Jessica Trent: Her Life on a Ranch

CHAPTER III

SENOR TOP-LOFTY

Ever since Jessica could remember, Antonio Bernal had been manager of the Sobrante ranch, and after the death of her father, a few months before, he became practically its master. Even Mrs. Trent deferred to his opinions more and more, and seemed to stand in awe of him, as did most others on the great estate. He was the only person there, save his own servant, Ferd, who did not treat the little girl with that adoring sort of reverence which had given her the love-name of “our Lady Jess.” For some reason unknown to her he disliked her and showed this, so that she shrank from and feared him in return.

As she emerged from the canyon upon the broad, sandy road which crossed the valley, she saw him loping toward her on the powerful black horse with which he made his daily rounds to inspect the many industries that Mr. Trent had established. Jessica could always tell by the way he rode what Antonio’s mood might be, and it did not lessen her dread to see that his sombrero was well over his eyes and his shoulders hunched forward.

“Something’s put him out, but I can’t help that. I must stop him and speak to him.”

So she placed herself in the middle of the road and shouted her familiar:

“Hola! Coo-ee! Coo-ee!”

Any other ranchman would have paused and saluted his “lady,” but the “senor” made as if he would ride her down, unseeing.

Jessica did not flinch. That ready temper which she was always lamenting flamed at the insult, and she would not move a hair’s breadth from his path.

“Hola! Antonio Bernal! I must speak to you, and–see that?”

Suddenly bending forward she waved something long and black under Nero’s nose, who reared and settled on his haunches in a way to test a less experienced rider.

“What do you mean, child–” began that irate gentleman, but pausing at sight of the object she held.

“I think this a plume from Beppo’s wing, don’t you, Antonio?”

He muttered something under his breath, and she went on, explaining:

“I found it in the canyon, just after Ferd has gone up it. I knew it in a minute, for I was looking Beppo over yesterday, and I never saw such perfect feathers on any bird. How do you suppose it came there, and why?”

“The fool! One of the very best. How dared he. But suppose I’ll have to admit he stole it. I don’t see how, though, for I did the work myself. Give it to me, senorita; I’ll put it with the others.”

Somehow, when Antonio was sauve “our Lady Jess” liked him less than when he was sharp of speech. His native “senorita” jarred on her ear, though she blamed herself for her injustice, nor did she yield him the feather.

“Not yet, please. I’m going to show it to mother. She’ll be so delighted to know the plucking was a rich one; and if Ferd did steal this, or has others in his basket, of course you’ll make him bring them back.”

“Of course,” answered Antonio, though he frowned and searched her face with his black eyes as if to read all her suspicions.

But as Jessica was not suspicious; she was vaguely troubled, as if she had come into some dark and unknown world. Surely Antonio was able to clear off all these little mysteries, and she checked him again as he was about to ride on.

“There’s something else, senor,” adopting his title in imitation of his addressing her; “John Benton is up the gulch fixing a break in the flume. It’s a bad one, and more a cut than a break, he says. He asked me to tell you and wishes you’d go up there to advise him. I’m to send up a man to help him. But he wants you, too.”

“Why should I waste my time on such a fool’s errand, eh? I knew there was a leak somewhere and am glad he’s found it. There’s been no water in the ditches these three days–more, ten, maybe–and the oranges are falling. Send up that idler, Joe; and, by the way, how’s Pedro?”

It was the blue eyes now which turned keen and searching, and under their gaze Antonio’s were averted toward some distant point in the landscape, though the contemptuous smile remained upon his lips.

“That was a fool’s errand, too, Senor Bernal, and I did so want to be at home this morning. Pedro was never livelier. Whoever told you he was ill was quite mistaken.”

Antonio gave a short, derisive laugh, dug his spurs into Nero’s sides and loped away. A picturesque, noticeable figure in his quaint, half-Spanish dress and his silver-decorated sombrero, bestriding the heavy Mexican saddle upon his powerful horse.

