I have my reasons.”
“Reasons!
What are they?”
The question came involuntarily to her lips.
It had scarce passed them, ere she regretted having asked it.
By her uneasy air it was evident she had apprehensions as to the answer.
The reply appeared partially to relieve her.
“What other reasons do you want,” said the planter, evidently endeavouring to escape from the suspicion of duplicity by the Statement of a convenient fact—“what better, than the contents of this letter from the major?
Remember, my child, you are not in Louisiana, where a lady may travel anywhere without fear of either insult or outrage; but in Texas, where she may dread both—where even her life may be in danger.
Here there are Indians.”
“My excursions don’t extend so far from the house, that I need have any fear of Indians.
I never go more than five miles at the most.” “Five miles!” exclaimed the ex-officer of volunteers, with a sardonic smile; “you would be as safe at fifty, cousin Loo.
You are just as likely to encounter the redskins within a hundred yards of the door, as at the distance of a hundred miles.
When they are on the war trail they may be looked for anywhere, and at any time.
In my opinion, uncle Woodley is rights you are very foolish to ride out alone.”
“Oh! you say so?” sharply retorted the young Creole, turning disdainfully towards her cousin. “And pray, sir, may I ask of what service your company would be to me in the event of my encountering the Comanches, which I don’t believe there’s the slightest danger of my doing?
A pretty figure we’d cut—the pair of us—in the midst of a war-party of painted savages!
Ha! ha!
The danger would be yours, not mine: since I should certainly ride away, and leave you to your own devices.
Danger, indeed, within five miles of the house!
If there’s a horseman in Texas—savages not excepted—who can catch up with my little Luna in a five mile stretch, he must ride a swift steed; which is more than you do, Mr Cash!”
“Silence, daughter!” commanded Poindexter. “Don’t let me hear you talk in that absurd strain.
Take no notice of it, nephew.
Even if there were no danger from Indians, there are other outlaws in these parts quite as much to be shunned as they.
Enough that I forbid you to ride abroad, as you have of late been accustomed to do.”
“Be it as you will, papa,” rejoined Louise, rising from the breakfast-table, and with an air of resignation preparing to leave the room. “Of course I shall obey you—at the risk of losing my health for want of exercise.
Go, Pluto!” she added, addressing herself to the darkey, who still stood grinning in the doorway, “turn Luna loose into the corral—the pastures—anywhere.
Let her stray back to her native prairies, if the creature be so inclined; she’s no longer needed here.”
With this speech, the young lady swept out of the sala, leaving the three gentlemen, who still retained their seats by the table, to reflect upon the satire intended to be conveyed by her words.
They were not the last to which she gave utterance in that same series.
As she glided along the corridor leading to her own chamber, others, low murmured, mechanically escaped from her lips. They were in the shape of interrogatories—a string of them self-asked, and only to be answered by conjecture.
“What can papa have heard?
Is it but his suspicions?
Can any one have told him?
Does he knew that we have met?”
Chapter Twenty Nine. El Coyote at Home.
Calhoun took his departure from the breakfast-table, almost as abruptly as his cousin; but, on leaving the sala instead of returning to his own chamber, he sallied forth from the house.
Still suffering from wounds but half healed, he was nevertheless sufficiently convalescent to go abroad—into the garden, to the stables, the corrals—anywhere around the house.
On the present occasion, his excursion was intended to conduct him to a more distant point.
As if under the stimulus of what had turned up in the conversation—or perhaps by the contents of the letter that had been read—his feebleness seemed for the time to have forsaken him; and, vigorously plying his crutch, he proceeded up the river in the direction of Fort Inge.
In a barren tract of land, that lay about half way between the hacienda and the Fort—and that did not appear to belong to any one—he arrived at the terminus of his limping expedition.
There was a grove of mezquit, with, some larger trees shading it; and in the midst of this, a rude hovel of “wattle and dab,” known in South-Western Texas as a jacale.
It was the domicile of Miguel Diaz, the Mexican mustanger—a lair appropriate to the semi-savage who had earned for himself the distinctive appellation of El Coyote (“Prairie Wolf.”)
It was not always that the wolf could be found in his den—for his jacale deserved no better description. It was but his occasional sleeping-place; during those intervals of inactivity when, by the disposal of a drove of captured mustangs, he could afford to stay for a time within the limits of the settlement, indulging in such gross pleasures as its proximity afforded.
Calhoun was fortunate in finding him at home; though not quite so fortunate as to find him in a state of sobriety.
He was not exactly intoxicated—having, after a prolonged spell of sleep, partially recovered from this, the habitual condition of his existence.
“H’la nor!” he exclaimed in his provincial patois, slurring the salutation, as his visitor darkened the door of the jacale. “P’r Dios! Who’d have expected to see you?
Sientese! Be seated. Take a chair.
There’s one.
A chair!