The San Rosario Ranch
formed the central figure. He was of a low type of humanity, with a
narrow forehead and large, heavy features; his face was tanned where the
skin was visible, the heavy beard growing high up on the cheeks, leaving
little uncovered surface. His clothes were somewhat dilapidated, but
his wide sombrero hat and high boots were strong and whole. His figure
was superbly developed, and Herculean in type. As he sat crouching on
the floor, hugging his knees, his back braced against the wall behind
him, he nodded wearily, and, after various abortive attempts at
conversation, finally fell into a sound sleep, his head resting against
the wall behind him. Graham took a charred brand from the hearth, and
with this rough tool drew, on a smooth board in the side of the cabin, a
sketch of the man before him. As he looked narrowly at his model, he
perceived that his face was disfigured by some recent scratches from
which the blood was still unwashed. They were got while riding through
a thorny thicket, the artist fancied, and thought no more about them,
touching in the details of the desolate background. The man's expression
was hardly human in his sleep, the fierce animal face was so stupid and
brutish. It is wonderful how character is expressed in a sleeping
countenance. The studied or unconscious control which we hold over our
features when awake is overthrown in slumber, and the real nature is
seen with no polite restraint or deceitful mask. A beautiful woman is
beautiful no longer while sleeping, if she have a bad heart. It is a
terrible thing to look upon one who is dear to us in sleep. Even when
the countenance shadows forth holy dreams, it is awful to watch its
still composure, so like death, and to feel that impassable distance
between the unfettered soul and our own earth-bound spirit,--that
distance which, but for the briefest spaces, is never bridged over in
our whole lives, though they flow quietly side by side through peaceful
days and happy nights.
Though the man had closed his eyes in the knowledge that it was entirely
safe for him to sleep in Graham's presence, his slumber was not an easy
one. He started often and groaned more than once; while his hand
nervously made the movement of striking with a weapon at some unseen
foe. The artist watched him for some minutes.
"I should like to have another day's work on that rascal's torso," he
said at last; "I suppose if I paid him enough he would come to the
tower."
As he spoke he tore a leaf from his notebook, and writing a few lines
upon it placed it in the fellow's nerveless hands, lest he should steal
away before morning. Then he threw himself back and slept again long
and heavily. When he awoke it was broad daylight in the cabin of which
he found himself the sole occupant. At first he wondered if he had
dreamed that his lodging had been shared by a rough companion; but no,
there was the sketch upon the wall of the sleeping figure crouching by
the fireplace. Besides, his visitor had left a trace of his presence.
Near the spot where he had sat lay a handkerchief. The artist
carelessly picked up the square of white linen, somewhat surprised to
find that it was of the finest quality. A red stain on one corner
induced him to examine it more carefully. It was neatly stitched with
an odd pattern which was not unfamiliar to him, and in one corner was an
embroidered monogram of an intricate form. The letters were cunningly
twisted together, and it took him several minutes to distinguish them.
Two L's, an I, a T, an E, an N, and a C, all enclosed in a large M.
Nobody in the world could have so many initials, not even a Spanish
grandee. It must be a name, probably one beginning with M, as that was
the most prominent letter in the _chiffre_. He studied it for an
instant, and suddenly cried aloud that name which had become so dear to
him,--"Millicent!"
What could it mean? Millicent's handkerchief in the possession of that
ruffianly fellow, the dark crimson stain of blood marring its whiteness?
What could have befallen her? He dared not even think of what this
portended; and thrusting it into his breast, he ran to the door and
looked all about him. Silence everywhere; no movement in the copse
before the door; no trace of his late visitor save the broken branch of
a buckeye near which his horse had been tethered.
Graham was a brave man, with nerves at once sensitive and strong; but
the picture which rose before his eyes unmanned him for the moment
completely. He leaned against the door-post quaking with terror, too
much confused to know what next to do. He could not think; he only saw
that villanous face before him in its heavy sleep, that clinching of the
hand, that motion as of stabbing with a knife. In the breast of what
victim had that weapon been buried? At the recollection of what crime
had he groaned aloud?
The neighing of his horse in the thicket near by roused him from the
benumbing horror which had bound him like a trance. He mounted the
fiery animal, and struck him fiercely with his spur. The mustang darted
forward at a breakneck speed, and with flying hoofs carried his rider
over the steep trail which led from the cabin to the house of the San
Rosario Ranch. It was a rude road, sometimes merely indicated by signs
on the trees, at other places worn by the feet of cattle; it led through
dry river-courses and down precipitous planes, through tangled brakes
and over desolate, blackened spaces where fire had passed and blasted
the trees, leaving them dead and gray, with naked branches and bare
roots. No vegetation was here; only black, dry soil. It was a
dangerous journey, none too safe at any time; but neither rider nor
steed hesitated at sharp turns or steep descents; and the pace slackened
not, though the horse foamed at the mouth and the man's face and hands
were cut to bleeding by the low-hanging branches of the thorn-tree.
