A MESSAGE TO MY LADY

During the journey to Santa Fe, while stopping over at the town of San Juan, where I was treated with the utmost warmth of hospitality, I was able to inform myself as to the prosperous condition of the trader Le Lande, who had married and settled in the vicinity. But my apprehensions as to my reception by the Governor of this remote province prevented me from taking as deep an interest either in that rascal or in the strange customs and appearance of these Mexican people as I should have felt in easier circumstances.

Unlike Agua Caliente and some of the other small settlements we had passed, I found Santa Fe a town widely scattered in the outskirts. Many of the low adobe buildings which made up the bulk of the place stood each in its tiny patch of field, which, early as was the season, the people were beginning to cultivate with their rude ploughs and mattocks. Within these suburbs, however, the houses crowded closer and closer together, until they were for the most part separated only by streets that were no less narrow and crooked than dirty. A more striking difference between this two-century-old settlement and the ones up-country was the presence of the two huge adobe churches which towered among the hovels, all the more imposing for the contrast. Their windows, like those of the better houses, were glazed with sheets of thin, transparent talc.

I was at once taken past the rectangle of the soldiers' barracks to the great open court, or plaza, in the midst of the town, where we came to the house of the Governor. By this time I and my escort were surrounded by a number of mestizos and tame Indians, all of whom, however, drew away when we entered the palace through an open, brick-paved portico, or shed. After the plainness of the exterior, I was astonished by the ornate furnishings of the rooms within, whose limed walls were hung with bright-figured drapes and whose floors of beaten clay were spread with skin rugs.

Little time was given me to wonder at what to my unaccustomed eyes seemed most magnificent decorations. I was quickly shown on into a large apartment, at the upper end of which sat a sallow-faced, corpulent Spanish don. I had no need to look at the secretary and the other attendants grouped about his high chair to realize that I was in the presence of Don Joachin Allencaster. The harshness of his glance as I was led before him was enough of proof; for until now, all whom I had met, even to the most ignorant and dogmatic of the priests, had treated me with the deference of true hospitality.

Not until this moment had I fully realized the wretchedness of my appearance. Though the kindness of the commandant at Agua Caliente had provided me with a bath and a cotton shirt, I still wore my tattered buckskins; upon my head was my old coonskin cap, which had been half singed by a fall in the fire; my limbs and feet were clad in moccasins and leggings of fresh buffalo hide, the raw surface outward; while about my shoulders my unkempt hair fell down in loose and shaggy locks, as barbarous as the eight months' beard upon my lean, starved face.

"Por Dios!" exclaimed His Excellency. Having doubtless been informed in the despatches that I claimed to be a Frenchman, he addressed me in that language: "Sacre! You have come here, the second American in two years, to spy upon my province!"

"Your Excellency," I replied, "I had thought the Commandant of Agua Caliente wrote you regarding the purpose of my visit to New Spain. As to this Pursley, if it is to him you refer as my fellow spy, I had never before so much as heard of the man until told at Agua Caliente. The Commandant can tell you how astonished I was when he informed me of Pursley's exploit in penetrating the wilderness. For my part, I should surmise that he is no more than one of our venturesome fur-hunters. But if you insist upon your suspicions, why not include Baptiste Le Lande with us in a trio of spies?"

Throughout this the Governor had continued to regard me with great austerity. Quite unmoved by my attempt at lightness, he now signed to his secretary, and spoke to me in a most peremptory tone: "Your papers, fellow!"

I drew out the documents relating to the Le Lande claim and handed them over to the secretary. His Excellency demanded their purport, which I gave as clearly and briefly as my French would permit.

"We shall see," he commented, when I ended my account. "Your papers will be examined, and I will send for Le Lande. Meantime you will consider yourself under arrest. You will be given quarters in the rooms assigned for officers in confinement, but you are at liberty within the bounds of the town, if accompanied by your guard."

With this, he appointed a corporal of the regular dragoons to attend upon me both as guard and waiter, and I was promptly led out. During the short delay which followed, I had no cause to complain of my treatment. The corporal proved a most accommodating servant, and my meals were sent to me from His Excellency's own table. In addition, the hospitality of the leading people of Santa Fe was so cordial that I should have enjoyed greatly the two days I had to wait, had it not been for my fears that the Governor might detain me for an indefinite period, or send me eastward out of the province, into the country of the Comanches.

When, therefore, he again called me before him, and stated that he had inquired and found that Le Lande was incapable of discharging the claim presented by me, I declared boldly that I knew this to be a mistake, and that it appeared to me His Excellency was seeking to shelter a refugee debtor of my country, in violation of the treaties between Spain and the United States.

"Look to it, Your Excellency!" I concluded, with all the heat and indignation I could affect. "Look to it! This is no light matter. The man is an outright thief, and the treaty rights of Monsieur Morrison are clear. I insist upon the payment of this claim. If I cannot obtain justice of Your Excellency, I will appeal to the Governor-General."

This last stirred him out of the daze of astonishment into which he had been thrown by the audacity of my heated protest. Governors of Spanish provinces are not accustomed to being bearded by their inferiors in rank, much less by lone foreigners suspected of espionage. But at my mention of his superior, he found his voice.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, and I marked the change in his tone. "Madre de Dios! You would go to Chihuahua?"

"No offence to Your Excellency," I hastened to protest, affecting to believe him alarmed for himself. "It may well be that your authority is so limited that you cannot satisfy my claim. My complaint against your refusal will be purely formal. In truth, I prefer to have the decision of the Governor-General, if only to obtain a precedent in the adjudication of similar claims which may be presented in other provinces under his rule."

"Por Dios! You wish to go to Chihuahua!" he repeated. I believe he would have been less amazed had I urged him to let me go to the gallows. "To Chihuahua! to Salcedo!" he murmured.

"Why not, Your Excellency?" I inquired.

His sallow cheeks darkened with a sudden return of his suspicions, and he sought to transfix me with his glance.

"Caramba!" he muttered. "Tell me clearly how you came across all that vast desert. You came from the northward. Did you then cross the mountains?"

I described briefly that terrible march south and west from the Grand Peak. He listened with growing wonderment.

"Poder de Dios! It is impossible!" he cried. "Malgares has told me of that gigantic peak and the sierra you crossed. It is not possible! The Sangre de Cristo, and in midwinter—afoot!"

"Yet it is true, Your Excellency."

Again his eye sought to pierce me with its suspicious stare.

"Your party?" he demanded. "You have spoken of hunters. Who are they?—and where?"

Having now some of the details of Pursley's adventures to copy, I told a connected tale of having accompanied some Osages from St. Louis to the Pawnee country, in search of the recreant Le Lande, when, learning of his flight to New Mexico, I had wandered westward with a small party of hunters to the Grand Peak and then southwest over the mountains, until we came to what was supposed to be the Red River, where my companions had stopped to hunt.