“Vain as a peacock,” was his fellow-ranchmen’s opinion of their “boss,” though had his affectations been all his shortcomings these had not lessened their liking for him.

Lady Jess looked after him for a moment, her face still sober and perplexed.

“I ought to be at home, helping mother, this minute; but I’m going first to the corral to speak a word of comfort to poor Beppo, and see how big a plucking there was. If it was a good yield that will be so much the better news to tell my dear, and this certainly is the finest plume we ever got. Good! There are some of the boys over there, too, and I’ll save time by getting one of them to go up the canyon to John. Hola!”

Her soliloquy ended in the gay little Spanish salute, and this was now instantly answered by a hearty shout of welcome from a group of rough-garbed men, taking a moment’s rest in the shade of the old adobe packinghouse.

As lightly as if she had not already walked a long distance, the girl ran to her friends, to be at once caught up by a pair of strong arms and gently placed upon a cushion in the box of an empty wagon.

“But this was your place, Joe Dean. I saw you get up from it.”

“It’s yours now, Lady Jess. You do me proud. What’s the good word? How’s old Pedro?”

“Well just plain, every day well. Never been sick a minute. Had all that climb for nothing; or, maybe, not quite for nothing, because I met a stranger up there and liked him; and saw John Benton as I came down, and–found this! Isn’t that a plume to be proud of? Raised right here on our little Sobrante.”

“Whew! It’s a beauty, sure enough. A dozen like that would be worth a tidy sum. How found it?”

“Has anybody seen King Zu? Though, of course, I know it can’t be his. He was plucked such a little while ago, nor could he have gotten across the gulch without losing more. Besides, Antonio said ‘stole.’”

Then she gave a hasty account of her morning’s adventures, during which meaning glances were exchanged between the trio of workmen who, by the time she had finished, had grown as glum as they had before been cheerful.

“Now, what do you think? Is there anybody who’d be mean enough to cut off my mother’s irrigation, on purpose, or steal her feathers? Even poor Ferd; I’m sure she’s always been good to him and pitied him.”

“Ferd has hands. Others have heads,” said Joe, as spokesman for the rest.

They nodded swift assent.

“Except yourself, Lady Jess, nobody ever sees the ‘senor’ handle the feathers, and you not often. Only he and his shadow, foolish Ferd, can manage the birds, he claims. I’ve been smoking that in my pipe along back.”

“Oh! Joe, you shouldn’t be suspicious of evil.”

“No, I shouldn’t be anything you don’t want me to be, but I am.”

“Even if I don’t like him very well, because he’s a little cross, Antonio Bernal is a good man. He must be. Else my father and now mother wouldn’t trust him so. She lets him get all the money for everything first and she has what’s left–after you’re all paid, I mean.”

“Poor little woman!”

“Not poor, exactly, Samson. And it isn’t Antonio’s fault that there isn’t so much as there used to be when father was here. If there were, mother would carry out all father’s plans. She’d irrigate that tract beyond the arroyo, toward the sand hills, and test it with strawberries, as he meant. There shouldn’t be an inch of untilled land on all the ranch, if the crops we have paid out just a little better. But, no matter. As long as you boys get your due wages, we can wait for the rest.”

There was another exchange of glances which Jessica did not see. Neither did she see herder Samson, lying at length on the ground, lift his great boot and significantly point to a hole in its toe. Nor would she have surmised his meaning had she done so. Indeed, she suddenly remembered her errand at the packinghouse and ran to its open door, but failed.

“How queer! Why should this be locked? I didn’t know it ever was. Where can the key be?”

“In Antonio Bernal’s pocket,” said Joe quietly.

“Then even before I found this feather he must have suspected somebody and taken care of the others. But it’s dreadful if we have come to turning keys on one another, here, at dear Sobrante. Well, I’m off to mother, now; and, Joe, Antonio said you should go to help John. Will you?”

“For you, fast enough, Lady Jess, though I’m about quit of Top-Lofty’s orders.”

“Grumbler!” laughed the girl, hurrying away, with her gayety quite restored by this few minutes’ chat with the beloved “boys” who had petted her all her life.

They did not laugh, however, as they watched her going, and Joe, rising to do her bidding, slapped his thigh emphatically and remarked:

“I call it the time has come. The longer we put it off the worse it is. Poor little missy! Getting our wages due! That little angel ’d cry the blue out of her pretty eyes if she knew how long ’twas since we’d seen the color of our money. Pass the word along, boys, and let’s confab, to-night, and settle it. Time, about moon-up, in John’s shop. How’s that?”

“Count me a mutineer,” said the ex-sailor, Samson, as he strolled toward his cattle sheds.

“I’m with you,” echoed Marty, departing for his orange grove. “Mutiny’s an ugly word aboard ship, I’m told, but when psalm-singing Samson takes to using it right here on dry land I reckon the case differs. Anyhow, if it’s a bid ’twixt the little one and Top-Lofty, I’m for the little one every time.”

Scruff knew the road home as well as another, and doubtless reasoned in his burro mind that the sooner he reached there the sooner he would be rid of his awkward rider. So he made all speed over the steep descent, though Mr. Hale used his own feet, now and then, as human brakes to check the creature’s pace; and, whimsically, remonstrated when the jolts became too frequent.

“Here, you beast! Hold on! If ever I ride a donkey again just let me know about it, will you? Keep that front end of yours up, please. I’ve a notion of sliding over your head, just to accommodate. Steady, there, steady. I flatter myself I can stick if I can’t ride. And we’re getting along. We’re getting along.”

Indeed, much earlier than he had hoped for, they were on level ground and had struck out upon that road where Jessica had met the manager, and which for some distance followed the tree-bordered arroyo–just then a river of sand only–leading straight toward a group of buildings and an oasis of greenery most welcome to the stranger’s sun-blinded eyes.

“Sobrante ranch, that must be, and the home of my little ostrich rider. I hope she’ll be there to greet me, for a tempting spot it looks.”

The nearer he approached the more charming it appeared, with its one modern, vine-covered cottage, and its long stretches of low adobe structures–enough to form a village in themselves–and as dingily ancient as the other was freshly modern.

In reality, these old adobes were remnants of a long-abandoned mission, but still in such excellent repair that they were utilized for the ranchman’s quarters and for the business of the great estate. Antonio Bernal was the only one of all the employees who had his own rooms at “the house,” as the cottage was called where the Trents themselves lived.

From the kitchen of this attractive “house” now floated a delectable odor of well-cooked food, and with the reflection that he was always hungry nowadays, the visitor crossed to its open window; there came, also, a girlish voice, exclaiming:

“Yes, mother, I’m sure he was a gentleman, though he didn’t look well. I told him you weren’t fond of strangers and had little time to give them, but that I thought you’d make him welcome. Indeed, there’s nowhere else for him to go, since his horse is lame and we so far from everybody. He lost his trail, he said. Was I right?”

Then his shadow fell across the sun-lighted floor and Jessica faced about. With a whisk of the saucepan, in which she was scrambling eggs, she added: “Well, right or wrong, here he is!” But she was talking to empty air, for her mother had disappeared.

CHAPTER IV

AN INTERRUPTED SUPPER

The young ranchwoman placed her pan in safety and ran out upon that north porch, where the table was already spread, to meet the visitor.

“Oh! I’m glad you’ve gotten here all safe. How did you do it? It’s a long walk for those who aren’t used to it. Even for those who are, too. Did you ride your horse? Was he better?”

She rattled off her questions without waiting for replies and to give him time to recover his breath, which he seemed to have lost. Then she poured him a glass of milk and urged him to drink it, with the remark:

“That’s Blandina’s own. She’s the house-cow. You’ll find it delicious. Don’t you?”

