Chapter IV
In Desert Valley
The world is an abiding-place of glory. He who cannot see it dyed andsteeped in colourful hues owes it to his own happiness to gird up hisloins and move on into another of the splendid chambers of the vasthouse God has given us; if the daily view before him no longer offersdelight, it is merely and simply because his eyes have grown accustomedto what lies just before them and are wearied with it. For, after all,one but requires a complete change of environment to quicken eye andinterest, to fill again the world with colour. Thus, put the man ofthe sea in the heart of the mountains and he stares about him at athousand little things which pass unnoted under the calm eyes of themountaineer. Or take up the dweller of the heights and set him aboarda wind-jammer bucking around the Horn and he will marvel at a sailor'ssong or the wide arc of a dizzy mast. So Helen Longstreet now, liftedfrom a college city of the East and set down upon the level floor ofthe West; so, in the less nervous way of greater years, her father.
The three were full two hours in walking from the base of the hills toHoward's ranch headquarters. Continuously the girl found freshinterests leaping into her quick consciousness. They waded knee-deepin lush grass of a meadow into which Howard had brought water from thehills; among the grass were strange flowers, red and yellow and blue,rising on tall stalks to lift their heads to the golden sun. From thegrass rose birds, startled by their approach, one whirring awayvoicelessly from a hidden nest, another, a yellow and black-throatedlark, singing joyously. They crossed the meadow and came up theswelling slope of a gentle hill; upon its flatfish top were oaks; inthe shade of the oaks three black-and-white cows looked with mild,approving eyes upon their three tiny black-and-white calves. With thepictured memory unfading, Helen's eyes were momentarily held by aneagle balancing against the sky; the great bird, as though he wereconscious that he held briefly centre stage, folded his wings anddropped like a falling stone; a ground squirrel shrilled its terrorthrough the still afternoon and went racing with jerking tail towardsafety; the great bird saw the frantic animal scuttle down a hole andunfolded its wings; again it balanced briefly, close to the ground;then in a wide spiral reascended the sky.
Came then wide fields with cattle browsing and drowsing; it was thefirst time Helen had harkened to a bellowing bull, the first time shehad seen one of his breed with bent head pawing up grass and earth andflinging them over the straight line of his perfect back; she sensedhis lusty challenge and listened breathlessly to the answering trumpetcall from a distant, hidden corral. She saw a herd of young horses,twenty of them perhaps, racing wildly with flying manes and tails andflaring nostrils; a strangely garbed man on horseback raced after them,shot by them, heading them off, a wide loop of rope hissing above hishead. She saw the rope leap out, seeming to the last alive and endowedwith the will of the horseman; she heard the man laugh softly as thenoose tightened about the slender neck of one of the fleeing horses.
'That's Gaucho,' said Howard. 'He's my horse breaker.'
But already the girl's interests had winged another way. Within tensteps they had come to a new view from a new vantage point. From sometrick of sweep and slope the valley seemed more spacious than before;through a natural avenue in an oak grove they saw distinctly the stilldistant walls of the ranch house; the sun touched them and they gleamedback a spotless white. Helen was all eagerness to come to the mainbuilding; from afar, here of late having seen others of its type, sheknew that it would be adobe and massive, old and cloaked with theromance of another time; that even doors and windows, let into thethick walls, would be of another period; that somewhere there would bea trellis with a sprawling grape-vine over it; that no doubt in theyard or along the fence would be the yellow Spanish roses.
Below the house they came to the stable. Here Howard paused to tie thethree horses, but not to unpack or unsaddle.
'I haven't anybody just hanging around to do things like this for me,'he said lightly as he rejoined his guests. 'Not until I get the wholething paid off. What men I've got are jumping on the job from sun-upto dark. I'll turn you loose in the house and then look after thestock myself.'
They passed several smaller outbuildings, some squat andancient-looking adobes, others newer frame buildings, all neatlywhitewashed. And then the home itself. Quite as Helen hadprovisioned, there was a low wooden fence about the garden; over thegateway were tangled rose vines disputing possession with a gnarledgrape; the walk from the gate was outlined with the protruding ends ofwhite earthen bottles, so in vogue in the southland a few years ago; awide, coolly-dark veranda ran the length of the building; throughthree-feet-thick walls the doorways invited to further coolness.Howard stood aside for them to enter. They found underfoot a barefloor; it had been sprinkled from a watering pot earlier in theafternoon. The room was big and dusky; a few rawhide-bottomed chairs,a long rough table painted moss-green, some shelves with books,furnished the apartment. At one end was a fireplace.