At the end of my recital, he sat for some moments studying me. Then, with a most disconcerting suddenness: "Señor, you will honor me with your presence at table."

He rose at the words, and leaving all the others gaping, conducted me down a corridor to his dining-room. It was now high noon, and we found the table already spread for the midday meal, which is the principal repast of the day among the Spaniards in Mexico.

A plate was laid for myself opposite His Excellency's, and we sat down in civilized fashion to a meal which would have graced the table of the richest Spanish creole in all Louisiana. There were trout from the neighboring streams, a variety of meats and fowl, good wheaten bread altogether unlike the unappetizing corn tortillas of the commonfolk, chocolate and dulces, fine raisins from the Paso del Norte, and a bottle or two of most excellent wine.

Throughout our repast His Excellency addressed himself to me as one gentleman to another, so that I found myself continually in a stress of excitement between apprehension and hope. Our conversation was for the most part directed to European topics, dwelling much, as must every discussion of transatlantic affairs, upon the career of that most marvellous of men, the Emperor of the French.

But with the wine and the cigarros, His Excellency seemed to recollect for the first time the small but none the less important affairs of our own personal concern.

"I begin to be convinced, señor physician, that you are indeed a man of genteel breeding," he said. "If, however, you will pardon the remark, I have grave doubt whether a Frenchman of your education would commit so many errors in the use of his native language."

I smiled. "Mon Dieu! Your Excellency, we of St. Louis have not the facilities for visiting la belle France possessed by our fellow creoles of New Orleans. It is a century or more since my ancestors came to the New World."

"And you have dwelt much among the Anglo-Americans," he insinuated.

"It is true," I replied with candor. "I obtained my diploma as a physician from the college of Columbia in the city of New York."

He stiffened with a sudden return of austerity. "Señor, I no longer doubt that you are a caballero—a gentleman. I will not press you to confess your ulterior motive in coming into the domains of His Most Catholic Majesty. Yet, if you carry secret documents (I am disinclined to have you searched), I ask you to give me your word whether or not you carry such despatches."

"Your Excellency," I answered, "I give you my word that I do not. The documents I handed over into Your Excellency's keeping were all I brought with me."

"Satanas!" he cried, his face flushing with sudden violent anger. "Such duplicity! Such treachery!"

"If you will be so kind as to explain, señor," I said with unaffected astonishment.

"You hold to it? Carrajo! How then of the packet in your bosom?"

"That?" I exclaimed, at once perceiving the cause of his continued suspicion. Some one had spied upon me and seen the packet. I reached my hand into my hunting-shirt, only to hesitate and draw it out again, empty. It seemed a profanation to expose my treasures to his gaze.

"You pause! You dare not produce the packet! In it lies your condemnation!" he cried.

The folly of my course flashed upon me. Why should I set a mere fanciful sentiment against the lulling of his suspicions? If I did not myself hand over the packet, he would have it taken from me by force.

He started to rise, but I caught the little bundle from my bosom and reached it across the table. Instead of rising, he bent forward, and, with forced deliberation, began to open the folds of the waxed parchment cover. First exposed was the corner of the flag.

"Aha!" he exclaimed, his eyes flashing across at me in fieriest anger. "Explain that, if you can!—a malicious desecration of the flag of His Most Catholic Majesty!"

"Not so!" I flung back at him. "Look what is marked upon it. Those letters were a message to me. I found it within the undisputed boundaries of my country, at the town of the Pawnee Republicans. It was a message to me, and I took it, for it was mine."

"Ah! ah! a message! You confess, señor spy!"

I pointed to the last unwrapped fold. He turned it open, his face keen with exultant expectation. The now powdered leaves of the magnolia bloom puzzled him for the moment. Not so the handkerchief. His eye was instantly caught by the initials in the corner. Without a second glance, he averted his gaze until he had drawn up the edge of the snowy damask cloth over my stained and crumpled treasures.

"Perdone, hermano!" he murmured, with a most apologetic bow. "Be pleased to regain your property."

With that he left the table and stood with his back to me until I had folded up the packet and replaced it within my bosom.

"Your Excellency," I said, "the world has heard much about the chivalrous gallantry of your people. I am now convinced the half has not been told of it!"

"Muchas gracias, señor!" he returned. "You pardon my stupid error? Yours is the act of a true caballero! If the question does not trench upon delicate ground, may I venture an inquiry as to the possible relation of your daring journey—?"

"I have reason to believe that the lady is at Chihuahua, Your Excellency," I explained.

"Ah! ah! now I perceive! Yet what an amor to bring any man across the vast desert!—above all, over the Sangre de Cristo in midwinter!"

"It was the barrier which lay between myself and my lady, Your Excellency."

"Por Dios! You Americanos! You will yet be flying to the moon! Malgares told me fully of the perils of the desert, and he had six hundred men, and it was in the pleasant season. But one man or a mere handful, however brave—Santisima Virgen!"

"Malgares?" I repeated.

"Lieutenant Malgares, who led the expedition to the savages of the East and North. On your way to Chihuahua you will have opportunity to learn that he is a true caballero."

"Chihuahua?" I exclaimed. "Your Excellency will then permit me to go to Chihuahua?"

"Quien sabe?" he smiled. "God alone knows the future! But I will send despatches, and it may well happen that they will not be in disfavor of your going. But as for the decision, that is with His Excellency, Don Nimesio Salcedo, the Commandant-General."

A sudden thought aided me to rally from my disappointment.

"Your Excellency," I asked, "if I should seal and address one article contained in my packet before your eyes, might I not ask the favor that it be delivered at Chihuahua to the lady addressed?"

"Santa Maria!" he returned, "it is always a pleasure to aid a lover. Come now! We will seal your message with my own seal. There are those between us and your Dulcinea who might otherwise peer within the cover. The address you shall write upon it in private with my own quill, and none shall see the name of the señorita. She is not married?" (I signed that she was not.) "None shall see her name except my messenger when he opens the despatch-pouch for delivery at Chihuahua."

"Muchas gracias, Your Excellency!" I murmured, overcome.

"Ah! ah!" he murmured, leaning upon my bony shoulder as we started. "The years pass, but I, too, once had my romance, señor!"

HO FOR CHIHUAHUA!

So it was that for the time being I found myself received into the society of the most powerful official of the North Province with a favor as cloudless and warm as the blue sky above his chief town. Yet, on the other hand, having been requested by His Excellency to prescribe for the dropsy with which he was afflicted, I laid myself open to trouble by giving a treatment different from that previously prescribed by the monk who was his regular physician. The result was soon evident in the poisoning of His Excellency's mind against the heretic.