“It’s fine milk,” answered the other, cautiously; “but, if it isn’t too much trouble, a bit of ice would improve it.”

“Ice? Why, where could I get ice? Sometimes, in the winter, a little forms along the arroyo, but now–I’m very sorry, indeed. I’d be so glad to get it if I could.”

Mr. Hale swallowed the sickeningly warm liquid with a gulp and hastened to apologize.

“It wouldn’t be good for me if you could. My compliments to your house-cow, and I’m very grateful for my refreshment. You have a beautiful home.”

“Haven’t we? The prettiest in the world, I guess. My father thought so and my mother loves it. So do we all, but to her it is dearest. Because, you see, father and she have made it all it is. Please, just let me move your chair nearer the edge of the porch. So. Now, look away off to the east. Father said there could be no view more uplifting. He wished everybody who had to live in cities could see it. He knew it would make them better men.”

Magnificent though it was, Mr. Hale found his small hostess more interesting than the view.

“Your father–” he began, questioningly.

“Isn’t here, now. He passed heavenward a year ago. Since then nothing seems just the same, and dear mother is often sad and troubled. You know she wants to carry on all father’s experiments, she doesn’t want his ‘life work to be wasted,’ she says, and Antonio isn’t able to get as much money as he used to be. She tries so bravely not to let it fret her, and I don’t see where she is. She was in the kitchen with me. We were getting dinner because Wun Lung, the cook, cut his hand, and Pasqual isn’t to be trusted. Of course, he’s a good enough boy, can make beds and such things, but–cook! One must be very dainty to do that. My mother can cook deliciously! She taught herself everything and the why of it. When she and father came here they lived in that tiny adobe away at the end of the second row. Do you see it? By the old corridor. Their table was a packing box and they had just a little camping outfit. Now there’s all this.”

Jessica Trent’s sweet face glowed with loving pride in her fair home, but this was as nothing of the tenderness which filled her eyes as they now caught sight of a tall woman in black coming over the garden path.

“There she is, my mother!”

Mr. Hale rose as the lady drew near and one glance showed him what model “Lady Jess” had chosen as a type of that “perfect” breeding to which the little maid aspired. The mistress of Sobrante was a real gentlewoman, even though her gown was of cheapest print and her surroundings those of an isolated western ranch. Her daughter ran to cast a clinging, yet protecting, arm about her, and proudly turning toward their guest, presented:

“My mother, Mrs. Trent, Mr. –” and smiling waited for him to finish the sentence.

“Hale. I had forgotten to mention my name before, even though we have chatted so cosily. Permit me, madam.”

The card he offered bore the inscription:

“Mr. Morris Hale, Attorney at Law, 156 Broadway, New York.”

Watchful Jessica saw her mother’s face pale, while into her native cordiality of manner crept that slight hauteur with which she regarded the most objectionable of “tourists.” This, then, was one such, and the girl was sorry. She had liked the stranger so much and was already planning pleasant entertainment for him; but if her dear did not approve of him her own opinion went for naught.

Yet it was only the statement of the gentleman’s business that had caused Mrs. Trent’s momentary coldness, for at that time, though her daughter did not know this, the mere suggestion of law or lawyers disturbed her. But she was quick to feel the possible injustice of her fear and to atone for it by a deeper cordiality.

“You have come just in time to share our dinner, Mr. Hale, and we’ll not wait any longer for laggards. I was looking for the children. Jessie, dear, have you seen them?”

“Not since breakfast, mother. But they can’t be far away, for there’s Scruff yonder, trying to get into the alfalfa.”

“Antonio hasn’t come up, either, since the plucking. I wish he would while the food is fresh. If you’ll–”

“We needn’t wait for him, because I met him riding toward the foothills, as I came home. He’s probably off to the mines and that means an all-day’s trip. But I’ll help you dish up, and seek the boys, though they don’t often need seeking at mealtime. You sit right down with Mr. Hale, dear, and I’ll serve you. Pasqual can bring in the tureen, and I hope the eggs aren’t spoiled by waiting.”