Howard tossed his hat to the table and opened a door at one end of theroom. Before them was a hallway; a few steps down were two doors, oneon each hand, heavy old doors of thick slabs of oak, hand-hewn and withrough iron bands across them, top and bottom, the big nail headsshowing. Howard threw one open, then the other.
'Your rooms,' he said. 'Yours, Miss Helen, opens upon the bath.You'll have to go down the hall to wash, professor. Make yourselvesfree with the whole house. I'll feed the horses and be with you inthree shakes.'
Before his boot heels had done echoing through the living-room it wasan adventure to Helen to peep into her room. She wondered what she wasgoing to find. Thus far she had had no evidence of a woman upon theranch. She knew the sort of housekeeper her father had demonstratedhimself upon occasions when she had been away visiting; she fullycounted upon seeing the traces of a man's hand here. But she wasdelightfully surprised. There was a big, old-fashioned walnut bedneatly made, covered in smooth whiteness by an ironed spread. Therewas a washstand with white pitcher like a ptarmigan in the white nestof a bowl, several towels with red bands towards their ends flankingit. There was a little rocking-chair, a table with some books. Thewindow, because of the thickness of the wall, offered an inviting seatwhence one could look into the tangle of roses of the _patio_.
'It is like a dream,' cried Helen. 'A dream come true.'
She glanced into her father's room. It was like hers in its neatnessand appointments, but did not have her charming outlook. She wasturning again into her own room when she heard Howard's voice outside.
'Angela,' he was calling, 'I have brought home friends. You will seethat they have everything. There is a young lady. I am going to thestable.'
She heard Angela's mumbled answer. So there was, after all, at leastone woman at the ranch. Helen awaited her expectantly, wondering whoand what she might be. Then through her window she saw Angela comeshuffling into the _patio_. She was an old woman, Mexican or Indian,her hair grey and black in streaks, her body bent over her thumpingstick and wrapped in a heavy shawl. Never had Helen seen suchnight-black, fathomless, inscrutable eyes; never had she looked upon aface so creased and lined or skin so like dry, wrinkled parchment.
Angela pounded across the floor looking like a witch with her greatstick, and waved a bony hand to indicate the bathroom. Catching herfirst glimpse of Longstreet, who came to his daughter's door, shedemanded:
'Your papa?'
'Yes,' Helen answered her.
'You frien's Senor Alan?' And when Helen, hesitating briefly, said'Yes,' Angela asked:
'You come from Santa Rita, _no_?'
'No,' said Helen. 'From San Juan and beyond.'
'You come far,' mumbled Angela. She scrutinized the girl keenly. Thenabruptly, 'Senor Alan got _muchos amigos_ to-day. Senor Juan Carrcomes; El Joven with him.'
Helen asked politely who these two were Juan Carr and El Joven. Butthe old woman merely shook her head and relapsed into silence franklystudying her. The girl was glad of the interruption when
Howard rappedat the door. His arms were full of bundles.
'I've brought everything I could find that looked like your and yourfather's personal traps,' he informed her as he came in and put thethings down on the floor. 'I looked in at the kitchen and figure itout we've got about twenty or thirty minutes before dinner. Come on,Angela; give Miss Longstreet a chance to get ready.'
Angela transferred her scrutiny to him; Howard laughed at hergood-humouredly, laid his hand gently on her shrunken shoulder and sideby side they went out.
Helen went singing into her bath, her weary body rested by the thoughtof coolness and cleanliness and a change of clothing. Little enoughdid she have in the way of clothing, especially for an evening when shewas to meet still other strangers. But certain feminine trinkets hadcome with her journeying across the desert, and a freshly launderedwash dress and a bit of bright ribbon work wonders. When she heardvoices in the _patio_, that of Alan Howard and of another man, this asonorous bass, she was ready. She went to her father's door;Longstreet was in the final stages of his own toilet-making, his facered and shiny from his towelling, his sparse hair on end, his wholebeing in that condition of bewildering untidiness which comes justbefore the ultimate desired orderliness quite as the thick darknessbefore the dawn. In this case the rose fingers of Aurora were Helen'sown, patting, pulling and readjusting. Within three minutes sheslipped her hand through the arm of a quiet scholarly looking gentlemanand together they paced sedately into the _patio_.
Howard jumped up from a bench and dragged forward his friend John Carr,introducing him to his new friends. And in employing the word friendand repeating it, he spoke it as though he meant it. Here was acharacteristic of the man; he was ready from dawn until dark to put outhis big square hand to the world and bring the world home to his homefor supper and bed and all that both connote.
But Helen's interest, at least for the flitting moment, was less forhim than for his friend; Howard she had known since dawn, hence hershad been ample time to assign him his proper place in her humancatalogue. Now she turned her level eyes upon the new man.Immediately she knew that if Alan Howard were an interesting type, thenno less so, though in his own way, was John Carr. A bigger man, thoughnot so tall; an older man by something like half a dozen years, butstill young in the eyes and about the clean-shaven mouth; a man withclear, unwinking bluish-grey eyes and a fine head carried erect upon amassive brown throat. Carr was dressed well in a loose serge suit; hewore high-topped tan boots; his soft shirt was of good silk; hispersonality exuded both means and importance. He glanced at Longstreetand looked twice or three times as long at Longstreet's daughter.Helen was quite used to that, and it was for no particular reason thatshe felt her colour heighten a little. She slipped her hand throughher father's arm again and they went in to supper. Howard, havingindicated the way, clapped Carr upon the thick shoulders and the twofriends brought up the rear.
Helen was still wondering where was the second guest; Angela haddistinctly mentioned Juan Carr and another she termed El Joven. Yet asthey passed from the _patio_ into the big cool dining-room with itswhite cloth and plain service and stiff chairs, she saw no one here.Nor did she find any answer in the number of places set, but rather aconfused wonder; the table was the length of the long room, and, atleast in so far as number of plates went, suggested a banquet.
Howard drew out chairs at one end of the table so that the four sattogether.
'The boys will be rolling in for supper in half an hour,' he explained.'But you folks are hungry and will want to get to bed early, so we arenot waiting for them.'
The 'boys' were, supposedly, the men he had working for him; there mustbe close to a score of them. And they all ate at one table, master andmen and guests when he had them.
'Who is El Joven?' asked Helen.
Howard looked puzzled; then his face cleared.
'Angela told you El Joven was here, too?' And to Carr: 'He came withyou, John?'
Carr nodded. Howard then answered Helen.
'That's Angela's pet name for him; it means The Youngster. It isBarbee, Yellow Barbee the boys call him. He's one of John's men. Theysay he's a regular devil-of-a-fellow with the ladies, Miss Helen. Lookout he doesn't break your heart.'
Angela peered in from the kitchen and withdrew. They heard herguttural utterance, and thereafter a young Indian boy, black of eyes,slick of plastered hair and snow-white of apron, came in bringing thesoup. Howard nodded at him, saying a pleasant '_Que hay, Juanito_?'The boy uncovered the rare whiteness of his splendid teeth in a quicksmile. He began placing the soup. Helen looked at him; he blushed andwithdrew hastily to the kitchen.
Throughout the meal the four talked unconstrainedly; it was as thoughthey had known one another for a dozen years and intimately.Longstreet, having pushed aside his soup plate, engaged his host in anardent discussion of the undeveloped possibilities of the Last Ridgecountry; true, he had never set foot upon it, but he knew the last wordof this land's formation and geological construction, its life historyas it were. All of his life, he admitted freely, he had been a man ofscholarship and theory; the simplest thing imaginable, he held blandly,was the demonstration of the correctness of his theories. MeantimeHelen talked brightly with John Carr and listened to Carr's voice.
And a voice well worth listening to it was. Its depth was at onceremarkable and pleasing. At first one hearkened to the music of therich tone itself rather than to the man's words, just as one may thrillto the profound cadences of a deep voice singing without heeding thewords of the song. But presently she found herself giving her raptattention to Carr's remarks. Here again was one of her own class, aman of quiet assurance and culture and distinction; he knew Boston andhe knew the desert. For the first time since her father had draggedher across the continent on his hopelessly mad escapade, Helen feltthat after all the East was not entirely remote from the West. Menlike Howard and his friend John Carr, types she had never looked tofind here, linked East and West.
Juanito, with lowered, bashful eyes, brought coffee, ripe olives fromthe can, potato salad, and thick, hot steaks. Soon thereafter the boysbegan to straggle in. Helen heard them at the gate, noisy and eager;for them the supper hour was diurnally a time of a joyous lift ofspirit. They clattered along the porch like a crowd of schoolboys justdismissed; they washed outside by the kitchen door with much splashing;they plastered their hair with the common combs and brushes and enteredthe shortest way, by the kitchen. They called to each other back andforth; there was the sound of a tremendous clap as some big open handfell resoundingly upon some tempting back and a roar from the strickenand a gale of booming laughter from the smiter and the scuffle of bootsand the crashing of two big bodies falling. Then they came trooping inuntil fifteen or twenty had entered.
One by one Howard introduced them. Plainly none of them knew ofHelen's presence; all of their eyes showed that. Among them were somefew who grew abashed; for the most part they ducked their heads inacknowledgment and said stiffly, 'Pleased to meet you,' in woodenmanner to both Longstreet and his daughter. But their noisinessdeparted from them and they sat down and ate in business-like style.
Never had Helen sat down with so rough a crowd. They were in shirtsleeves; some wore leathern wrist guards; their vests were open, theirshirts dingy, they were unshaven and their hair grew long and ragged;they brought with them a smell of horses. There was one man among themwho must have been sixty at the least, a wiry, stoop, white-haired,white-moustached Mexican. There were boys between seventeen andnineteen. There were Americans; at least one Swede; a Scotchman;several who might have been any sort of mixture of southern bloods.And among them all Helen knew at once, upon the instant that heswaggered in, El Joven, Yellow Barbee.
The two names fitted him as his two gloves may fit a man's hands; amongthe young he was The Youngster, as among blondes he was Yellow Barbee.His dress was extravagantly youthful; his boots bore the tallest heels,he was full-panoplied as to ornate wristbands and belt and chaps asthou
gh in full holiday attire; one might wager on the fact of his haton a nail outside being the tallest crowned, the widest brimmed. Hisface was like a girl's for its smoothness and its prettiness; his eyeswere like blue flowers of sweet innocence; on his forehead his hair wasa cluster of little yellow ringlets. And yet he managed full well toconvey the impression that he was less innocent than insolent, asomewhat true impression; for from high heels to finger-tips he was adownright, simon-pure rascal.
Yellow Barbee's eyes fairly invaded Helen's as he jerked her his bow.They were two youngsters, and in at least, and perhaps in at most, onematter they were alike: she prided herself that she 'knew' men, and toBarbee all women were an open, oft-read book.
Plainly Barbee was something of a favourite here; further, being avisitor, he was potentially of interest to the men who had not been offthe ranch for matters of weeks and months. When Alan Howard and theprofessor picked up their conversation, and again Helen found herselfmonopolized by John Carr, from here and there about the table camepointed remarks to Yellow Barbee. Helen, though she listened to Carrand was never unconscious of her father and Howard, understood, afterthe strange fashion of women, all that was being said about her. Earlyshe gathered that there was, somewhere in the world, a dashing youngwoman styled the 'Widow.' Further, she had the quick eyes to see thatBarbee blushed when an old cattle-man with a roguish eye cleared histhroat and made aloud some remark about Mrs. Murray. Yes; Barbee theinsolent, the swaggering, the worldly-wise and conceited Barbee,actually blushed.
Though the hour was late it was not yet dark when the meal was done.Somehow Howard was at Helen's side when they went to the living-roomand out to the front porch; Carr started with them, hesitated and heldback, finally stepping over for a word with an old Mexican. Helennoted that Barbee had moved around the table and was talking with herfather. As she and Howard found chairs on the porch, Longstreet andBarbee passed them and went out, talking together.