But in the few hours of practical liberty which intervened, I had the good fortune to meet my fellow-countryman, James Pursley. He proved to be one of our typical gaunt, long-legged Kentuckians, with a bearded face as resolute and formidable as that of our fighting sergeant Meek. Still better proof of his daring character lay in the fact that he had been wandering on the prairies for two years or more before he fell in with the great company of Comanches and Kyoways whose encampment we had found on the headwaters of the Platte, and with whom he had come south to the vicinity of the Spanish settlements. Venturing into Santa Fe, he had been fairly well received by the Spanish, and though forbidden to leave certain bounds, was otherwise free, and doing quite well as a carpenter.

As my attendant corporal knew nothing else than Spanish, Pursley and I were able to talk with the utmost freedom. When, in the midst of the account of his truly remarkable adventures, he told how he had found gold on the upper reaches of the Platte, westerly of the Grand Peak, and how he had refused to divulge the place to the Spaniards because it might lie within the bounds of Louisiana Territory, I became so convinced of his stanch loyalty and patriotism that I confided in him the circumstances of our party.

He was immensely interested, but shook his head over my suggestion that he should attempt to join the expedition. He did not see how this could be of any benefit either to the party or to himself, especially, he explained, as Allencaster had already sent out well-mounted spies to find and report on the party of hunters with whom I claimed companionship. He, Pursley, could not hope to overtake these expert horsemen; while, on the other hand, if caught trying to escape, he would surely be jailed in the terrible calabozo.

In the midst of our argument of the question, I was summoned into the presence of the Governor. He met me with a frown, and showed how closely I had been watched by peremptorily ordering me to hold no further communication with Pursley. My attempt at a French shrug flung him into a passion, in which he decreed my exile to San Fernandez, a tiny village four days south of Santa Fe, there to remain in the charge of Lieutenant Malgares until word should come from Chihuahua.

Finding His Excellency thus once more harshly disposed, I was not altogether reluctant at being banished, more especially as my exile was in the direction I wished to travel. Nor did I regret the change when I came to San Fernandez and made the acquaintance of Lieutenant Don Faciendo Malgares.

He was, I soon learned, the son of one of the royal judges of the Kingdom of New Spain, and immensely wealthy. But neither his birth nor his wealth prevented him from being the most courteous gentleman I have ever met. That he was a daring and dashing officer was evident from his modest account of that remarkable excursion through the heart of the Comanche country and north to the Pawnees.

The question of his expedition chanced to come up within a week after my arrival, and having already gauged his gallant character, I felt free to rally him upon his invasion of our domain.

"Nom de Dieu!" I mocked, as he concluded by telling how his party had returned southward from the Arkansas, along the outer face of the front range of mountains, and into Santa Fe through an easy pass eastward of that town. "Nom de Dieu! you invade territory indisputably ours with a force little short of a regiment; yet when I would repay the compliment,—one lone man, lost in the Western wilds, your righteous Governor has a mind to garrotte me!"

"Not he, señor," replied Malgares. "Rest assured he will leave that to the decision of the Governor-General."

"He will send me to Chihuahua!" I exclaimed.

"I fear as much, señor. There can be little doubt that General Salcedo will order you before him."

"Quien sabe?" I muttered, affecting a doleful tone. My fear had been that I might be sent the other way. A sudden thought brought my hand to my bosom. "Perdone, señor lieutenant, if I seem impertinent, but is it usual for Spanish officers to present savages with banners embroidered by the ladies?"

He stared at me blankly. "Embroidered banners?"

"I chanced to visit that Pawnee town some three weeks after yourself. Examining the flag you left, I observed upon its lower corner—"

"Ah!" he interrupted, "I comprehend. The flag from Señorita Vallois. But I assure you, Señor Robinson, it was the lady's own whim. She requested me to fly her banner at the point where I should make nearest approach to your settlements."

"Ah!" I exclaimed, in turn, masking my delight with difficulty. "So your Spanish señoritas still send out their knights errant bearing their colors."

"True," he replied. "Yet you mistake in part. It was not Señora Malgares who gave me the banner in question, but her friend, Señorita Vallois."

"Vallois?" I repeated;—"Vallois? That is a French name."

"No less is it Spanish, señor; though it is in point that my friend Don Pedro claims descent from French royalty. One can well believe the claim in the presence of his niece."

"My word to that!" I cried. "She's the most beautiful lady under heaven!"

"Santisima Virgen!" he exclaimed. "You know her?"

"I had the honor of meeting her in my own country."

By a flash of intuition he divined all on the instant. "Dios!" he murmured, and he swept me a wide bow. "A love that could draw a man across that vast desolation of desert and sierra! Most unjust the fate that would not requite the deed!"

"You have seen her. Do you wonder that I should have made the venture?"

"Less than a year has passed since I won my own lady," he said. "The Virgin grant that I may be the one to escort you to Chihuahua! I have not seen my señora since I marched north, last year."

When a Spaniard opens his heart to you, count on it you have found a friend. I nodded understandingly.

"Ah, my Dolores! my niña!" he sighed.

"But she is yours; you have already won her; while I—!"

He nodded, in turn. "My Dolores writes that every bachelor of Chihuahua, from the greatest haciendados to the youngest sub-lieutenants, are suitors for the hand of Señorita Alisanda. Yet take heart. At the last writing, not even Medina had won recognition from her."

"Medina?" I inquired, full of jealous inquietude.

"Salcedo's favorite aide-de-camp,—a braggadocio fellow."

"Could you not take it upon yourself to hurry me south at once?" I urged.

"Poder de Dios! I, a soldier, to march without orders? But be assured. The order will come before many weeks. In the meantime we should prepare." He looked me over smilingly. "It will never do for you to come before your lady in this savage costume. Great is my regret that in this remote village we cannot find you garments after the European mode, yet there are worse attires than that of a Spanish country gentleman—a caballero rusticano."

Notwithstanding my protests against imposing upon his generosity, he insisted upon at once conducting me to a man qualified to tailor the Spanish modes. Within the next fortnight I was completely fitted out à la Española from top to toe. But although it was the first time I had ever worn the costume, I cannot say that in the company of similarly attired Spaniards I felt ill at ease in these garments. In part at least they were well adapted to the needs of this hot, arid climate, particularly the broad-brimmed shade-hat, or sombrero. Silk stockings and Spanish breeches, buttoned down the outer seams and open below the knees, took the place of my tattered pantaloons and buffalo leggings. For belt I wore a sash of scarlet silk, with ends dangling like a lady's drape. Above it was a waistcoat as large as the jacket was short, while the circular cloak over all gave me quite the air of an hidalgo. My one difficulty was with the stiff jack-boots upon which jangled my barbarously gaffed spurs. After months of freedom in pliant moccasins, my feet found this hard confinement barely endurable even when I was mounted.

In return for the numberless courtesies of Malgares, I was able to make part payment by practising gratis among the people. It was, at the same time, a most interesting experience to come into intimate contact with the population, from the gachupines, or Spaniards of Old Spain, and the native-born Spaniards, whom we call creoles, to the far more numerous mestizos, or mixed-bloods, and their half-brothers, the pueblo, or tame Indians.

One day I had gone up to see a patient at Atrisco, a little village next below Albuquerque. It was, as I remember, the seventh of March, exactly a month after I had left my comrades at the stockade in the valley. The Commandant, at whose house I was staying, had borrowed for me a Spanish grammar from Father Ambrosio, and I was deep in the verbs, when my host stepped into the room, with a bow and a sonorous introduction: "Perdone, hermano! Present usted Señor el Capitan Mun-go-meri-paike, your compatriot."

I started up, and found myself confronting—Pike!

He stared back at me, half in doubt that it could be I, so vast was the change in my appearance and health.

"John!" he exclaimed. "It cannot be!"

"Yet it is," I replied, aglow with delight.

There could be no mistaking him, if only that he still wore his scarlet fur-lined cap and blanket cloak,—though much of his dress was new, and his face presented far other than the ghastly, emaciated aspect it had worn at our parting.

But as I reached out to clasp his hand, he suddenly recalled our agreement not to recognize one another, and drew back with feigned hauteur. "Who are you, sir? I do not know you."

"'T is of no use, Montgomery!" I cried. "I cannot hide my friendship. I should call out to you though they had the garrotte at my neck. What is more, the secret is out. I have already confessed my connection with the expedition to Lieutenant Malgares, who, though a Spaniard, has proved himself a true friend. I could no longer endure the thought of concealment from him. It has not cost me his friendship; and I am prepared to risk the worst his superiors can inflict upon me."

"No, no, John!" he protested. "We shall all come through safely, and you shall win your lady."

"Ah! Alisanda! My thanks for the good wish. But you?" I demanded. "Are you and the men also prisoners in the hands of that capricious Governor?"

"Prisoners!" he repeated, dropping his hand on his sword-hilt. "Does this look like it? No! They lured us into Santa Fe with false promises. But my men still carry their guns and ammunition. Let the tyrants so much as raise a finger against us, and we will flee to their enemies the Apaches, and lead the savages against their settlements!"

"We could do it!" I cried. "Yet first—"

"First you would go to Chihuahua; and so would I," he assented, his blue eyes twinkling. "I made a loud protest when this over-wise Governor said it was necessary for me to go south. But we are going as 'guests under constraint'—not as prisoners, please note, John. The addle-pated don did not know enough to send us packing the shortest way out of the country, to the Red River,—which, it seems, lies far to the eastward, in the Comanche nation. No! he must needs march us down through the heart of the Northern Provinces. Could we ask more?"

"Not if Salcedo sets you free."

"Sets me free? No less yourself, John!"

I shook my head dubiously. But at the moment there entered a Captain D'Almansa, whom I had met at Santa Fe, and who, I now learned, was conducting down the Lieutenant and his men to place them under the escort of Malgares. When Pike explained to him that I had been a member of the expedition, the old captain smiled knowingly. Few among the Spaniards had doubted my connection with the mad Americanos after the party was brought in.

We left D'Almansa in the house, seated over a bottle of ardent spirits with my host, and went out to where the six privates who had come with the Lieutenant from the stockade were in waiting. I was rejoiced to see that, though still for the most part clad in their tatters, their rounding cheeks showed the welcome effects of Spanish hospitality, and that the ones worst frosted now hardly limped in their gait. Not one of them had been required to walk a mile since leaving the fort, horses having been provided them from the first.

It was no less affecting than amusing to see the manner in which, obedient to orders, they stared at me with an air of stolid indifference even when I came up to them with their Lieutenant. But the moment he had explained that all was discovered, they crowded about me with exclamations of joy. It was truly a happy meeting for us all, despite the uncertainty of what might befall us in the hands of the tyrannical Spanish authorities.

As soon as I had sketched my adventures, Pike, in turn, told theirs.

"For several days after you left," he began, "I spent the time in hunting, reading, and exploring the valley around the fort. But a fortnight ago, while out with Brown, we fell in with a dragoon and an Indian of the militia, who, after telling us of your arrival at Santa Fe, insisted upon following us to the fort. In the morning, after we had made them a few gifts, they started back to Santa Fe, from which place they had been sent out to spy upon us."

"True!" I broke in. "Allencaster must have suspected from the first that my party of hunters was no less than the American expedition. I have learned that Señor Lisa sent word from St. Louis of the expedition's plans, to the Spanish authorities in Texas. All the Northern Provinces have been on the lookout for us for months, and Malgares has told me that the real purpose of his great expedition was either to capture us or to turn us back."

"That I have myself learned," replied Pike. "Well, they have us now. May they have joy of their find! But to return. The same day that the spies left, Jackson and his party came in with Menaugh. But poor Sparks and Dougherty, alas! neither had been able to take a dozen steps, and the others could not bear them through those deep drifts."

"Good God!" I cried. "They left their comrades again, in that terrible valley, famished, crippled, sick! Had I but gone—!"

"No, John, they are not famished, nor are they sick. Jackson found them well nourished. The gangrene had not spread. They will recover. You yourself said they would recover if the disease did not spread in this time. Jackson restocked them with meat, and within three days after his return Meek and Miller volunteered for a second rescue-party. As their orders were to go first for Baroney and Smith and the horses, there can be no doubt that this time our poor lads will be brought in."

"Then they are not at the fort?" I asked.

"I cannot say. They had not yet come in when the Spanish dragoons came to lure us away. But you know the obstinacy and combativeness of Meek. He will bring them in. Yes, by now they must be over the mountains and on their way to Santa Fe, guided by the Spaniards left at the fort for that purpose. Allencaster has promised to send them after us as soon as they can march. By the way, he has complimented you with the return of your rifle and pistols. As I positively refused to be disarmed, the diplomatic supposition is that we need our weapons to provide against attacks of the Apaches."

"Your papers?" I inquired, "all those invaluable charts and journals?"

He gave me a rueful look. "The enemy have them trapped in my little paper trunk, most of them. When we first came into Santa Fe all the more valuable ones were concealed in the clothes of these lads." He shook his head sadly at the six privates. "But the over-hospitable ladies plied them so freely with wine and ardent spirits that I feared some of the papers might be lost during their tipsy antics. So I returned to the trunk all except your copy of my courses. Immediately afterwards the trunk was seized, and is now in the charge of our escort."

"They may be returned," I argued.

He shook his head.

"You say they lured you into Santa Fe?"

"Upon the report of his spies, Allencaster sent out a force of a hundred men, under pretence that the Yutah Indians were about to attack us. They were extremely courteous, and invited me to come into Santa Fe, stating that the Governor wished to know our reasons for entering his territories. When I had expressed our strategic supposition that we were on the Red River, and they had explained that these were the waters of the Rio del Norte, I at once hauled down our flag and agreed to accompany them.

"As with yourself, Allencaster was at first exceedingly haughty to me. But after I had expressed my opinion of their invasion of our territories, and stated that I had come in merely to be directed how to find the Red River, that my party might follow it down to Natchitoches, he mellowed exceedingly. I believe the old fox thought he was playing me a sly trick in thus sending us south through the heart of his country."

"He will be hoist by his own petard!" I cried. "Papers or no papers, Salcedo is bound to free you at least, and you have a fine memory. My fate will not affect the splendid advantages which will accrue to our country from this blunder of the dons."

"Your fate?" he demanded.

"I am now a spy confessed. But enough of that when we reach Chihuahua! Until then we shall have no cause for complaint. We go under the escort of Malgares, than whom there is no truer gentleman under the sky."

Pike shook his head doubtfully.

But the next day I had the great pleasure of introducing him to Malgares, who promptly talked himself into the Lieutenant's good graces, and entertained us that evening by ordering a fandango to be danced in our honor by the prettiest girls of the vicinity.

Of our southward journey, which we began on the ninth of March, I will mention only that the first stage alone carried us some three hundred and fifty miles down the valley of the Rio del Norte, to El Paso. The most prominent features of this trip were a notorious arid desert called the Jornada del Muerto, or Journey of the Dead Man, which we avoided by a long detour, and two ranges of mountains to the eastward of the river,—the glittering, snow-clad Sierra Blanca and the Sierra de los Organos,—in whose fastnesses lurk the murderous Apaches, said by Spaniards to be the most terrible of all Indians.

The second day south of El Paso we had to toil across a region of shifting sand hills similar to those at the west end of our pass through the Sangre de Cristo. The stop that evening was made at the Presidio of Carrazal, where, for the first time since our meetings with Governor Allencaster, we were received without the effusive hospitality to which we had become accustomed. When Malgares introduced us to the Commandant, the latter bowed with utmost coolness, and muttered in Spanish an ungracious statement to the effect that Malgares was welcome to his quarters, but that los hereticos could lodge themselves, together with their privates of infantry, in the common hovel provided for travellers.

Malgares bowed his grandest. "Perdone, señor!" he replied. "I could not bring myself to trouble your hospitality. What is good enough for my friends is good enough for me."

Such was Malgares's stateliness of manner that the Commandant, although his superior officer, was bowing in most apologetic fashion before our friend had ceased speaking.

"Perdone, hermano!" he murmured. "I erred most deplorably in imagining that los señores Americanos came as persons under constraint. Con permiso, I hasten to rectify my error by urging them to honor my humble abode with their presence."

"I fear that the Señor Commandant will have to excuse los Americanos," I said.

"The sky is ever a welcome roof to us," added Pike, no less offended than myself.

"But that is impossible, señores!" urged the Commandant, with growing concern. He turned appealingly to Malgares—"Pray persuade them, Don Faciendo! Should they refuse my hospitality I could never forgive myself!"

"From the first our countrymen have given them the warmest of welcomes," remarked Malgares, his chin still high.

"Por Dios! Do I deny it? Yet consider, I have but now received the gazette from the City of Mexico."

"The gazette?" inquired Malgares, unbending.

"With the account of the terrible Colonel Burr."

"Señor, we will be pleased to accept your hospitality," said Pike.

Immediately there was a general exchange of amicable bows, and the Commandant conducted us to his quarters. I could see that Malgares was hardly less eager than Pike and myself to hear the news about Burr. But diplomacy, no less than etiquette, compelled us to repress our burning curiosity until our host had exemplified his hospitality with a light evening meal. As we rose from the table, he remarked that we might better enjoy our cigarros under the starlight, on the azotea.

"Perdone, amigo," replied Malgares, suavely. "You spoke of the gazette. I would hardly venture to say how old was the last gazette which I saw at Santa Fe."

"Con permiso, señores," said the Commandant, bowing to Pike and myself.

At his command the attendant fetched the gazette, which he took into his own hands and tendered to us, with a polite bow. When we shook our heads over the Spanish text, he waved us back to our seats, and proceeded to translate into French a most extraordinary mess of wild and contradictory rumors regarding Aaron Burr.

The redoubtable Colonel had descended the Ohio with an immense army; he had invaded the Province of Texas; he was marching upon Santa Fe; he had captured New Orleans; he was operating against Pensacola, with a view to the conquest of the Floridas; he had joined forces with the British fleet and had sailed to invest Vera Cruz; he was fighting the Eastern Americanos; no! the atheist Jacobin Jefferson had sent a second army to help him to conquer New Spain. Only the firm stand of the honest and most upright Americano Commander-in-Chief, General Wilkinson, had prevented los hereticos from breaking their sacred pledge by crossing the Sabine River into the disputed territory. Risking the anger of the hypocritical Jefferson, the brave Wilkinson had met the treacherous and ferocious Burr in a terrific battle; had defeated the desperadoes and either slain or captured the would-be conqueror of the domains of His Most Catholic Majesty, King Ferdinand.

So the account ran—a bushel of chaff heaped about a few scant grains of fact. Yet even out of these garbled and fantastic details of an evidently panic-stricken Spanish scribe, we could extract at least an inkling of the truth. There could be no doubt that Colonel Burr had actually embarked upon one or more of his venturesome enterprises, and that there had ensued more or less public agitation, if not an armed conflict.

To my wider knowledge of the Colonel's schemes many things were clear which puzzled and bewildered my friend, and I was not altogether surprised to see by Malgares's look that he understood the situation nearly as well as myself. When, however, at the first opportunity, I sought to obtain an intimation that he had been a sharer in the Mexican end of the great project, he avoided the inquiry with his usual tactful reserve.

For my own part, I concluded that my worst suspicions regarding the treasonable intentions of Colonel Burr were all too true. Evidently relying upon Wilkinson to force hostilities on the Texas border, he had planned to sweep down the Ohio and the Mississippi, with the rallying cry of "War with Spain!" to bring the frontiersmen flocking after him in a vast army. With all the loyal-hearted marching to the conquest of Mexico under Wilkinson and Jackson, it would then have been a simple matter to seize New Orleans, declare a separation of the West from the East, and appeal to the States and Territories west of the Alleghanies to join in creating an empire which should extend westward to the far distant Pacific and south to remote Panama.

