Читать книгу Rancho Del Muerto, and Other Stories of Adventure by Various Authors, from "Outing" - Charles King - Страница 8

“Oh, senor,” she cried, even when bowing her blushing face upon her bared arm, “this is madness! Put it out!” Then, like a frightened deer, she went bounding to the ranch, but not before he had recognized in her the pretty Mexican girl with whom he had thrice danced at the festa at Tucson and whose name he had vainly sought to learn. Nor did he again see her on this visit. Nor did he hear again her voice. Returning with his men at dawn, he began the day's investigations and had occasion to ask many questions of old Pedro, who promptly answered that he well remembered the sergeant and that the sergeant had drunk at his bar; had partaken of his cheer; had stabled his horse at the corral; but that, after gambling with “los otros,” men of whom he, Pedro, knew naught, the sergeant had gone on his way. More he could not tell. He shrugged his shoulders and protested his ignorance even of the names of the men with whom Dinsmore had gambled.

“You enter my house, Senor Teniente. You ask for food, for drink. You pay. You go. Ask I you your name—your home? No! Should I demand it of any caballero who so come and go?”

And failing in extracting information from the master, Adriance sought the hirelings and found them equally reticent. Shrewd frontiersmen and campaigners in his little detachment were equally unsuccessful until nearly night, when a brace of prospectors rode in and said they saw what looked to be a human body over on a sand bar down the Gila. Then Pedro's face had turned ashen gray, and one of his henchmen trembled violently.

Poor Dinsmore was given such soldier burial as his comrades could devise, and Pedro, of his own accord, and with much reverential gravity of mien, had graced the ceremony with his presence.

Every man of the cavalry detachment felt morally certain that Pedro Ruiz knew far more than he would tell, but there was no way in which they could proceed farther, and civil process was ineffectual in those days except in the court of final jurisdiction of which Judge Lynch was sole presiding officer.

Adriance rode away with a distinct sense of discomfiture at heart. What business had he to feel baffled and chagrined at his failure to see that girl again when the original object of his mission had been the discovery of Dinsmore's fate? What right had he to wish to speak with the daughter of the man whom he believed an accessory to the sergeant's murder? “Do not let them know you have seen me” she had whispered ere she scurried away to the ranch, and as neither mother nor daughter once appeared during the presence of his escort about the corral, there seemed no way in which he could open the subject.

Six months passed, during which period he had been sent to Tucson on escort duty, and while there had sought and found some well-to-do Mexican residents whom he remembered as being friends of the graceful girl who had danced so delightfully with him at the baile only the year before. From them he learned her name, Isabel, and something of her history. And the very next scout down the Gila found him in command and eager to go, and this very night, black and forbidding, that had settled down on Rancho Ruiz after the arrival of Paymaster Sherrick and his train, who should come riding noiselessly through the gloaming but Lieutenant Adriance himself, as before, all alone.

Nearing the lights of the rancho and moving at slow and cautious walk, his ears alert for every sound, the lieutenant became aware of the fact that Roderick, his pet horse, was pricking up his own ears and showing vast interest in some mysterious and unseen presence which they were steadily approaching. Before he had got within two hundred yards of the dim light of the house he caught sight of a lantern or two flitting about the corral. Then Roderick quickened his nimble walk and began edging off to the right front, where presently, against the low western sky, Adriance could distinguish some object like a big covered wagon, and plainly heard the pawing and snorting of a horse. Roderick evidently wanted to answer, but the lieutenant reined him abruptly to the left, and veered away southward.

Just now it was not the society of his fellow men he sought. A woman's voice, one woman's at least, would have called him eagerly forward from the darkness into the light of her waiting eyes. As it was, he made wide circuit, and not until well to the south did he again approach the silent walls of the corral. And now the wind, blowing toward him, brought with it the sound of voices, and Adriance was suddenly warned that someone was here, close at hand. Dismounting, the lieutenant slowly led his horse toward the dark barrier before him, but not until he had softly traversed the length of the southern wall did he become aware of other voices, low toned and eager. Around the corner, on the western side, the dark forms of a horseman and someone afoot were dimly defined, then a brief conversation became audible: