Over the Border Part 7

"It wouldn't be unnatural, she being raised here an' not knowing much else." Bull's gloom was here pierced by a flash of thought. "I'll bet you that's what her father dreaded when he said for Benson to try an'

get her up to the States. I wish the man was here so's I could tell him afore we left."

"Tol' her yet?" Sliver asked.

Bull nodded. "Las' night. Said she hadn't given any thought, yet, to the future."

The two girls were now coming back from the gate. At first they made to go down the opposite _portales_. Then Lee paused, gently disengaging her arm from the other girl's waist, and came walking on alone.

They rose and though she was, as before said, tall for a girl and well formed, she appeared childlike by comparison with their crude bulk. They felt it, and it drove in more keenly the sense of her loneliness.

"Oh, sh.o.r.e!" with his customary impulsiveness, Sliver cut off her attempts to thank them for their kindness. "We hain't done nothing worth while."

"Sliver's right." Jake's bleak eyes had grown almost soft. "You don't owe us anything. All that's bothering us is-"

"-that we kain't jest see how you're going to manage," Bull finished.

"Your father's idea-" He stopped.

Her smooth white brow had drawn up into a thoughtful little frown. "It isn't practicable. Valles would never permit us to drive horses across the border. We have asked him once before. And if he would-" Her sweeping hand took in the sunlit _patio_, the brown _criadas_ soft-footing it along the _corredor_; the compound ablaze with barbaric color; the _peonas_ gossiping in the shade at the well; all of that medieval life that wraps Mexico in the suns.h.i.+ne of the past. "And if he would-I could never be happy in the United States. I was brought up to this. I'm part of it, and it of me," she concluded, with a firm little nod. "I shall carry on my father's work."

The Three looked at one another. Bull's troubled look, Jake's dubious brows, Sliver's cough, all expressed their common doubt. "Can you do it, Miss, alone?"

"I sha'n't be altogether alone. Mr. Lovell and Mr. Benson will be here to advise, and I shall hire an American foreman. If you-" she paused, looking them over with sudden interest, then shook her head. "Of course, that's absurd! You have your own business. But perhaps you might know some one?"

The Three looked at one another again, the same thought in the mind of each. Well they knew how close they were to the end of their rope. As in a cinematograph they saw Don Manuel, insolent and threatening; the American border tightly closed; the _fusilado_ against a 'dobe wall that would surely end their Mexican operations. Black as a thundercloud that dark prospect stood out against the sunlit peace of the past week. Yet, to do them justice, the girl's helpless situation affected them most. If they paused, it was with the natural hesitation of men surveying a new path.

Jake spoke first. "To tell the truth, Miss, we ain't exactly what you'd call rushed with business."

"Like all of us-upset by the revolutions." She jumped to the natural conclusion, "Were you-mining?"

A picture of the lair on the bench of the abandoned mine flashed before all Three. Not without truth was Bull's statement, "We ain't worked it much, of late."

"Peones all gone to the wars, I suppose?"

A sudden memory of Rosa's desertion permitted Sliver to say, "The las'

we had left jest t'other day."

Her pretty face brightened. "Then you mean to say that you are free for the present?"

That was exactly what they had!

She went on, slowly: "I'll have to be frank. We own about a hundred and sixty or seventy thousand acres of land. But we haven't been permitted to sell any stock for two years, so have no ready cash. I don't know, even, whether I could pay a regular wage. But if you would take what I can sc.r.a.pe up and wait for the remainder till things quieten-"

"Don't you be bothering about that, Miss," Bull broke in. "We'll stay, an' when it comes that you don't need us any longer-"

"-we ain't a-going to bust you with no claims for high wages," Sliver concluded. "To tell you the truth, Miss, I'd be willing to work for my board jest to feel at loose on a range ag'in."

His enthusiasm brought her smile, and though it was but a wintry effort, it still added warmth to her words. "Then-now you are _my_ men."

The accent on the "my" unconsciously expressed the deepest lack of her bereavement, the sudden check to the natural feminine instinct to own and care for a man. The isolation of herself and her father amid an alien brown people had undoubtedly tended to develop it in her to the fullest. Though Carleton had grumbled, man-like, at her pretty tyrannies in manners and modes, s.h.i.+rts and socks, he had, surrept.i.tiously, hugely enjoyed it. Now, the stronger for her sorrow, that dominant trait broke loose on the devoted heads of the Three.

"_My_ men!" It sealed their adoption.

"Phyllis, come here!" She was eying them with that microscopic feminine scrutiny that detects the minutest personal defect. Her gesture of despair when the other girl came up was so lovingly insulting it could not have been outdone by the best of mothers. "They are going to work for me, so we'll have to care for them. Do you suppose we can _ever_ get them to rights?"

Phyllis wasn't quite sure, but as her interest while real was more casual, she held out hope. "They'll look better, dear, after they're washed and mended."

That was too mild for Lee. Nothing but revolution, drastic and complete, would satiate that hungry instinct. "No, they'll have to have new things. The store is run down badly, but it will supply their present needs."

With something of the air of convicts arraigned before a stern judge the Three listened to certain other frank comments upon their appearance. As laid down, their reconstruction included shaves for Sliver and Jake, a beard-trim for Bull, hair-cuts for all three. To this they meekly agreed; took their new things with sheepish thanks when they were brought from the store; endured all with resignation, if not cheerfulness, up to the moment that she tried to quarter them in the house. Then the last shreds of masculine independence a.s.serted themselves. They made a stand.

"If it's all the same, Miss," Jake pleaded, "we'd sooner bunk down in one of those empty adobes."

Sliver supported the rebellion. "You see, Miss, we're that rough an' not used to ladies' society-"

"An' we smoke something dreadful," Bull added his bit. "You really couldn't stan'-"

"Oh, I wouldn't mind it a bit. I love tobacco smoke. It's half of Mexico."

Deprived of their last weapon, the Three could only stand and fidget till Phyllis came to the rescue. Her interest, as aforesaid, being founded merely on the general principles of loyalty to her s.e.x, she could afford to be generous.

"They'll want to play cards and generally carry on," she whispered. "Men always do. Let them sleep in the adobe and take their meals with you at the house."

A compromise thus effected, Lee marched the Three to their new abode.

But this was not the end. Just as they were about to settle therein she turned loose upon them a veritable hornets' nest of brown _criadas_. All afternoon they found themselves encircled, as it were, by clouds of flying skirts, and when the flutter subsided the adobe stood scrubbed and dusted and furnished with _catres_, bed-clothing, wash-stands, chairs, and a table for the "cards and general carrying on." When the invasion, brown and white, finally withdrew, and the suggested changes in apparel and personal appearance were duly consummated, they were left gazing with something of awe and a great deal of wonder at their reconstructed selves.

"You look almost human," Jake gave his opinion of Bull. "A touch with a powder-puff an' I allow you might mash one o' them criadas."

Catching himself up short, Sliver walked to the door to expectorate.

"It's dreadfully clean in here," he remarked, coming back. "But I reckon we'll sorter get used to it. Now if we on'y had a bottle o' aguardiente to hold a bit of a house-warming, it 'u'd-"

Bull looked at him with sudden sternness. "Look here! We've got the care of a young girl on our han's. There's going to be no boozing-at least on the premises. When you feel you kain't stan' it any longer, light out somewheres an' get it over."

"That's right," Jake lent support to the moralities. "Though it sorter looks to me like she'd adopted us."

As a matter of fact, the girls' talk, walking back to the house, quite favored the latter theory. While overseeing the housecleaning Lee had obtained temporary surcease from her grief. She laughed softly at Phyllis's remark, "Aren't they big and crude and funny?"

"Helpless and clumsy as children. But just wait till I've had them a month."

"Won't it be a little difficult? They're grown up; can't be treated like babies."

"Not a bit." Lee laughed softly again. "If one of them misbehaves, I shall quietly draw the attention of another to it. Mr. Jake will correct Mr. Bull; and Mr. Sliver, Mr. Jake. If they were girls they'd see through it at once. Being men, they'll feel quite perked up."

Why they should have thought it so funny is hard to say. Perhaps their merriment proceeded from that obscure source whence issues the disappointment of a woman after she has molded masculine clay in her own likeness, and wishes it back in all of its crudity again. In any case, as they looked forward to that most delightful of feminine visions, a crude man-animal, tamed and parlor broke, they laughed again.

VIII: "THE LEOPARD'S SPOTS"