That the West was, and for years had been, far too loyal to listen to the traitorous proposal, was not the question. The point was, that, had Wilkinson supported the arch-plotter so far as the seizure of New Orleans, the result would have been a bloody internecine war among our people, with France and England alike gloating upon our dissensions, and waiting, eager-fingered, to tear us asunder at the first opportunity.

So it was that, taking matters at their face value in so far as I could conjecture the facts, I gladly gave General Wilkinson credit for the part he seemed to have played in checkmating the alleged invasion of the lower Mississippi by Burr.

The manner in which our host watched our faces as he read the gazette to us, explained the discourtesy of his first greeting. It was evident that he regarded our expedition as a reconnoitring party sent out by the hated Americanos to explore a road for the expected army of invasion.

For my part, I firmly believe it was in fact so intended by General Wilkinson, who had been known to boast that he could take all New Mexico in a single campaign. But whether or not he had intended to use our discoveries to further the treasonable projects of Burr, I will leave to the verdict of History. At the time, it was enough for me that he had not joined forces with Burr, but, on the contrary, it would seem had averted the possibility of the dashing Colonel's capture of New Orleans.

GLIMPSES OF FATE

The day before our arrival at Chihuahua, when Lieutenant Malgares despatched ahead a courier with letters to his wife's father and General Salcedo, I was suddenly struck with the fact that this First of April, like that other Day of All Fools out of Philadelphia, was bringing me to the señorita high in hopes yet none the less uncertain. Then I had chilled with the dread that my journey's end would find her dear presence vanished beyond my reach; now I suffered the far more poignant fear that I might find her heart lost to another.

With such a thought lying like a torpid snake upon my breast, it is not strange that I slept ill that night. But I was astir in the morning no earlier than Malgares, who betrayed the liveliest apprehension over his coming interview with the Commandant-General. It was the first time that he had been permitted to come south to the seat of government since leaving it for his daring expedition into our territories, nearly a year past. Pike and I were astonished to find that he was not beaming with expectation of the rewards his gallant exploit deserved. Instead he rode along between us in silence, his fine Castilian face creased with lines of anxiety, almost of dread.

We were now passing over the last few miles of the vast mountain-encircled plain which surrounds the city of Chihuahua and upon which, as well as similar vast ranges in this Province of Nuevo Viscaya, los haciendados pasture herds of thousands and tens of thousands of cattle. Only in the most favored spots was the dreary landscape broken by trees, most of them the acacia-like mesquite, which here grows to a height of thirty or forty feet. There was little cultivation of the soil in this region, whose inhabitants depend upon cattle and the rich silver mines for their subsistence. A far from pleasant proof of this fact was to be seen in the great number of smoking ore furnaces and the enormous extent of the cinder heaps all about the city.

From the time we swung into our high-pommelled, high-cantled saddles, my gaze was fixed through the smoke haze of the furnaces upon the lofty towers of the Parroquia—the magnificent parish church of Chihuahua—and the older and lower structure of the Jesuit Church of the Campañia. Noticing my intentness, even in his distraction, Malgares courteously told the story of how the Parroquia had been paid for by a contribution from the silver produced by the great Santa Eulalia mine, in all something over a million dollars, estimated in our money.

Aside from the Parroquia and a few other imposing stone edifices, such as the royal treasury, the hospital, the military academy, and the three or four lesser churches, the city of Chihuahua proved to be interesting but not magnificent. A few of the private buildings were of stone and of more than one story, but the greater part of the city was built of the ubiquitous unbaked mud brick.

Passing within sight of the huge arches of the great aqueduct, or waterway, which bends around from the south to the east side of the city, we at last found ourselves in the neat, close outskirts of Chihuahua. Our course carried us toward the plaza through the better streets, and it was evident from the number of ladies who crowded out into their balconies to see us pass that the news of our coming had been announced.

That Malgares was well and favorably known among these bright-eyed señoras and señoritas soon became apparent as we swept along at the head of our clattering, swashbuckling dragoons. Fans were waved, rebozas and mantillas fluttered, and greetings called. Despite the anxiety which damped his spirit, our companion responded with the most gallant of bows and compliments.

In the midst, a gay young señorita, more daring than her sisters, cried out: "Viva, los Americanos!"

Our response, I trust, was as gallant in spirit if not in effect as the bows of Malgares. I qualify because Pike had to endure the mortification of riding beneath the gaze of all those sparkling eyes in a costume better fitting a backwoods farmer than a military gentleman. He was still in his scarlet cap and blanket cloak. Yet, encouraged by our acknowledgment of the first greeting, others of the ladies caught up the cry, until we found ourselves being welcomed no less warmly and frequently than Malgares himself.

This should have been fair enough augury to reassure the most despondent of travellers. But as we jingled past house after house, I found myself, between bows, scanning the gay groups on the balconies with a sinking heart. We were nearing the plaza. I could see the trees between the blank, bare walls of the dwellings which flanked the narrow street. In a little more we should pass the last of the balconies,—and I had seen no sign of my lady.

We neared the last balcony. Upon it were only three ladies, one of whom held back behind the others, so much of her head and shoulders as showed being muffled in a silk reboza, the Mexican head-drape or shawl. The other two leaned eagerly forward over the balustrade, and the younger, a plump beauty with the blackest and most brilliant of eyes, flashed at Malgares a look that told me she was his wife, even before he called to her in terms of extravagant endearment. Unlike so many of the Spanish marriages, his had been a love match.

The señora and her yet plumper companion at the rail called down a welcome to los Americanos. Pike and I swept off our hats and bowed our handsomest. I straightened and looked up. Malgares had not checked his horse for an instant, so that we were now opposite the balcony, and I, being on the right, was almost directly beneath it. My heart gave a great leap. Smiling down upon me, over the rail, I saw the lovely face of my lady. I started to cry out her name: "Al—"

But already her finger was on her scarlet lips. I checked myself so quickly that my exclamation sounded more like an "Ah!"

My lady let fall her reboza over her face and drew back out of view. When at last I gave over craning my head about, Malgares met me with a smile. "So you have discovered her already, Don Juan!" he remarked in French.

"My señorita!" I murmured. "She is the loveliest lady in the world!"

"The most beautiful—that is true, but I cannot admit that she is the loveliest," he returned, with the loyalty of a true gentleman.

"I trust soon to repeat that last to your señora!" I exclaimed. "She was the one to whom you called."

