"a.s.suredly. Anything to escape this cave."
Miss Carmencita was at that moment reiterating her everlasting determination to go wherever her father went. "If you think, sir, that your faithlessness to him is a recommendation of your promised faithfulness to me, I can only wish you more light on the feelings of a daughter," she was informing Valdez, when her father slipped through the panel door and stood before her.
"Brava, senorita!" he applauded, with subtle irony, clapping his hands.
"Brava, brava!"
That young woman swam blushingly toward him and let her face disappear in an embrace.
"You see, one can"t have everything, Senor Valdez," continued Megales lightly. "For me, I cannot have both Chihuahua and my life; you, it seems, cannot have both your successful revolution and my daughter."
"Your excellency, she loves me. Of that I am a.s.sured. It rests with you to say whether her life will be spoiled or not. You know what I can offer her in addition to a heart full of devotion. It is enough. Shall she be sacrificed to her loyalty to you?" the young man demanded, with all the ardor of his warm-blooded race.
"It is no sacrifice to love and obey my father," came a low murmur from the former governor"s shoulder.
"Since the world began it has been the law of life that the young should leave their parents for a home of their own," Juan protested.
"So the Scripture says," agreed Megales sardonically. "It further counsels to love one"s enemies, but, I think, omits mention of the enemies of one"s father."
"Sir, I am not your enemy. Political exigencies have thrown us into different camps, but we are not so small as to let such incidentals come between us as a vital objection in such a matter."
"You argue like a lawyer," smiled the governor. "You forget that I am neither judge nor jury. Tyrant I may have been to a fickle people that needed a firm hand to rule them, but tyrant I am not to my only daughter."
"Then you consent, your excellency?" cried Valdez joyously.
"I neither consent nor refuse. You must go to a more final authority than mine for an answer, young man."
"But you are willing she should follow where her heart leads?"
"But certainly."
"Then she is mine," cried Valdez.
"I am not," replied the girl indignantly over her shoulder.
Megales turned her till her unconsenting eyes met his. "Do you want to marry this young man, Carmencita?"
"I never told him anything of the sort," she flamed.
"I didn"t quite ask what you had told him. The question is whether you love him."
"But no; I love you," she blushed.
"I hope so," smiled her father. "But do you love him? An honest answer, if you please."
"Could I love a rebel?"
"No Yankee answers, muchacha. Do you love Juan Valdez?"
It was Valdez that broke triumphantly the moment"s silence that followed. "She does. She does. I claim the consent of silence."
But victory spoke too prematurely in his voice. Cried the proud Spanish girl pa.s.sionately: "I hate him!"
Megales understood the quality of her hate, and beckoned to his future son-in-law. "I have some arrangements to make for our journey to-night.
Would it distress you, senor, if I were to leave you for a while?"
He slipped out and left them alone.
"Well?" asked O"Halloran, who had remained in the corridor.
"I think, Senor Dictator, I shall have to make the trip with only General Carlo for a companion," answered the Spaniard.
The Irishman swung his hat. "Hip, hip, hurrah! You"re a gentleman I could find it in me heart to both love and hate, governor."
"And you"re a gentleman," returned the governor, with a bow, "I could find it in my heart to hang high as Haman without love or hate."
Michael linked his arm in that of his excellency.
"Sure, you"re a broth of a lad, Senor Megales," he said irreverently, in good, broad Irish brogue. "Here, me bye, where are you hurrying?"
he added, catching at the sleeve of Frances Mackenzie, who was slipping quietly past.
"Please, Mr. O"Halloran, I"ve been up to the office after water. I"m taking it to Senorita Carmencita."
"She doesn"t want water just now. You go back to the office, son, and stay there thirty minutes. Then you take her that water," ordered O"Halloran.
"But she wanted it as soon as I could get it, sir."
"Forget it, kid, just as she has. Water! Why, she"s drinking nectar of the G.o.ds. Just you do as I tell ye."
Frances was puzzled, but she obeyed, even though she could not understand his meaning. She understood better when she slid back the panel at the expiration of the allotted time and caught a glimpse of Carmencita Megales in the arms of Juan Valdez.
CHAPTER 17. HIDDEN VALLEY
Across the desert into the hills, where the sun was setting in a great splash of crimson in the saddle between two distant peaks, a bunch of cows trailed heavily. Their tongues hung out and they panted for water, stretching their necks piteously to low now and again. For the heat of an Arizona summer was on the baked land and in the air that palpitated above it.
But the end of the journey was at hand and the cowpuncher in charge of the drive relaxed in the saddle after the easy fashion of the vaquero when he is under no tension. He did not any longer cast swift, anxious glances behind him to make sure no pursuit was in sight. For he had reached safety. He knew the "Open sesame" to that rock wall which rose sheer in front of him. Straight for it he and his companion took their gather, swinging the cattle adroitly round a great slab which concealed a gateway to the secret canon. Half a mile up this defile lay what was called Hidden Valley, an inaccessible retreat known only to those who frequented it for nefarious purposes.
It was as the man in charge circled round to head the lead cows in that a faint voice carried to him. He stopped, listening. It came again, a dry, parched call for help that had no hope in it. He wheeled his pony as on a half dollar, and two minutes later caught sight of an exhausted figure leaning against a cottonwood. He needed no second guess to surmise that she was lost and had been wandering over the sandy desert through the hot day. With a shout, he loped toward her, and had his water bottle at her lips before she had recovered from her glad surprise at sight of him.
"You"ll feel better now," he soothed. "How long you been lost, ma"am?"
"Since ten this morning. I came with my aunt to gather poppies, and somehow I got separated from her and the rig. These hills look so alike.
I must have got turned round and mistaken one for another."
"You have to be awful careful here. Some one ought to have told you," he said indignantly.
"Oh, they told me, but of course I knew best," she replied, with quick scorn of her own self-sufficiency.