“Is Scruff that mottled burro poking his nose through that fence?” asked the guest.

“Yes. He belongs to my little son, Ned, who shares him with his playmate, Luis. An inseparable trio, usually.”

“Then I’m the cause of their present separation. I rode that animal down from old Pedro’s cabin and at his advice,” Mr. Hale described his meeting with the two small lads, the fright they had given him, and his own desertion of them. “Though now I’m ashamed to recall how readily I consigned them to a tramp I was unwilling to take myself. I wish I’d brought them with me. We could have used Scruff’s back, turn and turn about.”

“Oh how could they! One misstep and they’d have been killed.”

“What is it, mother?” asked Jessica, seeing the lady’s hand shake so that she could scarcely serve the soup which formed the chief dish of their plain dinner.

“Only another prank of those terrifying children. Bound themselves–or had help to bind–and rode Scruff bareback up the canyon! They’re always ‘playing Indian,’ and I wish they’d never heard of one. It’s that Ferd eggs them on. He ‘dares’ them and–Excuse me, Mr. Hale. Mothers are anxious people. Try some of Jessie’s scramble, please. She is just learning to cook and likes to be appreciated.”

“But I didn’t see them, as I went up or down. They must have taken the long road around by the north end. Where the old Digger village is,” observed Jessie.

“A forbidden route. It’s to be hoped they’ll follow the shortest road home. If they’re not here in an hour one of the men must go to fetch them.”

Jessica laughed and kissed her mother.

“Don’t you worry, dear, and do, please, eat your dinner. Aren’t those children always having hairbreadth escapes, and are they ever hurt? Pedro’ll send them down in a hurry. He knows his mistress and her ways, and wouldn’t let her be troubled if he could help it. They’ll get no dinner at Pedro’s, and dinner is something they’ve never missed yet. Hark! Aren’t going to miss now! Listen. They’re fighting along home in their regular fashion. By the sound they’ve about got to prickly-pear hedge. Hola! Ned! Lu-is! Oh! beg pardon. I forgot I was at table. Excuse me, mother, and I’ll bring in the youngsters–after a deluge!”

Already there was an uproar in the outer kitchen, where two tired and hungry little boys were assaulting the unoffending Pasqual, diligently scrubbing away at his pots and pans. Any victim will do, at a pinch, to vent one’s wrath upon, and Pasqual was nearest. But he was not one to suffer patiently, and promptly returned the puny blows of his assailants with much more vigorous ones, till Jessica reached the spot, rescued the truants, and conducted them to the washbasin.

From there, disdaining the towel, they made rapid transit to the porch and the presence of the stranger. All along their enforced walk home they had laid plans of vengeance, among which “tommyhawking” and “shootin’ chock full o’ arrers” were the wildest. But, alas! Now that their enemy was in their very power, they had no fiercer weapons than four grimy little fists. Better these than nothing, was Ned’s instant decision, and Luis was but Ned’s second thought. As Ned’s right descended upon Mr. Hale’s shoulders, Luis’ left delivered a telling blow upon the gentleman’s hand, uplifted toward his lips. This was small assistance to the yellow-haired chief, for the spoon fled straight from the victim’s fingers and landed squarely in Ned’s face.

This created intense diversion. The blows intended for the guest were now bestowed upon each other, and so impartially that neither side was worsted. Mrs. Trent rose in her place, flushed and apologetic, though the stranger was far more surprised than offended, while the sister had once more appeared and terminated a battle almost before it was begun. With a strength of which she did not look capable she caught up and lifted a child into each of the two high chairs in waiting–but wisely placed at opposite sides of the board. There they settled themselves composedly, beaming and smiling upon each other like a pair of wingless cherubs, while Ned thrust forth a tin basin and demanded: