
+mind.
+
+“Let me see … you’re awfully late.” They put their heads close together
+over her program. He saw her cut out the name of another man who had two
+dances, and then she held her pencil poised.
+
+“Of course I didn’t get your name,” she admitted.
+
+“No; I’ll write it … Was it Carter? Delcasar? Ramon Delcasar. You must be
+Spanish. I was wondering … you’re so dark. I’m awfully interested in
+Spanish people.…” She wrote the name in a bold, upright, childish hand.
+
+Ramon found that he had lost his mood of discontent after this, and he
+entered with zest into the spirit of the dance which was fast losing its
+stiff and formal character. Punch and music had broken down barriers. The
+hall was noisy with the ringing, high pitched laughter of excitement. It
+was warm and filled with an exotic, stimulating odour, compounded of many
+perfumes and of perspiration. Every one danced. Young folk danced as
+though inspired, swaying their bodies in time to the tune. The old and the
+fat danced with pathetic joyful earnestness, going round and round the
+hall with red and perspiring faces, as though in this measure they might
+recapture youth and slimness if only they worked hard enough. Now and then
+a girl sang a snatch of the tune in a clear young voice, full of abandon,
+and sometimes others took up the song and it rose triumphant above the
+music of the orchestra for a moment, only to be lost again as the singers
+danced apart.
+
+Ramon had been looking forward so long and with such intense anticipation
+to his dance with Julia Roth that he was a little self-conscious at its
+beginning, but this feeling was abolished by the discovery that they could
+dance together perfectly. He danced in silence, looking down upon her
+yellow head and white shoulders, the odour of her hair filling his
+nostrils, forgetful of everything but the sensuous delight of the moment.
+
+This mood of solemn rapture was evidently not shared by her, for presently
+the yellow head was thrown back, and she smiled up at him a bit mockingly.
+
+“Just like on the train,” she remarked. “Not a thing to say for yourself.
+Are you always thus silent?”
+
+Ramon grinned.
+
+“No,” he countered, “I was just trying to get up the nerve to ask if
+you’ll let me come to see you.”
+
+“That doesn’t take much nerve,” she assured him. “Practically every man
+I’ve danced with tonight has asked me that. I never had so many dates
+before in my life.”
+
+“Well; may I follow the crowd, then?”
+
+“You may,” she laughed. “Or call me up first, and maybe there won’t be any
+crowd.”
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER V
+
+
+His mother and sister had left early, for which fact he was thankful. He
+walked home alone with his hat in his hand, letting the cold wind of early
+morning blow on his hot brow. Punch and music and dancing had filled him
+with a delightful excitement. He felt glad of life and full of power. He
+could have gone on walking for hours, enjoying the rhythm of his stride
+and the gorgeous confusion of his thoughts, but in a remarkably short time
+he had covered the mile to his house in Old Town.
+
+It was a long, low _adobe_ with a paintless and rickety wooden verandah
+along its front, and with deep-set, iron-barred windows looking upon the
+square about which Old Town was built. Delcasars had lived in this house
+for over a century. Once it had been the best in town. Now it was an
+antiquity pointed out to tourists. Most of the Mexicans who had money had
+moved away from Old Town and built modern brick houses in New Town. But
+this was an expensive proceeding. The old _adobe_ houses which they left
+brought them little. The Delcasars had never been able to afford this
+removal. They were deeply attached to the old house and also deeply
+ashamed of it.
+
+Ramon passed through a narrow hallway into a courtyard and across it to
+his room. The light of the oil lamp which he lit showed a large oblong
+chamber with a low ceiling supported by heavy timbers, whitewashed walls
+and heavy old-fashioned walnut furniture. A large coloured print of Mary
+and the Babe in a gilt frame hung over the wash-stand, and next to it a
+college pennant was tacked over a photograph of his graduating class.
+Several Navajo blankets covered most of the floor and a couple of guns
+stood in a corner.
+
+When he was in bed his overstimulated state of mind became a torment. He
+rolled and tossed, beset by exciting images and ideas. Every time that a
+growing confusion of these indicated the approach of sleep, he was brought
+sharply back to full consciousness by the crowing of a rooster in the
+backyard. Finally he threw off the covers and sat up, cursing the rooster
+in two languages and resolving to eat him.
+
+Sleep was out of the question now. Suddenly he remembered that this was
+Sunday morning, and that he had intended going to the mountains. To start
+at once would enable him to avoid an argument with his mother concerning
+the inevitability of damnation for those who miss early Mass. He rose and
+dressed himself, putting on a cotton shirt, a faded and dirty pair of
+overalls and coarse leather riding boots; tied a red and white bandana
+about his neck and stuck on his head an old felt hat minus a band and with
+a drooping brim. So attired he looked exactly like a Mexican countryman—a
+poor _ranchero_ or a woodcutter. This masquerade was not intentional nor
+was he conscious of it. He simply wore for his holiday the kind of clothes
+he had always worn about the sheep ranches.
+
+Nevertheless he felt almost as different from his usual self as he looked.
+A good part of his identity as a poor, discontented and somewhat lazy
+young lawyer was hanging in the closet with his ready-made business suit.
+He took a long and noisy drink from the pitcher on the wash-stand, picked
+up his shot-gun and slipped cautiously out of the house, feeling care-free
+and happy.
+
+Behind the house was a corral with an _adobe_ wall that was ten feet high
+except where it had fallen down and been patched with boards. A scrub cow
+and three native horses were kept there. Two of the horses made the
+ill-matched team that hauled his mother and sister to church and town. The
+other was a fiery ragged little roan mare which he kept for his own use.
+None of these horses was worth more than thirty dollars, and they were
+easily kept on a few tons of alfalfa a year.
+
+The little mare laid back her ears and turned as though to annihilate him
+with a kick. He quickly stepped right up against the threatening hind
+legs, after the fashion of experienced horsemen who know that a kick is
+harmless at short range, and laid his hand on her side. She trembled but
+dared not move. He walked to her head, sliding his hand along the rough,
+uncurried belly and talking to her in Spanish. In a moment he had the
+bridle on her.
+
+The town was impressively empty and still as he galloped through it. Hoof
+beats rang out like shots, scaring a late-roaming cat, which darted across
+the street like a runaway shadow.
+
+Near the railroad station he came to a large white van, with a beam of
+light emerging from its door. This was a local institution of
+longstanding, known as the chile-wagon, and was the town’s only all-night
+restaurant. Here he aroused a fat, sleepy old Mexican.
+
+“_Un tamale y cafe_,” he ordered, and then had the proprietor make him a
+couple of sandwiches to put in his pocket. He consumed his breakfast
+hurriedly, rolled and lit a little brown cigarette, and was off again.
+
+His way led up a long steep street lined with new houses and vacant lots;
+then out upon the high empty level of the _mesa_. It was daylight now, of
+a clear, brilliant morning. He was riding across a level prairie, which
+was a grey desert most of the year, but which the rainy season of late
+summer had now touched with rich colours. The grass in many of the hollows
+was almost high enough to cut with a scythe, and its green expanse was
+patched with purple-flowered weeds. Meadow larks bugled from the grass;
+flocks of wild doves rose on whistling wings from the weed patches; a
+great grey jack-rabbit with jet-tipped ears sprang from his form beside
+the road and went sailing away in long effortless bounds, like a
+wind-blown thing. Miles ahead were the mountains—an angular mass of blue
+distance and purple shadow, rising steep five thousand feet above the
+_mesa_, with little round foothills clustering at their feet. A brisk cool
+wind fanned his face and fluttered the brim of his hat.
+
+But with the rising of the sun the wind dropped, it became warm and he
+felt dull and sleepy. When he came to a little juniper bush which spread
+its bit of shadow beside the road, he dismounted, pulled the saddle off
+his sweating mare, and sat down in the shade to eat his lunch. When he had
+finished he wished for a drink of water and philosophically took a smoke
+instead. Then he lay down, using his saddle for a pillow, puffing
+luxuriously at his cigarette. It was cool in his bit of shadow, though all
+the world about him swam in waves of heat.… Cool and very quiet. He felt
+drowsily content. This sunny desolation was to him neither lonely nor
+beautiful; it was just his own country, the soil from which he had
+sprung.… Colours and outlines blurred as his eyelids grew heavy. Sleep
+conquered him in a sudden black rush.
+
+It was late afternoon when he awakened. He had meant to shoot doves, but
+it was too late now to do any hunting if he was to reach Archulera’s place
+before dark. He saddled his mare hurriedly and went forward at a hard
+gallop.
+
+Archulera’s place was typical of the little Mexican ranches that dot the
+Southwest wherever there is water enough to irrigate a few acres. The
+brown block of _adobe_ house stood on an arid, rocky hillside, and looked
+like a part of it, save for the white door, and a few bright scarlet
+strings of _chile_ hung over the rafter ends to dry. Down in the _arroyo_
+was the little fenced patch where corn and _chile_ and beans were raised,
+and behind the house was a round goat corral of wattled brush. The skyward
+rocky waste of the mountain lifted behind the house, and the empty reach
+of the _mesa_ lay before—an immense and arid loneliness, now softened and
+beautified by many shadows.
+
+Ramon could see old man Archulera far up the mountainside, rounding up his
+goats for evening milking, and he could faintly hear the bleating of the
+animals and the old man’s shouts and imprecations. He whistled loudly
+through his fingers and waved his hat.
+
+_“__Como lo va primo!__”_ he shouted, and he saw Archulera stop and look,
+and heard faintly his answering, _“__Como la va!__”_
+
+Soon Archulera had his goats penned, and Ramon joined him while he milked
+half a dozen ewes.
+
+“I’m glad you came,” Archulera told him, “I haven’t seen a man in a month
+except one gringo that said he was a prospector and stole a kid from me.…
+How was the fair?”
+
+When the milking was over, the old man selected a fat kid, caught it by
+the hind leg and dragged it, bleating in wild terror, to a gallows behind
+the house, where he hung it up and skilfully cut its throat, leaving it to
+bleat and bleed to death while he wiped his knife and went on talking
+volubly with his guest. The occasional visits of Ramon were the most
+interesting events in his life, and he always killed a kid to express his
+appreciation. Ramon reciprocated with gifts of tobacco and whisky. They
+were great friends.
+
+Archulera was a short, muscular Mexican with a swarthy, wrinkled face,
+broad but well-cut. His big, thin-lipped mouth showed an amazing disarray
+of strong yellow teeth when he smiled. His little black eyes were shrewd
+and full of fire. Although he was sixty years old, there was little grey
+in the thick black hair that hung almost to his shoulders. He wore a cheap
+print shirt and a faded pair of overalls, belted at the waist with a strip
+of red wool. His foot-gear consisted of the uppers of a pair of old shoes
+with soles of rawhide sewed on moccasin-fashion.
+
+With no more disguise than a red blanket and a grunt Archulera could have
+passed for an Indian anywhere, but he made it clear to all that he
+regarded himself as a Spanish gentleman. He was descended, like Ramon,
+from one of the old families, which had received occasional infusions of
+native blood. There was probably more Indian in him than in the young man,
+but the chief difference between the two was due to the fact that the
+Archuleras had lost most of their wealth a couple of generations before,
+so that the old man had come down in the social scale to the condition of
+an ordinary goat-herding _pelado_. There are many such fallen aristocrats
+among the New Mexican peasantry. Most of them, like Archulera, are
+distinguished by their remarkably choice and fluent use of the Spanish
+language, and by the formal, eighteenth-century perfection of their
+manners, which contrast strangely with the barbaric way of their lives.
+
+The old man was now skinning and butchering the goat with speed and skill.
+Nothing was wasted. The hide was flung over a rafter end to dry. The head
+was washed and put in a pan, as were the smaller entrails with bits of fat
+clinging to them, and the liver and heart. The meat was too fresh to be
+eaten tonight, but these things would serve well enough for supper, and he
+called to his daughter, Catalina, to come and get them.
+
+The two men soon joined her in the low, whitewashed room, which had hard
+mud for a floor, and was furnished with a bare table and a few chairs. It
+was clean, but having only one window and that always closed, it had a
+pronounced and individual odour. In one corner was a little fireplace,
+which had long served both for cooking and to furnish heat, but as a
+concession to modern ideas Archulera had lately supplemented it with a
+cheap range in the opposite corner. There Catalina was noisily distilling
+an aroma from goat liver and onions. The entrails she threaded on little
+sticks and broiled them to a delicate brown over the coals, while the head
+she placed whole in the oven. Later this was cracked open and the brains
+taken out with a spoon, piping hot and very savoury. These viands were
+supplemented by a pan of large pale biscuits, and a big tin pot of coffee.
+Catalina served the two men, saying nothing, not even raising her eyes,
+while they talked and paid no attention to her. After eating her own
+supper and washing the dishes she disappeared into the next room.
+
+This self-effacing behaviour on the part of the girl accorded with the
+highest standards of Mexican etiquette, and showed her good breeding. The
+fact that old Archulera paid no more attention to her than to a chair did
+not indicate that he was indifferent to her. On the contrary, as Ramon had
+long ago discovered, she was one of the chief concerns of his life. He
+could not forget that in her veins flowed some of the very best of Spanish
+blood, and he considered her altogether too good for the common
+sheep-herders and wood-cutters who aspired to woo her. These he summarily
+warned away, and brought his big Winchester rifle into the argument
+whenever it became warm. When he left the girl alone, in order to guard
+her from temptation he locked her into the house together with his dog.
+Catalina had led a starved and isolated existence.
+
+After the meal, Archulera became reminiscent of his youth. Some
+thirty-five years before he had been one of the young bloods of the
+country, having fought against the Navajos and Apaches. He had made a
+reputation, long since forgotten by every one but himself, for ruthless
+courage and straight shooting, and many a man had he killed. In his early
+life, as he had often told Ramon, he had been a boon companion of old
+Diego Delcasar. The two had been associated in some mining venture, and
+Archulera claimed that Delcasar had cheated him out of his share of the
+proceeds, and so doomed him to his present life of poverty. When properly
+stimulated by food and drink Archulera never failed to tell this story,
+and to express his hatred for the man who had deprived him of wealth and
+social position. He had at first approached the subject diffidently, not
+knowing how Ramon would regard an attack on the good name of his uncle,
+and being anxious not to offend the young man. But finding that Ramon
+listened tolerantly, if not sympathetically, he had told the story over
+and over, each time with more detail and more abundant and picturesque
+denunciation of Diego Delcasar, but with substantial uniformity as to the
+facts. As he spoke he watched the face of Ramon narrowly. Always the
+recital ended about the same way.
+
+“You are not like your uncle,” he assured the young man earnestly, in his
+formal Spanish. “You are generous, honourable. When your uncle is dead,
+you will repay me for the wrongs that I have suffered—no?”
+
+Ramon would always laugh at this. This night, in order to humour the old
+man, he asked him how much he thought the Delcasar estate owed him for his
+ancient wrong.
+
+“Five thousand dollars!” Archulera replied with slow emphasis. He probably
+had no idea how much he had lost, but five thousand dollars was his
+conception of a great deal of money.
+
+Ramon again laughed and refused to commit himself. He certainly had no
+idea of giving Archulera five thousand dollars, but he thought that if he
+ever did come into his own he would certainly take care of the old man—and
+of Catalina.
+
+Soon after this Archulera went off to sleep in the other end of the house,
+after trying in vain to persuade Ramon to occupy his bed. Ramon, as
+always, refused. He would sleep on a pile of sheep skins in the corner. He
+really preferred this, because the sheep skins were both cleaner and
+softer than Archulera’s bed, and also for another reason.
+
+After the old man had gone, he stretched out on his pallet, and lit
+another cigarette. He could hear his host thumping around for a few
+minutes; then it was very still, save for a faint moan of wind and the
+ticking of a cheap clock. This late still hour had always been to him one
+of the most delightful parts of his visits to Archulera’s house. For some
+reason he got a sense of peace and freedom out of this far-away quiet
+place. And he knew that in the next room Catalina was waiting for
+him—Catalina with the strong, shapely brown body which her formless calico
+smock concealed by day, with the eager, blind desire bred of her long
+loneliness.
+
+During his first few visits to Archulera, he had scarcely noticed the
+girl. That was doubtless one reason why the old man had welcomed him. He
+had come here simply to go deer-hunting with Archulera, to eat his goat
+meat and chile, to get away from the annoyance and boredom of his life in
+town, and into the crude, primitive atmosphere which he had loved as a
+boy. Catalina had been to him just the usual slovenly figure of a Mexican
+woman, a self-effacing drudge.
+
+He had felt her eyes upon him several times, had not looked up quickly
+enough to meet them, but had noticed the pretty soft curve of her cheek.
+Then one night when he was stretched out on his sheep skins after
+Archulera had gone to bed, the girl came into the room and began pottering
+about the stove. He had watched her, wondering what she was doing. As she
+knelt on the floor he noticed the curve of her hip, the droop of her
+breast against her frock, the surprising round perfection of her
+outstretched arm. It struck him suddenly that she was a woman to be
+desired, and one who might be taken with ease. At the same time, with a
+quickening of the blood, he realized that she was doing nothing, and had
+merely come into the room to attract his attention. Then she glanced at
+him, daring but shy, with great brown eyes, like the eyes of a gentle
+animal. When she went back to her own room a moment later, he confidently
+followed.
+
+Ever since then Catalina had been the chief object of his week-end
+journeys, and his hunting largely an excuse. She had completed this life
+which he led in the mountains, and which was so pleasantly different from
+his life in town. For a part of the week he was a poor, young lawyer,
+watchful, worried, careful; then for a couple of days he was a ragged
+young Mexican and the lover of Catalina—a different man. He was the
+product of a transition, and two beings warred in him. In town he was
+dominated by the desire to be like the Americans, and to gain a foothold
+in their life of law, greed and respectability; in the mountains he
+relapsed unconsciously into the easy barbarous ways of his fathers.
+Incidentally, this periodical change of personality was refreshing and a
+source of strength. Catalina had been an important part of it.… As he lay
+now sleepily puffing a last cigarette, he wondered why it was that he had
+suddenly lost interest in the girl.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER VI
+
+
+At ten o’clock in the morning Ramon was hard at work in the office of
+James B. Green. He worked efficiently and with zest as he always did after
+one of his trips to the mountains. He got out of these ventures into
+another environment about what some men get out of sprees—a complete
+change of the state of mind. Archulera and his daughter were now
+completely forgotten, and all of his usual worries and plans were creeping
+back into his consciousness.
+
+But this day he had a feeling of pleasant anticipation. At first he could
+not account for it. And then he remembered the girl—the one he had seen on
+the train and had met again at the Montezuma ball. It seemed as though the
+thought of her had been in the back of his mind all the time, and now
+suddenly came forward, claiming all his attention, stirring him to a
+quick, unwonted excitement. She had said he might come to see her. He was
+to ’phone first. Maybe she would be alone.…
+
+In this latter hope he was disappointed. She gave him the appointment, and
+she herself admitted him. He thought he had never seen such a dainty bit
+of fragrant perfection, all in pink that matched the pink of her strange
+little crinkled mouth.
+
+“I’m awfully glad you came,” she told him. (Her gladness was always
+awful.) She led him into the sitting room and presented him to the tall
+emaciated sick man and the large placid woman who had watched over her so
+carefully on the train.
+
+Gordon Roth greeted him with a cool and formal manner into which he
+evidently tried to infuse something of cordiality, as though a desire to
+be just and broad-minded struggled with prejudice. Mrs. Roth looked at him
+with curiosity, and gave him a still more restrained greeting. The
+conversation was a weak and painful affair, kept barely alive, now by one
+and now by another. The atmosphere was heavy with disapproval. If their
+greetings had left Ramon in any doubt as to the attitude of the girl’s
+family toward him, that doubt was removed by the fact that neither Mrs.
+Roth nor her son showed any intention of leaving the room. This would have
+been not unusual if he had called on a Mexican girl, especially if she
+belonged to one of the more old-fashioned families; but he knew that
+American girls are left alone with their suitors if the suitor is at all
+welcome.
+
+He knew a little about this family from hear-say. They came from one of
+the larger factory towns in northern New York, and were supposed to be
+moderately wealthy. They used a very broad “a” and served tea at four
+o’clock in the afternoon. Gordon Roth was a Harvard graduate and did not
+conceal the fact. Neither did he conceal his hatred for this sandy little
+western town, where ill-health had doomed him to spend many of his days
+and perhaps to end them.
+
+The girl was strangely different from her mother and brother. Whereas
+their expressions were stiff and solemn, her eyes showed an irrepressible
+gleam of humour, and her fascinating little mouth was mobile with mirth.
+She fidgeted around in her chair a good deal, as a child does when bored.
+
+Mrs. Roth decorously turned the conversation toward the safe and reliable
+subjects of literature and art.
+
+“What do you think of Maeterlinck, Mr. Delcasar?” she enquired in an
+innocent manner that must have concealed malice.
+
+“I don’t know him,” Ramon admitted, “Who is he?”
+
+Mrs. Roth permitted herself to smile. Gordon Roth came graciously to the
+rescue.
+
+“Maeterlinck is a great Belgian writer,” he explained. “We are all very
+much interested in him.…”
+
+Julia gave a little flounce in her chair, and crossed her legs with a
+defiant look at her mother.
+
+“I’m not interested in him,” she announced with decision. “I think he’s a
+bore. Listen, Mr. Delcasar. You know Conny Masters? Well, he was telling
+me the most thrilling tale the other day. He said that the country
+Mexicans have a sort of secret religious fraternity that most of the men
+belong to, and that they meet every Good Friday and beat themselves with
+whips and sit down on cactus and crucify a man on a cross and all sorts of
+horrible things … for penance you know, just like the monks and things in
+the Middle Ages.… He claims he saw them once and that they had blood
+running down to their heels. Is that all true? I’ve forgotten what he
+called them.…”
+
+Ramon nodded.
+
+“Sure. The _penitentes_. I’ve seen them lots of times.”
+
+“O, do tell us about them. I love to hear about horrible things.”
+
+“Well, I’ve seen lots of _penitente_ processions, but the best one I ever
+saw was a long time ago, when I was a little kid. There are not so many of
+them now, and they don’t do as much as they used to. The church is down on
+them, you know, and they’re afraid. Ten years ago if you tried to look at
+them, they would shoot at you, but now tourists take pictures of them.”
+
+Gordon Roth’s curiosity had been aroused.
+
+“Tell me,” he broke in. “What is the meaning of this thing? How did it get
+started?”
+
+“I don’t know exactly,” Ramon admitted. “My grandfather told me that they
+brought it over from Spain centuries ago, and the Indians here had a sort
+of whipping fraternity, and the two got mixed up, I guess. The church used
+to tolerate it; it was a regular religious festival. But now it’s
+outlawed. They still have a lot of political power. They all vote the same
+way. One man that was elected to Congress—they say that the _penitente_
+stripes on his back carried him there. And he was a gringo too. But I
+don’t know. It may be a lie.…”
+
+“But tell us about that procession you saw when you were a little boy,”
+Julia broke in. She was leaning forward with her chin in her hand, and her
+big grey eyes, wide with interest, fixed upon his face.
+
+“Well, I was only about ten years old, and I was riding home from one of
+our ranches with my father. We were coming through _Tijeras_ canyon. It
+was March, and there was snow on the ground in patches, and the mountains
+were cold and bare, and I remember I thought I was going to freeze. Every
+little while we would get off and set fire to a tumble-weed by the road,
+and warm our hands and then go on again.…
+
+“Anyway, pretty soon I heard a lot of men singing, all together, in deep
+voices, and the noise echoed around the canyon and sounded awful solemn.
+And I could hear, too, the slap of the big wide whips coming down on the
+bare backs, wet with blood, like slapping a man with a wet towel, only
+louder. I didn’t know what it was, but my father did, and he called to me
+and we spurred our horses right up the mountain, and hid in a clump of
+cedar up there. Then they came around a bend in the road, and I began to
+cry because they were all covered with blood, and one of them fell down.…
+My father slapped me and told me to shut up, or they would come and shoot
+us.”
+
+“But what did they look like? What were they doing?” Julia demanded
+frowning at him, impatient with his rambling narrative.
+
+“Well, in front there was _un carreta del muerto_. That means a wagon of
+death. I don’t think you would ever see one any more. It was just an
+ordinary wagon drawn by six men, naked to the waist and bleeding, with
+other men walking beside them and beating them with blacksnake whips, just
+like they were mules. In the wagon they had a big bed of stones, covered
+with cactus, and a man sitting in the cactus, who was supposed to
+represent death. And then they had a Virgin Mary, too. Four _penitentes_
+just like the others, with nothing on but bloody pants and black bandages
+around their eyes, carried the image on a litter raised up over their
+heads, and they had swords fastened to their elbows and stuck between
+their ribs, so that if they let down, the swords would stick into their
+hearts and kill them. And behind that came the _Cristo_—the man that
+represented Jesus, you know, dragging a big cross. Behind him came twenty
+or thirty more _penitentes_, the most I ever saw at once, some of them
+whipping themselves with big broad whips made out of _amole_. One was too
+weak to whip himself, so two others walked behind him and whipped him.
+Pretty soon he fell down and they walked over him and stepped on his
+stomach.…”
+
+“But did they crucify the man, the whatever-you-call-him?” Gordon
+demanded.
+
+“The _Cristo_. Sure. They crucify one every year. They used to nail him.
+Now they generally do it with ropes, but that’s bad enough, because it
+makes him swell up and turn blue.… Sometimes he dies.”
+
+Julia was listening with lips parted and eyes wide, horrified and yet
+fascinated, as are so many women by what is cruel and bloody. But Gordon,
+who had become equally interested, was cool and inquisitive.
+
+“And you mean to tell me that at one time nearly all the—er—native people
+belonged to this barbaric organization, and that many of them do yet?”
+
+“Nearly all the common _pelados_,” Ramon hastened to explain. “They are
+nearly all Indian or part Indian, you know. Not the educated people.” Here
+a note of pride came into his voice. “We are descended from officers of
+the Spanish army—the men who conquered this country. In the old days,
+before the Americans came, all these common people were our slaves.”
+
+“I see,” said Gordon Roth in a dry and judicial tone.
+
+The _penitentes_, as a subject of conversation, seemed exhausted for the
+time being and Ramon had given up all hope of being alone with Julia. He
+rose and took his leave. To his delight Julia followed him to the door. In
+the hall she gave him her hand and looked up at him, and neither of them
+found anything to say. For some reason the pressure of her hand and the
+look of her eyes flustered and confused him more than had all the coldness
+and disapproval of her family. At last he said good-bye and got away, with
+his hat on wrong side before and the blood pounding in his temples.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VII
+
+
+During the following weeks Ramon worked even less than was his custom. He
+also neglected his trips to the mountains and most of his other
+amusements. They seemed to have lost their interest for him. But he was a
+regular attendant upon the weekly dances which were held at the country
+club, and to which he had never gone before.
+
+The country club was a recent acquisition of the town, backed by a number
+of local business men. It consisted of a picturesque little frame lodge
+far out upon the _mesa_, and a nine-hole golf course, made of sand and
+haunted by lizards and rattlesnakes. It had become a centre of local
+society, although there was a more exclusive organization known as the
+Forty Club, which gave a formal ball once a month. Ramon had never been
+invited to join the Forty Club, but the political importance of his family
+had procured him a membership in the country club and it served his
+present purpose very well, for he found Julia Roth there every Saturday
+night. This fact was the sole reason for his going. His dances with her
+were now the one thing in life to which he looked forward with pleasure,
+and his highest hope was that he might be alone with her.
+
+In this he was disappointed for a long time because Julia was the belle of
+the town. Her dainty, provocative presence seemed always to be the centre
+of the gathering. Women envied her and studied her frocks, which were
+easily the most stylish in town. Men flocked about her and guffawed at her
+elfin stabs of humour. Her program was always crowded with names, and when
+she went for a stroll between dances she was generally accompanied by at
+least three men of whom Ramon was often one. And while the others made her
+laugh at their jokes or thrilled her with accounts of their adventures, he
+was always silent and worried—an utter bore, he thought.
+
+This girl was a new experience to him. With the egotism of twenty-four, he
+had regarded himself as a finished man of the world, especially with
+regard to women. They had always liked him. He was good to look at and his
+silent, self-possessed manner touched the feminine imagination. He had had
+his share of the amorous adventures that come to most men, and his
+attitude toward women had changed from the hesitancy of adolesence to the
+purposeful, confident and somewhat selfish attitude of the male accustomed
+to easy conquest.
+
+This girl, by a smile and touch of her hand, seemed to have changed him.
+She filled him with a mighty yearning. He desired her, and yet there was a
+puzzling element in his feeling that seemed to transcend desire. And he
+was utterly without his usual confidence and purpose. He had reason enough
+to doubt his success, but aside from that she loomed in his imagination as
+something high and unattainable. He had no plan. His strength seemed to
+have oozed out of him. He pursued her persistently enough—in fact too
+persistently—but he did it because he could not help it.
+
+The longer he followed in her wake, the more marked his weakness became.
+When he approached her to claim a dance he was often aware of a faint
+tremble in his knees, and was embarrassed by the fact that the palms of
+his hands were sweating. He felt that he was a fool and swore at himself.
+And he was wholly unable to believe that he was making any impression upon
+her. True, she was quite willing to flirt with him. She looked up at him
+with an arch, almost enquiring glance when he came to claim her for a
+dance, but he seldom found much to say at such times, being too wholly
+absorbed in the sacred occupation of dancing with her. And it seemed to
+him that she flirted with every one else, too. This did not in the least
+mitigate his devotion, but it made him acutely uncomfortable to watch her
+dance with other men, and especially with Conny Masters.
+
+Masters was the son of a man who had made a moderate fortune in the
+tin-plate business. He had come West with his mother who had a weak
+throat, had fallen in love with the country, and scandalized his family by
+resolutely refusing to go back to Indiana and tin cans. He spent most of
+his time riding about the country, equipped with a note book and a camera,
+studying the Mexicans and Indians, and taking pictures of the scenery. He
+said that he was going to make a literary career, but the net product of
+his effort for two years had been a few sonnets of lofty tone but vague
+meaning, and a great many photographs, mostly of sunsets.
+
+Conny was not a definite success as a writer, but he was unquestionably a
+gifted talker, and he knew the country better than did most of the
+natives. He made real to Julia the romance which she craved to find in the
+West. And her watchful and suspicious family seemed to tolerate if not to
+welcome him. Ramon knew that he went to the Roth’s regularly. He began to
+feel something like hatred for Conny whom he had formerly liked.
+
+This feeling was deepened by the fact that Conny seemed to be specially
+bent on defeating Ramon’s ambition to be alone with the girl. If no one
+else joined them at the end of a dance, Conny was almost sure to do so,
+and to occupy the intermission with one of his ever-ready monologues,
+while Ramon sat silent and angry, wondering what Julia saw to admire in
+this windy fool, and occasionally daring to wonder whether she really saw
+anything in him after all.
+
+But a sufficiently devoted lover is seldom wholly without a reward. There
+came an evening when Ramon found himself alone with her. And he was aware
+with a thrill that she had evaded not only Conny, but two other men. Her
+smile was friendly and encouraging, too, and yet he could not find
+anything to say which in the least expressed his feelings.
+
+“Are you going to stay in this country long?” he began. The question
+sounded supremely casual, but it meant a great deal to him. He was haunted
+by a fear that she would depart suddenly, and he would never see her
+again. She smiled and looked away for a moment before replying, as though
+perhaps this was not exactly what she had expected him to say.
+
+“I don’t know. Gordon wants mother and me to go back East this fall, but I
+don’t want to go and mother doesn’t want to leave Gordon alone.… We
+haven’t decided. Maybe I won’t go till next year.”
+
+“I suppose you’ll go to college won’t you?”
+
+“No; I wanted to go to Vassar and then study art, but mother says college
+spoils a girl for society. She thinks the way the Vassar girls walk is
+perfectly dreadful. I offered to go right on walking the same way, but she
+said anyway college makes girls so frightfully broad-minded.…”
+
+Ramon laughed.
+
+“What will you do then?”
+
+“I’ll come out.”
+
+“Out of what?”
+
+“Make my d�but, don’t you know?”
+
+“O, yes.”
+
+“In New York. I have an aunt there. She knows all the best people, mother
+says.”
+
+“What happens after you come out?”
+
+“You get married if anybody will have you. If not, you sort of fade away
+and finally go into uplift work about your fourth season.”
+
+“But of course, you’ll get married. I bet you’ll marry a millionaire.”
+
+“I don’t know. Mother wants me to marry a broker. She says the big
+financial houses in New York are conducted by the very best people. But
+Gordon thinks I ought to marry a professional man—a doctor or something.
+He thinks brokers are vulgar. He says money isn’t everything.”
+
+“What do you think?”
+
+“I haven’t a thought to my name. All my thinking has been done for me
+since infancy. I don’t know what I want, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t
+get it if I did.… Come on. They’ve been dancing for ten minutes. If we
+stay here any longer it’ll be a scandal.”
+
+She rose and started for the hall. He suddenly realized that his
+long-sought opportunity was slipping away from him. He caught her by the
+hand.
+
+“Don’t go, please. I want to tell you something.”
+
+She met his hand with a fair grip, and pulled him after her with a laugh.
+
+“Some other time,” she promised.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+In most of their social diversions the town folk tended always more and
+more to ape the ways of the East. Local colour, they thought, was all
+right in its place, which was a curio store or a museum, but they desired
+their town to be modern and citified, so that the wealthy eastern
+health-seeker would find it a congenial home. The scenery and the historic
+past were recognized as assets, but they should be the background for a
+life of “culture, refinement and modern convenience” as the president of
+the Chamber of Commerce was fond of saying.
+
+Hence the riding parties and picnics of a few years before had given way
+to aggressively formal balls and receptions; but one form of entertainment
+that was indigenous had survived. This was known as a “_mesa_ supper.” It
+might take place anywhere in the surrounding wilderness of mountain and
+desert. Several auto-loads of young folk would motor out, suitably
+chaperoned and laden with provisions. Beside some water hole or mountain
+stream fires would be built, steaks broiled and coffee brewed. Afterward
+there would be singing and story-telling about the fire, and romantic
+strolls by couples.
+
+It was one of these expeditions that furnished Ramon with his second
+opportunity in three weeks to be alone with Julia Roth. The party had
+journeyed to Los Ojuellos, where a spring of clear water bubbled up in the
+centre of the _mesa_. A grove of cottonwood trees shadowed the place, and
+there was an ancient _adobe_ ruin which looked especially effective by
+moonlight.
+
+The persistent Conny Masters was a member of the party, but he was
+handicapped by the fact that he knew more about camp cookery than anyone
+else present. He had made a special study of Mexican dishes and had
+written an article about them which had been rejected by no less than
+twenty-seven magazines. He made a specialty of the _enchilada_, which is a
+delightful concoction of corn meal, eggs and chile, and he had perfected a
+recipe of his own for this dish which he had named the Conny Masters
+junior.
+
+As soon as the baskets were unpacked and the chaperones were safely
+anchored on rugs and blankets with their backs against trees, there was a
+general demand, strongly backed by Ramon, that Conny should cook supper.
+He was soon absorbed in the process, volubly explaining every step, while
+the others gathered about him and offered encouragement and humorous
+suggestion. But there was soon a gradual dispersion of the group, some
+going for wood and some for water, and others on errands unstated.
+
+Ramon found himself strolling under the cottonwoods with Julia. Neither of
+them had said anything. It was almost as though the tryst had been agreed
+upon before. She picked her way slowly among the tussocks of dried grass,
+her skirt daintily kilted. A faint but potent perfume from her hair and
+dress blew over him. He ventured to support her elbow with a reverent
+touch. Never had she seemed more desirable, nor yet, for some reason, more
+remote.
+
+Suddenly she stopped and looked up at the great desert stars.
+
+“Isn’t it big and beautiful?” she demanded. “And doesn’t it make you feel
+free? It’s never like this at home, somehow.”
+
+“What is it like where you live?” he enquired. He had a persistent desire
+to see into her life and understand it, but everything she told him only
+made her more than ever to him a being of mysterious origin and destiny.
+
+“It’s a funny little New York factory city with very staid ways,” she
+said. “You go to a dance at the country club every Saturday night and to
+tea parties and things in between. You fight, bleed and die for your
+social position and once in a while you stop and wonder why.… It’s a bore.
+You can see yourself going on doing the same thing till the day of your
+death.…”
+
+Her discontent with things as they are found ready sympathy.
+
+“That’s just the way it is here,” he said with conviction. “You can’t see
+anything ahead.”
+
+“Oh, I don’t think its the same here at all,” she protested. “This
+country’s so big and interesting. It’s different.”
+
+“Tell me how,” he demanded. “I haven’t seen anything interesting here
+since I got back,—except you.”
+
+She ignored the exception.
+
+“I can’t express it exactly. The people here are just like people
+everywhere else—most of them. But the country looks so big and unoccupied.
+And blue mountains are so alluring. There might be anything beyond them …
+adventures, opportunities.…”
+
+This idea was a bit too rarefied for Ramon, but he could agree about the
+mountains.
+
+“It’s a fine country,” he assented. “For those that own it.”
+
+“It’s just a feeling I have about it,” she went on, trying to express her
+own half-formulated idea. “But then I have that feeling about life in
+general, and there doesn’t seem to be anything in it. I mean the feeling
+that it’s full of thrilling things, but somehow you miss them all.”
+
+“I have felt something like that,” he admitted. “But I never could say
+it.”
+
+This discovery of an idea in common seemed somehow to bring them closer
+together. His hand tightened gently about her arm; almost unconsciously he
+drew her toward him. But she seemed to be all absorbed in the discussion.
+
+“You have no right to complain,” she told him. “A man can do something
+about it.”
+
+“Yes,” he agreed, speaking a reflection without stopping to put it in
+conventional language. “It must be hell to be a woman … excuse me … I
+mean.…”
+
+“Don’t apologize. It is—just that. A man at least has a fighting chance to
+escape boredom. But they won’t even let a woman fight. I wish I were a
+man.”
+
+“Well; I don’t,” he asserted with warmth, unconsciously tightening his
+hold upon her arm. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re a woman.”
+
+“Oh, are you?” She looked up at him with challenging, provocative eyes.
+
+For an instant a kiss was imminent. It hovered between them like an
+invisible fairy presence of which they both were sweetly aware, and no one
+else.
+
+“Hey there! all you spooners!” came a jovial and irreverent voice from the
+vicinity of the camp fire. “Come and eat.”
+
+The moment was lost; the fairy presence gone. She turned with a little
+laugh, and they went in silence back to the fire. They were last to enter
+the circle of ruddy light, and all eyes were upon them. She was pink and
+self-conscious, looking at her feet and picking her way with exaggerated
+care. He was proud and elated. This, he knew, would couple their names in
+gossip, would make her partly his.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER IX
+
+
+He wanted to call on her again, but he felt that he had been insulted and
+rejected by the Roths, and his pride fought against it. Unable to think
+for long of anything but Julia he fell into the habit of walking by her
+house at night, looking at its lighted windows and wondering what she was
+doing. Often he could see the moving figures and hear the laughter of some
+gay group about her, but he could not bring himself to go in and face the
+chilly disapproval of her family. At such times he felt an utter outcast,
+and sounded depths of misery he had never known before. For this was his
+first real love, and he loved in the helpless, desperate way of the Latin,
+without calculation or humour.
+
+One evening there was a gathering on the porch of the Roth house. She was
+there, sitting on the steps with three men about her. He could see the
+white blur of her frock and hear her funny little bubbling laugh above the
+deeper voices of the men. Having ascertained that neither Gordon Roth nor
+his mother was there, he summoned his courage and went in. She could not
+see who he was until he stood almost over her.
+
+“O, it’s you! I’m awfully glad.…” Their hands met and clung for a moment
+in the darkness. He sat down on the steps at her feet, and the
+conversation moved on without any assistance from him. He was now just as
+happy as he had been miserable a few minutes before.
+
+Presently two of the other men went away, but the third, who was Conny
+Masters, stayed. He talked volubly as ever, telling wonderful and
+sometimes incredible stories of things he had seen and done in his
+wanderings. Ramon said nothing. Julia responded less and less. Once she
+moved to drop the wrap from about her shoulders, and the alert Conny
+hastened to assist her. Ramon watched and envied with a thumping heart as
+he saw the gleam of her bare white shoulders, and realized that his rival
+might have touched them.
+
+Conny went on talking for half an hour with astonishing endurance and
+resourcefulness, but it became always more apparent that he was not
+captivating his audience. He had to laugh at his own humour and expatiate
+on his own thrills. Finally a silence fell upon the three, broken only by
+occasional commonplace remarks.
+
+“Well, I guess it’s time to drift,” Conny observed at last, looking
+cautiously at his watch.
+
+This suggestion was neither seconded by Ramon nor opposed by Julia. The
+silence literally pushed Conny to his feet.
+
+“Going, Ramon? No? Well, Good night.” And he retired whistling in a way
+which showed his irritation more plainly than if he had sworn.
+
+The two impolite ones sat silent for a long moment. Ramon was trying to
+think of what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. Finally
+without looking at her he said in a low husky voice.
+
+“You know … I love you.”
+
+There was more silence. At last he looked up and met her eyes. They were
+serious for the first time in his experience, and so was her usually
+mocking little mouth. Her face was transformed and dignified. More than
+ever she seemed a strange, high being. And yet he knew that now she was
+within his reach.… That he could kiss her lips … incredible.… And yet he
+did, and the kiss poured flame over them and welded them into each others’
+arms.
+
+They heard Gordon Roth in the house coughing, the cough coming closer.
+
+She pushed him gently away.
+
+“Go now,” she whispered. “I love you … Ramon.”
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER X
+
+
+His conquest was far from giving him peace. Her kiss had transformed his
+high vague yearning into hot relentless desire. He wanted her. That became
+the one clear thing in life to him. Reflections and doubts were alien to
+his young and primitive spirit. He did not try to look far into the
+future. He only knew that to have her would be delight almost unimaginable
+and to lose her would be to lose everything.
+
+His attitude toward her changed. He claimed her more and more at dances.
+She did not want to dance with him so much because “people would talk,”
+but his will was harder than hers and to a great extent he had his way. He
+now called on her regularly too. He knew that she had fought hard for him
+against her family, and had won the privilege for him of calling “not too
+often.”
+
+“I’ve lied for you frightfully,” she confessed. “I told them I didn’t
+really care for you in the least, but I want to see you because you can
+tell such wonderful things about the country. So talk about the country
+whenever they’re listening. And don’t look at me the way you do.…”
+
+Mother and brother were alert and suspicious despite her assurance, and
+manœuvred with cool skill to keep the pair from being alone. Only rarely
+did he get the chance to kiss her—once when her brother, who was standing
+guard over the family treasure, was seized with a fit of coughing and had
+to leave the room, and again when her mother was called to the telephone.
+At such times she shrank away from him at first as though frightened by
+the intensity of the emotion she had created, but she never resisted. To
+him these brief and stolen embraces were almost intolerably sweet, like
+insufficient sips of water to a man burned up with thirst.
+
+She puzzled him as much as ever. When he was with her he felt as sure of
+her love as of his own existence. And yet she often sought to elude him.
+When he called up for engagements she objected and put him off. And she
+surrounded herself with other men as much as ever, and flirted gracefully
+with all of them, so that he was always feeling the sharp physical pangs
+of jealousy. Sometimes he felt egotistically sure that she was merely
+trying by these devices to provoke his desire the more, but at other times
+he thought her voice over the phone sounded doubtful and afraid, and he
+became wildly eager to get to her and make sure of her again.
+
+Just as her kiss had crystallized his feeling for her into driving desire,
+so it had focussed and intensified his discontent. Before he had been more
+or less resigned to wait for his fortune and the power he meant to make of
+it; now it seemed to him that unless he could achieve these things at
+once, they would never mean anything to him. For money was the one thing
+that would give him even a chance to win her. It was obviously useless to
+ask her to marry him poor. He would have nothing to bring against the
+certain opposition of her family. He could not run away with her. And
+indeed he was altogether too poor to support a wife if he had one, least
+of all a wife who had been carefully groomed and trained to capture a
+fortune.
+
+There was only one way. If he could go to her strong and rich, he felt
+sure that he could persuade her to go away with him, for he knew that she
+belonged to him when he was with her. He pictured himself going to her in
+a great motor car. Such a car had always been in his imagination the
+symbol of material strength. He felt sure he could destroy her doubts and
+hesitations. He would carry her away and she would be all and irrevocably
+his before any one could interfere or object.
+
+This dream filled and tortured his imagination. Its realization would mean
+not only fulfilment of his desire, but also revenge upon the Roths for the
+humiliations they had made him feel. It pushed everything else out of his
+mind—all consideration of other and possibly more feasible methods of
+pushing his suit. He came of a race of men who had dared and dominated,
+who had loved and fought, but had never learned how to work or to endure.
+
+When he gave himself up to his dream he was almost elated, but when he
+came to contemplate his actual circumstances, he fell into depths of
+discouragement and melancholy. His uncle stood like a rock between him and
+his desire. He thought of trying to borrow a few thousand dollars from old
+Diego, and of leaving the future to luck, but he was too intelligent long
+to entertain such a scheme. The Don would likely have provided him with
+the money, and he would have done it by hypothecating more of the Delcasar
+lands to MacDougall. Then Ramon would have had to borrow more, and so on,
+until the lands upon which all his hopes and dreams were based had passed
+forever out of his reach.
+
+The thing seemed hopeless, for Don Diego might well live for many years.
+And yet Ramon did not give up hope. He was worried, desperate and bitter,
+but not beaten. He had still that illogical faith in his own destiny which
+is the gift that makes men of action.
+
+At this time he heard particularly disquieting things about his uncle. Don
+Diego was reputed to be spending unusually large sums of money. As he
+generally had not much ready cash, this must mean either that he had sold
+land or that he had borrowed from MacDougall, in which case the land had
+doubtless been given as security. Once it was converted into cash in the
+hands of Diego, Ramon knew that his prospective fortune would swiftly
+vanish. He determined to watch the old man closely.
+
+He learned that Don Diego was playing poker every night in the back room
+of the White Camel pool hall. Gambling was supposed to be prohibited in
+the town, but this sanctum was regularly the scene for a game, which had
+the reputation of causing more money to change hands than any other in the
+southwest. Ramon hung about the White Camel evening after evening, trying
+to learn how much his uncle was losing. He would have liked to go and
+stand behind his chair and watch the game, but both etiquette and pride
+prevented him doing this. On two nights his uncle came out surrounded by a
+laughing crowd, a little bit tipsy, and was hurried into a cab. Ramon had
+no chance to speak either to him or to any one else who had been in the
+game. But the third night he came out alone, heavy with liquor, talking to
+himself. The other players had already gone out, laughing. The place was
+nearly deserted. The Don suddenly caught sight of Ramon and came to him,
+laying heavy hands on his shoulders, looking at him with bleary,
+tear-filled eyes.
+
+“My boy, my nephew,” he exclaimed in Spanish, his voice shaking with boozy
+emotion, “I am glad you are here. Come I must talk to you.” And steadied
+by Ramon he led the way to a bench in a corner. Here his manner suddenly
+changed. He threw back his head haughtily and slapped his knee.
+
+“I have lost five hundred dollars tonight,” he announced proudly. “What do
+I care? I am a rich man. I have lost a thousand dollars in the last three
+nights. That is nothing. I am rich.”
+
+He thumped his chest, looking around defiantly. Then he leaned forward in
+a confidential manner and lowered his voice.
+
+“But these gringos—they have gone away and left me. You saw them?
+_Cabrones!_ They have got my money. That is all they want. My boy, all
+gringos are alike. They want nothing but money. They can hear the rattle
+of a _peso_ as far as a _burro_ can smell a bear. They are mean, stingy!
+Ah, my boy! It is not now as it was in the old days. Then money counted
+for nothing! Then a man could throw away his last dollar and there were
+always friends to give him more. But now your dollars are your only true
+friends, and when you have lost them, you are alone indeed. Ah, my boy!
+The old days were the best!” The old Don bent his head over his hands and
+wept.
+
+Ramon looked at him with a mighty disgust and with a resentment that
+filled his throat and made his head hot. He had never before realized how
+much broken by age and drink his uncle was. Before, he had suspected and
+feared that Don Diego was wasting his property; now he knew it.
+
+The Don presently looked up again with tear-filled eyes, and went on
+talking, holding Ramon by the lapel of the coat in a heavy tremulous grip.
+He talked for almost an hour, his senile mind wandering aimlessly through
+the scenes of his long and picturesque career. He would tell tales of his
+loves and battles of fifty years ago—tales full of lust and greed and
+excitement. He would come back to his immediate troubles and curse the
+gringos again for a pack of miserable dollar-mongers, who knew not the
+meaning of friendship. And again his mind would leap back irrelevantly to
+some woman he had loved or some man he had killed in the spacious days
+where his imagination dwelt. Ramon listened eagerly, hoping to learn
+something definite about the Don’s dealings with MacDougall, but the old
+man never touched upon this. He did tell one story to which Ramon listened
+with interest. He told how, twenty-five years before, he and another man
+named Cristobal Archulera had found a silver mine in the Guadelupe
+Mountains, and how he had cheated the other out of his interest by filing
+the claim in his own name. He told this as a capital joke, laughing and
+thumping his knee.
+
+“Do you know where Archulera is now?” Ramon ventured to ask.
+
+“Archulera? No, No; I have not seen Archulera for twenty years. I heard
+that he married a very common woman, half Indian.… I don’t know what
+became of him.”
+
+The last of the pool players had now gone out; a Mexican boy had begun to
+sweep the floor; the place was about to close for the night. Ramon got his
+uncle to his feet with some difficulty, and led him outdoors where he
+looked about in vain for one of the cheap autos that served the town as
+taxicabs. There were only three or four of them, and none of these were in
+sight. The flat-wheeled street car had made its last screeching trip for
+the night. There was nothing for it but to take the Don by the arm and
+pilot him slowly homeward.
+
+Refreshed by the night air, the old man partially sobered, walked with a
+steady step, and talked more eloquently and profusely than ever. Women
+were his subject now, and it was a subject upon which he had great store
+of material. He told of the women of the South, of Sonora and Chihuahua
+where he had spent much of his youth, of how beautiful they were. He told
+of a slim little creature fifteen years old with big black eyes whom he
+had bought from her _peon_ father, and of how she had feared him and how
+he had conquered her and her fear. He told of slave girls he had bought
+from the Navajos as children and raised for his pleasure. He told of a
+French woman he had loved in Mexico City and how he had fought a duel with
+her husband. He rose to heights of sentimentality and delved into depths
+of obscenity, now speaking  of his heart and what it had suffered, and
+again leering and chuckling like a satyr over some tale of splendid
+desire.
+
+Ramon, walking silent and outwardly respectful by his side, listened to
+all this with a strange mixture of envy and rage. He envied the old Don
+the rich share he had taken of life’s feast. Whatever else he might be the
+Don was not one of those who desire but do not dare. He had taken what he
+wanted. He had tasted many emotions and known the most poignant delights.
+And now that he was old and his blood was slow, he stood in the way of
+others who desired as greatly and were as avid of life as ever he had
+been. Ramon felt a great bitterness that clutched at his throat and half
+blinded his eyes. He too loved and desired. And how much more greatly he
+desired than ever had this old man by his side, with his wealth and his
+easy satisfactions! The old Don apparently had never been thwarted, and
+therefore he did not know how keen and punishing a blade desire may be!
+
+Tense between the two was the enmity that ever sunders age and youth—age
+seeking to keep its sovereignty of life by inculcating blind respect and
+reverence, and youth rebellious, demanding its own with the passion of hot
+blood and untried flesh.
+
+Between Old Town and New Town flowed an irrigating ditch, which the
+connecting street crossed by means of an old wooden bridge. The ditch was
+this night full of swift water, which tore at the button willows on the
+bank and gurgled against the bridge timbers. As they crossed it the idea
+came into Ramon’s head that if a man were pushed into the brown water he
+would be swiftly carried under the bridge and drowned.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The following Saturday evening Ramon was again riding across the _mesa_,
+clad in his dirty hunting clothes, with his shotgun hung in the cinches of
+his saddle. At the start he had been undecided where he was going.
+Tormented by desire and bitter over the poverty which stood between him
+and fulfilment, he had flung the saddle on his mare and ridden away,
+feeling none of the old interest in the mountains, but impelled by a great
+need to escape the town with all its cruel spurs and resistances.
+
+Already the rhythm of his pony’s lope and the steady beat of the breeze in
+his face had calmed and refreshed him. The bitter, exhausting thoughts
+that had been plucking at his mind gave way to the idle procession of
+sensations, as they tend always to do when a man escapes the artificial
+existence of towns into the natural, animal one of the outdoors. He began
+to respond to the deep appeal which the road, the sense of going
+somewhere, always had for him. For he came of a race of wanderers. His
+forbears had been restless men to cross an ocean and most of a continent
+in search of homes. He was bred to a life of wandering and adventure. Long
+pent-up days in town always made him restless, and the feel of a horse
+under him and of distance to be overcome never failed to give him a sense
+of well-being.
+
+Crossing a little _arroyo_, he saw a covey of the blue desert quail with
+their white crests erect, darting among the rocks and cactus on the
+hillside. It was still the close season, but he never thought of that. In
+an instant he was all hunter, like a good dog in sight of game. He slipped
+from his horse, letting the reins fall to the ground, and went running up
+the rocky slope, cleverly using every bit of cover until he came within
+range. At the first shot he killed three of the birds, and got another as
+they rose and whirred over the hill top. He gathered them up quickly,
+stepping on the head of a wounded one, and stuffed them into his pockets.
+He was grinning, now, and happy. The bit of excitement had washed from his
+mind for the time being the last vestige of worry. He lit a cigarette and
+lay on his back to smoke it, stretching out his legs luxuriously, watching
+the serene gyrations of a buzzard. When he had extracted the last possible
+puff from the tobacco, he went back to his horse and rode on toward
+Archulera’s ranch, feeling a keen interest in the coarse but substantial
+supper which he knew the old man would give him.
+
+His visit this time proceeded just as had all of the others, and he had
+never enjoyed one more thoroughly. Again the old man killed a fatted kid
+in his honour, and again they had a great feast of fresh brains and tripe
+and biscuits and coffee, with the birds, fried in deep lard, as an added
+luxury. Catalina served them in silence as usual, but stole now and then a
+quick reproachful look at Ramon. Afterward, when the girl had gone, there
+were many cigarettes and much talk, as before, Archulera telling over
+again the brave wild record of his youth. And, as always, he told, just as
+though he had never told it before, the story of how Diego Delcasar had
+cheated him out of his interest in a silver mine in the Guadelupe
+Mountains. As with each former telling he became this time more
+unrestrained in his denunciation of the man who had betrayed him.
+
+“You are not like him,” he assured Ramon with passionate earnestness. “You
+are generous, honourable! When your uncle is dead—when he is dead, I
+say—you will pay me the five thousand dollars which your family owes to
+mine. Am I right, _amigo?_”
+
+Ramon, who was listening with only half an ear, was about to make some
+off-hand reply, as he had always done before. But suddenly a strange,
+stirring idea flashed through his brain. Could it be? Could that be what
+Archulera meant? He glanced at the man. Archulera was watching him with
+bright black eyes—cunning, feral—the eyes of a primitive fighting man,
+eyes that had never flinched at dealing death.
+
+Ramon knew suddenly that his idea was right. Blood pounded in his temples
+and a red mist of excitement swam before his eyes.
+
+“Yes!” he exclaimed, leaping to his feet. “Yes! When my uncle is dead I
+will pay you the five thousand dollars which the estate owes you!”
+
+The old man studied him, showing no trace of excitement save for the
+brightness of his eyes.
+
+“You swear this?” he demanded.
+
+Ramon stood tall, his head lifted, his eyes bright.
+
+“Yes; I swear it,” he replied, more quietly now. “I swear it on my honour
+as a Delcasar!”
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XII
+
+
+The murder of Don Diego Delcasar, which occurred about three weeks later,
+provided the town with an excitement which it thoroughly enjoyed. Although
+there was really not a great deal to be said about the affair, since it
+remained from the first a complete mystery, the local papers devoted a
+great deal of space to it. The _Evening Journal_ announced the event in a
+great black headline which ran all the way across the top of the first
+page. The right-hand column was devoted to a detailed description of the
+scene of the crime, while the rest of the page was occupied by a picture
+of the Don, by a hastily written and highly inaccurate account of his
+career, and by statements from prominent citizens concerning the great
+loss which the state had suffered in the death of this, one of its oldest
+and most valued citizens.
+
+In the editorial columns the Don was described as a Spanish gentleman of
+the old school, and one who had always lived up to its highest traditions.
+The fact was especially emphasized that he had commanded the respect and
+confidence of both the races which made up the population of the state,
+and his long and honourable association in a business enterprise with a
+leading local attorney was cited as proof of the fact that he had been
+above all race antagonisms.
+
+The morning _Herald_ took a slightly different tack. Its editorial writer
+was a former New York newspaperman of unusual abilities who had been
+driven to the Southwest by tuberculosis. In an editorial which was
+deplored by many prominent business men, he pointed out that unpunished
+murderers were all too common in the State. He cited several cases like
+this of Don Delcasar in which prominent men had been assassinated, and no
+arrest had followed. Thus, only a few years before, Col. Manuel Escudero
+had been killed by a shot fired through the window of a saloon, and still
+more recently Don Solomon Estrella had been found drowned in a vat of
+sheep-dip on his own ranch. He cited statistics to show that the
+percentage of convictions in murder trials in that State was exceedingly
+small. Daringly, he asked how the citizens could expect to attract to the
+State the capital so much needed for its development, when assassination
+for personal and political purposes was there tolerated much as it had
+been in Europe during the Middle Ages. He ended by a plea that the Mounted
+Police should be strengthened, so that it would be capable of coping with
+the situation.
+
+This editorial started a controversy between the two papers which
+ultimately quite eclipsed in interest the fact that Don Delcasar was dead.
+The _Morning Journal_ declared that the _Herald_ editorial was in effect a
+covert attack upon the Mexican people, pointing out that all the cases
+cited were those of Mexicans, and it came gallantly and for political
+reason to the defence of the race. At this point the _“__Tribuna del
+Pueblo__”_ of Old Town jumped into the fight with an editorial in which it
+was asserted that both the gringo papers were maligning the Mexican
+people. It pointed out that the gringos controlled the political machinery
+of the State, and that if murder was there tolerated the dominant race was
+to blame.
+
+Meanwhile the known facts about the murder of Don Delcasar remained few,
+simple and unilluminating. About once a month the Don used to drive in his
+automobile to his lands in the northern part of the State. He always took
+the road across the _mesa_, which passed near the mouth of Domingo Canyon
+and through the scissors pass, and he nearly always went alone.
+
+When he was half way across the _mesa_, the front tires of the Don’s car
+had been punctured by nails driven through a board and hidden in the sand
+of the road. Evidently the Don had risen to alight and investigate when he
+had been shot, for his body had been found hanging across the wind-shield
+of the car with a bullet hole through the head.
+
+The discovery of the body had been made by a Mexican woodcutter who was on
+the way to town with a load of wood. He had of course been held by the
+police and had been closely questioned, but it was easily established that
+he had no connection with the crime.
+
+It was evident that the Don had been shot from ambush with a rifle, and
+probably from a considerable distance, but absolutely no trace of the
+assassin had been found. Not only the chief of police and several
+patrolmen, and the sheriff with a posse, but also many private citizens in
+automobiles had rushed to the scene of the crime and joined in the search.
+The surrounding country was dry and rocky. Not even a track had been
+found.
+
+The motive of the murder was evidently not robbery, for nothing had been
+taken, although the Don carried a valuable watch and a considerable sum of
+money. Indeed, there was no evidence that the murderer had even approached
+the body.
+
+The Don had been a staunch Republican, and the _Morning Herald_, also
+Republican, advanced the theory that he had been killed by political
+enemies. This theory was ridiculed by the _Evening Journal_, which was
+Democratic.
+
+The local police arrested as a suspect a man who was found in hiding near
+a water tank at the railroad station, but no evidence against him could be
+found and he had to be released. The sheriff extracted a confession of
+guilt from a sheep herder who was found about ten miles from the scene of
+the crime, but it was subsequently proved by this man’s relatives that he
+was at home and asleep at the time the crime was committed, and that he
+was well known to be of unsound mind. For some days the newspapers
+continued daily to record the fact that a “diligent search” for the
+murderer was being conducted, but this search gradually came to an end
+along with public interest in the crime.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The day after the news of his uncle’s murder reached him, Ramon lay on his
+bed in his darkened room fully dressed in a new suit of black. He was not
+ill, and anything would have been easier for him than to lie there with
+nothing to do but to think and to stare at a single narrow sunbeam which
+came through a rent in the window blind. But it was a Mexican custom, old
+and revered, for the family of one recently dead to lie upon its beds in
+the dark and so to receive the condolences of friends and the consolations
+of religion. To disregard this custom would have been most unwise for an
+ambitious young man, and besides, Ramon’s mother clung tenaciously to the
+traditional Mexican ways, and she would not have tolerated any breach of
+them. At this moment she and her two daughters were likewise lying in
+their rooms, clad in new black silk and surrounded by other sorrowing
+females.
+
+It was so still in the room that Ramon could hear the buzz of a fly in the
+vicinity of the solitary sunbeam, but from other parts of the house came
+occasional human sounds. One of these was an intermittent howling and
+wailing from the _placita_. This he knew was the work of two old Mexican
+women who made their livings by acting as professional mourners. They did
+not wait for an invitation but hung about like buzzards wherever there was
+a Mexican corpse. Seated on the ground with their black shawls pulled over
+their heads, they wailed with astonishing endurance until the coffin was
+carried from the house, when they were sure of receiving a substantial
+gift from the grateful relatives. Ramon resolved that he would give them
+ten dollars each. He felt sure they had never gotten so much. He was
+determined to do handsomely in all things connected with the funeral.
+
+He could also hear faintly a rattle of wagons, foot steps and low human
+voices coming from the front of the house. A peep had shown him that
+already a line of wagons, carriages and buggies half a block long had
+formed in the street, and he could hear the arrival of another one every
+few minutes. These vehicles brought the numerous and poor relations of Don
+Delcasar who lived in the country. All of them would be there by night.
+Each one of them would come into Ramon’s room and sit by his bedside and
+take his hand and express sympathy. Some of them would weep and some would
+groan, although all of them, like himself, were profoundly glad that the
+Don was dead. Ramon hoped that they would make their expressions brief.
+And later, he knew, all would gather in the room where the casket rested
+on two chairs. They would sit in a silent solemn circle about the room,
+drinking coffee and wine all night. And he would be among them, trying
+with all his might to look properly sad and to keep his eyes open.
+
+All the time that he lay there in enforced idleness he was longing for
+action, his imagination straining forward. At last his chance had come—his
+chance to have her. And he would have her. He felt sure of it. He was now
+a rich man. As soon as the will had been read and he had come into his
+own, he would buy a big automobile. He would go to her, he would sweep
+away her doubts and hesitations. He would carry her away and marry her.
+She would be his.… He closed his eyes and drew his breath in sharply.…
+
+But no; he would have to wait … a decent interval. And the five thousand
+dollars must be gotten to Archulera. That was obviously important. And
+there might not be much cash. The Don had never had much ready money. He
+might have to sell land or sheep first. All of these things to be done,
+and here he lay, staring at the ceiling and listening to the wailing of
+old women!
+
+There was a knock on the door.
+
+“_Entra!_” he called.
+
+The door opened softly and a tall, black-robed figure was silhouetted for
+a moment against the daylight before the door closed again. The black
+figure crossed the room and sat down by the bed, silent save for a faint
+rustle.
+
+Although he could not see the face, Ramon knew that this was the priest,
+Father Lugaria. He knew that Father Lugaria had come to arrange for the
+mass over the body of Don Delcasar. He disliked Father Lugaria, and knew
+that the Father disliked him. This mutual antipathy was due to the fact
+that Ramon seldom went to Church.
+
+There were others of his generation who showed the same indifference
+toward religion, and this defection of youth was a thing which the Priests
+bitterly contested. Ramon was perfectly willing to make a polite
+compromise with them. If Father Lugaria had been satisfied with an
+occasional appearance at early mass, a perfunctory confession now and
+then, the two might have been friends. But the Priest made Ramon a special
+object of his attention. He continually went to the Dona Delcasar with
+complaints and that devout woman incessantly nagged her son, holding
+before him always pictures of the damnation he was courting. Once in a
+while she even produced in him a faint twinge of fear—a recrudescence of
+the deep religious feeling in which he was bred—but the feeling was
+evanescent. The chief result of these labours on behalf of his soul had
+been to turn him strongly against the priest who instigated them.
+
+Father Lugaria seemed all kindness and sympathy now. He sat close beside
+Ramon and took his hand. Ramon could smell the good wine on the man’s
+breath, and could see faintly the brightness of his eyes. The grip of the
+priest’s hand was strong, moist and surprisingly cold. He began to talk in
+the low monotonous voice of one accustomed to much chanting, and this
+droning seemed to have some hypnotic quality. It seemed to lull Ramon’s
+mind so that he could not think what he was going to say or do.
+
+The priest expressed his sympathy. He spoke of the great and good man the
+Don had been. Slowly, adroitly, he approached the real question at issue,
+which was how much Ramon would pay for a mass. The more he paid, the
+longer the mass would be, and the longer the mass the speedier would be
+the journey of the Don’s soul through purgatory and into Paradise.
+
+“O, my little brother in Christ!” droned the priest in his vibrant
+sing-song, “I must not let you neglect this last, this greatest of things
+which you can do for the uncle you loved. It is unthinkable of course that
+his soul should go to hell—hell, where a thousand demons torture the soul
+for an eternity. Hell is for those who commit the worst of sins, sins they
+dare not lay before God for his forgiveness, secret and terrible sins—sins
+like murder. But few of us go through life untouched by sin. The soul must
+be purified before it can enter the presence of its maker.… Doubtless the
+soul of your uncle is in purgatory, and to you is given the sweet power to
+speed that soul on its upward way.…
+
+“Don Delcasar, we all know, killed.… More than once, doubtless, he took
+the life of a fellow man. But he did it in combat as a soldier, as a
+servant of the State.… That is not murder. That would not doom him to
+hell, which is the special punishment of secret and unforgiven murder.…
+But the soul of the Don must be cleansed of these earthly stains.…”
+
+The strong, cold grip of the priest held Ramon with increasing power. The
+monotonous, hypnotic voice went on and on, becoming ever more eloquent and
+confident. Father Lugaria was a man of imagination, and the special home
+of his imagination was hell. For thirty years he had held despotic sway
+over the poor Mexicans who made up most of his flock, and had gathered
+much money for the Church, by painting word-pictures of hell. He was a
+veritable artist of hell. He loved hell. Again and again he digressed from
+the strict line of his argument to speak of hell. With all the vividness
+of a thing seen, he described its flames, its fiends, the terrible stink
+of burning flesh and the vast chorus of agony that filled it.… And for
+some obscure reason or purpose he always spoke of hell as the special
+punishment of murderers. Again and again in his discourse he coupled
+murder and hell.
+
+Ramon was wearied by strong emotions and a shortness of sleep. His nerves
+were overstrung. This ceaseless iteration of hell and murder, murder and
+hell would drive him crazy, he thought. He wished mightily that the priest
+would have done and name his price and go. What was the sense and purpose
+of this endless babble about hell and murder?… A sickening thought struck
+him like a blow, leaving him weak. What if old Archulera had confessed to
+the priest?
+
+Well; what if he had? A priest could not testify about what he had heard
+in confessional. But a priest might tell some one else.… O, God! If the
+man would only go and leave him to think. Hell and murder, murder and
+hell. The two words beat upon his brain without mercy. He longed to
+interrupt the priest and beg him to leave off. But for some reason he
+could not. He could not even turn his head and look at the man. The priest
+was but a clammy grip that held him and a disembodied voice that spoke of
+hell and murder. Had he done murder? And was there a hell? He had long
+ceased to believe in hell, but hell had been real to him as a child. His
+mother and his nurse had filled him with the fear of hell. He had been
+bred in the fear of hell. It was in his flesh and bones if not in his
+mind, and the priest had hypnotized his mind. Hell was real to him again.
+Fear of hell came up from the past which vanishes but is never gone, and
+gripped him like a great ugly monster. It squeezed a cold sweat out of his
+body and made his skin prickle and his breath come short.…
+
+The priest dropped the subject of hell, and spoke again of the mass. He
+mentioned a sum of money. Ramon nodded his head muttering his assent like
+a sick man. The grip on his hand relaxed.
+
+“Good-bye, my little brother,” murmured the priest. “May Christ be always
+with you.” His gown rustled across the room and as he opened the door,
+Ramon saw his face for a moment—a sallow, shrewd face, bedewed with the
+sweat of a great effort, but wearing a smile of triumphant satisfaction.
+
+Ramon lay sick and exhausted. It seemed to him that there was no air in
+the room. He was suffocating. His body burned and prickled. He rose and
+tore loose his collar. He must get out of this place, must have air and
+movement.
+
+It was dusk now. The wailing of the old women had ceased. Doubtless they
+were being rewarded with supper. He began stripping off his clothes—his
+white shirt and his new suit of black. Eagerly rummaging in the closet he
+found his old clothes, which he wore on his trips to the mountains.
+
+In the dim light he slipped out of the house, indistinguishable from any
+Mexican boy that might have been about the place. He saddled the little
+mare in the corral, mounted and galloped away—through Old Town, where
+skinny dogs roamed in dark narrow streets and men and women sat and smoked
+in black doorways—and out upon the valley road. There he spurred his mare
+without mercy, and they flew over the soft dust. The rush of the air in
+his face, and the thud and quiver of living flesh under him were
+infinitely sweet.
+
+He stopped at last five miles from town on the bank of the river. It was a
+swift muddy river, wandering about in a flood plain a quarter of a mile
+wide, and at this point chewing noisily at a low bank forested with
+scrubby cottonwoods.
+
+Dismounting, he stripped and plunged into the river. It was only three
+feet deep, but he wallowed about in it luxuriously, finding great comfort
+in the caress of the cool water, and of the soft fine sand upon the bottom
+which clung about his toes and tickled the soles of his feet. Then he
+climbed out on the bank and stood where the breeze struck him, rubbing the
+water off of his slim strong body with the flats of his hands.
+
+When he had put on his clothes, he indulged his love of lying flat on the
+ground, puffing a cigarette and blowing smoke at the first stars. A
+hunting owl flitted over his head on muffled wing; a coyote yapped in the
+bushes; high up in the darkness he heard the whistle of pinions as a flock
+of early ducks went by.
+
+He took the air deeply into his lungs and stretched out his legs. In this
+place fear of hell departed from his mind as some strong liquors evaporate
+when exposed to the open air. The splendid healthy animal in him was again
+dominant, and it could scarcely conceive of death and had nothing more to
+do with hell than had the owl and the coyote that killed to live. Here he
+felt at peace with the earth beneath him and the sky above. But one
+thought came to disturb him and it was also sweet—the thought of a woman,
+her eyes full of promise, the curve of her mouth.… She was waiting for
+him, she would be his. That was real.… Hell was a dream.
+
+He saw now the folly of his fears about Archulera, too. Archulera never
+went to church. There was no danger that he would ever confess to any one.
+And even if he did, he could scarcely injure Ramon. For Ramon had done no
+wrong. He had but promised an old man his due, righted an ancient wrong.…
+He smiled.
+
+Slowly he mounted and rode home, filled with thoughts of the girl, to put
+on his mourning clothes and take his decorous place in the circle that
+watched his uncle’s bier.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+All the ceremonies and procedures, religious and legal, which had been
+made necessary by the death of Don Diego Delcasar, were done. The body of
+the Don had been taken to the church in Old Town and placed before the
+altar, the casket covered with black cloth and surrounded by candles in
+tall silver candlesticks which stood upon the floor. A Mass of impressive
+length had been spoken over it by Father Lugaria assisted by numerous
+priests and altar boys, and at the end of the ceremony the hundreds of
+friends and relatives of the Don, who filled the church, had lifted up
+their voices in one of the loudest and most prolonged choruses of wailing
+ever heard in that country, where wailing at a funeral is as much a matter
+of formal custom as is cheering at a political convention. Afterwards a
+cortege nearly a mile in length, headed by a long string of carriages and
+tailed by a crowd of poor Mexicans trudging hatless in the dust, had made
+the hot and wearisome journey to the cemetery in the sandhills.
+
+Then the will had been read and had revealed that Ramon Delcasar was heir
+to the bulk of his uncle’s estate, and that he was thereby placed in
+possession of money, lands and sheep to the value of about two hundred
+thousand dollars. It was said by those who knew that the Don’s estate had
+once been at least twice that large, and there were some who irreverently
+remarked that he had been taken off none too soon for the best interests
+of his heirs.
+
+Shortly after the reading of the will, Ramon rode to the Archulera ranch,
+starting before daylight and returning after dark. He exchanged greetings
+with the old man, just as he had always done.
+
+“Accept my sympathy, _amigo_,” Archulera said in his formal, polite way,
+“that you have lost your uncle, the head of your great family.”
+
+“I thank you, friend,” Ramon replied. “A man must bear these things. Here
+is something I promised you,” he added, laying a small heavy canvas bag
+upon the table, just as he had always laid a package of tobacco or some
+other small gift.
+
+Old Archulera nodded without looking at the bag.
+
+“Thank you,” he said.
+
+Afterward they talked about the bean crop and the weather, and had an
+excellent dinner of goat meat cooked with chile.
+
+In town Ramon found himself a person of noticeably increased importance.
+One of his first acts had been to buy a car, and he had attracted much
+attention while driving this about the streets, learning to manipulate it.
+He killed one chicken and two dogs and handsomely reimbursed their owners.
+These minor accidents were due to his tendency, the result of many years
+of horsemanship, to throw his weight back on the steering wheel and shout
+“whoa!” whenever a sudden emergency occurred. But he was apt, and soon was
+running his car like an expert.
+
+His personal appearance underwent a change too. He had long cherished a
+barbaric leaning toward finery, which lack of money had prevented him from
+indulging. Large diamonds fascinated him, and a leopard skin vest was a
+thing he had always wanted to own. But these weaknesses he now rigorously
+suppressed. Instead he noted carefully the dress of Gordon Roth and of
+other easterners whom he saw about the hotel, and ordered from the best
+local tailor a suit of quiet colour and conservative cut, but of the very
+best English material. He bought no jewelry except a single small pearl
+for his necktie. His hat, his shoes, the way he had his neck shaved, all
+were changed as the result of a painstaking observation such as he had
+never practised before. He wanted to make himself as much as possible like
+the men of Julia’s kind and class. And this desire modified his manner and
+speech as well as his appearance. He was careful, always watching himself.
+His manner was more reserved and quiet than ever, and this made him appear
+older and more serious. He smiled when he overheard a woman say that “he
+took the death of his uncle much harder than she would have expected.”
+
+Ramon now received business propositions every day. Men tried to sell him
+all sorts of things, from an idea to a ranch, and most of them seemed to
+proceed on the assumption that, being young and newly come into his money,
+he should part with it easily. Several of the opportunities offered him
+had to do with the separation of the poor Mexicans from their land
+holdings. A prominent attorney came all the way from a town in the
+northern part of the State to lay before him a proposition of this kind.
+This lawyer, named Cooley, explained that by opening a store in a certain
+rich section of valley land, opportunities could be created for lending
+the Mexicans money. Whenever there was a birth, a funeral or a marriage
+among them, the Mexicans needed money, and could be persuaded to sign
+mortgages, which they generally could not read. In each Mexican family
+there would be either a birth, a marriage or a death once in three years
+on an average. Three such events would enable the lender to gain
+possession of a ranch. And Cooley had an eastern client who would then buy
+the land at a good figure. It was a chance for Ramon to double his money.
+
+“You’ve got the money and you know the native people,” Cooley argued
+earnestly. “I’ve got the sucker and I know the law. It’s a sure thing.”
+
+Ramon thanked him politely and refused firmly. The idea of robbing a poor
+Mexican of his ranch by nine years of usury did not appeal to him at all.
+In the first place, it would be a long, slow tedious job, and besides,
+poor people always aroused his pity, just as rich ones stirred his greed
+and envy. He was predatory, but lion-like, he scorned to spring on small
+game. He did not realize that a lion often starves where a jackal grows
+fat.
+
+Only one opportunity came to him which interested him strongly. A young
+Irishman named Hurley explained to him that it was possible to buy mules
+in Mexico, where a revolution was going on, for ten dollars each at
+considerable personal risk, to run them across the Rio Grande and to sell
+them to the United States army for twenty dollars. Here was a gambler’s
+chance, action and adventure. It caught his fancy and tempted him. But he
+had no thought of yielding. Another purpose engrossed him.
+
+These weeks after his uncle’s funeral gave him his first real grapple with
+the world of business, and the experience tended to strengthen him in a
+certain cynical self-assurance which had been growing in him ever since he
+first went away to college, and had met its first test in action when he
+spoke the words that lead to the Don’s death. He felt a deep contempt for
+most of these men who came to him with their schemes and their wares. He
+saw that most of them were ready enough to swindle him, though few of them
+would have had the courage to rob him with a gun. Probably not one of them
+would have dared to kill a man for money, but they were ready enough to
+cheat a poor _pelado_ out of his living, which often came to the same
+thing. He felt that he was bigger than most of them, if not better. His
+self-respect was strengthened.
+
+“Life is a fight,” he told himself, feeling that he had hit upon a
+profound and original idea. “Every man wants pretty women and money. He
+gets them if he has enough nerve and enough sense. And somebody else gets
+hurt, because there aren’t enough pretty women and money to go around.”
+
+It seemed to him that this was the essence of all wisdom.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Ramon had always been rather a solitary figure in his own town. Although
+he belonged nominally to the “bunch” of young gringos, Jews and Mexicans,
+who foregathered at the White Camel Pool Hall, their amusements did not
+hold his interest very strongly. They played a picayune game of poker,
+which resulted in a tangled mass of debt; they went on occasional mild
+sprees, and on Saturday nights they visited the town’s red light district,
+hardy survivor of several vice crusades, where they danced with portly
+magdalenes in gaudy kimonos to the music of a mechanical piano,
+luxuriating in conscious wickedness.
+
+All of this had seemed romantic and delightfully vicious to Ramon a few
+years before, but it soon palled on his restless and discontented spirit.
+He had formed the habit of hunting alone, and had found adventures more to
+his taste. But now he found himself in company more than ever before. He
+was bid to every frolic that took place. In the White Camel he was often
+the centre of a small group, which included men older than himself who had
+never paid any attention to him before, but now addressed him with a
+certain deference. Although he understood well enough that most of the
+attentions paid him had an interested motive, he enjoyed the sense of
+leadership which these gatherings gave him. If he was not a real leader
+now, he intended to become one. He listened to what men said, watched
+them, and said little himself. He was quick to grasp the fact that a
+reputation for shrewdness and wisdom is made by the simple method of
+keeping the mouth shut.
+
+He made many acquaintances among the new element which had recently come
+to town from the East in search of health or money, but he made no real
+friends because none of these men inspired him with respect. Only one man
+he attached to himself, and that one by the simple tie of money. His name
+was Antonio Cortez. He was a small, skinny, sallow Mexican with a great
+moustache, behind which he seemed to be discreetly hiding, and a
+consciously cunning eye. Of an old and once wealthy Spanish family, he had
+lost all of his money by reason of a lack of aptitude for business, and
+made his living as a sort of professional political henchman. He was a
+bearer of secret messages, a maker of deals, an eavesdropper. The Latin
+aptitude for intrigue he had in a high degree. He was capable of almost
+anything in the way of falsehood or evasion, but he had that great
+capacity for loyalty which is so often the virtue of weaklings.
+
+“I have known your family for many years,” he told Ramon importantly, “And
+I feel an interest in you, almost as though you were my own son. You need
+an older friend to advise you, to attend to details in the management of
+your great estate. You will probably go into politics and you need a
+political manager. As an old friend of your family I want to do these
+things for you. What do you say?”
+
+Ramon answered without any hesitation and prompted solely by intuition:
+
+“I thank you, friend, and I accept your offer.”
+
+He knew instinctively that he could trust this man and also dominate him.
+It was just such a follower that he needed. Nothing was said about money,
+but on the first of the month Ramon mailed Cortez a check for a hundred
+dollars, and that became his regular salary.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+About two weeks after the Don’s funeral, Ramon received a summons which he
+had been vaguely expecting. He was asked by Mr. MacDougall’s secretary
+over the telephone to call, whenever it would be convenient, at Mr.
+MacDougall’s office.
+
+He knew just what this meant. MacDougall would try to make with him an
+arrangement somewhat similar to the one he had had with the Don. Ramon
+knew that he did not want such an arrangement on any terms. He felt
+confident that not one could swindle him, but at the same time he was half
+afraid of the Scotchman; he felt instinctively that MacDougall was a man
+for him to avoid. And besides, he intended to use his lands in his own
+way. He would sell part of them to the railroad, which was projected to be
+built through them, if he could get a good price; but the hunger for
+owning land, for dominating a part of the earth, was as much a part of him
+as his right hand. He wanted no modern business partnership. He wanted to
+be _“__el patron,__”_ as so many Delcasars had been before him.
+
+Here was a temptation to be dramatic, to hurl a picturesque defiance at
+the gringo. Ramon might have yielded to it a few months before. Sundry
+brave speeches flashed through his mind, as it was. But he resolutely put
+them aside. There was too much at stake … his love. He determined to call
+on MacDougall promptly and to be polite.
+
+MacDougall was a heavy, bald man of Scotch descent, and very true to type.
+He had come to town from the East about fifteen years before with his wife
+and his two tall, raw-boned children—a boy and a girl. The family had been
+very poor. They had lived in a small _adobe_ house on the _mesa_. For ten
+years Mrs. MacDougall had done all of her own housework, including the
+washing; the two children had gone to school in clothes that seemed always
+too small for them; and MacDougall had laboured obscurely day and night in
+a small dark office. During these ten years the MacDougalls had been
+completely overlooked by local society, and if they felt any resentment
+they did not show it.
+
+Meantime MacDougall had been systematically and laboriously laying the
+foundations of a fortune. His passion was for land. He loaned money on
+land, chiefly to Mexicans, and he took mortgages on land in return for
+defending his Mexican clients, largely on criminal charges. Some of the
+land he farmed, and some he rented, but much of it lay idle, and the taxes
+he had to pay kept his family poor long after it might have been
+comfortable. But his lands rose steadily in value; he began selling,
+discreetly; and the MacDougalls came magnificently into their own.
+MacDougall was now one of the wealthiest men in the State. In five years
+his way of living had undergone a great change. He owned a large brick
+house in the highlands and had several servants. The boy had gone to
+Harvard, and the girl to Vassar. Neither of them was so gawky now, and
+both of them were much sought socially during their vacations at home.
+MacDougall himself had undergone a marked change for a man past fifty. He
+had become a stylish dresser and looked younger. He drove to work in a
+large car with a chauffeur. In the early morning he went riding on the
+_mesa_, mounted on a big Kentucky fox-trotter, clad in English riding
+clothes, jouncing solemnly up and down on his flat saddle, and followed by
+a couple of carefully-laundered white poodles. On these expeditions he was
+a source of great edification and some amusement to the natives.
+
+In the town he was a man of weight and influence, but the country Mexicans
+hated him. Once when he was looking over some lands recently acquired by
+the foreclosure of mortgages, a bullet had whistled close to his ear, and
+another had punctured the hood of his car. He now hired a man to do his
+“outside work.”
+
+Thus both MacDougall and his children had thrived and developed on their
+wealth. Mrs. MacDougall, perhaps, had been the sacrifice. She remained a
+tall, thin, pale, tired-looking woman with large hands that were a record
+of toil. She laboured at her new social duties and “pleasures” in exactly
+the same spirit that she had formerly laboured at the wash tub.
+
+MacDougall’s offices now occupied all of the ground floor of a large new
+building which he had built. Like everything else of his authorship this
+building represented a determined effort to lend the town an air of
+Eastern elegance. It was finished in an imitation of white marble and the
+offices had large plate glass windows which bore in gilt letters the
+legend: “MacDougall Land and Cattle Company, Inc.” Within, half a dozen
+girls in glass cages could be seen working at typewriters and adding
+machines, while a cashier occupied a little office of his own with a large
+safe at his back, a little brass grating in front of him, and a revolver
+visible not far from his right hand.
+
+The creator of this magnificence sat behind a glasstop desk at the far end
+of a large and sunny office with a bare and slippery floor. Many a Mexican
+beggar for mercy, with a mortgage on his home, had walked across this
+forbidding expanse of polished hardwood toward the big man with the
+merciless eye, as fearfully as ever a _peon_, sentenced to forty lashes
+and salt in his wounds, approached the seat of his owner to plead for a
+whole skin. Truly, the weak can but change masters.
+
+This morning MacDougall was all affability. As he stood up behind his
+desk, clad in a light grey suit, large and ruddy, radiant of health and
+prosperity, he was impressive, almost splendid. Only the eyes, small and
+closeset, revealed the worried and calculating spirit of the man.
+
+“Mr. Delcasar,” he said when they had shaken hands and sat down, “I am
+glad to welcome you to this office, and I hope to see you here many times
+more. I will not waste time, for we are both busy men. I asked you to come
+here because I want to suggest a sort of informal partnership between us,
+such as I had with your late uncle, one of my best friends. I believe my
+plan will be for the best interests of both of us.… I suppose you know
+about what the arrangement was between the Don and myself?”
+
+“No; not in detail,” Ramon confessed. He felt MacDougall’s power at once.
+Facing the man was a different matter from planning an interview with him
+when alone. But he retained sense enough to let MacDougall do the talking.
+
+“Have a cigar,” the great man continued, full of sweetness, pushing a
+large and fragrant box of perfectos across the desk. “I will outline the
+situation to you briefly, as I see it.” Nothing could have seemed more
+frank and friendly than his manner.
+
+“As you doubtless know,” he went on, “your estate includes a large area of
+mountain and _mesa_ land—a little more than nine thousand acres I
+believe—north and west of the San Antonio River in Arriba County. I own
+nearly as much land on the east side of the river. The valley itself is
+owned by a number of natives in small farming tracts.
+
+“I believe your estate also includes a few small parcels of land in the
+valley, but not enough, you understand, to be of much value by itself.
+Your uncle also owned a few tracts in the valley east of the river which
+he transferred to me, for a consideration, because they abutted upon my
+holdings.
+
+“Now the valley, as I scarcely need tell you, is the key to the situation.
+In the first place, if the country is to be properly developed as sheep
+and cattle range, the valley will furnish the farming land upon which hay
+for winter use can be raised, and it also furnishes some good winter
+range. Moreover, it is now an open secret that the Denver and Rio Grande
+Railroad proposes building a branch line through that country and into the
+San Juan Valley. No surveys have been made, but it is certain that the
+road must follow the San Antonio to the top of the divide. There is no
+other way through. I became aware of this project some time ago through my
+eastern connections, and told your uncle about it. He and I joined forces
+for the purpose of gaining control of the San Antonio Valley, and of the
+railroad right-of-way.
+
+“The proposition is a singularly attractive one. Not only could the
+right-of-way be sold for a very large sum, but we would afterward own a
+splendid bit of cattle range, with farming land in the valley, and with a
+railroad running through the centre of it. There is nothing less than a
+fortune to be made in the San Antonio Valley, Mr. Delcasar.
+
+“And the lands in the valley can be acquired. Some of the small owners
+will sell outright. Furthermore, they are all frequently in need of money,
+especially during dry years when the crops are not good. By advancing
+loans judiciously, and taking land as security, title can often be
+acquired.… I daresay you are not wholly unfamiliar with the method.
+
+“This work, Mr. Delcasar, requires large capital, which I can command. It
+also requires certain things which you have in an unusual degree. You are
+of Spanish descent, you speak the language fluently. You have political
+and family prestige among the natives. All of this will be of great
+service in persuading the natives to sell, and in getting the necessary
+information about land titles, which, as you know, requires much research
+in old Spanish Church records and much interviewing of the natives
+themselves.
+
+“In the actual making of purchases, my name need not appear. In fact, I
+think it is very desirable that it should not appear. But understand that
+I will furnish absolutely all of the capital for the enterprise. I am
+offering you, Mr. Delcasar, an opportunity to make a fortune without
+investing a cent, and I feel that I can count upon your acceptance.”
+
+At the close of this discourse, Ramon felt like a surf-bather who has been
+overwhelmed by a great and sudden wave and comes up gasping for breath and
+struggling for a foothold. Never had he heard anything so brilliantly
+plausible, for never before had he come into contact with a good mind in
+full action. Yet he regained his balance in a moment. He was accustomed to
+act by intuition, not by logic, and his intuition was all against
+accepting MacDougall’s offer. He was not deceived by the Scotchman’s show
+of friendship and beneficence; he himself had an aptitude for pretence,
+and he understood it better than he would have understood sincerity. He
+knew that whether he formed this partnership or not, there was sure to be
+a struggle between him and MacDougall for the dominance of the San Antonio
+Valley. And his instinct was to stand free and fight; not to come to
+grips, MacDougall was a stronger man than he. The one advantage which he
+had—his influence over the natives—he must keep in his own hands, and not
+let his adversary turn it against him.
+
+He took his cigar out of his mouth, looked at it a moment, and cleared his
+throat.
+
+“Mr. MacDougall,” he said slowly, “this offer makes me proud. That you
+should have so much confidence in me as to wish to make me your partner is
+most gratifying. I am sorry that I must refuse. I have other plans.…”
+
+MacDougall nodded, interrupting. This was evidently a contingency he had
+calculated.
+
+“I’m sorry, Mr. Delcasar. I had hoped to be permanently associated with
+you in this venture. But I think I understand. You are young. Perhaps
+marriage, a home are your immediate objects, and you need cash at once,
+rather than a somewhat distant prospect of greater wealth. In that case I
+think I can meet your wishes. I am prepared to make you a good offer for
+all of your holdings in the valley, and those immediately adjoining it.
+The exact amount I cannot state at this moment, but I feel sure we could
+agree as to price.”
+
+Ramon was taken aback by the promptness of the counter, confused, forced
+to think. Money was a thing he wanted badly. He had little cash. If
+MacDougall would give him fifty thousand, he could go with Julia anywhere.
+He would be free. But again the inward prompting, sure and imperative,
+said no. He wanted the girl above all things. But he wanted land, too. His
+was the large and confident greed of youth. And he could have the girl
+without making this concession. MacDougall wanted to take the best of his
+land and push him out of the game as a weakling, a negligible. He wouldn’t
+submit. He would fight, and in his own way. What he wanted now was to end
+the interview, to get away from this battering, formidable opponent. He
+rose.
+
+“I will think it over, Mr. MacDougall,” he said. “And meantime, if you
+will send me an offer in writing, I will appreciate it.”
+
+Some of the affability faded from MacDougall’s face as he too rose, and
+the worried look in his little grey eyes intensified, as though he sensed
+the fact that this was an evasion. None-the-less he said good-bye
+cordially and promised to write the letter.
+
+Ramon went back to his office, his mind stimulated, working intensely.
+Never before had he thought so clearly and purposefully. He got out an old
+government map of Arriba County, and with the aid of the deeds in the safe
+which contained all his uncle’s important papers, he managed to mark off
+his holdings. The whole situation became as clear to him as a checker
+game. He owned a bit of land in the valley which ran all the way across
+it, and far out upon the _mesa_ in a long narrow strip. That was the way
+land holdings were always divided under the Spanish law—into strips a few
+hundred feet wide, and sometimes as much as fourteen miles long. This
+strip would in all probability be vital to the proposed right-of-way. It
+explained MacDougall’s eagerness to take him as a partner or else to buy
+him out. By holding it, he would hold the key to the situation.
+
+In order really to dominate the country and to make his property grow in
+value he would have to own more of the valley. And he could not get money
+enough to buy except very slowly. But he could use his influence with the
+natives to prevent MacDougall from buying. MacDougall was a gringo. The
+Mexicans hated him. He had been shot at. Ramon could “preach the race
+issue,” as the politicians put it.
+
+The important thing was to strengthen and assert his influence as a
+Mexican and a Delcasar. He must go to Arriba County, open the old ranch
+house he owned there, go among the people. He must gain a real ascendency.
+He knew how to do it. It was his birthright. He was full of fight and
+ambition, confident, elated. The way was clear before him. Tomorrow he
+would go to Julia.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+He had received a note of sympathy from her soon after his uncle’s death
+and he had called at the Roths’ once, but had found several other callers
+there and no opportunity of being alone with her. Then she had gone away
+on a two-weeks, automobile trip to the Mesa Verde National Park, so that
+he had seen practically nothing of her. But all of this time he had been
+thinking of her more confidently than ever before. He was rich now, he was
+strong. All of the preliminaries had been finished. He could go to her and
+claim her.
+
+He called her on the telephone from his office, and the Mexican maid
+answered. She would see if Miss Roth was in. After a long wait she
+reported that Miss Roth was out. He tried again that day, and a third time
+the next morning with a like result.
+
+This filled him with anxious, angry bewilderment. He felt sure she had not
+really been out all three times. Were her mother and brother keeping his
+message from her? Or had something turned her against him? He remembered
+with a keen pang of anxiety, for the first time, the insinuations of
+Father Lugaria. Could that miserable rumour have reached her? He had no
+idea how she would have taken it if it had. He really did not know or
+understand this girl at all; he merely loved her and desired her with a
+desire which had become the ruling necessity of his life. To him she was a
+being of a different sort, from a different world—a mystery. They had
+nothing in common but a rebellious discontent with life, and this
+glamorous bewildering thing, so much stronger than they, so far beyond
+their comprehension, which they called their love.
+
+That was the one thing he knew and counted on. He knew how imperiously it
+drove him, and he knew that she had felt its power too. He had seen it
+shine in her eyes, part her lips; he had heard it in her voice, and felt
+it tremble in her body. If only he could get to her this potent thing
+would carry them to its purpose through all barriers.
+
+Angry and resolute, he set himself to a systematic campaign of
+telephoning. At last she answered. Her voice was level, quiet, weary.
+
+“But I have an engagement for tonight,” she told him.
+
+“Then let me come tomorrow,” he urged.
+
+“No; I can’t do that. Mother is having some people to dinner.…”
+
+At last he begged her to set a date, but she refused, declared that her
+plans were unfixed, told him to call “some other time.”
+
+His touchy pride rebelled now. He cursed these gringos. He hated them. He
+wished for the power to leave her alone, to humble her by neglect. But he
+knew that he did have it. Instead he waited a few days and then drove to
+the house in his car, having first carefully ascertained by watching that
+she was at home.
+
+All three of them received him in their sitting room, which they called
+the library. It was an attractive room, sunny and tastefully furnished,
+with a couple of book cases filled with new-looking books in sets, a
+silver tea service on a little wheeled table, flowers that matched the
+wall paper, and a heavy mahogany table strewn with a not-too-disorderly
+array of magazines and paper knives. It was the envy of the local women
+with social aspirations because it looked elegant and yet comfortable.
+
+Conversation was slow and painful. Mrs. Roth and her son were icily
+formal, confining themselves to the most commonplace remarks. And Julia
+did not help him, as she had on his first visit. She looked pale and tired
+and carefully avoided his eyes.
+
+When he had been there about half an hour, Mrs. Roth turned to her
+daughter.
+
+“Julia,” she said, “If we are going to get to Mrs. MacDougall’s at
+half-past four you must go and get ready. You will excuse her, won’t you
+Mr. Delcasar?”
+
+The girl obediently went up stairs without shaking hands, and a few
+minutes later Ramon went away, feeling more of misery and less of
+self-confidence than ever before in his life.
+
+He almost wholly neglected his work. Cortez brought him a report that
+MacDougall had a new agent, who was working actively in Arriba County, but
+he paid no attention to it. His life seemed to have lost purpose and
+interest. For the first time he doubted her love. For the first time he
+really feared that he would lose her.
+
+Most of his leisure was spent riding or walking about the streets, in the
+hope of catching a glimpse of her. He passed her house as often as he
+dared, and studied her movements. When he saw her in the distance he felt
+an acute thrill of mingled hope and misery. Only once did he meet her
+fairly, walking with her brother, and then she either failed to see him or
+pretended not to.
+
+One afternoon about five o’clock he left his office and started home in
+his car. A storm was piling up rapidly in big black clouds that rose from
+behind the eastern mountains like giants peering from ambush. It was
+sultry; there were loud peals of thunder and long crooked flashes of
+lightning. At this season of late summer the weather staged such a
+portentous display almost every afternoon, and it rained heavily in the
+mountains; but the showers only reached the thirsty _mesa_ and valley
+lands about one day in four.
+
+Ramon drove home slowly, gloomily wondering whether it would rain and
+hoping that it would. A Southwesterner is always hoping for rain, and in
+his present mood the rush and beat of a storm would have been especially
+welcome.
+
+His hopes were soon fulfilled. There was a cold blast of wind, carrying a
+few big drops, and then a sudden, drumming downpour that tore up the dust
+of the street and swiftly converted it into a sea of mud cut by yellow
+rivulets.
+
+As his car roared down the empty street, he glimpsed a woman standing in
+the shelter of a big cottonwood tree, cowering against its trunk. A quick
+thrill shot through his body. He jammed down the brake so suddenly that
+his car skidded and sloughed around. He carefully turned and brought up at
+the curb.
+
+She started at sight of him as he ran across the side-walk toward her.
+
+“Come on quick!” he commanded, taking her by the arm, “I’ll get you home.”
+Before she had time to say anything he had her in the car, and they were
+driving toward the Roth house. By the time they had reached it the first
+strength of the shower was spent, and there was only a light scattering
+rain with a rift showing in the clouds over the mountains.
+
+He deliberately passed the house, putting on more speed as he did so.
+
+“But … I thought you were going to take me home,” she said, putting a hand
+on his arm.
+
+“I’m not,” he announced, without looking around. His hands and eyes were
+fully occupied with his driving, but a great suspense held his breath. The
+hand left his arm, and he heard her settle back in her seat with a sigh. A
+great warm wave of joy surged through him.
+
+He took the mountain road, which was a short cut between Old Town and the
+mountains, seldom used except by wood wagons. Within ten minutes they were
+speeding across the _mesa_. The rain was over and the clouds running
+across the sky in tatters before a fresh west wind. Before them the
+rolling grey-green waste of the _mesa_, spotted and veined with silver
+waters, reached to the blue rim of the mountains—empty and free as an
+undiscovered world.
+
+He slowed his car to ten miles an hour and leaned back, steering with one
+hand. The other fell upon hers, and closed over it. For a time they drove
+along in silence, conscious only of that electrical contact, and of the
+wind playing in their faces and the soft rhythmical hum of the great
+engine.
+
+At the crest of a rise he stopped the car and stood up, looking all about
+at the vast quiet wilderness, filling his lungs with air. He liked that
+serene emptiness. He had always felt at peace with these still desolate
+lands that had been the background of most of his life. Now, with the
+consciousness of the woman beside him, they filled him with a sort of
+rapture, an ecstasy of reverence that had come down to him perhaps from
+savage forebears who had worshipped the Earth Mother with love and awe.
+
+He dropped down beside her again and without hesitation gathered her into
+his arms. After a moment he held her a little away from him and looked
+into her eyes.
+
+“Why wouldn’t you let me come to see you? Why did you treat me that way?”
+he plead.
+
+She dropped her eyes.
+
+“They made me.”
+
+“But why? Because I’m a Mexican? And does that make any difference to
+you?”
+
+“O, I can’t tell you.… They say awful things about you. I don’t believe
+them. No; nothing about you makes any difference to me.”
+
+He held her close again.
+
+“Then you’ll go away with me?”
+
+“Yes,” she answered slowly, nodding her head. “I’ll go anywhere with you.”
+
+“Now!” he demanded. “Will you go now? We can drive through Scissors Pass
+to Abol on the Southeastern and take a train to Denver.…”
+
+“O, no, not now,” she plead. “Please not now.… I can’t go like this.…”
+
+“Yes; now,” he urged. “We’ll never have a better chance.…”
+
+“I beg you, if you love me, don’t make me go now. I must think … and get
+ready.… Why I haven’t even got any powder for my nose.”
+
+They both laughed. The tension was broken. They were happy.
+
+“Give me a little while to get ready,” she proposed, “and I’ll go when you
+say.”
+
+“You promise?”
+
+“Cross my heart.… On my life and honour. Please take me home now, so they
+won’t suspect anything. If only nobody sees us! Please hurry. It’ll be
+dark pretty soon. You can write to me. It’s so lonely out here!”
+
+He turned his car and drove slowly townward, his free hand seeking hers
+again. It was dusk when they reached the streets. Stopping his car in the
+shadow of a tree, he kissed her and helped her out.
+
+He sat still and watched her out of sight. A tinge of sadness and regret
+crept into his mind, and as he drove homeward it grew into an active
+discontent with himself. Why had he let her go? True, he had proved her
+love, but now she was to be captured all over again. He ought to have
+taken her. He had been a fool. She would have gone. She had begged him not
+to take her, but if he had insisted, she would have gone. He had been a
+fool!
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+The second morning after this ride, while he was labouring over a note to
+the girl, he was amazed to get one from her postmarked at Lorietta, a
+station a hundred miles north of town at the foot of the Mora Mountains,
+in which many of the town people spent their summer vacations. It was a
+small square missive, exhaling a faint scent of lavender, and was simple
+and direct as a telegram.
+
+“We have gone to the Valley Ranch for a month,” she wrote. “We had not
+intended to go until August, but there was a sudden change of plans.
+Somebody saw you and me yesterday. I had an awful time. Please don’t try
+to see me or write to me while we’re here. It will be best for us. I’ll be
+back soon. I love you.”
+
+He sat glumly thinking over this letter for a long time. The
+disappointment of learning that he would not see her for a month was bad
+enough, but it was not the worst thing about this sudden development. For
+this made him realize what alert and active opposition he faced on the
+part of her mother and brother. Their dislike for him had been made
+manifest again and again, but he had supposed that Julia was successfully
+deceiving them as to his true relations with her. He had thought that he
+was regarded merely as an undesirable acquaintance; but if they were
+changing their plans because of him, taking the girl out of his reach,
+they must have guessed the true state of affairs. And for all that he
+knew, they might leave the country at any time. His heart seemed to give a
+sharp twist in his body at this thought. He must take her as soon as she
+returned to town. He could not afford to miss another chance. And meantime
+his affairs must be gotten in order.
+
+He had been neglecting his new responsibilities, and there was an
+astonishing number of things to be done—debts to be paid, tax assessments
+to be protested, men to be hired for the sheep-shearing. His uncle had
+left his affairs at loose ends, and on all hands were men bent on taking
+advantage of the fact. But he knew the law; he had known from childhood
+the business of raising sheep on the open range which was the backbone of
+his fortune; and he was held in a straight course by the determination to
+keep his resources together so that they would strengthen him in his
+purpose.
+
+A few weeks before, he had sent Cortez to Arriba County to attend to some
+minor matters there, and incidentally to learn if possible what MacDougall
+was doing. Cortez had spent a large part of his time talking with the
+Mexicans in the San Antonio Valley, eavesdropping on conversations in
+little country stores, making friends, and asking discreet questions at
+_bailes_ and _fiestas_.
+
+“Well; how goes it up there?” Ramon asked him when he came to the office
+to make his report.
+
+“It looks bad enough,” Cortez replied lighting with evident satisfaction
+the big cigar his patron had given him. “MacDougall has men working there
+all the time. He bought a small ranch on the edge of the valley just the
+other day. He is not making very fast progress, but he’ll own the valley
+in time if we don’t stop him.”
+
+“But who is doing the work? Who is his agent?” Ramon enquired.
+
+“Old Solomon Alfego, for one. He’s boss of the county, you know. He hates
+a gringo as much as any man alive, but he loves a dollar, too, and
+MacDougall has bought him, I’m afraid. I think MacDougall is lending money
+through him, getting mortgages on ranches that way.”
+
+“Well; what do you think we had better do?” Ramon enquired. The situation
+looked bad on its face, but he could see that Cortez had a plan.
+
+“Just one thing I thought of,” the little man answered slowly. “We have
+got to get Alfego on our side. If we can do that, we can keep out
+MacDougall and everybody else … buy when we get ready. We couldn’t pay
+Alfego much, but we could let him in on the railroad deal … something
+MacDougall won’t do. And Alfego, you know, is a _penitente_. He’s _hermano
+mayor_ (chief brother) up there. And all those little _rancheros_ are
+_penitentes_. It’s the strongest _penitente_ county in the State, and you
+know none of the _penitentes_ like gringos. None of those fellows like
+MacDougall; they’re all afraid of him. All they like is his money. You
+haven’t so much money, but you could spend some. You could give a few
+_bailes_. You are Mexican; your family is well-known. If you were a
+_penitente_, too.…”
+
+Cortez left his sentence hanging in the air. He nodded his head slowly,
+his cigar cocked at a knowing angle, looking at Ramon through narrowed
+lids.
+
+Ramon sat looking straight before him for a moment. He saw in imagination
+a procession of men trudging half-naked in the raw March weather, their
+backs gashed so that blood ran down to their heels, beating themselves and
+each other.… The _penitentes_! Other men, even gringos, had risen to power
+by joining the order. Why not he? It would give him just the prestige and
+standing he needed in that country. He would lose a little blood. He would
+win … everything!
+
+“You are right, _amigo_,” he told Cortez. “But do you think it can be
+arranged?”
+
+“I have talked to Alfego about it,” Cortez admitted. “I think it can be
+arranged.”
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+He was all ready to leave for Arriba County when one more black mischance
+came to bedevil him. Cortez came into the office with a worried look in
+his usually unrevealing eyes.
+
+“There’s a woman in town looking for you,” he announced. “A Mexican girl
+from the country. She was asking everybody she met where to find you. You
+ought to be more careful. I took her to my house and promised I would
+bring you right away.”
+
+Cortez lived in a little square box of a brick cottage, which he had been
+buying slowly for the past ten years and would probably never own. In its
+parlour, gaudy with cheap, new furniture, Ramon confronted Catalina
+Archulera. She was clad in a dirty calico dress, and her shoes were
+covered with the dust of long tramping, as was the black shawl about her
+head and shoulders. Once he had thought her pretty, but now she looked to
+him about as attractive as a clod of earth.
+
+She stood before him with downcast eyes, speechless with misery and
+embarassment. At first he was utterly puzzled as to what could have
+brought her there. Then with a queer mixture of anger and pity and
+disgust, he noticed the swollen bulk of her healthy young body.
+
+“Catalina! Why did you come here?” he blurted, all his self-possession
+gone for a moment.
+
+“My father sent me,” she replied, as simply as though that were an
+all-sufficient explanation.
+
+“But why did you tell him … it was I? Why didn’t you come to me first?”
+
+“He made me tell,” Catalina rolled back her sleeve and showed some blue
+bruises. “He beat me,” she explained without emotion.
+
+“What did he tell you to say?”
+
+“He told me to come to you and show you how I am.… That is all.”
+
+Ramon swore aloud with a break in his voice. For a long moment he stood
+looking at her, bewildered, disgusted. It somehow seemed to him utterly
+wrong, utterly unfair that this thing should have happened, and above all
+that it should have happened now. He had taken other girls, as had every
+other man, but never before had any such hard luck as this befallen him.
+And now, of all times!
+
+In Catalina he felt not the faintest interest. Before him was the proof
+that once he had desired her. Now that desire had vanished as completely
+as his childhood.
+
+And she was Archulera’s daughter. That was the hell of it! Archulera was
+the one man of all men whom he could least afford to offend. And he knew
+just how hard to appease the old man would be. For among the Mexicans,
+seduction is a crime which, in theory and often in practice, can be atoned
+only by marriage or by the shedding of blood. Marriage is the door to
+freedom for the women, but virginity is a thing greatly revered and
+carefully guarded. The unmarried girl is always watched, often locked up,
+and he who appropriates her to his own purpose is violating a sacred right
+and offending her whole family.
+
+In the towns, all this has been somewhat changed, as the customs of any
+country suffer change in towns. But old Archulera, living in his lonely
+canyon, proud of his high lineage, would be the hardest of men to appease.
+And meantime, what was to be done with the girl?
+
+It was this problem which brought his wits back to him. A plan began to
+form in his mind. He saw that in sending her to him Archulera had really
+played into his hands. The important thing now was to keep her away from
+her father. He looked at her again, and the pity which he always felt for
+weaklings welled up in him. He knew many Mexican ranches in the valley
+where he could keep her in comfort for a small amount. That would serve a
+double purpose. The old man would be kept in ignorance as to what Ramon
+intended, and the girl would be saved from further punishment. Meantime,
+he could send Cortez to see Archulera and find out what money would do.
+
+The whole affair was big with potential damage to him. Some of his enemies
+might find out about it and make a scandal. Archulera might come around in
+an ugly mood and make trouble. The girl might run away and come to town
+again. And yet, now that he had a plan, he was all confidence.
+
+Cortez kept Catalina at his house while Ramon drove forty miles up the
+valley and made arrangements with a Mexican who lived in an isolated
+place, to care for her for an indefinite period. When he took Catalina
+there, he told her on the way simply that she was to wait until he came
+for her, and above all, that she must not try to communicate with her
+father. The girl nodded, looking at him gravely with her large soft eyes.
+Her lot had always been to obey, to bear burdens and to suffer. The stuff
+of rebellion and of self-assertion was not in her, but she could endure
+misfortune with the stoical indifference of a savage. Indeed, she was in
+all essentials simply a squaw. During the ride to her new home she seemed
+more interested in the novel sensation of travelling at thirty miles an
+hour than in her own future. She clung to the side of the car with both
+hands, and her face reflected a pathetic mingling of fear and delight.
+
+The house of Nestor Gomez to which Ramon took her was prettily set in a
+grove of cottonwoods, with white hollyhocks blooming on either side of the
+door, and strings of red chile hanging from the rafter-ends to dry. Half a
+dozen small children played about the door, the younger ones naked and all
+of them deep in dirt. A hen led her brood of chicks into the house on a
+foray for crumbs, and in the shade of the wall a mongrel bitch luxuriously
+gave teat to four pups. Bees humming about the hollyhocks bathed the scene
+in sleepy sound.
+
+Catalina, utterly unembarassed, shook hands with her host and hostess in
+the limp, brief way of the Mexicans, and then, while Ramon talked with
+them, sat down in the shade, shook loose her heavy black hair and began to
+comb it. A little half-naked urchin of three years came and stood before
+her. She stopped combing to place her hands on his shoulders, and the two
+regarded each other long and intently, while Catalina’s mouth framed a
+smile of dull wonder.
+
+As Ramon drove back to town, he marvelled that he should ever have desired
+this clod of a woman; but he was grateful to her for the bovine calm with
+which she accepted things. He would visit her once in a while. He felt
+pretty sure that he could count on her not to make trouble.
+
+Afterward he discussed the situation with Cortez. The latter was worried.
+
+“You better look out,” he counselled. “You better send him a message you
+are going to marry her. That will keep him quiet for a while. When he gets
+over being mad, maybe you can make him take a thousand dollars instead.”
+
+Ramon shook his head. If he gave Archulera to understand that he would
+marry the girl, word of it might get to town.
+
+“He’ll never find her,” he said confidently. “I’ll do nothing unless he
+comes to me.”
+
+“I don’t know,” Cortez replied doubtfully. “Is he a _penitente_?”
+
+“Yes; I think he is,” Ramon admitted.
+
+“Then maybe he’ll find her pretty quick. There are some _penitentes_ still
+in the valley and all _penitentes_ work together. You better look out.”
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XX
+
+
+He had resolutely put the thought of Julia as much out of his mind as
+possible. He had conquered his disappointment at not being able to see her
+for a month, and had resolved to devote that month exclusively to hard
+work. And now came another one of those small, square, brief letters with
+its disturbing scent of lavender, and its stamp stuck upside down near the
+middle of the envelope.
+
+“I will be in town tomorrow when you get this,” she wrote, “But only for a
+day or two. We are going to move up to the capital for the rest of the
+year. Gordon is going to stay here now. Just mother and I are coming down
+to pack up our things. You can come and see me tomorrow evening.”
+
+It was astonishing, it was disturbing, it was incomprehensible. And it did
+not fit in with his plans. He had intended to go North and return before
+she did; then, with all his affairs in order, ask her to go away with him.
+Cortez had already sent word to Alfego that Ramon was coming to Arriba
+County. He could not afford a change of plans now. But the prospect of
+seeing her again filled him with pleasure, sent a sort of weakening
+excitement tingling through his body.
+
+And what did it mean that he was to be allowed to call on her? Had she, by
+any chance, won over her mother and brother? No; he couldn’t believe it.
+But he went to her house that evening shaken by great hopes and
+anticipations.
+
+She wore a black dress that left her shoulders bare, and set off the slim
+perfection of her little figure. Her face was flushed and her eyes were
+deep. How much more beautiful she was than the image he carried in his
+mind! He had been thinking of her all this while, and yet he had forgotten
+how beautiful she was. He could think of nothing to say at first, but held
+her by both hands and looked at her with eyes of wonder and desire. He
+felt a fool because his knees were weak and he was tremulous. But a happy
+fool! The touch and the sight of her seemed to dissolve his strength, and
+also the hardness and the bitterness that life had bred in him, the streak
+of animal ferocity that struggle brought out in him. He was all desire,
+but desire bathed in tenderness and hope. She made him feel as once long
+ago he had felt in church when the music and the pageantry and sweet
+odours of the place had filled his childish spirit with a strange sense of
+harmony. He had felt small and unworthy, yet happy and forgiven. So now he
+felt in her presence that he was black and bestial beside her, but that
+possession of her would somehow wash him clean and bring him peace.
+
+When he tried to draw her to him she shook her head, not meeting his eyes
+and freed herself gently.
+
+“No, no. I must tell you.…” She led him to a seat, and went on, looking
+down at a toe that played with a design in the carpet. “I must explain. I
+promised mother that if she would let me see you this once to tell you, I
+would never try to see you again.”
+
+There was a long silence, during which he could feel his heart pounding
+and could see that she breathed quickly. Then suddenly he took her face in
+both hot hands and turned it toward him, made her meet his eyes.
+
+“But of course you didn’t mean that,” he said.
+
+She struggled weakly against his strength.
+
+“I don’t know. I thought I did.… It’s terrible. You know… I wrote you …
+some one saw us together. Gordon and mother found out about it. I won’t
+tell you all that they said, but it was awful. It made me angry, and they
+found out that I love you. It had a terrible effect on Gordon. It made him
+worse. I can’t tell you how awful it is for me. I love you. But I love him
+too. And to think I’m hurting him when he’s sick, when I’ve lived in the
+hope he would get well.…”
+
+She was breathing hard now. Her eyes were bright with tears. All her
+defences were down, her fine dignity vanished. When he took her in his
+arms she struggled a little at first; then yielded with closed eyes to his
+hot kisses.
+
+Afterward they talked a little, but not to much purpose. He had important
+things to tell her, they had plans to make. But their great disturbing
+hunger for each other would not let them think of anything else. Their
+conversation was always interrupted by hot confusing embraces.
+
+The clock struck eleven, and she jumped up.
+
+“I promised to make you go home at eleven,” she told him.
+
+“But I must tell you … I have to leave town for a while.” He found his
+tongue suddenly. Briefly he outlined the situation he faced with regard to
+his estate. Of course, he said nothing about the _penitentes_, but he made
+her understand that he was going forth to fight for both their fortunes.
+
+“I can’t do it, I won’t go, unless I know I am to have you,” he finished.
+“Everything I have done, everything I am going to do is for you. If I lose
+you I lose everything. You promise to go with me?”
+
+His eyes were burning with earnestness, and hers were wide with
+admiration. He did not really understand her, nor she him. Unalterable
+differences of race and tradition and temperament stood between them. They
+had little in common save a great primitive hunger. But that,
+none-the-less, for the moment genuinely transfigured and united them.
+
+She drew a deep breath.
+
+“Yes. You must promise not to try to see me until then. When you are
+ready, let me know.”
+
+She threw back her head, opening her arms to him. For a moment she hung
+limp in his embrace; then pushed him away and ran upstairs, leaving him to
+find his way out alone.
+
+He walked home slowly, trying to straighten out his thoughts. Her presence
+seemed still to be all about him. One of her hairs was tangled about a
+button of his coat; her powder and the scent of her were all over his
+shoulder; the recollection of her kisses smarted sweetly on his mouth. He
+was weak, confused, ridiculously happy. But he knew that he would carry
+North with him greater courage and purpose than ever before he had known.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+In the dry clean air of the Southwest all things change slowly. Growth is
+slow and decay is even slower. The body of a dead horse in the desert does
+not rot but dessicates, the hide remaining intact for months, the bones
+perhaps for years. Men and beasts often live to great age. The _pinon_
+trees on the red hills were there when the conquerors came, and they are
+not much larger now—only more gnarled and twisted.
+
+This strange inertia seems to possess institutions and customs as well as
+life itself. In the valley towns, it is true, the railroads have brought
+and thrown down all the conveniences and incongruities of civilization.
+But ride away from the railroads into the mountains or among the lava
+_mesas_, and you are riding into the past. You will see little earthen
+towns, brown or golden or red in the sunlight, according to the soil that
+bore them, which have not changed in a century. You will see grain
+threshed by herds of goats and ponies driven around and around the
+threshing floors, as men threshed grain before the Bible was written. You
+will see Indian pueblos which have not changed materially since the brave
+days when Coronado came to Taos and the Spanish soldiers stormed the
+heights of Acoma. You will hear of strange Gods and devils and of the evil
+eye. It is almost as though this crystalline air were indeed a great clear
+crystal, impervious to time, in which the past is forever encysted.
+
+The region in which Ramon’s heritage lay was a typical part of this
+forgotten land. In the southern end of the Rocky Mountains, it was a
+country of great tilted _mesas_ reaching above timber line, covered for
+the most part with heavy forests of pine and fir, with here and there
+great upland pastures swept clean by forest fires of long ago. Along the
+lower slopes of the mountains, where the valleys widened, were primitive
+little _adobe_ towns, in which the Mexicans lived, each owning a few acres
+of tillable land. In the summer they followed their sheep herds in the
+upland pastures. There were not a hundred white men in the whole of Arriba
+County, and no railroad touched it.
+
+In this region a few Mexicans who were shrewder or stronger than the
+others, who owned stores or land, dominated the rest of the people much as
+the _patrones_ had dominated them in the days before the Mexican War. Here
+still flourished the hatred for the gringo which culminated in that war.
+Here that strange sect, the _penitentes hermanos_, half savage and half
+mediaeval, still was strong and still recruited its strength every year
+with young men, who elsewhere were refusing to undergo its brutal
+tortures.
+
+For all of these reasons, this was an advantageous field for the fight
+Ramon proposed to make. In the valley MacDougall’s money and influence
+would surely have beaten him. But here he could play upon the ancient
+hatred for the gringo; here he could use to the best advantage the
+prestige of his family; here, above all, if he could win over the
+_penitentes_, he could do almost anything he pleased.
+
+His plan of joining that ancient order to gain influence was not an
+original one. Mexican politicians and perhaps one or two gringos had done
+it, and the fact was a matter of common gossip. Some of these _penitentes_
+for a purpose had been men of great influence, and their initiations had
+been tempered to suit their sensitive skins. Others had been Mexicans of
+the poorer sort, capable of sharing the half-fanatic, half sadistic spirit
+of the thing.
+
+Ramon came to the order as a young and almost unknown man seeking its aid.
+He could not hope for much mercy. And though he was primitive in many
+ways, there was nothing in him that responded to the spirit of this
+ordeal. The thought of Christ crucified did not inspire him to endure
+suffering. But the thought of a girl with yellow hair did.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+Ramon went first to the ranch at the foot of the mountains which his uncle
+had used as a headquarters, and which had belonged to the family for about
+half a century. It consisted merely of an _adobe_ ranch house and barn and
+a log corral for rounding up horses.
+
+Here Ramon left his machine. Here also he exchanged his business suit for
+corduroys, a wide hat and high-heeled riding boots. He greatly fancied
+himself in this costume and he embellished it with a silk bandana of
+bright scarlet and with a large pair of silver spurs which had belonged to
+his uncle, and which he found in the saddle room of the barn. From the
+accoutrement in this room he also selected the most pretentious-looking
+saddle. It was a heavy stock saddle, with German silver mountings and
+saddle bags covered with black bear fur. A small red and black Navajo
+blanket served as a saddle pad and he found a fine Navajo bridle, too,
+woven of black horsehair, with a big hand-hammered silver buckle on each
+cheek.
+
+He had the old Mexican who acted as caretaker for the ranch drive all of
+the ranch horses into the corral, and chose a spirited roan mare for a
+saddle animal. He always rode a roan horse when he could get one because a
+roan mustang has more spirit than one of any other colour.
+
+The most modern part of his equipment was his weapon. He did not want to
+carry one openly, so he had purchased a small but highly efficient
+automatic pistol, which he wore in a shoulder scabbard inside his shirt
+and under his left elbow.
+
+When his preparations were completed he rode straight to the town of
+Alfego where the powerful Solomon had his establishment, dismounted under
+the big cottonwoods and strolled into the long, dark cluttered _adobe_
+room which was Solomon Alfego’s store. Three or four Mexican clerks were
+waiting upon as many Mexican customers, with much polite, low-voiced
+conversation, punctuated by long silences while the customers turned the
+goods over and over in their hands. Ramon’s entrance created a slight
+diversion. None of them knew him, for he had not been in that country for
+years, but all of them recognized that he was a person of weight and
+importance. He saluted all at once, lifting his hat, with a cordial “_Como
+lo va, amigos_,” and then devoted himself to an apparently interested
+inspection of the stock. This, if conscientiously done, would have
+afforded a week’s occupation, for Solomon Alfego served as sole merchant
+for a large territory and had to be prepared to supply almost every human
+want. There were shelves of dry goods and of hardware, of tobacco and of
+medicines. In the centre of the store was a long rack, heavily laden with
+saddlery and harness of all kinds, and all around the top of the room,
+above the shelves, ran a row of religious pictures, including popes,
+saints, and cardinals, Mary with the infant, Christ crucified and Christ
+bearing the cross, all done in bright colours and framed, for sale at
+about three dollars each.
+
+It was not long before word of the stranger’s arrival reached Alfego in
+his little office behind the store, and he came bustling out, beaming and
+polite.
+
+“This is Senor Solomon Alfego?” Ramon enquired in his most formal Spanish.
+
+“I am Solomon Alfego,” replied the bulky little man, with a low bow, “and
+what can I do for the Senor?”
+
+“I am Ramon Delcasar,” Ramon replied, extending his hand with a smile,
+“and it may be that you can do much for me.”
+
+“Ah-h-h!” breathed Alfego, with another bow, “Ramon Delcasar! And I knew
+you when you were _un muchachito_” (a little boy). He bent over and
+measured scant two feet from the floor with his hand. “My house is yours.
+I am at your service. _Siempre!_”
+
+The two strolled about the store, talking of the weather, politics,
+business, the old days—everything except what they were both thinking
+about. Alfego opened a box of cigars, and having lit a couple of these,
+they went out on the long porch and sat down on an old buggy seat to
+continue the conversation. Alfego admired Ramon’s horse and especially his
+silver-mounted saddle.
+
+“Ha! you like the saddle!” Ramon exclaimed in well-stimulated delight. He
+rose, swiftly undid the cinches, and dropped saddle and blanket at the
+feet of his host. “It is yours!” he announced.
+
+“A thousand thanks,” Alfego replied. “Come; I wish to show you some Navajo
+blankets I bought the other day.” He led the way into the store, and
+directed one of his clerks to bring forth a great stack of the heavy
+Indian weaves, and began turning them over. They were blankets of the best
+quality, and some of the designs in red, black and grey were of
+exceptional beauty. Ramon stood smiling while his host turned over one
+blanket after another. As he displayed each one he turned his bright
+pop-eyes on Ramon with an eager enquiring look. At last when he had seen
+them all, Ramon permitted himself to pick up and examine the one he
+considered the best with a restrained murmur of admiration.
+
+“You like it!” exclaimed Alfego with delight. “It is yours!”
+
+Mutual good feeling having thus been signalized in the traditional Mexican
+manner by an exchange of gifts, Alfego now showed his guest all over his
+establishment. It included, in addition to the store, several ware rooms
+where were piled stinking bales of sheep and goat and cow hides, sacks of
+raw wool and of corn, pelts of wild animals and bags of _pinon_ nuts, and
+of beans, all taken from the Mexicans in trade. Afterward Ramon met the
+family, of patriarchal proportions, including an astonishing number of
+little brown children having the bright eyes and well developed noses of
+the great Solomon. Then came supper, a long and bountiful feast, at which
+great quantities of mutton, chile, and beans were served.
+
+Having thus been duly impressed with the greatness and substance of his
+host, and also with his friendly attitude, Ramon was led into the little
+office, offered a seat and a fresh cigar. He knew that at last the proper
+time had come for him to declare himself.
+
+“My friend,” he said, leaning toward Alfego confidentially, “I have come
+to this country and to you for a great purpose. You know that a rich
+gringo has been buying the lands of the poor people—my people and
+yours—all through this country. You know that he intends to own all of
+this country—to take it away from us Mexicans. If he succeeds, he will
+take away all of your business, all of my lands. You and I must fight him
+together. Am I right?”
+
+Solomon nodded his head slowly, watching Ramon with wide bright eyes.
+
+“_Verdad!_” he pronounced unctuously.
+
+“I have come,” Ramon went on more boldly, “because my own lands are in
+danger, but also because I love the Mexican people, and hate the gringos!
+Some one must go among these good people and warn them not to sell their
+lands, not to be cheated out of their birthrights. My friend, I have come
+here to do that.”
+
+“_Bueno!_” exclaimed Alfego. “_Muy bueno!_”
+
+“My friend, I must have your help.”
+
+Ramon said this as impressively as possible, and paused expectantly, but
+as Alfego said nothing, he went on, gathering his wits for the supreme
+effort.
+
+“I know that you are a leader in the great fraternity of the penitent
+brothers, who are the best and most pious of men. My friend, I wish to
+become one of them. I wish to mingle my blood with theirs and with the
+blood of Christ, that all of us may be united in our great purpose to keep
+this country for the Spanish people, who conquered it from the
+barbarians.”
+
+Alfego looked very grave, puffed his cigar violently three times and spat
+before he answered.
+
+“My young friend,” (he spoke slowly and solemnly) “to pour out your blood
+in penance and to consecrate your body to Christ is a great thing to do.
+Have you meditated deeply upon this step? Are you sure the Lord Jesus has
+called you to his service? And what assurance have I that you are sincere
+in all you say, that if I make you my brother in the blood of Christ, you
+will truly be as a brother to me?”
+
+Ramon bowed his head.
+
+“I have thought long on this,” he said softly, “and I know my heart. I
+desire to be a blood brother to all these, my people. And to you—I give
+you my word as a Delcasar that I will serve you well, that I will be as a
+brother to you.”
+
+There was a silence during which Alfego stared with profound gravity at
+the ash on the end of his cigar.
+
+“Have you heard,” Ramon went on, in the same soft and emotional tone of
+voice, “that the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad is going to build a line
+through the San Antonio Valley?”
+
+Alfego, without altering his look of rapt meditation, nodded his head
+slowly.
+
+“Do you suppose that you will gain anything by that, if this gringo gets
+these lands?” Ramon went on. “You know that you will not. But I will make
+you my partner. And I will give you the option on any of my mountain land
+that you may wish to rent for sheep range. More than that, I will make you
+a written agreement to do these things. In all ways we will be as
+brothers.”
+
+“You are a worthy and pious young man!” exclaimed Solomon Alfego, rolling
+his eyes upward, his voice vibrant with emotion. “You shall be my brother
+in the blood of Christ.”
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+Ramon went to the _Morada_, the chapter house of the _penitentes_, alone
+and late at night, for all of the whippings and initiations of the order,
+except those of Holy Week, are carried on in the utmost secrecy.
+
+The _Morada_ stood halfway up the slope north of the little town, at the
+elevation where the tall yellow pines of the mountains begin to replace
+the scrubby juniper and _pinon_ of the _mesas_ and foothills. It was a
+cool moonlit night of late summer. A light west wind breathed through the
+trees, making the massive black shadows of the juniper bushes faintly
+alive. As he toiled up the rocky path Ramon heard the faraway yap and
+yodel of a coyote, and the still more distant answer of another one. From
+the valley below came the intermittent bay of a cur, inspired by the moon
+and his wild kin, and now and then the tiny silver tinkle of a goat bell.
+
+The _Morada_ stood in an open space. It was an oblong block of _adobe_,
+and gave forth neither light nor sound. Ramon stopped a little way from it
+in the shadow of a tree and lit a cigarette to steady his nerves. He felt
+now for the first time something of the mystery and terribleness of this
+barbaric order which he proposed to use for his purpose. All his life the
+_penitentes_ had been to him a well-known fact of life. For the past week
+he had spent much of his time with the _maestro de novios_ of the local
+chapter, a wizened old sheep herder, who had instructed him monotonously
+in the secrets of the order, almost lulling him to sleep with his endless
+mumblings of the ritual that was written in a little leather book a
+century old. He had learned that if he betrayed the secrets of the order,
+he would be buried alive with only his head sticking out of the ground, so
+that the ants might eat his face. He had been informed that if he fell ill
+he would be taken to the _Morada_ where his brothers in Christ would pray
+for him, and seek to drive the devil out of his body, and that if he died,
+they would send his shoes to his family as a notice of that event; and
+would bury him in consecrated ground. Some of the things he had learned
+had bored him and some had made him want to laugh, but none of them had
+impressed him, as they were intended to do, with the might and dignity of
+the ancient order.
+
+He was impressed now as he stood before this dark still house where a
+dozen ignorant fanatics waited to take his blood for what was to them a
+holy purpose. He knew that this _Morada_ was a very old one. He thought of
+all the true penitents who had knocked for admission at its door and had
+gone through its bloody ordeal with a zeal of madness which had enabled
+them to cry loudly for blows and more blows until they fell insensible. He
+tried to imagine their state of mind, but he could not. He was of their
+race and a growth of the same soil, but an alien civilization had touched
+him and sundered him from them, yet without taking him for its own. He
+could only nerve himself to face this ordeal because it would serve his
+one great purpose.
+
+As he stood there, a curious half-irrelevant thought came into his mind.
+He knew that the marks they would make on his back would be permanent. He
+had seen the long rough scars on the backs of sheep-herders, stripped to
+the waist for the hot work of shearing. And he wondered how he would
+explain these strange scars to Julia. He imagined her discovering them
+with her long dainty hands, her round white arms. A great longing surged
+up in him that seemed to weaken the very tissues of his body. He shook
+himself, threw away his cigarette, went to the heavy wooden door and
+knocked.
+
+Now he spoke a rigamarole in Spanish which had been taught him by rote.
+
+“God knocks at this mission’s door for His clemency,” he called.
+
+From within came a deep-voiced chorus, the first sound he had heard from
+the house, seeming weirdly to be the voice of the house itself.
+
+“Penance, penance, which seeks salvation!” it chanted.
+
+“Saint Peter will open to me the gate, bathing me with the light, in the
+name of Mary, with the seal of Jesus,” Ramon went on, repeating as he had
+learned. “I ask this confraternity. Who gives this house light?”
+
+“Jesus,” answered the chorus within.
+
+“Who fills it with joy?”
+
+“Mary.”
+
+“Who preserves it with faith?”
+
+“Joseph!”
+
+The door opened and Ramon entered the chapel room of the _Morada_. It was
+lighted by a single candle, which revealed dimly the rough earthen walls,
+the low roof raftered with round pine logs, the wooden benches and the
+altar, covered with black cloth. This was decorated with figures of the
+skull and cross-bones cut from white cloth. A human skull stood on either
+side of it, and a small wooden crucifix hung on the wall above it. The
+solitary candle—an ordinary tallow one in a tin holder—stood before this.
+
+The men were merely dark human shapes. The light did not reveal their
+faces. They said nothing to Ramon. He could scarcely believe that these
+were the same good-natured _pelados_ he had known by day. Indeed they were
+not the same, but were now merely units of this organization which held
+them in bondage of fear and awe.
+
+One of them took Ramon silently by the arm and led him through a low door
+into the other room which was the _Morada_ proper. This room was supposed
+never to be entered except by a member of the order or by a candidate. It
+was small and low as the other, furnished only with a few benches about
+the wall, and lighted by a couple of candles on a small table. A very old
+and tarnished oil painting of Mary with the Babe hung at one end of it.
+All the way around the room, hanging from pegs driven into the wall, was a
+row of the broad heavy braided lashes of _amole_ weed, called
+_disciplinas_, used in Holy Week, and of the blood-stained drawers worn on
+that occasion by the flagellants.
+
+Still in complete silence Ramon was forced to his knees by two of the men,
+who quickly stripped him to the waist. Beside him stood a tall
+powerfully-built Mexican with his right arm bared. In his hand he held a
+triangular bit of white quartz, cleverly chipped to a cutting edge. This
+man was the _sangredor_, whose duty it was to place the seal of the order
+upon the penitent’s back. His office required no little skill, for he had
+to make three cuts the whole length of the back and three the width,
+tearing through the skin so as to leave a permanent scar, but not deep
+enough to injure the muscle. Ramon, glancing up, saw the gleam of the
+candle light on the white quartz, and also in the eyes of the man, which
+were bright with eagerness.
+
+Now came the supreme struggle with himself. How could he go through with
+this ugly agony? He longed to leap to his feet and fight these ignorant
+louts, who were going to mangle him and beat him for their own amusement.
+He held himself down with all his will, striving to think of the girl, to
+hold his purpose before his mind, to endure.…
+
+He felt the hand of the _sangredor_ upon his neck, and gritted his teeth.
+The man’s grip was heavy, hot and firm. A flash of pain shot up and down
+his back with lightning speed, as though a red hot poker had been laid
+upon it. Again and again and again! Six times in twice as many seconds the
+deft flint ripped his skin, and he fell forward upon his hands, faint and
+sick, as he felt his own blood welling upon his back and trickling in warm
+rivulets between his ribs.
+
+But this was not all. To qualify, he knew, he must call for the lash of
+his own free will.
+
+“For the love of God,” he uttered painfully, as he had been taught, “the
+three meditations of the passion of our Lord.”
+
+On his torn back a long black snake whip came down, wielded with merciless
+force. But he felt the full agony of the first blow only. The second
+seemed faint, and the third sent him plunging downward through a red mist
+into black nothingness.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+A few days later one bright morning Ramon was sitting in the sun before
+the door of his friend, Francisco Guiterrez, feeling still somewhat sore,
+but otherwise surprisingly well. Guiterrez, a young sheep-herder, held the
+position of _coadjutor_ of the local _penitente_ chapter, and one of his
+duties as such was to take the penitent to his house and care for him
+after the initiation. He had washed Ramon’s wounds in a tea made by
+boiling Romero weed. This was a remedy which the _penitentes_ had used for
+centuries, and its efficacy was proved by the fact that Ramon’s cuts had
+begun to heal at once, and that he had had very little fever.
+
+For a couple of days Ramon had been forced to lie restlessly in the only
+bed of the Guiterrez establishment. The Senora Guiterrez, a pretty buxom
+young Mexican woman, had fed him on _atole_ gruel and on all of the eggs
+which her small flock of scrub hens produced; the seven little dirty brown
+Guiterrez children had come in to marvel at him with their fingers in
+their mouths; the Guiterrez goats and dogs and chickens had wandered in
+and out of the room in a companionable way, as though seeking to make him
+feel at ease; and Guiterrez himself had spent his evenings sitting beside
+Ramon, smoking cigarettes and talking.
+
+This time of idleness had not been wholly wasted, either, for it had come
+out in the course of conversation that Guiterrez had been offered a
+thousand dollars for his place by a man whom he did not know, but whom
+Ramon had easily identified as an agent of MacDougall. Tempted by an
+amount which he could scarcely conceive, Guiterrez was thinking seriously
+of accepting the offer.
+
+Now that he had won over Alfego and had gotten the influence of the
+_penitentes_ on his side, Ramon’s one remaining object was to defeat just
+such deals as this, which MacDougall already had under way. He intended to
+stir up feeling against the gringos, and to persuade the Mexicans not to
+sell. Later, such lands as he needed in order to control the right-of-way,
+he would gain by lending money and taking mortgages. But he did not intend
+to cheat any one. Such Mexicans as he had to oust from their lands, he
+would locate elsewhere. He was filled with a large generosity, and with a
+real love for these, his people. He meant to dominate this country, but
+his pride demanded that no one should be poor or hungry in his domain. So
+now he argued the matter to Guiterrez with real sincerity.
+
+“A thousand dollars? _Por Dios_, man! Don’t you know that this place is
+worth many thousand dollars to you?”
+
+“How can it be worth many thousand?” Guiterrez demanded. “What have I
+here? A few acres of chile and corn, a little hay, some range for my
+goats, a few cherry trees, a house.… Many thousands? No.”
+
+“You have here a home, _amigo_,” Ramon reminded him. “Do you know how long
+a thousand dollars would support you? A year, perhaps. Then you would have
+to work for other men the rest of your life. Here you are free and
+independent.”
+
+Guiterrez said nothing, but he had obviously received a new idea, and was
+impressed. Ramon never returned to the direct argument, but he missed no
+chance to stimulate Guiterrez’s pride in his establishment.
+
+“This is a good little house you have _amigo_,” he would observe. And
+Guiterrez would tell him that the house had been built by his grandfather,
+but that its walls were as firm as ever, and that he had been intending
+for several years to plaster it, but had never gotten time. Before he was
+out of bed, Ramon was reasonably sure that Guiterrez would never sell.
+
+The house was indeed charmingly situated on a hillside at the foot of
+which a little clear trout stream, called Rio Gallinas, chuckled over the
+bright pebbles in its bed and ran to hide in thickets of willow.
+
+Sitting on the _portal_, which ran the length of the house and consisted
+of a projection of the roof supported by rough pine logs, Ramon could look
+down the canyon to where it widened into a little valley that lost itself
+in the vast levels of the _mesa_. There thirsty sands swallowed the stream
+and not a sprig of green marred the harmony of grey and purple swimming in
+vivid light, reaching away to the horizon where faint blue mountains hung
+in drooping lines.
+
+By turning his head, Ramon could look into the heart of the mountains
+whence the stream issued through a narrow canyon, with steep, forested
+ridges on either side, and little level glades along the water, set with
+tall, conical blue spruce trees, pines with their warm red boles, and
+little clumps of aspen with gleaming white stems, and trembling leaves of
+mingled gold and green.
+
+Ramon spent many hours with his back against the wall, his knees drawn up
+under his chin, Mexican fashion, smoking and vaguely dreaming of the girl
+he loved and of the things he would do. The vast sun drenched landscape
+before him was too much a part of his life, too intimate a thing for him
+to appreciate its beauty, but after his struggles with doubt and desire,
+it filled him with an unaccountable contentment. Its warmth and
+brightness, its unchanging serenity, its ceaseless soft voices of wind and
+water, lulled his mind and comforted his senses. The country was like some
+great purring creature that let him lie in its bosom and filled his body
+with the warm steady throb of its untroubled strength.
+
+After a week of recuperation, he bought a horse from Guiterrez for a pack
+animal, loaded it with bedding and provisions and rode away into the
+mountains. His task was now to find other men who had fallen under the
+influence of MacDougall, and to persuade them not to sell their lands.
+Some of them would be at their homes, but others would be with the sheep
+herds, scattered here and there in the high country. He faced long days of
+mountain wandering, and for all that he longed to be done with his task,
+this part of it was sweet to him.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+These were days of power and success, days of a glamour that lingered long
+in his mind. Beyond a doubt he was destroying MacDougall’s plan and
+realizing his own. Sometimes he met a surly Mexican who would not listen
+to him, but nearly always he won the man over in the end. He was amazed at
+his own resourcefulness and eloquence. It seemed as though some inhibition
+in him had been broken down, some magical elixir poured into his
+imagination. He found that he could literally take a sheep camp by storm,
+entering into the life of the men, telling them stories, singing them
+songs, passing out presents of tobacco and whisky, often delivering a
+wildly applauded harangue on the necessity for all Mexicans to act
+together against the gringos, who would otherwise soon own the country.
+Never once did he think of the incongruity of thus fanning the flames of
+race hatred for the love of a girl with grey eyes and yellow hair.
+
+He did not always reach a house or a sheep camp at night. Many a time he
+camped alone, catching trout for his supper from a mountain stream, and
+going to sleep to the lonely music of running water in a wilderness. At
+such times many a man would have lost faith in himself, would have feared
+his crimes and lost his hopes. But to Ramon this loneliness was an old
+friend. Like all who have lived much out-of-doors he was at heart a
+pantheist, and felt more at peace and unity with wild nature than ever he
+had with men.
+
+But there was one such night when he felt troubled. As he rode up the
+Tusas Canyon at twilight, a sense of insecurity came over him, amounting
+almost to fear. He had had a somewhat similar feeling once when a panther
+had trailed him on a winter night. Now, as then, he had no idea what it
+was that menaced him; he was simply warned by that sixth sense which
+belongs to all wild things, and to men in whom there remains something of
+the feral. His horses shared his unrest. When he picketed them, just
+before dark, they fed uneasily, stopping now and then to stand like
+statues with lifted heads, testing the wind with their nostrils, moving
+their ears to catch some sound beyond human perception.
+
+When he had eaten his supper and made his bed, Ramon took the little
+automatic revolver out of its scabbard and went down the canyon a quarter
+of a mile, slipping along in the shadow of the brush that lined the banks
+of the stream. This was necessary because a half-moon made the open glades
+bright. He paused and peered a dozen times. So cautious were his movements
+that he came within forty feet of a drinking deer, and was badly startled
+when it bounded away with a snort and a smashing of brush. But he saw
+nothing dangerous and went back to his camp and to bed. There he lay awake
+for an hour, still troubled, oppressed by a vague feeling of the
+littleness and insecurity of human life.
+
+A long, rippling snort of fear from his saddle horse, picketed near his
+bed, awakened him and probably saved his life. When he opened his eyes, he
+saw the figure of a man standing directly over him. He was about to speak,
+when the man lifted his arms, swinging upward a heavy club. With quick
+presence of mind, Ramon jerked the blankets and the heavy canvas tarpaulin
+about his head, at the same time rolling over. The club came down with
+crushing force on his right shoulder. He continued to roll and flounder
+with all his might, going down a sharp slope toward the creek which was
+only a few yards away. Twice more he felt the club, once on his arm and
+once on his ribs, but his head escaped and the heavy blankets protected
+his body.
+
+The next thing he knew, he had gone over the bank of the creek, which was
+several feet high in that place, and lay in the shallow icy water.
+Meantime he had gotten his hand on the automatic pistol. He now jerked
+upright and fired at the form of his assailant, which bulked above him.
+The man disappeared. For a moment Ramon sat still. He heard footsteps, and
+something like a grunt or a groan. Then he extricated himself from the
+cold, sodden blankets, climbed upon the bank, and began cautiously
+searching about, with his weapon ready. He found the club—a heavy length
+of green spruce-and put his hand accidentally on something wet, which he
+ascertained by smelling it to be blood.
+
+He was shivering with cold and badly bruised in several places, but he was
+afraid to build a fire. In case his enemy were not badly injured or had a
+companion, that would have been risking another attack. He stood in the
+shadow of a spruce, stamping his feet and rubbing himself, acutely
+uncomfortable, waiting for daylight and wondering what this attack meant.
+He doubted whether MacDougall would have countenanced such tactics, but it
+might well have been an agent of MacDougall acting on his own
+responsibility. Or it might have been some one sent by old Archulera.
+Then, too, there were many poor connections of the Delcasar family who
+would profit by his death.
+
+As he stood there in the dark, shivering and miserable, the idea of death
+was not hard for him to conceive. He realized that but for the snort of
+the saddle horse he would now be lying under the tree with the top of his
+head crushed in. The man would probably have dragged his body into the
+thick timber and left it. There he would have lain and rotted. Or perhaps
+the coyotes would have eaten him and the buzzards afterward picked his
+bones. He shuddered. Despite his acute misery, life had never seemed more
+desirable. He thought of sunlight and warmth, of good food and of the love
+of women, and these things seemed more sweet than ever before. He
+realized, for the first time, too, that he faced many dangers and that the
+chance of death walked with him all the time. He resolved fiercely that he
+would beat all his enemies, that he would live and have his desires which
+were so sweet to him.
+
+Daylight came at last, showing him first the rim of the mountain serrated
+with spruce tops, and then lighting the canyon, revealing his disordered
+camp and his horses grazing quietly in the open. He went immediately and
+examined the ground where the struggle had taken place. A plain trail of
+blood lead away from the place, as he had expected. He formed a plan of
+action immediately.
+
+First he made a great fire, dried and warmed himself, cooked and ate his
+breakfast, drinking a full pint of hot coffee. Then he rolled up all his
+belongings, hid them in the bushes, and picketed his horses in a side
+canyon where the grass was good. When these preparations were complete, he
+took the trail of blood and followed it with the utmost care. He carried
+his weapon cocked in his hand, and always before he went around a bend in
+the canyon, or passed through a clump of trees, he paused and looked long
+and carefully, like an animal stalking dangerous prey.
+
+At last, from the cover of some willows, he saw a man sitting beside the
+creek. The man was half-naked, and was binding up his leg with some strips
+torn from his dirty shirt. He was a Mexican of the lowest and most brutal
+type, with a swarthy skin, black hair and a bullet-shaped head. Ramon
+walked toward him.
+
+“_Buenas Dias, amigo_,” he saluted.
+
+The man looked up with eyes full of patient suffering, like the eyes of a
+hurt animal. He did not seem either surprised or frightened. He nodded and
+went on binding up his leg.
+
+Ramon watched him a minute. He saw that the man was weak from loss of
+blood. There was a great patch of dried blood on the ground beside him,
+now beginning to flake and curl in the sun.
+
+“I will come back in a minute, friend,” he said.
+
+He went back to his camp, saddled his horses, putting some food in the
+saddle pockets. When he returned, the Mexican sat in exactly the same
+place with his back against a rock and his legs and arms inert. Ramon
+fried bacon and made coffee for him. He had to help the man put the food
+in his mouth and hold a cup for him to drink. Afterward, with great
+difficulty, he loaded the man on his saddle horse, where he sat heavily,
+clutching the pommel with both hands. Ramon mounted the pack horse
+bareback.
+
+“Where do you live, friend?” Ramon asked.
+
+“Tusas,” the Mexican replied, naming a little village ten miles down the
+canyon.
+
+They exchanged no other words until they came within sight of the group of
+_adobe_ houses. Then Ramon stopped his horse and turned to the man.
+
+“You were hunting,” he told him slowly and impressively, “and you dropped
+your gun and shot yourself. _Sabes?_”
+
+The man nodded.
+
+“How much were you paid to kill me, friend?” Ramon then asked.
+
+The man looked at the pommel of the saddle, and his swarthy face darkened
+with a heavy flush.
+
+“One hundred dollars,” he admitted. “I needed the money to christen a
+child. Could I let my child go to hell? But I did not mean to kill you.
+Only to beat you, so you would go away. Do not ask who sent me, for the
+love of God.…”
+
+“I ask nothing more, friend,” Ramon assured him. “And since you were to
+have a hundred dollars for making me leave the country, here is a hundred
+dollars for not succeeding.”
+
+Both of them laughed. Ramon then rode on and delivered the man to his
+excited and grateful wife. He went back to his camp very weary and sore,
+but feeling that he had done an excellent stroke of work for his purpose.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+After this occurrence his success among the humbler Mexicans was more
+marked than ever, but some of the men of property who had been subsidized
+by MacDougall were not so easily won over. Such a case was that of old
+Pedro Alcatraz who owned a little store in the town of Vallecitos, a bit
+of land and a few thousand sheep. Alcatraz was a tall boney old man, and
+was of nearly pure Navajo Indian blood, as one could tell by the queer
+crinkled character of his beard and moustache, which were like those of a
+chinaman. He was simple and direct like an Indian, too, lacking the
+Mexican talent for lying and artifice. In his own town he was a petty
+czar, like Alfego, but on a much smaller scale. By reason of being
+_Hermano Mayor_ of the local _penitente_ chapter, and of having most of
+the people in his own neighbourhood in debt to him, he had considerable
+power. He was advising men to sell their lands, and was lending more money
+on land than it was reasonable to suppose he owned. Beyond a doubt, he had
+been won by MacDougall’s dollars.
+
+Ramon found Alcatraz unresponsive. The old man listened to a long harangue
+on the subject of the race issue without a word of reply, and without
+looking up. Ramon then played what should have been his strongest card.
+
+“My friend,” he said, “you may not know it, but I am your brother in the
+blood of Christ. Do I not then deserve better of you than a gringo who is
+trying to take this country away from the Mexican people?”
+
+“Yes,” the old man answered quietly, “I know you are a _penitente_, and I
+know why. Do you think that I am a fool like these _pelados_ that herd my
+sheep? You wear the scars of a _penitente_ because you think it will help
+you to make money and to do what you want. You are just like MacDougall,
+except that he uses money and you use words. A poor man can only choose
+his masters, and for my part I have more use for money than for words.” So
+saying, the blunt old savage walked to the other end of his store and
+began showing a Mexican woman some shawls.
+
+Ramon went away, breathing hard with rage, slapping his quirt against his
+boots. He would show that old _cabron_ who was boss in these mountains!
+
+He went immediately and hired the little _adobe_ hall which is found in
+every Mexican town of more than a hundred inhabitants, and made
+preparations to give a _baile_.
+
+To give a dance is the surest and simplest way to win popularity in a
+Mexican town, and Ramon spared no expense to make this affair a success.
+He sent forty miles across the mountains for two fiddlers to help out the
+blind man who was the only local musician. He arranged a feast, and in a
+back room he installed a small keg of native wine and one of beer.
+
+The invitation was general and every one who could possibly reach the
+place in a day’s journey came. The women wore for the most part calico
+dresses, bright in colour and generous in volume, heavily starched and
+absolutely devoid of fit. Their brown faces were heavily powdered,
+producing in some of the darker ones a purplish tint, which was ghastly in
+the light of the oil lamps. Some of the younger girls were comely despite
+their crude toilets, with soft skins, ripe breasts, mild dark heifer-like
+eyes, and pretty teeth showing in delighted grins. The men wore the cheap
+ready-made suits which have done so much to make Americans look alike
+everywhere, but they achieved a degree of originality by choosing brighter
+colours than men generally wear, being especially fond of brilliant
+electric blues and rich browns. Their broad but often handsome faces were
+radiant with smiles, and their thick black hair was wetted and greased
+into shiny order.
+
+The dance started with difficulty, despite symptoms of eagerness on all
+hands. Bashful youths stalled and crowded in the doorway like a log jam in
+the river. Bashful girls, seated all around the room, nudged and tittered
+and then became solemn and self-conscious. Each number was preceded by a
+march, several times around the room, which was sedate and formal in the
+extreme. The favourite dance was a fast, hopping waltz, in which the swain
+seized his partner firmly in both hands under the arms and put her through
+a vigorous test of wind and agility. The floor was rough and sanded, and
+the rasping of feet almost drowned the music. There were long Virginia
+reels, led with peremptory dash by a master of ceremonies, full of grace
+and importance. Swarthy faces were bedewed with sweat and dark eyes glowed
+with excitement, but there was never the slightest relaxation of the
+formalism of the affair. For this dance in an earthen hovel on a plank
+floor was the degenerate but lineal descendant of the splendid and formal
+balls which the Dons had held in the old days, when New Spain belonged to
+its proud and wealthy conquerors; it was the wistful and grotesque remnant
+of a dying order.
+
+Ramon had a vague realization of this fact as he watched the affair. It
+stirred a sort of sentimental pity in him. But he threw off that feeling,
+he had work to do. He entered into the spirit of the thing, dancing with
+every woman on the floor. He took the men in groups to the back room and
+treated them. He missed no opportunity to get in a word against the
+gringos, and incidentally against those Mexicans who betrayed their
+fellows by advising them to sell their lands. He never mentioned Alcatraz
+by name, but he made it clear enough to whom he referred.
+
+Late in the evening, when all were mellowed by drink and excited by
+dancing, he gained the attention of the gathering on the pretext of
+announcing a special dance, and boldly gave a harangue in which he urged
+all Mexicans to stick together against the gringos, and above all not to
+sell their homes which their fathers had won from the barbarians, and were
+the foundations of their prosperity and freedom.
+
+“Remember,” he urged them in a burst of eloquence that surprised himself,
+“that in your veins is the blood of conquerors—blood which was poured out
+on these hills and valleys to win them from the Indians, precious blood
+which has made this land priceless to you for all time!”
+
+His speech was greeted with a burst of applause unquestionably
+spontaneous. It filled him with a sense of power that was almost
+intoxicating. In the town he might be neglected, despised, picked for an
+easy mark, but here among his own people he was a ruler and leader by
+birth.
+
+The most important result of the _baile_ was that it won over the stubborn
+Alcatraz. He did not attend it, but he knew what happened there. He
+realized that advice in favour of selling land would not be popular in
+that section for a long time, and he acknowledged his defeat by inviting
+Ramon to dinner at his house, and driving a shrewd bargain with him,
+whereby he gave his influence in exchange for certain grazing privileges.
+
+On his way home a few days later Ramon looked back at the mountains with
+the feeling that they belonged to him by right of conquest.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+A week later Ramon was driving across the _mesa_ west of town, bound for
+the state capital. He was following the same route that Diego Delcasar had
+followed on the day of his death, and he passed within a few miles of
+Archulera’s ranch; but no thought either of his uncle or of Archulera
+entered his mind. For in his pocket was a letter consisting of a single
+sentence hastily scrawled in a large round upright hand on
+lavender-scented note paper. The sentence was:
+
+
+
+“Meet you at the southwest corner of the Plaza Tuesday at seven thirty.
+
+                                                                “Love,
+
+                                                                 “J. R.”
+
+
+
+A great deal of trouble and anxiety had preceded the receipt of that
+message. First he had written her a letter that was unusually long and
+exuberant for him, telling her of his success and that now he was ready to
+come and get her in accordance with their agreement, suggesting a time and
+place. Three days of cumulative doubt and agony had gone by without a
+reply. Then he had tried to reach her by long distance telephone, but
+without success. Finally he had wired, although he knew that a telegram is
+a risky vehicle for confidential business. Now he had her answer, the
+answer that he wanted. His spirit was released and leapt forward, leaving
+resentments and doubts far behind.
+
+It was eighty miles to the state capital, the road was good all the way,
+the day bright and cool. His route lead across the _mesa_, through the
+Scissors Pass, and then north and east along the foot of the mountains.
+
+Immense and empty the country stretched before him—a land of far-flung
+levels and even farther mountains; a land which makes even the sea, with
+its near horizons, seem little; a land which has always produced men of
+daring because it inspires a sense of freedom without any limit save what
+daring sets.
+
+He had dared and won. He was going to take the sweet price of his daring.
+The engine of his big car sang to him a song of victory and desire. He
+rejoiced in the sense of power under his hand. He opened the throttle
+wider and the car answered with more speed, licking up the road like a
+hungry monster. How easily he mastered time and distance for his purpose!
+
+He was to have her, she would be his. So sang the humming motor and the
+wind in his ears. Her white arms and her red mouth, her splendid eyes that
+feared and yielded! She was waiting for him! More speed. He conquered the
+hills with a roar of strength to spare, topped the crests, and sped down
+the long slopes like a bird coming to earth.
+
+He was to have her, she would be his. Could it be true? The great machine
+that carried him to their tryst roared an affirmative, the wind sang of
+it, his blood quickened with anticipation incredibly keen. And always the
+distance that lay between them was falling behind in long, grey passive
+miles.
+
+He had reached his destination a little after six. As he drove slowly
+through the streets of the little dusty town, the mood of exaltation that
+had possessed him during the trip died down. He was intent, worried
+practical. Having registered at the hotel, he got a handful of time tables
+and made his plans with care. They would drive to a town twenty-five miles
+away, be married, and catch the California Limited. There would just be
+time. Once he had her in his car, nothing could stop them.
+
+The _plaza_ or public square about which the old town was built, and which
+had been its market place in the old days, was now occupied by a neat
+little park with a band stand. Retail stores and banks fronted on three
+sides of it, but the fourth was occupied by a long low _adobe_ building
+which was very old and had been converted into a museum of local
+antiquities. It was dark and lifeless at night, and in its shadow-filled
+verandah he was to meet her.
+
+He had his car parked beside the spot ten minutes ahead of time. It was
+slightly cold now, with a gusty wind whispering about the streets and
+tearing big papery leaves from the cottonwood trees in the park. The
+_plaza_ was empty save for an occasional passer-by whose quick footfalls
+rang sharply in the silence. Here and there was an illuminated shop
+window. The drug store on the opposite corner showed a bright interior,
+where two small boys devoured ice cream sodas with solemn rapture.
+Somewhere up a side street a choir was practising a hymn, making a noise
+infinitely doleful.
+
+He had a bear-skin to wrap her in, and he arranged this on the seat beside
+him and then tried to wait patiently. He sat very tense and motionless,
+except for an occasional glance at his watch, until it showed exactly
+seven-thirty. Then he got out of his car and began walking first to one
+side of the corner and then to the other, for he did not know from which
+direction she would come. At twenty-five minutes of eight he was angry,
+but in another ten minutes anger had given way to a dull heavy
+disappointment that seemed to hold him by the throat and make it difficult
+to swallow. None-the-less he waited a full hour before he started up his
+car and drove slowly back to the hotel.
+
+On the way he debated with himself whether he should try to communicate
+with her tonight or wait until the next day. He knew that the wisest thing
+would be to wait until the next day and send her a note, but he also knew
+that he could not wait. He would find out where she lived, call her on the
+telephone, and learn what had prevented her from keeping the appointment.
+He had desperate need to know that something besides her own will had kept
+her away.
+
+When he went to the hotel desk, a clerk handed him a letter.
+
+“This was here when you registered, I think,” he said. “But I didn’t know
+it. I’m sorry.”
+
+When he saw the handwriting of the address he was filled with commotion.
+Here, then, was her explanation. This would tell him why she had failed
+him. This, in all probability, would make all right.
+
+He went to his room to read it, sat down on the edge of the bed and ripped
+the envelope open with an impatient finger. The letter was dated two days
+earlier—the day after she had received his telegram.
+
+“I don’t know what to say,” she wrote, “but it doesn’t matter much. You
+will despise me anyway, and I despise myself. But I can’t help it—honestly
+I can’t. I meant to keep my promise and I would have kept it, but they
+found your telegram and mother read it—by mistake, of course. I ought to
+have had sense enough to burn it. You can’t imagine how awful it has been.
+Mother said the most terrible things about you, things she had heard. And
+she said that I would be ruining my life and hers. I said I didn’t care,
+because I loved you. I can’t tell you what an awful quarrel we had! And I
+wouldn’t have given in, but she told Gordon and he was so terribly angry.
+He said it was a disgrace to the family, and he began to cough and had a
+hemorrhage and we thought he was going to die. Mother said he probably
+would die unless I gave you up.
+
+“That finished me. I couldn’t do anything after that—I just couldn’t.
+There was nothing but misery in sight either way, so what was the use?
+I’ve lost all my courage and all my doubts have come back. I do love
+you—terribly. But you are so strange, so different. And I don’t think we
+would have gotten along or anything. I try to comfort myself by thinking
+it’s all for the best, but it doesn’t really comfort me at all. I never
+knew people could be as miserable as I am now. I don’t think its fair.
+
+“When you get this I will be on my way to New York and nearly there. We
+are going to sail for Europe immediately. I will never see you again. I
+will always love you.
+
+                                                                 “Julia.”
+
+
+
+Rage possessed him at first—the rage of defeated desire, of injured pride,
+of a passionate, undisciplined nature crossed and beaten. He flung the
+letter on the floor, and strode up and down the room, looking about for
+something to smash or tear. So she was that kind of a creature—a
+miserable, whimpering fool that would let an old woman and a sick man rule
+her! She was afraid her brother might die. What an excuse! And he had
+killed, or at least sanctioned killing, for her sake. He had poured out
+his blood for her. There was nothing he would not have dared or done to
+have her. And here she had the soul of a sheep!
+
+But no—perhaps that was not it. Perhaps she had been playing with him all
+along, had never had any idea of marrying him—because he was a Mexican!
+
+Bitter was this thought, but it died as his anger died. Something that sat
+steady and clear inside of him told him that he was a fool. He was reading
+the letter again, and he knew it was all truth. “There was nothing but
+misery in sight either way,” she had written.
+
+Suddenly he understood; suffering and an awakened imagination had given
+him insight. For the first time in his life, he realized the feelings of
+another. He realized how much he had asked of this girl, who had all her
+life been ruled, who had never tasted freedom nor practised self-reliance.
+He saw now that she had rebelled and had fought against the forces and
+fears that oppress youth, as had he, and that she had been bewildered and
+overcome.
+
+His anger was gone. All hot emotion was gone. In its place was a great
+loneliness, tinged with pity. He looked at the letter again. Its
+handwriting showed signs of disturbance in the writer, but she had not
+forgotten to scent it with that faint delightful perfume which was forever
+associated in his mind with her. It summoned the image of her with a
+vividness he could not bear.
+
+But courage and pride are not killed at a blow. He threw the letter aside
+and shook himself sharply, like a man just awake trying to shake off the
+memory of a nightmare. She was gone, she was lost. Well, what of it? There
+were many other women in the world, many beautiful women. And he was
+strong now, successful. One woman could not hurt him by her refusal. He
+tried resolutely to put her out of his mind, and to think of his business,
+of his plans. But these things which had glowed so brightly in his
+imagination just a few hours before were suddenly as dead as cinders. He
+knew that he cared little for dollars and lands in themselves. His nature
+demanded a romantic object, and this love had given it to him. Love had
+found him a wretch and a weakling, and had made him suddenly strong and
+ruthless, bringing out all the colours of his being, dark and bright,
+making life suddenly intense and purposeful.
+
+And she had meant so much to him besides love. To have won her would have
+been to win a great victory over the gringos—over that civilization, alien
+to him in race and temper, which antagonized and yet fascinated him, with
+which he was forced to grapple for his life.
+
+She was gone, he had lost her. Perhaps it was just as well, after all, he
+told himself, speaking out of his pride and his courage. But in his heart
+was a great bitterness. In his heart he felt that the gringos had beaten
+one more Delcasar.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+The next few days Ramon spent quietly and systematically drinking whisky.
+This he did partly because he had a notion that it was an appropriate
+thing to do under the circumstances, and partly because he had a genuine
+need for something to jolt his mind out of its rut of misery. He was not
+sociable in his cups, and did not seek company of either sex, inviting a
+man to drink with him or accepting such an invitation only when he had to
+do so. His favourite resort was the Silver Dollar Saloon, which was
+furnished with tables set between low partitions, so that when he had one
+of these booths to himself he enjoyed a considerable degree of isolation.
+He drank carefully, like a Spaniard, never losing control of his feet or
+of his eyes, taking always just enough to keep his mind away from
+realities and filled with dreams. In these dreams Julia played a vivid and
+delightful part. He imagined himself encountering her under all sorts of
+circumstances, and always she was yielding, repentant, she was his. In a
+dozen different ways he conquered her, taking in imagination, as men have
+always done, what the reality had denied. Some of his fancies were
+delightful and filled him with a sense of triumph, so that men glanced
+curiously at the bright-eyed boy who sat there in his corner all alone,
+absorbed and intent. But there were other times at night when his defeated
+desire came and lay in his arms like an invisible unyielding succuba,
+torturing, maddening, driving him back to the street to drink until
+drunken sleep came with its sudden brutal mercy.
+
+But after a few days alcohol began to have little effect upon him, except
+that when he awoke his hands were all aflutter so that he spilled his
+coffee and tore his newspaper. He felt sick and weary, his misery numbed
+by many repetitions of its every twinge. A sure instinct urged him to get
+out of the town and into the mountains, but he hated to go alone and
+lacked the initiative to start. He had a friend in the capital named
+Curtis, who was half Mexican and half Irish. This young man was a dealer
+in mules and horses, and he had a herd of some twenty head to take across
+the mountains about sixty miles. Badly in need of a helper and unable to
+hire one, he asked Ramon to go with him. The proposition was accepted with
+relief but without enthusiasm.
+
+Trouble started immediately. The horses were only half broken, and the one
+they chose for a pack animal rebelled ten miles from town and bucked the
+pack off, scattering tin dishes, sides of bacon, loaves of bread and cans
+of condensed milk all over a quarter of a mile of rough country. They
+rounded up the recalcitrant in a pouring rain, and made a wet and
+miserable camp, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion in sodden blankets. The
+next morning the pack horse opened the exercises by rolling down a steep
+bank into the creek, plastering himself on the way from head to tail with
+a half gallon of high grade sorghum syrup which had been on top of the
+load. At this Ramon’s tortured nerves exploded and he jumped into the
+water after the floundering animal, belabouring it with a quirt, and
+cursing it richly in two languages.
+
+He then put a slip noose around its upper lip and led it unmercifully,
+while Curtis encouraged it from behind with a rope-end. Like all Mexicans,
+they had little sympathy for horseflesh.
+
+These labours and hardships were Ramon’s salvation. The exercise and air
+restored his health and in fighting the difficulties of unlucky travel he
+relieved in some degree the rage against life that embittered him.
+
+When he got back to his room in the hotel he felt measurably at peace,
+though weary in mind and body. He came across Julia’s letter, and the
+sight and scent of it struck him a sharp painful blow, but he did not
+pause now to savour his pain; he tore the letter into small pieces and
+threw it away. Then he got out his car and started for home.
+
+He went back beaten over the same road that he had followed in the moment
+of his highest hope, when life had seemed about to keep all the wonderful
+promises it whispers in the ear of youth. But strangely this trip was not
+the sad and sentimental affair it should have been. His rugged health had
+largely recovered from the shock of disappointment and dissipation, an
+excellent breakfast was digesting within him, the sky was bright as
+polished turquoise and the ozonous west wind, which is the very breath of
+hope, played sweetly in his face. He began to discover various consoling
+conditions in his lot, which had seemed so intolerable just a few days
+before.
+
+Probably no man under forty ever lost a woman without feeling in some
+degree compensated by a sense of freedom regained, and in the man of
+solitary and self-reliant nature, to whom freedom is a boon if not a
+necessity, this feeling is not slow to assert itself. Moreover, Ramon was
+now caught in the inevitable reaction from a purpose which had gathered
+and concentrated his energies with passionate intensity for almost four
+months. During that time he had lived with taut nerves for a single hope;
+he had turned away from a dozen alluring by-paths; he had known that
+absorbed singleness of purpose which belongs only to lovers, artists and
+other monomaniacs.
+
+The bright hope that had led him had suddenly exploded, leaving him
+stunned and flat for a time. Now he got to his feet and looked about. He
+realized that the world still lay before him, a place of wonderful promise
+and possibility, and apparently he could stray in any direction he chose.
+He had money and freedom and an excellent equipment of appetites and
+curiosities. Things he had dreamed of doing long ago, in case he should
+ever come into his wealth, now revisited his imagination. He had promised
+himself for one thing some hunting trips—long ones into the mountains and
+down the river in his car. Gambling had always fascinated him, and he had
+longed to sit in a game high enough to be really interesting, instead of
+the quarter-limit affair that he had always played before. And there were
+women … other women. And he meant to go to New York or Chicago sometime
+and sample the fleshpots of a really great city.… Life after all was still
+an interesting thing.
+
+Not that he forgot his serious purposes. He meant to open a law office, to
+cultivate his political connections, to pursue his conquest of Arriba
+County. But although he did not realize it, his plans for making himself a
+strong and secure position in life had lost their vitalizing purpose. All
+of these things he would do, but there was no hurry about them. His desire
+now was to taste the sweetness of life, and to rest. He was without a
+strong acquisitive impulse, and now that his great purpose in making money
+was gone, these projects did not strongly engage his imagination. He had
+plenty of money. He refused to worry. He felt reckless, too. If he had
+lost his great hope, his reward was to be released from the discipline it
+had imposed.
+
+Nor was there any other discipline to take its place. If there had been a
+strong creative impulse in him, or if he had faced a real struggle for his
+life or his personal freedom, he might now have recovered that condition
+of trained and focussed energy which civilized life demands of men. But he
+was too primitive to be engaged by any purely intellectual purpose, and
+his money was a buffer between him and struggle imposed from without.
+
+As he thought of all the things he would do, he felt strong and sure of
+himself. He thought that he was now a shrewd, cynical man, who could not
+be deceived or imposed upon, who could take the good things of life and
+discount the disillusionments.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+One of his first acts in town was to negotiate a note at the bank for
+several thousand dollars. This was necessary because he had little cash
+and would not have much until spring, when he would sell lambs and shear
+his sheep. He not only needed money for himself, but his mother and
+sister, after many lean years, were eager to spend.
+
+He drove out to see Catalina, and found her big with child and utterly
+indifferent to him, which piqued him slightly and relieved him a great
+deal. She had heard nothing about her father, and Ramon sent Cortez out to
+Domingo Canyon to see what had become of the old man. Cortez reported the
+place deserted. Ramon made inquiry in town and learned that Archulera had
+been seen there in his absence, very much dressed-up and very drunk,
+followed by a crowd of young Mexicans who were evidently parasites on his
+newly-acquired wealth. Then he had disappeared, and some thought he had
+gone to Denver. It was evident that his five thousand dollars had proved
+altogether too much for him.
+
+Ramon now hung out a shingle, announcing himself as an attorney-at-law. Of
+course, no business came to him. The right way to get a practice would
+have been to go back to the office of Green or some other established
+lawyer for several years. But Ramon had no idea of doing anything so
+tiresome and so relatively humiliating. The idea of running errands for
+Green again was repugnant to him.
+
+He went every morning to his office and for a while he took a certain
+amount of satisfaction in merely sitting there, reading the local papers,
+smoking a cigar, now and then taking down one of his text books and
+reading a little. But study as such had absolutely no appeal to him. He
+might have dug at the dry case books to good purpose if he had been driven
+by need, but as it was he would begin to yawn in ten or fifteen minutes,
+and then would put the book away. He went home to a noonday dinner rather
+early and came back in the afternoon, feeling sleepy and bored. Now the
+office, and indeed the whole town, seemed a dreary place to him. At this
+season of the year there were often high winds which mantled the town in a
+yellow cloud of sand, and rattled at every loose shutter and door with
+futile dreary persistence. Ramon would wander about the office for a
+little while with his hands in his pockets and stare out the window,
+feeling depressed, thoughts of his disappointment coming back to him
+bitterly. Then he would take his hat and go out and look for some one to
+play pool with him. Often he took an afternoon off and went hunting, not
+alone as formerly he had done, but with as large a party as he could
+gather. They would drive out into the sand hills and _mesas_ twenty or
+thirty miles from town, where the native quail and rabbits were still
+abundant as automobiles had just begun to invade their haunts. When they
+found a covey of quail the sport would be fast and furious, with half a
+dozen guns going at once and birds rising and falling in all directions.
+Ramon keenly enjoyed the hot excitement and dramatic quality of this.
+
+At night he was usually to be found at the White Camel Pool Hall where the
+local sporting element foregathered and made its plans for the evening.
+Sometimes a party would be formed to “go down the line,” as a visit to the
+red light district was called. Sometimes the rowdy dance halls of Old Town
+were invaded. On Saturday nights the dance at the country club always drew
+a considerable attendance. There was also a “dancing class” conducted by
+an estimable and needy spinster named Grimes, who held assembly dances
+once in two weeks in a little hall which had been built by the Woman’s
+Club. This event always drew a large and very mixed crowd, including some
+of the “best people” and others who were considered not so good. Usually
+two or three different sets were represented at these gatherings, each
+tending to keep to itself. But there was also a tendency for the sets to
+overlap. Thus a couple of very pretty German girls, who were the daughters
+of a local saloon keeper, always appeared accompanied by young men of
+their own circle with whom they danced almost exclusively at first. But
+young men of the first families could not resist their charms, and they
+soon were among the most popular girls on the floor. This was deplored by
+the young women of more secure social position, who were wont to remark
+that the crowd was deteriorating frightfully. Some of these same superior
+virgins found it necessary for politeness to dance with Joe Bartello, the
+son of an Italian saloon owner, and a very handsome and nimble-footed
+youth. In a word, this was a place of social hazard and adventure, and
+that was more than half its charm. It finally became so crowded that
+dancing was almost impossible.
+
+The back room at the White Camel, where poker games were nightly in
+progress, also afforded Ramon frequent diversion. He played in the “big”
+game now, where the stakes and limits were high, and was one of the most
+daring and dangerous of its patrons. He had more money back of him than
+most of the men who played there, and he also had more courage. If he
+started a bluff he carried it through to the end, which was always bitter
+for some one. He had been known to stand pat on a pair and scare every one
+else out of the game by the resolute confidence of his betting. His
+plunges, of course, sometimes cost him heavily, but for a long time he was
+a moderate winner. His limitations as a poker player were finally
+demonstrated to him by one Fitzhugh Chesterman, a man with one lung.
+
+Chesterman was about twenty-six years old and had come from Richmond,
+Virginia, about two years before, with most of one lung gone and the other
+rapidly going. He was a tall, thin blond youth with the sensitive,
+handsome face which so often marks the rare survivor of the old southern
+aristocracy. He was totally lacking in the traditional southern
+sentimentality. His eye had a cold twinkle of courage that even the
+imminent prospect of death could not quench, and his thin shapely lips
+nearly always wore a smile slightly twisted by irony. He established
+himself at the state university, which had almost a hundred students and
+boasted a dormitory where living was very cheap. Chesterman sat before
+this dormitory twelve to fourteen hours a day, even in relatively cold
+weather. He made a living by coaching students in mathematics and Greek.
+He never raised his voice, he seldom laughed, he never lost his temper.
+With his unwavering ironical smile, as though he appreciated the keen
+humour of taking so much trouble over such an insignificant thing as a
+human life, he husbanded his energy and fought for health. He took all the
+treatments the local sanatoria afforded, but he avoided carefully all the
+colonies and other gatherings of the tubercular. When his lung began to
+heal, as it did after about a year, and his strength to increase, he
+enlarged his earnings by playing poker. He won for the simple reason that
+he took no more chances than he had to. He systematically capitalized
+every bit of recklessness, stupidity and desperation in his opponents.
+
+When Ramon first encountered him, the game soon simmered down to a
+struggle between the two. Never were the qualities of two races more
+strikingly contrasted. Ramon bluffed and plunged. Chesterman was caution
+itself, playing out antes in niggardly fashion until he had a hand which
+put the law of probabilities strongly on his side. Ramon was full of
+daring, intuition, imagination, bidding always for the favour of the
+fates, throwing logic to the winds. He was not above moving his seat or
+putting on his hat to change his luck. Chesterman smiled at these things.
+He was cold courage battling for a purpose and praying to no deities but
+Cause and Effect. Ramon thought he was playing for money, but he was
+really playing for the sake of his own emotions, revelling alike in hope
+and despair, triumph and victory, flushed and bright-eyed. Chesterman
+stifled every emotion, discounted every hope, said as little as possible,
+never relaxed his faint twisted smile.
+
+Ramon made some spectacular winnings, but Chesterman wore him down as
+surely as a slow hound wears down a deer despite its astounding bursts of
+speed. Ramon was sure to lose in the long run because he was always piling
+up odds against himself by the long chances he took, while his bluffs
+seldom deceived his cool and courageous opponent. The finish came at one
+o’clock in the morning. Chesterman was pale with exhaustion, but otherwise
+unchanged. Ramon was hoarse and flushed, chewing a cigar to bits. He held
+a full house and determined to back it to the limit. Chesterman met him,
+bet for bet, raising every time. Ramon knew that he must be beaten. He
+knew that Chesterman would not raise him unless he had a very strong hand.
+But he was beaten anyway. At the bottom of his consciousness, he knew that
+he had met a better man. He wanted to end the contest on this hand. When
+Chesterman showed four kings, Ramon fell back in his chair, weak and
+disgusted. The other players, most of whom had long been out of the game,
+got up and said good night one by one. Only the two were left, Ramon
+plunged in gloomy reaction, Chesterman coolly counting his money, putting
+it away.
+
+“I seem to have made quite a killing,” he remarked, “how much did you
+lose?”
+
+“O, I don’t know … about five hundred. Hell, what’s five hundred to me … I
+don’t give a damn … I’m rich.…”
+
+Chesterman glanced at him keenly.
+
+“Well,” he remarked, “I’m glad you feel that way about it, because I sure
+need the money.”
+
+He got up and walked away with the short careful steps of a man who
+cherishes every ounce of his energy.
+
+Ramon was disgusted with himself. Chesterman had made him feel like a
+weakling and a child. He had thought himself a lion in this game, and he
+had found out that he was an easily-shorn lamb. He could not afford to
+lose five hundred dollars either. He was not really a rich man. He went
+home feeling deeply depressed and discouraged. Vaguely he realized that in
+Chesterman he had encountered the spirit which he felt against him
+everywhere—a cool, calculating, unmerciful spirit of single purpose,
+against which the play and flow of his emotional and imaginative nature
+was as ineffectual as mercury against the point of a knife.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+Within the next few days Ramon was sharply reminded that he lived in a
+little town where news travels fast and nobody’s business is exclusively
+his own. Cortez came into his office and accepted a seat and a cigar with
+that respectful but worried manner which always indicated that he had
+something to say.
+
+“I hear you lost five hundred dollars the other night,” he observed
+gravely, watching his young employer’s face.
+
+“Well, what of it?” Ramon enquired, a bit testily.
+
+“You can’t afford it,” Cortez replied. “And not only the money … you’ve
+got to think of your reputation. You know how these gringos are. They keep
+things quiet. They expect a young man to lead a quiet life and tend to
+business. It’s all right to have a little fun … they all do it … but for
+God’s sake be careful. You hurt your chances this way … in the law, in
+politics.”
+
+Ramon jerked his head impatiently and flushed a little, but reflection
+checked his irritation. Hatred of restraint, love of personal liberty, the
+animal courage that scorns to calculate consequences were his by heritage.
+But he knew that Cortez spoke the truth.
+
+“All right Antonio,” he said with dignity. “I’ll be careful.”
+
+The next day he got a letter which emphasized the value of his henchman’s
+warning and made Ramon really thoughtful. It was from MacDougall, and made
+him another offer for his land. It had a preamble to the effect that land
+values were falling, money was “tight,” and therefore Ramon would do well
+to sell now, before a further drop in prices. It made him an offer of ten
+thousand dollars less than MacDougall had offered before.
+
+Ramon knew that the talk about falling values was largely bluff, that
+MacDougall had heard of his losses and of his loose and idle life, and
+thought that he could now buy the lands at his own price. The gringo had
+confidently waited for the Mexican to make a fool of himself. Ramon
+resolved hotly that he would do no such thing. He had no idea of selling.
+He would be more careful with his money, and next summer he would go back
+to Arriba County, renew his campaign against MacDougall and buy some land
+with the money he could get for timber and wool. He replied very curtly to
+MacDougall that his lands were not for sale.
+
+After that he stayed away from poker games for a while. This was made
+easier by a new interest which had entered his life in the person of a
+waitress at the Eldorado Lunch room. The girls at this lunch room had long
+borne a bad reputation. Even in the days before the big hotel had been
+built, when the railroad company maintained merely a little red frame
+building there, known as the Eating House, these waitresses had been a
+mainstay of local bachelordom. Their successors were still referred to by
+their natural enemies, the respectable ladies of the town, as “those awful
+eating house girls”; while the advent of a new “hash-slinger” was always a
+matter of considerable interest among the unmarried exquisites who
+fore-gathered at the White Camel. In this way Ramon quickly heard of the
+new waitress. She was reputed to be both prettier and less approachable
+than most of her kind. Sidney Felberg had made a preliminary
+reconnaissance and a pessimistic report.
+
+“Nothing doing,” he said. “She’s got a husband somewhere and a notion
+she’s cut out for better things.… I’m off her!”
+
+This immediately provoked Ramon’s interest. He went to the lunch room at a
+time when he knew there would be few customers. When he saw the girl he
+felt a faint thrill. The reason for this was that Dora McArdle somewhat
+resembled Julia. The resemblance was slight and superficial, yet instantly
+noticeable. She was a little larger, but had about the same figure, and
+the same colour of hair, and above all the same sensuous, provocative
+mouth. Ramon followed her with his eyes until she became conscious of his
+scrutiny, when she tossed her head with that elaborate affectation of
+queenly scorn, which seems to be the special talent of waitresses
+everywhere. Nevertheless, when she came to take his order she gave him a
+pleasant smile. He saw now that she was not really like Julia. She was
+coarse and commonplace, but she was also shapely, ripe-breasted,
+good-natured, full of the appeal of a healthy animalism.
+
+“What time do you get done here?” Ramon enquired.
+
+“Don’t know that it’s any of your business,” she replied with another one
+of her crushing tosses of the head, and went away to get his order. When
+she came back he asked again.
+
+“What time did you say?”
+
+“Well, about nine o’clock, if it’ll give you any pleasure to know.”
+
+“I’ll come for you in my car,” he told her.
+
+“Oh! will you?” and she paid no more attention to him until he started to
+go, when she gave him a broad smile, showing a couple of gold teeth.
+
+At nine o’clock he was waiting for her at the door, and she went with him.
+He took her for a drive on the _mesa_, heading for the only road house
+which the vicinity boasted. It was a great stone house, which had been
+built long ago by a rich man, and had later fallen into the hands of an
+Italian named Salvini, who installed a bar, and had both private dining
+rooms and bed rooms, these latter available only to patrons in whom he had
+the utmost confidence. This resort was informally known as the “chicken
+ranch.”
+
+When Ramon tried to take his fair partner there, on the plea that they
+must have a bite to eat, she objected.
+
+“I don’t believe that place is respectable,” she told him very primly. “I
+don’t think you ought to ask me to go there.”
+
+“O Hell!” said Ramon to himself. But aloud he proposed that they should
+drive to an adjacent hill-top from which the lights of the town could be
+seen. When he had parked the car on this vantage point and lit a
+cigarette, Dora began a narrative of a kind with which he was thoroughly
+familiar. She was of that well-known type of woman who is found in a
+dubious position, but explains that she has known better days. Her father
+had been a judge in Kansas, the family had been wealthy, she had never
+known what work was until she got married, her marriage had been a
+tragedy, her husband had drank, there had been a smash-up, the family had
+met with reverses. On and on went the story, its very tone and character
+and the grammar she used testifying eloquently to the fact that she was no
+such crushed violet as she claimed to be. Ramon was bored. A year ago he
+would have been more tolerant, but now he had experienced feminine charm
+of a really high order, and all the vulgarity and hypocrisy of this woman
+was apparent to him. And yet as he sat beside her he was keenly, almost
+morbidly conscious of the physical attraction of her fine young body. For
+all her commonness and coarseness, he wanted her with a peculiarly urgent
+desire. Here was the heat of love without the flame and light, desire with
+no more exaltation than accompanies a good appetite for dinner. He was
+puzzled and a little disgusted.… He did not understand that this was his
+defeated love, seeking, as such a love almost inevitably does, a vicarious
+satisfaction.
+
+Repugnance and desire struggled strangely within him. He was half-minded
+to take her home and leave her alone. At any rate he was not going to sit
+there and listen to her insane babble all night. To put his fortunes to
+the test, he abruptly took her in his arms. She made a futile pretence of
+resistance. When their lips touched, desire flashed up in him strongly,
+banishing all his hesitations. He talked hot foolishness to which she
+listened greedily, but when he tried to take her to Salvini’s again, she
+insisted on going home. Before he left her he had made another
+appointment.
+
+Now began an absurd contest between the two in which Ramon was always
+manœuvring to get her alone somewhere so that he might complete his
+conquest if possible, while her sole object was to have him gratify her
+vanity by appearing in public with her. This he knew he could not afford
+to do. He could not even drive down the street with her in daylight
+without all gossips being soon aware he had done so. No one knew much
+about her, of course, but she was “one of those eating house girls” and to
+treat her as a social equal was to court social ostracism. He would win
+the enmity of the respectable women of the town, and he knew very well
+that respectable women rule their husbands. His prospects in business and
+politics, already suffering, would be further damaged.
+
+Here again was a struggle within him. He was of a breed that follows
+instinct without fear, that has little capacity for enduring restraints.
+And he knew well that the other young lawyers, the gringos, were no more
+moral than he. But they were careful. Night was their friend and they were
+banded together in a league of obscene secrecy. He despised this code and
+yet he feared it. For the gringos held the whip; he must either cringe or
+suffer.
+
+So he was careful and made compromises. Dora wanted him to take her to
+dinner in the main dining room of the hotel, and he evaded and compromised
+by taking her there late at night when not many people were present. She
+wanted him to take her to a movie and he pleaded that he had already seen
+the bill, and asked her if she wanted to bore him. And when she pouted he
+made her a present of a pair of silk stockings. She accepted all sorts of
+presents, so that he felt he was making progress. She was making vague
+promises now of “sometime” and “maybe,” and his desire was whipped up with
+anticipation, making him always more reckless.
+
+One night late he took her to the Eldorado and persuaded her to drink
+champagne, thinking this would forward his purpose. The wine made her rosy
+and pretty, and it also made her forget her poses and affectations. She
+was more charming to him than ever before, partly because of the change in
+her, and partly because his own critical faculties were blunted by
+alcohol. He was almost in love with her and he felt sure that he was about
+to win her. But presently she began wheedling him in the old vein. She
+wanted him to take her to the dance at the Woman’s Club!
+
+This would be to slap convention in the face, and at first he refused to
+consider it. But he foolishly went on drinking, and the more he drank the
+more feasible the thing appeared. Dora had quit drinking and was pleading
+with him.
+
+“I dare you!” she told him. “You’re afraid.… You don’t think I’m good
+enough for you.… And yet you say you love me.… I’m just as good as any
+girl in this town.… Well if you won’t, I’m going home. I’m through! I
+thought you really cared.”
+
+And then, when he had persuaded her not to run away, she became sad and
+just a little tearful.
+
+“It’s terrible,” she confided. “Just because I have to make my own
+living.… It’s not fair. I ought never to speak to you again.… And yet, I
+do care for you.…”
+
+Ramon was touched. The pathos of her situation appealed strongly to his
+tipsy consciousness. Why not do it? After all, the girl was respectable.
+As she said, nobody “had anything on her.” The dance was a public affair.
+Any one could go. He had been too timid. Not three people there knew who
+she was. By God, he would do it!
+
+At first they did not attract much attention. Dora was pretty and fairly
+well dressed, in no way conspicuous. They danced exclusively with each
+other, as did some other couples present, and nothing was thought of that.
+
+But soon he became aware of glances, hostile, disapproving. Probably it
+was true that only a few of the men at first knew who Dora was, but they
+told other men, and some of the men told the women. Soon it was known to
+all that he had brought “one of those awful eating house girls” to the
+dance! The enormity of the mistake he had made was borne in upon him
+gradually. Some of the men he knew smiled at him, generally with an
+eye-brow raised, or with a shake of the head. Sidney Felberg, who was a
+real friend, took him aside.
+
+“For the love of God, Ramon, what did you bring that Flusey here for?
+You’re queering yourself at a mile a minute. And you’re drunk, too. For
+Heaven’s sake, cart her away while the going’s good!”
+
+Ramon had not realized how drunk he was until he heard this warning.
+
+“O, go to hell, Sid!” he countered. “She’s as good as anybody … I guess I
+can bring anybody I want here.…”
+
+Sidney shook his head.
+
+“No use, no use,” he observed philosophically. “But it’s too bad!”
+
+Ramon’s own words sounded hollow to him. He was in that peculiar condition
+when a man knows that he is making an ass of himself, and knows that he is
+going right ahead doing it. He was more attentive to Dora than ever. He
+brought her a glass of water, talked to her continually with his back to
+the hostile room. He was fully capable of carrying the thing through, even
+though girls he had known all his life were refusing to meet his eyes.
+
+It was Dora who weakened. She became quiet and sad, and looked infinitely
+forlorn. When a couple of women got up and moved pointedly away from her
+vicinity, her lip began to tremble, and her wide blue eyes were brimming.
+
+“Come on, take me away quick,” she said pathetically. “I’m going to cry.”
+
+When they were in the car again she turned in the seat, buried her face in
+her arms and sobbed passionately with a gulping noise and spasmodic
+upheavals of her shoulders. Ramon drove slowly. He was sober now,
+painfully sober! He was utterly disgusted with himself, and bitterly sorry
+for Dora. A strong bond of sympathy had suddenly been created between
+them, for he too had tasted the bitterness of prejudice. For the first
+time Dora was not merely a frumpy woman who had provoked in him a desire
+he half-despised; she was a fellow human, who knew the same miseries.… He
+had intended to take her this night, to make a great play for success, but
+he no longer felt that way. He drove to the boarding house where she
+lived.
+
+“Here you are,” he said gently, “I’ll call you up tomorrow.”
+
+Dora looked up for the first time.
+
+“O, no!” she plead. “Don’t go off and leave me now. Don’t leave me alone.
+Take me somewhere, anywhere.… Do anything you want with me.… You’re all
+I’ve got!”
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+The rest of the winter Ramon spent in an aimlessly pleasant way. He tried
+to work but without arousing in himself enough enthusiasm to insure
+success. He played pool, gambled a little and hunted a great deal. He
+relished his pleasures with the keen appetite of health and youth, but
+when they were over he felt empty-minded and restless and did not know
+what to do about it.
+
+Some business came to his law office. Because of his knowledge of Spanish
+and of the country he was several times employed to look up titles to
+land, and this line of work he might have developed into a good practice
+had he possessed the patience. But it was monotonous, tedious work, and it
+bored him. He would toil over the papers with a good will for a while, and
+then a state of apathy would come over him, and like a boy in school he
+would sit vaguely dreaming.… Such dull tasks took no hold upon his mind.
+
+He defended several Mexican criminals, and found this a more congenial
+form of practice, but an unremunerative one. The only case which advanced
+him toward the reputation for which every young attorney strives brought
+him no money at all. A young Mexican farmer of good reputation named Juan
+Valera had been converted to the Methodist faith. Like most of the few
+Mexicans who are won over to Protestantism, he had brought to his new
+religion a fanatical spirit, and had made enemies of the priests and of
+many of his neighbours by proselyting. Furthermore, his young and pretty
+wife remained a Catholic, which had caused a good deal of trouble in his
+house. But the couple were really devoted and managed to compromise their
+differences until a child was born. Then arose the question as to whether
+it should be baptized a Catholic or a Methodist. The girl wanted her baby
+to be baptized in the Catholic faith, and was fully persuaded by the
+priests that it would otherwise go to purgatory. She was backed by her
+father, whose interference was resented by Juan more than anything else.
+He consulted the pastor of his church, a bigoted New Englander, who
+counselled him on no account to yield.
+
+One evening when Juan was away from home, his father-in-law came to his
+house and persuaded the girl to go with him and have the child baptized in
+the Catholic faith, in order that it might be saved from damnation. After
+the ceremony they went to a picture-show by way of a celebration. When
+Juan came home he learned from the neighbours what had happened. His face
+became very pale, his lips set, and his eyes had a hot, dangerous look. He
+got out a butcher knife from the kitchen, whetted it to a good point, and
+went and hid behind a big cottonwood tree near the moving-picture theatre.
+When his wife with the child and her father came out, he stepped up behind
+the old man and drove the knife into the back of his neck to the hilt,
+severing the spinal column. Afterward he looked at the dead man for a
+moment and at his wife, sitting on the ground shrieking, then went home
+and washed his hands and changed his shirt—for blood had spurted all over
+him—walked to the police station and gave himself up.
+
+This man had no money, and it is customary in such cases for the court to
+appoint a lawyer to conduct the defence. Usually a young lawyer who needs
+a chance to show his abilities is chosen, and the honor now fell upon
+Ramon.
+
+This was the first time since he had begun to study law that he had been
+really interested. He understood just how Juan Valera had felt. He called
+on him in jail. Juan Valera was composed, almost apathetic. He said he was
+willing to die, that he did not fear death.
+
+“Let them hang me,” he said. “I would do the same thing again.”
+
+Ramon studied the law of his case with exhaustive thoroughness, but the
+law did not hold out much hope for his client. It was in his plea to the
+jury that he made his best effort. Here again he discovered the eloquence
+that he had used the summer before in Arriba County. Here he lost for a
+moment his sense of aimlessness, felt again the thrill of power and the
+joy of struggle. He described vividly the poor Mexican’s simple faith, his
+absolute devotion to it, showed that he had killed out of an
+all-compelling sense of right and duty. He found a good many witnesses to
+testify that Juan’s father-in-law had hectored the young man a good deal,
+insulted him, intruded in his home. Half of the jurors were Mexicans. For
+a while the jury was hung. But it finally brought in a verdict of murder
+in the first degree, which was practically inevitable. Juan accepted this
+with a shrug of his shoulders and announced himself ready to hang and meet
+his Methodist God. But Ramon insisted on taking an appeal. He finally got
+the sentence commuted to life imprisonment. He then felt disgusted, and
+wished that he had let the man hang, feeling that he would have been
+better off dead than in the state penitentiary. But Juan’s wife, who
+really loved him, came to Ramon’s office and embraced his knees and
+laughed and cried and swore that she would do his washing for nothing as
+long as she lived. For now she could visit her husband once a month and
+take him _tortillas!_ Ramon gave her ten dollars and pushed her out the
+door. He had worked hard on the case. He felt old and weary and wanted to
+get drunk.
+
+
+
+One day Ramon received an invitation to go hunting with Joe Cassi and his
+friends. He accepted it, and afterward went on many trips with the Italian
+saloon-owner, thereby doing further injury to his social standing.
+
+Cassi had come to the town some twenty years before with a hand organ and
+a monkey. The town was not accustomed to that form of entertainment; some
+of the Mexicans threw rocks at Cassi and a dog killed his monkey. Cassi
+was at that time a slender youth, handsome, ragged and full of high hopes.
+When his monkey was killed he first wept with rage and then swore that he
+would stay in that town and have the best of it. He now owned three
+saloons and the largest business building in town. He was a lean, grave,
+silent little man.
+
+Cassi had made most of his money in the days when gambling was “open” in
+the town, and he had surrounded himself with a band of choice spirits who
+were experts in keno, roulette and poker. These still remained on his
+hands, some of them in the capacity of barkeepers, and others practically
+as pensioners. They were all great sportsmen, heavy drinkers and
+loyal-to-the-death friends. At short intervals they went on hunting trips
+down the river, generally remaining over the week-end. It was of these
+expeditions that Ramon now became a regular member. Sometimes the whole
+party would get drunk and come back whooping and singing as the
+automobiles bowled along, occasionally firing shotguns into the air. At
+other times when luck was good everyone became interested in the sport and
+forgot to drink. Ramon had a real respect for Cassi, and a certain amount
+of contempt for most of the rest of them; yet he felt more at home with
+these easy-going, pleasure-loving, loyal fellows than he did with those
+thrifty, respectable citizens in whose esteem the dollar stood so
+invariably first.
+
+Cassi and his friends used most often to go to a Mexican village some
+fifty miles down the river where the valley was low and flat, and speckled
+with shallow alkaline ponds made by seepage from the river. Every evening
+the wild ducks flew into these ponds from the river to feed, and the
+shooting at this evening flight Ramon especially loved. The party would
+scatter out, each man choosing his own place on the East side of one of
+the little lakes, so that the red glare of the sunset was opposite him.
+There he would lie flat on the ground, perhaps making a low blind of weeds
+or rushes.
+
+Seldom even in January was it cold enough to be uncomfortable. Ramon would
+lie on an elbow, smoking a cigarette, watching the light fade, and the
+lagoon before him turn into molten gold to match the sunset sky. It would
+be very quiet save for such sounds as the faraway barking of dogs or the
+lowing of cattle. When the sky overhead had faded to an obscure purple,
+and the flare of the sunset had narrowed to a belt along the horizon, he
+would hear the distant eerie whistle of wild wings. Nothing could be seen
+yet, but the sound multiplied. He could distinguish now the roar of a
+great flock of mallards, circling round and round high overhead, scouting
+for danger. He could hear the sweet flute-notes of teal and pintails, and
+the raucous, cautious quack of some old green-head. A teal would pitch
+suddenly down to the water before him and rest there, erect and wary,
+painted in black upon the golden water. Another would join it and another.
+The cautious mallards, encouraged by this, would swing lower. The music of
+their wings seemed incredibly close; he would grip his gun hard, holding
+himself rigidly still, feeling clearly each beat of his heart.
+
+Suddenly the ducks would come into view … dark forms with ghostly blurs
+for wings, shooting with a roar into the red flare of light. The flash of
+his shotgun would leap out twice. The startled birds would bound into the
+air like blasted rock from a quarry, and be lost in the purple mystery of
+sky, except two or three that hurtled over and over and struck the water,
+each with a loud spat, throwing up little jets of gold.
+
+Sometimes there were long waits between shots, but at others the flight
+was almost continuous, the air seemed full of darting birds, and the gun
+barrels were hot in his hands. His excitement would be intense for a time;
+yet after he had killed a dozen birds or so he would often lose interest
+and lie on his back listening to the music of wings and of bird voices. He
+had that aversion to excess which seems to be in all Latin peoples.
+Besides, he did not want many ducks to dispose of.… It was the rush and
+colour, the dramatic quality of the thing that he loved.
+
+Most of the others killed to the limit with a fine unflagging lust for
+blood, giving a brilliant demonstration of the fact that civilized man is
+the most destructive and bloodthirsty of all the predatory mammals.
+
+
+
+The coming of spring was marked by a few heavy rains, followed by the
+faint greening of the cottonwood trees and of the alfalfa fields. The grey
+waste of the _mesa_ showed a greenish tinge, too, heralding its brief
+springtime splendor when it would be rich with the purple of wild-peas,
+pricked out in the morning with white blossoms of the prairie primrose.
+Now and then a great flock of geese went over the town, following the Rio
+Grande northward half a mile high, their faint wild call seeming the very
+voice of this season of lust and wandering.
+
+Ramon felt restless and lost interest in all his usual occupations. He
+began to make plans and preparations for going to the mountains. He bought
+a tent and a new rifle and overhauled all his camping gear. He thought he
+was getting ready for a season of hard work, but in reality his strongest
+motive was the springtime longing for the road and the out-of-doors. He
+was sick of whisky and women and hot rooms full of tobacco smoke.
+
+Withal it was necessary that he should go to Arriba County, follow up his
+campaign of the preceding fall, arrange a timber sale if possible so that
+he might buy land, and above all see that his sheep herds were properly
+tended. This was the crucial season in the sheep business. Like the other
+sheep owners, he ranged his herds chiefly over the public domain, and he
+gambled on the weather. If the rain continued into the early summer so
+that the waterholes were filled and the grass was abundant, he would have
+a good lamb crop. The sale of part of this and of the wool he would shear
+would make up the bulk of his income for the year. And he had already
+spent that income and a little more. He could not afford a bad year. If it
+was a dry spring, so that lambs and ewes died, he would be seriously
+embarrassed. In any case, he was determined to be on the range in person
+and not to trust the herders. If it came to the worst and the spring was
+dry he would rent mountain range from the Forest Service and rush his
+herds to the upland pastures as early as possible. He was not at all
+distressed or worried; he knew what he was about and had an appetite for
+the work.
+
+One morning when he was in the midst of his preparations, he went to his
+office and found on the desk a small square letter addressed in a round,
+upright, hand. This letter affected him as though it had been some blossom
+that filled the room with a fragrant narcotic exhalation. It quickened the
+beat of his heart like a drug. It drove thought of everything else out of
+his mind. He opened it and the faint perfume of it flowed over him and
+possessed his senses and his imagination.…
+
+It was a long, gossipy letter and told him of nearly everything that Julia
+had done in the six months since they had parted “forever”. The salient
+fact was that she had been married. A young man in a New York brokerage
+office who had long been a suitor for her hand, and to whom she had once
+before been engaged for part of a summer, had followed the Roths to Europe
+and he and Julia had been married immediately after their return.
+
+“I give you my word, I don’t know why I did it,” she wrote. “Mother wanted
+me to, and I just sort of drifted into it. First thing I knew I was
+engaged and the next thing mother was sending the invitations out, and
+then I was in for it. It was a good deal of fun being engaged, but when it
+came to being married I was scared to death and couldn’t lift my voice
+above a whisper. Since then it has been rather a bore. Now my husband has
+been called to London. I am living alone here in this hotel. That is, more
+or less alone. A frightful lot of people come around and bore me, and I
+have to go out a good deal. I’m supposed to be looking for an apartment,
+too; but I haven’t really started yet. Ralph won’t be back for another two
+or three weeks, so I have plenty of time.
+
+“I don’t know why in the world I’m writing you this long frightfully
+intimate letter. I don’t seem to know why I do anything these days. I know
+its most improper for a respectable married lady, and I certainly have no
+reason to suppose you want to be bothered by me any more after the way I
+did. But somehow you stick in the back of my head. You might write me a
+line, just out of compassion, if you’re not too busy with all your sheep
+and mountains and things.” She signed herself “as ever”, which, he
+reflected bitterly, might mean anything.
+
+At first the fact that she was married wholly engaged his attention. She
+was then finally and forever beyond his reach. This was the end sure
+enough. He was not going to start any long aimless correspondence with her
+to keep alive the memory of his disappointment. He planned various brief
+and chilly notes of congratulation.… Then another thought took precedence
+over that one. She was alone there in that hotel. Her husband was in
+London. She had written to him and given him her address.… His blood
+pounded and his breath came quick. He made his decision instantly, on
+impulse. He would go to New York.
+
+He wired the hotel where she was stopping for a reservation, but sent no
+word at all to her. He gave the bewildered and troubled Cortez brief
+orders by telephone to go to Arriba County in his place, arranged a note
+at the bank for two thousand dollars, and caught the limited the same
+night at seven-thirty-five.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+He looked at New York through a taxicab window without much interest. A
+large damp grey dirty place, very crowded, where he would not like to
+live, he thought. He managed himself and his baggage with ease and
+dispatch; his indifferent, dignified manner and his reckless use of money
+were ideally effective with porters, taxi drivers and the like. When he
+reached the hotel about eight o’clock at night he went to his room and
+made himself carefully immaculate. He studied himself with a good deal of
+interest in the full length mirror which was set in the bath room door;
+for he had seldom encountered such a mirror and he had a considerable
+amount of vanity of which he was not at all conscious. It struck him that
+he was remarkably good-looking, and indeed he was more so than usual, his
+eyes bright, his face flushed, his whole body tense and poised with
+purpose and expectation.
+
+He went down to the lobby, looked Julia up in the register, ascertained
+the number of her room, and made a note of it. Then he asked the telephone
+girl to call her and learn whether she was in.
+
+“Yes; she is in. She wants to know who’s calling, please.”
+
+“Tell her an old friend who wants to surprise her.” He did not care to
+risk any evasion, and he also wanted his arrival to have its full dramatic
+effect.
+
+The telephone girl transmitted his message.
+
+“She says she can’t come down yet … not for about half an hour.”
+
+“Tell her I’ll wait. If she asks for me I’ll be in that little room
+there.” He pointed to a small reception room opening off the mezzanine
+gallery, which he had selected in advance. He had planned everything
+carefully.
+
+
+
+When he stood up to meet her she gave a little gasp, and took a step back.
+
+“Why, you! Ramon! How could you? You shouldn’t have come. You know you
+shouldn’t. I didn’t mean that … I had no idea.…”
+
+He came forward and took her hand and led her to a settee. Despite all her
+protests he could see very plainly that he had scored heavily in his own
+favour. She was flustered with excitement and pleasure. Like all women,
+she was captivated by sudden, decisive action and loved the surprising and
+the dramatic.
+
+They sat side by side, looking at each other, smiling, making unimportant
+remarks, and then looking at each other again. Ramon felt that she had
+changed. She was as pretty as ever, and never had she stirred him more
+strongly. But her appeal seemed more immediate than before; she seemed
+less remote. The innocence of her wide eyes was a little less noticeable
+and their flash of recklessness a little more so. It seemed to him that
+her mouth was larger, which may have been due to the fact that she had
+rouged it a little too much. She wore a pink decollete with straps over
+the shoulders one of which kept slipping down and had to be pulled up
+again.
+
+Ramon was tremulous with a half-acknowledged anticipation, but he held
+himself strongly in hand. He felt that he had an advantage over her—that
+he was more at ease and she less so than at any previous meeting—and he
+meant to keep it.
+
+But she was rapidly regaining her composure, and took refuge in a rather
+formal manner.
+
+“Are you going to be here long?” she enquired in the conventional tone of
+mock-interest.
+
+“Just a week or so on business,” he explained, determined not to be
+outpointed in the game. “I had to come some time this spring, and when I
+got your note I thought I would come while you are here.”
+
+“But I’ll be here the rest of my life probably. This is where I live. You
+ought to have come when my husband was here. I’d like to have you meet
+him. As it is, I can’t see much of you, of course.…”
+
+He refused to be put out by this coldness, but tried to strike a more
+intimate note.
+
+“Tell me about your marriage,” he asked. “Are you really happy?… Do you
+like it?”
+
+She looked at the floor gravely.
+
+“You shouldn’t ask that, of course,” she reproved. “Everyone who has just
+been married is very, very happy.… No, I don’t like it a darn bit.”
+
+“It’s not what you expected, then.”
+
+“I don’t know what I expected, but from the way people talk about it and
+write about it you would certainly think it was something wonderful—love
+and passion and bliss and all that, I mean. I feel that I’ve either been
+lied to or cheated … of course,” she added with a little side glance at
+him, “I didn’t exactly love my husband.…” She blushed and looked down
+again; then laughed softly and rather joyfully for a lady with a broken
+heart.
+
+“If mother could only hear me now!” she observed.… “She’d faint. I don’t
+care.… That’s just the way I feel.… I don’t care! All my life I’ve been
+trained and groomed and prepared for the grand and glorious event of
+marriage. I’ve been taught it’s the most wonderful thing that can happen
+to anyone. That’s what all the books say, and all the people I know. And
+here it turns out to be a most uncomfortable bore.…”
+
+He looked gravely sympathetic.
+
+“Do you think it would have been different with—someone you did love?” he
+enquired cautiously.
+
+She gave him another quick thrilling glance.
+
+“I don’t know,” she said.… “Maybe … I felt so different about you.”
+
+Their hands met on the settee and they both moved instinctively a little
+closer together.
+
+Suddenly she jerked away from him, looking him in the eyes with her head
+thrown back and a smile of irony on her lips.
+
+“Aren’t we a couple of idiots?” she demanded.
+
+“No!” he declared with fierce emphasis, and throwing an arm about her,
+pounced on her lips.
+
+Just then a bell boy passed the door. They jerked apart and upright very
+self-consciously. Then they looked at each other and laughed. But their
+eyes quickly became deep and serious again, and their fingers entangled.
+
+She sighed in mock exasperation.
+
+“For Heaven’s sake, say something!” she demanded. “We can’t sit here and
+make eyes at each other all evening. Besides I’m compromising my priceless
+reputation. It’s after ten o’clock. I’ve got to go.” She rose, and held
+out her hand, which he took without saying anything.
+
+“Good night,” she said. “I think you were mean to come and camp on me this
+way … dumb as ever, I see … well, good night.”
+
+She went to the door, stopped and looked back, smiled and disappeared.
+
+Ramon went down to the lobby and roamed all over the two floors which
+constituted the public part of the hotel. He looked at everything and
+smoked a great many cigarettes, thus restlessly whiling away an hour. Then
+he went to a writing room. He collected some telegrams and letters about
+him and appeared to be very busy. When a bell boy went by, he rapped
+sharply on the desk with a fifty-cent piece, and as the boy stopped,
+tossed it to him.
+
+“Get me the key to 207!” he ordered sharply; then turned back to his
+imaginary business.
+
+“Yes sir,” said the boy. He returned in a few minutes with the key.
+
+Ramon sat for a long moment looking at it, tremulous with a great
+anticipation. He was divided between a conviction that she expected him
+and a fear that she did not.… His fear proved groundless.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+The next day they met for dinner at a little place near Washington Square
+where it was certain that none of Julia’s friends ever went. Julia was a
+singularly contented-looking criminal. Never, Ramon thought had her skin
+looked more velvety, her eyes deeper or more serene. He was a trifle
+haggard, but happy, and both of them were hungry.
+
+“Do you know?… I’ve made a discovery,” she told him. “I haven’t any
+conscience. I slept peacefully nearly all day, and when I waked up I
+considered the matter carefully … I don’t believe that I have any proper
+appreciation of the enormity of what I’ve done at all. I have always
+thought that if anything like this ever happened to me I would go off and
+chloroform myself, but as a matter of fact I have no such intention … of
+course, though, it was not my fault in the least. You’re so terrible!… I
+simply couldn’t help myself, and I don’t see what I can do now … that’s
+comforting. But one thing is certain. We’ve got to be awfully careful.
+Thank Heaven, mother and Gordon are still in Florida and they won’t dare
+to come North on Gordon’s account until it gets a good deal warmer. But we
+must be careful. I’m not sorry, like I should be, but I sure am scared.…”
+
+They sat for a long time after the meal, Ramon smoking a cigar, their
+knees touching under the table. He was filled with a vast contentment. He
+thought nothing of the troubled past, nor did he look into the obviously
+troubled future. He merely basked in the consciousness of a possession
+infinitely sweet.
+
+Now began for them a life of clandestine adventure. Julia had a good many
+engagements, but she managed to give him some part of every day. They
+never met in the hotel, but usually took taxicabs separately and met in
+out-of-the-way parts of that great free wilderness of city. Ramon spent
+most of the time when he was not with her exploring for suitable meeting
+places. They became patrons of cellar restaurants in Greenwich Village, of
+French and Italian places far down town, of obscure Brooklyn hotels. If
+the regular fare at these establishments was not all they desired, Ramon
+would lavishly bribe the head waiter, call the proprietor into
+consultation if necessary, insist on getting what Julia wanted. He spent
+his money like a millionaire, and usually created the general impression
+that he was a wealthy foreigner. Every morning he had flowers sent to
+Julia’s room. Often they would take a taxi and spend hours riding about
+the streets with the blinds drawn, locked in each others’ arms.
+
+For a week they were keenly, excitedly happy, living wholly in the joy of
+the moment. Then a flaw appeared upon the glowing perfect surface of their
+happiness.
+
+“When is your husband coming back?” he enquired once, when they were
+riding through Central Park.
+
+“I don’t know. In a week or two. Why?”
+
+“Because we must decide pretty soon what we’re going to do.”
+
+“Do? What can we do?”
+
+“We must decide where we’re going. You must go with me somewhere. I’m not
+going to let you get away from me again … not even for a little while.”
+
+“But Ramon, how can we? I’m married. I can’t go anywhere with you.…”
+
+He seized her fiercely by the shoulders and held her away from him,
+looking into her eyes.
+
+“Don’t you love me, then?” he demanded.
+
+“Ramon! You know I do!”
+
+“Then you’ll go. We can go to Mexico City, or South America … I’ll sell
+out at home.…”
+
+“O, Ramon … I can’t. I haven’t got the courage. Think of the fuss it would
+raise. And it would kill Gordon, I know it would.…”
+
+“Damn Gordon!” he exclaimed, “he’s not going to get in the way again!
+You’re mine and I’m going to keep you. You will go. I’ll take you!”
+
+He had seized her in his arms, was holding her furiously tight. She put
+her arms around him, caressed his face with soft fluttering hands.
+
+“Please, Ramon! Please don’t make me miserable. Don’t spoil the only
+happiness I ever had! I will go with you if ever I can, if I can get a
+divorce or something. But I can’t run off like that. I haven’t got it in
+me … please let me be happy!”
+
+Her touch and her voice seemed to overcome his determination, seemed to
+sheer him of his strength. Weaker she was than he, but her charm was her
+power. It dragged him away from his thoughts and purposes, binding him to
+her and to the moment.… She drew his head down to her breast, found his
+lips with hers and so effectively cut his protests short.
+
+
+
+The cream of his happiness was gone. Always when he was alone, he was
+thinking and planning how he could keep her. All of his possessiveness was
+aroused. He wanted her to have a baby. Somehow he felt that then his
+conquest would be complete, that then he would be at peace.…
+
+He said nothing more to Julia because he saw that it was useless. He began
+to understand her a little. It was futile to ask her to make a decision,
+to take any initiative. She could hold out forever against pleas which
+involved an effort of the will on her part. And yet as he knew she could
+yield charmingly to pressure adroitly applied. If he had asked her to meet
+him in New York this way, he reflected, she would have been horrified, she
+would never have consented. But when he came, suddenly, that had been
+different. So it was now. If he could only form a really good plan, and
+then put her in a cab and take her … that would be the only way. The
+difficulty was to form the plan. He had capacity for sudden and decisive
+action. He lacked neither courage nor resolution. But when it came to
+making a plan which would require much time and patience, he found his
+limitations.
+
+What could he do? he asked himself, not realizing that in formulating the
+question he acknowledged his impotence. If he went away and left her while
+he settled his affairs, she was lost as surely as a bird released from a
+cage. The idea of Mexico City allured him. But he had hardly enough money
+to take them there. How could he raise money on short notice? It would
+take time to settle his estate in New Mexico and get anything out of it.…
+
+Two unrealized facts lay at the root of his difficulty. One was that he
+had no capacity for large and intricate plans, and the other was that he
+felt bound as by an invisible tether to the land where he had been born.
+
+As he struggled with all these conflicting considerations and emotions,
+his head fairly ached with futile effort. He was glad to lay it upon
+Julia’s soft bosom, to forget everything else again in the sweetness of a
+stolen moment.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+He had been in New York about ten days when he awoke one morning near
+noon. An immense languor possessed him. He had been with Julia the night
+before and never had she been more charming, more abandoned.… He ordered
+his breakfast to be sent up, and then stretched out in bed and lit an
+expensive Russian cigarette. He had that love of sensuous indolence,
+which, together with its usual complement, the capacity for brief but
+violent action, marked him as a primitive man—one whom the regular labors
+and restraints of civilization would never fit.
+
+His telephone bell rang, and when he took down the receiver he heard
+Julia’s voice. It was not unusual for her to call him about this time, but
+what she told him now caused a blank and hapless look to come over his
+face. She was not in her room, but in another hotel.
+
+“My husband got in this morning,” she explained in a voice that was thin
+with misery and confusion. “I got his message last night, but I didn’t
+tell you because I knew it would spoil our last time together, and I was
+afraid you would do something foolish.… Please say you’re not angry. You
+know there was nothing for it. We couldn’t have done any of those wild
+things you talked about. I’ll always love you, honestly I will. Won’t you
+even say goodby?…”
+
+He at last did say goodby and hung up the receiver and went across the
+room and sat in an armchair. It suddenly struck him that he was very
+tired. He had not realized it before … how tired he was. There was none of
+the mad rebellion in him now that had filled him when first she had run
+away from him. Although he had never acknowledged it to himself he had
+been more than half prepared for this. He had told himself that he was
+going to do something bold and decisive, but he had procrastinated; he had
+never really formed a plan.
+
+Weariness was his leading emotion. He was spent, physically and
+emotionally. He wanted her almost as much as ever. While she was no longer
+the remote and dazzling star she had been, the bond of flesh that had been
+created between them seemed a stronger, a more constant thing than
+blinding unsatisfied desire. But a great despair possessed him. There was
+so obviously nothing he could do. Just as his other disappointment had
+given him his first stinging impression of the irony of life, that
+cunningly builds a hope and then smashes it; so now he felt for the first
+time something of the helplessness of man in the current or his destiny,
+driven by deep-laid desires he seldom understands, and ruled by chances he
+can never calculate. From love a man learns life in quick and painful
+flashes.
+
+Through the open window came the din of the New York street—purr and throb
+of innumerable engines, rumble and clatter of iron wheels, tapping of
+thousands of restless feet, making a blended current of sound upon which
+floated and tossed the shrillness of police whistles and newsboys’ voices
+and auto horns. It had been the background of his life during memorable
+days. Once it had stirred his pulses, seeming a wild accompaniment to the
+song of his passion. Now it wearied him inexpressibly; it seemed to be
+hammering in his ears; he wanted to get away from it. He would go home
+that day.
+
+
+
+As always on his trips across the continent he sat apathetically smoking
+through the wide green lushness of the middle west. Only when the
+cultivated lands gave way to barren hills and faint blue mountains peeping
+over far horizons did he turn to the window and forget his misery and his
+weariness. How it spoke to his heart, this country of his own! He who
+loved no man, who had gone to women with desire and come away with
+bitterness, loved a vast and barren land, baking in the sun. The sight of
+it quickened his pulses, softened and soothed his spirit. Like a good
+liquor it nursed and beautified whatever mood was in him. When he had come
+back to it a year before, it had spoken to him of hope, its mysterious
+distances had seemed full of promise and hidden possibility. And now that
+he came back to it with hopes broken, weary in mind and body, it seemed
+the very voice of rest. He thought of long cool nights in the mountains
+and of the lullaby that wind and water sing, of the soothing monotony of
+empty sunlit levels, of the cool caress of deep, green pools, of the sweet
+satisfaction that goes with physical weariness and a full belly and a bed
+upon the ground.
+
+But when on the last morning of his journey he waked up within a hundred
+miles of home, and less than half that far from his own mountain lands,
+his new-found comfort quickly changed to a keen anxiety. For he saw at a
+glance that the country was under the blight of drought. The hills that
+should have borne a good crop of gramma grass at this time of the year, if
+the rains had been even fair, were nothing but bare red earth from which
+the rocks and the great roots of the _pinion_ trees stood out like the
+bones of a starving animal. Here and there on the hillsides he could see a
+scrubby pine that had died, its needles turned rust-red—the sure sign of a
+serious drought.
+
+During the half month that he had been gone he had thought not once of his
+affairs at home. The moment had absorbed him completely. Now it all came
+back to him suddenly. When he had left, the promise of the season had been
+good. It had not rained for more than a week, but everyone had been
+expecting rain every day. It was clear to him that the needed rain had
+never come. And he knew just what that meant to him. It meant that he had
+lost lambs and ewes, that he would have no money this year with which to
+meet his notes at the bank. He sank deep in despair and disgust again. Not
+only was the assault on his fortunes a serious one, but he felt little
+inclined to meet it. He was weary of struggle. He saw before him a long
+slow fight to get on his feet again, with the chance of ultimate failure
+if he had another bad year.
+
+The Mexicans firmly believe, in the face of much evidence to the contrary,
+that seven wet years are always followed by seven dry ones. He had heard
+the saying gravely repeated many times. He more than half believed it. And
+he knew that for a good many years, perhaps as many as six or seven, the
+rains had been remarkably good. He was intelligent, but superstition was
+bred in his bones. Like all men of a primitive type he had a strong
+tendency to believe in fortune as a deliberate force in the affairs of
+men. It seemed clear to him now, in his depressed and exhausted condition,
+that bad luck had marked him for its prey.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+His forebodings were confirmed in detail the next morning when Cortez came
+into his office, his face wrinkled with worry and darkened by exposure to
+the weather. He was angry too.
+
+“_Por Dios_, man! To go off like that and not even leave me an address. If
+I could have gotten more money to hire men I might have saved some of them
+… yes, more than half of the lambs died, and many of the ewes. There is
+nothing to do now. They are on the best of the range, and it has begun to
+rain in the mountains. But it is too bad. It cost you many thousands …
+that trip to New York.”
+
+Ramon gave Cortez a cigar to soothe his sensibilities, thanked him with
+dignity for his loyal services, and sent him away. Then he put on his hat
+and went outside to walk and think.
+
+The town seemed to him quiet as though half-deserted. This was partly by
+contrast with the place of din which he had just left, and partly because
+this was the dull season, when the first hot spell of summer drove many
+away from the town and kept those who remained in their houses most of the
+day. The sandy streets caught the sun and cherished it in a merciless
+glare. They were baked so hot that barefoot urchins hopped gingerly from
+one patch of shade to the next. In the numerous vacant lots rank jungles
+of weeds languished in the dry heat, and long blue-tailed lizards,
+veritable heat-sprites, emerged to frolic and doze on deserted sidewalks.
+The leaves of the cottonwoods hung limp, and the white downy tufts that
+carried their seeds everywhere drifted and swam in the shimmering air. The
+river had shrunk to a string of shallow pools in a sandy plain, the
+irrigation ditches were empty, and in Old Town the Mexicans were asking
+God for rain by carrying an image of the Virgin Mary about on a litter and
+firing muskets into the air.
+
+Quickly wearied, Ramon sat down on a shaded bench in the park and tried to
+think out his situation and to decide what he should do. The easy way was
+to sell out, pay his debts, provide for his mother and sister and with
+what was left go his own way—buy a little ranch perhaps in the mountains
+or in the valley where he could live in peace and do as he pleased.
+Wearied as he was by struggle and disappointment, this prospect allured
+him, and yet he could not quite accept it. He felt vaguely the fact that
+in selling his lands, he would be selling out to fate, he would be
+surrendering to MacDougall, to the gringos, he would be renouncing all his
+high hopes and dreams. His mountain lands, with their steadily increasing
+value, the power they gave him, would make of his life a thing of
+possibilities—an adventure. Settled on a little ranch somewhere, his whole
+story would be told in one of its years.
+
+This he did not reason clearly, but the emotional struggle within him was
+therefore all the stronger. It was his old struggle in another guise—the
+struggle between the primitive being in him and the civilized, between
+earth and the world of men. Each of them in turn filled his mind with
+images and emotions, and he was impotent to judge between them.
+
+His being was fairly rooted in the soil, and the animal happiness it
+offered—the free play of instinct, the sweetness of being physically and
+emotionally at peace with environment—was the only happiness he had ever
+known. Vaguely yet surely he had felt the world of men and works, the
+artificial world, to contain something larger and more beautiful than
+this. Julia Roth had been to him a stimulating symbol of this higher, this
+more desirable thing. His love for her had been the soil in which his
+aspirations had grown. That love had turned to bitterness and lust, and
+his aspirations had led him among greeds and fears and struggles that
+differed from those of the wild things only in that they were covert and
+devious, lacking the free beauty of instinct fearlessly followed and the
+dignity of open battle. Of civilization he had encountered only the raw
+and ugly edge, which is uglier than savagery. He knew no more of the true
+spirit of it than a man who has camped in a farmer’s back pasture knows of
+the true spirit of wildness. It had treated him without mercy and brought
+out the worst of him. And yet because he had once loved and dreamed he
+could not go back to the easy but limited satisfactions of the soil and be
+wholly content.
+
+So he could not make up his mind at first to surrender, but in the next
+few days one thing after another came to tempt him that way. MacDougall
+made him an offer for his lands which to his surprise was a little better
+than the last one. He learned afterward that the over-shrewd lawyer had
+misinterpreted his trip to New York, imagining that he had gone there to
+interest eastern capital in his lands.
+
+His mother and sister were two very cogent arguments in favour of selling.
+The Dona Delcasar, a simple and vain old lady, now regarded herself as a
+woman of wealth, and was always after him for money. Her ambition was to
+build a house in the Highlands and serve tea at four o’clock (although it
+was thick chocolate she liked) and break into society. His one discussion
+of the matter with her was a bitter experience.
+
+“Holy Mary!” she exclaimed in her shrill Spanish, when he broached a plan
+of retrenchment, “What a son I have! You spend thousands on yourself,
+chasing women and buying automobiles, and now you want us to spend the
+rest of our lives in this old house and walk to church so that you can
+make it up. God, but men are selfish!”
+
+He saw that if he tried to save money and make a fight for his lands he
+would have to struggle not only with MacDougall and the weather, but with
+two ignorant, ambitious and sharp-tongued women. And family pride here
+fought against him. He did not want to see his women folk go shabbily in
+the town. He wanted them to have their brick house and their tea parties,
+and to uphold the name of Delcasar as well as they might.
+
+One day while he was still struggling with his problem he went to look at
+a ranch that was offered for sale in the valley a few miles north of town.
+It was this place more than anything else which decided him. The old house
+had been built by one of his ancestors almost a hundred years before, and
+had then been the seat of an estate which embraced all the valley and
+_mesa_ lands for miles in every direction. It had changed hands several
+times and there were now but a few hundred acres. The woodwork of the
+house was in bad repair, but its adobe walls, three feet thick, were firm
+as ever. There were still traces of the adobe stockade behind it, with
+walls ten feet high, and the building which had housed the _peones_ was
+still standing, now filled with fragrant hay. In front of it stood an old
+cedar post with rusty iron rings to which the recalcitrant field hands had
+been bound for beating.
+
+Every detail of this home of his forefathers stirred his emotions. The
+ancient cottonwood trees in front of the house with their deep, welcome
+shade and the soft voices of courting doves among the leaves; the alfalfa
+fields heavy with purple blossom, ripe for cutting; the orchard of old
+apple trees and thickets of Indian plum run wild; the neglected vineyard
+that could be made to yield several barrels of red wine—all of these
+things spoke to him with subtle voices. To trade his heritage for this was
+to trade hope and hazard for monotonous ease; but with the smell of the
+yielding earth in his nostrils, he no more thought of this than a man in
+love thinks of the long restraints and irks of marriage when the kiss of
+his woman is on his lips.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+Ramon’s life on his farm quickly fell into a routine that was for the most
+part pleasant. He hired an old woman to do his cooking and washing, and a
+man to work on the place. Other men he hired as he needed them, and he
+spent most of his days working with them as a foreman.
+
+He attended to the business of farming ably. The trees of the old orchard
+he pruned and sprayed and he set out new ones. He put his idle land under
+irrigation and planted it in corn and alfalfa. He set out beds of
+strawberries and asparagus. He bought blooded livestock and chickens. He
+put his fences in repair and painted the woodwork of his house. The
+creative energy that was in him had at last found an outlet which was
+congenial though somewhat picayune. For the place was small and easily
+handled. As the fall came on, and his crops had been gathered and the work
+of irrigation was over for the season, he found himself looking about
+restlessly for something to do. On Saturday nights he generally went to
+town, had dinner with his mother and sister, and spent the evening
+drinking beer and playing pool. But he felt increasingly out of place in
+the town; his visits there were prompted more by filial duty and the need
+of something to break the monotony of his week than by a real sense of
+pleasure in them.
+
+He was still caring for Catalina on the ranch up the valley, and when the
+woman who had been doing his work left him, he decided to bring the girl
+to his place and let her earn her keep by cooking and washing. He no
+longer felt any interest in her, and thought that perhaps she would marry
+Juan Cardenas, the man who milked his cows and chopped wood for him. But
+Catalina showed no interest in Juan. Instead, she emphatically rejected
+all his advances, and displayed an abject, squaw-like devotion to Ramon’s
+welfare. Everything possible was done for his comfort without his asking.
+The infant, now almost a year old, was trained not to cry in his presence,
+and acquired a certain awe of him, watching him with large solemn eyes
+whenever he was about. Ramon, reflecting that this was his son, set out to
+make the baby’s acquaintance, and became quite fond of it. He often played
+with it in the evening.
+
+He paid Catalina regular wages and she spent most of the money on clothes.
+When she prepared herself for Church on Sunday she was a truly terrible
+spectacle, clad in an ill-fitting ready-made suit of brilliant colour, and
+wearing a cheap hat on which a dead parrot sprawled among artificial
+poppies, while her swarthy face, heavily powdered, took on a purple tinge.
+But about the place, dressed in clean calico, with a shawl over her
+shoulders, she was really pretty. Her figure was a good one of peasant
+type, and the acquisition of some shoes which fitted her revealed the fact
+that she had inherited from her remote Castilian ancestry a small and
+shapely foot and ankle.
+
+Ramon could not help noticing all of these things, and so gradually he
+became aware of Catalina again as a desirable woman, and one whom it was
+easy for him to take.
+
+After this his animal contentment was deeper than ever. He did not go to
+town so often, for one of the restlessnesses which had driven him there
+was removed. Often for weeks at a stretch he would not go at all unless it
+was necessary to get some tools or supplies for the farm. Then rather than
+take any of his men away from work, he would himself hitch up a team and
+drive the five miles. Sitting hunched over on the spring-seat of a big
+farm wagon, clad in overalls and a print shirt, with a wide hat tilted
+against the sun and a cigarette dangling from his lips, he was
+indistinguishable from any other _paisano_ on the road. This change in
+appearance was helped by the fact that he had grown a heavy moustache.
+Often, as he drove through the streets of the town, he would pass
+acquaintances who did not recognize him, and he was just as well satisfied
+that they did not.
+
+As is the way of unreflecting men, Ramon formed no definite opinion of his
+life, but liked it more or less according to the mood that was in him.
+There were bright, cool days that fall when, lacking work to do, he took
+his shot-gun and a saddle horse and went for long rambles. Sometimes he
+would follow the river northward, stalking the flocks of teal and mallards
+that dozed on the sandbars in the wide, muddy stream, perhaps killing
+three or four fat birds. Other times he went to the foot of the mountains
+and hunted the blue quail and cotton tail rabbits in the arroyos of the
+foot-hills. Once he and his man loaded a wagon with food and blankets and
+drove forty miles to a canyon where they killed a big black-tail buck, and
+brought him back in high triumph.
+
+Returning from such trips full of healthy hunger and weariness, to find
+his hot supper and his woman waiting for him, Ramon would doze off
+happily, every want of his physical being satisfied, feeling that life was
+good.… But there were other nights when a strange restlessness possessed
+him, when he lay miserably awake through long dark hours. The silence of
+the black valley was emphasized now and then by the doleful voices of dogs
+that answered each other across the sleeping miles. At such times he felt
+as though he had been caught in a trap. He saw in imagination the endless
+unvaried chain of his days stretching before him, and he rebelled against
+it and knew not how to break it. His experience of life was comparatively
+little and he was no philosopher. He did not know definitely either what
+was the matter with him or what he wanted. But he had tasted high
+aspiration, and desire bright and transforming, and wild sweet joy.… These
+things had been taken away, and now life narrowed steadily before him like
+a blind canyon that pierces a mountain range. The trail at the bottom was
+easy enough to follow, but the walls drew ever closer and became more
+impassable, and what was the end?…
+
+
+
+This sense of dissatisfaction reached its futile crux one day in the
+spring when he received a letter from Julia—the last he was ever to get.
+The sight and scent of it stirred him as they always had done, filling him
+with poignant painful memories.
+
+“This is really the last time I’ll ever bother you,” she wrote, “but I do
+want to know what has happened to you, and how you feel about things. I
+can’t forget. All our troubles seem to have worn some sort of a permanent
+groove in my poor brain, and I believe the thought of you will be there
+till the day of my death.
+
+“As, for me, I’m in society up to my eyes, and absolutely without the
+courage or energy to climb out. Those days in New York were the first and
+the last of my freedom. Now I’ve been introduced to everybody, and I have
+an engagement book that tells me what I’m going to do whether I want to or
+not for three weeks ahead. I’m a model of conduct and propriety for the
+simple reason that I can’t travel over a block without everybody that I
+know finding out about it.
+
+“Of course it hasn’t all been a bore. I have had some fun, and I’ve met
+some really interesting people. I’ve gotten used to being married and my
+husband treats me kindly and gives me a good home. Sounds as if I was a
+kitten, doesn’t it? Well, I have very much the same sort of life as a
+kitten, but a kitten has no imagination and it has never been in love.
+Sometimes I think that I can’t stand it any longer. It seems to me that
+I’m not really living, as I used to imagine I would, but just being
+dragged through life by circumstances and other people—I don’t know what
+all. I still have desperate plans and ideas once in a while, but of
+course, I never do anything. When you come right down to it, what can I
+do?”
+
+Ramon read this letter sitting on the sunny side of his house with his
+heels under him and his back against the wall—a position any Mexican can
+hold for hours. When he had finished it he sat motionless for a long time,
+painfully going over the past, trying ineptly to discover what had been
+the matter with it. More acutely than ever before he felt the cruel
+guerdon of youth—the contrast between the promise of life and its
+fulfillment. He felt that he ought to do something, that he ought not to
+submit. But somehow all the doors that led out of his present narrow way
+into wider fields seemed closed. There was no longer any entrancing vista
+to tempt him. Mentally he repeated her query, What could he do?
+
+His thoughts went round and round and got nowhere. The spring sunshine
+soaked into his body. A faint hum of early insects lulled him, and to his
+nostrils came the scent of new-turned earth and manure from the garden
+where his man was working. He grew drowsy; his dissatisfaction simmered
+down to a vague ache in the background of his consciousness. Idly he tore
+the letter to little bits.
+
+
+
+                                 THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               EXTRA PAGES
+
+
+
+
+                                       _The Blood of _
+                                       _the Conquerors_
+
+
+
+
+_ _
+_      NEW BORZOI NOVELS_
+_ _
+_      FALL, 1921_
+_ _
+
+      PAN
+_      Knut Hamsun_
+      DREAMERS
+_      Knut Hamsun_
+      THE TORTOISE
+_      Mary Borden_
+      THE CHINA SHOP
+_      G. B. Stern_
+      THE BRIARY-BUSH
+_      Floyd Dell_
+      DEADLOCK
+_      Dorothy Richardson_
+      THE OTHER MAGIC
+_      E. L. Grant-Watson_
+      WHITE SHOULDERS
+_      George Kibbe Turner_
+      THE CHARMED CIRCLE
+_      Edward Alden Jewell_
+      THE BLOOD OF THE CONQUERORS
+_      Harvey __ __Fergusson_
+
+
+
+
+                                       _The Blood of _
+                                       _the Conquerors_
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  ERRATA
+
+
+      CHAPTER II
+      Changed: they were *untamable*, but boys
+      To: they were *untameable*, but boys
+
+      CHAPTER II
+      Changed: adventures were *comoposed* and sung
+      To: adventures were *composed* and sung
+
+      CHAPTER IV
+      Changed: your name,” she admitted*,*
+      To: your name,” she admitted*.*
+
+      CHAPTER V
+      Changed: only all-night *resturant*. Here he
+      To: only all-night *restaurant*. Here he
+
+      CHAPTER VII
+      Changed: haunted by lizzards and rattlesnakes.
+      To: haunted by *lizards* and rattlesnakes.
+
+      CHAPTER VIII
+      Changed: CHAPTER VIII*.*
+      To: CHAPTER VIII* *
+
+      CHAPTER XI
+      Changed: the game*,* But the
+      To: the game*.* But the
+
+      CHAPTER XV
+      Changed: nights they *visted* the town’s
+      To: nights they *visited* the town’s
+
+      CHAPTER XIX
+      Changed: saved from *furthur* punishment. Meantime,
+      To: saved from *further* punishment. Meantime,
+
+      CHAPTER XXXI
+      Changed: own living.… *Its* not fair.
+      To: own living.… *It’s* not fair.
+
+      CHAPTER XXXII
+      Changed: of course* *” she added
+      To: of course*,*” she added
+
+      CHAPTER XXXII
+      Changed: * *For Heaven’s sake, say something!”
+      To: *“*For Heaven’s sake, say something!”
+
+      Page 2
+      Changed: Harvey *Furgusson*
+      To: Harvey *Fergusson*
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOOD OF THE CONQUERORS***
+
+
+
+CREDITS
+
+
+Febraury 23, 2007
+
+            Project Gutenberg Edition
+            Roland Schlenker and
+            Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+A WORD FROM PROJECT GUTENBERG
+
+
+This file should be named 20888-0.txt or 20888-0.zip.
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
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+***FINIS***
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Blood of the Conquerors by Harvey
+Fergusson
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: The Blood of the Conquerors
+
+Author: Harvey Fergusson
+
+Release Date: March 23, 2007 [Ebook #20888]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO 8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOOD OF THE CONQUERORS***
+
+
+
+
+
+                       The Blood of the Conquerors
+                                   by
+                            Harvey Fergusson
+
+New York
+Alfred � A � Knopf
+1921
+
+
+
+
+
+                           COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
+                          ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
+
+                 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+CHAPTER II
+CHAPTER III
+CHAPTER IV
+CHAPTER V
+CHAPTER VI
+CHAPTER VII
+CHAPTER VIII
+CHAPTER IX
+CHAPTER X
+CHAPTER XI
+CHAPTER XII
+CHAPTER XIII
+CHAPTER XIV
+CHAPTER XV
+CHAPTER XVI
+CHAPTER XVII
+CHAPTER XVIII
+CHAPTER XIX
+CHAPTER XX
+CHAPTER XXI
+CHAPTER XXII
+CHAPTER XXIII
+CHAPTER XXIV
+CHAPTER XXV
+CHAPTER XXVI
+CHAPTER XXVII
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+CHAPTER XXIX
+CHAPTER XXX
+CHAPTER XXXI
+CHAPTER XXXII
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+CHAPTER XXXV
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+EXTRA PAGES
+ERRATA
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I
+
+
+Whenever Ramon Delcasar boarded a railroad train he indulged a habit, not
+uncommon among men, of choosing from the women passengers the one whose
+appearance most pleased him to be the object of his attention during the
+journey. If the woman were reserved or well-chaperoned, or if she
+obviously belonged to another man, this attention might amount to no more
+than an occasional discreet glance in her direction. He never tried to
+make her acquaintance unless her eyes and mouth unmistakably invited him
+to do so.
+
+This conservatism on his part was not due to an innate lack of
+self-confidence. Whenever he felt sure of his social footing, his attitude
+toward women was bold and assured. But his social footing was a peculiarly
+uncertain thing for the reason that he was a Mexican. This meant that he
+faced in every social contact the possibility of a more or less covert
+prejudice against his blood, and that he faced it with an unduly proud and
+sensitive spirit concealed beneath a manner of aristocratic indifference.
+In the little southwestern town where he had lived all his life, except
+the last three years, his social position was ostensibly of the highest.
+He was spoken of as belonging to an old and prominent family. Yet he knew
+of mothers who carefully guarded their daughters from the peril of falling
+in love with him, and most of his boyhood fights had started when some one
+called him a "damned Mexican" or a "greaser."
+
+Except to an experienced eye there was little in his appearance or in his
+manner to suggest his race. His swarthy complexion indicated perhaps a
+touch of the Moorish blood in his Spanish ancestry, but he was no darker
+than are many Americans bearing Anglo-Saxon names, and his eyes were grey.
+His features were aquiline and pleasing, and he had in a high degree that
+bearing, at once proud and unself-conscious, which is called aristocratic.
+He spoke English with a very slight Spanish accent.
+
+When he had gone away to a Catholic law school in St. Louis, confident of
+his speech and manner and appearance, he had believed that he was leaving
+prejudice behind him; but in this he had been disappointed. The raw spots
+in his consciousness, if a little less irritated at the college, were by
+no means healed. Some persons, it is true, seemed to think nothing of his
+race one way or the other; to some, mostly women, it gave him an added
+interest; but in the long run it worked against him. It kept him out of a
+fraternity, and it made his career in football slow and hard.
+
+When he finally won the coveted position of quarterback, in spite of team
+politics, he made a reputation by the merciless fashion in which he drove
+his eleven, and by the fury of his own playing.
+
+The same bitter emulative spirit which had impelled him in football drove
+him to success in his study of the law. Books held no appeal for him, and
+he had no definite ambitions, but he had a good head and a great desire to
+show the gringos what he could do. So he had graduated high in his class,
+thrown his diploma into the bottom of his trunk, and departed from his
+alma mater without regret.
+
+The limited train upon which he took passage for home afforded specially
+good opportunity for his habit of mental philandering. The passengers were
+continually going up and down between the dining car at one end of the
+train and the observation car at the other, so that all of the women daily
+passed in review. They were an unusually attractive lot, for most of the
+passengers were wealthy easterners on their way to California. Ramon had
+never before seen together so many women of the kind that devotes time and
+money and good taste to the business of creating charm. Perfectly gowned
+and groomed, delicately scented, they filled him with desire and with envy
+for the men who owned them. There were two newly married couples among the
+passengers, and several intense flirtations were under way before the
+train reached Kansas City. Ramon felt as though he were a spectator at
+some delightful carnival. He was lonely and restless, yet fascinated.
+
+For no opportunity of becoming other than a spectator had come to him. He
+had chosen without difficulty the girl whom he preferred, but had only
+dared to admire her from afar. She was a little blonde person, not more
+than twenty, with angelic grey eyes, hair of the colour of ripe wheat and
+a complexion of perfect pink and white. The number of different costumes
+which she managed to don in two days filled him with amazement and gave
+her person an ever-varying charm and interest. She appeared always
+accompanied by a very placid-looking and portly woman, who was evidently
+her mother, and a tall, cadaverous sick man, whose indifferent and pettish
+attitude toward her seemed to indicate that he was either a brother or an
+uncle, for Ramon felt sure that she was not married. She acquired no male
+attendants, but sat most of the time very properly, if a little
+restlessly, with her two companions. Once or twice Ramon felt her look
+upon him, but she always turned it away when he glanced at her.
+
+Whether because she was really beautiful in her own petite way, or because
+she seemed so unattainable, or because her small blonde daintiness had a
+peculiar appeal for him, Ramon soon reached a state of conviction that she
+interested him more than any other girl he had ever seen. He discreetly
+followed her about the train, watching for the opportunity that never
+came, and consoling himself with the fact that no one else seemed more
+fortunate in winning her favour than he. The only strange male who
+attained to the privilege of addressing her was a long-winded and elderly
+gentleman of the British perpetual-travelling type, at least one
+representative of which is found on every transcontinental train, and it
+was plain enough that he bored the girl.
+
+Ramon took no interest in landscapes generally, but when he awoke on the
+last morning of his journey and found himself once more in the wide and
+desolate country of his birth, he was so deeply stirred and interested
+that he forgot all about the girl. Devotion to one particular bit of soil
+is a Mexican characteristic, and in Ramon it was highly developed because
+he had spent so much of his life close to the earth. Every summer of his
+boyhood he had been sent to one of the sheep ranches which belonged to the
+various branches of his numerous family. Each of these ranches was merely
+a headquarters where the sheep were annually dipped and sheared and from
+which the herds set out on their long wanderings across the open range.
+Often Ramon had followed them--across the deserts where the heat shimmered
+and the yellow dust hung like a great pale plume over the rippling backs
+of the herd, and up to the summer range in the mountains where they fed
+above the clouds in lush green pastures crowned with spires of rock and
+snow. He had shared the beans and mutton and black coffee of the herders
+and had gone to sleep on a pile of peltries to the evensong of the coyotes
+that hung on the flanks of the herd. Hunting, fishing, wandering, he had
+lived like a savage and found the life good.
+
+It was this life of primitive freedom that he had longed for in his exile.
+He had thought little of his family and less of his native town, but a
+nostalgia for open spaces and free wanderings had been always with him. He
+had come to hate the city with its hard walled-in ways and its dirty air,
+and also the eastern country-side with its little green prettiness
+surrounded by fences. He longed for a land where one can see for fifty
+miles, and not a man or a house. He thought that alkaline dust on his lips
+would taste sweet.
+
+Now he saw again the scorched tawny levels, the red hills dotted with
+little gnarled _pinon_ trees, the purple mystery of distant mountains. A
+great friendly warmth filled his body, and his breath came a little
+quickly with eagerness. When he saw a group of Mexicans jogging along the
+road on their scrawny mounts he wanted to call out to them: "_Como lo va,
+amigos?_" He would have liked to salute this whole country, which was his
+country, and to tell it how glad he was to see it again. It was the one
+thing in the world that he loved, and the only thing that had ever given
+him pleasure without tincture of bitterness.
+
+He heard two men in the seat behind him talking.
+
+"Did you ever see anything so desolate?" one asked.
+
+"I wouldn't live in this country if they gave it to me," said the other.
+
+Ramon turned and looked at them. They were solid, important-looking men,
+and having visited upon the country their impressive disapproval, they
+opened newspapers and shut it away from their sight. Dull fools, thought
+Ramon, who do not know God's country when they see it.
+
+And then he continued to look right over their heads and their newspapers,
+for tripping down the aisle all by herself at last, came the girl of his
+fruitless choice. His eyes, deep with dreams, met hers. She smiled upon
+him, radiantly, blushed a little, and hurried on through the car.
+
+He sat looking after her with a foolish grin on his face. He was pleased
+and shaken. So she had noticed him after all. She had been waiting for a
+chance, as well as he. And now that it had come, he was getting off the
+train in an hour. It was useless to follow her.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} He turned to the window
+again.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER II
+
+
+Usually in each generation of a large and long-established family there is
+some one individual who stands out from the rest as a leader and as the
+most perfect embodiment of the family traditions and characteristics. This
+was especially true of the Delcasar family. It was established in this
+country in the year 1790 by Don Eusabio Maria Delcasar y Morales, an
+officer in the army of the King of Spain, who distinguished himself in the
+conquest of New Mexico, and especially in certain campaigns against the
+Navajos. As was customary at that time, the King rewarded his faithful
+soldier with a grant of land in the new province. This Delcasar estate lay
+in the Rio Grande Valley and the surrounding _mesa_ lands. By the
+provisions of the King's grant, its dimensions were each the distance that
+Don Delcasar could ride in a day. The Don chose good horses and did not
+spare them, so that he secured to his family more than a thousand square
+miles of land with a strip of rich valley through the middle and a
+wilderness of desert and mountain on either side. Much of this
+principality was never seen by Don Eusabio, and even the four sons who
+divided the estate upon his death had each more land than he could well
+use.
+
+The outstanding figure of this second generation was Don Solomon Delcasar,
+who was noted for the magnificence of his establishment, and for his
+autocratic spirit.
+
+No Borgia or Bourbon ever ruled more absolutely over his own domain than
+did Don Solomon over the hundreds of square miles which made up his
+estate. He owned not only lands and herds but also men and women. The
+_peones_ who worked his lands were his possessions as much as were his
+horses. He had them beaten when they offended him and their daughters were
+his for the taking. He could not sell them, but this restriction did not
+apply to the Navajo and Apache slaves whom he captured in war. These were
+his to be sold or retained for his own use as he preferred. Adult Indians
+were seldom taken prisoner, as they were untameable, but boys and girls
+below the age of fifteen were always taken alive, when possible, and were
+valued at five hundred _pesos_ each. Don Solomon usually sold the boys, as
+he had plenty of _peones_, but he never sold a comely Indian girl.
+
+The Don was a man of proud and irascible temper, but kindly when not
+crossed. He had been known to kill a _peon_ in a fit of anger, and then
+afterward to bestow all sorts of benefits upon the man's wife and
+children.
+
+The life of his home, like that of all the other Mexican gentlemen in his
+time, was an easy and pleasant one. He owned a great _adobe_ house, built
+about a square courtyard like a fort, and shaded pleasantly by cottonwood
+trees. There he dwelt with his numerous family, his _peones_ and his
+slaves. In the spring and summer every one worked in the fields, though
+not too hard. In the fall the men went east to the great plains to kill a
+supply of buffalo meat for the winter, and often after the hunt they
+travelled south into Sonora and Chihuahua to trade mustangs and buffalo
+hides for woven goods and luxuries.
+
+There was a pleasant social life among the aristocrats of dances and
+visits. Marriages, funerals and christenings were occasions of great
+ceremony and social importance. Indeed everything done by the Dons was
+characterized by much formality and ceremony, the custom of which had been
+brought over from Spain. But they were no longer really in touch with
+Spanish civilization. They never went back to the mother country. They had
+no books save the Bible and a few other religious works, and many of them
+never learned to read these. Their lives were made up of fighting, with
+the Indians and also among themselves, for there were many feuds; of
+hunting and primitive trade; and of venery upon a generous and patriarchal
+scale. They were Spanish gentlemen by descent, all for honour and
+tradition and sentiment; but by circumstance they were barbarian lords,
+and their lives were full of lust and blood.
+
+Circumstance somewhat modified the vaunted purity of their Spanish blood,
+too. The Indian slave girls who lived in their houses bore the children of
+their sons, and some of these half-bred and quarter-bred children were
+eventually accepted by the _gente de razon_, as the aristocrats called
+themselves. In this way a strain of Navajo blood got into the Delcasar
+family, and doubtless did much good, as all of the Spanish stock was
+weakened by much marrying of cousins.
+
+Dona Ameliana Delcasar, a sister of Don Solomon, was responsible for
+another alien infusion which ultimately percolated all through the family,
+and has been thought by some to be responsible for the unusual mental
+ability of certain Delcasars. Dona Ameliana, a beautiful but somewhat
+unruly girl, went into a convent in Durango, Mexico, at the age of
+fifteen. At the age of eighteen she eloped with a French priest named
+Raubien, who was a man of unusual intellect and a poet. The errant couple
+came to New Mexico and took up lands. They were excommunicated, of course,
+and both of them were buried in unconsecrated ground; but despite their
+spiritual handicaps they raised a family of eleven comely daughters, all
+of whom married well, several of them into the Delcasar family. Thus some
+of the Delcasars who boasted of their pure Castilian blood were really of
+a mongrel breed, comprising along with the many strains that have mingled
+in Spain, those of Navajo and French.
+
+Don Solomon Delcasar played a brilliant part in the military activities
+which marked the winning of Mexican Independence from Spain in the
+eighteen-twenties, and also in the incessant Indian wars. He was a fighter
+by necessity, but also by choice. They shed blood with grace and
+nonchalance in those days, and the Delcasars were always known as
+dangerous men.
+
+The most curious thing about this r�gime of the old-time Dons was the
+way in which it persisted. It received its first serious blow in 1845 when
+the military forces of the United States took possession of New Mexico.
+Don Jesus Christo Delcasar, who was then the richest and most powerful of
+the family, was suspected of being a party to the conspiracy which brought
+about the Taos massacre--the last organized resistance made to the gringo
+domination. At this time some of the Delcasars went to Old Mexico to live,
+as did a good many others among the Dons, feeling that the old ways of
+life in New Mexico were sure to change, and having the Spanish aversion to
+any departure from tradition. But their fears were not realized, and life
+went on as before. In 1865 the _peones_ and Indian slaves were formally
+set free, but all of them immediately went deeply in debt to their former
+masters and thus retained in effect the same status as before. So it
+happened that in the seventies, when New York was growing into a
+metropolis, and the factory system was fastening itself upon New England,
+and the middle west was getting fat and populous and tame, life in the
+Southwest remained much as it had been a century before.
+
+Laws and governments were powerless there to change ways of life, as they
+have always been, but two parallel bars of steel reaching across the
+prairies brought change with them, and it was great and sudden. The
+railroad reached the Rio Grande Valley early in the eighties, and it
+smashed the colourful barbaric pattern of the old life as the ruthless
+fist of an infidel might smash a stained glass window. The metropolis of
+the northern valley in those days was a sleepy little _adobe_ town of a
+few hundred people, reclining about its dusty _plaza_ near the river. The
+railroad, scorning to notice it, passed a mile away. Forthwith a new town
+began growing up between, the old one and the railroad. And this new town
+was such a town as had never before been seen in all the Southwest. It was
+built of wood and only half painted. It was ugly, noisy and raw. It was
+populated largely by real estate agents, lawyers, politicians and
+barkeepers. It cared little for joy, leisure, beauty or tradition. Its God
+was money and its occupation was business.
+
+This thing called business was utterly strange to the Delcasars and to all
+of the other Dons. They were men of the saddle, fighting men, and traders
+only in a primitive way. Business seemed to them a conspiracy to take
+their lands and their goods away from them, and a remarkably successful
+conspiracy. Debt and mortgage and speculation were the names of its
+weapons. Some of the Dons, including many of the Delcasars, who were now a
+very numerous family, owning each a comfortable homestead but no more,
+sold out and went to Old Mexico. Many who stayed lost all they had in a
+few years, and degenerated into petty politicians or small storekeepers.
+Some clung to a bit of land and went on farming, making always less and
+less money, sinking into poverty and insignificance, until some of them
+were no better off than the men who had once been their _peones_.
+
+Diego Delcasar and Felipe Delcasar, brothers, were two who owned houses in
+the Old Town and farms nearby, who stayed in the country and held their
+own for a time and after a fashion. Diego Delcasar was far the more able
+of the two, and a true scion of his family. He caught onto the gringo
+methods to a certain extent. He divided some farm land on the edge of town
+into lots and sold them for a good price. With the money he bought a great
+area of mountain land in the northern part of the state, where he raised
+sheep and ruled with an iron hand, much as his forbears had ruled in the
+valley. He also went into politics, learned to make a good stump speech
+and got himself elected to the highly congenial position of sheriff. In
+this place he made a great reputation for fearlessness and for the
+ruthless and skilful use of a gun. He once kicked down the locked door of
+a saloon and arrested ten armed gamblers, who had threatened to kill him.
+He was known and feared all over the territory and was a tyrant in his own
+section of it. When a gringo prospector ventured to dispute with him the
+ownership of a certain mine, the gringo was found dead in the bottom of
+the shaft. It was reported that he had fallen in and broken his neck and
+no one dared to look at the bullet hole in his back.
+
+Don Diego's wife died without leaving him any children, but he had
+numerous children none-the-less. It was said that one could follow his
+wanderings about the territory by the sporadic occurrence of the
+unmistakable Delcasar nose among the younger inhabitants. All of his sons
+and daughters by the left hand he treated with notable generosity. He was
+a sort of hero to the native people--a great fighter, a great lover--and
+songs about his adventures were composed and sung around the fires in
+sheep camps and by gangs of trackworkers.
+
+Don Diego, in a word, was a true Delcasar and a great man. Had he used his
+opportunities wisely he might have been a millionaire. But at the age of
+sixty he owned little besides his house and his wild mountain lands. He
+drank a good deal and played poker almost every night. Once he had been a
+famous winner, but in these later years he generally lost. He also formed
+a partnership with a real estate broker named MacDougall, for the
+development of his wild lands, and it was predicted by some that the
+leading development would be an ultimate transfer of title to Mr.
+MacDougall, who was known to be lending the Don money and taking land as
+security.
+
+Don Felipe's career was far less spectacular than that of his brother. He
+owned more than Don Diego to start with, and he spent his life slowly
+losing it, so that when he died he left nothing but a house in Old Town
+and a single small sheep ranch, which afforded his widow, two daughters
+and one son a scant living.
+
+This son, Ramon Delcasar, was the hope of the family. He would inherit the
+estate of Don Diego, if the old Don died before spending it all, which it
+did not seem likely that he would do. But Ramon early demonstrated that he
+had a more important heritage in the sharp intelligence, and the proud,
+plucky and truculent spirit which had characterized the best of the
+Delcasars throughout the family history.
+
+As there was no considerable family estate for him to settle upon, he was
+sent to law school at the age of twenty, and returned three years later to
+take up the practice of his profession in his native town. Thus he was the
+first of the Delcasars to face life with his bare hands. And he was also
+the last of them in a sense, to face the gringos. All the others of his
+name, save the senile Don, had either died, departed or sunk from sight
+into the mass of the peasantry.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER III
+
+
+The year that Ramon returned to his native town the annual fair, which
+took place at the fair-grounds in Old Town, was an especially gorgeous and
+throngful event, rich in spectacle and incident. A steer was roped and
+hog-tied in record time by Clay MacGarnigal of Lincoln County. A
+seven-mile relay race was won by a buck named Slonny Begay. In the bronco
+busting contest two men were injured to the huge enjoyment of the crowd.
+The twenty-seventh cavalry from Fort Bliss performed a sham battle. The
+home team beat several other teams. Enormous apples raised by irrigation
+in the Pecos Valley attracted much attention, and a hungry Mexican
+absconded with a prize Buff Orpington rooster.
+
+Twice a day the single narrow street which connected the neat brick and
+frame respectability of New Town with the picturesque _adobe_ squalor of
+Old Town was filled by a curiously varied crowd. The tourist from the
+East, distinguished by his camera and his unnecessary umbrella, jostled
+the Pueblo squaw from Isleta, with her latest-born slung over her shoulder
+in a fold of red blanket. Mexican families from the country marched in
+single file, the men first, then the women enveloped in huge black shawls,
+carrying babies and leading older children by the hand. Cowboys, Indians
+and soldiers raced their horses through the swarming street with reckless
+skill. Automobiles honked and fretted. The street cars, bulging humanity
+at every door and window, strove in vain to relieve the situation. Several
+children and numerous pigs and chickens were run over. From the unpaved
+street to the cloudless sky rose a vast cloud of dust, such as only a
+rainless country made of sand can produce. Dust was in every one's eyes
+and mouth and upon every one's clothing. It was the unofficial badge of
+the gathering. It turned the green of the cottonwood trees to grey, and
+lay in wait for unsuspecting teeth between the halves of hamburger
+sandwiches sold at corner booths.
+
+Ramon, who had obtained a pass to the grounds through the influence of his
+uncle, went to the fair every day, although he was not really pleased with
+it. He was assured by every one that it was the greatest fair ever held in
+the southwest, but to him it seemed smaller, dustier and less exciting
+than the fairs he had attended in his boyhood.
+
+This impression harmonized with a general feeling of discontent which had
+possessed him since his return. He had obtained a position in the office
+of a lawyer at fifty dollars a month, and spent the greater part of each
+day making out briefs and borrowing books for his employer from other
+lawyers. It seemed to him a petty and futile occupation, and the way to
+anything better was long and obscure. The town was full of other young
+lawyers who were doing the same things and doing them with a better grace
+than he. They were impelled by a great desire to make money. He, too,
+would have liked a great deal of money, but he had no taste for piling it
+up dollar by dollar. The only thing that cheered him was the prospect of
+inheriting his uncle's wealth, and that was an uncertain prospect. Don
+Diego seemed to be doing what he could to get rid of his property before
+he died.
+
+Local society did not please Ramon either. The girls of the gringo
+families were not nearly as pretty, for the most part, as the ones he had
+seen in the East. The dryness and the scorching sun had a bad effect on
+their complexions. The girls of his own race did not much interest him;
+his liking was for blondes. And besides, girls were relatively scarce in
+the West because of the great number of men who came from the East.
+Competition for their favours was keen, and he could not compete
+successfully because he had so little money.
+
+The fair held but one new experience for him, and that was the Montezuma
+ball. This took place on the evening of the last day, and was an exclusive
+invitation event, designed to give elegance to the fair by bringing
+together prominent persons from all parts of the state. Ramon had never
+attended a Montezuma ball, as he had been considered a mere boy before his
+departure for college and had not owned a dress suit. But this lack had
+now been supplied, and he had obtained an invitation through the Governor
+of the State, who happened to be a Mexican.
+
+He went to the ball with his mother and his eldest sister in a carriage
+which had been among the family possessions for about a quarter of a
+century. It had once been a fine equipage, and had been drawn by a
+spirited team in the days before Felipe Delcasar lost all his money, but
+now it had a look of decay, and the team consisted of a couple of rough
+coated, low-headed brutes, one of which was noticeably smaller than the
+other. The coachman was a ragged native who did odd jobs about the
+Delcasar house.
+
+The Montezuma ball took place in the new Eldorado Hotel which had recently
+been built by the railroad company for the entertainment of its
+transcontinental passengers. It was not a beautiful building, but it was
+an apt expression of the town's personality. Designed in the ancient style
+of the early Spanish missions, long, low and sprawling, with deep
+verandahs, odd little towers and arched gateways it was made of cement and
+its service and prices were of the Manhattan school. A little group of
+Pueblo Indians, lonesomely picturesque in buck-skin and red blankets, with
+silver and turquoise rings and bracelets, were always seated before its
+doors, trying to sell fruit and pottery to well-tailored tourists. It had
+a museum of Southwestern antiquities and curios, where a Navajo squaw
+sulkily wove blankets on a handloom for the edification of the guilded
+stranger from the East. On the platform in front of it, perspiring
+Mexicans smashed baggage and performed the other hard labour of a modern
+terminal.
+
+Thus the Eldorado Hotel was rich in that contrast between the old and the
+new which everywhere characterized the town. Generally speaking, the old
+was on exhibition or at work, while the new was at leisure or in charge.
+
+When the Delcasar carriage reached the hotel, it had to take its place in
+a long line of crawling vehicles, most of which were motor cars. Ramon
+felt acutely humiliated to arrive at the ball in a decrepit-looking rig
+when nearly every one else came in an automobile. He hoped that no one
+would notice them. But the smaller of the two horses, which had spent most
+of his life in the country, became frightened, reared, plunged, and
+finally backed the rig into one of the cars, smashing a headlight,
+blocking traffic, and making the Delcasars a target for searchlights and
+oaths. The Dona Delcasar, a ponderous and swarthy woman in voluminous
+black silk, became excited and stood up in the carriage, shouting shrill
+and useless directions to the coachman in Spanish. People began to laugh.
+Ramon roughly seized his mother by the arm and dragged her down. He was
+trembling with rage and embarassment.
+
+It was an immense relief to him when he had deposited the two women on
+chairs and was able to wander away by himself. He took up his position in
+a doorway and watched the opening of the ball with a cold and disapproving
+eye. The beginning was stiff, for many of those present were unknown to
+each other and had little in common. Most of them were "Americans," Jews
+and Mexicans. The men were all a good deal alike in their dress suits, but
+the women displayed an astonishing variety. There were tall gawky blonde
+wives of prominent cattlemen; little natty black-eyed Jewesses, best
+dressed of all; swarthy Mexican mothers of politically important families,
+resplendent in black silk and diamonds; and pretty dark Mexican girls of
+the younger generation, who did not look at all like the se�oritas of
+romance, but talked, dressed and flirted in a thoroughly American manner.
+
+The affair finally got under way in the form of a grand march, which
+toured the hall a couple of times and disintegrated into waltzing couples.
+Ramon watched this proceeding and several other dances without feeling any
+desire to take part. He was in a state of grand and gloomy discontent,
+which was not wholly unpleasant, as is often the case with youthful
+glooms. He even permitted himself to smile at some of the capers cut by
+prominent citizens. But presently his gaze settled upon one couple with a
+real sense of resentment and uneasiness. The couple consisted of his
+uncle, Diego Delcasar, and the wife of James MacDougall, the lawyer and
+real estate operator with whom the Don had formed a partnership, and whom
+Ramon believed to be systematically fleecing the old man.
+
+Don Diego was a big, paunchy Mexican with a smooth brown face, strikingly
+set off by fierce white whiskers. His partner was a tall, tight-lipped,
+angular woman, who danced painfully, but with determination. The two had
+nothing to say to each other, but both of them smiled resolutely, and the
+Don visibly perspired under the effort of steering his inflexible friend.
+
+Although he did not formulate the idea, this couple was to Ramon a symbol
+of the disgust with which the life of his native town inspired him. Here
+was the Mexican sedulously currying favour with the gringo, who robbed him
+for his pains. And here was the specific example of that relation which
+promised to rob Ramon of his heritage.
+
+For the gringos he felt a cold hostility--a sense of antagonism and
+difference--but it was his senile and fatuous uncle, the type of his own
+defeated race, whom he despised.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER IV
+
+
+When the music stopped Ramon left the hall for the hotel lobby, where he
+soothed his sensibilities with a small brown cigarette of his own making.
+In one of the swinging benches covered with Navajo blankets two other
+dress-suited youths were seated, smoking and talking. One of them was a
+short, plump Jew with a round and gravely good-natured face; the other a
+tall, slender young fellow with a great mop of curly brown hair, large
+soft eyes and a sensitive mouth.
+
+"She's good looking, all right," the little fellow assented, as Ramon came
+up.
+
+"Good looking!" exclaimed the other with enthusiasm. "She's a little
+queen! Nothing like her ever hit this town before."
+
+"Who's all the excitement about?" Ramon demanded, thrusting himself into
+the conversation with the easy familiarity which was his right as one of
+"the bunch."
+
+Sidney Felberg turned to him in mock amazement.
+
+"Good night, Ramon! Where have you been? Asleep? We're talking about Julia
+Roth, same as everybody else.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"Who's she?" Ramon queried coolly, discharging a cloud of smoke from the
+depths of his lungs. "Never heard of her."
+
+"Well, she's our latest social sensation {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} sister of some rich lunger that
+recently hit town; therefore very important. But that's not the only
+reason. Wait till you see her."
+
+"All right; introduce me to her," Ramon suggested.
+
+"Go on; knock him down to the lady," Sidney proposed to his companion.
+
+"No, you," Conny demurred. "I refuse to take the responsibility. He's too
+good looking."
+
+"All right," Sidney assented. "Come on. It's the only way I can get a look
+at her anyway--introducing somebody else. A good-looking girl in this town
+can start a regular stampede. We ought to import a few hundred.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+It was during an intermission. They forced their way through a phalanx of
+men brandishing programs and pencils, each trying to bring himself
+exclusively to the attention of a small blonde person who seemed to have
+some such quality of attractiveness for men as spilled honey has for
+insects.
+
+When Ramon saw her he felt as though something inside of him had bumped up
+against his diaphragm, taking away his breath for a moment, agitating him
+strangely. And he saw an answering surprised recognition in her wide grey
+eyes.
+
+"You {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} you're the girl on the train," he remarked idiotically, as he took
+her hand.
+
+She turned pink and laughed.
+
+"You're the man that wouldn't look up," she mocked.
+
+"What's all this about?" demanded Sidney. "You two met before?"
+
+"May I have a dance?" Ramon inquired, suddenly recovering his presence of
+mind.
+
+"Let me see {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} you're awfully late." They put their heads close together
+over her program. He saw her cut out the name of another man who had two
+dances, and then she held her pencil poised.
+
+"Of course I didn't get your name," she admitted.
+
+"No; I'll write it {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Was it Carter? Delcasar? Ramon Delcasar. You must be
+Spanish. I was wondering {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} you're so dark. I'm awfully interested in
+Spanish people.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}" She wrote the name in a bold, upright, childish hand.
+
+Ramon found that he had lost his mood of discontent after this, and he
+entered with zest into the spirit of the dance which was fast losing its
+stiff and formal character. Punch and music had broken down barriers. The
+hall was noisy with the ringing, high pitched laughter of excitement. It
+was warm and filled with an exotic, stimulating odour, compounded of many
+perfumes and of perspiration. Every one danced. Young folk danced as
+though inspired, swaying their bodies in time to the tune. The old and the
+fat danced with pathetic joyful earnestness, going round and round the
+hall with red and perspiring faces, as though in this measure they might
+recapture youth and slimness if only they worked hard enough. Now and then
+a girl sang a snatch of the tune in a clear young voice, full of abandon,
+and sometimes others took up the song and it rose triumphant above the
+music of the orchestra for a moment, only to be lost again as the singers
+danced apart.
+
+Ramon had been looking forward so long and with such intense anticipation
+to his dance with Julia Roth that he was a little self-conscious at its
+beginning, but this feeling was abolished by the discovery that they could
+dance together perfectly. He danced in silence, looking down upon her
+yellow head and white shoulders, the odour of her hair filling his
+nostrils, forgetful of everything but the sensuous delight of the moment.
+
+This mood of solemn rapture was evidently not shared by her, for presently
+the yellow head was thrown back, and she smiled up at him a bit mockingly.
+
+"Just like on the train," she remarked. "Not a thing to say for yourself.
+Are you always thus silent?"
+
+Ramon grinned.
+
+"No," he countered, "I was just trying to get up the nerve to ask if
+you'll let me come to see you."
+
+"That doesn't take much nerve," she assured him. "Practically every man
+I've danced with tonight has asked me that. I never had so many dates
+before in my life."
+
+"Well; may I follow the crowd, then?"
+
+"You may," she laughed. "Or call me up first, and maybe there won't be any
+crowd."
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER V
+
+
+His mother and sister had left early, for which fact he was thankful. He
+walked home alone with his hat in his hand, letting the cold wind of early
+morning blow on his hot brow. Punch and music and dancing had filled him
+with a delightful excitement. He felt glad of life and full of power. He
+could have gone on walking for hours, enjoying the rhythm of his stride
+and the gorgeous confusion of his thoughts, but in a remarkably short time
+he had covered the mile to his house in Old Town.
+
+It was a long, low _adobe_ with a paintless and rickety wooden verandah
+along its front, and with deep-set, iron-barred windows looking upon the
+square about which Old Town was built. Delcasars had lived in this house
+for over a century. Once it had been the best in town. Now it was an
+antiquity pointed out to tourists. Most of the Mexicans who had money had
+moved away from Old Town and built modern brick houses in New Town. But
+this was an expensive proceeding. The old _adobe_ houses which they left
+brought them little. The Delcasars had never been able to afford this
+removal. They were deeply attached to the old house and also deeply
+ashamed of it.
+
+Ramon passed through a narrow hallway into a courtyard and across it to
+his room. The light of the oil lamp which he lit showed a large oblong
+chamber with a low ceiling supported by heavy timbers, whitewashed walls
+and heavy old-fashioned walnut furniture. A large coloured print of Mary
+and the Babe in a gilt frame hung over the wash-stand, and next to it a
+college pennant was tacked over a photograph of his graduating class.
+Several Navajo blankets covered most of the floor and a couple of guns
+stood in a corner.
+
+When he was in bed his overstimulated state of mind became a torment. He
+rolled and tossed, beset by exciting images and ideas. Every time that a
+growing confusion of these indicated the approach of sleep, he was brought
+sharply back to full consciousness by the crowing of a rooster in the
+backyard. Finally he threw off the covers and sat up, cursing the rooster
+in two languages and resolving to eat him.
+
+Sleep was out of the question now. Suddenly he remembered that this was
+Sunday morning, and that he had intended going to the mountains. To start
+at once would enable him to avoid an argument with his mother concerning
+the inevitability of damnation for those who miss early Mass. He rose and
+dressed himself, putting on a cotton shirt, a faded and dirty pair of
+overalls and coarse leather riding boots; tied a red and white bandana
+about his neck and stuck on his head an old felt hat minus a band and with
+a drooping brim. So attired he looked exactly like a Mexican countryman--a
+poor _ranchero_ or a woodcutter. This masquerade was not intentional nor
+was he conscious of it. He simply wore for his holiday the kind of clothes
+he had always worn about the sheep ranches.
+
+Nevertheless he felt almost as different from his usual self as he looked.
+A good part of his identity as a poor, discontented and somewhat lazy
+young lawyer was hanging in the closet with his ready-made business suit.
+He took a long and noisy drink from the pitcher on the wash-stand, picked
+up his shot-gun and slipped cautiously out of the house, feeling care-free
+and happy.
+
+Behind the house was a corral with an _adobe_ wall that was ten feet high
+except where it had fallen down and been patched with boards. A scrub cow
+and three native horses were kept there. Two of the horses made the
+ill-matched team that hauled his mother and sister to church and town. The
+other was a fiery ragged little roan mare which he kept for his own use.
+None of these horses was worth more than thirty dollars, and they were
+easily kept on a few tons of alfalfa a year.
+
+The little mare laid back her ears and turned as though to annihilate him
+with a kick. He quickly stepped right up against the threatening hind
+legs, after the fashion of experienced horsemen who know that a kick is
+harmless at short range, and laid his hand on her side. She trembled but
+dared not move. He walked to her head, sliding his hand along the rough,
+uncurried belly and talking to her in Spanish. In a moment he had the
+bridle on her.
+
+The town was impressively empty and still as he galloped through it. Hoof
+beats rang out like shots, scaring a late-roaming cat, which darted across
+the street like a runaway shadow.
+
+Near the railroad station he came to a large white van, with a beam of
+light emerging from its door. This was a local institution of
+longstanding, known as the chile-wagon, and was the town's only all-night
+restaurant. Here he aroused a fat, sleepy old Mexican.
+
+"_Un tamale y cafe_," he ordered, and then had the proprietor make him a
+couple of sandwiches to put in his pocket. He consumed his breakfast
+hurriedly, rolled and lit a little brown cigarette, and was off again.
+
+His way led up a long steep street lined with new houses and vacant lots;
+then out upon the high empty level of the _mesa_. It was daylight now, of
+a clear, brilliant morning. He was riding across a level prairie, which
+was a grey desert most of the year, but which the rainy season of late
+summer had now touched with rich colours. The grass in many of the hollows
+was almost high enough to cut with a scythe, and its green expanse was
+patched with purple-flowered weeds. Meadow larks bugled from the grass;
+flocks of wild doves rose on whistling wings from the weed patches; a
+great grey jack-rabbit with jet-tipped ears sprang from his form beside
+the road and went sailing away in long effortless bounds, like a
+wind-blown thing. Miles ahead were the mountains--an angular mass of blue
+distance and purple shadow, rising steep five thousand feet above the
+_mesa_, with little round foothills clustering at their feet. A brisk cool
+wind fanned his face and fluttered the brim of his hat.
+
+But with the rising of the sun the wind dropped, it became warm and he
+felt dull and sleepy. When he came to a little juniper bush which spread
+its bit of shadow beside the road, he dismounted, pulled the saddle off
+his sweating mare, and sat down in the shade to eat his lunch. When he had
+finished he wished for a drink of water and philosophically took a smoke
+instead. Then he lay down, using his saddle for a pillow, puffing
+luxuriously at his cigarette. It was cool in his bit of shadow, though all
+the world about him swam in waves of heat.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Cool and very quiet. He felt
+drowsily content. This sunny desolation was to him neither lonely nor
+beautiful; it was just his own country, the soil from which he had
+sprung.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Colours and outlines blurred as his eyelids grew heavy. Sleep
+conquered him in a sudden black rush.
+
+It was late afternoon when he awakened. He had meant to shoot doves, but
+it was too late now to do any hunting if he was to reach Archulera's place
+before dark. He saddled his mare hurriedly and went forward at a hard
+gallop.
+
+Archulera's place was typical of the little Mexican ranches that dot the
+Southwest wherever there is water enough to irrigate a few acres. The
+brown block of _adobe_ house stood on an arid, rocky hillside, and looked
+like a part of it, save for the white door, and a few bright scarlet
+strings of _chile_ hung over the rafter ends to dry. Down in the _arroyo_
+was the little fenced patch where corn and _chile_ and beans were raised,
+and behind the house was a round goat corral of wattled brush. The skyward
+rocky waste of the mountain lifted behind the house, and the empty reach
+of the _mesa_ lay before--an immense and arid loneliness, now softened and
+beautified by many shadows.
+
+Ramon could see old man Archulera far up the mountainside, rounding up his
+goats for evening milking, and he could faintly hear the bleating of the
+animals and the old man's shouts and imprecations. He whistled loudly
+through his fingers and waved his hat.
+
+_"__Como lo va primo!__"_ he shouted, and he saw Archulera stop and look,
+and heard faintly his answering, _"__Como la va!__"_
+
+Soon Archulera had his goats penned, and Ramon joined him while he milked
+half a dozen ewes.
+
+"I'm glad you came," Archulera told him, "I haven't seen a man in a month
+except one gringo that said he was a prospector and stole a kid from me.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+How was the fair?"
+
+When the milking was over, the old man selected a fat kid, caught it by
+the hind leg and dragged it, bleating in wild terror, to a gallows behind
+the house, where he hung it up and skilfully cut its throat, leaving it to
+bleat and bleed to death while he wiped his knife and went on talking
+volubly with his guest. The occasional visits of Ramon were the most
+interesting events in his life, and he always killed a kid to express his
+appreciation. Ramon reciprocated with gifts of tobacco and whisky. They
+were great friends.
+
+Archulera was a short, muscular Mexican with a swarthy, wrinkled face,
+broad but well-cut. His big, thin-lipped mouth showed an amazing disarray
+of strong yellow teeth when he smiled. His little black eyes were shrewd
+and full of fire. Although he was sixty years old, there was little grey
+in the thick black hair that hung almost to his shoulders. He wore a cheap
+print shirt and a faded pair of overalls, belted at the waist with a strip
+of red wool. His foot-gear consisted of the uppers of a pair of old shoes
+with soles of rawhide sewed on moccasin-fashion.
+
+With no more disguise than a red blanket and a grunt Archulera could have
+passed for an Indian anywhere, but he made it clear to all that he
+regarded himself as a Spanish gentleman. He was descended, like Ramon,
+from one of the old families, which had received occasional infusions of
+native blood. There was probably more Indian in him than in the young man,
+but the chief difference between the two was due to the fact that the
+Archuleras had lost most of their wealth a couple of generations before,
+so that the old man had come down in the social scale to the condition of
+an ordinary goat-herding _pelado_. There are many such fallen aristocrats
+among the New Mexican peasantry. Most of them, like Archulera, are
+distinguished by their remarkably choice and fluent use of the Spanish
+language, and by the formal, eighteenth-century perfection of their
+manners, which contrast strangely with the barbaric way of their lives.
+
+The old man was now skinning and butchering the goat with speed and skill.
+Nothing was wasted. The hide was flung over a rafter end to dry. The head
+was washed and put in a pan, as were the smaller entrails with bits of fat
+clinging to them, and the liver and heart. The meat was too fresh to be
+eaten tonight, but these things would serve well enough for supper, and he
+called to his daughter, Catalina, to come and get them.
+
+The two men soon joined her in the low, whitewashed room, which had hard
+mud for a floor, and was furnished with a bare table and a few chairs. It
+was clean, but having only one window and that always closed, it had a
+pronounced and individual odour. In one corner was a little fireplace,
+which had long served both for cooking and to furnish heat, but as a
+concession to modern ideas Archulera had lately supplemented it with a
+cheap range in the opposite corner. There Catalina was noisily distilling
+an aroma from goat liver and onions. The entrails she threaded on little
+sticks and broiled them to a delicate brown over the coals, while the head
+she placed whole in the oven. Later this was cracked open and the brains
+taken out with a spoon, piping hot and very savoury. These viands were
+supplemented by a pan of large pale biscuits, and a big tin pot of coffee.
+Catalina served the two men, saying nothing, not even raising her eyes,
+while they talked and paid no attention to her. After eating her own
+supper and washing the dishes she disappeared into the next room.
+
+This self-effacing behaviour on the part of the girl accorded with the
+highest standards of Mexican etiquette, and showed her good breeding. The
+fact that old Archulera paid no more attention to her than to a chair did
+not indicate that he was indifferent to her. On the contrary, as Ramon had
+long ago discovered, she was one of the chief concerns of his life. He
+could not forget that in her veins flowed some of the very best of Spanish
+blood, and he considered her altogether too good for the common
+sheep-herders and wood-cutters who aspired to woo her. These he summarily
+warned away, and brought his big Winchester rifle into the argument
+whenever it became warm. When he left the girl alone, in order to guard
+her from temptation he locked her into the house together with his dog.
+Catalina had led a starved and isolated existence.
+
+After the meal, Archulera became reminiscent of his youth. Some
+thirty-five years before he had been one of the young bloods of the
+country, having fought against the Navajos and Apaches. He had made a
+reputation, long since forgotten by every one but himself, for ruthless
+courage and straight shooting, and many a man had he killed. In his early
+life, as he had often told Ramon, he had been a boon companion of old
+Diego Delcasar. The two had been associated in some mining venture, and
+Archulera claimed that Delcasar had cheated him out of his share of the
+proceeds, and so doomed him to his present life of poverty. When properly
+stimulated by food and drink Archulera never failed to tell this story,
+and to express his hatred for the man who had deprived him of wealth and
+social position. He had at first approached the subject diffidently, not
+knowing how Ramon would regard an attack on the good name of his uncle,
+and being anxious not to offend the young man. But finding that Ramon
+listened tolerantly, if not sympathetically, he had told the story over
+and over, each time with more detail and more abundant and picturesque
+denunciation of Diego Delcasar, but with substantial uniformity as to the
+facts. As he spoke he watched the face of Ramon narrowly. Always the
+recital ended about the same way.
+
+"You are not like your uncle," he assured the young man earnestly, in his
+formal Spanish. "You are generous, honourable. When your uncle is dead,
+you will repay me for the wrongs that I have suffered--no?"
+
+Ramon would always laugh at this. This night, in order to humour the old
+man, he asked him how much he thought the Delcasar estate owed him for his
+ancient wrong.
+
+"Five thousand dollars!" Archulera replied with slow emphasis. He probably
+had no idea how much he had lost, but five thousand dollars was his
+conception of a great deal of money.
+
+Ramon again laughed and refused to commit himself. He certainly had no
+idea of giving Archulera five thousand dollars, but he thought that if he
+ever did come into his own he would certainly take care of the old man--and
+of Catalina.
+
+Soon after this Archulera went off to sleep in the other end of the house,
+after trying in vain to persuade Ramon to occupy his bed. Ramon, as
+always, refused. He would sleep on a pile of sheep skins in the corner. He
+really preferred this, because the sheep skins were both cleaner and
+softer than Archulera's bed, and also for another reason.
+
+After the old man had gone, he stretched out on his pallet, and lit
+another cigarette. He could hear his host thumping around for a few
+minutes; then it was very still, save for a faint moan of wind and the
+ticking of a cheap clock. This late still hour had always been to him one
+of the most delightful parts of his visits to Archulera's house. For some
+reason he got a sense of peace and freedom out of this far-away quiet
+place. And he knew that in the next room Catalina was waiting for
+him--Catalina with the strong, shapely brown body which her formless calico
+smock concealed by day, with the eager, blind desire bred of her long
+loneliness.
+
+During his first few visits to Archulera, he had scarcely noticed the
+girl. That was doubtless one reason why the old man had welcomed him. He
+had come here simply to go deer-hunting with Archulera, to eat his goat
+meat and chile, to get away from the annoyance and boredom of his life in
+town, and into the crude, primitive atmosphere which he had loved as a
+boy. Catalina had been to him just the usual slovenly figure of a Mexican
+woman, a self-effacing drudge.
+
+He had felt her eyes upon him several times, had not looked up quickly
+enough to meet them, but had noticed the pretty soft curve of her cheek.
+Then one night when he was stretched out on his sheep skins after
+Archulera had gone to bed, the girl came into the room and began pottering
+about the stove. He had watched her, wondering what she was doing. As she
+knelt on the floor he noticed the curve of her hip, the droop of her
+breast against her frock, the surprising round perfection of her
+outstretched arm. It struck him suddenly that she was a woman to be
+desired, and one who might be taken with ease. At the same time, with a
+quickening of the blood, he realized that she was doing nothing, and had
+merely come into the room to attract his attention. Then she glanced at
+him, daring but shy, with great brown eyes, like the eyes of a gentle
+animal. When she went back to her own room a moment later, he confidently
+followed.
+
+Ever since then Catalina had been the chief object of his week-end
+journeys, and his hunting largely an excuse. She had completed this life
+which he led in the mountains, and which was so pleasantly different from
+his life in town. For a part of the week he was a poor, young lawyer,
+watchful, worried, careful; then for a couple of days he was a ragged
+young Mexican and the lover of Catalina--a different man. He was the
+product of a transition, and two beings warred in him. In town he was
+dominated by the desire to be like the Americans, and to gain a foothold
+in their life of law, greed and respectability; in the mountains he
+relapsed unconsciously into the easy barbarous ways of his fathers.
+Incidentally, this periodical change of personality was refreshing and a
+source of strength. Catalina had been an important part of it.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} As he lay
+now sleepily puffing a last cigarette, he wondered why it was that he had
+suddenly lost interest in the girl.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER VI
+
+
+At ten o'clock in the morning Ramon was hard at work in the office of
+James B. Green. He worked efficiently and with zest as he always did after
+one of his trips to the mountains. He got out of these ventures into
+another environment about what some men get out of sprees--a complete
+change of the state of mind. Archulera and his daughter were now
+completely forgotten, and all of his usual worries and plans were creeping
+back into his consciousness.
+
+But this day he had a feeling of pleasant anticipation. At first he could
+not account for it. And then he remembered the girl--the one he had seen on
+the train and had met again at the Montezuma ball. It seemed as though the
+thought of her had been in the back of his mind all the time, and now
+suddenly came forward, claiming all his attention, stirring him to a
+quick, unwonted excitement. She had said he might come to see her. He was
+to 'phone first. Maybe she would be alone.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+In this latter hope he was disappointed. She gave him the appointment, and
+she herself admitted him. He thought he had never seen such a dainty bit
+of fragrant perfection, all in pink that matched the pink of her strange
+little crinkled mouth.
+
+"I'm awfully glad you came," she told him. (Her gladness was always
+awful.) She led him into the sitting room and presented him to the tall
+emaciated sick man and the large placid woman who had watched over her so
+carefully on the train.
+
+Gordon Roth greeted him with a cool and formal manner into which he
+evidently tried to infuse something of cordiality, as though a desire to
+be just and broad-minded struggled with prejudice. Mrs. Roth looked at him
+with curiosity, and gave him a still more restrained greeting. The
+conversation was a weak and painful affair, kept barely alive, now by one
+and now by another. The atmosphere was heavy with disapproval. If their
+greetings had left Ramon in any doubt as to the attitude of the girl's
+family toward him, that doubt was removed by the fact that neither Mrs.
+Roth nor her son showed any intention of leaving the room. This would have
+been not unusual if he had called on a Mexican girl, especially if she
+belonged to one of the more old-fashioned families; but he knew that
+American girls are left alone with their suitors if the suitor is at all
+welcome.
+
+He knew a little about this family from hear-say. They came from one of
+the larger factory towns in northern New York, and were supposed to be
+moderately wealthy. They used a very broad "a" and served tea at four
+o'clock in the afternoon. Gordon Roth was a Harvard graduate and did not
+conceal the fact. Neither did he conceal his hatred for this sandy little
+western town, where ill-health had doomed him to spend many of his days
+and perhaps to end them.
+
+The girl was strangely different from her mother and brother. Whereas
+their expressions were stiff and solemn, her eyes showed an irrepressible
+gleam of humour, and her fascinating little mouth was mobile with mirth.
+She fidgeted around in her chair a good deal, as a child does when bored.
+
+Mrs. Roth decorously turned the conversation toward the safe and reliable
+subjects of literature and art.
+
+"What do you think of Maeterlinck, Mr. Delcasar?" she enquired in an
+innocent manner that must have concealed malice.
+
+"I don't know him," Ramon admitted, "Who is he?"
+
+Mrs. Roth permitted herself to smile. Gordon Roth came graciously to the
+rescue.
+
+"Maeterlinck is a great Belgian writer," he explained. "We are all very
+much interested in him.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Julia gave a little flounce in her chair, and crossed her legs with a
+defiant look at her mother.
+
+"I'm not interested in him," she announced with decision. "I think he's a
+bore. Listen, Mr. Delcasar. You know Conny Masters? Well, he was telling
+me the most thrilling tale the other day. He said that the country
+Mexicans have a sort of secret religious fraternity that most of the men
+belong to, and that they meet every Good Friday and beat themselves with
+whips and sit down on cactus and crucify a man on a cross and all sorts of
+horrible things {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} for penance you know, just like the monks and things in
+the Middle Ages.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} He claims he saw them once and that they had blood
+running down to their heels. Is that all true? I've forgotten what he
+called them.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Ramon nodded.
+
+"Sure. The _penitentes_. I've seen them lots of times."
+
+"O, do tell us about them. I love to hear about horrible things."
+
+"Well, I've seen lots of _penitente_ processions, but the best one I ever
+saw was a long time ago, when I was a little kid. There are not so many of
+them now, and they don't do as much as they used to. The church is down on
+them, you know, and they're afraid. Ten years ago if you tried to look at
+them, they would shoot at you, but now tourists take pictures of them."
+
+Gordon Roth's curiosity had been aroused.
+
+"Tell me," he broke in. "What is the meaning of this thing? How did it get
+started?"
+
+"I don't know exactly," Ramon admitted. "My grandfather told me that they
+brought it over from Spain centuries ago, and the Indians here had a sort
+of whipping fraternity, and the two got mixed up, I guess. The church used
+to tolerate it; it was a regular religious festival. But now it's
+outlawed. They still have a lot of political power. They all vote the same
+way. One man that was elected to Congress--they say that the _penitente_
+stripes on his back carried him there. And he was a gringo too. But I
+don't know. It may be a lie.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"But tell us about that procession you saw when you were a little boy,"
+Julia broke in. She was leaning forward with her chin in her hand, and her
+big grey eyes, wide with interest, fixed upon his face.
+
+"Well, I was only about ten years old, and I was riding home from one of
+our ranches with my father. We were coming through _Tijeras_ canyon. It
+was March, and there was snow on the ground in patches, and the mountains
+were cold and bare, and I remember I thought I was going to freeze. Every
+little while we would get off and set fire to a tumble-weed by the road,
+and warm our hands and then go on again.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+"Anyway, pretty soon I heard a lot of men singing, all together, in deep
+voices, and the noise echoed around the canyon and sounded awful solemn.
+And I could hear, too, the slap of the big wide whips coming down on the
+bare backs, wet with blood, like slapping a man with a wet towel, only
+louder. I didn't know what it was, but my father did, and he called to me
+and we spurred our horses right up the mountain, and hid in a clump of
+cedar up there. Then they came around a bend in the road, and I began to
+cry because they were all covered with blood, and one of them fell down.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+My father slapped me and told me to shut up, or they would come and shoot
+us."
+
+"But what did they look like? What were they doing?" Julia demanded
+frowning at him, impatient with his rambling narrative.
+
+"Well, in front there was _un carreta del muerto_. That means a wagon of
+death. I don't think you would ever see one any more. It was just an
+ordinary wagon drawn by six men, naked to the waist and bleeding, with
+other men walking beside them and beating them with blacksnake whips, just
+like they were mules. In the wagon they had a big bed of stones, covered
+with cactus, and a man sitting in the cactus, who was supposed to
+represent death. And then they had a Virgin Mary, too. Four _penitentes_
+just like the others, with nothing on but bloody pants and black bandages
+around their eyes, carried the image on a litter raised up over their
+heads, and they had swords fastened to their elbows and stuck between
+their ribs, so that if they let down, the swords would stick into their
+hearts and kill them. And behind that came the _Cristo_--the man that
+represented Jesus, you know, dragging a big cross. Behind him came twenty
+or thirty more _penitentes_, the most I ever saw at once, some of them
+whipping themselves with big broad whips made out of _amole_. One was too
+weak to whip himself, so two others walked behind him and whipped him.
+Pretty soon he fell down and they walked over him and stepped on his
+stomach.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"But did they crucify the man, the whatever-you-call-him?" Gordon
+demanded.
+
+"The _Cristo_. Sure. They crucify one every year. They used to nail him.
+Now they generally do it with ropes, but that's bad enough, because it
+makes him swell up and turn blue.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Sometimes he dies."
+
+Julia was listening with lips parted and eyes wide, horrified and yet
+fascinated, as are so many women by what is cruel and bloody. But Gordon,
+who had become equally interested, was cool and inquisitive.
+
+"And you mean to tell me that at one time nearly all the--er--native people
+belonged to this barbaric organization, and that many of them do yet?"
+
+"Nearly all the common _pelados_," Ramon hastened to explain. "They are
+nearly all Indian or part Indian, you know. Not the educated people." Here
+a note of pride came into his voice. "We are descended from officers of
+the Spanish army--the men who conquered this country. In the old days,
+before the Americans came, all these common people were our slaves."
+
+"I see," said Gordon Roth in a dry and judicial tone.
+
+The _penitentes_, as a subject of conversation, seemed exhausted for the
+time being and Ramon had given up all hope of being alone with Julia. He
+rose and took his leave. To his delight Julia followed him to the door. In
+the hall she gave him her hand and looked up at him, and neither of them
+found anything to say. For some reason the pressure of her hand and the
+look of her eyes flustered and confused him more than had all the coldness
+and disapproval of her family. At last he said good-bye and got away, with
+his hat on wrong side before and the blood pounding in his temples.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VII
+
+
+During the following weeks Ramon worked even less than was his custom. He
+also neglected his trips to the mountains and most of his other
+amusements. They seemed to have lost their interest for him. But he was a
+regular attendant upon the weekly dances which were held at the country
+club, and to which he had never gone before.
+
+The country club was a recent acquisition of the town, backed by a number
+of local business men. It consisted of a picturesque little frame lodge
+far out upon the _mesa_, and a nine-hole golf course, made of sand and
+haunted by lizards and rattlesnakes. It had become a centre of local
+society, although there was a more exclusive organization known as the
+Forty Club, which gave a formal ball once a month. Ramon had never been
+invited to join the Forty Club, but the political importance of his family
+had procured him a membership in the country club and it served his
+present purpose very well, for he found Julia Roth there every Saturday
+night. This fact was the sole reason for his going. His dances with her
+were now the one thing in life to which he looked forward with pleasure,
+and his highest hope was that he might be alone with her.
+
+In this he was disappointed for a long time because Julia was the belle of
+the town. Her dainty, provocative presence seemed always to be the centre
+of the gathering. Women envied her and studied her frocks, which were
+easily the most stylish in town. Men flocked about her and guffawed at her
+elfin stabs of humour. Her program was always crowded with names, and when
+she went for a stroll between dances she was generally accompanied by at
+least three men of whom Ramon was often one. And while the others made her
+laugh at their jokes or thrilled her with accounts of their adventures, he
+was always silent and worried--an utter bore, he thought.
+
+This girl was a new experience to him. With the egotism of twenty-four, he
+had regarded himself as a finished man of the world, especially with
+regard to women. They had always liked him. He was good to look at and his
+silent, self-possessed manner touched the feminine imagination. He had had
+his share of the amorous adventures that come to most men, and his
+attitude toward women had changed from the hesitancy of adolesence to the
+purposeful, confident and somewhat selfish attitude of the male accustomed
+to easy conquest.
+
+This girl, by a smile and touch of her hand, seemed to have changed him.
+She filled him with a mighty yearning. He desired her, and yet there was a
+puzzling element in his feeling that seemed to transcend desire. And he
+was utterly without his usual confidence and purpose. He had reason enough
+to doubt his success, but aside from that she loomed in his imagination as
+something high and unattainable. He had no plan. His strength seemed to
+have oozed out of him. He pursued her persistently enough--in fact too
+persistently--but he did it because he could not help it.
+
+The longer he followed in her wake, the more marked his weakness became.
+When he approached her to claim a dance he was often aware of a faint
+tremble in his knees, and was embarrassed by the fact that the palms of
+his hands were sweating. He felt that he was a fool and swore at himself.
+And he was wholly unable to believe that he was making any impression upon
+her. True, she was quite willing to flirt with him. She looked up at him
+with an arch, almost enquiring glance when he came to claim her for a
+dance, but he seldom found much to say at such times, being too wholly
+absorbed in the sacred occupation of dancing with her. And it seemed to
+him that she flirted with every one else, too. This did not in the least
+mitigate his devotion, but it made him acutely uncomfortable to watch her
+dance with other men, and especially with Conny Masters.
+
+Masters was the son of a man who had made a moderate fortune in the
+tin-plate business. He had come West with his mother who had a weak
+throat, had fallen in love with the country, and scandalized his family by
+resolutely refusing to go back to Indiana and tin cans. He spent most of
+his time riding about the country, equipped with a note book and a camera,
+studying the Mexicans and Indians, and taking pictures of the scenery. He
+said that he was going to make a literary career, but the net product of
+his effort for two years had been a few sonnets of lofty tone but vague
+meaning, and a great many photographs, mostly of sunsets.
+
+Conny was not a definite success as a writer, but he was unquestionably a
+gifted talker, and he knew the country better than did most of the
+natives. He made real to Julia the romance which she craved to find in the
+West. And her watchful and suspicious family seemed to tolerate if not to
+welcome him. Ramon knew that he went to the Roth's regularly. He began to
+feel something like hatred for Conny whom he had formerly liked.
+
+This feeling was deepened by the fact that Conny seemed to be specially
+bent on defeating Ramon's ambition to be alone with the girl. If no one
+else joined them at the end of a dance, Conny was almost sure to do so,
+and to occupy the intermission with one of his ever-ready monologues,
+while Ramon sat silent and angry, wondering what Julia saw to admire in
+this windy fool, and occasionally daring to wonder whether she really saw
+anything in him after all.
+
+But a sufficiently devoted lover is seldom wholly without a reward. There
+came an evening when Ramon found himself alone with her. And he was aware
+with a thrill that she had evaded not only Conny, but two other men. Her
+smile was friendly and encouraging, too, and yet he could not find
+anything to say which in the least expressed his feelings.
+
+"Are you going to stay in this country long?" he began. The question
+sounded supremely casual, but it meant a great deal to him. He was haunted
+by a fear that she would depart suddenly, and he would never see her
+again. She smiled and looked away for a moment before replying, as though
+perhaps this was not exactly what she had expected him to say.
+
+"I don't know. Gordon wants mother and me to go back East this fall, but I
+don't want to go and mother doesn't want to leave Gordon alone.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} We
+haven't decided. Maybe I won't go till next year."
+
+"I suppose you'll go to college won't you?"
+
+"No; I wanted to go to Vassar and then study art, but mother says college
+spoils a girl for society. She thinks the way the Vassar girls walk is
+perfectly dreadful. I offered to go right on walking the same way, but she
+said anyway college makes girls so frightfully broad-minded.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Ramon laughed.
+
+"What will you do then?"
+
+"I'll come out."
+
+"Out of what?"
+
+"Make my d�but, don't you know?"
+
+"O, yes."
+
+"In New York. I have an aunt there. She knows all the best people, mother
+says."
+
+"What happens after you come out?"
+
+"You get married if anybody will have you. If not, you sort of fade away
+and finally go into uplift work about your fourth season."
+
+"But of course, you'll get married. I bet you'll marry a millionaire."
+
+"I don't know. Mother wants me to marry a broker. She says the big
+financial houses in New York are conducted by the very best people. But
+Gordon thinks I ought to marry a professional man--a doctor or something.
+He thinks brokers are vulgar. He says money isn't everything."
+
+"What do you think?"
+
+"I haven't a thought to my name. All my thinking has been done for me
+since infancy. I don't know what I want, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't
+get it if I did.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Come on. They've been dancing for ten minutes. If we
+stay here any longer it'll be a scandal."
+
+She rose and started for the hall. He suddenly realized that his
+long-sought opportunity was slipping away from him. He caught her by the
+hand.
+
+"Don't go, please. I want to tell you something."
+
+She met his hand with a fair grip, and pulled him after her with a laugh.
+
+"Some other time," she promised.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+In most of their social diversions the town folk tended always more and
+more to ape the ways of the East. Local colour, they thought, was all
+right in its place, which was a curio store or a museum, but they desired
+their town to be modern and citified, so that the wealthy eastern
+health-seeker would find it a congenial home. The scenery and the historic
+past were recognized as assets, but they should be the background for a
+life of "culture, refinement and modern convenience" as the president of
+the Chamber of Commerce was fond of saying.
+
+Hence the riding parties and picnics of a few years before had given way
+to aggressively formal balls and receptions; but one form of entertainment
+that was indigenous had survived. This was known as a "_mesa_ supper." It
+might take place anywhere in the surrounding wilderness of mountain and
+desert. Several auto-loads of young folk would motor out, suitably
+chaperoned and laden with provisions. Beside some water hole or mountain
+stream fires would be built, steaks broiled and coffee brewed. Afterward
+there would be singing and story-telling about the fire, and romantic
+strolls by couples.
+
+It was one of these expeditions that furnished Ramon with his second
+opportunity in three weeks to be alone with Julia Roth. The party had
+journeyed to Los Ojuellos, where a spring of clear water bubbled up in the
+centre of the _mesa_. A grove of cottonwood trees shadowed the place, and
+there was an ancient _adobe_ ruin which looked especially effective by
+moonlight.
+
+The persistent Conny Masters was a member of the party, but he was
+handicapped by the fact that he knew more about camp cookery than anyone
+else present. He had made a special study of Mexican dishes and had
+written an article about them which had been rejected by no less than
+twenty-seven magazines. He made a specialty of the _enchilada_, which is a
+delightful concoction of corn meal, eggs and chile, and he had perfected a
+recipe of his own for this dish which he had named the Conny Masters
+junior.
+
+As soon as the baskets were unpacked and the chaperones were safely
+anchored on rugs and blankets with their backs against trees, there was a
+general demand, strongly backed by Ramon, that Conny should cook supper.
+He was soon absorbed in the process, volubly explaining every step, while
+the others gathered about him and offered encouragement and humorous
+suggestion. But there was soon a gradual dispersion of the group, some
+going for wood and some for water, and others on errands unstated.
+
+Ramon found himself strolling under the cottonwoods with Julia. Neither of
+them had said anything. It was almost as though the tryst had been agreed
+upon before. She picked her way slowly among the tussocks of dried grass,
+her skirt daintily kilted. A faint but potent perfume from her hair and
+dress blew over him. He ventured to support her elbow with a reverent
+touch. Never had she seemed more desirable, nor yet, for some reason, more
+remote.
+
+Suddenly she stopped and looked up at the great desert stars.
+
+"Isn't it big and beautiful?" she demanded. "And doesn't it make you feel
+free? It's never like this at home, somehow."
+
+"What is it like where you live?" he enquired. He had a persistent desire
+to see into her life and understand it, but everything she told him only
+made her more than ever to him a being of mysterious origin and destiny.
+
+"It's a funny little New York factory city with very staid ways," she
+said. "You go to a dance at the country club every Saturday night and to
+tea parties and things in between. You fight, bleed and die for your
+social position and once in a while you stop and wonder why.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} It's a bore.
+You can see yourself going on doing the same thing till the day of your
+death.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Her discontent with things as they are found ready sympathy.
+
+"That's just the way it is here," he said with conviction. "You can't see
+anything ahead."
+
+"Oh, I don't think its the same here at all," she protested. "This
+country's so big and interesting. It's different."
+
+"Tell me how," he demanded. "I haven't seen anything interesting here
+since I got back,--except you."
+
+She ignored the exception.
+
+"I can't express it exactly. The people here are just like people
+everywhere else--most of them. But the country looks so big and unoccupied.
+And blue mountains are so alluring. There might be anything beyond them {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+adventures, opportunities.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+This idea was a bit too rarefied for Ramon, but he could agree about the
+mountains.
+
+"It's a fine country," he assented. "For those that own it."
+
+"It's just a feeling I have about it," she went on, trying to express her
+own half-formulated idea. "But then I have that feeling about life in
+general, and there doesn't seem to be anything in it. I mean the feeling
+that it's full of thrilling things, but somehow you miss them all."
+
+"I have felt something like that," he admitted. "But I never could say
+it."
+
+This discovery of an idea in common seemed somehow to bring them closer
+together. His hand tightened gently about her arm; almost unconsciously he
+drew her toward him. But she seemed to be all absorbed in the discussion.
+
+"You have no right to complain," she told him. "A man can do something
+about it."
+
+"Yes," he agreed, speaking a reflection without stopping to put it in
+conventional language. "It must be hell to be a woman {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} excuse me {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I
+mean.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"Don't apologize. It is--just that. A man at least has a fighting chance to
+escape boredom. But they won't even let a woman fight. I wish I were a
+man."
+
+"Well; I don't," he asserted with warmth, unconsciously tightening his
+hold upon her arm. "I can't tell you how glad I am that you're a woman."
+
+"Oh, are you?" She looked up at him with challenging, provocative eyes.
+
+For an instant a kiss was imminent. It hovered between them like an
+invisible fairy presence of which they both were sweetly aware, and no one
+else.
+
+"Hey there! all you spooners!" came a jovial and irreverent voice from the
+vicinity of the camp fire. "Come and eat."
+
+The moment was lost; the fairy presence gone. She turned with a little
+laugh, and they went in silence back to the fire. They were last to enter
+the circle of ruddy light, and all eyes were upon them. She was pink and
+self-conscious, looking at her feet and picking her way with exaggerated
+care. He was proud and elated. This, he knew, would couple their names in
+gossip, would make her partly his.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER IX
+
+
+He wanted to call on her again, but he felt that he had been insulted and
+rejected by the Roths, and his pride fought against it. Unable to think
+for long of anything but Julia he fell into the habit of walking by her
+house at night, looking at its lighted windows and wondering what she was
+doing. Often he could see the moving figures and hear the laughter of some
+gay group about her, but he could not bring himself to go in and face the
+chilly disapproval of her family. At such times he felt an utter outcast,
+and sounded depths of misery he had never known before. For this was his
+first real love, and he loved in the helpless, desperate way of the Latin,
+without calculation or humour.
+
+One evening there was a gathering on the porch of the Roth house. She was
+there, sitting on the steps with three men about her. He could see the
+white blur of her frock and hear her funny little bubbling laugh above the
+deeper voices of the men. Having ascertained that neither Gordon Roth nor
+his mother was there, he summoned his courage and went in. She could not
+see who he was until he stood almost over her.
+
+"O, it's you! I'm awfully glad.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}" Their hands met and clung for a moment
+in the darkness. He sat down on the steps at her feet, and the
+conversation moved on without any assistance from him. He was now just as
+happy as he had been miserable a few minutes before.
+
+Presently two of the other men went away, but the third, who was Conny
+Masters, stayed. He talked volubly as ever, telling wonderful and
+sometimes incredible stories of things he had seen and done in his
+wanderings. Ramon said nothing. Julia responded less and less. Once she
+moved to drop the wrap from about her shoulders, and the alert Conny
+hastened to assist her. Ramon watched and envied with a thumping heart as
+he saw the gleam of her bare white shoulders, and realized that his rival
+might have touched them.
+
+Conny went on talking for half an hour with astonishing endurance and
+resourcefulness, but it became always more apparent that he was not
+captivating his audience. He had to laugh at his own humour and expatiate
+on his own thrills. Finally a silence fell upon the three, broken only by
+occasional commonplace remarks.
+
+"Well, I guess it's time to drift," Conny observed at last, looking
+cautiously at his watch.
+
+This suggestion was neither seconded by Ramon nor opposed by Julia. The
+silence literally pushed Conny to his feet.
+
+"Going, Ramon? No? Well, Good night." And he retired whistling in a way
+which showed his irritation more plainly than if he had sworn.
+
+The two impolite ones sat silent for a long moment. Ramon was trying to
+think of what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. Finally
+without looking at her he said in a low husky voice.
+
+"You know {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I love you."
+
+There was more silence. At last he looked up and met her eyes. They were
+serious for the first time in his experience, and so was her usually
+mocking little mouth. Her face was transformed and dignified. More than
+ever she seemed a strange, high being. And yet he knew that now she was
+within his reach.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} That he could kiss her lips {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} incredible.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} And yet he
+did, and the kiss poured flame over them and welded them into each others'
+arms.
+
+They heard Gordon Roth in the house coughing, the cough coming closer.
+
+She pushed him gently away.
+
+"Go now," she whispered. "I love you {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Ramon."
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER X
+
+
+His conquest was far from giving him peace. Her kiss had transformed his
+high vague yearning into hot relentless desire. He wanted her. That became
+the one clear thing in life to him. Reflections and doubts were alien to
+his young and primitive spirit. He did not try to look far into the
+future. He only knew that to have her would be delight almost unimaginable
+and to lose her would be to lose everything.
+
+His attitude toward her changed. He claimed her more and more at dances.
+She did not want to dance with him so much because "people would talk,"
+but his will was harder than hers and to a great extent he had his way. He
+now called on her regularly too. He knew that she had fought hard for him
+against her family, and had won the privilege for him of calling "not too
+often."
+
+"I've lied for you frightfully," she confessed. "I told them I didn't
+really care for you in the least, but I want to see you because you can
+tell such wonderful things about the country. So talk about the country
+whenever they're listening. And don't look at me the way you do.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Mother and brother were alert and suspicious despite her assurance, and
+manoeuvred with cool skill to keep the pair from being alone. Only rarely
+did he get the chance to kiss her--once when her brother, who was standing
+guard over the family treasure, was seized with a fit of coughing and had
+to leave the room, and again when her mother was called to the telephone.
+At such times she shrank away from him at first as though frightened by
+the intensity of the emotion she had created, but she never resisted. To
+him these brief and stolen embraces were almost intolerably sweet, like
+insufficient sips of water to a man burned up with thirst.
+
+She puzzled him as much as ever. When he was with her he felt as sure of
+her love as of his own existence. And yet she often sought to elude him.
+When he called up for engagements she objected and put him off. And she
+surrounded herself with other men as much as ever, and flirted gracefully
+with all of them, so that he was always feeling the sharp physical pangs
+of jealousy. Sometimes he felt egotistically sure that she was merely
+trying by these devices to provoke his desire the more, but at other times
+he thought her voice over the phone sounded doubtful and afraid, and he
+became wildly eager to get to her and make sure of her again.
+
+Just as her kiss had crystallized his feeling for her into driving desire,
+so it had focussed and intensified his discontent. Before he had been more
+or less resigned to wait for his fortune and the power he meant to make of
+it; now it seemed to him that unless he could achieve these things at
+once, they would never mean anything to him. For money was the one thing
+that would give him even a chance to win her. It was obviously useless to
+ask her to marry him poor. He would have nothing to bring against the
+certain opposition of her family. He could not run away with her. And
+indeed he was altogether too poor to support a wife if he had one, least
+of all a wife who had been carefully groomed and trained to capture a
+fortune.
+
+There was only one way. If he could go to her strong and rich, he felt
+sure that he could persuade her to go away with him, for he knew that she
+belonged to him when he was with her. He pictured himself going to her in
+a great motor car. Such a car had always been in his imagination the
+symbol of material strength. He felt sure he could destroy her doubts and
+hesitations. He would carry her away and she would be all and irrevocably
+his before any one could interfere or object.
+
+This dream filled and tortured his imagination. Its realization would mean
+not only fulfilment of his desire, but also revenge upon the Roths for the
+humiliations they had made him feel. It pushed everything else out of his
+mind--all consideration of other and possibly more feasible methods of
+pushing his suit. He came of a race of men who had dared and dominated,
+who had loved and fought, but had never learned how to work or to endure.
+
+When he gave himself up to his dream he was almost elated, but when he
+came to contemplate his actual circumstances, he fell into depths of
+discouragement and melancholy. His uncle stood like a rock between him and
+his desire. He thought of trying to borrow a few thousand dollars from old
+Diego, and of leaving the future to luck, but he was too intelligent long
+to entertain such a scheme. The Don would likely have provided him with
+the money, and he would have done it by hypothecating more of the Delcasar
+lands to MacDougall. Then Ramon would have had to borrow more, and so on,
+until the lands upon which all his hopes and dreams were based had passed
+forever out of his reach.
+
+The thing seemed hopeless, for Don Diego might well live for many years.
+And yet Ramon did not give up hope. He was worried, desperate and bitter,
+but not beaten. He had still that illogical faith in his own destiny which
+is the gift that makes men of action.
+
+At this time he heard particularly disquieting things about his uncle. Don
+Diego was reputed to be spending unusually large sums of money. As he
+generally had not much ready cash, this must mean either that he had sold
+land or that he had borrowed from MacDougall, in which case the land had
+doubtless been given as security. Once it was converted into cash in the
+hands of Diego, Ramon knew that his prospective fortune would swiftly
+vanish. He determined to watch the old man closely.
+
+He learned that Don Diego was playing poker every night in the back room
+of the White Camel pool hall. Gambling was supposed to be prohibited in
+the town, but this sanctum was regularly the scene for a game, which had
+the reputation of causing more money to change hands than any other in the
+southwest. Ramon hung about the White Camel evening after evening, trying
+to learn how much his uncle was losing. He would have liked to go and
+stand behind his chair and watch the game, but both etiquette and pride
+prevented him doing this. On two nights his uncle came out surrounded by a
+laughing crowd, a little bit tipsy, and was hurried into a cab. Ramon had
+no chance to speak either to him or to any one else who had been in the
+game. But the third night he came out alone, heavy with liquor, talking to
+himself. The other players had already gone out, laughing. The place was
+nearly deserted. The Don suddenly caught sight of Ramon and came to him,
+laying heavy hands on his shoulders, looking at him with bleary,
+tear-filled eyes.
+
+"My boy, my nephew," he exclaimed in Spanish, his voice shaking with boozy
+emotion, "I am glad you are here. Come I must talk to you." And steadied
+by Ramon he led the way to a bench in a corner. Here his manner suddenly
+changed. He threw back his head haughtily and slapped his knee.
+
+"I have lost five hundred dollars tonight," he announced proudly. "What do
+I care? I am a rich man. I have lost a thousand dollars in the last three
+nights. That is nothing. I am rich."
+
+He thumped his chest, looking around defiantly. Then he leaned forward in
+a confidential manner and lowered his voice.
+
+"But these gringos--they have gone away and left me. You saw them?
+_Cabrones!_ They have got my money. That is all they want. My boy, all
+gringos are alike. They want nothing but money. They can hear the rattle
+of a _peso_ as far as a _burro_ can smell a bear. They are mean, stingy!
+Ah, my boy! It is not now as it was in the old days. Then money counted
+for nothing! Then a man could throw away his last dollar and there were
+always friends to give him more. But now your dollars are your only true
+friends, and when you have lost them, you are alone indeed. Ah, my boy!
+The old days were the best!" The old Don bent his head over his hands and
+wept.
+
+Ramon looked at him with a mighty disgust and with a resentment that
+filled his throat and made his head hot. He had never before realized how
+much broken by age and drink his uncle was. Before, he had suspected and
+feared that Don Diego was wasting his property; now he knew it.
+
+The Don presently looked up again with tear-filled eyes, and went on
+talking, holding Ramon by the lapel of the coat in a heavy tremulous grip.
+He talked for almost an hour, his senile mind wandering aimlessly through
+the scenes of his long and picturesque career. He would tell tales of his
+loves and battles of fifty years ago--tales full of lust and greed and
+excitement. He would come back to his immediate troubles and curse the
+gringos again for a pack of miserable dollar-mongers, who knew not the
+meaning of friendship. And again his mind would leap back irrelevantly to
+some woman he had loved or some man he had killed in the spacious days
+where his imagination dwelt. Ramon listened eagerly, hoping to learn
+something definite about the Don's dealings with MacDougall, but the old
+man never touched upon this. He did tell one story to which Ramon listened
+with interest. He told how, twenty-five years before, he and another man
+named Cristobal Archulera had found a silver mine in the Guadelupe
+Mountains, and how he had cheated the other out of his interest by filing
+the claim in his own name. He told this as a capital joke, laughing and
+thumping his knee.
+
+"Do you know where Archulera is now?" Ramon ventured to ask.
+
+"Archulera? No, No; I have not seen Archulera for twenty years. I heard
+that he married a very common woman, half Indian.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I don't know what
+became of him."
+
+The last of the pool players had now gone out; a Mexican boy had begun to
+sweep the floor; the place was about to close for the night. Ramon got his
+uncle to his feet with some difficulty, and led him outdoors where he
+looked about in vain for one of the cheap autos that served the town as
+taxicabs. There were only three or four of them, and none of these were in
+sight. The flat-wheeled street car had made its last screeching trip for
+the night. There was nothing for it but to take the Don by the arm and
+pilot him slowly homeward.
+
+Refreshed by the night air, the old man partially sobered, walked with a
+steady step, and talked more eloquently and profusely than ever. Women
+were his subject now, and it was a subject upon which he had great store
+of material. He told of the women of the South, of Sonora and Chihuahua
+where he had spent much of his youth, of how beautiful they were. He told
+of a slim little creature fifteen years old with big black eyes whom he
+had bought from her _peon_ father, and of how she had feared him and how
+he had conquered her and her fear. He told of slave girls he had bought
+from the Navajos as children and raised for his pleasure. He told of a
+French woman he had loved in Mexico City and how he had fought a duel with
+her husband. He rose to heights of sentimentality and delved into depths
+of obscenity, now speaking  of his heart and what it had suffered, and
+again leering and chuckling like a satyr over some tale of splendid
+desire.
+
+Ramon, walking silent and outwardly respectful by his side, listened to
+all this with a strange mixture of envy and rage. He envied the old Don
+the rich share he had taken of life's feast. Whatever else he might be the
+Don was not one of those who desire but do not dare. He had taken what he
+wanted. He had tasted many emotions and known the most poignant delights.
+And now that he was old and his blood was slow, he stood in the way of
+others who desired as greatly and were as avid of life as ever he had
+been. Ramon felt a great bitterness that clutched at his throat and half
+blinded his eyes. He too loved and desired. And how much more greatly he
+desired than ever had this old man by his side, with his wealth and his
+easy satisfactions! The old Don apparently had never been thwarted, and
+therefore he did not know how keen and punishing a blade desire may be!
+
+Tense between the two was the enmity that ever sunders age and youth--age
+seeking to keep its sovereignty of life by inculcating blind respect and
+reverence, and youth rebellious, demanding its own with the passion of hot
+blood and untried flesh.
+
+Between Old Town and New Town flowed an irrigating ditch, which the
+connecting street crossed by means of an old wooden bridge. The ditch was
+this night full of swift water, which tore at the button willows on the
+bank and gurgled against the bridge timbers. As they crossed it the idea
+came into Ramon's head that if a man were pushed into the brown water he
+would be swiftly carried under the bridge and drowned.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The following Saturday evening Ramon was again riding across the _mesa_,
+clad in his dirty hunting clothes, with his shotgun hung in the cinches of
+his saddle. At the start he had been undecided where he was going.
+Tormented by desire and bitter over the poverty which stood between him
+and fulfilment, he had flung the saddle on his mare and ridden away,
+feeling none of the old interest in the mountains, but impelled by a great
+need to escape the town with all its cruel spurs and resistances.
+
+Already the rhythm of his pony's lope and the steady beat of the breeze in
+his face had calmed and refreshed him. The bitter, exhausting thoughts
+that had been plucking at his mind gave way to the idle procession of
+sensations, as they tend always to do when a man escapes the artificial
+existence of towns into the natural, animal one of the outdoors. He began
+to respond to the deep appeal which the road, the sense of going
+somewhere, always had for him. For he came of a race of wanderers. His
+forbears had been restless men to cross an ocean and most of a continent
+in search of homes. He was bred to a life of wandering and adventure. Long
+pent-up days in town always made him restless, and the feel of a horse
+under him and of distance to be overcome never failed to give him a sense
+of well-being.
+
+Crossing a little _arroyo_, he saw a covey of the blue desert quail with
+their white crests erect, darting among the rocks and cactus on the
+hillside. It was still the close season, but he never thought of that. In
+an instant he was all hunter, like a good dog in sight of game. He slipped
+from his horse, letting the reins fall to the ground, and went running up
+the rocky slope, cleverly using every bit of cover until he came within
+range. At the first shot he killed three of the birds, and got another as
+they rose and whirred over the hill top. He gathered them up quickly,
+stepping on the head of a wounded one, and stuffed them into his pockets.
+He was grinning, now, and happy. The bit of excitement had washed from his
+mind for the time being the last vestige of worry. He lit a cigarette and
+lay on his back to smoke it, stretching out his legs luxuriously, watching
+the serene gyrations of a buzzard. When he had extracted the last possible
+puff from the tobacco, he went back to his horse and rode on toward
+Archulera's ranch, feeling a keen interest in the coarse but substantial
+supper which he knew the old man would give him.
+
+His visit this time proceeded just as had all of the others, and he had
+never enjoyed one more thoroughly. Again the old man killed a fatted kid
+in his honour, and again they had a great feast of fresh brains and tripe
+and biscuits and coffee, with the birds, fried in deep lard, as an added
+luxury. Catalina served them in silence as usual, but stole now and then a
+quick reproachful look at Ramon. Afterward, when the girl had gone, there
+were many cigarettes and much talk, as before, Archulera telling over
+again the brave wild record of his youth. And, as always, he told, just as
+though he had never told it before, the story of how Diego Delcasar had
+cheated him out of his interest in a silver mine in the Guadelupe
+Mountains. As with each former telling he became this time more
+unrestrained in his denunciation of the man who had betrayed him.
+
+"You are not like him," he assured Ramon with passionate earnestness. "You
+are generous, honourable! When your uncle is dead--when he is dead, I
+say--you will pay me the five thousand dollars which your family owes to
+mine. Am I right, _amigo?_"
+
+Ramon, who was listening with only half an ear, was about to make some
+off-hand reply, as he had always done before. But suddenly a strange,
+stirring idea flashed through his brain. Could it be? Could that be what
+Archulera meant? He glanced at the man. Archulera was watching him with
+bright black eyes--cunning, feral--the eyes of a primitive fighting man,
+eyes that had never flinched at dealing death.
+
+Ramon knew suddenly that his idea was right. Blood pounded in his temples
+and a red mist of excitement swam before his eyes.
+
+"Yes!" he exclaimed, leaping to his feet. "Yes! When my uncle is dead I
+will pay you the five thousand dollars which the estate owes you!"
+
+The old man studied him, showing no trace of excitement save for the
+brightness of his eyes.
+
+"You swear this?" he demanded.
+
+Ramon stood tall, his head lifted, his eyes bright.
+
+"Yes; I swear it," he replied, more quietly now. "I swear it on my honour
+as a Delcasar!"
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XII
+
+
+The murder of Don Diego Delcasar, which occurred about three weeks later,
+provided the town with an excitement which it thoroughly enjoyed. Although
+there was really not a great deal to be said about the affair, since it
+remained from the first a complete mystery, the local papers devoted a
+great deal of space to it. The _Evening Journal_ announced the event in a
+great black headline which ran all the way across the top of the first
+page. The right-hand column was devoted to a detailed description of the
+scene of the crime, while the rest of the page was occupied by a picture
+of the Don, by a hastily written and highly inaccurate account of his
+career, and by statements from prominent citizens concerning the great
+loss which the state had suffered in the death of this, one of its oldest
+and most valued citizens.
+
+In the editorial columns the Don was described as a Spanish gentleman of
+the old school, and one who had always lived up to its highest traditions.
+The fact was especially emphasized that he had commanded the respect and
+confidence of both the races which made up the population of the state,
+and his long and honourable association in a business enterprise with a
+leading local attorney was cited as proof of the fact that he had been
+above all race antagonisms.
+
+The morning _Herald_ took a slightly different tack. Its editorial writer
+was a former New York newspaperman of unusual abilities who had been
+driven to the Southwest by tuberculosis. In an editorial which was
+deplored by many prominent business men, he pointed out that unpunished
+murderers were all too common in the State. He cited several cases like
+this of Don Delcasar in which prominent men had been assassinated, and no
+arrest had followed. Thus, only a few years before, Col. Manuel Escudero
+had been killed by a shot fired through the window of a saloon, and still
+more recently Don Solomon Estrella had been found drowned in a vat of
+sheep-dip on his own ranch. He cited statistics to show that the
+percentage of convictions in murder trials in that State was exceedingly
+small. Daringly, he asked how the citizens could expect to attract to the
+State the capital so much needed for its development, when assassination
+for personal and political purposes was there tolerated much as it had
+been in Europe during the Middle Ages. He ended by a plea that the Mounted
+Police should be strengthened, so that it would be capable of coping with
+the situation.
+
+This editorial started a controversy between the two papers which
+ultimately quite eclipsed in interest the fact that Don Delcasar was dead.
+The _Morning Journal_ declared that the _Herald_ editorial was in effect a
+covert attack upon the Mexican people, pointing out that all the cases
+cited were those of Mexicans, and it came gallantly and for political
+reason to the defence of the race. At this point the _"__Tribuna del
+Pueblo__"_ of Old Town jumped into the fight with an editorial in which it
+was asserted that both the gringo papers were maligning the Mexican
+people. It pointed out that the gringos controlled the political machinery
+of the State, and that if murder was there tolerated the dominant race was
+to blame.
+
+Meanwhile the known facts about the murder of Don Delcasar remained few,
+simple and unilluminating. About once a month the Don used to drive in his
+automobile to his lands in the northern part of the State. He always took
+the road across the _mesa_, which passed near the mouth of Domingo Canyon
+and through the scissors pass, and he nearly always went alone.
+
+When he was half way across the _mesa_, the front tires of the Don's car
+had been punctured by nails driven through a board and hidden in the sand
+of the road. Evidently the Don had risen to alight and investigate when he
+had been shot, for his body had been found hanging across the wind-shield
+of the car with a bullet hole through the head.
+
+The discovery of the body had been made by a Mexican woodcutter who was on
+the way to town with a load of wood. He had of course been held by the
+police and had been closely questioned, but it was easily established that
+he had no connection with the crime.
+
+It was evident that the Don had been shot from ambush with a rifle, and
+probably from a considerable distance, but absolutely no trace of the
+assassin had been found. Not only the chief of police and several
+patrolmen, and the sheriff with a posse, but also many private citizens in
+automobiles had rushed to the scene of the crime and joined in the search.
+The surrounding country was dry and rocky. Not even a track had been
+found.
+
+The motive of the murder was evidently not robbery, for nothing had been
+taken, although the Don carried a valuable watch and a considerable sum of
+money. Indeed, there was no evidence that the murderer had even approached
+the body.
+
+The Don had been a staunch Republican, and the _Morning Herald_, also
+Republican, advanced the theory that he had been killed by political
+enemies. This theory was ridiculed by the _Evening Journal_, which was
+Democratic.
+
+The local police arrested as a suspect a man who was found in hiding near
+a water tank at the railroad station, but no evidence against him could be
+found and he had to be released. The sheriff extracted a confession of
+guilt from a sheep herder who was found about ten miles from the scene of
+the crime, but it was subsequently proved by this man's relatives that he
+was at home and asleep at the time the crime was committed, and that he
+was well known to be of unsound mind. For some days the newspapers
+continued daily to record the fact that a "diligent search" for the
+murderer was being conducted, but this search gradually came to an end
+along with public interest in the crime.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The day after the news of his uncle's murder reached him, Ramon lay on his
+bed in his darkened room fully dressed in a new suit of black. He was not
+ill, and anything would have been easier for him than to lie there with
+nothing to do but to think and to stare at a single narrow sunbeam which
+came through a rent in the window blind. But it was a Mexican custom, old
+and revered, for the family of one recently dead to lie upon its beds in
+the dark and so to receive the condolences of friends and the consolations
+of religion. To disregard this custom would have been most unwise for an
+ambitious young man, and besides, Ramon's mother clung tenaciously to the
+traditional Mexican ways, and she would not have tolerated any breach of
+them. At this moment she and her two daughters were likewise lying in
+their rooms, clad in new black silk and surrounded by other sorrowing
+females.
+
+It was so still in the room that Ramon could hear the buzz of a fly in the
+vicinity of the solitary sunbeam, but from other parts of the house came
+occasional human sounds. One of these was an intermittent howling and
+wailing from the _placita_. This he knew was the work of two old Mexican
+women who made their livings by acting as professional mourners. They did
+not wait for an invitation but hung about like buzzards wherever there was
+a Mexican corpse. Seated on the ground with their black shawls pulled over
+their heads, they wailed with astonishing endurance until the coffin was
+carried from the house, when they were sure of receiving a substantial
+gift from the grateful relatives. Ramon resolved that he would give them
+ten dollars each. He felt sure they had never gotten so much. He was
+determined to do handsomely in all things connected with the funeral.
+
+He could also hear faintly a rattle of wagons, foot steps and low human
+voices coming from the front of the house. A peep had shown him that
+already a line of wagons, carriages and buggies half a block long had
+formed in the street, and he could hear the arrival of another one every
+few minutes. These vehicles brought the numerous and poor relations of Don
+Delcasar who lived in the country. All of them would be there by night.
+Each one of them would come into Ramon's room and sit by his bedside and
+take his hand and express sympathy. Some of them would weep and some would
+groan, although all of them, like himself, were profoundly glad that the
+Don was dead. Ramon hoped that they would make their expressions brief.
+And later, he knew, all would gather in the room where the casket rested
+on two chairs. They would sit in a silent solemn circle about the room,
+drinking coffee and wine all night. And he would be among them, trying
+with all his might to look properly sad and to keep his eyes open.
+
+All the time that he lay there in enforced idleness he was longing for
+action, his imagination straining forward. At last his chance had come--his
+chance to have her. And he would have her. He felt sure of it. He was now
+a rich man. As soon as the will had been read and he had come into his
+own, he would buy a big automobile. He would go to her, he would sweep
+away her doubts and hesitations. He would carry her away and marry her.
+She would be his.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} He closed his eyes and drew his breath in sharply.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+But no; he would have to wait {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} a decent interval. And the five thousand
+dollars must be gotten to Archulera. That was obviously important. And
+there might not be much cash. The Don had never had much ready money. He
+might have to sell land or sheep first. All of these things to be done,
+and here he lay, staring at the ceiling and listening to the wailing of
+old women!
+
+There was a knock on the door.
+
+"_Entra!_" he called.
+
+The door opened softly and a tall, black-robed figure was silhouetted for
+a moment against the daylight before the door closed again. The black
+figure crossed the room and sat down by the bed, silent save for a faint
+rustle.
+
+Although he could not see the face, Ramon knew that this was the priest,
+Father Lugaria. He knew that Father Lugaria had come to arrange for the
+mass over the body of Don Delcasar. He disliked Father Lugaria, and knew
+that the Father disliked him. This mutual antipathy was due to the fact
+that Ramon seldom went to Church.
+
+There were others of his generation who showed the same indifference
+toward religion, and this defection of youth was a thing which the Priests
+bitterly contested. Ramon was perfectly willing to make a polite
+compromise with them. If Father Lugaria had been satisfied with an
+occasional appearance at early mass, a perfunctory confession now and
+then, the two might have been friends. But the Priest made Ramon a special
+object of his attention. He continually went to the Dona Delcasar with
+complaints and that devout woman incessantly nagged her son, holding
+before him always pictures of the damnation he was courting. Once in a
+while she even produced in him a faint twinge of fear--a recrudescence of
+the deep religious feeling in which he was bred--but the feeling was
+evanescent. The chief result of these labours on behalf of his soul had
+been to turn him strongly against the priest who instigated them.
+
+Father Lugaria seemed all kindness and sympathy now. He sat close beside
+Ramon and took his hand. Ramon could smell the good wine on the man's
+breath, and could see faintly the brightness of his eyes. The grip of the
+priest's hand was strong, moist and surprisingly cold. He began to talk in
+the low monotonous voice of one accustomed to much chanting, and this
+droning seemed to have some hypnotic quality. It seemed to lull Ramon's
+mind so that he could not think what he was going to say or do.
+
+The priest expressed his sympathy. He spoke of the great and good man the
+Don had been. Slowly, adroitly, he approached the real question at issue,
+which was how much Ramon would pay for a mass. The more he paid, the
+longer the mass would be, and the longer the mass the speedier would be
+the journey of the Don's soul through purgatory and into Paradise.
+
+"O, my little brother in Christ!" droned the priest in his vibrant
+sing-song, "I must not let you neglect this last, this greatest of things
+which you can do for the uncle you loved. It is unthinkable of course that
+his soul should go to hell--hell, where a thousand demons torture the soul
+for an eternity. Hell is for those who commit the worst of sins, sins they
+dare not lay before God for his forgiveness, secret and terrible sins--sins
+like murder. But few of us go through life untouched by sin. The soul must
+be purified before it can enter the presence of its maker.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Doubtless the
+soul of your uncle is in purgatory, and to you is given the sweet power to
+speed that soul on its upward way.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+"Don Delcasar, we all know, killed.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} More than once, doubtless, he took
+the life of a fellow man. But he did it in combat as a soldier, as a
+servant of the State.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} That is not murder. That would not doom him to
+hell, which is the special punishment of secret and unforgiven murder.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+But the soul of the Don must be cleansed of these earthly stains.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+The strong, cold grip of the priest held Ramon with increasing power. The
+monotonous, hypnotic voice went on and on, becoming ever more eloquent and
+confident. Father Lugaria was a man of imagination, and the special home
+of his imagination was hell. For thirty years he had held despotic sway
+over the poor Mexicans who made up most of his flock, and had gathered
+much money for the Church, by painting word-pictures of hell. He was a
+veritable artist of hell. He loved hell. Again and again he digressed from
+the strict line of his argument to speak of hell. With all the vividness
+of a thing seen, he described its flames, its fiends, the terrible stink
+of burning flesh and the vast chorus of agony that filled it.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} And for
+some obscure reason or purpose he always spoke of hell as the special
+punishment of murderers. Again and again in his discourse he coupled
+murder and hell.
+
+Ramon was wearied by strong emotions and a shortness of sleep. His nerves
+were overstrung. This ceaseless iteration of hell and murder, murder and
+hell would drive him crazy, he thought. He wished mightily that the priest
+would have done and name his price and go. What was the sense and purpose
+of this endless babble about hell and murder?{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} A sickening thought struck
+him like a blow, leaving him weak. What if old Archulera had confessed to
+the priest?
+
+Well; what if he had? A priest could not testify about what he had heard
+in confessional. But a priest might tell some one else.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} O, God! If the
+man would only go and leave him to think. Hell and murder, murder and
+hell. The two words beat upon his brain without mercy. He longed to
+interrupt the priest and beg him to leave off. But for some reason he
+could not. He could not even turn his head and look at the man. The priest
+was but a clammy grip that held him and a disembodied voice that spoke of
+hell and murder. Had he done murder? And was there a hell? He had long
+ceased to believe in hell, but hell had been real to him as a child. His
+mother and his nurse had filled him with the fear of hell. He had been
+bred in the fear of hell. It was in his flesh and bones if not in his
+mind, and the priest had hypnotized his mind. Hell was real to him again.
+Fear of hell came up from the past which vanishes but is never gone, and
+gripped him like a great ugly monster. It squeezed a cold sweat out of his
+body and made his skin prickle and his breath come short.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+The priest dropped the subject of hell, and spoke again of the mass. He
+mentioned a sum of money. Ramon nodded his head muttering his assent like
+a sick man. The grip on his hand relaxed.
+
+"Good-bye, my little brother," murmured the priest. "May Christ be always
+with you." His gown rustled across the room and as he opened the door,
+Ramon saw his face for a moment--a sallow, shrewd face, bedewed with the
+sweat of a great effort, but wearing a smile of triumphant satisfaction.
+
+Ramon lay sick and exhausted. It seemed to him that there was no air in
+the room. He was suffocating. His body burned and prickled. He rose and
+tore loose his collar. He must get out of this place, must have air and
+movement.
+
+It was dusk now. The wailing of the old women had ceased. Doubtless they
+were being rewarded with supper. He began stripping off his clothes--his
+white shirt and his new suit of black. Eagerly rummaging in the closet he
+found his old clothes, which he wore on his trips to the mountains.
+
+In the dim light he slipped out of the house, indistinguishable from any
+Mexican boy that might have been about the place. He saddled the little
+mare in the corral, mounted and galloped away--through Old Town, where
+skinny dogs roamed in dark narrow streets and men and women sat and smoked
+in black doorways--and out upon the valley road. There he spurred his mare
+without mercy, and they flew over the soft dust. The rush of the air in
+his face, and the thud and quiver of living flesh under him were
+infinitely sweet.
+
+He stopped at last five miles from town on the bank of the river. It was a
+swift muddy river, wandering about in a flood plain a quarter of a mile
+wide, and at this point chewing noisily at a low bank forested with
+scrubby cottonwoods.
+
+Dismounting, he stripped and plunged into the river. It was only three
+feet deep, but he wallowed about in it luxuriously, finding great comfort
+in the caress of the cool water, and of the soft fine sand upon the bottom
+which clung about his toes and tickled the soles of his feet. Then he
+climbed out on the bank and stood where the breeze struck him, rubbing the
+water off of his slim strong body with the flats of his hands.
+
+When he had put on his clothes, he indulged his love of lying flat on the
+ground, puffing a cigarette and blowing smoke at the first stars. A
+hunting owl flitted over his head on muffled wing; a coyote yapped in the
+bushes; high up in the darkness he heard the whistle of pinions as a flock
+of early ducks went by.
+
+He took the air deeply into his lungs and stretched out his legs. In this
+place fear of hell departed from his mind as some strong liquors evaporate
+when exposed to the open air. The splendid healthy animal in him was again
+dominant, and it could scarcely conceive of death and had nothing more to
+do with hell than had the owl and the coyote that killed to live. Here he
+felt at peace with the earth beneath him and the sky above. But one
+thought came to disturb him and it was also sweet--the thought of a woman,
+her eyes full of promise, the curve of her mouth.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} She was waiting for
+him, she would be his. That was real.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Hell was a dream.
+
+He saw now the folly of his fears about Archulera, too. Archulera never
+went to church. There was no danger that he would ever confess to any one.
+And even if he did, he could scarcely injure Ramon. For Ramon had done no
+wrong. He had but promised an old man his due, righted an ancient wrong.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+He smiled.
+
+Slowly he mounted and rode home, filled with thoughts of the girl, to put
+on his mourning clothes and take his decorous place in the circle that
+watched his uncle's bier.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+All the ceremonies and procedures, religious and legal, which had been
+made necessary by the death of Don Diego Delcasar, were done. The body of
+the Don had been taken to the church in Old Town and placed before the
+altar, the casket covered with black cloth and surrounded by candles in
+tall silver candlesticks which stood upon the floor. A Mass of impressive
+length had been spoken over it by Father Lugaria assisted by numerous
+priests and altar boys, and at the end of the ceremony the hundreds of
+friends and relatives of the Don, who filled the church, had lifted up
+their voices in one of the loudest and most prolonged choruses of wailing
+ever heard in that country, where wailing at a funeral is as much a matter
+of formal custom as is cheering at a political convention. Afterwards a
+cortege nearly a mile in length, headed by a long string of carriages and
+tailed by a crowd of poor Mexicans trudging hatless in the dust, had made
+the hot and wearisome journey to the cemetery in the sandhills.
+
+Then the will had been read and had revealed that Ramon Delcasar was heir
+to the bulk of his uncle's estate, and that he was thereby placed in
+possession of money, lands and sheep to the value of about two hundred
+thousand dollars. It was said by those who knew that the Don's estate had
+once been at least twice that large, and there were some who irreverently
+remarked that he had been taken off none too soon for the best interests
+of his heirs.
+
+Shortly after the reading of the will, Ramon rode to the Archulera ranch,
+starting before daylight and returning after dark. He exchanged greetings
+with the old man, just as he had always done.
+
+"Accept my sympathy, _amigo_," Archulera said in his formal, polite way,
+"that you have lost your uncle, the head of your great family."
+
+"I thank you, friend," Ramon replied. "A man must bear these things. Here
+is something I promised you," he added, laying a small heavy canvas bag
+upon the table, just as he had always laid a package of tobacco or some
+other small gift.
+
+Old Archulera nodded without looking at the bag.
+
+"Thank you," he said.
+
+Afterward they talked about the bean crop and the weather, and had an
+excellent dinner of goat meat cooked with chile.
+
+In town Ramon found himself a person of noticeably increased importance.
+One of his first acts had been to buy a car, and he had attracted much
+attention while driving this about the streets, learning to manipulate it.
+He killed one chicken and two dogs and handsomely reimbursed their owners.
+These minor accidents were due to his tendency, the result of many years
+of horsemanship, to throw his weight back on the steering wheel and shout
+"whoa!" whenever a sudden emergency occurred. But he was apt, and soon was
+running his car like an expert.
+
+His personal appearance underwent a change too. He had long cherished a
+barbaric leaning toward finery, which lack of money had prevented him from
+indulging. Large diamonds fascinated him, and a leopard skin vest was a
+thing he had always wanted to own. But these weaknesses he now rigorously
+suppressed. Instead he noted carefully the dress of Gordon Roth and of
+other easterners whom he saw about the hotel, and ordered from the best
+local tailor a suit of quiet colour and conservative cut, but of the very
+best English material. He bought no jewelry except a single small pearl
+for his necktie. His hat, his shoes, the way he had his neck shaved, all
+were changed as the result of a painstaking observation such as he had
+never practised before. He wanted to make himself as much as possible like
+the men of Julia's kind and class. And this desire modified his manner and
+speech as well as his appearance. He was careful, always watching himself.
+His manner was more reserved and quiet than ever, and this made him appear
+older and more serious. He smiled when he overheard a woman say that "he
+took the death of his uncle much harder than she would have expected."
+
+Ramon now received business propositions every day. Men tried to sell him
+all sorts of things, from an idea to a ranch, and most of them seemed to
+proceed on the assumption that, being young and newly come into his money,
+he should part with it easily. Several of the opportunities offered him
+had to do with the separation of the poor Mexicans from their land
+holdings. A prominent attorney came all the way from a town in the
+northern part of the State to lay before him a proposition of this kind.
+This lawyer, named Cooley, explained that by opening a store in a certain
+rich section of valley land, opportunities could be created for lending
+the Mexicans money. Whenever there was a birth, a funeral or a marriage
+among them, the Mexicans needed money, and could be persuaded to sign
+mortgages, which they generally could not read. In each Mexican family
+there would be either a birth, a marriage or a death once in three years
+on an average. Three such events would enable the lender to gain
+possession of a ranch. And Cooley had an eastern client who would then buy
+the land at a good figure. It was a chance for Ramon to double his money.
+
+"You've got the money and you know the native people," Cooley argued
+earnestly. "I've got the sucker and I know the law. It's a sure thing."
+
+Ramon thanked him politely and refused firmly. The idea of robbing a poor
+Mexican of his ranch by nine years of usury did not appeal to him at all.
+In the first place, it would be a long, slow tedious job, and besides,
+poor people always aroused his pity, just as rich ones stirred his greed
+and envy. He was predatory, but lion-like, he scorned to spring on small
+game. He did not realize that a lion often starves where a jackal grows
+fat.
+
+Only one opportunity came to him which interested him strongly. A young
+Irishman named Hurley explained to him that it was possible to buy mules
+in Mexico, where a revolution was going on, for ten dollars each at
+considerable personal risk, to run them across the Rio Grande and to sell
+them to the United States army for twenty dollars. Here was a gambler's
+chance, action and adventure. It caught his fancy and tempted him. But he
+had no thought of yielding. Another purpose engrossed him.
+
+These weeks after his uncle's funeral gave him his first real grapple with
+the world of business, and the experience tended to strengthen him in a
+certain cynical self-assurance which had been growing in him ever since he
+first went away to college, and had met its first test in action when he
+spoke the words that lead to the Don's death. He felt a deep contempt for
+most of these men who came to him with their schemes and their wares. He
+saw that most of them were ready enough to swindle him, though few of them
+would have had the courage to rob him with a gun. Probably not one of them
+would have dared to kill a man for money, but they were ready enough to
+cheat a poor _pelado_ out of his living, which often came to the same
+thing. He felt that he was bigger than most of them, if not better. His
+self-respect was strengthened.
+
+"Life is a fight," he told himself, feeling that he had hit upon a
+profound and original idea. "Every man wants pretty women and money. He
+gets them if he has enough nerve and enough sense. And somebody else gets
+hurt, because there aren't enough pretty women and money to go around."
+
+It seemed to him that this was the essence of all wisdom.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Ramon had always been rather a solitary figure in his own town. Although
+he belonged nominally to the "bunch" of young gringos, Jews and Mexicans,
+who foregathered at the White Camel Pool Hall, their amusements did not
+hold his interest very strongly. They played a picayune game of poker,
+which resulted in a tangled mass of debt; they went on occasional mild
+sprees, and on Saturday nights they visited the town's red light district,
+hardy survivor of several vice crusades, where they danced with portly
+magdalenes in gaudy kimonos to the music of a mechanical piano,
+luxuriating in conscious wickedness.
+
+All of this had seemed romantic and delightfully vicious to Ramon a few
+years before, but it soon palled on his restless and discontented spirit.
+He had formed the habit of hunting alone, and had found adventures more to
+his taste. But now he found himself in company more than ever before. He
+was bid to every frolic that took place. In the White Camel he was often
+the centre of a small group, which included men older than himself who had
+never paid any attention to him before, but now addressed him with a
+certain deference. Although he understood well enough that most of the
+attentions paid him had an interested motive, he enjoyed the sense of
+leadership which these gatherings gave him. If he was not a real leader
+now, he intended to become one. He listened to what men said, watched
+them, and said little himself. He was quick to grasp the fact that a
+reputation for shrewdness and wisdom is made by the simple method of
+keeping the mouth shut.
+
+He made many acquaintances among the new element which had recently come
+to town from the East in search of health or money, but he made no real
+friends because none of these men inspired him with respect. Only one man
+he attached to himself, and that one by the simple tie of money. His name
+was Antonio Cortez. He was a small, skinny, sallow Mexican with a great
+moustache, behind which he seemed to be discreetly hiding, and a
+consciously cunning eye. Of an old and once wealthy Spanish family, he had
+lost all of his money by reason of a lack of aptitude for business, and
+made his living as a sort of professional political henchman. He was a
+bearer of secret messages, a maker of deals, an eavesdropper. The Latin
+aptitude for intrigue he had in a high degree. He was capable of almost
+anything in the way of falsehood or evasion, but he had that great
+capacity for loyalty which is so often the virtue of weaklings.
+
+"I have known your family for many years," he told Ramon importantly, "And
+I feel an interest in you, almost as though you were my own son. You need
+an older friend to advise you, to attend to details in the management of
+your great estate. You will probably go into politics and you need a
+political manager. As an old friend of your family I want to do these
+things for you. What do you say?"
+
+Ramon answered without any hesitation and prompted solely by intuition:
+
+"I thank you, friend, and I accept your offer."
+
+He knew instinctively that he could trust this man and also dominate him.
+It was just such a follower that he needed. Nothing was said about money,
+but on the first of the month Ramon mailed Cortez a check for a hundred
+dollars, and that became his regular salary.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+About two weeks after the Don's funeral, Ramon received a summons which he
+had been vaguely expecting. He was asked by Mr. MacDougall's secretary
+over the telephone to call, whenever it would be convenient, at Mr.
+MacDougall's office.
+
+He knew just what this meant. MacDougall would try to make with him an
+arrangement somewhat similar to the one he had had with the Don. Ramon
+knew that he did not want such an arrangement on any terms. He felt
+confident that not one could swindle him, but at the same time he was half
+afraid of the Scotchman; he felt instinctively that MacDougall was a man
+for him to avoid. And besides, he intended to use his lands in his own
+way. He would sell part of them to the railroad, which was projected to be
+built through them, if he could get a good price; but the hunger for
+owning land, for dominating a part of the earth, was as much a part of him
+as his right hand. He wanted no modern business partnership. He wanted to
+be _"__el patron,__"_ as so many Delcasars had been before him.
+
+Here was a temptation to be dramatic, to hurl a picturesque defiance at
+the gringo. Ramon might have yielded to it a few months before. Sundry
+brave speeches flashed through his mind, as it was. But he resolutely put
+them aside. There was too much at stake {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} his love. He determined to call
+on MacDougall promptly and to be polite.
+
+MacDougall was a heavy, bald man of Scotch descent, and very true to type.
+He had come to town from the East about fifteen years before with his wife
+and his two tall, raw-boned children--a boy and a girl. The family had been
+very poor. They had lived in a small _adobe_ house on the _mesa_. For ten
+years Mrs. MacDougall had done all of her own housework, including the
+washing; the two children had gone to school in clothes that seemed always
+too small for them; and MacDougall had laboured obscurely day and night in
+a small dark office. During these ten years the MacDougalls had been
+completely overlooked by local society, and if they felt any resentment
+they did not show it.
+
+Meantime MacDougall had been systematically and laboriously laying the
+foundations of a fortune. His passion was for land. He loaned money on
+land, chiefly to Mexicans, and he took mortgages on land in return for
+defending his Mexican clients, largely on criminal charges. Some of the
+land he farmed, and some he rented, but much of it lay idle, and the taxes
+he had to pay kept his family poor long after it might have been
+comfortable. But his lands rose steadily in value; he began selling,
+discreetly; and the MacDougalls came magnificently into their own.
+MacDougall was now one of the wealthiest men in the State. In five years
+his way of living had undergone a great change. He owned a large brick
+house in the highlands and had several servants. The boy had gone to
+Harvard, and the girl to Vassar. Neither of them was so gawky now, and
+both of them were much sought socially during their vacations at home.
+MacDougall himself had undergone a marked change for a man past fifty. He
+had become a stylish dresser and looked younger. He drove to work in a
+large car with a chauffeur. In the early morning he went riding on the
+_mesa_, mounted on a big Kentucky fox-trotter, clad in English riding
+clothes, jouncing solemnly up and down on his flat saddle, and followed by
+a couple of carefully-laundered white poodles. On these expeditions he was
+a source of great edification and some amusement to the natives.
+
+In the town he was a man of weight and influence, but the country Mexicans
+hated him. Once when he was looking over some lands recently acquired by
+the foreclosure of mortgages, a bullet had whistled close to his ear, and
+another had punctured the hood of his car. He now hired a man to do his
+"outside work."
+
+Thus both MacDougall and his children had thrived and developed on their
+wealth. Mrs. MacDougall, perhaps, had been the sacrifice. She remained a
+tall, thin, pale, tired-looking woman with large hands that were a record
+of toil. She laboured at her new social duties and "pleasures" in exactly
+the same spirit that she had formerly laboured at the wash tub.
+
+MacDougall's offices now occupied all of the ground floor of a large new
+building which he had built. Like everything else of his authorship this
+building represented a determined effort to lend the town an air of
+Eastern elegance. It was finished in an imitation of white marble and the
+offices had large plate glass windows which bore in gilt letters the
+legend: "MacDougall Land and Cattle Company, Inc." Within, half a dozen
+girls in glass cages could be seen working at typewriters and adding
+machines, while a cashier occupied a little office of his own with a large
+safe at his back, a little brass grating in front of him, and a revolver
+visible not far from his right hand.
+
+The creator of this magnificence sat behind a glasstop desk at the far end
+of a large and sunny office with a bare and slippery floor. Many a Mexican
+beggar for mercy, with a mortgage on his home, had walked across this
+forbidding expanse of polished hardwood toward the big man with the
+merciless eye, as fearfully as ever a _peon_, sentenced to forty lashes
+and salt in his wounds, approached the seat of his owner to plead for a
+whole skin. Truly, the weak can but change masters.
+
+This morning MacDougall was all affability. As he stood up behind his
+desk, clad in a light grey suit, large and ruddy, radiant of health and
+prosperity, he was impressive, almost splendid. Only the eyes, small and
+closeset, revealed the worried and calculating spirit of the man.
+
+"Mr. Delcasar," he said when they had shaken hands and sat down, "I am
+glad to welcome you to this office, and I hope to see you here many times
+more. I will not waste time, for we are both busy men. I asked you to come
+here because I want to suggest a sort of informal partnership between us,
+such as I had with your late uncle, one of my best friends. I believe my
+plan will be for the best interests of both of us.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I suppose you know
+about what the arrangement was between the Don and myself?"
+
+"No; not in detail," Ramon confessed. He felt MacDougall's power at once.
+Facing the man was a different matter from planning an interview with him
+when alone. But he retained sense enough to let MacDougall do the talking.
+
+"Have a cigar," the great man continued, full of sweetness, pushing a
+large and fragrant box of perfectos across the desk. "I will outline the
+situation to you briefly, as I see it." Nothing could have seemed more
+frank and friendly than his manner.
+
+"As you doubtless know," he went on, "your estate includes a large area of
+mountain and _mesa_ land--a little more than nine thousand acres I
+believe--north and west of the San Antonio River in Arriba County. I own
+nearly as much land on the east side of the river. The valley itself is
+owned by a number of natives in small farming tracts.
+
+"I believe your estate also includes a few small parcels of land in the
+valley, but not enough, you understand, to be of much value by itself.
+Your uncle also owned a few tracts in the valley east of the river which
+he transferred to me, for a consideration, because they abutted upon my
+holdings.
+
+"Now the valley, as I scarcely need tell you, is the key to the situation.
+In the first place, if the country is to be properly developed as sheep
+and cattle range, the valley will furnish the farming land upon which hay
+for winter use can be raised, and it also furnishes some good winter
+range. Moreover, it is now an open secret that the Denver and Rio Grande
+Railroad proposes building a branch line through that country and into the
+San Juan Valley. No surveys have been made, but it is certain that the
+road must follow the San Antonio to the top of the divide. There is no
+other way through. I became aware of this project some time ago through my
+eastern connections, and told your uncle about it. He and I joined forces
+for the purpose of gaining control of the San Antonio Valley, and of the
+railroad right-of-way.
+
+"The proposition is a singularly attractive one. Not only could the
+right-of-way be sold for a very large sum, but we would afterward own a
+splendid bit of cattle range, with farming land in the valley, and with a
+railroad running through the centre of it. There is nothing less than a
+fortune to be made in the San Antonio Valley, Mr. Delcasar.
+
+"And the lands in the valley can be acquired. Some of the small owners
+will sell outright. Furthermore, they are all frequently in need of money,
+especially during dry years when the crops are not good. By advancing
+loans judiciously, and taking land as security, title can often be
+acquired.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I daresay you are not wholly unfamiliar with the method.
+
+"This work, Mr. Delcasar, requires large capital, which I can command. It
+also requires certain things which you have in an unusual degree. You are
+of Spanish descent, you speak the language fluently. You have political
+and family prestige among the natives. All of this will be of great
+service in persuading the natives to sell, and in getting the necessary
+information about land titles, which, as you know, requires much research
+in old Spanish Church records and much interviewing of the natives
+themselves.
+
+"In the actual making of purchases, my name need not appear. In fact, I
+think it is very desirable that it should not appear. But understand that
+I will furnish absolutely all of the capital for the enterprise. I am
+offering you, Mr. Delcasar, an opportunity to make a fortune without
+investing a cent, and I feel that I can count upon your acceptance."
+
+At the close of this discourse, Ramon felt like a surf-bather who has been
+overwhelmed by a great and sudden wave and comes up gasping for breath and
+struggling for a foothold. Never had he heard anything so brilliantly
+plausible, for never before had he come into contact with a good mind in
+full action. Yet he regained his balance in a moment. He was accustomed to
+act by intuition, not by logic, and his intuition was all against
+accepting MacDougall's offer. He was not deceived by the Scotchman's show
+of friendship and beneficence; he himself had an aptitude for pretence,
+and he understood it better than he would have understood sincerity. He
+knew that whether he formed this partnership or not, there was sure to be
+a struggle between him and MacDougall for the dominance of the San Antonio
+Valley. And his instinct was to stand free and fight; not to come to
+grips, MacDougall was a stronger man than he. The one advantage which he
+had--his influence over the natives--he must keep in his own hands, and not
+let his adversary turn it against him.
+
+He took his cigar out of his mouth, looked at it a moment, and cleared his
+throat.
+
+"Mr. MacDougall," he said slowly, "this offer makes me proud. That you
+should have so much confidence in me as to wish to make me your partner is
+most gratifying. I am sorry that I must refuse. I have other plans.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+MacDougall nodded, interrupting. This was evidently a contingency he had
+calculated.
+
+"I'm sorry, Mr. Delcasar. I had hoped to be permanently associated with
+you in this venture. But I think I understand. You are young. Perhaps
+marriage, a home are your immediate objects, and you need cash at once,
+rather than a somewhat distant prospect of greater wealth. In that case I
+think I can meet your wishes. I am prepared to make you a good offer for
+all of your holdings in the valley, and those immediately adjoining it.
+The exact amount I cannot state at this moment, but I feel sure we could
+agree as to price."
+
+Ramon was taken aback by the promptness of the counter, confused, forced
+to think. Money was a thing he wanted badly. He had little cash. If
+MacDougall would give him fifty thousand, he could go with Julia anywhere.
+He would be free. But again the inward prompting, sure and imperative,
+said no. He wanted the girl above all things. But he wanted land, too. His
+was the large and confident greed of youth. And he could have the girl
+without making this concession. MacDougall wanted to take the best of his
+land and push him out of the game as a weakling, a negligible. He wouldn't
+submit. He would fight, and in his own way. What he wanted now was to end
+the interview, to get away from this battering, formidable opponent. He
+rose.
+
+"I will think it over, Mr. MacDougall," he said. "And meantime, if you
+will send me an offer in writing, I will appreciate it."
+
+Some of the affability faded from MacDougall's face as he too rose, and
+the worried look in his little grey eyes intensified, as though he sensed
+the fact that this was an evasion. None-the-less he said good-bye
+cordially and promised to write the letter.
+
+Ramon went back to his office, his mind stimulated, working intensely.
+Never before had he thought so clearly and purposefully. He got out an old
+government map of Arriba County, and with the aid of the deeds in the safe
+which contained all his uncle's important papers, he managed to mark off
+his holdings. The whole situation became as clear to him as a checker
+game. He owned a bit of land in the valley which ran all the way across
+it, and far out upon the _mesa_ in a long narrow strip. That was the way
+land holdings were always divided under the Spanish law--into strips a few
+hundred feet wide, and sometimes as much as fourteen miles long. This
+strip would in all probability be vital to the proposed right-of-way. It
+explained MacDougall's eagerness to take him as a partner or else to buy
+him out. By holding it, he would hold the key to the situation.
+
+In order really to dominate the country and to make his property grow in
+value he would have to own more of the valley. And he could not get money
+enough to buy except very slowly. But he could use his influence with the
+natives to prevent MacDougall from buying. MacDougall was a gringo. The
+Mexicans hated him. He had been shot at. Ramon could "preach the race
+issue," as the politicians put it.
+
+The important thing was to strengthen and assert his influence as a
+Mexican and a Delcasar. He must go to Arriba County, open the old ranch
+house he owned there, go among the people. He must gain a real ascendency.
+He knew how to do it. It was his birthright. He was full of fight and
+ambition, confident, elated. The way was clear before him. Tomorrow he
+would go to Julia.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+He had received a note of sympathy from her soon after his uncle's death
+and he had called at the Roths' once, but had found several other callers
+there and no opportunity of being alone with her. Then she had gone away
+on a two-weeks, automobile trip to the Mesa Verde National Park, so that
+he had seen practically nothing of her. But all of this time he had been
+thinking of her more confidently than ever before. He was rich now, he was
+strong. All of the preliminaries had been finished. He could go to her and
+claim her.
+
+He called her on the telephone from his office, and the Mexican maid
+answered. She would see if Miss Roth was in. After a long wait she
+reported that Miss Roth was out. He tried again that day, and a third time
+the next morning with a like result.
+
+This filled him with anxious, angry bewilderment. He felt sure she had not
+really been out all three times. Were her mother and brother keeping his
+message from her? Or had something turned her against him? He remembered
+with a keen pang of anxiety, for the first time, the insinuations of
+Father Lugaria. Could that miserable rumour have reached her? He had no
+idea how she would have taken it if it had. He really did not know or
+understand this girl at all; he merely loved her and desired her with a
+desire which had become the ruling necessity of his life. To him she was a
+being of a different sort, from a different world--a mystery. They had
+nothing in common but a rebellious discontent with life, and this
+glamorous bewildering thing, so much stronger than they, so far beyond
+their comprehension, which they called their love.
+
+That was the one thing he knew and counted on. He knew how imperiously it
+drove him, and he knew that she had felt its power too. He had seen it
+shine in her eyes, part her lips; he had heard it in her voice, and felt
+it tremble in her body. If only he could get to her this potent thing
+would carry them to its purpose through all barriers.
+
+Angry and resolute, he set himself to a systematic campaign of
+telephoning. At last she answered. Her voice was level, quiet, weary.
+
+"But I have an engagement for tonight," she told him.
+
+"Then let me come tomorrow," he urged.
+
+"No; I can't do that. Mother is having some people to dinner.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+At last he begged her to set a date, but she refused, declared that her
+plans were unfixed, told him to call "some other time."
+
+His touchy pride rebelled now. He cursed these gringos. He hated them. He
+wished for the power to leave her alone, to humble her by neglect. But he
+knew that he did have it. Instead he waited a few days and then drove to
+the house in his car, having first carefully ascertained by watching that
+she was at home.
+
+All three of them received him in their sitting room, which they called
+the library. It was an attractive room, sunny and tastefully furnished,
+with a couple of book cases filled with new-looking books in sets, a
+silver tea service on a little wheeled table, flowers that matched the
+wall paper, and a heavy mahogany table strewn with a not-too-disorderly
+array of magazines and paper knives. It was the envy of the local women
+with social aspirations because it looked elegant and yet comfortable.
+
+Conversation was slow and painful. Mrs. Roth and her son were icily
+formal, confining themselves to the most commonplace remarks. And Julia
+did not help him, as she had on his first visit. She looked pale and tired
+and carefully avoided his eyes.
+
+When he had been there about half an hour, Mrs. Roth turned to her
+daughter.
+
+"Julia," she said, "If we are going to get to Mrs. MacDougall's at
+half-past four you must go and get ready. You will excuse her, won't you
+Mr. Delcasar?"
+
+The girl obediently went up stairs without shaking hands, and a few
+minutes later Ramon went away, feeling more of misery and less of
+self-confidence than ever before in his life.
+
+He almost wholly neglected his work. Cortez brought him a report that
+MacDougall had a new agent, who was working actively in Arriba County, but
+he paid no attention to it. His life seemed to have lost purpose and
+interest. For the first time he doubted her love. For the first time he
+really feared that he would lose her.
+
+Most of his leisure was spent riding or walking about the streets, in the
+hope of catching a glimpse of her. He passed her house as often as he
+dared, and studied her movements. When he saw her in the distance he felt
+an acute thrill of mingled hope and misery. Only once did he meet her
+fairly, walking with her brother, and then she either failed to see him or
+pretended not to.
+
+One afternoon about five o'clock he left his office and started home in
+his car. A storm was piling up rapidly in big black clouds that rose from
+behind the eastern mountains like giants peering from ambush. It was
+sultry; there were loud peals of thunder and long crooked flashes of
+lightning. At this season of late summer the weather staged such a
+portentous display almost every afternoon, and it rained heavily in the
+mountains; but the showers only reached the thirsty _mesa_ and valley
+lands about one day in four.
+
+Ramon drove home slowly, gloomily wondering whether it would rain and
+hoping that it would. A Southwesterner is always hoping for rain, and in
+his present mood the rush and beat of a storm would have been especially
+welcome.
+
+His hopes were soon fulfilled. There was a cold blast of wind, carrying a
+few big drops, and then a sudden, drumming downpour that tore up the dust
+of the street and swiftly converted it into a sea of mud cut by yellow
+rivulets.
+
+As his car roared down the empty street, he glimpsed a woman standing in
+the shelter of a big cottonwood tree, cowering against its trunk. A quick
+thrill shot through his body. He jammed down the brake so suddenly that
+his car skidded and sloughed around. He carefully turned and brought up at
+the curb.
+
+She started at sight of him as he ran across the side-walk toward her.
+
+"Come on quick!" he commanded, taking her by the arm, "I'll get you home."
+Before she had time to say anything he had her in the car, and they were
+driving toward the Roth house. By the time they had reached it the first
+strength of the shower was spent, and there was only a light scattering
+rain with a rift showing in the clouds over the mountains.
+
+He deliberately passed the house, putting on more speed as he did so.
+
+"But {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I thought you were going to take me home," she said, putting a hand
+on his arm.
+
+"I'm not," he announced, without looking around. His hands and eyes were
+fully occupied with his driving, but a great suspense held his breath. The
+hand left his arm, and he heard her settle back in her seat with a sigh. A
+great warm wave of joy surged through him.
+
+He took the mountain road, which was a short cut between Old Town and the
+mountains, seldom used except by wood wagons. Within ten minutes they were
+speeding across the _mesa_. The rain was over and the clouds running
+across the sky in tatters before a fresh west wind. Before them the
+rolling grey-green waste of the _mesa_, spotted and veined with silver
+waters, reached to the blue rim of the mountains--empty and free as an
+undiscovered world.
+
+He slowed his car to ten miles an hour and leaned back, steering with one
+hand. The other fell upon hers, and closed over it. For a time they drove
+along in silence, conscious only of that electrical contact, and of the
+wind playing in their faces and the soft rhythmical hum of the great
+engine.
+
+At the crest of a rise he stopped the car and stood up, looking all about
+at the vast quiet wilderness, filling his lungs with air. He liked that
+serene emptiness. He had always felt at peace with these still desolate
+lands that had been the background of most of his life. Now, with the
+consciousness of the woman beside him, they filled him with a sort of
+rapture, an ecstasy of reverence that had come down to him perhaps from
+savage forebears who had worshipped the Earth Mother with love and awe.
+
+He dropped down beside her again and without hesitation gathered her into
+his arms. After a moment he held her a little away from him and looked
+into her eyes.
+
+"Why wouldn't you let me come to see you? Why did you treat me that way?"
+he plead.
+
+She dropped her eyes.
+
+"They made me."
+
+"But why? Because I'm a Mexican? And does that make any difference to
+you?"
+
+"O, I can't tell you.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} They say awful things about you. I don't believe
+them. No; nothing about you makes any difference to me."
+
+He held her close again.
+
+"Then you'll go away with me?"
+
+"Yes," she answered slowly, nodding her head. "I'll go anywhere with you."
+
+"Now!" he demanded. "Will you go now? We can drive through Scissors Pass
+to Abol on the Southeastern and take a train to Denver.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"O, no, not now," she plead. "Please not now.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I can't go like this.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"Yes; now," he urged. "We'll never have a better chance.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"I beg you, if you love me, don't make me go now. I must think {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} and get
+ready.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Why I haven't even got any powder for my nose."
+
+They both laughed. The tension was broken. They were happy.
+
+"Give me a little while to get ready," she proposed, "and I'll go when you
+say."
+
+"You promise?"
+
+"Cross my heart.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} On my life and honour. Please take me home now, so they
+won't suspect anything. If only nobody sees us! Please hurry. It'll be
+dark pretty soon. You can write to me. It's so lonely out here!"
+
+He turned his car and drove slowly townward, his free hand seeking hers
+again. It was dusk when they reached the streets. Stopping his car in the
+shadow of a tree, he kissed her and helped her out.
+
+He sat still and watched her out of sight. A tinge of sadness and regret
+crept into his mind, and as he drove homeward it grew into an active
+discontent with himself. Why had he let her go? True, he had proved her
+love, but now she was to be captured all over again. He ought to have
+taken her. He had been a fool. She would have gone. She had begged him not
+to take her, but if he had insisted, she would have gone. He had been a
+fool!
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+The second morning after this ride, while he was labouring over a note to
+the girl, he was amazed to get one from her postmarked at Lorietta, a
+station a hundred miles north of town at the foot of the Mora Mountains,
+in which many of the town people spent their summer vacations. It was a
+small square missive, exhaling a faint scent of lavender, and was simple
+and direct as a telegram.
+
+"We have gone to the Valley Ranch for a month," she wrote. "We had not
+intended to go until August, but there was a sudden change of plans.
+Somebody saw you and me yesterday. I had an awful time. Please don't try
+to see me or write to me while we're here. It will be best for us. I'll be
+back soon. I love you."
+
+He sat glumly thinking over this letter for a long time. The
+disappointment of learning that he would not see her for a month was bad
+enough, but it was not the worst thing about this sudden development. For
+this made him realize what alert and active opposition he faced on the
+part of her mother and brother. Their dislike for him had been made
+manifest again and again, but he had supposed that Julia was successfully
+deceiving them as to his true relations with her. He had thought that he
+was regarded merely as an undesirable acquaintance; but if they were
+changing their plans because of him, taking the girl out of his reach,
+they must have guessed the true state of affairs. And for all that he
+knew, they might leave the country at any time. His heart seemed to give a
+sharp twist in his body at this thought. He must take her as soon as she
+returned to town. He could not afford to miss another chance. And meantime
+his affairs must be gotten in order.
+
+He had been neglecting his new responsibilities, and there was an
+astonishing number of things to be done--debts to be paid, tax assessments
+to be protested, men to be hired for the sheep-shearing. His uncle had
+left his affairs at loose ends, and on all hands were men bent on taking
+advantage of the fact. But he knew the law; he had known from childhood
+the business of raising sheep on the open range which was the backbone of
+his fortune; and he was held in a straight course by the determination to
+keep his resources together so that they would strengthen him in his
+purpose.
+
+A few weeks before, he had sent Cortez to Arriba County to attend to some
+minor matters there, and incidentally to learn if possible what MacDougall
+was doing. Cortez had spent a large part of his time talking with the
+Mexicans in the San Antonio Valley, eavesdropping on conversations in
+little country stores, making friends, and asking discreet questions at
+_bailes_ and _fiestas_.
+
+"Well; how goes it up there?" Ramon asked him when he came to the office
+to make his report.
+
+"It looks bad enough," Cortez replied lighting with evident satisfaction
+the big cigar his patron had given him. "MacDougall has men working there
+all the time. He bought a small ranch on the edge of the valley just the
+other day. He is not making very fast progress, but he'll own the valley
+in time if we don't stop him."
+
+"But who is doing the work? Who is his agent?" Ramon enquired.
+
+"Old Solomon Alfego, for one. He's boss of the county, you know. He hates
+a gringo as much as any man alive, but he loves a dollar, too, and
+MacDougall has bought him, I'm afraid. I think MacDougall is lending money
+through him, getting mortgages on ranches that way."
+
+"Well; what do you think we had better do?" Ramon enquired. The situation
+looked bad on its face, but he could see that Cortez had a plan.
+
+"Just one thing I thought of," the little man answered slowly. "We have
+got to get Alfego on our side. If we can do that, we can keep out
+MacDougall and everybody else {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} buy when we get ready. We couldn't pay
+Alfego much, but we could let him in on the railroad deal {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} something
+MacDougall won't do. And Alfego, you know, is a _penitente_. He's _hermano
+mayor_ (chief brother) up there. And all those little _rancheros_ are
+_penitentes_. It's the strongest _penitente_ county in the State, and you
+know none of the _penitentes_ like gringos. None of those fellows like
+MacDougall; they're all afraid of him. All they like is his money. You
+haven't so much money, but you could spend some. You could give a few
+_bailes_. You are Mexican; your family is well-known. If you were a
+_penitente_, too.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Cortez left his sentence hanging in the air. He nodded his head slowly,
+his cigar cocked at a knowing angle, looking at Ramon through narrowed
+lids.
+
+Ramon sat looking straight before him for a moment. He saw in imagination
+a procession of men trudging half-naked in the raw March weather, their
+backs gashed so that blood ran down to their heels, beating themselves and
+each other.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} The _penitentes_! Other men, even gringos, had risen to power
+by joining the order. Why not he? It would give him just the prestige and
+standing he needed in that country. He would lose a little blood. He would
+win {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} everything!
+
+"You are right, _amigo_," he told Cortez. "But do you think it can be
+arranged?"
+
+"I have talked to Alfego about it," Cortez admitted. "I think it can be
+arranged."
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+He was all ready to leave for Arriba County when one more black mischance
+came to bedevil him. Cortez came into the office with a worried look in
+his usually unrevealing eyes.
+
+"There's a woman in town looking for you," he announced. "A Mexican girl
+from the country. She was asking everybody she met where to find you. You
+ought to be more careful. I took her to my house and promised I would
+bring you right away."
+
+Cortez lived in a little square box of a brick cottage, which he had been
+buying slowly for the past ten years and would probably never own. In its
+parlour, gaudy with cheap, new furniture, Ramon confronted Catalina
+Archulera. She was clad in a dirty calico dress, and her shoes were
+covered with the dust of long tramping, as was the black shawl about her
+head and shoulders. Once he had thought her pretty, but now she looked to
+him about as attractive as a clod of earth.
+
+She stood before him with downcast eyes, speechless with misery and
+embarassment. At first he was utterly puzzled as to what could have
+brought her there. Then with a queer mixture of anger and pity and
+disgust, he noticed the swollen bulk of her healthy young body.
+
+"Catalina! Why did you come here?" he blurted, all his self-possession
+gone for a moment.
+
+"My father sent me," she replied, as simply as though that were an
+all-sufficient explanation.
+
+"But why did you tell him {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} it was I? Why didn't you come to me first?"
+
+"He made me tell," Catalina rolled back her sleeve and showed some blue
+bruises. "He beat me," she explained without emotion.
+
+"What did he tell you to say?"
+
+"He told me to come to you and show you how I am.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} That is all."
+
+Ramon swore aloud with a break in his voice. For a long moment he stood
+looking at her, bewildered, disgusted. It somehow seemed to him utterly
+wrong, utterly unfair that this thing should have happened, and above all
+that it should have happened now. He had taken other girls, as had every
+other man, but never before had any such hard luck as this befallen him.
+And now, of all times!
+
+In Catalina he felt not the faintest interest. Before him was the proof
+that once he had desired her. Now that desire had vanished as completely
+as his childhood.
+
+And she was Archulera's daughter. That was the hell of it! Archulera was
+the one man of all men whom he could least afford to offend. And he knew
+just how hard to appease the old man would be. For among the Mexicans,
+seduction is a crime which, in theory and often in practice, can be atoned
+only by marriage or by the shedding of blood. Marriage is the door to
+freedom for the women, but virginity is a thing greatly revered and
+carefully guarded. The unmarried girl is always watched, often locked up,
+and he who appropriates her to his own purpose is violating a sacred right
+and offending her whole family.
+
+In the towns, all this has been somewhat changed, as the customs of any
+country suffer change in towns. But old Archulera, living in his lonely
+canyon, proud of his high lineage, would be the hardest of men to appease.
+And meantime, what was to be done with the girl?
+
+It was this problem which brought his wits back to him. A plan began to
+form in his mind. He saw that in sending her to him Archulera had really
+played into his hands. The important thing now was to keep her away from
+her father. He looked at her again, and the pity which he always felt for
+weaklings welled up in him. He knew many Mexican ranches in the valley
+where he could keep her in comfort for a small amount. That would serve a
+double purpose. The old man would be kept in ignorance as to what Ramon
+intended, and the girl would be saved from further punishment. Meantime,
+he could send Cortez to see Archulera and find out what money would do.
+
+The whole affair was big with potential damage to him. Some of his enemies
+might find out about it and make a scandal. Archulera might come around in
+an ugly mood and make trouble. The girl might run away and come to town
+again. And yet, now that he had a plan, he was all confidence.
+
+Cortez kept Catalina at his house while Ramon drove forty miles up the
+valley and made arrangements with a Mexican who lived in an isolated
+place, to care for her for an indefinite period. When he took Catalina
+there, he told her on the way simply that she was to wait until he came
+for her, and above all, that she must not try to communicate with her
+father. The girl nodded, looking at him gravely with her large soft eyes.
+Her lot had always been to obey, to bear burdens and to suffer. The stuff
+of rebellion and of self-assertion was not in her, but she could endure
+misfortune with the stoical indifference of a savage. Indeed, she was in
+all essentials simply a squaw. During the ride to her new home she seemed
+more interested in the novel sensation of travelling at thirty miles an
+hour than in her own future. She clung to the side of the car with both
+hands, and her face reflected a pathetic mingling of fear and delight.
+
+The house of Nestor Gomez to which Ramon took her was prettily set in a
+grove of cottonwoods, with white hollyhocks blooming on either side of the
+door, and strings of red chile hanging from the rafter-ends to dry. Half a
+dozen small children played about the door, the younger ones naked and all
+of them deep in dirt. A hen led her brood of chicks into the house on a
+foray for crumbs, and in the shade of the wall a mongrel bitch luxuriously
+gave teat to four pups. Bees humming about the hollyhocks bathed the scene
+in sleepy sound.
+
+Catalina, utterly unembarassed, shook hands with her host and hostess in
+the limp, brief way of the Mexicans, and then, while Ramon talked with
+them, sat down in the shade, shook loose her heavy black hair and began to
+comb it. A little half-naked urchin of three years came and stood before
+her. She stopped combing to place her hands on his shoulders, and the two
+regarded each other long and intently, while Catalina's mouth framed a
+smile of dull wonder.
+
+As Ramon drove back to town, he marvelled that he should ever have desired
+this clod of a woman; but he was grateful to her for the bovine calm with
+which she accepted things. He would visit her once in a while. He felt
+pretty sure that he could count on her not to make trouble.
+
+Afterward he discussed the situation with Cortez. The latter was worried.
+
+"You better look out," he counselled. "You better send him a message you
+are going to marry her. That will keep him quiet for a while. When he gets
+over being mad, maybe you can make him take a thousand dollars instead."
+
+Ramon shook his head. If he gave Archulera to understand that he would
+marry the girl, word of it might get to town.
+
+"He'll never find her," he said confidently. "I'll do nothing unless he
+comes to me."
+
+"I don't know," Cortez replied doubtfully. "Is he a _penitente_?"
+
+"Yes; I think he is," Ramon admitted.
+
+"Then maybe he'll find her pretty quick. There are some _penitentes_ still
+in the valley and all _penitentes_ work together. You better look out."
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XX
+
+
+He had resolutely put the thought of Julia as much out of his mind as
+possible. He had conquered his disappointment at not being able to see her
+for a month, and had resolved to devote that month exclusively to hard
+work. And now came another one of those small, square, brief letters with
+its disturbing scent of lavender, and its stamp stuck upside down near the
+middle of the envelope.
+
+"I will be in town tomorrow when you get this," she wrote, "But only for a
+day or two. We are going to move up to the capital for the rest of the
+year. Gordon is going to stay here now. Just mother and I are coming down
+to pack up our things. You can come and see me tomorrow evening."
+
+It was astonishing, it was disturbing, it was incomprehensible. And it did
+not fit in with his plans. He had intended to go North and return before
+she did; then, with all his affairs in order, ask her to go away with him.
+Cortez had already sent word to Alfego that Ramon was coming to Arriba
+County. He could not afford a change of plans now. But the prospect of
+seeing her again filled him with pleasure, sent a sort of weakening
+excitement tingling through his body.
+
+And what did it mean that he was to be allowed to call on her? Had she, by
+any chance, won over her mother and brother? No; he couldn't believe it.
+But he went to her house that evening shaken by great hopes and
+anticipations.
+
+She wore a black dress that left her shoulders bare, and set off the slim
+perfection of her little figure. Her face was flushed and her eyes were
+deep. How much more beautiful she was than the image he carried in his
+mind! He had been thinking of her all this while, and yet he had forgotten
+how beautiful she was. He could think of nothing to say at first, but held
+her by both hands and looked at her with eyes of wonder and desire. He
+felt a fool because his knees were weak and he was tremulous. But a happy
+fool! The touch and the sight of her seemed to dissolve his strength, and
+also the hardness and the bitterness that life had bred in him, the streak
+of animal ferocity that struggle brought out in him. He was all desire,
+but desire bathed in tenderness and hope. She made him feel as once long
+ago he had felt in church when the music and the pageantry and sweet
+odours of the place had filled his childish spirit with a strange sense of
+harmony. He had felt small and unworthy, yet happy and forgiven. So now he
+felt in her presence that he was black and bestial beside her, but that
+possession of her would somehow wash him clean and bring him peace.
+
+When he tried to draw her to him she shook her head, not meeting his eyes
+and freed herself gently.
+
+"No, no. I must tell you.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}" She led him to a seat, and went on, looking
+down at a toe that played with a design in the carpet. "I must explain. I
+promised mother that if she would let me see you this once to tell you, I
+would never try to see you again."
+
+There was a long silence, during which he could feel his heart pounding
+and could see that she breathed quickly. Then suddenly he took her face in
+both hot hands and turned it toward him, made her meet his eyes.
+
+"But of course you didn't mean that," he said.
+
+She struggled weakly against his strength.
+
+"I don't know. I thought I did.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} It's terrible. You know{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I wrote you {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+some one saw us together. Gordon and mother found out about it. I won't
+tell you all that they said, but it was awful. It made me angry, and they
+found out that I love you. It had a terrible effect on Gordon. It made him
+worse. I can't tell you how awful it is for me. I love you. But I love him
+too. And to think I'm hurting him when he's sick, when I've lived in the
+hope he would get well.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+She was breathing hard now. Her eyes were bright with tears. All her
+defences were down, her fine dignity vanished. When he took her in his
+arms she struggled a little at first; then yielded with closed eyes to his
+hot kisses.
+
+Afterward they talked a little, but not to much purpose. He had important
+things to tell her, they had plans to make. But their great disturbing
+hunger for each other would not let them think of anything else. Their
+conversation was always interrupted by hot confusing embraces.
+
+The clock struck eleven, and she jumped up.
+
+"I promised to make you go home at eleven," she told him.
+
+"But I must tell you {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I have to leave town for a while." He found his
+tongue suddenly. Briefly he outlined the situation he faced with regard to
+his estate. Of course, he said nothing about the _penitentes_, but he made
+her understand that he was going forth to fight for both their fortunes.
+
+"I can't do it, I won't go, unless I know I am to have you," he finished.
+"Everything I have done, everything I am going to do is for you. If I lose
+you I lose everything. You promise to go with me?"
+
+His eyes were burning with earnestness, and hers were wide with
+admiration. He did not really understand her, nor she him. Unalterable
+differences of race and tradition and temperament stood between them. They
+had little in common save a great primitive hunger. But that,
+none-the-less, for the moment genuinely transfigured and united them.
+
+She drew a deep breath.
+
+"Yes. You must promise not to try to see me until then. When you are
+ready, let me know."
+
+She threw back her head, opening her arms to him. For a moment she hung
+limp in his embrace; then pushed him away and ran upstairs, leaving him to
+find his way out alone.
+
+He walked home slowly, trying to straighten out his thoughts. Her presence
+seemed still to be all about him. One of her hairs was tangled about a
+button of his coat; her powder and the scent of her were all over his
+shoulder; the recollection of her kisses smarted sweetly on his mouth. He
+was weak, confused, ridiculously happy. But he knew that he would carry
+North with him greater courage and purpose than ever before he had known.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+In the dry clean air of the Southwest all things change slowly. Growth is
+slow and decay is even slower. The body of a dead horse in the desert does
+not rot but dessicates, the hide remaining intact for months, the bones
+perhaps for years. Men and beasts often live to great age. The _pinon_
+trees on the red hills were there when the conquerors came, and they are
+not much larger now--only more gnarled and twisted.
+
+This strange inertia seems to possess institutions and customs as well as
+life itself. In the valley towns, it is true, the railroads have brought
+and thrown down all the conveniences and incongruities of civilization.
+But ride away from the railroads into the mountains or among the lava
+_mesas_, and you are riding into the past. You will see little earthen
+towns, brown or golden or red in the sunlight, according to the soil that
+bore them, which have not changed in a century. You will see grain
+threshed by herds of goats and ponies driven around and around the
+threshing floors, as men threshed grain before the Bible was written. You
+will see Indian pueblos which have not changed materially since the brave
+days when Coronado came to Taos and the Spanish soldiers stormed the
+heights of Acoma. You will hear of strange Gods and devils and of the evil
+eye. It is almost as though this crystalline air were indeed a great clear
+crystal, impervious to time, in which the past is forever encysted.
+
+The region in which Ramon's heritage lay was a typical part of this
+forgotten land. In the southern end of the Rocky Mountains, it was a
+country of great tilted _mesas_ reaching above timber line, covered for
+the most part with heavy forests of pine and fir, with here and there
+great upland pastures swept clean by forest fires of long ago. Along the
+lower slopes of the mountains, where the valleys widened, were primitive
+little _adobe_ towns, in which the Mexicans lived, each owning a few acres
+of tillable land. In the summer they followed their sheep herds in the
+upland pastures. There were not a hundred white men in the whole of Arriba
+County, and no railroad touched it.
+
+In this region a few Mexicans who were shrewder or stronger than the
+others, who owned stores or land, dominated the rest of the people much as
+the _patrones_ had dominated them in the days before the Mexican War. Here
+still flourished the hatred for the gringo which culminated in that war.
+Here that strange sect, the _penitentes hermanos_, half savage and half
+mediaeval, still was strong and still recruited its strength every year
+with young men, who elsewhere were refusing to undergo its brutal
+tortures.
+
+For all of these reasons, this was an advantageous field for the fight
+Ramon proposed to make. In the valley MacDougall's money and influence
+would surely have beaten him. But here he could play upon the ancient
+hatred for the gringo; here he could use to the best advantage the
+prestige of his family; here, above all, if he could win over the
+_penitentes_, he could do almost anything he pleased.
+
+His plan of joining that ancient order to gain influence was not an
+original one. Mexican politicians and perhaps one or two gringos had done
+it, and the fact was a matter of common gossip. Some of these _penitentes_
+for a purpose had been men of great influence, and their initiations had
+been tempered to suit their sensitive skins. Others had been Mexicans of
+the poorer sort, capable of sharing the half-fanatic, half sadistic spirit
+of the thing.
+
+Ramon came to the order as a young and almost unknown man seeking its aid.
+He could not hope for much mercy. And though he was primitive in many
+ways, there was nothing in him that responded to the spirit of this
+ordeal. The thought of Christ crucified did not inspire him to endure
+suffering. But the thought of a girl with yellow hair did.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+Ramon went first to the ranch at the foot of the mountains which his uncle
+had used as a headquarters, and which had belonged to the family for about
+half a century. It consisted merely of an _adobe_ ranch house and barn and
+a log corral for rounding up horses.
+
+Here Ramon left his machine. Here also he exchanged his business suit for
+corduroys, a wide hat and high-heeled riding boots. He greatly fancied
+himself in this costume and he embellished it with a silk bandana of
+bright scarlet and with a large pair of silver spurs which had belonged to
+his uncle, and which he found in the saddle room of the barn. From the
+accoutrement in this room he also selected the most pretentious-looking
+saddle. It was a heavy stock saddle, with German silver mountings and
+saddle bags covered with black bear fur. A small red and black Navajo
+blanket served as a saddle pad and he found a fine Navajo bridle, too,
+woven of black horsehair, with a big hand-hammered silver buckle on each
+cheek.
+
+He had the old Mexican who acted as caretaker for the ranch drive all of
+the ranch horses into the corral, and chose a spirited roan mare for a
+saddle animal. He always rode a roan horse when he could get one because a
+roan mustang has more spirit than one of any other colour.
+
+The most modern part of his equipment was his weapon. He did not want to
+carry one openly, so he had purchased a small but highly efficient
+automatic pistol, which he wore in a shoulder scabbard inside his shirt
+and under his left elbow.
+
+When his preparations were completed he rode straight to the town of
+Alfego where the powerful Solomon had his establishment, dismounted under
+the big cottonwoods and strolled into the long, dark cluttered _adobe_
+room which was Solomon Alfego's store. Three or four Mexican clerks were
+waiting upon as many Mexican customers, with much polite, low-voiced
+conversation, punctuated by long silences while the customers turned the
+goods over and over in their hands. Ramon's entrance created a slight
+diversion. None of them knew him, for he had not been in that country for
+years, but all of them recognized that he was a person of weight and
+importance. He saluted all at once, lifting his hat, with a cordial "_Como
+lo va, amigos_," and then devoted himself to an apparently interested
+inspection of the stock. This, if conscientiously done, would have
+afforded a week's occupation, for Solomon Alfego served as sole merchant
+for a large territory and had to be prepared to supply almost every human
+want. There were shelves of dry goods and of hardware, of tobacco and of
+medicines. In the centre of the store was a long rack, heavily laden with
+saddlery and harness of all kinds, and all around the top of the room,
+above the shelves, ran a row of religious pictures, including popes,
+saints, and cardinals, Mary with the infant, Christ crucified and Christ
+bearing the cross, all done in bright colours and framed, for sale at
+about three dollars each.
+
+It was not long before word of the stranger's arrival reached Alfego in
+his little office behind the store, and he came bustling out, beaming and
+polite.
+
+"This is Senor Solomon Alfego?" Ramon enquired in his most formal Spanish.
+
+"I am Solomon Alfego," replied the bulky little man, with a low bow, "and
+what can I do for the Senor?"
+
+"I am Ramon Delcasar," Ramon replied, extending his hand with a smile,
+"and it may be that you can do much for me."
+
+"Ah-h-h!" breathed Alfego, with another bow, "Ramon Delcasar! And I knew
+you when you were _un muchachito_" (a little boy). He bent over and
+measured scant two feet from the floor with his hand. "My house is yours.
+I am at your service. _Siempre!_"
+
+The two strolled about the store, talking of the weather, politics,
+business, the old days--everything except what they were both thinking
+about. Alfego opened a box of cigars, and having lit a couple of these,
+they went out on the long porch and sat down on an old buggy seat to
+continue the conversation. Alfego admired Ramon's horse and especially his
+silver-mounted saddle.
+
+"Ha! you like the saddle!" Ramon exclaimed in well-stimulated delight. He
+rose, swiftly undid the cinches, and dropped saddle and blanket at the
+feet of his host. "It is yours!" he announced.
+
+"A thousand thanks," Alfego replied. "Come; I wish to show you some Navajo
+blankets I bought the other day." He led the way into the store, and
+directed one of his clerks to bring forth a great stack of the heavy
+Indian weaves, and began turning them over. They were blankets of the best
+quality, and some of the designs in red, black and grey were of
+exceptional beauty. Ramon stood smiling while his host turned over one
+blanket after another. As he displayed each one he turned his bright
+pop-eyes on Ramon with an eager enquiring look. At last when he had seen
+them all, Ramon permitted himself to pick up and examine the one he
+considered the best with a restrained murmur of admiration.
+
+"You like it!" exclaimed Alfego with delight. "It is yours!"
+
+Mutual good feeling having thus been signalized in the traditional Mexican
+manner by an exchange of gifts, Alfego now showed his guest all over his
+establishment. It included, in addition to the store, several ware rooms
+where were piled stinking bales of sheep and goat and cow hides, sacks of
+raw wool and of corn, pelts of wild animals and bags of _pinon_ nuts, and
+of beans, all taken from the Mexicans in trade. Afterward Ramon met the
+family, of patriarchal proportions, including an astonishing number of
+little brown children having the bright eyes and well developed noses of
+the great Solomon. Then came supper, a long and bountiful feast, at which
+great quantities of mutton, chile, and beans were served.
+
+Having thus been duly impressed with the greatness and substance of his
+host, and also with his friendly attitude, Ramon was led into the little
+office, offered a seat and a fresh cigar. He knew that at last the proper
+time had come for him to declare himself.
+
+"My friend," he said, leaning toward Alfego confidentially, "I have come
+to this country and to you for a great purpose. You know that a rich
+gringo has been buying the lands of the poor people--my people and
+yours--all through this country. You know that he intends to own all of
+this country--to take it away from us Mexicans. If he succeeds, he will
+take away all of your business, all of my lands. You and I must fight him
+together. Am I right?"
+
+Solomon nodded his head slowly, watching Ramon with wide bright eyes.
+
+"_Verdad!_" he pronounced unctuously.
+
+"I have come," Ramon went on more boldly, "because my own lands are in
+danger, but also because I love the Mexican people, and hate the gringos!
+Some one must go among these good people and warn them not to sell their
+lands, not to be cheated out of their birthrights. My friend, I have come
+here to do that."
+
+"_Bueno!_" exclaimed Alfego. "_Muy bueno!_"
+
+"My friend, I must have your help."
+
+Ramon said this as impressively as possible, and paused expectantly, but
+as Alfego said nothing, he went on, gathering his wits for the supreme
+effort.
+
+"I know that you are a leader in the great fraternity of the penitent
+brothers, who are the best and most pious of men. My friend, I wish to
+become one of them. I wish to mingle my blood with theirs and with the
+blood of Christ, that all of us may be united in our great purpose to keep
+this country for the Spanish people, who conquered it from the
+barbarians."
+
+Alfego looked very grave, puffed his cigar violently three times and spat
+before he answered.
+
+"My young friend," (he spoke slowly and solemnly) "to pour out your blood
+in penance and to consecrate your body to Christ is a great thing to do.
+Have you meditated deeply upon this step? Are you sure the Lord Jesus has
+called you to his service? And what assurance have I that you are sincere
+in all you say, that if I make you my brother in the blood of Christ, you
+will truly be as a brother to me?"
+
+Ramon bowed his head.
+
+"I have thought long on this," he said softly, "and I know my heart. I
+desire to be a blood brother to all these, my people. And to you--I give
+you my word as a Delcasar that I will serve you well, that I will be as a
+brother to you."
+
+There was a silence during which Alfego stared with profound gravity at
+the ash on the end of his cigar.
+
+"Have you heard," Ramon went on, in the same soft and emotional tone of
+voice, "that the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad is going to build a line
+through the San Antonio Valley?"
+
+Alfego, without altering his look of rapt meditation, nodded his head
+slowly.
+
+"Do you suppose that you will gain anything by that, if this gringo gets
+these lands?" Ramon went on. "You know that you will not. But I will make
+you my partner. And I will give you the option on any of my mountain land
+that you may wish to rent for sheep range. More than that, I will make you
+a written agreement to do these things. In all ways we will be as
+brothers."
+
+"You are a worthy and pious young man!" exclaimed Solomon Alfego, rolling
+his eyes upward, his voice vibrant with emotion. "You shall be my brother
+in the blood of Christ."
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+Ramon went to the _Morada_, the chapter house of the _penitentes_, alone
+and late at night, for all of the whippings and initiations of the order,
+except those of Holy Week, are carried on in the utmost secrecy.
+
+The _Morada_ stood halfway up the slope north of the little town, at the
+elevation where the tall yellow pines of the mountains begin to replace
+the scrubby juniper and _pinon_ of the _mesas_ and foothills. It was a
+cool moonlit night of late summer. A light west wind breathed through the
+trees, making the massive black shadows of the juniper bushes faintly
+alive. As he toiled up the rocky path Ramon heard the faraway yap and
+yodel of a coyote, and the still more distant answer of another one. From
+the valley below came the intermittent bay of a cur, inspired by the moon
+and his wild kin, and now and then the tiny silver tinkle of a goat bell.
+
+The _Morada_ stood in an open space. It was an oblong block of _adobe_,
+and gave forth neither light nor sound. Ramon stopped a little way from it
+in the shadow of a tree and lit a cigarette to steady his nerves. He felt
+now for the first time something of the mystery and terribleness of this
+barbaric order which he proposed to use for his purpose. All his life the
+_penitentes_ had been to him a well-known fact of life. For the past week
+he had spent much of his time with the _maestro de novios_ of the local
+chapter, a wizened old sheep herder, who had instructed him monotonously
+in the secrets of the order, almost lulling him to sleep with his endless
+mumblings of the ritual that was written in a little leather book a
+century old. He had learned that if he betrayed the secrets of the order,
+he would be buried alive with only his head sticking out of the ground, so
+that the ants might eat his face. He had been informed that if he fell ill
+he would be taken to the _Morada_ where his brothers in Christ would pray
+for him, and seek to drive the devil out of his body, and that if he died,
+they would send his shoes to his family as a notice of that event; and
+would bury him in consecrated ground. Some of the things he had learned
+had bored him and some had made him want to laugh, but none of them had
+impressed him, as they were intended to do, with the might and dignity of
+the ancient order.
+
+He was impressed now as he stood before this dark still house where a
+dozen ignorant fanatics waited to take his blood for what was to them a
+holy purpose. He knew that this _Morada_ was a very old one. He thought of
+all the true penitents who had knocked for admission at its door and had
+gone through its bloody ordeal with a zeal of madness which had enabled
+them to cry loudly for blows and more blows until they fell insensible. He
+tried to imagine their state of mind, but he could not. He was of their
+race and a growth of the same soil, but an alien civilization had touched
+him and sundered him from them, yet without taking him for its own. He
+could only nerve himself to face this ordeal because it would serve his
+one great purpose.
+
+As he stood there, a curious half-irrelevant thought came into his mind.
+He knew that the marks they would make on his back would be permanent. He
+had seen the long rough scars on the backs of sheep-herders, stripped to
+the waist for the hot work of shearing. And he wondered how he would
+explain these strange scars to Julia. He imagined her discovering them
+with her long dainty hands, her round white arms. A great longing surged
+up in him that seemed to weaken the very tissues of his body. He shook
+himself, threw away his cigarette, went to the heavy wooden door and
+knocked.
+
+Now he spoke a rigamarole in Spanish which had been taught him by rote.
+
+"God knocks at this mission's door for His clemency," he called.
+
+From within came a deep-voiced chorus, the first sound he had heard from
+the house, seeming weirdly to be the voice of the house itself.
+
+"Penance, penance, which seeks salvation!" it chanted.
+
+"Saint Peter will open to me the gate, bathing me with the light, in the
+name of Mary, with the seal of Jesus," Ramon went on, repeating as he had
+learned. "I ask this confraternity. Who gives this house light?"
+
+"Jesus," answered the chorus within.
+
+"Who fills it with joy?"
+
+"Mary."
+
+"Who preserves it with faith?"
+
+"Joseph!"
+
+The door opened and Ramon entered the chapel room of the _Morada_. It was
+lighted by a single candle, which revealed dimly the rough earthen walls,
+the low roof raftered with round pine logs, the wooden benches and the
+altar, covered with black cloth. This was decorated with figures of the
+skull and cross-bones cut from white cloth. A human skull stood on either
+side of it, and a small wooden crucifix hung on the wall above it. The
+solitary candle--an ordinary tallow one in a tin holder--stood before this.
+
+The men were merely dark human shapes. The light did not reveal their
+faces. They said nothing to Ramon. He could scarcely believe that these
+were the same good-natured _pelados_ he had known by day. Indeed they were
+not the same, but were now merely units of this organization which held
+them in bondage of fear and awe.
+
+One of them took Ramon silently by the arm and led him through a low door
+into the other room which was the _Morada_ proper. This room was supposed
+never to be entered except by a member of the order or by a candidate. It
+was small and low as the other, furnished only with a few benches about
+the wall, and lighted by a couple of candles on a small table. A very old
+and tarnished oil painting of Mary with the Babe hung at one end of it.
+All the way around the room, hanging from pegs driven into the wall, was a
+row of the broad heavy braided lashes of _amole_ weed, called
+_disciplinas_, used in Holy Week, and of the blood-stained drawers worn on
+that occasion by the flagellants.
+
+Still in complete silence Ramon was forced to his knees by two of the men,
+who quickly stripped him to the waist. Beside him stood a tall
+powerfully-built Mexican with his right arm bared. In his hand he held a
+triangular bit of white quartz, cleverly chipped to a cutting edge. This
+man was the _sangredor_, whose duty it was to place the seal of the order
+upon the penitent's back. His office required no little skill, for he had
+to make three cuts the whole length of the back and three the width,
+tearing through the skin so as to leave a permanent scar, but not deep
+enough to injure the muscle. Ramon, glancing up, saw the gleam of the
+candle light on the white quartz, and also in the eyes of the man, which
+were bright with eagerness.
+
+Now came the supreme struggle with himself. How could he go through with
+this ugly agony? He longed to leap to his feet and fight these ignorant
+louts, who were going to mangle him and beat him for their own amusement.
+He held himself down with all his will, striving to think of the girl, to
+hold his purpose before his mind, to endure.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+He felt the hand of the _sangredor_ upon his neck, and gritted his teeth.
+The man's grip was heavy, hot and firm. A flash of pain shot up and down
+his back with lightning speed, as though a red hot poker had been laid
+upon it. Again and again and again! Six times in twice as many seconds the
+deft flint ripped his skin, and he fell forward upon his hands, faint and
+sick, as he felt his own blood welling upon his back and trickling in warm
+rivulets between his ribs.
+
+But this was not all. To qualify, he knew, he must call for the lash of
+his own free will.
+
+"For the love of God," he uttered painfully, as he had been taught, "the
+three meditations of the passion of our Lord."
+
+On his torn back a long black snake whip came down, wielded with merciless
+force. But he felt the full agony of the first blow only. The second
+seemed faint, and the third sent him plunging downward through a red mist
+into black nothingness.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+A few days later one bright morning Ramon was sitting in the sun before
+the door of his friend, Francisco Guiterrez, feeling still somewhat sore,
+but otherwise surprisingly well. Guiterrez, a young sheep-herder, held the
+position of _coadjutor_ of the local _penitente_ chapter, and one of his
+duties as such was to take the penitent to his house and care for him
+after the initiation. He had washed Ramon's wounds in a tea made by
+boiling Romero weed. This was a remedy which the _penitentes_ had used for
+centuries, and its efficacy was proved by the fact that Ramon's cuts had
+begun to heal at once, and that he had had very little fever.
+
+For a couple of days Ramon had been forced to lie restlessly in the only
+bed of the Guiterrez establishment. The Senora Guiterrez, a pretty buxom
+young Mexican woman, had fed him on _atole_ gruel and on all of the eggs
+which her small flock of scrub hens produced; the seven little dirty brown
+Guiterrez children had come in to marvel at him with their fingers in
+their mouths; the Guiterrez goats and dogs and chickens had wandered in
+and out of the room in a companionable way, as though seeking to make him
+feel at ease; and Guiterrez himself had spent his evenings sitting beside
+Ramon, smoking cigarettes and talking.
+
+This time of idleness had not been wholly wasted, either, for it had come
+out in the course of conversation that Guiterrez had been offered a
+thousand dollars for his place by a man whom he did not know, but whom
+Ramon had easily identified as an agent of MacDougall. Tempted by an
+amount which he could scarcely conceive, Guiterrez was thinking seriously
+of accepting the offer.
+
+Now that he had won over Alfego and had gotten the influence of the
+_penitentes_ on his side, Ramon's one remaining object was to defeat just
+such deals as this, which MacDougall already had under way. He intended to
+stir up feeling against the gringos, and to persuade the Mexicans not to
+sell. Later, such lands as he needed in order to control the right-of-way,
+he would gain by lending money and taking mortgages. But he did not intend
+to cheat any one. Such Mexicans as he had to oust from their lands, he
+would locate elsewhere. He was filled with a large generosity, and with a
+real love for these, his people. He meant to dominate this country, but
+his pride demanded that no one should be poor or hungry in his domain. So
+now he argued the matter to Guiterrez with real sincerity.
+
+"A thousand dollars? _Por Dios_, man! Don't you know that this place is
+worth many thousand dollars to you?"
+
+"How can it be worth many thousand?" Guiterrez demanded. "What have I
+here? A few acres of chile and corn, a little hay, some range for my
+goats, a few cherry trees, a house.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Many thousands? No."
+
+"You have here a home, _amigo_," Ramon reminded him. "Do you know how long
+a thousand dollars would support you? A year, perhaps. Then you would have
+to work for other men the rest of your life. Here you are free and
+independent."
+
+Guiterrez said nothing, but he had obviously received a new idea, and was
+impressed. Ramon never returned to the direct argument, but he missed no
+chance to stimulate Guiterrez's pride in his establishment.
+
+"This is a good little house you have _amigo_," he would observe. And
+Guiterrez would tell him that the house had been built by his grandfather,
+but that its walls were as firm as ever, and that he had been intending
+for several years to plaster it, but had never gotten time. Before he was
+out of bed, Ramon was reasonably sure that Guiterrez would never sell.
+
+The house was indeed charmingly situated on a hillside at the foot of
+which a little clear trout stream, called Rio Gallinas, chuckled over the
+bright pebbles in its bed and ran to hide in thickets of willow.
+
+Sitting on the _portal_, which ran the length of the house and consisted
+of a projection of the roof supported by rough pine logs, Ramon could look
+down the canyon to where it widened into a little valley that lost itself
+in the vast levels of the _mesa_. There thirsty sands swallowed the stream
+and not a sprig of green marred the harmony of grey and purple swimming in
+vivid light, reaching away to the horizon where faint blue mountains hung
+in drooping lines.
+
+By turning his head, Ramon could look into the heart of the mountains
+whence the stream issued through a narrow canyon, with steep, forested
+ridges on either side, and little level glades along the water, set with
+tall, conical blue spruce trees, pines with their warm red boles, and
+little clumps of aspen with gleaming white stems, and trembling leaves of
+mingled gold and green.
+
+Ramon spent many hours with his back against the wall, his knees drawn up
+under his chin, Mexican fashion, smoking and vaguely dreaming of the girl
+he loved and of the things he would do. The vast sun drenched landscape
+before him was too much a part of his life, too intimate a thing for him
+to appreciate its beauty, but after his struggles with doubt and desire,
+it filled him with an unaccountable contentment. Its warmth and
+brightness, its unchanging serenity, its ceaseless soft voices of wind and
+water, lulled his mind and comforted his senses. The country was like some
+great purring creature that let him lie in its bosom and filled his body
+with the warm steady throb of its untroubled strength.
+
+After a week of recuperation, he bought a horse from Guiterrez for a pack
+animal, loaded it with bedding and provisions and rode away into the
+mountains. His task was now to find other men who had fallen under the
+influence of MacDougall, and to persuade them not to sell their lands.
+Some of them would be at their homes, but others would be with the sheep
+herds, scattered here and there in the high country. He faced long days of
+mountain wandering, and for all that he longed to be done with his task,
+this part of it was sweet to him.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+These were days of power and success, days of a glamour that lingered long
+in his mind. Beyond a doubt he was destroying MacDougall's plan and
+realizing his own. Sometimes he met a surly Mexican who would not listen
+to him, but nearly always he won the man over in the end. He was amazed at
+his own resourcefulness and eloquence. It seemed as though some inhibition
+in him had been broken down, some magical elixir poured into his
+imagination. He found that he could literally take a sheep camp by storm,
+entering into the life of the men, telling them stories, singing them
+songs, passing out presents of tobacco and whisky, often delivering a
+wildly applauded harangue on the necessity for all Mexicans to act
+together against the gringos, who would otherwise soon own the country.
+Never once did he think of the incongruity of thus fanning the flames of
+race hatred for the love of a girl with grey eyes and yellow hair.
+
+He did not always reach a house or a sheep camp at night. Many a time he
+camped alone, catching trout for his supper from a mountain stream, and
+going to sleep to the lonely music of running water in a wilderness. At
+such times many a man would have lost faith in himself, would have feared
+his crimes and lost his hopes. But to Ramon this loneliness was an old
+friend. Like all who have lived much out-of-doors he was at heart a
+pantheist, and felt more at peace and unity with wild nature than ever he
+had with men.
+
+But there was one such night when he felt troubled. As he rode up the
+Tusas Canyon at twilight, a sense of insecurity came over him, amounting
+almost to fear. He had had a somewhat similar feeling once when a panther
+had trailed him on a winter night. Now, as then, he had no idea what it
+was that menaced him; he was simply warned by that sixth sense which
+belongs to all wild things, and to men in whom there remains something of
+the feral. His horses shared his unrest. When he picketed them, just
+before dark, they fed uneasily, stopping now and then to stand like
+statues with lifted heads, testing the wind with their nostrils, moving
+their ears to catch some sound beyond human perception.
+
+When he had eaten his supper and made his bed, Ramon took the little
+automatic revolver out of its scabbard and went down the canyon a quarter
+of a mile, slipping along in the shadow of the brush that lined the banks
+of the stream. This was necessary because a half-moon made the open glades
+bright. He paused and peered a dozen times. So cautious were his movements
+that he came within forty feet of a drinking deer, and was badly startled
+when it bounded away with a snort and a smashing of brush. But he saw
+nothing dangerous and went back to his camp and to bed. There he lay awake
+for an hour, still troubled, oppressed by a vague feeling of the
+littleness and insecurity of human life.
+
+A long, rippling snort of fear from his saddle horse, picketed near his
+bed, awakened him and probably saved his life. When he opened his eyes, he
+saw the figure of a man standing directly over him. He was about to speak,
+when the man lifted his arms, swinging upward a heavy club. With quick
+presence of mind, Ramon jerked the blankets and the heavy canvas tarpaulin
+about his head, at the same time rolling over. The club came down with
+crushing force on his right shoulder. He continued to roll and flounder
+with all his might, going down a sharp slope toward the creek which was
+only a few yards away. Twice more he felt the club, once on his arm and
+once on his ribs, but his head escaped and the heavy blankets protected
+his body.
+
+The next thing he knew, he had gone over the bank of the creek, which was
+several feet high in that place, and lay in the shallow icy water.
+Meantime he had gotten his hand on the automatic pistol. He now jerked
+upright and fired at the form of his assailant, which bulked above him.
+The man disappeared. For a moment Ramon sat still. He heard footsteps, and
+something like a grunt or a groan. Then he extricated himself from the
+cold, sodden blankets, climbed upon the bank, and began cautiously
+searching about, with his weapon ready. He found the club--a heavy length
+of green spruce-and put his hand accidentally on something wet, which he
+ascertained by smelling it to be blood.
+
+He was shivering with cold and badly bruised in several places, but he was
+afraid to build a fire. In case his enemy were not badly injured or had a
+companion, that would have been risking another attack. He stood in the
+shadow of a spruce, stamping his feet and rubbing himself, acutely
+uncomfortable, waiting for daylight and wondering what this attack meant.
+He doubted whether MacDougall would have countenanced such tactics, but it
+might well have been an agent of MacDougall acting on his own
+responsibility. Or it might have been some one sent by old Archulera.
+Then, too, there were many poor connections of the Delcasar family who
+would profit by his death.
+
+As he stood there in the dark, shivering and miserable, the idea of death
+was not hard for him to conceive. He realized that but for the snort of
+the saddle horse he would now be lying under the tree with the top of his
+head crushed in. The man would probably have dragged his body into the
+thick timber and left it. There he would have lain and rotted. Or perhaps
+the coyotes would have eaten him and the buzzards afterward picked his
+bones. He shuddered. Despite his acute misery, life had never seemed more
+desirable. He thought of sunlight and warmth, of good food and of the love
+of women, and these things seemed more sweet than ever before. He
+realized, for the first time, too, that he faced many dangers and that the
+chance of death walked with him all the time. He resolved fiercely that he
+would beat all his enemies, that he would live and have his desires which
+were so sweet to him.
+
+Daylight came at last, showing him first the rim of the mountain serrated
+with spruce tops, and then lighting the canyon, revealing his disordered
+camp and his horses grazing quietly in the open. He went immediately and
+examined the ground where the struggle had taken place. A plain trail of
+blood lead away from the place, as he had expected. He formed a plan of
+action immediately.
+
+First he made a great fire, dried and warmed himself, cooked and ate his
+breakfast, drinking a full pint of hot coffee. Then he rolled up all his
+belongings, hid them in the bushes, and picketed his horses in a side
+canyon where the grass was good. When these preparations were complete, he
+took the trail of blood and followed it with the utmost care. He carried
+his weapon cocked in his hand, and always before he went around a bend in
+the canyon, or passed through a clump of trees, he paused and looked long
+and carefully, like an animal stalking dangerous prey.
+
+At last, from the cover of some willows, he saw a man sitting beside the
+creek. The man was half-naked, and was binding up his leg with some strips
+torn from his dirty shirt. He was a Mexican of the lowest and most brutal
+type, with a swarthy skin, black hair and a bullet-shaped head. Ramon
+walked toward him.
+
+"_Buenas Dias, amigo_," he saluted.
+
+The man looked up with eyes full of patient suffering, like the eyes of a
+hurt animal. He did not seem either surprised or frightened. He nodded and
+went on binding up his leg.
+
+Ramon watched him a minute. He saw that the man was weak from loss of
+blood. There was a great patch of dried blood on the ground beside him,
+now beginning to flake and curl in the sun.
+
+"I will come back in a minute, friend," he said.
+
+He went back to his camp, saddled his horses, putting some food in the
+saddle pockets. When he returned, the Mexican sat in exactly the same
+place with his back against a rock and his legs and arms inert. Ramon
+fried bacon and made coffee for him. He had to help the man put the food
+in his mouth and hold a cup for him to drink. Afterward, with great
+difficulty, he loaded the man on his saddle horse, where he sat heavily,
+clutching the pommel with both hands. Ramon mounted the pack horse
+bareback.
+
+"Where do you live, friend?" Ramon asked.
+
+"Tusas," the Mexican replied, naming a little village ten miles down the
+canyon.
+
+They exchanged no other words until they came within sight of the group of
+_adobe_ houses. Then Ramon stopped his horse and turned to the man.
+
+"You were hunting," he told him slowly and impressively, "and you dropped
+your gun and shot yourself. _Sabes?_"
+
+The man nodded.
+
+"How much were you paid to kill me, friend?" Ramon then asked.
+
+The man looked at the pommel of the saddle, and his swarthy face darkened
+with a heavy flush.
+
+"One hundred dollars," he admitted. "I needed the money to christen a
+child. Could I let my child go to hell? But I did not mean to kill you.
+Only to beat you, so you would go away. Do not ask who sent me, for the
+love of God.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"I ask nothing more, friend," Ramon assured him. "And since you were to
+have a hundred dollars for making me leave the country, here is a hundred
+dollars for not succeeding."
+
+Both of them laughed. Ramon then rode on and delivered the man to his
+excited and grateful wife. He went back to his camp very weary and sore,
+but feeling that he had done an excellent stroke of work for his purpose.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+After this occurrence his success among the humbler Mexicans was more
+marked than ever, but some of the men of property who had been subsidized
+by MacDougall were not so easily won over. Such a case was that of old
+Pedro Alcatraz who owned a little store in the town of Vallecitos, a bit
+of land and a few thousand sheep. Alcatraz was a tall boney old man, and
+was of nearly pure Navajo Indian blood, as one could tell by the queer
+crinkled character of his beard and moustache, which were like those of a
+chinaman. He was simple and direct like an Indian, too, lacking the
+Mexican talent for lying and artifice. In his own town he was a petty
+czar, like Alfego, but on a much smaller scale. By reason of being
+_Hermano Mayor_ of the local _penitente_ chapter, and of having most of
+the people in his own neighbourhood in debt to him, he had considerable
+power. He was advising men to sell their lands, and was lending more money
+on land than it was reasonable to suppose he owned. Beyond a doubt, he had
+been won by MacDougall's dollars.
+
+Ramon found Alcatraz unresponsive. The old man listened to a long harangue
+on the subject of the race issue without a word of reply, and without
+looking up. Ramon then played what should have been his strongest card.
+
+"My friend," he said, "you may not know it, but I am your brother in the
+blood of Christ. Do I not then deserve better of you than a gringo who is
+trying to take this country away from the Mexican people?"
+
+"Yes," the old man answered quietly, "I know you are a _penitente_, and I
+know why. Do you think that I am a fool like these _pelados_ that herd my
+sheep? You wear the scars of a _penitente_ because you think it will help
+you to make money and to do what you want. You are just like MacDougall,
+except that he uses money and you use words. A poor man can only choose
+his masters, and for my part I have more use for money than for words." So
+saying, the blunt old savage walked to the other end of his store and
+began showing a Mexican woman some shawls.
+
+Ramon went away, breathing hard with rage, slapping his quirt against his
+boots. He would show that old _cabron_ who was boss in these mountains!
+
+He went immediately and hired the little _adobe_ hall which is found in
+every Mexican town of more than a hundred inhabitants, and made
+preparations to give a _baile_.
+
+To give a dance is the surest and simplest way to win popularity in a
+Mexican town, and Ramon spared no expense to make this affair a success.
+He sent forty miles across the mountains for two fiddlers to help out the
+blind man who was the only local musician. He arranged a feast, and in a
+back room he installed a small keg of native wine and one of beer.
+
+The invitation was general and every one who could possibly reach the
+place in a day's journey came. The women wore for the most part calico
+dresses, bright in colour and generous in volume, heavily starched and
+absolutely devoid of fit. Their brown faces were heavily powdered,
+producing in some of the darker ones a purplish tint, which was ghastly in
+the light of the oil lamps. Some of the younger girls were comely despite
+their crude toilets, with soft skins, ripe breasts, mild dark heifer-like
+eyes, and pretty teeth showing in delighted grins. The men wore the cheap
+ready-made suits which have done so much to make Americans look alike
+everywhere, but they achieved a degree of originality by choosing brighter
+colours than men generally wear, being especially fond of brilliant
+electric blues and rich browns. Their broad but often handsome faces were
+radiant with smiles, and their thick black hair was wetted and greased
+into shiny order.
+
+The dance started with difficulty, despite symptoms of eagerness on all
+hands. Bashful youths stalled and crowded in the doorway like a log jam in
+the river. Bashful girls, seated all around the room, nudged and tittered
+and then became solemn and self-conscious. Each number was preceded by a
+march, several times around the room, which was sedate and formal in the
+extreme. The favourite dance was a fast, hopping waltz, in which the swain
+seized his partner firmly in both hands under the arms and put her through
+a vigorous test of wind and agility. The floor was rough and sanded, and
+the rasping of feet almost drowned the music. There were long Virginia
+reels, led with peremptory dash by a master of ceremonies, full of grace
+and importance. Swarthy faces were bedewed with sweat and dark eyes glowed
+with excitement, but there was never the slightest relaxation of the
+formalism of the affair. For this dance in an earthen hovel on a plank
+floor was the degenerate but lineal descendant of the splendid and formal
+balls which the Dons had held in the old days, when New Spain belonged to
+its proud and wealthy conquerors; it was the wistful and grotesque remnant
+of a dying order.
+
+Ramon had a vague realization of this fact as he watched the affair. It
+stirred a sort of sentimental pity in him. But he threw off that feeling,
+he had work to do. He entered into the spirit of the thing, dancing with
+every woman on the floor. He took the men in groups to the back room and
+treated them. He missed no opportunity to get in a word against the
+gringos, and incidentally against those Mexicans who betrayed their
+fellows by advising them to sell their lands. He never mentioned Alcatraz
+by name, but he made it clear enough to whom he referred.
+
+Late in the evening, when all were mellowed by drink and excited by
+dancing, he gained the attention of the gathering on the pretext of
+announcing a special dance, and boldly gave a harangue in which he urged
+all Mexicans to stick together against the gringos, and above all not to
+sell their homes which their fathers had won from the barbarians, and were
+the foundations of their prosperity and freedom.
+
+"Remember," he urged them in a burst of eloquence that surprised himself,
+"that in your veins is the blood of conquerors--blood which was poured out
+on these hills and valleys to win them from the Indians, precious blood
+which has made this land priceless to you for all time!"
+
+His speech was greeted with a burst of applause unquestionably
+spontaneous. It filled him with a sense of power that was almost
+intoxicating. In the town he might be neglected, despised, picked for an
+easy mark, but here among his own people he was a ruler and leader by
+birth.
+
+The most important result of the _baile_ was that it won over the stubborn
+Alcatraz. He did not attend it, but he knew what happened there. He
+realized that advice in favour of selling land would not be popular in
+that section for a long time, and he acknowledged his defeat by inviting
+Ramon to dinner at his house, and driving a shrewd bargain with him,
+whereby he gave his influence in exchange for certain grazing privileges.
+
+On his way home a few days later Ramon looked back at the mountains with
+the feeling that they belonged to him by right of conquest.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+A week later Ramon was driving across the _mesa_ west of town, bound for
+the state capital. He was following the same route that Diego Delcasar had
+followed on the day of his death, and he passed within a few miles of
+Archulera's ranch; but no thought either of his uncle or of Archulera
+entered his mind. For in his pocket was a letter consisting of a single
+sentence hastily scrawled in a large round upright hand on
+lavender-scented note paper. The sentence was:
+
+
+
+"Meet you at the southwest corner of the Plaza Tuesday at seven thirty.
+
+                                                                "Love,
+
+                                                                 "J. R."
+
+
+
+A great deal of trouble and anxiety had preceded the receipt of that
+message. First he had written her a letter that was unusually long and
+exuberant for him, telling her of his success and that now he was ready to
+come and get her in accordance with their agreement, suggesting a time and
+place. Three days of cumulative doubt and agony had gone by without a
+reply. Then he had tried to reach her by long distance telephone, but
+without success. Finally he had wired, although he knew that a telegram is
+a risky vehicle for confidential business. Now he had her answer, the
+answer that he wanted. His spirit was released and leapt forward, leaving
+resentments and doubts far behind.
+
+It was eighty miles to the state capital, the road was good all the way,
+the day bright and cool. His route lead across the _mesa_, through the
+Scissors Pass, and then north and east along the foot of the mountains.
+
+Immense and empty the country stretched before him--a land of far-flung
+levels and even farther mountains; a land which makes even the sea, with
+its near horizons, seem little; a land which has always produced men of
+daring because it inspires a sense of freedom without any limit save what
+daring sets.
+
+He had dared and won. He was going to take the sweet price of his daring.
+The engine of his big car sang to him a song of victory and desire. He
+rejoiced in the sense of power under his hand. He opened the throttle
+wider and the car answered with more speed, licking up the road like a
+hungry monster. How easily he mastered time and distance for his purpose!
+
+He was to have her, she would be his. So sang the humming motor and the
+wind in his ears. Her white arms and her red mouth, her splendid eyes that
+feared and yielded! She was waiting for him! More speed. He conquered the
+hills with a roar of strength to spare, topped the crests, and sped down
+the long slopes like a bird coming to earth.
+
+He was to have her, she would be his. Could it be true? The great machine
+that carried him to their tryst roared an affirmative, the wind sang of
+it, his blood quickened with anticipation incredibly keen. And always the
+distance that lay between them was falling behind in long, grey passive
+miles.
+
+He had reached his destination a little after six. As he drove slowly
+through the streets of the little dusty town, the mood of exaltation that
+had possessed him during the trip died down. He was intent, worried
+practical. Having registered at the hotel, he got a handful of time tables
+and made his plans with care. They would drive to a town twenty-five miles
+away, be married, and catch the California Limited. There would just be
+time. Once he had her in his car, nothing could stop them.
+
+The _plaza_ or public square about which the old town was built, and which
+had been its market place in the old days, was now occupied by a neat
+little park with a band stand. Retail stores and banks fronted on three
+sides of it, but the fourth was occupied by a long low _adobe_ building
+which was very old and had been converted into a museum of local
+antiquities. It was dark and lifeless at night, and in its shadow-filled
+verandah he was to meet her.
+
+He had his car parked beside the spot ten minutes ahead of time. It was
+slightly cold now, with a gusty wind whispering about the streets and
+tearing big papery leaves from the cottonwood trees in the park. The
+_plaza_ was empty save for an occasional passer-by whose quick footfalls
+rang sharply in the silence. Here and there was an illuminated shop
+window. The drug store on the opposite corner showed a bright interior,
+where two small boys devoured ice cream sodas with solemn rapture.
+Somewhere up a side street a choir was practising a hymn, making a noise
+infinitely doleful.
+
+He had a bear-skin to wrap her in, and he arranged this on the seat beside
+him and then tried to wait patiently. He sat very tense and motionless,
+except for an occasional glance at his watch, until it showed exactly
+seven-thirty. Then he got out of his car and began walking first to one
+side of the corner and then to the other, for he did not know from which
+direction she would come. At twenty-five minutes of eight he was angry,
+but in another ten minutes anger had given way to a dull heavy
+disappointment that seemed to hold him by the throat and make it difficult
+to swallow. None-the-less he waited a full hour before he started up his
+car and drove slowly back to the hotel.
+
+On the way he debated with himself whether he should try to communicate
+with her tonight or wait until the next day. He knew that the wisest thing
+would be to wait until the next day and send her a note, but he also knew
+that he could not wait. He would find out where she lived, call her on the
+telephone, and learn what had prevented her from keeping the appointment.
+He had desperate need to know that something besides her own will had kept
+her away.
+
+When he went to the hotel desk, a clerk handed him a letter.
+
+"This was here when you registered, I think," he said. "But I didn't know
+it. I'm sorry."
+
+When he saw the handwriting of the address he was filled with commotion.
+Here, then, was her explanation. This would tell him why she had failed
+him. This, in all probability, would make all right.
+
+He went to his room to read it, sat down on the edge of the bed and ripped
+the envelope open with an impatient finger. The letter was dated two days
+earlier--the day after she had received his telegram.
+
+"I don't know what to say," she wrote, "but it doesn't matter much. You
+will despise me anyway, and I despise myself. But I can't help it--honestly
+I can't. I meant to keep my promise and I would have kept it, but they
+found your telegram and mother read it--by mistake, of course. I ought to
+have had sense enough to burn it. You can't imagine how awful it has been.
+Mother said the most terrible things about you, things she had heard. And
+she said that I would be ruining my life and hers. I said I didn't care,
+because I loved you. I can't tell you what an awful quarrel we had! And I
+wouldn't have given in, but she told Gordon and he was so terribly angry.
+He said it was a disgrace to the family, and he began to cough and had a
+hemorrhage and we thought he was going to die. Mother said he probably
+would die unless I gave you up.
+
+"That finished me. I couldn't do anything after that--I just couldn't.
+There was nothing but misery in sight either way, so what was the use?
+I've lost all my courage and all my doubts have come back. I do love
+you--terribly. But you are so strange, so different. And I don't think we
+would have gotten along or anything. I try to comfort myself by thinking
+it's all for the best, but it doesn't really comfort me at all. I never
+knew people could be as miserable as I am now. I don't think its fair.
+
+"When you get this I will be on my way to New York and nearly there. We
+are going to sail for Europe immediately. I will never see you again. I
+will always love you.
+
+                                                                 "Julia."
+
+
+
+Rage possessed him at first--the rage of defeated desire, of injured pride,
+of a passionate, undisciplined nature crossed and beaten. He flung the
+letter on the floor, and strode up and down the room, looking about for
+something to smash or tear. So she was that kind of a creature--a
+miserable, whimpering fool that would let an old woman and a sick man rule
+her! She was afraid her brother might die. What an excuse! And he had
+killed, or at least sanctioned killing, for her sake. He had poured out
+his blood for her. There was nothing he would not have dared or done to
+have her. And here she had the soul of a sheep!
+
+But no--perhaps that was not it. Perhaps she had been playing with him all
+along, had never had any idea of marrying him--because he was a Mexican!
+
+Bitter was this thought, but it died as his anger died. Something that sat
+steady and clear inside of him told him that he was a fool. He was reading
+the letter again, and he knew it was all truth. "There was nothing but
+misery in sight either way," she had written.
+
+Suddenly he understood; suffering and an awakened imagination had given
+him insight. For the first time in his life, he realized the feelings of
+another. He realized how much he had asked of this girl, who had all her
+life been ruled, who had never tasted freedom nor practised self-reliance.
+He saw now that she had rebelled and had fought against the forces and
+fears that oppress youth, as had he, and that she had been bewildered and
+overcome.
+
+His anger was gone. All hot emotion was gone. In its place was a great
+loneliness, tinged with pity. He looked at the letter again. Its
+handwriting showed signs of disturbance in the writer, but she had not
+forgotten to scent it with that faint delightful perfume which was forever
+associated in his mind with her. It summoned the image of her with a
+vividness he could not bear.
+
+But courage and pride are not killed at a blow. He threw the letter aside
+and shook himself sharply, like a man just awake trying to shake off the
+memory of a nightmare. She was gone, she was lost. Well, what of it? There
+were many other women in the world, many beautiful women. And he was
+strong now, successful. One woman could not hurt him by her refusal. He
+tried resolutely to put her out of his mind, and to think of his business,
+of his plans. But these things which had glowed so brightly in his
+imagination just a few hours before were suddenly as dead as cinders. He
+knew that he cared little for dollars and lands in themselves. His nature
+demanded a romantic object, and this love had given it to him. Love had
+found him a wretch and a weakling, and had made him suddenly strong and
+ruthless, bringing out all the colours of his being, dark and bright,
+making life suddenly intense and purposeful.
+
+And she had meant so much to him besides love. To have won her would have
+been to win a great victory over the gringos--over that civilization, alien
+to him in race and temper, which antagonized and yet fascinated him, with
+which he was forced to grapple for his life.
+
+She was gone, he had lost her. Perhaps it was just as well, after all, he
+told himself, speaking out of his pride and his courage. But in his heart
+was a great bitterness. In his heart he felt that the gringos had beaten
+one more Delcasar.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+The next few days Ramon spent quietly and systematically drinking whisky.
+This he did partly because he had a notion that it was an appropriate
+thing to do under the circumstances, and partly because he had a genuine
+need for something to jolt his mind out of its rut of misery. He was not
+sociable in his cups, and did not seek company of either sex, inviting a
+man to drink with him or accepting such an invitation only when he had to
+do so. His favourite resort was the Silver Dollar Saloon, which was
+furnished with tables set between low partitions, so that when he had one
+of these booths to himself he enjoyed a considerable degree of isolation.
+He drank carefully, like a Spaniard, never losing control of his feet or
+of his eyes, taking always just enough to keep his mind away from
+realities and filled with dreams. In these dreams Julia played a vivid and
+delightful part. He imagined himself encountering her under all sorts of
+circumstances, and always she was yielding, repentant, she was his. In a
+dozen different ways he conquered her, taking in imagination, as men have
+always done, what the reality had denied. Some of his fancies were
+delightful and filled him with a sense of triumph, so that men glanced
+curiously at the bright-eyed boy who sat there in his corner all alone,
+absorbed and intent. But there were other times at night when his defeated
+desire came and lay in his arms like an invisible unyielding succuba,
+torturing, maddening, driving him back to the street to drink until
+drunken sleep came with its sudden brutal mercy.
+
+But after a few days alcohol began to have little effect upon him, except
+that when he awoke his hands were all aflutter so that he spilled his
+coffee and tore his newspaper. He felt sick and weary, his misery numbed
+by many repetitions of its every twinge. A sure instinct urged him to get
+out of the town and into the mountains, but he hated to go alone and
+lacked the initiative to start. He had a friend in the capital named
+Curtis, who was half Mexican and half Irish. This young man was a dealer
+in mules and horses, and he had a herd of some twenty head to take across
+the mountains about sixty miles. Badly in need of a helper and unable to
+hire one, he asked Ramon to go with him. The proposition was accepted with
+relief but without enthusiasm.
+
+Trouble started immediately. The horses were only half broken, and the one
+they chose for a pack animal rebelled ten miles from town and bucked the
+pack off, scattering tin dishes, sides of bacon, loaves of bread and cans
+of condensed milk all over a quarter of a mile of rough country. They
+rounded up the recalcitrant in a pouring rain, and made a wet and
+miserable camp, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion in sodden blankets. The
+next morning the pack horse opened the exercises by rolling down a steep
+bank into the creek, plastering himself on the way from head to tail with
+a half gallon of high grade sorghum syrup which had been on top of the
+load. At this Ramon's tortured nerves exploded and he jumped into the
+water after the floundering animal, belabouring it with a quirt, and
+cursing it richly in two languages.
+
+He then put a slip noose around its upper lip and led it unmercifully,
+while Curtis encouraged it from behind with a rope-end. Like all Mexicans,
+they had little sympathy for horseflesh.
+
+These labours and hardships were Ramon's salvation. The exercise and air
+restored his health and in fighting the difficulties of unlucky travel he
+relieved in some degree the rage against life that embittered him.
+
+When he got back to his room in the hotel he felt measurably at peace,
+though weary in mind and body. He came across Julia's letter, and the
+sight and scent of it struck him a sharp painful blow, but he did not
+pause now to savour his pain; he tore the letter into small pieces and
+threw it away. Then he got out his car and started for home.
+
+He went back beaten over the same road that he had followed in the moment
+of his highest hope, when life had seemed about to keep all the wonderful
+promises it whispers in the ear of youth. But strangely this trip was not
+the sad and sentimental affair it should have been. His rugged health had
+largely recovered from the shock of disappointment and dissipation, an
+excellent breakfast was digesting within him, the sky was bright as
+polished turquoise and the ozonous west wind, which is the very breath of
+hope, played sweetly in his face. He began to discover various consoling
+conditions in his lot, which had seemed so intolerable just a few days
+before.
+
+Probably no man under forty ever lost a woman without feeling in some
+degree compensated by a sense of freedom regained, and in the man of
+solitary and self-reliant nature, to whom freedom is a boon if not a
+necessity, this feeling is not slow to assert itself. Moreover, Ramon was
+now caught in the inevitable reaction from a purpose which had gathered
+and concentrated his energies with passionate intensity for almost four
+months. During that time he had lived with taut nerves for a single hope;
+he had turned away from a dozen alluring by-paths; he had known that
+absorbed singleness of purpose which belongs only to lovers, artists and
+other monomaniacs.
+
+The bright hope that had led him had suddenly exploded, leaving him
+stunned and flat for a time. Now he got to his feet and looked about. He
+realized that the world still lay before him, a place of wonderful promise
+and possibility, and apparently he could stray in any direction he chose.
+He had money and freedom and an excellent equipment of appetites and
+curiosities. Things he had dreamed of doing long ago, in case he should
+ever come into his wealth, now revisited his imagination. He had promised
+himself for one thing some hunting trips--long ones into the mountains and
+down the river in his car. Gambling had always fascinated him, and he had
+longed to sit in a game high enough to be really interesting, instead of
+the quarter-limit affair that he had always played before. And there were
+women {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} other women. And he meant to go to New York or Chicago sometime
+and sample the fleshpots of a really great city.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Life after all was still
+an interesting thing.
+
+Not that he forgot his serious purposes. He meant to open a law office, to
+cultivate his political connections, to pursue his conquest of Arriba
+County. But although he did not realize it, his plans for making himself a
+strong and secure position in life had lost their vitalizing purpose. All
+of these things he would do, but there was no hurry about them. His desire
+now was to taste the sweetness of life, and to rest. He was without a
+strong acquisitive impulse, and now that his great purpose in making money
+was gone, these projects did not strongly engage his imagination. He had
+plenty of money. He refused to worry. He felt reckless, too. If he had
+lost his great hope, his reward was to be released from the discipline it
+had imposed.
+
+Nor was there any other discipline to take its place. If there had been a
+strong creative impulse in him, or if he had faced a real struggle for his
+life or his personal freedom, he might now have recovered that condition
+of trained and focussed energy which civilized life demands of men. But he
+was too primitive to be engaged by any purely intellectual purpose, and
+his money was a buffer between him and struggle imposed from without.
+
+As he thought of all the things he would do, he felt strong and sure of
+himself. He thought that he was now a shrewd, cynical man, who could not
+be deceived or imposed upon, who could take the good things of life and
+discount the disillusionments.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+One of his first acts in town was to negotiate a note at the bank for
+several thousand dollars. This was necessary because he had little cash
+and would not have much until spring, when he would sell lambs and shear
+his sheep. He not only needed money for himself, but his mother and
+sister, after many lean years, were eager to spend.
+
+He drove out to see Catalina, and found her big with child and utterly
+indifferent to him, which piqued him slightly and relieved him a great
+deal. She had heard nothing about her father, and Ramon sent Cortez out to
+Domingo Canyon to see what had become of the old man. Cortez reported the
+place deserted. Ramon made inquiry in town and learned that Archulera had
+been seen there in his absence, very much dressed-up and very drunk,
+followed by a crowd of young Mexicans who were evidently parasites on his
+newly-acquired wealth. Then he had disappeared, and some thought he had
+gone to Denver. It was evident that his five thousand dollars had proved
+altogether too much for him.
+
+Ramon now hung out a shingle, announcing himself as an attorney-at-law. Of
+course, no business came to him. The right way to get a practice would
+have been to go back to the office of Green or some other established
+lawyer for several years. But Ramon had no idea of doing anything so
+tiresome and so relatively humiliating. The idea of running errands for
+Green again was repugnant to him.
+
+He went every morning to his office and for a while he took a certain
+amount of satisfaction in merely sitting there, reading the local papers,
+smoking a cigar, now and then taking down one of his text books and
+reading a little. But study as such had absolutely no appeal to him. He
+might have dug at the dry case books to good purpose if he had been driven
+by need, but as it was he would begin to yawn in ten or fifteen minutes,
+and then would put the book away. He went home to a noonday dinner rather
+early and came back in the afternoon, feeling sleepy and bored. Now the
+office, and indeed the whole town, seemed a dreary place to him. At this
+season of the year there were often high winds which mantled the town in a
+yellow cloud of sand, and rattled at every loose shutter and door with
+futile dreary persistence. Ramon would wander about the office for a
+little while with his hands in his pockets and stare out the window,
+feeling depressed, thoughts of his disappointment coming back to him
+bitterly. Then he would take his hat and go out and look for some one to
+play pool with him. Often he took an afternoon off and went hunting, not
+alone as formerly he had done, but with as large a party as he could
+gather. They would drive out into the sand hills and _mesas_ twenty or
+thirty miles from town, where the native quail and rabbits were still
+abundant as automobiles had just begun to invade their haunts. When they
+found a covey of quail the sport would be fast and furious, with half a
+dozen guns going at once and birds rising and falling in all directions.
+Ramon keenly enjoyed the hot excitement and dramatic quality of this.
+
+At night he was usually to be found at the White Camel Pool Hall where the
+local sporting element foregathered and made its plans for the evening.
+Sometimes a party would be formed to "go down the line," as a visit to the
+red light district was called. Sometimes the rowdy dance halls of Old Town
+were invaded. On Saturday nights the dance at the country club always drew
+a considerable attendance. There was also a "dancing class" conducted by
+an estimable and needy spinster named Grimes, who held assembly dances
+once in two weeks in a little hall which had been built by the Woman's
+Club. This event always drew a large and very mixed crowd, including some
+of the "best people" and others who were considered not so good. Usually
+two or three different sets were represented at these gatherings, each
+tending to keep to itself. But there was also a tendency for the sets to
+overlap. Thus a couple of very pretty German girls, who were the daughters
+of a local saloon keeper, always appeared accompanied by young men of
+their own circle with whom they danced almost exclusively at first. But
+young men of the first families could not resist their charms, and they
+soon were among the most popular girls on the floor. This was deplored by
+the young women of more secure social position, who were wont to remark
+that the crowd was deteriorating frightfully. Some of these same superior
+virgins found it necessary for politeness to dance with Joe Bartello, the
+son of an Italian saloon owner, and a very handsome and nimble-footed
+youth. In a word, this was a place of social hazard and adventure, and
+that was more than half its charm. It finally became so crowded that
+dancing was almost impossible.
+
+The back room at the White Camel, where poker games were nightly in
+progress, also afforded Ramon frequent diversion. He played in the "big"
+game now, where the stakes and limits were high, and was one of the most
+daring and dangerous of its patrons. He had more money back of him than
+most of the men who played there, and he also had more courage. If he
+started a bluff he carried it through to the end, which was always bitter
+for some one. He had been known to stand pat on a pair and scare every one
+else out of the game by the resolute confidence of his betting. His
+plunges, of course, sometimes cost him heavily, but for a long time he was
+a moderate winner. His limitations as a poker player were finally
+demonstrated to him by one Fitzhugh Chesterman, a man with one lung.
+
+Chesterman was about twenty-six years old and had come from Richmond,
+Virginia, about two years before, with most of one lung gone and the other
+rapidly going. He was a tall, thin blond youth with the sensitive,
+handsome face which so often marks the rare survivor of the old southern
+aristocracy. He was totally lacking in the traditional southern
+sentimentality. His eye had a cold twinkle of courage that even the
+imminent prospect of death could not quench, and his thin shapely lips
+nearly always wore a smile slightly twisted by irony. He established
+himself at the state university, which had almost a hundred students and
+boasted a dormitory where living was very cheap. Chesterman sat before
+this dormitory twelve to fourteen hours a day, even in relatively cold
+weather. He made a living by coaching students in mathematics and Greek.
+He never raised his voice, he seldom laughed, he never lost his temper.
+With his unwavering ironical smile, as though he appreciated the keen
+humour of taking so much trouble over such an insignificant thing as a
+human life, he husbanded his energy and fought for health. He took all the
+treatments the local sanatoria afforded, but he avoided carefully all the
+colonies and other gatherings of the tubercular. When his lung began to
+heal, as it did after about a year, and his strength to increase, he
+enlarged his earnings by playing poker. He won for the simple reason that
+he took no more chances than he had to. He systematically capitalized
+every bit of recklessness, stupidity and desperation in his opponents.
+
+When Ramon first encountered him, the game soon simmered down to a
+struggle between the two. Never were the qualities of two races more
+strikingly contrasted. Ramon bluffed and plunged. Chesterman was caution
+itself, playing out antes in niggardly fashion until he had a hand which
+put the law of probabilities strongly on his side. Ramon was full of
+daring, intuition, imagination, bidding always for the favour of the
+fates, throwing logic to the winds. He was not above moving his seat or
+putting on his hat to change his luck. Chesterman smiled at these things.
+He was cold courage battling for a purpose and praying to no deities but
+Cause and Effect. Ramon thought he was playing for money, but he was
+really playing for the sake of his own emotions, revelling alike in hope
+and despair, triumph and victory, flushed and bright-eyed. Chesterman
+stifled every emotion, discounted every hope, said as little as possible,
+never relaxed his faint twisted smile.
+
+Ramon made some spectacular winnings, but Chesterman wore him down as
+surely as a slow hound wears down a deer despite its astounding bursts of
+speed. Ramon was sure to lose in the long run because he was always piling
+up odds against himself by the long chances he took, while his bluffs
+seldom deceived his cool and courageous opponent. The finish came at one
+o'clock in the morning. Chesterman was pale with exhaustion, but otherwise
+unchanged. Ramon was hoarse and flushed, chewing a cigar to bits. He held
+a full house and determined to back it to the limit. Chesterman met him,
+bet for bet, raising every time. Ramon knew that he must be beaten. He
+knew that Chesterman would not raise him unless he had a very strong hand.
+But he was beaten anyway. At the bottom of his consciousness, he knew that
+he had met a better man. He wanted to end the contest on this hand. When
+Chesterman showed four kings, Ramon fell back in his chair, weak and
+disgusted. The other players, most of whom had long been out of the game,
+got up and said good night one by one. Only the two were left, Ramon
+plunged in gloomy reaction, Chesterman coolly counting his money, putting
+it away.
+
+"I seem to have made quite a killing," he remarked, "how much did you
+lose?"
+
+"O, I don't know {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} about five hundred. Hell, what's five hundred to me {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I
+don't give a damn {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I'm rich.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Chesterman glanced at him keenly.
+
+"Well," he remarked, "I'm glad you feel that way about it, because I sure
+need the money."
+
+He got up and walked away with the short careful steps of a man who
+cherishes every ounce of his energy.
+
+Ramon was disgusted with himself. Chesterman had made him feel like a
+weakling and a child. He had thought himself a lion in this game, and he
+had found out that he was an easily-shorn lamb. He could not afford to
+lose five hundred dollars either. He was not really a rich man. He went
+home feeling deeply depressed and discouraged. Vaguely he realized that in
+Chesterman he had encountered the spirit which he felt against him
+everywhere--a cool, calculating, unmerciful spirit of single purpose,
+against which the play and flow of his emotional and imaginative nature
+was as ineffectual as mercury against the point of a knife.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+Within the next few days Ramon was sharply reminded that he lived in a
+little town where news travels fast and nobody's business is exclusively
+his own. Cortez came into his office and accepted a seat and a cigar with
+that respectful but worried manner which always indicated that he had
+something to say.
+
+"I hear you lost five hundred dollars the other night," he observed
+gravely, watching his young employer's face.
+
+"Well, what of it?" Ramon enquired, a bit testily.
+
+"You can't afford it," Cortez replied. "And not only the money {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} you've
+got to think of your reputation. You know how these gringos are. They keep
+things quiet. They expect a young man to lead a quiet life and tend to
+business. It's all right to have a little fun {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} they all do it {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} but for
+God's sake be careful. You hurt your chances this way {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} in the law, in
+politics."
+
+Ramon jerked his head impatiently and flushed a little, but reflection
+checked his irritation. Hatred of restraint, love of personal liberty, the
+animal courage that scorns to calculate consequences were his by heritage.
+But he knew that Cortez spoke the truth.
+
+"All right Antonio," he said with dignity. "I'll be careful."
+
+The next day he got a letter which emphasized the value of his henchman's
+warning and made Ramon really thoughtful. It was from MacDougall, and made
+him another offer for his land. It had a preamble to the effect that land
+values were falling, money was "tight," and therefore Ramon would do well
+to sell now, before a further drop in prices. It made him an offer of ten
+thousand dollars less than MacDougall had offered before.
+
+Ramon knew that the talk about falling values was largely bluff, that
+MacDougall had heard of his losses and of his loose and idle life, and
+thought that he could now buy the lands at his own price. The gringo had
+confidently waited for the Mexican to make a fool of himself. Ramon
+resolved hotly that he would do no such thing. He had no idea of selling.
+He would be more careful with his money, and next summer he would go back
+to Arriba County, renew his campaign against MacDougall and buy some land
+with the money he could get for timber and wool. He replied very curtly to
+MacDougall that his lands were not for sale.
+
+After that he stayed away from poker games for a while. This was made
+easier by a new interest which had entered his life in the person of a
+waitress at the Eldorado Lunch room. The girls at this lunch room had long
+borne a bad reputation. Even in the days before the big hotel had been
+built, when the railroad company maintained merely a little red frame
+building there, known as the Eating House, these waitresses had been a
+mainstay of local bachelordom. Their successors were still referred to by
+their natural enemies, the respectable ladies of the town, as "those awful
+eating house girls"; while the advent of a new "hash-slinger" was always a
+matter of considerable interest among the unmarried exquisites who
+fore-gathered at the White Camel. In this way Ramon quickly heard of the
+new waitress. She was reputed to be both prettier and less approachable
+than most of her kind. Sidney Felberg had made a preliminary
+reconnaissance and a pessimistic report.
+
+"Nothing doing," he said. "She's got a husband somewhere and a notion
+she's cut out for better things.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I'm off her!"
+
+This immediately provoked Ramon's interest. He went to the lunch room at a
+time when he knew there would be few customers. When he saw the girl he
+felt a faint thrill. The reason for this was that Dora McArdle somewhat
+resembled Julia. The resemblance was slight and superficial, yet instantly
+noticeable. She was a little larger, but had about the same figure, and
+the same colour of hair, and above all the same sensuous, provocative
+mouth. Ramon followed her with his eyes until she became conscious of his
+scrutiny, when she tossed her head with that elaborate affectation of
+queenly scorn, which seems to be the special talent of waitresses
+everywhere. Nevertheless, when she came to take his order she gave him a
+pleasant smile. He saw now that she was not really like Julia. She was
+coarse and commonplace, but she was also shapely, ripe-breasted,
+good-natured, full of the appeal of a healthy animalism.
+
+"What time do you get done here?" Ramon enquired.
+
+"Don't know that it's any of your business," she replied with another one
+of her crushing tosses of the head, and went away to get his order. When
+she came back he asked again.
+
+"What time did you say?"
+
+"Well, about nine o'clock, if it'll give you any pleasure to know."
+
+"I'll come for you in my car," he told her.
+
+"Oh! will you?" and she paid no more attention to him until he started to
+go, when she gave him a broad smile, showing a couple of gold teeth.
+
+At nine o'clock he was waiting for her at the door, and she went with him.
+He took her for a drive on the _mesa_, heading for the only road house
+which the vicinity boasted. It was a great stone house, which had been
+built long ago by a rich man, and had later fallen into the hands of an
+Italian named Salvini, who installed a bar, and had both private dining
+rooms and bed rooms, these latter available only to patrons in whom he had
+the utmost confidence. This resort was informally known as the "chicken
+ranch."
+
+When Ramon tried to take his fair partner there, on the plea that they
+must have a bite to eat, she objected.
+
+"I don't believe that place is respectable," she told him very primly. "I
+don't think you ought to ask me to go there."
+
+"O Hell!" said Ramon to himself. But aloud he proposed that they should
+drive to an adjacent hill-top from which the lights of the town could be
+seen. When he had parked the car on this vantage point and lit a
+cigarette, Dora began a narrative of a kind with which he was thoroughly
+familiar. She was of that well-known type of woman who is found in a
+dubious position, but explains that she has known better days. Her father
+had been a judge in Kansas, the family had been wealthy, she had never
+known what work was until she got married, her marriage had been a
+tragedy, her husband had drank, there had been a smash-up, the family had
+met with reverses. On and on went the story, its very tone and character
+and the grammar she used testifying eloquently to the fact that she was no
+such crushed violet as she claimed to be. Ramon was bored. A year ago he
+would have been more tolerant, but now he had experienced feminine charm
+of a really high order, and all the vulgarity and hypocrisy of this woman
+was apparent to him. And yet as he sat beside her he was keenly, almost
+morbidly conscious of the physical attraction of her fine young body. For
+all her commonness and coarseness, he wanted her with a peculiarly urgent
+desire. Here was the heat of love without the flame and light, desire with
+no more exaltation than accompanies a good appetite for dinner. He was
+puzzled and a little disgusted.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} He did not understand that this was his
+defeated love, seeking, as such a love almost inevitably does, a vicarious
+satisfaction.
+
+Repugnance and desire struggled strangely within him. He was half-minded
+to take her home and leave her alone. At any rate he was not going to sit
+there and listen to her insane babble all night. To put his fortunes to
+the test, he abruptly took her in his arms. She made a futile pretence of
+resistance. When their lips touched, desire flashed up in him strongly,
+banishing all his hesitations. He talked hot foolishness to which she
+listened greedily, but when he tried to take her to Salvini's again, she
+insisted on going home. Before he left her he had made another
+appointment.
+
+Now began an absurd contest between the two in which Ramon was always
+manoeuvring to get her alone somewhere so that he might complete his
+conquest if possible, while her sole object was to have him gratify her
+vanity by appearing in public with her. This he knew he could not afford
+to do. He could not even drive down the street with her in daylight
+without all gossips being soon aware he had done so. No one knew much
+about her, of course, but she was "one of those eating house girls" and to
+treat her as a social equal was to court social ostracism. He would win
+the enmity of the respectable women of the town, and he knew very well
+that respectable women rule their husbands. His prospects in business and
+politics, already suffering, would be further damaged.
+
+Here again was a struggle within him. He was of a breed that follows
+instinct without fear, that has little capacity for enduring restraints.
+And he knew well that the other young lawyers, the gringos, were no more
+moral than he. But they were careful. Night was their friend and they were
+banded together in a league of obscene secrecy. He despised this code and
+yet he feared it. For the gringos held the whip; he must either cringe or
+suffer.
+
+So he was careful and made compromises. Dora wanted him to take her to
+dinner in the main dining room of the hotel, and he evaded and compromised
+by taking her there late at night when not many people were present. She
+wanted him to take her to a movie and he pleaded that he had already seen
+the bill, and asked her if she wanted to bore him. And when she pouted he
+made her a present of a pair of silk stockings. She accepted all sorts of
+presents, so that he felt he was making progress. She was making vague
+promises now of "sometime" and "maybe," and his desire was whipped up with
+anticipation, making him always more reckless.
+
+One night late he took her to the Eldorado and persuaded her to drink
+champagne, thinking this would forward his purpose. The wine made her rosy
+and pretty, and it also made her forget her poses and affectations. She
+was more charming to him than ever before, partly because of the change in
+her, and partly because his own critical faculties were blunted by
+alcohol. He was almost in love with her and he felt sure that he was about
+to win her. But presently she began wheedling him in the old vein. She
+wanted him to take her to the dance at the Woman's Club!
+
+This would be to slap convention in the face, and at first he refused to
+consider it. But he foolishly went on drinking, and the more he drank the
+more feasible the thing appeared. Dora had quit drinking and was pleading
+with him.
+
+"I dare you!" she told him. "You're afraid.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} You don't think I'm good
+enough for you.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} And yet you say you love me.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I'm just as good as any
+girl in this town.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Well if you won't, I'm going home. I'm through! I
+thought you really cared."
+
+And then, when he had persuaded her not to run away, she became sad and
+just a little tearful.
+
+"It's terrible," she confided. "Just because I have to make my own
+living.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} It's not fair. I ought never to speak to you again.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} And yet, I
+do care for you.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Ramon was touched. The pathos of her situation appealed strongly to his
+tipsy consciousness. Why not do it? After all, the girl was respectable.
+As she said, nobody "had anything on her." The dance was a public affair.
+Any one could go. He had been too timid. Not three people there knew who
+she was. By God, he would do it!
+
+At first they did not attract much attention. Dora was pretty and fairly
+well dressed, in no way conspicuous. They danced exclusively with each
+other, as did some other couples present, and nothing was thought of that.
+
+But soon he became aware of glances, hostile, disapproving. Probably it
+was true that only a few of the men at first knew who Dora was, but they
+told other men, and some of the men told the women. Soon it was known to
+all that he had brought "one of those awful eating house girls" to the
+dance! The enormity of the mistake he had made was borne in upon him
+gradually. Some of the men he knew smiled at him, generally with an
+eye-brow raised, or with a shake of the head. Sidney Felberg, who was a
+real friend, took him aside.
+
+"For the love of God, Ramon, what did you bring that Flusey here for?
+You're queering yourself at a mile a minute. And you're drunk, too. For
+Heaven's sake, cart her away while the going's good!"
+
+Ramon had not realized how drunk he was until he heard this warning.
+
+"O, go to hell, Sid!" he countered. "She's as good as anybody {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I guess I
+can bring anybody I want here.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Sidney shook his head.
+
+"No use, no use," he observed philosophically. "But it's too bad!"
+
+Ramon's own words sounded hollow to him. He was in that peculiar condition
+when a man knows that he is making an ass of himself, and knows that he is
+going right ahead doing it. He was more attentive to Dora than ever. He
+brought her a glass of water, talked to her continually with his back to
+the hostile room. He was fully capable of carrying the thing through, even
+though girls he had known all his life were refusing to meet his eyes.
+
+It was Dora who weakened. She became quiet and sad, and looked infinitely
+forlorn. When a couple of women got up and moved pointedly away from her
+vicinity, her lip began to tremble, and her wide blue eyes were brimming.
+
+"Come on, take me away quick," she said pathetically. "I'm going to cry."
+
+When they were in the car again she turned in the seat, buried her face in
+her arms and sobbed passionately with a gulping noise and spasmodic
+upheavals of her shoulders. Ramon drove slowly. He was sober now,
+painfully sober! He was utterly disgusted with himself, and bitterly sorry
+for Dora. A strong bond of sympathy had suddenly been created between
+them, for he too had tasted the bitterness of prejudice. For the first
+time Dora was not merely a frumpy woman who had provoked in him a desire
+he half-despised; she was a fellow human, who knew the same miseries.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} He
+had intended to take her this night, to make a great play for success, but
+he no longer felt that way. He drove to the boarding house where she
+lived.
+
+"Here you are," he said gently, "I'll call you up tomorrow."
+
+Dora looked up for the first time.
+
+"O, no!" she plead. "Don't go off and leave me now. Don't leave me alone.
+Take me somewhere, anywhere.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Do anything you want with me.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} You're all
+I've got!"
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+The rest of the winter Ramon spent in an aimlessly pleasant way. He tried
+to work but without arousing in himself enough enthusiasm to insure
+success. He played pool, gambled a little and hunted a great deal. He
+relished his pleasures with the keen appetite of health and youth, but
+when they were over he felt empty-minded and restless and did not know
+what to do about it.
+
+Some business came to his law office. Because of his knowledge of Spanish
+and of the country he was several times employed to look up titles to
+land, and this line of work he might have developed into a good practice
+had he possessed the patience. But it was monotonous, tedious work, and it
+bored him. He would toil over the papers with a good will for a while, and
+then a state of apathy would come over him, and like a boy in school he
+would sit vaguely dreaming.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Such dull tasks took no hold upon his mind.
+
+He defended several Mexican criminals, and found this a more congenial
+form of practice, but an unremunerative one. The only case which advanced
+him toward the reputation for which every young attorney strives brought
+him no money at all. A young Mexican farmer of good reputation named Juan
+Valera had been converted to the Methodist faith. Like most of the few
+Mexicans who are won over to Protestantism, he had brought to his new
+religion a fanatical spirit, and had made enemies of the priests and of
+many of his neighbours by proselyting. Furthermore, his young and pretty
+wife remained a Catholic, which had caused a good deal of trouble in his
+house. But the couple were really devoted and managed to compromise their
+differences until a child was born. Then arose the question as to whether
+it should be baptized a Catholic or a Methodist. The girl wanted her baby
+to be baptized in the Catholic faith, and was fully persuaded by the
+priests that it would otherwise go to purgatory. She was backed by her
+father, whose interference was resented by Juan more than anything else.
+He consulted the pastor of his church, a bigoted New Englander, who
+counselled him on no account to yield.
+
+One evening when Juan was away from home, his father-in-law came to his
+house and persuaded the girl to go with him and have the child baptized in
+the Catholic faith, in order that it might be saved from damnation. After
+the ceremony they went to a picture-show by way of a celebration. When
+Juan came home he learned from the neighbours what had happened. His face
+became very pale, his lips set, and his eyes had a hot, dangerous look. He
+got out a butcher knife from the kitchen, whetted it to a good point, and
+went and hid behind a big cottonwood tree near the moving-picture theatre.
+When his wife with the child and her father came out, he stepped up behind
+the old man and drove the knife into the back of his neck to the hilt,
+severing the spinal column. Afterward he looked at the dead man for a
+moment and at his wife, sitting on the ground shrieking, then went home
+and washed his hands and changed his shirt--for blood had spurted all over
+him--walked to the police station and gave himself up.
+
+This man had no money, and it is customary in such cases for the court to
+appoint a lawyer to conduct the defence. Usually a young lawyer who needs
+a chance to show his abilities is chosen, and the honor now fell upon
+Ramon.
+
+This was the first time since he had begun to study law that he had been
+really interested. He understood just how Juan Valera had felt. He called
+on him in jail. Juan Valera was composed, almost apathetic. He said he was
+willing to die, that he did not fear death.
+
+"Let them hang me," he said. "I would do the same thing again."
+
+Ramon studied the law of his case with exhaustive thoroughness, but the
+law did not hold out much hope for his client. It was in his plea to the
+jury that he made his best effort. Here again he discovered the eloquence
+that he had used the summer before in Arriba County. Here he lost for a
+moment his sense of aimlessness, felt again the thrill of power and the
+joy of struggle. He described vividly the poor Mexican's simple faith, his
+absolute devotion to it, showed that he had killed out of an
+all-compelling sense of right and duty. He found a good many witnesses to
+testify that Juan's father-in-law had hectored the young man a good deal,
+insulted him, intruded in his home. Half of the jurors were Mexicans. For
+a while the jury was hung. But it finally brought in a verdict of murder
+in the first degree, which was practically inevitable. Juan accepted this
+with a shrug of his shoulders and announced himself ready to hang and meet
+his Methodist God. But Ramon insisted on taking an appeal. He finally got
+the sentence commuted to life imprisonment. He then felt disgusted, and
+wished that he had let the man hang, feeling that he would have been
+better off dead than in the state penitentiary. But Juan's wife, who
+really loved him, came to Ramon's office and embraced his knees and
+laughed and cried and swore that she would do his washing for nothing as
+long as she lived. For now she could visit her husband once a month and
+take him _tortillas!_ Ramon gave her ten dollars and pushed her out the
+door. He had worked hard on the case. He felt old and weary and wanted to
+get drunk.
+
+
+
+One day Ramon received an invitation to go hunting with Joe Cassi and his
+friends. He accepted it, and afterward went on many trips with the Italian
+saloon-owner, thereby doing further injury to his social standing.
+
+Cassi had come to the town some twenty years before with a hand organ and
+a monkey. The town was not accustomed to that form of entertainment; some
+of the Mexicans threw rocks at Cassi and a dog killed his monkey. Cassi
+was at that time a slender youth, handsome, ragged and full of high hopes.
+When his monkey was killed he first wept with rage and then swore that he
+would stay in that town and have the best of it. He now owned three
+saloons and the largest business building in town. He was a lean, grave,
+silent little man.
+
+Cassi had made most of his money in the days when gambling was "open" in
+the town, and he had surrounded himself with a band of choice spirits who
+were experts in keno, roulette and poker. These still remained on his
+hands, some of them in the capacity of barkeepers, and others practically
+as pensioners. They were all great sportsmen, heavy drinkers and
+loyal-to-the-death friends. At short intervals they went on hunting trips
+down the river, generally remaining over the week-end. It was of these
+expeditions that Ramon now became a regular member. Sometimes the whole
+party would get drunk and come back whooping and singing as the
+automobiles bowled along, occasionally firing shotguns into the air. At
+other times when luck was good everyone became interested in the sport and
+forgot to drink. Ramon had a real respect for Cassi, and a certain amount
+of contempt for most of the rest of them; yet he felt more at home with
+these easy-going, pleasure-loving, loyal fellows than he did with those
+thrifty, respectable citizens in whose esteem the dollar stood so
+invariably first.
+
+Cassi and his friends used most often to go to a Mexican village some
+fifty miles down the river where the valley was low and flat, and speckled
+with shallow alkaline ponds made by seepage from the river. Every evening
+the wild ducks flew into these ponds from the river to feed, and the
+shooting at this evening flight Ramon especially loved. The party would
+scatter out, each man choosing his own place on the East side of one of
+the little lakes, so that the red glare of the sunset was opposite him.
+There he would lie flat on the ground, perhaps making a low blind of weeds
+or rushes.
+
+Seldom even in January was it cold enough to be uncomfortable. Ramon would
+lie on an elbow, smoking a cigarette, watching the light fade, and the
+lagoon before him turn into molten gold to match the sunset sky. It would
+be very quiet save for such sounds as the faraway barking of dogs or the
+lowing of cattle. When the sky overhead had faded to an obscure purple,
+and the flare of the sunset had narrowed to a belt along the horizon, he
+would hear the distant eerie whistle of wild wings. Nothing could be seen
+yet, but the sound multiplied. He could distinguish now the roar of a
+great flock of mallards, circling round and round high overhead, scouting
+for danger. He could hear the sweet flute-notes of teal and pintails, and
+the raucous, cautious quack of some old green-head. A teal would pitch
+suddenly down to the water before him and rest there, erect and wary,
+painted in black upon the golden water. Another would join it and another.
+The cautious mallards, encouraged by this, would swing lower. The music of
+their wings seemed incredibly close; he would grip his gun hard, holding
+himself rigidly still, feeling clearly each beat of his heart.
+
+Suddenly the ducks would come into view {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} dark forms with ghostly blurs
+for wings, shooting with a roar into the red flare of light. The flash of
+his shotgun would leap out twice. The startled birds would bound into the
+air like blasted rock from a quarry, and be lost in the purple mystery of
+sky, except two or three that hurtled over and over and struck the water,
+each with a loud spat, throwing up little jets of gold.
+
+Sometimes there were long waits between shots, but at others the flight
+was almost continuous, the air seemed full of darting birds, and the gun
+barrels were hot in his hands. His excitement would be intense for a time;
+yet after he had killed a dozen birds or so he would often lose interest
+and lie on his back listening to the music of wings and of bird voices. He
+had that aversion to excess which seems to be in all Latin peoples.
+Besides, he did not want many ducks to dispose of.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} It was the rush and
+colour, the dramatic quality of the thing that he loved.
+
+Most of the others killed to the limit with a fine unflagging lust for
+blood, giving a brilliant demonstration of the fact that civilized man is
+the most destructive and bloodthirsty of all the predatory mammals.
+
+
+
+The coming of spring was marked by a few heavy rains, followed by the
+faint greening of the cottonwood trees and of the alfalfa fields. The grey
+waste of the _mesa_ showed a greenish tinge, too, heralding its brief
+springtime splendor when it would be rich with the purple of wild-peas,
+pricked out in the morning with white blossoms of the prairie primrose.
+Now and then a great flock of geese went over the town, following the Rio
+Grande northward half a mile high, their faint wild call seeming the very
+voice of this season of lust and wandering.
+
+Ramon felt restless and lost interest in all his usual occupations. He
+began to make plans and preparations for going to the mountains. He bought
+a tent and a new rifle and overhauled all his camping gear. He thought he
+was getting ready for a season of hard work, but in reality his strongest
+motive was the springtime longing for the road and the out-of-doors. He
+was sick of whisky and women and hot rooms full of tobacco smoke.
+
+Withal it was necessary that he should go to Arriba County, follow up his
+campaign of the preceding fall, arrange a timber sale if possible so that
+he might buy land, and above all see that his sheep herds were properly
+tended. This was the crucial season in the sheep business. Like the other
+sheep owners, he ranged his herds chiefly over the public domain, and he
+gambled on the weather. If the rain continued into the early summer so
+that the waterholes were filled and the grass was abundant, he would have
+a good lamb crop. The sale of part of this and of the wool he would shear
+would make up the bulk of his income for the year. And he had already
+spent that income and a little more. He could not afford a bad year. If it
+was a dry spring, so that lambs and ewes died, he would be seriously
+embarrassed. In any case, he was determined to be on the range in person
+and not to trust the herders. If it came to the worst and the spring was
+dry he would rent mountain range from the Forest Service and rush his
+herds to the upland pastures as early as possible. He was not at all
+distressed or worried; he knew what he was about and had an appetite for
+the work.
+
+One morning when he was in the midst of his preparations, he went to his
+office and found on the desk a small square letter addressed in a round,
+upright, hand. This letter affected him as though it had been some blossom
+that filled the room with a fragrant narcotic exhalation. It quickened the
+beat of his heart like a drug. It drove thought of everything else out of
+his mind. He opened it and the faint perfume of it flowed over him and
+possessed his senses and his imagination.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+It was a long, gossipy letter and told him of nearly everything that Julia
+had done in the six months since they had parted "forever". The salient
+fact was that she had been married. A young man in a New York brokerage
+office who had long been a suitor for her hand, and to whom she had once
+before been engaged for part of a summer, had followed the Roths to Europe
+and he and Julia had been married immediately after their return.
+
+"I give you my word, I don't know why I did it," she wrote. "Mother wanted
+me to, and I just sort of drifted into it. First thing I knew I was
+engaged and the next thing mother was sending the invitations out, and
+then I was in for it. It was a good deal of fun being engaged, but when it
+came to being married I was scared to death and couldn't lift my voice
+above a whisper. Since then it has been rather a bore. Now my husband has
+been called to London. I am living alone here in this hotel. That is, more
+or less alone. A frightful lot of people come around and bore me, and I
+have to go out a good deal. I'm supposed to be looking for an apartment,
+too; but I haven't really started yet. Ralph won't be back for another two
+or three weeks, so I have plenty of time.
+
+"I don't know why in the world I'm writing you this long frightfully
+intimate letter. I don't seem to know why I do anything these days. I know
+its most improper for a respectable married lady, and I certainly have no
+reason to suppose you want to be bothered by me any more after the way I
+did. But somehow you stick in the back of my head. You might write me a
+line, just out of compassion, if you're not too busy with all your sheep
+and mountains and things." She signed herself "as ever", which, he
+reflected bitterly, might mean anything.
+
+At first the fact that she was married wholly engaged his attention. She
+was then finally and forever beyond his reach. This was the end sure
+enough. He was not going to start any long aimless correspondence with her
+to keep alive the memory of his disappointment. He planned various brief
+and chilly notes of congratulation.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Then another thought took precedence
+over that one. She was alone there in that hotel. Her husband was in
+London. She had written to him and given him her address.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} His blood
+pounded and his breath came quick. He made his decision instantly, on
+impulse. He would go to New York.
+
+He wired the hotel where she was stopping for a reservation, but sent no
+word at all to her. He gave the bewildered and troubled Cortez brief
+orders by telephone to go to Arriba County in his place, arranged a note
+at the bank for two thousand dollars, and caught the limited the same
+night at seven-thirty-five.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+He looked at New York through a taxicab window without much interest. A
+large damp grey dirty place, very crowded, where he would not like to
+live, he thought. He managed himself and his baggage with ease and
+dispatch; his indifferent, dignified manner and his reckless use of money
+were ideally effective with porters, taxi drivers and the like. When he
+reached the hotel about eight o'clock at night he went to his room and
+made himself carefully immaculate. He studied himself with a good deal of
+interest in the full length mirror which was set in the bath room door;
+for he had seldom encountered such a mirror and he had a considerable
+amount of vanity of which he was not at all conscious. It struck him that
+he was remarkably good-looking, and indeed he was more so than usual, his
+eyes bright, his face flushed, his whole body tense and poised with
+purpose and expectation.
+
+He went down to the lobby, looked Julia up in the register, ascertained
+the number of her room, and made a note of it. Then he asked the telephone
+girl to call her and learn whether she was in.
+
+"Yes; she is in. She wants to know who's calling, please."
+
+"Tell her an old friend who wants to surprise her." He did not care to
+risk any evasion, and he also wanted his arrival to have its full dramatic
+effect.
+
+The telephone girl transmitted his message.
+
+"She says she can't come down yet {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} not for about half an hour."
+
+"Tell her I'll wait. If she asks for me I'll be in that little room
+there." He pointed to a small reception room opening off the mezzanine
+gallery, which he had selected in advance. He had planned everything
+carefully.
+
+
+
+When he stood up to meet her she gave a little gasp, and took a step back.
+
+"Why, you! Ramon! How could you? You shouldn't have come. You know you
+shouldn't. I didn't mean that {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I had no idea.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+He came forward and took her hand and led her to a settee. Despite all her
+protests he could see very plainly that he had scored heavily in his own
+favour. She was flustered with excitement and pleasure. Like all women,
+she was captivated by sudden, decisive action and loved the surprising and
+the dramatic.
+
+They sat side by side, looking at each other, smiling, making unimportant
+remarks, and then looking at each other again. Ramon felt that she had
+changed. She was as pretty as ever, and never had she stirred him more
+strongly. But her appeal seemed more immediate than before; she seemed
+less remote. The innocence of her wide eyes was a little less noticeable
+and their flash of recklessness a little more so. It seemed to him that
+her mouth was larger, which may have been due to the fact that she had
+rouged it a little too much. She wore a pink decollete with straps over
+the shoulders one of which kept slipping down and had to be pulled up
+again.
+
+Ramon was tremulous with a half-acknowledged anticipation, but he held
+himself strongly in hand. He felt that he had an advantage over her--that
+he was more at ease and she less so than at any previous meeting--and he
+meant to keep it.
+
+But she was rapidly regaining her composure, and took refuge in a rather
+formal manner.
+
+"Are you going to be here long?" she enquired in the conventional tone of
+mock-interest.
+
+"Just a week or so on business," he explained, determined not to be
+outpointed in the game. "I had to come some time this spring, and when I
+got your note I thought I would come while you are here."
+
+"But I'll be here the rest of my life probably. This is where I live. You
+ought to have come when my husband was here. I'd like to have you meet
+him. As it is, I can't see much of you, of course.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+He refused to be put out by this coldness, but tried to strike a more
+intimate note.
+
+"Tell me about your marriage," he asked. "Are you really happy?{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Do you
+like it?"
+
+She looked at the floor gravely.
+
+"You shouldn't ask that, of course," she reproved. "Everyone who has just
+been married is very, very happy.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} No, I don't like it a darn bit."
+
+"It's not what you expected, then."
+
+"I don't know what I expected, but from the way people talk about it and
+write about it you would certainly think it was something wonderful--love
+and passion and bliss and all that, I mean. I feel that I've either been
+lied to or cheated {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} of course," she added with a little side glance at
+him, "I didn't exactly love my husband.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}" She blushed and looked down
+again; then laughed softly and rather joyfully for a lady with a broken
+heart.
+
+"If mother could only hear me now!" she observed.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} "She'd faint. I don't
+care.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} That's just the way I feel.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I don't care! All my life I've been
+trained and groomed and prepared for the grand and glorious event of
+marriage. I've been taught it's the most wonderful thing that can happen
+to anyone. That's what all the books say, and all the people I know. And
+here it turns out to be a most uncomfortable bore.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+He looked gravely sympathetic.
+
+"Do you think it would have been different with--someone you did love?" he
+enquired cautiously.
+
+She gave him another quick thrilling glance.
+
+"I don't know," she said.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} "Maybe {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I felt so different about you."
+
+Their hands met on the settee and they both moved instinctively a little
+closer together.
+
+Suddenly she jerked away from him, looking him in the eyes with her head
+thrown back and a smile of irony on her lips.
+
+"Aren't we a couple of idiots?" she demanded.
+
+"No!" he declared with fierce emphasis, and throwing an arm about her,
+pounced on her lips.
+
+Just then a bell boy passed the door. They jerked apart and upright very
+self-consciously. Then they looked at each other and laughed. But their
+eyes quickly became deep and serious again, and their fingers entangled.
+
+She sighed in mock exasperation.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, say something!" she demanded. "We can't sit here and
+make eyes at each other all evening. Besides I'm compromising my priceless
+reputation. It's after ten o'clock. I've got to go." She rose, and held
+out her hand, which he took without saying anything.
+
+"Good night," she said. "I think you were mean to come and camp on me this
+way {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} dumb as ever, I see {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} well, good night."
+
+She went to the door, stopped and looked back, smiled and disappeared.
+
+Ramon went down to the lobby and roamed all over the two floors which
+constituted the public part of the hotel. He looked at everything and
+smoked a great many cigarettes, thus restlessly whiling away an hour. Then
+he went to a writing room. He collected some telegrams and letters about
+him and appeared to be very busy. When a bell boy went by, he rapped
+sharply on the desk with a fifty-cent piece, and as the boy stopped,
+tossed it to him.
+
+"Get me the key to 207!" he ordered sharply; then turned back to his
+imaginary business.
+
+"Yes sir," said the boy. He returned in a few minutes with the key.
+
+Ramon sat for a long moment looking at it, tremulous with a great
+anticipation. He was divided between a conviction that she expected him
+and a fear that she did not.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} His fear proved groundless.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+The next day they met for dinner at a little place near Washington Square
+where it was certain that none of Julia's friends ever went. Julia was a
+singularly contented-looking criminal. Never, Ramon thought had her skin
+looked more velvety, her eyes deeper or more serene. He was a trifle
+haggard, but happy, and both of them were hungry.
+
+"Do you know?{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I've made a discovery," she told him. "I haven't any
+conscience. I slept peacefully nearly all day, and when I waked up I
+considered the matter carefully {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I don't believe that I have any proper
+appreciation of the enormity of what I've done at all. I have always
+thought that if anything like this ever happened to me I would go off and
+chloroform myself, but as a matter of fact I have no such intention {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} of
+course, though, it was not my fault in the least. You're so terrible!{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I
+simply couldn't help myself, and I don't see what I can do now {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} that's
+comforting. But one thing is certain. We've got to be awfully careful.
+Thank Heaven, mother and Gordon are still in Florida and they won't dare
+to come North on Gordon's account until it gets a good deal warmer. But we
+must be careful. I'm not sorry, like I should be, but I sure am scared.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+They sat for a long time after the meal, Ramon smoking a cigar, their
+knees touching under the table. He was filled with a vast contentment. He
+thought nothing of the troubled past, nor did he look into the obviously
+troubled future. He merely basked in the consciousness of a possession
+infinitely sweet.
+
+Now began for them a life of clandestine adventure. Julia had a good many
+engagements, but she managed to give him some part of every day. They
+never met in the hotel, but usually took taxicabs separately and met in
+out-of-the-way parts of that great free wilderness of city. Ramon spent
+most of the time when he was not with her exploring for suitable meeting
+places. They became patrons of cellar restaurants in Greenwich Village, of
+French and Italian places far down town, of obscure Brooklyn hotels. If
+the regular fare at these establishments was not all they desired, Ramon
+would lavishly bribe the head waiter, call the proprietor into
+consultation if necessary, insist on getting what Julia wanted. He spent
+his money like a millionaire, and usually created the general impression
+that he was a wealthy foreigner. Every morning he had flowers sent to
+Julia's room. Often they would take a taxi and spend hours riding about
+the streets with the blinds drawn, locked in each others' arms.
+
+For a week they were keenly, excitedly happy, living wholly in the joy of
+the moment. Then a flaw appeared upon the glowing perfect surface of their
+happiness.
+
+"When is your husband coming back?" he enquired once, when they were
+riding through Central Park.
+
+"I don't know. In a week or two. Why?"
+
+"Because we must decide pretty soon what we're going to do."
+
+"Do? What can we do?"
+
+"We must decide where we're going. You must go with me somewhere. I'm not
+going to let you get away from me again {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} not even for a little while."
+
+"But Ramon, how can we? I'm married. I can't go anywhere with you.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+He seized her fiercely by the shoulders and held her away from him,
+looking into her eyes.
+
+"Don't you love me, then?" he demanded.
+
+"Ramon! You know I do!"
+
+"Then you'll go. We can go to Mexico City, or South America {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I'll sell
+out at home.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"O, Ramon {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I can't. I haven't got the courage. Think of the fuss it would
+raise. And it would kill Gordon, I know it would.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"Damn Gordon!" he exclaimed, "he's not going to get in the way again!
+You're mine and I'm going to keep you. You will go. I'll take you!"
+
+He had seized her in his arms, was holding her furiously tight. She put
+her arms around him, caressed his face with soft fluttering hands.
+
+"Please, Ramon! Please don't make me miserable. Don't spoil the only
+happiness I ever had! I will go with you if ever I can, if I can get a
+divorce or something. But I can't run off like that. I haven't got it in
+me {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} please let me be happy!"
+
+Her touch and her voice seemed to overcome his determination, seemed to
+sheer him of his strength. Weaker she was than he, but her charm was her
+power. It dragged him away from his thoughts and purposes, binding him to
+her and to the moment.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} She drew his head down to her breast, found his
+lips with hers and so effectively cut his protests short.
+
+
+
+The cream of his happiness was gone. Always when he was alone, he was
+thinking and planning how he could keep her. All of his possessiveness was
+aroused. He wanted her to have a baby. Somehow he felt that then his
+conquest would be complete, that then he would be at peace.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+He said nothing more to Julia because he saw that it was useless. He began
+to understand her a little. It was futile to ask her to make a decision,
+to take any initiative. She could hold out forever against pleas which
+involved an effort of the will on her part. And yet as he knew she could
+yield charmingly to pressure adroitly applied. If he had asked her to meet
+him in New York this way, he reflected, she would have been horrified, she
+would never have consented. But when he came, suddenly, that had been
+different. So it was now. If he could only form a really good plan, and
+then put her in a cab and take her {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} that would be the only way. The
+difficulty was to form the plan. He had capacity for sudden and decisive
+action. He lacked neither courage nor resolution. But when it came to
+making a plan which would require much time and patience, he found his
+limitations.
+
+What could he do? he asked himself, not realizing that in formulating the
+question he acknowledged his impotence. If he went away and left her while
+he settled his affairs, she was lost as surely as a bird released from a
+cage. The idea of Mexico City allured him. But he had hardly enough money
+to take them there. How could he raise money on short notice? It would
+take time to settle his estate in New Mexico and get anything out of it.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+Two unrealized facts lay at the root of his difficulty. One was that he
+had no capacity for large and intricate plans, and the other was that he
+felt bound as by an invisible tether to the land where he had been born.
+
+As he struggled with all these conflicting considerations and emotions,
+his head fairly ached with futile effort. He was glad to lay it upon
+Julia's soft bosom, to forget everything else again in the sweetness of a
+stolen moment.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+He had been in New York about ten days when he awoke one morning near
+noon. An immense languor possessed him. He had been with Julia the night
+before and never had she been more charming, more abandoned.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} He ordered
+his breakfast to be sent up, and then stretched out in bed and lit an
+expensive Russian cigarette. He had that love of sensuous indolence,
+which, together with its usual complement, the capacity for brief but
+violent action, marked him as a primitive man--one whom the regular labors
+and restraints of civilization would never fit.
+
+His telephone bell rang, and when he took down the receiver he heard
+Julia's voice. It was not unusual for her to call him about this time, but
+what she told him now caused a blank and hapless look to come over his
+face. She was not in her room, but in another hotel.
+
+"My husband got in this morning," she explained in a voice that was thin
+with misery and confusion. "I got his message last night, but I didn't
+tell you because I knew it would spoil our last time together, and I was
+afraid you would do something foolish.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Please say you're not angry. You
+know there was nothing for it. We couldn't have done any of those wild
+things you talked about. I'll always love you, honestly I will. Won't you
+even say goodby?{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+He at last did say goodby and hung up the receiver and went across the
+room and sat in an armchair. It suddenly struck him that he was very
+tired. He had not realized it before {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} how tired he was. There was none of
+the mad rebellion in him now that had filled him when first she had run
+away from him. Although he had never acknowledged it to himself he had
+been more than half prepared for this. He had told himself that he was
+going to do something bold and decisive, but he had procrastinated; he had
+never really formed a plan.
+
+Weariness was his leading emotion. He was spent, physically and
+emotionally. He wanted her almost as much as ever. While she was no longer
+the remote and dazzling star she had been, the bond of flesh that had been
+created between them seemed a stronger, a more constant thing than
+blinding unsatisfied desire. But a great despair possessed him. There was
+so obviously nothing he could do. Just as his other disappointment had
+given him his first stinging impression of the irony of life, that
+cunningly builds a hope and then smashes it; so now he felt for the first
+time something of the helplessness of man in the current or his destiny,
+driven by deep-laid desires he seldom understands, and ruled by chances he
+can never calculate. From love a man learns life in quick and painful
+flashes.
+
+Through the open window came the din of the New York street--purr and throb
+of innumerable engines, rumble and clatter of iron wheels, tapping of
+thousands of restless feet, making a blended current of sound upon which
+floated and tossed the shrillness of police whistles and newsboys' voices
+and auto horns. It had been the background of his life during memorable
+days. Once it had stirred his pulses, seeming a wild accompaniment to the
+song of his passion. Now it wearied him inexpressibly; it seemed to be
+hammering in his ears; he wanted to get away from it. He would go home
+that day.
+
+
+
+As always on his trips across the continent he sat apathetically smoking
+through the wide green lushness of the middle west. Only when the
+cultivated lands gave way to barren hills and faint blue mountains peeping
+over far horizons did he turn to the window and forget his misery and his
+weariness. How it spoke to his heart, this country of his own! He who
+loved no man, who had gone to women with desire and come away with
+bitterness, loved a vast and barren land, baking in the sun. The sight of
+it quickened his pulses, softened and soothed his spirit. Like a good
+liquor it nursed and beautified whatever mood was in him. When he had come
+back to it a year before, it had spoken to him of hope, its mysterious
+distances had seemed full of promise and hidden possibility. And now that
+he came back to it with hopes broken, weary in mind and body, it seemed
+the very voice of rest. He thought of long cool nights in the mountains
+and of the lullaby that wind and water sing, of the soothing monotony of
+empty sunlit levels, of the cool caress of deep, green pools, of the sweet
+satisfaction that goes with physical weariness and a full belly and a bed
+upon the ground.
+
+But when on the last morning of his journey he waked up within a hundred
+miles of home, and less than half that far from his own mountain lands,
+his new-found comfort quickly changed to a keen anxiety. For he saw at a
+glance that the country was under the blight of drought. The hills that
+should have borne a good crop of gramma grass at this time of the year, if
+the rains had been even fair, were nothing but bare red earth from which
+the rocks and the great roots of the _pinion_ trees stood out like the
+bones of a starving animal. Here and there on the hillsides he could see a
+scrubby pine that had died, its needles turned rust-red--the sure sign of a
+serious drought.
+
+During the half month that he had been gone he had thought not once of his
+affairs at home. The moment had absorbed him completely. Now it all came
+back to him suddenly. When he had left, the promise of the season had been
+good. It had not rained for more than a week, but everyone had been
+expecting rain every day. It was clear to him that the needed rain had
+never come. And he knew just what that meant to him. It meant that he had
+lost lambs and ewes, that he would have no money this year with which to
+meet his notes at the bank. He sank deep in despair and disgust again. Not
+only was the assault on his fortunes a serious one, but he felt little
+inclined to meet it. He was weary of struggle. He saw before him a long
+slow fight to get on his feet again, with the chance of ultimate failure
+if he had another bad year.
+
+The Mexicans firmly believe, in the face of much evidence to the contrary,
+that seven wet years are always followed by seven dry ones. He had heard
+the saying gravely repeated many times. He more than half believed it. And
+he knew that for a good many years, perhaps as many as six or seven, the
+rains had been remarkably good. He was intelligent, but superstition was
+bred in his bones. Like all men of a primitive type he had a strong
+tendency to believe in fortune as a deliberate force in the affairs of
+men. It seemed clear to him now, in his depressed and exhausted condition,
+that bad luck had marked him for its prey.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+His forebodings were confirmed in detail the next morning when Cortez came
+into his office, his face wrinkled with worry and darkened by exposure to
+the weather. He was angry too.
+
+"_Por Dios_, man! To go off like that and not even leave me an address. If
+I could have gotten more money to hire men I might have saved some of them
+{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} yes, more than half of the lambs died, and many of the ewes. There is
+nothing to do now. They are on the best of the range, and it has begun to
+rain in the mountains. But it is too bad. It cost you many thousands {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+that trip to New York."
+
+Ramon gave Cortez a cigar to soothe his sensibilities, thanked him with
+dignity for his loyal services, and sent him away. Then he put on his hat
+and went outside to walk and think.
+
+The town seemed to him quiet as though half-deserted. This was partly by
+contrast with the place of din which he had just left, and partly because
+this was the dull season, when the first hot spell of summer drove many
+away from the town and kept those who remained in their houses most of the
+day. The sandy streets caught the sun and cherished it in a merciless
+glare. They were baked so hot that barefoot urchins hopped gingerly from
+one patch of shade to the next. In the numerous vacant lots rank jungles
+of weeds languished in the dry heat, and long blue-tailed lizards,
+veritable heat-sprites, emerged to frolic and doze on deserted sidewalks.
+The leaves of the cottonwoods hung limp, and the white downy tufts that
+carried their seeds everywhere drifted and swam in the shimmering air. The
+river had shrunk to a string of shallow pools in a sandy plain, the
+irrigation ditches were empty, and in Old Town the Mexicans were asking
+God for rain by carrying an image of the Virgin Mary about on a litter and
+firing muskets into the air.
+
+Quickly wearied, Ramon sat down on a shaded bench in the park and tried to
+think out his situation and to decide what he should do. The easy way was
+to sell out, pay his debts, provide for his mother and sister and with
+what was left go his own way--buy a little ranch perhaps in the mountains
+or in the valley where he could live in peace and do as he pleased.
+Wearied as he was by struggle and disappointment, this prospect allured
+him, and yet he could not quite accept it. He felt vaguely the fact that
+in selling his lands, he would be selling out to fate, he would be
+surrendering to MacDougall, to the gringos, he would be renouncing all his
+high hopes and dreams. His mountain lands, with their steadily increasing
+value, the power they gave him, would make of his life a thing of
+possibilities--an adventure. Settled on a little ranch somewhere, his whole
+story would be told in one of its years.
+
+This he did not reason clearly, but the emotional struggle within him was
+therefore all the stronger. It was his old struggle in another guise--the
+struggle between the primitive being in him and the civilized, between
+earth and the world of men. Each of them in turn filled his mind with
+images and emotions, and he was impotent to judge between them.
+
+His being was fairly rooted in the soil, and the animal happiness it
+offered--the free play of instinct, the sweetness of being physically and
+emotionally at peace with environment--was the only happiness he had ever
+known. Vaguely yet surely he had felt the world of men and works, the
+artificial world, to contain something larger and more beautiful than
+this. Julia Roth had been to him a stimulating symbol of this higher, this
+more desirable thing. His love for her had been the soil in which his
+aspirations had grown. That love had turned to bitterness and lust, and
+his aspirations had led him among greeds and fears and struggles that
+differed from those of the wild things only in that they were covert and
+devious, lacking the free beauty of instinct fearlessly followed and the
+dignity of open battle. Of civilization he had encountered only the raw
+and ugly edge, which is uglier than savagery. He knew no more of the true
+spirit of it than a man who has camped in a farmer's back pasture knows of
+the true spirit of wildness. It had treated him without mercy and brought
+out the worst of him. And yet because he had once loved and dreamed he
+could not go back to the easy but limited satisfactions of the soil and be
+wholly content.
+
+So he could not make up his mind at first to surrender, but in the next
+few days one thing after another came to tempt him that way. MacDougall
+made him an offer for his lands which to his surprise was a little better
+than the last one. He learned afterward that the over-shrewd lawyer had
+misinterpreted his trip to New York, imagining that he had gone there to
+interest eastern capital in his lands.
+
+His mother and sister were two very cogent arguments in favour of selling.
+The Dona Delcasar, a simple and vain old lady, now regarded herself as a
+woman of wealth, and was always after him for money. Her ambition was to
+build a house in the Highlands and serve tea at four o'clock (although it
+was thick chocolate she liked) and break into society. His one discussion
+of the matter with her was a bitter experience.
+
+"Holy Mary!" she exclaimed in her shrill Spanish, when he broached a plan
+of retrenchment, "What a son I have! You spend thousands on yourself,
+chasing women and buying automobiles, and now you want us to spend the
+rest of our lives in this old house and walk to church so that you can
+make it up. God, but men are selfish!"
+
+He saw that if he tried to save money and make a fight for his lands he
+would have to struggle not only with MacDougall and the weather, but with
+two ignorant, ambitious and sharp-tongued women. And family pride here
+fought against him. He did not want to see his women folk go shabbily in
+the town. He wanted them to have their brick house and their tea parties,
+and to uphold the name of Delcasar as well as they might.
+
+One day while he was still struggling with his problem he went to look at
+a ranch that was offered for sale in the valley a few miles north of town.
+It was this place more than anything else which decided him. The old house
+had been built by one of his ancestors almost a hundred years before, and
+had then been the seat of an estate which embraced all the valley and
+_mesa_ lands for miles in every direction. It had changed hands several
+times and there were now but a few hundred acres. The woodwork of the
+house was in bad repair, but its adobe walls, three feet thick, were firm
+as ever. There were still traces of the adobe stockade behind it, with
+walls ten feet high, and the building which had housed the _peones_ was
+still standing, now filled with fragrant hay. In front of it stood an old
+cedar post with rusty iron rings to which the recalcitrant field hands had
+been bound for beating.
+
+Every detail of this home of his forefathers stirred his emotions. The
+ancient cottonwood trees in front of the house with their deep, welcome
+shade and the soft voices of courting doves among the leaves; the alfalfa
+fields heavy with purple blossom, ripe for cutting; the orchard of old
+apple trees and thickets of Indian plum run wild; the neglected vineyard
+that could be made to yield several barrels of red wine--all of these
+things spoke to him with subtle voices. To trade his heritage for this was
+to trade hope and hazard for monotonous ease; but with the smell of the
+yielding earth in his nostrils, he no more thought of this than a man in
+love thinks of the long restraints and irks of marriage when the kiss of
+his woman is on his lips.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+Ramon's life on his farm quickly fell into a routine that was for the most
+part pleasant. He hired an old woman to do his cooking and washing, and a
+man to work on the place. Other men he hired as he needed them, and he
+spent most of his days working with them as a foreman.
+
+He attended to the business of farming ably. The trees of the old orchard
+he pruned and sprayed and he set out new ones. He put his idle land under
+irrigation and planted it in corn and alfalfa. He set out beds of
+strawberries and asparagus. He bought blooded livestock and chickens. He
+put his fences in repair and painted the woodwork of his house. The
+creative energy that was in him had at last found an outlet which was
+congenial though somewhat picayune. For the place was small and easily
+handled. As the fall came on, and his crops had been gathered and the work
+of irrigation was over for the season, he found himself looking about
+restlessly for something to do. On Saturday nights he generally went to
+town, had dinner with his mother and sister, and spent the evening
+drinking beer and playing pool. But he felt increasingly out of place in
+the town; his visits there were prompted more by filial duty and the need
+of something to break the monotony of his week than by a real sense of
+pleasure in them.
+
+He was still caring for Catalina on the ranch up the valley, and when the
+woman who had been doing his work left him, he decided to bring the girl
+to his place and let her earn her keep by cooking and washing. He no
+longer felt any interest in her, and thought that perhaps she would marry
+Juan Cardenas, the man who milked his cows and chopped wood for him. But
+Catalina showed no interest in Juan. Instead, she emphatically rejected
+all his advances, and displayed an abject, squaw-like devotion to Ramon's
+welfare. Everything possible was done for his comfort without his asking.
+The infant, now almost a year old, was trained not to cry in his presence,
+and acquired a certain awe of him, watching him with large solemn eyes
+whenever he was about. Ramon, reflecting that this was his son, set out to
+make the baby's acquaintance, and became quite fond of it. He often played
+with it in the evening.
+
+He paid Catalina regular wages and she spent most of the money on clothes.
+When she prepared herself for Church on Sunday she was a truly terrible
+spectacle, clad in an ill-fitting ready-made suit of brilliant colour, and
+wearing a cheap hat on which a dead parrot sprawled among artificial
+poppies, while her swarthy face, heavily powdered, took on a purple tinge.
+But about the place, dressed in clean calico, with a shawl over her
+shoulders, she was really pretty. Her figure was a good one of peasant
+type, and the acquisition of some shoes which fitted her revealed the fact
+that she had inherited from her remote Castilian ancestry a small and
+shapely foot and ankle.
+
+Ramon could not help noticing all of these things, and so gradually he
+became aware of Catalina again as a desirable woman, and one whom it was
+easy for him to take.
+
+After this his animal contentment was deeper than ever. He did not go to
+town so often, for one of the restlessnesses which had driven him there
+was removed. Often for weeks at a stretch he would not go at all unless it
+was necessary to get some tools or supplies for the farm. Then rather than
+take any of his men away from work, he would himself hitch up a team and
+drive the five miles. Sitting hunched over on the spring-seat of a big
+farm wagon, clad in overalls and a print shirt, with a wide hat tilted
+against the sun and a cigarette dangling from his lips, he was
+indistinguishable from any other _paisano_ on the road. This change in
+appearance was helped by the fact that he had grown a heavy moustache.
+Often, as he drove through the streets of the town, he would pass
+acquaintances who did not recognize him, and he was just as well satisfied
+that they did not.
+
+As is the way of unreflecting men, Ramon formed no definite opinion of his
+life, but liked it more or less according to the mood that was in him.
+There were bright, cool days that fall when, lacking work to do, he took
+his shot-gun and a saddle horse and went for long rambles. Sometimes he
+would follow the river northward, stalking the flocks of teal and mallards
+that dozed on the sandbars in the wide, muddy stream, perhaps killing
+three or four fat birds. Other times he went to the foot of the mountains
+and hunted the blue quail and cotton tail rabbits in the arroyos of the
+foot-hills. Once he and his man loaded a wagon with food and blankets and
+drove forty miles to a canyon where they killed a big black-tail buck, and
+brought him back in high triumph.
+
+Returning from such trips full of healthy hunger and weariness, to find
+his hot supper and his woman waiting for him, Ramon would doze off
+happily, every want of his physical being satisfied, feeling that life was
+good.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} But there were other nights when a strange restlessness possessed
+him, when he lay miserably awake through long dark hours. The silence of
+the black valley was emphasized now and then by the doleful voices of dogs
+that answered each other across the sleeping miles. At such times he felt
+as though he had been caught in a trap. He saw in imagination the endless
+unvaried chain of his days stretching before him, and he rebelled against
+it and knew not how to break it. His experience of life was comparatively
+little and he was no philosopher. He did not know definitely either what
+was the matter with him or what he wanted. But he had tasted high
+aspiration, and desire bright and transforming, and wild sweet joy.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} These
+things had been taken away, and now life narrowed steadily before him like
+a blind canyon that pierces a mountain range. The trail at the bottom was
+easy enough to follow, but the walls drew ever closer and became more
+impassable, and what was the end?{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+
+
+This sense of dissatisfaction reached its futile crux one day in the
+spring when he received a letter from Julia--the last he was ever to get.
+The sight and scent of it stirred him as they always had done, filling him
+with poignant painful memories.
+
+"This is really the last time I'll ever bother you," she wrote, "but I do
+want to know what has happened to you, and how you feel about things. I
+can't forget. All our troubles seem to have worn some sort of a permanent
+groove in my poor brain, and I believe the thought of you will be there
+till the day of my death.
+
+"As, for me, I'm in society up to my eyes, and absolutely without the
+courage or energy to climb out. Those days in New York were the first and
+the last of my freedom. Now I've been introduced to everybody, and I have
+an engagement book that tells me what I'm going to do whether I want to or
+not for three weeks ahead. I'm a model of conduct and propriety for the
+simple reason that I can't travel over a block without everybody that I
+know finding out about it.
+
+"Of course it hasn't all been a bore. I have had some fun, and I've met
+some really interesting people. I've gotten used to being married and my
+husband treats me kindly and gives me a good home. Sounds as if I was a
+kitten, doesn't it? Well, I have very much the same sort of life as a
+kitten, but a kitten has no imagination and it has never been in love.
+Sometimes I think that I can't stand it any longer. It seems to me that
+I'm not really living, as I used to imagine I would, but just being
+dragged through life by circumstances and other people--I don't know what
+all. I still have desperate plans and ideas once in a while, but of
+course, I never do anything. When you come right down to it, what can I
+do?"
+
+Ramon read this letter sitting on the sunny side of his house with his
+heels under him and his back against the wall--a position any Mexican can
+hold for hours. When he had finished it he sat motionless for a long time,
+painfully going over the past, trying ineptly to discover what had been
+the matter with it. More acutely than ever before he felt the cruel
+guerdon of youth--the contrast between the promise of life and its
+fulfillment. He felt that he ought to do something, that he ought not to
+submit. But somehow all the doors that led out of his present narrow way
+into wider fields seemed closed. There was no longer any entrancing vista
+to tempt him. Mentally he repeated her query, What could he do?
+
+His thoughts went round and round and got nowhere. The spring sunshine
+soaked into his body. A faint hum of early insects lulled him, and to his
+nostrils came the scent of new-turned earth and manure from the garden
+where his man was working. He grew drowsy; his dissatisfaction simmered
+down to a vague ache in the background of his consciousness. Idly he tore
+the letter to little bits.
+
+
+
+                                 THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               EXTRA PAGES
+
+
+
+
+                                       _The Blood of _
+                                       _the Conquerors_
+
+
+
+
+_ _
+_      NEW BORZOI NOVELS_
+_ _
+_      FALL, 1921_
+_ _
+
+      PAN
+_      Knut Hamsun_
+      DREAMERS
+_      Knut Hamsun_
+      THE TORTOISE
+_      Mary Borden_
+      THE CHINA SHOP
+_      G. B. Stern_
+      THE BRIARY-BUSH
+_      Floyd Dell_
+      DEADLOCK
+_      Dorothy Richardson_
+      THE OTHER MAGIC
+_      E. L. Grant-Watson_
+      WHITE SHOULDERS
+_      George Kibbe Turner_
+      THE CHARMED CIRCLE
+_      Edward Alden Jewell_
+      THE BLOOD OF THE CONQUERORS
+_      Harvey __ __Fergusson_
+
+
+
+
+                                       _The Blood of _
+                                       _the Conquerors_
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  ERRATA
+
+
+      CHAPTER II
+      Changed: they were *untamable*, but boys
+      To: they were *untameable*, but boys
+
+      CHAPTER II
+      Changed: adventures were *comoposed* and sung
+      To: adventures were *composed* and sung
+
+      CHAPTER IV
+      Changed: your name," she admitted*,*
+      To: your name," she admitted*.*
+
+      CHAPTER V
+      Changed: only all-night *resturant*. Here he
+      To: only all-night *restaurant*. Here he
+
+      CHAPTER VII
+      Changed: haunted by lizzards and rattlesnakes.
+      To: haunted by *lizards* and rattlesnakes.
+
+      CHAPTER VIII
+      Changed: CHAPTER VIII*.*
+      To: CHAPTER VIII* *
+
+      CHAPTER XI
+      Changed: the game*,* But the
+      To: the game*.* But the
+
+      CHAPTER XV
+      Changed: nights they *visted* the town's
+      To: nights they *visited* the town's
+
+      CHAPTER XIX
+      Changed: saved from *furthur* punishment. Meantime,
+      To: saved from *further* punishment. Meantime,
+
+      CHAPTER XXXI
+      Changed: own living.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} *Its* not fair.
+      To: own living.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} *It's* not fair.
+
+      CHAPTER XXXII
+      Changed: of course* *" she added
+      To: of course*,*" she added
+
+      CHAPTER XXXII
+      Changed: * *For Heaven's sake, say something!"
+      To: *"*For Heaven's sake, say something!"
+
+      Page 2
+      Changed: Harvey *Furgusson*
+      To: Harvey *Fergusson*
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOOD OF THE CONQUERORS***
+
+
+
+CREDITS
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+Febraury 23, 2007
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+<div class="tei tei-front" style="margin-bottom: 6.00em; margin-top: 2.00em">
+  <div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+    <div id="pgheader" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em"><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 2.00em">The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Blood of the Conquerors by Harvey Fergusson</p></div><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost
+          and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it,
+          give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project
+          Gutenberg License <a href="#pglicense" class="tei tei-ref">included with this
+          eBook</a> or online at <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license" class="tei tei-xref">http://www.gutenberg.org/license</a></p></div><pre class="pre tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em">Title: The Blood of the Conquerors
+
+Author: Harvey Fergusson
+
+Release Date: March 23, 2007 [Ebook #20888]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOOD OF THE CONQUERORS***
+</pre></div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+    
+  </div>
+
+  <hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-titlePage" style="text-align: center">
+  <span class="tei tei-pb" id="page3">[pg 3]</span><a name="Pg3" id="Pg3" class="tei tei-anchor" style="text-align: center"></a>
+    <span class="tei tei-docTitle" style="text-align: center">
+      <span class="tei tei-titlePart" style="text-align: center">
+        <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 175%">The Blood of the Conquerors</span></span><br />
+      </span>
+    </span>
+    <div class="tei tei-byline" style="text-align: center">
+      <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">by</span></span><br />
+      <span class="tei tei-docAuthor" style="text-align: center">
+        <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 150%">Harvey Fergusson</span></span><br />
+        <br />
+      </span>
+    </div>
+    <span class="tei tei-docImprint" style="text-align: center">
+      <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">New York</span></span><br />
+      <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 150%">Alfred · A · Knopf</span></span><br />
+    </span>
+    <span class="tei tei-docDate" style="text-align: center">
+      <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 100%">1921</span></span><br />
+    </span>
+  </div>
+
+  <hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+    <span class="tei tei-pb" id="page4">[pg 4]</span><a name="Pg4" id="Pg4" class="tei tei-anchor" style="text-align: center"></a>
+    <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+    <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 75%">COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY</span></span><br />
+    <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 75%">ALFRED A. KNOPF, </span><span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-variant: small-caps">Inc</span></span><span style="font-size: 75%">.</span></span></p>
+
+    <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em">
+    <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 50%">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</span></span></p>
+  </div>
+
+  <hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+    <a name="pdf1" id="pdf1"></a>
+    <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">Contents</span></h1>
+    <ul class="tei tei-index tei-index-toc"><li><a href="#toc2">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER I</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc4">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER II</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc6">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER III</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc8">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER IV</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc10">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER V</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc12">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER VI</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc14">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER VII</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc16">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER VIII</span> 
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc18">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER IX</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc20">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER X</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc22">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XI</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc24">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XII</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc26">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XIII</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc28">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XIV</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc30">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XV</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc32">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XVI</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc34">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XVII</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc36">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XVIII</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc38">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XIX</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc40">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XX</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc42">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXI</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc44">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXII</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc46">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXIII</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc48">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXIV</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc50">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXV</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc52">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXVI</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc54">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXVII</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc56">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXVIII</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc58">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXIX</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc60">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXX</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc62">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXI</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc64">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXII</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc66">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXIII</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc68">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXIV</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc70">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXV</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc72">
+  <span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXVI</span>
+</a></li><li><a href="#toc74">
+      <span style="font-size: 125%">EXTRA PAGES</span>
+    </a></li><li><a href="#toc76">
+      <span style="font-size: 125%">ERRATA</span>
+    </a></li></ul>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-body" style="margin-bottom: 6.00em; margin-top: 6.00em">
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC01" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page7">[pg 7]</span><a name="Pg7" id="Pg7" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc2" id="toc2"></a>
+<a name="pdf3" id="pdf3"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER I</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Whenever Ramon Delcasar boarded a railroad
+train he indulged a habit, not uncommon among
+men, of choosing from the women passengers the
+one whose appearance most pleased him to be the
+object of his attention during the journey. If
+the woman were reserved or well-chaperoned, or
+if she obviously belonged to another man, this attention
+might amount to no more than an occasional
+discreet glance in her direction. He never
+tried to make her acquaintance unless her eyes and
+mouth unmistakably invited him to do so.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This conservatism on his part was not due to an
+innate lack of self-confidence. Whenever he felt
+sure of his social footing, his attitude toward
+women was bold and assured. But his social footing
+was a peculiarly uncertain thing for the reason
+that he was a Mexican. This meant that he
+faced in every social contact the possibility of a
+more or less covert prejudice against his blood,
+and that he faced it with an unduly proud and sensitive
+spirit concealed beneath a manner of aristocratic
+indifference. In the little southwestern
+town where he had lived all his life, except the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page8">[pg 8]</span><a name="Pg8" id="Pg8" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+last three years, his social position was ostensibly
+of the highest. He was spoken of as belonging
+to an old and prominent family. Yet he knew of
+mothers who carefully guarded their daughters
+from the peril of falling in love with him, and most
+of his boyhood fights had started when some one
+called him a <span class="tei tei-q">“damned Mexican”</span> or a <span class="tei tei-q">“greaser.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Except to an experienced eye there was little in
+his appearance or in his manner to suggest his
+race. His swarthy complexion indicated perhaps
+a touch of the Moorish blood in his Spanish ancestry,
+but he was no darker than are many Americans
+bearing Anglo-Saxon names, and his eyes
+were grey. His features were aquiline and
+pleasing, and he had in a high degree that bearing,
+at once proud and unself-conscious, which is called
+aristocratic. He spoke English with a very slight
+Spanish accent.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When he had gone away to a Catholic law
+school in St. Louis, confident of his speech and
+manner and appearance, he had believed that he
+was leaving prejudice behind him; but in this he
+had been disappointed. The raw spots in his consciousness,
+if a little less irritated at the college,
+were by no means healed. Some persons, it is
+true, seemed to think nothing of his race one way
+or the other; to some, mostly women, it gave him
+an added interest; but in the long run it worked
+against him. It kept him out of a fraternity, and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page9">[pg 9]</span><a name="Pg9" id="Pg9" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+it made his career in football slow and hard.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When he finally won the coveted position of
+quarterback, in spite of team politics, he made a
+reputation by the merciless fashion in which he
+drove his eleven, and by the fury of his own playing.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The same bitter emulative spirit which had impelled
+him in football drove him to success in his
+study of the law. Books held no appeal for him,
+and he had no definite ambitions, but he had a
+good head and a great desire to show the gringos
+what he could do. So he had graduated high in
+his class, thrown his diploma into the bottom of
+his trunk, and departed from his alma mater without
+regret.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The limited train upon which he took passage
+for home afforded specially good opportunity for
+his habit of mental philandering. The passengers
+were continually going up and down between the
+dining car at one end of the train and the observation
+car at the other, so that all of the women
+daily passed in review. They were an unusually
+attractive lot, for most of the passengers were
+wealthy easterners on their way to California.
+Ramon had never before seen together so many
+women of the kind that devotes time and money
+and good taste to the business of creating charm.
+Perfectly gowned and groomed, delicately scented,
+they filled him with desire and with envy for the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page10">[pg 10]</span><a name="Pg10" id="Pg10" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+men who owned them. There were two newly
+married couples among the passengers, and several
+intense flirtations were under way before the
+train reached Kansas City. Ramon felt as though
+he were a spectator at some delightful carnival.
+He was lonely and restless, yet fascinated.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For no opportunity of becoming other than a
+spectator had come to him. He had chosen without
+difficulty the girl whom he preferred, but had
+only dared to admire her from afar. She was a
+little blonde person, not more than twenty, with
+angelic grey eyes, hair of the colour of ripe wheat
+and a complexion of perfect pink and white. The
+number of different costumes which she managed
+to don in two days filled him with amazement and
+gave her person an ever-varying charm and interest.
+She appeared always accompanied by a very
+placid-looking and portly woman, who was evidently
+her mother, and a tall, cadaverous sick
+man, whose indifferent and pettish attitude toward
+her seemed to indicate that he was either a brother
+or an uncle, for Ramon felt sure that she was not
+married. She acquired no male attendants, but
+sat most of the time very properly, if a little restlessly,
+with her two companions. Once or twice
+Ramon felt her look upon him, but she always
+turned it away when he glanced at her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Whether because she was really beautiful in her
+own petite way, or because she seemed so unattainable,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page11">[pg 11]</span><a name="Pg11" id="Pg11" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+or because her small blonde daintiness had
+a peculiar appeal for him, Ramon soon reached a
+state of conviction that she interested him more
+than any other girl he had ever seen. He discreetly
+followed her about the train, watching for
+the opportunity that never came, and consoling
+himself with the fact that no one else seemed
+more fortunate in winning her favour than he.
+The only strange male who attained to the privilege
+of addressing her was a long-winded and elderly
+gentleman of the British perpetual-travelling
+type, at least one representative of which is found
+on every transcontinental train, and it was plain
+enough that he bored the girl.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon took no interest in landscapes generally,
+but when he awoke on the last morning of his
+journey and found himself once more in the wide
+and desolate country of his birth, he was so deeply
+stirred and interested that he forgot all about
+the girl. Devotion to one particular bit of soil is
+a Mexican characteristic, and in Ramon it was
+highly developed because he had spent so much
+of his life close to the earth. Every summer of
+his boyhood he had been sent to one of the sheep
+ranches which belonged to the various branches
+of his numerous family. Each of these ranches
+was merely a headquarters where the sheep were
+annually dipped and sheared and from which the
+herds set out on their long wanderings across the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page12">[pg 12]</span><a name="Pg12" id="Pg12" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+open range. Often Ramon had followed them—across
+the deserts where the heat shimmered and
+the yellow dust hung like a great pale plume over
+the rippling backs of the herd, and up to the summer
+range in the mountains where they fed above
+the clouds in lush green pastures crowned with
+spires of rock and snow. He had shared the
+beans and mutton and black coffee of the herders
+and had gone to sleep on a pile of peltries to the
+evensong of the coyotes that hung on the flanks
+of the herd. Hunting, fishing, wandering, he had
+lived like a savage and found the life good.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was this life of primitive freedom that he had
+longed for in his exile. He had thought little of
+his family and less of his native town, but a nostalgia
+for open spaces and free wanderings had
+been always with him. He had come to hate the
+city with its hard walled-in ways and its dirty air,
+and also the eastern country-side with its little
+green prettiness surrounded by fences. He longed
+for a land where one can see for fifty miles, and not
+a man or a house. He thought that alkaline dust
+on his lips would taste sweet.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Now he saw again the scorched tawny levels,
+the red hills dotted with little gnarled
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pinon</span></span> trees,
+the purple mystery of distant mountains. A great
+friendly warmth filled his body, and his breath
+came a little quickly with eagerness. When he
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page13">[pg 13]</span><a name="Pg13" id="Pg13" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+saw a group of Mexicans jogging along the road
+on their scrawny mounts he wanted to call out to them:
+<span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Como lo va, amigos?</span></span>”</span>
+He would have
+liked to salute this whole country, which was his
+country, and to tell it how glad he was to see it
+again. It was the one thing in the world that he
+loved, and the only thing that had ever given him
+pleasure without tincture of bitterness.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He heard two men in the seat behind him talking.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Did you ever see anything so desolate?”</span> one
+asked.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I wouldn’t live in this country if they gave it
+to me,”</span> said the other.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon turned and looked at them. They were
+solid, important-looking men, and having visited
+upon the country their impressive disapproval,
+they opened newspapers and shut it away from
+their sight. Dull fools, thought Ramon, who do
+not know God’s country when they see it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And then he continued to look right over their
+heads and their newspapers, for tripping down
+the aisle all by herself at last, came the girl of
+his fruitless choice. His eyes, deep with dreams,
+met hers. She smiled upon him, radiantly,
+blushed a little, and hurried on through the car.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He sat looking after her with a foolish grin on
+his face. He was pleased and shaken. So she
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page14">[pg 14]</span><a name="Pg14" id="Pg14" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+had noticed him after all. She had been waiting
+for a chance, as well as he. And now that it had
+come, he was getting off the train in an hour. It
+was useless to follow her.… He turned to the
+window again.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC02" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page15">[pg 15]</span><a name="Pg15" id="Pg15" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc4" id="toc4"></a>
+<a name="pdf5" id="pdf5"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER II</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Usually in each generation of a large and long-established
+family there is some one individual
+who stands out from the rest as a leader and as
+the most perfect embodiment of the family traditions
+and characteristics. This was especially
+true of the Delcasar family. It was established
+in this country in the year 1790 by Don Eusabio
+Maria Delcasar y Morales, an officer in the army
+of the King of Spain, who distinguished himself in
+the conquest of New Mexico, and especially in
+certain campaigns against the Navajos. As was
+customary at that time, the King rewarded his
+faithful soldier with a grant of land in the new
+province. This Delcasar estate lay in the Rio
+Grande Valley and the surrounding
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span> lands.
+By the provisions of the King’s grant, its dimensions
+were each the distance that Don Delcasar
+could ride in a day. The Don chose good horses
+and did not spare them, so that he secured to his
+family more than a thousand square miles of land
+with a strip of rich valley through the middle and
+a wilderness of desert and mountain on either side.
+Much of this principality was never seen by Don
+Eusabio, and even the four sons who divided the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page16">[pg 16]</span><a name="Pg16" id="Pg16" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+estate upon his death had each more land than he
+could well use.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The outstanding figure of this second generation
+was Don Solomon Delcasar, who was noted for
+the magnificence of his establishment, and for his
+autocratic spirit.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">No Borgia or Bourbon ever ruled more absolutely
+over his own domain than did Don Solomon
+over the hundreds of square miles which made up
+his estate. He owned not only lands and herds
+but also men and women. The
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">peones</span></span> who
+worked his lands were his possessions as much as
+were his horses. He had them beaten when they
+offended him and their daughters were his for the
+taking. He could not sell them, but this restriction
+did not apply to the Navajo and Apache
+slaves whom he captured in war. These were his
+to be sold or retained for his own use as he preferred.
+Adult Indians were seldom taken prisoner,
+as they were
+<span class="tei tei-corr"><a name="E1" id="E1" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a href="#e1" class="tei tei-ref">untameable</a></span>,
+but boys and girls
+below the age of fifteen were always taken alive,
+when possible, and were valued at five hundred
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pesos</span></span> each.
+Don Solomon usually sold the boys, as he had plenty of
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">peones</span></span>,
+but he never sold a comely Indian girl.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The Don was a man of proud and irascible
+temper, but kindly when not crossed. He had
+been known to kill a
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">peon</span></span>
+in a fit of anger, and then
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page17">[pg 17]</span><a name="Pg17" id="Pg17" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+afterward to bestow all sorts of benefits upon the
+man’s wife and children.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The life of his home, like that of all the other
+Mexican gentlemen in his time, was an easy and
+pleasant one. He owned a great
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">adobe</span></span> house,
+built about a square courtyard like a fort, and
+shaded pleasantly by cottonwood trees. There he
+dwelt with his numerous family, his
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">peones</span></span> and his
+slaves. In the spring and summer every one
+worked in the fields, though not too hard. In the
+fall the men went east to the great plains to kill a
+supply of buffalo meat for the winter, and often
+after the hunt they travelled south into Sonora
+and Chihuahua to trade mustangs and buffalo
+hides for woven goods and luxuries.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a pleasant social life among the
+aristocrats of dances and visits. Marriages,
+funerals and christenings were occasions of great
+ceremony and social importance. Indeed everything
+done by the Dons was characterized by
+much formality and ceremony, the custom of which
+had been brought over from Spain. But they
+were no longer really in touch with Spanish civilization.
+They never went back to the mother
+country. They had no books save the Bible and
+a few other religious works, and many of them
+never learned to read these. Their lives were
+made up of fighting, with the Indians and also
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page18">[pg 18]</span><a name="Pg18" id="Pg18" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+among themselves, for there were many feuds;
+of hunting and primitive trade; and of venery
+upon a generous and patriarchal scale. They
+were Spanish gentlemen by descent, all for honour
+and tradition and sentiment; but by circumstance
+they were barbarian lords, and their lives were
+full of lust and blood.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Circumstance somewhat modified the vaunted
+purity of their Spanish blood, too. The Indian
+slave girls who lived in their houses bore the
+children of their sons, and some of these half-bred
+and quarter-bred children were eventually accepted by the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">gente de razon</span></span>,
+as the aristocrats
+called themselves. In this way a strain of Navajo
+blood got into the Delcasar family, and doubtless
+did much good, as all of the Spanish stock was
+weakened by much marrying of cousins.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Dona Ameliana Delcasar, a sister of Don Solomon,
+was responsible for another alien infusion
+which ultimately percolated all through the family,
+and has been thought by some to be responsible
+for the unusual mental ability of certain Delcasars.
+Dona Ameliana, a beautiful but somewhat
+unruly girl, went into a convent in Durango,
+Mexico, at the age of fifteen. At the age of
+eighteen she eloped with a French priest named
+Raubien, who was a man of unusual intellect and
+a poet. The errant couple came to New Mexico
+and took up lands. They were excommunicated,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page19">[pg 19]</span><a name="Pg19" id="Pg19" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+of course, and both of them were buried in unconsecrated
+ground; but despite their spiritual
+handicaps they raised a family of eleven comely
+daughters, all of whom married well, several of
+them into the Delcasar family. Thus some of the
+Delcasars who boasted of their pure Castilian
+blood were really of a mongrel breed, comprising
+along with the many strains that have mingled
+in Spain, those of Navajo and French.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Don Solomon Delcasar played a brilliant part
+in the military activities which marked the winning
+of Mexican Independence from Spain in the
+eighteen-twenties, and also in the incessant Indian
+wars. He was a fighter by necessity, but also by
+choice. They shed blood with grace and nonchalance
+in those days, and the Delcasars were
+always known as dangerous men.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The most curious thing about this r�gime of the
+old-time Dons was the way in which it persisted.
+It received its first serious blow in 1845 when the
+military forces of the United States took possession
+of New Mexico. Don Jesus Christo Delcasar,
+who was then the richest and most powerful
+of the family, was suspected of being a party to
+the conspiracy which brought about the Taos massacre—the
+last organized resistance made to the
+gringo domination. At this time some of the
+Delcasars went to Old Mexico to live, as did a
+good many others among the Dons, feeling that
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page20">[pg 20]</span><a name="Pg20" id="Pg20" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the old ways of life in New Mexico were sure to
+change, and having the Spanish aversion to any
+departure from tradition. But their fears were
+not realized, and life went on as before. In 1865 the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">peones</span></span>
+and Indian slaves were formally set
+free, but all of them immediately went deeply in
+debt to their former masters and thus retained
+in effect the same status as before. So it happened
+that in the seventies, when New York was
+growing into a metropolis, and the factory system
+was fastening itself upon New England, and the
+middle west was getting fat and populous and
+tame, life in the Southwest remained much as it
+had been a century before.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Laws and governments were powerless there
+to change ways of life, as they have always been,
+but two parallel bars of steel reaching across the
+prairies brought change with them, and it was
+great and sudden. The railroad reached the Rio
+Grande Valley early in the eighties, and it smashed
+the colourful barbaric pattern of the old life as the
+ruthless fist of an infidel might smash a stained
+glass window. The metropolis of the northern
+valley in those days was a sleepy little
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">adobe</span></span> town
+of a few hundred people, reclining about its dusty
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">plaza</span></span>
+near the river. The railroad, scorning to
+notice it, passed a mile away. Forthwith a new
+town began growing up between, the old one and
+the railroad. And this new town was such a town
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page21">[pg 21]</span><a name="Pg21" id="Pg21" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+as had never before been seen in all the Southwest.
+It was built of wood and only half painted. It was
+ugly, noisy and raw. It was populated largely
+by real estate agents, lawyers, politicians and barkeepers.
+It cared little for joy, leisure, beauty or
+tradition. Its God was money and its occupation
+was business.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This thing called business was utterly strange
+to the Delcasars and to all of the other Dons.
+They were men of the saddle, fighting men, and
+traders only in a primitive way. Business seemed
+to them a conspiracy to take their lands and their
+goods away from them, and a remarkably successful
+conspiracy. Debt and mortgage and speculation
+were the names of its weapons. Some of the
+Dons, including many of the Delcasars, who were
+now a very numerous family, owning each a comfortable
+homestead but no more, sold out and went
+to Old Mexico. Many who stayed lost all they
+had in a few years, and degenerated into petty
+politicians or small storekeepers. Some clung to
+a bit of land and went on farming, making always
+less and less money, sinking into poverty and insignificance,
+until some of them were no better off
+than the men who had once been their
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">peones</span></span>.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Diego Delcasar and Felipe Delcasar, brothers,
+were two who owned houses in the Old Town and
+farms nearby, who stayed in the country and held
+their own for a time and after a fashion. Diego
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page22">[pg 22]</span><a name="Pg22" id="Pg22" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Delcasar was far the more able of the two, and a
+true scion of his family. He caught onto the
+gringo methods to a certain extent. He divided
+some farm land on the edge of town into lots and
+sold them for a good price. With the money he
+bought a great area of mountain land in the northern
+part of the state, where he raised sheep and
+ruled with an iron hand, much as his forbears had
+ruled in the valley. He also went into politics,
+learned to make a good stump speech and got
+himself elected to the highly congenial position of
+sheriff. In this place he made a great reputation
+for fearlessness and for the ruthless and skilful
+use of a gun. He once kicked down the locked
+door of a saloon and arrested ten armed gamblers,
+who had threatened to kill him. He was known
+and feared all over the territory and was a tyrant
+in his own section of it. When a gringo prospector
+ventured to dispute with him the ownership
+of a certain mine, the gringo was found dead in
+the bottom of the shaft. It was reported that
+he had fallen in and broken his neck and no one
+dared to look at the bullet hole in his back.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Don Diego’s wife died without leaving him any
+children, but he had numerous children none-the-less.