He bowed in confirmation of my surmise. "It is the house of Señor Vallois. That other was Señora Marguerite Vallois, his wife. The house of my wife's father is on the cross-street. She came to the house of her friends to see me pass, for she knew I could not turn out of my direct way to the palacio."

"What! Not a few moments to greet your lady after an absence of almost a year?" I cried.

"This is not a free republic as is your country. Our ruler—" He checked himself, and looked from me to Pike with an anxious glance. "Friends, I have not darkened your journey with sombre anticipations. But now is the time for warning. Do not be surprised if a few hours hence you find yourselves in the calabozo."

"No!" said Pike, without raising his voice, but speaking in a tone of indomitable resolution. "Your people may kill us, Don Faciendo, but they shall neither disarm nor imprison us so long as there is breath left in our bodies. My men have their orders."

Malgares shook his head sadly. "You free-born Americanos! You do not yet know what it means to stand before a despot!" He glanced back over his shoulder as if fearful of being overheard. The nearest of the escort was beyond earshot. He drew in a deep breath, and murmured bitterly: "You see what it means. I am not accounted a coward, yet I turn cold at the very thought of the man who can dishonor me."

"Dishonor!" I repeated.

"Death is a little thing! But who does not fear a life—or death—of disgrace?"

Our looks assured him of our sympathy. We came into the alamo, or shaded ride, through the plaza. He pointed across at the fort-like mass of the Governor's residence. "There lies the fate of all the Northern Provinces, from the borders of Louisiana Territory to the Pacific, in the grasp of one man!"

"You have an appeal to His Catholic Majesty," remarked Pike.

Malgares shrugged his shoulders in the manner of a Frenchman, a gesture of which we would have considered his haughty pride incapable. "It is a long journey to Old Spain to one who would oppose the Commandant-General, and a far longer journey through the Court to the Hall of Justice. No, amigos. Be advised. Discretion is sometimes the better part of valor. Diplomacy wins many victories beyond reach of the sword."

"You have our thanks, Don Faciendo," replied my friend, soberly. "I shall not forget that I am here as an officer of the Army of the Republic. My first and only concern is the interests of my country, and I will use all means to conserve those interests."

We were by now approaching the great arched gateway which gaped in the centre of the palacio's stuccoed façade. The guard turned out with a smartness which I could see impressed Pike not a little. There was a moment's halt, and then we all clattered through the tunnel-like archway into the brick-paved court enclosed by the building.

This was not the first patio we had entered, but it was by far the largest. Here and there the court was ornamented with small trees and potted shrubs, some already in flower. A line of them screened off in the rear the view of the kitchens and stables. All around this court ran the arched entrances of the building's inner tiers of rooms, the gallery of the upper story being reached with outside stairways in opposite corners.

As the audience chamber was on the lower floor, we were ushered with Malgares into the hall of the guards by one of the aides-de-camp, a heavy-set, dark-browed Andalusian whom Malgares introduced as Lieutenant Don Jesus Maria de Gonzales y Medina. Our six privates were left outside in the care of the dragoons of the escort, with whom they had long since come to the best of terms.

Word had at once been taken in to the Captain-General that we were awaiting his pleasure. Presently an aide appeared and bowed to Malgares. This left Pike and me seated alone on a stone bench, under the eyes of the guard and of a rabble of house and stable servants, who had pressed in to gape at those strange creatures, los Anglo-Americanos. It was no easy test for my temper to bear, nor, I judge, for Pike's. Added to this, we were by now fairly on needles and pins as to the manner in which this despotic ruler should choose to receive us.

Lieutenant Medina had withdrawn. In his place appeared a ferret-eyed little Frenchman, who snuffled complaints of how he had been abused in this vile land, and sought to draw from us expressions of opinion regarding the Spanish Government. Suspecting him to be a spy, Pike pointed to the outer door, and gave him his congé in Spanish: "Vaya, carrejo!"

The scoundrel went, followed by a muffled yet none the less hearty laugh over his discomfiture from the rough, honest soldiers. After a time Medina returned with a sandy, pale-eyed but well-built young officer whom he introduced as Alferez Don Juan Pedro Walker. The newcomer hastened to explain, in English, that he was the same John Peter Walker of New Orleans who in 1798 aided Mr. Ellicott in surveying the Florida line.

At this moment Malgares appeared in the doorway of the audience chamber, and requested Pike to enter. I started to follow, but he waved me back, with an anxious frown. This boded ill for us. To conceal my concern, I expressed to Walker my surprise that an American should have entered the service of Spain. He answered quickly that he was not my countryman, since his father was English and his mother French, and he had been born and reared in New Orleans under Spanish rule.

While he was explaining this, in rather an apologetic tone, Medina was called away. There followed a summons to Walker to attend upon the Governor-General, and I found myself left quite alone in the midst of the gaping, muttering rabble. This was no throng of simple, hospitable rustics such as I had met and liked in the North Province; but a stable and kitchen mob, the low scullions and hostlers and lackeys of a great man, puffed with reflected pride and saucy with second-hand arrogance.

Soon I began to overhear jeers and scurrilous flings, of which the word "spy" was the least galling. Before long all my apprehensions as to the Governor-General were drowned in the swelling tide of my indignation and anger. It was unendurable to sit for what seemed an endless time before the insolent leers and coarse raillery of this scum. The soldiers looked on, without attempting either to join in their scoffs or to silence them.

At last, when I was about to seize the foremost two of the rascals by the scruff of the neck and crack their heads together, the aide-de-camp Medina sauntered back from out in the court. I cried to him sharply in Spanish: "Señor lieutenant! do you not know whether it is time to take me in?"

Such at least was what I intended to say. But, in my heat, I must have slipped on my Spanish verb. The aide, mistaking me to mean that I had been summoned before the Governor-General, immediately ushered me into the audience chamber.

My first glance gave me a general impression of a large apartment, severe in its furnishings; the second took in a table at which sat Pike and Walker and two or three others, all engaged in sorting books and papers which I ruefully recognized as the charts and journals of our expedition.

The sight of Malgares, staring at me in open consternation, caused me to fix my gaze upon the gray-headed, irascible little man at the head of the table. We had expected a great show of regalia and the other trumpery of court display about the Commandant-General. Of this there was no sign to be seen anywhere in the room. Yet the bearing of the man at the head of the table and the attitude of all others present in facing him, told me that this was none less than His Excellency, Don Nimesio Salcedo, the despotic ruler of provinces greater in total extent than the United States and all their possessions other than Louisiana Territory. Yet by now I was so goaded to indignant anger that I held my head high and met his stern glance with the curtest of bows.

"Caramba!" he swore, turning to Malgares. "Whom have we here?"

"Señor Juan Robinson, Your Excellency," explained Malgares—"that most excellent physician of whom I spoke, the surgeon attached to the expedition of Lieutenant Don Montgomery Pike."

It was only a fair example of Malgares's noble courtesy and friendliness to seek thus to mollify in my favor the man whose single word could send me to the garrotte as a spy. I thanked him with a look.

Salcedo flashed a fiery glance at the luckless Medina. "Why do you bring him in—imbecil? Let him retire."

I turned on my heel, too heated now to care, whatever the tyrant might have in mind to do. But the moment the door closed behind me, I found Lieutenant Medina at my elbow, and he was as angry as myself.

"Satanas!" he hissed, his little beady eyes snapping with fury. "I have lost standing with His Excellency by this frightful blunder. Explain! You told me I was to conduct you in! Explain!"

"Na-da!" I drawled. "I did not tell you."

"You said it!" he insisted.

I gave him the Spanish equivalent for our adage not to cry over spilt milk, adding that I preferred his room to his company. At this he went off fairly boiling with rage, fearful, I take it, that if he stayed he would explode, and so draw upon himself the wrath of his lord and master. As by this time the rabble had dispersed, I was left to my own bitter reflections.

Surely if Salcedo had not scrupled to seize the records of the expedition, he would not scruple to treat me as an outright spy. The best I could forecast from that meant an indefinite confinement in the terrible Spanish calabozo, compared with which the worst of our filthy flea-and-fever-infested seaboard gaols is a palace of comfort. Yet the thought of Alisanda spurred me to wild resolve. Let them fling me into their dungeons. I would break through their bars and stone walls. I had not crossed the Barrier to be daunted now. Nothing should keep me from her!

In the midst of my angry scheming, the door opened to permit the exit of Walker, Pike, and Malgares. Walker bowed, and addressed me in French, out of courtesy to Malgares: "If you please, Dr. Robinson, the General has expressed his wish that yourself and Lieutenant Pike should honor me by becoming my guests while you are in Chihuahua. We go now to permit yourself and Lieutenant Pike to arrange your dress before returning to dine with His Excellency."

This was decidedly different from being invited to descend into a dungeon. I bowed my acknowledgments.

Malgares held out a hearty hand to Pike and myself.

"God with you!" he exclaimed. "Pardon my haste. But I will see you again at dinner. Now I fly to my Dolores!"

"Vaya usted con Dios!" we replied, waving him not to linger.

It would have been cruel to delay his departure an instant, seeing that he had been separated from his señora for the greater part of a year. I saw Pike heave a sigh, and knew he was thinking of the beloved wife and children whom he had not seen for so many months, and might not see for many other weary months to come, possibly never.

My own thoughts, however, turned back to Alisanda. As Walker conducted us across the plaza to the house where, in company with other young bachelor officers, he had his quarters, a question or two set him to gossiping upon the ladies, and, inevitably, to singing the praises of Señorita Vallois. That was music to which I could have listened unwearying for hours.

But time pressed. Walker insisted upon loaning both of us neckcloths, and Pike various other articles of dress suitable to the occasion. He would have been as insistent upon sharing his wardrobe with myself had not my size prevented. I had to content myself with the neckcloth and a pair of silk stockings which I had in my saddlebags. In our prinking we enjoyed the officious services of Walker's quaint old negro servant Cæsar, who had been taken in Texas with other members of Captain Nolan's party, and was said by Walker to be the only man of his race in all this region.

Washed and dressed, we returned to the palacio still escorted by Walker, who had seen to it that we should not for an instant find opportunity to speak a word in private. Arriving at our destination, we found Malgares there before us, his fine eyes still beaming from the meeting with his loving señora.

This time we were shown in without delay to the sala, or salon, where Salcedo received us with a formal bow, and then directed his attentions to Pike and Malgares with an urbanity which belied the gash-like crease between his shaggy gray brows. I was introduced to Señor Trujillo, the treasurer, who, however, paired off with Walker. This left me to go into table with the portly padre Father Rocus, who was the only other member of the party. Our seats proved to be at the far end of the longish board, and as the padre at once contrived to divert and hold my attention, I heard and saw little of what took place among the others.

Unlike the native-born priests I had met in the north, Father Rocus was a man of profound learning and ability. Without allowing the conversation to interfere in the least with his enjoyment of our elegant French-cooked repast and the very superior wines, he quickly sounded the none too profound depths of my learning in the sciences. He then touched adroitly upon politics and religion. The thought flashed upon me that he was seeking to lead me into some snare, yet I stated my convictions candidly. If Salcedo wished to condemn me, he would condemn me, and that was all there was in it.

At the end Father Rocus sat for some moments sipping his wine, holding the glass as daintily and caressingly between his plump white fingers as I would have held my lady's hand. He set it down to be refilled by the assiduous lackey at his elbow, and addressed me in English: "Republican, heretic, and Anglo-American—it is unfortunate. None are popular in the domains of His Most Catholic Majesty."

"I did not come here to curry favor with your people, padre," I replied.

"Not with all, perhaps, but—" Again he raised his glass and sipped for several moments. Yet I observed that his half-shut eyes were fixed upon me in a penetrating gaze. "You are acquainted in Chihuahua?" he remarked, in a tone as much of statement as inquiry.

"Lieutenant Malgares has honored us with his friendship."

"Are there not others?" he queried.

"If so, I am not at liberty to mention their names," I said.

"Good!" he commented. "Discretion is the one quality in which I thought you lacking. I now feel justified in returning to you an article which I have reason to believe is your property."

"An article—my property?" I repeated, not a little puzzled.

He smiled, and, unobserved by the attendants, handed me my lady's handkerchief. I gazed at it, first astounded, then dismayed. It was all too clear that my message had been intercepted, probably by Don Pedro, and intrusted to this priest, to be returned as a courteous hint that my suit for the niece's hand was not acceptable. But as, greatly downcast, I thrust the handkerchief into my bosom, the padre raised his brows, and spoke in evident surprise: "You do not appear pleased, señor doctor. From what she said, I was led to infer—"

"What she said?" I broke in. "She? You mean—"

"A certain señorita who voyaged down a long river in company with her uncle and a certain gallant young heretic," he answered over his glass.

"She—my Alisanda! Then it is from her you bring the kerchief! You are our friend!"

"I am her confessor, and, I trust, her best friend," he replied. "As for yourself, God grant I may also become your friend and confessor."

"Friend—yes!" I assented eagerly.

"And confessor!" he urged. "Remember, you are now in the Kingdom of New Spain. It is in point to remark that a heretic was burned at the city of Mexico within the last three years."

My head sank forward in gloomy meditation. I had crossed the Barrier, it is true; but now I saw yawning before me the abyss of the Gulf.