Twenty-five miles, at the lowest rating, lay between the cabin and the
house. How well Graham knew the way! How often he had passed over it
with Hal and O'Neil!--a jolly trio of sportsmen. The very day before he
had loitered along the same route, taking the whole day to accomplish
the distance, walking sometimes with his horse following him, and never
travelling at a greater speed than an easy trot. How different his
thoughts had been then, when he had fancied that he had found a closer
companionship than that of a loving woman's heart. Now he saw not the
trees nor the wood creatures,--only that one villanous face, with its
freshly bleeding wounds, with its old scar red and ugly.
Five miles accomplished: here is the great oak-tree which the lightning
had struck half a century ago; but twenty miles now lie before him.
Another landmark is passed,--the iron spring, with its red mouth framed
in green ferns, where he had once journeyed to bring _her_ a flask of
the strengthening water. On and on they fly, startling the birds in the
thickets and the foxes in their coverts, racing with the lazy breeze
which puffs slowly along and is soon left behind by the horse's speed.
At the spring on the hillside, where Millicent's hand had checked his
shooting of the deer, the rider draws rein and springs to the ground;
while the gasping horse stands for a brief breathing-space, drawing
long, painful breaths. Graham cools his heated brow in the rocky basin,
and gives his horse a mouthful of the refreshing water. Then they start
away again towards the house where so many happy hours of his life have
been spent; where he first saw Millicent! It is a terrible ride, and
one that the man never will forget to his dying day. The anguish of
doubt and fear, the awful pace at which he rides, which makes every mile
he accomplishes seem like to be the last, will never be forgotten by him
in the quiet after-years. Now but ten miles separate him from the
vine-clad house; quickly are they accomplished; and in a space of time
too short to be credited by those towards whom he rides, he reaches the
high hill which looks down upon the valley. The familiar look of the
surroundings surprises him. A blue feather of smoke curls about the red
chimney; the trees in the orchard, the cattle browsing on the hills,
look just as he has seen them a thousand times before; nothing betokens
any unusual state of affairs within the quiet house. The brave horse
gathers himself together for a last gallop; and the stones of the
hillside fly from his hoofs as man and beast thunder down the rocky path
which loses itself in the wide farm-road at the edge of the orchard.
From this point he commands a view of Millicent's window. He gives a
low groan as he looks up for some sign of life,--the heavy blinds are
tightly closed.
CHAPTER XII.
"Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o' the building."
The breakfast table at the San Rosario Ranch was usually a merry one;
but on the morning after what Hal had called Millicent's "magnetic
exhibition," the usual good spirits were missing. Millicent took her
accustomed place at Deering's side; and Galbraith marked the
extraordinary change which she had suffered since she had bade him
good-night the evening before. Her face had blanched to a whiteness
which made the ebon lines of eyebrows and lashes seem unnatural. Her
mouth was pale and contracted, and her expression of horrified
anticipation reminded him of the look in the eyes of a deer at bay.
What could have come to the girl? he asked himself in dismay; with a
strange consciousness that whatever should befall her of good or evil
from that time forth would have to him an interest beyond all else in
the world. She ate her breakfast mechanically, and answered all that
was said in which she could be supposed to have an interest. She
laughed once, too, at one of Hal's jokes; but the sound was rough and
strained. Mrs. Deering and Barbara, occupied with some household
complication, merely noticed that Millicent seemed tired; and Hal put
her odd look and manner down to the score of her being in love, which in
his eyes accounted for every freak or unexplained symptom of hers.
It had been proposed that the day should be spent out-of-doors, at a
place which Millicent had long wished to visit,--the little island in
the river, below the deserted mill. Galbraith had remained to be of the
party; and his two friends had promised to ride over from the camp and
join them at the appointed place. Just before they started, old John
arrived with a note to Mrs. Deering from Graham, who wrote that he
should not be able to be of the party. Hal and Millicent drove
together, as they had done on that day when Graham, in accordance with
California etiquette, had stopped to kill the rattlesnakes. Old Sphinx
was doing his best to keep up with the mule team, when Millicent's
sensitive ears detected the sound of horses' hoofs behind them.
Presently, through the thick cloud of dust, she descried two horsemen
riding at full gallop towards them. The sunlight and the veil of dust
made it impossible to see what manner of men they were until Millicent
observed that each carried over his shoulder a long object, which
glittered in the sunlight.
"Have you brought your pistols?" she asked.
"Yes, Princess, but they are in the wagon. I expected till the last
moment that Graham would turn up to take you, and that I should drive
the team. Why do you ask? There is no danger of our being molested."
"Look at those men. Are not those gun barrels I see on their
shoulders?"
"Yes; but they are probably peaceful hunters."
The young man spoke in a perfectly careless tone, to reassure his
companion; but Millicent noticed that he occasionally looked behind him