+It was said that one could follow his wanderings
+about the territory by the sporadic occurrence
+of the unmistakable Delcasar nose among
+the younger inhabitants. All of his sons and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page23">[pg 23]</span><a name="Pg23" id="Pg23" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+daughters by the left hand he treated with notable
+generosity. He was a sort of hero to the native
+people—a great fighter, a great lover—and
+songs about his adventures were
+<span class="tei tei-corr"><a name="E2" id="E2" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a href="#e2" class="tei tei-ref">composed</a></span>
+and sung around the fires in sheep camps and by gangs
+of trackworkers.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Don Diego, in a word, was a true Delcasar and
+a great man. Had he used his opportunities
+wisely he might have been a millionaire. But at
+the age of sixty he owned little besides his house
+and his wild mountain lands. He drank a good
+deal and played poker almost every night. Once
+he had been a famous winner, but in these later
+years he generally lost. He also formed a partnership
+with a real estate broker named MacDougall,
+for the development of his wild lands,
+and it was predicted by some that the leading
+development would be an ultimate transfer of
+title to Mr. MacDougall, who was known to be
+lending the Don money and taking land as security.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Don Felipe’s career was far less spectacular
+than that of his brother. He owned more than
+Don Diego to start with, and he spent his life
+slowly losing it, so that when he died he left
+nothing but a house in Old Town and a single
+small sheep ranch, which afforded his widow,
+two daughters and one son a scant living.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This son, Ramon Delcasar, was the hope of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page24">[pg 24]</span><a name="Pg24" id="Pg24" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the family. He would inherit the estate of Don
+Diego, if the old Don died before spending it
+all, which it did not seem likely that he would
+do. But Ramon early demonstrated that he
+had a more important heritage in the sharp intelligence,
+and the proud, plucky and truculent
+spirit which had characterized the best of the
+Delcasars throughout the family history.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As there was no considerable family estate for
+him to settle upon, he was sent to law school at
+the age of twenty, and returned three years later
+to take up the practice of his profession in his
+native town. Thus he was the first of the Delcasars
+to face life with his bare hands. And he
+was also the last of them in a sense, to face the
+gringos. All the others of his name, save the
+senile Don, had either died, departed or sunk
+from sight into the mass of the peasantry.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC03" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page25">[pg 25]</span><a name="Pg25" id="Pg25" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc6" id="toc6"></a>
+<a name="pdf7" id="pdf7"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER III</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The year that Ramon returned to his native
+town the annual fair, which took place at the
+fair-grounds in Old Town, was an especially gorgeous
+and throngful event, rich in spectacle and
+incident. A steer was roped and hog-tied in
+record time by Clay MacGarnigal of Lincoln
+County. A seven-mile relay race was won by a
+buck named Slonny Begay. In the bronco busting
+contest two men were injured to the huge enjoyment
+of the crowd. The twenty-seventh cavalry
+from Fort Bliss performed a sham battle.
+The home team beat several other teams. Enormous
+apples raised by irrigation in the Pecos Valley
+attracted much attention, and a hungry Mexican
+absconded with a prize Buff Orpington rooster.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Twice a day the single narrow street which
+connected the neat brick and frame respectability
+of New Town with the picturesque <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">adobe</span></span> squalor
+of Old Town was filled by a curiously varied
+crowd. The tourist from the East, distinguished
+by his camera and his unnecessary umbrella,
+jostled the Pueblo squaw from Isleta,
+with her latest-born slung over her shoulder in
+a fold of red blanket. Mexican families from
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page26">[pg 26]</span><a name="Pg26" id="Pg26" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the country marched in single file, the men first,
+then the women enveloped in huge black shawls,
+carrying babies and leading older children by the
+hand. Cowboys, Indians and soldiers raced
+their horses through the swarming street with
+reckless skill. Automobiles honked and fretted.
+The street cars, bulging humanity at every door
+and window, strove in vain to relieve the situation.
+Several children and numerous pigs and
+chickens were run over. From the unpaved
+street to the cloudless sky rose a vast cloud of
+dust, such as only a rainless country made of
+sand can produce. Dust was in every one’s eyes
+and mouth and upon every one’s clothing. It was
+the unofficial badge of the gathering. It turned
+the green of the cottonwood trees to grey, and
+lay in wait for unsuspecting teeth between the
+halves of hamburger sandwiches sold at corner
+booths.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon, who had obtained a pass to the grounds
+through the influence of his uncle, went to the fair
+every day, although he was not really pleased
+with it. He was assured by every one that it was
+the greatest fair ever held in the southwest, but
+to him it seemed smaller, dustier and less exciting
+than the fairs he had attended in his boyhood.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This impression harmonized with a general
+feeling of discontent which had possessed him
+since his return. He had obtained a position in
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page27">[pg 27]</span><a name="Pg27" id="Pg27" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the office of a lawyer at fifty dollars a month,
+and spent the greater part of each day making
+out briefs and borrowing books for his employer
+from other lawyers. It seemed to him a petty
+and futile occupation, and the way to anything
+better was long and obscure. The town was
+full of other young lawyers who were doing the
+same things and doing them with a better grace
+than he. They were impelled by a great desire to
+make money. He, too, would have liked a great
+deal of money, but he had no taste for piling it
+up dollar by dollar. The only thing that cheered
+him was the prospect of inheriting his uncle’s
+wealth, and that was an uncertain prospect. Don
+Diego seemed to be doing what he could to get
+rid of his property before he died.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Local society did not please Ramon either.
+The girls of the gringo families were not nearly
+as pretty, for the most part, as the ones he had
+seen in the East. The dryness and the scorching
+sun had a bad effect on their complexions. The
+girls of his own race did not much interest him;
+his liking was for blondes. And besides, girls
+were relatively scarce in the West because of the
+great number of men who came from the East.
+Competition for their favours was keen, and he
+could not compete successfully because he had so
+little money.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The fair held but one new experience for him,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page28">[pg 28]</span><a name="Pg28" id="Pg28" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+and that was the Montezuma ball. This took
+place on the evening of the last day, and was an
+exclusive invitation event, designed to give
+elegance to the fair by bringing together
+prominent persons from all parts of the state.
+Ramon had never attended a Montezuma ball,
+as he had been considered a mere boy before
+his departure for college and had not owned a
+dress suit. But this lack had now been supplied,
+and he had obtained an invitation through the
+Governor of the State, who happened to be a
+Mexican.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He went to the ball with his mother and his eldest
+sister in a carriage which had been among the
+family possessions for about a quarter of a century.
+It had once been a fine equipage, and had
+been drawn by a spirited team in the days before
+Felipe Delcasar lost all his money, but now it had
+a look of decay, and the team consisted of a couple
+of rough coated, low-headed brutes, one of which
+was noticeably smaller than the other. The
+coachman was a ragged native who did odd jobs
+about the Delcasar house.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The Montezuma ball took place in the new
+Eldorado Hotel which had recently been built
+by the railroad company for the entertainment of
+its transcontinental passengers. It was not a
+beautiful building, but it was an apt expression of
+the town’s personality. Designed in the ancient
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page29">[pg 29]</span><a name="Pg29" id="Pg29" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+style of the early Spanish missions, long, low
+and sprawling, with deep verandahs, odd little
+towers and arched gateways it was made of cement
+and its service and prices were of the Manhattan
+school. A little group of Pueblo Indians, lonesomely
+picturesque in buck-skin and red blankets,
+with silver and turquoise rings and bracelets,
+were always seated before its doors, trying to sell
+fruit and pottery to well-tailored tourists. It
+had a museum of Southwestern antiquities and
+curios, where a Navajo squaw sulkily wove
+blankets on a handloom for the edification of the
+guilded stranger from the East. On the platform
+in front of it, perspiring Mexicans smashed baggage
+and performed the other hard labour of a
+modern terminal.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Thus the Eldorado Hotel was rich in that contrast
+between the old and the new which everywhere
+characterized the town. Generally speaking,
+the old was on exhibition or at work, while
+the new was at leisure or in charge.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When the Delcasar carriage reached the hotel,
+it had to take its place in a long line of crawling
+vehicles, most of which were motor cars. Ramon
+felt acutely humiliated to arrive at the ball in a
+decrepit-looking rig when nearly every one else
+came in an automobile. He hoped that no one
+would notice them. But the smaller of the two
+horses, which had spent most of his life in the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page30">[pg 30]</span><a name="Pg30" id="Pg30" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+country, became frightened, reared, plunged, and
+finally backed the rig into one of the cars, smashing
+a headlight, blocking traffic, and making the
+Delcasars a target for searchlights and oaths.
+The Dona Delcasar, a ponderous and swarthy
+woman in voluminous black silk, became excited
+and stood up in the carriage, shouting shrill and
+useless directions to the coachman in Spanish.
+People began to laugh. Ramon roughly seized
+his mother by the arm and dragged her down.
+He was trembling with rage and embarassment.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was an immense relief to him when he had
+deposited the two women on chairs and was able
+to wander away by himself. He took up his
+position in a doorway and watched the opening of
+the ball with a cold and disapproving eye. The
+beginning was stiff, for many of those present were
+unknown to each other and had little in common.
+Most of them were <span class="tei tei-q">“Americans,”</span> Jews and
+Mexicans. The men were all a good deal alike
+in their dress suits, but the women displayed an
+astonishing variety. There were tall gawky
+blonde wives of prominent cattlemen; little natty
+black-eyed Jewesses, best dressed of all; swarthy
+Mexican mothers of politically important families,
+resplendent in black silk and diamonds; and
+pretty dark Mexican girls of the younger generation,
+who did not look at all like the se�oritas
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page31">[pg 31]</span><a name="Pg31" id="Pg31" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+of romance, but talked, dressed and flirted in a
+thoroughly American manner.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The affair finally got under way in the form of
+a grand march, which toured the hall a couple of
+times and disintegrated into waltzing couples.
+Ramon watched this proceeding and several other
+dances without feeling any desire to take part.
+He was in a state of grand and gloomy discontent,
+which was not wholly unpleasant, as is often the
+case with youthful glooms. He even permitted
+himself to smile at some of the capers cut by
+prominent citizens. But presently his gaze settled
+upon one couple with a real sense of resentment
+and uneasiness. The couple consisted of his
+uncle, Diego Delcasar, and the wife of James
+MacDougall, the lawyer and real estate operator
+with whom the Don had formed a partnership,
+and whom Ramon believed to be systematically
+fleecing the old man.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Don Diego was a big, paunchy Mexican with
+a smooth brown face, strikingly set off by fierce
+white whiskers. His partner was a tall, tight-lipped,
+angular woman, who danced painfully,
+but with determination. The two had nothing to
+say to each other, but both of them smiled
+resolutely, and the Don visibly perspired under
+the effort of steering his inflexible friend.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Although he did not formulate the idea, this
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page32">[pg 32]</span><a name="Pg32" id="Pg32" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+couple was to Ramon a symbol of the disgust with
+which the life of his native town inspired him.
+Here was the Mexican sedulously currying
+favour with the gringo, who robbed him for his
+pains. And here was the specific example of that
+relation which promised to rob Ramon of his
+heritage.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For the gringos he felt a cold hostility—a
+sense of antagonism and difference—but it was his
+senile and fatuous uncle, the type of his own defeated
+race, whom he despised.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC04" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page33">[pg 33]</span><a name="Pg33" id="Pg33" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc8" id="toc8"></a>
+<a name="pdf9" id="pdf9"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER IV</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When the music stopped Ramon left the hall
+for the hotel lobby, where he soothed his sensibilities
+with a small brown cigarette of his own
+making. In one of the swinging benches covered
+with Navajo blankets two other dress-suited
+youths were seated, smoking and talking. One of
+them was a short, plump Jew with a round and
+gravely good-natured face; the other a tall,
+slender young fellow with a great mop of curly
+brown hair, large soft eyes and a sensitive mouth.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“She’s good looking, all right,”</span> the little fellow
+assented, as Ramon came up.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Good looking!”</span> exclaimed the other with enthusiasm.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“She’s a little queen! Nothing like
+her ever hit this town before.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Who’s all the excitement about?”</span> Ramon demanded,
+thrusting himself into the conversation
+with the easy familiarity which was his right as
+one of <span class="tei tei-q">“the bunch.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sidney Felberg turned to him in mock amazement.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Good night, Ramon! Where have you been?
+Asleep? We’re talking about Julia Roth, same
+as everybody else.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Who’s she?”</span> Ramon queried coolly, discharging
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page34">[pg 34]</span><a name="Pg34" id="Pg34" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+a cloud of smoke from the depths of his lungs.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Never heard of her.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Well, she’s our latest social sensation … sister
+of some rich lunger that recently hit town;
+therefore very important. But that’s not the only
+reason. Wait till you see her.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“All right; introduce me to her,”</span> Ramon suggested.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Go on; knock him down to the lady,”</span> Sidney
+proposed to his companion.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“No, you,”</span> Conny demurred. <span class="tei tei-q">“I refuse to
+take the responsibility. He’s too good looking.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“All right,”</span> Sidney assented. <span class="tei tei-q">“Come on. It’s
+the only way I can get a look at her anyway—introducing
+somebody else. A good-looking girl
+in this town can start a regular stampede. We
+ought to import a few hundred.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was during an intermission. They forced
+their way through a phalanx of men brandishing
+programs and pencils, each trying to bring himself
+exclusively to the attention of a small blonde
+person who seemed to have some such quality of
+attractiveness for men as spilled honey has for insects.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When Ramon saw her he felt as though something
+inside of him had bumped up against his
+diaphragm, taking away his breath for a moment,
+agitating him strangely. And he saw an answering
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page35">[pg 35]</span><a name="Pg35" id="Pg35" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+surprised recognition in her wide grey eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You … you’re the girl on the train,”</span> he remarked
+idiotically, as he took her hand.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She turned pink and laughed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You’re the man that wouldn’t look up,”</span> she
+mocked.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“What’s all this about?”</span> demanded Sidney.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“You two met before?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“May I have a dance?”</span> Ramon inquired,
+suddenly recovering his presence of mind.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Let me see … you’re awfully late.”</span> They
+put their heads close together over her program.
+He saw her cut out the name of another man who
+had two dances, and then she held her pencil
+poised.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Of course I didn’t get your name,”</span> she
+admitted<span class="tei tei-corr"><a name="E3" id="E3" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><a href="#e3" class="tei tei-ref">.</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“No; I’ll write it … Was it Carter? Delcasar?
+Ramon Delcasar. You must be Spanish. I was
+wondering … you’re so dark. I’m awfully
+interested in Spanish people.…”</span> She wrote
+the name in a bold, upright, childish hand.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon found that he had lost his mood of discontent
+after this, and he entered with zest into
+the spirit of the dance which was fast losing its
+stiff and formal character. Punch and music had
+broken down barriers. The hall was noisy with
+the ringing, high pitched laughter of excitement.
+It was warm and filled with an exotic, stimulating
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page36">[pg 36]</span><a name="Pg36" id="Pg36" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+odour, compounded of many perfumes and of perspiration.
+Every one danced. Young folk
+danced as though inspired, swaying their bodies in
+time to the tune. The old and the fat danced with
+pathetic joyful earnestness, going round and round
+the hall with red and perspiring faces, as though
+in this measure they might recapture youth and
+slimness if only they worked hard enough. Now
+and then a girl sang a snatch of the tune in a clear
+young voice, full of abandon, and sometimes
+others took up the song and it rose triumphant
+above the music of the orchestra for a moment,
+only to be lost again as the singers danced apart.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon had been looking forward so long and
+with such intense anticipation to his dance with
+Julia Roth that he was a little self-conscious at
+its beginning, but this feeling was abolished by
+the discovery that they could dance together perfectly.
+He danced in silence, looking down upon
+her yellow head and white shoulders, the odour of
+her hair filling his nostrils, forgetful of everything
+but the sensuous delight of the moment.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This mood of solemn rapture was evidently not
+shared by her, for presently the yellow head was
+thrown back, and she smiled up at him a bit
+mockingly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Just like on the train,”</span> she remarked. <span class="tei tei-q">“Not
+a thing to say for yourself. Are you always thus
+silent?”</span></p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page37">[pg 37]</span><a name="Pg37" id="Pg37" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon grinned.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“No,”</span> he countered, <span class="tei tei-q">“I was just trying to get
+up the nerve to ask if you’ll let me come to see
+you.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“That doesn’t take much nerve,”</span> she assured
+him. <span class="tei tei-q">“Practically every man I’ve danced with
+tonight has asked me that. I never had so many
+dates before in my life.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Well; may I follow the crowd, then?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You may,”</span> she laughed. <span class="tei tei-q">“Or call me up first,
+and maybe there won’t be any crowd.”</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC05" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page38">[pg 38]</span><a name="Pg38" id="Pg38" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc10" id="toc10"></a>
+<a name="pdf11" id="pdf11"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER V</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His mother and sister had left early, for which
+fact he was thankful. He walked home alone
+with his hat in his hand, letting the cold wind of
+early morning blow on his hot brow. Punch and
+music and dancing had filled him with a delightful
+excitement. He felt glad of life and full
+of power. He could have gone on walking for
+hours, enjoying the rhythm of his stride and the
+gorgeous confusion of his thoughts, but in a remarkably
+short time he had covered the mile to his
+house in Old Town.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was a long, low <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">adobe</span></span>
+with a paintless and
+rickety wooden verandah along its front, and
+with deep-set, iron-barred windows looking upon
+the square about which Old Town was built. Delcasars
+had lived in this house for over a century.
+Once it had been the best in town. Now it was
+an antiquity pointed out to tourists. Most of the
+Mexicans who had money had moved away from
+Old Town and built modern brick houses in New
+Town. But this was an expensive proceeding.
+The old <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">adobe</span></span> houses which
+they left brought them little. The Delcasars had never been able
+to afford this removal. They were deeply attached
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page39">[pg 39]</span><a name="Pg39" id="Pg39" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+to the old house and also deeply ashamed
+of it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon passed through a narrow hallway into
+a courtyard and across it to his room. The light
+of the oil lamp which he lit showed a large oblong
+chamber with a low ceiling supported by heavy
+timbers, whitewashed walls and heavy old-fashioned
+walnut furniture. A large coloured
+print of Mary and the Babe in a gilt frame hung
+over the wash-stand, and next to it a college pennant
+was tacked over a photograph of his graduating
+class. Several Navajo blankets covered
+most of the floor and a couple of guns stood in a
+corner.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When he was in bed his overstimulated state
+of mind became a torment. He rolled and tossed,
+beset by exciting images and ideas. Every
+time that a growing confusion of these indicated
+the approach of sleep, he was brought sharply
+back to full consciousness by the crowing of a
+rooster in the backyard. Finally he threw off
+the covers and sat up, cursing the rooster in two
+languages and resolving to eat him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sleep was out of the question now. Suddenly
+he remembered that this was Sunday morning, and
+that he had intended going to the mountains.
+To start at once would enable him to avoid an
+argument with his mother concerning the inevitability
+of damnation for those who miss early
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page40">[pg 40]</span><a name="Pg40" id="Pg40" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Mass. He rose and dressed himself, putting
+on a cotton shirt, a faded and dirty pair of overalls
+and coarse leather riding boots; tied a red
+and white bandana about his neck and stuck on his
+head an old felt hat minus a band and with a
+drooping brim. So attired he looked exactly like
+a Mexican countryman—a poor
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">ranchero</span></span> or a
+woodcutter. This masquerade was not intentional
+nor was he conscious of it. He simply wore
+for his holiday the kind of clothes he had always
+worn about the sheep ranches.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nevertheless he felt almost as different from
+his usual self as he looked. A good part of his
+identity as a poor, discontented and somewhat
+lazy young lawyer was hanging in the closet with
+his ready-made business suit. He took a long
+and noisy drink from the pitcher on the wash-stand,
+picked up his shot-gun and slipped cautiously
+out of the house, feeling care-free and
+happy.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Behind the house was a corral with an
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">adobe</span></span>
+wall that was ten feet high except where it
+had fallen down and been patched with boards.
+A scrub cow and three native horses were kept
+there. Two of the horses made the ill-matched
+team that hauled his mother and sister to church
+and town. The other was a fiery ragged little
+roan mare which he kept for his own use. None
+of these horses was worth more than thirty dollars,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page41">[pg 41]</span><a name="Pg41" id="Pg41" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+and they were easily kept on a few tons of alfalfa
+a year.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The little mare laid back her ears and turned as
+though to annihilate him with a kick. He quickly
+stepped right up against the threatening hind legs,
+after the fashion of experienced horsemen who
+know that a kick is harmless at short range, and
+laid his hand on her side. She trembled but
+dared not move. He walked to her head, sliding
+his hand along the rough, uncurried belly and
+talking to her in Spanish. In a moment he had
+the bridle on her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The town was impressively empty and still as
+he galloped through it. Hoof beats rang out like
+shots, scaring a late-roaming cat, which darted
+across the street like a runaway shadow.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Near the railroad station he came to a large
+white van, with a beam of light emerging from
+its door. This was a local institution of longstanding,
+known as the chile-wagon, and was the
+town’s only all-night
+<span class="tei tei-corr"><a name="E4" id="E4" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a href="#e4" class="tei tei-ref">restaurant</a></span>.
+Here he aroused
+a fat, sleepy old Mexican.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Un tamale y cafe</span></span>,”</span>
+he ordered, and then had
+the proprietor make him a couple of sandwiches
+to put in his pocket. He consumed his breakfast
+hurriedly, rolled and lit a little brown cigarette,
+and was off again.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His way led up a long steep street lined with new
+houses and vacant lots; then out upon the high
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page42">[pg 42]</span><a name="Pg42" id="Pg42" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+empty level of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>. It
+was daylight now, of a clear, brilliant morning. He was riding
+across a level prairie, which was a grey desert most
+of the year, but which the rainy season of late summer
+had now touched with rich colours. The
+grass in many of the hollows was almost high
+enough to cut with a scythe, and its green expanse
+was patched with purple-flowered weeds. Meadow
+larks bugled from the grass; flocks of wild
+doves rose on whistling wings from the weed
+patches; a great grey jack-rabbit with jet-tipped
+ears sprang from his form beside the road and
+went sailing away in long effortless bounds, like a
+wind-blown thing. Miles ahead were the mountains—an
+angular mass of blue distance and purple
+shadow, rising steep five thousand feet above the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>, with little round
+foothills clustering at their
+feet. A brisk cool wind fanned his face and
+fluttered the brim of his hat.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But with the rising of the sun the wind dropped,
+it became warm and he felt dull and sleepy.
+When he came to a little juniper bush which spread
+its bit of shadow beside the road, he dismounted,
+pulled the saddle off his sweating mare,
+and sat down in the shade to eat his lunch. When
+he had finished he wished for a drink of water and
+philosophically took a smoke instead. Then he
+lay down, using his saddle for a pillow, puffing
+luxuriously at his cigarette. It was cool in his
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page43">[pg 43]</span><a name="Pg43" id="Pg43" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+bit of shadow, though all the world about him
+swam in waves of heat.… Cool and very quiet.
+He felt drowsily content. This sunny desolation
+was to him neither lonely nor beautiful; it was
+just his own country, the soil from which he had
+sprung.… Colours and outlines blurred as his
+eyelids grew heavy. Sleep conquered him in a sudden
+black rush.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was late afternoon when he awakened. He
+had meant to shoot doves, but it was too late now
+to do any hunting if he was to reach Archulera’s
+place before dark. He saddled his mare hurriedly
+and went forward at a hard gallop.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Archulera’s place was typical of the little Mexican
+ranches that dot the Southwest wherever there
+is water enough to irrigate a few acres. The
+brown block of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">adobe</span></span> house stood
+on an arid, rocky hillside, and looked like a part of it, save
+for the white door, and a few bright scarlet strings
+of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">chile</span></span> hung over the
+rafter ends to dry. Down
+in the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">arroyo</span></span> was the
+little fenced patch where
+corn and <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">chile</span></span> and beans
+were raised, and behind
+the house was a round goat corral of wattled
+brush. The skyward rocky waste of the mountain
+lifted behind the house, and the empty reach of
+the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span> lay before—an
+immense and arid loneliness,
+now softened and beautified by many
+shadows.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon could see old man Archulera far up the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page44">[pg 44]</span><a name="Pg44" id="Pg44" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+mountainside, rounding up his goats for evening
+milking, and he could faintly hear the bleating
+of the animals and the old man’s shouts and
+imprecations. He whistled loudly through his
+fingers and waved his hat.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-style: italic">“</span><span style="font-style: italic">Como lo va primo!</span><span style="font-style: italic">”</span></span></span>
+he shouted, and he saw
+Archulera stop and look, and heard faintly his
+answering, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-style: italic">“</span><span style="font-style: italic">Como la va!</span><span style="font-style: italic">”</span></span></span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Soon Archulera had his goats penned, and
+Ramon joined him while he milked half a dozen
+ewes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I’m glad you came,”</span> Archulera told him, <span class="tei tei-q">“I
+haven’t seen a man in a month except one gringo
+that said he was a prospector and stole a kid
+from me.… How was the fair?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When the milking was over, the old man selected
+a fat kid, caught it by the hind leg and
+dragged it, bleating in wild terror, to a gallows
+behind the house, where he hung it up and skilfully
+cut its throat, leaving it to bleat and bleed
+to death while he wiped his knife and went on
+talking volubly with his guest. The occasional
+visits of Ramon were the most interesting events
+in his life, and he always killed a kid to express
+his appreciation. Ramon reciprocated with gifts
+of tobacco and whisky. They were great friends.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Archulera was a short, muscular Mexican
+with a swarthy, wrinkled face, broad but well-cut.
+His big, thin-lipped mouth showed an amazing
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page45">[pg 45]</span><a name="Pg45" id="Pg45" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+disarray of strong yellow teeth when he smiled.
+His little black eyes were shrewd and full of
+fire. Although he was sixty years old, there
+was little grey in the thick black hair that hung
+almost to his shoulders. He wore a cheap print
+shirt and a faded pair of overalls, belted at the
+waist with a strip of red wool. His foot-gear
+consisted of the uppers of a pair of old shoes with
+soles of rawhide sewed on moccasin-fashion.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">With no more disguise than a red blanket and
+a grunt Archulera could have passed for an Indian
+anywhere, but he made it clear to all that he regarded
+himself as a Spanish gentleman. He
+was descended, like Ramon, from one of the old
+families, which had received occasional infusions
+of native blood. There was probably more Indian
+in him than in the young man, but the chief
+difference between the two was due to the fact that
+the Archuleras had lost most of their wealth a
+couple of generations before, so that the old man
+had come down in the social scale to the condition
+of an ordinary goat-herding <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pelado</span></span>.
+There are many such fallen aristocrats among the New
+Mexican peasantry. Most of them, like Archulera,
+are distinguished by their remarkably choice
+and fluent use of the Spanish language, and by the
+formal, eighteenth-century perfection of their
+manners, which contrast strangely with the barbaric
+way of their lives.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page46">[pg 46]</span><a name="Pg46" id="Pg46" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The old man was now skinning and butchering
+the goat with speed and skill. Nothing was
+wasted. The hide was flung over a rafter end to
+dry. The head was washed and put in a pan, as
+were the smaller entrails with bits of fat clinging
+to them, and the liver and heart. The meat was
+too fresh to be eaten tonight, but these things
+would serve well enough for supper, and he called
+to his daughter, Catalina, to come and get them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The two men soon joined her in the low, whitewashed
+room, which had hard mud for a floor,
+and was furnished with a bare table and a few
+chairs. It was clean, but having only one window
+and that always closed, it had a pronounced and
+individual odour. In one corner was a little fireplace,
+which had long served both for cooking
+and to furnish heat, but as a concession to
+modern ideas Archulera had lately supplemented
+it with a cheap range in the opposite corner.
+There Catalina was noisily distilling an aroma
+from goat liver and onions. The entrails she
+threaded on little sticks and broiled them to a
+delicate brown over the coals, while the head she
+placed whole in the oven. Later this was cracked
+open and the brains taken out with a spoon, piping
+hot and very savoury. These viands were supplemented
+by a pan of large pale biscuits, and a big
+tin pot of coffee. Catalina served the two men,
+saying nothing, not even raising her eyes, while
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page47">[pg 47]</span><a name="Pg47" id="Pg47" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+they talked and paid no attention to her. After
+eating her own supper and washing the dishes she
+disappeared into the next room.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This self-effacing behaviour on the part of the
+girl accorded with the highest standards of Mexican
+etiquette, and showed her good breeding.
+The fact that old Archulera paid no more attention
+to her than to a chair did not indicate that he
+was indifferent to her. On the contrary, as Ramon
+had long ago discovered, she was one of the
+chief concerns of his life. He could not forget
+that in her veins flowed some of the very best of
+Spanish blood, and he considered her altogether
+too good for the common sheep-herders and wood-cutters
+who aspired to woo her. These he summarily
+warned away, and brought his big Winchester
+rifle into the argument whenever it became
+warm. When he left the girl alone, in order to
+guard her from temptation he locked her into the
+house together with his dog. Catalina had led a
+starved and isolated existence.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After the meal, Archulera became reminiscent
+of his youth. Some thirty-five years before he
+had been one of the young bloods of the country,
+having fought against the Navajos and Apaches.
+He had made a reputation, long since forgotten
+by every one but himself, for ruthless courage
+and straight shooting, and many a man had he
+killed. In his early life, as he had often told
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page48">[pg 48]</span><a name="Pg48" id="Pg48" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Ramon, he had been a boon companion of old
+Diego Delcasar. The two had been associated
+in some mining venture, and Archulera claimed
+that Delcasar had cheated him out of his share of
+the proceeds, and so doomed him to his present
+life of poverty. When properly stimulated by
+food and drink Archulera never failed to tell this
+story, and to express his hatred for the man who
+had deprived him of wealth and social position.
+He had at first approached the subject diffidently,
+not knowing how Ramon would regard an attack
+on the good name of his uncle, and being anxious
+not to offend the young man. But finding that
+Ramon listened tolerantly, if not sympathetically,
+he had told the story over and over, each time
+with more detail and more abundant and picturesque
+denunciation of Diego Delcasar, but with
+substantial uniformity as to the facts. As he
+spoke he watched the face of Ramon narrowly.
+Always the recital ended about the same way.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You are not like your uncle,”</span> he assured the
+young man earnestly, in his formal Spanish.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“You are generous, honourable. When your
+uncle is dead, you will repay me for the wrongs
+that I have suffered—no?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon would always laugh at this. This night,
+in order to humour the old man, he asked him how
+much he thought the Delcasar estate owed him
+for his ancient wrong.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page49">[pg 49]</span><a name="Pg49" id="Pg49" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Five thousand dollars!”</span> Archulera replied
+with slow emphasis. He probably had no idea
+how much he had lost, but five thousand dollars
+was his conception of a great deal of money.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon again laughed and refused to commit
+himself. He certainly had no idea of giving
+Archulera five thousand dollars, but he thought
+that if he ever did come into his own he would
+certainly take care of the old man—and of
+Catalina.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Soon after this Archulera went off to sleep in the
+other end of the house, after trying in vain to
+persuade Ramon to occupy his bed. Ramon, as
+always, refused. He would sleep on a pile of
+sheep skins in the corner. He really preferred
+this, because the sheep skins were both cleaner and
+softer than Archulera’s bed, and also for another
+reason.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After the old man had gone, he stretched out
+on his pallet, and lit another cigarette. He could
+hear his host thumping around for a few minutes;
+then it was very still, save for a faint moan of
+wind and the ticking of a cheap clock. This
+late still hour had always been to him one of the
+most delightful parts of his visits to Archulera’s
+house. For some reason he got a sense of peace
+and freedom out of this far-away quiet place.
+And he knew that in the next room Catalina
+was waiting for him—Catalina with the strong,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page50">[pg 50]</span><a name="Pg50" id="Pg50" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+shapely brown body which her formless calico
+smock concealed by day, with the eager, blind
+desire bred of her long loneliness.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">During his first few visits to Archulera, he
+had scarcely noticed the girl. That was doubtless
+one reason why the old man had welcomed him.
+He had come here simply to go deer-hunting with
+Archulera, to eat his goat meat and chile, to get
+away from the annoyance and boredom of his life
+in town, and into the crude, primitive atmosphere
+which he had loved as a boy. Catalina had been
+to him just the usual slovenly figure of a Mexican
+woman, a self-effacing drudge.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He had felt her eyes upon him several times,
+had not looked up quickly enough to meet them,
+but had noticed the pretty soft curve of her cheek.
+Then one night when he was stretched out on his
+sheep skins after Archulera had gone to bed, the
+girl came into the room and began pottering
+about the stove. He had watched her, wondering
+what she was doing. As she knelt on the floor
+he noticed the curve of her hip, the droop of her
+breast against her frock, the surprising round perfection
+of her outstretched arm. It struck him
+suddenly that she was a woman to be desired, and
+one who might be taken with ease. At the same
+time, with a quickening of the blood, he realized
+that she was doing nothing, and had merely come
+into the room to attract his attention. Then she
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page51">[pg 51]</span><a name="Pg51" id="Pg51" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+glanced at him, daring but shy, with great brown
+eyes, like the eyes of a gentle animal. When she
+went back to her own room a moment later, he
+confidently followed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ever since then Catalina had been the chief object
+of his week-end journeys, and his hunting
+largely an excuse. She had completed this life
+which he led in the mountains, and which was so
+pleasantly different from his life in town. For
+a part of the week he was a poor, young lawyer,
+watchful, worried, careful; then for a couple of
+days he was a ragged young Mexican and the lover
+of Catalina—a different man. He was the product
+of a transition, and two beings warred in
+him. In town he was dominated by the desire
+to be like the Americans, and to gain a foothold
+in their life of law, greed and respectability; in
+the mountains he relapsed unconsciously into the
+easy barbarous ways of his fathers. Incidentally,
+this periodical change of personality was refreshing
+and a source of strength. Catalina had been
+an important part of it.… As he lay now
+sleepily puffing a last cigarette, he wondered why
+it was that he had suddenly lost interest in the
+girl.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC06" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page52">[pg 52]</span><a name="Pg52" id="Pg52" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc12" id="toc12"></a>
+<a name="pdf13" id="pdf13"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER VI</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At ten o’clock in the morning Ramon was hard
+at work in the office of James B. Green. He
+worked efficiently and with zest as he always did
+after one of his trips to the mountains. He got
+out of these ventures into another environment
+about what some men get out of sprees—a complete
+change of the state of mind. Archulera and
+his daughter were now completely forgotten, and
+all of his usual worries and plans were creeping
+back into his consciousness.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But this day he had a feeling of pleasant anticipation.
+At first he could not account for it.
+And then he remembered the girl—the one he had
+seen on the train and had met again at the
+Montezuma ball. It seemed as though the
+thought of her had been in the back of his mind
+all the time, and now suddenly came forward,
+claiming all his attention, stirring him to a quick,
+unwonted excitement. She had said he might
+come to see her. He was to ’phone first. Maybe
+she would be alone.…</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In this latter hope he was disappointed. She
+gave him the appointment, and she herself admitted
+him. He thought he had never seen such
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page53">[pg 53]</span><a name="Pg53" id="Pg53" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+a dainty bit of fragrant perfection, all in pink that
+matched the pink of her strange little crinkled
+mouth.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I’m awfully glad you came,”</span> she told him.
+(Her gladness was always awful.) She led him
+into the sitting room and presented him to the tall
+emaciated sick man and the large placid woman
+who had watched over her so carefully on the
+train.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gordon Roth greeted him with a cool and
+formal manner into which he evidently tried to
+infuse something of cordiality, as though a desire
+to be just and broad-minded struggled with prejudice.
+Mrs. Roth looked at him with curiosity,
+and gave him a still more restrained greeting.
+The conversation was a weak and painful affair,
+kept barely alive, now by one and now by another.
+The atmosphere was heavy with disapproval. If
+their greetings had left Ramon in any doubt as
+to the attitude of the girl’s family toward him,
+that doubt was removed by the fact that neither
+Mrs. Roth nor her son showed any intention of
+leaving the room. This would have been not unusual
+if he had called on a Mexican girl, especially
+if she belonged to one of the more old-fashioned
+families; but he knew that American girls
+are left alone with their suitors if the suitor is at
+all welcome.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He knew a little about this family from hear-say.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page54">[pg 54]</span><a name="Pg54" id="Pg54" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+They came from one of the larger factory
+towns in northern New York, and were supposed
+to be moderately wealthy. They used a very
+broad <span class="tei tei-q">“a”</span> and served tea at four o’clock in the
+afternoon. Gordon Roth was a Harvard graduate
+and did not conceal the fact. Neither did
+he conceal his hatred for this sandy little western
+town, where ill-health had doomed him to spend
+many of his days and perhaps to end them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl was strangely different from her
+mother and brother. Whereas their expressions
+were stiff and solemn, her eyes showed an irrepressible
+gleam of humour, and her fascinating
+little mouth was mobile with mirth. She fidgeted
+around in her chair a good deal, as a child does
+when bored.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mrs. Roth decorously turned the conversation
+toward the safe and reliable subjects of literature
+and art.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“What do you think of Maeterlinck, Mr. Delcasar?”</span>
+she enquired in an innocent manner that
+must have concealed malice.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I don’t know him,”</span> Ramon admitted, <span class="tei tei-q">“Who
+is he?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mrs. Roth permitted herself to smile. Gordon
+Roth came graciously to the rescue.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Maeterlinck is a great Belgian writer,”</span> he
+explained. <span class="tei tei-q">“We are all very much interested in
+him.…”</span></p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page55">[pg 55]</span><a name="Pg55" id="Pg55" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Julia gave a little flounce in her chair, and
+crossed her legs with a defiant look at her
+mother.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I’m not interested in him,”</span> she announced
+with decision. <span class="tei tei-q">“I think he’s a bore. Listen,
+Mr. Delcasar. You know Conny Masters?
+Well, he was telling me the most thrilling tale
+the other day. He said that the country Mexicans
+have a sort of secret religious fraternity
+that most of the men belong to, and that they
+meet every Good Friday and beat themselves with
+whips and sit down on cactus and crucify a man on
+a cross and all sorts of horrible things … for
+penance you know, just like the monks and things
+in the Middle Ages.… He claims he saw
+them once and that they had blood running down
+to their heels. Is that all true? I’ve forgotten
+what he called them.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Sure. The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes</span></span>.
+I’ve seen them lots of times.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“O, do tell us about them. I love to hear
+about horrible things.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Well, I’ve seen lots of
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitente</span></span> processions,
+but the best one I ever saw was a long time ago,
+when I was a little kid. There are not so many
+of them now, and they don’t do as much as they
+used to. The church is down on them, you know,
+and they’re afraid. Ten years ago if you tried
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page56">[pg 56]</span><a name="Pg56" id="Pg56" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+to look at them, they would shoot at you, but now
+tourists take pictures of them.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Gordon Roth’s curiosity had been aroused.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Tell me,”</span> he broke in. <span class="tei tei-q">“What is the meaning
+of this thing? How did it get started?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I don’t know exactly,”</span> Ramon admitted.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“My grandfather told me that they brought it
+over from Spain centuries ago, and the Indians
+here had a sort of whipping fraternity, and the
+two got mixed up, I guess. The church used to
+tolerate it; it was a regular religious festival.
+But now it’s outlawed. They still have a lot of
+political power. They all vote the same way.
+One man that was elected to Congress—they say
+that the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitente</span></span>
+stripes on his back carried him
+there. And he was a gringo too. But I don’t
+know. It may be a lie.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“But tell us about that procession you saw when
+you were a little boy,”</span> Julia broke in. She was
+leaning forward with her chin in her hand, and
+her big grey eyes, wide with interest, fixed upon
+his face.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Well, I was only about ten years old, and I
+was riding home from one of our ranches with my
+father. We were coming through <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Tijeras</span></span>
+canyon. It was March, and there was snow on the ground
+in patches, and the mountains were cold and bare,
+and I remember I thought I was going to freeze.
+Every little while we would get off and set fire to
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page57">[pg 57]</span><a name="Pg57" id="Pg57" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+a tumble-weed by the road, and warm our hands
+and then go on again.…
+</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Anyway, pretty soon I heard a lot of men singing,
+all together, in deep voices, and the noise
+echoed around the canyon and sounded awful solemn.
+And I could hear, too, the slap of the big
+wide whips coming down on the bare backs, wet
+with blood, like slapping a man with a wet towel,
+only louder. I didn’t know what it was, but my
+father did, and he called to me and we spurred
+our horses right up the mountain, and hid in a
+clump of cedar up there. Then they came around
+a bend in the road, and I began to cry because
+they were all covered with blood, and one of them
+fell down.… My father slapped me and told
+me to shut up, or they would come and shoot us.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“But what did they look like? What were
+they doing?”</span> Julia demanded frowning at him,
+impatient with his rambling narrative.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Well, in front there was <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">un
+carreta del muerto</span></span>.
+That means a wagon of death. I don’t think you
+would ever see one any more. It was just an ordinary
+wagon drawn by six men, naked to the
+waist and bleeding, with other men walking beside
+them and beating them with blacksnake whips,
+just like they were mules. In the wagon they had
+a big bed of stones, covered with cactus, and a man
+sitting in the cactus, who was supposed to represent
+death. And then they had a Virgin Mary,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page58">[pg 58]</span><a name="Pg58" id="Pg58" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+too. Four <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes</span></span> just
+like the others, with
+nothing on but bloody pants and black bandages
+around their eyes, carried the image on a litter
+raised up over their heads, and they had swords
+fastened to their elbows and stuck between their
+ribs, so that if they let down, the swords would
+stick into their hearts and kill them. And behind
+that came the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Cristo</span></span>—the
+man that represented
+Jesus, you know, dragging a big cross. Behind
+him came twenty or thirty more
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes</span></span>, the
+most I ever saw at once, some of them whipping
+themselves with big broad whips made out of
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">amole</span></span>. One
+was too weak to whip himself, so
+two others walked behind him and whipped him.
+Pretty soon he fell down and they walked over
+him and stepped on his stomach.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“But did they crucify the man, the whatever-you-call-him?”</span>
+Gordon demanded.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Cristo</span></span>. Sure.
+They crucify one every
+year. They used to nail him. Now they generally
+do it with ropes, but that’s bad enough, because
+it makes him swell up and turn blue.…
+Sometimes he dies.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Julia was listening with lips parted and eyes
+wide, horrified and yet fascinated, as are so many
+women by what is cruel and bloody. But Gordon,
+who had become equally interested, was cool
+and inquisitive.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“And you mean to tell me that at one time
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page59">[pg 59]</span><a name="Pg59" id="Pg59" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+nearly all the—er—native people belonged to this
+barbaric organization, and that many of them do
+yet?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Nearly all the common
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pelados</span></span>,”</span> Ramon
+hastened to explain. <span class="tei tei-q">“They are nearly all Indian
+or part Indian, you know. Not the educated people.”</span>
+Here a note of pride came into his voice.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“We are descended from officers of the Spanish
+army—the men who conquered this country. In
+the old days, before the Americans came, all these
+common people were our slaves.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I see,”</span> said Gordon Roth in a dry and judicial
+tone.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes</span></span>,
+as a subject of conversation,
+seemed exhausted for the time being and Ramon
+had given up all hope of being alone with Julia.
+He rose and took his leave. To his delight Julia
+followed him to the door. In the hall she gave
+him her hand and looked up at him, and neither
+of them found anything to say. For some reason
+the pressure of her hand and the look of her eyes
+flustered and confused him more than had all the
+coldness and disapproval of her family. At
+last he said good-bye and got away, with his hat
+on wrong side before and the blood pounding in
+his temples.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC07" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page60">[pg 60]</span><a name="Pg60" id="Pg60" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc14" id="toc14"></a>
+<a name="pdf15" id="pdf15"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER VII</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">During the following weeks Ramon worked
+even less than was his custom. He also neglected
+his trips to the mountains and most of his other
+amusements. They seemed to have lost their
+interest for him. But he was a regular attendant
+upon the weekly dances which were held at the
+country club, and to which he had never gone
+before.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The country club was a recent acquisition of
+the town, backed by a number of local business
+men. It consisted of a picturesque little frame
+lodge far out upon the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>,
+and a nine-hole golf
+course, made of sand and haunted by
+<span class="tei tei-corr"><a name="E5" id="E5" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a href="#e5" class="tei tei-ref">lizards</a></span> and
+rattlesnakes. It had become a centre of local
+society, although there was a more exclusive
+organization known as the Forty Club, which gave
+a formal ball once a month. Ramon had
+never been invited to join the Forty Club, but the
+political importance of his family had procured
+him a membership in the country club and it served
+his present purpose very well, for he found Julia
+Roth there every Saturday night. This fact was
+the sole reason for his going. His dances with
+her were now the one thing in life to which he
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page61">[pg 61]</span><a name="Pg61" id="Pg61" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+looked forward with pleasure, and his highest
+hope was that he might be alone with her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In this he was disappointed for a long time because
+Julia was the belle of the town. Her
+dainty, provocative presence seemed always to be
+the centre of the gathering. Women envied her
+and studied her frocks, which were easily the
+most stylish in town. Men flocked about her and
+guffawed at her elfin stabs of humour. Her
+program was always crowded with names, and
+when she went for a stroll between dances she
+was generally accompanied by at least three men
+of whom Ramon was often one. And while the
+others made her laugh at their jokes or thrilled
+her with accounts of their adventures, he was
+always silent and worried—an utter bore, he
+thought.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This girl was a new experience to him. With
+the egotism of twenty-four, he had regarded himself
+as a finished man of the world, especially with
+regard to women. They had always liked him.
+He was good to look at and his silent, self-possessed
+manner touched the feminine imagination.
+He had had his share of the amorous adventures
+that come to most men, and his attitude toward
+women had changed from the hesitancy of adolesence
+to the purposeful, confident and somewhat
+selfish attitude of the male accustomed to easy
+conquest.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page62">[pg 62]</span><a name="Pg62" id="Pg62" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This girl, by a smile and touch of her hand,
+seemed to have changed him. She filled him with
+a mighty yearning. He desired her, and yet there
+was a puzzling element in his feeling that seemed
+to transcend desire. And he was utterly without
+his usual confidence and purpose. He had reason
+enough to doubt his success, but aside from that
+she loomed in his imagination as something
+high and unattainable. He had no plan. His
+strength seemed to have oozed out of him. He
+pursued her persistently enough—in fact too
+persistently—but he did it because he could not
+help it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The longer he followed in her wake, the more
+marked his weakness became. When he approached
+her to claim a dance he was often aware
+of a faint tremble in his knees, and was embarrassed
+by the fact that the palms of his hands were
+sweating. He felt that he was a fool and swore
+at himself. And he was wholly unable to believe
+that he was making any impression upon her.
+True, she was quite willing to flirt with him.
+She looked up at him with an arch, almost enquiring
+glance when he came to claim her for a dance,
+but he seldom found much to say at such times,
+being too wholly absorbed in the sacred occupation
+of dancing with her. And it seemed to him
+that she flirted with every one else, too. This
+did not in the least mitigate his devotion, but it
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page63">[pg 63]</span><a name="Pg63" id="Pg63" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+made him acutely uncomfortable to watch her
+dance with other men, and especially with Conny
+Masters.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Masters was the son of a man who had made
+a moderate fortune in the tin-plate business. He
+had come West with his mother who had a weak
+throat, had fallen in love with the country, and
+scandalized his family by resolutely refusing to
+go back to Indiana and tin cans. He spent most
+of his time riding about the country, equipped with
+a note book and a camera, studying the Mexicans
+and Indians, and taking pictures of the scenery.
+He said that he was going to make a literary
+career, but the net product of his effort for two
+years had been a few sonnets of lofty tone but
+vague meaning, and a great many photographs,
+mostly of sunsets.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Conny was not a definite success as a writer,
+but he was unquestionably a gifted talker, and
+he knew the country better than did most of the
+natives. He made real to Julia the romance
+which she craved to find in the West. And her
+watchful and suspicious family seemed to tolerate
+if not to welcome him. Ramon knew that he
+went to the Roth’s regularly. He began to feel
+something like hatred for Conny whom he had
+formerly liked.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This feeling was deepened by the fact that
+Conny seemed to be specially bent on defeating
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page64">[pg 64]</span><a name="Pg64" id="Pg64" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Ramon’s ambition to be alone with the girl. If
+no one else joined them at the end of a dance,
+Conny was almost sure to do so, and to occupy
+the intermission with one of his ever-ready monologues,
+while Ramon sat silent and angry, wondering
+what Julia saw to admire in this windy fool,
+and occasionally daring to wonder whether she
+really saw anything in him after all.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But a sufficiently devoted lover is seldom wholly
+without a reward. There came an evening when
+Ramon found himself alone with her. And he
+was aware with a thrill that she had evaded not
+only Conny, but two other men. Her smile was
+friendly and encouraging, too, and yet he could
+not find anything to say which in the least expressed
+his feelings.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Are you going to stay in this country long?”</span>
+he began. The question sounded supremely
+casual, but it meant a great deal to him. He
+was haunted by a fear that she would depart
+suddenly, and he would never see her again. She
+smiled and looked away for a moment before replying,
+as though perhaps this was not exactly
+what she had expected him to say.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I don’t know. Gordon wants mother and
+me to go back East this fall, but I don’t want to go
+and mother doesn’t want to leave Gordon
+alone.… We haven’t decided. Maybe I
+won’t go till next year.”</span></p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page65">[pg 65]</span><a name="Pg65" id="Pg65" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I suppose you’ll go to college won’t you?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“No; I wanted to go to Vassar and then study
+art, but mother says college spoils a girl for
+society. She thinks the way the Vassar girls
+walk is perfectly dreadful. I offered to go right
+on walking the same way, but she said anyway
+college makes girls so frightfully broad-minded.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon laughed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“What will you do then?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I’ll come out.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Out of what?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Make my d�but, don’t you know?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“O, yes.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“In New York. I have an aunt there. She
+knows all the best people, mother says.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“What happens after you come out?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You get married if anybody will have you.
+If not, you sort of fade away and finally go into
+uplift work about your fourth season.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“But of course, you’ll get married. I bet
+you’ll marry a millionaire.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I don’t know. Mother wants me to marry a
+broker. She says the big financial houses in New
+York are conducted by the very best people.
+But Gordon thinks I ought to marry a professional
+man—a doctor or something. He thinks
+brokers are vulgar. He says money isn’t everything.”</span></p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page66">[pg 66]</span><a name="Pg66" id="Pg66" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“What do you think?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I haven’t a thought to my name. All my
+thinking has been done for me since infancy. I
+don’t know what I want, but I’m pretty sure I
+wouldn’t get it if I did.… Come on. They’ve
+been dancing for ten minutes. If we stay here
+any longer it’ll be a scandal.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She rose and started for the hall. He suddenly
+realized that his long-sought opportunity
+was slipping away from him. He caught her by
+the hand.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Don’t go, please. I want to tell you something.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She met his hand with a fair grip, and pulled
+him after her with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Some other time,”</span> she promised.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC08" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page67">[pg 67]</span><a name="Pg67" id="Pg67" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc16" id="toc16"></a>
+<a name="pdf17" id="pdf17"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER VIII</span><span class="tei tei-corr" style="text-align: center"><a name="E6" id="E6" class="tei tei-anchor" style="text-align: center"></a><a href="#e6" class="tei tei-ref" style="text-align: center"> </a></span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In most of their social diversions the town folk
+tended always more and more to ape the ways of
+the East. Local colour, they thought, was all
+right in its place, which was a curio store or a
+museum, but they desired their town to be modern
+and citified, so that the wealthy eastern health-seeker
+would find it a congenial home. The
+scenery and the historic past were recognized as
+assets, but they should be the background for a
+life of <span class="tei tei-q">“culture, refinement and modern convenience”</span>
+as the president of the Chamber of Commerce
+was fond of saying.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Hence the riding parties and picnics of a few
+years before had given way to aggressively formal
+balls and receptions; but one form of entertainment
+that was indigenous had survived. This
+was known as a <span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>
+supper.”</span> It might take
+place anywhere in the surrounding wilderness of
+mountain and desert. Several auto-loads of
+young folk would motor out, suitably chaperoned
+and laden with provisions. Beside some water
+hole or mountain stream fires would be built,
+steaks broiled and coffee brewed. Afterward
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page68">[pg 68]</span><a name="Pg68" id="Pg68" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+there would be singing and story-telling about the
+fire, and romantic strolls by couples.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was one of these expeditions that furnished
+Ramon with his second opportunity in three weeks
+to be alone with Julia Roth. The party had journeyed
+to Los Ojuellos, where a spring of clear
+water bubbled up in the centre of the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>. A
+grove of cottonwood trees shadowed the place,
+and there was an ancient
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">adobe</span></span> ruin which looked
+especially effective by moonlight.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The persistent Conny Masters was a member
+of the party, but he was handicapped by the fact
+that he knew more about camp cookery than anyone
+else present. He had made a special study
+of Mexican dishes and had written an article
+about them which had been rejected by no less than
+twenty-seven magazines. He made a specialty
+of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">enchilada</span></span>,
+which is a delightful concoction
+of corn meal, eggs and chile, and he had perfected
+a recipe of his own for this dish which he had
+named the Conny Masters junior.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As soon as the baskets were unpacked and the
+chaperones were safely anchored on rugs and
+blankets with their backs against trees, there was
+a general demand, strongly backed by Ramon,
+that Conny should cook supper. He was soon
+absorbed in the process, volubly explaining every
+step, while the others gathered about him and offered
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page69">[pg 69]</span><a name="Pg69" id="Pg69" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+encouragement and humorous suggestion.
+But there was soon a gradual dispersion of the
+group, some going for wood and some for water,
+and others on errands unstated.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon found himself strolling under the
+cottonwoods with Julia. Neither of them had
+said anything. It was almost as though the tryst
+had been agreed upon before. She picked her
+way slowly among the tussocks of dried grass, her
+skirt daintily kilted. A faint but potent perfume
+from her hair and dress blew over him. He
+ventured to support her elbow with a reverent
+touch. Never had she seemed more desirable,
+nor yet, for some reason, more remote.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly she stopped and looked up at the
+great desert stars.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Isn’t it big and beautiful?”</span> she demanded.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“And doesn’t it make you feel free? It’s never
+like this at home, somehow.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“What is it like where you live?”</span> he enquired.
+He had a persistent desire to see into her life and
+understand it, but everything she told him only
+made her more than ever to him a being of mysterious
+origin and destiny.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“It’s a funny little New York factory city with
+very staid ways,”</span> she said. <span class="tei tei-q">“You go to a dance
+at the country club every Saturday night and to
+tea parties and things in between. You fight,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page70">[pg 70]</span><a name="Pg70" id="Pg70" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+bleed and die for your social position and
+once in a while you stop and wonder why.…
+It’s a bore. You can see yourself going on doing
+the same thing till the day of your death.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Her discontent with things as they are found
+ready sympathy.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“That’s just the way it is here,”</span> he said with
+conviction. <span class="tei tei-q">“You can’t see anything ahead.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Oh, I don’t think its the same here at all,”</span> she
+protested. <span class="tei tei-q">“This country’s so big and interesting.
+It’s different.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Tell me how,”</span> he demanded. <span class="tei tei-q">“I haven’t seen
+anything interesting here since I got back,—except
+you.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She ignored the exception.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I can’t express it exactly. The people here are
+just like people everywhere else—most of them.
+But the country looks so big and unoccupied. And
+blue mountains are so alluring. There might be
+anything beyond them … adventures, opportunities.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This idea was a bit too rarefied for Ramon, but
+he could agree about the mountains.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“It’s a fine country,”</span> he assented. <span class="tei tei-q">“For those
+that own it.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“It’s just a feeling I have about it,”</span> she went
+on, trying to express her own half-formulated
+idea. <span class="tei tei-q">“But then I have that feeling about life in
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page71">[pg 71]</span><a name="Pg71" id="Pg71" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+general, and there doesn’t seem to be anything in
+it. I mean the feeling that it’s full of thrilling
+things, but somehow you miss them all.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I have felt something like that,”</span> he admitted.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“But I never could say it.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This discovery of an idea in common seemed
+somehow to bring them closer together. His
+hand tightened gently about her arm; almost unconsciously
+he drew her toward him. But she
+seemed to be all absorbed in the discussion.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You have no right to complain,”</span> she told him.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“A man can do something about it.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Yes,”</span> he agreed, speaking a reflection without
+stopping to put it in conventional language. <span class="tei tei-q">“It
+must be hell to be a woman … excuse me … I mean.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Don’t apologize. It is—just that. A man
+at least has a fighting chance to escape boredom.
+But they won’t even let a woman fight. I wish
+I were a man.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Well; I don’t,”</span> he asserted with warmth, unconsciously
+tightening his hold upon her arm. <span class="tei tei-q">“I
+can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re a woman.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Oh, are you?”</span> She looked up at him with
+challenging, provocative eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For an instant a kiss was imminent. It hovered
+between them like an invisible fairy presence
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page72">[pg 72]</span><a name="Pg72" id="Pg72" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+of which they both were sweetly aware, and no
+one else.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Hey there! all you spooners!”</span> came a jovial
+and irreverent voice from the vicinity of the camp
+fire. <span class="tei tei-q">“Come and eat.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The moment was lost; the fairy presence gone.
+She turned with a little laugh, and they went in
+silence back to the fire. They were last to enter
+the circle of ruddy light, and all eyes were upon
+them. She was pink and self-conscious, looking
+at her feet and picking her way with exaggerated
+care. He was proud and elated. This, he
+knew, would couple their names in gossip, would
+make her partly his.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC09" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page73">[pg 73]</span><a name="Pg73" id="Pg73" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc18" id="toc18"></a>
+<a name="pdf19" id="pdf19"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER IX</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He wanted to call on her again, but he felt that
+he had been insulted and rejected by the Roths,
+and his pride fought against it. Unable to think
+for long of anything but Julia he fell into the
+habit of walking by her house at night, looking at
+its lighted windows and wondering what she was
+doing. Often he could see the moving figures
+and hear the laughter of some gay group about
+her, but he could not bring himself to go in and
+face the chilly disapproval of her family. At
+such times he felt an utter outcast, and sounded
+depths of misery he had never known before.
+For this was his first real love, and he loved in
+the helpless, desperate way of the Latin, without
+calculation or humour.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One evening there was a gathering on the
+porch of the Roth house. She was there, sitting
+on the steps with three men about her. He
+could see the white blur of her frock and hear her
+funny little bubbling laugh above the deeper
+voices of the men. Having ascertained that
+neither Gordon Roth nor his mother was there,
+he summoned his courage and went in. She
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page74">[pg 74]</span><a name="Pg74" id="Pg74" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+could not see who he was until he stood almost
+over her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“O, it’s you! I’m awfully glad.…”</span> Their
+hands met and clung for a moment in the darkness.
+He sat down on the steps at her feet, and
+the conversation moved on without any assistance
+from him. He was now just as happy as he had
+been miserable a few minutes before.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Presently two of the other men went away, but
+the third, who was Conny Masters, stayed. He
+talked volubly as ever, telling wonderful and
+sometimes incredible stories of things he had seen
+and done in his wanderings. Ramon said nothing.
+Julia responded less and less. Once she
+moved to drop the wrap from about her shoulders,
+and the alert Conny hastened to assist her.
+Ramon watched and envied with a thumping
+heart as he saw the gleam of her bare white
+shoulders, and realized that his rival might have
+touched them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Conny went on talking for half an hour with
+astonishing endurance and resourcefulness, but it
+became always more apparent that he was not
+captivating his audience. He had to laugh at his
+own humour and expatiate on his own thrills.
+Finally a silence fell upon the three, broken only
+by occasional commonplace remarks.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Well, I guess it’s time to drift,”</span> Conny observed
+at last, looking cautiously at his watch.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page75">[pg 75]</span><a name="Pg75" id="Pg75" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This suggestion was neither seconded by
+Ramon nor opposed by Julia. The silence literally
+pushed Conny to his feet.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Going, Ramon? No? Well, Good night.”</span>
+And he retired whistling in a way which showed
+his irritation more plainly than if he had sworn.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The two impolite ones sat silent for a long
+moment. Ramon was trying to think of what he
+wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. Finally
+without looking at her he said in a low husky
+voice.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You know … I love you.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was more silence. At last he looked up
+and met her eyes. They were serious for the
+first time in his experience, and so was her usually
+mocking little mouth. Her face was transformed
+and dignified. More than ever she
+seemed a strange, high being. And yet he knew
+that now she was within his reach.… That he
+could kiss her lips … incredible.… And yet
+he did, and the kiss poured flame over them and
+welded them into each others’ arms.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They heard Gordon Roth in the house coughing,
+the cough coming closer.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She pushed him gently away.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Go now,”</span> she whispered. <span class="tei tei-q">“I love you … Ramon.”</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC10" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page76">[pg 76]</span><a name="Pg76" id="Pg76" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc20" id="toc20"></a>
+<a name="pdf21" id="pdf21"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER X</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His conquest was far from giving him peace.
+Her kiss had transformed his high vague yearning
+into hot relentless desire. He wanted her.
+That became the one clear thing in life to him.
+Reflections and doubts were alien to his young
+and primitive spirit. He did not try to look far
+into the future. He only knew that to have her
+would be delight almost unimaginable and to lose
+her would be to lose everything.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His attitude toward her changed. He claimed
+her more and more at dances. She did not
+want to dance with him so much because <span class="tei tei-q">“people
+would talk,”</span> but his will was harder than hers
+and to a great extent he had his way. He now
+called on her regularly too. He knew that she
+had fought hard for him against her family, and
+had won the privilege for him of calling <span class="tei tei-q">“not too
+often.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I’ve lied for you frightfully,”</span> she confessed.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“I told them I didn’t really care for you in the
+least, but I want to see you because you can tell
+such wonderful things about the country. So talk
+about the country whenever they’re listening.
+And don’t look at me the way you do.…”</span></p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page77">[pg 77]</span><a name="Pg77" id="Pg77" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mother and brother were alert and suspicious
+despite her assurance, and manœuvred with cool
+skill to keep the pair from being alone. Only
+rarely did he get the chance to kiss her—once
+when her brother, who was standing guard over
+the family treasure, was seized with a fit of
+coughing and had to leave the room, and again
+when her mother was called to the telephone. At
+such times she shrank away from him at first as
+though frightened by the intensity of the emotion
+she had created, but she never resisted. To him
+these brief and stolen embraces were almost intolerably
+sweet, like insufficient sips of water to
+a man burned up with thirst.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She puzzled him as much as ever. When he
+was with her he felt as sure of her love as of his
+own existence. And yet she often sought to
+elude him. When he called up for engagements
+she objected and put him off. And she surrounded
+herself with other men as much as ever, and
+flirted gracefully with all of them, so that he was
+always feeling the sharp physical pangs of
+jealousy. Sometimes he felt egotistically sure
+that she was merely trying by these devices to
+provoke his desire the more, but at other times
+he thought her voice over the phone sounded
+doubtful and afraid, and he became wildly eager
+to get to her and make sure of her again.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Just as her kiss had crystallized his feeling for
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page78">[pg 78]</span><a name="Pg78" id="Pg78" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+her into driving desire, so it had focussed and intensified
+his discontent. Before he had been
+more or less resigned to wait for his fortune and
+the power he meant to make of it; now it seemed
+to him that unless he could achieve these things
+at once, they would never mean anything to him.
+For money was the one thing that would give him
+even a chance to win her. It was obviously useless
+to ask her to marry him poor. He would
+have nothing to bring against the certain opposition
+of her family. He could not run away with
+her. And indeed he was altogether too poor to
+support a wife if he had one, least of all a wife
+who had been carefully groomed and trained to
+capture a fortune.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was only one way. If he could go to
+her strong and rich, he felt sure that he could
+persuade her to go away with him, for he knew
+that she belonged to him when he was with her.
+He pictured himself going to her in a great motor
+car. Such a car had always been in his imagination
+the symbol of material strength. He felt
+sure he could destroy her doubts and hesitations.
+He would carry her away and she would be all
+and irrevocably his before any one could interfere
+or object.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This dream filled and tortured his imagination.
+Its realization would mean not only fulfilment
+of his desire, but also revenge upon the Roths for
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page79">[pg 79]</span><a name="Pg79" id="Pg79" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the humiliations they had made him feel. It
+pushed everything else out of his mind—all
+consideration of other and possibly more feasible
+methods of pushing his suit. He came of a race
+of men who had dared and dominated, who had
+loved and fought, but had never learned how to
+work or to endure.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When he gave himself up to his dream he was
+almost elated, but when he came to contemplate
+his actual circumstances, he fell into depths of
+discouragement and melancholy. His uncle stood
+like a rock between him and his desire. He
+thought of trying to borrow a few thousand dollars
+from old Diego, and of leaving the future to luck,
+but he was too intelligent long to entertain such a
+scheme. The Don would likely have provided
+him with the money, and he would have done it
+by hypothecating more of the Delcasar lands to
+MacDougall. Then Ramon would have had to
+borrow more, and so on, until the lands upon which
+all his hopes and dreams were based had passed
+forever out of his reach.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The thing seemed hopeless, for Don Diego
+might well live for many years. And yet Ramon
+did not give up hope. He was worried, desperate
+and bitter, but not beaten. He had still that
+illogical faith in his own destiny which is the gift
+that makes men of action.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At this time he heard particularly disquieting
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page80">[pg 80]</span><a name="Pg80" id="Pg80" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+things about his uncle. Don Diego was reputed
+to be spending unusually large sums of money.
+As he generally had not much ready cash, this
+must mean either that he had sold land or that he
+had borrowed from MacDougall, in which case
+the land had doubtless been given as security.
+Once it was converted into cash in the hands of
+Diego, Ramon knew that his prospective fortune
+would swiftly vanish. He determined to watch
+the old man closely.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He learned that Don Diego was playing poker
+every night in the back room of the White Camel
+pool hall. Gambling was supposed to be prohibited
+in the town, but this sanctum was regularly
+the scene for a game, which had the reputation of
+causing more money to change hands than any
+other in the southwest. Ramon hung about the
+White Camel evening after evening, trying to
+learn how much his uncle was losing. He would
+have liked to go and stand behind his chair and
+watch the game, but both etiquette and pride
+prevented him doing this. On two nights his
+uncle came out surrounded by a laughing crowd,
+a little bit tipsy, and was hurried into a cab.
+Ramon had no chance to speak either to him or to
+any one else who had been in the
+game<span class="tei tei-corr"><a name="E12" id="E12" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><a href="#e12" class="tei tei-ref">.</a></span>
+But the third night he came out alone, heavy with liquor,
+talking to himself. The other players had already
+gone out, laughing. The place was nearly
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page81">[pg 81]</span><a name="Pg81" id="Pg81" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+deserted. The Don suddenly caught sight of
+Ramon and came to him, laying heavy hands on
+his shoulders, looking at him with bleary, tear-filled
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“My boy, my nephew,”</span> he exclaimed in Spanish,
+his voice shaking with boozy emotion, <span class="tei tei-q">“I am glad
+you are here. Come I must talk to you.”</span> And
+steadied by Ramon he led the way to a bench in a
+corner. Here his manner suddenly changed. He
+threw back his head haughtily and slapped his
+knee.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I have lost five hundred dollars tonight,”</span> he
+announced proudly. <span class="tei tei-q">“What do I care? I am a
+rich man. I have lost a thousand dollars in the
+last three nights. That is nothing. I am rich.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He thumped his chest, looking around defiantly.
+Then he leaned forward in a confidential manner
+and lowered his voice.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“But these gringos—they have gone away and
+left me. You saw them? <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Cabrones!</span></span> They
+have got my money. That is all they want.
+My boy, all gringos are alike. They want
+nothing but money. They can hear the rattle of
+a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">peso</span></span> as far as a
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">burro</span></span> can smell a bear. They
+are mean, stingy! Ah, my boy! It is not now as
+it was in the old days. Then money counted for
+nothing! Then a man could throw away his last
+dollar and there were always friends to give him
+more. But now your dollars are your only true
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page82">[pg 82]</span><a name="Pg82" id="Pg82" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+friends, and when you have lost them, you are
+alone indeed. Ah, my boy! The old days were
+the best!”</span> The old Don bent his head over his
+hands and wept.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon looked at him with a mighty disgust and
+with a resentment that filled his throat and made
+his head hot. He had never before realized how
+much broken by age and drink his uncle was.
+Before, he had suspected and feared that Don
+Diego was wasting his property; now he knew it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The Don presently looked up again with tear-filled
+eyes, and went on talking, holding Ramon
+by the lapel of the coat in a heavy tremulous grip.
+He talked for almost an hour, his senile mind
+wandering aimlessly through the scenes of his
+long and picturesque career. He would tell tales
+of his loves and battles of fifty years ago—tales
+full of lust and greed and excitement. He would
+come back to his immediate troubles and curse the
+gringos again for a pack of miserable dollar-mongers,
+who knew not the meaning of friendship.
+And again his mind would leap back
+irrelevantly to some woman he had loved or some
+man he had killed in the spacious days where his
+imagination dwelt. Ramon listened eagerly,
+hoping to learn something definite about the
+Don’s dealings with MacDougall, but the old man
+never touched upon this. He did tell one story to
+which Ramon listened with interest. He told
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page83">[pg 83]</span><a name="Pg83" id="Pg83" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+how, twenty-five years before, he and another man
+named Cristobal Archulera had found a silver
+mine in the Guadelupe Mountains, and how he
+had cheated the other out of his interest by filing
+the claim in his own name. He told this as a
+capital joke, laughing and thumping his knee.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Do you know where Archulera is now?”</span>
+Ramon ventured to ask.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Archulera? No, No; I have not seen
+Archulera for twenty years. I heard that he
+married a very common woman, half Indian.…
+I don’t know what became of him.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The last of the pool players had now gone out;
+a Mexican boy had begun to sweep the floor; the
+place was about to close for the night. Ramon
+got his uncle to his feet with some difficulty, and
+led him outdoors where he looked about in vain
+for one of the cheap autos that served the town
+as taxicabs. There were only three or four of
+them, and none of these were in sight. The flat-wheeled
+street car had made its last screeching
+trip for the night. There was nothing for it
+but to take the Don by the arm and pilot him
+slowly homeward.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Refreshed by the night air, the old man partially
+sobered, walked with a steady step, and
+talked more eloquently and profusely than ever.
+Women were his subject now, and it was a subject
+upon which he had great store of material. He
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page84">[pg 84]</span><a name="Pg84" id="Pg84" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+told of the women of the South, of Sonora and
+Chihuahua where he had spent much of his youth,
+of how beautiful they were. He told of a slim
+little creature fifteen years old with big black eyes
+whom he had bought from her <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">peon</span></span>
+father, and of how she had feared him and how he had conquered
+her and her fear. He told of slave girls
+he had bought from the Navajos as children and
+raised for his pleasure. He told of a French
+woman he had loved in Mexico City and how he
+had fought a duel with her husband. He rose to
+heights of sentimentality and delved into depths
+of obscenity, now speaking  of his
+heart and what it had suffered, and again leering
+and chuckling like a satyr over some tale of splendid
+desire.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon, walking silent and outwardly respectful
+by his side, listened to all this with a strange
+mixture of envy and rage. He envied the old
+Don the rich share he had taken of life’s feast.
+Whatever else he might be the Don was not one
+of those who desire but do not dare. He had
+taken what he wanted. He had tasted many
+emotions and known the most poignant delights.
+And now that he was old and his blood was slow,
+he stood in the way of others who desired as
+greatly and were as avid of life as ever he had
+been. Ramon felt a great bitterness that clutched
+at his throat and half blinded his eyes. He too
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page85">[pg 85]</span><a name="Pg85" id="Pg85" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+loved and desired. And how much more greatly
+he desired than ever had this old man by his side,
+with his wealth and his easy satisfactions! The
+old Don apparently had never been thwarted,
+and therefore he did not know how keen and
+punishing a blade desire may be!</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Tense between the two was the enmity that
+ever sunders age and youth—age seeking to keep
+its sovereignty of life by inculcating blind respect
+and reverence, and youth rebellious, demanding
+its own with the passion of hot blood and untried
+flesh.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Between Old Town and New Town flowed an
+irrigating ditch, which the connecting street
+crossed by means of an old wooden bridge. The
+ditch was this night full of swift water, which
+tore at the button willows on the bank and gurgled
+against the bridge timbers. As they crossed
+it the idea came into Ramon’s head that if a man
+were pushed into the brown water he would be
+swiftly carried under the bridge and drowned.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC11" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page86">[pg 86]</span><a name="Pg86" id="Pg86" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc22" id="toc22"></a>
+<a name="pdf23" id="pdf23"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XI</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The following Saturday evening Ramon was
+again riding across the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>,
+clad in his dirty hunting clothes, with his shotgun hung in the
+cinches of his saddle. At the start he had been
+undecided where he was going. Tormented by
+desire and bitter over the poverty which stood
+between him and fulfilment, he had flung the
+saddle on his mare and ridden away, feeling none
+of the old interest in the mountains, but impelled
+by a great need to escape the town with all its
+cruel spurs and resistances.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Already the rhythm of his pony’s lope and the
+steady beat of the breeze in his face had calmed
+and refreshed him. The bitter, exhausting
+thoughts that had been plucking at his mind gave
+way to the idle procession of sensations, as they
+tend always to do when a man escapes the artificial
+existence of towns into the natural, animal
+one of the outdoors. He began to respond to
+the deep appeal which the road, the sense of
+going somewhere, always had for him. For he
+came of a race of wanderers. His forbears had
+been restless men to cross an ocean and most of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page87">[pg 87]</span><a name="Pg87" id="Pg87" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+a continent in search of homes. He was bred to
+a life of wandering and adventure. Long pent-up
+days in town always made him restless, and
+the feel of a horse under him and of distance to
+be overcome never failed to give him a sense of
+well-being.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Crossing a little <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">arroyo</span></span>,
+he saw a covey of the
+blue desert quail with their white crests erect,
+darting among the rocks and cactus on the hillside.
+It was still the close season, but he never
+thought of that. In an instant he was all hunter,
+like a good dog in sight of game. He slipped
+from his horse, letting the reins fall to the ground,
+and went running up the rocky slope, cleverly
+using every bit of cover until he came within
+range. At the first shot he killed three of the
+birds, and got another as they rose and whirred
+over the hill top. He gathered them up quickly,
+stepping on the head of a wounded one, and
+stuffed them into his pockets. He was grinning,
+now, and happy. The bit of excitement had
+washed from his mind for the time being the last
+vestige of worry. He lit a cigarette and lay on
+his back to smoke it, stretching out his legs luxuriously,
+watching the serene gyrations of a buzzard.
+When he had extracted the last possible
+puff from the tobacco, he went back to his horse
+and rode on toward Archulera’s ranch, feeling a
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page88">[pg 88]</span><a name="Pg88" id="Pg88" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+keen interest in the coarse but substantial supper
+which he knew the old man would give him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His visit this time proceeded just as had all of
+the others, and he had never enjoyed one more
+thoroughly. Again the old man killed a fatted
+kid in his honour, and again they had a great feast
+of fresh brains and tripe and biscuits and coffee,
+with the birds, fried in deep lard, as an added
+luxury. Catalina served them in silence as usual,
+but stole now and then a quick reproachful look
+at Ramon. Afterward, when the girl had gone,
+there were many cigarettes and much talk, as
+before, Archulera telling over again the brave
+wild record of his youth. And, as always, he
+told, just as though he had never told it before,
+the story of how Diego Delcasar had cheated
+him out of his interest in a silver mine in the
+Guadelupe Mountains. As with each former
+telling he became this time more unrestrained in
+his denunciation of the man who had betrayed
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You are not like him,”</span> he assured Ramon
+with passionate earnestness. <span class="tei tei-q">“You are generous,
+honourable! When your uncle is dead—when he
+is dead, I say—you will pay me the five thousand
+dollars which your family owes to mine. Am I
+right, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">amigo?</span></span>”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon, who was listening with only half an ear,
+was about to make some off-hand reply, as he had
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page89">[pg 89]</span><a name="Pg89" id="Pg89" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+always done before. But suddenly a strange,
+stirring idea flashed through his brain. Could it
+be? Could that be what Archulera meant? He
+glanced at the man. Archulera was watching
+him with bright black eyes—cunning, feral—the
+eyes of a primitive fighting man, eyes that had
+never flinched at dealing death.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon knew suddenly that his idea was right.
+Blood pounded in his temples and a red mist of
+excitement swam before his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Yes!”</span> he exclaimed, leaping to his feet.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Yes! When my uncle is dead I will pay you the
+five thousand dollars which the estate owes you!”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The old man studied him, showing no trace of
+excitement save for the brightness of his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You swear this?”</span> he demanded.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon stood tall, his head lifted, his eyes
+bright.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Yes; I swear it,”</span> he replied, more quietly
+now. <span class="tei tei-q">“I swear it on my honour as a Delcasar!”</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC12" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page90">[pg 90]</span><a name="Pg90" id="Pg90" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc24" id="toc24"></a>
+<a name="pdf25" id="pdf25"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XII</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The murder of Don Diego Delcasar, which occurred
+about three weeks later, provided the
+town with an excitement which it thoroughly enjoyed.
+Although there was really not a great
+deal to be said about the affair, since it remained
+from the first a complete mystery, the local papers
+devoted a great deal of space to it. The
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Evening
+Journal</span></span> announced the event in a great black
+headline which ran all the way across the top of
+the first page. The right-hand column was devoted
+to a detailed description of the scene of the
+crime, while the rest of the page was occupied by
+a picture of the Don, by a hastily written and
+highly inaccurate account of his career, and by
+statements from prominent citizens concerning
+the great loss which the state had suffered in the
+death of this, one of its oldest and most valued
+citizens.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In the editorial columns the Don was described
+as a Spanish gentleman of the old school, and one
+who had always lived up to its highest traditions.
+The fact was especially emphasized that he had
+commanded the respect and confidence of both
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page91">[pg 91]</span><a name="Pg91" id="Pg91" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the races which made up the population of the
+state, and his long and honourable association in a
+business enterprise with a leading local attorney
+was cited as proof of the fact that he had been
+above all race antagonisms.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The morning <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Herald</span></span>
+took a slightly different
+tack. Its editorial writer was a former New
+York newspaperman of unusual abilities who had
+been driven to the Southwest by tuberculosis. In
+an editorial which was deplored by many prominent
+business men, he pointed out that unpunished
+murderers were all too common in the State.
+He cited several cases like this of Don Delcasar
+in which prominent men had been assassinated,
+and no arrest had followed. Thus, only a few
+years before, Col. Manuel Escudero had been
+killed by a shot fired through the window of a
+saloon, and still more recently Don Solomon
+Estrella had been found drowned in a vat of
+sheep-dip on his own ranch. He cited statistics
+to show that the percentage of convictions in
+murder trials in that State was exceedingly small.
+Daringly, he asked how the citizens could expect
+to attract to the State the capital so much needed
+for its development, when assassination for personal
+and political purposes was there tolerated
+much as it had been in Europe during the Middle
+Ages. He ended by a plea that the Mounted
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page92">[pg 92]</span><a name="Pg92" id="Pg92" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Police should be strengthened, so that it would be
+capable of coping with the situation.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This editorial started a controversy between
+the two papers which ultimately quite eclipsed in
+interest the fact that Don Delcasar was dead.
+The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Morning Journal</span></span>
+declared that the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Herald</span></span>
+editorial was in effect a covert attack upon the
+Mexican people, pointing out that all the cases
+cited were those of Mexicans, and it came gallantly
+and for political reason to the defence of
+the race. At this point the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-style: italic">“</span><span style="font-style: italic">Tribuna del Pueblo</span><span style="font-style: italic">”</span></span></span>
+of Old Town jumped into the fight with an editorial
+in which it was asserted that both the gringo
+papers were maligning the Mexican people. It
+pointed out that the gringos controlled the political
+machinery of the State, and that if murder was
+there tolerated the dominant race was to blame.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Meanwhile the known facts about the murder
+of Don Delcasar remained few, simple and unilluminating.
+About once a month the Don used
+to drive in his automobile to his lands in the
+northern part of the State. He always took the
+road across the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>, which
+passed near the mouth of Domingo Canyon and through the scissors
+pass, and he nearly always went alone.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When he was half way across the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>, the
+front tires of the Don’s car had been punctured
+by nails driven through a board and hidden in
+the sand of the road. Evidently the Don had
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page93">[pg 93]</span><a name="Pg93" id="Pg93" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+risen to alight and investigate when he had been
+shot, for his body had been found hanging across
+the wind-shield of the car with a bullet hole
+through the head.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The discovery of the body had been made by a
+Mexican woodcutter who was on the way to town
+with a load of wood. He had of course been
+held by the police and had been closely questioned,
+but it was easily established that he had no connection
+with the crime.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was evident that the Don had been shot
+from ambush with a rifle, and probably from a
+considerable distance, but absolutely no trace of
+the assassin had been found. Not only the chief
+of police and several patrolmen, and the sheriff
+with a posse, but also many private citizens in
+automobiles had rushed to the scene of the crime
+and joined in the search. The surrounding
+country was dry and rocky. Not even a track
+had been found.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The motive of the murder was evidently not
+robbery, for nothing had been taken, although
+the Don carried a valuable watch and a considerable
+sum of money. Indeed, there was no evidence
+that the murderer had even approached the
+body.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The Don had been a staunch Republican,
+and the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Morning Herald</span></span>,
+also Republican, advanced
+the theory that he had been killed by
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page94">[pg 94]</span><a name="Pg94" id="Pg94" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+political enemies. This theory was ridiculed by
+the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Evening Journal</span></span>,
+which was Democratic.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The local police arrested as a suspect a man
+who was found in hiding near a water tank at
+the railroad station, but no evidence against him
+could be found and he had to be released. The
+sheriff extracted a confession of guilt from a
+sheep herder who was found about ten miles
+from the scene of the crime, but it was subsequently
+proved by this man’s relatives that he
+was at home and asleep at the time the crime was
+committed, and that he was well known to be of
+unsound mind. For some days the newspapers
+continued daily to record the fact that a <span class="tei tei-q">“diligent
+search”</span> for the murderer was being conducted,
+but this search gradually came to an end along
+with public interest in the crime.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC13" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page95">[pg 95]</span><a name="Pg95" id="Pg95" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc26" id="toc26"></a>
+<a name="pdf27" id="pdf27"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XIII</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The day after the news of his uncle’s murder
+reached him, Ramon lay on his bed in his darkened
+room fully dressed in a new suit of black. He
+was not ill, and anything would have been easier
+for him than to lie there with nothing to do but
+to think and to stare at a single narrow sunbeam
+which came through a rent in the window blind.
+But it was a Mexican custom, old and revered,
+for the family of one recently dead to lie upon
+its beds in the dark and so to receive the condolences
+of friends and the consolations of religion.
+To disregard this custom would have
+been most unwise for an ambitious young man,
+and besides, Ramon’s mother clung tenaciously to
+the traditional Mexican ways, and she would not
+have tolerated any breach of them. At this
+moment she and her two daughters were likewise
+lying in their rooms, clad in new black silk and
+surrounded by other sorrowing females.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was so still in the room that Ramon could
+hear the buzz of a fly in the vicinity of the solitary
+sunbeam, but from other parts of the house came
+occasional human sounds. One of these was an
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page96">[pg 96]</span><a name="Pg96" id="Pg96" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+intermittent howling and wailing from the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">placita</span></span>.
+This he knew was the work of two old Mexican
+women who made their livings by acting as professional
+mourners. They did not wait for an invitation
+but hung about like buzzards wherever there
+was a Mexican corpse. Seated on the ground with
+their black shawls pulled over their heads, they
+wailed with astonishing endurance until the coffin
+was carried from the house, when they were sure
+of receiving a substantial gift from the grateful
+relatives. Ramon resolved that he would give
+them ten dollars each. He felt sure they had
+never gotten so much. He was determined to do
+handsomely in all things connected with the
+funeral.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He could also hear faintly a rattle of wagons,
+foot steps and low human voices coming from the
+front of the house. A peep had shown him that
+already a line of wagons, carriages and buggies
+half a block long had formed in the street, and he
+could hear the arrival of another one every few
+minutes. These vehicles brought the numerous
+and poor relations of Don Delcasar who lived in
+the country. All of them would be there by
+night. Each one of them would come into Ramon’s
+room and sit by his bedside and take his hand
+and express sympathy. Some of them would
+weep and some would groan, although all of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page97">[pg 97]</span><a name="Pg97" id="Pg97" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+them, like himself, were profoundly glad that the
+Don was dead. Ramon hoped that they would
+make their expressions brief. And later, he
+knew, all would gather in the room where the
+casket rested on two chairs. They would sit in a
+silent solemn circle about the room, drinking
+coffee and wine all night. And he would be
+among them, trying with all his might to look
+properly sad and to keep his eyes open.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">All the time that he lay there in enforced idleness
+he was longing for action, his imagination
+straining forward. At last his chance had come—his
+chance to have her. And he would
+have her. He felt sure of it. He was now a
+rich man. As soon as the will had been read and
+he had come into his own, he would buy a big
+automobile. He would go to her, he would
+sweep away her doubts and hesitations. He
+would carry her away and marry her. She
+would be his.… He closed his eyes and drew
+his breath in sharply.…</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But no; he would have to wait … a decent interval.
+And the five thousand dollars must be
+gotten to Archulera. That was obviously important.
+And there might not be much cash. The
+Don had never had much ready money. He
+might have to sell land or sheep first. All of
+these things to be done, and here he lay, staring
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page98">[pg 98]</span><a name="Pg98" id="Pg98" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+at the ceiling and listening to the wailing of old
+women!</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a knock on the door.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Entra!</span></span>”</span> he called.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The door opened softly and a tall, black-robed
+figure was silhouetted for a moment against the
+daylight before the door closed again. The
+black figure crossed the room and sat down by
+the bed, silent save for a faint rustle.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Although he could not see the face, Ramon
+knew that this was the priest, Father Lugaria.
+He knew that Father Lugaria had come to arrange
+for the mass over the body of Don Delcasar.
+He disliked Father Lugaria, and knew that
+the Father disliked him. This mutual antipathy
+was due to the fact that Ramon seldom went to
+Church.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There were others of his generation who
+showed the same indifference toward religion, and
+this defection of youth was a thing which the
+Priests bitterly contested. Ramon was perfectly
+willing to make a polite compromise with them.
+If Father Lugaria had been satisfied with an occasional
+appearance at early mass, a perfunctory
+confession now and then, the two might have been
+friends. But the Priest made Ramon a special
+object of his attention. He continually went to
+the Dona Delcasar with complaints and that devout
+woman incessantly nagged her son, holding
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page99">[pg 99]</span><a name="Pg99" id="Pg99" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+before him always pictures of the damnation he
+was courting. Once in a while she even produced
+in him a faint twinge of fear—a recrudescence
+of the deep religious feeling in which he was bred—but
+the feeling was evanescent. The chief
+result of these labours on behalf of his soul had
+been to turn him strongly against the priest who
+instigated them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Father Lugaria seemed all kindness and sympathy
+now. He sat close beside Ramon and
+took his hand. Ramon could smell the good
+wine on the man’s breath, and could see faintly
+the brightness of his eyes. The grip of the
+priest’s hand was strong, moist and surprisingly
+cold. He began to talk in the low monotonous
+voice of one accustomed to much chanting, and
+this droning seemed to have some hypnotic quality.
+It seemed to lull Ramon’s mind so that he
+could not think what he was going to say or do.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The priest expressed his sympathy. He spoke
+of the great and good man the Don had been.
+Slowly, adroitly, he approached the real question
+at issue, which was how much Ramon would pay
+for a mass. The more he paid, the longer the
+mass would be, and the longer the mass the speedier
+would be the journey of the Don’s soul
+through purgatory and into Paradise.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“O, my little brother in Christ!”</span> droned the
+priest in his vibrant sing-song, <span class="tei tei-q">“I must not let you
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page100">[pg 100]</span><a name="Pg100" id="Pg100" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+neglect this last, this greatest of things which you
+can do for the uncle you loved. It is unthinkable
+of course that his soul should go to hell—hell,
+where a thousand demons torture the soul for an
+eternity. Hell is for those who commit the
+worst of sins, sins they dare not lay before God
+for his forgiveness, secret and terrible sins—sins
+like murder. But few of us go through life
+untouched by sin. The soul must be purified before
+it can enter the presence of its maker.…
+Doubtless the soul of your uncle is in purgatory,
+and to you is given the sweet power to speed that
+soul on its upward way.…
+</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Don Delcasar, we all know, killed.…
+More than once, doubtless, he took the life of a
+fellow man. But he did it in combat as a soldier,
+as a servant of the State.… That is not murder.
+That would not doom him to hell, which is
+the special punishment of secret and unforgiven
+murder.… But the soul of the Don must be
+cleansed of these earthly stains.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The strong, cold grip of the priest held Ramon
+with increasing power. The monotonous, hypnotic
+voice went on and on, becoming ever more
+eloquent and confident. Father Lugaria was a
+man of imagination, and the special home of his
+imagination was hell. For thirty years he had
+held despotic sway over the poor Mexicans who
+made up most of his flock, and had gathered
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page101">[pg 101]</span><a name="Pg101" id="Pg101" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+much money for the Church, by painting word-pictures
+of hell. He was a veritable artist of
+hell. He loved hell. Again and again he digressed
+from the strict line of his argument to
+speak of hell. With all the vividness of a thing
+seen, he described its flames, its fiends, the terrible
+stink of burning flesh and the vast chorus of
+agony that filled it.… And for some obscure
+reason or purpose he always spoke of hell as the
+special punishment of murderers. Again and
+again in his discourse he coupled murder and hell.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon was wearied by strong emotions and a
+shortness of sleep. His nerves were overstrung.
+This ceaseless iteration of hell and murder,
+murder and hell would drive him crazy, he
+thought. He wished mightily that the priest
+would have done and name his price and go.
+What was the sense and purpose of this endless
+babble about hell and murder?… A sickening
+thought struck him like a blow, leaving him weak.
+What if old Archulera had confessed to the
+priest?</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Well; what if he had? A priest could not
+testify about what he had heard in confessional.
+But a priest might tell some one else.… O, God!
+If the man would only go and leave him to think.
+Hell and murder, murder and hell. The two
+words beat upon his brain without mercy. He
+longed to interrupt the priest and beg him to
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page102">[pg 102]</span><a name="Pg102" id="Pg102" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+leave off. But for some reason he could not.
+He could not even turn his head and look at the
+man. The priest was but a clammy grip that held
+him and a disembodied voice that spoke of hell
+and murder. Had he done murder? And was
+there a hell? He had long ceased to believe in
+hell, but hell had been real to him as a child. His
+mother and his nurse had filled him with the fear
+of hell. He had been bred in the fear of hell. It
+was in his flesh and bones if not in his mind, and
+the priest had hypnotized his mind. Hell was
+real to him again. Fear of hell came up from the
+past which vanishes but is never gone, and gripped
+him like a great ugly monster. It squeezed a
+cold sweat out of his body and made his skin
+prickle and his breath come short.…</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The priest dropped the subject of hell, and
+spoke again of the mass. He mentioned a sum of
+money. Ramon nodded his head muttering his
+assent like a sick man. The grip on his hand
+relaxed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Good-bye, my little brother,”</span> murmured the
+priest. <span class="tei tei-q">“May Christ be always with you.”</span> His
+gown rustled across the room and as he opened
+the door, Ramon saw his face for a moment—a
+sallow, shrewd face, bedewed with the sweat of a
+great effort, but wearing a smile of triumphant
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon lay sick and exhausted. It seemed to
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page103">[pg 103]</span><a name="Pg103" id="Pg103" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+him that there was no air in the room. He was
+suffocating. His body burned and prickled. He
+rose and tore loose his collar. He must get out
+of this place, must have air and movement.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was dusk now. The wailing of the old
+women had ceased. Doubtless they were being
+rewarded with supper. He began stripping off
+his clothes—his white shirt and his new suit of
+black. Eagerly rummaging in the closet he found
+his old clothes, which he wore on his trips to the
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In the dim light he slipped out of the house,
+indistinguishable from any Mexican boy that
+might have been about the place. He saddled
+the little mare in the corral, mounted and galloped
+away—through Old Town, where skinny dogs
+roamed in dark narrow streets and men and
+women sat and smoked in black doorways—and
+out upon the valley road. There he spurred his
+mare without mercy, and they flew over the soft
+dust. The rush of the air in his face, and the thud
+and quiver of living flesh under him were infinitely
+sweet.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He stopped at last five miles from town on the
+bank of the river. It was a swift muddy river,
+wandering about in a flood plain a quarter of a
+mile wide, and at this point chewing noisily at a
+low bank forested with scrubby cottonwoods.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Dismounting, he stripped and plunged into the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page104">[pg 104]</span><a name="Pg104" id="Pg104" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+river. It was only three feet deep, but he wallowed
+about in it luxuriously, finding great
+comfort in the caress of the cool water, and of
+the soft fine sand upon the bottom which clung
+about his toes and tickled the soles of his feet.
+Then he climbed out on the bank and stood where
+the breeze struck him, rubbing the water off of his
+slim strong body with the flats of his hands.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When he had put on his clothes, he indulged
+his love of lying flat on the ground, puffing a
+cigarette and blowing smoke at the first stars.
+A hunting owl flitted over his head on muffled
+wing; a coyote yapped in the bushes; high up in
+the darkness he heard the whistle of pinions as
+a flock of early ducks went by.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He took the air deeply into his lungs and
+stretched out his legs. In this place fear of hell
+departed from his mind as some strong liquors
+evaporate when exposed to the open air. The
+splendid healthy animal in him was again dominant,
+and it could scarcely conceive of death and
+had nothing more to do with hell than had the
+owl and the coyote that killed to live. Here he
+felt at peace with the earth beneath him and the
+sky above. But one thought came to disturb him
+and it was also sweet—the thought of a woman,
+her eyes full of promise, the curve of her mouth.…
+She was waiting for him, she would be his.
+That was real.… Hell was a dream.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page105">[pg 105]</span><a name="Pg105" id="Pg105" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He saw now the folly of his fears about
+Archulera, too. Archulera never went to church.
+There was no danger that he would ever confess
+to any one. And even if he did, he could scarcely
+injure Ramon. For Ramon had done no wrong.
+He had but promised an old man his due, righted
+an ancient wrong.… He smiled.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Slowly he mounted and rode home, filled with
+thoughts of the girl, to put on his mourning
+clothes and take his decorous place in the circle
+that watched his uncle’s bier.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC14" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page106">[pg 106]</span><a name="Pg106" id="Pg106" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc28" id="toc28"></a>
+<a name="pdf29" id="pdf29"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XIV</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">All the ceremonies and procedures, religious
+and legal, which had been made necessary by the
+death of Don Diego Delcasar, were done. The
+body of the Don had been taken to the church in
+Old Town and placed before the altar, the casket
+covered with black cloth and surrounded by
+candles in tall silver candlesticks which stood upon
+the floor. A Mass of impressive length had been
+spoken over it by Father Lugaria assisted by
+numerous priests and altar boys, and at the end of
+the ceremony the hundreds of friends and relatives
+of the Don, who filled the church, had
+lifted up their voices in one of the loudest and
+most prolonged choruses of wailing ever heard in
+that country, where wailing at a funeral is as much
+a matter of formal custom as is cheering at a
+political convention. Afterwards a cortege nearly
+a mile in length, headed by a long string of carriages
+and tailed by a crowd of poor Mexicans
+trudging hatless in the dust, had made the hot
+and wearisome journey to the cemetery in the
+sandhills.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Then the will had been read and had revealed
+that Ramon Delcasar was heir to the bulk of his
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page107">[pg 107]</span><a name="Pg107" id="Pg107" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+uncle’s estate, and that he was thereby placed in
+possession of money, lands and sheep to the value
+of about two hundred thousand dollars. It was
+said by those who knew that the Don’s estate had
+once been at least twice that large, and there were
+some who irreverently remarked that he had been
+taken off none too soon for the best interests of
+his heirs.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Shortly after the reading of the will, Ramon
+rode to the Archulera ranch, starting before daylight
+and returning after dark. He exchanged
+greetings with the old man, just as he had always
+done.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Accept my sympathy,
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">amigo</span></span>,”</span> Archulera said
+in his formal, polite way, <span class="tei tei-q">“that you have lost your
+uncle, the head of your great family.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I thank you, friend,”</span> Ramon replied. <span class="tei tei-q">“A
+man must bear these things. Here is something I
+promised you,”</span> he added, laying a small heavy
+canvas bag upon the table, just as he had always
+laid a package of tobacco or some other small
+gift.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Old Archulera nodded without looking at the
+bag.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Thank you,”</span> he said.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Afterward they talked about the bean crop and
+the weather, and had an excellent dinner of goat
+meat cooked with chile.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In town Ramon found himself a person of noticeably
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page108">[pg 108]</span><a name="Pg108" id="Pg108" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+increased importance. One of his first
+acts had been to buy a car, and he had attracted
+much attention while driving this about the
+streets, learning to manipulate it. He killed one
+chicken and two dogs and handsomely reimbursed
+their owners. These minor accidents were due
+to his tendency, the result of many years of horsemanship,
+to throw his weight back on the steering
+wheel and shout <span class="tei tei-q">“whoa!”</span> whenever a sudden emergency
+occurred. But he was apt, and soon was
+running his car like an expert.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His personal appearance underwent a change
+too. He had long cherished a barbaric leaning
+toward finery, which lack of money had prevented
+him from indulging. Large diamonds fascinated
+him, and a leopard skin vest was a thing he had
+always wanted to own. But these weaknesses he
+now rigorously suppressed. Instead he noted
+carefully the dress of Gordon Roth and of other
+easterners whom he saw about the hotel, and
+ordered from the best local tailor a suit of quiet
+colour and conservative cut, but of the very best
+English material. He bought no jewelry except a
+single small pearl for his necktie. His hat, his
+shoes, the way he had his neck shaved, all were
+changed as the result of a painstaking observation
+such as he had never practised before. He
+wanted to make himself as much as possible like
+the men of Julia’s kind and class. And this desire
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page109">[pg 109]</span><a name="Pg109" id="Pg109" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+modified his manner and speech as well as his
+appearance. He was careful, always watching
+himself. His manner was more reserved and
+quiet than ever, and this made him appear older
+and more serious. He smiled when he overheard
+a woman say that <span class="tei tei-q">“he took the death of his uncle
+much harder than she would have expected.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon now received business propositions
+every day. Men tried to sell him all sorts of
+things, from an idea to a ranch, and most of them
+seemed to proceed on the assumption that, being
+young and newly come into his money, he should
+part with it easily. Several of the opportunities
+offered him had to do with the separation of the
+poor Mexicans from their land holdings. A
+prominent attorney came all the way from a town
+in the northern part of the State to lay before
+him a proposition of this kind. This lawyer,
+named Cooley, explained that by opening a store
+in a certain rich section of valley land, opportunities
+could be created for lending the Mexicans
+money. Whenever there was a birth, a funeral
+or a marriage among them, the Mexicans needed
+money, and could be persuaded to sign mortgages,
+which they generally could not read. In each
+Mexican family there would be either a birth, a
+marriage or a death once in three years on an
+average. Three such events would enable the
+lender to gain possession of a ranch. And Cooley
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page110">[pg 110]</span><a name="Pg110" id="Pg110" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+had an eastern client who would then buy the land
+at a good figure. It was a chance for Ramon to
+double his money.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You’ve got the money and you know the native
+people,”</span> Cooley argued earnestly. <span class="tei tei-q">“I’ve got the
+sucker and I know the law. It’s a sure thing.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon thanked him politely and refused firmly.
+The idea of robbing a poor Mexican of his ranch
+by nine years of usury did not appeal to him at all.
+In the first place, it would be a long, slow tedious
+job, and besides, poor people always aroused his
+pity, just as rich ones stirred his greed and envy.
+He was predatory, but lion-like, he scorned to
+spring on small game. He did not realize that a
+lion often starves where a jackal grows fat.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Only one opportunity came to him which interested
+him strongly. A young Irishman named
+Hurley explained to him that it was possible to
+buy mules in Mexico, where a revolution was going
+on, for ten dollars each at considerable personal
+risk, to run them across the Rio Grande and to
+sell them to the United States army for twenty
+dollars. Here was a gambler’s chance, action and
+adventure. It caught his fancy and tempted him.
+But he had no thought of yielding. Another
+purpose engrossed him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">These weeks after his uncle’s funeral gave him
+his first real grapple with the world of business,
+and the experience tended to strengthen him in a
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page111">[pg 111]</span><a name="Pg111" id="Pg111" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+certain cynical self-assurance which had been
+growing in him ever since he first went away to
+college, and had met its first test in action
+when he spoke the words that lead to the Don’s
+death. He felt a deep contempt for most of
+these men who came to him with their schemes
+and their wares. He saw that most of them were
+ready enough to swindle him, though few of them
+would have had the courage to rob him with a gun.
+Probably not one of them would have dared to kill
+a man for money, but they were ready enough to
+cheat a poor <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pelado</span></span>
+out of his living, which often
+came to the same thing. He felt that he was
+bigger than most of them, if not better. His self-respect
+was strengthened.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Life is a fight,”</span> he told himself, feeling that he
+had hit upon a profound and original idea.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Every man wants pretty women and money.
+He gets them if he has enough nerve and enough
+sense. And somebody else gets hurt, because
+there aren’t enough pretty women and money to
+go around.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It seemed to him that this was the essence of
+all wisdom.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC15" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page112">[pg 112]</span><a name="Pg112" id="Pg112" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc30" id="toc30"></a>
+<a name="pdf31" id="pdf31"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XV</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon had always been rather a solitary figure
+in his own town. Although he belonged nominally
+to the <span class="tei tei-q">“bunch”</span> of young gringos, Jews and
+Mexicans, who foregathered at the White Camel
+Pool Hall, their amusements did not hold his
+interest very strongly. They played a picayune
+game of poker, which resulted in a tangled mass
+of debt; they went on occasional mild sprees, and
+on Saturday nights they
+<span class="tei tei-corr"><a name="E7" id="E7" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a href="#e7" class="tei tei-ref">visited</a></span>
+the town’s red light
+district, hardy survivor of several vice crusades,
+where they danced with portly magdalenes in
+gaudy kimonos to the music of a mechanical piano,
+luxuriating in conscious wickedness.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">All of this had seemed romantic and delightfully
+vicious to Ramon a few years before, but it
+soon palled on his restless and discontented spirit.
+He had formed the habit of hunting alone, and
+had found adventures more to his taste. But now
+he found himself in company more than ever
+before. He was bid to every frolic that took
+place. In the White Camel he was often the
+centre of a small group, which included men older
+than himself who had never paid any attention
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page113">[pg 113]</span><a name="Pg113" id="Pg113" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+to him before, but now addressed him with a
+certain deference. Although he understood well
+enough that most of the attentions paid him had
+an interested motive, he enjoyed the sense of
+leadership which these gatherings gave him. If
+he was not a real leader now, he intended to become
+one. He listened to what men said, watched
+them, and said little himself. He was quick to
+grasp the fact that a reputation for shrewdness
+and wisdom is made by the simple method of keeping
+the mouth shut.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He made many acquaintances among the new
+element which had recently come to town from the
+East in search of health or money, but he made no
+real friends because none of these men inspired
+him with respect. Only one man he attached to
+himself, and that one by the simple tie of money.
+His name was Antonio Cortez. He was a small,
+skinny, sallow Mexican with a great moustache,
+behind which he seemed to be discreetly hiding,
+and a consciously cunning eye. Of an old and
+once wealthy Spanish family, he had lost all of his
+money by reason of a lack of aptitude for business,
+and made his living as a sort of professional
+political henchman. He was a bearer of secret
+messages, a maker of deals, an eavesdropper.
+The Latin aptitude for intrigue he had in a high
+degree. He was capable of almost anything in
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page114">[pg 114]</span><a name="Pg114" id="Pg114" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the way of falsehood or evasion, but he had that
+great capacity for loyalty which is so often the
+virtue of weaklings.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I have known your family for many years,”</span>
+he told Ramon importantly, <span class="tei tei-q">“And I feel an
+interest in you, almost as though you were my
+own son. You need an older friend to advise
+you, to attend to details in the management of
+your great estate. You will probably go into
+politics and you need a political manager. As an
+old friend of your family I want to do these
+things for you. What do you say?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon answered without any hesitation and
+prompted solely by intuition:</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I thank you, friend, and I accept your offer.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He knew instinctively that he could trust this
+man and also dominate him. It was just such a
+follower that he needed. Nothing was said
+about money, but on the first of the month Ramon
+mailed Cortez a check for a hundred dollars,
+and that became his regular salary.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC16" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page115">[pg 115]</span><a name="Pg115" id="Pg115" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc32" id="toc32"></a>
+<a name="pdf33" id="pdf33"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XVI</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">About two weeks after the Don’s funeral,
+Ramon received a summons which he had been
+vaguely expecting. He was asked by Mr. MacDougall’s
+secretary over the telephone to call,
+whenever it would be convenient, at Mr. MacDougall’s
+office.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He knew just what this meant. MacDougall
+would try to make with him an arrangement
+somewhat similar to the one he had had with the
+Don. Ramon knew that he did not want such an
+arrangement on any terms. He felt confident
+that not one could swindle him, but at the same
+time he was half afraid of the Scotchman; he felt
+instinctively that MacDougall was a man for him
+to avoid. And besides, he intended to use his
+lands in his own way. He would sell part of
+them to the railroad, which was projected to be
+built through them, if he could get a good price;
+but the hunger for owning land, for dominating a
+part of the earth, was as much a part of him as his
+right hand. He wanted no modern business
+partnership. He wanted to be <span class="tei tei-hi"><span class="tei tei-q"><span style="font-style: italic">“</span><span style="font-style: italic">el
+patron,</span><span style="font-style: italic">”</span></span></span> as so
+many Delcasars had been before him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Here was a temptation to be dramatic, to hurl
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page116">[pg 116]</span><a name="Pg116" id="Pg116" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+a picturesque defiance at the gringo. Ramon
+might have yielded to it a few months before.
+Sundry brave speeches flashed through his mind,
+as it was. But he resolutely put them aside.
+There was too much at stake … his love. He
+determined to call on MacDougall promptly and
+to be polite.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">MacDougall was a heavy, bald man of Scotch
+descent, and very true to type. He had come to
+town from the East about fifteen years before
+with his wife and his two tall, raw-boned children—a
+boy and a girl. The family had been
+very poor. They had lived in a small
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">adobe</span></span>
+house on the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>.
+For ten years Mrs. MacDougall
+had done all of her own housework, including
+the washing; the two children had gone to
+school in clothes that seemed always too small for
+them; and MacDougall had laboured obscurely
+day and night in a small dark office. During
+these ten years the MacDougalls had been completely
+overlooked by local society, and if they
+felt any resentment they did not show it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Meantime MacDougall had been systematically
+and laboriously laying the foundations of a
+fortune. His passion was for land. He loaned
+money on land, chiefly to Mexicans, and he took
+mortgages on land in return for defending his
+Mexican clients, largely on criminal charges.
+Some of the land he farmed, and some he rented,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page117">[pg 117]</span><a name="Pg117" id="Pg117" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+but much of it lay idle, and the taxes he had to
+pay kept his family poor long after it might have
+been comfortable. But his lands rose steadily in
+value; he began selling, discreetly; and the MacDougalls
+came magnificently into their own.
+MacDougall was now one of the wealthiest men
+in the State. In five years his way of living had
+undergone a great change. He owned a large
+brick house in the highlands and had several servants.
+The boy had gone to Harvard, and the
+girl to Vassar. Neither of them was so gawky
+now, and both of them were much sought socially
+during their vacations at home. MacDougall
+himself had undergone a marked change for a man
+past fifty. He had become a stylish dresser and
+looked younger. He drove to work in a large
+car with a chauffeur. In the early morning he
+went riding on the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>,
+mounted on a big
+Kentucky fox-trotter, clad in English riding
+clothes, jouncing solemnly up and down on his
+flat saddle, and followed by a couple of carefully-laundered
+white poodles. On these expeditions
+he was a source of great edification and some
+amusement to the natives.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In the town he was a man of weight and influence,
+but the country Mexicans hated him.
+Once when he was looking over some lands
+recently acquired by the foreclosure of mortgages,
+a bullet had whistled close to his ear, and another
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page118">[pg 118]</span><a name="Pg118" id="Pg118" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+had punctured the hood of his car. He now hired
+a man to do his <span class="tei tei-q">“outside work.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Thus both MacDougall and his children had
+thrived and developed on their wealth. Mrs.
+MacDougall, perhaps, had been the sacrifice.
+She remained a tall, thin, pale, tired-looking
+woman with large hands that were a record of
+toil. She laboured at her new social duties and
+<span class="tei tei-q">“pleasures”</span> in exactly the same spirit that she
+had formerly laboured at the wash tub.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">MacDougall’s offices now occupied all of the
+ground floor of a large new building which he had
+built. Like everything else of his authorship this
+building represented a determined effort to lend
+the town an air of Eastern elegance. It was
+finished in an imitation of white marble and the
+offices had large plate glass windows which bore
+in gilt letters the legend: <span class="tei tei-q">“MacDougall Land
+and Cattle Company, Inc.”</span> Within, half a
+dozen girls in glass cages could be seen working
+at typewriters and adding machines, while a cashier
+occupied a little office of his own with a large
+safe at his back, a little brass grating in front of
+him, and a revolver visible not far from his right
+hand.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The creator of this magnificence sat behind a
+glasstop desk at the far end of a large and sunny
+office with a bare and slippery floor. Many a
+Mexican beggar for mercy, with a mortgage on
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page119">[pg 119]</span><a name="Pg119" id="Pg119" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+his home, had walked across this forbidding expanse
+of polished hardwood toward the big man
+with the merciless eye, as fearfully as ever a
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">peon</span></span>, sentenced to
+forty lashes and salt in his
+wounds, approached the seat of his owner to
+plead for a whole skin. Truly, the weak can but
+change masters.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This morning MacDougall was all affability.
+As he stood up behind his desk, clad in a light
+grey suit, large and ruddy, radiant of health and
+prosperity, he was impressive, almost splendid.
+Only the eyes, small and closeset, revealed the
+worried and calculating spirit of the man.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Mr. Delcasar,”</span> he said when they had shaken
+hands and sat down, <span class="tei tei-q">“I am glad to welcome you
+to this office, and I hope to see you here many
+times more. I will not waste time, for we are
+both busy men. I asked you to come here because
+I want to suggest a sort of informal partnership
+between us, such as I had with your late
+uncle, one of my best friends. I believe my plan
+will be for the best interests of both of us.… I
+suppose you know about what the arrangement
+was between the Don and myself?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“No; not in detail,”</span> Ramon confessed. He
+felt MacDougall’s power at once. Facing the
+man was a different matter from planning an
+interview with him when alone. But he retained
+sense enough to let MacDougall do the talking.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page120">[pg 120]</span><a name="Pg120" id="Pg120" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Have a cigar,”</span> the great man continued, full
+of sweetness, pushing a large and fragrant box
+of perfectos across the desk. <span class="tei tei-q">“I will outline the
+situation to you briefly, as I see it.”</span> Nothing
+could have seemed more frank and friendly than
+his manner.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“As you doubtless know,”</span> he went on, <span class="tei tei-q">“your
+estate includes a large area of mountain and
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>
+land—a little more than nine thousand acres I
+believe—north and west of the San Antonio
+River in Arriba County. I own nearly as much
+land on the east side of the river. The valley
+itself is owned by a number of natives in small
+farming tracts.
+</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I believe your estate also includes a few small
+parcels of land in the valley, but not enough, you
+understand, to be of much value by itself. Your
+uncle also owned a few tracts in the valley east of
+the river which he transferred to me, for a consideration,
+because they abutted upon my holdings.
+</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Now the valley, as I scarcely need tell you,
+is the key to the situation. In the first place, if
+the country is to be properly developed as sheep
+and cattle range, the valley will furnish the farming
+land upon which hay for winter use can be
+raised, and it also furnishes some good winter
+range. Moreover, it is now an open secret that
+the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad proposes
+building a branch line through that country and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page121">[pg 121]</span><a name="Pg121" id="Pg121" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+into the San Juan Valley. No surveys have been
+made, but it is certain that the road must follow
+the San Antonio to the top of the divide. There
+is no other way through. I became aware of
+this project some time ago through my eastern
+connections, and told your uncle about it. He
+and I joined forces for the purpose of gaining
+control of the San Antonio Valley, and of the
+railroad right-of-way.
+</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“The proposition is a singularly attractive one.
+Not only could the right-of-way be sold for a very
+large sum, but we would afterward own a splendid
+bit of cattle range, with farming land in the
+valley, and with a railroad running through the
+centre of it. There is nothing less than a fortune
+to be made in the San Antonio Valley, Mr.
+Delcasar.
+</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“And the lands in the valley can be acquired.
+Some of the small owners will sell outright.
+Furthermore, they are all frequently in need of
+money, especially during dry years when the crops
+are not good. By advancing loans judiciously,
+and taking land as security, title can often be
+acquired.… I daresay you are not wholly unfamiliar
+with the method.
+</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“This work, Mr. Delcasar, requires large
+capital, which I can command. It also requires
+certain things which you have in an unusual
+degree. You are of Spanish descent, you speak
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page122">[pg 122]</span><a name="Pg122" id="Pg122" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the language fluently. You have political and
+family prestige among the natives. All of this
+will be of great service in persuading the natives
+to sell, and in getting the necessary information
+about land titles, which, as you know, requires
+much research in old Spanish Church records
+and much interviewing of the natives themselves.
+</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“In the actual making of purchases, my name
+need not appear. In fact, I think it is very
+desirable that it should not appear. But understand
+that I will furnish absolutely all of the capital
+for the enterprise. I am offering you, Mr.
+Delcasar, an opportunity to make a fortune without
+investing a cent, and I feel that I can count
+upon your acceptance.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At the close of this discourse, Ramon felt like
+a surf-bather who has been overwhelmed by a
+great and sudden wave and comes up gasping for
+breath and struggling for a foothold. Never
+had he heard anything so brilliantly plausible,
+for never before had he come into contact with a
+good mind in full action. Yet he regained his
+balance in a moment. He was accustomed to
+act by intuition, not by logic, and his intuition was
+all against accepting MacDougall’s offer. He
+was not deceived by the Scotchman’s show of
+friendship and beneficence; he himself had an
+aptitude for pretence, and he understood it better
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page123">[pg 123]</span><a name="Pg123" id="Pg123" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+than he would have understood sincerity. He
+knew that whether he formed this partnership or
+not, there was sure to be a struggle between him
+and MacDougall for the dominance of the San
+Antonio Valley. And his instinct was to stand
+free and fight; not to come to grips, MacDougall
+was a stronger man than he. The one advantage
+which he had—his influence over the natives—he
+must keep in his own hands, and not let his
+adversary turn it against him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He took his cigar out of his mouth, looked at
+it a moment, and cleared his throat.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Mr. MacDougall,”</span> he said slowly, <span class="tei tei-q">“this offer
+makes me proud. That you should have so much
+confidence in me as to wish to make me your partner
+is most gratifying. I am sorry that I must
+refuse. I have other plans.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">MacDougall nodded, interrupting. This was
+evidently a contingency he had calculated.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I’m sorry, Mr. Delcasar. I had hoped to be
+permanently associated with you in this venture.
+But I think I understand. You are young.
+Perhaps marriage, a home are your immediate
+objects, and you need cash at once, rather than
+a somewhat distant prospect of greater wealth.
+In that case I think I can meet your wishes. I
+am prepared to make you a good offer for all of
+your holdings in the valley, and those immediately
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page124">[pg 124]</span><a name="Pg124" id="Pg124" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+adjoining it. The exact amount I cannot state at
+this moment, but I feel sure we could agree as
+to price.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon was taken aback by the promptness of
+the counter, confused, forced to think. Money
+was a thing he wanted badly. He had little cash.
+If MacDougall would give him fifty thousand,
+he could go with Julia anywhere. He would be
+free. But again the inward prompting, sure and
+imperative, said no. He wanted the girl above
+all things. But he wanted land, too. His was
+the large and confident greed of youth. And he
+could have the girl without making this concession.
+MacDougall wanted to take the best of
+his land and push him out of the game as a weakling,
+a negligible. He wouldn’t submit. He
+would fight, and in his own way. What he
+wanted now was to end the interview, to get away
+from this battering, formidable opponent. He
+rose.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I will think it over, Mr. MacDougall,”</span> he
+said. <span class="tei tei-q">“And meantime, if you will send me an
+offer in writing, I will appreciate it.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Some of the affability faded from MacDougall’s
+face as he too rose, and the worried
+look in his little grey eyes intensified, as though
+he sensed the fact that this was an evasion.
+None-the-less he said good-bye cordially and
+promised to write the letter.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page125">[pg 125]</span><a name="Pg125" id="Pg125" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon went back to his office, his mind stimulated,
+working intensely. Never before had he
+thought so clearly and purposefully. He got
+out an old government map of Arriba County,
+and with the aid of the deeds in the safe which
+contained all his uncle’s important papers, he
+managed to mark off his holdings. The whole
+situation became as clear to him as a checker
+game. He owned a bit of land in the valley
+which ran all the way across it, and far out upon
+the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>
+in a long narrow strip. That was the
+way land holdings were always divided under the
+Spanish law—into strips a few hundred feet wide,
+and sometimes as much as fourteen miles long.
+This strip would in all probability be vital to
+the proposed right-of-way. It explained MacDougall’s
+eagerness to take him as a partner or
+else to buy him out. By holding it, he would
+hold the key to the situation.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In order really to dominate the country and
+to make his property grow in value he would have
+to own more of the valley. And he could not
+get money enough to buy except very slowly.
+But he could use his influence with the natives to
+prevent MacDougall from buying. MacDougall
+was a gringo. The Mexicans hated him. He
+had been shot at. Ramon could <span class="tei tei-q">“preach the race
+issue,”</span> as the politicians put it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The important thing was to strengthen and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page126">[pg 126]</span><a name="Pg126" id="Pg126" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+assert his influence as a Mexican and a Delcasar.
+He must go to Arriba County, open the old ranch
+house he owned there, go among the people. He
+must gain a real ascendency. He knew how to
+do it. It was his birthright. He was full of
+fight and ambition, confident, elated. The way
+was clear before him. Tomorrow he would go
+to Julia.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC17" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page127">[pg 127]</span><a name="Pg127" id="Pg127" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc34" id="toc34"></a>
+<a name="pdf35" id="pdf35"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XVII</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He had received a note of sympathy from her
+soon after his uncle’s death and he had called at
+the Roths’ once, but had found several other
+callers there and no opportunity of being alone
+with her. Then she had gone away on a two-weeks,
+automobile trip to the Mesa Verde
+National Park, so that he had seen practically
+nothing of her. But all of this time he had been
+thinking of her more confidently than ever before.
+He was rich now, he was strong. All of the
+preliminaries had been finished. He could go
+to her and claim her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He called her on the telephone from his
+office, and the Mexican maid answered. She
+would see if Miss Roth was in. After a long
+wait she reported that Miss Roth was out. He
+tried again that day, and a third time the next
+morning with a like result.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This filled him with anxious, angry bewilderment.
+He felt sure she had not really been out
+all three times. Were her mother and brother
+keeping his message from her? Or had something
+turned her against him? He remembered
+with a keen pang of anxiety, for the first time,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page128">[pg 128]</span><a name="Pg128" id="Pg128" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the insinuations of Father Lugaria. Could that
+miserable rumour have reached her? He had no
+idea how she would have taken it if it had. He
+really did not know or understand this girl at
+all; he merely loved her and desired her with a
+desire which had become the ruling necessity of
+his life. To him she was a being of a different
+sort, from a different world—a mystery. They
+had nothing in common but a rebellious discontent
+with life, and this glamorous bewildering
+thing, so much stronger than they, so far
+beyond their comprehension, which they called
+their love.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">That was the one thing he knew and counted
+on. He knew how imperiously it drove him, and
+he knew that she had felt its power too. He had
+seen it shine in her eyes, part her lips; he had
+heard it in her voice, and felt it tremble in her
+body. If only he could get to her this potent
+thing would carry them to its purpose through
+all barriers.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Angry and resolute, he set himself to a systematic
+campaign of telephoning. At last she
+answered. Her voice was level, quiet, weary.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“But I have an engagement for tonight,”</span> she
+told him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Then let me come tomorrow,”</span> he urged.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“No; I can’t do that. Mother is having some
+people to dinner.…”</span></p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page129">[pg 129]</span><a name="Pg129" id="Pg129" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At last he begged her to set a date, but she refused,
+declared that her plans were unfixed, told
+him to call <span class="tei tei-q">“some other time.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His touchy pride rebelled now. He cursed
+these gringos. He hated them. He wished
+for the power to leave her alone, to humble her
+by neglect. But he knew that he did have it.
+Instead he waited a few days and then drove to
+the house in his car, having first carefully ascertained
+by watching that she was at home.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">All three of them received him in their sitting
+room, which they called the library. It was an
+attractive room, sunny and tastefully furnished,
+with a couple of book cases filled with new-looking
+books in sets, a silver tea service on a little
+wheeled table, flowers that matched the wall
+paper, and a heavy mahogany table strewn with
+a not-too-disorderly array of magazines and
+paper knives. It was the envy of the local women
+with social aspirations because it looked elegant
+and yet comfortable.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Conversation was slow and painful. Mrs.
+Roth and her son were icily formal, confining
+themselves to the most commonplace remarks.
+And Julia did not help him, as she had on his
+first visit. She looked pale and tired and carefully
+avoided his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When he had been there about half an hour,
+Mrs. Roth turned to her daughter.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page130">[pg 130]</span><a name="Pg130" id="Pg130" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Julia,”</span> she said, <span class="tei tei-q">“If we are going to get to
+Mrs. MacDougall’s at half-past four you must
+go and get ready. You will excuse her, won’t you
+Mr. Delcasar?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The girl obediently went up stairs without
+shaking hands, and a few minutes later Ramon
+went away, feeling more of misery and less of
+self-confidence than ever before in his life.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He almost wholly neglected his work. Cortez
+brought him a report that MacDougall had a
+new agent, who was working actively in Arriba
+County, but he paid no attention to it. His
+life seemed to have lost purpose and interest.
+For the first time he doubted her love. For the
+first time he really feared that he would lose her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Most of his leisure was spent riding or walking
+about the streets, in the hope of catching a glimpse
+of her. He passed her house as often as he
+dared, and studied her movements. When he
+saw her in the distance he felt an acute thrill of
+mingled hope and misery. Only once did he meet
+her fairly, walking with her brother, and then
+she either failed to see him or pretended not to.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One afternoon about five o’clock he left his
+office and started home in his car. A storm was
+piling up rapidly in big black clouds that rose
+from behind the eastern mountains like giants
+peering from ambush. It was sultry; there were
+loud peals of thunder and long crooked flashes of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page131">[pg 131]</span><a name="Pg131" id="Pg131" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+lightning. At this season of late summer the
+weather staged such a portentous display almost
+every afternoon, and it rained heavily in the
+mountains; but the showers only reached the
+thirsty <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span> and
+valley lands about one day in
+four.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon drove home slowly, gloomily wondering
+whether it would rain and hoping that it
+would. A Southwesterner is always hoping for
+rain, and in his present mood the rush and beat of
+a storm would have been especially welcome.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His hopes were soon fulfilled. There was a
+cold blast of wind, carrying a few big drops, and
+then a sudden, drumming downpour that tore up
+the dust of the street and swiftly converted it
+into a sea of mud cut by yellow rivulets.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As his car roared down the empty street, he
+glimpsed a woman standing in the shelter of a big
+cottonwood tree, cowering against its trunk. A
+quick thrill shot through his body. He jammed
+down the brake so suddenly that his car skidded
+and sloughed around. He carefully turned and
+brought up at the curb.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She started at sight of him as he ran across the
+side-walk toward her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Come on quick!”</span> he commanded, taking her
+by the arm, <span class="tei tei-q">“I’ll get you home.”</span> Before she
+had time to say anything he had her in the car,
+and they were driving toward the Roth house.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page132">[pg 132]</span><a name="Pg132" id="Pg132" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+By the time they had reached it the first strength
+of the shower was spent, and there was only a
+light scattering rain with a rift showing in the
+clouds over the mountains.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He deliberately passed the house, putting on
+more speed as he did so.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“But … I thought you were going to take me
+home,”</span> she said, putting a hand on his arm.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I’m not,”</span> he announced, without looking
+around. His hands and eyes were fully occupied
+with his driving, but a great suspense held his
+breath. The hand left his arm, and he heard her
+settle back in her seat with a sigh. A great
+warm wave of joy surged through him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He took the mountain road, which was a short
+cut between Old Town and the mountains,
+seldom used except by wood wagons. Within
+ten minutes they were speeding across the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>.
+The rain was over and the clouds running across
+the sky in tatters before a fresh west wind. Before
+them the rolling grey-green waste of the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>, spotted
+and veined with silver waters,
+reached to the blue rim of the mountains—empty
+and free as an undiscovered world.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He slowed his car to ten miles an hour and
+leaned back, steering with one hand. The other
+fell upon hers, and closed over it. For a time
+they drove along in silence, conscious only of that
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page133">[pg 133]</span><a name="Pg133" id="Pg133" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+electrical contact, and of the wind playing in their
+faces and the soft rhythmical hum of the great
+engine.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At the crest of a rise he stopped the car and
+stood up, looking all about at the vast quiet wilderness,
+filling his lungs with air. He liked that
+serene emptiness. He had always felt at peace
+with these still desolate lands that had been the
+background of most of his life. Now, with the
+consciousness of the woman beside him, they filled
+him with a sort of rapture, an ecstasy of reverence
+that had come down to him perhaps from
+savage forebears who had worshipped the Earth
+Mother with love and awe.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He dropped down beside her again and without
+hesitation gathered her into his arms. After
+a moment he held her a little away from him and
+looked into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Why wouldn’t you let me come to see you?
+Why did you treat me that way?”</span> he plead.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She dropped her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“They made me.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“But why? Because I’m a Mexican? And
+does that make any difference to you?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“O, I can’t tell you.… They say awful
+things about you. I don’t believe them. No;
+nothing about you makes any difference to me.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He held her close again.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page134">[pg 134]</span><a name="Pg134" id="Pg134" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Then you’ll go away with me?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Yes,”</span> she answered slowly, nodding her head.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“I’ll go anywhere with you.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Now!”</span> he demanded. <span class="tei tei-q">“Will you go now?
+We can drive through Scissors Pass to Abol on
+the Southeastern and take a train to Denver.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“O, no, not now,”</span> she plead. <span class="tei tei-q">“Please not
+now.… I can’t go like this.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Yes; now,”</span> he urged. <span class="tei tei-q">“We’ll never have a
+better chance.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I beg you, if you love me, don’t make me go
+now. I must think … and get ready.… Why
+I haven’t even got any powder for my nose.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They both laughed. The tension was broken.
+They were happy.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Give me a little while to get ready,”</span> she
+proposed, <span class="tei tei-q">“and I’ll go when you say.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You promise?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Cross my heart.… On my life and honour.
+Please take me home now, so they won’t suspect
+anything. If only nobody sees us! Please hurry.
+It’ll be dark pretty soon. You can write to me.
+It’s so lonely out here!”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He turned his car and drove slowly townward,
+his free hand seeking hers again. It was dusk
+when they reached the streets. Stopping his car
+in the shadow of a tree, he kissed her and helped
+her out.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He sat still and watched her out of sight. A
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page135">[pg 135]</span><a name="Pg135" id="Pg135" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+tinge of sadness and regret crept into his mind,
+and as he drove homeward it grew into an active
+discontent with himself. Why had he let her
+go? True, he had proved her love, but now she
+was to be captured all over again. He ought to
+have taken her. He had been a fool. She
+would have gone. She had begged him not to
+take her, but if he had insisted, she would have
+gone. He had been a fool!</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC18" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page136">[pg 136]</span><a name="Pg136" id="Pg136" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc36" id="toc36"></a>
+<a name="pdf37" id="pdf37"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XVIII</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The second morning after this ride, while he
+was labouring over a note to the girl, he was
+amazed to get one from her postmarked at
+Lorietta, a station a hundred miles north of town
+at the foot of the Mora Mountains, in which
+many of the town people spent their summer vacations.
+It was a small square missive, exhaling a
+faint scent of lavender, and was simple and direct
+as a telegram.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“We have gone to the Valley Ranch for a
+month,”</span> she wrote. <span class="tei tei-q">“We had not intended to go
+until August, but there was a sudden change of
+plans. Somebody saw you and me yesterday. I
+had an awful time. Please don’t try to see me
+or write to me while we’re here. It will be best
+for us. I’ll be back soon. I love you.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He sat glumly thinking over this letter for a
+long time. The disappointment of learning that
+he would not see her for a month was bad enough,
+but it was not the worst thing about this
+sudden development. For this made him realize
+what alert and active opposition he faced on the
+part of her mother and brother. Their dislike
+for him had been made manifest again and again,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page137">[pg 137]</span><a name="Pg137" id="Pg137" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+but he had supposed that Julia was successfully
+deceiving them as to his true relations with her.
+He had thought that he was regarded merely as
+an undesirable acquaintance; but if they were
+changing their plans because of him, taking the
+girl out of his reach, they must have guessed the
+true state of affairs. And for all that he knew,
+they might leave the country at any time. His
+heart seemed to give a sharp twist in his body at
+this thought. He must take her as soon as she
+returned to town. He could not afford to miss
+another chance. And meantime his affairs must
+be gotten in order.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He had been neglecting his new responsibilities,
+and there was an astonishing number of things to
+be done—debts to be paid, tax assessments to be
+protested, men to be hired for the sheep-shearing.
+His uncle had left his affairs at loose ends, and on
+all hands were men bent on taking advantage of
+the fact. But he knew the law; he had known
+from childhood the business of raising sheep on
+the open range which was the backbone of his
+fortune; and he was held in a straight course by
+the determination to keep his resources together
+so that they would strengthen him in his purpose.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A few weeks before, he had sent Cortez to
+Arriba County to attend to some minor matters
+there, and incidentally to learn if possible what
+MacDougall was doing. Cortez had spent a
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page138">[pg 138]</span><a name="Pg138" id="Pg138" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+large part of his time talking with the Mexicans
+in the San Antonio Valley, eavesdropping on conversations
+in little country stores, making friends,
+and asking discreet questions at
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">bailes</span></span> and
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">fiestas</span></span>.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Well; how goes it up there?”</span> Ramon asked
+him when he came to the office to make his report.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“It looks bad enough,”</span> Cortez replied lighting
+with evident satisfaction the big cigar his patron
+had given him. <span class="tei tei-q">“MacDougall has men working
+there all the time. He bought a small ranch on
+the edge of the valley just the other day. He is
+not making very fast progress, but he’ll own the
+valley in time if we don’t stop him.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“But who is doing the work? Who is his
+agent?”</span> Ramon enquired.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Old Solomon Alfego, for one. He’s boss of
+the county, you know. He hates a gringo as
+much as any man alive, but he loves a dollar, too,
+and MacDougall has bought him, I’m afraid. I
+think MacDougall is lending money through him,
+getting mortgages on ranches that way.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Well; what do you think we had better do?”</span>
+Ramon enquired. The situation looked bad
+on its face, but he could see that Cortez had a
+plan.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Just one thing I thought of,”</span> the little man
+answered slowly. <span class="tei tei-q">“We have got to get Alfego
+on our side. If we can do that, we can keep out
+MacDougall and everybody else … buy when
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page139">[pg 139]</span><a name="Pg139" id="Pg139" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+we get ready. We couldn’t pay Alfego much,
+but we could let him in on the railroad deal …
+something MacDougall won’t do. And Alfego,
+you know, is a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitente</span></span>.
+He’s <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">hermano mayor</span></span>
+(chief brother) up there. And all those little
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">rancheros</span></span> are
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes</span></span>. It’s the strongest
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitente</span></span> county
+in the State, and you know none
+of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes</span></span>
+like gringos. None of those
+fellows like MacDougall; they’re all afraid of
+him. All they like is his money. You haven’t so
+much money, but you could spend some. You
+could give a few <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">bailes</span></span>.
+You are Mexican; your
+family is well-known. If you were a
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitente</span></span>,
+too.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cortez left his sentence hanging in the air.
+He nodded his head slowly, his cigar cocked at a
+knowing angle, looking at Ramon through narrowed
+lids.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon sat looking straight before him for a
+moment. He saw in imagination a procession of
+men trudging half-naked in the raw March
+weather, their backs gashed so that blood ran
+down to their heels, beating themselves and each
+other.… The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes</span></span>!
+Other men, even
+gringos, had risen to power by joining the order.
+Why not he? It would give him just the prestige
+and standing he needed in that country. He
+would lose a little blood. He would win …
+everything!</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page140">[pg 140]</span><a name="Pg140" id="Pg140" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You are right, <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">amigo</span></span>,”</span>
+he told Cortez. <span class="tei tei-q">“But
+do you think it can be arranged?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I have talked to Alfego about it,”</span> Cortez
+admitted. <span class="tei tei-q">“I think it can be arranged.”</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC19" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page141">[pg 141]</span><a name="Pg141" id="Pg141" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc38" id="toc38"></a>
+<a name="pdf39" id="pdf39"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XIX</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He was all ready to leave for Arriba County
+when one more black mischance came to bedevil
+him. Cortez came into the office with a worried
+look in his usually unrevealing eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“There’s a woman in town looking for you,”</span>
+he announced. <span class="tei tei-q">“A Mexican girl from the
+country. She was asking everybody she met
+where to find you. You ought to be more
+careful. I took her to my house and promised I
+would bring you right away.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cortez lived in a little square box of a brick
+cottage, which he had been buying slowly for the
+past ten years and would probably never own.
+In its parlour, gaudy with cheap, new furniture,
+Ramon confronted Catalina Archulera. She was
+clad in a dirty calico dress, and her shoes were
+covered with the dust of long tramping, as was
+the black shawl about her head and shoulders.
+Once he had thought her pretty, but now she
+looked to him about as attractive as a clod of
+earth.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She stood before him with downcast eyes,
+speechless with misery and embarassment. At
+first he was utterly puzzled as to what could have
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page142">[pg 142]</span><a name="Pg142" id="Pg142" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+brought her there. Then with a queer mixture
+of anger and pity and disgust, he noticed the
+swollen bulk of her healthy young body.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Catalina! Why did you come here?”</span> he
+blurted, all his self-possession gone for a moment.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“My father sent me,”</span> she replied, as simply as
+though that were an all-sufficient explanation.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“But why did you tell him … it was I?
+Why didn’t you come to me first?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“He made me tell,”</span> Catalina rolled back her
+sleeve and showed some blue bruises. <span class="tei tei-q">“He beat
+me,”</span> she explained without emotion.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“What did he tell you to say?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“He told me to come to you and show you how
+I am.… That is all.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon swore aloud with a break in his voice.
+For a long moment he stood looking at her, bewildered,
+disgusted. It somehow seemed to him
+utterly wrong, utterly unfair that this thing should
+have happened, and above all that it should have
+happened now. He had taken other girls, as had
+every other man, but never before had any such
+hard luck as this befallen him. And now, of
+all times!</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In Catalina he felt not the faintest interest.
+Before him was the proof that once he had desired
+her. Now that desire had vanished as completely
+as his childhood.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And she was Archulera’s daughter. That was
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page143">[pg 143]</span><a name="Pg143" id="Pg143" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the hell of it! Archulera was the one man of all
+men whom he could least afford to offend. And
+he knew just how hard to appease the old man
+would be. For among the Mexicans, seduction
+is a crime which, in theory and often in practice,
+can be atoned only by marriage or by the shedding
+of blood. Marriage is the door to freedom for
+the women, but virginity is a thing greatly revered
+and carefully guarded. The unmarried girl is
+always watched, often locked up, and he who
+appropriates her to his own purpose is violating
+a sacred right and offending her whole family.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In the towns, all this has been somewhat
+changed, as the customs of any country suffer
+change in towns. But old Archulera, living in
+his lonely canyon, proud of his high lineage,
+would be the hardest of men to appease. And
+meantime, what was to be done with the girl?</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was this problem which brought his wits
+back to him. A plan began to form in his mind.
+He saw that in sending her to him Archulera had
+really played into his hands. The important
+thing now was to keep her away from her father.
+He looked at her again, and the pity which he
+always felt for weaklings welled up in him. He
+knew many Mexican ranches in the valley where
+he could keep her in comfort for a small amount.
+That would serve a double purpose. The old
+man would be kept in ignorance as to what Ramon
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page144">[pg 144]</span><a name="Pg144" id="Pg144" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+intended, and the girl would be saved from
+<span class="tei tei-corr"><a name="E8" id="E8" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a href="#e8" class="tei tei-ref">further</a></span>
+punishment. Meantime, he could send
+Cortez to see Archulera and find out what money
+would do.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The whole affair was big with potential damage
+to him. Some of his enemies might find out
+about it and make a scandal. Archulera might
+come around in an ugly mood and make trouble.
+The girl might run away and come to town again.
+And yet, now that he had a plan, he was all
+confidence.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cortez kept Catalina at his house while Ramon
+drove forty miles up the valley and made arrangements
+with a Mexican who lived in an isolated
+place, to care for her for an indefinite period.
+When he took Catalina there, he told her on the
+way simply that she was to wait until he came for
+her, and above all, that she must not try to communicate
+with her father. The girl nodded,
+looking at him gravely with her large soft eyes.
+Her lot had always been to obey, to bear burdens
+and to suffer. The stuff of rebellion and of self-assertion
+was not in her, but she could endure misfortune
+with the stoical indifference of a savage.
+Indeed, she was in all essentials simply a squaw.
+During the ride to her new home she seemed more
+interested in the novel sensation of travelling at
+thirty miles an hour than in her own future. She
+clung to the side of the car with both hands, and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page145">[pg 145]</span><a name="Pg145" id="Pg145" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+her face reflected a pathetic mingling of fear and
+delight.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The house of Nestor Gomez to which Ramon
+took her was prettily set in a grove of cottonwoods,
+with white hollyhocks blooming on either
+side of the door, and strings of red chile hanging
+from the rafter-ends to dry. Half a dozen
+small children played about the door, the younger
+ones naked and all of them deep in dirt. A hen
+led her brood of chicks into the house on a foray
+for crumbs, and in the shade of the wall a mongrel
+bitch luxuriously gave teat to four pups. Bees
+humming about the hollyhocks bathed the scene
+in sleepy sound.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Catalina, utterly unembarassed, shook hands
+with her host and hostess in the limp, brief way
+of the Mexicans, and then, while Ramon talked
+with them, sat down in the shade, shook loose
+her heavy black hair and began to comb it. A
+little half-naked urchin of three years came and
+stood before her. She stopped combing to place
+her hands on his shoulders, and the two regarded
+each other long and intently, while Catalina’s
+mouth framed a smile of dull wonder.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As Ramon drove back to town, he marvelled
+that he should ever have desired this clod of a
+woman; but he was grateful to her for the bovine
+calm with which she accepted things. He would
+visit her once in a while. He felt pretty sure
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page146">[pg 146]</span><a name="Pg146" id="Pg146" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+that he could count on her not to make trouble.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Afterward he discussed the situation with
+Cortez. The latter was worried.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You better look out,”</span> he counselled. <span class="tei tei-q">“You
+better send him a message you are going to marry
+her. That will keep him quiet for a while.
+When he gets over being mad, maybe you can
+make him take a thousand dollars instead.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon shook his head. If he gave Archulera
+to understand that he would marry the girl, word
+of it might get to town.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“He’ll never find her,”</span> he said confidently.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“I’ll do nothing unless he comes to me.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I don’t know,”</span> Cortez replied doubtfully.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Is he a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitente</span></span>?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Yes; I think he is,”</span> Ramon admitted.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Then maybe he’ll find her pretty quick.
+There are some <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes</span></span>
+still in the valley and
+all <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes</span></span>
+work together. You better look
+out.”</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC20" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page147">[pg 147]</span><a name="Pg147" id="Pg147" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc40" id="toc40"></a>
+<a name="pdf41" id="pdf41"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XX</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He had resolutely put the thought of Julia as
+much out of his mind as possible. He had
+conquered his disappointment at not being able to
+see her for a month, and had resolved to devote
+that month exclusively to hard work. And now
+came another one of those small, square, brief
+letters with its disturbing scent of lavender, and
+its stamp stuck upside down near the middle of
+the envelope.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I will be in town tomorrow when you get
+this,”</span> she wrote, <span class="tei tei-q">“But only for a day or two. We
+are going to move up to the capital for the rest of
+the year. Gordon is going to stay here now.
+Just mother and I are coming down to pack up
+our things. You can come and see me tomorrow
+evening.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was astonishing, it was disturbing, it was
+incomprehensible. And it did not fit in with his
+plans. He had intended to go North and return
+before she did; then, with all his affairs in order,
+ask her to go away with him. Cortez had
+already sent word to Alfego that Ramon was
+coming to Arriba County. He could not afford
+a change of plans now. But the prospect of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page148">[pg 148]</span><a name="Pg148" id="Pg148" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+seeing her again filled him with pleasure, sent a
+sort of weakening excitement tingling through
+his body.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And what did it mean that he was to be allowed
+to call on her? Had she, by any chance, won
+over her mother and brother? No; he couldn’t
+believe it. But he went to her house that evening
+shaken by great hopes and anticipations.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She wore a black dress that left her shoulders
+bare, and set off the slim perfection of her little
+figure. Her face was flushed and her eyes were
+deep. How much more beautiful she was than
+the image he carried in his mind! He had been
+thinking of her all this while, and yet he had forgotten
+how beautiful she was. He could think
+of nothing to say at first, but held her by both
+hands and looked at her with eyes of wonder
+and desire. He felt a fool because his knees were
+weak and he was tremulous. But a happy fool!
+The touch and the sight of her seemed to dissolve
+his strength, and also the hardness and the bitterness
+that life had bred in him, the streak of
+animal ferocity that struggle brought out in him.
+He was all desire, but desire bathed in tenderness
+and hope. She made him feel as once long ago
+he had felt in church when the music and the
+pageantry and sweet odours of the place had filled
+his childish spirit with a strange sense of harmony.
+He had felt small and unworthy, yet happy and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page149">[pg 149]</span><a name="Pg149" id="Pg149" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+forgiven. So now he felt in her presence that he
+was black and bestial beside her, but that possession
+of her would somehow wash him clean and
+bring him peace.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When he tried to draw her to him she shook
+her head, not meeting his eyes and freed herself
+gently.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“No, no. I must tell you.…”</span> She led
+him to a seat, and went on, looking down at a toe
+that played with a design in the carpet. <span class="tei tei-q">“I must
+explain. I promised mother that if she would
+let me see you this once to tell you, I would never
+try to see you again.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a long silence, during which he
+could feel his heart pounding and could see that
+she breathed quickly. Then suddenly he took her
+face in both hot hands and turned it toward him,
+made her meet his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“But of course you didn’t mean that,”</span> he said.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She struggled weakly against his strength.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I don’t know. I thought I did.… It’s terrible.
+You know… I wrote you … some
+one saw us together. Gordon and mother found
+out about it. I won’t tell you all that they said,
+but it was awful. It made me angry, and they
+found out that I love you. It had a terrible effect
+on Gordon. It made him worse. I can’t tell you
+how awful it is for me. I love you. But I love
+him too. And to think I’m hurting him when
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page150">[pg 150]</span><a name="Pg150" id="Pg150" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+he’s sick, when I’ve lived in the hope he would get
+well.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She was breathing hard now. Her eyes were
+bright with tears. All her defences were down,
+her fine dignity vanished. When he took her in
+his arms she struggled a little at first; then yielded
+with closed eyes to his hot kisses.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Afterward they talked a little, but not to much
+purpose. He had important things to tell her,
+they had plans to make. But their great disturbing
+hunger for each other would not let them
+think of anything else. Their conversation was
+always interrupted by hot confusing embraces.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The clock struck eleven, and she jumped up.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I promised to make you go home at eleven,”</span>
+she told him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“But I must tell you … I have to leave town
+for a while.”</span> He found his tongue suddenly.
+Briefly he outlined the situation he faced with
+regard to his estate. Of course, he said nothing
+about the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes</span></span>,
+but he made her understand
+that he was going forth to fight for both their
+fortunes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I can’t do it, I won’t go, unless I know I am
+to have you,”</span> he finished. <span class="tei tei-q">“Everything I have
+done, everything I am going to do is for you. If
+I lose you I lose everything. You promise to go
+with me?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His eyes were burning with earnestness, and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page151">[pg 151]</span><a name="Pg151" id="Pg151" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+hers were wide with admiration. He did not
+really understand her, nor she him. Unalterable
+differences of race and tradition and temperament
+stood between them. They had little in common
+save a great primitive hunger. But that, none-the-less,
+for the moment genuinely transfigured
+and united them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She drew a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Yes. You must promise not to try to see me
+until then. When you are ready, let me know.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She threw back her head, opening her arms to
+him. For a moment she hung limp in his embrace;
+then pushed him away and ran upstairs,
+leaving him to find his way out alone.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He walked home slowly, trying to straighten
+out his thoughts. Her presence seemed still to
+be all about him. One of her hairs was tangled
+about a button of his coat; her powder and the
+scent of her were all over his shoulder; the recollection
+of her kisses smarted sweetly on his
+mouth. He was weak, confused, ridiculously
+happy. But he knew that he would carry North
+with him greater courage and purpose than ever
+before he had known.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC21" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page152">[pg 152]</span><a name="Pg152" id="Pg152" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc42" id="toc42"></a>
+<a name="pdf43" id="pdf43"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXI</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In the dry clean air of the Southwest all things
+change slowly. Growth is slow and decay is even
+slower. The body of a dead horse in the desert
+does not rot but dessicates, the hide remaining
+intact for months, the bones perhaps for years.
+Men and beasts often live to great age. The
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pinon</span></span> trees on
+the red hills were there when the
+conquerors came, and they are not much larger
+now—only more gnarled and twisted.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This strange inertia seems to possess institutions
+and customs as well as life itself. In the
+valley towns, it is true, the railroads have brought
+and thrown down all the conveniences and incongruities
+of civilization. But ride away from the
+railroads into the mountains or among the lava
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesas</span></span>, and you
+are riding into the past. You
+will see little earthen towns, brown or golden or
+red in the sunlight, according to the soil that bore
+them, which have not changed in a century. You
+will see grain threshed by herds of goats and
+ponies driven around and around the threshing
+floors, as men threshed grain before the Bible was
+written. You will see Indian pueblos which have
+not changed materially since the brave days when
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page153">[pg 153]</span><a name="Pg153" id="Pg153" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Coronado came to Taos and the Spanish soldiers
+stormed the heights of Acoma. You will hear
+of strange Gods and devils and of the evil eye.
+It is almost as though this crystalline air were
+indeed a great clear crystal, impervious to time,
+in which the past is forever encysted.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The region in which Ramon’s heritage lay was
+a typical part of this forgotten land. In the
+southern end of the Rocky Mountains, it was a
+country of great tilted
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesas</span></span> reaching above
+timber line, covered for the most part with heavy
+forests of pine and fir, with here and there great
+upland pastures swept clean by forest fires of
+long ago. Along the lower slopes of the mountains,
+where the valleys widened, were primitive
+little <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">adobe</span></span>
+towns, in which the Mexicans lived,
+each owning a few acres of tillable land. In the
+summer they followed their sheep herds in the
+upland pastures. There were not a hundred
+white men in the whole of Arriba County, and no
+railroad touched it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">In this region a few Mexicans who were
+shrewder or stronger than the others, who owned
+stores or land, dominated the rest of the people
+much as the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">patrones</span></span>
+had dominated them in the
+days before the Mexican War. Here still
+flourished the hatred for the gringo which culminated
+in that war. Here that strange sect, the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes hermanos</span></span>,
+half savage and half mediaeval,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page154">[pg 154]</span><a name="Pg154" id="Pg154" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+still was strong and still recruited its
+strength every year with young men, who elsewhere
+were refusing to undergo its brutal tortures.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For all of these reasons, this was an advantageous
+field for the fight Ramon proposed to
+make. In the valley MacDougall’s money and
+influence would surely have beaten him. But
+here he could play upon the ancient hatred for the
+gringo; here he could use to the best advantage the
+prestige of his family; here, above all, if he could
+win over the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes</span></span>,
+he could do almost anything
+he pleased.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His plan of joining that ancient order to gain
+influence was not an original one. Mexican
+politicians and perhaps one or two gringos had
+done it, and the fact was a matter of common
+gossip. Some of these <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes</span></span>
+for a purpose
+had been men of great influence, and their initiations
+had been tempered to suit their sensitive
+skins. Others had been Mexicans of the poorer
+sort, capable of sharing the half-fanatic, half sadistic
+spirit of the thing.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon came to the order as a young and almost
+unknown man seeking its aid. He could not hope
+for much mercy. And though he was primitive
+in many ways, there was nothing in him that
+responded to the spirit of this ordeal. The
+thought of Christ crucified did not inspire him to
+endure suffering. But the thought of a girl with
+yellow hair did.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC22" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page155">[pg 155]</span><a name="Pg155" id="Pg155" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc44" id="toc44"></a>
+<a name="pdf45" id="pdf45"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXII</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon went first to the ranch at the foot of
+the mountains which his uncle had used as a headquarters,
+and which had belonged to the family
+for about half a century. It consisted merely
+of an <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">adobe</span></span> ranch house
+and barn and a log corral
+for rounding up horses.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Here Ramon left his machine. Here also he
+exchanged his business suit for corduroys, a wide
+hat and high-heeled riding boots. He greatly
+fancied himself in this costume and he embellished
+it with a silk bandana of bright scarlet and with
+a large pair of silver spurs which had belonged
+to his uncle, and which he found in the saddle
+room of the barn. From the accoutrement in
+this room he also selected the most pretentious-looking
+saddle. It was a heavy stock saddle,
+with German silver mountings and saddle bags
+covered with black bear fur. A small red and
+black Navajo blanket served as a saddle pad and
+he found a fine Navajo bridle, too, woven of
+black horsehair, with a big hand-hammered silver
+buckle on each cheek.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He had the old Mexican who acted as caretaker
+for the ranch drive all of the ranch horses into
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page156">[pg 156]</span><a name="Pg156" id="Pg156" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the corral, and chose a spirited roan mare for a
+saddle animal. He always rode a roan horse
+when he could get one because a roan mustang
+has more spirit than one of any other colour.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The most modern part of his equipment was
+his weapon. He did not want to carry one
+openly, so he had purchased a small but highly
+efficient automatic pistol, which he wore in a
+shoulder scabbard inside his shirt and under his
+left elbow.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When his preparations were completed he
+rode straight to the town of Alfego where the
+powerful Solomon had his establishment, dismounted
+under the big cottonwoods and strolled
+into the long, dark cluttered
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">adobe</span></span> room which
+was Solomon Alfego’s store. Three or four Mexican
+clerks were waiting upon as many Mexican
+customers, with much polite, low-voiced conversation,
+punctuated by long silences while the customers
+turned the goods over and over in their
+hands. Ramon’s entrance created a slight diversion.
+None of them knew him, for he had not
+been in that country for years, but all of them
+recognized that he was a person of weight and
+importance. He saluted all at once, lifting his
+hat, with a cordial <span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Como
+lo va, amigos</span></span>,”</span> and
+then devoted himself to an apparently interested
+inspection of the stock. This, if conscientiously
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page157">[pg 157]</span><a name="Pg157" id="Pg157" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+done, would have afforded a week’s occupation,
+for Solomon Alfego served as sole merchant for
+a large territory and had to be prepared to supply
+almost every human want. There were shelves
+of dry goods and of hardware, of tobacco and of
+medicines. In the centre of the store was
+a long rack, heavily laden with saddlery and
+harness of all kinds, and all around the top of the
+room, above the shelves, ran a row of religious
+pictures, including popes, saints, and cardinals,
+Mary with the infant, Christ crucified and Christ
+bearing the cross, all done in bright colours and
+framed, for sale at about three dollars each.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was not long before word of the stranger’s
+arrival reached Alfego in his little office behind
+the store, and he came bustling out, beaming and
+polite.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“This is Senor Solomon Alfego?”</span> Ramon
+enquired in his most formal Spanish.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I am Solomon Alfego,”</span> replied the bulky little
+man, with a low bow, <span class="tei tei-q">“and what can I do for the
+Senor?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I am Ramon Delcasar,”</span> Ramon replied, extending
+his hand with a smile, <span class="tei tei-q">“and it may be that
+you can do much for me.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Ah-h-h!”</span> breathed Alfego, with another bow,
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Ramon Delcasar! And I knew you when you
+were <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">un muchachito</span></span>”</span>
+(a little boy). He bent
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page158">[pg 158]</span><a name="Pg158" id="Pg158" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+over and measured scant two feet from the floor
+with his hand. <span class="tei tei-q">“My house is yours. I am at
+your service. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Siempre!</span></span>”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The two strolled about the store, talking of
+the weather, politics, business, the old days—everything
+except what they were both thinking
+about. Alfego opened a box of cigars, and having
+lit a couple of these, they went out on the long
+porch and sat down on an old buggy seat to
+continue the conversation. Alfego admired
+Ramon’s horse and especially his silver-mounted
+saddle.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Ha! you like the saddle!”</span> Ramon exclaimed
+in well-stimulated delight. He rose, swiftly undid
+the cinches, and dropped saddle and blanket
+at the feet of his host. <span class="tei tei-q">“It is yours!”</span> he announced.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“A thousand thanks,”</span> Alfego replied. <span class="tei tei-q">“Come;
+I wish to show you some Navajo blankets I
+bought the other day.”</span> He led the way into the
+store, and directed one of his clerks to bring forth
+a great stack of the heavy Indian weaves, and
+began turning them over. They were blankets
+of the best quality, and some of the designs in red,
+black and grey were of exceptional beauty.
+Ramon stood smiling while his host turned over
+one blanket after another. As he displayed each
+one he turned his bright pop-eyes on Ramon with
+an eager enquiring look. At last when he had
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page159">[pg 159]</span><a name="Pg159" id="Pg159" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+seen them all, Ramon permitted himself to pick up
+and examine the one he considered the best with
+a restrained murmur of admiration.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You like it!”</span> exclaimed Alfego with delight.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“It is yours!”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Mutual good feeling having thus been signalized
+in the traditional Mexican manner by an exchange
+of gifts, Alfego now showed his guest all
+over his establishment. It included, in addition to
+the store, several ware rooms where were piled
+stinking bales of sheep and goat and cow hides,
+sacks of raw wool and of corn, pelts of wild
+animals and bags of
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pinon</span></span> nuts, and of beans, all
+taken from the Mexicans in trade. Afterward
+Ramon met the family, of patriarchal proportions,
+including an astonishing number of little brown
+children having the bright eyes and well developed
+noses of the great Solomon. Then came supper,
+a long and bountiful feast, at which great quantities
+of mutton, chile, and beans were served.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Having thus been duly impressed with the
+greatness and substance of his host, and also with
+his friendly attitude, Ramon was led into the
+little office, offered a seat and a fresh cigar. He
+knew that at last the proper time had come for
+him to declare himself.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“My friend,”</span> he said, leaning toward Alfego
+confidentially, <span class="tei tei-q">“I have come to this country and to
+you for a great purpose. You know that a rich
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page160">[pg 160]</span><a name="Pg160" id="Pg160" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+gringo has been buying the lands of the poor
+people—my people and yours—all through this
+country. You know that he intends to own all of
+this country—to take it away from us Mexicans.
+If he succeeds, he will take away all of your
+business, all of my lands. You and I must fight
+him together. Am I right?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Solomon nodded his head slowly, watching
+Ramon with wide bright eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Verdad!</span></span>”</span>
+he pronounced unctuously.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I have come,”</span> Ramon went on more boldly,
+<span class="tei tei-q">“because my own lands are in danger, but also
+because I love the Mexican people, and hate the
+gringos! Some one must go among these good
+people and warn them not to sell their lands, not
+to be cheated out of their birthrights. My friend,
+I have come here to do that.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Bueno!</span></span>”</span> exclaimed Alfego.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Muy bueno!</span></span>”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“My friend, I must have your help.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon said this as impressively as possible, and
+paused expectantly, but as Alfego said nothing, he
+went on, gathering his wits for the supreme effort.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I know that you are a leader in the great
+fraternity of the penitent brothers, who are the
+best and most pious of men. My friend, I wish
+to become one of them. I wish to mingle my
+blood with theirs and with the blood of Christ,
+that all of us may be united in our great purpose
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page161">[pg 161]</span><a name="Pg161" id="Pg161" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+to keep this country for the Spanish people, who
+conquered it from the barbarians.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Alfego looked very grave, puffed his cigar
+violently three times and spat before he answered.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“My young friend,”</span> (he spoke slowly and
+solemnly) <span class="tei tei-q">“to pour out your blood in penance and
+to consecrate your body to Christ is a great thing
+to do. Have you meditated deeply upon this
+step? Are you sure the Lord Jesus has called you
+to his service? And what assurance have I that
+you are sincere in all you say, that if I make you
+my brother in the blood of Christ, you will truly
+be as a brother to me?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon bowed his head.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I have thought long on this,”</span> he said softly,
+<span class="tei tei-q">“and I know my heart. I desire to be a blood
+brother to all these, my people. And to you—I
+give you my word as a Delcasar that I will
+serve you well, that I will be as a brother to you.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">There was a silence during which Alfego stared
+with profound gravity at the ash on the end of
+his cigar.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Have you heard,”</span> Ramon went on, in the
+same soft and emotional tone of voice, <span class="tei tei-q">“that the
+Denver and Rio Grande Railroad is going to
+build a line through the San Antonio Valley?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Alfego, without altering his look of rapt meditation,
+nodded his head slowly.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page162">[pg 162]</span><a name="Pg162" id="Pg162" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Do you suppose that you will gain anything
+by that, if this gringo gets these lands?”</span> Ramon
+went on. <span class="tei tei-q">“You know that you will not. But I
+will make you my partner. And I will give you
+the option on any of my mountain land that you
+may wish to rent for sheep range. More than
+that, I will make you a written agreement to do
+these things. In all ways we will be as brothers.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You are a worthy and pious young man!”</span>
+exclaimed Solomon Alfego, rolling his eyes upward,
+his voice vibrant with emotion. <span class="tei tei-q">“You
+shall be my brother in the blood of Christ.”</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC23" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page163">[pg 163]</span><a name="Pg163" id="Pg163" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc46" id="toc46"></a>
+<a name="pdf47" id="pdf47"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXIII</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon went to the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Morada</span></span>, the chapter house
+of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes</span></span>,
+alone and late at night, for all
+of the whippings and initiations of the order,
+except those of Holy Week, are carried on in the
+utmost secrecy.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Morada</span></span>
+stood halfway up the slope north
+of the little town, at the elevation where the tall
+yellow pines of the mountains begin to replace
+the scrubby juniper and <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pinon</span></span>
+of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesas</span></span> and
+foothills. It was a cool moonlit night of late
+summer. A light west wind breathed through
+the trees, making the massive black shadows of
+the juniper bushes faintly alive. As he toiled up
+the rocky path Ramon heard the faraway yap and
+yodel of a coyote, and the still more distant
+answer of another one. From the valley below
+came the intermittent bay of a cur, inspired by the
+moon and his wild kin, and now and then the tiny
+silver tinkle of a goat bell.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Morada</span></span>
+stood in an open space. It was
+an oblong block of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">adobe</span></span>,
+and gave forth neither
+light nor sound. Ramon stopped a little way
+from it in the shadow of a tree and lit a cigarette
+to steady his nerves. He felt now for the first
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page164">[pg 164]</span><a name="Pg164" id="Pg164" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+time something of the mystery and terribleness of
+this barbaric order which he proposed to use for
+his purpose. All his life the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes</span></span> had been
+to him a well-known fact of life. For the past
+week he had spent much of his time with the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">maestro de novios</span></span>
+of the local chapter, a wizened
+old sheep herder, who had instructed him monotonously
+in the secrets of the order, almost lulling
+him to sleep with his endless mumblings of
+the ritual that was written in a little leather book
+a century old. He had learned that if he betrayed
+the secrets of the order, he would be buried
+alive with only his head sticking out of the
+ground, so that the ants might eat his face. He
+had been informed that if he fell ill he would be
+taken to the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Morada</span></span>
+where his brothers in Christ
+would pray for him, and seek to drive the devil
+out of his body, and that if he died, they would
+send his shoes to his family as a notice of that
+event; and would bury him in consecrated
+ground. Some of the things he had learned had
+bored him and some had made him want to laugh,
+but none of them had impressed him, as they
+were intended to do, with the might and dignity
+of the ancient order.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He was impressed now as he stood before this
+dark still house where a dozen ignorant fanatics
+waited to take his blood for what was to them a
+holy purpose. He knew that this
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Morada</span></span> was a
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page165">[pg 165]</span><a name="Pg165" id="Pg165" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+very old one. He thought of all the true penitents
+who had knocked for admission at its door
+and had gone through its bloody ordeal with a
+zeal of madness which had enabled them to cry
+loudly for blows and more blows until they fell
+insensible. He tried to imagine their state of
+mind, but he could not. He was of their race
+and a growth of the same soil, but an alien civilization
+had touched him and sundered him from
+them, yet without taking him for its own. He
+could only nerve himself to face this ordeal because
+it would serve his one great purpose.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As he stood there, a curious half-irrelevant
+thought came into his mind. He knew that the
+marks they would make on his back would be
+permanent. He had seen the long rough scars
+on the backs of sheep-herders, stripped to the
+waist for the hot work of shearing. And he
+wondered how he would explain these strange
+scars to Julia. He imagined her discovering
+them with her long dainty hands, her round white
+arms. A great longing surged up in him that
+seemed to weaken the very tissues of his body.
+He shook himself, threw away his cigarette, went
+to the heavy wooden door and knocked.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Now he spoke a rigamarole in Spanish which
+had been taught him by rote.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“God knocks at this mission’s door for His
+clemency,”</span> he called.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page166">[pg 166]</span><a name="Pg166" id="Pg166" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">From within came a deep-voiced chorus, the
+first sound he had heard from the house, seeming
+weirdly to be the voice of the house itself.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Penance, penance, which seeks salvation!”</span> it
+chanted.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Saint Peter will open to me the gate, bathing
+me with the light, in the name of Mary, with the
+seal of Jesus,”</span> Ramon went on, repeating as he
+had learned. <span class="tei tei-q">“I ask this confraternity. Who
+gives this house light?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Jesus,”</span> answered the chorus within.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Who fills it with joy?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Mary.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Who preserves it with faith?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Joseph!”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The door opened and Ramon entered the
+chapel room of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Morada</span></span>.
+It was lighted by a
+single candle, which revealed dimly the rough
+earthen walls, the low roof raftered with round
+pine logs, the wooden benches and the altar,
+covered with black cloth. This was decorated
+with figures of the skull and cross-bones cut from
+white cloth. A human skull stood on either side
+of it, and a small wooden crucifix hung on the wall
+above it. The solitary candle—an ordinary
+tallow one in a tin holder—stood before this.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The men were merely dark human shapes.
+The light did not reveal their faces. They said
+nothing to Ramon. He could scarcely believe
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page167">[pg 167]</span><a name="Pg167" id="Pg167" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+that these were the same good-natured
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pelados</span></span>
+he had known by day. Indeed they were not the
+same, but were now merely units of this organization
+which held them in bondage of fear and awe.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One of them took Ramon silently by the arm
+and led him through a low door into the other
+room which was the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Morada</span></span>
+proper. This
+room was supposed never to be entered except by
+a member of the order or by a candidate. It was
+small and low as the other, furnished only with a
+few benches about the wall, and lighted by a
+couple of candles on a small table. A very old
+and tarnished oil painting of Mary with the Babe
+hung at one end of it. All the way around the
+room, hanging from pegs driven into the wall,
+was a row of the broad heavy braided lashes of
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">amole</span></span> weed, called
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">disciplinas</span></span>, used in Holy
+Week, and of the blood-stained drawers worn on
+that occasion by the flagellants.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Still in complete silence Ramon was forced to
+his knees by two of the men, who quickly stripped
+him to the waist. Beside him stood a tall powerfully-built
+Mexican with his right arm bared. In
+his hand he held a triangular bit of white quartz,
+cleverly chipped to a cutting edge. This man
+was the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">sangredor</span></span>,
+whose duty it was to place the
+seal of the order upon the penitent’s back. His
+office required no little skill, for he had to make
+three cuts the whole length of the back and three
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page168">[pg 168]</span><a name="Pg168" id="Pg168" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the width, tearing through the skin so as to leave
+a permanent scar, but not deep enough to injure
+the muscle. Ramon, glancing up, saw the gleam
+of the candle light on the white quartz, and also
+in the eyes of the man, which were bright with
+eagerness.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Now came the supreme struggle with himself.
+How could he go through with this ugly agony?
+He longed to leap to his feet and fight these
+ignorant louts, who were going to mangle him
+and beat him for their own amusement. He
+held himself down with all his will, striving to
+think of the girl, to hold his purpose before his
+mind, to endure.…</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He felt the hand of the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">sangredor</span></span> upon his
+neck, and gritted his teeth. The man’s grip was
+heavy, hot and firm. A flash of pain shot up and
+down his back with lightning speed, as though a
+red hot poker had been laid upon it. Again and
+again and again! Six times in twice as many
+seconds the deft flint ripped his skin, and he fell
+forward upon his hands, faint and sick, as he
+felt his own blood welling upon his back and
+trickling in warm rivulets between his ribs.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But this was not all. To qualify, he knew, he
+must call for the lash of his own free will.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“For the love of God,”</span> he uttered painfully,
+as he had been taught, <span class="tei tei-q">“the three meditations of
+the passion of our Lord.”</span></p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page169">[pg 169]</span><a name="Pg169" id="Pg169" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">On his torn back a long black snake whip came
+down, wielded with merciless force. But he felt
+the full agony of the first blow only. The second
+seemed faint, and the third sent him plunging
+downward through a red mist into black nothingness.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC24" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page170">[pg 170]</span><a name="Pg170" id="Pg170" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc48" id="toc48"></a>
+<a name="pdf49" id="pdf49"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXIV</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A few days later one bright morning Ramon
+was sitting in the sun before the door of his
+friend, Francisco Guiterrez, feeling still somewhat
+sore, but otherwise surprisingly well. Guiterrez,
+a young sheep-herder, held the position
+of <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">coadjutor</span></span> of the
+local <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitente</span></span> chapter, and
+one of his duties as such was to take the penitent
+to his house and care for him after the initiation.
+He had washed Ramon’s wounds in a tea made
+by boiling Romero weed. This was a remedy
+which the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes</span></span>
+had used for centuries, and
+its efficacy was proved by the fact that Ramon’s
+cuts had begun to heal at once, and that he had
+had very little fever.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For a couple of days Ramon had been forced
+to lie restlessly in the only bed of the Guiterrez
+establishment. The Senora Guiterrez, a pretty
+buxom young Mexican woman, had fed him on
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">atole</span></span> gruel and
+on all of the eggs which her small
+flock of scrub hens produced; the seven little dirty
+brown Guiterrez children had come in to marvel
+at him with their fingers in their mouths; the
+Guiterrez goats and dogs and chickens had
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page171">[pg 171]</span><a name="Pg171" id="Pg171" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+wandered in and out of the room in a companionable
+way, as though seeking to make him feel
+at ease; and Guiterrez himself had spent his
+evenings sitting beside Ramon, smoking cigarettes
+and talking.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This time of idleness had not been wholly wasted,
+either, for it had come out in the course of
+conversation that Guiterrez had been offered a
+thousand dollars for his place by a man whom he
+did not know, but whom Ramon had easily identified
+as an agent of MacDougall. Tempted by
+an amount which he could scarcely conceive,
+Guiterrez was thinking seriously of accepting the
+offer.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Now that he had won over Alfego and had
+gotten the influence of the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitentes</span></span> on his side,
+Ramon’s one remaining object was to defeat just
+such deals as this, which MacDougall already
+had under way. He intended to stir up feeling
+against the gringos, and to persuade the Mexicans
+not to sell. Later, such lands as he needed
+in order to control the right-of-way, he would
+gain by lending money and taking mortgages.
+But he did not intend to cheat any one. Such
+Mexicans as he had to oust from their lands, he
+would locate elsewhere. He was filled with a
+large generosity, and with a real love for these,
+his people. He meant to dominate this country,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page172">[pg 172]</span><a name="Pg172" id="Pg172" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+but his pride demanded that no one should be
+poor or hungry in his domain. So now he argued
+the matter to Guiterrez with real sincerity.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“A thousand dollars?
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Por Dios</span></span>, man! Don’t
+you know that this place is worth many thousand
+dollars to you?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“How can it be worth many thousand?”</span>
+Guiterrez demanded. <span class="tei tei-q">“What have I here? A
+few acres of chile and corn, a little hay, some
+range for my goats, a few cherry trees, a house.…
+Many thousands? No.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You have here a home,
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">amigo</span></span>,”</span> Ramon reminded
+him. <span class="tei tei-q">“Do you know how long a thousand
+dollars would support you? A year, perhaps.
+Then you would have to work for other
+men the rest of your life. Here you are free
+and independent.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Guiterrez said nothing, but he had obviously
+received a new idea, and was impressed. Ramon
+never returned to the direct argument, but he
+missed no chance to stimulate Guiterrez’s pride
+in his establishment.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“This is a good little house you have
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">amigo</span></span>,”</span>
+he would observe. And Guiterrez would tell
+him that the house had been built by his grandfather,
+but that its walls were as firm as ever,
+and that he had been intending for several years
+to plaster it, but had never gotten time. Before
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page173">[pg 173]</span><a name="Pg173" id="Pg173" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+he was out of bed, Ramon was reasonably sure
+that Guiterrez would never sell.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The house was indeed charmingly situated on a
+hillside at the foot of which a little clear trout
+stream, called Rio Gallinas, chuckled over the
+bright pebbles in its bed and ran to hide in thickets
+of willow.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sitting on the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">portal</span></span>,
+which ran the length of
+the house and consisted of a projection of the roof
+supported by rough pine logs, Ramon could look
+down the canyon to where it widened into a little
+valley that lost itself in the vast levels of the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>. There thirsty
+sands swallowed the stream
+and not a sprig of green marred the harmony of
+grey and purple swimming in vivid light, reaching
+away to the horizon where faint blue mountains
+hung in drooping lines.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">By turning his head, Ramon could look into
+the heart of the mountains whence the stream issued
+through a narrow canyon, with steep, forested
+ridges on either side, and little level glades
+along the water, set with tall, conical blue spruce
+trees, pines with their warm red boles, and little
+clumps of aspen with gleaming white stems, and
+trembling leaves of mingled gold and green.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon spent many hours with his back against
+the wall, his knees drawn up under his chin, Mexican
+fashion, smoking and vaguely dreaming of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page174">[pg 174]</span><a name="Pg174" id="Pg174" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the girl he loved and of the things he would do.
+The vast sun drenched landscape before him was
+too much a part of his life, too intimate a thing
+for him to appreciate its beauty, but after his
+struggles with doubt and desire, it filled him with
+an unaccountable contentment. Its warmth and
+brightness, its unchanging serenity, its ceaseless
+soft voices of wind and water, lulled his mind and
+comforted his senses. The country was like some
+great purring creature that let him lie in its
+bosom and filled his body with the warm steady
+throb of its untroubled strength.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After a week of recuperation, he bought a
+horse from Guiterrez for a pack animal, loaded
+it with bedding and provisions and rode away
+into the mountains. His task was now to find
+other men who had fallen under the influence of
+MacDougall, and to persuade them not to sell
+their lands. Some of them would be at their
+homes, but others would be with the sheep herds,
+scattered here and there in the high country.
+He faced long days of mountain wandering, and
+for all that he longed to be done with his task,
+this part of it was sweet to him.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC25" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page175">[pg 175]</span><a name="Pg175" id="Pg175" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc50" id="toc50"></a>
+<a name="pdf51" id="pdf51"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXV</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">These were days of power and success, days of
+a glamour that lingered long in his mind. Beyond
+a doubt he was destroying MacDougall’s
+plan and realizing his own. Sometimes he met
+a surly Mexican who would not listen to him, but
+nearly always he won the man over in the end.
+He was amazed at his own resourcefulness and
+eloquence. It seemed as though some inhibition
+in him had been broken down, some magical elixir
+poured into his imagination. He found that he
+could literally take a sheep camp by storm, entering
+into the life of the men, telling them stories,
+singing them songs, passing out presents of
+tobacco and whisky, often delivering a wildly
+applauded harangue on the necessity for all Mexicans
+to act together against the gringos, who
+would otherwise soon own the country. Never
+once did he think of the incongruity of thus fanning
+the flames of race hatred for the love of a
+girl with grey eyes and yellow hair.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He did not always reach a house or a sheep
+camp at night. Many a time he camped alone,
+catching trout for his supper from a mountain
+stream, and going to sleep to the lonely music of
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page176">[pg 176]</span><a name="Pg176" id="Pg176" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+running water in a wilderness. At such times
+many a man would have lost faith in himself,
+would have feared his crimes and lost his hopes.
+But to Ramon this loneliness was an old friend.
+Like all who have lived much out-of-doors he was
+at heart a pantheist, and felt more at peace and
+unity with wild nature than ever he had with men.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But there was one such night when he felt
+troubled. As he rode up the Tusas Canyon at
+twilight, a sense of insecurity came over him,
+amounting almost to fear. He had had a somewhat
+similar feeling once when a panther had
+trailed him on a winter night. Now, as then, he
+had no idea what it was that menaced him; he
+was simply warned by that sixth sense which
+belongs to all wild things, and to men in whom
+there remains something of the feral. His horses
+shared his unrest. When he picketed them, just
+before dark, they fed uneasily, stopping now and
+then to stand like statues with lifted heads, testing
+the wind with their nostrils, moving their ears to
+catch some sound beyond human perception.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When he had eaten his supper and made his
+bed, Ramon took the little automatic revolver out
+of its scabbard and went down the canyon a
+quarter of a mile, slipping along in the shadow of
+the brush that lined the banks of the stream.
+This was necessary because a half-moon made the
+open glades bright. He paused and peered a
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page177">[pg 177]</span><a name="Pg177" id="Pg177" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+dozen times. So cautious were his movements
+that he came within forty feet of a drinking deer,
+and was badly startled when it bounded away with
+a snort and a smashing of brush. But he saw
+nothing dangerous and went back to his camp and
+to bed. There he lay awake for an hour, still
+troubled, oppressed by a vague feeling of the
+littleness and insecurity of human life.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A long, rippling snort of fear from his saddle
+horse, picketed near his bed, awakened him and
+probably saved his life. When he opened his
+eyes, he saw the figure of a man standing directly
+over him. He was about to speak, when the man
+lifted his arms, swinging upward a heavy club.
+With quick presence of mind, Ramon jerked the
+blankets and the heavy canvas tarpaulin about his
+head, at the same time rolling over. The club
+came down with crushing force on his right
+shoulder. He continued to roll and flounder with
+all his might, going down a sharp slope toward
+the creek which was only a few yards away.
+Twice more he felt the club, once on his arm and
+once on his ribs, but his head escaped and the
+heavy blankets protected his body.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The next thing he knew, he had gone over the
+bank of the creek, which was several feet high in
+that place, and lay in the shallow icy water.
+Meantime he had gotten his hand on the automatic
+pistol. He now jerked upright and fired at the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page178">[pg 178]</span><a name="Pg178" id="Pg178" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+form of his assailant, which bulked above him.
+The man disappeared. For a moment Ramon sat
+still. He heard footsteps, and something like a
+grunt or a groan. Then he extricated himself
+from the cold, sodden blankets, climbed upon the
+bank, and began cautiously searching about, with
+his weapon ready. He found the club—a heavy
+length of green spruce-and put his hand accidentally
+on something wet, which he ascertained by
+smelling it to be blood.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He was shivering with cold and badly bruised
+in several places, but he was afraid to build a fire.
+In case his enemy were not badly injured or had a
+companion, that would have been risking another
+attack. He stood in the shadow of a spruce,
+stamping his feet and rubbing himself, acutely uncomfortable,
+waiting for daylight and wondering
+what this attack meant. He doubted whether
+MacDougall would have countenanced such tactics,
+but it might well have been an agent of MacDougall
+acting on his own responsibility. Or it
+might have been some one sent by old Archulera.
+Then, too, there were many poor connections of
+the Delcasar family who would profit by his death.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As he stood there in the dark, shivering and
+miserable, the idea of death was not hard for him
+to conceive. He realized that but for the snort
+of the saddle horse he would now be lying under
+the tree with the top of his head crushed in. The
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page179">[pg 179]</span><a name="Pg179" id="Pg179" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+man would probably have dragged his body into
+the thick timber and left it. There he would have
+lain and rotted. Or perhaps the coyotes would
+have eaten him and the buzzards afterward picked
+his bones. He shuddered. Despite his acute
+misery, life had never seemed more desirable.
+He thought of sunlight and warmth, of good food
+and of the love of women, and these things seemed
+more sweet than ever before. He realized, for
+the first time, too, that he faced many dangers
+and that the chance of death walked with him all
+the time. He resolved fiercely that he would
+beat all his enemies, that he would live and have
+his desires which were so sweet to him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Daylight came at last, showing him first the
+rim of the mountain serrated with spruce tops,
+and then lighting the canyon, revealing his disordered
+camp and his horses grazing quietly in
+the open. He went immediately and examined
+the ground where the struggle had taken place.
+A plain trail of blood lead away from the place,
+as he had expected. He formed a plan of action
+immediately.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">First he made a great fire, dried and warmed
+himself, cooked and ate his breakfast, drinking a
+full pint of hot coffee. Then he rolled up all his
+belongings, hid them in the bushes, and picketed
+his horses in a side canyon where the grass was
+good. When these preparations were complete,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page180">[pg 180]</span><a name="Pg180" id="Pg180" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+he took the trail of blood and followed it with the
+utmost care. He carried his weapon cocked in
+his hand, and always before he went around a
+bend in the canyon, or passed through a clump of
+trees, he paused and looked long and carefully,
+like an animal stalking dangerous prey.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At last, from the cover of some willows, he saw
+a man sitting beside the creek. The man was
+half-naked, and was binding up his leg with some
+strips torn from his dirty shirt. He was a Mexican
+of the lowest and most brutal type, with a
+swarthy skin, black hair and a bullet-shaped head.
+Ramon walked toward him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Buenas Dias,
+amigo</span></span>,”</span> he saluted.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The man looked up with eyes full of patient
+suffering, like the eyes of a hurt animal. He did
+not seem either surprised or frightened. He
+nodded and went on binding up his leg.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon watched him a minute. He saw that
+the man was weak from loss of blood. There
+was a great patch of dried blood on the ground
+beside him, now beginning to flake and curl in
+the sun.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I will come back in a minute, friend,”</span> he said.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He went back to his camp, saddled his horses,
+putting some food in the saddle pockets. When
+he returned, the Mexican sat in exactly the same
+place with his back against a rock and his legs and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page181">[pg 181]</span><a name="Pg181" id="Pg181" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+arms inert. Ramon fried bacon and made coffee
+for him. He had to help the man put the food in
+his mouth and hold a cup for him to drink.
+Afterward, with great difficulty, he loaded the
+man on his saddle horse, where he sat heavily,
+clutching the pommel with both hands. Ramon
+mounted the pack horse bareback.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Where do you live, friend?”</span> Ramon asked.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Tusas,”</span> the Mexican replied, naming a little
+village ten miles down the canyon.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They exchanged no other words until they came
+within sight of the group of
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">adobe</span></span> houses. Then
+Ramon stopped his horse and turned to the man.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You were hunting,”</span> he told him slowly and
+impressively, <span class="tei tei-q">“and you dropped your gun and shot
+yourself. <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Sabes?</span></span>”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The man nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“How much were you paid to kill me, friend?”</span>
+Ramon then asked.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The man looked at the pommel of the saddle,
+and his swarthy face darkened with a heavy flush.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“One hundred dollars,”</span> he admitted. <span class="tei tei-q">“I
+needed the money to christen a child. Could I
+let my child go to hell? But I did not mean to
+kill you. Only to beat you, so you would go away.
+Do not ask who sent me, for the love of
+God.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I ask nothing more, friend,”</span> Ramon assured
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page182">[pg 182]</span><a name="Pg182" id="Pg182" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+him. <span class="tei tei-q">“And since you were to have a hundred
+dollars for making me leave the country, here is a
+hundred dollars for not succeeding.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Both of them laughed. Ramon then rode on
+and delivered the man to his excited and grateful
+wife. He went back to his camp very weary and
+sore, but feeling that he had done an excellent
+stroke of work for his purpose.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC26" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page183">[pg 183]</span><a name="Pg183" id="Pg183" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc52" id="toc52"></a>
+<a name="pdf53" id="pdf53"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXVI</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After this occurrence his success among the
+humbler Mexicans was more marked than ever,
+but some of the men of property who had been
+subsidized by MacDougall were not so easily won
+over. Such a case was that of old Pedro Alcatraz
+who owned a little store in the town of Vallecitos,
+a bit of land and a few thousand sheep. Alcatraz
+was a tall boney old man, and was of nearly pure
+Navajo Indian blood, as one could tell by the
+queer crinkled character of his beard and moustache,
+which were like those of a chinaman. He
+was simple and direct like an Indian, too, lacking
+the Mexican talent for lying and artifice. In his
+own town he was a petty czar, like Alfego, but on
+a much smaller scale. By reason of being
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Hermano Mayor</span></span>
+of the local <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitente</span></span> chapter,
+and of having most of the people in his own neighbourhood
+in debt to him, he had considerable
+power. He was advising men to sell their lands,
+and was lending more money on land than it was
+reasonable to suppose he owned. Beyond a
+doubt, he had been won by MacDougall’s dollars.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon found Alcatraz unresponsive. The
+old man listened to a long harangue on the subject
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page184">[pg 184]</span><a name="Pg184" id="Pg184" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+of the race issue without a word of reply, and
+without looking up. Ramon then played what
+should have been his strongest card.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“My friend,”</span> he said, <span class="tei tei-q">“you may not know it,
+but I am your brother in the blood of Christ.
+Do I not then deserve better of you than a gringo
+who is trying to take this country away from the
+Mexican people?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Yes,”</span> the old man answered quietly, <span class="tei tei-q">“I know
+you are a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitente</span></span>,
+and I know why. Do you
+think that I am a fool like these
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pelados</span></span> that herd
+my sheep? You wear the scars of a
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">penitente</span></span>
+because you think it will help you to make money
+and to do what you want. You are just like
+MacDougall, except that he uses money and you
+use words. A poor man can only choose his
+masters, and for my part I have more use for
+money than for words.”</span> So saying, the blunt old
+savage walked to the other end of his store and
+began showing a Mexican woman some shawls.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon went away, breathing hard with rage,
+slapping his quirt against his boots. He would
+show that old <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">cabron</span></span>
+who was boss in these
+mountains!</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He went immediately and hired the little
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">adobe</span></span>
+hall which is found in every Mexican town of
+more than a hundred inhabitants, and made preparations
+to give a <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">baile</span></span>.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">To give a dance is the surest and simplest way
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page185">[pg 185]</span><a name="Pg185" id="Pg185" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+to win popularity in a Mexican town, and Ramon
+spared no expense to make this affair a success.
+He sent forty miles across the mountains for two
+fiddlers to help out the blind man who was the
+only local musician. He arranged a feast, and in
+a back room he installed a small keg of native
+wine and one of beer.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The invitation was general and every one who
+could possibly reach the place in a day’s journey
+came. The women wore for the most part calico
+dresses, bright in colour and generous in volume,
+heavily starched and absolutely devoid of fit.
+Their brown faces were heavily powdered, producing
+in some of the darker ones a purplish tint,
+which was ghastly in the light of the oil lamps.
+Some of the younger girls were comely despite
+their crude toilets, with soft skins, ripe breasts,
+mild dark heifer-like eyes, and pretty teeth showing
+in delighted grins. The men wore the cheap
+ready-made suits which have done so much to
+make Americans look alike everywhere, but they
+achieved a degree of originality by choosing
+brighter colours than men generally wear, being
+especially fond of brilliant electric blues and rich
+browns. Their broad but often handsome faces
+were radiant with smiles, and their thick black
+hair was wetted and greased into shiny order.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The dance started with difficulty, despite symptoms
+of eagerness on all hands. Bashful youths
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page186">[pg 186]</span><a name="Pg186" id="Pg186" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+stalled and crowded in the doorway like a log jam
+in the river. Bashful girls, seated all around the
+room, nudged and tittered and then became
+solemn and self-conscious. Each number was
+preceded by a march, several times around the
+room, which was sedate and formal in the extreme.
+The favourite dance was a fast, hopping waltz,
+in which the swain seized his partner firmly in both
+hands under the arms and put her through a
+vigorous test of wind and agility. The floor was
+rough and sanded, and the rasping of feet almost
+drowned the music. There were long Virginia
+reels, led with peremptory dash by a master of
+ceremonies, full of grace and importance.
+Swarthy faces were bedewed with sweat and dark
+eyes glowed with excitement, but there was never
+the slightest relaxation of the formalism of the
+affair. For this dance in an earthen hovel on a
+plank floor was the degenerate but lineal descendant
+of the splendid and formal balls which the
+Dons had held in the old days, when New Spain
+belonged to its proud and wealthy conquerors;
+it was the wistful and grotesque remnant of a
+dying order.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon had a vague realization of this fact as
+he watched the affair. It stirred a sort of sentimental
+pity in him. But he threw off that
+feeling, he had work to do. He entered into the
+spirit of the thing, dancing with every woman on
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page187">[pg 187]</span><a name="Pg187" id="Pg187" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+the floor. He took the men in groups to the
+back room and treated them. He missed no
+opportunity to get in a word against the gringos,
+and incidentally against those Mexicans who betrayed
+their fellows by advising them to sell their
+lands. He never mentioned Alcatraz by name,
+but he made it clear enough to whom he referred.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Late in the evening, when all were mellowed
+by drink and excited by dancing, he gained the
+attention of the gathering on the pretext of announcing
+a special dance, and boldly gave a harangue
+in which he urged all Mexicans to stick
+together against the gringos, and above all not
+to sell their homes which their fathers had won
+from the barbarians, and were the foundations of
+their prosperity and freedom.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Remember,”</span> he urged them in a burst of eloquence
+that surprised himself, <span class="tei tei-q">“that in your veins
+is the blood of conquerors—blood which was
+poured out on these hills and valleys to win them
+from the Indians, precious blood which has made
+this land priceless to you for all time!”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His speech was greeted with a burst of applause
+unquestionably spontaneous. It filled him with
+a sense of power that was almost intoxicating.
+In the town he might be neglected, despised,
+picked for an easy mark, but here among his
+own people he was a ruler and leader by birth.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The most important result of the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">baile</span></span> was that
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page188">[pg 188]</span><a name="Pg188" id="Pg188" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+it won over the stubborn Alcatraz. He did not
+attend it, but he knew what happened there. He
+realized that advice in favour of selling land would
+not be popular in that section for a long time,
+and he acknowledged his defeat by inviting Ramon
+to dinner at his house, and driving a shrewd
+bargain with him, whereby he gave his influence
+in exchange for certain grazing privileges.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">On his way home a few days later Ramon
+looked back at the mountains with the feeling
+that they belonged to him by right of conquest.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC27" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page189">[pg 189]</span><a name="Pg189" id="Pg189" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc54" id="toc54"></a>
+<a name="pdf55" id="pdf55"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXVII</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A week later Ramon was driving across the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span> west of town,
+bound for the state capital.
+He was following the same route that Diego
+Delcasar had followed on the day of his death,
+and he passed within a few miles of Archulera’s
+ranch; but no thought either of his uncle or of
+Archulera entered his mind. For in his pocket
+was a letter consisting of a single sentence hastily
+scrawled in a large round upright hand on lavender-scented
+note paper. The sentence was:</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-tb"> </div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Meet you at the
+southwest corner of the Plaza Tuesday at seven thirty.</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-right: 4.00em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: right">“Love,</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-right: 2.00em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: right">“J. R.”</span></p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-tb"> </div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">A great deal of trouble and anxiety had preceded
+the receipt of that message. First he had
+written her a letter that was unusually long and
+exuberant for him, telling her of his success and
+that now he was ready to come and get her in
+accordance with their agreement, suggesting a
+time and place. Three days of cumulative doubt
+and agony had gone by without a reply. Then he
+had tried to reach her by long distance telephone,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page190">[pg 190]</span><a name="Pg190" id="Pg190" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+but without success. Finally he had wired, although
+he knew that a telegram is a risky vehicle
+for confidential business. Now he had her
+answer, the answer that he wanted. His spirit
+was released and leapt forward, leaving resentments
+and doubts far behind.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was eighty miles to the state capital, the
+road was good all the way, the day bright and
+cool. His route lead across the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>, through
+the Scissors Pass, and then north and east along
+the foot of the mountains.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Immense and empty the country stretched before
+him—a land of far-flung levels and even
+farther mountains; a land which makes even the
+sea, with its near horizons, seem little; a land
+which has always produced men of daring because
+it inspires a sense of freedom without any limit
+save what daring sets.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He had dared and won. He was going to
+take the sweet price of his daring. The engine
+of his big car sang to him a song of victory and
+desire. He rejoiced in the sense of power under
+his hand. He opened the throttle wider and the
+car answered with more speed, licking up the
+road like a hungry monster. How easily he
+mastered time and distance for his purpose!</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He was to have her, she would be his. So
+sang the humming motor and the wind in his ears.
+Her white arms and her red mouth, her splendid
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page191">[pg 191]</span><a name="Pg191" id="Pg191" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+eyes that feared and yielded! She was waiting
+for him! More speed. He conquered the hills
+with a roar of strength to spare, topped the
+crests, and sped down the long slopes like a bird
+coming to earth.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He was to have her, she would be his. Could
+it be true? The great machine that carried him
+to their tryst roared an affirmative, the wind sang
+of it, his blood quickened with anticipation incredibly
+keen. And always the distance that lay
+between them was falling behind in long, grey
+passive miles.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He had reached his destination a little after
+six. As he drove slowly through the streets of
+the little dusty town, the mood of exaltation that
+had possessed him during the trip died down.
+He was intent, worried practical. Having registered
+at the hotel, he got a handful of time
+tables and made his plans with care. They
+would drive to a town twenty-five miles away, be
+married, and catch the California Limited.
+There would just be time. Once he had her in
+his car, nothing could stop them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">plaza</span></span>
+or public square about which the old
+town was built, and which had been its market
+place in the old days, was now occupied by a neat
+little park with a band stand. Retail stores and
+banks fronted on three sides of it, but the fourth
+was occupied by a long low <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">adobe</span></span> building
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page192">[pg 192]</span><a name="Pg192" id="Pg192" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+which was very old and had been converted into a
+museum of local antiquities. It was dark and
+lifeless at night, and in its shadow-filled verandah
+he was to meet her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He had his car parked beside the spot ten minutes
+ahead of time. It was slightly cold now,
+with a gusty wind whispering about the streets
+and tearing big papery leaves from the cottonwood
+trees in the park. The <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">plaza</span></span> was empty
+save for an occasional passer-by whose quick footfalls
+rang sharply in the silence. Here and there
+was an illuminated shop window. The drug
+store on the opposite corner showed a bright interior,
+where two small boys devoured ice cream
+sodas with solemn rapture. Somewhere up a
+side street a choir was practising a hymn, making
+a noise infinitely doleful.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He had a bear-skin to wrap her in, and he
+arranged this on the seat beside him and then
+tried to wait patiently. He sat very tense and
+motionless, except for an occasional glance at his
+watch, until it showed exactly seven-thirty.
+Then he got out of his car and began walking
+first to one side of the corner and then to the
+other, for he did not know from which direction
+she would come. At twenty-five minutes of eight
+he was angry, but in another ten minutes anger
+had given way to a dull heavy disappointment
+that seemed to hold him by the throat and make
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page193">[pg 193]</span><a name="Pg193" id="Pg193" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+it difficult to swallow. None-the-less he waited a
+full hour before he started up his car and drove
+slowly back to the hotel.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">On the way he debated with himself whether
+he should try to communicate with her tonight or
+wait until the next day. He knew that the wisest
+thing would be to wait until the next day and send
+her a note, but he also knew that he could not
+wait. He would find out where she lived, call
+her on the telephone, and learn what had
+prevented her from keeping the appointment.
+He had desperate need to know that something
+besides her own will had kept her away.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When he went to the hotel desk, a clerk handed
+him a letter.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“This was here when you registered, I think,”</span>
+he said. <span class="tei tei-q">“But I didn’t know it. I’m sorry.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When he saw the handwriting of the address
+he was filled with commotion. Here, then, was
+her explanation. This would tell him why she
+had failed him. This, in all probability, would
+make all right.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He went to his room to read it, sat down on
+the edge of the bed and ripped the envelope open
+with an impatient finger. The letter was dated
+two days earlier—the day after she had received
+his telegram.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I don’t know what to say,”</span> she
+wrote, <span class="tei tei-q">“but it
+doesn’t matter much. You will despise me anyway,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page194">[pg 194]</span><a name="Pg194" id="Pg194" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+and I despise myself. But I can’t help it—honestly
+I can’t. I meant to keep my
+promise and I would have kept it, but they found
+your telegram and mother read it—by mistake,
+of course. I ought to have had sense
+enough to burn it. You can’t imagine how awful
+it has been. Mother said the most terrible
+things about you, things she had heard. And she
+said that I would be ruining my life and hers.
+I said I didn’t care, because I loved you. I can’t
+tell you what an awful quarrel we had! And I
+wouldn’t have given in, but she told Gordon and
+he was so terribly angry. He said it was a disgrace
+to the family, and he began to cough and
+had a hemorrhage and we thought he was going
+to die. Mother said he probably would die unless
+I gave you up.</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“That finished me. I couldn’t do anything
+after that—I just couldn’t. There was nothing
+but misery in sight either way, so what was
+the use? I’ve lost all my courage and all my
+doubts have come back. I do love you—terribly.
+But you are so strange, so different. And
+I don’t think we would have gotten along or
+anything. I try to comfort myself by thinking
+it’s all for the best, but it doesn’t really comfort
+me at all. I never knew people could be as
+miserable as I am now. I don’t think its fair.</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“When you get
+this I will be on my way to
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page195">[pg 195]</span><a name="Pg195" id="Pg195" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+New York and nearly there. We are going to
+sail for Europe immediately. I will never see
+you again. I will always love you.</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: right; margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-right: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q" style="text-align: right">“Julia.”</span></p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-tb"> </div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Rage possessed him at first—the rage of
+defeated desire, of injured pride, of a passionate,
+undisciplined nature crossed and beaten. He
+flung the letter on the floor, and strode up and
+down the room, looking about for something to
+smash or tear. So she was that kind of a
+creature—a miserable, whimpering fool that
+would let an old woman and a sick man rule her!
+She was afraid her brother might die. What an
+excuse! And he had killed, or at least sanctioned
+killing, for her sake. He had poured out his
+blood for her. There was nothing he would not
+have dared or done to have her. And here she
+had the soul of a sheep!</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But no—perhaps that was not it. Perhaps
+she had been playing with him all along, had
+never had any idea of marrying him—because he
+was a Mexican!</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Bitter was this thought, but it died as his anger
+died. Something that sat steady and clear inside
+of him told him that he was a fool. He was
+reading the letter again, and he knew it was all
+truth. <span class="tei tei-q">“There was nothing but misery in sight
+either way,”</span> she had written.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page196">[pg 196]</span><a name="Pg196" id="Pg196" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly he understood; suffering and an
+awakened imagination had given him insight.
+For the first time in his life, he realized the feelings
+of another. He realized how much he had
+asked of this girl, who had all her life been ruled,
+who had never tasted freedom nor practised self-reliance.
+He saw now that she had rebelled and
+had fought against the forces and fears that oppress
+youth, as had he, and that she had been bewildered
+and overcome.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His anger was gone. All hot emotion was
+gone. In its place was a great loneliness, tinged
+with pity. He looked at the letter again. Its
+handwriting showed signs of disturbance in the
+writer, but she had not forgotten to scent it with
+that faint delightful perfume which was forever
+associated in his mind with her. It summoned
+the image of her with a vividness he could not
+bear.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But courage and pride are not killed at a blow.
+He threw the letter aside and shook himself
+sharply, like a man just awake trying to shake off
+the memory of a nightmare. She was gone, she
+was lost. Well, what of it? There were many
+other women in the world, many beautiful women.
+And he was strong now, successful. One woman
+could not hurt him by her refusal. He tried resolutely
+to put her out of his mind, and to think
+of his business, of his plans. But these things
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page197">[pg 197]</span><a name="Pg197" id="Pg197" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+which had glowed so brightly in his imagination
+just a few hours before were suddenly as dead as
+cinders. He knew that he cared little for dollars
+and lands in themselves. His nature demanded
+a romantic object, and this love had given it to
+him. Love had found him a wretch and a weakling,
+and had made him suddenly strong and
+ruthless, bringing out all the colours of his being,
+dark and bright, making life suddenly intense and
+purposeful.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And she had meant so much to him besides
+love. To have won her would have been to win
+a great victory over the gringos—over that
+civilization, alien to him in race and temper,
+which antagonized and yet fascinated him, with
+which he was forced to grapple for his life.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She was gone, he had lost her. Perhaps it was
+just as well, after all, he told himself, speaking
+out of his pride and his courage. But in his
+heart was a great bitterness. In his heart he
+felt that the gringos had beaten one more Delcasar.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC28" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page198">[pg 198]</span><a name="Pg198" id="Pg198" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc56" id="toc56"></a>
+<a name="pdf57" id="pdf57"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXVIII</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The next few days Ramon spent quietly and
+systematically drinking whisky. This he did
+partly because he had a notion that it was an appropriate
+thing to do under the circumstances,
+and partly because he had a genuine need for
+something to jolt his mind out of its rut of misery.
+He was not sociable in his cups, and did not seek
+company of either sex, inviting a man to drink
+with him or accepting such an invitation only
+when he had to do so. His favourite resort was
+the Silver Dollar Saloon, which was furnished
+with tables set between low partitions, so that
+when he had one of these booths to himself he
+enjoyed a considerable degree of isolation. He
+drank carefully, like a Spaniard, never losing
+control of his feet or of his eyes, taking always
+just enough to keep his mind away from realities
+and filled with dreams. In these dreams
+Julia played a vivid and delightful part. He
+imagined himself encountering her under all sorts
+of circumstances, and always she was yielding,
+repentant, she was his. In a dozen different
+ways he conquered her, taking in imagination, as
+men have always done, what the reality had denied.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page199">[pg 199]</span><a name="Pg199" id="Pg199" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Some of his fancies were delightful and
+filled him with a sense of triumph, so that men
+glanced curiously at the bright-eyed boy who sat
+there in his corner all alone, absorbed and intent.
+But there were other times at night when his defeated
+desire came and lay in his arms like an
+invisible unyielding succuba, torturing, maddening,
+driving him back to the street to drink until
+drunken sleep came with its sudden brutal mercy.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But after a few days alcohol began to have little
+effect upon him, except that when he awoke his
+hands were all aflutter so that he spilled his coffee
+and tore his newspaper. He felt sick and weary,
+his misery numbed by many repetitions of its every
+twinge. A sure instinct urged him to get out of
+the town and into the mountains, but he hated to
+go alone and lacked the initiative to start. He
+had a friend in the capital named Curtis, who was
+half Mexican and half Irish. This young man
+was a dealer in mules and horses, and he had a
+herd of some twenty head to take across the mountains
+about sixty miles. Badly in need of a helper
+and unable to hire one, he asked Ramon to go
+with him. The proposition was accepted with relief
+but without enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Trouble started immediately. The horses were
+only half broken, and the one they chose for a pack
+animal rebelled ten miles from town and bucked
+the pack off, scattering tin dishes, sides of bacon,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page200">[pg 200]</span><a name="Pg200" id="Pg200" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+loaves of bread and cans of condensed milk all
+over a quarter of a mile of rough country. They
+rounded up the recalcitrant in a pouring rain, and
+made a wet and miserable camp, sleeping the sleep
+of exhaustion in sodden blankets. The next
+morning the pack horse opened the exercises by
+rolling down a steep bank into the creek, plastering
+himself on the way from head to tail with a
+half gallon of high grade sorghum syrup which
+had been on top of the load. At this Ramon’s
+tortured nerves exploded and he jumped into the
+water after the floundering animal, belabouring it
+with a quirt, and cursing it richly in two languages.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He then put a slip noose around its upper lip
+and led it unmercifully, while Curtis encouraged
+it from behind with a rope-end. Like all Mexicans,
+they had little sympathy for horseflesh.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">These labours and hardships were Ramon’s
+salvation. The exercise and air restored his
+health and in fighting the difficulties of unlucky
+travel he relieved in some degree the rage against
+life that embittered him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When he got back to his room in the hotel he
+felt measurably at peace, though weary in mind
+and body. He came across Julia’s letter, and the
+sight and scent of it struck him a sharp painful
+blow, but he did not pause now to savour his pain;
+he tore the letter into small pieces and threw it
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page201">[pg 201]</span><a name="Pg201" id="Pg201" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+away. Then he got out his car and started for
+home.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He went back beaten over the same road that he
+had followed in the moment of his highest hope,
+when life had seemed about to keep all the
+wonderful promises it whispers in the ear of youth.
+But strangely this trip was not the sad and sentimental
+affair it should have been. His rugged
+health had largely recovered from the shock of
+disappointment and dissipation, an excellent breakfast
+was digesting within him, the sky was bright
+as polished turquoise and the ozonous west wind,
+which is the very breath of hope, played sweetly in
+his face. He began to discover various consoling
+conditions in his lot, which had seemed so intolerable
+just a few days before.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Probably no man under forty ever lost a woman
+without feeling in some degree compensated by a
+sense of freedom regained, and in the man of
+solitary and self-reliant nature, to whom freedom
+is a boon if not a necessity, this feeling is not slow
+to assert itself. Moreover, Ramon was now
+caught in the inevitable reaction from a purpose
+which had gathered and concentrated his energies
+with passionate intensity for almost four months.
+During that time he had lived with taut nerves for
+a single hope; he had turned away from a dozen
+alluring by-paths; he had known that absorbed
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page202">[pg 202]</span><a name="Pg202" id="Pg202" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+singleness of purpose which belongs only to lovers,
+artists and other monomaniacs.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The bright hope that had led him had suddenly
+exploded, leaving him stunned and flat for a
+time. Now he got to his feet and looked about.
+He realized that the world still lay before him, a
+place of wonderful promise and possibility, and
+apparently he could stray in any direction he chose.
+He had money and freedom and an excellent
+equipment of appetites and curiosities. Things
+he had dreamed of doing long ago, in case he
+should ever come into his wealth, now revisited
+his imagination. He had promised himself for
+one thing some hunting trips—long ones into the
+mountains and down the river in his car. Gambling
+had always fascinated him, and he had
+longed to sit in a game high enough to be really
+interesting, instead of the quarter-limit affair that
+he had always played before. And there were
+women … other women. And he meant to go
+to New York or Chicago sometime and sample
+the fleshpots of a really great city.… Life
+after all was still an interesting thing.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Not that he forgot his serious purposes. He
+meant to open a law office, to cultivate his political
+connections, to pursue his conquest of Arriba
+County. But although he did not realize it, his
+plans for making himself a strong and secure position
+in life had lost their vitalizing purpose. All
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page203">[pg 203]</span><a name="Pg203" id="Pg203" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+of these things he would do, but there was no hurry
+about them. His desire now was to taste the
+sweetness of life, and to rest. He was without a
+strong acquisitive impulse, and now that his great
+purpose in making money was gone, these projects
+did not strongly engage his imagination. He had
+plenty of money. He refused to worry. He
+felt reckless, too. If he had lost his great hope,
+his reward was to be released from the discipline
+it had imposed.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Nor was there any other discipline to take its
+place. If there had been a strong creative impulse
+in him, or if he had faced a real struggle for his
+life or his personal freedom, he might now have
+recovered that condition of trained and focussed
+energy which civilized life demands of men. But
+he was too primitive to be engaged by any purely
+intellectual purpose, and his money was a buffer
+between him and struggle imposed from without.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As he thought of all the things he would do, he
+felt strong and sure of himself. He thought that
+he was now a shrewd, cynical man, who could not
+be deceived or imposed upon, who could take the
+good things of life and discount the disillusionments.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC29" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page204">[pg 204]</span><a name="Pg204" id="Pg204" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc58" id="toc58"></a>
+<a name="pdf59" id="pdf59"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXIX</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One of his first acts in town was to negotiate a
+note at the bank for several thousand dollars.
+This was necessary because he had little cash and
+would not have much until spring, when he would
+sell lambs and shear his sheep. He not only
+needed money for himself, but his mother and
+sister, after many lean years, were eager to spend.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He drove out to see Catalina, and found her
+big with child and utterly indifferent to him, which
+piqued him slightly and relieved him a great deal.
+She had heard nothing about her father, and
+Ramon sent Cortez out to Domingo Canyon to see
+what had become of the old man. Cortez
+reported the place deserted. Ramon made
+inquiry in town and learned that Archulera had
+been seen there in his absence, very much dressed-up
+and very drunk, followed by a crowd of young
+Mexicans who were evidently parasites on his
+newly-acquired wealth. Then he had disappeared,
+and some thought he had gone to
+Denver. It was evident that his five thousand
+dollars had proved altogether too much for him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon now hung out a shingle, announcing
+himself as an attorney-at-law. Of course, no
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page205">[pg 205]</span><a name="Pg205" id="Pg205" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+business came to him. The right way to get a
+practice would have been to go back to the office
+of Green or some other established lawyer for
+several years. But Ramon had no idea of doing
+anything so tiresome and so relatively humiliating.
+The idea of running errands for Green
+again was repugnant to him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He went every morning to his office and for a
+while he took a certain amount of satisfaction in
+merely sitting there, reading the local papers,
+smoking a cigar, now and then taking down one
+of his text books and reading a little. But study
+as such had absolutely no appeal to him. He
+might have dug at the dry case books to good
+purpose if he had been driven by need, but as it
+was he would begin to yawn in ten or fifteen
+minutes, and then would put the book away. He
+went home to a noonday dinner rather early and
+came back in the afternoon, feeling sleepy and
+bored. Now the office, and indeed the whole
+town, seemed a dreary place to him. At this
+season of the year there were often high winds
+which mantled the town in a yellow cloud of sand,
+and rattled at every loose shutter and door with
+futile dreary persistence. Ramon would wander
+about the office for a little while with his hands
+in his pockets and stare out the window, feeling
+depressed, thoughts of his disappointment coming
+back to him bitterly. Then he would take his
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page206">[pg 206]</span><a name="Pg206" id="Pg206" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+hat and go out and look for some one to play
+pool with him. Often he took an afternoon off
+and went hunting, not alone as formerly he had
+done, but with as large a party as he could gather.
+They would drive out into the sand hills and
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesas</span></span> twenty
+or thirty miles from town, where
+the native quail and rabbits were still abundant
+as automobiles had just begun to invade their
+haunts. When they found a covey of quail the
+sport would be fast and furious, with half a
+dozen guns going at once and birds rising and
+falling in all directions. Ramon keenly enjoyed
+the hot excitement and dramatic quality of this.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At night he was usually to be found at the
+White Camel Pool Hall where the local sporting
+element foregathered and made its plans for the
+evening. Sometimes a party would be formed to
+<span class="tei tei-q">“go down the line,”</span> as a visit to the red light
+district was called. Sometimes the rowdy dance
+halls of Old Town were invaded. On Saturday
+nights the dance at the country club always drew
+a considerable attendance. There was also a
+<span class="tei tei-q">“dancing class”</span> conducted by an estimable and
+needy spinster named Grimes, who held assembly
+dances once in two weeks in a little hall which
+had been built by the Woman’s Club. This
+event always drew a large and very mixed crowd,
+including some of the <span class="tei tei-q">“best people”</span> and others
+who were considered not so good. Usually two
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page207">[pg 207]</span><a name="Pg207" id="Pg207" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+or three different sets were represented at
+these gatherings, each tending to keep to itself.
+But there was also a tendency for the sets to overlap.
+Thus a couple of very pretty German girls,
+who were the daughters of a local saloon keeper,
+always appeared accompanied by young men of
+their own circle with whom they danced almost
+exclusively at first. But young men of the first
+families could not resist their charms, and they
+soon were among the most popular girls on the
+floor. This was deplored by the young women
+of more secure social position, who were wont to
+remark that the crowd was deteriorating frightfully.
+Some of these same superior virgins
+found it necessary for politeness to dance with
+Joe Bartello, the son of an Italian saloon owner,
+and a very handsome and nimble-footed youth.
+In a word, this was a place of social hazard and
+adventure, and that was more than half its charm.
+It finally became so crowded that dancing was
+almost impossible.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The back room at the White Camel, where
+poker games were nightly in progress, also
+afforded Ramon frequent diversion. He played
+in the <span class="tei tei-q">“big”</span> game now, where the stakes and limits
+were high, and was one of the most daring and
+dangerous of its patrons. He had more money
+back of him than most of the men who played
+there, and he also had more courage. If he
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page208">[pg 208]</span><a name="Pg208" id="Pg208" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+started a bluff he carried it through to the end,
+which was always bitter for some one. He had
+been known to stand pat on a pair and scare
+every one else out of the game by the resolute
+confidence of his betting. His plunges, of course,
+sometimes cost him heavily, but for a long time
+he was a moderate winner. His limitations as a
+poker player were finally demonstrated to him
+by one Fitzhugh Chesterman, a man with one
+lung.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Chesterman was about twenty-six years old and
+had come from Richmond, Virginia, about two
+years before, with most of one lung gone and the
+other rapidly going. He was a tall, thin blond
+youth with the sensitive, handsome face which
+so often marks the rare survivor of the old southern
+aristocracy. He was totally lacking in the
+traditional southern sentimentality. His eye had
+a cold twinkle of courage that even the imminent
+prospect of death could not quench, and his thin
+shapely lips nearly always wore a smile slightly
+twisted by irony. He established himself at the
+state university, which had almost a hundred
+students and boasted a dormitory where living was
+very cheap. Chesterman sat before this dormitory
+twelve to fourteen hours a day, even in
+relatively cold weather. He made a living by
+coaching students in mathematics and Greek.
+He never raised his voice, he seldom laughed, he
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page209">[pg 209]</span><a name="Pg209" id="Pg209" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+never lost his temper. With his unwavering
+ironical smile, as though he appreciated the keen
+humour of taking so much trouble over such an insignificant
+thing as a human life, he husbanded
+his energy and fought for health. He took all
+the treatments the local sanatoria afforded, but
+he avoided carefully all the colonies and other
+gatherings of the tubercular. When his lung
+began to heal, as it did after about a year, and
+his strength to increase, he enlarged his earnings
+by playing poker. He won for the simple reason
+that he took no more chances than he had to.
+He systematically capitalized every bit of recklessness,
+stupidity and desperation in his opponents.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When Ramon first encountered him, the game
+soon simmered down to a struggle between the
+two. Never were the qualities of two races more
+strikingly contrasted. Ramon bluffed and
+plunged. Chesterman was caution itself, playing
+out antes in niggardly fashion until he had a hand
+which put the law of probabilities strongly on his
+side. Ramon was full of daring, intuition, imagination,
+bidding always for the favour of the fates,
+throwing logic to the winds. He was not above
+moving his seat or putting on his hat to change his
+luck. Chesterman smiled at these things. He
+was cold courage battling for a purpose and praying
+to no deities but Cause and Effect. Ramon
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page210">[pg 210]</span><a name="Pg210" id="Pg210" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+thought he was playing for money, but he was
+really playing for the sake of his own emotions,
+revelling alike in hope and despair, triumph and
+victory, flushed and bright-eyed. Chesterman
+stifled every emotion, discounted every hope, said
+as little as possible, never relaxed his faint twisted
+smile.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon made some spectacular winnings, but
+Chesterman wore him down as surely as a slow
+hound wears down a deer despite its astounding
+bursts of speed. Ramon was sure to lose in the
+long run because he was always piling up odds
+against himself by the long chances he took, while
+his bluffs seldom deceived his cool and courageous
+opponent. The finish came at one o’clock in the
+morning. Chesterman was pale with exhaustion,
+but otherwise unchanged. Ramon was hoarse
+and flushed, chewing a cigar to bits. He held a
+full house and determined to back it to the limit.
+Chesterman met him, bet for bet, raising every
+time. Ramon knew that he must be beaten. He
+knew that Chesterman would not raise him unless
+he had a very strong hand. But he was beaten
+anyway. At the bottom of his consciousness, he
+knew that he had met a better man. He wanted
+to end the contest on this hand. When Chesterman
+showed four kings, Ramon fell back in his
+chair, weak and disgusted. The other players,
+most of whom had long been out of the game,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page211">[pg 211]</span><a name="Pg211" id="Pg211" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+got up and said good night one by one. Only
+the two were left, Ramon plunged in gloomy
+reaction, Chesterman coolly counting his money,
+putting it away.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I seem to have made quite a killing,”</span> he remarked,
+<span class="tei tei-q">“how much did you lose?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“O, I don’t know … about five hundred.
+Hell, what’s five hundred to me … I don’t
+give a damn … I’m rich.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Chesterman glanced at him keenly.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Well,”</span> he remarked, <span class="tei tei-q">“I’m glad you feel that
+way about it, because I sure need the money.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He got up and walked away with the short
+careful steps of a man who cherishes every ounce
+of his energy.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon was disgusted with himself. Chesterman
+had made him feel like a weakling and a
+child. He had thought himself a lion in this
+game, and he had found out that he was an easily-shorn
+lamb. He could not afford to lose five
+hundred dollars either. He was not really a rich
+man. He went home feeling deeply depressed
+and discouraged. Vaguely he realized that in
+Chesterman he had encountered the spirit which
+he felt against him everywhere—a cool, calculating,
+unmerciful spirit of single purpose, against
+which the play and flow of his emotional and
+imaginative nature was as ineffectual as mercury
+against the point of a knife.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC30" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page212">[pg 212]</span><a name="Pg212" id="Pg212" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc60" id="toc60"></a>
+<a name="pdf61" id="pdf61"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXX</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Within the next few days Ramon was sharply
+reminded that he lived in a little town where news
+travels fast and nobody’s business is exclusively
+his own. Cortez came into his office and accepted
+a seat and a cigar with that respectful but worried
+manner which always indicated that he had something
+to say.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I hear you lost five hundred dollars the other
+night,”</span> he observed gravely, watching his young
+employer’s face.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Well, what of it?”</span> Ramon enquired, a bit
+testily.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You can’t afford it,”</span> Cortez replied. <span class="tei tei-q">“And
+not only the money … you’ve got to think of
+your reputation. You know how these gringos
+are. They keep things quiet. They expect a
+young man to lead a quiet life and tend to business.
+It’s all right to have a little fun … they
+all do it … but for God’s sake be careful.
+You hurt your chances this way … in the law,
+in politics.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon jerked his head impatiently and flushed
+a little, but reflection checked his irritation.
+Hatred of restraint, love of personal liberty, the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page213">[pg 213]</span><a name="Pg213" id="Pg213" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+animal courage that scorns to calculate consequences
+were his by heritage. But he knew that
+Cortez spoke the truth.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“All right Antonio,”</span> he said with dignity.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“I’ll be careful.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The next day he got a letter which emphasized
+the value of his henchman’s warning and made
+Ramon really thoughtful. It was from MacDougall,
+and made him another offer for his land.
+It had a preamble to the effect that land values
+were falling, money was <span class="tei tei-q">“tight,”</span> and therefore
+Ramon would do well to sell now, before a further
+drop in prices. It made him an offer of ten
+thousand dollars less than MacDougall had offered
+before.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon knew that the talk about falling values
+was largely bluff, that MacDougall had heard of
+his losses and of his loose and idle life, and
+thought that he could now buy the lands at his
+own price. The gringo had confidently waited
+for the Mexican to make a fool of himself.
+Ramon resolved hotly that he would do no such
+thing. He had no idea of selling. He would be
+more careful with his money, and next summer he
+would go back to Arriba County, renew his campaign
+against MacDougall and buy some land with
+the money he could get for timber and wool.
+He replied very curtly to MacDougall that his
+lands were not for sale.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page214">[pg 214]</span><a name="Pg214" id="Pg214" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After that he stayed away from poker games
+for a while. This was made easier by a new
+interest which had entered his life in the person of
+a waitress at the Eldorado Lunch room. The
+girls at this lunch room had long borne a bad
+reputation. Even in the days before the big hotel
+had been built, when the railroad company maintained
+merely a little red frame building there,
+known as the Eating House, these waitresses had
+been a mainstay of local bachelordom. Their
+successors were still referred to by their natural
+enemies, the respectable ladies of the town, as
+<span class="tei tei-q">“those awful eating house girls”</span>; while the advent
+of a new <span class="tei tei-q">“hash-slinger”</span> was always a matter of
+considerable interest among the unmarried exquisites
+who fore-gathered at the White Camel.
+In this way Ramon quickly heard of the new
+waitress. She was reputed to be both prettier
+and less approachable than most of her kind.
+Sidney Felberg had made a preliminary reconnaissance
+and a pessimistic report.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Nothing doing,”</span> he said. <span class="tei tei-q">“She’s got a husband
+somewhere and a notion she’s cut out for
+better things.… I’m off her!”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This immediately provoked Ramon’s interest.
+He went to the lunch room at a time when he
+knew there would be few customers. When he
+saw the girl he felt a faint thrill. The reason for
+this was that Dora McArdle somewhat resembled
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page215">[pg 215]</span><a name="Pg215" id="Pg215" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+Julia. The resemblance was slight and superficial,
+yet instantly noticeable. She was a little larger,
+but had about the same figure, and the same
+colour of hair, and above all the same sensuous,
+provocative mouth. Ramon followed her with
+his eyes until she became conscious of his scrutiny,
+when she tossed her head with that elaborate affectation
+of queenly scorn, which seems to be the
+special talent of waitresses everywhere. Nevertheless,
+when she came to take his order she gave
+him a pleasant smile. He saw now that she was
+not really like Julia. She was coarse and commonplace,
+but she was also shapely, ripe-breasted,
+good-natured, full of the appeal of a healthy
+animalism.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“What time do you get done here?”</span> Ramon
+enquired.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Don’t know that it’s any of your business,”</span>
+she replied with another one of her crushing tosses
+of the head, and went away to get his order.
+When she came back he asked again.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“What time did you say?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Well, about nine o’clock, if it’ll give you any
+pleasure to know.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I’ll come for you in my car,”</span> he told her.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Oh! will you?”</span> and she paid no more attention
+to him until he started to go, when she gave
+him a broad smile, showing a couple of gold teeth.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At nine o’clock he was waiting for her at the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page216">[pg 216]</span><a name="Pg216" id="Pg216" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+door, and she went with him. He took her for
+a drive on the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>,
+heading for the only road
+house which the vicinity boasted. It was a great
+stone house, which had been built long ago by a
+rich man, and had later fallen into the hands of an
+Italian named Salvini, who installed a bar, and
+had both private dining rooms and bed rooms,
+these latter available only to patrons in whom he
+had the utmost confidence. This resort was informally
+known as the <span class="tei tei-q">“chicken ranch.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When Ramon tried to take his fair partner
+there, on the plea that they must have a bite to
+eat, she objected.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I don’t believe that place is respectable,”</span> she
+told him very primly. <span class="tei tei-q">“I don’t think you ought
+to ask me to go there.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“O Hell!”</span> said Ramon to himself. But aloud
+he proposed that they should drive to an adjacent
+hill-top from which the lights of the town could
+be seen. When he had parked the car on this
+vantage point and lit a cigarette, Dora began a
+narrative of a kind with which he was thoroughly
+familiar. She was of that well-known type of
+woman who is found in a dubious position, but explains
+that she has known better days. Her
+father had been a judge in Kansas, the family had
+been wealthy, she had never known what work
+was until she got married, her marriage had been a
+tragedy, her husband had drank, there had been a
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page217">[pg 217]</span><a name="Pg217" id="Pg217" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+smash-up, the family had met with reverses. On
+and on went the story, its very tone and character
+and the grammar she used testifying eloquently to
+the fact that she was no such crushed violet as
+she claimed to be. Ramon was bored. A year
+ago he would have been more tolerant, but now he
+had experienced feminine charm of a really high
+order, and all the vulgarity and hypocrisy of this
+woman was apparent to him. And yet as he sat
+beside her he was keenly, almost morbidly conscious
+of the physical attraction of her fine young
+body. For all her commonness and coarseness,
+he wanted her with a peculiarly urgent desire.
+Here was the heat of love without the flame and
+light, desire with no more exaltation than accompanies
+a good appetite for dinner. He was
+puzzled and a little disgusted.… He did not
+understand that this was his defeated love, seeking,
+as such a love almost inevitably does, a vicarious
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Repugnance and desire struggled strangely
+within him. He was half-minded to take her
+home and leave her alone. At any rate he was
+not going to sit there and listen to her insane babble
+all night. To put his fortunes to the test, he
+abruptly took her in his arms. She made a futile
+pretence of resistance. When their lips touched,
+desire flashed up in him strongly, banishing all his
+hesitations. He talked hot foolishness to which
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page218">[pg 218]</span><a name="Pg218" id="Pg218" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+she listened greedily, but when he tried to take
+her to Salvini’s again, she insisted on going home.
+Before he left her he had made another appointment.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Now began an absurd contest between the two
+in which Ramon was always manœuvring to get
+her alone somewhere so that he might complete
+his conquest if possible, while her sole object was
+to have him gratify her vanity by appearing in
+public with her. This he knew he could not
+afford to do. He could not even drive down the
+street with her in daylight without all gossips
+being soon aware he had done so. No one knew
+much about her, of course, but she was <span class="tei tei-q">“one of
+those eating house girls”</span> and to treat her as a
+social equal was to court social ostracism. He
+would win the enmity of the respectable women
+of the town, and he knew very well that respectable
+women rule their husbands. His prospects
+in business and politics, already suffering, would
+be further damaged.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Here again was a struggle within him. He
+was of a breed that follows instinct without fear,
+that has little capacity for enduring restraints.
+And he knew well that the other young lawyers,
+the gringos, were no more moral than he. But
+they were careful. Night was their friend and
+they were banded together in a league of obscene
+secrecy. He despised this code and yet he feared
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page219">[pg 219]</span><a name="Pg219" id="Pg219" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+it. For the gringos held the whip; he must
+either cringe or suffer.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So he was careful and made compromises.
+Dora wanted him to take her to dinner in the
+main dining room of the hotel, and he evaded and
+compromised by taking her there late at night
+when not many people were present. She wanted
+him to take her to a movie and he pleaded that he
+had already seen the bill, and asked her if she
+wanted to bore him. And when she pouted he
+made her a present of a pair of silk stockings.
+She accepted all sorts of presents, so that he felt
+he was making progress. She was making vague
+promises now of <span class="tei tei-q">“sometime”</span> and <span class="tei tei-q">“maybe,”</span> and
+his desire was whipped up with anticipation, making
+him always more reckless.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One night late he took her to the Eldorado
+and persuaded her to drink champagne, thinking
+this would forward his purpose. The wine made
+her rosy and pretty, and it also made her forget
+her poses and affectations. She was more charming
+to him than ever before, partly because of the
+change in her, and partly because his own critical
+faculties were blunted by alcohol. He was almost
+in love with her and he felt sure that he was
+about to win her. But presently she began
+wheedling him in the old vein. She wanted him
+to take her to the dance at the Woman’s Club!</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This would be to slap convention in the face,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page220">[pg 220]</span><a name="Pg220" id="Pg220" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+and at first he refused to consider it. But he
+foolishly went on drinking, and the more he drank
+the more feasible the thing appeared. Dora had
+quit drinking and was pleading with him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I dare you!”</span> she told him. <span class="tei tei-q">“You’re afraid.…
+You don’t think I’m good enough for you.…
+And yet you say you love me.… I’m just as good
+as any girl in this town.… Well if you won’t,
+I’m going home. I’m through! I thought you
+really cared.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">And then, when he had persuaded her not to
+run away, she became sad and just a little tearful.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“It’s terrible,”</span> she confided. <span class="tei tei-q">“Just because I
+have to make my own living.…
+<span class="tei tei-corr"><a name="E13" id="E13" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><a href="#e13" class="tei tei-ref">It’s</a></span>
+not fair. I
+ought never to speak to you again.… And yet, I
+do care for you.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon was touched. The pathos of her situation
+appealed strongly to his tipsy consciousness.
+Why not do it? After all, the girl was respectable.
+As she said, nobody <span class="tei tei-q">“had anything on
+her.”</span> The dance was a public affair. Any one
+could go. He had been too timid. Not three
+people there knew who she was. By God, he
+would do it!</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At first they did not attract much attention.
+Dora was pretty and fairly well dressed, in no way
+conspicuous. They danced exclusively with each
+other, as did some other couples present, and
+nothing was thought of that.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page221">[pg 221]</span><a name="Pg221" id="Pg221" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But soon he became aware of glances, hostile,
+disapproving. Probably it was true that only a
+few of the men at first knew who Dora was, but
+they told other men, and some of the men told the
+women. Soon it was known to all that he had
+brought <span class="tei tei-q">“one of those awful eating house girls”</span>
+to the dance! The enormity of the mistake he
+had made was borne in upon him gradually.
+Some of the men he knew smiled at him, generally
+with an eye-brow raised, or with a shake of the
+head. Sidney Felberg, who was a real friend,
+took him aside.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“For the love of God, Ramon, what did you
+bring that Flusey here for? You’re queering
+yourself at a mile a minute. And you’re drunk,
+too. For Heaven’s sake, cart her away while
+the going’s good!”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon had not realized how drunk he was
+until he heard this warning.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“O, go to hell, Sid!”</span> he countered. <span class="tei tei-q">“She’s as
+good as anybody … I guess I can bring anybody
+I want here.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sidney shook his head.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“No use, no use,”</span> he observed philosophically.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“But it’s too bad!”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon’s own words sounded hollow to him.
+He was in that peculiar condition when a man
+knows that he is making an ass of himself, and
+knows that he is going right ahead doing it. He
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page222">[pg 222]</span><a name="Pg222" id="Pg222" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+was more attentive to Dora than ever. He
+brought her a glass of water, talked to her continually
+with his back to the hostile room. He was
+fully capable of carrying the thing through, even
+though girls he had known all his life were refusing
+to meet his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was Dora who weakened. She became
+quiet and sad, and looked infinitely forlorn.
+When a couple of women got up and moved
+pointedly away from her vicinity, her lip began
+to tremble, and her wide blue eyes were brimming.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Come on, take me away quick,”</span> she said pathetically.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“I’m going to cry.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When they were in the car again she turned in
+the seat, buried her face in her arms and sobbed
+passionately with a gulping noise and spasmodic
+upheavals of her shoulders. Ramon drove
+slowly. He was sober now, painfully sober!
+He was utterly disgusted with himself, and bitterly
+sorry for Dora. A strong bond of sympathy
+had suddenly been created between them,
+for he too had tasted the bitterness of prejudice.
+For the first time Dora was not merely a frumpy
+woman who had provoked in him a desire he half-despised;
+she was a fellow human, who knew the
+same miseries.… He had intended to take her
+this night, to make a great play for success, but
+he no longer felt that way. He drove to the
+boarding house where she lived.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page223">[pg 223]</span><a name="Pg223" id="Pg223" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Here you are,”</span> he said gently, <span class="tei tei-q">“I’ll call you
+up tomorrow.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Dora looked up for the first time.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“O, no!”</span> she plead. <span class="tei tei-q">“Don’t go off and leave
+me now. Don’t leave me alone. Take me somewhere,
+anywhere.… Do anything you want
+with me.… You’re all I’ve got!”</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC31" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page224">[pg 224]</span><a name="Pg224" id="Pg224" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc62" id="toc62"></a>
+<a name="pdf63" id="pdf63"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXI</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The rest of the winter Ramon spent in an aimlessly
+pleasant way. He tried to work but without
+arousing in himself enough enthusiasm to insure
+success. He played pool, gambled a little
+and hunted a great deal. He relished his pleasures
+with the keen appetite of health and youth,
+but when they were over he felt empty-minded
+and restless and did not know what to do about it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Some business came to his law office. Because
+of his knowledge of Spanish and of the country
+he was several times employed to look up titles to
+land, and this line of work he might have developed
+into a good practice had he possessed the
+patience. But it was monotonous, tedious work,
+and it bored him. He would toil over the papers
+with a good will for a while, and then a state of
+apathy would come over him, and like a boy in
+school he would sit vaguely dreaming.… Such
+dull tasks took no hold upon his mind.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He defended several Mexican criminals, and
+found this a more congenial form of practice, but
+an unremunerative one. The only case which
+advanced him toward the reputation for which
+every young attorney strives brought him no
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page225">[pg 225]</span><a name="Pg225" id="Pg225" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+money at all. A young Mexican farmer of good
+reputation named Juan Valera had been converted
+to the Methodist faith. Like most of the few
+Mexicans who are won over to Protestantism, he
+had brought to his new religion a fanatical spirit,
+and had made enemies of the priests and of many
+of his neighbours by proselyting. Furthermore,
+his young and pretty wife remained a Catholic,
+which had caused a good deal of trouble in his
+house. But the couple were really devoted and
+managed to compromise their differences until a
+child was born. Then arose the question as to
+whether it should be baptized a Catholic or a
+Methodist. The girl wanted her baby to be
+baptized in the Catholic faith, and was fully
+persuaded by the priests that it would otherwise
+go to purgatory. She was backed by her father,
+whose interference was resented by Juan more
+than anything else. He consulted the pastor of
+his church, a bigoted New Englander, who counselled
+him on no account to yield.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One evening when Juan was away from home,
+his father-in-law came to his house and persuaded
+the girl to go with him and have the child baptized
+in the Catholic faith, in order that it might be
+saved from damnation. After the ceremony they
+went to a picture-show by way of a celebration.
+When Juan came home he learned from the neighbours
+what had happened. His face became very
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page226">[pg 226]</span><a name="Pg226" id="Pg226" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+pale, his lips set, and his eyes had a hot, dangerous
+look. He got out a butcher knife from the
+kitchen, whetted it to a good point, and went and
+hid behind a big cottonwood tree near the moving-picture
+theatre. When his wife with the child
+and her father came out, he stepped up behind
+the old man and drove the knife into the back of
+his neck to the hilt, severing the spinal column.
+Afterward he looked at the dead man for a moment
+and at his wife, sitting on the ground shrieking,
+then went home and washed his hands and
+changed his shirt—for blood had spurted all over
+him—walked to the police station and gave himself
+up.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This man had no money, and it is customary
+in such cases for the court to appoint a lawyer to
+conduct the defence. Usually a young lawyer who
+needs a chance to show his abilities is chosen, and
+the honor now fell upon Ramon.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This was the first time since he had begun to
+study law that he had been really interested. He
+understood just how Juan Valera had felt. He
+called on him in jail. Juan Valera was composed,
+almost apathetic. He said he was willing to die,
+that he did not fear death.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Let them hang me,”</span> he said. <span class="tei tei-q">“I would do
+the same thing again.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon studied the law of his case with exhaustive
+thoroughness, but the law did not hold out
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page227">[pg 227]</span><a name="Pg227" id="Pg227" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+much hope for his client. It was in his plea to
+the jury that he made his best effort. Here again
+he discovered the eloquence that he had used the
+summer before in Arriba County. Here he lost
+for a moment his sense of aimlessness, felt again
+the thrill of power and the joy of struggle. He
+described vividly the poor Mexican’s simple faith,
+his absolute devotion to it, showed that he had
+killed out of an all-compelling sense of right and
+duty. He found a good many witnesses to testify
+that Juan’s father-in-law had hectored the
+young man a good deal, insulted him, intruded in
+his home. Half of the jurors were Mexicans.
+For a while the jury was hung. But it finally
+brought in a verdict of murder in the first degree,
+which was practically inevitable. Juan accepted
+this with a shrug of his shoulders and announced
+himself ready to hang and meet his Methodist
+God. But Ramon insisted on taking an appeal.
+He finally got the sentence commuted to life
+imprisonment. He then felt disgusted, and
+wished that he had let the man hang, feeling that
+he would have been better off dead than in the
+state penitentiary. But Juan’s wife, who really
+loved him, came to Ramon’s office and embraced
+his knees and laughed and cried and swore that
+she would do his washing for nothing as long as
+she lived. For now she could visit her husband
+once a month and take him <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">tortillas!</span></span> Ramon
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page228">[pg 228]</span><a name="Pg228" id="Pg228" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+gave her ten dollars and pushed her out the door.
+He had worked hard on the case. He felt old
+and weary and wanted to get drunk.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-tb"> </div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One day Ramon received an invitation to go
+hunting with Joe Cassi and his friends. He
+accepted it, and afterward went on many trips
+with the Italian saloon-owner, thereby doing
+further injury to his social standing.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cassi had come to the town some twenty years
+before with a hand organ and a monkey. The
+town was not accustomed to that form of entertainment;
+some of the Mexicans threw rocks
+at Cassi and a dog killed his monkey. Cassi was
+at that time a slender youth, handsome, ragged
+and full of high hopes. When his monkey was
+killed he first wept with rage and then swore that
+he would stay in that town and have the best of it.
+He now owned three saloons and the largest
+business building in town. He was a lean, grave,
+silent little man.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cassi had made most of his money in the days
+when gambling was <span class="tei tei-q">“open”</span> in the town, and he
+had surrounded himself with a band of choice
+spirits who were experts in keno, roulette and
+poker. These still remained on his hands, some
+of them in the capacity of barkeepers, and others
+practically as pensioners. They were all great
+sportsmen, heavy drinkers and loyal-to-the-death
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page229">[pg 229]</span><a name="Pg229" id="Pg229" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+friends. At short intervals they went on hunting
+trips down the river, generally remaining over
+the week-end. It was of these expeditions that
+Ramon now became a regular member. Sometimes
+the whole party would get drunk and come
+back whooping and singing as the automobiles
+bowled along, occasionally firing shotguns into the
+air. At other times when luck was good everyone
+became interested in the sport and forgot to
+drink. Ramon had a real respect for Cassi, and
+a certain amount of contempt for most of the rest
+of them; yet he felt more at home with these
+easy-going, pleasure-loving, loyal fellows than he
+did with those thrifty, respectable citizens in whose
+esteem the dollar stood so invariably first.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Cassi and his friends used most often to go to
+a Mexican village some fifty miles down the river
+where the valley was low and flat, and speckled
+with shallow alkaline ponds made by seepage
+from the river. Every evening the wild ducks
+flew into these ponds from the river to feed, and
+the shooting at this evening flight Ramon especially
+loved. The party would scatter out, each
+man choosing his own place on the East side of
+one of the little lakes, so that the red glare of the
+sunset was opposite him. There he would lie
+flat on the ground, perhaps making a low blind of
+weeds or rushes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Seldom even in January was it cold enough to
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page230">[pg 230]</span><a name="Pg230" id="Pg230" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+be uncomfortable. Ramon would lie on an
+elbow, smoking a cigarette, watching the light
+fade, and the lagoon before him turn into molten
+gold to match the sunset sky. It would be very
+quiet save for such sounds as the faraway barking
+of dogs or the lowing of cattle. When the sky
+overhead had faded to an obscure purple, and the
+flare of the sunset had narrowed to a belt along
+the horizon, he would hear the distant eerie
+whistle of wild wings. Nothing could be seen
+yet, but the sound multiplied. He could distinguish
+now the roar of a great flock of mallards,
+circling round and round high overhead, scouting
+for danger. He could hear the sweet flute-notes
+of teal and pintails, and the raucous, cautious
+quack of some old green-head. A teal would
+pitch suddenly down to the water before him and
+rest there, erect and wary, painted in black upon
+the golden water. Another would join it and
+another. The cautious mallards, encouraged by
+this, would swing lower. The music of their
+wings seemed incredibly close; he would grip his
+gun hard, holding himself rigidly still, feeling
+clearly each beat of his heart.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly the ducks would come into view … dark
+forms with ghostly blurs for wings, shooting
+with a roar into the red flare of light. The flash
+of his shotgun would leap out twice. The startled
+birds would bound into the air like blasted
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page231">[pg 231]</span><a name="Pg231" id="Pg231" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+rock from a quarry, and be lost in the purple
+mystery of sky, except two or three that hurtled
+over and over and struck the water, each with a
+loud spat, throwing up little jets of gold.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Sometimes there were long waits between shots,
+but at others the flight was almost continuous, the
+air seemed full of darting birds, and the gun
+barrels were hot in his hands. His excitement
+would be intense for a time; yet after he had
+killed a dozen birds or so he would often lose
+interest and lie on his back listening to the music
+of wings and of bird voices. He had that aversion
+to excess which seems to be in all Latin
+peoples. Besides, he did not want many ducks to
+dispose of.… It was the rush and colour, the
+dramatic quality of the thing that he loved.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Most of the others killed to the limit with a
+fine unflagging lust for blood, giving a brilliant
+demonstration of the fact that civilized man is
+the most destructive and bloodthirsty of all the
+predatory mammals.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-tb"> </div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The coming of spring was marked by a few
+heavy rains, followed by the faint greening of the
+cottonwood trees and of the alfalfa fields. The
+grey waste of the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>
+showed a greenish tinge,
+too, heralding its brief springtime splendor when
+it would be rich with the purple of wild-peas,
+pricked out in the morning with white blossoms
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page232">[pg 232]</span><a name="Pg232" id="Pg232" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+of the prairie primrose. Now and then a great
+flock of geese went over the town, following the
+Rio Grande northward half a mile high, their
+faint wild call seeming the very voice of this
+season of lust and wandering.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon felt restless and lost interest in all his
+usual occupations. He began to make plans and
+preparations for going to the mountains. He
+bought a tent and a new rifle and overhauled all
+his camping gear. He thought he was getting
+ready for a season of hard work, but in reality
+his strongest motive was the springtime longing
+for the road and the out-of-doors. He was sick
+of whisky and women and hot rooms full of
+tobacco smoke.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Withal it was necessary that he should go to
+Arriba County, follow up his campaign of the
+preceding fall, arrange a timber sale if possible
+so that he might buy land, and above all see that
+his sheep herds were properly tended. This was
+the crucial season in the sheep business. Like
+the other sheep owners, he ranged his herds
+chiefly over the public domain, and he gambled on
+the weather. If the rain continued into the early
+summer so that the waterholes were filled and
+the grass was abundant, he would have a good
+lamb crop. The sale of part of this and of the
+wool he would shear would make up the bulk of
+his income for the year. And he had already
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page233">[pg 233]</span><a name="Pg233" id="Pg233" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+spent that income and a little more. He could
+not afford a bad year. If it was a dry spring,
+so that lambs and ewes died, he would be seriously
+embarrassed. In any case, he was determined to
+be on the range in person and not to trust the
+herders. If it came to the worst and the spring
+was dry he would rent mountain range from the
+Forest Service and rush his herds to the upland
+pastures as early as possible. He was not at all
+distressed or worried; he knew what he was about
+and had an appetite for the work.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One morning when he was in the midst of his
+preparations, he went to his office and found on
+the desk a small square letter addressed in a
+round, upright, hand. This letter affected him
+as though it had been some blossom that filled the
+room with a fragrant narcotic exhalation. It
+quickened the beat of his heart like a drug. It
+drove thought of everything else out of his mind.
+He opened it and the faint perfume of it flowed
+over him and possessed his senses and his
+imagination.…</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">It was a long, gossipy letter and told him of
+nearly everything that Julia had done in the six
+months since they had parted <span class="tei tei-q">“forever”</span>. The
+salient fact was that she had been married. A
+young man in a New York brokerage office who
+had long been a suitor for her hand, and to whom
+she had once before been engaged for part of a
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page234">[pg 234]</span><a name="Pg234" id="Pg234" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+summer, had followed the Roths to Europe and
+he and Julia had been married immediately after
+their return.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I give you my word, I don’t know why I did
+it,”</span> she wrote. <span class="tei tei-q">“Mother wanted me to, and I
+just sort of drifted into it. First thing I knew I
+was engaged and the next thing mother was sending
+the invitations out, and then I was in for it.
+It was a good deal of fun being engaged, but
+when it came to being married I was scared to
+death and couldn’t lift my voice above a whisper.
+Since then it has been rather a bore. Now my
+husband has been called to London. I am living
+alone here in this hotel. That is, more or less
+alone. A frightful lot of people come around
+and bore me, and I have to go out a good deal.
+I’m supposed to be looking for an apartment, too;
+but I haven’t really started yet. Ralph won’t
+be back for another two or three weeks, so I
+have plenty of time.</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I don’t know why in the world I’m writing
+you this long frightfully intimate letter. I don’t
+seem to know why I do anything these days. I
+know its most improper for a respectable married
+lady, and I certainly have no reason to suppose
+you want to be bothered by me any more after the
+way I did. But somehow you stick in the back
+of my head. You might write me a line, just out
+of compassion, if you’re not too busy with all
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page235">[pg 235]</span><a name="Pg235" id="Pg235" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+your sheep and mountains and things.”</span> She
+signed herself <span class="tei tei-q">“as ever”</span>, which, he reflected bitterly,
+might mean anything.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">At first the fact that she was married wholly
+engaged his attention. She was then finally and
+forever beyond his reach. This was the end sure
+enough. He was not going to start any long
+aimless correspondence with her to keep alive the
+memory of his disappointment. He planned
+various brief and chilly notes of congratulation.…
+Then another thought took precedence
+over that one. She was alone there in that hotel.
+Her husband was in London. She had written to
+him and given him her address.… His blood
+pounded and his breath came quick. He made
+his decision instantly, on impulse. He would go
+to New York.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He wired the hotel where she was stopping for
+a reservation, but sent no word at all to her. He
+gave the bewildered and troubled Cortez brief
+orders by telephone to go to Arriba County in his
+place, arranged a note at the bank for two thousand
+dollars, and caught the limited the same
+night at seven-thirty-five.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC32" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page236">[pg 236]</span><a name="Pg236" id="Pg236" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc64" id="toc64"></a>
+<a name="pdf65" id="pdf65"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXII</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He looked at New York through a taxicab
+window without much interest. A large damp
+grey dirty place, very crowded, where he would
+not like to live, he thought. He managed himself
+and his baggage with ease and dispatch; his
+indifferent, dignified manner and his reckless use
+of money were ideally effective with porters, taxi
+drivers and the like. When he reached the hotel
+about eight o’clock at night he went to his room
+and made himself carefully immaculate. He
+studied himself with a good deal of interest in the
+full length mirror which was set in the bath room
+door; for he had seldom encountered such a mirror
+and he had a considerable amount of vanity of
+which he was not at all conscious. It struck him
+that he was remarkably good-looking, and indeed
+he was more so than usual, his eyes bright, his
+face flushed, his whole body tense and poised with
+purpose and expectation.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He went down to the lobby, looked Julia up in
+the register, ascertained the number of her room,
+and made a note of it. Then he asked the telephone
+girl to call her and learn whether she
+was in.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page237">[pg 237]</span><a name="Pg237" id="Pg237" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Yes; she is in. She wants to know who’s
+calling, please.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Tell her an old friend who wants to surprise
+her.”</span> He did not care to risk any evasion, and
+he also wanted his arrival to have its full dramatic
+effect.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The telephone girl transmitted his message.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“She says she can’t come down yet … not
+for about half an hour.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Tell her I’ll wait. If she asks for me I’ll be
+in that little room there.”</span> He pointed to a
+small reception room opening off the mezzanine
+gallery, which he had selected in advance. He
+had planned everything carefully.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-tb"> </div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">When he stood up to meet her she gave a little
+gasp, and took a step back.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Why, you! Ramon! How could you?
+You shouldn’t have come. You know you
+shouldn’t. I didn’t mean that … I had no
+idea.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He came forward and took her hand and led
+her to a settee. Despite all her protests he could
+see very plainly that he had scored heavily in his
+own favour. She was flustered with excitement
+and pleasure. Like all women, she was captivated
+by sudden, decisive action and loved the
+surprising and the dramatic.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They sat side by side, looking at each other,
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page238">[pg 238]</span><a name="Pg238" id="Pg238" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+smiling, making unimportant remarks, and then
+looking at each other again. Ramon felt that
+she had changed. She was as pretty as ever, and
+never had she stirred him more strongly. But her
+appeal seemed more immediate than before; she
+seemed less remote. The innocence of her wide
+eyes was a little less noticeable and their flash of
+recklessness a little more so. It seemed to him
+that her mouth was larger, which may have been
+due to the fact that she had rouged it a little too
+much. She wore a pink decollete with straps over
+the shoulders one of which kept slipping down
+and had to be pulled up again.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon was tremulous with a half-acknowledged
+anticipation, but he held himself strongly in hand.
+He felt that he had an advantage over her—that
+he was more at ease and she less so than at
+any previous meeting—and he meant to keep it.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But she was rapidly regaining her composure,
+and took refuge in a rather formal manner.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Are you going to be here long?”</span> she enquired
+in the conventional tone of mock-interest.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Just a week or so on business,”</span> he explained,
+determined not to be outpointed in the game. <span class="tei tei-q">“I
+had to come some time this spring, and when I got
+your note I thought I would come while you are
+here.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“But I’ll be here the rest of my life probably.
+This is where I live. You ought to have come
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page239">[pg 239]</span><a name="Pg239" id="Pg239" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+when my husband was here. I’d like to have you
+meet him. As it is, I can’t see much of you, of
+course.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He refused to be put out by this coldness, but
+tried to strike a more intimate note.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Tell me about your marriage,”</span> he asked.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Are you really happy?… Do you like it?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She looked at the floor gravely.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“You shouldn’t ask that, of course,”</span> she reproved.
+<span class="tei tei-q">“Everyone who has just been married
+is very, very happy.… No, I don’t like it a
+darn bit.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“It’s not what you expected, then.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I don’t know what I expected, but from the
+way people talk about it and write about it you
+would certainly think it was something wonderful—love
+and passion and bliss and all that, I mean.
+I feel that I’ve either been lied to or cheated …
+of course<span class="tei tei-corr"><a name="E9" id="E9" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><a href="#e9" class="tei tei-ref">,</a></span>”</span>
+she added with a little side glance at
+him, <span class="tei tei-q">“I didn’t exactly love my husband.…”</span>
+She blushed and looked down again; then laughed
+softly and rather joyfully for a lady with a broken
+heart.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“If mother could only hear me now!”</span> she
+observed.… <span class="tei tei-q">“She’d faint. I don’t care.…
+That’s just the way I feel.… I don’t care!
+All my life I’ve been trained and groomed and
+prepared for the grand and glorious event of
+marriage. I’ve been taught it’s the most wonderful
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page240">[pg 240]</span><a name="Pg240" id="Pg240" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+thing that can happen to anyone. That’s what
+all the books say, and all the people I know.
+And here it turns out to be a most uncomfortable
+bore.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He looked gravely sympathetic.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Do you think it would have been different
+with—someone you did love?”</span> he enquired
+cautiously.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She gave him another quick thrilling glance.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I don’t know,”</span> she said.… <span class="tei tei-q">“Maybe …
+I felt so different about you.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Their hands met on the settee and they both
+moved instinctively a little closer together.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Suddenly she jerked away from him, looking
+him in the eyes with her head thrown back and
+a smile of irony on her lips.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Aren’t we a couple of idiots?”</span> she demanded.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“No!”</span> he declared with fierce emphasis, and
+throwing an arm about her, pounced on her lips.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Just then a bell boy passed the door. They
+jerked apart and upright very self-consciously.
+Then they looked at each other and laughed. But
+their eyes quickly became deep and serious again,
+and their fingers entangled.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She sighed in mock exasperation.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q"><span class="tei tei-corr"><a name="E10" id="E10" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a href="#e10" class="tei tei-ref">“</a></span>For Heaven’s
+sake, say something!”</span> she
+demanded. <span class="tei tei-q">“We can’t sit here and make eyes at
+each other all evening. Besides I’m compromising
+my priceless reputation. It’s after ten o’clock.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page241">[pg 241]</span><a name="Pg241" id="Pg241" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+I’ve got to go.”</span> She rose, and held out her hand,
+which he took without saying anything.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Good night,”</span> she said. <span class="tei tei-q">“I think you were
+mean to come and camp on me this way … dumb
+as ever, I see … well, good night.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">She went to the door, stopped and looked back,
+smiled and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon went down to the lobby and roamed
+all over the two floors which constituted the public
+part of the hotel. He looked at everything and
+smoked a great many cigarettes, thus restlessly
+whiling away an hour. Then he went to a writing
+room. He collected some telegrams and letters
+about him and appeared to be very busy. When
+a bell boy went by, he rapped sharply on the desk
+with a fifty-cent piece, and as the boy stopped,
+tossed it to him.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Get me the key to 207!”</span> he ordered sharply;
+then turned back to his imaginary business.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Yes sir,”</span> said the boy. He returned in a few
+minutes with the key.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon sat for a long moment looking at it,
+tremulous with a great anticipation. He was
+divided between a conviction that she expected
+him and a fear that she did not.… His fear
+proved groundless.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC33" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page242">[pg 242]</span><a name="Pg242" id="Pg242" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc66" id="toc66"></a>
+<a name="pdf67" id="pdf67"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXIII</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The next day they met for dinner at a little
+place near Washington Square where it was certain
+that none of Julia’s friends ever went. Julia
+was a singularly contented-looking criminal.
+Never, Ramon thought had her skin looked more
+velvety, her eyes deeper or more serene. He
+was a trifle haggard, but happy, and both of them
+were hungry.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Do you know?… I’ve made a discovery,”</span>
+she told him. <span class="tei tei-q">“I haven’t any conscience. I slept
+peacefully nearly all day, and when I waked up I
+considered the matter carefully … I don’t
+believe that I have any proper appreciation of the
+enormity of what I’ve done at all. I have always
+thought that if anything like this ever happened
+to me I would go off and chloroform myself, but
+as a matter of fact I have no such intention … of
+course, though, it was not my fault in the least.
+You’re so terrible!… I simply couldn’t help
+myself, and I don’t see what I can do now … that’s
+comforting. But one thing is certain.
+We’ve got to be awfully careful. Thank Heaven,
+mother and Gordon are still in Florida and they
+won’t dare to come North on Gordon’s account
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page243">[pg 243]</span><a name="Pg243" id="Pg243" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+until it gets a good deal warmer. But we must
+be careful. I’m not sorry, like I should be, but
+I sure am scared.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">They sat for a long time after the meal, Ramon
+smoking a cigar, their knees touching under the
+table. He was filled with a vast contentment.
+He thought nothing of the troubled past, nor did
+he look into the obviously troubled future. He
+merely basked in the consciousness of a possession
+infinitely sweet.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Now began for them a life of clandestine
+adventure. Julia had a good many engagements,
+but she managed to give him some part of every
+day. They never met in the hotel, but usually
+took taxicabs separately and met in out-of-the-way
+parts of that great free wilderness of city.
+Ramon spent most of the time when he was not
+with her exploring for suitable meeting places.
+They became patrons of cellar restaurants in
+Greenwich Village, of French and Italian places
+far down town, of obscure Brooklyn hotels. If
+the regular fare at these establishments was not
+all they desired, Ramon would lavishly bribe the
+head waiter, call the proprietor into consultation
+if necessary, insist on getting what Julia wanted.
+He spent his money like a millionaire, and usually
+created the general impression that he was a
+wealthy foreigner. Every morning he had
+flowers sent to Julia’s room. Often they would
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page244">[pg 244]</span><a name="Pg244" id="Pg244" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+take a taxi and spend hours riding about the
+streets with the blinds drawn, locked in each
+others’ arms.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">For a week they were keenly, excitedly happy,
+living wholly in the joy of the moment. Then a
+flaw appeared upon the glowing perfect surface
+of their happiness.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“When is your husband coming back?”</span> he
+enquired once, when they were riding through
+Central Park.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“I don’t know. In a week or two. Why?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Because we must decide pretty soon what we’re
+going to do.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Do? What can we do?”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“We must decide where we’re going. You
+must go with me somewhere. I’m not going to
+let you get away from me again … not even
+for a little while.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“But Ramon, how can we? I’m married. I
+can’t go anywhere with you.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He seized her fiercely by the shoulders and
+held her away from him, looking into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Don’t you love me, then?”</span> he demanded.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Ramon! You know I do!”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Then you’ll go. We can go to Mexico City, or
+South America … I’ll sell out at home.…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“O, Ramon … I can’t. I haven’t got the
+courage. Think of the fuss it would raise. And
+it would kill Gordon, I know it would.…”</span></p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page245">[pg 245]</span><a name="Pg245" id="Pg245" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Damn Gordon!”</span> he exclaimed, <span class="tei tei-q">“he’s not going
+to get in the way again! You’re mine and I’m
+going to keep you. You will go. I’ll take you!”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He had seized her in his arms, was holding her
+furiously tight. She put her arms around him,
+caressed his face with soft fluttering hands.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Please, Ramon! Please don’t make me
+miserable. Don’t spoil the only happiness I ever
+had! I will go with you if ever I can, if I can get
+a divorce or something. But I can’t run off like
+that. I haven’t got it in me … please let me
+be happy!”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Her touch and her voice seemed to overcome
+his determination, seemed to sheer him of his
+strength. Weaker she was than he, but her charm
+was her power. It dragged him away from his
+thoughts and purposes, binding him to her and to
+the moment.… She drew his head down to her
+breast, found his lips with hers and so effectively
+cut his protests short.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-tb"> </div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The cream of his happiness was gone.
+Always when he was alone, he was thinking and
+planning how he could keep her. All of his
+possessiveness was aroused. He wanted her to
+have a baby. Somehow he felt that then his conquest
+would be complete, that then he would be
+at peace.…</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He said nothing more to Julia because he saw
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page246">[pg 246]</span><a name="Pg246" id="Pg246" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+that it was useless. He began to understand her
+a little. It was futile to ask her to make a decision,
+to take any initiative. She could hold out
+forever against pleas which involved an effort of
+the will on her part. And yet as he knew she
+could yield charmingly to pressure adroitly
+applied. If he had asked her to meet him in New
+York this way, he reflected, she would have been
+horrified, she would never have consented. But
+when he came, suddenly, that had been different.
+So it was now. If he could only form a really
+good plan, and then put her in a cab and take her … that
+would be the only way. The difficulty
+was to form the plan. He had capacity for
+sudden and decisive action. He lacked neither
+courage nor resolution. But when it came to
+making a plan which would require much time and
+patience, he found his limitations.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">What could he do? he asked himself, not realizing
+that in formulating the question he acknowledged
+his impotence. If he went away and left
+her while he settled his affairs, she was lost as
+surely as a bird released from a cage. The idea
+of Mexico City allured him. But he had hardly
+enough money to take them there. How could he
+raise money on short notice? It would take time
+to settle his estate in New Mexico and get anything
+out of it.…</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Two unrealized facts lay at the root of his
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page247">[pg 247]</span><a name="Pg247" id="Pg247" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+difficulty. One was that he had no capacity for
+large and intricate plans, and the other was that
+he felt bound as by an invisible tether to the land
+where he had been born.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As he struggled with all these conflicting considerations
+and emotions, his head fairly ached with
+futile effort. He was glad to lay it upon Julia’s
+soft bosom, to forget everything else again in the
+sweetness of a stolen moment.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC34" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page248">[pg 248]</span><a name="Pg248" id="Pg248" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc68" id="toc68"></a>
+<a name="pdf69" id="pdf69"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXIV</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He had been in New York about ten days when
+he awoke one morning near noon. An immense
+languor possessed him. He had been with Julia
+the night before and never had she been more
+charming, more abandoned.… He ordered his
+breakfast to be sent up, and then stretched out in
+bed and lit an expensive Russian cigarette. He
+had that love of sensuous indolence, which,
+together with its usual complement, the capacity
+for brief but violent action, marked him as a
+primitive man—one whom the regular labors and
+restraints of civilization would never fit.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His telephone bell rang, and when he took
+down the receiver he heard Julia’s voice. It was
+not unusual for her to call him about this time,
+but what she told him now caused a blank and
+hapless look to come over his face. She was not
+in her room, but in another hotel.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“My husband got in this morning,”</span> she explained
+in a voice that was thin with misery and
+confusion. <span class="tei tei-q">“I got his message last night, but I
+didn’t tell you because I knew it would spoil our
+last time together, and I was afraid you would do
+something foolish.… Please say you’re not
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page249">[pg 249]</span><a name="Pg249" id="Pg249" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+angry. You know there was nothing for it. We
+couldn’t have done any of those wild things you
+talked about. I’ll always love you, honestly I
+will. Won’t you even say goodby?…”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He at last did say goodby and hung up the
+receiver and went across the room and sat in an
+armchair. It suddenly struck him that he was
+very tired. He had not realized it before … how
+tired he was. There was none of the mad
+rebellion in him now that had filled him when first
+she had run away from him. Although he had
+never acknowledged it to himself he had been
+more than half prepared for this. He had told
+himself that he was going to do something bold
+and decisive, but he had procrastinated; he had
+never really formed a plan.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Weariness was his leading emotion. He was
+spent, physically and emotionally. He wanted
+her almost as much as ever. While she was no
+longer the remote and dazzling star she had been,
+the bond of flesh that had been created between
+them seemed a stronger, a more constant thing
+than blinding unsatisfied desire. But a great
+despair possessed him. There was so obviously
+nothing he could do. Just as his other disappointment
+had given him his first stinging impression of
+the irony of life, that cunningly builds a hope and
+then smashes it; so now he felt for the first time
+something of the helplessness of man in the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page250">[pg 250]</span><a name="Pg250" id="Pg250" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+current or his destiny, driven by deep-laid desires
+he seldom understands, and ruled by chances he
+can never calculate. From love a man learns
+life in quick and painful flashes.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Through the open window came the din of the
+New York street—purr and throb of innumerable
+engines, rumble and clatter of iron wheels, tapping
+of thousands of restless feet, making a blended
+current of sound upon which floated and tossed the
+shrillness of police whistles and newsboys’ voices
+and auto horns. It had been the background of
+his life during memorable days. Once it had
+stirred his pulses, seeming a wild accompaniment
+to the song of his passion. Now it wearied him
+inexpressibly; it seemed to be hammering in his
+ears; he wanted to get away from it. He would
+go home that day.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-tb"> </div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As always on his trips across the continent he
+sat apathetically smoking through the wide green
+lushness of the middle west. Only when the
+cultivated lands gave way to barren hills and
+faint blue mountains peeping over far horizons
+did he turn to the window and forget his misery
+and his weariness. How it spoke to his heart,
+this country of his own! He who loved no man,
+who had gone to women with desire and come
+away with bitterness, loved a vast and barren
+land, baking in the sun. The sight of it quickened
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page251">[pg 251]</span><a name="Pg251" id="Pg251" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+his pulses, softened and soothed his spirit. Like
+a good liquor it nursed and beautified whatever
+mood was in him. When he had come back to it
+a year before, it had spoken to him of hope, its
+mysterious distances had seemed full of promise
+and hidden possibility. And now that he came
+back to it with hopes broken, weary in mind and
+body, it seemed the very voice of rest. He
+thought of long cool nights in the mountains and
+of the lullaby that wind and water sing, of the
+soothing monotony of empty sunlit levels, of the
+cool caress of deep, green pools, of the sweet
+satisfaction that goes with physical weariness and
+a full belly and a bed upon the ground.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">But when on the last morning of his journey he
+waked up within a hundred miles of home, and
+less than half that far from his own mountain
+lands, his new-found comfort quickly changed to
+a keen anxiety. For he saw at a glance that the
+country was under the blight of drought. The
+hills that should have borne a good crop of
+gramma grass at this time of the year, if the rains
+had been even fair, were nothing but bare red
+earth from which the rocks and the great roots of
+the <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">pinion</span></span>
+trees stood out like the bones of a
+starving animal. Here and there on the hillsides
+he could see a scrubby pine that had died, its
+needles turned rust-red—the sure sign of a serious
+drought.</p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page252">[pg 252]</span><a name="Pg252" id="Pg252" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">During the half month that he had been gone
+he had thought not once of his affairs at home.
+The moment had absorbed him completely. Now
+it all came back to him suddenly. When he had
+left, the promise of the season had been good.
+It had not rained for more than a week, but everyone
+had been expecting rain every day. It was
+clear to him that the needed rain had never come.
+And he knew just what that meant to him. It
+meant that he had lost lambs and ewes, that he
+would have no money this year with which to
+meet his notes at the bank. He sank deep in
+despair and disgust again. Not only was the
+assault on his fortunes a serious one, but he felt
+little inclined to meet it. He was weary of struggle.
+He saw before him a long slow fight to get
+on his feet again, with the chance of ultimate
+failure if he had another bad year.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The Mexicans firmly believe, in the face of
+much evidence to the contrary, that seven wet
+years are always followed by seven dry ones. He
+had heard the saying gravely repeated many
+times. He more than half believed it. And he
+knew that for a good many years, perhaps as
+many as six or seven, the rains had been remarkably
+good. He was intelligent, but superstition
+was bred in his bones. Like all men of a primitive
+type he had a strong tendency to believe in
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page253">[pg 253]</span><a name="Pg253" id="Pg253" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+fortune as a deliberate force in the affairs of men.
+It seemed clear to him now, in his depressed and
+exhausted condition, that bad luck had marked
+him for its prey.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC35" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page254">[pg 254]</span><a name="Pg254" id="Pg254" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc70" id="toc70"></a>
+<a name="pdf71" id="pdf71"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXV</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His forebodings were confirmed in detail the
+next morning when Cortez came into his office,
+his face wrinkled with worry and darkened by
+exposure to the weather. He was angry too.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">Por Dios</span></span>,
+man! To go off like that and not
+even leave me an address. If I could have gotten
+more money to hire men I might have saved some
+of them … yes, more than half of the lambs
+died, and many of the ewes. There is nothing
+to do now. They are on the best of the range,
+and it has begun to rain in the mountains. But
+it is too bad. It cost you many thousands … that
+trip to New York.”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon gave Cortez a cigar to soothe his
+sensibilities, thanked him with dignity for his loyal
+services, and sent him away. Then he put on
+his hat and went outside to walk and think.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">The town seemed to him quiet as though half-deserted.
+This was partly by contrast with the
+place of din which he had just left, and partly
+because this was the dull season, when the first
+hot spell of summer drove many away from the
+town and kept those who remained in their houses
+most of the day. The sandy streets caught the
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page255">[pg 255]</span><a name="Pg255" id="Pg255" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+sun and cherished it in a merciless glare. They
+were baked so hot that barefoot urchins hopped
+gingerly from one patch of shade to the next.
+In the numerous vacant lots rank jungles of weeds
+languished in the dry heat, and long blue-tailed
+lizards, veritable heat-sprites, emerged to frolic
+and doze on deserted sidewalks. The leaves of
+the cottonwoods hung limp, and the white downy
+tufts that carried their seeds everywhere drifted
+and swam in the shimmering air. The river had
+shrunk to a string of shallow pools in a sandy
+plain, the irrigation ditches were empty, and in
+Old Town the Mexicans were asking God for
+rain by carrying an image of the Virgin Mary
+about on a litter and firing muskets into the air.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Quickly wearied, Ramon sat down on a shaded
+bench in the park and tried to think out his situation
+and to decide what he should do. The easy
+way was to sell out, pay his debts, provide for his
+mother and sister and with what was left go his
+own way—buy a little ranch perhaps in the mountains
+or in the valley where he could live in peace
+and do as he pleased. Wearied as he was by
+struggle and disappointment, this prospect allured
+him, and yet he could not quite accept it. He
+felt vaguely the fact that in selling his lands, he
+would be selling out to fate, he would be surrendering
+to MacDougall, to the gringos, he would
+be renouncing all his high hopes and dreams.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page256">[pg 256]</span><a name="Pg256" id="Pg256" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+His mountain lands, with their steadily increasing
+value, the power they gave him, would make of
+his life a thing of possibilities—an adventure.
+Settled on a little ranch somewhere, his whole
+story would be told in one of its years.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This he did not reason clearly, but the emotional
+struggle within him was therefore all the
+stronger. It was his old struggle in another
+guise—the struggle between the primitive being
+in him and the civilized, between earth and the
+world of men. Each of them in turn filled his
+mind with images and emotions, and he was impotent
+to judge between them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His being was fairly rooted in the soil, and the
+animal happiness it offered—the free play of
+instinct, the sweetness of being physically and
+emotionally at peace with environment—was the
+only happiness he had ever known. Vaguely yet
+surely he had felt the world of men and works,
+the artificial world, to contain something larger
+and more beautiful than this. Julia Roth had
+been to him a stimulating symbol of this higher,
+this more desirable thing. His love for her had
+been the soil in which his aspirations had grown.
+That love had turned to bitterness and lust,
+and his aspirations had led him among greeds and
+fears and struggles that differed from those of
+the wild things only in that they were covert and
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page257">[pg 257]</span><a name="Pg257" id="Pg257" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+devious, lacking the free beauty of instinct fearlessly
+followed and the dignity of open battle.
+Of civilization he had encountered only the raw
+and ugly edge, which is uglier than savagery. He
+knew no more of the true spirit of it than a man
+who has camped in a farmer’s back pasture knows
+of the true spirit of wildness. It had treated
+him without mercy and brought out the worst of
+him. And yet because he had once loved and
+dreamed he could not go back to the easy but
+limited satisfactions of the soil and be wholly
+content.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">So he could not make up his mind at first to
+surrender, but in the next few days one thing
+after another came to tempt him that way. MacDougall
+made him an offer for his lands which
+to his surprise was a little better than the last one.
+He learned afterward that the over-shrewd
+lawyer had misinterpreted his trip to New York,
+imagining that he had gone there to interest
+eastern capital in his lands.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His mother and sister were two very cogent
+arguments in favour of selling. The Dona
+Delcasar, a simple and vain old lady, now
+regarded herself as a woman of wealth, and was
+always after him for money. Her ambition was
+to build a house in the Highlands and serve tea
+at four o’clock (although it was thick chocolate
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page258">[pg 258]</span><a name="Pg258" id="Pg258" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+she liked) and break into society. His one
+discussion of the matter with her was a bitter
+experience.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Holy Mary!”</span> she exclaimed in her shrill
+Spanish, when he broached a plan of retrenchment,
+<span class="tei tei-q">“What a son I have! You spend thousands
+on yourself, chasing women and buying automobiles,
+and now you want us to spend the rest of
+our lives in this old house and walk to church so
+that you can make it up. God, but men are
+selfish!”</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He saw that if he tried to save money and
+make a fight for his lands he would have to
+struggle not only with MacDougall and the
+weather, but with two ignorant, ambitious and
+sharp-tongued women. And family pride here
+fought against him. He did not want to see
+his women folk go shabbily in the town. He
+wanted them to have their brick house and their
+tea parties, and to uphold the name of Delcasar
+as well as they might.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">One day while he was still struggling with his
+problem he went to look at a ranch that was
+offered for sale in the valley a few miles north of
+town. It was this place more than anything else
+which decided him. The old house had been
+built by one of his ancestors almost a hundred
+years before, and had then been the seat of an
+estate which embraced all the valley and
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">mesa</span></span>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page259">[pg 259]</span><a name="Pg259" id="Pg259" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+lands for miles in every direction. It had changed
+hands several times and there were now but a
+few hundred acres. The woodwork of the house
+was in bad repair, but its adobe walls, three feet
+thick, were firm as ever. There were still traces
+of the adobe stockade behind it, with walls ten
+feet high, and the building which had housed the
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">peones</span></span>
+was still standing, now filled with fragrant
+hay. In front of it stood an old cedar post with
+rusty iron rings to which the recalcitrant field
+hands had been bound for beating.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Every detail of this home of his forefathers
+stirred his emotions. The ancient cottonwood
+trees in front of the house with their deep,
+welcome shade and the soft voices of courting
+doves among the leaves; the alfalfa fields heavy
+with purple blossom, ripe for cutting; the orchard
+of old apple trees and thickets of Indian plum
+run wild; the neglected vineyard that could be
+made to yield several barrels of red wine—all
+of these things spoke to him with subtle voices.
+To trade his heritage for this was to trade hope
+and hazard for monotonous ease; but with the
+smell of the yielding earth in his nostrils, he no
+more thought of this than a man in love thinks of
+the long restraints and irks of marriage when the
+kiss of his woman is on his lips.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="page" /><div id="BC36" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page260">[pg 260]</span><a name="Pg260" id="Pg260" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+<a name="toc72" id="toc72"></a>
+<a name="pdf73" id="pdf73"></a>
+<h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+  <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXVI</span></span>
+</h1>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon’s life on his farm quickly fell into a
+routine that was for the most part pleasant. He
+hired an old woman to do his cooking and washing,
+and a man to work on the place. Other
+men he hired as he needed them, and he spent
+most of his days working with them as a foreman.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He attended to the business of farming ably.
+The trees of the old orchard he pruned and
+sprayed and he set out new ones. He put his
+idle land under irrigation and planted it in corn
+and alfalfa. He set out beds of strawberries
+and asparagus. He bought blooded livestock
+and chickens. He put his fences in repair and
+painted the woodwork of his house. The creative
+energy that was in him had at last found an
+outlet which was congenial though somewhat
+picayune. For the place was small and easily
+handled. As the fall came on, and his crops had
+been gathered and the work of irrigation was
+over for the season, he found himself looking
+about restlessly for something to do. On Saturday
+nights he generally went to town, had
+dinner with his mother and sister, and spent the
+evening drinking beer and playing pool. But he
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page261">[pg 261]</span><a name="Pg261" id="Pg261" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+felt increasingly out of place in the town; his
+visits there were prompted more by filial duty
+and the need of something to break the monotony
+of his week than by a real sense of pleasure in
+them.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He was still caring for Catalina on the ranch
+up the valley, and when the woman who had been
+doing his work left him, he decided to bring the
+girl to his place and let her earn her keep by
+cooking and washing. He no longer felt any
+interest in her, and thought that perhaps she
+would marry Juan Cardenas, the man who milked
+his cows and chopped wood for him. But
+Catalina showed no interest in Juan. Instead,
+she emphatically rejected all his advances, and
+displayed an abject, squaw-like devotion to
+Ramon’s welfare. Everything possible was done
+for his comfort without his asking. The infant,
+now almost a year old, was trained not to cry in
+his presence, and acquired a certain awe of him,
+watching him with large solemn eyes whenever
+he was about. Ramon, reflecting that this was
+his son, set out to make the baby’s acquaintance,
+and became quite fond of it. He often played
+with it in the evening.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">He paid Catalina regular wages and she spent
+most of the money on clothes. When she
+prepared herself for Church on Sunday she was
+a truly terrible spectacle, clad in an ill-fitting
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page262">[pg 262]</span><a name="Pg262" id="Pg262" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+ready-made suit of brilliant colour, and wearing
+a cheap hat on which a dead parrot sprawled
+among artificial poppies, while her swarthy face,
+heavily powdered, took on a purple tinge. But
+about the place, dressed in clean calico, with a
+shawl over her shoulders, she was really pretty.
+Her figure was a good one of peasant type, and
+the acquisition of some shoes which fitted her
+revealed the fact that she had inherited from
+her remote Castilian ancestry a small and shapely
+foot and ankle.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon could not help noticing all of these
+things, and so gradually he became aware of
+Catalina again as a desirable woman, and one
+whom it was easy for him to take.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">After this his animal contentment was deeper
+than ever. He did not go to town so often, for
+one of the restlessnesses which had driven him
+there was removed. Often for weeks at a
+stretch he would not go at all unless it was necessary
+to get some tools or supplies for the farm.
+Then rather than take any of his men away from
+work, he would himself hitch up a team and drive
+the five miles. Sitting hunched over on the
+spring-seat of a big farm wagon, clad in overalls
+and a print shirt, with a wide hat tilted against
+the sun and a cigarette dangling from his lips, he
+was indistinguishable from any other
+<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">paisano</span></span> on
+the road. This change in appearance was helped
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page263">[pg 263]</span><a name="Pg263" id="Pg263" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+by the fact that he had grown a heavy moustache.
+Often, as he drove through the streets of the
+town, he would pass acquaintances who did not
+recognize him, and he was just as well satisfied
+that they did not.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">As is the way of unreflecting men, Ramon
+formed no definite opinion of his life, but liked
+it more or less according to the mood that was in
+him. There were bright, cool days that fall
+when, lacking work to do, he took his shot-gun
+and a saddle horse and went for long rambles.
+Sometimes he would follow the river northward,
+stalking the flocks of teal and mallards that dozed
+on the sandbars in the wide, muddy stream,
+perhaps killing three or four fat birds. Other
+times he went to the foot of the mountains and
+hunted the blue quail and cotton tail rabbits in
+the arroyos of the foot-hills. Once he and his
+man loaded a wagon with food and blankets and
+drove forty miles to a canyon where they killed a
+big black-tail buck, and brought him back in high
+triumph.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Returning from such trips full of healthy
+hunger and weariness, to find his hot supper and
+his woman waiting for him, Ramon would doze
+off happily, every want of his physical being satisfied,
+feeling that life was good.… But there
+were other nights when a strange restlessness
+possessed him, when he lay miserably awake
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page264">[pg 264]</span><a name="Pg264" id="Pg264" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+through long dark hours. The silence of the
+black valley was emphasized now and then by the
+doleful voices of dogs that answered each other
+across the sleeping miles. At such times he felt
+as though he had been caught in a trap. He saw
+in imagination the endless unvaried chain of his
+days stretching before him, and he rebelled against
+it and knew not how to break it. His experience
+of life was comparatively little and he was no
+philosopher. He did not know definitely either
+what was the matter with him or what he wanted.
+But he had tasted high aspiration, and desire
+bright and transforming, and wild sweet joy.…
+These things had been taken away, and now life
+narrowed steadily before him like a blind canyon
+that pierces a mountain range. The trail at the
+bottom was easy enough to follow, but the walls
+drew ever closer and became more impassable,
+and what was the end?…</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"></p><div class="tei tei-tb"> </div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This sense of dissatisfaction reached its futile
+crux one day in the spring when he received a
+letter from Julia—the last he was ever to get.
+The sight and scent of it stirred him as they
+always had done, filling him with poignant painful
+memories.</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“This is really the last time I’ll ever bother
+you,”</span> she wrote, <span class="tei tei-q">“but I do want to know what has
+happened to you, and how you feel about things.
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page265">[pg 265]</span><a name="Pg265" id="Pg265" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+I can’t forget. All our troubles seem to have
+worn some sort of a permanent groove in my poor
+brain, and I believe the thought of you will be
+there till the day of my death.
+</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“As, for me, I’m in society up to my eyes, and
+absolutely without the courage or energy to climb
+out. Those days in New York were the first and
+the last of my freedom. Now I’ve been introduced
+to everybody, and I have an engagement
+book that tells me what I’m going to do whether
+I want to or not for three weeks ahead. I’m a
+model of conduct and propriety for the simple
+reason that I can’t travel over a block without
+everybody that I know finding out about it.
+</span></p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em"><span class="tei tei-q">“Of course it hasn’t all been a bore. I have
+had some fun, and I’ve met some really interesting
+people. I’ve gotten used to being married and
+my husband treats me kindly and gives me a good
+home. Sounds as if I was a kitten, doesn’t it?
+Well, I have very much the same sort of life as a
+kitten, but a kitten has no imagination and it has
+never been in love. Sometimes I think that I
+can’t stand it any longer. It seems to me that
+I’m not really living, as I used to imagine I would,
+but just being dragged through life by circumstances
+and other people—I don’t know what all.
+I still have desperate plans and ideas once in a
+while, but of course, I never do anything. When
+you come right down to it, what can I do?”</span></p>
+<span class="tei tei-pb" id="page266">[pg 266]</span><a name="Pg266" id="Pg266" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">Ramon read this letter sitting on the sunny
+side of his house with his heels under him and
+his back against the wall—a position any Mexican
+can hold for hours. When he had finished it he
+sat motionless for a long time, painfully going
+over the past, trying ineptly to discover what had
+been the matter with it. More acutely than ever
+before he felt the cruel guerdon of youth—the
+contrast between the promise of life and its fulfillment.
+He felt that he ought to do something,
+that he ought not to submit. But somehow all
+the doors that led out of his present narrow way
+into wider fields seemed closed. There was no
+longer any entrancing vista to tempt him. Mentally
+he repeated her query, What could he do?</p>
+
+<p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">His thoughts went round and round and got
+nowhere. The spring sunshine soaked into his
+body. A faint hum of early insects lulled him,
+and to his nostrils came the scent of new-turned
+earth and manure from the garden where his man
+was working. He grew drowsy; his dissatisfaction
+simmered down to a vague ache in the background
+of his consciousness. Idly he tore the
+letter to little bits.</p>
+
+<div class="tei tei-tb"> </div>
+
+<p class="tei tei-trailer" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 75%">THE END</span></p>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="tei tei-back" style="margin-bottom: 2.00em; margin-top: 6.00em">
+  <hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+    <a name="toc74" id="toc74"></a>
+    <a name="pdf75" id="pdf75"></a>
+    <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+      <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">EXTRA PAGES</span></span>
+    </h1>
+
+    <hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em">
+      <span class="tei tei-pb" id="page1">[pg 1]</span><a name="Pg1" id="Pg1" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+      <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 20.00em">
+      <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 150%; font-style: italic">The Blood of
+      </span><br /><span style="font-size: 150%; font-style: italic">the Conquerors</span></span></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <hr class="page" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em">
+      <span class="tei tei-pb" id="page2">[pg 2]</span><a name="Pg2" id="Pg2" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+      <table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 0.75em; margin-top: 0.75em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="margin-left: 1.50em"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-style: italic">NEW BORZOI NOVELS</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="margin-left: 3.00em"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-style: italic">FALL, 1921</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+      <table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 0.75em; margin-top: 0.75em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-variant: small-caps">Pan</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="margin-left: 0.75em"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-style: italic">Knut Hamsun</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-variant: small-caps">Dreamers</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="margin-left: 0.75em"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-style: italic">Knut Hamsun</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-variant: small-caps">The Tortoise</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="margin-left: 0.75em"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-style: italic">Mary Borden</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-variant: small-caps">The China Shop</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="margin-left: 0.75em"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-style: italic">G. B. Stern</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-variant: small-caps">The Briary-Bush</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="margin-left: 0.75em"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-style: italic">Floyd Dell</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-variant: small-caps">Deadlock</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="margin-left: 0.75em"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-style: italic">Dorothy Richardson</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-variant: small-caps">The Other Magic</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="margin-left: 0.75em"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-style: italic">E. L. Grant-Watson</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-variant: small-caps">White Shoulders</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="margin-left: 0.75em"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-style: italic">George Kibbe Turner</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-variant: small-caps">The Charmed Circle</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="margin-left: 0.75em"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-style: italic">Edward Alden Jewell</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-variant: small-caps">The Blood of
+                                                  the Conquerors</span></span></td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-hi" style="margin-left: 0.75em"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-style: italic">Harvey
+          </span><span class="tei tei-corr"><a name="E11" id="E11" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+          <a href="#e11" class="tei tei-ref"><span style="font-size: 75%; font-style: italic">Fergusson</span></a></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table>
+    </div>
+
+    <hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em">
+      <span class="tei tei-pb" id="page5">[pg 5]</span><a name="Pg5" id="Pg5" class="tei tei-anchor"></a>
+      <p class="tei tei-p" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-left: 20.00em">
+      <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 150%; font-style: italic">The Blood of
+      </span><br /><span style="font-size: 150%; font-style: italic">the Conquerors</span></span></p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+    <a name="toc76" id="toc76"></a>
+    <a name="pdf77" id="pdf77"></a>
+    <h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em">
+      <span class="tei tei-hi" style="text-align: center"><span style="font-size: 125%">ERRATA</span></span>
+    </h1>
+
+    <a name="e1" id="e1" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">CHAPTER II</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Changed: they were <a href="#E1" class="tei tei-ref"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">untamable</span></span></a>,
+        but boys</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">To: they were <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">untameable</span></span>,
+        but boys</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+    <a name="e2" id="e2" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">CHAPTER II</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Changed: adventures were <a href="#E2" class="tei tei-ref"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">comoposed</span></span></a>
+        and sung </td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">To: adventures were <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">composed</span></span>
+        and sung </td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+    <a name="e3" id="e3" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">CHAPTER IV</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Changed: your name,” she admitted<a href="#E3" class="tei tei-ref"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">,</span></span></a>
+        </td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">To: your name,” she admitted<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">.</span></span>
+        </td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+    <a name="e4" id="e4" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">CHAPTER V</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Changed: only all-night <a href="#E4" class="tei tei-ref"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">resturant</span></span></a>.
+        Here he </td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">To: only all-night <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">restaurant</span></span>.
+        Here he </td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+    <a name="e5" id="e5" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">CHAPTER VII</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Changed: haunted by <a href="#E5" class="tei tei-ref"><span class="tei tei-hi"></span>lizzards</a>
+        and rattlesnakes.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">To: haunted by <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">lizards</span></span>
+        and rattlesnakes.</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+    <a name="e6" id="e6" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">CHAPTER VIII</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Changed: CHAPTER VIII<a href="#E6" class="tei tei-ref"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">.</span></span></a>
+        </td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">To: CHAPTER VIII<span class="tei tei-hi"> </span>
+        </td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+    <a name="e12" id="e12" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">CHAPTER XI</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Changed: the game<a href="#E12" class="tei tei-ref"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">,</span></span></a>
+        But the</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">To: the game<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">.</span></span>
+        But the</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+    <a name="e7" id="e7" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">CHAPTER XV</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Changed: nights they <a href="#E7" class="tei tei-ref"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">visted</span></span></a>
+        the town’s</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">To: nights they <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">visited</span></span>
+        the town’s</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+    <a name="e8" id="e8" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">CHAPTER XIX</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Changed: saved from <a href="#E8" class="tei tei-ref"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">furthur</span></span></a>
+        punishment. Meantime,</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">To: saved from <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">further</span></span>
+        punishment. Meantime,</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+    <a name="e13" id="e13" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">CHAPTER XXXI</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Changed: own living.… <a href="#E13" class="tei tei-ref"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">Its</span></span></a>
+        not fair.</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">To: own living.… <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">It’s</span></span>
+        not fair.</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+    <a name="e9" id="e9" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">CHAPTER XXXII</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Changed: of course<a href="#E9" class="tei tei-ref"><span class="tei tei-hi"> </span></a>”
+        she added</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">To: of course<span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">,</span></span>”
+        she added</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+    <a name="e10" id="e10" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">CHAPTER XXXII</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Changed: <a href="#E10" class="tei tei-ref"><span class="tei tei-hi"> </span></a>For
+        Heaven’s sake, say something!”</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">To: <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">“</span></span>For
+        Heaven’s sake, say something!”</td></tr></tbody></table>
+
+    <a name="e11" id="e11" class="tei tei-anchor"></a><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Page 2</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Changed: Harvey <a href="#E11" class="tei tei-ref"><span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">Furgusson</span></span></a>
+        </td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">To: Harvey <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-weight: 700">Fergusson</span></span>
+        </td></tr></tbody></table>
+  </div>
+
+<hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 5.00em; margin-top: 5.00em">
+<div id="pgfooter" class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 4.00em; margin-top: 4.00em"><pre class="pre tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em">***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOOD OF THE CONQUERORS***
+</pre><hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><a name="rightpageheader78" id="rightpageheader78"></a><a name="pgtoc79" id="pgtoc79"></a><a name="pdf80" id="pdf80"></a><h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">Credits</span></h1><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr><th class="tei tei-label tei-label-gloss">Febraury 23, 2007  </th></tr><tr><td class="tei tei-item"><table summary="This is a list." class="tei tei-list" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em; margin-top: 1.00em"><tbody><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item">Project Gutenberg Edition</td></tr><tr class="tei tei-labelitem"><th class="tei tei-label"></th><td class="tei tei-item"><span class="tei tei-respStmt">
+        <span class="tei tei-name">Roland Schlenker and<br /></span>
+        <span class="tei tei-name">Online Distributed Proofreading Team</span>
+      </span></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div><hr class="doublepage" /><div class="tei tei-div" style="margin-bottom: 3.00em; margin-top: 3.00em"><a name="rightpageheader81" id="rightpageheader81"></a><a name="pgtoc82" id="pgtoc82"></a><a name="pdf83" id="pdf83"></a><h1 class="tei tei-head" style="text-align: left; margin-bottom: 3.46em; margin-top: 3.46em"><span style="font-size: 173%">A Word from Project Gutenberg</span></h1><p class="tei tei-p" style="margin-bottom: 1.00em">This file should be named 
+          20888-h.html or 
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
+
+<!--
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Blood of the Conquerors
+by Harvey Fergusson
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: The Blood of the Conquerors
+
+Author: Harvey Fergusson
+
+Release Date: March 2007 [Ebook #20888]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+-->
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+    <titleStmt>
+      <title>The Blood of the Conquerors</title>
+      <author><name reg="Fergusson, Harvey">Harvey Fergusson</name></author>
+    </titleStmt>
+    <editionStmt>
+      <edition n="1">Edition 1</edition>
+    </editionStmt>
+    <publicationStmt>
+      <publisher>Project Gutenberg</publisher>
+      <date value="2007-03-23">March 23, 2007</date>
+      <idno type="etext-no">20888</idno>
+      <idno type="DPid">projectID454122582ab3c</idno>
+      <availability>
+        <p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
+        with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it
+        away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg
+        License online at www.gutenberg.org/license</p>
+      </availability>
+    </publicationStmt>
+    <sourceDesc>
+      <bibl>
+        <title>The Blood of the Conquerors</title>
+        <author>Harvey Fergusson</author>
+        <imprint>
+          <publisher>Alfred A. Knopf</publisher>
+          <pubPlace>New York</pubPlace>
+          <date>1921</date>
+        </imprint>
+      </bibl>
+    </sourceDesc>
+  </fileDesc>
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+    <projectDesc>
+      <p>Produced by Roland Schlenker
+      and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+      &lt;http://www.pgdp.net/c&gt;</p>
+      <p>Page-images available at
+      &lt;http://www.pgdp.net/projects/projectID454122582ab3c/&gt;</p>
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+    <editorialDecl>
+      <p>The Proofreading and Formatting Guidelines Version 1.9.c,
+      generated January 1, 2006 at &lt;http://www.pgdp.net/&gt; were
+      used to transcribe this text.</p>
+      <p>Corrections were made when it was obvious a mistake was made
+      in the original text. An errata is supplied to locate these
+      corrections.</p>
+      <p>Quotation marks have been changed to TEI
+      encoding &lt;q&gt; and &lt;/q&gt;.</p>
+      <p>Hyphenated words at the end of a line or at the end of a page
+      have had their hyphens removed. The second part of the hyphenated
+      word has been moved to the previous line or page. No information
+      has been kept as to the location of these changes.</p>
+      <p>Characters not in ISO-8859-1 have been changed to TEI
+      entities.</p>
+      <p>The original book had no table of contents. A table of contents
+      was made for this electronic edition.</p>
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+      <keywords scheme="lc">
+        <list>
+          <item>American literature --
+            By period -- 20th century</item>
+          <item>American literature --
+            Individual authors -- 1900-1960</item>
+          <item>Fiction and juvenile belles lettres --
+            Fiction in English</item>
+        </list>
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+        <name>Roland Schlenker and<lb/></name>
+        <name>Online Distributed Proofreading Team</name>
+      </respStmt>
+      <item>Project Gutenberg Edition</item>
+    </change>
+  </revisionDesc>
+</teiHeader>
+
+<text lang="en">
+
+<front>
+  <div>
+    <divGen type="pgheader"/>
+  </div>
+
+  <div>
+    <divGen type="encodingDesc"/>
+  </div>
+
+  <titlePage rend="page-break-before: right; text-align: center">
+  <pb n="3"/><anchor id="Pg3"/>
+    <docTitle>
+      <titlePart type="main">
+        <hi rend="font-size: 175%">The Blood of the Conquerors</hi><lb/>
+      </titlePart>
+    </docTitle>
+    <byline>
+      <hi rend="font-size: 125%">by</hi><lb/>
+      <docAuthor>
+        <hi rend="font-size: 150%">Harvey Fergusson</hi><lb/>
+        <lb/>
+      </docAuthor>
+    </byline>
+    <docImprint>
+      <hi rend="font-size: 125%">New York</hi><lb/>
+      <hi rend="font-size: 150%">Alfred &middot; A &middot; Knopf</hi><lb/>
+    </docImprint>
+    <docDate>
+      <hi rend="font-size: 100%">1921</hi><lb/>
+    </docDate>
+  </titlePage>
+
+  <div rend="page-break-before: always; text-align: center" type="verso">
+    <pb n="4"/><anchor id="Pg4"/>
+    <p rend="page-float: 't'">
+    <hi rend="font-size: 75%">COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY</hi><lb/>
+    <hi rend="font-size: 75%">ALFRED A. KNOPF, <hi
+    rend="font-variant: small-caps">Inc</hi>.</hi></p>
+
+    <p rend="page-float: 'b'">
+    <hi rend="font-size: 50%">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</hi></p>
+  </div>
+
+  <div rend="page-break-before: right">
+    <index index="pdf"/>
+    <head rend="text-align: center">Contents</head>
+    <divGen type="toc"/>
+  </div>
+</front>
+
+<body>
+
+<!-- <pb n="1"/><anchor id="Pg1"/>
+[Extra Page]
+
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">The Blood of
+the Conquerors</hi> -->
+
+<!-- <pb n="2"/><anchor id="Pg2"/>
+[Extra Page]
+
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">NEW BORZOI NOVELS
+FALL, 1921</hi>
+
+/*
+<hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">Pan</hi>
+  <hi rend="font-style: italic">Knut Hamsun</hi>
+
+<hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">Dreamers</hi>
+  <hi rend="font-style: italic">Knut Hamsun</hi>
+
+<hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">The Tortoise</hi>
+  <hi rend="font-style: italic">Mary Borden</hi>
+
+<hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">The China Shop</hi>
+  <hi rend="font-style: italic">G. B. Stern</hi>
+
+<hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">The Briary-Bush</hi>
+  <hi rend="font-style: italic">Floyd Dell</hi>
+
+<hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">Deadlock</hi>
+  <hi rend="font-style: italic">Dorothy Richardson</hi>
+
+<hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">The Other Magic</hi>
+  <hi rend="font-style: italic">E. L. Grant-Watson</hi>
+
+<hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">White Shoulders</hi>
+  <hi rend="font-style: italic">George Kibbe Turner</hi>
+
+<hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">The Charmed Circle</hi>
+  <hi rend="font-style: italic">Edward Alden Jewell</hi>
+
+<hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">The Blood of the Conquerors</hi>
+  <hi rend="font-style: italic">Harvey Furgusson[**corr: Fergusson]</hi>
+*/ -->
+
+<!-- <pb n="3"/><anchor id="Pg3"/>
+[Title Page]
+
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">The Blood of the Conquerors</hi>
+
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">by</hi>
+
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">Harvey Fergusson</hi>
+
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">New York</hi>
+
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">Alfred � A � Knopf</hi>
+
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">1921</hi> -->
+
+<!-- <pb n="4"/><anchor id="Pg4"/>
+[Extra Page]
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
+ALFRED A. KNOPF, <hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">Inc</hi>.
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA -->
+
+<!-- <pb n="5"/><anchor id="Pg5"/>
+[Extra Page]
+
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">The Blood of
+the Conquerors</hi> -->
+
+<!-- <pb n="6"/><anchor id="Pg6"/>
+[Blank Page] -->
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC01" type="chapter">
+<pb n="7"/><anchor id="Pg7"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER I</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>Whenever Ramon Delcasar boarded a railroad
+train he indulged a habit, not uncommon among
+men, of choosing from the women passengers the
+one whose appearance most pleased him to be the
+object of his attention during the journey. If
+the woman were reserved or well-chaperoned, or
+if she obviously belonged to another man, this attention
+might amount to no more than an occasional
+discreet glance in her direction. He never
+tried to make her acquaintance unless her eyes and
+mouth unmistakably invited him to do so.</p>
+
+<p>This conservatism on his part was not due to an
+innate lack of self-confidence. Whenever he felt
+sure of his social footing, his attitude toward
+women was bold and assured. But his social footing
+was a peculiarly uncertain thing for the reason
+that he was a Mexican. This meant that he
+faced in every social contact the possibility of a
+more or less covert prejudice against his blood,
+and that he faced it with an unduly proud and sensitive
+spirit concealed beneath a manner of aristocratic
+indifference. In the little southwestern
+town where he had lived all his life, except the
+<pb n="8"/><anchor id="Pg8"/>
+last three years, his social position was ostensibly
+of the highest. He was spoken of as belonging
+to an old and prominent family. Yet he knew of
+mothers who carefully guarded their daughters
+from the peril of falling in love with him, and most
+of his boyhood fights had started when some one
+called him a <q>damned Mexican</q> or a <q>greaser.</q></p>
+
+<p>Except to an experienced eye there was little in
+his appearance or in his manner to suggest his
+race. His swarthy complexion indicated perhaps
+a touch of the Moorish blood in his Spanish ancestry,
+but he was no darker than are many Americans
+bearing Anglo-Saxon names, and his eyes
+were grey. His features were aquiline and
+pleasing, and he had in a high degree that bearing,
+at once proud and unself-conscious, which is called
+aristocratic. He spoke English with a very slight
+Spanish accent.</p>
+
+<p>When he had gone away to a Catholic law
+school in St. Louis, confident of his speech and
+manner and appearance, he had believed that he
+was leaving prejudice behind him; but in this he
+had been disappointed. The raw spots in his consciousness,
+if a little less irritated at the college,
+were by no means healed. Some persons, it is
+true, seemed to think nothing of his race one way
+or the other; to some, mostly women, it gave him
+an added interest; but in the long run it worked
+against him. It kept him out of a fraternity, and
+<pb n="9"/><anchor id="Pg9"/>
+it made his career in football slow and hard.</p>
+
+<p>When he finally won the coveted position of
+quarterback, in spite of team politics, he made a
+reputation by the merciless fashion in which he
+drove his eleven, and by the fury of his own playing.</p>
+
+<p>The same bitter emulative spirit which had impelled
+him in football drove him to success in his
+study of the law. Books held no appeal for him,
+and he had no definite ambitions, but he had a
+good head and a great desire to show the gringos
+what he could do. So he had graduated high in
+his class, thrown his diploma into the bottom of
+his trunk, and departed from his alma mater without
+regret.</p>
+
+<p>The limited train upon which he took passage
+for home afforded specially good opportunity for
+his habit of mental philandering. The passengers
+were continually going up and down between the
+dining car at one end of the train and the observation
+car at the other, so that all of the women
+daily passed in review. They were an unusually
+attractive lot, for most of the passengers were
+wealthy easterners on their way to California.
+Ramon had never before seen together so many
+women of the kind that devotes time and money
+and good taste to the business of creating charm.
+Perfectly gowned and groomed, delicately scented,
+they filled him with desire and with envy for the
+<pb n="10"/><anchor id="Pg10"/>
+men who owned them. There were two newly
+married couples among the passengers, and several
+intense flirtations were under way before the
+train reached Kansas City. Ramon felt as though
+he were a spectator at some delightful carnival.
+He was lonely and restless, yet fascinated.</p>
+
+<p>For no opportunity of becoming other than a
+spectator had come to him. He had chosen without
+difficulty the girl whom he preferred, but had
+only dared to admire her from afar. She was a
+little blonde person, not more than twenty, with
+angelic grey eyes, hair of the colour of ripe wheat
+and a complexion of perfect pink and white. The
+number of different costumes which she managed
+to don in two days filled him with amazement and
+gave her person an ever-varying charm and interest.
+She appeared always accompanied by a very
+placid-looking and portly woman, who was evidently
+her mother, and a tall, cadaverous sick
+man, whose indifferent and pettish attitude toward
+her seemed to indicate that he was either a brother
+or an uncle, for Ramon felt sure that she was not
+married. She acquired no male attendants, but
+sat most of the time very properly, if a little restlessly,
+with her two companions. Once or twice
+Ramon felt her look upon him, but she always
+turned it away when he glanced at her.</p>
+
+<p>Whether because she was really beautiful in her
+own petite way, or because she seemed so unattainable,
+<pb n="11"/><anchor id="Pg11"/>
+or because her small blonde daintiness had
+a peculiar appeal for him, Ramon soon reached a
+state of conviction that she interested him more
+than any other girl he had ever seen. He discreetly
+followed her about the train, watching for
+the opportunity that never came, and consoling
+himself with the fact that no one else seemed
+more fortunate in winning her favour than he.
+The only strange male who attained to the privilege
+of addressing her was a long-winded and elderly
+gentleman of the British perpetual-travelling
+type, at least one representative of which is found
+on every transcontinental train, and it was plain
+enough that he bored the girl.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon took no interest in landscapes generally,
+but when he awoke on the last morning of his
+journey and found himself once more in the wide
+and desolate country of his birth, he was so deeply
+stirred and interested that he forgot all about
+the girl. Devotion to one particular bit of soil is
+a Mexican characteristic, and in Ramon it was
+highly developed because he had spent so much
+of his life close to the earth. Every summer of
+his boyhood he had been sent to one of the sheep
+ranches which belonged to the various branches
+of his numerous family. Each of these ranches
+was merely a headquarters where the sheep were
+annually dipped and sheared and from which the
+herds set out on their long wanderings across the
+<pb n="12"/><anchor id="Pg12"/>
+open range. Often Ramon had followed them&mdash;across
+the deserts where the heat shimmered and
+the yellow dust hung like a great pale plume over
+the rippling backs of the herd, and up to the summer
+range in the mountains where they fed above
+the clouds in lush green pastures crowned with
+spires of rock and snow. He had shared the
+beans and mutton and black coffee of the herders
+and had gone to sleep on a pile of peltries to the
+evensong of the coyotes that hung on the flanks
+of the herd. Hunting, fishing, wandering, he had
+lived like a savage and found the life good.</p>
+
+<p>It was this life of primitive freedom that he had
+longed for in his exile. He had thought little of
+his family and less of his native town, but a nostalgia
+for open spaces and free wanderings had
+been always with him. He had come to hate the
+city with its hard walled-in ways and its dirty air,
+and also the eastern country-side with its little
+green prettiness surrounded by fences. He longed
+for a land where one can see for fifty miles, and not
+a man or a house. He thought that alkaline dust
+on his lips would taste sweet.</p>
+
+<p>Now he saw again the scorched tawny levels,
+the red hills dotted with little gnarled
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">pinon</hi> trees,
+the purple mystery of distant mountains. A great
+friendly warmth filled his body, and his breath
+came a little quickly with eagerness. When he
+<pb n="13"/><anchor id="Pg13"/>
+saw a group of Mexicans jogging along the road
+on their scrawny mounts he wanted to call out to them:
+<q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Como lo va, amigos?</hi></q>
+He would have
+liked to salute this whole country, which was his
+country, and to tell it how glad he was to see it
+again. It was the one thing in the world that he
+loved, and the only thing that had ever given him
+pleasure without tincture of bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>He heard two men in the seat behind him talking.</p>
+
+<p><q>Did you ever see anything so desolate?</q> one
+asked.</p>
+
+<p><q>I wouldn&rsquo;t live in this country if they gave it
+to me,</q> said the other.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon turned and looked at them. They were
+solid, important-looking men, and having visited
+upon the country their impressive disapproval,
+they opened newspapers and shut it away from
+their sight. Dull fools, thought Ramon, who do
+not know God&rsquo;s country when they see it.</p>
+
+<p>And then he continued to look right over their
+heads and their newspapers, for tripping down
+the aisle all by herself at last, came the girl of
+his fruitless choice. His eyes, deep with dreams,
+met hers. She smiled upon him, radiantly,
+blushed a little, and hurried on through the car.</p>
+
+<p>He sat looking after her with a foolish grin on
+his face. He was pleased and shaken. So she
+<pb n="14"/><anchor id="Pg14"/>
+had noticed him after all. She had been waiting
+for a chance, as well as he. And now that it had
+come, he was getting off the train in an hour. It
+was useless to follow her.&hellip; He turned to the
+window again.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC02" type="chapter">
+<pb n="15"/><anchor id="Pg15"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER II</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>Usually in each generation of a large and long-established
+family there is some one individual
+who stands out from the rest as a leader and as
+the most perfect embodiment of the family traditions
+and characteristics. This was especially
+true of the Delcasar family. It was established
+in this country in the year 1790 by Don Eusabio
+Maria Delcasar y Morales, an officer in the army
+of the King of Spain, who distinguished himself in
+the conquest of New Mexico, and especially in
+certain campaigns against the Navajos. As was
+customary at that time, the King rewarded his
+faithful soldier with a grant of land in the new
+province. This Delcasar estate lay in the Rio
+Grande Valley and the surrounding
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi> lands.
+By the provisions of the King&rsquo;s grant, its dimensions
+were each the distance that Don Delcasar
+could ride in a day. The Don chose good horses
+and did not spare them, so that he secured to his
+family more than a thousand square miles of land
+with a strip of rich valley through the middle and
+a wilderness of desert and mountain on either side.
+Much of this principality was never seen by Don
+Eusabio, and even the four sons who divided the
+<pb n="16"/><anchor id="Pg16"/>
+estate upon his death had each more land than he
+could well use.</p>
+
+<p>The outstanding figure of this second generation
+was Don Solomon Delcasar, who was noted for
+the magnificence of his establishment, and for his
+autocratic spirit.</p>
+
+<p>No Borgia or Bourbon ever ruled more absolutely
+over his own domain than did Don Solomon
+over the hundreds of square miles which made up
+his estate. He owned not only lands and herds
+but also men and women. The
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">peones</hi> who
+worked his lands were his possessions as much as
+were his horses. He had them beaten when they
+offended him and their daughters were his for the
+taking. He could not sell them, but this restriction
+did not apply to the Navajo and Apache
+slaves whom he captured in war. These were his
+to be sold or retained for his own use as he preferred.
+Adult Indians were seldom taken prisoner,
+as they were
+<corr sic="untamable"><anchor id="E1"/>
+<ref target="e1">untameable</ref></corr>,
+but boys and girls
+below the age of fifteen were always taken alive,
+when possible, and were valued at five hundred
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">pesos</hi> each.
+Don Solomon usually sold the boys, as he had plenty of
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">peones</hi>,
+but he never sold a comely Indian girl.</p>
+
+<p>The Don was a man of proud and irascible
+temper, but kindly when not crossed. He had
+been known to kill a
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">peon</hi>
+in a fit of anger, and then
+<pb n="17"/><anchor id="Pg17"/>
+afterward to bestow all sorts of benefits upon the
+man&rsquo;s wife and children.</p>
+
+<p>The life of his home, like that of all the other
+Mexican gentlemen in his time, was an easy and
+pleasant one. He owned a great
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">adobe</hi> house,
+built about a square courtyard like a fort, and
+shaded pleasantly by cottonwood trees. There he
+dwelt with his numerous family, his
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">peones</hi> and his
+slaves. In the spring and summer every one
+worked in the fields, though not too hard. In the
+fall the men went east to the great plains to kill a
+supply of buffalo meat for the winter, and often
+after the hunt they travelled south into Sonora
+and Chihuahua to trade mustangs and buffalo
+hides for woven goods and luxuries.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pleasant social life among the
+aristocrats of dances and visits. Marriages,
+funerals and christenings were occasions of great
+ceremony and social importance. Indeed everything
+done by the Dons was characterized by
+much formality and ceremony, the custom of which
+had been brought over from Spain. But they
+were no longer really in touch with Spanish civilization.
+They never went back to the mother
+country. They had no books save the Bible and
+a few other religious works, and many of them
+never learned to read these. Their lives were
+made up of fighting, with the Indians and also
+<pb n="18"/><anchor id="Pg18"/>
+among themselves, for there were many feuds;
+of hunting and primitive trade; and of venery
+upon a generous and patriarchal scale. They
+were Spanish gentlemen by descent, all for honour
+and tradition and sentiment; but by circumstance
+they were barbarian lords, and their lives were
+full of lust and blood.</p>
+
+<p>Circumstance somewhat modified the vaunted
+purity of their Spanish blood, too. The Indian
+slave girls who lived in their houses bore the
+children of their sons, and some of these half-bred
+and quarter-bred children were eventually accepted by the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">gente de razon</hi>,
+as the aristocrats
+called themselves. In this way a strain of Navajo
+blood got into the Delcasar family, and doubtless
+did much good, as all of the Spanish stock was
+weakened by much marrying of cousins.</p>
+
+<p>Dona Ameliana Delcasar, a sister of Don Solomon,
+was responsible for another alien infusion
+which ultimately percolated all through the family,
+and has been thought by some to be responsible
+for the unusual mental ability of certain Delcasars.
+Dona Ameliana, a beautiful but somewhat
+unruly girl, went into a convent in Durango,
+Mexico, at the age of fifteen. At the age of
+eighteen she eloped with a French priest named
+Raubien, who was a man of unusual intellect and
+a poet. The errant couple came to New Mexico
+and took up lands. They were excommunicated,
+<pb n="19"/><anchor id="Pg19"/>
+of course, and both of them were buried in unconsecrated
+ground; but despite their spiritual
+handicaps they raised a family of eleven comely
+daughters, all of whom married well, several of
+them into the Delcasar family. Thus some of the
+Delcasars who boasted of their pure Castilian
+blood were really of a mongrel breed, comprising
+along with the many strains that have mingled
+in Spain, those of Navajo and French.</p>
+
+<p>Don Solomon Delcasar played a brilliant part
+in the military activities which marked the winning
+of Mexican Independence from Spain in the
+eighteen-twenties, and also in the incessant Indian
+wars. He was a fighter by necessity, but also by
+choice. They shed blood with grace and nonchalance
+in those days, and the Delcasars were
+always known as dangerous men.</p>
+
+<p>The most curious thing about this r�gime of the
+old-time Dons was the way in which it persisted.
+It received its first serious blow in 1845 when the
+military forces of the United States took possession
+of New Mexico. Don Jesus Christo Delcasar,
+who was then the richest and most powerful
+of the family, was suspected of being a party to
+the conspiracy which brought about the Taos massacre&mdash;the
+last organized resistance made to the
+gringo domination. At this time some of the
+Delcasars went to Old Mexico to live, as did a
+good many others among the Dons, feeling that
+<pb n="20"/><anchor id="Pg20"/>
+the old ways of life in New Mexico were sure to
+change, and having the Spanish aversion to any
+departure from tradition. But their fears were
+not realized, and life went on as before. In 1865 the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">peones</hi>
+and Indian slaves were formally set
+free, but all of them immediately went deeply in
+debt to their former masters and thus retained
+in effect the same status as before. So it happened
+that in the seventies, when New York was
+growing into a metropolis, and the factory system
+was fastening itself upon New England, and the
+middle west was getting fat and populous and
+tame, life in the Southwest remained much as it
+had been a century before.</p>
+
+<p>Laws and governments were powerless there
+to change ways of life, as they have always been,
+but two parallel bars of steel reaching across the
+prairies brought change with them, and it was
+great and sudden. The railroad reached the Rio
+Grande Valley early in the eighties, and it smashed
+the colourful barbaric pattern of the old life as the
+ruthless fist of an infidel might smash a stained
+glass window. The metropolis of the northern
+valley in those days was a sleepy little
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">adobe</hi> town
+of a few hundred people, reclining about its dusty
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">plaza</hi>
+near the river. The railroad, scorning to
+notice it, passed a mile away. Forthwith a new
+town began growing up between, the old one and
+the railroad. And this new town was such a town
+<pb n="21"/><anchor id="Pg21"/>
+as had never before been seen in all the Southwest.
+It was built of wood and only half painted. It was
+ugly, noisy and raw. It was populated largely
+by real estate agents, lawyers, politicians and barkeepers.
+It cared little for joy, leisure, beauty or
+tradition. Its God was money and its occupation
+was business.</p>
+
+<p>This thing called business was utterly strange
+to the Delcasars and to all of the other Dons.
+They were men of the saddle, fighting men, and
+traders only in a primitive way. Business seemed
+to them a conspiracy to take their lands and their
+goods away from them, and a remarkably successful
+conspiracy. Debt and mortgage and speculation
+were the names of its weapons. Some of the
+Dons, including many of the Delcasars, who were
+now a very numerous family, owning each a comfortable
+homestead but no more, sold out and went
+to Old Mexico. Many who stayed lost all they
+had in a few years, and degenerated into petty
+politicians or small storekeepers. Some clung to
+a bit of land and went on farming, making always
+less and less money, sinking into poverty and insignificance,
+until some of them were no better off
+than the men who had once been their
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">peones</hi>.</p>
+
+<p>Diego Delcasar and Felipe Delcasar, brothers,
+were two who owned houses in the Old Town and
+farms nearby, who stayed in the country and held
+their own for a time and after a fashion. Diego
+<pb n="22"/><anchor id="Pg22"/>
+Delcasar was far the more able of the two, and a
+true scion of his family. He caught onto the
+gringo methods to a certain extent. He divided
+some farm land on the edge of town into lots and
+sold them for a good price. With the money he
+bought a great area of mountain land in the northern
+part of the state, where he raised sheep and
+ruled with an iron hand, much as his forbears had
+ruled in the valley. He also went into politics,
+learned to make a good stump speech and got
+himself elected to the highly congenial position of
+sheriff. In this place he made a great reputation
+for fearlessness and for the ruthless and skilful
+use of a gun. He once kicked down the locked
+door of a saloon and arrested ten armed gamblers,
+who had threatened to kill him. He was known
+and feared all over the territory and was a tyrant
+in his own section of it. When a gringo prospector
+ventured to dispute with him the ownership
+of a certain mine, the gringo was found dead in
+the bottom of the shaft. It was reported that
+he had fallen in and broken his neck and no one
+dared to look at the bullet hole in his back.</p>
+
+<p>Don Diego&rsquo;s wife died without leaving him any
+children, but he had numerous children none-the-less.
+It was said that one could follow his wanderings
+about the territory by the sporadic occurrence
+of the unmistakable Delcasar nose among
+the younger inhabitants. All of his sons and
+<pb n="23"/><anchor id="Pg23"/>
+daughters by the left hand he treated with notable
+generosity. He was a sort of hero to the native
+people&mdash;a great fighter, a great lover&mdash;and
+songs about his adventures were
+<corr sic="comoposed"><anchor id="E2"/>
+<ref target="e2">composed</ref></corr>
+and sung around the fires in sheep camps and by gangs
+of trackworkers.</p>
+
+<p>Don Diego, in a word, was a true Delcasar and
+a great man. Had he used his opportunities
+wisely he might have been a millionaire. But at
+the age of sixty he owned little besides his house
+and his wild mountain lands. He drank a good
+deal and played poker almost every night. Once
+he had been a famous winner, but in these later
+years he generally lost. He also formed a partnership
+with a real estate broker named MacDougall,
+for the development of his wild lands,
+and it was predicted by some that the leading
+development would be an ultimate transfer of
+title to Mr. MacDougall, who was known to be
+lending the Don money and taking land as security.</p>
+
+<p>Don Felipe&rsquo;s career was far less spectacular
+than that of his brother. He owned more than
+Don Diego to start with, and he spent his life
+slowly losing it, so that when he died he left
+nothing but a house in Old Town and a single
+small sheep ranch, which afforded his widow,
+two daughters and one son a scant living.</p>
+
+<p>This son, Ramon Delcasar, was the hope of
+<pb n="24"/><anchor id="Pg24"/>
+the family. He would inherit the estate of Don
+Diego, if the old Don died before spending it
+all, which it did not seem likely that he would
+do. But Ramon early demonstrated that he
+had a more important heritage in the sharp intelligence,
+and the proud, plucky and truculent
+spirit which had characterized the best of the
+Delcasars throughout the family history.</p>
+
+<p>As there was no considerable family estate for
+him to settle upon, he was sent to law school at
+the age of twenty, and returned three years later
+to take up the practice of his profession in his
+native town. Thus he was the first of the Delcasars
+to face life with his bare hands. And he
+was also the last of them in a sense, to face the
+gringos. All the others of his name, save the
+senile Don, had either died, departed or sunk
+from sight into the mass of the peasantry.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC03" type="chapter">
+<pb n="25"/><anchor id="Pg25"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER III</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>The year that Ramon returned to his native
+town the annual fair, which took place at the
+fair-grounds in Old Town, was an especially gorgeous
+and throngful event, rich in spectacle and
+incident. A steer was roped and hog-tied in
+record time by Clay MacGarnigal of Lincoln
+County. A seven-mile relay race was won by a
+buck named Slonny Begay. In the bronco busting
+contest two men were injured to the huge enjoyment
+of the crowd. The twenty-seventh cavalry
+from Fort Bliss performed a sham battle.
+The home team beat several other teams. Enormous
+apples raised by irrigation in the Pecos Valley
+attracted much attention, and a hungry Mexican
+absconded with a prize Buff Orpington rooster.</p>
+
+<p>Twice a day the single narrow street which
+connected the neat brick and frame respectability
+of New Town with the picturesque <hi
+rend="font-style: italic">adobe</hi> squalor
+of Old Town was filled by a curiously varied
+crowd. The tourist from the East, distinguished
+by his camera and his unnecessary umbrella,
+jostled the Pueblo squaw from Isleta,
+with her latest-born slung over her shoulder in
+a fold of red blanket. Mexican families from
+<pb n="26"/><anchor id="Pg26"/>
+the country marched in single file, the men first,
+then the women enveloped in huge black shawls,
+carrying babies and leading older children by the
+hand. Cowboys, Indians and soldiers raced
+their horses through the swarming street with
+reckless skill. Automobiles honked and fretted.
+The street cars, bulging humanity at every door
+and window, strove in vain to relieve the situation.
+Several children and numerous pigs and
+chickens were run over. From the unpaved
+street to the cloudless sky rose a vast cloud of
+dust, such as only a rainless country made of
+sand can produce. Dust was in every one&rsquo;s eyes
+and mouth and upon every one&rsquo;s clothing. It was
+the unofficial badge of the gathering. It turned
+the green of the cottonwood trees to grey, and
+lay in wait for unsuspecting teeth between the
+halves of hamburger sandwiches sold at corner
+booths.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon, who had obtained a pass to the grounds
+through the influence of his uncle, went to the fair
+every day, although he was not really pleased
+with it. He was assured by every one that it was
+the greatest fair ever held in the southwest, but
+to him it seemed smaller, dustier and less exciting
+than the fairs he had attended in his boyhood.</p>
+
+<p>This impression harmonized with a general
+feeling of discontent which had possessed him
+since his return. He had obtained a position in
+<pb n="27"/><anchor id="Pg27"/>
+the office of a lawyer at fifty dollars a month,
+and spent the greater part of each day making
+out briefs and borrowing books for his employer
+from other lawyers. It seemed to him a petty
+and futile occupation, and the way to anything
+better was long and obscure. The town was
+full of other young lawyers who were doing the
+same things and doing them with a better grace
+than he. They were impelled by a great desire to
+make money. He, too, would have liked a great
+deal of money, but he had no taste for piling it
+up dollar by dollar. The only thing that cheered
+him was the prospect of inheriting his uncle&rsquo;s
+wealth, and that was an uncertain prospect. Don
+Diego seemed to be doing what he could to get
+rid of his property before he died.</p>
+
+<p>Local society did not please Ramon either.
+The girls of the gringo families were not nearly
+as pretty, for the most part, as the ones he had
+seen in the East. The dryness and the scorching
+sun had a bad effect on their complexions. The
+girls of his own race did not much interest him;
+his liking was for blondes. And besides, girls
+were relatively scarce in the West because of the
+great number of men who came from the East.
+Competition for their favours was keen, and he
+could not compete successfully because he had so
+little money.</p>
+
+<p>The fair held but one new experience for him,
+<pb n="28"/><anchor id="Pg28"/>
+and that was the Montezuma ball. This took
+place on the evening of the last day, and was an
+exclusive invitation event, designed to give
+elegance to the fair by bringing together
+prominent persons from all parts of the state.
+Ramon had never attended a Montezuma ball,
+as he had been considered a mere boy before
+his departure for college and had not owned a
+dress suit. But this lack had now been supplied,
+and he had obtained an invitation through the
+Governor of the State, who happened to be a
+Mexican.</p>
+
+<p>He went to the ball with his mother and his eldest
+sister in a carriage which had been among the
+family possessions for about a quarter of a century.
+It had once been a fine equipage, and had
+been drawn by a spirited team in the days before
+Felipe Delcasar lost all his money, but now it had
+a look of decay, and the team consisted of a couple
+of rough coated, low-headed brutes, one of which
+was noticeably smaller than the other. The
+coachman was a ragged native who did odd jobs
+about the Delcasar house.</p>
+
+<p>The Montezuma ball took place in the new
+Eldorado Hotel which had recently been built
+by the railroad company for the entertainment of
+its transcontinental passengers. It was not a
+beautiful building, but it was an apt expression of
+the town&rsquo;s personality. Designed in the ancient
+<pb n="29"/><anchor id="Pg29"/>
+style of the early Spanish missions, long, low
+and sprawling, with deep verandahs, odd little
+towers and arched gateways it was made of cement
+and its service and prices were of the Manhattan
+school. A little group of Pueblo Indians, lonesomely
+picturesque in buck-skin and red blankets,
+with silver and turquoise rings and bracelets,
+were always seated before its doors, trying to sell
+fruit and pottery to well-tailored tourists. It
+had a museum of Southwestern antiquities and
+curios, where a Navajo squaw sulkily wove
+blankets on a handloom for the edification of the
+guilded stranger from the East. On the platform
+in front of it, perspiring Mexicans smashed baggage
+and performed the other hard labour of a
+modern terminal.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the Eldorado Hotel was rich in that contrast
+between the old and the new which everywhere
+characterized the town. Generally speaking,
+the old was on exhibition or at work, while
+the new was at leisure or in charge.</p>
+
+<p>When the Delcasar carriage reached the hotel,
+it had to take its place in a long line of crawling
+vehicles, most of which were motor cars. Ramon
+felt acutely humiliated to arrive at the ball in a
+decrepit-looking rig when nearly every one else
+came in an automobile. He hoped that no one
+would notice them. But the smaller of the two
+horses, which had spent most of his life in the
+<pb n="30"/><anchor id="Pg30"/>
+country, became frightened, reared, plunged, and
+finally backed the rig into one of the cars, smashing
+a headlight, blocking traffic, and making the
+Delcasars a target for searchlights and oaths.
+The Dona Delcasar, a ponderous and swarthy
+woman in voluminous black silk, became excited
+and stood up in the carriage, shouting shrill and
+useless directions to the coachman in Spanish.
+People began to laugh. Ramon roughly seized
+his mother by the arm and dragged her down.
+He was trembling with rage and embarassment.</p>
+
+<p>It was an immense relief to him when he had
+deposited the two women on chairs and was able
+to wander away by himself. He took up his
+position in a doorway and watched the opening of
+the ball with a cold and disapproving eye. The
+beginning was stiff, for many of those present were
+unknown to each other and had little in common.
+Most of them were <q>Americans,</q> Jews and
+Mexicans. The men were all a good deal alike
+in their dress suits, but the women displayed an
+astonishing variety. There were tall gawky
+blonde wives of prominent cattlemen; little natty
+black-eyed Jewesses, best dressed of all; swarthy
+Mexican mothers of politically important families,
+resplendent in black silk and diamonds; and
+pretty dark Mexican girls of the younger generation,
+who did not look at all like the se�oritas
+<pb n="31"/><anchor id="Pg31"/>
+of romance, but talked, dressed and flirted in a
+thoroughly American manner.</p>
+
+<p>The affair finally got under way in the form of
+a grand march, which toured the hall a couple of
+times and disintegrated into waltzing couples.
+Ramon watched this proceeding and several other
+dances without feeling any desire to take part.
+He was in a state of grand and gloomy discontent,
+which was not wholly unpleasant, as is often the
+case with youthful glooms. He even permitted
+himself to smile at some of the capers cut by
+prominent citizens. But presently his gaze settled
+upon one couple with a real sense of resentment
+and uneasiness. The couple consisted of his
+uncle, Diego Delcasar, and the wife of James
+MacDougall, the lawyer and real estate operator
+with whom the Don had formed a partnership,
+and whom Ramon believed to be systematically
+fleecing the old man.</p>
+
+<p>Don Diego was a big, paunchy Mexican with
+a smooth brown face, strikingly set off by fierce
+white whiskers. His partner was a tall, tight-lipped,
+angular woman, who danced painfully,
+but with determination. The two had nothing to
+say to each other, but both of them smiled
+resolutely, and the Don visibly perspired under
+the effort of steering his inflexible friend.</p>
+
+<p>Although he did not formulate the idea, this
+<pb n="32"/><anchor id="Pg32"/>
+couple was to Ramon a symbol of the disgust with
+which the life of his native town inspired him.
+Here was the Mexican sedulously currying
+favour with the gringo, who robbed him for his
+pains. And here was the specific example of that
+relation which promised to rob Ramon of his
+heritage.</p>
+
+<p>For the gringos he felt a cold hostility&mdash;a
+sense of antagonism and difference&mdash;but it was his
+senile and fatuous uncle, the type of his own defeated
+race, whom he despised.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC04" type="chapter">
+<pb n="33"/><anchor id="Pg33"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER IV</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>When the music stopped Ramon left the hall
+for the hotel lobby, where he soothed his sensibilities
+with a small brown cigarette of his own
+making. In one of the swinging benches covered
+with Navajo blankets two other dress-suited
+youths were seated, smoking and talking. One of
+them was a short, plump Jew with a round and
+gravely good-natured face; the other a tall,
+slender young fellow with a great mop of curly
+brown hair, large soft eyes and a sensitive mouth.</p>
+
+<p><q>She&rsquo;s good looking, all right,</q> the little fellow
+assented, as Ramon came up.</p>
+
+<p><q>Good looking!</q> exclaimed the other with enthusiasm.
+<q>She&rsquo;s a little queen! Nothing like
+her ever hit this town before.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Who&rsquo;s all the excitement about?</q> Ramon demanded,
+thrusting himself into the conversation
+with the easy familiarity which was his right as
+one of <q>the bunch.</q></p>
+
+<p>Sidney Felberg turned to him in mock amazement.</p>
+
+<p><q>Good night, Ramon! Where have you been?
+Asleep? We&rsquo;re talking about Julia Roth, same
+as everybody else.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Who&rsquo;s she?</q> Ramon queried coolly, discharging
+<pb n="34"/><anchor id="Pg34"/>
+a cloud of smoke from the depths of his lungs.
+<q>Never heard of her.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Well, she&rsquo;s our latest social sensation &hellip; sister
+of some rich lunger that recently hit town;
+therefore very important. But that&rsquo;s not the only
+reason. Wait till you see her.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>All right; introduce me to her,</q> Ramon suggested.</p>
+
+<p><q>Go on; knock him down to the lady,</q> Sidney
+proposed to his companion.</p>
+
+<p><q>No, you,</q> Conny demurred. <q>I refuse to
+take the responsibility. He&rsquo;s too good looking.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>All right,</q> Sidney assented. <q>Come on. It&rsquo;s
+the only way I can get a look at her anyway&mdash;introducing
+somebody else. A good-looking girl
+in this town can start a regular stampede. We
+ought to import a few hundred.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>It was during an intermission. They forced
+their way through a phalanx of men brandishing
+programs and pencils, each trying to bring himself
+exclusively to the attention of a small blonde
+person who seemed to have some such quality of
+attractiveness for men as spilled honey has for insects.</p>
+
+<p>When Ramon saw her he felt as though something
+inside of him had bumped up against his
+diaphragm, taking away his breath for a moment,
+agitating him strangely. And he saw an answering
+<pb n="35"/><anchor id="Pg35"/>
+surprised recognition in her wide grey eyes.</p>
+
+<p><q>You &hellip; you&rsquo;re the girl on the train,</q> he remarked
+idiotically, as he took her hand.</p>
+
+<p>She turned pink and laughed.</p>
+
+<p><q>You&rsquo;re the man that wouldn&rsquo;t look up,</q> she
+mocked.</p>
+
+<p><q>What&rsquo;s all this about?</q> demanded Sidney.
+<q>You two met before?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>May I have a dance?</q> Ramon inquired,
+suddenly recovering his presence of mind.</p>
+
+<p><q>Let me see &hellip; you&rsquo;re awfully late.</q> They
+put their heads close together over her program.
+He saw her cut out the name of another man who
+had two dances, and then she held her pencil
+poised.</p>
+
+<p><q>Of course I didn&rsquo;t get your name,</q> she
+admitted<corr sic=","><anchor id="E3"/><ref target="e3">.</ref></corr></p>
+
+<p><q>No; I&rsquo;ll write it &hellip; Was it Carter? Delcasar?
+Ramon Delcasar. You must be Spanish. I was
+wondering &hellip; you&rsquo;re so dark. I&rsquo;m awfully
+interested in Spanish people.&hellip;</q> She wrote
+the name in a bold, upright, childish hand.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon found that he had lost his mood of discontent
+after this, and he entered with zest into
+the spirit of the dance which was fast losing its
+stiff and formal character. Punch and music had
+broken down barriers. The hall was noisy with
+the ringing, high pitched laughter of excitement.
+It was warm and filled with an exotic, stimulating
+<pb n="36"/><anchor id="Pg36"/>
+odour, compounded of many perfumes and of perspiration.
+Every one danced. Young folk
+danced as though inspired, swaying their bodies in
+time to the tune. The old and the fat danced with
+pathetic joyful earnestness, going round and round
+the hall with red and perspiring faces, as though
+in this measure they might recapture youth and
+slimness if only they worked hard enough. Now
+and then a girl sang a snatch of the tune in a clear
+young voice, full of abandon, and sometimes
+others took up the song and it rose triumphant
+above the music of the orchestra for a moment,
+only to be lost again as the singers danced apart.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon had been looking forward so long and
+with such intense anticipation to his dance with
+Julia Roth that he was a little self-conscious at
+its beginning, but this feeling was abolished by
+the discovery that they could dance together perfectly.
+He danced in silence, looking down upon
+her yellow head and white shoulders, the odour of
+her hair filling his nostrils, forgetful of everything
+but the sensuous delight of the moment.</p>
+
+<p>This mood of solemn rapture was evidently not
+shared by her, for presently the yellow head was
+thrown back, and she smiled up at him a bit
+mockingly.</p>
+
+<p><q>Just like on the train,</q> she remarked. <q>Not
+a thing to say for yourself. Are you always thus
+silent?</q></p>
+<pb n="37"/><anchor id="Pg37"/>
+
+<p>Ramon grinned.</p>
+
+<p><q>No,</q> he countered, <q>I was just trying to get
+up the nerve to ask if you&rsquo;ll let me come to see
+you.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>That doesn&rsquo;t take much nerve,</q> she assured
+him. <q>Practically every man I&rsquo;ve danced with
+tonight has asked me that. I never had so many
+dates before in my life.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Well; may I follow the crowd, then?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>You may,</q> she laughed. <q>Or call me up first,
+and maybe there won&rsquo;t be any crowd.</q></p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC05" type="chapter">
+<pb n="38"/><anchor id="Pg38"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER V</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>His mother and sister had left early, for which
+fact he was thankful. He walked home alone
+with his hat in his hand, letting the cold wind of
+early morning blow on his hot brow. Punch and
+music and dancing had filled him with a delightful
+excitement. He felt glad of life and full
+of power. He could have gone on walking for
+hours, enjoying the rhythm of his stride and the
+gorgeous confusion of his thoughts, but in a remarkably
+short time he had covered the mile to his
+house in Old Town.</p>
+
+<p>It was a long, low <hi rend="font-style: italic">adobe</hi>
+with a paintless and
+rickety wooden verandah along its front, and
+with deep-set, iron-barred windows looking upon
+the square about which Old Town was built. Delcasars
+had lived in this house for over a century.
+Once it had been the best in town. Now it was
+an antiquity pointed out to tourists. Most of the
+Mexicans who had money had moved away from
+Old Town and built modern brick houses in New
+Town. But this was an expensive proceeding.
+The old <hi rend="font-style: italic">adobe</hi> houses which
+they left brought them little. The Delcasars had never been able
+to afford this removal. They were deeply attached
+<pb n="39"/><anchor id="Pg39"/>
+to the old house and also deeply ashamed
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon passed through a narrow hallway into
+a courtyard and across it to his room. The light
+of the oil lamp which he lit showed a large oblong
+chamber with a low ceiling supported by heavy
+timbers, whitewashed walls and heavy old-fashioned
+walnut furniture. A large coloured
+print of Mary and the Babe in a gilt frame hung
+over the wash-stand, and next to it a college pennant
+was tacked over a photograph of his graduating
+class. Several Navajo blankets covered
+most of the floor and a couple of guns stood in a
+corner.</p>
+
+<p>When he was in bed his overstimulated state
+of mind became a torment. He rolled and tossed,
+beset by exciting images and ideas. Every
+time that a growing confusion of these indicated
+the approach of sleep, he was brought sharply
+back to full consciousness by the crowing of a
+rooster in the backyard. Finally he threw off
+the covers and sat up, cursing the rooster in two
+languages and resolving to eat him.</p>
+
+<p>Sleep was out of the question now. Suddenly
+he remembered that this was Sunday morning, and
+that he had intended going to the mountains.
+To start at once would enable him to avoid an
+argument with his mother concerning the inevitability
+of damnation for those who miss early
+<pb n="40"/><anchor id="Pg40"/>
+Mass. He rose and dressed himself, putting
+on a cotton shirt, a faded and dirty pair of overalls
+and coarse leather riding boots; tied a red
+and white bandana about his neck and stuck on his
+head an old felt hat minus a band and with a
+drooping brim. So attired he looked exactly like
+a Mexican countryman&mdash;a poor
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">ranchero</hi> or a
+woodcutter. This masquerade was not intentional
+nor was he conscious of it. He simply wore
+for his holiday the kind of clothes he had always
+worn about the sheep ranches.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless he felt almost as different from
+his usual self as he looked. A good part of his
+identity as a poor, discontented and somewhat
+lazy young lawyer was hanging in the closet with
+his ready-made business suit. He took a long
+and noisy drink from the pitcher on the wash-stand,
+picked up his shot-gun and slipped cautiously
+out of the house, feeling care-free and
+happy.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the house was a corral with an
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">adobe</hi>
+wall that was ten feet high except where it
+had fallen down and been patched with boards.
+A scrub cow and three native horses were kept
+there. Two of the horses made the ill-matched
+team that hauled his mother and sister to church
+and town. The other was a fiery ragged little
+roan mare which he kept for his own use. None
+of these horses was worth more than thirty dollars,
+<pb n="41"/><anchor id="Pg41"/>
+and they were easily kept on a few tons of alfalfa
+a year.</p>
+
+<p>The little mare laid back her ears and turned as
+though to annihilate him with a kick. He quickly
+stepped right up against the threatening hind legs,
+after the fashion of experienced horsemen who
+know that a kick is harmless at short range, and
+laid his hand on her side. She trembled but
+dared not move. He walked to her head, sliding
+his hand along the rough, uncurried belly and
+talking to her in Spanish. In a moment he had
+the bridle on her.</p>
+
+<p>The town was impressively empty and still as
+he galloped through it. Hoof beats rang out like
+shots, scaring a late-roaming cat, which darted
+across the street like a runaway shadow.</p>
+
+<p>Near the railroad station he came to a large
+white van, with a beam of light emerging from
+its door. This was a local institution of longstanding,
+known as the chile-wagon, and was the
+town&rsquo;s only all-night
+<corr sic="resturant"><anchor id="E4"/>
+<ref target="e4">restaurant</ref></corr>.
+Here he aroused
+a fat, sleepy old Mexican.</p>
+
+<p><q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Un tamale y cafe</hi>,</q>
+he ordered, and then had
+the proprietor make him a couple of sandwiches
+to put in his pocket. He consumed his breakfast
+hurriedly, rolled and lit a little brown cigarette,
+and was off again.</p>
+
+<p>His way led up a long steep street lined with new
+houses and vacant lots; then out upon the high
+<pb n="42"/><anchor id="Pg42"/>
+empty level of the <hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>. It
+was daylight now, of a clear, brilliant morning. He was riding
+across a level prairie, which was a grey desert most
+of the year, but which the rainy season of late summer
+had now touched with rich colours. The
+grass in many of the hollows was almost high
+enough to cut with a scythe, and its green expanse
+was patched with purple-flowered weeds. Meadow
+larks bugled from the grass; flocks of wild
+doves rose on whistling wings from the weed
+patches; a great grey jack-rabbit with jet-tipped
+ears sprang from his form beside the road and
+went sailing away in long effortless bounds, like a
+wind-blown thing. Miles ahead were the mountains&mdash;an
+angular mass of blue distance and purple
+shadow, rising steep five thousand feet above the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>, with little round
+foothills clustering at their
+feet. A brisk cool wind fanned his face and
+fluttered the brim of his hat.</p>
+
+<p>But with the rising of the sun the wind dropped,
+it became warm and he felt dull and sleepy.
+When he came to a little juniper bush which spread
+its bit of shadow beside the road, he dismounted,
+pulled the saddle off his sweating mare,
+and sat down in the shade to eat his lunch. When
+he had finished he wished for a drink of water and
+philosophically took a smoke instead. Then he
+lay down, using his saddle for a pillow, puffing
+luxuriously at his cigarette. It was cool in his
+<pb n="43"/><anchor id="Pg43"/>
+bit of shadow, though all the world about him
+swam in waves of heat.&hellip; Cool and very quiet.
+He felt drowsily content. This sunny desolation
+was to him neither lonely nor beautiful; it was
+just his own country, the soil from which he had
+sprung.&hellip; Colours and outlines blurred as his
+eyelids grew heavy. Sleep conquered him in a sudden
+black rush.</p>
+
+<p>It was late afternoon when he awakened. He
+had meant to shoot doves, but it was too late now
+to do any hunting if he was to reach Archulera&rsquo;s
+place before dark. He saddled his mare hurriedly
+and went forward at a hard gallop.</p>
+
+<p>Archulera&rsquo;s place was typical of the little Mexican
+ranches that dot the Southwest wherever there
+is water enough to irrigate a few acres. The
+brown block of <hi rend="font-style: italic">adobe</hi> house stood
+on an arid, rocky hillside, and looked like a part of it, save
+for the white door, and a few bright scarlet strings
+of <hi rend="font-style: italic">chile</hi> hung over the
+rafter ends to dry. Down
+in the <hi rend="font-style: italic">arroyo</hi> was the
+little fenced patch where
+corn and <hi rend="font-style: italic">chile</hi> and beans
+were raised, and behind
+the house was a round goat corral of wattled
+brush. The skyward rocky waste of the mountain
+lifted behind the house, and the empty reach of
+the <hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi> lay before&mdash;an
+immense and arid loneliness,
+now softened and beautified by many
+shadows.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon could see old man Archulera far up the
+<pb n="44"/><anchor id="Pg44"/>
+mountainside, rounding up his goats for evening
+milking, and he could faintly hear the bleating
+of the animals and the old man&rsquo;s shouts and
+imprecations. He whistled loudly through his
+fingers and waved his hat.</p>
+
+<p><hi rend="font-style: italic"><q>Como lo va primo!</q></hi>
+he shouted, and he saw
+Archulera stop and look, and heard faintly his
+answering, <hi rend="font-style: italic"><q>Como la va!</q></hi></p>
+
+<p>Soon Archulera had his goats penned, and
+Ramon joined him while he milked half a dozen
+ewes.</p>
+
+<p><q>I&rsquo;m glad you came,</q> Archulera told him, <q>I
+haven&rsquo;t seen a man in a month except one gringo
+that said he was a prospector and stole a kid
+from me.&hellip; How was the fair?</q></p>
+
+<p>When the milking was over, the old man selected
+a fat kid, caught it by the hind leg and
+dragged it, bleating in wild terror, to a gallows
+behind the house, where he hung it up and skilfully
+cut its throat, leaving it to bleat and bleed
+to death while he wiped his knife and went on
+talking volubly with his guest. The occasional
+visits of Ramon were the most interesting events
+in his life, and he always killed a kid to express
+his appreciation. Ramon reciprocated with gifts
+of tobacco and whisky. They were great friends.</p>
+
+<p>Archulera was a short, muscular Mexican
+with a swarthy, wrinkled face, broad but well-cut.
+His big, thin-lipped mouth showed an amazing
+<pb n="45"/><anchor id="Pg45"/>
+disarray of strong yellow teeth when he smiled.
+His little black eyes were shrewd and full of
+fire. Although he was sixty years old, there
+was little grey in the thick black hair that hung
+almost to his shoulders. He wore a cheap print
+shirt and a faded pair of overalls, belted at the
+waist with a strip of red wool. His foot-gear
+consisted of the uppers of a pair of old shoes with
+soles of rawhide sewed on moccasin-fashion.</p>
+
+<p>With no more disguise than a red blanket and
+a grunt Archulera could have passed for an Indian
+anywhere, but he made it clear to all that he regarded
+himself as a Spanish gentleman. He
+was descended, like Ramon, from one of the old
+families, which had received occasional infusions
+of native blood. There was probably more Indian
+in him than in the young man, but the chief
+difference between the two was due to the fact that
+the Archuleras had lost most of their wealth a
+couple of generations before, so that the old man
+had come down in the social scale to the condition
+of an ordinary goat-herding <hi rend="font-style: italic">pelado</hi>.
+There are many such fallen aristocrats among the New
+Mexican peasantry. Most of them, like Archulera,
+are distinguished by their remarkably choice
+and fluent use of the Spanish language, and by the
+formal, eighteenth-century perfection of their
+manners, which contrast strangely with the barbaric
+way of their lives.</p>
+<pb n="46"/><anchor id="Pg46"/>
+
+<p>The old man was now skinning and butchering
+the goat with speed and skill. Nothing was
+wasted. The hide was flung over a rafter end to
+dry. The head was washed and put in a pan, as
+were the smaller entrails with bits of fat clinging
+to them, and the liver and heart. The meat was
+too fresh to be eaten tonight, but these things
+would serve well enough for supper, and he called
+to his daughter, Catalina, to come and get them.</p>
+
+<p>The two men soon joined her in the low, whitewashed
+room, which had hard mud for a floor,
+and was furnished with a bare table and a few
+chairs. It was clean, but having only one window
+and that always closed, it had a pronounced and
+individual odour. In one corner was a little fireplace,
+which had long served both for cooking
+and to furnish heat, but as a concession to
+modern ideas Archulera had lately supplemented
+it with a cheap range in the opposite corner.
+There Catalina was noisily distilling an aroma
+from goat liver and onions. The entrails she
+threaded on little sticks and broiled them to a
+delicate brown over the coals, while the head she
+placed whole in the oven. Later this was cracked
+open and the brains taken out with a spoon, piping
+hot and very savoury. These viands were supplemented
+by a pan of large pale biscuits, and a big
+tin pot of coffee. Catalina served the two men,
+saying nothing, not even raising her eyes, while
+<pb n="47"/><anchor id="Pg47"/>
+they talked and paid no attention to her. After
+eating her own supper and washing the dishes she
+disappeared into the next room.</p>
+
+<p>This self-effacing behaviour on the part of the
+girl accorded with the highest standards of Mexican
+etiquette, and showed her good breeding.
+The fact that old Archulera paid no more attention
+to her than to a chair did not indicate that he
+was indifferent to her. On the contrary, as Ramon
+had long ago discovered, she was one of the
+chief concerns of his life. He could not forget
+that in her veins flowed some of the very best of
+Spanish blood, and he considered her altogether
+too good for the common sheep-herders and wood-cutters
+who aspired to woo her. These he summarily
+warned away, and brought his big Winchester
+rifle into the argument whenever it became
+warm. When he left the girl alone, in order to
+guard her from temptation he locked her into the
+house together with his dog. Catalina had led a
+starved and isolated existence.</p>
+
+<p>After the meal, Archulera became reminiscent
+of his youth. Some thirty-five years before he
+had been one of the young bloods of the country,
+having fought against the Navajos and Apaches.
+He had made a reputation, long since forgotten
+by every one but himself, for ruthless courage
+and straight shooting, and many a man had he
+killed. In his early life, as he had often told
+<pb n="48"/><anchor id="Pg48"/>
+Ramon, he had been a boon companion of old
+Diego Delcasar. The two had been associated
+in some mining venture, and Archulera claimed
+that Delcasar had cheated him out of his share of
+the proceeds, and so doomed him to his present
+life of poverty. When properly stimulated by
+food and drink Archulera never failed to tell this
+story, and to express his hatred for the man who
+had deprived him of wealth and social position.
+He had at first approached the subject diffidently,
+not knowing how Ramon would regard an attack
+on the good name of his uncle, and being anxious
+not to offend the young man. But finding that
+Ramon listened tolerantly, if not sympathetically,
+he had told the story over and over, each time
+with more detail and more abundant and picturesque
+denunciation of Diego Delcasar, but with
+substantial uniformity as to the facts. As he
+spoke he watched the face of Ramon narrowly.
+Always the recital ended about the same way.</p>
+
+<p><q>You are not like your uncle,</q> he assured the
+young man earnestly, in his formal Spanish.
+<q>You are generous, honourable. When your
+uncle is dead, you will repay me for the wrongs
+that I have suffered&mdash;no?</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon would always laugh at this. This night,
+in order to humour the old man, he asked him how
+much he thought the Delcasar estate owed him
+for his ancient wrong.</p>
+<pb n="49"/><anchor id="Pg49"/>
+
+<p><q>Five thousand dollars!</q> Archulera replied
+with slow emphasis. He probably had no idea
+how much he had lost, but five thousand dollars
+was his conception of a great deal of money.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon again laughed and refused to commit
+himself. He certainly had no idea of giving
+Archulera five thousand dollars, but he thought
+that if he ever did come into his own he would
+certainly take care of the old man&mdash;and of
+Catalina.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after this Archulera went off to sleep in the
+other end of the house, after trying in vain to
+persuade Ramon to occupy his bed. Ramon, as
+always, refused. He would sleep on a pile of
+sheep skins in the corner. He really preferred
+this, because the sheep skins were both cleaner and
+softer than Archulera&rsquo;s bed, and also for another
+reason.</p>
+
+<p>After the old man had gone, he stretched out
+on his pallet, and lit another cigarette. He could
+hear his host thumping around for a few minutes;
+then it was very still, save for a faint moan of
+wind and the ticking of a cheap clock. This
+late still hour had always been to him one of the
+most delightful parts of his visits to Archulera&rsquo;s
+house. For some reason he got a sense of peace
+and freedom out of this far-away quiet place.
+And he knew that in the next room Catalina
+was waiting for him&mdash;Catalina with the strong,
+<pb n="50"/><anchor id="Pg50"/>
+shapely brown body which her formless calico
+smock concealed by day, with the eager, blind
+desire bred of her long loneliness.</p>
+
+<p>During his first few visits to Archulera, he
+had scarcely noticed the girl. That was doubtless
+one reason why the old man had welcomed him.
+He had come here simply to go deer-hunting with
+Archulera, to eat his goat meat and chile, to get
+away from the annoyance and boredom of his life
+in town, and into the crude, primitive atmosphere
+which he had loved as a boy. Catalina had been
+to him just the usual slovenly figure of a Mexican
+woman, a self-effacing drudge.</p>
+
+<p>He had felt her eyes upon him several times,
+had not looked up quickly enough to meet them,
+but had noticed the pretty soft curve of her cheek.
+Then one night when he was stretched out on his
+sheep skins after Archulera had gone to bed, the
+girl came into the room and began pottering
+about the stove. He had watched her, wondering
+what she was doing. As she knelt on the floor
+he noticed the curve of her hip, the droop of her
+breast against her frock, the surprising round perfection
+of her outstretched arm. It struck him
+suddenly that she was a woman to be desired, and
+one who might be taken with ease. At the same
+time, with a quickening of the blood, he realized
+that she was doing nothing, and had merely come
+into the room to attract his attention. Then she
+<pb n="51"/><anchor id="Pg51"/>
+glanced at him, daring but shy, with great brown
+eyes, like the eyes of a gentle animal. When she
+went back to her own room a moment later, he
+confidently followed.</p>
+
+<p>Ever since then Catalina had been the chief object
+of his week-end journeys, and his hunting
+largely an excuse. She had completed this life
+which he led in the mountains, and which was so
+pleasantly different from his life in town. For
+a part of the week he was a poor, young lawyer,
+watchful, worried, careful; then for a couple of
+days he was a ragged young Mexican and the lover
+of Catalina&mdash;a different man. He was the product
+of a transition, and two beings warred in
+him. In town he was dominated by the desire
+to be like the Americans, and to gain a foothold
+in their life of law, greed and respectability; in
+the mountains he relapsed unconsciously into the
+easy barbarous ways of his fathers. Incidentally,
+this periodical change of personality was refreshing
+and a source of strength. Catalina had been
+an important part of it.&hellip; As he lay now
+sleepily puffing a last cigarette, he wondered why
+it was that he had suddenly lost interest in the
+girl.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC06" type="chapter">
+<pb n="52"/><anchor id="Pg52"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER VI</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>At ten o&rsquo;clock in the morning Ramon was hard
+at work in the office of James B. Green. He
+worked efficiently and with zest as he always did
+after one of his trips to the mountains. He got
+out of these ventures into another environment
+about what some men get out of sprees&mdash;a complete
+change of the state of mind. Archulera and
+his daughter were now completely forgotten, and
+all of his usual worries and plans were creeping
+back into his consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>But this day he had a feeling of pleasant anticipation.
+At first he could not account for it.
+And then he remembered the girl&mdash;the one he had
+seen on the train and had met again at the
+Montezuma ball. It seemed as though the
+thought of her had been in the back of his mind
+all the time, and now suddenly came forward,
+claiming all his attention, stirring him to a quick,
+unwonted excitement. She had said he might
+come to see her. He was to &rsquo;phone first. Maybe
+she would be alone.&hellip;</p>
+
+<p>In this latter hope he was disappointed. She
+gave him the appointment, and she herself admitted
+him. He thought he had never seen such
+<pb n="53"/><anchor id="Pg53"/>
+a dainty bit of fragrant perfection, all in pink that
+matched the pink of her strange little crinkled
+mouth.</p>
+
+<p><q>I&rsquo;m awfully glad you came,</q> she told him.
+(Her gladness was always awful.) She led him
+into the sitting room and presented him to the tall
+emaciated sick man and the large placid woman
+who had watched over her so carefully on the
+train.</p>
+
+<p>Gordon Roth greeted him with a cool and
+formal manner into which he evidently tried to
+infuse something of cordiality, as though a desire
+to be just and broad-minded struggled with prejudice.
+Mrs. Roth looked at him with curiosity,
+and gave him a still more restrained greeting.
+The conversation was a weak and painful affair,
+kept barely alive, now by one and now by another.
+The atmosphere was heavy with disapproval. If
+their greetings had left Ramon in any doubt as
+to the attitude of the girl&rsquo;s family toward him,
+that doubt was removed by the fact that neither
+Mrs. Roth nor her son showed any intention of
+leaving the room. This would have been not unusual
+if he had called on a Mexican girl, especially
+if she belonged to one of the more old-fashioned
+families; but he knew that American girls
+are left alone with their suitors if the suitor is at
+all welcome.</p>
+
+<p>He knew a little about this family from hear-say.
+<pb n="54"/><anchor id="Pg54"/>
+They came from one of the larger factory
+towns in northern New York, and were supposed
+to be moderately wealthy. They used a very
+broad <q>a</q> and served tea at four o&rsquo;clock in the
+afternoon. Gordon Roth was a Harvard graduate
+and did not conceal the fact. Neither did
+he conceal his hatred for this sandy little western
+town, where ill-health had doomed him to spend
+many of his days and perhaps to end them.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was strangely different from her
+mother and brother. Whereas their expressions
+were stiff and solemn, her eyes showed an irrepressible
+gleam of humour, and her fascinating
+little mouth was mobile with mirth. She fidgeted
+around in her chair a good deal, as a child does
+when bored.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Roth decorously turned the conversation
+toward the safe and reliable subjects of literature
+and art.</p>
+
+<p><q>What do you think of Maeterlinck, Mr. Delcasar?</q>
+she enquired in an innocent manner that
+must have concealed malice.</p>
+
+<p><q>I don&rsquo;t know him,</q> Ramon admitted, <q>Who
+is he?</q></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Roth permitted herself to smile. Gordon
+Roth came graciously to the rescue.</p>
+
+<p><q>Maeterlinck is a great Belgian writer,</q> he
+explained. <q>We are all very much interested in
+him.&hellip;</q></p>
+<pb n="55"/><anchor id="Pg55"/>
+
+<p>Julia gave a little flounce in her chair, and
+crossed her legs with a defiant look at her
+mother.</p>
+
+<p><q>I&rsquo;m not interested in him,</q> she announced
+with decision. <q>I think he&rsquo;s a bore. Listen,
+Mr. Delcasar. You know Conny Masters?
+Well, he was telling me the most thrilling tale
+the other day. He said that the country Mexicans
+have a sort of secret religious fraternity
+that most of the men belong to, and that they
+meet every Good Friday and beat themselves with
+whips and sit down on cactus and crucify a man on
+a cross and all sorts of horrible things &hellip; for
+penance you know, just like the monks and things
+in the Middle Ages.&hellip; He claims he saw
+them once and that they had blood running down
+to their heels. Is that all true? I&rsquo;ve forgotten
+what he called them.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon nodded.</p>
+
+<p><q>Sure. The <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes</hi>.
+I&rsquo;ve seen them lots of times.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>O, do tell us about them. I love to hear
+about horrible things.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Well, I&rsquo;ve seen lots of
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">penitente</hi> processions,
+but the best one I ever saw was a long time ago,
+when I was a little kid. There are not so many
+of them now, and they don&rsquo;t do as much as they
+used to. The church is down on them, you know,
+and they&rsquo;re afraid. Ten years ago if you tried
+<pb n="56"/><anchor id="Pg56"/>
+to look at them, they would shoot at you, but now
+tourists take pictures of them.</q></p>
+
+<p>Gordon Roth&rsquo;s curiosity had been aroused.</p>
+
+<p><q>Tell me,</q> he broke in. <q>What is the meaning
+of this thing? How did it get started?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>I don&rsquo;t know exactly,</q> Ramon admitted.
+<q>My grandfather told me that they brought it
+over from Spain centuries ago, and the Indians
+here had a sort of whipping fraternity, and the
+two got mixed up, I guess. The church used to
+tolerate it; it was a regular religious festival.
+But now it&rsquo;s outlawed. They still have a lot of
+political power. They all vote the same way.
+One man that was elected to Congress&mdash;they say
+that the <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitente</hi>
+stripes on his back carried him
+there. And he was a gringo too. But I don&rsquo;t
+know. It may be a lie.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p><q>But tell us about that procession you saw when
+you were a little boy,</q> Julia broke in. She was
+leaning forward with her chin in her hand, and
+her big grey eyes, wide with interest, fixed upon
+his face.</p>
+
+<p><q rend="post: none">Well, I was only about ten years old, and I
+was riding home from one of our ranches with my
+father. We were coming through <hi rend="font-style: italic">Tijeras</hi>
+canyon. It was March, and there was snow on the ground
+in patches, and the mountains were cold and bare,
+and I remember I thought I was going to freeze.
+Every little while we would get off and set fire to
+<pb n="57"/><anchor id="Pg57"/>
+a tumble-weed by the road, and warm our hands
+and then go on again.&hellip;
+</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Anyway, pretty soon I heard a lot of men singing,
+all together, in deep voices, and the noise
+echoed around the canyon and sounded awful solemn.
+And I could hear, too, the slap of the big
+wide whips coming down on the bare backs, wet
+with blood, like slapping a man with a wet towel,
+only louder. I didn&rsquo;t know what it was, but my
+father did, and he called to me and we spurred
+our horses right up the mountain, and hid in a
+clump of cedar up there. Then they came around
+a bend in the road, and I began to cry because
+they were all covered with blood, and one of them
+fell down.&hellip; My father slapped me and told
+me to shut up, or they would come and shoot us.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>But what did they look like? What were
+they doing?</q> Julia demanded frowning at him,
+impatient with his rambling narrative.</p>
+
+<p><q>Well, in front there was <hi rend="font-style: italic">un
+carreta del muerto</hi>.
+That means a wagon of death. I don&rsquo;t think you
+would ever see one any more. It was just an ordinary
+wagon drawn by six men, naked to the
+waist and bleeding, with other men walking beside
+them and beating them with blacksnake whips,
+just like they were mules. In the wagon they had
+a big bed of stones, covered with cactus, and a man
+sitting in the cactus, who was supposed to represent
+death. And then they had a Virgin Mary,
+<pb n="58"/><anchor id="Pg58"/>
+too. Four <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes</hi> just
+like the others, with
+nothing on but bloody pants and black bandages
+around their eyes, carried the image on a litter
+raised up over their heads, and they had swords
+fastened to their elbows and stuck between their
+ribs, so that if they let down, the swords would
+stick into their hearts and kill them. And behind
+that came the <hi rend="font-style: italic">Cristo</hi>&mdash;the
+man that represented
+Jesus, you know, dragging a big cross. Behind
+him came twenty or thirty more
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes</hi>, the
+most I ever saw at once, some of them whipping
+themselves with big broad whips made out of
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">amole</hi>. One
+was too weak to whip himself, so
+two others walked behind him and whipped him.
+Pretty soon he fell down and they walked over
+him and stepped on his stomach.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p><q>But did they crucify the man, the whatever-you-call-him?</q>
+Gordon demanded.</p>
+
+<p><q>The <hi rend="font-style: italic">Cristo</hi>. Sure.
+They crucify one every
+year. They used to nail him. Now they generally
+do it with ropes, but that&rsquo;s bad enough, because
+it makes him swell up and turn blue.&hellip;
+Sometimes he dies.</q></p>
+
+<p>Julia was listening with lips parted and eyes
+wide, horrified and yet fascinated, as are so many
+women by what is cruel and bloody. But Gordon,
+who had become equally interested, was cool
+and inquisitive.</p>
+
+<p><q>And you mean to tell me that at one time
+<pb n="59"/><anchor id="Pg59"/>
+nearly all the&mdash;er&mdash;native people belonged to this
+barbaric organization, and that many of them do
+yet?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Nearly all the common
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">pelados</hi>,</q> Ramon
+hastened to explain. <q>They are nearly all Indian
+or part Indian, you know. Not the educated people.</q>
+Here a note of pride came into his voice.
+<q>We are descended from officers of the Spanish
+army&mdash;the men who conquered this country. In
+the old days, before the Americans came, all these
+common people were our slaves.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>I see,</q> said Gordon Roth in a dry and judicial
+tone.</p>
+
+<p>The <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes</hi>,
+as a subject of conversation,
+seemed exhausted for the time being and Ramon
+had given up all hope of being alone with Julia.
+He rose and took his leave. To his delight Julia
+followed him to the door. In the hall she gave
+him her hand and looked up at him, and neither
+of them found anything to say. For some reason
+the pressure of her hand and the look of her eyes
+flustered and confused him more than had all the
+coldness and disapproval of her family. At
+last he said good-bye and got away, with his hat
+on wrong side before and the blood pounding in
+his temples.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC07" type="chapter">
+<pb n="60"/><anchor id="Pg60"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER VII</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>During the following weeks Ramon worked
+even less than was his custom. He also neglected
+his trips to the mountains and most of his other
+amusements. They seemed to have lost their
+interest for him. But he was a regular attendant
+upon the weekly dances which were held at the
+country club, and to which he had never gone
+before.</p>
+
+<p>The country club was a recent acquisition of
+the town, backed by a number of local business
+men. It consisted of a picturesque little frame
+lodge far out upon the <hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>,
+and a nine-hole golf
+course, made of sand and haunted by
+<corr sic="lizzards"><anchor id="E5"/>
+<ref target="e5">lizards</ref></corr> and
+rattlesnakes. It had become a centre of local
+society, although there was a more exclusive
+organization known as the Forty Club, which gave
+a formal ball once a month. Ramon had
+never been invited to join the Forty Club, but the
+political importance of his family had procured
+him a membership in the country club and it served
+his present purpose very well, for he found Julia
+Roth there every Saturday night. This fact was
+the sole reason for his going. His dances with
+her were now the one thing in life to which he
+<pb n="61"/><anchor id="Pg61"/>
+looked forward with pleasure, and his highest
+hope was that he might be alone with her.</p>
+
+<p>In this he was disappointed for a long time because
+Julia was the belle of the town. Her
+dainty, provocative presence seemed always to be
+the centre of the gathering. Women envied her
+and studied her frocks, which were easily the
+most stylish in town. Men flocked about her and
+guffawed at her elfin stabs of humour. Her
+program was always crowded with names, and
+when she went for a stroll between dances she
+was generally accompanied by at least three men
+of whom Ramon was often one. And while the
+others made her laugh at their jokes or thrilled
+her with accounts of their adventures, he was
+always silent and worried&mdash;an utter bore, he
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>This girl was a new experience to him. With
+the egotism of twenty-four, he had regarded himself
+as a finished man of the world, especially with
+regard to women. They had always liked him.
+He was good to look at and his silent, self-possessed
+manner touched the feminine imagination.
+He had had his share of the amorous adventures
+that come to most men, and his attitude toward
+women had changed from the hesitancy of adolesence
+to the purposeful, confident and somewhat
+selfish attitude of the male accustomed to easy
+conquest.</p>
+<pb n="62"/><anchor id="Pg62"/>
+
+<p>This girl, by a smile and touch of her hand,
+seemed to have changed him. She filled him with
+a mighty yearning. He desired her, and yet there
+was a puzzling element in his feeling that seemed
+to transcend desire. And he was utterly without
+his usual confidence and purpose. He had reason
+enough to doubt his success, but aside from that
+she loomed in his imagination as something
+high and unattainable. He had no plan. His
+strength seemed to have oozed out of him. He
+pursued her persistently enough&mdash;in fact too
+persistently&mdash;but he did it because he could not
+help it.</p>
+
+<p>The longer he followed in her wake, the more
+marked his weakness became. When he approached
+her to claim a dance he was often aware
+of a faint tremble in his knees, and was embarrassed
+by the fact that the palms of his hands were
+sweating. He felt that he was a fool and swore
+at himself. And he was wholly unable to believe
+that he was making any impression upon her.
+True, she was quite willing to flirt with him.
+She looked up at him with an arch, almost enquiring
+glance when he came to claim her for a dance,
+but he seldom found much to say at such times,
+being too wholly absorbed in the sacred occupation
+of dancing with her. And it seemed to him
+that she flirted with every one else, too. This
+did not in the least mitigate his devotion, but it
+<pb n="63"/><anchor id="Pg63"/>
+made him acutely uncomfortable to watch her
+dance with other men, and especially with Conny
+Masters.</p>
+
+<p>Masters was the son of a man who had made
+a moderate fortune in the tin-plate business. He
+had come West with his mother who had a weak
+throat, had fallen in love with the country, and
+scandalized his family by resolutely refusing to
+go back to Indiana and tin cans. He spent most
+of his time riding about the country, equipped with
+a note book and a camera, studying the Mexicans
+and Indians, and taking pictures of the scenery.
+He said that he was going to make a literary
+career, but the net product of his effort for two
+years had been a few sonnets of lofty tone but
+vague meaning, and a great many photographs,
+mostly of sunsets.</p>
+
+<p>Conny was not a definite success as a writer,
+but he was unquestionably a gifted talker, and
+he knew the country better than did most of the
+natives. He made real to Julia the romance
+which she craved to find in the West. And her
+watchful and suspicious family seemed to tolerate
+if not to welcome him. Ramon knew that he
+went to the Roth&rsquo;s regularly. He began to feel
+something like hatred for Conny whom he had
+formerly liked.</p>
+
+<p>This feeling was deepened by the fact that
+Conny seemed to be specially bent on defeating
+<pb n="64"/><anchor id="Pg64"/>
+Ramon&rsquo;s ambition to be alone with the girl. If
+no one else joined them at the end of a dance,
+Conny was almost sure to do so, and to occupy
+the intermission with one of his ever-ready monologues,
+while Ramon sat silent and angry, wondering
+what Julia saw to admire in this windy fool,
+and occasionally daring to wonder whether she
+really saw anything in him after all.</p>
+
+<p>But a sufficiently devoted lover is seldom wholly
+without a reward. There came an evening when
+Ramon found himself alone with her. And he
+was aware with a thrill that she had evaded not
+only Conny, but two other men. Her smile was
+friendly and encouraging, too, and yet he could
+not find anything to say which in the least expressed
+his feelings.</p>
+
+<p><q>Are you going to stay in this country long?</q>
+he began. The question sounded supremely
+casual, but it meant a great deal to him. He
+was haunted by a fear that she would depart
+suddenly, and he would never see her again. She
+smiled and looked away for a moment before replying,
+as though perhaps this was not exactly
+what she had expected him to say.</p>
+
+<p><q>I don&rsquo;t know. Gordon wants mother and
+me to go back East this fall, but I don&rsquo;t want to go
+and mother doesn&rsquo;t want to leave Gordon
+alone.&hellip; We haven&rsquo;t decided. Maybe I
+won&rsquo;t go till next year.</q></p>
+<pb n="65"/><anchor id="Pg65"/>
+
+<p><q>I suppose you&rsquo;ll go to college won&rsquo;t you?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>No; I wanted to go to Vassar and then study
+art, but mother says college spoils a girl for
+society. She thinks the way the Vassar girls
+walk is perfectly dreadful. I offered to go right
+on walking the same way, but she said anyway
+college makes girls so frightfully broad-minded.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon laughed.</p>
+
+<p><q>What will you do then?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>I&rsquo;ll come out.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Out of what?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Make my d�but, don&rsquo;t you know?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>O, yes.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>In New York. I have an aunt there. She
+knows all the best people, mother says.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>What happens after you come out?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>You get married if anybody will have you.
+If not, you sort of fade away and finally go into
+uplift work about your fourth season.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>But of course, you&rsquo;ll get married. I bet
+you&rsquo;ll marry a millionaire.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>I don&rsquo;t know. Mother wants me to marry a
+broker. She says the big financial houses in New
+York are conducted by the very best people.
+But Gordon thinks I ought to marry a professional
+man&mdash;a doctor or something. He thinks
+brokers are vulgar. He says money isn&rsquo;t everything.</q></p>
+<pb n="66"/><anchor id="Pg66"/>
+
+<p><q>What do you think?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>I haven&rsquo;t a thought to my name. All my
+thinking has been done for me since infancy. I
+don&rsquo;t know what I want, but I&rsquo;m pretty sure I
+wouldn&rsquo;t get it if I did.&hellip; Come on. They&rsquo;ve
+been dancing for ten minutes. If we stay here
+any longer it&rsquo;ll be a scandal.</q></p>
+
+<p>She rose and started for the hall. He suddenly
+realized that his long-sought opportunity
+was slipping away from him. He caught her by
+the hand.</p>
+
+<p><q>Don&rsquo;t go, please. I want to tell you something.</q></p>
+
+<p>She met his hand with a fair grip, and pulled
+him after her with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p><q>Some other time,</q> she promised.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC08" type="chapter">
+<pb n="67"/><anchor id="Pg67"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER VIII<corr
+    sic="."><anchor id="E6"/><ref target="e6">&nbsp;</ref></corr></hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>In most of their social diversions the town folk
+tended always more and more to ape the ways of
+the East. Local colour, they thought, was all
+right in its place, which was a curio store or a
+museum, but they desired their town to be modern
+and citified, so that the wealthy eastern health-seeker
+would find it a congenial home. The
+scenery and the historic past were recognized as
+assets, but they should be the background for a
+life of <q>culture, refinement and modern convenience</q>
+as the president of the Chamber of Commerce
+was fond of saying.</p>
+
+<p>Hence the riding parties and picnics of a few
+years before had given way to aggressively formal
+balls and receptions; but one form of entertainment
+that was indigenous had survived. This
+was known as a <q><hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>
+supper.</q> It might take
+place anywhere in the surrounding wilderness of
+mountain and desert. Several auto-loads of
+young folk would motor out, suitably chaperoned
+and laden with provisions. Beside some water
+hole or mountain stream fires would be built,
+steaks broiled and coffee brewed. Afterward
+<pb n="68"/><anchor id="Pg68"/>
+there would be singing and story-telling about the
+fire, and romantic strolls by couples.</p>
+
+<p>It was one of these expeditions that furnished
+Ramon with his second opportunity in three weeks
+to be alone with Julia Roth. The party had journeyed
+to Los Ojuellos, where a spring of clear
+water bubbled up in the centre of the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>. A
+grove of cottonwood trees shadowed the place,
+and there was an ancient
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">adobe</hi> ruin which looked
+especially effective by moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>The persistent Conny Masters was a member
+of the party, but he was handicapped by the fact
+that he knew more about camp cookery than anyone
+else present. He had made a special study
+of Mexican dishes and had written an article
+about them which had been rejected by no less than
+twenty-seven magazines. He made a specialty
+of the <hi rend="font-style: italic">enchilada</hi>,
+which is a delightful concoction
+of corn meal, eggs and chile, and he had perfected
+a recipe of his own for this dish which he had
+named the Conny Masters junior.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the baskets were unpacked and the
+chaperones were safely anchored on rugs and
+blankets with their backs against trees, there was
+a general demand, strongly backed by Ramon,
+that Conny should cook supper. He was soon
+absorbed in the process, volubly explaining every
+step, while the others gathered about him and offered
+<pb n="69"/><anchor id="Pg69"/>
+encouragement and humorous suggestion.
+But there was soon a gradual dispersion of the
+group, some going for wood and some for water,
+and others on errands unstated.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon found himself strolling under the
+cottonwoods with Julia. Neither of them had
+said anything. It was almost as though the tryst
+had been agreed upon before. She picked her
+way slowly among the tussocks of dried grass, her
+skirt daintily kilted. A faint but potent perfume
+from her hair and dress blew over him. He
+ventured to support her elbow with a reverent
+touch. Never had she seemed more desirable,
+nor yet, for some reason, more remote.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she stopped and looked up at the
+great desert stars.</p>
+
+<p><q>Isn&rsquo;t it big and beautiful?</q> she demanded.
+<q>And doesn&rsquo;t it make you feel free? It&rsquo;s never
+like this at home, somehow.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>What is it like where you live?</q> he enquired.
+He had a persistent desire to see into her life and
+understand it, but everything she told him only
+made her more than ever to him a being of mysterious
+origin and destiny.</p>
+
+<p><q>It&rsquo;s a funny little New York factory city with
+very staid ways,</q> she said. <q>You go to a dance
+at the country club every Saturday night and to
+tea parties and things in between. You fight,
+<pb n="70"/><anchor id="Pg70"/>
+bleed and die for your social position and
+once in a while you stop and wonder why.&hellip;
+It&rsquo;s a bore. You can see yourself going on doing
+the same thing till the day of your death.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>Her discontent with things as they are found
+ready sympathy.</p>
+
+<p><q>That&rsquo;s just the way it is here,</q> he said with
+conviction. <q>You can&rsquo;t see anything ahead.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Oh, I don&rsquo;t think its the same here at all,</q> she
+protested. <q>This country&rsquo;s so big and interesting.
+It&rsquo;s different.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Tell me how,</q> he demanded. <q>I haven&rsquo;t seen
+anything interesting here since I got back,&mdash;except
+you.</q></p>
+
+<p>She ignored the exception.</p>
+
+<p><q>I can&rsquo;t express it exactly. The people here are
+just like people everywhere else&mdash;most of them.
+But the country looks so big and unoccupied. And
+blue mountains are so alluring. There might be
+anything beyond them &hellip; adventures, opportunities.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>This idea was a bit too rarefied for Ramon, but
+he could agree about the mountains.</p>
+
+<p><q>It&rsquo;s a fine country,</q> he assented. <q>For those
+that own it.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>It&rsquo;s just a feeling I have about it,</q> she went
+on, trying to express her own half-formulated
+idea. <q>But then I have that feeling about life in
+<pb n="71"/><anchor id="Pg71"/>
+general, and there doesn&rsquo;t seem to be anything in
+it. I mean the feeling that it&rsquo;s full of thrilling
+things, but somehow you miss them all.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>I have felt something like that,</q> he admitted.
+<q>But I never could say it.</q></p>
+
+<p>This discovery of an idea in common seemed
+somehow to bring them closer together. His
+hand tightened gently about her arm; almost unconsciously
+he drew her toward him. But she
+seemed to be all absorbed in the discussion.</p>
+
+<p><q>You have no right to complain,</q> she told him.
+<q>A man can do something about it.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Yes,</q> he agreed, speaking a reflection without
+stopping to put it in conventional language. <q>It
+must be hell to be a woman &hellip; excuse me &hellip; I mean.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Don&rsquo;t apologize. It is&mdash;just that. A man
+at least has a fighting chance to escape boredom.
+But they won&rsquo;t even let a woman fight. I wish
+I were a man.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Well; I don&rsquo;t,</q> he asserted with warmth, unconsciously
+tightening his hold upon her arm. <q>I
+can&rsquo;t tell you how glad I am that you&rsquo;re a woman.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Oh, are you?</q> She looked up at him with
+challenging, provocative eyes.</p>
+
+<p>For an instant a kiss was imminent. It hovered
+between them like an invisible fairy presence
+<pb n="72"/><anchor id="Pg72"/>
+of which they both were sweetly aware, and no
+one else.</p>
+
+<p><q>Hey there! all you spooners!</q> came a jovial
+and irreverent voice from the vicinity of the camp
+fire. <q>Come and eat.</q></p>
+
+<p>The moment was lost; the fairy presence gone.
+She turned with a little laugh, and they went in
+silence back to the fire. They were last to enter
+the circle of ruddy light, and all eyes were upon
+them. She was pink and self-conscious, looking
+at her feet and picking her way with exaggerated
+care. He was proud and elated. This, he
+knew, would couple their names in gossip, would
+make her partly his.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC09" type="chapter">
+<pb n="73"/><anchor id="Pg73"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER IX</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>He wanted to call on her again, but he felt that
+he had been insulted and rejected by the Roths,
+and his pride fought against it. Unable to think
+for long of anything but Julia he fell into the
+habit of walking by her house at night, looking at
+its lighted windows and wondering what she was
+doing. Often he could see the moving figures
+and hear the laughter of some gay group about
+her, but he could not bring himself to go in and
+face the chilly disapproval of her family. At
+such times he felt an utter outcast, and sounded
+depths of misery he had never known before.
+For this was his first real love, and he loved in
+the helpless, desperate way of the Latin, without
+calculation or humour.</p>
+
+<p>One evening there was a gathering on the
+porch of the Roth house. She was there, sitting
+on the steps with three men about her. He
+could see the white blur of her frock and hear her
+funny little bubbling laugh above the deeper
+voices of the men. Having ascertained that
+neither Gordon Roth nor his mother was there,
+he summoned his courage and went in. She
+<pb n="74"/><anchor id="Pg74"/>
+could not see who he was until he stood almost
+over her.</p>
+
+<p><q>O, it&rsquo;s you! I&rsquo;m awfully glad.&hellip;</q> Their
+hands met and clung for a moment in the darkness.
+He sat down on the steps at her feet, and
+the conversation moved on without any assistance
+from him. He was now just as happy as he had
+been miserable a few minutes before.</p>
+
+<p>Presently two of the other men went away, but
+the third, who was Conny Masters, stayed. He
+talked volubly as ever, telling wonderful and
+sometimes incredible stories of things he had seen
+and done in his wanderings. Ramon said nothing.
+Julia responded less and less. Once she
+moved to drop the wrap from about her shoulders,
+and the alert Conny hastened to assist her.
+Ramon watched and envied with a thumping
+heart as he saw the gleam of her bare white
+shoulders, and realized that his rival might have
+touched them.</p>
+
+<p>Conny went on talking for half an hour with
+astonishing endurance and resourcefulness, but it
+became always more apparent that he was not
+captivating his audience. He had to laugh at his
+own humour and expatiate on his own thrills.
+Finally a silence fell upon the three, broken only
+by occasional commonplace remarks.</p>
+
+<p><q>Well, I guess it&rsquo;s time to drift,</q> Conny observed
+at last, looking cautiously at his watch.</p>
+<pb n="75"/><anchor id="Pg75"/>
+
+<p>This suggestion was neither seconded by
+Ramon nor opposed by Julia. The silence literally
+pushed Conny to his feet.</p>
+
+<p><q>Going, Ramon? No? Well, Good night.</q>
+And he retired whistling in a way which showed
+his irritation more plainly than if he had sworn.</p>
+
+<p>The two impolite ones sat silent for a long
+moment. Ramon was trying to think of what he
+wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. Finally
+without looking at her he said in a low husky
+voice.</p>
+
+<p><q>You know &hellip; I love you.</q></p>
+
+<p>There was more silence. At last he looked up
+and met her eyes. They were serious for the
+first time in his experience, and so was her usually
+mocking little mouth. Her face was transformed
+and dignified. More than ever she
+seemed a strange, high being. And yet he knew
+that now she was within his reach.&hellip; That he
+could kiss her lips &hellip; incredible.&hellip; And yet
+he did, and the kiss poured flame over them and
+welded them into each others&rsquo; arms.</p>
+
+<p>They heard Gordon Roth in the house coughing,
+the cough coming closer.</p>
+
+<p>She pushed him gently away.</p>
+
+<p><q>Go now,</q> she whispered. <q>I love you &hellip; Ramon.</q></p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC10" type="chapter">
+<pb n="76"/><anchor id="Pg76"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER X</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>His conquest was far from giving him peace.
+Her kiss had transformed his high vague yearning
+into hot relentless desire. He wanted her.
+That became the one clear thing in life to him.
+Reflections and doubts were alien to his young
+and primitive spirit. He did not try to look far
+into the future. He only knew that to have her
+would be delight almost unimaginable and to lose
+her would be to lose everything.</p>
+
+<p>His attitude toward her changed. He claimed
+her more and more at dances. She did not
+want to dance with him so much because <q>people
+would talk,</q> but his will was harder than hers
+and to a great extent he had his way. He now
+called on her regularly too. He knew that she
+had fought hard for him against her family, and
+had won the privilege for him of calling <q>not too
+often.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>I&rsquo;ve lied for you frightfully,</q> she confessed.
+<q>I told them I didn&rsquo;t really care for you in the
+least, but I want to see you because you can tell
+such wonderful things about the country. So talk
+about the country whenever they&rsquo;re listening.
+And don&rsquo;t look at me the way you do.&hellip;</q></p>
+<pb n="77"/><anchor id="Pg77"/>
+
+<p>Mother and brother were alert and suspicious
+despite her assurance, and man&oelig;uvred with cool
+skill to keep the pair from being alone. Only
+rarely did he get the chance to kiss her&mdash;once
+when her brother, who was standing guard over
+the family treasure, was seized with a fit of
+coughing and had to leave the room, and again
+when her mother was called to the telephone. At
+such times she shrank away from him at first as
+though frightened by the intensity of the emotion
+she had created, but she never resisted. To him
+these brief and stolen embraces were almost intolerably
+sweet, like insufficient sips of water to
+a man burned up with thirst.</p>
+
+<p>She puzzled him as much as ever. When he
+was with her he felt as sure of her love as of his
+own existence. And yet she often sought to
+elude him. When he called up for engagements
+she objected and put him off. And she surrounded
+herself with other men as much as ever, and
+flirted gracefully with all of them, so that he was
+always feeling the sharp physical pangs of
+jealousy. Sometimes he felt egotistically sure
+that she was merely trying by these devices to
+provoke his desire the more, but at other times
+he thought her voice over the phone sounded
+doubtful and afraid, and he became wildly eager
+to get to her and make sure of her again.</p>
+
+<p>Just as her kiss had crystallized his feeling for
+<pb n="78"/><anchor id="Pg78"/>
+her into driving desire, so it had focussed and intensified
+his discontent. Before he had been
+more or less resigned to wait for his fortune and
+the power he meant to make of it; now it seemed
+to him that unless he could achieve these things
+at once, they would never mean anything to him.
+For money was the one thing that would give him
+even a chance to win her. It was obviously useless
+to ask her to marry him poor. He would
+have nothing to bring against the certain opposition
+of her family. He could not run away with
+her. And indeed he was altogether too poor to
+support a wife if he had one, least of all a wife
+who had been carefully groomed and trained to
+capture a fortune.</p>
+
+<p>There was only one way. If he could go to
+her strong and rich, he felt sure that he could
+persuade her to go away with him, for he knew
+that she belonged to him when he was with her.
+He pictured himself going to her in a great motor
+car. Such a car had always been in his imagination
+the symbol of material strength. He felt
+sure he could destroy her doubts and hesitations.
+He would carry her away and she would be all
+and irrevocably his before any one could interfere
+or object.</p>
+
+<p>This dream filled and tortured his imagination.
+Its realization would mean not only fulfilment
+of his desire, but also revenge upon the Roths for
+<pb n="79"/><anchor id="Pg79"/>
+the humiliations they had made him feel. It
+pushed everything else out of his mind&mdash;all
+consideration of other and possibly more feasible
+methods of pushing his suit. He came of a race
+of men who had dared and dominated, who had
+loved and fought, but had never learned how to
+work or to endure.</p>
+
+<p>When he gave himself up to his dream he was
+almost elated, but when he came to contemplate
+his actual circumstances, he fell into depths of
+discouragement and melancholy. His uncle stood
+like a rock between him and his desire. He
+thought of trying to borrow a few thousand dollars
+from old Diego, and of leaving the future to luck,
+but he was too intelligent long to entertain such a
+scheme. The Don would likely have provided
+him with the money, and he would have done it
+by hypothecating more of the Delcasar lands to
+MacDougall. Then Ramon would have had to
+borrow more, and so on, until the lands upon which
+all his hopes and dreams were based had passed
+forever out of his reach.</p>
+
+<p>The thing seemed hopeless, for Don Diego
+might well live for many years. And yet Ramon
+did not give up hope. He was worried, desperate
+and bitter, but not beaten. He had still that
+illogical faith in his own destiny which is the gift
+that makes men of action.</p>
+
+<p>At this time he heard particularly disquieting
+<pb n="80"/><anchor id="Pg80"/>
+things about his uncle. Don Diego was reputed
+to be spending unusually large sums of money.
+As he generally had not much ready cash, this
+must mean either that he had sold land or that he
+had borrowed from MacDougall, in which case
+the land had doubtless been given as security.
+Once it was converted into cash in the hands of
+Diego, Ramon knew that his prospective fortune
+would swiftly vanish. He determined to watch
+the old man closely.</p>
+
+<p>He learned that Don Diego was playing poker
+every night in the back room of the White Camel
+pool hall. Gambling was supposed to be prohibited
+in the town, but this sanctum was regularly
+the scene for a game, which had the reputation of
+causing more money to change hands than any
+other in the southwest. Ramon hung about the
+White Camel evening after evening, trying to
+learn how much his uncle was losing. He would
+have liked to go and stand behind his chair and
+watch the game, but both etiquette and pride
+prevented him doing this. On two nights his
+uncle came out surrounded by a laughing crowd,
+a little bit tipsy, and was hurried into a cab.
+Ramon had no chance to speak either to him or to
+any one else who had been in the
+game<corr sic=","><anchor id="E12"/><ref target="e12">.</ref></corr>
+But the third night he came out alone, heavy with liquor,
+talking to himself. The other players had already
+gone out, laughing. The place was nearly
+<pb n="81"/><anchor id="Pg81"/>
+deserted. The Don suddenly caught sight of
+Ramon and came to him, laying heavy hands on
+his shoulders, looking at him with bleary, tear-filled
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p><q>My boy, my nephew,</q> he exclaimed in Spanish,
+his voice shaking with boozy emotion, <q>I am glad
+you are here. Come I must talk to you.</q> And
+steadied by Ramon he led the way to a bench in a
+corner. Here his manner suddenly changed. He
+threw back his head haughtily and slapped his
+knee.</p>
+
+<p><q>I have lost five hundred dollars tonight,</q> he
+announced proudly. <q>What do I care? I am a
+rich man. I have lost a thousand dollars in the
+last three nights. That is nothing. I am rich.</q></p>
+
+<p>He thumped his chest, looking around defiantly.
+Then he leaned forward in a confidential manner
+and lowered his voice.</p>
+
+<p><q>But these gringos&mdash;they have gone away and
+left me. You saw them? <hi rend="font-style: italic">Cabrones!</hi> They
+have got my money. That is all they want.
+My boy, all gringos are alike. They want
+nothing but money. They can hear the rattle of
+a <hi rend="font-style: italic">peso</hi> as far as a
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">burro</hi> can smell a bear. They
+are mean, stingy! Ah, my boy! It is not now as
+it was in the old days. Then money counted for
+nothing! Then a man could throw away his last
+dollar and there were always friends to give him
+more. But now your dollars are your only true
+<pb n="82"/><anchor id="Pg82"/>
+friends, and when you have lost them, you are
+alone indeed. Ah, my boy! The old days were
+the best!</q> The old Don bent his head over his
+hands and wept.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon looked at him with a mighty disgust and
+with a resentment that filled his throat and made
+his head hot. He had never before realized how
+much broken by age and drink his uncle was.
+Before, he had suspected and feared that Don
+Diego was wasting his property; now he knew it.</p>
+
+<p>The Don presently looked up again with tear-filled
+eyes, and went on talking, holding Ramon
+by the lapel of the coat in a heavy tremulous grip.
+He talked for almost an hour, his senile mind
+wandering aimlessly through the scenes of his
+long and picturesque career. He would tell tales
+of his loves and battles of fifty years ago&mdash;tales
+full of lust and greed and excitement. He would
+come back to his immediate troubles and curse the
+gringos again for a pack of miserable dollar-mongers,
+who knew not the meaning of friendship.
+And again his mind would leap back
+irrelevantly to some woman he had loved or some
+man he had killed in the spacious days where his
+imagination dwelt. Ramon listened eagerly,
+hoping to learn something definite about the
+Don&rsquo;s dealings with MacDougall, but the old man
+never touched upon this. He did tell one story to
+which Ramon listened with interest. He told
+<pb n="83"/><anchor id="Pg83"/>
+how, twenty-five years before, he and another man
+named Cristobal Archulera had found a silver
+mine in the Guadelupe Mountains, and how he
+had cheated the other out of his interest by filing
+the claim in his own name. He told this as a
+capital joke, laughing and thumping his knee.</p>
+
+<p><q>Do you know where Archulera is now?</q>
+Ramon ventured to ask.</p>
+
+<p><q>Archulera? No, No; I have not seen
+Archulera for twenty years. I heard that he
+married a very common woman, half Indian.&hellip;
+I don&rsquo;t know what became of him.</q></p>
+
+<p>The last of the pool players had now gone out;
+a Mexican boy had begun to sweep the floor; the
+place was about to close for the night. Ramon
+got his uncle to his feet with some difficulty, and
+led him outdoors where he looked about in vain
+for one of the cheap autos that served the town
+as taxicabs. There were only three or four of
+them, and none of these were in sight. The flat-wheeled
+street car had made its last screeching
+trip for the night. There was nothing for it
+but to take the Don by the arm and pilot him
+slowly homeward.</p>
+
+<p>Refreshed by the night air, the old man partially
+sobered, walked with a steady step, and
+talked more eloquently and profusely than ever.
+Women were his subject now, and it was a subject
+upon which he had great store of material. He
+<pb n="84"/><anchor id="Pg84"/>
+told of the women of the South, of Sonora and
+Chihuahua where he had spent much of his youth,
+of how beautiful they were. He told of a slim
+little creature fifteen years old with big black eyes
+whom he had bought from her <hi rend="font-style: italic">peon</hi>
+father, and of how she had feared him and how he had conquered
+her and her fear. He told of slave girls
+he had bought from the Navajos as children and
+raised for his pleasure. He told of a French
+woman he had loved in Mexico City and how he
+had fought a duel with her husband. He rose to
+heights of sentimentality and delved into depths
+of obscenity, now speaking  of his
+heart and what it had suffered, and again leering
+and chuckling like a satyr over some tale of splendid
+desire.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon, walking silent and outwardly respectful
+by his side, listened to all this with a strange
+mixture of envy and rage. He envied the old
+Don the rich share he had taken of life&rsquo;s feast.
+Whatever else he might be the Don was not one
+of those who desire but do not dare. He had
+taken what he wanted. He had tasted many
+emotions and known the most poignant delights.
+And now that he was old and his blood was slow,
+he stood in the way of others who desired as
+greatly and were as avid of life as ever he had
+been. Ramon felt a great bitterness that clutched
+at his throat and half blinded his eyes. He too
+<pb n="85"/><anchor id="Pg85"/>
+loved and desired. And how much more greatly
+he desired than ever had this old man by his side,
+with his wealth and his easy satisfactions! The
+old Don apparently had never been thwarted,
+and therefore he did not know how keen and
+punishing a blade desire may be!</p>
+
+<p>Tense between the two was the enmity that
+ever sunders age and youth&mdash;age seeking to keep
+its sovereignty of life by inculcating blind respect
+and reverence, and youth rebellious, demanding
+its own with the passion of hot blood and untried
+flesh.</p>
+
+<p>Between Old Town and New Town flowed an
+irrigating ditch, which the connecting street
+crossed by means of an old wooden bridge. The
+ditch was this night full of swift water, which
+tore at the button willows on the bank and gurgled
+against the bridge timbers. As they crossed
+it the idea came into Ramon&rsquo;s head that if a man
+were pushed into the brown water he would be
+swiftly carried under the bridge and drowned.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC11" type="chapter">
+<pb n="86"/><anchor id="Pg86"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XI</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>The following Saturday evening Ramon was
+again riding across the <hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>,
+clad in his dirty hunting clothes, with his shotgun hung in the
+cinches of his saddle. At the start he had been
+undecided where he was going. Tormented by
+desire and bitter over the poverty which stood
+between him and fulfilment, he had flung the
+saddle on his mare and ridden away, feeling none
+of the old interest in the mountains, but impelled
+by a great need to escape the town with all its
+cruel spurs and resistances.</p>
+
+<p>Already the rhythm of his pony&rsquo;s lope and the
+steady beat of the breeze in his face had calmed
+and refreshed him. The bitter, exhausting
+thoughts that had been plucking at his mind gave
+way to the idle procession of sensations, as they
+tend always to do when a man escapes the artificial
+existence of towns into the natural, animal
+one of the outdoors. He began to respond to
+the deep appeal which the road, the sense of
+going somewhere, always had for him. For he
+came of a race of wanderers. His forbears had
+been restless men to cross an ocean and most of
+<pb n="87"/><anchor id="Pg87"/>
+a continent in search of homes. He was bred to
+a life of wandering and adventure. Long pent-up
+days in town always made him restless, and
+the feel of a horse under him and of distance to
+be overcome never failed to give him a sense of
+well-being.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing a little <hi rend="font-style: italic">arroyo</hi>,
+he saw a covey of the
+blue desert quail with their white crests erect,
+darting among the rocks and cactus on the hillside.
+It was still the close season, but he never
+thought of that. In an instant he was all hunter,
+like a good dog in sight of game. He slipped
+from his horse, letting the reins fall to the ground,
+and went running up the rocky slope, cleverly
+using every bit of cover until he came within
+range. At the first shot he killed three of the
+birds, and got another as they rose and whirred
+over the hill top. He gathered them up quickly,
+stepping on the head of a wounded one, and
+stuffed them into his pockets. He was grinning,
+now, and happy. The bit of excitement had
+washed from his mind for the time being the last
+vestige of worry. He lit a cigarette and lay on
+his back to smoke it, stretching out his legs luxuriously,
+watching the serene gyrations of a buzzard.
+When he had extracted the last possible
+puff from the tobacco, he went back to his horse
+and rode on toward Archulera&rsquo;s ranch, feeling a
+<pb n="88"/><anchor id="Pg88"/>
+keen interest in the coarse but substantial supper
+which he knew the old man would give him.</p>
+
+<p>His visit this time proceeded just as had all of
+the others, and he had never enjoyed one more
+thoroughly. Again the old man killed a fatted
+kid in his honour, and again they had a great feast
+of fresh brains and tripe and biscuits and coffee,
+with the birds, fried in deep lard, as an added
+luxury. Catalina served them in silence as usual,
+but stole now and then a quick reproachful look
+at Ramon. Afterward, when the girl had gone,
+there were many cigarettes and much talk, as
+before, Archulera telling over again the brave
+wild record of his youth. And, as always, he
+told, just as though he had never told it before,
+the story of how Diego Delcasar had cheated
+him out of his interest in a silver mine in the
+Guadelupe Mountains. As with each former
+telling he became this time more unrestrained in
+his denunciation of the man who had betrayed
+him.</p>
+
+<p><q>You are not like him,</q> he assured Ramon
+with passionate earnestness. <q>You are generous,
+honourable! When your uncle is dead&mdash;when he
+is dead, I say&mdash;you will pay me the five thousand
+dollars which your family owes to mine. Am I
+right, <hi rend="font-style: italic">amigo?</hi></q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon, who was listening with only half an ear,
+was about to make some off-hand reply, as he had
+<pb n="89"/><anchor id="Pg89"/>
+always done before. But suddenly a strange,
+stirring idea flashed through his brain. Could it
+be? Could that be what Archulera meant? He
+glanced at the man. Archulera was watching
+him with bright black eyes&mdash;cunning, feral&mdash;the
+eyes of a primitive fighting man, eyes that had
+never flinched at dealing death.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon knew suddenly that his idea was right.
+Blood pounded in his temples and a red mist of
+excitement swam before his eyes.</p>
+
+<p><q>Yes!</q> he exclaimed, leaping to his feet.
+<q>Yes! When my uncle is dead I will pay you the
+five thousand dollars which the estate owes you!</q></p>
+
+<p>The old man studied him, showing no trace of
+excitement save for the brightness of his eyes.</p>
+
+<p><q>You swear this?</q> he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon stood tall, his head lifted, his eyes
+bright.</p>
+
+<p><q>Yes; I swear it,</q> he replied, more quietly
+now. <q>I swear it on my honour as a Delcasar!</q></p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC12" type="chapter">
+<pb n="90"/><anchor id="Pg90"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XII</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>The murder of Don Diego Delcasar, which occurred
+about three weeks later, provided the
+town with an excitement which it thoroughly enjoyed.
+Although there was really not a great
+deal to be said about the affair, since it remained
+from the first a complete mystery, the local papers
+devoted a great deal of space to it. The
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">Evening
+Journal</hi> announced the event in a great black
+headline which ran all the way across the top of
+the first page. The right-hand column was devoted
+to a detailed description of the scene of the
+crime, while the rest of the page was occupied by
+a picture of the Don, by a hastily written and
+highly inaccurate account of his career, and by
+statements from prominent citizens concerning
+the great loss which the state had suffered in the
+death of this, one of its oldest and most valued
+citizens.</p>
+
+<p>In the editorial columns the Don was described
+as a Spanish gentleman of the old school, and one
+who had always lived up to its highest traditions.
+The fact was especially emphasized that he had
+commanded the respect and confidence of both
+<pb n="91"/><anchor id="Pg91"/>
+the races which made up the population of the
+state, and his long and honourable association in a
+business enterprise with a leading local attorney
+was cited as proof of the fact that he had been
+above all race antagonisms.</p>
+
+<p>The morning <hi rend="font-style: italic">Herald</hi>
+took a slightly different
+tack. Its editorial writer was a former New
+York newspaperman of unusual abilities who had
+been driven to the Southwest by tuberculosis. In
+an editorial which was deplored by many prominent
+business men, he pointed out that unpunished
+murderers were all too common in the State.
+He cited several cases like this of Don Delcasar
+in which prominent men had been assassinated,
+and no arrest had followed. Thus, only a few
+years before, Col. Manuel Escudero had been
+killed by a shot fired through the window of a
+saloon, and still more recently Don Solomon
+Estrella had been found drowned in a vat of
+sheep-dip on his own ranch. He cited statistics
+to show that the percentage of convictions in
+murder trials in that State was exceedingly small.
+Daringly, he asked how the citizens could expect
+to attract to the State the capital so much needed
+for its development, when assassination for personal
+and political purposes was there tolerated
+much as it had been in Europe during the Middle
+Ages. He ended by a plea that the Mounted
+<pb n="92"/><anchor id="Pg92"/>
+Police should be strengthened, so that it would be
+capable of coping with the situation.</p>
+
+<p>This editorial started a controversy between
+the two papers which ultimately quite eclipsed in
+interest the fact that Don Delcasar was dead.
+The <hi rend="font-style: italic">Morning Journal</hi>
+declared that the <hi rend="font-style: italic">Herald</hi>
+editorial was in effect a covert attack upon the
+Mexican people, pointing out that all the cases
+cited were those of Mexicans, and it came gallantly
+and for political reason to the defence of
+the race. At this point the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic"><q>Tribuna del Pueblo</q></hi>
+of Old Town jumped into the fight with an editorial
+in which it was asserted that both the gringo
+papers were maligning the Mexican people. It
+pointed out that the gringos controlled the political
+machinery of the State, and that if murder was
+there tolerated the dominant race was to blame.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the known facts about the murder
+of Don Delcasar remained few, simple and unilluminating.
+About once a month the Don used
+to drive in his automobile to his lands in the
+northern part of the State. He always took the
+road across the <hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>, which
+passed near the mouth of Domingo Canyon and through the scissors
+pass, and he nearly always went alone.</p>
+
+<p>When he was half way across the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>, the
+front tires of the Don&rsquo;s car had been punctured
+by nails driven through a board and hidden in
+the sand of the road. Evidently the Don had
+<pb n="93"/><anchor id="Pg93"/>
+risen to alight and investigate when he had been
+shot, for his body had been found hanging across
+the wind-shield of the car with a bullet hole
+through the head.</p>
+
+<p>The discovery of the body had been made by a
+Mexican woodcutter who was on the way to town
+with a load of wood. He had of course been
+held by the police and had been closely questioned,
+but it was easily established that he had no connection
+with the crime.</p>
+
+<p>It was evident that the Don had been shot
+from ambush with a rifle, and probably from a
+considerable distance, but absolutely no trace of
+the assassin had been found. Not only the chief
+of police and several patrolmen, and the sheriff
+with a posse, but also many private citizens in
+automobiles had rushed to the scene of the crime
+and joined in the search. The surrounding
+country was dry and rocky. Not even a track
+had been found.</p>
+
+<p>The motive of the murder was evidently not
+robbery, for nothing had been taken, although
+the Don carried a valuable watch and a considerable
+sum of money. Indeed, there was no evidence
+that the murderer had even approached the
+body.</p>
+
+<p>The Don had been a staunch Republican,
+and the <hi rend="font-style: italic">Morning Herald</hi>,
+also Republican, advanced
+the theory that he had been killed by
+<pb n="94"/><anchor id="Pg94"/>
+political enemies. This theory was ridiculed by
+the <hi rend="font-style: italic">Evening Journal</hi>,
+which was Democratic.</p>
+
+<p>The local police arrested as a suspect a man
+who was found in hiding near a water tank at
+the railroad station, but no evidence against him
+could be found and he had to be released. The
+sheriff extracted a confession of guilt from a
+sheep herder who was found about ten miles
+from the scene of the crime, but it was subsequently
+proved by this man&rsquo;s relatives that he
+was at home and asleep at the time the crime was
+committed, and that he was well known to be of
+unsound mind. For some days the newspapers
+continued daily to record the fact that a <q>diligent
+search</q> for the murderer was being conducted,
+but this search gradually came to an end along
+with public interest in the crime.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC13" type="chapter">
+<pb n="95"/><anchor id="Pg95"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XIII</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>The day after the news of his uncle&rsquo;s murder
+reached him, Ramon lay on his bed in his darkened
+room fully dressed in a new suit of black. He
+was not ill, and anything would have been easier
+for him than to lie there with nothing to do but
+to think and to stare at a single narrow sunbeam
+which came through a rent in the window blind.
+But it was a Mexican custom, old and revered,
+for the family of one recently dead to lie upon
+its beds in the dark and so to receive the condolences
+of friends and the consolations of religion.
+To disregard this custom would have
+been most unwise for an ambitious young man,
+and besides, Ramon&rsquo;s mother clung tenaciously to
+the traditional Mexican ways, and she would not
+have tolerated any breach of them. At this
+moment she and her two daughters were likewise
+lying in their rooms, clad in new black silk and
+surrounded by other sorrowing females.</p>
+
+<p>It was so still in the room that Ramon could
+hear the buzz of a fly in the vicinity of the solitary
+sunbeam, but from other parts of the house came
+occasional human sounds. One of these was an
+<pb n="96"/><anchor id="Pg96"/>
+intermittent howling and wailing from the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">placita</hi>.
+This he knew was the work of two old Mexican
+women who made their livings by acting as professional
+mourners. They did not wait for an invitation
+but hung about like buzzards wherever there
+was a Mexican corpse. Seated on the ground with
+their black shawls pulled over their heads, they
+wailed with astonishing endurance until the coffin
+was carried from the house, when they were sure
+of receiving a substantial gift from the grateful
+relatives. Ramon resolved that he would give
+them ten dollars each. He felt sure they had
+never gotten so much. He was determined to do
+handsomely in all things connected with the
+funeral.</p>
+
+<p>He could also hear faintly a rattle of wagons,
+foot steps and low human voices coming from the
+front of the house. A peep had shown him that
+already a line of wagons, carriages and buggies
+half a block long had formed in the street, and he
+could hear the arrival of another one every few
+minutes. These vehicles brought the numerous
+and poor relations of Don Delcasar who lived in
+the country. All of them would be there by
+night. Each one of them would come into Ramon&rsquo;s
+room and sit by his bedside and take his hand
+and express sympathy. Some of them would
+weep and some would groan, although all of
+<pb n="97"/><anchor id="Pg97"/>
+them, like himself, were profoundly glad that the
+Don was dead. Ramon hoped that they would
+make their expressions brief. And later, he
+knew, all would gather in the room where the
+casket rested on two chairs. They would sit in a
+silent solemn circle about the room, drinking
+coffee and wine all night. And he would be
+among them, trying with all his might to look
+properly sad and to keep his eyes open.</p>
+
+<p>All the time that he lay there in enforced idleness
+he was longing for action, his imagination
+straining forward. At last his chance had come&mdash;his
+chance to have her. And he would
+have her. He felt sure of it. He was now a
+rich man. As soon as the will had been read and
+he had come into his own, he would buy a big
+automobile. He would go to her, he would
+sweep away her doubts and hesitations. He
+would carry her away and marry her. She
+would be his.&hellip; He closed his eyes and drew
+his breath in sharply.&hellip;</p>
+
+<p>But no; he would have to wait &hellip; a decent interval.
+And the five thousand dollars must be
+gotten to Archulera. That was obviously important.
+And there might not be much cash. The
+Don had never had much ready money. He
+might have to sell land or sheep first. All of
+these things to be done, and here he lay, staring
+<pb n="98"/><anchor id="Pg98"/>
+at the ceiling and listening to the wailing of old
+women!</p>
+
+<p>There was a knock on the door.</p>
+
+<p><q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Entra!</hi></q> he called.</p>
+
+<p>The door opened softly and a tall, black-robed
+figure was silhouetted for a moment against the
+daylight before the door closed again. The
+black figure crossed the room and sat down by
+the bed, silent save for a faint rustle.</p>
+
+<p>Although he could not see the face, Ramon
+knew that this was the priest, Father Lugaria.
+He knew that Father Lugaria had come to arrange
+for the mass over the body of Don Delcasar.
+He disliked Father Lugaria, and knew that
+the Father disliked him. This mutual antipathy
+was due to the fact that Ramon seldom went to
+Church.</p>
+
+<p>There were others of his generation who
+showed the same indifference toward religion, and
+this defection of youth was a thing which the
+Priests bitterly contested. Ramon was perfectly
+willing to make a polite compromise with them.
+If Father Lugaria had been satisfied with an occasional
+appearance at early mass, a perfunctory
+confession now and then, the two might have been
+friends. But the Priest made Ramon a special
+object of his attention. He continually went to
+the Dona Delcasar with complaints and that devout
+woman incessantly nagged her son, holding
+<pb n="99"/><anchor id="Pg99"/>
+before him always pictures of the damnation he
+was courting. Once in a while she even produced
+in him a faint twinge of fear&mdash;a recrudescence
+of the deep religious feeling in which he was bred&mdash;but
+the feeling was evanescent. The chief
+result of these labours on behalf of his soul had
+been to turn him strongly against the priest who
+instigated them.</p>
+
+<p>Father Lugaria seemed all kindness and sympathy
+now. He sat close beside Ramon and
+took his hand. Ramon could smell the good
+wine on the man&rsquo;s breath, and could see faintly
+the brightness of his eyes. The grip of the
+priest&rsquo;s hand was strong, moist and surprisingly
+cold. He began to talk in the low monotonous
+voice of one accustomed to much chanting, and
+this droning seemed to have some hypnotic quality.
+It seemed to lull Ramon&rsquo;s mind so that he
+could not think what he was going to say or do.</p>
+
+<p>The priest expressed his sympathy. He spoke
+of the great and good man the Don had been.
+Slowly, adroitly, he approached the real question
+at issue, which was how much Ramon would pay
+for a mass. The more he paid, the longer the
+mass would be, and the longer the mass the speedier
+would be the journey of the Don&rsquo;s soul
+through purgatory and into Paradise.</p>
+
+<p><q>O, my little brother in Christ!</q> droned the
+priest in his vibrant sing-song, <q rend="post: none">I must not let you
+<pb n="100"/><anchor id="Pg100"/>
+neglect this last, this greatest of things which you
+can do for the uncle you loved. It is unthinkable
+of course that his soul should go to hell&mdash;hell,
+where a thousand demons torture the soul for an
+eternity. Hell is for those who commit the
+worst of sins, sins they dare not lay before God
+for his forgiveness, secret and terrible sins&mdash;sins
+like murder. But few of us go through life
+untouched by sin. The soul must be purified before
+it can enter the presence of its maker.&hellip;
+Doubtless the soul of your uncle is in purgatory,
+and to you is given the sweet power to speed that
+soul on its upward way.&hellip;
+</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Don Delcasar, we all know, killed.&hellip;
+More than once, doubtless, he took the life of a
+fellow man. But he did it in combat as a soldier,
+as a servant of the State.&hellip; That is not murder.
+That would not doom him to hell, which is
+the special punishment of secret and unforgiven
+murder.&hellip; But the soul of the Don must be
+cleansed of these earthly stains.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>The strong, cold grip of the priest held Ramon
+with increasing power. The monotonous, hypnotic
+voice went on and on, becoming ever more
+eloquent and confident. Father Lugaria was a
+man of imagination, and the special home of his
+imagination was hell. For thirty years he had
+held despotic sway over the poor Mexicans who
+made up most of his flock, and had gathered
+<pb n="101"/><anchor id="Pg101"/>
+much money for the Church, by painting word-pictures
+of hell. He was a veritable artist of
+hell. He loved hell. Again and again he digressed
+from the strict line of his argument to
+speak of hell. With all the vividness of a thing
+seen, he described its flames, its fiends, the terrible
+stink of burning flesh and the vast chorus of
+agony that filled it.&hellip; And for some obscure
+reason or purpose he always spoke of hell as the
+special punishment of murderers. Again and
+again in his discourse he coupled murder and hell.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon was wearied by strong emotions and a
+shortness of sleep. His nerves were overstrung.
+This ceaseless iteration of hell and murder,
+murder and hell would drive him crazy, he
+thought. He wished mightily that the priest
+would have done and name his price and go.
+What was the sense and purpose of this endless
+babble about hell and murder?&hellip; A sickening
+thought struck him like a blow, leaving him weak.
+What if old Archulera had confessed to the
+priest?</p>
+
+<p>Well; what if he had? A priest could not
+testify about what he had heard in confessional.
+But a priest might tell some one else.&hellip; O, God!
+If the man would only go and leave him to think.
+Hell and murder, murder and hell. The two
+words beat upon his brain without mercy. He
+longed to interrupt the priest and beg him to
+<pb n="102"/><anchor id="Pg102"/>
+leave off. But for some reason he could not.
+He could not even turn his head and look at the
+man. The priest was but a clammy grip that held
+him and a disembodied voice that spoke of hell
+and murder. Had he done murder? And was
+there a hell? He had long ceased to believe in
+hell, but hell had been real to him as a child. His
+mother and his nurse had filled him with the fear
+of hell. He had been bred in the fear of hell. It
+was in his flesh and bones if not in his mind, and
+the priest had hypnotized his mind. Hell was
+real to him again. Fear of hell came up from the
+past which vanishes but is never gone, and gripped
+him like a great ugly monster. It squeezed a
+cold sweat out of his body and made his skin
+prickle and his breath come short.&hellip;</p>
+
+<p>The priest dropped the subject of hell, and
+spoke again of the mass. He mentioned a sum of
+money. Ramon nodded his head muttering his
+assent like a sick man. The grip on his hand
+relaxed.</p>
+
+<p><q>Good-bye, my little brother,</q> murmured the
+priest. <q>May Christ be always with you.</q> His
+gown rustled across the room and as he opened
+the door, Ramon saw his face for a moment&mdash;a
+sallow, shrewd face, bedewed with the sweat of a
+great effort, but wearing a smile of triumphant
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon lay sick and exhausted. It seemed to
+<pb n="103"/><anchor id="Pg103"/>
+him that there was no air in the room. He was
+suffocating. His body burned and prickled. He
+rose and tore loose his collar. He must get out
+of this place, must have air and movement.</p>
+
+<p>It was dusk now. The wailing of the old
+women had ceased. Doubtless they were being
+rewarded with supper. He began stripping off
+his clothes&mdash;his white shirt and his new suit of
+black. Eagerly rummaging in the closet he found
+his old clothes, which he wore on his trips to the
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p>In the dim light he slipped out of the house,
+indistinguishable from any Mexican boy that
+might have been about the place. He saddled
+the little mare in the corral, mounted and galloped
+away&mdash;through Old Town, where skinny dogs
+roamed in dark narrow streets and men and
+women sat and smoked in black doorways&mdash;and
+out upon the valley road. There he spurred his
+mare without mercy, and they flew over the soft
+dust. The rush of the air in his face, and the thud
+and quiver of living flesh under him were infinitely
+sweet.</p>
+
+<p>He stopped at last five miles from town on the
+bank of the river. It was a swift muddy river,
+wandering about in a flood plain a quarter of a
+mile wide, and at this point chewing noisily at a
+low bank forested with scrubby cottonwoods.</p>
+
+<p>Dismounting, he stripped and plunged into the
+<pb n="104"/><anchor id="Pg104"/>
+river. It was only three feet deep, but he wallowed
+about in it luxuriously, finding great
+comfort in the caress of the cool water, and of
+the soft fine sand upon the bottom which clung
+about his toes and tickled the soles of his feet.
+Then he climbed out on the bank and stood where
+the breeze struck him, rubbing the water off of his
+slim strong body with the flats of his hands.</p>
+
+<p>When he had put on his clothes, he indulged
+his love of lying flat on the ground, puffing a
+cigarette and blowing smoke at the first stars.
+A hunting owl flitted over his head on muffled
+wing; a coyote yapped in the bushes; high up in
+the darkness he heard the whistle of pinions as
+a flock of early ducks went by.</p>
+
+<p>He took the air deeply into his lungs and
+stretched out his legs. In this place fear of hell
+departed from his mind as some strong liquors
+evaporate when exposed to the open air. The
+splendid healthy animal in him was again dominant,
+and it could scarcely conceive of death and
+had nothing more to do with hell than had the
+owl and the coyote that killed to live. Here he
+felt at peace with the earth beneath him and the
+sky above. But one thought came to disturb him
+and it was also sweet&mdash;the thought of a woman,
+her eyes full of promise, the curve of her mouth.&hellip;
+She was waiting for him, she would be his.
+That was real.&hellip; Hell was a dream.</p>
+<pb n="105"/><anchor id="Pg105"/>
+
+<p>He saw now the folly of his fears about
+Archulera, too. Archulera never went to church.
+There was no danger that he would ever confess
+to any one. And even if he did, he could scarcely
+injure Ramon. For Ramon had done no wrong.
+He had but promised an old man his due, righted
+an ancient wrong.&hellip; He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly he mounted and rode home, filled with
+thoughts of the girl, to put on his mourning
+clothes and take his decorous place in the circle
+that watched his uncle&rsquo;s bier.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC14" type="chapter">
+<pb n="106"/><anchor id="Pg106"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XIV</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>All the ceremonies and procedures, religious
+and legal, which had been made necessary by the
+death of Don Diego Delcasar, were done. The
+body of the Don had been taken to the church in
+Old Town and placed before the altar, the casket
+covered with black cloth and surrounded by
+candles in tall silver candlesticks which stood upon
+the floor. A Mass of impressive length had been
+spoken over it by Father Lugaria assisted by
+numerous priests and altar boys, and at the end of
+the ceremony the hundreds of friends and relatives
+of the Don, who filled the church, had
+lifted up their voices in one of the loudest and
+most prolonged choruses of wailing ever heard in
+that country, where wailing at a funeral is as much
+a matter of formal custom as is cheering at a
+political convention. Afterwards a cortege nearly
+a mile in length, headed by a long string of carriages
+and tailed by a crowd of poor Mexicans
+trudging hatless in the dust, had made the hot
+and wearisome journey to the cemetery in the
+sandhills.</p>
+
+<p>Then the will had been read and had revealed
+that Ramon Delcasar was heir to the bulk of his
+<pb n="107"/><anchor id="Pg107"/>
+uncle&rsquo;s estate, and that he was thereby placed in
+possession of money, lands and sheep to the value
+of about two hundred thousand dollars. It was
+said by those who knew that the Don&rsquo;s estate had
+once been at least twice that large, and there were
+some who irreverently remarked that he had been
+taken off none too soon for the best interests of
+his heirs.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after the reading of the will, Ramon
+rode to the Archulera ranch, starting before daylight
+and returning after dark. He exchanged
+greetings with the old man, just as he had always
+done.</p>
+
+<p><q>Accept my sympathy,
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">amigo</hi>,</q> Archulera said
+in his formal, polite way, <q>that you have lost your
+uncle, the head of your great family.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>I thank you, friend,</q> Ramon replied. <q>A
+man must bear these things. Here is something I
+promised you,</q> he added, laying a small heavy
+canvas bag upon the table, just as he had always
+laid a package of tobacco or some other small
+gift.</p>
+
+<p>Old Archulera nodded without looking at the
+bag.</p>
+
+<p><q>Thank you,</q> he said.</p>
+
+<p>Afterward they talked about the bean crop and
+the weather, and had an excellent dinner of goat
+meat cooked with chile.</p>
+
+<p>In town Ramon found himself a person of noticeably
+<pb n="108"/><anchor id="Pg108"/>
+increased importance. One of his first
+acts had been to buy a car, and he had attracted
+much attention while driving this about the
+streets, learning to manipulate it. He killed one
+chicken and two dogs and handsomely reimbursed
+their owners. These minor accidents were due
+to his tendency, the result of many years of horsemanship,
+to throw his weight back on the steering
+wheel and shout <q>whoa!</q> whenever a sudden emergency
+occurred. But he was apt, and soon was
+running his car like an expert.</p>
+
+<p>His personal appearance underwent a change
+too. He had long cherished a barbaric leaning
+toward finery, which lack of money had prevented
+him from indulging. Large diamonds fascinated
+him, and a leopard skin vest was a thing he had
+always wanted to own. But these weaknesses he
+now rigorously suppressed. Instead he noted
+carefully the dress of Gordon Roth and of other
+easterners whom he saw about the hotel, and
+ordered from the best local tailor a suit of quiet
+colour and conservative cut, but of the very best
+English material. He bought no jewelry except a
+single small pearl for his necktie. His hat, his
+shoes, the way he had his neck shaved, all were
+changed as the result of a painstaking observation
+such as he had never practised before. He
+wanted to make himself as much as possible like
+the men of Julia&rsquo;s kind and class. And this desire
+<pb n="109"/><anchor id="Pg109"/>
+modified his manner and speech as well as his
+appearance. He was careful, always watching
+himself. His manner was more reserved and
+quiet than ever, and this made him appear older
+and more serious. He smiled when he overheard
+a woman say that <q>he took the death of his uncle
+much harder than she would have expected.</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon now received business propositions
+every day. Men tried to sell him all sorts of
+things, from an idea to a ranch, and most of them
+seemed to proceed on the assumption that, being
+young and newly come into his money, he should
+part with it easily. Several of the opportunities
+offered him had to do with the separation of the
+poor Mexicans from their land holdings. A
+prominent attorney came all the way from a town
+in the northern part of the State to lay before
+him a proposition of this kind. This lawyer,
+named Cooley, explained that by opening a store
+in a certain rich section of valley land, opportunities
+could be created for lending the Mexicans
+money. Whenever there was a birth, a funeral
+or a marriage among them, the Mexicans needed
+money, and could be persuaded to sign mortgages,
+which they generally could not read. In each
+Mexican family there would be either a birth, a
+marriage or a death once in three years on an
+average. Three such events would enable the
+lender to gain possession of a ranch. And Cooley
+<pb n="110"/><anchor id="Pg110"/>
+had an eastern client who would then buy the land
+at a good figure. It was a chance for Ramon to
+double his money.</p>
+
+<p><q>You&rsquo;ve got the money and you know the native
+people,</q> Cooley argued earnestly. <q>I&rsquo;ve got the
+sucker and I know the law. It&rsquo;s a sure thing.</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon thanked him politely and refused firmly.
+The idea of robbing a poor Mexican of his ranch
+by nine years of usury did not appeal to him at all.
+In the first place, it would be a long, slow tedious
+job, and besides, poor people always aroused his
+pity, just as rich ones stirred his greed and envy.
+He was predatory, but lion-like, he scorned to
+spring on small game. He did not realize that a
+lion often starves where a jackal grows fat.</p>
+
+<p>Only one opportunity came to him which interested
+him strongly. A young Irishman named
+Hurley explained to him that it was possible to
+buy mules in Mexico, where a revolution was going
+on, for ten dollars each at considerable personal
+risk, to run them across the Rio Grande and to
+sell them to the United States army for twenty
+dollars. Here was a gambler&rsquo;s chance, action and
+adventure. It caught his fancy and tempted him.
+But he had no thought of yielding. Another
+purpose engrossed him.</p>
+
+<p>These weeks after his uncle&rsquo;s funeral gave him
+his first real grapple with the world of business,
+and the experience tended to strengthen him in a
+<pb n="111"/><anchor id="Pg111"/>
+certain cynical self-assurance which had been
+growing in him ever since he first went away to
+college, and had met its first test in action
+when he spoke the words that lead to the Don&rsquo;s
+death. He felt a deep contempt for most of
+these men who came to him with their schemes
+and their wares. He saw that most of them were
+ready enough to swindle him, though few of them
+would have had the courage to rob him with a gun.
+Probably not one of them would have dared to kill
+a man for money, but they were ready enough to
+cheat a poor <hi rend="font-style: italic">pelado</hi>
+out of his living, which often
+came to the same thing. He felt that he was
+bigger than most of them, if not better. His self-respect
+was strengthened.</p>
+
+<p><q>Life is a fight,</q> he told himself, feeling that he
+had hit upon a profound and original idea.
+<q>Every man wants pretty women and money.
+He gets them if he has enough nerve and enough
+sense. And somebody else gets hurt, because
+there aren&rsquo;t enough pretty women and money to
+go around.</q></p>
+
+<p>It seemed to him that this was the essence of
+all wisdom.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC15" type="chapter">
+<pb n="112"/><anchor id="Pg112"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XV</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>Ramon had always been rather a solitary figure
+in his own town. Although he belonged nominally
+to the <q>bunch</q> of young gringos, Jews and
+Mexicans, who foregathered at the White Camel
+Pool Hall, their amusements did not hold his
+interest very strongly. They played a picayune
+game of poker, which resulted in a tangled mass
+of debt; they went on occasional mild sprees, and
+on Saturday nights they
+<corr sic="visted"><anchor id="E7"/>
+<ref target="e7">visited</ref></corr>
+the town&rsquo;s red light
+district, hardy survivor of several vice crusades,
+where they danced with portly magdalenes in
+gaudy kimonos to the music of a mechanical piano,
+luxuriating in conscious wickedness.</p>
+
+<p>All of this had seemed romantic and delightfully
+vicious to Ramon a few years before, but it
+soon palled on his restless and discontented spirit.
+He had formed the habit of hunting alone, and
+had found adventures more to his taste. But now
+he found himself in company more than ever
+before. He was bid to every frolic that took
+place. In the White Camel he was often the
+centre of a small group, which included men older
+than himself who had never paid any attention
+<pb n="113"/><anchor id="Pg113"/>
+to him before, but now addressed him with a
+certain deference. Although he understood well
+enough that most of the attentions paid him had
+an interested motive, he enjoyed the sense of
+leadership which these gatherings gave him. If
+he was not a real leader now, he intended to become
+one. He listened to what men said, watched
+them, and said little himself. He was quick to
+grasp the fact that a reputation for shrewdness
+and wisdom is made by the simple method of keeping
+the mouth shut.</p>
+
+<p>He made many acquaintances among the new
+element which had recently come to town from the
+East in search of health or money, but he made no
+real friends because none of these men inspired
+him with respect. Only one man he attached to
+himself, and that one by the simple tie of money.
+His name was Antonio Cortez. He was a small,
+skinny, sallow Mexican with a great moustache,
+behind which he seemed to be discreetly hiding,
+and a consciously cunning eye. Of an old and
+once wealthy Spanish family, he had lost all of his
+money by reason of a lack of aptitude for business,
+and made his living as a sort of professional
+political henchman. He was a bearer of secret
+messages, a maker of deals, an eavesdropper.
+The Latin aptitude for intrigue he had in a high
+degree. He was capable of almost anything in
+<pb n="114"/><anchor id="Pg114"/>
+the way of falsehood or evasion, but he had that
+great capacity for loyalty which is so often the
+virtue of weaklings.</p>
+
+<p><q>I have known your family for many years,</q>
+he told Ramon importantly, <q>And I feel an
+interest in you, almost as though you were my
+own son. You need an older friend to advise
+you, to attend to details in the management of
+your great estate. You will probably go into
+politics and you need a political manager. As an
+old friend of your family I want to do these
+things for you. What do you say?</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon answered without any hesitation and
+prompted solely by intuition:</p>
+
+<p><q>I thank you, friend, and I accept your offer.</q></p>
+
+<p>He knew instinctively that he could trust this
+man and also dominate him. It was just such a
+follower that he needed. Nothing was said
+about money, but on the first of the month Ramon
+mailed Cortez a check for a hundred dollars,
+and that became his regular salary.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC16" type="chapter">
+<pb n="115"/><anchor id="Pg115"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XVI</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>About two weeks after the Don&rsquo;s funeral,
+Ramon received a summons which he had been
+vaguely expecting. He was asked by Mr. MacDougall&rsquo;s
+secretary over the telephone to call,
+whenever it would be convenient, at Mr. MacDougall&rsquo;s
+office.</p>
+
+<p>He knew just what this meant. MacDougall
+would try to make with him an arrangement
+somewhat similar to the one he had had with the
+Don. Ramon knew that he did not want such an
+arrangement on any terms. He felt confident
+that not one could swindle him, but at the same
+time he was half afraid of the Scotchman; he felt
+instinctively that MacDougall was a man for him
+to avoid. And besides, he intended to use his
+lands in his own way. He would sell part of
+them to the railroad, which was projected to be
+built through them, if he could get a good price;
+but the hunger for owning land, for dominating a
+part of the earth, was as much a part of him as his
+right hand. He wanted no modern business
+partnership. He wanted to be <hi rend="font-style: italic"><q>el
+patron,</q></hi> as so
+many Delcasars had been before him.</p>
+
+<p>Here was a temptation to be dramatic, to hurl
+<pb n="116"/><anchor id="Pg116"/>
+a picturesque defiance at the gringo. Ramon
+might have yielded to it a few months before.
+Sundry brave speeches flashed through his mind,
+as it was. But he resolutely put them aside.
+There was too much at stake &hellip; his love. He
+determined to call on MacDougall promptly and
+to be polite.</p>
+
+<p>MacDougall was a heavy, bald man of Scotch
+descent, and very true to type. He had come to
+town from the East about fifteen years before
+with his wife and his two tall, raw-boned children&mdash;a
+boy and a girl. The family had been
+very poor. They had lived in a small
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">adobe</hi>
+house on the <hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>.
+For ten years Mrs. MacDougall
+had done all of her own housework, including
+the washing; the two children had gone to
+school in clothes that seemed always too small for
+them; and MacDougall had laboured obscurely
+day and night in a small dark office. During
+these ten years the MacDougalls had been completely
+overlooked by local society, and if they
+felt any resentment they did not show it.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime MacDougall had been systematically
+and laboriously laying the foundations of a
+fortune. His passion was for land. He loaned
+money on land, chiefly to Mexicans, and he took
+mortgages on land in return for defending his
+Mexican clients, largely on criminal charges.
+Some of the land he farmed, and some he rented,
+<pb n="117"/><anchor id="Pg117"/>
+but much of it lay idle, and the taxes he had to
+pay kept his family poor long after it might have
+been comfortable. But his lands rose steadily in
+value; he began selling, discreetly; and the MacDougalls
+came magnificently into their own.
+MacDougall was now one of the wealthiest men
+in the State. In five years his way of living had
+undergone a great change. He owned a large
+brick house in the highlands and had several servants.
+The boy had gone to Harvard, and the
+girl to Vassar. Neither of them was so gawky
+now, and both of them were much sought socially
+during their vacations at home. MacDougall
+himself had undergone a marked change for a man
+past fifty. He had become a stylish dresser and
+looked younger. He drove to work in a large
+car with a chauffeur. In the early morning he
+went riding on the <hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>,
+mounted on a big
+Kentucky fox-trotter, clad in English riding
+clothes, jouncing solemnly up and down on his
+flat saddle, and followed by a couple of carefully-laundered
+white poodles. On these expeditions
+he was a source of great edification and some
+amusement to the natives.</p>
+
+<p>In the town he was a man of weight and influence,
+but the country Mexicans hated him.
+Once when he was looking over some lands
+recently acquired by the foreclosure of mortgages,
+a bullet had whistled close to his ear, and another
+<pb n="118"/><anchor id="Pg118"/>
+had punctured the hood of his car. He now hired
+a man to do his <q>outside work.</q></p>
+
+<p>Thus both MacDougall and his children had
+thrived and developed on their wealth. Mrs.
+MacDougall, perhaps, had been the sacrifice.
+She remained a tall, thin, pale, tired-looking
+woman with large hands that were a record of
+toil. She laboured at her new social duties and
+<q>pleasures</q> in exactly the same spirit that she
+had formerly laboured at the wash tub.</p>
+
+<p>MacDougall&rsquo;s offices now occupied all of the
+ground floor of a large new building which he had
+built. Like everything else of his authorship this
+building represented a determined effort to lend
+the town an air of Eastern elegance. It was
+finished in an imitation of white marble and the
+offices had large plate glass windows which bore
+in gilt letters the legend: <q>MacDougall Land
+and Cattle Company, Inc.</q> Within, half a
+dozen girls in glass cages could be seen working
+at typewriters and adding machines, while a cashier
+occupied a little office of his own with a large
+safe at his back, a little brass grating in front of
+him, and a revolver visible not far from his right
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>The creator of this magnificence sat behind a
+glasstop desk at the far end of a large and sunny
+office with a bare and slippery floor. Many a
+Mexican beggar for mercy, with a mortgage on
+<pb n="119"/><anchor id="Pg119"/>
+his home, had walked across this forbidding expanse
+of polished hardwood toward the big man
+with the merciless eye, as fearfully as ever a
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">peon</hi>, sentenced to
+forty lashes and salt in his
+wounds, approached the seat of his owner to
+plead for a whole skin. Truly, the weak can but
+change masters.</p>
+
+<p>This morning MacDougall was all affability.
+As he stood up behind his desk, clad in a light
+grey suit, large and ruddy, radiant of health and
+prosperity, he was impressive, almost splendid.
+Only the eyes, small and closeset, revealed the
+worried and calculating spirit of the man.</p>
+
+<p><q>Mr. Delcasar,</q> he said when they had shaken
+hands and sat down, <q>I am glad to welcome you
+to this office, and I hope to see you here many
+times more. I will not waste time, for we are
+both busy men. I asked you to come here because
+I want to suggest a sort of informal partnership
+between us, such as I had with your late
+uncle, one of my best friends. I believe my plan
+will be for the best interests of both of us.&hellip; I
+suppose you know about what the arrangement
+was between the Don and myself?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>No; not in detail,</q> Ramon confessed. He
+felt MacDougall&rsquo;s power at once. Facing the
+man was a different matter from planning an
+interview with him when alone. But he retained
+sense enough to let MacDougall do the talking.</p>
+<pb n="120"/><anchor id="Pg120"/>
+
+<p><q>Have a cigar,</q> the great man continued, full
+of sweetness, pushing a large and fragrant box
+of perfectos across the desk. <q>I will outline the
+situation to you briefly, as I see it.</q> Nothing
+could have seemed more frank and friendly than
+his manner.</p>
+
+<p><q>As you doubtless know,</q> he went on, <q rend="post: none">your
+estate includes a large area of mountain and
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>
+land&mdash;a little more than nine thousand acres I
+believe&mdash;north and west of the San Antonio
+River in Arriba County. I own nearly as much
+land on the east side of the river. The valley
+itself is owned by a number of natives in small
+farming tracts.
+</q></p>
+
+<p><q rend="post: none">I believe your estate also includes a few small
+parcels of land in the valley, but not enough, you
+understand, to be of much value by itself. Your
+uncle also owned a few tracts in the valley east of
+the river which he transferred to me, for a consideration,
+because they abutted upon my holdings.
+</q></p>
+
+<p><q rend="post: none">Now the valley, as I scarcely need tell you,
+is the key to the situation. In the first place, if
+the country is to be properly developed as sheep
+and cattle range, the valley will furnish the farming
+land upon which hay for winter use can be
+raised, and it also furnishes some good winter
+range. Moreover, it is now an open secret that
+the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad proposes
+building a branch line through that country and
+<pb n="121"/><anchor id="Pg121"/>
+into the San Juan Valley. No surveys have been
+made, but it is certain that the road must follow
+the San Antonio to the top of the divide. There
+is no other way through. I became aware of
+this project some time ago through my eastern
+connections, and told your uncle about it. He
+and I joined forces for the purpose of gaining
+control of the San Antonio Valley, and of the
+railroad right-of-way.
+</q></p>
+
+<p><q rend="post: none">The proposition is a singularly attractive one.
+Not only could the right-of-way be sold for a very
+large sum, but we would afterward own a splendid
+bit of cattle range, with farming land in the
+valley, and with a railroad running through the
+centre of it. There is nothing less than a fortune
+to be made in the San Antonio Valley, Mr.
+Delcasar.
+</q></p>
+
+<p><q rend="post: none">And the lands in the valley can be acquired.
+Some of the small owners will sell outright.
+Furthermore, they are all frequently in need of
+money, especially during dry years when the crops
+are not good. By advancing loans judiciously,
+and taking land as security, title can often be
+acquired.&hellip; I daresay you are not wholly unfamiliar
+with the method.
+</q></p>
+
+<p><q rend="post: none">This work, Mr. Delcasar, requires large
+capital, which I can command. It also requires
+certain things which you have in an unusual
+degree. You are of Spanish descent, you speak
+<pb n="122"/><anchor id="Pg122"/>
+the language fluently. You have political and
+family prestige among the natives. All of this
+will be of great service in persuading the natives
+to sell, and in getting the necessary information
+about land titles, which, as you know, requires
+much research in old Spanish Church records
+and much interviewing of the natives themselves.
+</q></p>
+
+<p><q>In the actual making of purchases, my name
+need not appear. In fact, I think it is very
+desirable that it should not appear. But understand
+that I will furnish absolutely all of the capital
+for the enterprise. I am offering you, Mr.
+Delcasar, an opportunity to make a fortune without
+investing a cent, and I feel that I can count
+upon your acceptance.</q></p>
+
+<p>At the close of this discourse, Ramon felt like
+a surf-bather who has been overwhelmed by a
+great and sudden wave and comes up gasping for
+breath and struggling for a foothold. Never
+had he heard anything so brilliantly plausible,
+for never before had he come into contact with a
+good mind in full action. Yet he regained his
+balance in a moment. He was accustomed to
+act by intuition, not by logic, and his intuition was
+all against accepting MacDougall&rsquo;s offer. He
+was not deceived by the Scotchman&rsquo;s show of
+friendship and beneficence; he himself had an
+aptitude for pretence, and he understood it better
+<pb n="123"/><anchor id="Pg123"/>
+than he would have understood sincerity. He
+knew that whether he formed this partnership or
+not, there was sure to be a struggle between him
+and MacDougall for the dominance of the San
+Antonio Valley. And his instinct was to stand
+free and fight; not to come to grips, MacDougall
+was a stronger man than he. The one advantage
+which he had&mdash;his influence over the natives&mdash;he
+must keep in his own hands, and not let his
+adversary turn it against him.</p>
+
+<p>He took his cigar out of his mouth, looked at
+it a moment, and cleared his throat.</p>
+
+<p><q>Mr. MacDougall,</q> he said slowly, <q>this offer
+makes me proud. That you should have so much
+confidence in me as to wish to make me your partner
+is most gratifying. I am sorry that I must
+refuse. I have other plans.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>MacDougall nodded, interrupting. This was
+evidently a contingency he had calculated.</p>
+
+<p><q>I&rsquo;m sorry, Mr. Delcasar. I had hoped to be
+permanently associated with you in this venture.
+But I think I understand. You are young.
+Perhaps marriage, a home are your immediate
+objects, and you need cash at once, rather than
+a somewhat distant prospect of greater wealth.
+In that case I think I can meet your wishes. I
+am prepared to make you a good offer for all of
+your holdings in the valley, and those immediately
+<pb n="124"/><anchor id="Pg124"/>
+adjoining it. The exact amount I cannot state at
+this moment, but I feel sure we could agree as
+to price.</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon was taken aback by the promptness of
+the counter, confused, forced to think. Money
+was a thing he wanted badly. He had little cash.
+If MacDougall would give him fifty thousand,
+he could go with Julia anywhere. He would be
+free. But again the inward prompting, sure and
+imperative, said no. He wanted the girl above
+all things. But he wanted land, too. His was
+the large and confident greed of youth. And he
+could have the girl without making this concession.
+MacDougall wanted to take the best of
+his land and push him out of the game as a weakling,
+a negligible. He wouldn&rsquo;t submit. He
+would fight, and in his own way. What he
+wanted now was to end the interview, to get away
+from this battering, formidable opponent. He
+rose.</p>
+
+<p><q>I will think it over, Mr. MacDougall,</q> he
+said. <q>And meantime, if you will send me an
+offer in writing, I will appreciate it.</q></p>
+
+<p>Some of the affability faded from MacDougall&rsquo;s
+face as he too rose, and the worried
+look in his little grey eyes intensified, as though
+he sensed the fact that this was an evasion.
+None-the-less he said good-bye cordially and
+promised to write the letter.</p>
+<pb n="125"/><anchor id="Pg125"/>
+
+<p>Ramon went back to his office, his mind stimulated,
+working intensely. Never before had he
+thought so clearly and purposefully. He got
+out an old government map of Arriba County,
+and with the aid of the deeds in the safe which
+contained all his uncle&rsquo;s important papers, he
+managed to mark off his holdings. The whole
+situation became as clear to him as a checker
+game. He owned a bit of land in the valley
+which ran all the way across it, and far out upon
+the <hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>
+in a long narrow strip. That was the
+way land holdings were always divided under the
+Spanish law&mdash;into strips a few hundred feet wide,
+and sometimes as much as fourteen miles long.
+This strip would in all probability be vital to
+the proposed right-of-way. It explained MacDougall&rsquo;s
+eagerness to take him as a partner or
+else to buy him out. By holding it, he would
+hold the key to the situation.</p>
+
+<p>In order really to dominate the country and
+to make his property grow in value he would have
+to own more of the valley. And he could not
+get money enough to buy except very slowly.
+But he could use his influence with the natives to
+prevent MacDougall from buying. MacDougall
+was a gringo. The Mexicans hated him. He
+had been shot at. Ramon could <q>preach the race
+issue,</q> as the politicians put it.</p>
+
+<p>The important thing was to strengthen and
+<pb n="126"/><anchor id="Pg126"/>
+assert his influence as a Mexican and a Delcasar.
+He must go to Arriba County, open the old ranch
+house he owned there, go among the people. He
+must gain a real ascendency. He knew how to
+do it. It was his birthright. He was full of
+fight and ambition, confident, elated. The way
+was clear before him. Tomorrow he would go
+to Julia.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC17" type="chapter">
+<pb n="127"/><anchor id="Pg127"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XVII</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>He had received a note of sympathy from her
+soon after his uncle&rsquo;s death and he had called at
+the Roths&rsquo; once, but had found several other
+callers there and no opportunity of being alone
+with her. Then she had gone away on a two-weeks,
+automobile trip to the Mesa Verde
+National Park, so that he had seen practically
+nothing of her. But all of this time he had been
+thinking of her more confidently than ever before.
+He was rich now, he was strong. All of the
+preliminaries had been finished. He could go
+to her and claim her.</p>
+
+<p>He called her on the telephone from his
+office, and the Mexican maid answered. She
+would see if Miss Roth was in. After a long
+wait she reported that Miss Roth was out. He
+tried again that day, and a third time the next
+morning with a like result.</p>
+
+<p>This filled him with anxious, angry bewilderment.
+He felt sure she had not really been out
+all three times. Were her mother and brother
+keeping his message from her? Or had something
+turned her against him? He remembered
+with a keen pang of anxiety, for the first time,
+<pb n="128"/><anchor id="Pg128"/>
+the insinuations of Father Lugaria. Could that
+miserable rumour have reached her? He had no
+idea how she would have taken it if it had. He
+really did not know or understand this girl at
+all; he merely loved her and desired her with a
+desire which had become the ruling necessity of
+his life. To him she was a being of a different
+sort, from a different world&mdash;a mystery. They
+had nothing in common but a rebellious discontent
+with life, and this glamorous bewildering
+thing, so much stronger than they, so far
+beyond their comprehension, which they called
+their love.</p>
+
+<p>That was the one thing he knew and counted
+on. He knew how imperiously it drove him, and
+he knew that she had felt its power too. He had
+seen it shine in her eyes, part her lips; he had
+heard it in her voice, and felt it tremble in her
+body. If only he could get to her this potent
+thing would carry them to its purpose through
+all barriers.</p>
+
+<p>Angry and resolute, he set himself to a systematic
+campaign of telephoning. At last she
+answered. Her voice was level, quiet, weary.</p>
+
+<p><q>But I have an engagement for tonight,</q> she
+told him.</p>
+
+<p><q>Then let me come tomorrow,</q> he urged.</p>
+
+<p><q>No; I can&rsquo;t do that. Mother is having some
+people to dinner.&hellip;</q></p>
+<pb n="129"/><anchor id="Pg129"/>
+
+<p>At last he begged her to set a date, but she refused,
+declared that her plans were unfixed, told
+him to call <q>some other time.</q></p>
+
+<p>His touchy pride rebelled now. He cursed
+these gringos. He hated them. He wished
+for the power to leave her alone, to humble her
+by neglect. But he knew that he did have it.
+Instead he waited a few days and then drove to
+the house in his car, having first carefully ascertained
+by watching that she was at home.</p>
+
+<p>All three of them received him in their sitting
+room, which they called the library. It was an
+attractive room, sunny and tastefully furnished,
+with a couple of book cases filled with new-looking
+books in sets, a silver tea service on a little
+wheeled table, flowers that matched the wall
+paper, and a heavy mahogany table strewn with
+a not-too-disorderly array of magazines and
+paper knives. It was the envy of the local women
+with social aspirations because it looked elegant
+and yet comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>Conversation was slow and painful. Mrs.
+Roth and her son were icily formal, confining
+themselves to the most commonplace remarks.
+And Julia did not help him, as she had on his
+first visit. She looked pale and tired and carefully
+avoided his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>When he had been there about half an hour,
+Mrs. Roth turned to her daughter.</p>
+<pb n="130"/><anchor id="Pg130"/>
+
+<p><q>Julia,</q> she said, <q>If we are going to get to
+Mrs. MacDougall&rsquo;s at half-past four you must
+go and get ready. You will excuse her, won&rsquo;t you
+Mr. Delcasar?</q></p>
+
+<p>The girl obediently went up stairs without
+shaking hands, and a few minutes later Ramon
+went away, feeling more of misery and less of
+self-confidence than ever before in his life.</p>
+
+<p>He almost wholly neglected his work. Cortez
+brought him a report that MacDougall had a
+new agent, who was working actively in Arriba
+County, but he paid no attention to it. His
+life seemed to have lost purpose and interest.
+For the first time he doubted her love. For the
+first time he really feared that he would lose her.</p>
+
+<p>Most of his leisure was spent riding or walking
+about the streets, in the hope of catching a glimpse
+of her. He passed her house as often as he
+dared, and studied her movements. When he
+saw her in the distance he felt an acute thrill of
+mingled hope and misery. Only once did he meet
+her fairly, walking with her brother, and then
+she either failed to see him or pretended not to.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon about five o&rsquo;clock he left his
+office and started home in his car. A storm was
+piling up rapidly in big black clouds that rose
+from behind the eastern mountains like giants
+peering from ambush. It was sultry; there were
+loud peals of thunder and long crooked flashes of
+<pb n="131"/><anchor id="Pg131"/>
+lightning. At this season of late summer the
+weather staged such a portentous display almost
+every afternoon, and it rained heavily in the
+mountains; but the showers only reached the
+thirsty <hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi> and
+valley lands about one day in
+four.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon drove home slowly, gloomily wondering
+whether it would rain and hoping that it
+would. A Southwesterner is always hoping for
+rain, and in his present mood the rush and beat of
+a storm would have been especially welcome.</p>
+
+<p>His hopes were soon fulfilled. There was a
+cold blast of wind, carrying a few big drops, and
+then a sudden, drumming downpour that tore up
+the dust of the street and swiftly converted it
+into a sea of mud cut by yellow rivulets.</p>
+
+<p>As his car roared down the empty street, he
+glimpsed a woman standing in the shelter of a big
+cottonwood tree, cowering against its trunk. A
+quick thrill shot through his body. He jammed
+down the brake so suddenly that his car skidded
+and sloughed around. He carefully turned and
+brought up at the curb.</p>
+
+<p>She started at sight of him as he ran across the
+side-walk toward her.</p>
+
+<p><q>Come on quick!</q> he commanded, taking her
+by the arm, <q>I&rsquo;ll get you home.</q> Before she
+had time to say anything he had her in the car,
+and they were driving toward the Roth house.
+<pb n="132"/><anchor id="Pg132"/>
+By the time they had reached it the first strength
+of the shower was spent, and there was only a
+light scattering rain with a rift showing in the
+clouds over the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>He deliberately passed the house, putting on
+more speed as he did so.</p>
+
+<p><q>But &hellip; I thought you were going to take me
+home,</q> she said, putting a hand on his arm.</p>
+
+<p><q>I&rsquo;m not,</q> he announced, without looking
+around. His hands and eyes were fully occupied
+with his driving, but a great suspense held his
+breath. The hand left his arm, and he heard her
+settle back in her seat with a sigh. A great
+warm wave of joy surged through him.</p>
+
+<p>He took the mountain road, which was a short
+cut between Old Town and the mountains,
+seldom used except by wood wagons. Within
+ten minutes they were speeding across the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>.
+The rain was over and the clouds running across
+the sky in tatters before a fresh west wind. Before
+them the rolling grey-green waste of the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>, spotted
+and veined with silver waters,
+reached to the blue rim of the mountains&mdash;empty
+and free as an undiscovered world.</p>
+
+<p>He slowed his car to ten miles an hour and
+leaned back, steering with one hand. The other
+fell upon hers, and closed over it. For a time
+they drove along in silence, conscious only of that
+<pb n="133"/><anchor id="Pg133"/>
+electrical contact, and of the wind playing in their
+faces and the soft rhythmical hum of the great
+engine.</p>
+
+<p>At the crest of a rise he stopped the car and
+stood up, looking all about at the vast quiet wilderness,
+filling his lungs with air. He liked that
+serene emptiness. He had always felt at peace
+with these still desolate lands that had been the
+background of most of his life. Now, with the
+consciousness of the woman beside him, they filled
+him with a sort of rapture, an ecstasy of reverence
+that had come down to him perhaps from
+savage forebears who had worshipped the Earth
+Mother with love and awe.</p>
+
+<p>He dropped down beside her again and without
+hesitation gathered her into his arms. After
+a moment he held her a little away from him and
+looked into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p><q>Why wouldn&rsquo;t you let me come to see you?
+Why did you treat me that way?</q> he plead.</p>
+
+<p>She dropped her eyes.</p>
+
+<p><q>They made me.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>But why? Because I&rsquo;m a Mexican? And
+does that make any difference to you?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>O, I can&rsquo;t tell you.&hellip; They say awful
+things about you. I don&rsquo;t believe them. No;
+nothing about you makes any difference to me.</q></p>
+
+<p>He held her close again.</p>
+<pb n="134"/><anchor id="Pg134"/>
+
+<p><q>Then you&rsquo;ll go away with me?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Yes,</q> she answered slowly, nodding her head.
+<q>I&rsquo;ll go anywhere with you.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Now!</q> he demanded. <q>Will you go now?
+We can drive through Scissors Pass to Abol on
+the Southeastern and take a train to Denver.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p><q>O, no, not now,</q> she plead. <q>Please not
+now.&hellip; I can&rsquo;t go like this.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Yes; now,</q> he urged. <q>We&rsquo;ll never have a
+better chance.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p><q>I beg you, if you love me, don&rsquo;t make me go
+now. I must think &hellip; and get ready.&hellip; Why
+I haven&rsquo;t even got any powder for my nose.</q></p>
+
+<p>They both laughed. The tension was broken.
+They were happy.</p>
+
+<p><q>Give me a little while to get ready,</q> she
+proposed, <q>and I&rsquo;ll go when you say.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>You promise?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Cross my heart.&hellip; On my life and honour.
+Please take me home now, so they won&rsquo;t suspect
+anything. If only nobody sees us! Please hurry.
+It&rsquo;ll be dark pretty soon. You can write to me.
+It&rsquo;s so lonely out here!</q></p>
+
+<p>He turned his car and drove slowly townward,
+his free hand seeking hers again. It was dusk
+when they reached the streets. Stopping his car
+in the shadow of a tree, he kissed her and helped
+her out.</p>
+
+<p>He sat still and watched her out of sight. A
+<pb n="135"/><anchor id="Pg135"/>
+tinge of sadness and regret crept into his mind,
+and as he drove homeward it grew into an active
+discontent with himself. Why had he let her
+go? True, he had proved her love, but now she
+was to be captured all over again. He ought to
+have taken her. He had been a fool. She
+would have gone. She had begged him not to
+take her, but if he had insisted, she would have
+gone. He had been a fool!</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC18" type="chapter">
+<pb n="136"/><anchor id="Pg136"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XVIII</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>The second morning after this ride, while he
+was labouring over a note to the girl, he was
+amazed to get one from her postmarked at
+Lorietta, a station a hundred miles north of town
+at the foot of the Mora Mountains, in which
+many of the town people spent their summer vacations.
+It was a small square missive, exhaling a
+faint scent of lavender, and was simple and direct
+as a telegram.</p>
+
+<p><q>We have gone to the Valley Ranch for a
+month,</q> she wrote. <q>We had not intended to go
+until August, but there was a sudden change of
+plans. Somebody saw you and me yesterday. I
+had an awful time. Please don&rsquo;t try to see me
+or write to me while we&rsquo;re here. It will be best
+for us. I&rsquo;ll be back soon. I love you.</q></p>
+
+<p>He sat glumly thinking over this letter for a
+long time. The disappointment of learning that
+he would not see her for a month was bad enough,
+but it was not the worst thing about this
+sudden development. For this made him realize
+what alert and active opposition he faced on the
+part of her mother and brother. Their dislike
+for him had been made manifest again and again,
+<pb n="137"/><anchor id="Pg137"/>
+but he had supposed that Julia was successfully
+deceiving them as to his true relations with her.
+He had thought that he was regarded merely as
+an undesirable acquaintance; but if they were
+changing their plans because of him, taking the
+girl out of his reach, they must have guessed the
+true state of affairs. And for all that he knew,
+they might leave the country at any time. His
+heart seemed to give a sharp twist in his body at
+this thought. He must take her as soon as she
+returned to town. He could not afford to miss
+another chance. And meantime his affairs must
+be gotten in order.</p>
+
+<p>He had been neglecting his new responsibilities,
+and there was an astonishing number of things to
+be done&mdash;debts to be paid, tax assessments to be
+protested, men to be hired for the sheep-shearing.
+His uncle had left his affairs at loose ends, and on
+all hands were men bent on taking advantage of
+the fact. But he knew the law; he had known
+from childhood the business of raising sheep on
+the open range which was the backbone of his
+fortune; and he was held in a straight course by
+the determination to keep his resources together
+so that they would strengthen him in his purpose.</p>
+
+<p>A few weeks before, he had sent Cortez to
+Arriba County to attend to some minor matters
+there, and incidentally to learn if possible what
+MacDougall was doing. Cortez had spent a
+<pb n="138"/><anchor id="Pg138"/>
+large part of his time talking with the Mexicans
+in the San Antonio Valley, eavesdropping on conversations
+in little country stores, making friends,
+and asking discreet questions at
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">bailes</hi> and
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">fiestas</hi>.</p>
+
+<p><q>Well; how goes it up there?</q> Ramon asked
+him when he came to the office to make his report.</p>
+
+<p><q>It looks bad enough,</q> Cortez replied lighting
+with evident satisfaction the big cigar his patron
+had given him. <q>MacDougall has men working
+there all the time. He bought a small ranch on
+the edge of the valley just the other day. He is
+not making very fast progress, but he&rsquo;ll own the
+valley in time if we don&rsquo;t stop him.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>But who is doing the work? Who is his
+agent?</q> Ramon enquired.</p>
+
+<p><q>Old Solomon Alfego, for one. He&rsquo;s boss of
+the county, you know. He hates a gringo as
+much as any man alive, but he loves a dollar, too,
+and MacDougall has bought him, I&rsquo;m afraid. I
+think MacDougall is lending money through him,
+getting mortgages on ranches that way.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Well; what do you think we had better do?</q>
+Ramon enquired. The situation looked bad
+on its face, but he could see that Cortez had a
+plan.</p>
+
+<p><q>Just one thing I thought of,</q> the little man
+answered slowly. <q>We have got to get Alfego
+on our side. If we can do that, we can keep out
+MacDougall and everybody else &hellip; buy when
+<pb n="139"/><anchor id="Pg139"/>
+we get ready. We couldn&rsquo;t pay Alfego much,
+but we could let him in on the railroad deal &hellip;
+something MacDougall won&rsquo;t do. And Alfego,
+you know, is a <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitente</hi>.
+He&rsquo;s <hi rend="font-style: italic">hermano mayor</hi>
+(chief brother) up there. And all those little
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">rancheros</hi> are
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes</hi>. It&rsquo;s the strongest
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">penitente</hi> county
+in the State, and you know none
+of the <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes</hi>
+like gringos. None of those
+fellows like MacDougall; they&rsquo;re all afraid of
+him. All they like is his money. You haven&rsquo;t so
+much money, but you could spend some. You
+could give a few <hi rend="font-style: italic">bailes</hi>.
+You are Mexican; your
+family is well-known. If you were a
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">penitente</hi>,
+too.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>Cortez left his sentence hanging in the air.
+He nodded his head slowly, his cigar cocked at a
+knowing angle, looking at Ramon through narrowed
+lids.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon sat looking straight before him for a
+moment. He saw in imagination a procession of
+men trudging half-naked in the raw March
+weather, their backs gashed so that blood ran
+down to their heels, beating themselves and each
+other.&hellip; The <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes</hi>!
+Other men, even
+gringos, had risen to power by joining the order.
+Why not he? It would give him just the prestige
+and standing he needed in that country. He
+would lose a little blood. He would win &hellip;
+everything!</p>
+<pb n="140"/><anchor id="Pg140"/>
+
+<p><q>You are right, <hi rend="font-style: italic">amigo</hi>,</q>
+he told Cortez. <q>But
+do you think it can be arranged?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>I have talked to Alfego about it,</q> Cortez
+admitted. <q>I think it can be arranged.</q></p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC19" type="chapter">
+<pb n="141"/><anchor id="Pg141"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XIX</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>He was all ready to leave for Arriba County
+when one more black mischance came to bedevil
+him. Cortez came into the office with a worried
+look in his usually unrevealing eyes.</p>
+
+<p><q>There&rsquo;s a woman in town looking for you,</q>
+he announced. <q>A Mexican girl from the
+country. She was asking everybody she met
+where to find you. You ought to be more
+careful. I took her to my house and promised I
+would bring you right away.</q></p>
+
+<p>Cortez lived in a little square box of a brick
+cottage, which he had been buying slowly for the
+past ten years and would probably never own.
+In its parlour, gaudy with cheap, new furniture,
+Ramon confronted Catalina Archulera. She was
+clad in a dirty calico dress, and her shoes were
+covered with the dust of long tramping, as was
+the black shawl about her head and shoulders.
+Once he had thought her pretty, but now she
+looked to him about as attractive as a clod of
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>She stood before him with downcast eyes,
+speechless with misery and embarassment. At
+first he was utterly puzzled as to what could have
+<pb n="142"/><anchor id="Pg142"/>
+brought her there. Then with a queer mixture
+of anger and pity and disgust, he noticed the
+swollen bulk of her healthy young body.</p>
+
+<p><q>Catalina! Why did you come here?</q> he
+blurted, all his self-possession gone for a moment.</p>
+
+<p><q>My father sent me,</q> she replied, as simply as
+though that were an all-sufficient explanation.</p>
+
+<p><q>But why did you tell him &hellip; it was I?
+Why didn&rsquo;t you come to me first?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>He made me tell,</q> Catalina rolled back her
+sleeve and showed some blue bruises. <q>He beat
+me,</q> she explained without emotion.</p>
+
+<p><q>What did he tell you to say?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>He told me to come to you and show you how
+I am.&hellip; That is all.</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon swore aloud with a break in his voice.
+For a long moment he stood looking at her, bewildered,
+disgusted. It somehow seemed to him
+utterly wrong, utterly unfair that this thing should
+have happened, and above all that it should have
+happened now. He had taken other girls, as had
+every other man, but never before had any such
+hard luck as this befallen him. And now, of
+all times!</p>
+
+<p>In Catalina he felt not the faintest interest.
+Before him was the proof that once he had desired
+her. Now that desire had vanished as completely
+as his childhood.</p>
+
+<p>And she was Archulera&rsquo;s daughter. That was
+<pb n="143"/><anchor id="Pg143"/>
+the hell of it! Archulera was the one man of all
+men whom he could least afford to offend. And
+he knew just how hard to appease the old man
+would be. For among the Mexicans, seduction
+is a crime which, in theory and often in practice,
+can be atoned only by marriage or by the shedding
+of blood. Marriage is the door to freedom for
+the women, but virginity is a thing greatly revered
+and carefully guarded. The unmarried girl is
+always watched, often locked up, and he who
+appropriates her to his own purpose is violating
+a sacred right and offending her whole family.</p>
+
+<p>In the towns, all this has been somewhat
+changed, as the customs of any country suffer
+change in towns. But old Archulera, living in
+his lonely canyon, proud of his high lineage,
+would be the hardest of men to appease. And
+meantime, what was to be done with the girl?</p>
+
+<p>It was this problem which brought his wits
+back to him. A plan began to form in his mind.
+He saw that in sending her to him Archulera had
+really played into his hands. The important
+thing now was to keep her away from her father.
+He looked at her again, and the pity which he
+always felt for weaklings welled up in him. He
+knew many Mexican ranches in the valley where
+he could keep her in comfort for a small amount.
+That would serve a double purpose. The old
+man would be kept in ignorance as to what Ramon
+<pb n="144"/><anchor id="Pg144"/>
+intended, and the girl would be saved from
+<corr sic="furthur"><anchor id="E8"/>
+<ref target="e8">further</ref></corr>
+punishment. Meantime, he could send
+Cortez to see Archulera and find out what money
+would do.</p>
+
+<p>The whole affair was big with potential damage
+to him. Some of his enemies might find out
+about it and make a scandal. Archulera might
+come around in an ugly mood and make trouble.
+The girl might run away and come to town again.
+And yet, now that he had a plan, he was all
+confidence.</p>
+
+<p>Cortez kept Catalina at his house while Ramon
+drove forty miles up the valley and made arrangements
+with a Mexican who lived in an isolated
+place, to care for her for an indefinite period.
+When he took Catalina there, he told her on the
+way simply that she was to wait until he came for
+her, and above all, that she must not try to communicate
+with her father. The girl nodded,
+looking at him gravely with her large soft eyes.
+Her lot had always been to obey, to bear burdens
+and to suffer. The stuff of rebellion and of self-assertion
+was not in her, but she could endure misfortune
+with the stoical indifference of a savage.
+Indeed, she was in all essentials simply a squaw.
+During the ride to her new home she seemed more
+interested in the novel sensation of travelling at
+thirty miles an hour than in her own future. She
+clung to the side of the car with both hands, and
+<pb n="145"/><anchor id="Pg145"/>
+her face reflected a pathetic mingling of fear and
+delight.</p>
+
+<p>The house of Nestor Gomez to which Ramon
+took her was prettily set in a grove of cottonwoods,
+with white hollyhocks blooming on either
+side of the door, and strings of red chile hanging
+from the rafter-ends to dry. Half a dozen
+small children played about the door, the younger
+ones naked and all of them deep in dirt. A hen
+led her brood of chicks into the house on a foray
+for crumbs, and in the shade of the wall a mongrel
+bitch luxuriously gave teat to four pups. Bees
+humming about the hollyhocks bathed the scene
+in sleepy sound.</p>
+
+<p>Catalina, utterly unembarassed, shook hands
+with her host and hostess in the limp, brief way
+of the Mexicans, and then, while Ramon talked
+with them, sat down in the shade, shook loose
+her heavy black hair and began to comb it. A
+little half-naked urchin of three years came and
+stood before her. She stopped combing to place
+her hands on his shoulders, and the two regarded
+each other long and intently, while Catalina&rsquo;s
+mouth framed a smile of dull wonder.</p>
+
+<p>As Ramon drove back to town, he marvelled
+that he should ever have desired this clod of a
+woman; but he was grateful to her for the bovine
+calm with which she accepted things. He would
+visit her once in a while. He felt pretty sure
+<pb n="146"/><anchor id="Pg146"/>
+that he could count on her not to make trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Afterward he discussed the situation with
+Cortez. The latter was worried.</p>
+
+<p><q>You better look out,</q> he counselled. <q>You
+better send him a message you are going to marry
+her. That will keep him quiet for a while.
+When he gets over being mad, maybe you can
+make him take a thousand dollars instead.</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon shook his head. If he gave Archulera
+to understand that he would marry the girl, word
+of it might get to town.</p>
+
+<p><q>He&rsquo;ll never find her,</q> he said confidently.
+<q>I&rsquo;ll do nothing unless he comes to me.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>I don&rsquo;t know,</q> Cortez replied doubtfully.
+<q>Is he a <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitente</hi>?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Yes; I think he is,</q> Ramon admitted.</p>
+
+<p><q>Then maybe he&rsquo;ll find her pretty quick.
+There are some <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes</hi>
+still in the valley and
+all <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes</hi>
+work together. You better look
+out.</q></p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC20" type="chapter">
+<pb n="147"/><anchor id="Pg147"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XX</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>He had resolutely put the thought of Julia as
+much out of his mind as possible. He had
+conquered his disappointment at not being able to
+see her for a month, and had resolved to devote
+that month exclusively to hard work. And now
+came another one of those small, square, brief
+letters with its disturbing scent of lavender, and
+its stamp stuck upside down near the middle of
+the envelope.</p>
+
+<p><q>I will be in town tomorrow when you get
+this,</q> she wrote, <q>But only for a day or two. We
+are going to move up to the capital for the rest of
+the year. Gordon is going to stay here now.
+Just mother and I are coming down to pack up
+our things. You can come and see me tomorrow
+evening.</q></p>
+
+<p>It was astonishing, it was disturbing, it was
+incomprehensible. And it did not fit in with his
+plans. He had intended to go North and return
+before she did; then, with all his affairs in order,
+ask her to go away with him. Cortez had
+already sent word to Alfego that Ramon was
+coming to Arriba County. He could not afford
+a change of plans now. But the prospect of
+<pb n="148"/><anchor id="Pg148"/>
+seeing her again filled him with pleasure, sent a
+sort of weakening excitement tingling through
+his body.</p>
+
+<p>And what did it mean that he was to be allowed
+to call on her? Had she, by any chance, won
+over her mother and brother? No; he couldn&rsquo;t
+believe it. But he went to her house that evening
+shaken by great hopes and anticipations.</p>
+
+<p>She wore a black dress that left her shoulders
+bare, and set off the slim perfection of her little
+figure. Her face was flushed and her eyes were
+deep. How much more beautiful she was than
+the image he carried in his mind! He had been
+thinking of her all this while, and yet he had forgotten
+how beautiful she was. He could think
+of nothing to say at first, but held her by both
+hands and looked at her with eyes of wonder
+and desire. He felt a fool because his knees were
+weak and he was tremulous. But a happy fool!
+The touch and the sight of her seemed to dissolve
+his strength, and also the hardness and the bitterness
+that life had bred in him, the streak of
+animal ferocity that struggle brought out in him.
+He was all desire, but desire bathed in tenderness
+and hope. She made him feel as once long ago
+he had felt in church when the music and the
+pageantry and sweet odours of the place had filled
+his childish spirit with a strange sense of harmony.
+He had felt small and unworthy, yet happy and
+<pb n="149"/><anchor id="Pg149"/>
+forgiven. So now he felt in her presence that he
+was black and bestial beside her, but that possession
+of her would somehow wash him clean and
+bring him peace.</p>
+
+<p>When he tried to draw her to him she shook
+her head, not meeting his eyes and freed herself
+gently.</p>
+
+<p><q>No, no. I must tell you.&hellip;</q> She led
+him to a seat, and went on, looking down at a toe
+that played with a design in the carpet. <q>I must
+explain. I promised mother that if she would
+let me see you this once to tell you, I would never
+try to see you again.</q></p>
+
+<p>There was a long silence, during which he
+could feel his heart pounding and could see that
+she breathed quickly. Then suddenly he took her
+face in both hot hands and turned it toward him,
+made her meet his eyes.</p>
+
+<p><q>But of course you didn&rsquo;t mean that,</q> he said.</p>
+
+<p>She struggled weakly against his strength.</p>
+
+<p><q>I don&rsquo;t know. I thought I did.&hellip; It&rsquo;s terrible.
+You know&hellip; I wrote you &hellip; some
+one saw us together. Gordon and mother found
+out about it. I won&rsquo;t tell you all that they said,
+but it was awful. It made me angry, and they
+found out that I love you. It had a terrible effect
+on Gordon. It made him worse. I can&rsquo;t tell you
+how awful it is for me. I love you. But I love
+him too. And to think I&rsquo;m hurting him when
+<pb n="150"/><anchor id="Pg150"/>
+he&rsquo;s sick, when I&rsquo;ve lived in the hope he would get
+well.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>She was breathing hard now. Her eyes were
+bright with tears. All her defences were down,
+her fine dignity vanished. When he took her in
+his arms she struggled a little at first; then yielded
+with closed eyes to his hot kisses.</p>
+
+<p>Afterward they talked a little, but not to much
+purpose. He had important things to tell her,
+they had plans to make. But their great disturbing
+hunger for each other would not let them
+think of anything else. Their conversation was
+always interrupted by hot confusing embraces.</p>
+
+<p>The clock struck eleven, and she jumped up.</p>
+
+<p><q>I promised to make you go home at eleven,</q>
+she told him.</p>
+
+<p><q>But I must tell you &hellip; I have to leave town
+for a while.</q> He found his tongue suddenly.
+Briefly he outlined the situation he faced with
+regard to his estate. Of course, he said nothing
+about the <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes</hi>,
+but he made her understand
+that he was going forth to fight for both their
+fortunes.</p>
+
+<p><q>I can&rsquo;t do it, I won&rsquo;t go, unless I know I am
+to have you,</q> he finished. <q>Everything I have
+done, everything I am going to do is for you. If
+I lose you I lose everything. You promise to go
+with me?</q></p>
+
+<p>His eyes were burning with earnestness, and
+<pb n="151"/><anchor id="Pg151"/>
+hers were wide with admiration. He did not
+really understand her, nor she him. Unalterable
+differences of race and tradition and temperament
+stood between them. They had little in common
+save a great primitive hunger. But that, none-the-less,
+for the moment genuinely transfigured
+and united them.</p>
+
+<p>She drew a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p><q>Yes. You must promise not to try to see me
+until then. When you are ready, let me know.</q></p>
+
+<p>She threw back her head, opening her arms to
+him. For a moment she hung limp in his embrace;
+then pushed him away and ran upstairs,
+leaving him to find his way out alone.</p>
+
+<p>He walked home slowly, trying to straighten
+out his thoughts. Her presence seemed still to
+be all about him. One of her hairs was tangled
+about a button of his coat; her powder and the
+scent of her were all over his shoulder; the recollection
+of her kisses smarted sweetly on his
+mouth. He was weak, confused, ridiculously
+happy. But he knew that he would carry North
+with him greater courage and purpose than ever
+before he had known.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC21" type="chapter">
+<pb n="152"/><anchor id="Pg152"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXI</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>In the dry clean air of the Southwest all things
+change slowly. Growth is slow and decay is even
+slower. The body of a dead horse in the desert
+does not rot but dessicates, the hide remaining
+intact for months, the bones perhaps for years.
+Men and beasts often live to great age. The
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">pinon</hi> trees on
+the red hills were there when the
+conquerors came, and they are not much larger
+now&mdash;only more gnarled and twisted.</p>
+
+<p>This strange inertia seems to possess institutions
+and customs as well as life itself. In the
+valley towns, it is true, the railroads have brought
+and thrown down all the conveniences and incongruities
+of civilization. But ride away from the
+railroads into the mountains or among the lava
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">mesas</hi>, and you
+are riding into the past. You
+will see little earthen towns, brown or golden or
+red in the sunlight, according to the soil that bore
+them, which have not changed in a century. You
+will see grain threshed by herds of goats and
+ponies driven around and around the threshing
+floors, as men threshed grain before the Bible was
+written. You will see Indian pueblos which have
+not changed materially since the brave days when
+<pb n="153"/><anchor id="Pg153"/>
+Coronado came to Taos and the Spanish soldiers
+stormed the heights of Acoma. You will hear
+of strange Gods and devils and of the evil eye.
+It is almost as though this crystalline air were
+indeed a great clear crystal, impervious to time,
+in which the past is forever encysted.</p>
+
+<p>The region in which Ramon&rsquo;s heritage lay was
+a typical part of this forgotten land. In the
+southern end of the Rocky Mountains, it was a
+country of great tilted
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">mesas</hi> reaching above
+timber line, covered for the most part with heavy
+forests of pine and fir, with here and there great
+upland pastures swept clean by forest fires of
+long ago. Along the lower slopes of the mountains,
+where the valleys widened, were primitive
+little <hi rend="font-style: italic">adobe</hi>
+towns, in which the Mexicans lived,
+each owning a few acres of tillable land. In the
+summer they followed their sheep herds in the
+upland pastures. There were not a hundred
+white men in the whole of Arriba County, and no
+railroad touched it.</p>
+
+<p>In this region a few Mexicans who were
+shrewder or stronger than the others, who owned
+stores or land, dominated the rest of the people
+much as the <hi rend="font-style: italic">patrones</hi>
+had dominated them in the
+days before the Mexican War. Here still
+flourished the hatred for the gringo which culminated
+in that war. Here that strange sect, the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes hermanos</hi>,
+half savage and half mediaeval,
+<pb n="154"/><anchor id="Pg154"/>
+still was strong and still recruited its
+strength every year with young men, who elsewhere
+were refusing to undergo its brutal tortures.</p>
+
+<p>For all of these reasons, this was an advantageous
+field for the fight Ramon proposed to
+make. In the valley MacDougall&rsquo;s money and
+influence would surely have beaten him. But
+here he could play upon the ancient hatred for the
+gringo; here he could use to the best advantage the
+prestige of his family; here, above all, if he could
+win over the <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes</hi>,
+he could do almost anything
+he pleased.</p>
+
+<p>His plan of joining that ancient order to gain
+influence was not an original one. Mexican
+politicians and perhaps one or two gringos had
+done it, and the fact was a matter of common
+gossip. Some of these <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes</hi>
+for a purpose
+had been men of great influence, and their initiations
+had been tempered to suit their sensitive
+skins. Others had been Mexicans of the poorer
+sort, capable of sharing the half-fanatic, half sadistic
+spirit of the thing.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon came to the order as a young and almost
+unknown man seeking its aid. He could not hope
+for much mercy. And though he was primitive
+in many ways, there was nothing in him that
+responded to the spirit of this ordeal. The
+thought of Christ crucified did not inspire him to
+endure suffering. But the thought of a girl with
+yellow hair did.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC22" type="chapter">
+<pb n="155"/><anchor id="Pg155"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXII</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>Ramon went first to the ranch at the foot of
+the mountains which his uncle had used as a headquarters,
+and which had belonged to the family
+for about half a century. It consisted merely
+of an <hi rend="font-style: italic">adobe</hi> ranch house
+and barn and a log corral
+for rounding up horses.</p>
+
+<p>Here Ramon left his machine. Here also he
+exchanged his business suit for corduroys, a wide
+hat and high-heeled riding boots. He greatly
+fancied himself in this costume and he embellished
+it with a silk bandana of bright scarlet and with
+a large pair of silver spurs which had belonged
+to his uncle, and which he found in the saddle
+room of the barn. From the accoutrement in
+this room he also selected the most pretentious-looking
+saddle. It was a heavy stock saddle,
+with German silver mountings and saddle bags
+covered with black bear fur. A small red and
+black Navajo blanket served as a saddle pad and
+he found a fine Navajo bridle, too, woven of
+black horsehair, with a big hand-hammered silver
+buckle on each cheek.</p>
+
+<p>He had the old Mexican who acted as caretaker
+for the ranch drive all of the ranch horses into
+<pb n="156"/><anchor id="Pg156"/>
+the corral, and chose a spirited roan mare for a
+saddle animal. He always rode a roan horse
+when he could get one because a roan mustang
+has more spirit than one of any other colour.</p>
+
+<p>The most modern part of his equipment was
+his weapon. He did not want to carry one
+openly, so he had purchased a small but highly
+efficient automatic pistol, which he wore in a
+shoulder scabbard inside his shirt and under his
+left elbow.</p>
+
+<p>When his preparations were completed he
+rode straight to the town of Alfego where the
+powerful Solomon had his establishment, dismounted
+under the big cottonwoods and strolled
+into the long, dark cluttered
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">adobe</hi> room which
+was Solomon Alfego&rsquo;s store. Three or four Mexican
+clerks were waiting upon as many Mexican
+customers, with much polite, low-voiced conversation,
+punctuated by long silences while the customers
+turned the goods over and over in their
+hands. Ramon&rsquo;s entrance created a slight diversion.
+None of them knew him, for he had not
+been in that country for years, but all of them
+recognized that he was a person of weight and
+importance. He saluted all at once, lifting his
+hat, with a cordial <q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Como
+lo va, amigos</hi>,</q> and
+then devoted himself to an apparently interested
+inspection of the stock. This, if conscientiously
+<pb n="157"/><anchor id="Pg157"/>
+done, would have afforded a week&rsquo;s occupation,
+for Solomon Alfego served as sole merchant for
+a large territory and had to be prepared to supply
+almost every human want. There were shelves
+of dry goods and of hardware, of tobacco and of
+medicines. In the centre of the store was
+a long rack, heavily laden with saddlery and
+harness of all kinds, and all around the top of the
+room, above the shelves, ran a row of religious
+pictures, including popes, saints, and cardinals,
+Mary with the infant, Christ crucified and Christ
+bearing the cross, all done in bright colours and
+framed, for sale at about three dollars each.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long before word of the stranger&rsquo;s
+arrival reached Alfego in his little office behind
+the store, and he came bustling out, beaming and
+polite.</p>
+
+<p><q>This is Senor Solomon Alfego?</q> Ramon
+enquired in his most formal Spanish.</p>
+
+<p><q>I am Solomon Alfego,</q> replied the bulky little
+man, with a low bow, <q>and what can I do for the
+Senor?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>I am Ramon Delcasar,</q> Ramon replied, extending
+his hand with a smile, <q>and it may be that
+you can do much for me.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Ah-h-h!</q> breathed Alfego, with another bow,
+<q>Ramon Delcasar! And I knew you when you
+were <hi rend="font-style: italic">un muchachito</hi></q>
+(a little boy). He bent
+<pb n="158"/><anchor id="Pg158"/>
+over and measured scant two feet from the floor
+with his hand. <q>My house is yours. I am at
+your service. <hi rend="font-style: italic">Siempre!</hi></q></p>
+
+<p>The two strolled about the store, talking of
+the weather, politics, business, the old days&mdash;everything
+except what they were both thinking
+about. Alfego opened a box of cigars, and having
+lit a couple of these, they went out on the long
+porch and sat down on an old buggy seat to
+continue the conversation. Alfego admired
+Ramon&rsquo;s horse and especially his silver-mounted
+saddle.</p>
+
+<p><q>Ha! you like the saddle!</q> Ramon exclaimed
+in well-stimulated delight. He rose, swiftly undid
+the cinches, and dropped saddle and blanket
+at the feet of his host. <q>It is yours!</q> he announced.</p>
+
+<p><q>A thousand thanks,</q> Alfego replied. <q>Come;
+I wish to show you some Navajo blankets I
+bought the other day.</q> He led the way into the
+store, and directed one of his clerks to bring forth
+a great stack of the heavy Indian weaves, and
+began turning them over. They were blankets
+of the best quality, and some of the designs in red,
+black and grey were of exceptional beauty.
+Ramon stood smiling while his host turned over
+one blanket after another. As he displayed each
+one he turned his bright pop-eyes on Ramon with
+an eager enquiring look. At last when he had
+<pb n="159"/><anchor id="Pg159"/>
+seen them all, Ramon permitted himself to pick up
+and examine the one he considered the best with
+a restrained murmur of admiration.</p>
+
+<p><q>You like it!</q> exclaimed Alfego with delight.
+<q>It is yours!</q></p>
+
+<p>Mutual good feeling having thus been signalized
+in the traditional Mexican manner by an exchange
+of gifts, Alfego now showed his guest all
+over his establishment. It included, in addition to
+the store, several ware rooms where were piled
+stinking bales of sheep and goat and cow hides,
+sacks of raw wool and of corn, pelts of wild
+animals and bags of
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">pinon</hi> nuts, and of beans, all
+taken from the Mexicans in trade. Afterward
+Ramon met the family, of patriarchal proportions,
+including an astonishing number of little brown
+children having the bright eyes and well developed
+noses of the great Solomon. Then came supper,
+a long and bountiful feast, at which great quantities
+of mutton, chile, and beans were served.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus been duly impressed with the
+greatness and substance of his host, and also with
+his friendly attitude, Ramon was led into the
+little office, offered a seat and a fresh cigar. He
+knew that at last the proper time had come for
+him to declare himself.</p>
+
+<p><q>My friend,</q> he said, leaning toward Alfego
+confidentially, <q>I have come to this country and to
+you for a great purpose. You know that a rich
+<pb n="160"/><anchor id="Pg160"/>
+gringo has been buying the lands of the poor
+people&mdash;my people and yours&mdash;all through this
+country. You know that he intends to own all of
+this country&mdash;to take it away from us Mexicans.
+If he succeeds, he will take away all of your
+business, all of my lands. You and I must fight
+him together. Am I right?</q></p>
+
+<p>Solomon nodded his head slowly, watching
+Ramon with wide bright eyes.</p>
+
+<p><q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Verdad!</hi></q>
+he pronounced unctuously.</p>
+
+<p><q>I have come,</q> Ramon went on more boldly,
+<q>because my own lands are in danger, but also
+because I love the Mexican people, and hate the
+gringos! Some one must go among these good
+people and warn them not to sell their lands, not
+to be cheated out of their birthrights. My friend,
+I have come here to do that.</q></p>
+
+<p><q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Bueno!</hi></q> exclaimed Alfego.
+<q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Muy bueno!</hi></q></p>
+
+<p><q>My friend, I must have your help.</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon said this as impressively as possible, and
+paused expectantly, but as Alfego said nothing, he
+went on, gathering his wits for the supreme effort.</p>
+
+<p><q>I know that you are a leader in the great
+fraternity of the penitent brothers, who are the
+best and most pious of men. My friend, I wish
+to become one of them. I wish to mingle my
+blood with theirs and with the blood of Christ,
+that all of us may be united in our great purpose
+<pb n="161"/><anchor id="Pg161"/>
+to keep this country for the Spanish people, who
+conquered it from the barbarians.</q></p>
+
+<p>Alfego looked very grave, puffed his cigar
+violently three times and spat before he answered.</p>
+
+<p><q>My young friend,</q> (he spoke slowly and
+solemnly) <q>to pour out your blood in penance and
+to consecrate your body to Christ is a great thing
+to do. Have you meditated deeply upon this
+step? Are you sure the Lord Jesus has called you
+to his service? And what assurance have I that
+you are sincere in all you say, that if I make you
+my brother in the blood of Christ, you will truly
+be as a brother to me?</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon bowed his head.</p>
+
+<p><q>I have thought long on this,</q> he said softly,
+<q>and I know my heart. I desire to be a blood
+brother to all these, my people. And to you&mdash;I
+give you my word as a Delcasar that I will
+serve you well, that I will be as a brother to you.</q></p>
+
+<p>There was a silence during which Alfego stared
+with profound gravity at the ash on the end of
+his cigar.</p>
+
+<p><q>Have you heard,</q> Ramon went on, in the
+same soft and emotional tone of voice, <q>that the
+Denver and Rio Grande Railroad is going to
+build a line through the San Antonio Valley?</q></p>
+
+<p>Alfego, without altering his look of rapt meditation,
+nodded his head slowly.</p>
+<pb n="162"/><anchor id="Pg162"/>
+
+<p><q>Do you suppose that you will gain anything
+by that, if this gringo gets these lands?</q> Ramon
+went on. <q>You know that you will not. But I
+will make you my partner. And I will give you
+the option on any of my mountain land that you
+may wish to rent for sheep range. More than
+that, I will make you a written agreement to do
+these things. In all ways we will be as brothers.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>You are a worthy and pious young man!</q>
+exclaimed Solomon Alfego, rolling his eyes upward,
+his voice vibrant with emotion. <q>You
+shall be my brother in the blood of Christ.</q></p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC23" type="chapter">
+<pb n="163"/><anchor id="Pg163"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXIII</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>Ramon went to the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">Morada</hi>, the chapter house
+of the <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes</hi>,
+alone and late at night, for all
+of the whippings and initiations of the order,
+except those of Holy Week, are carried on in the
+utmost secrecy.</p>
+
+<p>The <hi rend="font-style: italic">Morada</hi>
+stood halfway up the slope north
+of the little town, at the elevation where the tall
+yellow pines of the mountains begin to replace
+the scrubby juniper and <hi rend="font-style: italic">pinon</hi>
+of the <hi rend="font-style: italic">mesas</hi> and
+foothills. It was a cool moonlit night of late
+summer. A light west wind breathed through
+the trees, making the massive black shadows of
+the juniper bushes faintly alive. As he toiled up
+the rocky path Ramon heard the faraway yap and
+yodel of a coyote, and the still more distant
+answer of another one. From the valley below
+came the intermittent bay of a cur, inspired by the
+moon and his wild kin, and now and then the tiny
+silver tinkle of a goat bell.</p>
+
+<p>The <hi rend="font-style: italic">Morada</hi>
+stood in an open space. It was
+an oblong block of <hi rend="font-style: italic">adobe</hi>,
+and gave forth neither
+light nor sound. Ramon stopped a little way
+from it in the shadow of a tree and lit a cigarette
+to steady his nerves. He felt now for the first
+<pb n="164"/><anchor id="Pg164"/>
+time something of the mystery and terribleness of
+this barbaric order which he proposed to use for
+his purpose. All his life the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes</hi> had been
+to him a well-known fact of life. For the past
+week he had spent much of his time with the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">maestro de novios</hi>
+of the local chapter, a wizened
+old sheep herder, who had instructed him monotonously
+in the secrets of the order, almost lulling
+him to sleep with his endless mumblings of
+the ritual that was written in a little leather book
+a century old. He had learned that if he betrayed
+the secrets of the order, he would be buried
+alive with only his head sticking out of the
+ground, so that the ants might eat his face. He
+had been informed that if he fell ill he would be
+taken to the <hi rend="font-style: italic">Morada</hi>
+where his brothers in Christ
+would pray for him, and seek to drive the devil
+out of his body, and that if he died, they would
+send his shoes to his family as a notice of that
+event; and would bury him in consecrated
+ground. Some of the things he had learned had
+bored him and some had made him want to laugh,
+but none of them had impressed him, as they
+were intended to do, with the might and dignity
+of the ancient order.</p>
+
+<p>He was impressed now as he stood before this
+dark still house where a dozen ignorant fanatics
+waited to take his blood for what was to them a
+holy purpose. He knew that this
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">Morada</hi> was a
+<pb n="165"/><anchor id="Pg165"/>
+very old one. He thought of all the true penitents
+who had knocked for admission at its door
+and had gone through its bloody ordeal with a
+zeal of madness which had enabled them to cry
+loudly for blows and more blows until they fell
+insensible. He tried to imagine their state of
+mind, but he could not. He was of their race
+and a growth of the same soil, but an alien civilization
+had touched him and sundered him from
+them, yet without taking him for its own. He
+could only nerve himself to face this ordeal because
+it would serve his one great purpose.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood there, a curious half-irrelevant
+thought came into his mind. He knew that the
+marks they would make on his back would be
+permanent. He had seen the long rough scars
+on the backs of sheep-herders, stripped to the
+waist for the hot work of shearing. And he
+wondered how he would explain these strange
+scars to Julia. He imagined her discovering
+them with her long dainty hands, her round white
+arms. A great longing surged up in him that
+seemed to weaken the very tissues of his body.
+He shook himself, threw away his cigarette, went
+to the heavy wooden door and knocked.</p>
+
+<p>Now he spoke a rigamarole in Spanish which
+had been taught him by rote.</p>
+
+<p><q>God knocks at this mission&rsquo;s door for His
+clemency,</q> he called.</p>
+<pb n="166"/><anchor id="Pg166"/>
+
+<p>From within came a deep-voiced chorus, the
+first sound he had heard from the house, seeming
+weirdly to be the voice of the house itself.</p>
+
+<p><q>Penance, penance, which seeks salvation!</q> it
+chanted.</p>
+
+<p><q>Saint Peter will open to me the gate, bathing
+me with the light, in the name of Mary, with the
+seal of Jesus,</q> Ramon went on, repeating as he
+had learned. <q>I ask this confraternity. Who
+gives this house light?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Jesus,</q> answered the chorus within.</p>
+
+<p><q>Who fills it with joy?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Mary.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Who preserves it with faith?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Joseph!</q></p>
+
+<p>The door opened and Ramon entered the
+chapel room of the <hi rend="font-style: italic">Morada</hi>.
+It was lighted by a
+single candle, which revealed dimly the rough
+earthen walls, the low roof raftered with round
+pine logs, the wooden benches and the altar,
+covered with black cloth. This was decorated
+with figures of the skull and cross-bones cut from
+white cloth. A human skull stood on either side
+of it, and a small wooden crucifix hung on the wall
+above it. The solitary candle&mdash;an ordinary
+tallow one in a tin holder&mdash;stood before this.</p>
+
+<p>The men were merely dark human shapes.
+The light did not reveal their faces. They said
+nothing to Ramon. He could scarcely believe
+<pb n="167"/><anchor id="Pg167"/>
+that these were the same good-natured
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">pelados</hi>
+he had known by day. Indeed they were not the
+same, but were now merely units of this organization
+which held them in bondage of fear and awe.</p>
+
+<p>One of them took Ramon silently by the arm
+and led him through a low door into the other
+room which was the <hi rend="font-style: italic">Morada</hi>
+proper. This
+room was supposed never to be entered except by
+a member of the order or by a candidate. It was
+small and low as the other, furnished only with a
+few benches about the wall, and lighted by a
+couple of candles on a small table. A very old
+and tarnished oil painting of Mary with the Babe
+hung at one end of it. All the way around the
+room, hanging from pegs driven into the wall,
+was a row of the broad heavy braided lashes of
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">amole</hi> weed, called
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">disciplinas</hi>, used in Holy
+Week, and of the blood-stained drawers worn on
+that occasion by the flagellants.</p>
+
+<p>Still in complete silence Ramon was forced to
+his knees by two of the men, who quickly stripped
+him to the waist. Beside him stood a tall powerfully-built
+Mexican with his right arm bared. In
+his hand he held a triangular bit of white quartz,
+cleverly chipped to a cutting edge. This man
+was the <hi rend="font-style: italic">sangredor</hi>,
+whose duty it was to place the
+seal of the order upon the penitent&rsquo;s back. His
+office required no little skill, for he had to make
+three cuts the whole length of the back and three
+<pb n="168"/><anchor id="Pg168"/>
+the width, tearing through the skin so as to leave
+a permanent scar, but not deep enough to injure
+the muscle. Ramon, glancing up, saw the gleam
+of the candle light on the white quartz, and also
+in the eyes of the man, which were bright with
+eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>Now came the supreme struggle with himself.
+How could he go through with this ugly agony?
+He longed to leap to his feet and fight these
+ignorant louts, who were going to mangle him
+and beat him for their own amusement. He
+held himself down with all his will, striving to
+think of the girl, to hold his purpose before his
+mind, to endure.&hellip;</p>
+
+<p>He felt the hand of the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">sangredor</hi> upon his
+neck, and gritted his teeth. The man&rsquo;s grip was
+heavy, hot and firm. A flash of pain shot up and
+down his back with lightning speed, as though a
+red hot poker had been laid upon it. Again and
+again and again! Six times in twice as many
+seconds the deft flint ripped his skin, and he fell
+forward upon his hands, faint and sick, as he
+felt his own blood welling upon his back and
+trickling in warm rivulets between his ribs.</p>
+
+<p>But this was not all. To qualify, he knew, he
+must call for the lash of his own free will.</p>
+
+<p><q>For the love of God,</q> he uttered painfully,
+as he had been taught, <q>the three meditations of
+the passion of our Lord.</q></p>
+<pb n="169"/><anchor id="Pg169"/>
+
+<p>On his torn back a long black snake whip came
+down, wielded with merciless force. But he felt
+the full agony of the first blow only. The second
+seemed faint, and the third sent him plunging
+downward through a red mist into black nothingness.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC24" type="chapter">
+<pb n="170"/><anchor id="Pg170"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXIV</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>A few days later one bright morning Ramon
+was sitting in the sun before the door of his
+friend, Francisco Guiterrez, feeling still somewhat
+sore, but otherwise surprisingly well. Guiterrez,
+a young sheep-herder, held the position
+of <hi rend="font-style: italic">coadjutor</hi> of the
+local <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitente</hi> chapter, and
+one of his duties as such was to take the penitent
+to his house and care for him after the initiation.
+He had washed Ramon&rsquo;s wounds in a tea made
+by boiling Romero weed. This was a remedy
+which the <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes</hi>
+had used for centuries, and
+its efficacy was proved by the fact that Ramon&rsquo;s
+cuts had begun to heal at once, and that he had
+had very little fever.</p>
+
+<p>For a couple of days Ramon had been forced
+to lie restlessly in the only bed of the Guiterrez
+establishment. The Senora Guiterrez, a pretty
+buxom young Mexican woman, had fed him on
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">atole</hi> gruel and
+on all of the eggs which her small
+flock of scrub hens produced; the seven little dirty
+brown Guiterrez children had come in to marvel
+at him with their fingers in their mouths; the
+Guiterrez goats and dogs and chickens had
+<pb n="171"/><anchor id="Pg171"/>
+wandered in and out of the room in a companionable
+way, as though seeking to make him feel
+at ease; and Guiterrez himself had spent his
+evenings sitting beside Ramon, smoking cigarettes
+and talking.</p>
+
+<p>This time of idleness had not been wholly wasted,
+either, for it had come out in the course of
+conversation that Guiterrez had been offered a
+thousand dollars for his place by a man whom he
+did not know, but whom Ramon had easily identified
+as an agent of MacDougall. Tempted by
+an amount which he could scarcely conceive,
+Guiterrez was thinking seriously of accepting the
+offer.</p>
+
+<p>Now that he had won over Alfego and had
+gotten the influence of the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">penitentes</hi> on his side,
+Ramon&rsquo;s one remaining object was to defeat just
+such deals as this, which MacDougall already
+had under way. He intended to stir up feeling
+against the gringos, and to persuade the Mexicans
+not to sell. Later, such lands as he needed
+in order to control the right-of-way, he would
+gain by lending money and taking mortgages.
+But he did not intend to cheat any one. Such
+Mexicans as he had to oust from their lands, he
+would locate elsewhere. He was filled with a
+large generosity, and with a real love for these,
+his people. He meant to dominate this country,
+<pb n="172"/><anchor id="Pg172"/>
+but his pride demanded that no one should be
+poor or hungry in his domain. So now he argued
+the matter to Guiterrez with real sincerity.</p>
+
+<p><q>A thousand dollars?
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">Por Dios</hi>, man! Don&rsquo;t
+you know that this place is worth many thousand
+dollars to you?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>How can it be worth many thousand?</q>
+Guiterrez demanded. <q>What have I here? A
+few acres of chile and corn, a little hay, some
+range for my goats, a few cherry trees, a house.&hellip;
+Many thousands? No.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>You have here a home,
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">amigo</hi>,</q> Ramon reminded
+him. <q>Do you know how long a thousand
+dollars would support you? A year, perhaps.
+Then you would have to work for other
+men the rest of your life. Here you are free
+and independent.</q></p>
+
+<p>Guiterrez said nothing, but he had obviously
+received a new idea, and was impressed. Ramon
+never returned to the direct argument, but he
+missed no chance to stimulate Guiterrez&rsquo;s pride
+in his establishment.</p>
+
+<p><q>This is a good little house you have
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">amigo</hi>,</q>
+he would observe. And Guiterrez would tell
+him that the house had been built by his grandfather,
+but that its walls were as firm as ever,
+and that he had been intending for several years
+to plaster it, but had never gotten time. Before
+<pb n="173"/><anchor id="Pg173"/>
+he was out of bed, Ramon was reasonably sure
+that Guiterrez would never sell.</p>
+
+<p>The house was indeed charmingly situated on a
+hillside at the foot of which a little clear trout
+stream, called Rio Gallinas, chuckled over the
+bright pebbles in its bed and ran to hide in thickets
+of willow.</p>
+
+<p>Sitting on the <hi rend="font-style: italic">portal</hi>,
+which ran the length of
+the house and consisted of a projection of the roof
+supported by rough pine logs, Ramon could look
+down the canyon to where it widened into a little
+valley that lost itself in the vast levels of the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>. There thirsty
+sands swallowed the stream
+and not a sprig of green marred the harmony of
+grey and purple swimming in vivid light, reaching
+away to the horizon where faint blue mountains
+hung in drooping lines.</p>
+
+<p>By turning his head, Ramon could look into
+the heart of the mountains whence the stream issued
+through a narrow canyon, with steep, forested
+ridges on either side, and little level glades
+along the water, set with tall, conical blue spruce
+trees, pines with their warm red boles, and little
+clumps of aspen with gleaming white stems, and
+trembling leaves of mingled gold and green.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon spent many hours with his back against
+the wall, his knees drawn up under his chin, Mexican
+fashion, smoking and vaguely dreaming of
+<pb n="174"/><anchor id="Pg174"/>
+the girl he loved and of the things he would do.
+The vast sun drenched landscape before him was
+too much a part of his life, too intimate a thing
+for him to appreciate its beauty, but after his
+struggles with doubt and desire, it filled him with
+an unaccountable contentment. Its warmth and
+brightness, its unchanging serenity, its ceaseless
+soft voices of wind and water, lulled his mind and
+comforted his senses. The country was like some
+great purring creature that let him lie in its
+bosom and filled his body with the warm steady
+throb of its untroubled strength.</p>
+
+<p>After a week of recuperation, he bought a
+horse from Guiterrez for a pack animal, loaded
+it with bedding and provisions and rode away
+into the mountains. His task was now to find
+other men who had fallen under the influence of
+MacDougall, and to persuade them not to sell
+their lands. Some of them would be at their
+homes, but others would be with the sheep herds,
+scattered here and there in the high country.
+He faced long days of mountain wandering, and
+for all that he longed to be done with his task,
+this part of it was sweet to him.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC25" type="chapter">
+<pb n="175"/><anchor id="Pg175"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXV</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>These were days of power and success, days of
+a glamour that lingered long in his mind. Beyond
+a doubt he was destroying MacDougall&rsquo;s
+plan and realizing his own. Sometimes he met
+a surly Mexican who would not listen to him, but
+nearly always he won the man over in the end.
+He was amazed at his own resourcefulness and
+eloquence. It seemed as though some inhibition
+in him had been broken down, some magical elixir
+poured into his imagination. He found that he
+could literally take a sheep camp by storm, entering
+into the life of the men, telling them stories,
+singing them songs, passing out presents of
+tobacco and whisky, often delivering a wildly
+applauded harangue on the necessity for all Mexicans
+to act together against the gringos, who
+would otherwise soon own the country. Never
+once did he think of the incongruity of thus fanning
+the flames of race hatred for the love of a
+girl with grey eyes and yellow hair.</p>
+
+<p>He did not always reach a house or a sheep
+camp at night. Many a time he camped alone,
+catching trout for his supper from a mountain
+stream, and going to sleep to the lonely music of
+<pb n="176"/><anchor id="Pg176"/>
+running water in a wilderness. At such times
+many a man would have lost faith in himself,
+would have feared his crimes and lost his hopes.
+But to Ramon this loneliness was an old friend.
+Like all who have lived much out-of-doors he was
+at heart a pantheist, and felt more at peace and
+unity with wild nature than ever he had with men.</p>
+
+<p>But there was one such night when he felt
+troubled. As he rode up the Tusas Canyon at
+twilight, a sense of insecurity came over him,
+amounting almost to fear. He had had a somewhat
+similar feeling once when a panther had
+trailed him on a winter night. Now, as then, he
+had no idea what it was that menaced him; he
+was simply warned by that sixth sense which
+belongs to all wild things, and to men in whom
+there remains something of the feral. His horses
+shared his unrest. When he picketed them, just
+before dark, they fed uneasily, stopping now and
+then to stand like statues with lifted heads, testing
+the wind with their nostrils, moving their ears to
+catch some sound beyond human perception.</p>
+
+<p>When he had eaten his supper and made his
+bed, Ramon took the little automatic revolver out
+of its scabbard and went down the canyon a
+quarter of a mile, slipping along in the shadow of
+the brush that lined the banks of the stream.
+This was necessary because a half-moon made the
+open glades bright. He paused and peered a
+<pb n="177"/><anchor id="Pg177"/>
+dozen times. So cautious were his movements
+that he came within forty feet of a drinking deer,
+and was badly startled when it bounded away with
+a snort and a smashing of brush. But he saw
+nothing dangerous and went back to his camp and
+to bed. There he lay awake for an hour, still
+troubled, oppressed by a vague feeling of the
+littleness and insecurity of human life.</p>
+
+<p>A long, rippling snort of fear from his saddle
+horse, picketed near his bed, awakened him and
+probably saved his life. When he opened his
+eyes, he saw the figure of a man standing directly
+over him. He was about to speak, when the man
+lifted his arms, swinging upward a heavy club.
+With quick presence of mind, Ramon jerked the
+blankets and the heavy canvas tarpaulin about his
+head, at the same time rolling over. The club
+came down with crushing force on his right
+shoulder. He continued to roll and flounder with
+all his might, going down a sharp slope toward
+the creek which was only a few yards away.
+Twice more he felt the club, once on his arm and
+once on his ribs, but his head escaped and the
+heavy blankets protected his body.</p>
+
+<p>The next thing he knew, he had gone over the
+bank of the creek, which was several feet high in
+that place, and lay in the shallow icy water.
+Meantime he had gotten his hand on the automatic
+pistol. He now jerked upright and fired at the
+<pb n="178"/><anchor id="Pg178"/>
+form of his assailant, which bulked above him.
+The man disappeared. For a moment Ramon sat
+still. He heard footsteps, and something like a
+grunt or a groan. Then he extricated himself
+from the cold, sodden blankets, climbed upon the
+bank, and began cautiously searching about, with
+his weapon ready. He found the club&mdash;a heavy
+length of green spruce-and put his hand accidentally
+on something wet, which he ascertained by
+smelling it to be blood.</p>
+
+<p>He was shivering with cold and badly bruised
+in several places, but he was afraid to build a fire.
+In case his enemy were not badly injured or had a
+companion, that would have been risking another
+attack. He stood in the shadow of a spruce,
+stamping his feet and rubbing himself, acutely uncomfortable,
+waiting for daylight and wondering
+what this attack meant. He doubted whether
+MacDougall would have countenanced such tactics,
+but it might well have been an agent of MacDougall
+acting on his own responsibility. Or it
+might have been some one sent by old Archulera.
+Then, too, there were many poor connections of
+the Delcasar family who would profit by his death.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood there in the dark, shivering and
+miserable, the idea of death was not hard for him
+to conceive. He realized that but for the snort
+of the saddle horse he would now be lying under
+the tree with the top of his head crushed in. The
+<pb n="179"/><anchor id="Pg179"/>
+man would probably have dragged his body into
+the thick timber and left it. There he would have
+lain and rotted. Or perhaps the coyotes would
+have eaten him and the buzzards afterward picked
+his bones. He shuddered. Despite his acute
+misery, life had never seemed more desirable.
+He thought of sunlight and warmth, of good food
+and of the love of women, and these things seemed
+more sweet than ever before. He realized, for
+the first time, too, that he faced many dangers
+and that the chance of death walked with him all
+the time. He resolved fiercely that he would
+beat all his enemies, that he would live and have
+his desires which were so sweet to him.</p>
+
+<p>Daylight came at last, showing him first the
+rim of the mountain serrated with spruce tops,
+and then lighting the canyon, revealing his disordered
+camp and his horses grazing quietly in
+the open. He went immediately and examined
+the ground where the struggle had taken place.
+A plain trail of blood lead away from the place,
+as he had expected. He formed a plan of action
+immediately.</p>
+
+<p>First he made a great fire, dried and warmed
+himself, cooked and ate his breakfast, drinking a
+full pint of hot coffee. Then he rolled up all his
+belongings, hid them in the bushes, and picketed
+his horses in a side canyon where the grass was
+good. When these preparations were complete,
+<pb n="180"/><anchor id="Pg180"/>
+he took the trail of blood and followed it with the
+utmost care. He carried his weapon cocked in
+his hand, and always before he went around a
+bend in the canyon, or passed through a clump of
+trees, he paused and looked long and carefully,
+like an animal stalking dangerous prey.</p>
+
+<p>At last, from the cover of some willows, he saw
+a man sitting beside the creek. The man was
+half-naked, and was binding up his leg with some
+strips torn from his dirty shirt. He was a Mexican
+of the lowest and most brutal type, with a
+swarthy skin, black hair and a bullet-shaped head.
+Ramon walked toward him.</p>
+
+<p><q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Buenas Dias,
+amigo</hi>,</q> he saluted.</p>
+
+<p>The man looked up with eyes full of patient
+suffering, like the eyes of a hurt animal. He did
+not seem either surprised or frightened. He
+nodded and went on binding up his leg.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon watched him a minute. He saw that
+the man was weak from loss of blood. There
+was a great patch of dried blood on the ground
+beside him, now beginning to flake and curl in
+the sun.</p>
+
+<p><q>I will come back in a minute, friend,</q> he said.</p>
+
+<p>He went back to his camp, saddled his horses,
+putting some food in the saddle pockets. When
+he returned, the Mexican sat in exactly the same
+place with his back against a rock and his legs and
+<pb n="181"/><anchor id="Pg181"/>
+arms inert. Ramon fried bacon and made coffee
+for him. He had to help the man put the food in
+his mouth and hold a cup for him to drink.
+Afterward, with great difficulty, he loaded the
+man on his saddle horse, where he sat heavily,
+clutching the pommel with both hands. Ramon
+mounted the pack horse bareback.</p>
+
+<p><q>Where do you live, friend?</q> Ramon asked.</p>
+
+<p><q>Tusas,</q> the Mexican replied, naming a little
+village ten miles down the canyon.</p>
+
+<p>They exchanged no other words until they came
+within sight of the group of
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">adobe</hi> houses. Then
+Ramon stopped his horse and turned to the man.</p>
+
+<p><q>You were hunting,</q> he told him slowly and
+impressively, <q>and you dropped your gun and shot
+yourself. <hi rend="font-style: italic">Sabes?</hi></q></p>
+
+<p>The man nodded.</p>
+
+<p><q>How much were you paid to kill me, friend?</q>
+Ramon then asked.</p>
+
+<p>The man looked at the pommel of the saddle,
+and his swarthy face darkened with a heavy flush.</p>
+
+<p><q>One hundred dollars,</q> he admitted. <q>I
+needed the money to christen a child. Could I
+let my child go to hell? But I did not mean to
+kill you. Only to beat you, so you would go away.
+Do not ask who sent me, for the love of
+God.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p><q>I ask nothing more, friend,</q> Ramon assured
+<pb n="182"/><anchor id="Pg182"/>
+him. <q>And since you were to have a hundred
+dollars for making me leave the country, here is a
+hundred dollars for not succeeding.</q></p>
+
+<p>Both of them laughed. Ramon then rode on
+and delivered the man to his excited and grateful
+wife. He went back to his camp very weary and
+sore, but feeling that he had done an excellent
+stroke of work for his purpose.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC26" type="chapter">
+<pb n="183"/><anchor id="Pg183"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXVI</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>After this occurrence his success among the
+humbler Mexicans was more marked than ever,
+but some of the men of property who had been
+subsidized by MacDougall were not so easily won
+over. Such a case was that of old Pedro Alcatraz
+who owned a little store in the town of Vallecitos,
+a bit of land and a few thousand sheep. Alcatraz
+was a tall boney old man, and was of nearly pure
+Navajo Indian blood, as one could tell by the
+queer crinkled character of his beard and moustache,
+which were like those of a chinaman. He
+was simple and direct like an Indian, too, lacking
+the Mexican talent for lying and artifice. In his
+own town he was a petty czar, like Alfego, but on
+a much smaller scale. By reason of being
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">Hermano Mayor</hi>
+of the local <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitente</hi> chapter,
+and of having most of the people in his own neighbourhood
+in debt to him, he had considerable
+power. He was advising men to sell their lands,
+and was lending more money on land than it was
+reasonable to suppose he owned. Beyond a
+doubt, he had been won by MacDougall&rsquo;s dollars.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon found Alcatraz unresponsive. The
+old man listened to a long harangue on the subject
+<pb n="184"/><anchor id="Pg184"/>
+of the race issue without a word of reply, and
+without looking up. Ramon then played what
+should have been his strongest card.</p>
+
+<p><q>My friend,</q> he said, <q>you may not know it,
+but I am your brother in the blood of Christ.
+Do I not then deserve better of you than a gringo
+who is trying to take this country away from the
+Mexican people?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Yes,</q> the old man answered quietly, <q>I know
+you are a <hi rend="font-style: italic">penitente</hi>,
+and I know why. Do you
+think that I am a fool like these
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">pelados</hi> that herd
+my sheep? You wear the scars of a
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">penitente</hi>
+because you think it will help you to make money
+and to do what you want. You are just like
+MacDougall, except that he uses money and you
+use words. A poor man can only choose his
+masters, and for my part I have more use for
+money than for words.</q> So saying, the blunt old
+savage walked to the other end of his store and
+began showing a Mexican woman some shawls.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon went away, breathing hard with rage,
+slapping his quirt against his boots. He would
+show that old <hi rend="font-style: italic">cabron</hi>
+who was boss in these
+mountains!</p>
+
+<p>He went immediately and hired the little
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">adobe</hi>
+hall which is found in every Mexican town of
+more than a hundred inhabitants, and made preparations
+to give a <hi rend="font-style: italic">baile</hi>.</p>
+
+<p>To give a dance is the surest and simplest way
+<pb n="185"/><anchor id="Pg185"/>
+to win popularity in a Mexican town, and Ramon
+spared no expense to make this affair a success.
+He sent forty miles across the mountains for two
+fiddlers to help out the blind man who was the
+only local musician. He arranged a feast, and in
+a back room he installed a small keg of native
+wine and one of beer.</p>
+
+<p>The invitation was general and every one who
+could possibly reach the place in a day&rsquo;s journey
+came. The women wore for the most part calico
+dresses, bright in colour and generous in volume,
+heavily starched and absolutely devoid of fit.
+Their brown faces were heavily powdered, producing
+in some of the darker ones a purplish tint,
+which was ghastly in the light of the oil lamps.
+Some of the younger girls were comely despite
+their crude toilets, with soft skins, ripe breasts,
+mild dark heifer-like eyes, and pretty teeth showing
+in delighted grins. The men wore the cheap
+ready-made suits which have done so much to
+make Americans look alike everywhere, but they
+achieved a degree of originality by choosing
+brighter colours than men generally wear, being
+especially fond of brilliant electric blues and rich
+browns. Their broad but often handsome faces
+were radiant with smiles, and their thick black
+hair was wetted and greased into shiny order.</p>
+
+<p>The dance started with difficulty, despite symptoms
+of eagerness on all hands. Bashful youths
+<pb n="186"/><anchor id="Pg186"/>
+stalled and crowded in the doorway like a log jam
+in the river. Bashful girls, seated all around the
+room, nudged and tittered and then became
+solemn and self-conscious. Each number was
+preceded by a march, several times around the
+room, which was sedate and formal in the extreme.
+The favourite dance was a fast, hopping waltz,
+in which the swain seized his partner firmly in both
+hands under the arms and put her through a
+vigorous test of wind and agility. The floor was
+rough and sanded, and the rasping of feet almost
+drowned the music. There were long Virginia
+reels, led with peremptory dash by a master of
+ceremonies, full of grace and importance.
+Swarthy faces were bedewed with sweat and dark
+eyes glowed with excitement, but there was never
+the slightest relaxation of the formalism of the
+affair. For this dance in an earthen hovel on a
+plank floor was the degenerate but lineal descendant
+of the splendid and formal balls which the
+Dons had held in the old days, when New Spain
+belonged to its proud and wealthy conquerors;
+it was the wistful and grotesque remnant of a
+dying order.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon had a vague realization of this fact as
+he watched the affair. It stirred a sort of sentimental
+pity in him. But he threw off that
+feeling, he had work to do. He entered into the
+spirit of the thing, dancing with every woman on
+<pb n="187"/><anchor id="Pg187"/>
+the floor. He took the men in groups to the
+back room and treated them. He missed no
+opportunity to get in a word against the gringos,
+and incidentally against those Mexicans who betrayed
+their fellows by advising them to sell their
+lands. He never mentioned Alcatraz by name,
+but he made it clear enough to whom he referred.</p>
+
+<p>Late in the evening, when all were mellowed
+by drink and excited by dancing, he gained the
+attention of the gathering on the pretext of announcing
+a special dance, and boldly gave a harangue
+in which he urged all Mexicans to stick
+together against the gringos, and above all not
+to sell their homes which their fathers had won
+from the barbarians, and were the foundations of
+their prosperity and freedom.</p>
+
+<p><q>Remember,</q> he urged them in a burst of eloquence
+that surprised himself, <q>that in your veins
+is the blood of conquerors&mdash;blood which was
+poured out on these hills and valleys to win them
+from the Indians, precious blood which has made
+this land priceless to you for all time!</q></p>
+
+<p>His speech was greeted with a burst of applause
+unquestionably spontaneous. It filled him with
+a sense of power that was almost intoxicating.
+In the town he might be neglected, despised,
+picked for an easy mark, but here among his
+own people he was a ruler and leader by birth.</p>
+
+<p>The most important result of the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">baile</hi> was that
+<pb n="188"/><anchor id="Pg188"/>
+it won over the stubborn Alcatraz. He did not
+attend it, but he knew what happened there. He
+realized that advice in favour of selling land would
+not be popular in that section for a long time,
+and he acknowledged his defeat by inviting Ramon
+to dinner at his house, and driving a shrewd
+bargain with him, whereby he gave his influence
+in exchange for certain grazing privileges.</p>
+
+<p>On his way home a few days later Ramon
+looked back at the mountains with the feeling
+that they belonged to him by right of conquest.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC27" type="chapter">
+<pb n="189"/><anchor id="Pg189"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXVII</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>A week later Ramon was driving across the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi> west of town,
+bound for the state capital.
+He was following the same route that Diego
+Delcasar had followed on the day of his death,
+and he passed within a few miles of Archulera&rsquo;s
+ranch; but no thought either of his uncle or of
+Archulera entered his mind. For in his pocket
+was a letter consisting of a single sentence hastily
+scrawled in a large round upright hand on lavender-scented
+note paper. The sentence was:</p>
+
+<milestone unit="tb"/>
+
+<p><q rend="post: none">Meet you at the
+southwest corner of the Plaza Tuesday at seven thirty.</q></p>
+
+<p rend="text-align: right; margin-right: 4"><q rend="post:
+none">Love,</q></p>
+
+<p rend="text-align: right; margin-right: 2"><q>J. R.</q></p>
+
+<milestone unit="tb"/>
+
+<p>A great deal of trouble and anxiety had preceded
+the receipt of that message. First he had
+written her a letter that was unusually long and
+exuberant for him, telling her of his success and
+that now he was ready to come and get her in
+accordance with their agreement, suggesting a
+time and place. Three days of cumulative doubt
+and agony had gone by without a reply. Then he
+had tried to reach her by long distance telephone,
+<pb n="190"/><anchor id="Pg190"/>
+but without success. Finally he had wired, although
+he knew that a telegram is a risky vehicle
+for confidential business. Now he had her
+answer, the answer that he wanted. His spirit
+was released and leapt forward, leaving resentments
+and doubts far behind.</p>
+
+<p>It was eighty miles to the state capital, the
+road was good all the way, the day bright and
+cool. His route lead across the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>, through
+the Scissors Pass, and then north and east along
+the foot of the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Immense and empty the country stretched before
+him&mdash;a land of far-flung levels and even
+farther mountains; a land which makes even the
+sea, with its near horizons, seem little; a land
+which has always produced men of daring because
+it inspires a sense of freedom without any limit
+save what daring sets.</p>
+
+<p>He had dared and won. He was going to
+take the sweet price of his daring. The engine
+of his big car sang to him a song of victory and
+desire. He rejoiced in the sense of power under
+his hand. He opened the throttle wider and the
+car answered with more speed, licking up the
+road like a hungry monster. How easily he
+mastered time and distance for his purpose!</p>
+
+<p>He was to have her, she would be his. So
+sang the humming motor and the wind in his ears.
+Her white arms and her red mouth, her splendid
+<pb n="191"/><anchor id="Pg191"/>
+eyes that feared and yielded! She was waiting
+for him! More speed. He conquered the hills
+with a roar of strength to spare, topped the
+crests, and sped down the long slopes like a bird
+coming to earth.</p>
+
+<p>He was to have her, she would be his. Could
+it be true? The great machine that carried him
+to their tryst roared an affirmative, the wind sang
+of it, his blood quickened with anticipation incredibly
+keen. And always the distance that lay
+between them was falling behind in long, grey
+passive miles.</p>
+
+<p>He had reached his destination a little after
+six. As he drove slowly through the streets of
+the little dusty town, the mood of exaltation that
+had possessed him during the trip died down.
+He was intent, worried practical. Having registered
+at the hotel, he got a handful of time
+tables and made his plans with care. They
+would drive to a town twenty-five miles away, be
+married, and catch the California Limited.
+There would just be time. Once he had her in
+his car, nothing could stop them.</p>
+
+<p>The <hi rend="font-style: italic">plaza</hi>
+or public square about which the old
+town was built, and which had been its market
+place in the old days, was now occupied by a neat
+little park with a band stand. Retail stores and
+banks fronted on three sides of it, but the fourth
+was occupied by a long low <hi rend="font-style: italic">adobe</hi> building
+<pb n="192"/><anchor id="Pg192"/>
+which was very old and had been converted into a
+museum of local antiquities. It was dark and
+lifeless at night, and in its shadow-filled verandah
+he was to meet her.</p>
+
+<p>He had his car parked beside the spot ten minutes
+ahead of time. It was slightly cold now,
+with a gusty wind whispering about the streets
+and tearing big papery leaves from the cottonwood
+trees in the park. The <hi rend="font-style: italic">plaza</hi> was empty
+save for an occasional passer-by whose quick footfalls
+rang sharply in the silence. Here and there
+was an illuminated shop window. The drug
+store on the opposite corner showed a bright interior,
+where two small boys devoured ice cream
+sodas with solemn rapture. Somewhere up a
+side street a choir was practising a hymn, making
+a noise infinitely doleful.</p>
+
+<p>He had a bear-skin to wrap her in, and he
+arranged this on the seat beside him and then
+tried to wait patiently. He sat very tense and
+motionless, except for an occasional glance at his
+watch, until it showed exactly seven-thirty.
+Then he got out of his car and began walking
+first to one side of the corner and then to the
+other, for he did not know from which direction
+she would come. At twenty-five minutes of eight
+he was angry, but in another ten minutes anger
+had given way to a dull heavy disappointment
+that seemed to hold him by the throat and make
+<pb n="193"/><anchor id="Pg193"/>
+it difficult to swallow. None-the-less he waited a
+full hour before he started up his car and drove
+slowly back to the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>On the way he debated with himself whether
+he should try to communicate with her tonight or
+wait until the next day. He knew that the wisest
+thing would be to wait until the next day and send
+her a note, but he also knew that he could not
+wait. He would find out where she lived, call
+her on the telephone, and learn what had
+prevented her from keeping the appointment.
+He had desperate need to know that something
+besides her own will had kept her away.</p>
+
+<p>When he went to the hotel desk, a clerk handed
+him a letter.</p>
+
+<p><q>This was here when you registered, I think,</q>
+he said. <q>But I didn&rsquo;t know it. I&rsquo;m sorry.</q></p>
+
+<p>When he saw the handwriting of the address
+he was filled with commotion. Here, then, was
+her explanation. This would tell him why she
+had failed him. This, in all probability, would
+make all right.</p>
+
+<p>He went to his room to read it, sat down on
+the edge of the bed and ripped the envelope open
+with an impatient finger. The letter was dated
+two days earlier&mdash;the day after she had received
+his telegram.</p>
+
+<p><q>I don&rsquo;t know what to say,</q> she
+wrote, <q rend="post: none">but it
+doesn&rsquo;t matter much. You will despise me anyway,
+<pb n="194"/><anchor id="Pg194"/>
+and I despise myself. But I can&rsquo;t help it&mdash;honestly
+I can&rsquo;t. I meant to keep my
+promise and I would have kept it, but they found
+your telegram and mother read it&mdash;by mistake,
+of course. I ought to have had sense
+enough to burn it. You can&rsquo;t imagine how awful
+it has been. Mother said the most terrible
+things about you, things she had heard. And she
+said that I would be ruining my life and hers.
+I said I didn&rsquo;t care, because I loved you. I can&rsquo;t
+tell you what an awful quarrel we had! And I
+wouldn&rsquo;t have given in, but she told Gordon and
+he was so terribly angry. He said it was a disgrace
+to the family, and he began to cough and
+had a hemorrhage and we thought he was going
+to die. Mother said he probably would die unless
+I gave you up.</q></p>
+
+<p><q rend="post: none">That finished me. I couldn&rsquo;t do anything
+after that&mdash;I just couldn&rsquo;t. There was nothing
+but misery in sight either way, so what was
+the use? I&rsquo;ve lost all my courage and all my
+doubts have come back. I do love you&mdash;terribly.
+But you are so strange, so different. And
+I don&rsquo;t think we would have gotten along or
+anything. I try to comfort myself by thinking
+it&rsquo;s all for the best, but it doesn&rsquo;t really comfort
+me at all. I never knew people could be as
+miserable as I am now. I don&rsquo;t think its fair.</q></p>
+
+<p><q rend="post: none">When you get
+this I will be on my way to
+<pb n="195"/><anchor id="Pg195"/>
+New York and nearly there. We are going to
+sail for Europe immediately. I will never see
+you again. I will always love you.</q></p>
+
+<p rend="text-align: right; margin-right: 1"><q>Julia.</q></p>
+
+<milestone unit="tb"/>
+
+<p>Rage possessed him at first&mdash;the rage of
+defeated desire, of injured pride, of a passionate,
+undisciplined nature crossed and beaten. He
+flung the letter on the floor, and strode up and
+down the room, looking about for something to
+smash or tear. So she was that kind of a
+creature&mdash;a miserable, whimpering fool that
+would let an old woman and a sick man rule her!
+She was afraid her brother might die. What an
+excuse! And he had killed, or at least sanctioned
+killing, for her sake. He had poured out his
+blood for her. There was nothing he would not
+have dared or done to have her. And here she
+had the soul of a sheep!</p>
+
+<p>But no&mdash;perhaps that was not it. Perhaps
+she had been playing with him all along, had
+never had any idea of marrying him&mdash;because he
+was a Mexican!</p>
+
+<p>Bitter was this thought, but it died as his anger
+died. Something that sat steady and clear inside
+of him told him that he was a fool. He was
+reading the letter again, and he knew it was all
+truth. <q>There was nothing but misery in sight
+either way,</q> she had written.</p>
+<pb n="196"/><anchor id="Pg196"/>
+
+<p>Suddenly he understood; suffering and an
+awakened imagination had given him insight.
+For the first time in his life, he realized the feelings
+of another. He realized how much he had
+asked of this girl, who had all her life been ruled,
+who had never tasted freedom nor practised self-reliance.
+He saw now that she had rebelled and
+had fought against the forces and fears that oppress
+youth, as had he, and that she had been bewildered
+and overcome.</p>
+
+<p>His anger was gone. All hot emotion was
+gone. In its place was a great loneliness, tinged
+with pity. He looked at the letter again. Its
+handwriting showed signs of disturbance in the
+writer, but she had not forgotten to scent it with
+that faint delightful perfume which was forever
+associated in his mind with her. It summoned
+the image of her with a vividness he could not
+bear.</p>
+
+<p>But courage and pride are not killed at a blow.
+He threw the letter aside and shook himself
+sharply, like a man just awake trying to shake off
+the memory of a nightmare. She was gone, she
+was lost. Well, what of it? There were many
+other women in the world, many beautiful women.
+And he was strong now, successful. One woman
+could not hurt him by her refusal. He tried resolutely
+to put her out of his mind, and to think
+of his business, of his plans. But these things
+<pb n="197"/><anchor id="Pg197"/>
+which had glowed so brightly in his imagination
+just a few hours before were suddenly as dead as
+cinders. He knew that he cared little for dollars
+and lands in themselves. His nature demanded
+a romantic object, and this love had given it to
+him. Love had found him a wretch and a weakling,
+and had made him suddenly strong and
+ruthless, bringing out all the colours of his being,
+dark and bright, making life suddenly intense and
+purposeful.</p>
+
+<p>And she had meant so much to him besides
+love. To have won her would have been to win
+a great victory over the gringos&mdash;over that
+civilization, alien to him in race and temper,
+which antagonized and yet fascinated him, with
+which he was forced to grapple for his life.</p>
+
+<p>She was gone, he had lost her. Perhaps it was
+just as well, after all, he told himself, speaking
+out of his pride and his courage. But in his
+heart was a great bitterness. In his heart he
+felt that the gringos had beaten one more Delcasar.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC28" type="chapter">
+<pb n="198"/><anchor id="Pg198"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXVIII</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>The next few days Ramon spent quietly and
+systematically drinking whisky. This he did
+partly because he had a notion that it was an appropriate
+thing to do under the circumstances,
+and partly because he had a genuine need for
+something to jolt his mind out of its rut of misery.
+He was not sociable in his cups, and did not seek
+company of either sex, inviting a man to drink
+with him or accepting such an invitation only
+when he had to do so. His favourite resort was
+the Silver Dollar Saloon, which was furnished
+with tables set between low partitions, so that
+when he had one of these booths to himself he
+enjoyed a considerable degree of isolation. He
+drank carefully, like a Spaniard, never losing
+control of his feet or of his eyes, taking always
+just enough to keep his mind away from realities
+and filled with dreams. In these dreams
+Julia played a vivid and delightful part. He
+imagined himself encountering her under all sorts
+of circumstances, and always she was yielding,
+repentant, she was his. In a dozen different
+ways he conquered her, taking in imagination, as
+men have always done, what the reality had denied.
+<pb n="199"/><anchor id="Pg199"/>
+Some of his fancies were delightful and
+filled him with a sense of triumph, so that men
+glanced curiously at the bright-eyed boy who sat
+there in his corner all alone, absorbed and intent.
+But there were other times at night when his defeated
+desire came and lay in his arms like an
+invisible unyielding succuba, torturing, maddening,
+driving him back to the street to drink until
+drunken sleep came with its sudden brutal mercy.</p>
+
+<p>But after a few days alcohol began to have little
+effect upon him, except that when he awoke his
+hands were all aflutter so that he spilled his coffee
+and tore his newspaper. He felt sick and weary,
+his misery numbed by many repetitions of its every
+twinge. A sure instinct urged him to get out of
+the town and into the mountains, but he hated to
+go alone and lacked the initiative to start. He
+had a friend in the capital named Curtis, who was
+half Mexican and half Irish. This young man
+was a dealer in mules and horses, and he had a
+herd of some twenty head to take across the mountains
+about sixty miles. Badly in need of a helper
+and unable to hire one, he asked Ramon to go
+with him. The proposition was accepted with relief
+but without enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>Trouble started immediately. The horses were
+only half broken, and the one they chose for a pack
+animal rebelled ten miles from town and bucked
+the pack off, scattering tin dishes, sides of bacon,
+<pb n="200"/><anchor id="Pg200"/>
+loaves of bread and cans of condensed milk all
+over a quarter of a mile of rough country. They
+rounded up the recalcitrant in a pouring rain, and
+made a wet and miserable camp, sleeping the sleep
+of exhaustion in sodden blankets. The next
+morning the pack horse opened the exercises by
+rolling down a steep bank into the creek, plastering
+himself on the way from head to tail with a
+half gallon of high grade sorghum syrup which
+had been on top of the load. At this Ramon&rsquo;s
+tortured nerves exploded and he jumped into the
+water after the floundering animal, belabouring it
+with a quirt, and cursing it richly in two languages.</p>
+
+<p>He then put a slip noose around its upper lip
+and led it unmercifully, while Curtis encouraged
+it from behind with a rope-end. Like all Mexicans,
+they had little sympathy for horseflesh.</p>
+
+<p>These labours and hardships were Ramon&rsquo;s
+salvation. The exercise and air restored his
+health and in fighting the difficulties of unlucky
+travel he relieved in some degree the rage against
+life that embittered him.</p>
+
+<p>When he got back to his room in the hotel he
+felt measurably at peace, though weary in mind
+and body. He came across Julia&rsquo;s letter, and the
+sight and scent of it struck him a sharp painful
+blow, but he did not pause now to savour his pain;
+he tore the letter into small pieces and threw it
+<pb n="201"/><anchor id="Pg201"/>
+away. Then he got out his car and started for
+home.</p>
+
+<p>He went back beaten over the same road that he
+had followed in the moment of his highest hope,
+when life had seemed about to keep all the
+wonderful promises it whispers in the ear of youth.
+But strangely this trip was not the sad and sentimental
+affair it should have been. His rugged
+health had largely recovered from the shock of
+disappointment and dissipation, an excellent breakfast
+was digesting within him, the sky was bright
+as polished turquoise and the ozonous west wind,
+which is the very breath of hope, played sweetly in
+his face. He began to discover various consoling
+conditions in his lot, which had seemed so intolerable
+just a few days before.</p>
+
+<p>Probably no man under forty ever lost a woman
+without feeling in some degree compensated by a
+sense of freedom regained, and in the man of
+solitary and self-reliant nature, to whom freedom
+is a boon if not a necessity, this feeling is not slow
+to assert itself. Moreover, Ramon was now
+caught in the inevitable reaction from a purpose
+which had gathered and concentrated his energies
+with passionate intensity for almost four months.
+During that time he had lived with taut nerves for
+a single hope; he had turned away from a dozen
+alluring by-paths; he had known that absorbed
+<pb n="202"/><anchor id="Pg202"/>
+singleness of purpose which belongs only to lovers,
+artists and other monomaniacs.</p>
+
+<p>The bright hope that had led him had suddenly
+exploded, leaving him stunned and flat for a
+time. Now he got to his feet and looked about.
+He realized that the world still lay before him, a
+place of wonderful promise and possibility, and
+apparently he could stray in any direction he chose.
+He had money and freedom and an excellent
+equipment of appetites and curiosities. Things
+he had dreamed of doing long ago, in case he
+should ever come into his wealth, now revisited
+his imagination. He had promised himself for
+one thing some hunting trips&mdash;long ones into the
+mountains and down the river in his car. Gambling
+had always fascinated him, and he had
+longed to sit in a game high enough to be really
+interesting, instead of the quarter-limit affair that
+he had always played before. And there were
+women &hellip; other women. And he meant to go
+to New York or Chicago sometime and sample
+the fleshpots of a really great city.&hellip; Life
+after all was still an interesting thing.</p>
+
+<p>Not that he forgot his serious purposes. He
+meant to open a law office, to cultivate his political
+connections, to pursue his conquest of Arriba
+County. But although he did not realize it, his
+plans for making himself a strong and secure position
+in life had lost their vitalizing purpose. All
+<pb n="203"/><anchor id="Pg203"/>
+of these things he would do, but there was no hurry
+about them. His desire now was to taste the
+sweetness of life, and to rest. He was without a
+strong acquisitive impulse, and now that his great
+purpose in making money was gone, these projects
+did not strongly engage his imagination. He had
+plenty of money. He refused to worry. He
+felt reckless, too. If he had lost his great hope,
+his reward was to be released from the discipline
+it had imposed.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was there any other discipline to take its
+place. If there had been a strong creative impulse
+in him, or if he had faced a real struggle for his
+life or his personal freedom, he might now have
+recovered that condition of trained and focussed
+energy which civilized life demands of men. But
+he was too primitive to be engaged by any purely
+intellectual purpose, and his money was a buffer
+between him and struggle imposed from without.</p>
+
+<p>As he thought of all the things he would do, he
+felt strong and sure of himself. He thought that
+he was now a shrewd, cynical man, who could not
+be deceived or imposed upon, who could take the
+good things of life and discount the disillusionments.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC29" type="chapter">
+<pb n="204"/><anchor id="Pg204"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXIX</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>One of his first acts in town was to negotiate a
+note at the bank for several thousand dollars.
+This was necessary because he had little cash and
+would not have much until spring, when he would
+sell lambs and shear his sheep. He not only
+needed money for himself, but his mother and
+sister, after many lean years, were eager to spend.</p>
+
+<p>He drove out to see Catalina, and found her
+big with child and utterly indifferent to him, which
+piqued him slightly and relieved him a great deal.
+She had heard nothing about her father, and
+Ramon sent Cortez out to Domingo Canyon to see
+what had become of the old man. Cortez
+reported the place deserted. Ramon made
+inquiry in town and learned that Archulera had
+been seen there in his absence, very much dressed-up
+and very drunk, followed by a crowd of young
+Mexicans who were evidently parasites on his
+newly-acquired wealth. Then he had disappeared,
+and some thought he had gone to
+Denver. It was evident that his five thousand
+dollars had proved altogether too much for him.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon now hung out a shingle, announcing
+himself as an attorney-at-law. Of course, no
+<pb n="205"/><anchor id="Pg205"/>
+business came to him. The right way to get a
+practice would have been to go back to the office
+of Green or some other established lawyer for
+several years. But Ramon had no idea of doing
+anything so tiresome and so relatively humiliating.
+The idea of running errands for Green
+again was repugnant to him.</p>
+
+<p>He went every morning to his office and for a
+while he took a certain amount of satisfaction in
+merely sitting there, reading the local papers,
+smoking a cigar, now and then taking down one
+of his text books and reading a little. But study
+as such had absolutely no appeal to him. He
+might have dug at the dry case books to good
+purpose if he had been driven by need, but as it
+was he would begin to yawn in ten or fifteen
+minutes, and then would put the book away. He
+went home to a noonday dinner rather early and
+came back in the afternoon, feeling sleepy and
+bored. Now the office, and indeed the whole
+town, seemed a dreary place to him. At this
+season of the year there were often high winds
+which mantled the town in a yellow cloud of sand,
+and rattled at every loose shutter and door with
+futile dreary persistence. Ramon would wander
+about the office for a little while with his hands
+in his pockets and stare out the window, feeling
+depressed, thoughts of his disappointment coming
+back to him bitterly. Then he would take his
+<pb n="206"/><anchor id="Pg206"/>
+hat and go out and look for some one to play
+pool with him. Often he took an afternoon off
+and went hunting, not alone as formerly he had
+done, but with as large a party as he could gather.
+They would drive out into the sand hills and
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">mesas</hi> twenty
+or thirty miles from town, where
+the native quail and rabbits were still abundant
+as automobiles had just begun to invade their
+haunts. When they found a covey of quail the
+sport would be fast and furious, with half a
+dozen guns going at once and birds rising and
+falling in all directions. Ramon keenly enjoyed
+the hot excitement and dramatic quality of this.</p>
+
+<p>At night he was usually to be found at the
+White Camel Pool Hall where the local sporting
+element foregathered and made its plans for the
+evening. Sometimes a party would be formed to
+<q>go down the line,</q> as a visit to the red light
+district was called. Sometimes the rowdy dance
+halls of Old Town were invaded. On Saturday
+nights the dance at the country club always drew
+a considerable attendance. There was also a
+<q>dancing class</q> conducted by an estimable and
+needy spinster named Grimes, who held assembly
+dances once in two weeks in a little hall which
+had been built by the Woman&rsquo;s Club. This
+event always drew a large and very mixed crowd,
+including some of the <q>best people</q> and others
+who were considered not so good. Usually two
+<pb n="207"/><anchor id="Pg207"/>
+or three different sets were represented at
+these gatherings, each tending to keep to itself.
+But there was also a tendency for the sets to overlap.
+Thus a couple of very pretty German girls,
+who were the daughters of a local saloon keeper,
+always appeared accompanied by young men of
+their own circle with whom they danced almost
+exclusively at first. But young men of the first
+families could not resist their charms, and they
+soon were among the most popular girls on the
+floor. This was deplored by the young women
+of more secure social position, who were wont to
+remark that the crowd was deteriorating frightfully.
+Some of these same superior virgins
+found it necessary for politeness to dance with
+Joe Bartello, the son of an Italian saloon owner,
+and a very handsome and nimble-footed youth.
+In a word, this was a place of social hazard and
+adventure, and that was more than half its charm.
+It finally became so crowded that dancing was
+almost impossible.</p>
+
+<p>The back room at the White Camel, where
+poker games were nightly in progress, also
+afforded Ramon frequent diversion. He played
+in the <q>big</q> game now, where the stakes and limits
+were high, and was one of the most daring and
+dangerous of its patrons. He had more money
+back of him than most of the men who played
+there, and he also had more courage. If he
+<pb n="208"/><anchor id="Pg208"/>
+started a bluff he carried it through to the end,
+which was always bitter for some one. He had
+been known to stand pat on a pair and scare
+every one else out of the game by the resolute
+confidence of his betting. His plunges, of course,
+sometimes cost him heavily, but for a long time
+he was a moderate winner. His limitations as a
+poker player were finally demonstrated to him
+by one Fitzhugh Chesterman, a man with one
+lung.</p>
+
+<p>Chesterman was about twenty-six years old and
+had come from Richmond, Virginia, about two
+years before, with most of one lung gone and the
+other rapidly going. He was a tall, thin blond
+youth with the sensitive, handsome face which
+so often marks the rare survivor of the old southern
+aristocracy. He was totally lacking in the
+traditional southern sentimentality. His eye had
+a cold twinkle of courage that even the imminent
+prospect of death could not quench, and his thin
+shapely lips nearly always wore a smile slightly
+twisted by irony. He established himself at the
+state university, which had almost a hundred
+students and boasted a dormitory where living was
+very cheap. Chesterman sat before this dormitory
+twelve to fourteen hours a day, even in
+relatively cold weather. He made a living by
+coaching students in mathematics and Greek.
+He never raised his voice, he seldom laughed, he
+<pb n="209"/><anchor id="Pg209"/>
+never lost his temper. With his unwavering
+ironical smile, as though he appreciated the keen
+humour of taking so much trouble over such an insignificant
+thing as a human life, he husbanded
+his energy and fought for health. He took all
+the treatments the local sanatoria afforded, but
+he avoided carefully all the colonies and other
+gatherings of the tubercular. When his lung
+began to heal, as it did after about a year, and
+his strength to increase, he enlarged his earnings
+by playing poker. He won for the simple reason
+that he took no more chances than he had to.
+He systematically capitalized every bit of recklessness,
+stupidity and desperation in his opponents.</p>
+
+<p>When Ramon first encountered him, the game
+soon simmered down to a struggle between the
+two. Never were the qualities of two races more
+strikingly contrasted. Ramon bluffed and
+plunged. Chesterman was caution itself, playing
+out antes in niggardly fashion until he had a hand
+which put the law of probabilities strongly on his
+side. Ramon was full of daring, intuition, imagination,
+bidding always for the favour of the fates,
+throwing logic to the winds. He was not above
+moving his seat or putting on his hat to change his
+luck. Chesterman smiled at these things. He
+was cold courage battling for a purpose and praying
+to no deities but Cause and Effect. Ramon
+<pb n="210"/><anchor id="Pg210"/>
+thought he was playing for money, but he was
+really playing for the sake of his own emotions,
+revelling alike in hope and despair, triumph and
+victory, flushed and bright-eyed. Chesterman
+stifled every emotion, discounted every hope, said
+as little as possible, never relaxed his faint twisted
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon made some spectacular winnings, but
+Chesterman wore him down as surely as a slow
+hound wears down a deer despite its astounding
+bursts of speed. Ramon was sure to lose in the
+long run because he was always piling up odds
+against himself by the long chances he took, while
+his bluffs seldom deceived his cool and courageous
+opponent. The finish came at one o&rsquo;clock in the
+morning. Chesterman was pale with exhaustion,
+but otherwise unchanged. Ramon was hoarse
+and flushed, chewing a cigar to bits. He held a
+full house and determined to back it to the limit.
+Chesterman met him, bet for bet, raising every
+time. Ramon knew that he must be beaten. He
+knew that Chesterman would not raise him unless
+he had a very strong hand. But he was beaten
+anyway. At the bottom of his consciousness, he
+knew that he had met a better man. He wanted
+to end the contest on this hand. When Chesterman
+showed four kings, Ramon fell back in his
+chair, weak and disgusted. The other players,
+most of whom had long been out of the game,
+<pb n="211"/><anchor id="Pg211"/>
+got up and said good night one by one. Only
+the two were left, Ramon plunged in gloomy
+reaction, Chesterman coolly counting his money,
+putting it away.</p>
+
+<p><q>I seem to have made quite a killing,</q> he remarked,
+<q>how much did you lose?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>O, I don&rsquo;t know &hellip; about five hundred.
+Hell, what&rsquo;s five hundred to me &hellip; I don&rsquo;t
+give a damn &hellip; I&rsquo;m rich.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>Chesterman glanced at him keenly.</p>
+
+<p><q>Well,</q> he remarked, <q>I&rsquo;m glad you feel that
+way about it, because I sure need the money.</q></p>
+
+<p>He got up and walked away with the short
+careful steps of a man who cherishes every ounce
+of his energy.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon was disgusted with himself. Chesterman
+had made him feel like a weakling and a
+child. He had thought himself a lion in this
+game, and he had found out that he was an easily-shorn
+lamb. He could not afford to lose five
+hundred dollars either. He was not really a rich
+man. He went home feeling deeply depressed
+and discouraged. Vaguely he realized that in
+Chesterman he had encountered the spirit which
+he felt against him everywhere&mdash;a cool, calculating,
+unmerciful spirit of single purpose, against
+which the play and flow of his emotional and
+imaginative nature was as ineffectual as mercury
+against the point of a knife.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC30" type="chapter">
+<pb n="212"/><anchor id="Pg212"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXX</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>Within the next few days Ramon was sharply
+reminded that he lived in a little town where news
+travels fast and nobody&rsquo;s business is exclusively
+his own. Cortez came into his office and accepted
+a seat and a cigar with that respectful but worried
+manner which always indicated that he had something
+to say.</p>
+
+<p><q>I hear you lost five hundred dollars the other
+night,</q> he observed gravely, watching his young
+employer&rsquo;s face.</p>
+
+<p><q>Well, what of it?</q> Ramon enquired, a bit
+testily.</p>
+
+<p><q>You can&rsquo;t afford it,</q> Cortez replied. <q>And
+not only the money &hellip; you&rsquo;ve got to think of
+your reputation. You know how these gringos
+are. They keep things quiet. They expect a
+young man to lead a quiet life and tend to business.
+It&rsquo;s all right to have a little fun &hellip; they
+all do it &hellip; but for God&rsquo;s sake be careful.
+You hurt your chances this way &hellip; in the law,
+in politics.</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon jerked his head impatiently and flushed
+a little, but reflection checked his irritation.
+Hatred of restraint, love of personal liberty, the
+<pb n="213"/><anchor id="Pg213"/>
+animal courage that scorns to calculate consequences
+were his by heritage. But he knew that
+Cortez spoke the truth.</p>
+
+<p><q>All right Antonio,</q> he said with dignity.
+<q>I&rsquo;ll be careful.</q></p>
+
+<p>The next day he got a letter which emphasized
+the value of his henchman&rsquo;s warning and made
+Ramon really thoughtful. It was from MacDougall,
+and made him another offer for his land.
+It had a preamble to the effect that land values
+were falling, money was <q>tight,</q> and therefore
+Ramon would do well to sell now, before a further
+drop in prices. It made him an offer of ten
+thousand dollars less than MacDougall had offered
+before.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon knew that the talk about falling values
+was largely bluff, that MacDougall had heard of
+his losses and of his loose and idle life, and
+thought that he could now buy the lands at his
+own price. The gringo had confidently waited
+for the Mexican to make a fool of himself.
+Ramon resolved hotly that he would do no such
+thing. He had no idea of selling. He would be
+more careful with his money, and next summer he
+would go back to Arriba County, renew his campaign
+against MacDougall and buy some land with
+the money he could get for timber and wool.
+He replied very curtly to MacDougall that his
+lands were not for sale.</p>
+<pb n="214"/><anchor id="Pg214"/>
+
+<p>After that he stayed away from poker games
+for a while. This was made easier by a new
+interest which had entered his life in the person of
+a waitress at the Eldorado Lunch room. The
+girls at this lunch room had long borne a bad
+reputation. Even in the days before the big hotel
+had been built, when the railroad company maintained
+merely a little red frame building there,
+known as the Eating House, these waitresses had
+been a mainstay of local bachelordom. Their
+successors were still referred to by their natural
+enemies, the respectable ladies of the town, as
+<q>those awful eating house girls</q>; while the advent
+of a new <q>hash-slinger</q> was always a matter of
+considerable interest among the unmarried exquisites
+who fore-gathered at the White Camel.
+In this way Ramon quickly heard of the new
+waitress. She was reputed to be both prettier
+and less approachable than most of her kind.
+Sidney Felberg had made a preliminary reconnaissance
+and a pessimistic report.</p>
+
+<p><q>Nothing doing,</q> he said. <q>She&rsquo;s got a husband
+somewhere and a notion she&rsquo;s cut out for
+better things.&hellip; I&rsquo;m off her!</q></p>
+
+<p>This immediately provoked Ramon&rsquo;s interest.
+He went to the lunch room at a time when he
+knew there would be few customers. When he
+saw the girl he felt a faint thrill. The reason for
+this was that Dora McArdle somewhat resembled
+<pb n="215"/><anchor id="Pg215"/>
+Julia. The resemblance was slight and superficial,
+yet instantly noticeable. She was a little larger,
+but had about the same figure, and the same
+colour of hair, and above all the same sensuous,
+provocative mouth. Ramon followed her with
+his eyes until she became conscious of his scrutiny,
+when she tossed her head with that elaborate affectation
+of queenly scorn, which seems to be the
+special talent of waitresses everywhere. Nevertheless,
+when she came to take his order she gave
+him a pleasant smile. He saw now that she was
+not really like Julia. She was coarse and commonplace,
+but she was also shapely, ripe-breasted,
+good-natured, full of the appeal of a healthy
+animalism.</p>
+
+<p><q>What time do you get done here?</q> Ramon
+enquired.</p>
+
+<p><q>Don&rsquo;t know that it&rsquo;s any of your business,</q>
+she replied with another one of her crushing tosses
+of the head, and went away to get his order.
+When she came back he asked again.</p>
+
+<p><q>What time did you say?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Well, about nine o&rsquo;clock, if it&rsquo;ll give you any
+pleasure to know.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>I&rsquo;ll come for you in my car,</q> he told her.</p>
+
+<p><q>Oh! will you?</q> and she paid no more attention
+to him until he started to go, when she gave
+him a broad smile, showing a couple of gold teeth.</p>
+
+<p>At nine o&rsquo;clock he was waiting for her at the
+<pb n="216"/><anchor id="Pg216"/>
+door, and she went with him. He took her for
+a drive on the <hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>,
+heading for the only road
+house which the vicinity boasted. It was a great
+stone house, which had been built long ago by a
+rich man, and had later fallen into the hands of an
+Italian named Salvini, who installed a bar, and
+had both private dining rooms and bed rooms,
+these latter available only to patrons in whom he
+had the utmost confidence. This resort was informally
+known as the <q>chicken ranch.</q></p>
+
+<p>When Ramon tried to take his fair partner
+there, on the plea that they must have a bite to
+eat, she objected.</p>
+
+<p><q>I don&rsquo;t believe that place is respectable,</q> she
+told him very primly. <q>I don&rsquo;t think you ought
+to ask me to go there.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>O Hell!</q> said Ramon to himself. But aloud
+he proposed that they should drive to an adjacent
+hill-top from which the lights of the town could
+be seen. When he had parked the car on this
+vantage point and lit a cigarette, Dora began a
+narrative of a kind with which he was thoroughly
+familiar. She was of that well-known type of
+woman who is found in a dubious position, but explains
+that she has known better days. Her
+father had been a judge in Kansas, the family had
+been wealthy, she had never known what work
+was until she got married, her marriage had been a
+tragedy, her husband had drank, there had been a
+<pb n="217"/><anchor id="Pg217"/>
+smash-up, the family had met with reverses. On
+and on went the story, its very tone and character
+and the grammar she used testifying eloquently to
+the fact that she was no such crushed violet as
+she claimed to be. Ramon was bored. A year
+ago he would have been more tolerant, but now he
+had experienced feminine charm of a really high
+order, and all the vulgarity and hypocrisy of this
+woman was apparent to him. And yet as he sat
+beside her he was keenly, almost morbidly conscious
+of the physical attraction of her fine young
+body. For all her commonness and coarseness,
+he wanted her with a peculiarly urgent desire.
+Here was the heat of love without the flame and
+light, desire with no more exaltation than accompanies
+a good appetite for dinner. He was
+puzzled and a little disgusted.&hellip; He did not
+understand that this was his defeated love, seeking,
+as such a love almost inevitably does, a vicarious
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Repugnance and desire struggled strangely
+within him. He was half-minded to take her
+home and leave her alone. At any rate he was
+not going to sit there and listen to her insane babble
+all night. To put his fortunes to the test, he
+abruptly took her in his arms. She made a futile
+pretence of resistance. When their lips touched,
+desire flashed up in him strongly, banishing all his
+hesitations. He talked hot foolishness to which
+<pb n="218"/><anchor id="Pg218"/>
+she listened greedily, but when he tried to take
+her to Salvini&rsquo;s again, she insisted on going home.
+Before he left her he had made another appointment.</p>
+
+<p>Now began an absurd contest between the two
+in which Ramon was always man&oelig;uvring to get
+her alone somewhere so that he might complete
+his conquest if possible, while her sole object was
+to have him gratify her vanity by appearing in
+public with her. This he knew he could not
+afford to do. He could not even drive down the
+street with her in daylight without all gossips
+being soon aware he had done so. No one knew
+much about her, of course, but she was <q>one of
+those eating house girls</q> and to treat her as a
+social equal was to court social ostracism. He
+would win the enmity of the respectable women
+of the town, and he knew very well that respectable
+women rule their husbands. His prospects
+in business and politics, already suffering, would
+be further damaged.</p>
+
+<p>Here again was a struggle within him. He
+was of a breed that follows instinct without fear,
+that has little capacity for enduring restraints.
+And he knew well that the other young lawyers,
+the gringos, were no more moral than he. But
+they were careful. Night was their friend and
+they were banded together in a league of obscene
+secrecy. He despised this code and yet he feared
+<pb n="219"/><anchor id="Pg219"/>
+it. For the gringos held the whip; he must
+either cringe or suffer.</p>
+
+<p>So he was careful and made compromises.
+Dora wanted him to take her to dinner in the
+main dining room of the hotel, and he evaded and
+compromised by taking her there late at night
+when not many people were present. She wanted
+him to take her to a movie and he pleaded that he
+had already seen the bill, and asked her if she
+wanted to bore him. And when she pouted he
+made her a present of a pair of silk stockings.
+She accepted all sorts of presents, so that he felt
+he was making progress. She was making vague
+promises now of <q>sometime</q> and <q>maybe,</q> and
+his desire was whipped up with anticipation, making
+him always more reckless.</p>
+
+<p>One night late he took her to the Eldorado
+and persuaded her to drink champagne, thinking
+this would forward his purpose. The wine made
+her rosy and pretty, and it also made her forget
+her poses and affectations. She was more charming
+to him than ever before, partly because of the
+change in her, and partly because his own critical
+faculties were blunted by alcohol. He was almost
+in love with her and he felt sure that he was
+about to win her. But presently she began
+wheedling him in the old vein. She wanted him
+to take her to the dance at the Woman&rsquo;s Club!</p>
+
+<p>This would be to slap convention in the face,
+<pb n="220"/><anchor id="Pg220"/>
+and at first he refused to consider it. But he
+foolishly went on drinking, and the more he drank
+the more feasible the thing appeared. Dora had
+quit drinking and was pleading with him.</p>
+
+<p><q>I dare you!</q> she told him. <q>You&rsquo;re afraid.&hellip;
+You don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m good enough for you.&hellip;
+And yet you say you love me.&hellip; I&rsquo;m just as good
+as any girl in this town.&hellip; Well if you won&rsquo;t,
+I&rsquo;m going home. I&rsquo;m through! I thought you
+really cared.</q></p>
+
+<p>And then, when he had persuaded her not to
+run away, she became sad and just a little tearful.</p>
+
+<p><q>It&rsquo;s terrible,</q> she confided. <q>Just because I
+have to make my own living.&hellip;
+<corr sic="Its"><anchor id="E13"/><ref target="e13">It&rsquo;s</ref></corr>
+not fair. I
+ought never to speak to you again.&hellip; And yet, I
+do care for you.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon was touched. The pathos of her situation
+appealed strongly to his tipsy consciousness.
+Why not do it? After all, the girl was respectable.
+As she said, nobody <q>had anything on
+her.</q> The dance was a public affair. Any one
+could go. He had been too timid. Not three
+people there knew who she was. By God, he
+would do it!</p>
+
+<p>At first they did not attract much attention.
+Dora was pretty and fairly well dressed, in no way
+conspicuous. They danced exclusively with each
+other, as did some other couples present, and
+nothing was thought of that.</p>
+<pb n="221"/><anchor id="Pg221"/>
+
+<p>But soon he became aware of glances, hostile,
+disapproving. Probably it was true that only a
+few of the men at first knew who Dora was, but
+they told other men, and some of the men told the
+women. Soon it was known to all that he had
+brought <q>one of those awful eating house girls</q>
+to the dance! The enormity of the mistake he
+had made was borne in upon him gradually.
+Some of the men he knew smiled at him, generally
+with an eye-brow raised, or with a shake of the
+head. Sidney Felberg, who was a real friend,
+took him aside.</p>
+
+<p><q>For the love of God, Ramon, what did you
+bring that Flusey here for? You&rsquo;re queering
+yourself at a mile a minute. And you&rsquo;re drunk,
+too. For Heaven&rsquo;s sake, cart her away while
+the going&rsquo;s good!</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon had not realized how drunk he was
+until he heard this warning.</p>
+
+<p><q>O, go to hell, Sid!</q> he countered. <q>She&rsquo;s as
+good as anybody &hellip; I guess I can bring anybody
+I want here.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>Sidney shook his head.</p>
+
+<p><q>No use, no use,</q> he observed philosophically.
+<q>But it&rsquo;s too bad!</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon&rsquo;s own words sounded hollow to him.
+He was in that peculiar condition when a man
+knows that he is making an ass of himself, and
+knows that he is going right ahead doing it. He
+<pb n="222"/><anchor id="Pg222"/>
+was more attentive to Dora than ever. He
+brought her a glass of water, talked to her continually
+with his back to the hostile room. He was
+fully capable of carrying the thing through, even
+though girls he had known all his life were refusing
+to meet his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>It was Dora who weakened. She became
+quiet and sad, and looked infinitely forlorn.
+When a couple of women got up and moved
+pointedly away from her vicinity, her lip began
+to tremble, and her wide blue eyes were brimming.</p>
+
+<p><q>Come on, take me away quick,</q> she said pathetically.
+<q>I&rsquo;m going to cry.</q></p>
+
+<p>When they were in the car again she turned in
+the seat, buried her face in her arms and sobbed
+passionately with a gulping noise and spasmodic
+upheavals of her shoulders. Ramon drove
+slowly. He was sober now, painfully sober!
+He was utterly disgusted with himself, and bitterly
+sorry for Dora. A strong bond of sympathy
+had suddenly been created between them,
+for he too had tasted the bitterness of prejudice.
+For the first time Dora was not merely a frumpy
+woman who had provoked in him a desire he half-despised;
+she was a fellow human, who knew the
+same miseries.&hellip; He had intended to take her
+this night, to make a great play for success, but
+he no longer felt that way. He drove to the
+boarding house where she lived.</p>
+<pb n="223"/><anchor id="Pg223"/>
+
+<p><q>Here you are,</q> he said gently, <q>I&rsquo;ll call you
+up tomorrow.</q></p>
+
+<p>Dora looked up for the first time.</p>
+
+<p><q>O, no!</q> she plead. <q>Don&rsquo;t go off and leave
+me now. Don&rsquo;t leave me alone. Take me somewhere,
+anywhere.&hellip; Do anything you want
+with me.&hellip; You&rsquo;re all I&rsquo;ve got!</q></p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC31" type="chapter">
+<pb n="224"/><anchor id="Pg224"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXI</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>The rest of the winter Ramon spent in an aimlessly
+pleasant way. He tried to work but without
+arousing in himself enough enthusiasm to insure
+success. He played pool, gambled a little
+and hunted a great deal. He relished his pleasures
+with the keen appetite of health and youth,
+but when they were over he felt empty-minded
+and restless and did not know what to do about it.</p>
+
+<p>Some business came to his law office. Because
+of his knowledge of Spanish and of the country
+he was several times employed to look up titles to
+land, and this line of work he might have developed
+into a good practice had he possessed the
+patience. But it was monotonous, tedious work,
+and it bored him. He would toil over the papers
+with a good will for a while, and then a state of
+apathy would come over him, and like a boy in
+school he would sit vaguely dreaming.&hellip; Such
+dull tasks took no hold upon his mind.</p>
+
+<p>He defended several Mexican criminals, and
+found this a more congenial form of practice, but
+an unremunerative one. The only case which
+advanced him toward the reputation for which
+every young attorney strives brought him no
+<pb n="225"/><anchor id="Pg225"/>
+money at all. A young Mexican farmer of good
+reputation named Juan Valera had been converted
+to the Methodist faith. Like most of the few
+Mexicans who are won over to Protestantism, he
+had brought to his new religion a fanatical spirit,
+and had made enemies of the priests and of many
+of his neighbours by proselyting. Furthermore,
+his young and pretty wife remained a Catholic,
+which had caused a good deal of trouble in his
+house. But the couple were really devoted and
+managed to compromise their differences until a
+child was born. Then arose the question as to
+whether it should be baptized a Catholic or a
+Methodist. The girl wanted her baby to be
+baptized in the Catholic faith, and was fully
+persuaded by the priests that it would otherwise
+go to purgatory. She was backed by her father,
+whose interference was resented by Juan more
+than anything else. He consulted the pastor of
+his church, a bigoted New Englander, who counselled
+him on no account to yield.</p>
+
+<p>One evening when Juan was away from home,
+his father-in-law came to his house and persuaded
+the girl to go with him and have the child baptized
+in the Catholic faith, in order that it might be
+saved from damnation. After the ceremony they
+went to a picture-show by way of a celebration.
+When Juan came home he learned from the neighbours
+what had happened. His face became very
+<pb n="226"/><anchor id="Pg226"/>
+pale, his lips set, and his eyes had a hot, dangerous
+look. He got out a butcher knife from the
+kitchen, whetted it to a good point, and went and
+hid behind a big cottonwood tree near the moving-picture
+theatre. When his wife with the child
+and her father came out, he stepped up behind
+the old man and drove the knife into the back of
+his neck to the hilt, severing the spinal column.
+Afterward he looked at the dead man for a moment
+and at his wife, sitting on the ground shrieking,
+then went home and washed his hands and
+changed his shirt&mdash;for blood had spurted all over
+him&mdash;walked to the police station and gave himself
+up.</p>
+
+<p>This man had no money, and it is customary
+in such cases for the court to appoint a lawyer to
+conduct the defence. Usually a young lawyer who
+needs a chance to show his abilities is chosen, and
+the honor now fell upon Ramon.</p>
+
+<p>This was the first time since he had begun to
+study law that he had been really interested. He
+understood just how Juan Valera had felt. He
+called on him in jail. Juan Valera was composed,
+almost apathetic. He said he was willing to die,
+that he did not fear death.</p>
+
+<p><q>Let them hang me,</q> he said. <q>I would do
+the same thing again.</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon studied the law of his case with exhaustive
+thoroughness, but the law did not hold out
+<pb n="227"/><anchor id="Pg227"/>
+much hope for his client. It was in his plea to
+the jury that he made his best effort. Here again
+he discovered the eloquence that he had used the
+summer before in Arriba County. Here he lost
+for a moment his sense of aimlessness, felt again
+the thrill of power and the joy of struggle. He
+described vividly the poor Mexican&rsquo;s simple faith,
+his absolute devotion to it, showed that he had
+killed out of an all-compelling sense of right and
+duty. He found a good many witnesses to testify
+that Juan&rsquo;s father-in-law had hectored the
+young man a good deal, insulted him, intruded in
+his home. Half of the jurors were Mexicans.
+For a while the jury was hung. But it finally
+brought in a verdict of murder in the first degree,
+which was practically inevitable. Juan accepted
+this with a shrug of his shoulders and announced
+himself ready to hang and meet his Methodist
+God. But Ramon insisted on taking an appeal.
+He finally got the sentence commuted to life
+imprisonment. He then felt disgusted, and
+wished that he had let the man hang, feeling that
+he would have been better off dead than in the
+state penitentiary. But Juan&rsquo;s wife, who really
+loved him, came to Ramon&rsquo;s office and embraced
+his knees and laughed and cried and swore that
+she would do his washing for nothing as long as
+she lived. For now she could visit her husband
+once a month and take him <hi rend="font-style: italic">tortillas!</hi> Ramon
+<pb n="228"/><anchor id="Pg228"/>
+gave her ten dollars and pushed her out the door.
+He had worked hard on the case. He felt old
+and weary and wanted to get drunk.</p>
+
+<p><milestone unit="tb"/></p>
+
+<p>One day Ramon received an invitation to go
+hunting with Joe Cassi and his friends. He
+accepted it, and afterward went on many trips
+with the Italian saloon-owner, thereby doing
+further injury to his social standing.</p>
+
+<p>Cassi had come to the town some twenty years
+before with a hand organ and a monkey. The
+town was not accustomed to that form of entertainment;
+some of the Mexicans threw rocks
+at Cassi and a dog killed his monkey. Cassi was
+at that time a slender youth, handsome, ragged
+and full of high hopes. When his monkey was
+killed he first wept with rage and then swore that
+he would stay in that town and have the best of it.
+He now owned three saloons and the largest
+business building in town. He was a lean, grave,
+silent little man.</p>
+
+<p>Cassi had made most of his money in the days
+when gambling was <q>open</q> in the town, and he
+had surrounded himself with a band of choice
+spirits who were experts in keno, roulette and
+poker. These still remained on his hands, some
+of them in the capacity of barkeepers, and others
+practically as pensioners. They were all great
+sportsmen, heavy drinkers and loyal-to-the-death
+<pb n="229"/><anchor id="Pg229"/>
+friends. At short intervals they went on hunting
+trips down the river, generally remaining over
+the week-end. It was of these expeditions that
+Ramon now became a regular member. Sometimes
+the whole party would get drunk and come
+back whooping and singing as the automobiles
+bowled along, occasionally firing shotguns into the
+air. At other times when luck was good everyone
+became interested in the sport and forgot to
+drink. Ramon had a real respect for Cassi, and
+a certain amount of contempt for most of the rest
+of them; yet he felt more at home with these
+easy-going, pleasure-loving, loyal fellows than he
+did with those thrifty, respectable citizens in whose
+esteem the dollar stood so invariably first.</p>
+
+<p>Cassi and his friends used most often to go to
+a Mexican village some fifty miles down the river
+where the valley was low and flat, and speckled
+with shallow alkaline ponds made by seepage
+from the river. Every evening the wild ducks
+flew into these ponds from the river to feed, and
+the shooting at this evening flight Ramon especially
+loved. The party would scatter out, each
+man choosing his own place on the East side of
+one of the little lakes, so that the red glare of the
+sunset was opposite him. There he would lie
+flat on the ground, perhaps making a low blind of
+weeds or rushes.</p>
+
+<p>Seldom even in January was it cold enough to
+<pb n="230"/><anchor id="Pg230"/>
+be uncomfortable. Ramon would lie on an
+elbow, smoking a cigarette, watching the light
+fade, and the lagoon before him turn into molten
+gold to match the sunset sky. It would be very
+quiet save for such sounds as the faraway barking
+of dogs or the lowing of cattle. When the sky
+overhead had faded to an obscure purple, and the
+flare of the sunset had narrowed to a belt along
+the horizon, he would hear the distant eerie
+whistle of wild wings. Nothing could be seen
+yet, but the sound multiplied. He could distinguish
+now the roar of a great flock of mallards,
+circling round and round high overhead, scouting
+for danger. He could hear the sweet flute-notes
+of teal and pintails, and the raucous, cautious
+quack of some old green-head. A teal would
+pitch suddenly down to the water before him and
+rest there, erect and wary, painted in black upon
+the golden water. Another would join it and
+another. The cautious mallards, encouraged by
+this, would swing lower. The music of their
+wings seemed incredibly close; he would grip his
+gun hard, holding himself rigidly still, feeling
+clearly each beat of his heart.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the ducks would come into view &hellip; dark
+forms with ghostly blurs for wings, shooting
+with a roar into the red flare of light. The flash
+of his shotgun would leap out twice. The startled
+birds would bound into the air like blasted
+<pb n="231"/><anchor id="Pg231"/>
+rock from a quarry, and be lost in the purple
+mystery of sky, except two or three that hurtled
+over and over and struck the water, each with a
+loud spat, throwing up little jets of gold.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes there were long waits between shots,
+but at others the flight was almost continuous, the
+air seemed full of darting birds, and the gun
+barrels were hot in his hands. His excitement
+would be intense for a time; yet after he had
+killed a dozen birds or so he would often lose
+interest and lie on his back listening to the music
+of wings and of bird voices. He had that aversion
+to excess which seems to be in all Latin
+peoples. Besides, he did not want many ducks to
+dispose of.&hellip; It was the rush and colour, the
+dramatic quality of the thing that he loved.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the others killed to the limit with a
+fine unflagging lust for blood, giving a brilliant
+demonstration of the fact that civilized man is
+the most destructive and bloodthirsty of all the
+predatory mammals.</p>
+
+<p><milestone unit="tb"/></p>
+
+<p>The coming of spring was marked by a few
+heavy rains, followed by the faint greening of the
+cottonwood trees and of the alfalfa fields. The
+grey waste of the <hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>
+showed a greenish tinge,
+too, heralding its brief springtime splendor when
+it would be rich with the purple of wild-peas,
+pricked out in the morning with white blossoms
+<pb n="232"/><anchor id="Pg232"/>
+of the prairie primrose. Now and then a great
+flock of geese went over the town, following the
+Rio Grande northward half a mile high, their
+faint wild call seeming the very voice of this
+season of lust and wandering.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon felt restless and lost interest in all his
+usual occupations. He began to make plans and
+preparations for going to the mountains. He
+bought a tent and a new rifle and overhauled all
+his camping gear. He thought he was getting
+ready for a season of hard work, but in reality
+his strongest motive was the springtime longing
+for the road and the out-of-doors. He was sick
+of whisky and women and hot rooms full of
+tobacco smoke.</p>
+
+<p>Withal it was necessary that he should go to
+Arriba County, follow up his campaign of the
+preceding fall, arrange a timber sale if possible
+so that he might buy land, and above all see that
+his sheep herds were properly tended. This was
+the crucial season in the sheep business. Like
+the other sheep owners, he ranged his herds
+chiefly over the public domain, and he gambled on
+the weather. If the rain continued into the early
+summer so that the waterholes were filled and
+the grass was abundant, he would have a good
+lamb crop. The sale of part of this and of the
+wool he would shear would make up the bulk of
+his income for the year. And he had already
+<pb n="233"/><anchor id="Pg233"/>
+spent that income and a little more. He could
+not afford a bad year. If it was a dry spring,
+so that lambs and ewes died, he would be seriously
+embarrassed. In any case, he was determined to
+be on the range in person and not to trust the
+herders. If it came to the worst and the spring
+was dry he would rent mountain range from the
+Forest Service and rush his herds to the upland
+pastures as early as possible. He was not at all
+distressed or worried; he knew what he was about
+and had an appetite for the work.</p>
+
+<p>One morning when he was in the midst of his
+preparations, he went to his office and found on
+the desk a small square letter addressed in a
+round, upright, hand. This letter affected him
+as though it had been some blossom that filled the
+room with a fragrant narcotic exhalation. It
+quickened the beat of his heart like a drug. It
+drove thought of everything else out of his mind.
+He opened it and the faint perfume of it flowed
+over him and possessed his senses and his
+imagination.&hellip;</p>
+
+<p>It was a long, gossipy letter and told him of
+nearly everything that Julia had done in the six
+months since they had parted <q>forever</q>. The
+salient fact was that she had been married. A
+young man in a New York brokerage office who
+had long been a suitor for her hand, and to whom
+she had once before been engaged for part of a
+<pb n="234"/><anchor id="Pg234"/>
+summer, had followed the Roths to Europe and
+he and Julia had been married immediately after
+their return.</p>
+
+<p><q>I give you my word, I don&rsquo;t know why I did
+it,</q> she wrote. <q rend="post: none">Mother wanted me to, and I
+just sort of drifted into it. First thing I knew I
+was engaged and the next thing mother was sending
+the invitations out, and then I was in for it.
+It was a good deal of fun being engaged, but
+when it came to being married I was scared to
+death and couldn&rsquo;t lift my voice above a whisper.
+Since then it has been rather a bore. Now my
+husband has been called to London. I am living
+alone here in this hotel. That is, more or less
+alone. A frightful lot of people come around
+and bore me, and I have to go out a good deal.
+I&rsquo;m supposed to be looking for an apartment, too;
+but I haven&rsquo;t really started yet. Ralph won&rsquo;t
+be back for another two or three weeks, so I
+have plenty of time.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>I don&rsquo;t know why in the world I&rsquo;m writing
+you this long frightfully intimate letter. I don&rsquo;t
+seem to know why I do anything these days. I
+know its most improper for a respectable married
+lady, and I certainly have no reason to suppose
+you want to be bothered by me any more after the
+way I did. But somehow you stick in the back
+of my head. You might write me a line, just out
+of compassion, if you&rsquo;re not too busy with all
+<pb n="235"/><anchor id="Pg235"/>
+your sheep and mountains and things.</q> She
+signed herself <q>as ever</q>, which, he reflected bitterly,
+might mean anything.</p>
+
+<p>At first the fact that she was married wholly
+engaged his attention. She was then finally and
+forever beyond his reach. This was the end sure
+enough. He was not going to start any long
+aimless correspondence with her to keep alive the
+memory of his disappointment. He planned
+various brief and chilly notes of congratulation.&hellip;
+Then another thought took precedence
+over that one. She was alone there in that hotel.
+Her husband was in London. She had written to
+him and given him her address.&hellip; His blood
+pounded and his breath came quick. He made
+his decision instantly, on impulse. He would go
+to New York.</p>
+
+<p>He wired the hotel where she was stopping for
+a reservation, but sent no word at all to her. He
+gave the bewildered and troubled Cortez brief
+orders by telephone to go to Arriba County in his
+place, arranged a note at the bank for two thousand
+dollars, and caught the limited the same
+night at seven-thirty-five.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC32" type="chapter">
+<pb n="236"/><anchor id="Pg236"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXII</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>He looked at New York through a taxicab
+window without much interest. A large damp
+grey dirty place, very crowded, where he would
+not like to live, he thought. He managed himself
+and his baggage with ease and dispatch; his
+indifferent, dignified manner and his reckless use
+of money were ideally effective with porters, taxi
+drivers and the like. When he reached the hotel
+about eight o&rsquo;clock at night he went to his room
+and made himself carefully immaculate. He
+studied himself with a good deal of interest in the
+full length mirror which was set in the bath room
+door; for he had seldom encountered such a mirror
+and he had a considerable amount of vanity of
+which he was not at all conscious. It struck him
+that he was remarkably good-looking, and indeed
+he was more so than usual, his eyes bright, his
+face flushed, his whole body tense and poised with
+purpose and expectation.</p>
+
+<p>He went down to the lobby, looked Julia up in
+the register, ascertained the number of her room,
+and made a note of it. Then he asked the telephone
+girl to call her and learn whether she
+was in.</p>
+<pb n="237"/><anchor id="Pg237"/>
+
+<p><q>Yes; she is in. She wants to know who&rsquo;s
+calling, please.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Tell her an old friend who wants to surprise
+her.</q> He did not care to risk any evasion, and
+he also wanted his arrival to have its full dramatic
+effect.</p>
+
+<p>The telephone girl transmitted his message.</p>
+
+<p><q>She says she can&rsquo;t come down yet &hellip; not
+for about half an hour.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Tell her I&rsquo;ll wait. If she asks for me I&rsquo;ll be
+in that little room there.</q> He pointed to a
+small reception room opening off the mezzanine
+gallery, which he had selected in advance. He
+had planned everything carefully.</p>
+
+<p><milestone unit="tb"/></p>
+
+<p>When he stood up to meet her she gave a little
+gasp, and took a step back.</p>
+
+<p><q>Why, you! Ramon! How could you?
+You shouldn&rsquo;t have come. You know you
+shouldn&rsquo;t. I didn&rsquo;t mean that &hellip; I had no
+idea.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>He came forward and took her hand and led
+her to a settee. Despite all her protests he could
+see very plainly that he had scored heavily in his
+own favour. She was flustered with excitement
+and pleasure. Like all women, she was captivated
+by sudden, decisive action and loved the
+surprising and the dramatic.</p>
+
+<p>They sat side by side, looking at each other,
+<pb n="238"/><anchor id="Pg238"/>
+smiling, making unimportant remarks, and then
+looking at each other again. Ramon felt that
+she had changed. She was as pretty as ever, and
+never had she stirred him more strongly. But her
+appeal seemed more immediate than before; she
+seemed less remote. The innocence of her wide
+eyes was a little less noticeable and their flash of
+recklessness a little more so. It seemed to him
+that her mouth was larger, which may have been
+due to the fact that she had rouged it a little too
+much. She wore a pink decollete with straps over
+the shoulders one of which kept slipping down
+and had to be pulled up again.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon was tremulous with a half-acknowledged
+anticipation, but he held himself strongly in hand.
+He felt that he had an advantage over her&mdash;that
+he was more at ease and she less so than at
+any previous meeting&mdash;and he meant to keep it.</p>
+
+<p>But she was rapidly regaining her composure,
+and took refuge in a rather formal manner.</p>
+
+<p><q>Are you going to be here long?</q> she enquired
+in the conventional tone of mock-interest.</p>
+
+<p><q>Just a week or so on business,</q> he explained,
+determined not to be outpointed in the game. <q>I
+had to come some time this spring, and when I got
+your note I thought I would come while you are
+here.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>But I&rsquo;ll be here the rest of my life probably.
+This is where I live. You ought to have come
+<pb n="239"/><anchor id="Pg239"/>
+when my husband was here. I&rsquo;d like to have you
+meet him. As it is, I can&rsquo;t see much of you, of
+course.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>He refused to be put out by this coldness, but
+tried to strike a more intimate note.</p>
+
+<p><q>Tell me about your marriage,</q> he asked.
+<q>Are you really happy?&hellip; Do you like it?</q></p>
+
+<p>She looked at the floor gravely.</p>
+
+<p><q>You shouldn&rsquo;t ask that, of course,</q> she reproved.
+<q>Everyone who has just been married
+is very, very happy.&hellip; No, I don&rsquo;t like it a
+darn bit.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>It&rsquo;s not what you expected, then.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>I don&rsquo;t know what I expected, but from the
+way people talk about it and write about it you
+would certainly think it was something wonderful&mdash;love
+and passion and bliss and all that, I mean.
+I feel that I&rsquo;ve either been lied to or cheated &hellip;
+of course<corr sic=""><anchor id="E9"/><ref target="e9">,</ref></corr></q>
+she added with a little side glance at
+him, <q>I didn&rsquo;t exactly love my husband.&hellip;</q>
+She blushed and looked down again; then laughed
+softly and rather joyfully for a lady with a broken
+heart.</p>
+
+<p><q>If mother could only hear me now!</q> she
+observed.&hellip; <q>She&rsquo;d faint. I don&rsquo;t care.&hellip;
+That&rsquo;s just the way I feel.&hellip; I don&rsquo;t care!
+All my life I&rsquo;ve been trained and groomed and
+prepared for the grand and glorious event of
+marriage. I&rsquo;ve been taught it&rsquo;s the most wonderful
+<pb n="240"/><anchor id="Pg240"/>
+thing that can happen to anyone. That&rsquo;s what
+all the books say, and all the people I know.
+And here it turns out to be a most uncomfortable
+bore.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>He looked gravely sympathetic.</p>
+
+<p><q>Do you think it would have been different
+with&mdash;someone you did love?</q> he enquired
+cautiously.</p>
+
+<p>She gave him another quick thrilling glance.</p>
+
+<p><q>I don&rsquo;t know,</q> she said.&hellip; <q>Maybe &hellip;
+I felt so different about you.</q></p>
+
+<p>Their hands met on the settee and they both
+moved instinctively a little closer together.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she jerked away from him, looking
+him in the eyes with her head thrown back and
+a smile of irony on her lips.</p>
+
+<p><q>Aren&rsquo;t we a couple of idiots?</q> she demanded.</p>
+
+<p><q>No!</q> he declared with fierce emphasis, and
+throwing an arm about her, pounced on her lips.</p>
+
+<p>Just then a bell boy passed the door. They
+jerked apart and upright very self-consciously.
+Then they looked at each other and laughed. But
+their eyes quickly became deep and serious again,
+and their fingers entangled.</p>
+
+<p>She sighed in mock exasperation.</p>
+
+<p><q rend="pre: none"><corr sic=""><anchor id="E10"/>
+<ref target="e10">&ldquo;</ref></corr>For Heaven&rsquo;s
+sake, say something!</q> she
+demanded. <q>We can&rsquo;t sit here and make eyes at
+each other all evening. Besides I&rsquo;m compromising
+my priceless reputation. It&rsquo;s after ten o&rsquo;clock.
+<pb n="241"/><anchor id="Pg241"/>
+I&rsquo;ve got to go.</q> She rose, and held out her hand,
+which he took without saying anything.</p>
+
+<p><q>Good night,</q> she said. <q>I think you were
+mean to come and camp on me this way &hellip; dumb
+as ever, I see &hellip; well, good night.</q></p>
+
+<p>She went to the door, stopped and looked back,
+smiled and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon went down to the lobby and roamed
+all over the two floors which constituted the public
+part of the hotel. He looked at everything and
+smoked a great many cigarettes, thus restlessly
+whiling away an hour. Then he went to a writing
+room. He collected some telegrams and letters
+about him and appeared to be very busy. When
+a bell boy went by, he rapped sharply on the desk
+with a fifty-cent piece, and as the boy stopped,
+tossed it to him.</p>
+
+<p><q>Get me the key to 207!</q> he ordered sharply;
+then turned back to his imaginary business.</p>
+
+<p><q>Yes sir,</q> said the boy. He returned in a few
+minutes with the key.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon sat for a long moment looking at it,
+tremulous with a great anticipation. He was
+divided between a conviction that she expected
+him and a fear that she did not.&hellip; His fear
+proved groundless.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC33" type="chapter">
+<pb n="242"/><anchor id="Pg242"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXIII</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>The next day they met for dinner at a little
+place near Washington Square where it was certain
+that none of Julia&rsquo;s friends ever went. Julia
+was a singularly contented-looking criminal.
+Never, Ramon thought had her skin looked more
+velvety, her eyes deeper or more serene. He
+was a trifle haggard, but happy, and both of them
+were hungry.</p>
+
+<p><q>Do you know?&hellip; I&rsquo;ve made a discovery,</q>
+she told him. <q>I haven&rsquo;t any conscience. I slept
+peacefully nearly all day, and when I waked up I
+considered the matter carefully &hellip; I don&rsquo;t
+believe that I have any proper appreciation of the
+enormity of what I&rsquo;ve done at all. I have always
+thought that if anything like this ever happened
+to me I would go off and chloroform myself, but
+as a matter of fact I have no such intention &hellip; of
+course, though, it was not my fault in the least.
+You&rsquo;re so terrible!&hellip; I simply couldn&rsquo;t help
+myself, and I don&rsquo;t see what I can do now &hellip; that&rsquo;s
+comforting. But one thing is certain.
+We&rsquo;ve got to be awfully careful. Thank Heaven,
+mother and Gordon are still in Florida and they
+won&rsquo;t dare to come North on Gordon&rsquo;s account
+<pb n="243"/><anchor id="Pg243"/>
+until it gets a good deal warmer. But we must
+be careful. I&rsquo;m not sorry, like I should be, but
+I sure am scared.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>They sat for a long time after the meal, Ramon
+smoking a cigar, their knees touching under the
+table. He was filled with a vast contentment.
+He thought nothing of the troubled past, nor did
+he look into the obviously troubled future. He
+merely basked in the consciousness of a possession
+infinitely sweet.</p>
+
+<p>Now began for them a life of clandestine
+adventure. Julia had a good many engagements,
+but she managed to give him some part of every
+day. They never met in the hotel, but usually
+took taxicabs separately and met in out-of-the-way
+parts of that great free wilderness of city.
+Ramon spent most of the time when he was not
+with her exploring for suitable meeting places.
+They became patrons of cellar restaurants in
+Greenwich Village, of French and Italian places
+far down town, of obscure Brooklyn hotels. If
+the regular fare at these establishments was not
+all they desired, Ramon would lavishly bribe the
+head waiter, call the proprietor into consultation
+if necessary, insist on getting what Julia wanted.
+He spent his money like a millionaire, and usually
+created the general impression that he was a
+wealthy foreigner. Every morning he had
+flowers sent to Julia&rsquo;s room. Often they would
+<pb n="244"/><anchor id="Pg244"/>
+take a taxi and spend hours riding about the
+streets with the blinds drawn, locked in each
+others&rsquo; arms.</p>
+
+<p>For a week they were keenly, excitedly happy,
+living wholly in the joy of the moment. Then a
+flaw appeared upon the glowing perfect surface
+of their happiness.</p>
+
+<p><q>When is your husband coming back?</q> he
+enquired once, when they were riding through
+Central Park.</p>
+
+<p><q>I don&rsquo;t know. In a week or two. Why?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Because we must decide pretty soon what we&rsquo;re
+going to do.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Do? What can we do?</q></p>
+
+<p><q>We must decide where we&rsquo;re going. You
+must go with me somewhere. I&rsquo;m not going to
+let you get away from me again &hellip; not even
+for a little while.</q></p>
+
+<p><q>But Ramon, how can we? I&rsquo;m married. I
+can&rsquo;t go anywhere with you.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>He seized her fiercely by the shoulders and
+held her away from him, looking into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p><q>Don&rsquo;t you love me, then?</q> he demanded.</p>
+
+<p><q>Ramon! You know I do!</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Then you&rsquo;ll go. We can go to Mexico City, or
+South America &hellip; I&rsquo;ll sell out at home.&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p><q>O, Ramon &hellip; I can&rsquo;t. I haven&rsquo;t got the
+courage. Think of the fuss it would raise. And
+it would kill Gordon, I know it would.&hellip;</q></p>
+<pb n="245"/><anchor id="Pg245"/>
+
+<p><q>Damn Gordon!</q> he exclaimed, <q>he&rsquo;s not going
+to get in the way again! You&rsquo;re mine and I&rsquo;m
+going to keep you. You will go. I&rsquo;ll take you!</q></p>
+
+<p>He had seized her in his arms, was holding her
+furiously tight. She put her arms around him,
+caressed his face with soft fluttering hands.</p>
+
+<p><q>Please, Ramon! Please don&rsquo;t make me
+miserable. Don&rsquo;t spoil the only happiness I ever
+had! I will go with you if ever I can, if I can get
+a divorce or something. But I can&rsquo;t run off like
+that. I haven&rsquo;t got it in me &hellip; please let me
+be happy!</q></p>
+
+<p>Her touch and her voice seemed to overcome
+his determination, seemed to sheer him of his
+strength. Weaker she was than he, but her charm
+was her power. It dragged him away from his
+thoughts and purposes, binding him to her and to
+the moment.&hellip; She drew his head down to her
+breast, found his lips with hers and so effectively
+cut his protests short.</p>
+
+<p><milestone unit="tb"/></p>
+
+<p>The cream of his happiness was gone.
+Always when he was alone, he was thinking and
+planning how he could keep her. All of his
+possessiveness was aroused. He wanted her to
+have a baby. Somehow he felt that then his conquest
+would be complete, that then he would be
+at peace.&hellip;</p>
+
+<p>He said nothing more to Julia because he saw
+<pb n="246"/><anchor id="Pg246"/>
+that it was useless. He began to understand her
+a little. It was futile to ask her to make a decision,
+to take any initiative. She could hold out
+forever against pleas which involved an effort of
+the will on her part. And yet as he knew she
+could yield charmingly to pressure adroitly
+applied. If he had asked her to meet him in New
+York this way, he reflected, she would have been
+horrified, she would never have consented. But
+when he came, suddenly, that had been different.
+So it was now. If he could only form a really
+good plan, and then put her in a cab and take her &hellip; that
+would be the only way. The difficulty
+was to form the plan. He had capacity for
+sudden and decisive action. He lacked neither
+courage nor resolution. But when it came to
+making a plan which would require much time and
+patience, he found his limitations.</p>
+
+<p>What could he do? he asked himself, not realizing
+that in formulating the question he acknowledged
+his impotence. If he went away and left
+her while he settled his affairs, she was lost as
+surely as a bird released from a cage. The idea
+of Mexico City allured him. But he had hardly
+enough money to take them there. How could he
+raise money on short notice? It would take time
+to settle his estate in New Mexico and get anything
+out of it.&hellip;</p>
+
+<p>Two unrealized facts lay at the root of his
+<pb n="247"/><anchor id="Pg247"/>
+difficulty. One was that he had no capacity for
+large and intricate plans, and the other was that
+he felt bound as by an invisible tether to the land
+where he had been born.</p>
+
+<p>As he struggled with all these conflicting considerations
+and emotions, his head fairly ached with
+futile effort. He was glad to lay it upon Julia&rsquo;s
+soft bosom, to forget everything else again in the
+sweetness of a stolen moment.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC34" type="chapter">
+<pb n="248"/><anchor id="Pg248"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXIV</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>He had been in New York about ten days when
+he awoke one morning near noon. An immense
+languor possessed him. He had been with Julia
+the night before and never had she been more
+charming, more abandoned.&hellip; He ordered his
+breakfast to be sent up, and then stretched out in
+bed and lit an expensive Russian cigarette. He
+had that love of sensuous indolence, which,
+together with its usual complement, the capacity
+for brief but violent action, marked him as a
+primitive man&mdash;one whom the regular labors and
+restraints of civilization would never fit.</p>
+
+<p>His telephone bell rang, and when he took
+down the receiver he heard Julia&rsquo;s voice. It was
+not unusual for her to call him about this time,
+but what she told him now caused a blank and
+hapless look to come over his face. She was not
+in her room, but in another hotel.</p>
+
+<p><q>My husband got in this morning,</q> she explained
+in a voice that was thin with misery and
+confusion. <q>I got his message last night, but I
+didn&rsquo;t tell you because I knew it would spoil our
+last time together, and I was afraid you would do
+something foolish.&hellip; Please say you&rsquo;re not
+<pb n="249"/><anchor id="Pg249"/>
+angry. You know there was nothing for it. We
+couldn&rsquo;t have done any of those wild things you
+talked about. I&rsquo;ll always love you, honestly I
+will. Won&rsquo;t you even say goodby?&hellip;</q></p>
+
+<p>He at last did say goodby and hung up the
+receiver and went across the room and sat in an
+armchair. It suddenly struck him that he was
+very tired. He had not realized it before &hellip; how
+tired he was. There was none of the mad
+rebellion in him now that had filled him when first
+she had run away from him. Although he had
+never acknowledged it to himself he had been
+more than half prepared for this. He had told
+himself that he was going to do something bold
+and decisive, but he had procrastinated; he had
+never really formed a plan.</p>
+
+<p>Weariness was his leading emotion. He was
+spent, physically and emotionally. He wanted
+her almost as much as ever. While she was no
+longer the remote and dazzling star she had been,
+the bond of flesh that had been created between
+them seemed a stronger, a more constant thing
+than blinding unsatisfied desire. But a great
+despair possessed him. There was so obviously
+nothing he could do. Just as his other disappointment
+had given him his first stinging impression of
+the irony of life, that cunningly builds a hope and
+then smashes it; so now he felt for the first time
+something of the helplessness of man in the
+<pb n="250"/><anchor id="Pg250"/>
+current or his destiny, driven by deep-laid desires
+he seldom understands, and ruled by chances he
+can never calculate. From love a man learns
+life in quick and painful flashes.</p>
+
+<p>Through the open window came the din of the
+New York street&mdash;purr and throb of innumerable
+engines, rumble and clatter of iron wheels, tapping
+of thousands of restless feet, making a blended
+current of sound upon which floated and tossed the
+shrillness of police whistles and newsboys&rsquo; voices
+and auto horns. It had been the background of
+his life during memorable days. Once it had
+stirred his pulses, seeming a wild accompaniment
+to the song of his passion. Now it wearied him
+inexpressibly; it seemed to be hammering in his
+ears; he wanted to get away from it. He would
+go home that day.</p>
+
+<p><milestone unit="tb"/></p>
+
+<p>As always on his trips across the continent he
+sat apathetically smoking through the wide green
+lushness of the middle west. Only when the
+cultivated lands gave way to barren hills and
+faint blue mountains peeping over far horizons
+did he turn to the window and forget his misery
+and his weariness. How it spoke to his heart,
+this country of his own! He who loved no man,
+who had gone to women with desire and come
+away with bitterness, loved a vast and barren
+land, baking in the sun. The sight of it quickened
+<pb n="251"/><anchor id="Pg251"/>
+his pulses, softened and soothed his spirit. Like
+a good liquor it nursed and beautified whatever
+mood was in him. When he had come back to it
+a year before, it had spoken to him of hope, its
+mysterious distances had seemed full of promise
+and hidden possibility. And now that he came
+back to it with hopes broken, weary in mind and
+body, it seemed the very voice of rest. He
+thought of long cool nights in the mountains and
+of the lullaby that wind and water sing, of the
+soothing monotony of empty sunlit levels, of the
+cool caress of deep, green pools, of the sweet
+satisfaction that goes with physical weariness and
+a full belly and a bed upon the ground.</p>
+
+<p>But when on the last morning of his journey he
+waked up within a hundred miles of home, and
+less than half that far from his own mountain
+lands, his new-found comfort quickly changed to
+a keen anxiety. For he saw at a glance that the
+country was under the blight of drought. The
+hills that should have borne a good crop of
+gramma grass at this time of the year, if the rains
+had been even fair, were nothing but bare red
+earth from which the rocks and the great roots of
+the <hi rend="font-style: italic">pinion</hi>
+trees stood out like the bones of a
+starving animal. Here and there on the hillsides
+he could see a scrubby pine that had died, its
+needles turned rust-red&mdash;the sure sign of a serious
+drought.</p>
+<pb n="252"/><anchor id="Pg252"/>
+
+<p>During the half month that he had been gone
+he had thought not once of his affairs at home.
+The moment had absorbed him completely. Now
+it all came back to him suddenly. When he had
+left, the promise of the season had been good.
+It had not rained for more than a week, but everyone
+had been expecting rain every day. It was
+clear to him that the needed rain had never come.
+And he knew just what that meant to him. It
+meant that he had lost lambs and ewes, that he
+would have no money this year with which to
+meet his notes at the bank. He sank deep in
+despair and disgust again. Not only was the
+assault on his fortunes a serious one, but he felt
+little inclined to meet it. He was weary of struggle.
+He saw before him a long slow fight to get
+on his feet again, with the chance of ultimate
+failure if he had another bad year.</p>
+
+<p>The Mexicans firmly believe, in the face of
+much evidence to the contrary, that seven wet
+years are always followed by seven dry ones. He
+had heard the saying gravely repeated many
+times. He more than half believed it. And he
+knew that for a good many years, perhaps as
+many as six or seven, the rains had been remarkably
+good. He was intelligent, but superstition
+was bred in his bones. Like all men of a primitive
+type he had a strong tendency to believe in
+<pb n="253"/><anchor id="Pg253"/>
+fortune as a deliberate force in the affairs of men.
+It seemed clear to him now, in his depressed and
+exhausted condition, that bad luck had marked
+him for its prey.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC35" type="chapter">
+<pb n="254"/><anchor id="Pg254"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXV</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>His forebodings were confirmed in detail the
+next morning when Cortez came into his office,
+his face wrinkled with worry and darkened by
+exposure to the weather. He was angry too.</p>
+
+<p><q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Por Dios</hi>,
+man! To go off like that and not
+even leave me an address. If I could have gotten
+more money to hire men I might have saved some
+of them &hellip; yes, more than half of the lambs
+died, and many of the ewes. There is nothing
+to do now. They are on the best of the range,
+and it has begun to rain in the mountains. But
+it is too bad. It cost you many thousands &hellip; that
+trip to New York.</q></p>
+
+<p>Ramon gave Cortez a cigar to soothe his
+sensibilities, thanked him with dignity for his loyal
+services, and sent him away. Then he put on
+his hat and went outside to walk and think.</p>
+
+<p>The town seemed to him quiet as though half-deserted.
+This was partly by contrast with the
+place of din which he had just left, and partly
+because this was the dull season, when the first
+hot spell of summer drove many away from the
+town and kept those who remained in their houses
+most of the day. The sandy streets caught the
+<pb n="255"/><anchor id="Pg255"/>
+sun and cherished it in a merciless glare. They
+were baked so hot that barefoot urchins hopped
+gingerly from one patch of shade to the next.
+In the numerous vacant lots rank jungles of weeds
+languished in the dry heat, and long blue-tailed
+lizards, veritable heat-sprites, emerged to frolic
+and doze on deserted sidewalks. The leaves of
+the cottonwoods hung limp, and the white downy
+tufts that carried their seeds everywhere drifted
+and swam in the shimmering air. The river had
+shrunk to a string of shallow pools in a sandy
+plain, the irrigation ditches were empty, and in
+Old Town the Mexicans were asking God for
+rain by carrying an image of the Virgin Mary
+about on a litter and firing muskets into the air.</p>
+
+<p>Quickly wearied, Ramon sat down on a shaded
+bench in the park and tried to think out his situation
+and to decide what he should do. The easy
+way was to sell out, pay his debts, provide for his
+mother and sister and with what was left go his
+own way&mdash;buy a little ranch perhaps in the mountains
+or in the valley where he could live in peace
+and do as he pleased. Wearied as he was by
+struggle and disappointment, this prospect allured
+him, and yet he could not quite accept it. He
+felt vaguely the fact that in selling his lands, he
+would be selling out to fate, he would be surrendering
+to MacDougall, to the gringos, he would
+be renouncing all his high hopes and dreams.
+<pb n="256"/><anchor id="Pg256"/>
+His mountain lands, with their steadily increasing
+value, the power they gave him, would make of
+his life a thing of possibilities&mdash;an adventure.
+Settled on a little ranch somewhere, his whole
+story would be told in one of its years.</p>
+
+<p>This he did not reason clearly, but the emotional
+struggle within him was therefore all the
+stronger. It was his old struggle in another
+guise&mdash;the struggle between the primitive being
+in him and the civilized, between earth and the
+world of men. Each of them in turn filled his
+mind with images and emotions, and he was impotent
+to judge between them.</p>
+
+<p>His being was fairly rooted in the soil, and the
+animal happiness it offered&mdash;the free play of
+instinct, the sweetness of being physically and
+emotionally at peace with environment&mdash;was the
+only happiness he had ever known. Vaguely yet
+surely he had felt the world of men and works,
+the artificial world, to contain something larger
+and more beautiful than this. Julia Roth had
+been to him a stimulating symbol of this higher,
+this more desirable thing. His love for her had
+been the soil in which his aspirations had grown.
+That love had turned to bitterness and lust,
+and his aspirations had led him among greeds and
+fears and struggles that differed from those of
+the wild things only in that they were covert and
+<pb n="257"/><anchor id="Pg257"/>
+devious, lacking the free beauty of instinct fearlessly
+followed and the dignity of open battle.
+Of civilization he had encountered only the raw
+and ugly edge, which is uglier than savagery. He
+knew no more of the true spirit of it than a man
+who has camped in a farmer&rsquo;s back pasture knows
+of the true spirit of wildness. It had treated
+him without mercy and brought out the worst of
+him. And yet because he had once loved and
+dreamed he could not go back to the easy but
+limited satisfactions of the soil and be wholly
+content.</p>
+
+<p>So he could not make up his mind at first to
+surrender, but in the next few days one thing
+after another came to tempt him that way. MacDougall
+made him an offer for his lands which
+to his surprise was a little better than the last one.
+He learned afterward that the over-shrewd
+lawyer had misinterpreted his trip to New York,
+imagining that he had gone there to interest
+eastern capital in his lands.</p>
+
+<p>His mother and sister were two very cogent
+arguments in favour of selling. The Dona
+Delcasar, a simple and vain old lady, now
+regarded herself as a woman of wealth, and was
+always after him for money. Her ambition was
+to build a house in the Highlands and serve tea
+at four o&rsquo;clock (although it was thick chocolate
+<pb n="258"/><anchor id="Pg258"/>
+she liked) and break into society. His one
+discussion of the matter with her was a bitter
+experience.</p>
+
+<p><q>Holy Mary!</q> she exclaimed in her shrill
+Spanish, when he broached a plan of retrenchment,
+<q>What a son I have! You spend thousands
+on yourself, chasing women and buying automobiles,
+and now you want us to spend the rest of
+our lives in this old house and walk to church so
+that you can make it up. God, but men are
+selfish!</q></p>
+
+<p>He saw that if he tried to save money and
+make a fight for his lands he would have to
+struggle not only with MacDougall and the
+weather, but with two ignorant, ambitious and
+sharp-tongued women. And family pride here
+fought against him. He did not want to see
+his women folk go shabbily in the town. He
+wanted them to have their brick house and their
+tea parties, and to uphold the name of Delcasar
+as well as they might.</p>
+
+<p>One day while he was still struggling with his
+problem he went to look at a ranch that was
+offered for sale in the valley a few miles north of
+town. It was this place more than anything else
+which decided him. The old house had been
+built by one of his ancestors almost a hundred
+years before, and had then been the seat of an
+estate which embraced all the valley and
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">mesa</hi>
+<pb n="259"/><anchor id="Pg259"/>
+lands for miles in every direction. It had changed
+hands several times and there were now but a
+few hundred acres. The woodwork of the house
+was in bad repair, but its adobe walls, three feet
+thick, were firm as ever. There were still traces
+of the adobe stockade behind it, with walls ten
+feet high, and the building which had housed the
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">peones</hi>
+was still standing, now filled with fragrant
+hay. In front of it stood an old cedar post with
+rusty iron rings to which the recalcitrant field
+hands had been bound for beating.</p>
+
+<p>Every detail of this home of his forefathers
+stirred his emotions. The ancient cottonwood
+trees in front of the house with their deep,
+welcome shade and the soft voices of courting
+doves among the leaves; the alfalfa fields heavy
+with purple blossom, ripe for cutting; the orchard
+of old apple trees and thickets of Indian plum
+run wild; the neglected vineyard that could be
+made to yield several barrels of red wine&mdash;all
+of these things spoke to him with subtle voices.
+To trade his heritage for this was to trade hope
+and hazard for monotonous ease; but with the
+smell of the yielding earth in his nostrils, he no
+more thought of this than a man in love thinks of
+the long restraints and irks of marriage when the
+kiss of his woman is on his lips.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="BC36" type="chapter">
+<pb n="260"/><anchor id="Pg260"/>
+<index index="toc"/>
+<index index="pdf"/>
+<head rend="text-align: center">
+  <hi rend="font-size: 125%">CHAPTER XXXVI</hi>
+</head>
+
+<p>Ramon&rsquo;s life on his farm quickly fell into a
+routine that was for the most part pleasant. He
+hired an old woman to do his cooking and washing,
+and a man to work on the place. Other
+men he hired as he needed them, and he spent
+most of his days working with them as a foreman.</p>
+
+<p>He attended to the business of farming ably.
+The trees of the old orchard he pruned and
+sprayed and he set out new ones. He put his
+idle land under irrigation and planted it in corn
+and alfalfa. He set out beds of strawberries
+and asparagus. He bought blooded livestock
+and chickens. He put his fences in repair and
+painted the woodwork of his house. The creative
+energy that was in him had at last found an
+outlet which was congenial though somewhat
+picayune. For the place was small and easily
+handled. As the fall came on, and his crops had
+been gathered and the work of irrigation was
+over for the season, he found himself looking
+about restlessly for something to do. On Saturday
+nights he generally went to town, had
+dinner with his mother and sister, and spent the
+evening drinking beer and playing pool. But he
+<pb n="261"/><anchor id="Pg261"/>
+felt increasingly out of place in the town; his
+visits there were prompted more by filial duty
+and the need of something to break the monotony
+of his week than by a real sense of pleasure in
+them.</p>
+
+<p>He was still caring for Catalina on the ranch
+up the valley, and when the woman who had been
+doing his work left him, he decided to bring the
+girl to his place and let her earn her keep by
+cooking and washing. He no longer felt any
+interest in her, and thought that perhaps she
+would marry Juan Cardenas, the man who milked
+his cows and chopped wood for him. But
+Catalina showed no interest in Juan. Instead,
+she emphatically rejected all his advances, and
+displayed an abject, squaw-like devotion to
+Ramon&rsquo;s welfare. Everything possible was done
+for his comfort without his asking. The infant,
+now almost a year old, was trained not to cry in
+his presence, and acquired a certain awe of him,
+watching him with large solemn eyes whenever
+he was about. Ramon, reflecting that this was
+his son, set out to make the baby&rsquo;s acquaintance,
+and became quite fond of it. He often played
+with it in the evening.</p>
+
+<p>He paid Catalina regular wages and she spent
+most of the money on clothes. When she
+prepared herself for Church on Sunday she was
+a truly terrible spectacle, clad in an ill-fitting
+<pb n="262"/><anchor id="Pg262"/>
+ready-made suit of brilliant colour, and wearing
+a cheap hat on which a dead parrot sprawled
+among artificial poppies, while her swarthy face,
+heavily powdered, took on a purple tinge. But
+about the place, dressed in clean calico, with a
+shawl over her shoulders, she was really pretty.
+Her figure was a good one of peasant type, and
+the acquisition of some shoes which fitted her
+revealed the fact that she had inherited from
+her remote Castilian ancestry a small and shapely
+foot and ankle.</p>
+
+<p>Ramon could not help noticing all of these
+things, and so gradually he became aware of
+Catalina again as a desirable woman, and one
+whom it was easy for him to take.</p>
+
+<p>After this his animal contentment was deeper
+than ever. He did not go to town so often, for
+one of the restlessnesses which had driven him
+there was removed. Often for weeks at a
+stretch he would not go at all unless it was necessary
+to get some tools or supplies for the farm.
+Then rather than take any of his men away from
+work, he would himself hitch up a team and drive
+the five miles. Sitting hunched over on the
+spring-seat of a big farm wagon, clad in overalls
+and a print shirt, with a wide hat tilted against
+the sun and a cigarette dangling from his lips, he
+was indistinguishable from any other
+<hi rend="font-style: italic">paisano</hi> on
+the road. This change in appearance was helped
+<pb n="263"/><anchor id="Pg263"/>
+by the fact that he had grown a heavy moustache.
+Often, as he drove through the streets of the
+town, he would pass acquaintances who did not
+recognize him, and he was just as well satisfied
+that they did not.</p>
+
+<p>As is the way of unreflecting men, Ramon
+formed no definite opinion of his life, but liked
+it more or less according to the mood that was in
+him. There were bright, cool days that fall
+when, lacking work to do, he took his shot-gun
+and a saddle horse and went for long rambles.
+Sometimes he would follow the river northward,
+stalking the flocks of teal and mallards that dozed
+on the sandbars in the wide, muddy stream,
+perhaps killing three or four fat birds. Other
+times he went to the foot of the mountains and
+hunted the blue quail and cotton tail rabbits in
+the arroyos of the foot-hills. Once he and his
+man loaded a wagon with food and blankets and
+drove forty miles to a canyon where they killed a
+big black-tail buck, and brought him back in high
+triumph.</p>
+
+<p>Returning from such trips full of healthy
+hunger and weariness, to find his hot supper and
+his woman waiting for him, Ramon would doze
+off happily, every want of his physical being satisfied,
+feeling that life was good.&hellip; But there
+were other nights when a strange restlessness
+possessed him, when he lay miserably awake
+<pb n="264"/><anchor id="Pg264"/>
+through long dark hours. The silence of the
+black valley was emphasized now and then by the
+doleful voices of dogs that answered each other
+across the sleeping miles. At such times he felt
+as though he had been caught in a trap. He saw
+in imagination the endless unvaried chain of his
+days stretching before him, and he rebelled against
+it and knew not how to break it. His experience
+of life was comparatively little and he was no
+philosopher. He did not know definitely either
+what was the matter with him or what he wanted.
+But he had tasted high aspiration, and desire
+bright and transforming, and wild sweet joy.&hellip;
+These things had been taken away, and now life
+narrowed steadily before him like a blind canyon
+that pierces a mountain range. The trail at the
+bottom was easy enough to follow, but the walls
+drew ever closer and became more impassable,
+and what was the end?&hellip;</p>
+
+<p><milestone unit="tb"/></p>
+
+<p>This sense of dissatisfaction reached its futile
+crux one day in the spring when he received a
+letter from Julia&mdash;the last he was ever to get.
+The sight and scent of it stirred him as they
+always had done, filling him with poignant painful
+memories.</p>
+
+<p><q>This is really the last time I&rsquo;ll ever bother
+you,</q> she wrote, <q rend="post: none">but I do want to know what has
+happened to you, and how you feel about things.
+<pb n="265"/><anchor id="Pg265"/>
+I can&rsquo;t forget. All our troubles seem to have
+worn some sort of a permanent groove in my poor
+brain, and I believe the thought of you will be
+there till the day of my death.
+</q></p>
+
+<p><q rend="post: none">As, for me, I&rsquo;m in society up to my eyes, and
+absolutely without the courage or energy to climb
+out. Those days in New York were the first and
+the last of my freedom. Now I&rsquo;ve been introduced
+to everybody, and I have an engagement
+book that tells me what I&rsquo;m going to do whether
+I want to or not for three weeks ahead. I&rsquo;m a
+model of conduct and propriety for the simple
+reason that I can&rsquo;t travel over a block without
+everybody that I know finding out about it.
+</q></p>
+
+<p><q>Of course it hasn&rsquo;t all been a bore. I have
+had some fun, and I&rsquo;ve met some really interesting
+people. I&rsquo;ve gotten used to being married and
+my husband treats me kindly and gives me a good
+home. Sounds as if I was a kitten, doesn&rsquo;t it?
+Well, I have very much the same sort of life as a
+kitten, but a kitten has no imagination and it has
+never been in love. Sometimes I think that I
+can&rsquo;t stand it any longer. It seems to me that
+I&rsquo;m not really living, as I used to imagine I would,
+but just being dragged through life by circumstances
+and other people&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know what all.
+I still have desperate plans and ideas once in a
+while, but of course, I never do anything. When
+you come right down to it, what can I do?</q></p>
+<pb n="266"/><anchor id="Pg266"/>
+
+<p>Ramon read this letter sitting on the sunny
+side of his house with his heels under him and
+his back against the wall&mdash;a position any Mexican
+can hold for hours. When he had finished it he
+sat motionless for a long time, painfully going
+over the past, trying ineptly to discover what had
+been the matter with it. More acutely than ever
+before he felt the cruel guerdon of youth&mdash;the
+contrast between the promise of life and its fulfillment.
+He felt that he ought to do something,
+that he ought not to submit. But somehow all
+the doors that led out of his present narrow way
+into wider fields seemed closed. There was no
+longer any entrancing vista to tempt him. Mentally
+he repeated her query, What could he do?</p>
+
+<p>His thoughts went round and round and got
+nowhere. The spring sunshine soaked into his
+body. A faint hum of early insects lulled him,
+and to his nostrils came the scent of new-turned
+earth and manure from the garden where his man
+was working. He grew drowsy; his dissatisfaction
+simmered down to a vague ache in the background
+of his consciousness. Idly he tore the
+letter to little bits.</p>
+
+<milestone unit="tb"/>
+
+<trailer rend="text-align: center; font-size: 75%">THE END</trailer>
+</div>
+
+</body>
+
+<back>
+  <div rend="page-break-before: right" type="extra pages">
+    <index index="toc"/>
+    <index index="pdf"/>
+    <head rend="text-align: center">
+      <hi rend="font-size: 125%">EXTRA PAGES</hi>
+    </head>
+
+    <div rend="page-break-before: right" type="extra pages">
+      <pb n="1"/><anchor id="Pg1"/>
+      <p rend="text-align: center; margin-left: 20">
+      <hi rend="font-style: italic; font-size: 150%">The Blood of
+      <lb/>the Conquerors</hi></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div rend="page-break-before: always" type="extra pages">
+      <pb n="2"/><anchor id="Pg2"/>
+      <list rend="font-style: italic; font-size: 75%">
+        <item><hi rend="margin-left: 2">NEW BORZOI NOVELS</hi></item>
+        <item><hi rend="margin-left: 4">FALL, 1921</hi></item>
+      </list>
+
+      <list rend="font-size: 75%">
+        <item><hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">Pan</hi></item>
+        <item><hi rend="font-style: italic;
+                        margin-left: 1">Knut Hamsun</hi></item>
+
+        <item><hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">Dreamers</hi></item>
+        <item><hi rend="font-style: italic;
+                        margin-left: 1">Knut Hamsun</hi></item>
+
+        <item><hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">The Tortoise</hi></item>
+        <item><hi rend="font-style: italic;
+                        margin-left: 1">Mary Borden</hi></item>
+
+        <item><hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">The China Shop</hi></item>
+        <item><hi rend="font-style: italic;
+                        margin-left: 1">G. B. Stern</hi></item>
+
+        <item><hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">The Briary-Bush</hi></item>
+        <item><hi rend="font-style: italic;
+                        margin-left: 1">Floyd Dell</hi></item>
+
+        <item><hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">Deadlock</hi></item>
+        <item><hi rend="font-style: italic;
+                        margin-left: 1">Dorothy Richardson</hi></item>
+
+        <item><hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">The Other Magic</hi></item>
+        <item><hi rend="font-style: italic;
+                        margin-left: 1">E. L. Grant-Watson</hi></item>
+
+        <item><hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">White Shoulders</hi></item>
+        <item><hi rend="font-style: italic;
+                        margin-left: 1">George Kibbe Turner</hi></item>
+
+        <item><hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">The Charmed Circle</hi></item>
+        <item><hi rend="font-style: italic;
+                        margin-left: 1">Edward Alden Jewell</hi></item>
+
+        <item><hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">The Blood of
+                                                  the Conquerors</hi></item>
+        <item><hi rend="font-style: italic; margin-left: 1">Harvey
+          <corr sic="Furgusson"><anchor id="E11"/>
+          <ref target="e11">Fergusson</ref></corr></hi></item>
+      </list>
+    </div>
+
+    <div rend="page-break-before: right" type="extra pages">
+      <pb n="5"/><anchor id="Pg5"/>
+      <p rend="text-align: center; margin-left: 20">
+      <hi rend="font-style: italic; font-size: 150%">The Blood of
+      <lb/>the Conquerors</hi></p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div rend="page-break-before: right" type="errata">
+    <index index="toc"/>
+    <index index="pdf"/>
+    <head rend="text-align: center">
+      <hi rend="font-size: 125%">ERRATA</hi>
+    </head>
+
+    <list><anchor id='e1'/>
+      <item>CHAPTER II</item>
+      <item>Changed: they were <ref target="E1"><hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">untamable</hi></ref>,
+        but boys</item>
+      <item>To: they were <hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">untameable</hi>,
+        but boys</item>
+    </list>
+
+    <list><anchor id='e2'/>
+      <item>CHAPTER II</item>
+      <item>Changed: adventures were <ref target="E2"><hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">comoposed</hi></ref>
+        and sung </item>
+      <item>To: adventures were <hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">composed</hi>
+        and sung </item>
+    </list>
+
+    <list><anchor id='e3'/>
+      <item>CHAPTER IV</item>
+      <item>Changed: your name,&rdquo; she admitted<ref target="E3"><hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">,</hi></ref>
+        </item>
+      <item>To: your name,&rdquo; she admitted<hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">.</hi>
+        </item>
+    </list>
+
+    <list><anchor id='e4'/>
+      <item>CHAPTER V</item>
+      <item>Changed: only all-night <ref target="E4"><hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">resturant</hi></ref>.
+        Here he </item>
+      <item>To: only all-night <hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">restaurant</hi>.
+        Here he </item>
+    </list>
+
+    <list><anchor id='e5'/>
+      <item>CHAPTER VII</item>
+      <item>Changed: haunted by <ref target="E5"><hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold"></hi>lizzards</ref>
+        and rattlesnakes.</item>
+      <item>To: haunted by <hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">lizards</hi>
+        and rattlesnakes.</item>
+    </list>
+
+    <list><anchor id='e6'/>
+      <item>CHAPTER VIII</item>
+      <item>Changed: CHAPTER VIII<ref target="E6"><hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">.</hi></ref>
+        </item>
+      <item>To: CHAPTER VIII<hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">&nbsp;</hi>
+        </item>
+    </list>
+
+    <list><anchor id='e12'/>
+      <item>CHAPTER XI</item>
+      <item>Changed: the game<ref target="E12"><hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">,</hi></ref>
+        But the</item>
+      <item>To: the game<hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">.</hi>
+        But the</item>
+    </list>
+
+    <list><anchor id='e7'/>
+      <item>CHAPTER XV</item>
+      <item>Changed: nights they <ref target="E7"><hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">visted</hi></ref>
+        the town&rsquo;s</item>
+      <item>To: nights they <hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">visited</hi>
+        the town&rsquo;s</item>
+    </list>
+
+    <list><anchor id='e8'/>
+      <item>CHAPTER XIX</item>
+      <item>Changed: saved from <ref target="E8"><hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">furthur</hi></ref>
+        punishment. Meantime,</item>
+      <item>To: saved from <hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">further</hi>
+        punishment. Meantime,</item>
+    </list>
+
+    <list><anchor id='e13'/>
+      <item>CHAPTER XXXI</item>
+      <item>Changed: own living.&hellip; <ref target="E13"><hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">Its</hi></ref>
+        not fair.</item>
+      <item>To: own living.&hellip; <hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">It&rsquo;s</hi>
+        not fair.</item>
+    </list>
+
+    <list><anchor id='e9'/>
+      <item>CHAPTER XXXII</item>
+      <item>Changed: of course<ref target="E9"><hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">&thinsp;</hi></ref>&rdquo;
+        she added</item>
+      <item>To: of course<hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">,</hi>&rdquo;
+        she added</item>
+    </list>
+
+    <list><anchor id='e10'/>
+      <item>CHAPTER XXXII</item>
+      <item>Changed: <ref target="E10"><hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">&thinsp;</hi></ref>For
+        Heaven&rsquo;s sake, say something!&rdquo;</item>
+      <item>To: <hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">&ldquo;</hi>For
+        Heaven&rsquo;s sake, say something!&rdquo;</item>
+    </list>
+
+    <list><anchor id='e11'/>
+      <item>Page 2</item>
+      <item>Changed: Harvey <ref target="E11"><hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">Furgusson</hi></ref>
+        </item>
+      <item>To: Harvey <hi
+        rend="font-weight: bold">Fergusson</hi>
+        </item>
+    </list>
+  </div>
+
+<div rend="page-break-before: right">
+<divGen type="pgfooter"/>
+</div>
+
+</back>
+
+    </text>
+</TEI.2>
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diff --git a/20888.txt b/20888.txt
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+++ b/20888.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Blood of the Conquerors by Harvey
+Fergusson
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: The Blood of the Conquerors
+
+Author: Harvey Fergusson
+
+Release Date: March 23, 2007 [Ebook #20888]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOOD OF THE CONQUERORS***
+
+
+
+
+
+                       The Blood of the Conquerors
+                                   by
+                            Harvey Fergusson
+
+New York
+Alfred . A . Knopf
+1921
+
+
+
+
+
+                           COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
+                          ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
+
+                 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+CHAPTER II
+CHAPTER III
+CHAPTER IV
+CHAPTER V
+CHAPTER VI
+CHAPTER VII
+CHAPTER VIII
+CHAPTER IX
+CHAPTER X
+CHAPTER XI
+CHAPTER XII
+CHAPTER XIII
+CHAPTER XIV
+CHAPTER XV
+CHAPTER XVI
+CHAPTER XVII
+CHAPTER XVIII
+CHAPTER XIX
+CHAPTER XX
+CHAPTER XXI
+CHAPTER XXII
+CHAPTER XXIII
+CHAPTER XXIV
+CHAPTER XXV
+CHAPTER XXVI
+CHAPTER XXVII
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+CHAPTER XXIX
+CHAPTER XXX
+CHAPTER XXXI
+CHAPTER XXXII
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+CHAPTER XXXV
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+EXTRA PAGES
+ERRATA
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I
+
+
+Whenever Ramon Delcasar boarded a railroad train he indulged a habit, not
+uncommon among men, of choosing from the women passengers the one whose
+appearance most pleased him to be the object of his attention during the
+journey. If the woman were reserved or well-chaperoned, or if she
+obviously belonged to another man, this attention might amount to no more
+than an occasional discreet glance in her direction. He never tried to
+make her acquaintance unless her eyes and mouth unmistakably invited him
+to do so.
+
+This conservatism on his part was not due to an innate lack of
+self-confidence. Whenever he felt sure of his social footing, his attitude
+toward women was bold and assured. But his social footing was a peculiarly
+uncertain thing for the reason that he was a Mexican. This meant that he
+faced in every social contact the possibility of a more or less covert
+prejudice against his blood, and that he faced it with an unduly proud and
+sensitive spirit concealed beneath a manner of aristocratic indifference.
+In the little southwestern town where he had lived all his life, except
+the last three years, his social position was ostensibly of the highest.
+He was spoken of as belonging to an old and prominent family. Yet he knew
+of mothers who carefully guarded their daughters from the peril of falling
+in love with him, and most of his boyhood fights had started when some one
+called him a "damned Mexican" or a "greaser."
+
+Except to an experienced eye there was little in his appearance or in his
+manner to suggest his race. His swarthy complexion indicated perhaps a
+touch of the Moorish blood in his Spanish ancestry, but he was no darker
+than are many Americans bearing Anglo-Saxon names, and his eyes were grey.
+His features were aquiline and pleasing, and he had in a high degree that
+bearing, at once proud and unself-conscious, which is called aristocratic.
+He spoke English with a very slight Spanish accent.
+
+When he had gone away to a Catholic law school in St. Louis, confident of
+his speech and manner and appearance, he had believed that he was leaving
+prejudice behind him; but in this he had been disappointed. The raw spots
+in his consciousness, if a little less irritated at the college, were by
+no means healed. Some persons, it is true, seemed to think nothing of his
+race one way or the other; to some, mostly women, it gave him an added
+interest; but in the long run it worked against him. It kept him out of a
+fraternity, and it made his career in football slow and hard.
+
+When he finally won the coveted position of quarterback, in spite of team
+politics, he made a reputation by the merciless fashion in which he drove
+his eleven, and by the fury of his own playing.
+
+The same bitter emulative spirit which had impelled him in football drove
+him to success in his study of the law. Books held no appeal for him, and
+he had no definite ambitions, but he had a good head and a great desire to
+show the gringos what he could do. So he had graduated high in his class,
+thrown his diploma into the bottom of his trunk, and departed from his
+alma mater without regret.
+
+The limited train upon which he took passage for home afforded specially
+good opportunity for his habit of mental philandering. The passengers were
+continually going up and down between the dining car at one end of the
+train and the observation car at the other, so that all of the women daily
+passed in review. They were an unusually attractive lot, for most of the
+passengers were wealthy easterners on their way to California. Ramon had
+never before seen together so many women of the kind that devotes time and
+money and good taste to the business of creating charm. Perfectly gowned
+and groomed, delicately scented, they filled him with desire and with envy
+for the men who owned them. There were two newly married couples among the
+passengers, and several intense flirtations were under way before the
+train reached Kansas City. Ramon felt as though he were a spectator at
+some delightful carnival. He was lonely and restless, yet fascinated.
+
+For no opportunity of becoming other than a spectator had come to him. He
+had chosen without difficulty the girl whom he preferred, but had only
+dared to admire her from afar. She was a little blonde person, not more
+than twenty, with angelic grey eyes, hair of the colour of ripe wheat and
+a complexion of perfect pink and white. The number of different costumes
+which she managed to don in two days filled him with amazement and gave
+her person an ever-varying charm and interest. She appeared always
+accompanied by a very placid-looking and portly woman, who was evidently
+her mother, and a tall, cadaverous sick man, whose indifferent and pettish
+attitude toward her seemed to indicate that he was either a brother or an
+uncle, for Ramon felt sure that she was not married. She acquired no male
+attendants, but sat most of the time very properly, if a little
+restlessly, with her two companions. Once or twice Ramon felt her look
+upon him, but she always turned it away when he glanced at her.
+
+Whether because she was really beautiful in her own petite way, or because
+she seemed so unattainable, or because her small blonde daintiness had a
+peculiar appeal for him, Ramon soon reached a state of conviction that she
+interested him more than any other girl he had ever seen. He discreetly
+followed her about the train, watching for the opportunity that never
+came, and consoling himself with the fact that no one else seemed more
+fortunate in winning her favour than he. The only strange male who
+attained to the privilege of addressing her was a long-winded and elderly
+gentleman of the British perpetual-travelling type, at least one
+representative of which is found on every transcontinental train, and it
+was plain enough that he bored the girl.
+
+Ramon took no interest in landscapes generally, but when he awoke on the
+last morning of his journey and found himself once more in the wide and
+desolate country of his birth, he was so deeply stirred and interested
+that he forgot all about the girl. Devotion to one particular bit of soil
+is a Mexican characteristic, and in Ramon it was highly developed because
+he had spent so much of his life close to the earth. Every summer of his
+boyhood he had been sent to one of the sheep ranches which belonged to the
+various branches of his numerous family. Each of these ranches was merely
+a headquarters where the sheep were annually dipped and sheared and from
+which the herds set out on their long wanderings across the open range.
+Often Ramon had followed them--across the deserts where the heat shimmered
+and the yellow dust hung like a great pale plume over the rippling backs
+of the herd, and up to the summer range in the mountains where they fed
+above the clouds in lush green pastures crowned with spires of rock and
+snow. He had shared the beans and mutton and black coffee of the herders
+and had gone to sleep on a pile of peltries to the evensong of the coyotes
+that hung on the flanks of the herd. Hunting, fishing, wandering, he had
+lived like a savage and found the life good.
+
+It was this life of primitive freedom that he had longed for in his exile.
+He had thought little of his family and less of his native town, but a
+nostalgia for open spaces and free wanderings had been always with him. He
+had come to hate the city with its hard walled-in ways and its dirty air,
+and also the eastern country-side with its little green prettiness
+surrounded by fences. He longed for a land where one can see for fifty
+miles, and not a man or a house. He thought that alkaline dust on his lips
+would taste sweet.
+
+Now he saw again the scorched tawny levels, the red hills dotted with
+little gnarled _pinon_ trees, the purple mystery of distant mountains. A
+great friendly warmth filled his body, and his breath came a little
+quickly with eagerness. When he saw a group of Mexicans jogging along the
+road on their scrawny mounts he wanted to call out to them: "_Como lo va,
+amigos?_" He would have liked to salute this whole country, which was his
+country, and to tell it how glad he was to see it again. It was the one
+thing in the world that he loved, and the only thing that had ever given
+him pleasure without tincture of bitterness.
+
+He heard two men in the seat behind him talking.
+
+"Did you ever see anything so desolate?" one asked.
+
+"I wouldn't live in this country if they gave it to me," said the other.
+
+Ramon turned and looked at them. They were solid, important-looking men,
+and having visited upon the country their impressive disapproval, they
+opened newspapers and shut it away from their sight. Dull fools, thought
+Ramon, who do not know God's country when they see it.
+
+And then he continued to look right over their heads and their newspapers,
+for tripping down the aisle all by herself at last, came the girl of his
+fruitless choice. His eyes, deep with dreams, met hers. She smiled upon
+him, radiantly, blushed a little, and hurried on through the car.
+
+He sat looking after her with a foolish grin on his face. He was pleased
+and shaken. So she had noticed him after all. She had been waiting for a
+chance, as well as he. And now that it had come, he was getting off the
+train in an hour. It was useless to follow her.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} He turned to the window
+again.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER II
+
+
+Usually in each generation of a large and long-established family there is
+some one individual who stands out from the rest as a leader and as the
+most perfect embodiment of the family traditions and characteristics. This
+was especially true of the Delcasar family. It was established in this
+country in the year 1790 by Don Eusabio Maria Delcasar y Morales, an
+officer in the army of the King of Spain, who distinguished himself in the
+conquest of New Mexico, and especially in certain campaigns against the
+Navajos. As was customary at that time, the King rewarded his faithful
+soldier with a grant of land in the new province. This Delcasar estate lay
+in the Rio Grande Valley and the surrounding _mesa_ lands. By the
+provisions of the King's grant, its dimensions were each the distance that
+Don Delcasar could ride in a day. The Don chose good horses and did not
+spare them, so that he secured to his family more than a thousand square
+miles of land with a strip of rich valley through the middle and a
+wilderness of desert and mountain on either side. Much of this
+principality was never seen by Don Eusabio, and even the four sons who
+divided the estate upon his death had each more land than he could well
+use.
+
+The outstanding figure of this second generation was Don Solomon Delcasar,
+who was noted for the magnificence of his establishment, and for his
+autocratic spirit.
+
+No Borgia or Bourbon ever ruled more absolutely over his own domain than
+did Don Solomon over the hundreds of square miles which made up his
+estate. He owned not only lands and herds but also men and women. The
+_peones_ who worked his lands were his possessions as much as were his
+horses. He had them beaten when they offended him and their daughters were
+his for the taking. He could not sell them, but this restriction did not
+apply to the Navajo and Apache slaves whom he captured in war. These were
+his to be sold or retained for his own use as he preferred. Adult Indians
+were seldom taken prisoner, as they were untameable, but boys and girls
+below the age of fifteen were always taken alive, when possible, and were
+valued at five hundred _pesos_ each. Don Solomon usually sold the boys, as
+he had plenty of _peones_, but he never sold a comely Indian girl.
+
+The Don was a man of proud and irascible temper, but kindly when not
+crossed. He had been known to kill a _peon_ in a fit of anger, and then
+afterward to bestow all sorts of benefits upon the man's wife and
+children.
+
+The life of his home, like that of all the other Mexican gentlemen in his
+time, was an easy and pleasant one. He owned a great _adobe_ house, built
+about a square courtyard like a fort, and shaded pleasantly by cottonwood
+trees. There he dwelt with his numerous family, his _peones_ and his
+slaves. In the spring and summer every one worked in the fields, though
+not too hard. In the fall the men went east to the great plains to kill a
+supply of buffalo meat for the winter, and often after the hunt they
+travelled south into Sonora and Chihuahua to trade mustangs and buffalo
+hides for woven goods and luxuries.
+
+There was a pleasant social life among the aristocrats of dances and
+visits. Marriages, funerals and christenings were occasions of great
+ceremony and social importance. Indeed everything done by the Dons was
+characterized by much formality and ceremony, the custom of which had been
+brought over from Spain. But they were no longer really in touch with
+Spanish civilization. They never went back to the mother country. They had
+no books save the Bible and a few other religious works, and many of them
+never learned to read these. Their lives were made up of fighting, with
+the Indians and also among themselves, for there were many feuds; of
+hunting and primitive trade; and of venery upon a generous and patriarchal
+scale. They were Spanish gentlemen by descent, all for honour and
+tradition and sentiment; but by circumstance they were barbarian lords,
+and their lives were full of lust and blood.
+
+Circumstance somewhat modified the vaunted purity of their Spanish blood,
+too. The Indian slave girls who lived in their houses bore the children of
+their sons, and some of these half-bred and quarter-bred children were
+eventually accepted by the _gente de razon_, as the aristocrats called
+themselves. In this way a strain of Navajo blood got into the Delcasar
+family, and doubtless did much good, as all of the Spanish stock was
+weakened by much marrying of cousins.
+
+Dona Ameliana Delcasar, a sister of Don Solomon, was responsible for
+another alien infusion which ultimately percolated all through the family,
+and has been thought by some to be responsible for the unusual mental
+ability of certain Delcasars. Dona Ameliana, a beautiful but somewhat
+unruly girl, went into a convent in Durango, Mexico, at the age of
+fifteen. At the age of eighteen she eloped with a French priest named
+Raubien, who was a man of unusual intellect and a poet. The errant couple
+came to New Mexico and took up lands. They were excommunicated, of course,
+and both of them were buried in unconsecrated ground; but despite their
+spiritual handicaps they raised a family of eleven comely daughters, all
+of whom married well, several of them into the Delcasar family. Thus some
+of the Delcasars who boasted of their pure Castilian blood were really of
+a mongrel breed, comprising along with the many strains that have mingled
+in Spain, those of Navajo and French.
+
+Don Solomon Delcasar played a brilliant part in the military activities
+which marked the winning of Mexican Independence from Spain in the
+eighteen-twenties, and also in the incessant Indian wars. He was a fighter
+by necessity, but also by choice. They shed blood with grace and
+nonchalance in those days, and the Delcasars were always known as
+dangerous men.
+
+The most curious thing about this ri?1/2gime of the old-time Dons was the
+way in which it persisted. It received its first serious blow in 1845 when
+the military forces of the United States took possession of New Mexico.
+Don Jesus Christo Delcasar, who was then the richest and most powerful of
+the family, was suspected of being a party to the conspiracy which brought
+about the Taos massacre--the last organized resistance made to the gringo
+domination. At this time some of the Delcasars went to Old Mexico to live,
+as did a good many others among the Dons, feeling that the old ways of
+life in New Mexico were sure to change, and having the Spanish aversion to
+any departure from tradition. But their fears were not realized, and life
+went on as before. In 1865 the _peones_ and Indian slaves were formally
+set free, but all of them immediately went deeply in debt to their former
+masters and thus retained in effect the same status as before. So it
+happened that in the seventies, when New York was growing into a
+metropolis, and the factory system was fastening itself upon New England,
+and the middle west was getting fat and populous and tame, life in the
+Southwest remained much as it had been a century before.
+
+Laws and governments were powerless there to change ways of life, as they
+have always been, but two parallel bars of steel reaching across the
+prairies brought change with them, and it was great and sudden. The
+railroad reached the Rio Grande Valley early in the eighties, and it
+smashed the colourful barbaric pattern of the old life as the ruthless
+fist of an infidel might smash a stained glass window. The metropolis of
+the northern valley in those days was a sleepy little _adobe_ town of a
+few hundred people, reclining about its dusty _plaza_ near the river. The
+railroad, scorning to notice it, passed a mile away. Forthwith a new town
+began growing up between, the old one and the railroad. And this new town
+was such a town as had never before been seen in all the Southwest. It was
+built of wood and only half painted. It was ugly, noisy and raw. It was
+populated largely by real estate agents, lawyers, politicians and
+barkeepers. It cared little for joy, leisure, beauty or tradition. Its God
+was money and its occupation was business.
+
+This thing called business was utterly strange to the Delcasars and to all
+of the other Dons. They were men of the saddle, fighting men, and traders
+only in a primitive way. Business seemed to them a conspiracy to take
+their lands and their goods away from them, and a remarkably successful
+conspiracy. Debt and mortgage and speculation were the names of its
+weapons. Some of the Dons, including many of the Delcasars, who were now a
+very numerous family, owning each a comfortable homestead but no more,
+sold out and went to Old Mexico. Many who stayed lost all they had in a
+few years, and degenerated into petty politicians or small storekeepers.
+Some clung to a bit of land and went on farming, making always less and
+less money, sinking into poverty and insignificance, until some of them
+were no better off than the men who had once been their _peones_.
+
+Diego Delcasar and Felipe Delcasar, brothers, were two who owned houses in
+the Old Town and farms nearby, who stayed in the country and held their
+own for a time and after a fashion. Diego Delcasar was far the more able
+of the two, and a true scion of his family. He caught onto the gringo
+methods to a certain extent. He divided some farm land on the edge of town
+into lots and sold them for a good price. With the money he bought a great
+area of mountain land in the northern part of the state, where he raised
+sheep and ruled with an iron hand, much as his forbears had ruled in the
+valley. He also went into politics, learned to make a good stump speech
+and got himself elected to the highly congenial position of sheriff. In
+this place he made a great reputation for fearlessness and for the
+ruthless and skilful use of a gun. He once kicked down the locked door of
+a saloon and arrested ten armed gamblers, who had threatened to kill him.
+He was known and feared all over the territory and was a tyrant in his own
+section of it. When a gringo prospector ventured to dispute with him the
+ownership of a certain mine, the gringo was found dead in the bottom of
+the shaft. It was reported that he had fallen in and broken his neck and
+no one dared to look at the bullet hole in his back.
+
+Don Diego's wife died without leaving him any children, but he had
+numerous children none-the-less. It was said that one could follow his
+wanderings about the territory by the sporadic occurrence of the
+unmistakable Delcasar nose among the younger inhabitants. All of his sons
+and daughters by the left hand he treated with notable generosity. He was
+a sort of hero to the native people--a great fighter, a great lover--and
+songs about his adventures were composed and sung around the fires in
+sheep camps and by gangs of trackworkers.
+
+Don Diego, in a word, was a true Delcasar and a great man. Had he used his
+opportunities wisely he might have been a millionaire. But at the age of
+sixty he owned little besides his house and his wild mountain lands. He
+drank a good deal and played poker almost every night. Once he had been a
+famous winner, but in these later years he generally lost. He also formed
+a partnership with a real estate broker named MacDougall, for the
+development of his wild lands, and it was predicted by some that the
+leading development would be an ultimate transfer of title to Mr.
+MacDougall, who was known to be lending the Don money and taking land as
+security.
+
+Don Felipe's career was far less spectacular than that of his brother. He
+owned more than Don Diego to start with, and he spent his life slowly
+losing it, so that when he died he left nothing but a house in Old Town
+and a single small sheep ranch, which afforded his widow, two daughters
+and one son a scant living.
+
+This son, Ramon Delcasar, was the hope of the family. He would inherit the
+estate of Don Diego, if the old Don died before spending it all, which it
+did not seem likely that he would do. But Ramon early demonstrated that he
+had a more important heritage in the sharp intelligence, and the proud,
+plucky and truculent spirit which had characterized the best of the
+Delcasars throughout the family history.
+
+As there was no considerable family estate for him to settle upon, he was
+sent to law school at the age of twenty, and returned three years later to
+take up the practice of his profession in his native town. Thus he was the
+first of the Delcasars to face life with his bare hands. And he was also
+the last of them in a sense, to face the gringos. All the others of his
+name, save the senile Don, had either died, departed or sunk from sight
+into the mass of the peasantry.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER III
+
+
+The year that Ramon returned to his native town the annual fair, which
+took place at the fair-grounds in Old Town, was an especially gorgeous and
+throngful event, rich in spectacle and incident. A steer was roped and
+hog-tied in record time by Clay MacGarnigal of Lincoln County. A
+seven-mile relay race was won by a buck named Slonny Begay. In the bronco
+busting contest two men were injured to the huge enjoyment of the crowd.
+The twenty-seventh cavalry from Fort Bliss performed a sham battle. The
+home team beat several other teams. Enormous apples raised by irrigation
+in the Pecos Valley attracted much attention, and a hungry Mexican
+absconded with a prize Buff Orpington rooster.
+
+Twice a day the single narrow street which connected the neat brick and
+frame respectability of New Town with the picturesque _adobe_ squalor of
+Old Town was filled by a curiously varied crowd. The tourist from the
+East, distinguished by his camera and his unnecessary umbrella, jostled
+the Pueblo squaw from Isleta, with her latest-born slung over her shoulder
+in a fold of red blanket. Mexican families from the country marched in
+single file, the men first, then the women enveloped in huge black shawls,
+carrying babies and leading older children by the hand. Cowboys, Indians
+and soldiers raced their horses through the swarming street with reckless
+skill. Automobiles honked and fretted. The street cars, bulging humanity
+at every door and window, strove in vain to relieve the situation. Several
+children and numerous pigs and chickens were run over. From the unpaved
+street to the cloudless sky rose a vast cloud of dust, such as only a
+rainless country made of sand can produce. Dust was in every one's eyes
+and mouth and upon every one's clothing. It was the unofficial badge of
+the gathering. It turned the green of the cottonwood trees to grey, and
+lay in wait for unsuspecting teeth between the halves of hamburger
+sandwiches sold at corner booths.
+
+Ramon, who had obtained a pass to the grounds through the influence of his
+uncle, went to the fair every day, although he was not really pleased with
+it. He was assured by every one that it was the greatest fair ever held in
+the southwest, but to him it seemed smaller, dustier and less exciting
+than the fairs he had attended in his boyhood.
+
+This impression harmonized with a general feeling of discontent which had
+possessed him since his return. He had obtained a position in the office
+of a lawyer at fifty dollars a month, and spent the greater part of each
+day making out briefs and borrowing books for his employer from other
+lawyers. It seemed to him a petty and futile occupation, and the way to
+anything better was long and obscure. The town was full of other young
+lawyers who were doing the same things and doing them with a better grace
+than he. They were impelled by a great desire to make money. He, too,
+would have liked a great deal of money, but he had no taste for piling it
+up dollar by dollar. The only thing that cheered him was the prospect of
+inheriting his uncle's wealth, and that was an uncertain prospect. Don
+Diego seemed to be doing what he could to get rid of his property before
+he died.
+
+Local society did not please Ramon either. The girls of the gringo
+families were not nearly as pretty, for the most part, as the ones he had
+seen in the East. The dryness and the scorching sun had a bad effect on
+their complexions. The girls of his own race did not much interest him;
+his liking was for blondes. And besides, girls were relatively scarce in
+the West because of the great number of men who came from the East.
+Competition for their favours was keen, and he could not compete
+successfully because he had so little money.
+
+The fair held but one new experience for him, and that was the Montezuma
+ball. This took place on the evening of the last day, and was an exclusive
+invitation event, designed to give elegance to the fair by bringing
+together prominent persons from all parts of the state. Ramon had never
+attended a Montezuma ball, as he had been considered a mere boy before his
+departure for college and had not owned a dress suit. But this lack had
+now been supplied, and he had obtained an invitation through the Governor
+of the State, who happened to be a Mexican.
+
+He went to the ball with his mother and his eldest sister in a carriage
+which had been among the family possessions for about a quarter of a
+century. It had once been a fine equipage, and had been drawn by a
+spirited team in the days before Felipe Delcasar lost all his money, but
+now it had a look of decay, and the team consisted of a couple of rough
+coated, low-headed brutes, one of which was noticeably smaller than the
+other. The coachman was a ragged native who did odd jobs about the
+Delcasar house.
+
+The Montezuma ball took place in the new Eldorado Hotel which had recently
+been built by the railroad company for the entertainment of its
+transcontinental passengers. It was not a beautiful building, but it was
+an apt expression of the town's personality. Designed in the ancient style
+of the early Spanish missions, long, low and sprawling, with deep
+verandahs, odd little towers and arched gateways it was made of cement and
+its service and prices were of the Manhattan school. A little group of
+Pueblo Indians, lonesomely picturesque in buck-skin and red blankets, with
+silver and turquoise rings and bracelets, were always seated before its
+doors, trying to sell fruit and pottery to well-tailored tourists. It had
+a museum of Southwestern antiquities and curios, where a Navajo squaw
+sulkily wove blankets on a handloom for the edification of the guilded
+stranger from the East. On the platform in front of it, perspiring
+Mexicans smashed baggage and performed the other hard labour of a modern
+terminal.
+
+Thus the Eldorado Hotel was rich in that contrast between the old and the
+new which everywhere characterized the town. Generally speaking, the old
+was on exhibition or at work, while the new was at leisure or in charge.
+
+When the Delcasar carriage reached the hotel, it had to take its place in
+a long line of crawling vehicles, most of which were motor cars. Ramon
+felt acutely humiliated to arrive at the ball in a decrepit-looking rig
+when nearly every one else came in an automobile. He hoped that no one
+would notice them. But the smaller of the two horses, which had spent most
+of his life in the country, became frightened, reared, plunged, and
+finally backed the rig into one of the cars, smashing a headlight,
+blocking traffic, and making the Delcasars a target for searchlights and
+oaths. The Dona Delcasar, a ponderous and swarthy woman in voluminous
+black silk, became excited and stood up in the carriage, shouting shrill
+and useless directions to the coachman in Spanish. People began to laugh.
+Ramon roughly seized his mother by the arm and dragged her down. He was
+trembling with rage and embarassment.
+
+It was an immense relief to him when he had deposited the two women on
+chairs and was able to wander away by himself. He took up his position in
+a doorway and watched the opening of the ball with a cold and disapproving
+eye. The beginning was stiff, for many of those present were unknown to
+each other and had little in common. Most of them were "Americans," Jews
+and Mexicans. The men were all a good deal alike in their dress suits, but
+the women displayed an astonishing variety. There were tall gawky blonde
+wives of prominent cattlemen; little natty black-eyed Jewesses, best
+dressed of all; swarthy Mexican mothers of politically important families,
+resplendent in black silk and diamonds; and pretty dark Mexican girls of
+the younger generation, who did not look at all like the sei?1/2oritas of
+romance, but talked, dressed and flirted in a thoroughly American manner.
+
+The affair finally got under way in the form of a grand march, which
+toured the hall a couple of times and disintegrated into waltzing couples.
+Ramon watched this proceeding and several other dances without feeling any
+desire to take part. He was in a state of grand and gloomy discontent,
+which was not wholly unpleasant, as is often the case with youthful
+glooms. He even permitted himself to smile at some of the capers cut by
+prominent citizens. But presently his gaze settled upon one couple with a
+real sense of resentment and uneasiness. The couple consisted of his
+uncle, Diego Delcasar, and the wife of James MacDougall, the lawyer and
+real estate operator with whom the Don had formed a partnership, and whom
+Ramon believed to be systematically fleecing the old man.
+
+Don Diego was a big, paunchy Mexican with a smooth brown face, strikingly
+set off by fierce white whiskers. His partner was a tall, tight-lipped,
+angular woman, who danced painfully, but with determination. The two had
+nothing to say to each other, but both of them smiled resolutely, and the
+Don visibly perspired under the effort of steering his inflexible friend.
+
+Although he did not formulate the idea, this couple was to Ramon a symbol
+of the disgust with which the life of his native town inspired him. Here
+was the Mexican sedulously currying favour with the gringo, who robbed him
+for his pains. And here was the specific example of that relation which
+promised to rob Ramon of his heritage.
+
+For the gringos he felt a cold hostility--a sense of antagonism and
+difference--but it was his senile and fatuous uncle, the type of his own
+defeated race, whom he despised.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER IV
+
+
+When the music stopped Ramon left the hall for the hotel lobby, where he
+soothed his sensibilities with a small brown cigarette of his own making.
+In one of the swinging benches covered with Navajo blankets two other
+dress-suited youths were seated, smoking and talking. One of them was a
+short, plump Jew with a round and gravely good-natured face; the other a
+tall, slender young fellow with a great mop of curly brown hair, large
+soft eyes and a sensitive mouth.
+
+"She's good looking, all right," the little fellow assented, as Ramon came
+up.
+
+"Good looking!" exclaimed the other with enthusiasm. "She's a little
+queen! Nothing like her ever hit this town before."
+
+"Who's all the excitement about?" Ramon demanded, thrusting himself into
+the conversation with the easy familiarity which was his right as one of
+"the bunch."
+
+Sidney Felberg turned to him in mock amazement.
+
+"Good night, Ramon! Where have you been? Asleep? We're talking about Julia
+Roth, same as everybody else.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"Who's she?" Ramon queried coolly, discharging a cloud of smoke from the
+depths of his lungs. "Never heard of her."
+
+"Well, she's our latest social sensation {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} sister of some rich lunger that
+recently hit town; therefore very important. But that's not the only
+reason. Wait till you see her."
+
+"All right; introduce me to her," Ramon suggested.
+
+"Go on; knock him down to the lady," Sidney proposed to his companion.
+
+"No, you," Conny demurred. "I refuse to take the responsibility. He's too
+good looking."
+
+"All right," Sidney assented. "Come on. It's the only way I can get a look
+at her anyway--introducing somebody else. A good-looking girl in this town
+can start a regular stampede. We ought to import a few hundred.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+It was during an intermission. They forced their way through a phalanx of
+men brandishing programs and pencils, each trying to bring himself
+exclusively to the attention of a small blonde person who seemed to have
+some such quality of attractiveness for men as spilled honey has for
+insects.
+
+When Ramon saw her he felt as though something inside of him had bumped up
+against his diaphragm, taking away his breath for a moment, agitating him
+strangely. And he saw an answering surprised recognition in her wide grey
+eyes.
+
+"You {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} you're the girl on the train," he remarked idiotically, as he took
+her hand.
+
+She turned pink and laughed.
+
+"You're the man that wouldn't look up," she mocked.
+
+"What's all this about?" demanded Sidney. "You two met before?"
+
+"May I have a dance?" Ramon inquired, suddenly recovering his presence of
+mind.
+
+"Let me see {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} you're awfully late." They put their heads close together
+over her program. He saw her cut out the name of another man who had two
+dances, and then she held her pencil poised.
+
+"Of course I didn't get your name," she admitted.
+
+"No; I'll write it {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Was it Carter? Delcasar? Ramon Delcasar. You must be
+Spanish. I was wondering {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} you're so dark. I'm awfully interested in
+Spanish people.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}" She wrote the name in a bold, upright, childish hand.
+
+Ramon found that he had lost his mood of discontent after this, and he
+entered with zest into the spirit of the dance which was fast losing its
+stiff and formal character. Punch and music had broken down barriers. The
+hall was noisy with the ringing, high pitched laughter of excitement. It
+was warm and filled with an exotic, stimulating odour, compounded of many
+perfumes and of perspiration. Every one danced. Young folk danced as
+though inspired, swaying their bodies in time to the tune. The old and the
+fat danced with pathetic joyful earnestness, going round and round the
+hall with red and perspiring faces, as though in this measure they might
+recapture youth and slimness if only they worked hard enough. Now and then
+a girl sang a snatch of the tune in a clear young voice, full of abandon,
+and sometimes others took up the song and it rose triumphant above the
+music of the orchestra for a moment, only to be lost again as the singers
+danced apart.
+
+Ramon had been looking forward so long and with such intense anticipation
+to his dance with Julia Roth that he was a little self-conscious at its
+beginning, but this feeling was abolished by the discovery that they could
+dance together perfectly. He danced in silence, looking down upon her
+yellow head and white shoulders, the odour of her hair filling his
+nostrils, forgetful of everything but the sensuous delight of the moment.
+
+This mood of solemn rapture was evidently not shared by her, for presently
+the yellow head was thrown back, and she smiled up at him a bit mockingly.
+
+"Just like on the train," she remarked. "Not a thing to say for yourself.
+Are you always thus silent?"
+
+Ramon grinned.
+
+"No," he countered, "I was just trying to get up the nerve to ask if
+you'll let me come to see you."
+
+"That doesn't take much nerve," she assured him. "Practically every man
+I've danced with tonight has asked me that. I never had so many dates
+before in my life."
+
+"Well; may I follow the crowd, then?"
+
+"You may," she laughed. "Or call me up first, and maybe there won't be any
+crowd."
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER V
+
+
+His mother and sister had left early, for which fact he was thankful. He
+walked home alone with his hat in his hand, letting the cold wind of early
+morning blow on his hot brow. Punch and music and dancing had filled him
+with a delightful excitement. He felt glad of life and full of power. He
+could have gone on walking for hours, enjoying the rhythm of his stride
+and the gorgeous confusion of his thoughts, but in a remarkably short time
+he had covered the mile to his house in Old Town.
+
+It was a long, low _adobe_ with a paintless and rickety wooden verandah
+along its front, and with deep-set, iron-barred windows looking upon the
+square about which Old Town was built. Delcasars had lived in this house
+for over a century. Once it had been the best in town. Now it was an
+antiquity pointed out to tourists. Most of the Mexicans who had money had
+moved away from Old Town and built modern brick houses in New Town. But
+this was an expensive proceeding. The old _adobe_ houses which they left
+brought them little. The Delcasars had never been able to afford this
+removal. They were deeply attached to the old house and also deeply
+ashamed of it.
+
+Ramon passed through a narrow hallway into a courtyard and across it to
+his room. The light of the oil lamp which he lit showed a large oblong
+chamber with a low ceiling supported by heavy timbers, whitewashed walls
+and heavy old-fashioned walnut furniture. A large coloured print of Mary
+and the Babe in a gilt frame hung over the wash-stand, and next to it a
+college pennant was tacked over a photograph of his graduating class.
+Several Navajo blankets covered most of the floor and a couple of guns
+stood in a corner.
+
+When he was in bed his overstimulated state of mind became a torment. He
+rolled and tossed, beset by exciting images and ideas. Every time that a
+growing confusion of these indicated the approach of sleep, he was brought
+sharply back to full consciousness by the crowing of a rooster in the
+backyard. Finally he threw off the covers and sat up, cursing the rooster
+in two languages and resolving to eat him.
+
+Sleep was out of the question now. Suddenly he remembered that this was
+Sunday morning, and that he had intended going to the mountains. To start
+at once would enable him to avoid an argument with his mother concerning
+the inevitability of damnation for those who miss early Mass. He rose and
+dressed himself, putting on a cotton shirt, a faded and dirty pair of
+overalls and coarse leather riding boots; tied a red and white bandana
+about his neck and stuck on his head an old felt hat minus a band and with
+a drooping brim. So attired he looked exactly like a Mexican countryman--a
+poor _ranchero_ or a woodcutter. This masquerade was not intentional nor
+was he conscious of it. He simply wore for his holiday the kind of clothes
+he had always worn about the sheep ranches.
+
+Nevertheless he felt almost as different from his usual self as he looked.
+A good part of his identity as a poor, discontented and somewhat lazy
+young lawyer was hanging in the closet with his ready-made business suit.
+He took a long and noisy drink from the pitcher on the wash-stand, picked
+up his shot-gun and slipped cautiously out of the house, feeling care-free
+and happy.
+
+Behind the house was a corral with an _adobe_ wall that was ten feet high
+except where it had fallen down and been patched with boards. A scrub cow
+and three native horses were kept there. Two of the horses made the
+ill-matched team that hauled his mother and sister to church and town. The
+other was a fiery ragged little roan mare which he kept for his own use.
+None of these horses was worth more than thirty dollars, and they were
+easily kept on a few tons of alfalfa a year.
+
+The little mare laid back her ears and turned as though to annihilate him
+with a kick. He quickly stepped right up against the threatening hind
+legs, after the fashion of experienced horsemen who know that a kick is
+harmless at short range, and laid his hand on her side. She trembled but
+dared not move. He walked to her head, sliding his hand along the rough,
+uncurried belly and talking to her in Spanish. In a moment he had the
+bridle on her.
+
+The town was impressively empty and still as he galloped through it. Hoof
+beats rang out like shots, scaring a late-roaming cat, which darted across
+the street like a runaway shadow.
+
+Near the railroad station he came to a large white van, with a beam of
+light emerging from its door. This was a local institution of
+longstanding, known as the chile-wagon, and was the town's only all-night
+restaurant. Here he aroused a fat, sleepy old Mexican.
+
+"_Un tamale y cafe_," he ordered, and then had the proprietor make him a
+couple of sandwiches to put in his pocket. He consumed his breakfast
+hurriedly, rolled and lit a little brown cigarette, and was off again.
+
+His way led up a long steep street lined with new houses and vacant lots;
+then out upon the high empty level of the _mesa_. It was daylight now, of
+a clear, brilliant morning. He was riding across a level prairie, which
+was a grey desert most of the year, but which the rainy season of late
+summer had now touched with rich colours. The grass in many of the hollows
+was almost high enough to cut with a scythe, and its green expanse was
+patched with purple-flowered weeds. Meadow larks bugled from the grass;
+flocks of wild doves rose on whistling wings from the weed patches; a
+great grey jack-rabbit with jet-tipped ears sprang from his form beside
+the road and went sailing away in long effortless bounds, like a
+wind-blown thing. Miles ahead were the mountains--an angular mass of blue
+distance and purple shadow, rising steep five thousand feet above the
+_mesa_, with little round foothills clustering at their feet. A brisk cool
+wind fanned his face and fluttered the brim of his hat.
+
+But with the rising of the sun the wind dropped, it became warm and he
+felt dull and sleepy. When he came to a little juniper bush which spread
+its bit of shadow beside the road, he dismounted, pulled the saddle off
+his sweating mare, and sat down in the shade to eat his lunch. When he had
+finished he wished for a drink of water and philosophically took a smoke
+instead. Then he lay down, using his saddle for a pillow, puffing
+luxuriously at his cigarette. It was cool in his bit of shadow, though all
+the world about him swam in waves of heat.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Cool and very quiet. He felt
+drowsily content. This sunny desolation was to him neither lonely nor
+beautiful; it was just his own country, the soil from which he had
+sprung.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Colours and outlines blurred as his eyelids grew heavy. Sleep
+conquered him in a sudden black rush.
+
+It was late afternoon when he awakened. He had meant to shoot doves, but
+it was too late now to do any hunting if he was to reach Archulera's place
+before dark. He saddled his mare hurriedly and went forward at a hard
+gallop.
+
+Archulera's place was typical of the little Mexican ranches that dot the
+Southwest wherever there is water enough to irrigate a few acres. The
+brown block of _adobe_ house stood on an arid, rocky hillside, and looked
+like a part of it, save for the white door, and a few bright scarlet
+strings of _chile_ hung over the rafter ends to dry. Down in the _arroyo_
+was the little fenced patch where corn and _chile_ and beans were raised,
+and behind the house was a round goat corral of wattled brush. The skyward
+rocky waste of the mountain lifted behind the house, and the empty reach
+of the _mesa_ lay before--an immense and arid loneliness, now softened and
+beautified by many shadows.
+
+Ramon could see old man Archulera far up the mountainside, rounding up his
+goats for evening milking, and he could faintly hear the bleating of the
+animals and the old man's shouts and imprecations. He whistled loudly
+through his fingers and waved his hat.
+
+_"__Como lo va primo!__"_ he shouted, and he saw Archulera stop and look,
+and heard faintly his answering, _"__Como la va!__"_
+
+Soon Archulera had his goats penned, and Ramon joined him while he milked
+half a dozen ewes.
+
+"I'm glad you came," Archulera told him, "I haven't seen a man in a month
+except one gringo that said he was a prospector and stole a kid from me.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+How was the fair?"
+
+When the milking was over, the old man selected a fat kid, caught it by
+the hind leg and dragged it, bleating in wild terror, to a gallows behind
+the house, where he hung it up and skilfully cut its throat, leaving it to
+bleat and bleed to death while he wiped his knife and went on talking
+volubly with his guest. The occasional visits of Ramon were the most
+interesting events in his life, and he always killed a kid to express his
+appreciation. Ramon reciprocated with gifts of tobacco and whisky. They
+were great friends.
+
+Archulera was a short, muscular Mexican with a swarthy, wrinkled face,
+broad but well-cut. His big, thin-lipped mouth showed an amazing disarray
+of strong yellow teeth when he smiled. His little black eyes were shrewd
+and full of fire. Although he was sixty years old, there was little grey
+in the thick black hair that hung almost to his shoulders. He wore a cheap
+print shirt and a faded pair of overalls, belted at the waist with a strip
+of red wool. His foot-gear consisted of the uppers of a pair of old shoes
+with soles of rawhide sewed on moccasin-fashion.
+
+With no more disguise than a red blanket and a grunt Archulera could have
+passed for an Indian anywhere, but he made it clear to all that he
+regarded himself as a Spanish gentleman. He was descended, like Ramon,
+from one of the old families, which had received occasional infusions of
+native blood. There was probably more Indian in him than in the young man,
+but the chief difference between the two was due to the fact that the
+Archuleras had lost most of their wealth a couple of generations before,
+so that the old man had come down in the social scale to the condition of
+an ordinary goat-herding _pelado_. There are many such fallen aristocrats
+among the New Mexican peasantry. Most of them, like Archulera, are
+distinguished by their remarkably choice and fluent use of the Spanish
+language, and by the formal, eighteenth-century perfection of their
+manners, which contrast strangely with the barbaric way of their lives.
+
+The old man was now skinning and butchering the goat with speed and skill.
+Nothing was wasted. The hide was flung over a rafter end to dry. The head
+was washed and put in a pan, as were the smaller entrails with bits of fat
+clinging to them, and the liver and heart. The meat was too fresh to be
+eaten tonight, but these things would serve well enough for supper, and he
+called to his daughter, Catalina, to come and get them.
+
+The two men soon joined her in the low, whitewashed room, which had hard
+mud for a floor, and was furnished with a bare table and a few chairs. It
+was clean, but having only one window and that always closed, it had a
+pronounced and individual odour. In one corner was a little fireplace,
+which had long served both for cooking and to furnish heat, but as a
+concession to modern ideas Archulera had lately supplemented it with a
+cheap range in the opposite corner. There Catalina was noisily distilling
+an aroma from goat liver and onions. The entrails she threaded on little
+sticks and broiled them to a delicate brown over the coals, while the head
+she placed whole in the oven. Later this was cracked open and the brains
+taken out with a spoon, piping hot and very savoury. These viands were
+supplemented by a pan of large pale biscuits, and a big tin pot of coffee.
+Catalina served the two men, saying nothing, not even raising her eyes,
+while they talked and paid no attention to her. After eating her own
+supper and washing the dishes she disappeared into the next room.
+
+This self-effacing behaviour on the part of the girl accorded with the
+highest standards of Mexican etiquette, and showed her good breeding. The
+fact that old Archulera paid no more attention to her than to a chair did
+not indicate that he was indifferent to her. On the contrary, as Ramon had
+long ago discovered, she was one of the chief concerns of his life. He
+could not forget that in her veins flowed some of the very best of Spanish
+blood, and he considered her altogether too good for the common
+sheep-herders and wood-cutters who aspired to woo her. These he summarily
+warned away, and brought his big Winchester rifle into the argument
+whenever it became warm. When he left the girl alone, in order to guard
+her from temptation he locked her into the house together with his dog.
+Catalina had led a starved and isolated existence.
+
+After the meal, Archulera became reminiscent of his youth. Some
+thirty-five years before he had been one of the young bloods of the
+country, having fought against the Navajos and Apaches. He had made a
+reputation, long since forgotten by every one but himself, for ruthless
+courage and straight shooting, and many a man had he killed. In his early
+life, as he had often told Ramon, he had been a boon companion of old
+Diego Delcasar. The two had been associated in some mining venture, and
+Archulera claimed that Delcasar had cheated him out of his share of the
+proceeds, and so doomed him to his present life of poverty. When properly
+stimulated by food and drink Archulera never failed to tell this story,
+and to express his hatred for the man who had deprived him of wealth and
+social position. He had at first approached the subject diffidently, not
+knowing how Ramon would regard an attack on the good name of his uncle,
+and being anxious not to offend the young man. But finding that Ramon
+listened tolerantly, if not sympathetically, he had told the story over
+and over, each time with more detail and more abundant and picturesque
+denunciation of Diego Delcasar, but with substantial uniformity as to the
+facts. As he spoke he watched the face of Ramon narrowly. Always the
+recital ended about the same way.
+
+"You are not like your uncle," he assured the young man earnestly, in his
+formal Spanish. "You are generous, honourable. When your uncle is dead,
+you will repay me for the wrongs that I have suffered--no?"
+
+Ramon would always laugh at this. This night, in order to humour the old
+man, he asked him how much he thought the Delcasar estate owed him for his
+ancient wrong.
+
+"Five thousand dollars!" Archulera replied with slow emphasis. He probably
+had no idea how much he had lost, but five thousand dollars was his
+conception of a great deal of money.
+
+Ramon again laughed and refused to commit himself. He certainly had no
+idea of giving Archulera five thousand dollars, but he thought that if he
+ever did come into his own he would certainly take care of the old man--and
+of Catalina.
+
+Soon after this Archulera went off to sleep in the other end of the house,
+after trying in vain to persuade Ramon to occupy his bed. Ramon, as
+always, refused. He would sleep on a pile of sheep skins in the corner. He
+really preferred this, because the sheep skins were both cleaner and
+softer than Archulera's bed, and also for another reason.
+
+After the old man had gone, he stretched out on his pallet, and lit
+another cigarette. He could hear his host thumping around for a few
+minutes; then it was very still, save for a faint moan of wind and the
+ticking of a cheap clock. This late still hour had always been to him one
+of the most delightful parts of his visits to Archulera's house. For some
+reason he got a sense of peace and freedom out of this far-away quiet
+place. And he knew that in the next room Catalina was waiting for
+him--Catalina with the strong, shapely brown body which her formless calico
+smock concealed by day, with the eager, blind desire bred of her long
+loneliness.
+
+During his first few visits to Archulera, he had scarcely noticed the
+girl. That was doubtless one reason why the old man had welcomed him. He
+had come here simply to go deer-hunting with Archulera, to eat his goat
+meat and chile, to get away from the annoyance and boredom of his life in
+town, and into the crude, primitive atmosphere which he had loved as a
+boy. Catalina had been to him just the usual slovenly figure of a Mexican
+woman, a self-effacing drudge.
+
+He had felt her eyes upon him several times, had not looked up quickly
+enough to meet them, but had noticed the pretty soft curve of her cheek.
+Then one night when he was stretched out on his sheep skins after
+Archulera had gone to bed, the girl came into the room and began pottering
+about the stove. He had watched her, wondering what she was doing. As she
+knelt on the floor he noticed the curve of her hip, the droop of her
+breast against her frock, the surprising round perfection of her
+outstretched arm. It struck him suddenly that she was a woman to be
+desired, and one who might be taken with ease. At the same time, with a
+quickening of the blood, he realized that she was doing nothing, and had
+merely come into the room to attract his attention. Then she glanced at
+him, daring but shy, with great brown eyes, like the eyes of a gentle
+animal. When she went back to her own room a moment later, he confidently
+followed.
+
+Ever since then Catalina had been the chief object of his week-end
+journeys, and his hunting largely an excuse. She had completed this life
+which he led in the mountains, and which was so pleasantly different from
+his life in town. For a part of the week he was a poor, young lawyer,
+watchful, worried, careful; then for a couple of days he was a ragged
+young Mexican and the lover of Catalina--a different man. He was the
+product of a transition, and two beings warred in him. In town he was
+dominated by the desire to be like the Americans, and to gain a foothold
+in their life of law, greed and respectability; in the mountains he
+relapsed unconsciously into the easy barbarous ways of his fathers.
+Incidentally, this periodical change of personality was refreshing and a
+source of strength. Catalina had been an important part of it.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} As he lay
+now sleepily puffing a last cigarette, he wondered why it was that he had
+suddenly lost interest in the girl.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER VI
+
+
+At ten o'clock in the morning Ramon was hard at work in the office of
+James B. Green. He worked efficiently and with zest as he always did after
+one of his trips to the mountains. He got out of these ventures into
+another environment about what some men get out of sprees--a complete
+change of the state of mind. Archulera and his daughter were now
+completely forgotten, and all of his usual worries and plans were creeping
+back into his consciousness.
+
+But this day he had a feeling of pleasant anticipation. At first he could
+not account for it. And then he remembered the girl--the one he had seen on
+the train and had met again at the Montezuma ball. It seemed as though the
+thought of her had been in the back of his mind all the time, and now
+suddenly came forward, claiming all his attention, stirring him to a
+quick, unwonted excitement. She had said he might come to see her. He was
+to 'phone first. Maybe she would be alone.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+In this latter hope he was disappointed. She gave him the appointment, and
+she herself admitted him. He thought he had never seen such a dainty bit
+of fragrant perfection, all in pink that matched the pink of her strange
+little crinkled mouth.
+
+"I'm awfully glad you came," she told him. (Her gladness was always
+awful.) She led him into the sitting room and presented him to the tall
+emaciated sick man and the large placid woman who had watched over her so
+carefully on the train.
+
+Gordon Roth greeted him with a cool and formal manner into which he
+evidently tried to infuse something of cordiality, as though a desire to
+be just and broad-minded struggled with prejudice. Mrs. Roth looked at him
+with curiosity, and gave him a still more restrained greeting. The
+conversation was a weak and painful affair, kept barely alive, now by one
+and now by another. The atmosphere was heavy with disapproval. If their
+greetings had left Ramon in any doubt as to the attitude of the girl's
+family toward him, that doubt was removed by the fact that neither Mrs.
+Roth nor her son showed any intention of leaving the room. This would have
+been not unusual if he had called on a Mexican girl, especially if she
+belonged to one of the more old-fashioned families; but he knew that
+American girls are left alone with their suitors if the suitor is at all
+welcome.
+
+He knew a little about this family from hear-say. They came from one of
+the larger factory towns in northern New York, and were supposed to be
+moderately wealthy. They used a very broad "a" and served tea at four
+o'clock in the afternoon. Gordon Roth was a Harvard graduate and did not
+conceal the fact. Neither did he conceal his hatred for this sandy little
+western town, where ill-health had doomed him to spend many of his days
+and perhaps to end them.
+
+The girl was strangely different from her mother and brother. Whereas
+their expressions were stiff and solemn, her eyes showed an irrepressible
+gleam of humour, and her fascinating little mouth was mobile with mirth.
+She fidgeted around in her chair a good deal, as a child does when bored.
+
+Mrs. Roth decorously turned the conversation toward the safe and reliable
+subjects of literature and art.
+
+"What do you think of Maeterlinck, Mr. Delcasar?" she enquired in an
+innocent manner that must have concealed malice.
+
+"I don't know him," Ramon admitted, "Who is he?"
+
+Mrs. Roth permitted herself to smile. Gordon Roth came graciously to the
+rescue.
+
+"Maeterlinck is a great Belgian writer," he explained. "We are all very
+much interested in him.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Julia gave a little flounce in her chair, and crossed her legs with a
+defiant look at her mother.
+
+"I'm not interested in him," she announced with decision. "I think he's a
+bore. Listen, Mr. Delcasar. You know Conny Masters? Well, he was telling
+me the most thrilling tale the other day. He said that the country
+Mexicans have a sort of secret religious fraternity that most of the men
+belong to, and that they meet every Good Friday and beat themselves with
+whips and sit down on cactus and crucify a man on a cross and all sorts of
+horrible things {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} for penance you know, just like the monks and things in
+the Middle Ages.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} He claims he saw them once and that they had blood
+running down to their heels. Is that all true? I've forgotten what he
+called them.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Ramon nodded.
+
+"Sure. The _penitentes_. I've seen them lots of times."
+
+"O, do tell us about them. I love to hear about horrible things."
+
+"Well, I've seen lots of _penitente_ processions, but the best one I ever
+saw was a long time ago, when I was a little kid. There are not so many of
+them now, and they don't do as much as they used to. The church is down on
+them, you know, and they're afraid. Ten years ago if you tried to look at
+them, they would shoot at you, but now tourists take pictures of them."
+
+Gordon Roth's curiosity had been aroused.
+
+"Tell me," he broke in. "What is the meaning of this thing? How did it get
+started?"
+
+"I don't know exactly," Ramon admitted. "My grandfather told me that they
+brought it over from Spain centuries ago, and the Indians here had a sort
+of whipping fraternity, and the two got mixed up, I guess. The church used
+to tolerate it; it was a regular religious festival. But now it's
+outlawed. They still have a lot of political power. They all vote the same
+way. One man that was elected to Congress--they say that the _penitente_
+stripes on his back carried him there. And he was a gringo too. But I
+don't know. It may be a lie.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"But tell us about that procession you saw when you were a little boy,"
+Julia broke in. She was leaning forward with her chin in her hand, and her
+big grey eyes, wide with interest, fixed upon his face.
+
+"Well, I was only about ten years old, and I was riding home from one of
+our ranches with my father. We were coming through _Tijeras_ canyon. It
+was March, and there was snow on the ground in patches, and the mountains
+were cold and bare, and I remember I thought I was going to freeze. Every
+little while we would get off and set fire to a tumble-weed by the road,
+and warm our hands and then go on again.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+"Anyway, pretty soon I heard a lot of men singing, all together, in deep
+voices, and the noise echoed around the canyon and sounded awful solemn.
+And I could hear, too, the slap of the big wide whips coming down on the
+bare backs, wet with blood, like slapping a man with a wet towel, only
+louder. I didn't know what it was, but my father did, and he called to me
+and we spurred our horses right up the mountain, and hid in a clump of
+cedar up there. Then they came around a bend in the road, and I began to
+cry because they were all covered with blood, and one of them fell down.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+My father slapped me and told me to shut up, or they would come and shoot
+us."
+
+"But what did they look like? What were they doing?" Julia demanded
+frowning at him, impatient with his rambling narrative.
+
+"Well, in front there was _un carreta del muerto_. That means a wagon of
+death. I don't think you would ever see one any more. It was just an
+ordinary wagon drawn by six men, naked to the waist and bleeding, with
+other men walking beside them and beating them with blacksnake whips, just
+like they were mules. In the wagon they had a big bed of stones, covered
+with cactus, and a man sitting in the cactus, who was supposed to
+represent death. And then they had a Virgin Mary, too. Four _penitentes_
+just like the others, with nothing on but bloody pants and black bandages
+around their eyes, carried the image on a litter raised up over their
+heads, and they had swords fastened to their elbows and stuck between
+their ribs, so that if they let down, the swords would stick into their
+hearts and kill them. And behind that came the _Cristo_--the man that
+represented Jesus, you know, dragging a big cross. Behind him came twenty
+or thirty more _penitentes_, the most I ever saw at once, some of them
+whipping themselves with big broad whips made out of _amole_. One was too
+weak to whip himself, so two others walked behind him and whipped him.
+Pretty soon he fell down and they walked over him and stepped on his
+stomach.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"But did they crucify the man, the whatever-you-call-him?" Gordon
+demanded.
+
+"The _Cristo_. Sure. They crucify one every year. They used to nail him.
+Now they generally do it with ropes, but that's bad enough, because it
+makes him swell up and turn blue.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Sometimes he dies."
+
+Julia was listening with lips parted and eyes wide, horrified and yet
+fascinated, as are so many women by what is cruel and bloody. But Gordon,
+who had become equally interested, was cool and inquisitive.
+
+"And you mean to tell me that at one time nearly all the--er--native people
+belonged to this barbaric organization, and that many of them do yet?"
+
+"Nearly all the common _pelados_," Ramon hastened to explain. "They are
+nearly all Indian or part Indian, you know. Not the educated people." Here
+a note of pride came into his voice. "We are descended from officers of
+the Spanish army--the men who conquered this country. In the old days,
+before the Americans came, all these common people were our slaves."
+
+"I see," said Gordon Roth in a dry and judicial tone.
+
+The _penitentes_, as a subject of conversation, seemed exhausted for the
+time being and Ramon had given up all hope of being alone with Julia. He
+rose and took his leave. To his delight Julia followed him to the door. In
+the hall she gave him her hand and looked up at him, and neither of them
+found anything to say. For some reason the pressure of her hand and the
+look of her eyes flustered and confused him more than had all the coldness
+and disapproval of her family. At last he said good-bye and got away, with
+his hat on wrong side before and the blood pounding in his temples.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VII
+
+
+During the following weeks Ramon worked even less than was his custom. He
+also neglected his trips to the mountains and most of his other
+amusements. They seemed to have lost their interest for him. But he was a
+regular attendant upon the weekly dances which were held at the country
+club, and to which he had never gone before.
+
+The country club was a recent acquisition of the town, backed by a number
+of local business men. It consisted of a picturesque little frame lodge
+far out upon the _mesa_, and a nine-hole golf course, made of sand and
+haunted by lizards and rattlesnakes. It had become a centre of local
+society, although there was a more exclusive organization known as the
+Forty Club, which gave a formal ball once a month. Ramon had never been
+invited to join the Forty Club, but the political importance of his family
+had procured him a membership in the country club and it served his
+present purpose very well, for he found Julia Roth there every Saturday
+night. This fact was the sole reason for his going. His dances with her
+were now the one thing in life to which he looked forward with pleasure,
+and his highest hope was that he might be alone with her.
+
+In this he was disappointed for a long time because Julia was the belle of
+the town. Her dainty, provocative presence seemed always to be the centre
+of the gathering. Women envied her and studied her frocks, which were
+easily the most stylish in town. Men flocked about her and guffawed at her
+elfin stabs of humour. Her program was always crowded with names, and when
+she went for a stroll between dances she was generally accompanied by at
+least three men of whom Ramon was often one. And while the others made her
+laugh at their jokes or thrilled her with accounts of their adventures, he
+was always silent and worried--an utter bore, he thought.
+
+This girl was a new experience to him. With the egotism of twenty-four, he
+had regarded himself as a finished man of the world, especially with
+regard to women. They had always liked him. He was good to look at and his
+silent, self-possessed manner touched the feminine imagination. He had had
+his share of the amorous adventures that come to most men, and his
+attitude toward women had changed from the hesitancy of adolesence to the
+purposeful, confident and somewhat selfish attitude of the male accustomed
+to easy conquest.
+
+This girl, by a smile and touch of her hand, seemed to have changed him.
+She filled him with a mighty yearning. He desired her, and yet there was a
+puzzling element in his feeling that seemed to transcend desire. And he
+was utterly without his usual confidence and purpose. He had reason enough
+to doubt his success, but aside from that she loomed in his imagination as
+something high and unattainable. He had no plan. His strength seemed to
+have oozed out of him. He pursued her persistently enough--in fact too
+persistently--but he did it because he could not help it.
+
+The longer he followed in her wake, the more marked his weakness became.
+When he approached her to claim a dance he was often aware of a faint
+tremble in his knees, and was embarrassed by the fact that the palms of
+his hands were sweating. He felt that he was a fool and swore at himself.
+And he was wholly unable to believe that he was making any impression upon
+her. True, she was quite willing to flirt with him. She looked up at him
+with an arch, almost enquiring glance when he came to claim her for a
+dance, but he seldom found much to say at such times, being too wholly
+absorbed in the sacred occupation of dancing with her. And it seemed to
+him that she flirted with every one else, too. This did not in the least
+mitigate his devotion, but it made him acutely uncomfortable to watch her
+dance with other men, and especially with Conny Masters.
+
+Masters was the son of a man who had made a moderate fortune in the
+tin-plate business. He had come West with his mother who had a weak
+throat, had fallen in love with the country, and scandalized his family by
+resolutely refusing to go back to Indiana and tin cans. He spent most of
+his time riding about the country, equipped with a note book and a camera,
+studying the Mexicans and Indians, and taking pictures of the scenery. He
+said that he was going to make a literary career, but the net product of
+his effort for two years had been a few sonnets of lofty tone but vague
+meaning, and a great many photographs, mostly of sunsets.
+
+Conny was not a definite success as a writer, but he was unquestionably a
+gifted talker, and he knew the country better than did most of the
+natives. He made real to Julia the romance which she craved to find in the
+West. And her watchful and suspicious family seemed to tolerate if not to
+welcome him. Ramon knew that he went to the Roth's regularly. He began to
+feel something like hatred for Conny whom he had formerly liked.
+
+This feeling was deepened by the fact that Conny seemed to be specially
+bent on defeating Ramon's ambition to be alone with the girl. If no one
+else joined them at the end of a dance, Conny was almost sure to do so,
+and to occupy the intermission with one of his ever-ready monologues,
+while Ramon sat silent and angry, wondering what Julia saw to admire in
+this windy fool, and occasionally daring to wonder whether she really saw
+anything in him after all.
+
+But a sufficiently devoted lover is seldom wholly without a reward. There
+came an evening when Ramon found himself alone with her. And he was aware
+with a thrill that she had evaded not only Conny, but two other men. Her
+smile was friendly and encouraging, too, and yet he could not find
+anything to say which in the least expressed his feelings.
+
+"Are you going to stay in this country long?" he began. The question
+sounded supremely casual, but it meant a great deal to him. He was haunted
+by a fear that she would depart suddenly, and he would never see her
+again. She smiled and looked away for a moment before replying, as though
+perhaps this was not exactly what she had expected him to say.
+
+"I don't know. Gordon wants mother and me to go back East this fall, but I
+don't want to go and mother doesn't want to leave Gordon alone.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} We
+haven't decided. Maybe I won't go till next year."
+
+"I suppose you'll go to college won't you?"
+
+"No; I wanted to go to Vassar and then study art, but mother says college
+spoils a girl for society. She thinks the way the Vassar girls walk is
+perfectly dreadful. I offered to go right on walking the same way, but she
+said anyway college makes girls so frightfully broad-minded.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Ramon laughed.
+
+"What will you do then?"
+
+"I'll come out."
+
+"Out of what?"
+
+"Make my di?1/2but, don't you know?"
+
+"O, yes."
+
+"In New York. I have an aunt there. She knows all the best people, mother
+says."
+
+"What happens after you come out?"
+
+"You get married if anybody will have you. If not, you sort of fade away
+and finally go into uplift work about your fourth season."
+
+"But of course, you'll get married. I bet you'll marry a millionaire."
+
+"I don't know. Mother wants me to marry a broker. She says the big
+financial houses in New York are conducted by the very best people. But
+Gordon thinks I ought to marry a professional man--a doctor or something.
+He thinks brokers are vulgar. He says money isn't everything."
+
+"What do you think?"
+
+"I haven't a thought to my name. All my thinking has been done for me
+since infancy. I don't know what I want, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't
+get it if I did.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Come on. They've been dancing for ten minutes. If we
+stay here any longer it'll be a scandal."
+
+She rose and started for the hall. He suddenly realized that his
+long-sought opportunity was slipping away from him. He caught her by the
+hand.
+
+"Don't go, please. I want to tell you something."
+
+She met his hand with a fair grip, and pulled him after her with a laugh.
+
+"Some other time," she promised.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+In most of their social diversions the town folk tended always more and
+more to ape the ways of the East. Local colour, they thought, was all
+right in its place, which was a curio store or a museum, but they desired
+their town to be modern and citified, so that the wealthy eastern
+health-seeker would find it a congenial home. The scenery and the historic
+past were recognized as assets, but they should be the background for a
+life of "culture, refinement and modern convenience" as the president of
+the Chamber of Commerce was fond of saying.
+
+Hence the riding parties and picnics of a few years before had given way
+to aggressively formal balls and receptions; but one form of entertainment
+that was indigenous had survived. This was known as a "_mesa_ supper." It
+might take place anywhere in the surrounding wilderness of mountain and
+desert. Several auto-loads of young folk would motor out, suitably
+chaperoned and laden with provisions. Beside some water hole or mountain
+stream fires would be built, steaks broiled and coffee brewed. Afterward
+there would be singing and story-telling about the fire, and romantic
+strolls by couples.
+
+It was one of these expeditions that furnished Ramon with his second
+opportunity in three weeks to be alone with Julia Roth. The party had
+journeyed to Los Ojuellos, where a spring of clear water bubbled up in the
+centre of the _mesa_. A grove of cottonwood trees shadowed the place, and
+there was an ancient _adobe_ ruin which looked especially effective by
+moonlight.
+
+The persistent Conny Masters was a member of the party, but he was
+handicapped by the fact that he knew more about camp cookery than anyone
+else present. He had made a special study of Mexican dishes and had
+written an article about them which had been rejected by no less than
+twenty-seven magazines. He made a specialty of the _enchilada_, which is a
+delightful concoction of corn meal, eggs and chile, and he had perfected a
+recipe of his own for this dish which he had named the Conny Masters
+junior.
+
+As soon as the baskets were unpacked and the chaperones were safely
+anchored on rugs and blankets with their backs against trees, there was a
+general demand, strongly backed by Ramon, that Conny should cook supper.
+He was soon absorbed in the process, volubly explaining every step, while
+the others gathered about him and offered encouragement and humorous
+suggestion. But there was soon a gradual dispersion of the group, some
+going for wood and some for water, and others on errands unstated.
+
+Ramon found himself strolling under the cottonwoods with Julia. Neither of
+them had said anything. It was almost as though the tryst had been agreed
+upon before. She picked her way slowly among the tussocks of dried grass,
+her skirt daintily kilted. A faint but potent perfume from her hair and
+dress blew over him. He ventured to support her elbow with a reverent
+touch. Never had she seemed more desirable, nor yet, for some reason, more
+remote.
+
+Suddenly she stopped and looked up at the great desert stars.
+
+"Isn't it big and beautiful?" she demanded. "And doesn't it make you feel
+free? It's never like this at home, somehow."
+
+"What is it like where you live?" he enquired. He had a persistent desire
+to see into her life and understand it, but everything she told him only
+made her more than ever to him a being of mysterious origin and destiny.
+
+"It's a funny little New York factory city with very staid ways," she
+said. "You go to a dance at the country club every Saturday night and to
+tea parties and things in between. You fight, bleed and die for your
+social position and once in a while you stop and wonder why.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} It's a bore.
+You can see yourself going on doing the same thing till the day of your
+death.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Her discontent with things as they are found ready sympathy.
+
+"That's just the way it is here," he said with conviction. "You can't see
+anything ahead."
+
+"Oh, I don't think its the same here at all," she protested. "This
+country's so big and interesting. It's different."
+
+"Tell me how," he demanded. "I haven't seen anything interesting here
+since I got back,--except you."
+
+She ignored the exception.
+
+"I can't express it exactly. The people here are just like people
+everywhere else--most of them. But the country looks so big and unoccupied.
+And blue mountains are so alluring. There might be anything beyond them {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+adventures, opportunities.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+This idea was a bit too rarefied for Ramon, but he could agree about the
+mountains.
+
+"It's a fine country," he assented. "For those that own it."
+
+"It's just a feeling I have about it," she went on, trying to express her
+own half-formulated idea. "But then I have that feeling about life in
+general, and there doesn't seem to be anything in it. I mean the feeling
+that it's full of thrilling things, but somehow you miss them all."
+
+"I have felt something like that," he admitted. "But I never could say
+it."
+
+This discovery of an idea in common seemed somehow to bring them closer
+together. His hand tightened gently about her arm; almost unconsciously he
+drew her toward him. But she seemed to be all absorbed in the discussion.
+
+"You have no right to complain," she told him. "A man can do something
+about it."
+
+"Yes," he agreed, speaking a reflection without stopping to put it in
+conventional language. "It must be hell to be a woman {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} excuse me {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I
+mean.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"Don't apologize. It is--just that. A man at least has a fighting chance to
+escape boredom. But they won't even let a woman fight. I wish I were a
+man."
+
+"Well; I don't," he asserted with warmth, unconsciously tightening his
+hold upon her arm. "I can't tell you how glad I am that you're a woman."
+
+"Oh, are you?" She looked up at him with challenging, provocative eyes.
+
+For an instant a kiss was imminent. It hovered between them like an
+invisible fairy presence of which they both were sweetly aware, and no one
+else.
+
+"Hey there! all you spooners!" came a jovial and irreverent voice from the
+vicinity of the camp fire. "Come and eat."
+
+The moment was lost; the fairy presence gone. She turned with a little
+laugh, and they went in silence back to the fire. They were last to enter
+the circle of ruddy light, and all eyes were upon them. She was pink and
+self-conscious, looking at her feet and picking her way with exaggerated
+care. He was proud and elated. This, he knew, would couple their names in
+gossip, would make her partly his.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER IX
+
+
+He wanted to call on her again, but he felt that he had been insulted and
+rejected by the Roths, and his pride fought against it. Unable to think
+for long of anything but Julia he fell into the habit of walking by her
+house at night, looking at its lighted windows and wondering what she was
+doing. Often he could see the moving figures and hear the laughter of some
+gay group about her, but he could not bring himself to go in and face the
+chilly disapproval of her family. At such times he felt an utter outcast,
+and sounded depths of misery he had never known before. For this was his
+first real love, and he loved in the helpless, desperate way of the Latin,
+without calculation or humour.
+
+One evening there was a gathering on the porch of the Roth house. She was
+there, sitting on the steps with three men about her. He could see the
+white blur of her frock and hear her funny little bubbling laugh above the
+deeper voices of the men. Having ascertained that neither Gordon Roth nor
+his mother was there, he summoned his courage and went in. She could not
+see who he was until he stood almost over her.
+
+"O, it's you! I'm awfully glad.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}" Their hands met and clung for a moment
+in the darkness. He sat down on the steps at her feet, and the
+conversation moved on without any assistance from him. He was now just as
+happy as he had been miserable a few minutes before.
+
+Presently two of the other men went away, but the third, who was Conny
+Masters, stayed. He talked volubly as ever, telling wonderful and
+sometimes incredible stories of things he had seen and done in his
+wanderings. Ramon said nothing. Julia responded less and less. Once she
+moved to drop the wrap from about her shoulders, and the alert Conny
+hastened to assist her. Ramon watched and envied with a thumping heart as
+he saw the gleam of her bare white shoulders, and realized that his rival
+might have touched them.
+
+Conny went on talking for half an hour with astonishing endurance and
+resourcefulness, but it became always more apparent that he was not
+captivating his audience. He had to laugh at his own humour and expatiate
+on his own thrills. Finally a silence fell upon the three, broken only by
+occasional commonplace remarks.
+
+"Well, I guess it's time to drift," Conny observed at last, looking
+cautiously at his watch.
+
+This suggestion was neither seconded by Ramon nor opposed by Julia. The
+silence literally pushed Conny to his feet.
+
+"Going, Ramon? No? Well, Good night." And he retired whistling in a way
+which showed his irritation more plainly than if he had sworn.
+
+The two impolite ones sat silent for a long moment. Ramon was trying to
+think of what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. Finally
+without looking at her he said in a low husky voice.
+
+"You know {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I love you."
+
+There was more silence. At last he looked up and met her eyes. They were
+serious for the first time in his experience, and so was her usually
+mocking little mouth. Her face was transformed and dignified. More than
+ever she seemed a strange, high being. And yet he knew that now she was
+within his reach.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} That he could kiss her lips {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} incredible.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} And yet he
+did, and the kiss poured flame over them and welded them into each others'
+arms.
+
+They heard Gordon Roth in the house coughing, the cough coming closer.
+
+She pushed him gently away.
+
+"Go now," she whispered. "I love you {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Ramon."
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER X
+
+
+His conquest was far from giving him peace. Her kiss had transformed his
+high vague yearning into hot relentless desire. He wanted her. That became
+the one clear thing in life to him. Reflections and doubts were alien to
+his young and primitive spirit. He did not try to look far into the
+future. He only knew that to have her would be delight almost unimaginable
+and to lose her would be to lose everything.
+
+His attitude toward her changed. He claimed her more and more at dances.
+She did not want to dance with him so much because "people would talk,"
+but his will was harder than hers and to a great extent he had his way. He
+now called on her regularly too. He knew that she had fought hard for him
+against her family, and had won the privilege for him of calling "not too
+often."
+
+"I've lied for you frightfully," she confessed. "I told them I didn't
+really care for you in the least, but I want to see you because you can
+tell such wonderful things about the country. So talk about the country
+whenever they're listening. And don't look at me the way you do.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Mother and brother were alert and suspicious despite her assurance, and
+manoeuvred with cool skill to keep the pair from being alone. Only rarely
+did he get the chance to kiss her--once when her brother, who was standing
+guard over the family treasure, was seized with a fit of coughing and had
+to leave the room, and again when her mother was called to the telephone.
+At such times she shrank away from him at first as though frightened by
+the intensity of the emotion she had created, but she never resisted. To
+him these brief and stolen embraces were almost intolerably sweet, like
+insufficient sips of water to a man burned up with thirst.
+
+She puzzled him as much as ever. When he was with her he felt as sure of
+her love as of his own existence. And yet she often sought to elude him.
+When he called up for engagements she objected and put him off. And she
+surrounded herself with other men as much as ever, and flirted gracefully
+with all of them, so that he was always feeling the sharp physical pangs
+of jealousy. Sometimes he felt egotistically sure that she was merely
+trying by these devices to provoke his desire the more, but at other times
+he thought her voice over the phone sounded doubtful and afraid, and he
+became wildly eager to get to her and make sure of her again.
+
+Just as her kiss had crystallized his feeling for her into driving desire,
+so it had focussed and intensified his discontent. Before he had been more
+or less resigned to wait for his fortune and the power he meant to make of
+it; now it seemed to him that unless he could achieve these things at
+once, they would never mean anything to him. For money was the one thing
+that would give him even a chance to win her. It was obviously useless to
+ask her to marry him poor. He would have nothing to bring against the
+certain opposition of her family. He could not run away with her. And
+indeed he was altogether too poor to support a wife if he had one, least
+of all a wife who had been carefully groomed and trained to capture a
+fortune.
+
+There was only one way. If he could go to her strong and rich, he felt
+sure that he could persuade her to go away with him, for he knew that she
+belonged to him when he was with her. He pictured himself going to her in
+a great motor car. Such a car had always been in his imagination the
+symbol of material strength. He felt sure he could destroy her doubts and
+hesitations. He would carry her away and she would be all and irrevocably
+his before any one could interfere or object.
+
+This dream filled and tortured his imagination. Its realization would mean
+not only fulfilment of his desire, but also revenge upon the Roths for the
+humiliations they had made him feel. It pushed everything else out of his
+mind--all consideration of other and possibly more feasible methods of
+pushing his suit. He came of a race of men who had dared and dominated,
+who had loved and fought, but had never learned how to work or to endure.
+
+When he gave himself up to his dream he was almost elated, but when he
+came to contemplate his actual circumstances, he fell into depths of
+discouragement and melancholy. His uncle stood like a rock between him and
+his desire. He thought of trying to borrow a few thousand dollars from old
+Diego, and of leaving the future to luck, but he was too intelligent long
+to entertain such a scheme. The Don would likely have provided him with
+the money, and he would have done it by hypothecating more of the Delcasar
+lands to MacDougall. Then Ramon would have had to borrow more, and so on,
+until the lands upon which all his hopes and dreams were based had passed
+forever out of his reach.
+
+The thing seemed hopeless, for Don Diego might well live for many years.
+And yet Ramon did not give up hope. He was worried, desperate and bitter,
+but not beaten. He had still that illogical faith in his own destiny which
+is the gift that makes men of action.
+
+At this time he heard particularly disquieting things about his uncle. Don
+Diego was reputed to be spending unusually large sums of money. As he
+generally had not much ready cash, this must mean either that he had sold
+land or that he had borrowed from MacDougall, in which case the land had
+doubtless been given as security. Once it was converted into cash in the
+hands of Diego, Ramon knew that his prospective fortune would swiftly
+vanish. He determined to watch the old man closely.
+
+He learned that Don Diego was playing poker every night in the back room
+of the White Camel pool hall. Gambling was supposed to be prohibited in
+the town, but this sanctum was regularly the scene for a game, which had
+the reputation of causing more money to change hands than any other in the
+southwest. Ramon hung about the White Camel evening after evening, trying
+to learn how much his uncle was losing. He would have liked to go and
+stand behind his chair and watch the game, but both etiquette and pride
+prevented him doing this. On two nights his uncle came out surrounded by a
+laughing crowd, a little bit tipsy, and was hurried into a cab. Ramon had
+no chance to speak either to him or to any one else who had been in the
+game. But the third night he came out alone, heavy with liquor, talking to
+himself. The other players had already gone out, laughing. The place was
+nearly deserted. The Don suddenly caught sight of Ramon and came to him,
+laying heavy hands on his shoulders, looking at him with bleary,
+tear-filled eyes.
+
+"My boy, my nephew," he exclaimed in Spanish, his voice shaking with boozy
+emotion, "I am glad you are here. Come I must talk to you." And steadied
+by Ramon he led the way to a bench in a corner. Here his manner suddenly
+changed. He threw back his head haughtily and slapped his knee.
+
+"I have lost five hundred dollars tonight," he announced proudly. "What do
+I care? I am a rich man. I have lost a thousand dollars in the last three
+nights. That is nothing. I am rich."
+
+He thumped his chest, looking around defiantly. Then he leaned forward in
+a confidential manner and lowered his voice.
+
+"But these gringos--they have gone away and left me. You saw them?
+_Cabrones!_ They have got my money. That is all they want. My boy, all
+gringos are alike. They want nothing but money. They can hear the rattle
+of a _peso_ as far as a _burro_ can smell a bear. They are mean, stingy!
+Ah, my boy! It is not now as it was in the old days. Then money counted
+for nothing! Then a man could throw away his last dollar and there were
+always friends to give him more. But now your dollars are your only true
+friends, and when you have lost them, you are alone indeed. Ah, my boy!
+The old days were the best!" The old Don bent his head over his hands and
+wept.
+
+Ramon looked at him with a mighty disgust and with a resentment that
+filled his throat and made his head hot. He had never before realized how
+much broken by age and drink his uncle was. Before, he had suspected and
+feared that Don Diego was wasting his property; now he knew it.
+
+The Don presently looked up again with tear-filled eyes, and went on
+talking, holding Ramon by the lapel of the coat in a heavy tremulous grip.
+He talked for almost an hour, his senile mind wandering aimlessly through
+the scenes of his long and picturesque career. He would tell tales of his
+loves and battles of fifty years ago--tales full of lust and greed and
+excitement. He would come back to his immediate troubles and curse the
+gringos again for a pack of miserable dollar-mongers, who knew not the
+meaning of friendship. And again his mind would leap back irrelevantly to
+some woman he had loved or some man he had killed in the spacious days
+where his imagination dwelt. Ramon listened eagerly, hoping to learn
+something definite about the Don's dealings with MacDougall, but the old
+man never touched upon this. He did tell one story to which Ramon listened
+with interest. He told how, twenty-five years before, he and another man
+named Cristobal Archulera had found a silver mine in the Guadelupe
+Mountains, and how he had cheated the other out of his interest by filing
+the claim in his own name. He told this as a capital joke, laughing and
+thumping his knee.
+
+"Do you know where Archulera is now?" Ramon ventured to ask.
+
+"Archulera? No, No; I have not seen Archulera for twenty years. I heard
+that he married a very common woman, half Indian.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I don't know what
+became of him."
+
+The last of the pool players had now gone out; a Mexican boy had begun to
+sweep the floor; the place was about to close for the night. Ramon got his
+uncle to his feet with some difficulty, and led him outdoors where he
+looked about in vain for one of the cheap autos that served the town as
+taxicabs. There were only three or four of them, and none of these were in
+sight. The flat-wheeled street car had made its last screeching trip for
+the night. There was nothing for it but to take the Don by the arm and
+pilot him slowly homeward.
+
+Refreshed by the night air, the old man partially sobered, walked with a
+steady step, and talked more eloquently and profusely than ever. Women
+were his subject now, and it was a subject upon which he had great store
+of material. He told of the women of the South, of Sonora and Chihuahua
+where he had spent much of his youth, of how beautiful they were. He told
+of a slim little creature fifteen years old with big black eyes whom he
+had bought from her _peon_ father, and of how she had feared him and how
+he had conquered her and her fear. He told of slave girls he had bought
+from the Navajos as children and raised for his pleasure. He told of a
+French woman he had loved in Mexico City and how he had fought a duel with
+her husband. He rose to heights of sentimentality and delved into depths
+of obscenity, now speaking  of his heart and what it had suffered, and
+again leering and chuckling like a satyr over some tale of splendid
+desire.
+
+Ramon, walking silent and outwardly respectful by his side, listened to
+all this with a strange mixture of envy and rage. He envied the old Don
+the rich share he had taken of life's feast. Whatever else he might be the
+Don was not one of those who desire but do not dare. He had taken what he
+wanted. He had tasted many emotions and known the most poignant delights.
+And now that he was old and his blood was slow, he stood in the way of
+others who desired as greatly and were as avid of life as ever he had
+been. Ramon felt a great bitterness that clutched at his throat and half
+blinded his eyes. He too loved and desired. And how much more greatly he
+desired than ever had this old man by his side, with his wealth and his
+easy satisfactions! The old Don apparently had never been thwarted, and
+therefore he did not know how keen and punishing a blade desire may be!
+
+Tense between the two was the enmity that ever sunders age and youth--age
+seeking to keep its sovereignty of life by inculcating blind respect and
+reverence, and youth rebellious, demanding its own with the passion of hot
+blood and untried flesh.
+
+Between Old Town and New Town flowed an irrigating ditch, which the
+connecting street crossed by means of an old wooden bridge. The ditch was
+this night full of swift water, which tore at the button willows on the
+bank and gurgled against the bridge timbers. As they crossed it the idea
+came into Ramon's head that if a man were pushed into the brown water he
+would be swiftly carried under the bridge and drowned.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The following Saturday evening Ramon was again riding across the _mesa_,
+clad in his dirty hunting clothes, with his shotgun hung in the cinches of
+his saddle. At the start he had been undecided where he was going.
+Tormented by desire and bitter over the poverty which stood between him
+and fulfilment, he had flung the saddle on his mare and ridden away,
+feeling none of the old interest in the mountains, but impelled by a great
+need to escape the town with all its cruel spurs and resistances.
+
+Already the rhythm of his pony's lope and the steady beat of the breeze in
+his face had calmed and refreshed him. The bitter, exhausting thoughts
+that had been plucking at his mind gave way to the idle procession of
+sensations, as they tend always to do when a man escapes the artificial
+existence of towns into the natural, animal one of the outdoors. He began
+to respond to the deep appeal which the road, the sense of going
+somewhere, always had for him. For he came of a race of wanderers. His
+forbears had been restless men to cross an ocean and most of a continent
+in search of homes. He was bred to a life of wandering and adventure. Long
+pent-up days in town always made him restless, and the feel of a horse
+under him and of distance to be overcome never failed to give him a sense
+of well-being.
+
+Crossing a little _arroyo_, he saw a covey of the blue desert quail with
+their white crests erect, darting among the rocks and cactus on the
+hillside. It was still the close season, but he never thought of that. In
+an instant he was all hunter, like a good dog in sight of game. He slipped
+from his horse, letting the reins fall to the ground, and went running up
+the rocky slope, cleverly using every bit of cover until he came within
+range. At the first shot he killed three of the birds, and got another as
+they rose and whirred over the hill top. He gathered them up quickly,
+stepping on the head of a wounded one, and stuffed them into his pockets.
+He was grinning, now, and happy. The bit of excitement had washed from his
+mind for the time being the last vestige of worry. He lit a cigarette and
+lay on his back to smoke it, stretching out his legs luxuriously, watching
+the serene gyrations of a buzzard. When he had extracted the last possible
+puff from the tobacco, he went back to his horse and rode on toward
+Archulera's ranch, feeling a keen interest in the coarse but substantial
+supper which he knew the old man would give him.
+
+His visit this time proceeded just as had all of the others, and he had
+never enjoyed one more thoroughly. Again the old man killed a fatted kid
+in his honour, and again they had a great feast of fresh brains and tripe
+and biscuits and coffee, with the birds, fried in deep lard, as an added
+luxury. Catalina served them in silence as usual, but stole now and then a
+quick reproachful look at Ramon. Afterward, when the girl had gone, there
+were many cigarettes and much talk, as before, Archulera telling over
+again the brave wild record of his youth. And, as always, he told, just as
+though he had never told it before, the story of how Diego Delcasar had
+cheated him out of his interest in a silver mine in the Guadelupe
+Mountains. As with each former telling he became this time more
+unrestrained in his denunciation of the man who had betrayed him.
+
+"You are not like him," he assured Ramon with passionate earnestness. "You
+are generous, honourable! When your uncle is dead--when he is dead, I
+say--you will pay me the five thousand dollars which your family owes to
+mine. Am I right, _amigo?_"
+
+Ramon, who was listening with only half an ear, was about to make some
+off-hand reply, as he had always done before. But suddenly a strange,
+stirring idea flashed through his brain. Could it be? Could that be what
+Archulera meant? He glanced at the man. Archulera was watching him with
+bright black eyes--cunning, feral--the eyes of a primitive fighting man,
+eyes that had never flinched at dealing death.
+
+Ramon knew suddenly that his idea was right. Blood pounded in his temples
+and a red mist of excitement swam before his eyes.
+
+"Yes!" he exclaimed, leaping to his feet. "Yes! When my uncle is dead I
+will pay you the five thousand dollars which the estate owes you!"
+
+The old man studied him, showing no trace of excitement save for the
+brightness of his eyes.
+
+"You swear this?" he demanded.
+
+Ramon stood tall, his head lifted, his eyes bright.
+
+"Yes; I swear it," he replied, more quietly now. "I swear it on my honour
+as a Delcasar!"
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XII
+
+
+The murder of Don Diego Delcasar, which occurred about three weeks later,
+provided the town with an excitement which it thoroughly enjoyed. Although
+there was really not a great deal to be said about the affair, since it
+remained from the first a complete mystery, the local papers devoted a
+great deal of space to it. The _Evening Journal_ announced the event in a
+great black headline which ran all the way across the top of the first
+page. The right-hand column was devoted to a detailed description of the
+scene of the crime, while the rest of the page was occupied by a picture
+of the Don, by a hastily written and highly inaccurate account of his
+career, and by statements from prominent citizens concerning the great
+loss which the state had suffered in the death of this, one of its oldest
+and most valued citizens.
+
+In the editorial columns the Don was described as a Spanish gentleman of
+the old school, and one who had always lived up to its highest traditions.
+The fact was especially emphasized that he had commanded the respect and
+confidence of both the races which made up the population of the state,
+and his long and honourable association in a business enterprise with a
+leading local attorney was cited as proof of the fact that he had been
+above all race antagonisms.
+
+The morning _Herald_ took a slightly different tack. Its editorial writer
+was a former New York newspaperman of unusual abilities who had been
+driven to the Southwest by tuberculosis. In an editorial which was
+deplored by many prominent business men, he pointed out that unpunished
+murderers were all too common in the State. He cited several cases like
+this of Don Delcasar in which prominent men had been assassinated, and no
+arrest had followed. Thus, only a few years before, Col. Manuel Escudero
+had been killed by a shot fired through the window of a saloon, and still
+more recently Don Solomon Estrella had been found drowned in a vat of
+sheep-dip on his own ranch. He cited statistics to show that the
+percentage of convictions in murder trials in that State was exceedingly
+small. Daringly, he asked how the citizens could expect to attract to the
+State the capital so much needed for its development, when assassination
+for personal and political purposes was there tolerated much as it had
+been in Europe during the Middle Ages. He ended by a plea that the Mounted
+Police should be strengthened, so that it would be capable of coping with
+the situation.
+
+This editorial started a controversy between the two papers which
+ultimately quite eclipsed in interest the fact that Don Delcasar was dead.
+The _Morning Journal_ declared that the _Herald_ editorial was in effect a
+covert attack upon the Mexican people, pointing out that all the cases
+cited were those of Mexicans, and it came gallantly and for political
+reason to the defence of the race. At this point the _"__Tribuna del
+Pueblo__"_ of Old Town jumped into the fight with an editorial in which it
+was asserted that both the gringo papers were maligning the Mexican
+people. It pointed out that the gringos controlled the political machinery
+of the State, and that if murder was there tolerated the dominant race was
+to blame.
+
+Meanwhile the known facts about the murder of Don Delcasar remained few,
+simple and unilluminating. About once a month the Don used to drive in his
+automobile to his lands in the northern part of the State. He always took
+the road across the _mesa_, which passed near the mouth of Domingo Canyon
+and through the scissors pass, and he nearly always went alone.
+
+When he was half way across the _mesa_, the front tires of the Don's car
+had been punctured by nails driven through a board and hidden in the sand
+of the road. Evidently the Don had risen to alight and investigate when he
+had been shot, for his body had been found hanging across the wind-shield
+of the car with a bullet hole through the head.
+
+The discovery of the body had been made by a Mexican woodcutter who was on
+the way to town with a load of wood. He had of course been held by the
+police and had been closely questioned, but it was easily established that
+he had no connection with the crime.
+
+It was evident that the Don had been shot from ambush with a rifle, and
+probably from a considerable distance, but absolutely no trace of the
+assassin had been found. Not only the chief of police and several
+patrolmen, and the sheriff with a posse, but also many private citizens in
+automobiles had rushed to the scene of the crime and joined in the search.
+The surrounding country was dry and rocky. Not even a track had been
+found.
+
+The motive of the murder was evidently not robbery, for nothing had been
+taken, although the Don carried a valuable watch and a considerable sum of
+money. Indeed, there was no evidence that the murderer had even approached
+the body.
+
+The Don had been a staunch Republican, and the _Morning Herald_, also
+Republican, advanced the theory that he had been killed by political
+enemies. This theory was ridiculed by the _Evening Journal_, which was
+Democratic.
+
+The local police arrested as a suspect a man who was found in hiding near
+a water tank at the railroad station, but no evidence against him could be
+found and he had to be released. The sheriff extracted a confession of
+guilt from a sheep herder who was found about ten miles from the scene of
+the crime, but it was subsequently proved by this man's relatives that he
+was at home and asleep at the time the crime was committed, and that he
+was well known to be of unsound mind. For some days the newspapers
+continued daily to record the fact that a "diligent search" for the
+murderer was being conducted, but this search gradually came to an end
+along with public interest in the crime.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The day after the news of his uncle's murder reached him, Ramon lay on his
+bed in his darkened room fully dressed in a new suit of black. He was not
+ill, and anything would have been easier for him than to lie there with
+nothing to do but to think and to stare at a single narrow sunbeam which
+came through a rent in the window blind. But it was a Mexican custom, old
+and revered, for the family of one recently dead to lie upon its beds in
+the dark and so to receive the condolences of friends and the consolations
+of religion. To disregard this custom would have been most unwise for an
+ambitious young man, and besides, Ramon's mother clung tenaciously to the
+traditional Mexican ways, and she would not have tolerated any breach of
+them. At this moment she and her two daughters were likewise lying in
+their rooms, clad in new black silk and surrounded by other sorrowing
+females.
+
+It was so still in the room that Ramon could hear the buzz of a fly in the
+vicinity of the solitary sunbeam, but from other parts of the house came
+occasional human sounds. One of these was an intermittent howling and
+wailing from the _placita_. This he knew was the work of two old Mexican
+women who made their livings by acting as professional mourners. They did
+not wait for an invitation but hung about like buzzards wherever there was
+a Mexican corpse. Seated on the ground with their black shawls pulled over
+their heads, they wailed with astonishing endurance until the coffin was
+carried from the house, when they were sure of receiving a substantial
+gift from the grateful relatives. Ramon resolved that he would give them
+ten dollars each. He felt sure they had never gotten so much. He was
+determined to do handsomely in all things connected with the funeral.
+
+He could also hear faintly a rattle of wagons, foot steps and low human
+voices coming from the front of the house. A peep had shown him that
+already a line of wagons, carriages and buggies half a block long had
+formed in the street, and he could hear the arrival of another one every
+few minutes. These vehicles brought the numerous and poor relations of Don
+Delcasar who lived in the country. All of them would be there by night.
+Each one of them would come into Ramon's room and sit by his bedside and
+take his hand and express sympathy. Some of them would weep and some would
+groan, although all of them, like himself, were profoundly glad that the
+Don was dead. Ramon hoped that they would make their expressions brief.
+And later, he knew, all would gather in the room where the casket rested
+on two chairs. They would sit in a silent solemn circle about the room,
+drinking coffee and wine all night. And he would be among them, trying
+with all his might to look properly sad and to keep his eyes open.
+
+All the time that he lay there in enforced idleness he was longing for
+action, his imagination straining forward. At last his chance had come--his
+chance to have her. And he would have her. He felt sure of it. He was now
+a rich man. As soon as the will had been read and he had come into his
+own, he would buy a big automobile. He would go to her, he would sweep
+away her doubts and hesitations. He would carry her away and marry her.
+She would be his.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} He closed his eyes and drew his breath in sharply.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+But no; he would have to wait {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} a decent interval. And the five thousand
+dollars must be gotten to Archulera. That was obviously important. And
+there might not be much cash. The Don had never had much ready money. He
+might have to sell land or sheep first. All of these things to be done,
+and here he lay, staring at the ceiling and listening to the wailing of
+old women!
+
+There was a knock on the door.
+
+"_Entra!_" he called.
+
+The door opened softly and a tall, black-robed figure was silhouetted for
+a moment against the daylight before the door closed again. The black
+figure crossed the room and sat down by the bed, silent save for a faint
+rustle.
+
+Although he could not see the face, Ramon knew that this was the priest,
+Father Lugaria. He knew that Father Lugaria had come to arrange for the
+mass over the body of Don Delcasar. He disliked Father Lugaria, and knew
+that the Father disliked him. This mutual antipathy was due to the fact
+that Ramon seldom went to Church.
+
+There were others of his generation who showed the same indifference
+toward religion, and this defection of youth was a thing which the Priests
+bitterly contested. Ramon was perfectly willing to make a polite
+compromise with them. If Father Lugaria had been satisfied with an
+occasional appearance at early mass, a perfunctory confession now and
+then, the two might have been friends. But the Priest made Ramon a special
+object of his attention. He continually went to the Dona Delcasar with
+complaints and that devout woman incessantly nagged her son, holding
+before him always pictures of the damnation he was courting. Once in a
+while she even produced in him a faint twinge of fear--a recrudescence of
+the deep religious feeling in which he was bred--but the feeling was
+evanescent. The chief result of these labours on behalf of his soul had
+been to turn him strongly against the priest who instigated them.
+
+Father Lugaria seemed all kindness and sympathy now. He sat close beside
+Ramon and took his hand. Ramon could smell the good wine on the man's
+breath, and could see faintly the brightness of his eyes. The grip of the
+priest's hand was strong, moist and surprisingly cold. He began to talk in
+the low monotonous voice of one accustomed to much chanting, and this
+droning seemed to have some hypnotic quality. It seemed to lull Ramon's
+mind so that he could not think what he was going to say or do.
+
+The priest expressed his sympathy. He spoke of the great and good man the
+Don had been. Slowly, adroitly, he approached the real question at issue,
+which was how much Ramon would pay for a mass. The more he paid, the
+longer the mass would be, and the longer the mass the speedier would be
+the journey of the Don's soul through purgatory and into Paradise.
+
+"O, my little brother in Christ!" droned the priest in his vibrant
+sing-song, "I must not let you neglect this last, this greatest of things
+which you can do for the uncle you loved. It is unthinkable of course that
+his soul should go to hell--hell, where a thousand demons torture the soul
+for an eternity. Hell is for those who commit the worst of sins, sins they
+dare not lay before God for his forgiveness, secret and terrible sins--sins
+like murder. But few of us go through life untouched by sin. The soul must
+be purified before it can enter the presence of its maker.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Doubtless the
+soul of your uncle is in purgatory, and to you is given the sweet power to
+speed that soul on its upward way.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+"Don Delcasar, we all know, killed.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} More than once, doubtless, he took
+the life of a fellow man. But he did it in combat as a soldier, as a
+servant of the State.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} That is not murder. That would not doom him to
+hell, which is the special punishment of secret and unforgiven murder.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+But the soul of the Don must be cleansed of these earthly stains.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+The strong, cold grip of the priest held Ramon with increasing power. The
+monotonous, hypnotic voice went on and on, becoming ever more eloquent and
+confident. Father Lugaria was a man of imagination, and the special home
+of his imagination was hell. For thirty years he had held despotic sway
+over the poor Mexicans who made up most of his flock, and had gathered
+much money for the Church, by painting word-pictures of hell. He was a
+veritable artist of hell. He loved hell. Again and again he digressed from
+the strict line of his argument to speak of hell. With all the vividness
+of a thing seen, he described its flames, its fiends, the terrible stink
+of burning flesh and the vast chorus of agony that filled it.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} And for
+some obscure reason or purpose he always spoke of hell as the special
+punishment of murderers. Again and again in his discourse he coupled
+murder and hell.
+
+Ramon was wearied by strong emotions and a shortness of sleep. His nerves
+were overstrung. This ceaseless iteration of hell and murder, murder and
+hell would drive him crazy, he thought. He wished mightily that the priest
+would have done and name his price and go. What was the sense and purpose
+of this endless babble about hell and murder?{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} A sickening thought struck
+him like a blow, leaving him weak. What if old Archulera had confessed to
+the priest?
+
+Well; what if he had? A priest could not testify about what he had heard
+in confessional. But a priest might tell some one else.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} O, God! If the
+man would only go and leave him to think. Hell and murder, murder and
+hell. The two words beat upon his brain without mercy. He longed to
+interrupt the priest and beg him to leave off. But for some reason he
+could not. He could not even turn his head and look at the man. The priest
+was but a clammy grip that held him and a disembodied voice that spoke of
+hell and murder. Had he done murder? And was there a hell? He had long
+ceased to believe in hell, but hell had been real to him as a child. His
+mother and his nurse had filled him with the fear of hell. He had been
+bred in the fear of hell. It was in his flesh and bones if not in his
+mind, and the priest had hypnotized his mind. Hell was real to him again.
+Fear of hell came up from the past which vanishes but is never gone, and
+gripped him like a great ugly monster. It squeezed a cold sweat out of his
+body and made his skin prickle and his breath come short.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+The priest dropped the subject of hell, and spoke again of the mass. He
+mentioned a sum of money. Ramon nodded his head muttering his assent like
+a sick man. The grip on his hand relaxed.
+
+"Good-bye, my little brother," murmured the priest. "May Christ be always
+with you." His gown rustled across the room and as he opened the door,
+Ramon saw his face for a moment--a sallow, shrewd face, bedewed with the
+sweat of a great effort, but wearing a smile of triumphant satisfaction.
+
+Ramon lay sick and exhausted. It seemed to him that there was no air in
+the room. He was suffocating. His body burned and prickled. He rose and
+tore loose his collar. He must get out of this place, must have air and
+movement.
+
+It was dusk now. The wailing of the old women had ceased. Doubtless they
+were being rewarded with supper. He began stripping off his clothes--his
+white shirt and his new suit of black. Eagerly rummaging in the closet he
+found his old clothes, which he wore on his trips to the mountains.
+
+In the dim light he slipped out of the house, indistinguishable from any
+Mexican boy that might have been about the place. He saddled the little
+mare in the corral, mounted and galloped away--through Old Town, where
+skinny dogs roamed in dark narrow streets and men and women sat and smoked
+in black doorways--and out upon the valley road. There he spurred his mare
+without mercy, and they flew over the soft dust. The rush of the air in
+his face, and the thud and quiver of living flesh under him were
+infinitely sweet.
+
+He stopped at last five miles from town on the bank of the river. It was a
+swift muddy river, wandering about in a flood plain a quarter of a mile
+wide, and at this point chewing noisily at a low bank forested with
+scrubby cottonwoods.
+
+Dismounting, he stripped and plunged into the river. It was only three
+feet deep, but he wallowed about in it luxuriously, finding great comfort
+in the caress of the cool water, and of the soft fine sand upon the bottom
+which clung about his toes and tickled the soles of his feet. Then he
+climbed out on the bank and stood where the breeze struck him, rubbing the
+water off of his slim strong body with the flats of his hands.
+
+When he had put on his clothes, he indulged his love of lying flat on the
+ground, puffing a cigarette and blowing smoke at the first stars. A
+hunting owl flitted over his head on muffled wing; a coyote yapped in the
+bushes; high up in the darkness he heard the whistle of pinions as a flock
+of early ducks went by.
+
+He took the air deeply into his lungs and stretched out his legs. In this
+place fear of hell departed from his mind as some strong liquors evaporate
+when exposed to the open air. The splendid healthy animal in him was again
+dominant, and it could scarcely conceive of death and had nothing more to
+do with hell than had the owl and the coyote that killed to live. Here he
+felt at peace with the earth beneath him and the sky above. But one
+thought came to disturb him and it was also sweet--the thought of a woman,
+her eyes full of promise, the curve of her mouth.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} She was waiting for
+him, she would be his. That was real.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Hell was a dream.
+
+He saw now the folly of his fears about Archulera, too. Archulera never
+went to church. There was no danger that he would ever confess to any one.
+And even if he did, he could scarcely injure Ramon. For Ramon had done no
+wrong. He had but promised an old man his due, righted an ancient wrong.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+He smiled.
+
+Slowly he mounted and rode home, filled with thoughts of the girl, to put
+on his mourning clothes and take his decorous place in the circle that
+watched his uncle's bier.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+All the ceremonies and procedures, religious and legal, which had been
+made necessary by the death of Don Diego Delcasar, were done. The body of
+the Don had been taken to the church in Old Town and placed before the
+altar, the casket covered with black cloth and surrounded by candles in
+tall silver candlesticks which stood upon the floor. A Mass of impressive
+length had been spoken over it by Father Lugaria assisted by numerous
+priests and altar boys, and at the end of the ceremony the hundreds of
+friends and relatives of the Don, who filled the church, had lifted up
+their voices in one of the loudest and most prolonged choruses of wailing
+ever heard in that country, where wailing at a funeral is as much a matter
+of formal custom as is cheering at a political convention. Afterwards a
+cortege nearly a mile in length, headed by a long string of carriages and
+tailed by a crowd of poor Mexicans trudging hatless in the dust, had made
+the hot and wearisome journey to the cemetery in the sandhills.
+
+Then the will had been read and had revealed that Ramon Delcasar was heir
+to the bulk of his uncle's estate, and that he was thereby placed in
+possession of money, lands and sheep to the value of about two hundred
+thousand dollars. It was said by those who knew that the Don's estate had
+once been at least twice that large, and there were some who irreverently
+remarked that he had been taken off none too soon for the best interests
+of his heirs.
+
+Shortly after the reading of the will, Ramon rode to the Archulera ranch,
+starting before daylight and returning after dark. He exchanged greetings
+with the old man, just as he had always done.
+
+"Accept my sympathy, _amigo_," Archulera said in his formal, polite way,
+"that you have lost your uncle, the head of your great family."
+
+"I thank you, friend," Ramon replied. "A man must bear these things. Here
+is something I promised you," he added, laying a small heavy canvas bag
+upon the table, just as he had always laid a package of tobacco or some
+other small gift.
+
+Old Archulera nodded without looking at the bag.
+
+"Thank you," he said.
+
+Afterward they talked about the bean crop and the weather, and had an
+excellent dinner of goat meat cooked with chile.
+
+In town Ramon found himself a person of noticeably increased importance.
+One of his first acts had been to buy a car, and he had attracted much
+attention while driving this about the streets, learning to manipulate it.
+He killed one chicken and two dogs and handsomely reimbursed their owners.
+These minor accidents were due to his tendency, the result of many years
+of horsemanship, to throw his weight back on the steering wheel and shout
+"whoa!" whenever a sudden emergency occurred. But he was apt, and soon was
+running his car like an expert.
+
+His personal appearance underwent a change too. He had long cherished a
+barbaric leaning toward finery, which lack of money had prevented him from
+indulging. Large diamonds fascinated him, and a leopard skin vest was a
+thing he had always wanted to own. But these weaknesses he now rigorously
+suppressed. Instead he noted carefully the dress of Gordon Roth and of
+other easterners whom he saw about the hotel, and ordered from the best
+local tailor a suit of quiet colour and conservative cut, but of the very
+best English material. He bought no jewelry except a single small pearl
+for his necktie. His hat, his shoes, the way he had his neck shaved, all
+were changed as the result of a painstaking observation such as he had
+never practised before. He wanted to make himself as much as possible like
+the men of Julia's kind and class. And this desire modified his manner and
+speech as well as his appearance. He was careful, always watching himself.
+His manner was more reserved and quiet than ever, and this made him appear
+older and more serious. He smiled when he overheard a woman say that "he
+took the death of his uncle much harder than she would have expected."
+
+Ramon now received business propositions every day. Men tried to sell him
+all sorts of things, from an idea to a ranch, and most of them seemed to
+proceed on the assumption that, being young and newly come into his money,
+he should part with it easily. Several of the opportunities offered him
+had to do with the separation of the poor Mexicans from their land
+holdings. A prominent attorney came all the way from a town in the
+northern part of the State to lay before him a proposition of this kind.
+This lawyer, named Cooley, explained that by opening a store in a certain
+rich section of valley land, opportunities could be created for lending
+the Mexicans money. Whenever there was a birth, a funeral or a marriage
+among them, the Mexicans needed money, and could be persuaded to sign
+mortgages, which they generally could not read. In each Mexican family
+there would be either a birth, a marriage or a death once in three years
+on an average. Three such events would enable the lender to gain
+possession of a ranch. And Cooley had an eastern client who would then buy
+the land at a good figure. It was a chance for Ramon to double his money.
+
+"You've got the money and you know the native people," Cooley argued
+earnestly. "I've got the sucker and I know the law. It's a sure thing."
+
+Ramon thanked him politely and refused firmly. The idea of robbing a poor
+Mexican of his ranch by nine years of usury did not appeal to him at all.
+In the first place, it would be a long, slow tedious job, and besides,
+poor people always aroused his pity, just as rich ones stirred his greed
+and envy. He was predatory, but lion-like, he scorned to spring on small
+game. He did not realize that a lion often starves where a jackal grows
+fat.
+
+Only one opportunity came to him which interested him strongly. A young
+Irishman named Hurley explained to him that it was possible to buy mules
+in Mexico, where a revolution was going on, for ten dollars each at
+considerable personal risk, to run them across the Rio Grande and to sell
+them to the United States army for twenty dollars. Here was a gambler's
+chance, action and adventure. It caught his fancy and tempted him. But he
+had no thought of yielding. Another purpose engrossed him.
+
+These weeks after his uncle's funeral gave him his first real grapple with
+the world of business, and the experience tended to strengthen him in a
+certain cynical self-assurance which had been growing in him ever since he
+first went away to college, and had met its first test in action when he
+spoke the words that lead to the Don's death. He felt a deep contempt for
+most of these men who came to him with their schemes and their wares. He
+saw that most of them were ready enough to swindle him, though few of them
+would have had the courage to rob him with a gun. Probably not one of them
+would have dared to kill a man for money, but they were ready enough to
+cheat a poor _pelado_ out of his living, which often came to the same
+thing. He felt that he was bigger than most of them, if not better. His
+self-respect was strengthened.
+
+"Life is a fight," he told himself, feeling that he had hit upon a
+profound and original idea. "Every man wants pretty women and money. He
+gets them if he has enough nerve and enough sense. And somebody else gets
+hurt, because there aren't enough pretty women and money to go around."
+
+It seemed to him that this was the essence of all wisdom.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Ramon had always been rather a solitary figure in his own town. Although
+he belonged nominally to the "bunch" of young gringos, Jews and Mexicans,
+who foregathered at the White Camel Pool Hall, their amusements did not
+hold his interest very strongly. They played a picayune game of poker,
+which resulted in a tangled mass of debt; they went on occasional mild
+sprees, and on Saturday nights they visited the town's red light district,
+hardy survivor of several vice crusades, where they danced with portly
+magdalenes in gaudy kimonos to the music of a mechanical piano,
+luxuriating in conscious wickedness.
+
+All of this had seemed romantic and delightfully vicious to Ramon a few
+years before, but it soon palled on his restless and discontented spirit.
+He had formed the habit of hunting alone, and had found adventures more to
+his taste. But now he found himself in company more than ever before. He
+was bid to every frolic that took place. In the White Camel he was often
+the centre of a small group, which included men older than himself who had
+never paid any attention to him before, but now addressed him with a
+certain deference. Although he understood well enough that most of the
+attentions paid him had an interested motive, he enjoyed the sense of
+leadership which these gatherings gave him. If he was not a real leader
+now, he intended to become one. He listened to what men said, watched
+them, and said little himself. He was quick to grasp the fact that a
+reputation for shrewdness and wisdom is made by the simple method of
+keeping the mouth shut.
+
+He made many acquaintances among the new element which had recently come
+to town from the East in search of health or money, but he made no real
+friends because none of these men inspired him with respect. Only one man
+he attached to himself, and that one by the simple tie of money. His name
+was Antonio Cortez. He was a small, skinny, sallow Mexican with a great
+moustache, behind which he seemed to be discreetly hiding, and a
+consciously cunning eye. Of an old and once wealthy Spanish family, he had
+lost all of his money by reason of a lack of aptitude for business, and
+made his living as a sort of professional political henchman. He was a
+bearer of secret messages, a maker of deals, an eavesdropper. The Latin
+aptitude for intrigue he had in a high degree. He was capable of almost
+anything in the way of falsehood or evasion, but he had that great
+capacity for loyalty which is so often the virtue of weaklings.
+
+"I have known your family for many years," he told Ramon importantly, "And
+I feel an interest in you, almost as though you were my own son. You need
+an older friend to advise you, to attend to details in the management of
+your great estate. You will probably go into politics and you need a
+political manager. As an old friend of your family I want to do these
+things for you. What do you say?"
+
+Ramon answered without any hesitation and prompted solely by intuition:
+
+"I thank you, friend, and I accept your offer."
+
+He knew instinctively that he could trust this man and also dominate him.
+It was just such a follower that he needed. Nothing was said about money,
+but on the first of the month Ramon mailed Cortez a check for a hundred
+dollars, and that became his regular salary.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+About two weeks after the Don's funeral, Ramon received a summons which he
+had been vaguely expecting. He was asked by Mr. MacDougall's secretary
+over the telephone to call, whenever it would be convenient, at Mr.
+MacDougall's office.
+
+He knew just what this meant. MacDougall would try to make with him an
+arrangement somewhat similar to the one he had had with the Don. Ramon
+knew that he did not want such an arrangement on any terms. He felt
+confident that not one could swindle him, but at the same time he was half
+afraid of the Scotchman; he felt instinctively that MacDougall was a man
+for him to avoid. And besides, he intended to use his lands in his own
+way. He would sell part of them to the railroad, which was projected to be
+built through them, if he could get a good price; but the hunger for
+owning land, for dominating a part of the earth, was as much a part of him
+as his right hand. He wanted no modern business partnership. He wanted to
+be _"__el patron,__"_ as so many Delcasars had been before him.
+
+Here was a temptation to be dramatic, to hurl a picturesque defiance at
+the gringo. Ramon might have yielded to it a few months before. Sundry
+brave speeches flashed through his mind, as it was. But he resolutely put
+them aside. There was too much at stake {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} his love. He determined to call
+on MacDougall promptly and to be polite.
+
+MacDougall was a heavy, bald man of Scotch descent, and very true to type.
+He had come to town from the East about fifteen years before with his wife
+and his two tall, raw-boned children--a boy and a girl. The family had been
+very poor. They had lived in a small _adobe_ house on the _mesa_. For ten
+years Mrs. MacDougall had done all of her own housework, including the
+washing; the two children had gone to school in clothes that seemed always
+too small for them; and MacDougall had laboured obscurely day and night in
+a small dark office. During these ten years the MacDougalls had been
+completely overlooked by local society, and if they felt any resentment
+they did not show it.
+
+Meantime MacDougall had been systematically and laboriously laying the
+foundations of a fortune. His passion was for land. He loaned money on
+land, chiefly to Mexicans, and he took mortgages on land in return for
+defending his Mexican clients, largely on criminal charges. Some of the
+land he farmed, and some he rented, but much of it lay idle, and the taxes
+he had to pay kept his family poor long after it might have been
+comfortable. But his lands rose steadily in value; he began selling,
+discreetly; and the MacDougalls came magnificently into their own.
+MacDougall was now one of the wealthiest men in the State. In five years
+his way of living had undergone a great change. He owned a large brick
+house in the highlands and had several servants. The boy had gone to
+Harvard, and the girl to Vassar. Neither of them was so gawky now, and
+both of them were much sought socially during their vacations at home.
+MacDougall himself had undergone a marked change for a man past fifty. He
+had become a stylish dresser and looked younger. He drove to work in a
+large car with a chauffeur. In the early morning he went riding on the
+_mesa_, mounted on a big Kentucky fox-trotter, clad in English riding
+clothes, jouncing solemnly up and down on his flat saddle, and followed by
+a couple of carefully-laundered white poodles. On these expeditions he was
+a source of great edification and some amusement to the natives.
+
+In the town he was a man of weight and influence, but the country Mexicans
+hated him. Once when he was looking over some lands recently acquired by
+the foreclosure of mortgages, a bullet had whistled close to his ear, and
+another had punctured the hood of his car. He now hired a man to do his
+"outside work."
+
+Thus both MacDougall and his children had thrived and developed on their
+wealth. Mrs. MacDougall, perhaps, had been the sacrifice. She remained a
+tall, thin, pale, tired-looking woman with large hands that were a record
+of toil. She laboured at her new social duties and "pleasures" in exactly
+the same spirit that she had formerly laboured at the wash tub.
+
+MacDougall's offices now occupied all of the ground floor of a large new
+building which he had built. Like everything else of his authorship this
+building represented a determined effort to lend the town an air of
+Eastern elegance. It was finished in an imitation of white marble and the
+offices had large plate glass windows which bore in gilt letters the
+legend: "MacDougall Land and Cattle Company, Inc." Within, half a dozen
+girls in glass cages could be seen working at typewriters and adding
+machines, while a cashier occupied a little office of his own with a large
+safe at his back, a little brass grating in front of him, and a revolver
+visible not far from his right hand.
+
+The creator of this magnificence sat behind a glasstop desk at the far end
+of a large and sunny office with a bare and slippery floor. Many a Mexican
+beggar for mercy, with a mortgage on his home, had walked across this
+forbidding expanse of polished hardwood toward the big man with the
+merciless eye, as fearfully as ever a _peon_, sentenced to forty lashes
+and salt in his wounds, approached the seat of his owner to plead for a
+whole skin. Truly, the weak can but change masters.
+
+This morning MacDougall was all affability. As he stood up behind his
+desk, clad in a light grey suit, large and ruddy, radiant of health and
+prosperity, he was impressive, almost splendid. Only the eyes, small and
+closeset, revealed the worried and calculating spirit of the man.
+
+"Mr. Delcasar," he said when they had shaken hands and sat down, "I am
+glad to welcome you to this office, and I hope to see you here many times
+more. I will not waste time, for we are both busy men. I asked you to come
+here because I want to suggest a sort of informal partnership between us,
+such as I had with your late uncle, one of my best friends. I believe my
+plan will be for the best interests of both of us.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I suppose you know
+about what the arrangement was between the Don and myself?"
+
+"No; not in detail," Ramon confessed. He felt MacDougall's power at once.
+Facing the man was a different matter from planning an interview with him
+when alone. But he retained sense enough to let MacDougall do the talking.
+
+"Have a cigar," the great man continued, full of sweetness, pushing a
+large and fragrant box of perfectos across the desk. "I will outline the
+situation to you briefly, as I see it." Nothing could have seemed more
+frank and friendly than his manner.
+
+"As you doubtless know," he went on, "your estate includes a large area of
+mountain and _mesa_ land--a little more than nine thousand acres I
+believe--north and west of the San Antonio River in Arriba County. I own
+nearly as much land on the east side of the river. The valley itself is
+owned by a number of natives in small farming tracts.
+
+"I believe your estate also includes a few small parcels of land in the
+valley, but not enough, you understand, to be of much value by itself.
+Your uncle also owned a few tracts in the valley east of the river which
+he transferred to me, for a consideration, because they abutted upon my
+holdings.
+
+"Now the valley, as I scarcely need tell you, is the key to the situation.
+In the first place, if the country is to be properly developed as sheep
+and cattle range, the valley will furnish the farming land upon which hay
+for winter use can be raised, and it also furnishes some good winter
+range. Moreover, it is now an open secret that the Denver and Rio Grande
+Railroad proposes building a branch line through that country and into the
+San Juan Valley. No surveys have been made, but it is certain that the
+road must follow the San Antonio to the top of the divide. There is no
+other way through. I became aware of this project some time ago through my
+eastern connections, and told your uncle about it. He and I joined forces
+for the purpose of gaining control of the San Antonio Valley, and of the
+railroad right-of-way.
+
+"The proposition is a singularly attractive one. Not only could the
+right-of-way be sold for a very large sum, but we would afterward own a
+splendid bit of cattle range, with farming land in the valley, and with a
+railroad running through the centre of it. There is nothing less than a
+fortune to be made in the San Antonio Valley, Mr. Delcasar.
+
+"And the lands in the valley can be acquired. Some of the small owners
+will sell outright. Furthermore, they are all frequently in need of money,
+especially during dry years when the crops are not good. By advancing
+loans judiciously, and taking land as security, title can often be
+acquired.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I daresay you are not wholly unfamiliar with the method.
+
+"This work, Mr. Delcasar, requires large capital, which I can command. It
+also requires certain things which you have in an unusual degree. You are
+of Spanish descent, you speak the language fluently. You have political
+and family prestige among the natives. All of this will be of great
+service in persuading the natives to sell, and in getting the necessary
+information about land titles, which, as you know, requires much research
+in old Spanish Church records and much interviewing of the natives
+themselves.
+
+"In the actual making of purchases, my name need not appear. In fact, I
+think it is very desirable that it should not appear. But understand that
+I will furnish absolutely all of the capital for the enterprise. I am
+offering you, Mr. Delcasar, an opportunity to make a fortune without
+investing a cent, and I feel that I can count upon your acceptance."
+
+At the close of this discourse, Ramon felt like a surf-bather who has been
+overwhelmed by a great and sudden wave and comes up gasping for breath and
+struggling for a foothold. Never had he heard anything so brilliantly
+plausible, for never before had he come into contact with a good mind in
+full action. Yet he regained his balance in a moment. He was accustomed to
+act by intuition, not by logic, and his intuition was all against
+accepting MacDougall's offer. He was not deceived by the Scotchman's show
+of friendship and beneficence; he himself had an aptitude for pretence,
+and he understood it better than he would have understood sincerity. He
+knew that whether he formed this partnership or not, there was sure to be
+a struggle between him and MacDougall for the dominance of the San Antonio
+Valley. And his instinct was to stand free and fight; not to come to
+grips, MacDougall was a stronger man than he. The one advantage which he
+had--his influence over the natives--he must keep in his own hands, and not
+let his adversary turn it against him.
+
+He took his cigar out of his mouth, looked at it a moment, and cleared his
+throat.
+
+"Mr. MacDougall," he said slowly, "this offer makes me proud. That you
+should have so much confidence in me as to wish to make me your partner is
+most gratifying. I am sorry that I must refuse. I have other plans.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+MacDougall nodded, interrupting. This was evidently a contingency he had
+calculated.
+
+"I'm sorry, Mr. Delcasar. I had hoped to be permanently associated with
+you in this venture. But I think I understand. You are young. Perhaps
+marriage, a home are your immediate objects, and you need cash at once,
+rather than a somewhat distant prospect of greater wealth. In that case I
+think I can meet your wishes. I am prepared to make you a good offer for
+all of your holdings in the valley, and those immediately adjoining it.
+The exact amount I cannot state at this moment, but I feel sure we could
+agree as to price."
+
+Ramon was taken aback by the promptness of the counter, confused, forced
+to think. Money was a thing he wanted badly. He had little cash. If
+MacDougall would give him fifty thousand, he could go with Julia anywhere.
+He would be free. But again the inward prompting, sure and imperative,
+said no. He wanted the girl above all things. But he wanted land, too. His
+was the large and confident greed of youth. And he could have the girl
+without making this concession. MacDougall wanted to take the best of his
+land and push him out of the game as a weakling, a negligible. He wouldn't
+submit. He would fight, and in his own way. What he wanted now was to end
+the interview, to get away from this battering, formidable opponent. He
+rose.
+
+"I will think it over, Mr. MacDougall," he said. "And meantime, if you
+will send me an offer in writing, I will appreciate it."
+
+Some of the affability faded from MacDougall's face as he too rose, and
+the worried look in his little grey eyes intensified, as though he sensed
+the fact that this was an evasion. None-the-less he said good-bye
+cordially and promised to write the letter.
+
+Ramon went back to his office, his mind stimulated, working intensely.
+Never before had he thought so clearly and purposefully. He got out an old
+government map of Arriba County, and with the aid of the deeds in the safe
+which contained all his uncle's important papers, he managed to mark off
+his holdings. The whole situation became as clear to him as a checker
+game. He owned a bit of land in the valley which ran all the way across
+it, and far out upon the _mesa_ in a long narrow strip. That was the way
+land holdings were always divided under the Spanish law--into strips a few
+hundred feet wide, and sometimes as much as fourteen miles long. This
+strip would in all probability be vital to the proposed right-of-way. It
+explained MacDougall's eagerness to take him as a partner or else to buy
+him out. By holding it, he would hold the key to the situation.
+
+In order really to dominate the country and to make his property grow in
+value he would have to own more of the valley. And he could not get money
+enough to buy except very slowly. But he could use his influence with the
+natives to prevent MacDougall from buying. MacDougall was a gringo. The
+Mexicans hated him. He had been shot at. Ramon could "preach the race
+issue," as the politicians put it.
+
+The important thing was to strengthen and assert his influence as a
+Mexican and a Delcasar. He must go to Arriba County, open the old ranch
+house he owned there, go among the people. He must gain a real ascendency.
+He knew how to do it. It was his birthright. He was full of fight and
+ambition, confident, elated. The way was clear before him. Tomorrow he
+would go to Julia.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+He had received a note of sympathy from her soon after his uncle's death
+and he had called at the Roths' once, but had found several other callers
+there and no opportunity of being alone with her. Then she had gone away
+on a two-weeks, automobile trip to the Mesa Verde National Park, so that
+he had seen practically nothing of her. But all of this time he had been
+thinking of her more confidently than ever before. He was rich now, he was
+strong. All of the preliminaries had been finished. He could go to her and
+claim her.
+
+He called her on the telephone from his office, and the Mexican maid
+answered. She would see if Miss Roth was in. After a long wait she
+reported that Miss Roth was out. He tried again that day, and a third time
+the next morning with a like result.
+
+This filled him with anxious, angry bewilderment. He felt sure she had not
+really been out all three times. Were her mother and brother keeping his
+message from her? Or had something turned her against him? He remembered
+with a keen pang of anxiety, for the first time, the insinuations of
+Father Lugaria. Could that miserable rumour have reached her? He had no
+idea how she would have taken it if it had. He really did not know or
+understand this girl at all; he merely loved her and desired her with a
+desire which had become the ruling necessity of his life. To him she was a
+being of a different sort, from a different world--a mystery. They had
+nothing in common but a rebellious discontent with life, and this
+glamorous bewildering thing, so much stronger than they, so far beyond
+their comprehension, which they called their love.
+
+That was the one thing he knew and counted on. He knew how imperiously it
+drove him, and he knew that she had felt its power too. He had seen it
+shine in her eyes, part her lips; he had heard it in her voice, and felt
+it tremble in her body. If only he could get to her this potent thing
+would carry them to its purpose through all barriers.
+
+Angry and resolute, he set himself to a systematic campaign of
+telephoning. At last she answered. Her voice was level, quiet, weary.
+
+"But I have an engagement for tonight," she told him.
+
+"Then let me come tomorrow," he urged.
+
+"No; I can't do that. Mother is having some people to dinner.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+At last he begged her to set a date, but she refused, declared that her
+plans were unfixed, told him to call "some other time."
+
+His touchy pride rebelled now. He cursed these gringos. He hated them. He
+wished for the power to leave her alone, to humble her by neglect. But he
+knew that he did have it. Instead he waited a few days and then drove to
+the house in his car, having first carefully ascertained by watching that
+she was at home.
+
+All three of them received him in their sitting room, which they called
+the library. It was an attractive room, sunny and tastefully furnished,
+with a couple of book cases filled with new-looking books in sets, a
+silver tea service on a little wheeled table, flowers that matched the
+wall paper, and a heavy mahogany table strewn with a not-too-disorderly
+array of magazines and paper knives. It was the envy of the local women
+with social aspirations because it looked elegant and yet comfortable.
+
+Conversation was slow and painful. Mrs. Roth and her son were icily
+formal, confining themselves to the most commonplace remarks. And Julia
+did not help him, as she had on his first visit. She looked pale and tired
+and carefully avoided his eyes.
+
+When he had been there about half an hour, Mrs. Roth turned to her
+daughter.
+
+"Julia," she said, "If we are going to get to Mrs. MacDougall's at
+half-past four you must go and get ready. You will excuse her, won't you
+Mr. Delcasar?"
+
+The girl obediently went up stairs without shaking hands, and a few
+minutes later Ramon went away, feeling more of misery and less of
+self-confidence than ever before in his life.
+
+He almost wholly neglected his work. Cortez brought him a report that
+MacDougall had a new agent, who was working actively in Arriba County, but
+he paid no attention to it. His life seemed to have lost purpose and
+interest. For the first time he doubted her love. For the first time he
+really feared that he would lose her.
+
+Most of his leisure was spent riding or walking about the streets, in the
+hope of catching a glimpse of her. He passed her house as often as he
+dared, and studied her movements. When he saw her in the distance he felt
+an acute thrill of mingled hope and misery. Only once did he meet her
+fairly, walking with her brother, and then she either failed to see him or
+pretended not to.
+
+One afternoon about five o'clock he left his office and started home in
+his car. A storm was piling up rapidly in big black clouds that rose from
+behind the eastern mountains like giants peering from ambush. It was
+sultry; there were loud peals of thunder and long crooked flashes of
+lightning. At this season of late summer the weather staged such a
+portentous display almost every afternoon, and it rained heavily in the
+mountains; but the showers only reached the thirsty _mesa_ and valley
+lands about one day in four.
+
+Ramon drove home slowly, gloomily wondering whether it would rain and
+hoping that it would. A Southwesterner is always hoping for rain, and in
+his present mood the rush and beat of a storm would have been especially
+welcome.
+
+His hopes were soon fulfilled. There was a cold blast of wind, carrying a
+few big drops, and then a sudden, drumming downpour that tore up the dust
+of the street and swiftly converted it into a sea of mud cut by yellow
+rivulets.
+
+As his car roared down the empty street, he glimpsed a woman standing in
+the shelter of a big cottonwood tree, cowering against its trunk. A quick
+thrill shot through his body. He jammed down the brake so suddenly that
+his car skidded and sloughed around. He carefully turned and brought up at
+the curb.
+
+She started at sight of him as he ran across the side-walk toward her.
+
+"Come on quick!" he commanded, taking her by the arm, "I'll get you home."
+Before she had time to say anything he had her in the car, and they were
+driving toward the Roth house. By the time they had reached it the first
+strength of the shower was spent, and there was only a light scattering
+rain with a rift showing in the clouds over the mountains.
+
+He deliberately passed the house, putting on more speed as he did so.
+
+"But {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I thought you were going to take me home," she said, putting a hand
+on his arm.
+
+"I'm not," he announced, without looking around. His hands and eyes were
+fully occupied with his driving, but a great suspense held his breath. The
+hand left his arm, and he heard her settle back in her seat with a sigh. A
+great warm wave of joy surged through him.
+
+He took the mountain road, which was a short cut between Old Town and the
+mountains, seldom used except by wood wagons. Within ten minutes they were
+speeding across the _mesa_. The rain was over and the clouds running
+across the sky in tatters before a fresh west wind. Before them the
+rolling grey-green waste of the _mesa_, spotted and veined with silver
+waters, reached to the blue rim of the mountains--empty and free as an
+undiscovered world.
+
+He slowed his car to ten miles an hour and leaned back, steering with one
+hand. The other fell upon hers, and closed over it. For a time they drove
+along in silence, conscious only of that electrical contact, and of the
+wind playing in their faces and the soft rhythmical hum of the great
+engine.
+
+At the crest of a rise he stopped the car and stood up, looking all about
+at the vast quiet wilderness, filling his lungs with air. He liked that
+serene emptiness. He had always felt at peace with these still desolate
+lands that had been the background of most of his life. Now, with the
+consciousness of the woman beside him, they filled him with a sort of
+rapture, an ecstasy of reverence that had come down to him perhaps from
+savage forebears who had worshipped the Earth Mother with love and awe.
+
+He dropped down beside her again and without hesitation gathered her into
+his arms. After a moment he held her a little away from him and looked
+into her eyes.
+
+"Why wouldn't you let me come to see you? Why did you treat me that way?"
+he plead.
+
+She dropped her eyes.
+
+"They made me."
+
+"But why? Because I'm a Mexican? And does that make any difference to
+you?"
+
+"O, I can't tell you.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} They say awful things about you. I don't believe
+them. No; nothing about you makes any difference to me."
+
+He held her close again.
+
+"Then you'll go away with me?"
+
+"Yes," she answered slowly, nodding her head. "I'll go anywhere with you."
+
+"Now!" he demanded. "Will you go now? We can drive through Scissors Pass
+to Abol on the Southeastern and take a train to Denver.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"O, no, not now," she plead. "Please not now.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I can't go like this.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"Yes; now," he urged. "We'll never have a better chance.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"I beg you, if you love me, don't make me go now. I must think {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} and get
+ready.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Why I haven't even got any powder for my nose."
+
+They both laughed. The tension was broken. They were happy.
+
+"Give me a little while to get ready," she proposed, "and I'll go when you
+say."
+
+"You promise?"
+
+"Cross my heart.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} On my life and honour. Please take me home now, so they
+won't suspect anything. If only nobody sees us! Please hurry. It'll be
+dark pretty soon. You can write to me. It's so lonely out here!"
+
+He turned his car and drove slowly townward, his free hand seeking hers
+again. It was dusk when they reached the streets. Stopping his car in the
+shadow of a tree, he kissed her and helped her out.
+
+He sat still and watched her out of sight. A tinge of sadness and regret
+crept into his mind, and as he drove homeward it grew into an active
+discontent with himself. Why had he let her go? True, he had proved her
+love, but now she was to be captured all over again. He ought to have
+taken her. He had been a fool. She would have gone. She had begged him not
+to take her, but if he had insisted, she would have gone. He had been a
+fool!
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+The second morning after this ride, while he was labouring over a note to
+the girl, he was amazed to get one from her postmarked at Lorietta, a
+station a hundred miles north of town at the foot of the Mora Mountains,
+in which many of the town people spent their summer vacations. It was a
+small square missive, exhaling a faint scent of lavender, and was simple
+and direct as a telegram.
+
+"We have gone to the Valley Ranch for a month," she wrote. "We had not
+intended to go until August, but there was a sudden change of plans.
+Somebody saw you and me yesterday. I had an awful time. Please don't try
+to see me or write to me while we're here. It will be best for us. I'll be
+back soon. I love you."
+
+He sat glumly thinking over this letter for a long time. The
+disappointment of learning that he would not see her for a month was bad
+enough, but it was not the worst thing about this sudden development. For
+this made him realize what alert and active opposition he faced on the
+part of her mother and brother. Their dislike for him had been made
+manifest again and again, but he had supposed that Julia was successfully
+deceiving them as to his true relations with her. He had thought that he
+was regarded merely as an undesirable acquaintance; but if they were
+changing their plans because of him, taking the girl out of his reach,
+they must have guessed the true state of affairs. And for all that he
+knew, they might leave the country at any time. His heart seemed to give a
+sharp twist in his body at this thought. He must take her as soon as she
+returned to town. He could not afford to miss another chance. And meantime
+his affairs must be gotten in order.
+
+He had been neglecting his new responsibilities, and there was an
+astonishing number of things to be done--debts to be paid, tax assessments
+to be protested, men to be hired for the sheep-shearing. His uncle had
+left his affairs at loose ends, and on all hands were men bent on taking
+advantage of the fact. But he knew the law; he had known from childhood
+the business of raising sheep on the open range which was the backbone of
+his fortune; and he was held in a straight course by the determination to
+keep his resources together so that they would strengthen him in his
+purpose.
+
+A few weeks before, he had sent Cortez to Arriba County to attend to some
+minor matters there, and incidentally to learn if possible what MacDougall
+was doing. Cortez had spent a large part of his time talking with the
+Mexicans in the San Antonio Valley, eavesdropping on conversations in
+little country stores, making friends, and asking discreet questions at
+_bailes_ and _fiestas_.
+
+"Well; how goes it up there?" Ramon asked him when he came to the office
+to make his report.
+
+"It looks bad enough," Cortez replied lighting with evident satisfaction
+the big cigar his patron had given him. "MacDougall has men working there
+all the time. He bought a small ranch on the edge of the valley just the
+other day. He is not making very fast progress, but he'll own the valley
+in time if we don't stop him."
+
+"But who is doing the work? Who is his agent?" Ramon enquired.
+
+"Old Solomon Alfego, for one. He's boss of the county, you know. He hates
+a gringo as much as any man alive, but he loves a dollar, too, and
+MacDougall has bought him, I'm afraid. I think MacDougall is lending money
+through him, getting mortgages on ranches that way."
+
+"Well; what do you think we had better do?" Ramon enquired. The situation
+looked bad on its face, but he could see that Cortez had a plan.
+
+"Just one thing I thought of," the little man answered slowly. "We have
+got to get Alfego on our side. If we can do that, we can keep out
+MacDougall and everybody else {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} buy when we get ready. We couldn't pay
+Alfego much, but we could let him in on the railroad deal {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} something
+MacDougall won't do. And Alfego, you know, is a _penitente_. He's _hermano
+mayor_ (chief brother) up there. And all those little _rancheros_ are
+_penitentes_. It's the strongest _penitente_ county in the State, and you
+know none of the _penitentes_ like gringos. None of those fellows like
+MacDougall; they're all afraid of him. All they like is his money. You
+haven't so much money, but you could spend some. You could give a few
+_bailes_. You are Mexican; your family is well-known. If you were a
+_penitente_, too.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Cortez left his sentence hanging in the air. He nodded his head slowly,
+his cigar cocked at a knowing angle, looking at Ramon through narrowed
+lids.
+
+Ramon sat looking straight before him for a moment. He saw in imagination
+a procession of men trudging half-naked in the raw March weather, their
+backs gashed so that blood ran down to their heels, beating themselves and
+each other.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} The _penitentes_! Other men, even gringos, had risen to power
+by joining the order. Why not he? It would give him just the prestige and
+standing he needed in that country. He would lose a little blood. He would
+win {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} everything!
+
+"You are right, _amigo_," he told Cortez. "But do you think it can be
+arranged?"
+
+"I have talked to Alfego about it," Cortez admitted. "I think it can be
+arranged."
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+He was all ready to leave for Arriba County when one more black mischance
+came to bedevil him. Cortez came into the office with a worried look in
+his usually unrevealing eyes.
+
+"There's a woman in town looking for you," he announced. "A Mexican girl
+from the country. She was asking everybody she met where to find you. You
+ought to be more careful. I took her to my house and promised I would
+bring you right away."
+
+Cortez lived in a little square box of a brick cottage, which he had been
+buying slowly for the past ten years and would probably never own. In its
+parlour, gaudy with cheap, new furniture, Ramon confronted Catalina
+Archulera. She was clad in a dirty calico dress, and her shoes were
+covered with the dust of long tramping, as was the black shawl about her
+head and shoulders. Once he had thought her pretty, but now she looked to
+him about as attractive as a clod of earth.
+
+She stood before him with downcast eyes, speechless with misery and
+embarassment. At first he was utterly puzzled as to what could have
+brought her there. Then with a queer mixture of anger and pity and
+disgust, he noticed the swollen bulk of her healthy young body.
+
+"Catalina! Why did you come here?" he blurted, all his self-possession
+gone for a moment.
+
+"My father sent me," she replied, as simply as though that were an
+all-sufficient explanation.
+
+"But why did you tell him {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} it was I? Why didn't you come to me first?"
+
+"He made me tell," Catalina rolled back her sleeve and showed some blue
+bruises. "He beat me," she explained without emotion.
+
+"What did he tell you to say?"
+
+"He told me to come to you and show you how I am.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} That is all."
+
+Ramon swore aloud with a break in his voice. For a long moment he stood
+looking at her, bewildered, disgusted. It somehow seemed to him utterly
+wrong, utterly unfair that this thing should have happened, and above all
+that it should have happened now. He had taken other girls, as had every
+other man, but never before had any such hard luck as this befallen him.
+And now, of all times!
+
+In Catalina he felt not the faintest interest. Before him was the proof
+that once he had desired her. Now that desire had vanished as completely
+as his childhood.
+
+And she was Archulera's daughter. That was the hell of it! Archulera was
+the one man of all men whom he could least afford to offend. And he knew
+just how hard to appease the old man would be. For among the Mexicans,
+seduction is a crime which, in theory and often in practice, can be atoned
+only by marriage or by the shedding of blood. Marriage is the door to
+freedom for the women, but virginity is a thing greatly revered and
+carefully guarded. The unmarried girl is always watched, often locked up,
+and he who appropriates her to his own purpose is violating a sacred right
+and offending her whole family.
+
+In the towns, all this has been somewhat changed, as the customs of any
+country suffer change in towns. But old Archulera, living in his lonely
+canyon, proud of his high lineage, would be the hardest of men to appease.
+And meantime, what was to be done with the girl?
+
+It was this problem which brought his wits back to him. A plan began to
+form in his mind. He saw that in sending her to him Archulera had really
+played into his hands. The important thing now was to keep her away from
+her father. He looked at her again, and the pity which he always felt for
+weaklings welled up in him. He knew many Mexican ranches in the valley
+where he could keep her in comfort for a small amount. That would serve a
+double purpose. The old man would be kept in ignorance as to what Ramon
+intended, and the girl would be saved from further punishment. Meantime,
+he could send Cortez to see Archulera and find out what money would do.
+
+The whole affair was big with potential damage to him. Some of his enemies
+might find out about it and make a scandal. Archulera might come around in
+an ugly mood and make trouble. The girl might run away and come to town
+again. And yet, now that he had a plan, he was all confidence.
+
+Cortez kept Catalina at his house while Ramon drove forty miles up the
+valley and made arrangements with a Mexican who lived in an isolated
+place, to care for her for an indefinite period. When he took Catalina
+there, he told her on the way simply that she was to wait until he came
+for her, and above all, that she must not try to communicate with her
+father. The girl nodded, looking at him gravely with her large soft eyes.
+Her lot had always been to obey, to bear burdens and to suffer. The stuff
+of rebellion and of self-assertion was not in her, but she could endure
+misfortune with the stoical indifference of a savage. Indeed, she was in
+all essentials simply a squaw. During the ride to her new home she seemed
+more interested in the novel sensation of travelling at thirty miles an
+hour than in her own future. She clung to the side of the car with both
+hands, and her face reflected a pathetic mingling of fear and delight.
+
+The house of Nestor Gomez to which Ramon took her was prettily set in a
+grove of cottonwoods, with white hollyhocks blooming on either side of the
+door, and strings of red chile hanging from the rafter-ends to dry. Half a
+dozen small children played about the door, the younger ones naked and all
+of them deep in dirt. A hen led her brood of chicks into the house on a
+foray for crumbs, and in the shade of the wall a mongrel bitch luxuriously
+gave teat to four pups. Bees humming about the hollyhocks bathed the scene
+in sleepy sound.
+
+Catalina, utterly unembarassed, shook hands with her host and hostess in
+the limp, brief way of the Mexicans, and then, while Ramon talked with
+them, sat down in the shade, shook loose her heavy black hair and began to
+comb it. A little half-naked urchin of three years came and stood before
+her. She stopped combing to place her hands on his shoulders, and the two
+regarded each other long and intently, while Catalina's mouth framed a
+smile of dull wonder.
+
+As Ramon drove back to town, he marvelled that he should ever have desired
+this clod of a woman; but he was grateful to her for the bovine calm with
+which she accepted things. He would visit her once in a while. He felt
+pretty sure that he could count on her not to make trouble.
+
+Afterward he discussed the situation with Cortez. The latter was worried.
+
+"You better look out," he counselled. "You better send him a message you
+are going to marry her. That will keep him quiet for a while. When he gets
+over being mad, maybe you can make him take a thousand dollars instead."
+
+Ramon shook his head. If he gave Archulera to understand that he would
+marry the girl, word of it might get to town.
+
+"He'll never find her," he said confidently. "I'll do nothing unless he
+comes to me."
+
+"I don't know," Cortez replied doubtfully. "Is he a _penitente_?"
+
+"Yes; I think he is," Ramon admitted.
+
+"Then maybe he'll find her pretty quick. There are some _penitentes_ still
+in the valley and all _penitentes_ work together. You better look out."
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER XX
+
+
+He had resolutely put the thought of Julia as much out of his mind as
+possible. He had conquered his disappointment at not being able to see her
+for a month, and had resolved to devote that month exclusively to hard
+work. And now came another one of those small, square, brief letters with
+its disturbing scent of lavender, and its stamp stuck upside down near the
+middle of the envelope.
+
+"I will be in town tomorrow when you get this," she wrote, "But only for a
+day or two. We are going to move up to the capital for the rest of the
+year. Gordon is going to stay here now. Just mother and I are coming down
+to pack up our things. You can come and see me tomorrow evening."
+
+It was astonishing, it was disturbing, it was incomprehensible. And it did
+not fit in with his plans. He had intended to go North and return before
+she did; then, with all his affairs in order, ask her to go away with him.
+Cortez had already sent word to Alfego that Ramon was coming to Arriba
+County. He could not afford a change of plans now. But the prospect of
+seeing her again filled him with pleasure, sent a sort of weakening
+excitement tingling through his body.
+
+And what did it mean that he was to be allowed to call on her? Had she, by
+any chance, won over her mother and brother? No; he couldn't believe it.
+But he went to her house that evening shaken by great hopes and
+anticipations.
+
+She wore a black dress that left her shoulders bare, and set off the slim
+perfection of her little figure. Her face was flushed and her eyes were
+deep. How much more beautiful she was than the image he carried in his
+mind! He had been thinking of her all this while, and yet he had forgotten
+how beautiful she was. He could think of nothing to say at first, but held
+her by both hands and looked at her with eyes of wonder and desire. He
+felt a fool because his knees were weak and he was tremulous. But a happy
+fool! The touch and the sight of her seemed to dissolve his strength, and
+also the hardness and the bitterness that life had bred in him, the streak
+of animal ferocity that struggle brought out in him. He was all desire,
+but desire bathed in tenderness and hope. She made him feel as once long
+ago he had felt in church when the music and the pageantry and sweet
+odours of the place had filled his childish spirit with a strange sense of
+harmony. He had felt small and unworthy, yet happy and forgiven. So now he
+felt in her presence that he was black and bestial beside her, but that
+possession of her would somehow wash him clean and bring him peace.
+
+When he tried to draw her to him she shook her head, not meeting his eyes
+and freed herself gently.
+
+"No, no. I must tell you.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}" She led him to a seat, and went on, looking
+down at a toe that played with a design in the carpet. "I must explain. I
+promised mother that if she would let me see you this once to tell you, I
+would never try to see you again."
+
+There was a long silence, during which he could feel his heart pounding
+and could see that she breathed quickly. Then suddenly he took her face in
+both hot hands and turned it toward him, made her meet his eyes.
+
+"But of course you didn't mean that," he said.
+
+She struggled weakly against his strength.
+
+"I don't know. I thought I did.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} It's terrible. You know{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I wrote you {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+some one saw us together. Gordon and mother found out about it. I won't
+tell you all that they said, but it was awful. It made me angry, and they
+found out that I love you. It had a terrible effect on Gordon. It made him
+worse. I can't tell you how awful it is for me. I love you. But I love him
+too. And to think I'm hurting him when he's sick, when I've lived in the
+hope he would get well.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+She was breathing hard now. Her eyes were bright with tears. All her
+defences were down, her fine dignity vanished. When he took her in his
+arms she struggled a little at first; then yielded with closed eyes to his
+hot kisses.
+
+Afterward they talked a little, but not to much purpose. He had important
+things to tell her, they had plans to make. But their great disturbing
+hunger for each other would not let them think of anything else. Their
+conversation was always interrupted by hot confusing embraces.
+
+The clock struck eleven, and she jumped up.
+
+"I promised to make you go home at eleven," she told him.
+
+"But I must tell you {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I have to leave town for a while." He found his
+tongue suddenly. Briefly he outlined the situation he faced with regard to
+his estate. Of course, he said nothing about the _penitentes_, but he made
+her understand that he was going forth to fight for both their fortunes.
+
+"I can't do it, I won't go, unless I know I am to have you," he finished.
+"Everything I have done, everything I am going to do is for you. If I lose
+you I lose everything. You promise to go with me?"
+
+His eyes were burning with earnestness, and hers were wide with
+admiration. He did not really understand her, nor she him. Unalterable
+differences of race and tradition and temperament stood between them. They
+had little in common save a great primitive hunger. But that,
+none-the-less, for the moment genuinely transfigured and united them.
+
+She drew a deep breath.
+
+"Yes. You must promise not to try to see me until then. When you are
+ready, let me know."
+
+She threw back her head, opening her arms to him. For a moment she hung
+limp in his embrace; then pushed him away and ran upstairs, leaving him to
+find his way out alone.
+
+He walked home slowly, trying to straighten out his thoughts. Her presence
+seemed still to be all about him. One of her hairs was tangled about a
+button of his coat; her powder and the scent of her were all over his
+shoulder; the recollection of her kisses smarted sweetly on his mouth. He
+was weak, confused, ridiculously happy. But he knew that he would carry
+North with him greater courage and purpose than ever before he had known.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+In the dry clean air of the Southwest all things change slowly. Growth is
+slow and decay is even slower. The body of a dead horse in the desert does
+not rot but dessicates, the hide remaining intact for months, the bones
+perhaps for years. Men and beasts often live to great age. The _pinon_
+trees on the red hills were there when the conquerors came, and they are
+not much larger now--only more gnarled and twisted.
+
+This strange inertia seems to possess institutions and customs as well as
+life itself. In the valley towns, it is true, the railroads have brought
+and thrown down all the conveniences and incongruities of civilization.
+But ride away from the railroads into the mountains or among the lava
+_mesas_, and you are riding into the past. You will see little earthen
+towns, brown or golden or red in the sunlight, according to the soil that
+bore them, which have not changed in a century. You will see grain
+threshed by herds of goats and ponies driven around and around the
+threshing floors, as men threshed grain before the Bible was written. You
+will see Indian pueblos which have not changed materially since the brave
+days when Coronado came to Taos and the Spanish soldiers stormed the
+heights of Acoma. You will hear of strange Gods and devils and of the evil
+eye. It is almost as though this crystalline air were indeed a great clear
+crystal, impervious to time, in which the past is forever encysted.
+
+The region in which Ramon's heritage lay was a typical part of this
+forgotten land. In the southern end of the Rocky Mountains, it was a
+country of great tilted _mesas_ reaching above timber line, covered for
+the most part with heavy forests of pine and fir, with here and there
+great upland pastures swept clean by forest fires of long ago. Along the
+lower slopes of the mountains, where the valleys widened, were primitive
+little _adobe_ towns, in which the Mexicans lived, each owning a few acres
+of tillable land. In the summer they followed their sheep herds in the
+upland pastures. There were not a hundred white men in the whole of Arriba
+County, and no railroad touched it.
+
+In this region a few Mexicans who were shrewder or stronger than the
+others, who owned stores or land, dominated the rest of the people much as
+the _patrones_ had dominated them in the days before the Mexican War. Here
+still flourished the hatred for the gringo which culminated in that war.
+Here that strange sect, the _penitentes hermanos_, half savage and half
+mediaeval, still was strong and still recruited its strength every year
+with young men, who elsewhere were refusing to undergo its brutal
+tortures.
+
+For all of these reasons, this was an advantageous field for the fight
+Ramon proposed to make. In the valley MacDougall's money and influence
+would surely have beaten him. But here he could play upon the ancient
+hatred for the gringo; here he could use to the best advantage the
+prestige of his family; here, above all, if he could win over the
+_penitentes_, he could do almost anything he pleased.
+
+His plan of joining that ancient order to gain influence was not an
+original one. Mexican politicians and perhaps one or two gringos had done
+it, and the fact was a matter of common gossip. Some of these _penitentes_
+for a purpose had been men of great influence, and their initiations had
+been tempered to suit their sensitive skins. Others had been Mexicans of
+the poorer sort, capable of sharing the half-fanatic, half sadistic spirit
+of the thing.
+
+Ramon came to the order as a young and almost unknown man seeking its aid.
+He could not hope for much mercy. And though he was primitive in many
+ways, there was nothing in him that responded to the spirit of this
+ordeal. The thought of Christ crucified did not inspire him to endure
+suffering. But the thought of a girl with yellow hair did.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+Ramon went first to the ranch at the foot of the mountains which his uncle
+had used as a headquarters, and which had belonged to the family for about
+half a century. It consisted merely of an _adobe_ ranch house and barn and
+a log corral for rounding up horses.
+
+Here Ramon left his machine. Here also he exchanged his business suit for
+corduroys, a wide hat and high-heeled riding boots. He greatly fancied
+himself in this costume and he embellished it with a silk bandana of
+bright scarlet and with a large pair of silver spurs which had belonged to
+his uncle, and which he found in the saddle room of the barn. From the
+accoutrement in this room he also selected the most pretentious-looking
+saddle. It was a heavy stock saddle, with German silver mountings and
+saddle bags covered with black bear fur. A small red and black Navajo
+blanket served as a saddle pad and he found a fine Navajo bridle, too,
+woven of black horsehair, with a big hand-hammered silver buckle on each
+cheek.
+
+He had the old Mexican who acted as caretaker for the ranch drive all of
+the ranch horses into the corral, and chose a spirited roan mare for a
+saddle animal. He always rode a roan horse when he could get one because a
+roan mustang has more spirit than one of any other colour.
+
+The most modern part of his equipment was his weapon. He did not want to
+carry one openly, so he had purchased a small but highly efficient
+automatic pistol, which he wore in a shoulder scabbard inside his shirt
+and under his left elbow.
+
+When his preparations were completed he rode straight to the town of
+Alfego where the powerful Solomon had his establishment, dismounted under
+the big cottonwoods and strolled into the long, dark cluttered _adobe_
+room which was Solomon Alfego's store. Three or four Mexican clerks were
+waiting upon as many Mexican customers, with much polite, low-voiced
+conversation, punctuated by long silences while the customers turned the
+goods over and over in their hands. Ramon's entrance created a slight
+diversion. None of them knew him, for he had not been in that country for
+years, but all of them recognized that he was a person of weight and
+importance. He saluted all at once, lifting his hat, with a cordial "_Como
+lo va, amigos_," and then devoted himself to an apparently interested
+inspection of the stock. This, if conscientiously done, would have
+afforded a week's occupation, for Solomon Alfego served as sole merchant
+for a large territory and had to be prepared to supply almost every human
+want. There were shelves of dry goods and of hardware, of tobacco and of
+medicines. In the centre of the store was a long rack, heavily laden with
+saddlery and harness of all kinds, and all around the top of the room,
+above the shelves, ran a row of religious pictures, including popes,
+saints, and cardinals, Mary with the infant, Christ crucified and Christ
+bearing the cross, all done in bright colours and framed, for sale at
+about three dollars each.
+
+It was not long before word of the stranger's arrival reached Alfego in
+his little office behind the store, and he came bustling out, beaming and
+polite.
+
+"This is Senor Solomon Alfego?" Ramon enquired in his most formal Spanish.
+
+"I am Solomon Alfego," replied the bulky little man, with a low bow, "and
+what can I do for the Senor?"
+
+"I am Ramon Delcasar," Ramon replied, extending his hand with a smile,
+"and it may be that you can do much for me."
+
+"Ah-h-h!" breathed Alfego, with another bow, "Ramon Delcasar! And I knew
+you when you were _un muchachito_" (a little boy). He bent over and
+measured scant two feet from the floor with his hand. "My house is yours.
+I am at your service. _Siempre!_"
+
+The two strolled about the store, talking of the weather, politics,
+business, the old days--everything except what they were both thinking
+about. Alfego opened a box of cigars, and having lit a couple of these,
+they went out on the long porch and sat down on an old buggy seat to
+continue the conversation. Alfego admired Ramon's horse and especially his
+silver-mounted saddle.
+
+"Ha! you like the saddle!" Ramon exclaimed in well-stimulated delight. He
+rose, swiftly undid the cinches, and dropped saddle and blanket at the
+feet of his host. "It is yours!" he announced.
+
+"A thousand thanks," Alfego replied. "Come; I wish to show you some Navajo
+blankets I bought the other day." He led the way into the store, and
+directed one of his clerks to bring forth a great stack of the heavy
+Indian weaves, and began turning them over. They were blankets of the best
+quality, and some of the designs in red, black and grey were of
+exceptional beauty. Ramon stood smiling while his host turned over one
+blanket after another. As he displayed each one he turned his bright
+pop-eyes on Ramon with an eager enquiring look. At last when he had seen
+them all, Ramon permitted himself to pick up and examine the one he
+considered the best with a restrained murmur of admiration.
+
+"You like it!" exclaimed Alfego with delight. "It is yours!"
+
+Mutual good feeling having thus been signalized in the traditional Mexican
+manner by an exchange of gifts, Alfego now showed his guest all over his
+establishment. It included, in addition to the store, several ware rooms
+where were piled stinking bales of sheep and goat and cow hides, sacks of
+raw wool and of corn, pelts of wild animals and bags of _pinon_ nuts, and
+of beans, all taken from the Mexicans in trade. Afterward Ramon met the
+family, of patriarchal proportions, including an astonishing number of
+little brown children having the bright eyes and well developed noses of
+the great Solomon. Then came supper, a long and bountiful feast, at which
+great quantities of mutton, chile, and beans were served.
+
+Having thus been duly impressed with the greatness and substance of his
+host, and also with his friendly attitude, Ramon was led into the little
+office, offered a seat and a fresh cigar. He knew that at last the proper
+time had come for him to declare himself.
+
+"My friend," he said, leaning toward Alfego confidentially, "I have come
+to this country and to you for a great purpose. You know that a rich
+gringo has been buying the lands of the poor people--my people and
+yours--all through this country. You know that he intends to own all of
+this country--to take it away from us Mexicans. If he succeeds, he will
+take away all of your business, all of my lands. You and I must fight him
+together. Am I right?"
+
+Solomon nodded his head slowly, watching Ramon with wide bright eyes.
+
+"_Verdad!_" he pronounced unctuously.
+
+"I have come," Ramon went on more boldly, "because my own lands are in
+danger, but also because I love the Mexican people, and hate the gringos!
+Some one must go among these good people and warn them not to sell their
+lands, not to be cheated out of their birthrights. My friend, I have come
+here to do that."
+
+"_Bueno!_" exclaimed Alfego. "_Muy bueno!_"
+
+"My friend, I must have your help."
+
+Ramon said this as impressively as possible, and paused expectantly, but
+as Alfego said nothing, he went on, gathering his wits for the supreme
+effort.
+
+"I know that you are a leader in the great fraternity of the penitent
+brothers, who are the best and most pious of men. My friend, I wish to
+become one of them. I wish to mingle my blood with theirs and with the
+blood of Christ, that all of us may be united in our great purpose to keep
+this country for the Spanish people, who conquered it from the
+barbarians."
+
+Alfego looked very grave, puffed his cigar violently three times and spat
+before he answered.
+
+"My young friend," (he spoke slowly and solemnly) "to pour out your blood
+in penance and to consecrate your body to Christ is a great thing to do.
+Have you meditated deeply upon this step? Are you sure the Lord Jesus has
+called you to his service? And what assurance have I that you are sincere
+in all you say, that if I make you my brother in the blood of Christ, you
+will truly be as a brother to me?"
+
+Ramon bowed his head.
+
+"I have thought long on this," he said softly, "and I know my heart. I
+desire to be a blood brother to all these, my people. And to you--I give
+you my word as a Delcasar that I will serve you well, that I will be as a
+brother to you."
+
+There was a silence during which Alfego stared with profound gravity at
+the ash on the end of his cigar.
+
+"Have you heard," Ramon went on, in the same soft and emotional tone of
+voice, "that the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad is going to build a line
+through the San Antonio Valley?"
+
+Alfego, without altering his look of rapt meditation, nodded his head
+slowly.
+
+"Do you suppose that you will gain anything by that, if this gringo gets
+these lands?" Ramon went on. "You know that you will not. But I will make
+you my partner. And I will give you the option on any of my mountain land
+that you may wish to rent for sheep range. More than that, I will make you
+a written agreement to do these things. In all ways we will be as
+brothers."
+
+"You are a worthy and pious young man!" exclaimed Solomon Alfego, rolling
+his eyes upward, his voice vibrant with emotion. "You shall be my brother
+in the blood of Christ."
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+Ramon went to the _Morada_, the chapter house of the _penitentes_, alone
+and late at night, for all of the whippings and initiations of the order,
+except those of Holy Week, are carried on in the utmost secrecy.
+
+The _Morada_ stood halfway up the slope north of the little town, at the
+elevation where the tall yellow pines of the mountains begin to replace
+the scrubby juniper and _pinon_ of the _mesas_ and foothills. It was a
+cool moonlit night of late summer. A light west wind breathed through the
+trees, making the massive black shadows of the juniper bushes faintly
+alive. As he toiled up the rocky path Ramon heard the faraway yap and
+yodel of a coyote, and the still more distant answer of another one. From
+the valley below came the intermittent bay of a cur, inspired by the moon
+and his wild kin, and now and then the tiny silver tinkle of a goat bell.
+
+The _Morada_ stood in an open space. It was an oblong block of _adobe_,
+and gave forth neither light nor sound. Ramon stopped a little way from it
+in the shadow of a tree and lit a cigarette to steady his nerves. He felt
+now for the first time something of the mystery and terribleness of this
+barbaric order which he proposed to use for his purpose. All his life the
+_penitentes_ had been to him a well-known fact of life. For the past week
+he had spent much of his time with the _maestro de novios_ of the local
+chapter, a wizened old sheep herder, who had instructed him monotonously
+in the secrets of the order, almost lulling him to sleep with his endless
+mumblings of the ritual that was written in a little leather book a
+century old. He had learned that if he betrayed the secrets of the order,
+he would be buried alive with only his head sticking out of the ground, so
+that the ants might eat his face. He had been informed that if he fell ill
+he would be taken to the _Morada_ where his brothers in Christ would pray
+for him, and seek to drive the devil out of his body, and that if he died,
+they would send his shoes to his family as a notice of that event; and
+would bury him in consecrated ground. Some of the things he had learned
+had bored him and some had made him want to laugh, but none of them had
+impressed him, as they were intended to do, with the might and dignity of
+the ancient order.
+
+He was impressed now as he stood before this dark still house where a
+dozen ignorant fanatics waited to take his blood for what was to them a
+holy purpose. He knew that this _Morada_ was a very old one. He thought of
+all the true penitents who had knocked for admission at its door and had
+gone through its bloody ordeal with a zeal of madness which had enabled
+them to cry loudly for blows and more blows until they fell insensible. He
+tried to imagine their state of mind, but he could not. He was of their
+race and a growth of the same soil, but an alien civilization had touched
+him and sundered him from them, yet without taking him for its own. He
+could only nerve himself to face this ordeal because it would serve his
+one great purpose.
+
+As he stood there, a curious half-irrelevant thought came into his mind.
+He knew that the marks they would make on his back would be permanent. He
+had seen the long rough scars on the backs of sheep-herders, stripped to
+the waist for the hot work of shearing. And he wondered how he would
+explain these strange scars to Julia. He imagined her discovering them
+with her long dainty hands, her round white arms. A great longing surged
+up in him that seemed to weaken the very tissues of his body. He shook
+himself, threw away his cigarette, went to the heavy wooden door and
+knocked.
+
+Now he spoke a rigamarole in Spanish which had been taught him by rote.
+
+"God knocks at this mission's door for His clemency," he called.
+
+From within came a deep-voiced chorus, the first sound he had heard from
+the house, seeming weirdly to be the voice of the house itself.
+
+"Penance, penance, which seeks salvation!" it chanted.
+
+"Saint Peter will open to me the gate, bathing me with the light, in the
+name of Mary, with the seal of Jesus," Ramon went on, repeating as he had
+learned. "I ask this confraternity. Who gives this house light?"
+
+"Jesus," answered the chorus within.
+
+"Who fills it with joy?"
+
+"Mary."
+
+"Who preserves it with faith?"
+
+"Joseph!"
+
+The door opened and Ramon entered the chapel room of the _Morada_. It was
+lighted by a single candle, which revealed dimly the rough earthen walls,
+the low roof raftered with round pine logs, the wooden benches and the
+altar, covered with black cloth. This was decorated with figures of the
+skull and cross-bones cut from white cloth. A human skull stood on either
+side of it, and a small wooden crucifix hung on the wall above it. The
+solitary candle--an ordinary tallow one in a tin holder--stood before this.
+
+The men were merely dark human shapes. The light did not reveal their
+faces. They said nothing to Ramon. He could scarcely believe that these
+were the same good-natured _pelados_ he had known by day. Indeed they were
+not the same, but were now merely units of this organization which held
+them in bondage of fear and awe.
+
+One of them took Ramon silently by the arm and led him through a low door
+into the other room which was the _Morada_ proper. This room was supposed
+never to be entered except by a member of the order or by a candidate. It
+was small and low as the other, furnished only with a few benches about
+the wall, and lighted by a couple of candles on a small table. A very old
+and tarnished oil painting of Mary with the Babe hung at one end of it.
+All the way around the room, hanging from pegs driven into the wall, was a
+row of the broad heavy braided lashes of _amole_ weed, called
+_disciplinas_, used in Holy Week, and of the blood-stained drawers worn on
+that occasion by the flagellants.
+
+Still in complete silence Ramon was forced to his knees by two of the men,
+who quickly stripped him to the waist. Beside him stood a tall
+powerfully-built Mexican with his right arm bared. In his hand he held a
+triangular bit of white quartz, cleverly chipped to a cutting edge. This
+man was the _sangredor_, whose duty it was to place the seal of the order
+upon the penitent's back. His office required no little skill, for he had
+to make three cuts the whole length of the back and three the width,
+tearing through the skin so as to leave a permanent scar, but not deep
+enough to injure the muscle. Ramon, glancing up, saw the gleam of the
+candle light on the white quartz, and also in the eyes of the man, which
+were bright with eagerness.
+
+Now came the supreme struggle with himself. How could he go through with
+this ugly agony? He longed to leap to his feet and fight these ignorant
+louts, who were going to mangle him and beat him for their own amusement.
+He held himself down with all his will, striving to think of the girl, to
+hold his purpose before his mind, to endure.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+He felt the hand of the _sangredor_ upon his neck, and gritted his teeth.
+The man's grip was heavy, hot and firm. A flash of pain shot up and down
+his back with lightning speed, as though a red hot poker had been laid
+upon it. Again and again and again! Six times in twice as many seconds the
+deft flint ripped his skin, and he fell forward upon his hands, faint and
+sick, as he felt his own blood welling upon his back and trickling in warm
+rivulets between his ribs.
+
+But this was not all. To qualify, he knew, he must call for the lash of
+his own free will.
+
+"For the love of God," he uttered painfully, as he had been taught, "the
+three meditations of the passion of our Lord."
+
+On his torn back a long black snake whip came down, wielded with merciless
+force. But he felt the full agony of the first blow only. The second
+seemed faint, and the third sent him plunging downward through a red mist
+into black nothingness.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+A few days later one bright morning Ramon was sitting in the sun before
+the door of his friend, Francisco Guiterrez, feeling still somewhat sore,
+but otherwise surprisingly well. Guiterrez, a young sheep-herder, held the
+position of _coadjutor_ of the local _penitente_ chapter, and one of his
+duties as such was to take the penitent to his house and care for him
+after the initiation. He had washed Ramon's wounds in a tea made by
+boiling Romero weed. This was a remedy which the _penitentes_ had used for
+centuries, and its efficacy was proved by the fact that Ramon's cuts had
+begun to heal at once, and that he had had very little fever.
+
+For a couple of days Ramon had been forced to lie restlessly in the only
+bed of the Guiterrez establishment. The Senora Guiterrez, a pretty buxom
+young Mexican woman, had fed him on _atole_ gruel and on all of the eggs
+which her small flock of scrub hens produced; the seven little dirty brown
+Guiterrez children had come in to marvel at him with their fingers in
+their mouths; the Guiterrez goats and dogs and chickens had wandered in
+and out of the room in a companionable way, as though seeking to make him
+feel at ease; and Guiterrez himself had spent his evenings sitting beside
+Ramon, smoking cigarettes and talking.
+
+This time of idleness had not been wholly wasted, either, for it had come
+out in the course of conversation that Guiterrez had been offered a
+thousand dollars for his place by a man whom he did not know, but whom
+Ramon had easily identified as an agent of MacDougall. Tempted by an
+amount which he could scarcely conceive, Guiterrez was thinking seriously
+of accepting the offer.
+
+Now that he had won over Alfego and had gotten the influence of the
+_penitentes_ on his side, Ramon's one remaining object was to defeat just
+such deals as this, which MacDougall already had under way. He intended to
+stir up feeling against the gringos, and to persuade the Mexicans not to
+sell. Later, such lands as he needed in order to control the right-of-way,
+he would gain by lending money and taking mortgages. But he did not intend
+to cheat any one. Such Mexicans as he had to oust from their lands, he
+would locate elsewhere. He was filled with a large generosity, and with a
+real love for these, his people. He meant to dominate this country, but
+his pride demanded that no one should be poor or hungry in his domain. So
+now he argued the matter to Guiterrez with real sincerity.
+
+"A thousand dollars? _Por Dios_, man! Don't you know that this place is
+worth many thousand dollars to you?"
+
+"How can it be worth many thousand?" Guiterrez demanded. "What have I
+here? A few acres of chile and corn, a little hay, some range for my
+goats, a few cherry trees, a house.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Many thousands? No."
+
+"You have here a home, _amigo_," Ramon reminded him. "Do you know how long
+a thousand dollars would support you? A year, perhaps. Then you would have
+to work for other men the rest of your life. Here you are free and
+independent."
+
+Guiterrez said nothing, but he had obviously received a new idea, and was
+impressed. Ramon never returned to the direct argument, but he missed no
+chance to stimulate Guiterrez's pride in his establishment.
+
+"This is a good little house you have _amigo_," he would observe. And
+Guiterrez would tell him that the house had been built by his grandfather,
+but that its walls were as firm as ever, and that he had been intending
+for several years to plaster it, but had never gotten time. Before he was
+out of bed, Ramon was reasonably sure that Guiterrez would never sell.
+
+The house was indeed charmingly situated on a hillside at the foot of
+which a little clear trout stream, called Rio Gallinas, chuckled over the
+bright pebbles in its bed and ran to hide in thickets of willow.
+
+Sitting on the _portal_, which ran the length of the house and consisted
+of a projection of the roof supported by rough pine logs, Ramon could look
+down the canyon to where it widened into a little valley that lost itself
+in the vast levels of the _mesa_. There thirsty sands swallowed the stream
+and not a sprig of green marred the harmony of grey and purple swimming in
+vivid light, reaching away to the horizon where faint blue mountains hung
+in drooping lines.
+
+By turning his head, Ramon could look into the heart of the mountains
+whence the stream issued through a narrow canyon, with steep, forested
+ridges on either side, and little level glades along the water, set with
+tall, conical blue spruce trees, pines with their warm red boles, and
+little clumps of aspen with gleaming white stems, and trembling leaves of
+mingled gold and green.
+
+Ramon spent many hours with his back against the wall, his knees drawn up
+under his chin, Mexican fashion, smoking and vaguely dreaming of the girl
+he loved and of the things he would do. The vast sun drenched landscape
+before him was too much a part of his life, too intimate a thing for him
+to appreciate its beauty, but after his struggles with doubt and desire,
+it filled him with an unaccountable contentment. Its warmth and
+brightness, its unchanging serenity, its ceaseless soft voices of wind and
+water, lulled his mind and comforted his senses. The country was like some
+great purring creature that let him lie in its bosom and filled his body
+with the warm steady throb of its untroubled strength.
+
+After a week of recuperation, he bought a horse from Guiterrez for a pack
+animal, loaded it with bedding and provisions and rode away into the
+mountains. His task was now to find other men who had fallen under the
+influence of MacDougall, and to persuade them not to sell their lands.
+Some of them would be at their homes, but others would be with the sheep
+herds, scattered here and there in the high country. He faced long days of
+mountain wandering, and for all that he longed to be done with his task,
+this part of it was sweet to him.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+These were days of power and success, days of a glamour that lingered long
+in his mind. Beyond a doubt he was destroying MacDougall's plan and
+realizing his own. Sometimes he met a surly Mexican who would not listen
+to him, but nearly always he won the man over in the end. He was amazed at
+his own resourcefulness and eloquence. It seemed as though some inhibition
+in him had been broken down, some magical elixir poured into his
+imagination. He found that he could literally take a sheep camp by storm,
+entering into the life of the men, telling them stories, singing them
+songs, passing out presents of tobacco and whisky, often delivering a
+wildly applauded harangue on the necessity for all Mexicans to act
+together against the gringos, who would otherwise soon own the country.
+Never once did he think of the incongruity of thus fanning the flames of
+race hatred for the love of a girl with grey eyes and yellow hair.
+
+He did not always reach a house or a sheep camp at night. Many a time he
+camped alone, catching trout for his supper from a mountain stream, and
+going to sleep to the lonely music of running water in a wilderness. At
+such times many a man would have lost faith in himself, would have feared
+his crimes and lost his hopes. But to Ramon this loneliness was an old
+friend. Like all who have lived much out-of-doors he was at heart a
+pantheist, and felt more at peace and unity with wild nature than ever he
+had with men.
+
+But there was one such night when he felt troubled. As he rode up the
+Tusas Canyon at twilight, a sense of insecurity came over him, amounting
+almost to fear. He had had a somewhat similar feeling once when a panther
+had trailed him on a winter night. Now, as then, he had no idea what it
+was that menaced him; he was simply warned by that sixth sense which
+belongs to all wild things, and to men in whom there remains something of
+the feral. His horses shared his unrest. When he picketed them, just
+before dark, they fed uneasily, stopping now and then to stand like
+statues with lifted heads, testing the wind with their nostrils, moving
+their ears to catch some sound beyond human perception.
+
+When he had eaten his supper and made his bed, Ramon took the little
+automatic revolver out of its scabbard and went down the canyon a quarter
+of a mile, slipping along in the shadow of the brush that lined the banks
+of the stream. This was necessary because a half-moon made the open glades
+bright. He paused and peered a dozen times. So cautious were his movements
+that he came within forty feet of a drinking deer, and was badly startled
+when it bounded away with a snort and a smashing of brush. But he saw
+nothing dangerous and went back to his camp and to bed. There he lay awake
+for an hour, still troubled, oppressed by a vague feeling of the
+littleness and insecurity of human life.
+
+A long, rippling snort of fear from his saddle horse, picketed near his
+bed, awakened him and probably saved his life. When he opened his eyes, he
+saw the figure of a man standing directly over him. He was about to speak,
+when the man lifted his arms, swinging upward a heavy club. With quick
+presence of mind, Ramon jerked the blankets and the heavy canvas tarpaulin
+about his head, at the same time rolling over. The club came down with
+crushing force on his right shoulder. He continued to roll and flounder
+with all his might, going down a sharp slope toward the creek which was
+only a few yards away. Twice more he felt the club, once on his arm and
+once on his ribs, but his head escaped and the heavy blankets protected
+his body.
+
+The next thing he knew, he had gone over the bank of the creek, which was
+several feet high in that place, and lay in the shallow icy water.
+Meantime he had gotten his hand on the automatic pistol. He now jerked
+upright and fired at the form of his assailant, which bulked above him.
+The man disappeared. For a moment Ramon sat still. He heard footsteps, and
+something like a grunt or a groan. Then he extricated himself from the
+cold, sodden blankets, climbed upon the bank, and began cautiously
+searching about, with his weapon ready. He found the club--a heavy length
+of green spruce-and put his hand accidentally on something wet, which he
+ascertained by smelling it to be blood.
+
+He was shivering with cold and badly bruised in several places, but he was
+afraid to build a fire. In case his enemy were not badly injured or had a
+companion, that would have been risking another attack. He stood in the
+shadow of a spruce, stamping his feet and rubbing himself, acutely
+uncomfortable, waiting for daylight and wondering what this attack meant.
+He doubted whether MacDougall would have countenanced such tactics, but it
+might well have been an agent of MacDougall acting on his own
+responsibility. Or it might have been some one sent by old Archulera.
+Then, too, there were many poor connections of the Delcasar family who
+would profit by his death.
+
+As he stood there in the dark, shivering and miserable, the idea of death
+was not hard for him to conceive. He realized that but for the snort of
+the saddle horse he would now be lying under the tree with the top of his
+head crushed in. The man would probably have dragged his body into the
+thick timber and left it. There he would have lain and rotted. Or perhaps
+the coyotes would have eaten him and the buzzards afterward picked his
+bones. He shuddered. Despite his acute misery, life had never seemed more
+desirable. He thought of sunlight and warmth, of good food and of the love
+of women, and these things seemed more sweet than ever before. He
+realized, for the first time, too, that he faced many dangers and that the
+chance of death walked with him all the time. He resolved fiercely that he
+would beat all his enemies, that he would live and have his desires which
+were so sweet to him.
+
+Daylight came at last, showing him first the rim of the mountain serrated
+with spruce tops, and then lighting the canyon, revealing his disordered
+camp and his horses grazing quietly in the open. He went immediately and
+examined the ground where the struggle had taken place. A plain trail of
+blood lead away from the place, as he had expected. He formed a plan of
+action immediately.
+
+First he made a great fire, dried and warmed himself, cooked and ate his
+breakfast, drinking a full pint of hot coffee. Then he rolled up all his
+belongings, hid them in the bushes, and picketed his horses in a side
+canyon where the grass was good. When these preparations were complete, he
+took the trail of blood and followed it with the utmost care. He carried
+his weapon cocked in his hand, and always before he went around a bend in
+the canyon, or passed through a clump of trees, he paused and looked long
+and carefully, like an animal stalking dangerous prey.
+
+At last, from the cover of some willows, he saw a man sitting beside the
+creek. The man was half-naked, and was binding up his leg with some strips
+torn from his dirty shirt. He was a Mexican of the lowest and most brutal
+type, with a swarthy skin, black hair and a bullet-shaped head. Ramon
+walked toward him.
+
+"_Buenas Dias, amigo_," he saluted.
+
+The man looked up with eyes full of patient suffering, like the eyes of a
+hurt animal. He did not seem either surprised or frightened. He nodded and
+went on binding up his leg.
+
+Ramon watched him a minute. He saw that the man was weak from loss of
+blood. There was a great patch of dried blood on the ground beside him,
+now beginning to flake and curl in the sun.
+
+"I will come back in a minute, friend," he said.
+
+He went back to his camp, saddled his horses, putting some food in the
+saddle pockets. When he returned, the Mexican sat in exactly the same
+place with his back against a rock and his legs and arms inert. Ramon
+fried bacon and made coffee for him. He had to help the man put the food
+in his mouth and hold a cup for him to drink. Afterward, with great
+difficulty, he loaded the man on his saddle horse, where he sat heavily,
+clutching the pommel with both hands. Ramon mounted the pack horse
+bareback.
+
+"Where do you live, friend?" Ramon asked.
+
+"Tusas," the Mexican replied, naming a little village ten miles down the
+canyon.
+
+They exchanged no other words until they came within sight of the group of
+_adobe_ houses. Then Ramon stopped his horse and turned to the man.
+
+"You were hunting," he told him slowly and impressively, "and you dropped
+your gun and shot yourself. _Sabes?_"
+
+The man nodded.
+
+"How much were you paid to kill me, friend?" Ramon then asked.
+
+The man looked at the pommel of the saddle, and his swarthy face darkened
+with a heavy flush.
+
+"One hundred dollars," he admitted. "I needed the money to christen a
+child. Could I let my child go to hell? But I did not mean to kill you.
+Only to beat you, so you would go away. Do not ask who sent me, for the
+love of God.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"I ask nothing more, friend," Ramon assured him. "And since you were to
+have a hundred dollars for making me leave the country, here is a hundred
+dollars for not succeeding."
+
+Both of them laughed. Ramon then rode on and delivered the man to his
+excited and grateful wife. He went back to his camp very weary and sore,
+but feeling that he had done an excellent stroke of work for his purpose.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+After this occurrence his success among the humbler Mexicans was more
+marked than ever, but some of the men of property who had been subsidized
+by MacDougall were not so easily won over. Such a case was that of old
+Pedro Alcatraz who owned a little store in the town of Vallecitos, a bit
+of land and a few thousand sheep. Alcatraz was a tall boney old man, and
+was of nearly pure Navajo Indian blood, as one could tell by the queer
+crinkled character of his beard and moustache, which were like those of a
+chinaman. He was simple and direct like an Indian, too, lacking the
+Mexican talent for lying and artifice. In his own town he was a petty
+czar, like Alfego, but on a much smaller scale. By reason of being
+_Hermano Mayor_ of the local _penitente_ chapter, and of having most of
+the people in his own neighbourhood in debt to him, he had considerable
+power. He was advising men to sell their lands, and was lending more money
+on land than it was reasonable to suppose he owned. Beyond a doubt, he had
+been won by MacDougall's dollars.
+
+Ramon found Alcatraz unresponsive. The old man listened to a long harangue
+on the subject of the race issue without a word of reply, and without
+looking up. Ramon then played what should have been his strongest card.
+
+"My friend," he said, "you may not know it, but I am your brother in the
+blood of Christ. Do I not then deserve better of you than a gringo who is
+trying to take this country away from the Mexican people?"
+
+"Yes," the old man answered quietly, "I know you are a _penitente_, and I
+know why. Do you think that I am a fool like these _pelados_ that herd my
+sheep? You wear the scars of a _penitente_ because you think it will help
+you to make money and to do what you want. You are just like MacDougall,
+except that he uses money and you use words. A poor man can only choose
+his masters, and for my part I have more use for money than for words." So
+saying, the blunt old savage walked to the other end of his store and
+began showing a Mexican woman some shawls.
+
+Ramon went away, breathing hard with rage, slapping his quirt against his
+boots. He would show that old _cabron_ who was boss in these mountains!
+
+He went immediately and hired the little _adobe_ hall which is found in
+every Mexican town of more than a hundred inhabitants, and made
+preparations to give a _baile_.
+
+To give a dance is the surest and simplest way to win popularity in a
+Mexican town, and Ramon spared no expense to make this affair a success.
+He sent forty miles across the mountains for two fiddlers to help out the
+blind man who was the only local musician. He arranged a feast, and in a
+back room he installed a small keg of native wine and one of beer.
+
+The invitation was general and every one who could possibly reach the
+place in a day's journey came. The women wore for the most part calico
+dresses, bright in colour and generous in volume, heavily starched and
+absolutely devoid of fit. Their brown faces were heavily powdered,
+producing in some of the darker ones a purplish tint, which was ghastly in
+the light of the oil lamps. Some of the younger girls were comely despite
+their crude toilets, with soft skins, ripe breasts, mild dark heifer-like
+eyes, and pretty teeth showing in delighted grins. The men wore the cheap
+ready-made suits which have done so much to make Americans look alike
+everywhere, but they achieved a degree of originality by choosing brighter
+colours than men generally wear, being especially fond of brilliant
+electric blues and rich browns. Their broad but often handsome faces were
+radiant with smiles, and their thick black hair was wetted and greased
+into shiny order.
+
+The dance started with difficulty, despite symptoms of eagerness on all
+hands. Bashful youths stalled and crowded in the doorway like a log jam in
+the river. Bashful girls, seated all around the room, nudged and tittered
+and then became solemn and self-conscious. Each number was preceded by a
+march, several times around the room, which was sedate and formal in the
+extreme. The favourite dance was a fast, hopping waltz, in which the swain
+seized his partner firmly in both hands under the arms and put her through
+a vigorous test of wind and agility. The floor was rough and sanded, and
+the rasping of feet almost drowned the music. There were long Virginia
+reels, led with peremptory dash by a master of ceremonies, full of grace
+and importance. Swarthy faces were bedewed with sweat and dark eyes glowed
+with excitement, but there was never the slightest relaxation of the
+formalism of the affair. For this dance in an earthen hovel on a plank
+floor was the degenerate but lineal descendant of the splendid and formal
+balls which the Dons had held in the old days, when New Spain belonged to
+its proud and wealthy conquerors; it was the wistful and grotesque remnant
+of a dying order.
+
+Ramon had a vague realization of this fact as he watched the affair. It
+stirred a sort of sentimental pity in him. But he threw off that feeling,
+he had work to do. He entered into the spirit of the thing, dancing with
+every woman on the floor. He took the men in groups to the back room and
+treated them. He missed no opportunity to get in a word against the
+gringos, and incidentally against those Mexicans who betrayed their
+fellows by advising them to sell their lands. He never mentioned Alcatraz
+by name, but he made it clear enough to whom he referred.
+
+Late in the evening, when all were mellowed by drink and excited by
+dancing, he gained the attention of the gathering on the pretext of
+announcing a special dance, and boldly gave a harangue in which he urged
+all Mexicans to stick together against the gringos, and above all not to
+sell their homes which their fathers had won from the barbarians, and were
+the foundations of their prosperity and freedom.
+
+"Remember," he urged them in a burst of eloquence that surprised himself,
+"that in your veins is the blood of conquerors--blood which was poured out
+on these hills and valleys to win them from the Indians, precious blood
+which has made this land priceless to you for all time!"
+
+His speech was greeted with a burst of applause unquestionably
+spontaneous. It filled him with a sense of power that was almost
+intoxicating. In the town he might be neglected, despised, picked for an
+easy mark, but here among his own people he was a ruler and leader by
+birth.
+
+The most important result of the _baile_ was that it won over the stubborn
+Alcatraz. He did not attend it, but he knew what happened there. He
+realized that advice in favour of selling land would not be popular in
+that section for a long time, and he acknowledged his defeat by inviting
+Ramon to dinner at his house, and driving a shrewd bargain with him,
+whereby he gave his influence in exchange for certain grazing privileges.
+
+On his way home a few days later Ramon looked back at the mountains with
+the feeling that they belonged to him by right of conquest.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+A week later Ramon was driving across the _mesa_ west of town, bound for
+the state capital. He was following the same route that Diego Delcasar had
+followed on the day of his death, and he passed within a few miles of
+Archulera's ranch; but no thought either of his uncle or of Archulera
+entered his mind. For in his pocket was a letter consisting of a single
+sentence hastily scrawled in a large round upright hand on
+lavender-scented note paper. The sentence was:
+
+
+
+"Meet you at the southwest corner of the Plaza Tuesday at seven thirty.
+
+                                                                "Love,
+
+                                                                 "J. R."
+
+
+
+A great deal of trouble and anxiety had preceded the receipt of that
+message. First he had written her a letter that was unusually long and
+exuberant for him, telling her of his success and that now he was ready to
+come and get her in accordance with their agreement, suggesting a time and
+place. Three days of cumulative doubt and agony had gone by without a
+reply. Then he had tried to reach her by long distance telephone, but
+without success. Finally he had wired, although he knew that a telegram is
+a risky vehicle for confidential business. Now he had her answer, the
+answer that he wanted. His spirit was released and leapt forward, leaving
+resentments and doubts far behind.
+
+It was eighty miles to the state capital, the road was good all the way,
+the day bright and cool. His route lead across the _mesa_, through the
+Scissors Pass, and then north and east along the foot of the mountains.
+
+Immense and empty the country stretched before him--a land of far-flung
+levels and even farther mountains; a land which makes even the sea, with
+its near horizons, seem little; a land which has always produced men of
+daring because it inspires a sense of freedom without any limit save what
+daring sets.
+
+He had dared and won. He was going to take the sweet price of his daring.
+The engine of his big car sang to him a song of victory and desire. He
+rejoiced in the sense of power under his hand. He opened the throttle
+wider and the car answered with more speed, licking up the road like a
+hungry monster. How easily he mastered time and distance for his purpose!
+
+He was to have her, she would be his. So sang the humming motor and the
+wind in his ears. Her white arms and her red mouth, her splendid eyes that
+feared and yielded! She was waiting for him! More speed. He conquered the
+hills with a roar of strength to spare, topped the crests, and sped down
+the long slopes like a bird coming to earth.
+
+He was to have her, she would be his. Could it be true? The great machine
+that carried him to their tryst roared an affirmative, the wind sang of
+it, his blood quickened with anticipation incredibly keen. And always the
+distance that lay between them was falling behind in long, grey passive
+miles.
+
+He had reached his destination a little after six. As he drove slowly
+through the streets of the little dusty town, the mood of exaltation that
+had possessed him during the trip died down. He was intent, worried
+practical. Having registered at the hotel, he got a handful of time tables
+and made his plans with care. They would drive to a town twenty-five miles
+away, be married, and catch the California Limited. There would just be
+time. Once he had her in his car, nothing could stop them.
+
+The _plaza_ or public square about which the old town was built, and which
+had been its market place in the old days, was now occupied by a neat
+little park with a band stand. Retail stores and banks fronted on three
+sides of it, but the fourth was occupied by a long low _adobe_ building
+which was very old and had been converted into a museum of local
+antiquities. It was dark and lifeless at night, and in its shadow-filled
+verandah he was to meet her.
+
+He had his car parked beside the spot ten minutes ahead of time. It was
+slightly cold now, with a gusty wind whispering about the streets and
+tearing big papery leaves from the cottonwood trees in the park. The
+_plaza_ was empty save for an occasional passer-by whose quick footfalls
+rang sharply in the silence. Here and there was an illuminated shop
+window. The drug store on the opposite corner showed a bright interior,
+where two small boys devoured ice cream sodas with solemn rapture.
+Somewhere up a side street a choir was practising a hymn, making a noise
+infinitely doleful.
+
+He had a bear-skin to wrap her in, and he arranged this on the seat beside
+him and then tried to wait patiently. He sat very tense and motionless,
+except for an occasional glance at his watch, until it showed exactly
+seven-thirty. Then he got out of his car and began walking first to one
+side of the corner and then to the other, for he did not know from which
+direction she would come. At twenty-five minutes of eight he was angry,
+but in another ten minutes anger had given way to a dull heavy
+disappointment that seemed to hold him by the throat and make it difficult
+to swallow. None-the-less he waited a full hour before he started up his
+car and drove slowly back to the hotel.
+
+On the way he debated with himself whether he should try to communicate
+with her tonight or wait until the next day. He knew that the wisest thing
+would be to wait until the next day and send her a note, but he also knew
+that he could not wait. He would find out where she lived, call her on the
+telephone, and learn what had prevented her from keeping the appointment.
+He had desperate need to know that something besides her own will had kept
+her away.
+
+When he went to the hotel desk, a clerk handed him a letter.
+
+"This was here when you registered, I think," he said. "But I didn't know
+it. I'm sorry."
+
+When he saw the handwriting of the address he was filled with commotion.
+Here, then, was her explanation. This would tell him why she had failed
+him. This, in all probability, would make all right.
+
+He went to his room to read it, sat down on the edge of the bed and ripped
+the envelope open with an impatient finger. The letter was dated two days
+earlier--the day after she had received his telegram.
+
+"I don't know what to say," she wrote, "but it doesn't matter much. You
+will despise me anyway, and I despise myself. But I can't help it--honestly
+I can't. I meant to keep my promise and I would have kept it, but they
+found your telegram and mother read it--by mistake, of course. I ought to
+have had sense enough to burn it. You can't imagine how awful it has been.
+Mother said the most terrible things about you, things she had heard. And
+she said that I would be ruining my life and hers. I said I didn't care,
+because I loved you. I can't tell you what an awful quarrel we had! And I
+wouldn't have given in, but she told Gordon and he was so terribly angry.
+He said it was a disgrace to the family, and he began to cough and had a
+hemorrhage and we thought he was going to die. Mother said he probably
+would die unless I gave you up.
+
+"That finished me. I couldn't do anything after that--I just couldn't.
+There was nothing but misery in sight either way, so what was the use?
+I've lost all my courage and all my doubts have come back. I do love
+you--terribly. But you are so strange, so different. And I don't think we
+would have gotten along or anything. I try to comfort myself by thinking
+it's all for the best, but it doesn't really comfort me at all. I never
+knew people could be as miserable as I am now. I don't think its fair.
+
+"When you get this I will be on my way to New York and nearly there. We
+are going to sail for Europe immediately. I will never see you again. I
+will always love you.
+
+                                                                 "Julia."
+
+
+
+Rage possessed him at first--the rage of defeated desire, of injured pride,
+of a passionate, undisciplined nature crossed and beaten. He flung the
+letter on the floor, and strode up and down the room, looking about for
+something to smash or tear. So she was that kind of a creature--a
+miserable, whimpering fool that would let an old woman and a sick man rule
+her! She was afraid her brother might die. What an excuse! And he had
+killed, or at least sanctioned killing, for her sake. He had poured out
+his blood for her. There was nothing he would not have dared or done to
+have her. And here she had the soul of a sheep!
+
+But no--perhaps that was not it. Perhaps she had been playing with him all
+along, had never had any idea of marrying him--because he was a Mexican!
+
+Bitter was this thought, but it died as his anger died. Something that sat
+steady and clear inside of him told him that he was a fool. He was reading
+the letter again, and he knew it was all truth. "There was nothing but
+misery in sight either way," she had written.
+
+Suddenly he understood; suffering and an awakened imagination had given
+him insight. For the first time in his life, he realized the feelings of
+another. He realized how much he had asked of this girl, who had all her
+life been ruled, who had never tasted freedom nor practised self-reliance.
+He saw now that she had rebelled and had fought against the forces and
+fears that oppress youth, as had he, and that she had been bewildered and
+overcome.
+
+His anger was gone. All hot emotion was gone. In its place was a great
+loneliness, tinged with pity. He looked at the letter again. Its
+handwriting showed signs of disturbance in the writer, but she had not
+forgotten to scent it with that faint delightful perfume which was forever
+associated in his mind with her. It summoned the image of her with a
+vividness he could not bear.
+
+But courage and pride are not killed at a blow. He threw the letter aside
+and shook himself sharply, like a man just awake trying to shake off the
+memory of a nightmare. She was gone, she was lost. Well, what of it? There
+were many other women in the world, many beautiful women. And he was
+strong now, successful. One woman could not hurt him by her refusal. He
+tried resolutely to put her out of his mind, and to think of his business,
+of his plans. But these things which had glowed so brightly in his
+imagination just a few hours before were suddenly as dead as cinders. He
+knew that he cared little for dollars and lands in themselves. His nature
+demanded a romantic object, and this love had given it to him. Love had
+found him a wretch and a weakling, and had made him suddenly strong and
+ruthless, bringing out all the colours of his being, dark and bright,
+making life suddenly intense and purposeful.
+
+And she had meant so much to him besides love. To have won her would have
+been to win a great victory over the gringos--over that civilization, alien
+to him in race and temper, which antagonized and yet fascinated him, with
+which he was forced to grapple for his life.
+
+She was gone, he had lost her. Perhaps it was just as well, after all, he
+told himself, speaking out of his pride and his courage. But in his heart
+was a great bitterness. In his heart he felt that the gringos had beaten
+one more Delcasar.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+The next few days Ramon spent quietly and systematically drinking whisky.
+This he did partly because he had a notion that it was an appropriate
+thing to do under the circumstances, and partly because he had a genuine
+need for something to jolt his mind out of its rut of misery. He was not
+sociable in his cups, and did not seek company of either sex, inviting a
+man to drink with him or accepting such an invitation only when he had to
+do so. His favourite resort was the Silver Dollar Saloon, which was
+furnished with tables set between low partitions, so that when he had one
+of these booths to himself he enjoyed a considerable degree of isolation.
+He drank carefully, like a Spaniard, never losing control of his feet or
+of his eyes, taking always just enough to keep his mind away from
+realities and filled with dreams. In these dreams Julia played a vivid and
+delightful part. He imagined himself encountering her under all sorts of
+circumstances, and always she was yielding, repentant, she was his. In a
+dozen different ways he conquered her, taking in imagination, as men have
+always done, what the reality had denied. Some of his fancies were
+delightful and filled him with a sense of triumph, so that men glanced
+curiously at the bright-eyed boy who sat there in his corner all alone,
+absorbed and intent. But there were other times at night when his defeated
+desire came and lay in his arms like an invisible unyielding succuba,
+torturing, maddening, driving him back to the street to drink until
+drunken sleep came with its sudden brutal mercy.
+
+But after a few days alcohol began to have little effect upon him, except
+that when he awoke his hands were all aflutter so that he spilled his
+coffee and tore his newspaper. He felt sick and weary, his misery numbed
+by many repetitions of its every twinge. A sure instinct urged him to get
+out of the town and into the mountains, but he hated to go alone and
+lacked the initiative to start. He had a friend in the capital named
+Curtis, who was half Mexican and half Irish. This young man was a dealer
+in mules and horses, and he had a herd of some twenty head to take across
+the mountains about sixty miles. Badly in need of a helper and unable to
+hire one, he asked Ramon to go with him. The proposition was accepted with
+relief but without enthusiasm.
+
+Trouble started immediately. The horses were only half broken, and the one
+they chose for a pack animal rebelled ten miles from town and bucked the
+pack off, scattering tin dishes, sides of bacon, loaves of bread and cans
+of condensed milk all over a quarter of a mile of rough country. They
+rounded up the recalcitrant in a pouring rain, and made a wet and
+miserable camp, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion in sodden blankets. The
+next morning the pack horse opened the exercises by rolling down a steep
+bank into the creek, plastering himself on the way from head to tail with
+a half gallon of high grade sorghum syrup which had been on top of the
+load. At this Ramon's tortured nerves exploded and he jumped into the
+water after the floundering animal, belabouring it with a quirt, and
+cursing it richly in two languages.
+
+He then put a slip noose around its upper lip and led it unmercifully,
+while Curtis encouraged it from behind with a rope-end. Like all Mexicans,
+they had little sympathy for horseflesh.
+
+These labours and hardships were Ramon's salvation. The exercise and air
+restored his health and in fighting the difficulties of unlucky travel he
+relieved in some degree the rage against life that embittered him.
+
+When he got back to his room in the hotel he felt measurably at peace,
+though weary in mind and body. He came across Julia's letter, and the
+sight and scent of it struck him a sharp painful blow, but he did not
+pause now to savour his pain; he tore the letter into small pieces and
+threw it away. Then he got out his car and started for home.
+
+He went back beaten over the same road that he had followed in the moment
+of his highest hope, when life had seemed about to keep all the wonderful
+promises it whispers in the ear of youth. But strangely this trip was not
+the sad and sentimental affair it should have been. His rugged health had
+largely recovered from the shock of disappointment and dissipation, an
+excellent breakfast was digesting within him, the sky was bright as
+polished turquoise and the ozonous west wind, which is the very breath of
+hope, played sweetly in his face. He began to discover various consoling
+conditions in his lot, which had seemed so intolerable just a few days
+before.
+
+Probably no man under forty ever lost a woman without feeling in some
+degree compensated by a sense of freedom regained, and in the man of
+solitary and self-reliant nature, to whom freedom is a boon if not a
+necessity, this feeling is not slow to assert itself. Moreover, Ramon was
+now caught in the inevitable reaction from a purpose which had gathered
+and concentrated his energies with passionate intensity for almost four
+months. During that time he had lived with taut nerves for a single hope;
+he had turned away from a dozen alluring by-paths; he had known that
+absorbed singleness of purpose which belongs only to lovers, artists and
+other monomaniacs.
+
+The bright hope that had led him had suddenly exploded, leaving him
+stunned and flat for a time. Now he got to his feet and looked about. He
+realized that the world still lay before him, a place of wonderful promise
+and possibility, and apparently he could stray in any direction he chose.
+He had money and freedom and an excellent equipment of appetites and
+curiosities. Things he had dreamed of doing long ago, in case he should
+ever come into his wealth, now revisited his imagination. He had promised
+himself for one thing some hunting trips--long ones into the mountains and
+down the river in his car. Gambling had always fascinated him, and he had
+longed to sit in a game high enough to be really interesting, instead of
+the quarter-limit affair that he had always played before. And there were
+women {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} other women. And he meant to go to New York or Chicago sometime
+and sample the fleshpots of a really great city.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Life after all was still
+an interesting thing.
+
+Not that he forgot his serious purposes. He meant to open a law office, to
+cultivate his political connections, to pursue his conquest of Arriba
+County. But although he did not realize it, his plans for making himself a
+strong and secure position in life had lost their vitalizing purpose. All
+of these things he would do, but there was no hurry about them. His desire
+now was to taste the sweetness of life, and to rest. He was without a
+strong acquisitive impulse, and now that his great purpose in making money
+was gone, these projects did not strongly engage his imagination. He had
+plenty of money. He refused to worry. He felt reckless, too. If he had
+lost his great hope, his reward was to be released from the discipline it
+had imposed.
+
+Nor was there any other discipline to take its place. If there had been a
+strong creative impulse in him, or if he had faced a real struggle for his
+life or his personal freedom, he might now have recovered that condition
+of trained and focussed energy which civilized life demands of men. But he
+was too primitive to be engaged by any purely intellectual purpose, and
+his money was a buffer between him and struggle imposed from without.
+
+As he thought of all the things he would do, he felt strong and sure of
+himself. He thought that he was now a shrewd, cynical man, who could not
+be deceived or imposed upon, who could take the good things of life and
+discount the disillusionments.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+One of his first acts in town was to negotiate a note at the bank for
+several thousand dollars. This was necessary because he had little cash
+and would not have much until spring, when he would sell lambs and shear
+his sheep. He not only needed money for himself, but his mother and
+sister, after many lean years, were eager to spend.
+
+He drove out to see Catalina, and found her big with child and utterly
+indifferent to him, which piqued him slightly and relieved him a great
+deal. She had heard nothing about her father, and Ramon sent Cortez out to
+Domingo Canyon to see what had become of the old man. Cortez reported the
+place deserted. Ramon made inquiry in town and learned that Archulera had
+been seen there in his absence, very much dressed-up and very drunk,
+followed by a crowd of young Mexicans who were evidently parasites on his
+newly-acquired wealth. Then he had disappeared, and some thought he had
+gone to Denver. It was evident that his five thousand dollars had proved
+altogether too much for him.
+
+Ramon now hung out a shingle, announcing himself as an attorney-at-law. Of
+course, no business came to him. The right way to get a practice would
+have been to go back to the office of Green or some other established
+lawyer for several years. But Ramon had no idea of doing anything so
+tiresome and so relatively humiliating. The idea of running errands for
+Green again was repugnant to him.
+
+He went every morning to his office and for a while he took a certain
+amount of satisfaction in merely sitting there, reading the local papers,
+smoking a cigar, now and then taking down one of his text books and
+reading a little. But study as such had absolutely no appeal to him. He
+might have dug at the dry case books to good purpose if he had been driven
+by need, but as it was he would begin to yawn in ten or fifteen minutes,
+and then would put the book away. He went home to a noonday dinner rather
+early and came back in the afternoon, feeling sleepy and bored. Now the
+office, and indeed the whole town, seemed a dreary place to him. At this
+season of the year there were often high winds which mantled the town in a
+yellow cloud of sand, and rattled at every loose shutter and door with
+futile dreary persistence. Ramon would wander about the office for a
+little while with his hands in his pockets and stare out the window,
+feeling depressed, thoughts of his disappointment coming back to him
+bitterly. Then he would take his hat and go out and look for some one to
+play pool with him. Often he took an afternoon off and went hunting, not
+alone as formerly he had done, but with as large a party as he could
+gather. They would drive out into the sand hills and _mesas_ twenty or
+thirty miles from town, where the native quail and rabbits were still
+abundant as automobiles had just begun to invade their haunts. When they
+found a covey of quail the sport would be fast and furious, with half a
+dozen guns going at once and birds rising and falling in all directions.
+Ramon keenly enjoyed the hot excitement and dramatic quality of this.
+
+At night he was usually to be found at the White Camel Pool Hall where the
+local sporting element foregathered and made its plans for the evening.
+Sometimes a party would be formed to "go down the line," as a visit to the
+red light district was called. Sometimes the rowdy dance halls of Old Town
+were invaded. On Saturday nights the dance at the country club always drew
+a considerable attendance. There was also a "dancing class" conducted by
+an estimable and needy spinster named Grimes, who held assembly dances
+once in two weeks in a little hall which had been built by the Woman's
+Club. This event always drew a large and very mixed crowd, including some
+of the "best people" and others who were considered not so good. Usually
+two or three different sets were represented at these gatherings, each
+tending to keep to itself. But there was also a tendency for the sets to
+overlap. Thus a couple of very pretty German girls, who were the daughters
+of a local saloon keeper, always appeared accompanied by young men of
+their own circle with whom they danced almost exclusively at first. But
+young men of the first families could not resist their charms, and they
+soon were among the most popular girls on the floor. This was deplored by
+the young women of more secure social position, who were wont to remark
+that the crowd was deteriorating frightfully. Some of these same superior
+virgins found it necessary for politeness to dance with Joe Bartello, the
+son of an Italian saloon owner, and a very handsome and nimble-footed
+youth. In a word, this was a place of social hazard and adventure, and
+that was more than half its charm. It finally became so crowded that
+dancing was almost impossible.
+
+The back room at the White Camel, where poker games were nightly in
+progress, also afforded Ramon frequent diversion. He played in the "big"
+game now, where the stakes and limits were high, and was one of the most
+daring and dangerous of its patrons. He had more money back of him than
+most of the men who played there, and he also had more courage. If he
+started a bluff he carried it through to the end, which was always bitter
+for some one. He had been known to stand pat on a pair and scare every one
+else out of the game by the resolute confidence of his betting. His
+plunges, of course, sometimes cost him heavily, but for a long time he was
+a moderate winner. His limitations as a poker player were finally
+demonstrated to him by one Fitzhugh Chesterman, a man with one lung.
+
+Chesterman was about twenty-six years old and had come from Richmond,
+Virginia, about two years before, with most of one lung gone and the other
+rapidly going. He was a tall, thin blond youth with the sensitive,
+handsome face which so often marks the rare survivor of the old southern
+aristocracy. He was totally lacking in the traditional southern
+sentimentality. His eye had a cold twinkle of courage that even the
+imminent prospect of death could not quench, and his thin shapely lips
+nearly always wore a smile slightly twisted by irony. He established
+himself at the state university, which had almost a hundred students and
+boasted a dormitory where living was very cheap. Chesterman sat before
+this dormitory twelve to fourteen hours a day, even in relatively cold
+weather. He made a living by coaching students in mathematics and Greek.
+He never raised his voice, he seldom laughed, he never lost his temper.
+With his unwavering ironical smile, as though he appreciated the keen
+humour of taking so much trouble over such an insignificant thing as a
+human life, he husbanded his energy and fought for health. He took all the
+treatments the local sanatoria afforded, but he avoided carefully all the
+colonies and other gatherings of the tubercular. When his lung began to
+heal, as it did after about a year, and his strength to increase, he
+enlarged his earnings by playing poker. He won for the simple reason that
+he took no more chances than he had to. He systematically capitalized
+every bit of recklessness, stupidity and desperation in his opponents.
+
+When Ramon first encountered him, the game soon simmered down to a
+struggle between the two. Never were the qualities of two races more
+strikingly contrasted. Ramon bluffed and plunged. Chesterman was caution
+itself, playing out antes in niggardly fashion until he had a hand which
+put the law of probabilities strongly on his side. Ramon was full of
+daring, intuition, imagination, bidding always for the favour of the
+fates, throwing logic to the winds. He was not above moving his seat or
+putting on his hat to change his luck. Chesterman smiled at these things.
+He was cold courage battling for a purpose and praying to no deities but
+Cause and Effect. Ramon thought he was playing for money, but he was
+really playing for the sake of his own emotions, revelling alike in hope
+and despair, triumph and victory, flushed and bright-eyed. Chesterman
+stifled every emotion, discounted every hope, said as little as possible,
+never relaxed his faint twisted smile.
+
+Ramon made some spectacular winnings, but Chesterman wore him down as
+surely as a slow hound wears down a deer despite its astounding bursts of
+speed. Ramon was sure to lose in the long run because he was always piling
+up odds against himself by the long chances he took, while his bluffs
+seldom deceived his cool and courageous opponent. The finish came at one
+o'clock in the morning. Chesterman was pale with exhaustion, but otherwise
+unchanged. Ramon was hoarse and flushed, chewing a cigar to bits. He held
+a full house and determined to back it to the limit. Chesterman met him,
+bet for bet, raising every time. Ramon knew that he must be beaten. He
+knew that Chesterman would not raise him unless he had a very strong hand.
+But he was beaten anyway. At the bottom of his consciousness, he knew that
+he had met a better man. He wanted to end the contest on this hand. When
+Chesterman showed four kings, Ramon fell back in his chair, weak and
+disgusted. The other players, most of whom had long been out of the game,
+got up and said good night one by one. Only the two were left, Ramon
+plunged in gloomy reaction, Chesterman coolly counting his money, putting
+it away.
+
+"I seem to have made quite a killing," he remarked, "how much did you
+lose?"
+
+"O, I don't know {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} about five hundred. Hell, what's five hundred to me {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I
+don't give a damn {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I'm rich.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Chesterman glanced at him keenly.
+
+"Well," he remarked, "I'm glad you feel that way about it, because I sure
+need the money."
+
+He got up and walked away with the short careful steps of a man who
+cherishes every ounce of his energy.
+
+Ramon was disgusted with himself. Chesterman had made him feel like a
+weakling and a child. He had thought himself a lion in this game, and he
+had found out that he was an easily-shorn lamb. He could not afford to
+lose five hundred dollars either. He was not really a rich man. He went
+home feeling deeply depressed and discouraged. Vaguely he realized that in
+Chesterman he had encountered the spirit which he felt against him
+everywhere--a cool, calculating, unmerciful spirit of single purpose,
+against which the play and flow of his emotional and imaginative nature
+was as ineffectual as mercury against the point of a knife.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+Within the next few days Ramon was sharply reminded that he lived in a
+little town where news travels fast and nobody's business is exclusively
+his own. Cortez came into his office and accepted a seat and a cigar with
+that respectful but worried manner which always indicated that he had
+something to say.
+
+"I hear you lost five hundred dollars the other night," he observed
+gravely, watching his young employer's face.
+
+"Well, what of it?" Ramon enquired, a bit testily.
+
+"You can't afford it," Cortez replied. "And not only the money {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} you've
+got to think of your reputation. You know how these gringos are. They keep
+things quiet. They expect a young man to lead a quiet life and tend to
+business. It's all right to have a little fun {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} they all do it {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} but for
+God's sake be careful. You hurt your chances this way {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} in the law, in
+politics."
+
+Ramon jerked his head impatiently and flushed a little, but reflection
+checked his irritation. Hatred of restraint, love of personal liberty, the
+animal courage that scorns to calculate consequences were his by heritage.
+But he knew that Cortez spoke the truth.
+
+"All right Antonio," he said with dignity. "I'll be careful."
+
+The next day he got a letter which emphasized the value of his henchman's
+warning and made Ramon really thoughtful. It was from MacDougall, and made
+him another offer for his land. It had a preamble to the effect that land
+values were falling, money was "tight," and therefore Ramon would do well
+to sell now, before a further drop in prices. It made him an offer of ten
+thousand dollars less than MacDougall had offered before.
+
+Ramon knew that the talk about falling values was largely bluff, that
+MacDougall had heard of his losses and of his loose and idle life, and
+thought that he could now buy the lands at his own price. The gringo had
+confidently waited for the Mexican to make a fool of himself. Ramon
+resolved hotly that he would do no such thing. He had no idea of selling.
+He would be more careful with his money, and next summer he would go back
+to Arriba County, renew his campaign against MacDougall and buy some land
+with the money he could get for timber and wool. He replied very curtly to
+MacDougall that his lands were not for sale.
+
+After that he stayed away from poker games for a while. This was made
+easier by a new interest which had entered his life in the person of a
+waitress at the Eldorado Lunch room. The girls at this lunch room had long
+borne a bad reputation. Even in the days before the big hotel had been
+built, when the railroad company maintained merely a little red frame
+building there, known as the Eating House, these waitresses had been a
+mainstay of local bachelordom. Their successors were still referred to by
+their natural enemies, the respectable ladies of the town, as "those awful
+eating house girls"; while the advent of a new "hash-slinger" was always a
+matter of considerable interest among the unmarried exquisites who
+fore-gathered at the White Camel. In this way Ramon quickly heard of the
+new waitress. She was reputed to be both prettier and less approachable
+than most of her kind. Sidney Felberg had made a preliminary
+reconnaissance and a pessimistic report.
+
+"Nothing doing," he said. "She's got a husband somewhere and a notion
+she's cut out for better things.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I'm off her!"
+
+This immediately provoked Ramon's interest. He went to the lunch room at a
+time when he knew there would be few customers. When he saw the girl he
+felt a faint thrill. The reason for this was that Dora McArdle somewhat
+resembled Julia. The resemblance was slight and superficial, yet instantly
+noticeable. She was a little larger, but had about the same figure, and
+the same colour of hair, and above all the same sensuous, provocative
+mouth. Ramon followed her with his eyes until she became conscious of his
+scrutiny, when she tossed her head with that elaborate affectation of
+queenly scorn, which seems to be the special talent of waitresses
+everywhere. Nevertheless, when she came to take his order she gave him a
+pleasant smile. He saw now that she was not really like Julia. She was
+coarse and commonplace, but she was also shapely, ripe-breasted,
+good-natured, full of the appeal of a healthy animalism.
+
+"What time do you get done here?" Ramon enquired.
+
+"Don't know that it's any of your business," she replied with another one
+of her crushing tosses of the head, and went away to get his order. When
+she came back he asked again.
+
+"What time did you say?"
+
+"Well, about nine o'clock, if it'll give you any pleasure to know."
+
+"I'll come for you in my car," he told her.
+
+"Oh! will you?" and she paid no more attention to him until he started to
+go, when she gave him a broad smile, showing a couple of gold teeth.
+
+At nine o'clock he was waiting for her at the door, and she went with him.
+He took her for a drive on the _mesa_, heading for the only road house
+which the vicinity boasted. It was a great stone house, which had been
+built long ago by a rich man, and had later fallen into the hands of an
+Italian named Salvini, who installed a bar, and had both private dining
+rooms and bed rooms, these latter available only to patrons in whom he had
+the utmost confidence. This resort was informally known as the "chicken
+ranch."
+
+When Ramon tried to take his fair partner there, on the plea that they
+must have a bite to eat, she objected.
+
+"I don't believe that place is respectable," she told him very primly. "I
+don't think you ought to ask me to go there."
+
+"O Hell!" said Ramon to himself. But aloud he proposed that they should
+drive to an adjacent hill-top from which the lights of the town could be
+seen. When he had parked the car on this vantage point and lit a
+cigarette, Dora began a narrative of a kind with which he was thoroughly
+familiar. She was of that well-known type of woman who is found in a
+dubious position, but explains that she has known better days. Her father
+had been a judge in Kansas, the family had been wealthy, she had never
+known what work was until she got married, her marriage had been a
+tragedy, her husband had drank, there had been a smash-up, the family had
+met with reverses. On and on went the story, its very tone and character
+and the grammar she used testifying eloquently to the fact that she was no
+such crushed violet as she claimed to be. Ramon was bored. A year ago he
+would have been more tolerant, but now he had experienced feminine charm
+of a really high order, and all the vulgarity and hypocrisy of this woman
+was apparent to him. And yet as he sat beside her he was keenly, almost
+morbidly conscious of the physical attraction of her fine young body. For
+all her commonness and coarseness, he wanted her with a peculiarly urgent
+desire. Here was the heat of love without the flame and light, desire with
+no more exaltation than accompanies a good appetite for dinner. He was
+puzzled and a little disgusted.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} He did not understand that this was his
+defeated love, seeking, as such a love almost inevitably does, a vicarious
+satisfaction.
+
+Repugnance and desire struggled strangely within him. He was half-minded
+to take her home and leave her alone. At any rate he was not going to sit
+there and listen to her insane babble all night. To put his fortunes to
+the test, he abruptly took her in his arms. She made a futile pretence of
+resistance. When their lips touched, desire flashed up in him strongly,
+banishing all his hesitations. He talked hot foolishness to which she
+listened greedily, but when he tried to take her to Salvini's again, she
+insisted on going home. Before he left her he had made another
+appointment.
+
+Now began an absurd contest between the two in which Ramon was always
+manoeuvring to get her alone somewhere so that he might complete his
+conquest if possible, while her sole object was to have him gratify her
+vanity by appearing in public with her. This he knew he could not afford
+to do. He could not even drive down the street with her in daylight
+without all gossips being soon aware he had done so. No one knew much
+about her, of course, but she was "one of those eating house girls" and to
+treat her as a social equal was to court social ostracism. He would win
+the enmity of the respectable women of the town, and he knew very well
+that respectable women rule their husbands. His prospects in business and
+politics, already suffering, would be further damaged.
+
+Here again was a struggle within him. He was of a breed that follows
+instinct without fear, that has little capacity for enduring restraints.
+And he knew well that the other young lawyers, the gringos, were no more
+moral than he. But they were careful. Night was their friend and they were
+banded together in a league of obscene secrecy. He despised this code and
+yet he feared it. For the gringos held the whip; he must either cringe or
+suffer.
+
+So he was careful and made compromises. Dora wanted him to take her to
+dinner in the main dining room of the hotel, and he evaded and compromised
+by taking her there late at night when not many people were present. She
+wanted him to take her to a movie and he pleaded that he had already seen
+the bill, and asked her if she wanted to bore him. And when she pouted he
+made her a present of a pair of silk stockings. She accepted all sorts of
+presents, so that he felt he was making progress. She was making vague
+promises now of "sometime" and "maybe," and his desire was whipped up with
+anticipation, making him always more reckless.
+
+One night late he took her to the Eldorado and persuaded her to drink
+champagne, thinking this would forward his purpose. The wine made her rosy
+and pretty, and it also made her forget her poses and affectations. She
+was more charming to him than ever before, partly because of the change in
+her, and partly because his own critical faculties were blunted by
+alcohol. He was almost in love with her and he felt sure that he was about
+to win her. But presently she began wheedling him in the old vein. She
+wanted him to take her to the dance at the Woman's Club!
+
+This would be to slap convention in the face, and at first he refused to
+consider it. But he foolishly went on drinking, and the more he drank the
+more feasible the thing appeared. Dora had quit drinking and was pleading
+with him.
+
+"I dare you!" she told him. "You're afraid.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} You don't think I'm good
+enough for you.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} And yet you say you love me.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I'm just as good as any
+girl in this town.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Well if you won't, I'm going home. I'm through! I
+thought you really cared."
+
+And then, when he had persuaded her not to run away, she became sad and
+just a little tearful.
+
+"It's terrible," she confided. "Just because I have to make my own
+living.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} It's not fair. I ought never to speak to you again.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} And yet, I
+do care for you.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Ramon was touched. The pathos of her situation appealed strongly to his
+tipsy consciousness. Why not do it? After all, the girl was respectable.
+As she said, nobody "had anything on her." The dance was a public affair.
+Any one could go. He had been too timid. Not three people there knew who
+she was. By God, he would do it!
+
+At first they did not attract much attention. Dora was pretty and fairly
+well dressed, in no way conspicuous. They danced exclusively with each
+other, as did some other couples present, and nothing was thought of that.
+
+But soon he became aware of glances, hostile, disapproving. Probably it
+was true that only a few of the men at first knew who Dora was, but they
+told other men, and some of the men told the women. Soon it was known to
+all that he had brought "one of those awful eating house girls" to the
+dance! The enormity of the mistake he had made was borne in upon him
+gradually. Some of the men he knew smiled at him, generally with an
+eye-brow raised, or with a shake of the head. Sidney Felberg, who was a
+real friend, took him aside.
+
+"For the love of God, Ramon, what did you bring that Flusey here for?
+You're queering yourself at a mile a minute. And you're drunk, too. For
+Heaven's sake, cart her away while the going's good!"
+
+Ramon had not realized how drunk he was until he heard this warning.
+
+"O, go to hell, Sid!" he countered. "She's as good as anybody {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I guess I
+can bring anybody I want here.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+Sidney shook his head.
+
+"No use, no use," he observed philosophically. "But it's too bad!"
+
+Ramon's own words sounded hollow to him. He was in that peculiar condition
+when a man knows that he is making an ass of himself, and knows that he is
+going right ahead doing it. He was more attentive to Dora than ever. He
+brought her a glass of water, talked to her continually with his back to
+the hostile room. He was fully capable of carrying the thing through, even
+though girls he had known all his life were refusing to meet his eyes.
+
+It was Dora who weakened. She became quiet and sad, and looked infinitely
+forlorn. When a couple of women got up and moved pointedly away from her
+vicinity, her lip began to tremble, and her wide blue eyes were brimming.
+
+"Come on, take me away quick," she said pathetically. "I'm going to cry."
+
+When they were in the car again she turned in the seat, buried her face in
+her arms and sobbed passionately with a gulping noise and spasmodic
+upheavals of her shoulders. Ramon drove slowly. He was sober now,
+painfully sober! He was utterly disgusted with himself, and bitterly sorry
+for Dora. A strong bond of sympathy had suddenly been created between
+them, for he too had tasted the bitterness of prejudice. For the first
+time Dora was not merely a frumpy woman who had provoked in him a desire
+he half-despised; she was a fellow human, who knew the same miseries.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} He
+had intended to take her this night, to make a great play for success, but
+he no longer felt that way. He drove to the boarding house where she
+lived.
+
+"Here you are," he said gently, "I'll call you up tomorrow."
+
+Dora looked up for the first time.
+
+"O, no!" she plead. "Don't go off and leave me now. Don't leave me alone.
+Take me somewhere, anywhere.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Do anything you want with me.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} You're all
+I've got!"
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+The rest of the winter Ramon spent in an aimlessly pleasant way. He tried
+to work but without arousing in himself enough enthusiasm to insure
+success. He played pool, gambled a little and hunted a great deal. He
+relished his pleasures with the keen appetite of health and youth, but
+when they were over he felt empty-minded and restless and did not know
+what to do about it.
+
+Some business came to his law office. Because of his knowledge of Spanish
+and of the country he was several times employed to look up titles to
+land, and this line of work he might have developed into a good practice
+had he possessed the patience. But it was monotonous, tedious work, and it
+bored him. He would toil over the papers with a good will for a while, and
+then a state of apathy would come over him, and like a boy in school he
+would sit vaguely dreaming.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Such dull tasks took no hold upon his mind.
+
+He defended several Mexican criminals, and found this a more congenial
+form of practice, but an unremunerative one. The only case which advanced
+him toward the reputation for which every young attorney strives brought
+him no money at all. A young Mexican farmer of good reputation named Juan
+Valera had been converted to the Methodist faith. Like most of the few
+Mexicans who are won over to Protestantism, he had brought to his new
+religion a fanatical spirit, and had made enemies of the priests and of
+many of his neighbours by proselyting. Furthermore, his young and pretty
+wife remained a Catholic, which had caused a good deal of trouble in his
+house. But the couple were really devoted and managed to compromise their
+differences until a child was born. Then arose the question as to whether
+it should be baptized a Catholic or a Methodist. The girl wanted her baby
+to be baptized in the Catholic faith, and was fully persuaded by the
+priests that it would otherwise go to purgatory. She was backed by her
+father, whose interference was resented by Juan more than anything else.
+He consulted the pastor of his church, a bigoted New Englander, who
+counselled him on no account to yield.
+
+One evening when Juan was away from home, his father-in-law came to his
+house and persuaded the girl to go with him and have the child baptized in
+the Catholic faith, in order that it might be saved from damnation. After
+the ceremony they went to a picture-show by way of a celebration. When
+Juan came home he learned from the neighbours what had happened. His face
+became very pale, his lips set, and his eyes had a hot, dangerous look. He
+got out a butcher knife from the kitchen, whetted it to a good point, and
+went and hid behind a big cottonwood tree near the moving-picture theatre.
+When his wife with the child and her father came out, he stepped up behind
+the old man and drove the knife into the back of his neck to the hilt,
+severing the spinal column. Afterward he looked at the dead man for a
+moment and at his wife, sitting on the ground shrieking, then went home
+and washed his hands and changed his shirt--for blood had spurted all over
+him--walked to the police station and gave himself up.
+
+This man had no money, and it is customary in such cases for the court to
+appoint a lawyer to conduct the defence. Usually a young lawyer who needs
+a chance to show his abilities is chosen, and the honor now fell upon
+Ramon.
+
+This was the first time since he had begun to study law that he had been
+really interested. He understood just how Juan Valera had felt. He called
+on him in jail. Juan Valera was composed, almost apathetic. He said he was
+willing to die, that he did not fear death.
+
+"Let them hang me," he said. "I would do the same thing again."
+
+Ramon studied the law of his case with exhaustive thoroughness, but the
+law did not hold out much hope for his client. It was in his plea to the
+jury that he made his best effort. Here again he discovered the eloquence
+that he had used the summer before in Arriba County. Here he lost for a
+moment his sense of aimlessness, felt again the thrill of power and the
+joy of struggle. He described vividly the poor Mexican's simple faith, his
+absolute devotion to it, showed that he had killed out of an
+all-compelling sense of right and duty. He found a good many witnesses to
+testify that Juan's father-in-law had hectored the young man a good deal,
+insulted him, intruded in his home. Half of the jurors were Mexicans. For
+a while the jury was hung. But it finally brought in a verdict of murder
+in the first degree, which was practically inevitable. Juan accepted this
+with a shrug of his shoulders and announced himself ready to hang and meet
+his Methodist God. But Ramon insisted on taking an appeal. He finally got
+the sentence commuted to life imprisonment. He then felt disgusted, and
+wished that he had let the man hang, feeling that he would have been
+better off dead than in the state penitentiary. But Juan's wife, who
+really loved him, came to Ramon's office and embraced his knees and
+laughed and cried and swore that she would do his washing for nothing as
+long as she lived. For now she could visit her husband once a month and
+take him _tortillas!_ Ramon gave her ten dollars and pushed her out the
+door. He had worked hard on the case. He felt old and weary and wanted to
+get drunk.
+
+
+
+One day Ramon received an invitation to go hunting with Joe Cassi and his
+friends. He accepted it, and afterward went on many trips with the Italian
+saloon-owner, thereby doing further injury to his social standing.
+
+Cassi had come to the town some twenty years before with a hand organ and
+a monkey. The town was not accustomed to that form of entertainment; some
+of the Mexicans threw rocks at Cassi and a dog killed his monkey. Cassi
+was at that time a slender youth, handsome, ragged and full of high hopes.
+When his monkey was killed he first wept with rage and then swore that he
+would stay in that town and have the best of it. He now owned three
+saloons and the largest business building in town. He was a lean, grave,
+silent little man.
+
+Cassi had made most of his money in the days when gambling was "open" in
+the town, and he had surrounded himself with a band of choice spirits who
+were experts in keno, roulette and poker. These still remained on his
+hands, some of them in the capacity of barkeepers, and others practically
+as pensioners. They were all great sportsmen, heavy drinkers and
+loyal-to-the-death friends. At short intervals they went on hunting trips
+down the river, generally remaining over the week-end. It was of these
+expeditions that Ramon now became a regular member. Sometimes the whole
+party would get drunk and come back whooping and singing as the
+automobiles bowled along, occasionally firing shotguns into the air. At
+other times when luck was good everyone became interested in the sport and
+forgot to drink. Ramon had a real respect for Cassi, and a certain amount
+of contempt for most of the rest of them; yet he felt more at home with
+these easy-going, pleasure-loving, loyal fellows than he did with those
+thrifty, respectable citizens in whose esteem the dollar stood so
+invariably first.
+
+Cassi and his friends used most often to go to a Mexican village some
+fifty miles down the river where the valley was low and flat, and speckled
+with shallow alkaline ponds made by seepage from the river. Every evening
+the wild ducks flew into these ponds from the river to feed, and the
+shooting at this evening flight Ramon especially loved. The party would
+scatter out, each man choosing his own place on the East side of one of
+the little lakes, so that the red glare of the sunset was opposite him.
+There he would lie flat on the ground, perhaps making a low blind of weeds
+or rushes.
+
+Seldom even in January was it cold enough to be uncomfortable. Ramon would
+lie on an elbow, smoking a cigarette, watching the light fade, and the
+lagoon before him turn into molten gold to match the sunset sky. It would
+be very quiet save for such sounds as the faraway barking of dogs or the
+lowing of cattle. When the sky overhead had faded to an obscure purple,
+and the flare of the sunset had narrowed to a belt along the horizon, he
+would hear the distant eerie whistle of wild wings. Nothing could be seen
+yet, but the sound multiplied. He could distinguish now the roar of a
+great flock of mallards, circling round and round high overhead, scouting
+for danger. He could hear the sweet flute-notes of teal and pintails, and
+the raucous, cautious quack of some old green-head. A teal would pitch
+suddenly down to the water before him and rest there, erect and wary,
+painted in black upon the golden water. Another would join it and another.
+The cautious mallards, encouraged by this, would swing lower. The music of
+their wings seemed incredibly close; he would grip his gun hard, holding
+himself rigidly still, feeling clearly each beat of his heart.
+
+Suddenly the ducks would come into view {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} dark forms with ghostly blurs
+for wings, shooting with a roar into the red flare of light. The flash of
+his shotgun would leap out twice. The startled birds would bound into the
+air like blasted rock from a quarry, and be lost in the purple mystery of
+sky, except two or three that hurtled over and over and struck the water,
+each with a loud spat, throwing up little jets of gold.
+
+Sometimes there were long waits between shots, but at others the flight
+was almost continuous, the air seemed full of darting birds, and the gun
+barrels were hot in his hands. His excitement would be intense for a time;
+yet after he had killed a dozen birds or so he would often lose interest
+and lie on his back listening to the music of wings and of bird voices. He
+had that aversion to excess which seems to be in all Latin peoples.
+Besides, he did not want many ducks to dispose of.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} It was the rush and
+colour, the dramatic quality of the thing that he loved.
+
+Most of the others killed to the limit with a fine unflagging lust for
+blood, giving a brilliant demonstration of the fact that civilized man is
+the most destructive and bloodthirsty of all the predatory mammals.
+
+
+
+The coming of spring was marked by a few heavy rains, followed by the
+faint greening of the cottonwood trees and of the alfalfa fields. The grey
+waste of the _mesa_ showed a greenish tinge, too, heralding its brief
+springtime splendor when it would be rich with the purple of wild-peas,
+pricked out in the morning with white blossoms of the prairie primrose.
+Now and then a great flock of geese went over the town, following the Rio
+Grande northward half a mile high, their faint wild call seeming the very
+voice of this season of lust and wandering.
+
+Ramon felt restless and lost interest in all his usual occupations. He
+began to make plans and preparations for going to the mountains. He bought
+a tent and a new rifle and overhauled all his camping gear. He thought he
+was getting ready for a season of hard work, but in reality his strongest
+motive was the springtime longing for the road and the out-of-doors. He
+was sick of whisky and women and hot rooms full of tobacco smoke.
+
+Withal it was necessary that he should go to Arriba County, follow up his
+campaign of the preceding fall, arrange a timber sale if possible so that
+he might buy land, and above all see that his sheep herds were properly
+tended. This was the crucial season in the sheep business. Like the other
+sheep owners, he ranged his herds chiefly over the public domain, and he
+gambled on the weather. If the rain continued into the early summer so
+that the waterholes were filled and the grass was abundant, he would have
+a good lamb crop. The sale of part of this and of the wool he would shear
+would make up the bulk of his income for the year. And he had already
+spent that income and a little more. He could not afford a bad year. If it
+was a dry spring, so that lambs and ewes died, he would be seriously
+embarrassed. In any case, he was determined to be on the range in person
+and not to trust the herders. If it came to the worst and the spring was
+dry he would rent mountain range from the Forest Service and rush his
+herds to the upland pastures as early as possible. He was not at all
+distressed or worried; he knew what he was about and had an appetite for
+the work.
+
+One morning when he was in the midst of his preparations, he went to his
+office and found on the desk a small square letter addressed in a round,
+upright, hand. This letter affected him as though it had been some blossom
+that filled the room with a fragrant narcotic exhalation. It quickened the
+beat of his heart like a drug. It drove thought of everything else out of
+his mind. He opened it and the faint perfume of it flowed over him and
+possessed his senses and his imagination.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+It was a long, gossipy letter and told him of nearly everything that Julia
+had done in the six months since they had parted "forever". The salient
+fact was that she had been married. A young man in a New York brokerage
+office who had long been a suitor for her hand, and to whom she had once
+before been engaged for part of a summer, had followed the Roths to Europe
+and he and Julia had been married immediately after their return.
+
+"I give you my word, I don't know why I did it," she wrote. "Mother wanted
+me to, and I just sort of drifted into it. First thing I knew I was
+engaged and the next thing mother was sending the invitations out, and
+then I was in for it. It was a good deal of fun being engaged, but when it
+came to being married I was scared to death and couldn't lift my voice
+above a whisper. Since then it has been rather a bore. Now my husband has
+been called to London. I am living alone here in this hotel. That is, more
+or less alone. A frightful lot of people come around and bore me, and I
+have to go out a good deal. I'm supposed to be looking for an apartment,
+too; but I haven't really started yet. Ralph won't be back for another two
+or three weeks, so I have plenty of time.
+
+"I don't know why in the world I'm writing you this long frightfully
+intimate letter. I don't seem to know why I do anything these days. I know
+its most improper for a respectable married lady, and I certainly have no
+reason to suppose you want to be bothered by me any more after the way I
+did. But somehow you stick in the back of my head. You might write me a
+line, just out of compassion, if you're not too busy with all your sheep
+and mountains and things." She signed herself "as ever", which, he
+reflected bitterly, might mean anything.
+
+At first the fact that she was married wholly engaged his attention. She
+was then finally and forever beyond his reach. This was the end sure
+enough. He was not going to start any long aimless correspondence with her
+to keep alive the memory of his disappointment. He planned various brief
+and chilly notes of congratulation.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Then another thought took precedence
+over that one. She was alone there in that hotel. Her husband was in
+London. She had written to him and given him her address.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} His blood
+pounded and his breath came quick. He made his decision instantly, on
+impulse. He would go to New York.
+
+He wired the hotel where she was stopping for a reservation, but sent no
+word at all to her. He gave the bewildered and troubled Cortez brief
+orders by telephone to go to Arriba County in his place, arranged a note
+at the bank for two thousand dollars, and caught the limited the same
+night at seven-thirty-five.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+He looked at New York through a taxicab window without much interest. A
+large damp grey dirty place, very crowded, where he would not like to
+live, he thought. He managed himself and his baggage with ease and
+dispatch; his indifferent, dignified manner and his reckless use of money
+were ideally effective with porters, taxi drivers and the like. When he
+reached the hotel about eight o'clock at night he went to his room and
+made himself carefully immaculate. He studied himself with a good deal of
+interest in the full length mirror which was set in the bath room door;
+for he had seldom encountered such a mirror and he had a considerable
+amount of vanity of which he was not at all conscious. It struck him that
+he was remarkably good-looking, and indeed he was more so than usual, his
+eyes bright, his face flushed, his whole body tense and poised with
+purpose and expectation.
+
+He went down to the lobby, looked Julia up in the register, ascertained
+the number of her room, and made a note of it. Then he asked the telephone
+girl to call her and learn whether she was in.
+
+"Yes; she is in. She wants to know who's calling, please."
+
+"Tell her an old friend who wants to surprise her." He did not care to
+risk any evasion, and he also wanted his arrival to have its full dramatic
+effect.
+
+The telephone girl transmitted his message.
+
+"She says she can't come down yet {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} not for about half an hour."
+
+"Tell her I'll wait. If she asks for me I'll be in that little room
+there." He pointed to a small reception room opening off the mezzanine
+gallery, which he had selected in advance. He had planned everything
+carefully.
+
+
+
+When he stood up to meet her she gave a little gasp, and took a step back.
+
+"Why, you! Ramon! How could you? You shouldn't have come. You know you
+shouldn't. I didn't mean that {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I had no idea.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+He came forward and took her hand and led her to a settee. Despite all her
+protests he could see very plainly that he had scored heavily in his own
+favour. She was flustered with excitement and pleasure. Like all women,
+she was captivated by sudden, decisive action and loved the surprising and
+the dramatic.
+
+They sat side by side, looking at each other, smiling, making unimportant
+remarks, and then looking at each other again. Ramon felt that she had
+changed. She was as pretty as ever, and never had she stirred him more
+strongly. But her appeal seemed more immediate than before; she seemed
+less remote. The innocence of her wide eyes was a little less noticeable
+and their flash of recklessness a little more so. It seemed to him that
+her mouth was larger, which may have been due to the fact that she had
+rouged it a little too much. She wore a pink decollete with straps over
+the shoulders one of which kept slipping down and had to be pulled up
+again.
+
+Ramon was tremulous with a half-acknowledged anticipation, but he held
+himself strongly in hand. He felt that he had an advantage over her--that
+he was more at ease and she less so than at any previous meeting--and he
+meant to keep it.
+
+But she was rapidly regaining her composure, and took refuge in a rather
+formal manner.
+
+"Are you going to be here long?" she enquired in the conventional tone of
+mock-interest.
+
+"Just a week or so on business," he explained, determined not to be
+outpointed in the game. "I had to come some time this spring, and when I
+got your note I thought I would come while you are here."
+
+"But I'll be here the rest of my life probably. This is where I live. You
+ought to have come when my husband was here. I'd like to have you meet
+him. As it is, I can't see much of you, of course.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+He refused to be put out by this coldness, but tried to strike a more
+intimate note.
+
+"Tell me about your marriage," he asked. "Are you really happy?{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Do you
+like it?"
+
+She looked at the floor gravely.
+
+"You shouldn't ask that, of course," she reproved. "Everyone who has just
+been married is very, very happy.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} No, I don't like it a darn bit."
+
+"It's not what you expected, then."
+
+"I don't know what I expected, but from the way people talk about it and
+write about it you would certainly think it was something wonderful--love
+and passion and bliss and all that, I mean. I feel that I've either been
+lied to or cheated {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} of course," she added with a little side glance at
+him, "I didn't exactly love my husband.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}" She blushed and looked down
+again; then laughed softly and rather joyfully for a lady with a broken
+heart.
+
+"If mother could only hear me now!" she observed.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} "She'd faint. I don't
+care.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} That's just the way I feel.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I don't care! All my life I've been
+trained and groomed and prepared for the grand and glorious event of
+marriage. I've been taught it's the most wonderful thing that can happen
+to anyone. That's what all the books say, and all the people I know. And
+here it turns out to be a most uncomfortable bore.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+He looked gravely sympathetic.
+
+"Do you think it would have been different with--someone you did love?" he
+enquired cautiously.
+
+She gave him another quick thrilling glance.
+
+"I don't know," she said.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} "Maybe {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I felt so different about you."
+
+Their hands met on the settee and they both moved instinctively a little
+closer together.
+
+Suddenly she jerked away from him, looking him in the eyes with her head
+thrown back and a smile of irony on her lips.
+
+"Aren't we a couple of idiots?" she demanded.
+
+"No!" he declared with fierce emphasis, and throwing an arm about her,
+pounced on her lips.
+
+Just then a bell boy passed the door. They jerked apart and upright very
+self-consciously. Then they looked at each other and laughed. But their
+eyes quickly became deep and serious again, and their fingers entangled.
+
+She sighed in mock exasperation.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, say something!" she demanded. "We can't sit here and
+make eyes at each other all evening. Besides I'm compromising my priceless
+reputation. It's after ten o'clock. I've got to go." She rose, and held
+out her hand, which he took without saying anything.
+
+"Good night," she said. "I think you were mean to come and camp on me this
+way {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} dumb as ever, I see {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} well, good night."
+
+She went to the door, stopped and looked back, smiled and disappeared.
+
+Ramon went down to the lobby and roamed all over the two floors which
+constituted the public part of the hotel. He looked at everything and
+smoked a great many cigarettes, thus restlessly whiling away an hour. Then
+he went to a writing room. He collected some telegrams and letters about
+him and appeared to be very busy. When a bell boy went by, he rapped
+sharply on the desk with a fifty-cent piece, and as the boy stopped,
+tossed it to him.
+
+"Get me the key to 207!" he ordered sharply; then turned back to his
+imaginary business.
+
+"Yes sir," said the boy. He returned in a few minutes with the key.
+
+Ramon sat for a long moment looking at it, tremulous with a great
+anticipation. He was divided between a conviction that she expected him
+and a fear that she did not.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} His fear proved groundless.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+The next day they met for dinner at a little place near Washington Square
+where it was certain that none of Julia's friends ever went. Julia was a
+singularly contented-looking criminal. Never, Ramon thought had her skin
+looked more velvety, her eyes deeper or more serene. He was a trifle
+haggard, but happy, and both of them were hungry.
+
+"Do you know?{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I've made a discovery," she told him. "I haven't any
+conscience. I slept peacefully nearly all day, and when I waked up I
+considered the matter carefully {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I don't believe that I have any proper
+appreciation of the enormity of what I've done at all. I have always
+thought that if anything like this ever happened to me I would go off and
+chloroform myself, but as a matter of fact I have no such intention {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} of
+course, though, it was not my fault in the least. You're so terrible!{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I
+simply couldn't help myself, and I don't see what I can do now {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} that's
+comforting. But one thing is certain. We've got to be awfully careful.
+Thank Heaven, mother and Gordon are still in Florida and they won't dare
+to come North on Gordon's account until it gets a good deal warmer. But we
+must be careful. I'm not sorry, like I should be, but I sure am scared.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+They sat for a long time after the meal, Ramon smoking a cigar, their
+knees touching under the table. He was filled with a vast contentment. He
+thought nothing of the troubled past, nor did he look into the obviously
+troubled future. He merely basked in the consciousness of a possession
+infinitely sweet.
+
+Now began for them a life of clandestine adventure. Julia had a good many
+engagements, but she managed to give him some part of every day. They
+never met in the hotel, but usually took taxicabs separately and met in
+out-of-the-way parts of that great free wilderness of city. Ramon spent
+most of the time when he was not with her exploring for suitable meeting
+places. They became patrons of cellar restaurants in Greenwich Village, of
+French and Italian places far down town, of obscure Brooklyn hotels. If
+the regular fare at these establishments was not all they desired, Ramon
+would lavishly bribe the head waiter, call the proprietor into
+consultation if necessary, insist on getting what Julia wanted. He spent
+his money like a millionaire, and usually created the general impression
+that he was a wealthy foreigner. Every morning he had flowers sent to
+Julia's room. Often they would take a taxi and spend hours riding about
+the streets with the blinds drawn, locked in each others' arms.
+
+For a week they were keenly, excitedly happy, living wholly in the joy of
+the moment. Then a flaw appeared upon the glowing perfect surface of their
+happiness.
+
+"When is your husband coming back?" he enquired once, when they were
+riding through Central Park.
+
+"I don't know. In a week or two. Why?"
+
+"Because we must decide pretty soon what we're going to do."
+
+"Do? What can we do?"
+
+"We must decide where we're going. You must go with me somewhere. I'm not
+going to let you get away from me again {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} not even for a little while."
+
+"But Ramon, how can we? I'm married. I can't go anywhere with you.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+He seized her fiercely by the shoulders and held her away from him,
+looking into her eyes.
+
+"Don't you love me, then?" he demanded.
+
+"Ramon! You know I do!"
+
+"Then you'll go. We can go to Mexico City, or South America {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I'll sell
+out at home.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"O, Ramon {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} I can't. I haven't got the courage. Think of the fuss it would
+raise. And it would kill Gordon, I know it would.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+"Damn Gordon!" he exclaimed, "he's not going to get in the way again!
+You're mine and I'm going to keep you. You will go. I'll take you!"
+
+He had seized her in his arms, was holding her furiously tight. She put
+her arms around him, caressed his face with soft fluttering hands.
+
+"Please, Ramon! Please don't make me miserable. Don't spoil the only
+happiness I ever had! I will go with you if ever I can, if I can get a
+divorce or something. But I can't run off like that. I haven't got it in
+me {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} please let me be happy!"
+
+Her touch and her voice seemed to overcome his determination, seemed to
+sheer him of his strength. Weaker she was than he, but her charm was her
+power. It dragged him away from his thoughts and purposes, binding him to
+her and to the moment.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} She drew his head down to her breast, found his
+lips with hers and so effectively cut his protests short.
+
+
+
+The cream of his happiness was gone. Always when he was alone, he was
+thinking and planning how he could keep her. All of his possessiveness was
+aroused. He wanted her to have a baby. Somehow he felt that then his
+conquest would be complete, that then he would be at peace.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+He said nothing more to Julia because he saw that it was useless. He began
+to understand her a little. It was futile to ask her to make a decision,
+to take any initiative. She could hold out forever against pleas which
+involved an effort of the will on her part. And yet as he knew she could
+yield charmingly to pressure adroitly applied. If he had asked her to meet
+him in New York this way, he reflected, she would have been horrified, she
+would never have consented. But when he came, suddenly, that had been
+different. So it was now. If he could only form a really good plan, and
+then put her in a cab and take her {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} that would be the only way. The
+difficulty was to form the plan. He had capacity for sudden and decisive
+action. He lacked neither courage nor resolution. But when it came to
+making a plan which would require much time and patience, he found his
+limitations.
+
+What could he do? he asked himself, not realizing that in formulating the
+question he acknowledged his impotence. If he went away and left her while
+he settled his affairs, she was lost as surely as a bird released from a
+cage. The idea of Mexico City allured him. But he had hardly enough money
+to take them there. How could he raise money on short notice? It would
+take time to settle his estate in New Mexico and get anything out of it.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+Two unrealized facts lay at the root of his difficulty. One was that he
+had no capacity for large and intricate plans, and the other was that he
+felt bound as by an invisible tether to the land where he had been born.
+
+As he struggled with all these conflicting considerations and emotions,
+his head fairly ached with futile effort. He was glad to lay it upon
+Julia's soft bosom, to forget everything else again in the sweetness of a
+stolen moment.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+He had been in New York about ten days when he awoke one morning near
+noon. An immense languor possessed him. He had been with Julia the night
+before and never had she been more charming, more abandoned.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} He ordered
+his breakfast to be sent up, and then stretched out in bed and lit an
+expensive Russian cigarette. He had that love of sensuous indolence,
+which, together with its usual complement, the capacity for brief but
+violent action, marked him as a primitive man--one whom the regular labors
+and restraints of civilization would never fit.
+
+His telephone bell rang, and when he took down the receiver he heard
+Julia's voice. It was not unusual for her to call him about this time, but
+what she told him now caused a blank and hapless look to come over his
+face. She was not in her room, but in another hotel.
+
+"My husband got in this morning," she explained in a voice that was thin
+with misery and confusion. "I got his message last night, but I didn't
+tell you because I knew it would spoil our last time together, and I was
+afraid you would do something foolish.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Please say you're not angry. You
+know there was nothing for it. We couldn't have done any of those wild
+things you talked about. I'll always love you, honestly I will. Won't you
+even say goodby?{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}"
+
+He at last did say goodby and hung up the receiver and went across the
+room and sat in an armchair. It suddenly struck him that he was very
+tired. He had not realized it before {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} how tired he was. There was none of
+the mad rebellion in him now that had filled him when first she had run
+away from him. Although he had never acknowledged it to himself he had
+been more than half prepared for this. He had told himself that he was
+going to do something bold and decisive, but he had procrastinated; he had
+never really formed a plan.
+
+Weariness was his leading emotion. He was spent, physically and
+emotionally. He wanted her almost as much as ever. While she was no longer
+the remote and dazzling star she had been, the bond of flesh that had been
+created between them seemed a stronger, a more constant thing than
+blinding unsatisfied desire. But a great despair possessed him. There was
+so obviously nothing he could do. Just as his other disappointment had
+given him his first stinging impression of the irony of life, that
+cunningly builds a hope and then smashes it; so now he felt for the first
+time something of the helplessness of man in the current or his destiny,
+driven by deep-laid desires he seldom understands, and ruled by chances he
+can never calculate. From love a man learns life in quick and painful
+flashes.
+
+Through the open window came the din of the New York street--purr and throb
+of innumerable engines, rumble and clatter of iron wheels, tapping of
+thousands of restless feet, making a blended current of sound upon which
+floated and tossed the shrillness of police whistles and newsboys' voices
+and auto horns. It had been the background of his life during memorable
+days. Once it had stirred his pulses, seeming a wild accompaniment to the
+song of his passion. Now it wearied him inexpressibly; it seemed to be
+hammering in his ears; he wanted to get away from it. He would go home
+that day.
+
+
+
+As always on his trips across the continent he sat apathetically smoking
+through the wide green lushness of the middle west. Only when the
+cultivated lands gave way to barren hills and faint blue mountains peeping
+over far horizons did he turn to the window and forget his misery and his
+weariness. How it spoke to his heart, this country of his own! He who
+loved no man, who had gone to women with desire and come away with
+bitterness, loved a vast and barren land, baking in the sun. The sight of
+it quickened his pulses, softened and soothed his spirit. Like a good
+liquor it nursed and beautified whatever mood was in him. When he had come
+back to it a year before, it had spoken to him of hope, its mysterious
+distances had seemed full of promise and hidden possibility. And now that
+he came back to it with hopes broken, weary in mind and body, it seemed
+the very voice of rest. He thought of long cool nights in the mountains
+and of the lullaby that wind and water sing, of the soothing monotony of
+empty sunlit levels, of the cool caress of deep, green pools, of the sweet
+satisfaction that goes with physical weariness and a full belly and a bed
+upon the ground.
+
+But when on the last morning of his journey he waked up within a hundred
+miles of home, and less than half that far from his own mountain lands,
+his new-found comfort quickly changed to a keen anxiety. For he saw at a
+glance that the country was under the blight of drought. The hills that
+should have borne a good crop of gramma grass at this time of the year, if
+the rains had been even fair, were nothing but bare red earth from which
+the rocks and the great roots of the _pinion_ trees stood out like the
+bones of a starving animal. Here and there on the hillsides he could see a
+scrubby pine that had died, its needles turned rust-red--the sure sign of a
+serious drought.
+
+During the half month that he had been gone he had thought not once of his
+affairs at home. The moment had absorbed him completely. Now it all came
+back to him suddenly. When he had left, the promise of the season had been
+good. It had not rained for more than a week, but everyone had been
+expecting rain every day. It was clear to him that the needed rain had
+never come. And he knew just what that meant to him. It meant that he had
+lost lambs and ewes, that he would have no money this year with which to
+meet his notes at the bank. He sank deep in despair and disgust again. Not
+only was the assault on his fortunes a serious one, but he felt little
+inclined to meet it. He was weary of struggle. He saw before him a long
+slow fight to get on his feet again, with the chance of ultimate failure
+if he had another bad year.
+
+The Mexicans firmly believe, in the face of much evidence to the contrary,
+that seven wet years are always followed by seven dry ones. He had heard
+the saying gravely repeated many times. He more than half believed it. And
+he knew that for a good many years, perhaps as many as six or seven, the
+rains had been remarkably good. He was intelligent, but superstition was
+bred in his bones. Like all men of a primitive type he had a strong
+tendency to believe in fortune as a deliberate force in the affairs of
+men. It seemed clear to him now, in his depressed and exhausted condition,
+that bad luck had marked him for its prey.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+His forebodings were confirmed in detail the next morning when Cortez came
+into his office, his face wrinkled with worry and darkened by exposure to
+the weather. He was angry too.
+
+"_Por Dios_, man! To go off like that and not even leave me an address. If
+I could have gotten more money to hire men I might have saved some of them
+{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} yes, more than half of the lambs died, and many of the ewes. There is
+nothing to do now. They are on the best of the range, and it has begun to
+rain in the mountains. But it is too bad. It cost you many thousands {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+that trip to New York."
+
+Ramon gave Cortez a cigar to soothe his sensibilities, thanked him with
+dignity for his loyal services, and sent him away. Then he put on his hat
+and went outside to walk and think.
+
+The town seemed to him quiet as though half-deserted. This was partly by
+contrast with the place of din which he had just left, and partly because
+this was the dull season, when the first hot spell of summer drove many
+away from the town and kept those who remained in their houses most of the
+day. The sandy streets caught the sun and cherished it in a merciless
+glare. They were baked so hot that barefoot urchins hopped gingerly from
+one patch of shade to the next. In the numerous vacant lots rank jungles
+of weeds languished in the dry heat, and long blue-tailed lizards,
+veritable heat-sprites, emerged to frolic and doze on deserted sidewalks.
+The leaves of the cottonwoods hung limp, and the white downy tufts that
+carried their seeds everywhere drifted and swam in the shimmering air. The
+river had shrunk to a string of shallow pools in a sandy plain, the
+irrigation ditches were empty, and in Old Town the Mexicans were asking
+God for rain by carrying an image of the Virgin Mary about on a litter and
+firing muskets into the air.
+
+Quickly wearied, Ramon sat down on a shaded bench in the park and tried to
+think out his situation and to decide what he should do. The easy way was
+to sell out, pay his debts, provide for his mother and sister and with
+what was left go his own way--buy a little ranch perhaps in the mountains
+or in the valley where he could live in peace and do as he pleased.
+Wearied as he was by struggle and disappointment, this prospect allured
+him, and yet he could not quite accept it. He felt vaguely the fact that
+in selling his lands, he would be selling out to fate, he would be
+surrendering to MacDougall, to the gringos, he would be renouncing all his
+high hopes and dreams. His mountain lands, with their steadily increasing
+value, the power they gave him, would make of his life a thing of
+possibilities--an adventure. Settled on a little ranch somewhere, his whole
+story would be told in one of its years.
+
+This he did not reason clearly, but the emotional struggle within him was
+therefore all the stronger. It was his old struggle in another guise--the
+struggle between the primitive being in him and the civilized, between
+earth and the world of men. Each of them in turn filled his mind with
+images and emotions, and he was impotent to judge between them.
+
+His being was fairly rooted in the soil, and the animal happiness it
+offered--the free play of instinct, the sweetness of being physically and
+emotionally at peace with environment--was the only happiness he had ever
+known. Vaguely yet surely he had felt the world of men and works, the
+artificial world, to contain something larger and more beautiful than
+this. Julia Roth had been to him a stimulating symbol of this higher, this
+more desirable thing. His love for her had been the soil in which his
+aspirations had grown. That love had turned to bitterness and lust, and
+his aspirations had led him among greeds and fears and struggles that
+differed from those of the wild things only in that they were covert and
+devious, lacking the free beauty of instinct fearlessly followed and the
+dignity of open battle. Of civilization he had encountered only the raw
+and ugly edge, which is uglier than savagery. He knew no more of the true
+spirit of it than a man who has camped in a farmer's back pasture knows of
+the true spirit of wildness. It had treated him without mercy and brought
+out the worst of him. And yet because he had once loved and dreamed he
+could not go back to the easy but limited satisfactions of the soil and be
+wholly content.
+
+So he could not make up his mind at first to surrender, but in the next
+few days one thing after another came to tempt him that way. MacDougall
+made him an offer for his lands which to his surprise was a little better
+than the last one. He learned afterward that the over-shrewd lawyer had
+misinterpreted his trip to New York, imagining that he had gone there to
+interest eastern capital in his lands.
+
+His mother and sister were two very cogent arguments in favour of selling.
+The Dona Delcasar, a simple and vain old lady, now regarded herself as a
+woman of wealth, and was always after him for money. Her ambition was to
+build a house in the Highlands and serve tea at four o'clock (although it
+was thick chocolate she liked) and break into society. His one discussion
+of the matter with her was a bitter experience.
+
+"Holy Mary!" she exclaimed in her shrill Spanish, when he broached a plan
+of retrenchment, "What a son I have! You spend thousands on yourself,
+chasing women and buying automobiles, and now you want us to spend the
+rest of our lives in this old house and walk to church so that you can
+make it up. God, but men are selfish!"
+
+He saw that if he tried to save money and make a fight for his lands he
+would have to struggle not only with MacDougall and the weather, but with
+two ignorant, ambitious and sharp-tongued women. And family pride here
+fought against him. He did not want to see his women folk go shabbily in
+the town. He wanted them to have their brick house and their tea parties,
+and to uphold the name of Delcasar as well as they might.
+
+One day while he was still struggling with his problem he went to look at
+a ranch that was offered for sale in the valley a few miles north of town.
+It was this place more than anything else which decided him. The old house
+had been built by one of his ancestors almost a hundred years before, and
+had then been the seat of an estate which embraced all the valley and
+_mesa_ lands for miles in every direction. It had changed hands several
+times and there were now but a few hundred acres. The woodwork of the
+house was in bad repair, but its adobe walls, three feet thick, were firm
+as ever. There were still traces of the adobe stockade behind it, with
+walls ten feet high, and the building which had housed the _peones_ was
+still standing, now filled with fragrant hay. In front of it stood an old
+cedar post with rusty iron rings to which the recalcitrant field hands had
+been bound for beating.
+
+Every detail of this home of his forefathers stirred his emotions. The
+ancient cottonwood trees in front of the house with their deep, welcome
+shade and the soft voices of courting doves among the leaves; the alfalfa
+fields heavy with purple blossom, ripe for cutting; the orchard of old
+apple trees and thickets of Indian plum run wild; the neglected vineyard
+that could be made to yield several barrels of red wine--all of these
+things spoke to him with subtle voices. To trade his heritage for this was
+to trade hope and hazard for monotonous ease; but with the smell of the
+yielding earth in his nostrils, he no more thought of this than a man in
+love thinks of the long restraints and irks of marriage when the kiss of
+his woman is on his lips.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+Ramon's life on his farm quickly fell into a routine that was for the most
+part pleasant. He hired an old woman to do his cooking and washing, and a
+man to work on the place. Other men he hired as he needed them, and he
+spent most of his days working with them as a foreman.
+
+He attended to the business of farming ably. The trees of the old orchard
+he pruned and sprayed and he set out new ones. He put his idle land under
+irrigation and planted it in corn and alfalfa. He set out beds of
+strawberries and asparagus. He bought blooded livestock and chickens. He
+put his fences in repair and painted the woodwork of his house. The
+creative energy that was in him had at last found an outlet which was
+congenial though somewhat picayune. For the place was small and easily
+handled. As the fall came on, and his crops had been gathered and the work
+of irrigation was over for the season, he found himself looking about
+restlessly for something to do. On Saturday nights he generally went to
+town, had dinner with his mother and sister, and spent the evening
+drinking beer and playing pool. But he felt increasingly out of place in
+the town; his visits there were prompted more by filial duty and the need
+of something to break the monotony of his week than by a real sense of
+pleasure in them.
+
+He was still caring for Catalina on the ranch up the valley, and when the
+woman who had been doing his work left him, he decided to bring the girl
+to his place and let her earn her keep by cooking and washing. He no
+longer felt any interest in her, and thought that perhaps she would marry
+Juan Cardenas, the man who milked his cows and chopped wood for him. But
+Catalina showed no interest in Juan. Instead, she emphatically rejected
+all his advances, and displayed an abject, squaw-like devotion to Ramon's
+welfare. Everything possible was done for his comfort without his asking.
+The infant, now almost a year old, was trained not to cry in his presence,
+and acquired a certain awe of him, watching him with large solemn eyes
+whenever he was about. Ramon, reflecting that this was his son, set out to
+make the baby's acquaintance, and became quite fond of it. He often played
+with it in the evening.
+
+He paid Catalina regular wages and she spent most of the money on clothes.
+When she prepared herself for Church on Sunday she was a truly terrible
+spectacle, clad in an ill-fitting ready-made suit of brilliant colour, and
+wearing a cheap hat on which a dead parrot sprawled among artificial
+poppies, while her swarthy face, heavily powdered, took on a purple tinge.
+But about the place, dressed in clean calico, with a shawl over her
+shoulders, she was really pretty. Her figure was a good one of peasant
+type, and the acquisition of some shoes which fitted her revealed the fact
+that she had inherited from her remote Castilian ancestry a small and
+shapely foot and ankle.
+
+Ramon could not help noticing all of these things, and so gradually he
+became aware of Catalina again as a desirable woman, and one whom it was
+easy for him to take.
+
+After this his animal contentment was deeper than ever. He did not go to
+town so often, for one of the restlessnesses which had driven him there
+was removed. Often for weeks at a stretch he would not go at all unless it
+was necessary to get some tools or supplies for the farm. Then rather than
+take any of his men away from work, he would himself hitch up a team and
+drive the five miles. Sitting hunched over on the spring-seat of a big
+farm wagon, clad in overalls and a print shirt, with a wide hat tilted
+against the sun and a cigarette dangling from his lips, he was
+indistinguishable from any other _paisano_ on the road. This change in
+appearance was helped by the fact that he had grown a heavy moustache.
+Often, as he drove through the streets of the town, he would pass
+acquaintances who did not recognize him, and he was just as well satisfied
+that they did not.
+
+As is the way of unreflecting men, Ramon formed no definite opinion of his
+life, but liked it more or less according to the mood that was in him.
+There were bright, cool days that fall when, lacking work to do, he took
+his shot-gun and a saddle horse and went for long rambles. Sometimes he
+would follow the river northward, stalking the flocks of teal and mallards
+that dozed on the sandbars in the wide, muddy stream, perhaps killing
+three or four fat birds. Other times he went to the foot of the mountains
+and hunted the blue quail and cotton tail rabbits in the arroyos of the
+foot-hills. Once he and his man loaded a wagon with food and blankets and
+drove forty miles to a canyon where they killed a big black-tail buck, and
+brought him back in high triumph.
+
+Returning from such trips full of healthy hunger and weariness, to find
+his hot supper and his woman waiting for him, Ramon would doze off
+happily, every want of his physical being satisfied, feeling that life was
+good.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} But there were other nights when a strange restlessness possessed
+him, when he lay miserably awake through long dark hours. The silence of
+the black valley was emphasized now and then by the doleful voices of dogs
+that answered each other across the sleeping miles. At such times he felt
+as though he had been caught in a trap. He saw in imagination the endless
+unvaried chain of his days stretching before him, and he rebelled against
+it and knew not how to break it. His experience of life was comparatively
+little and he was no philosopher. He did not know definitely either what
+was the matter with him or what he wanted. But he had tasted high
+aspiration, and desire bright and transforming, and wild sweet joy.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} These
+things had been taken away, and now life narrowed steadily before him like
+a blind canyon that pierces a mountain range. The trail at the bottom was
+easy enough to follow, but the walls drew ever closer and became more
+impassable, and what was the end?{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
+
+
+
+This sense of dissatisfaction reached its futile crux one day in the
+spring when he received a letter from Julia--the last he was ever to get.
+The sight and scent of it stirred him as they always had done, filling him
+with poignant painful memories.
+
+"This is really the last time I'll ever bother you," she wrote, "but I do
+want to know what has happened to you, and how you feel about things. I
+can't forget. All our troubles seem to have worn some sort of a permanent
+groove in my poor brain, and I believe the thought of you will be there
+till the day of my death.
+
+"As, for me, I'm in society up to my eyes, and absolutely without the
+courage or energy to climb out. Those days in New York were the first and
+the last of my freedom. Now I've been introduced to everybody, and I have
+an engagement book that tells me what I'm going to do whether I want to or
+not for three weeks ahead. I'm a model of conduct and propriety for the
+simple reason that I can't travel over a block without everybody that I
+know finding out about it.
+
+"Of course it hasn't all been a bore. I have had some fun, and I've met
+some really interesting people. I've gotten used to being married and my
+husband treats me kindly and gives me a good home. Sounds as if I was a
+kitten, doesn't it? Well, I have very much the same sort of life as a
+kitten, but a kitten has no imagination and it has never been in love.
+Sometimes I think that I can't stand it any longer. It seems to me that
+I'm not really living, as I used to imagine I would, but just being
+dragged through life by circumstances and other people--I don't know what
+all. I still have desperate plans and ideas once in a while, but of
+course, I never do anything. When you come right down to it, what can I
+do?"
+
+Ramon read this letter sitting on the sunny side of his house with his
+heels under him and his back against the wall--a position any Mexican can
+hold for hours. When he had finished it he sat motionless for a long time,
+painfully going over the past, trying ineptly to discover what had been
+the matter with it. More acutely than ever before he felt the cruel
+guerdon of youth--the contrast between the promise of life and its
+fulfillment. He felt that he ought to do something, that he ought not to
+submit. But somehow all the doors that led out of his present narrow way
+into wider fields seemed closed. There was no longer any entrancing vista
+to tempt him. Mentally he repeated her query, What could he do?
+
+His thoughts went round and round and got nowhere. The spring sunshine
+soaked into his body. A faint hum of early insects lulled him, and to his
+nostrils came the scent of new-turned earth and manure from the garden
+where his man was working. He grew drowsy; his dissatisfaction simmered
+down to a vague ache in the background of his consciousness. Idly he tore
+the letter to little bits.
+
+
+
+                                 THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               EXTRA PAGES
+
+
+
+
+                                       _The Blood of _
+                                       _the Conquerors_
+
+
+
+
+_ _
+_      NEW BORZOI NOVELS_
+_ _
+_      FALL, 1921_
+_ _
+
+      PAN
+_      Knut Hamsun_
+      DREAMERS
+_      Knut Hamsun_
+      THE TORTOISE
+_      Mary Borden_
+      THE CHINA SHOP
+_      G. B. Stern_
+      THE BRIARY-BUSH
+_      Floyd Dell_
+      DEADLOCK
+_      Dorothy Richardson_
+      THE OTHER MAGIC
+_      E. L. Grant-Watson_
+      WHITE SHOULDERS
+_      George Kibbe Turner_
+      THE CHARMED CIRCLE
+_      Edward Alden Jewell_
+      THE BLOOD OF THE CONQUERORS
+_      Harvey __ __Fergusson_
+
+
+
+
+                                       _The Blood of _
+                                       _the Conquerors_
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  ERRATA
+
+
+      CHAPTER II
+      Changed: they were *untamable*, but boys
+      To: they were *untameable*, but boys
+
+      CHAPTER II
+      Changed: adventures were *comoposed* and sung
+      To: adventures were *composed* and sung
+
+      CHAPTER IV
+      Changed: your name," she admitted*,*
+      To: your name," she admitted*.*
+
+      CHAPTER V
+      Changed: only all-night *resturant*. Here he
+      To: only all-night *restaurant*. Here he
+
+      CHAPTER VII
+      Changed: haunted by lizzards and rattlesnakes.
+      To: haunted by *lizards* and rattlesnakes.
+
+      CHAPTER VIII
+      Changed: CHAPTER VIII*.*
+      To: CHAPTER VIII* *
+
+      CHAPTER XI
+      Changed: the game*,* But the
+      To: the game*.* But the
+
+      CHAPTER XV
+      Changed: nights they *visted* the town's
+      To: nights they *visited* the town's
+
+      CHAPTER XIX
+      Changed: saved from *furthur* punishment. Meantime,
+      To: saved from *further* punishment. Meantime,
+
+      CHAPTER XXXI
+      Changed: own living.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} *Its* not fair.
+      To: own living.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} *It's* not fair.
+
+      CHAPTER XXXII
+      Changed: of course* *" she added
+      To: of course*,*" she added
+
+      CHAPTER XXXII
+      Changed: * *For Heaven's sake, say something!"
+      To: *"*For Heaven's sake, say something!"
+
+      Page 2
+      Changed: Harvey *Furgusson*
+      To: Harvey *Fergusson*
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOOD OF THE CONQUERORS***
+
+
+
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