Mariquita came out from the homestead, where there was nobody, and stood at its verge (where the prairie began abruptly) where there was nobody. She was twenty years old and had lived five of them here on the prairie, since her mother died, and she had come home to be her father's daughter and housekeeper, and all the servant he had. She was hardly taller now, and more slim. Her father did not know she was beautiful—at first he had been too much engaged in remembering her mother, who had been very blonde and fair, not at all like her. Her own skin was dark; and her rich hair was dark; her grave, soft, deep eyes were dark, though hazel-dark, not black-dark: whereas her mother's hair had been sunny-golden, and her eyes bright (rather shallow) blue, and her skin all white and rose.

Her mother had taught school, up in Cheyenne, in Wyoming, and had been of a New England family of Puritans. Her father's people had come, long ago, from Spain, and he himself had been born near the desert in New Mexico: his mother may have been Indian—but a Catholic, anyway.

So, no doubt, was JosÉ: though he had little occasion to remember it. It was over fifty miles to the nearest church and he had not heard Mass for years. He had married his Protestant wife without any dispensation, and a judge had married them.

Nevertheless when the child came, he had made the mother understand she must be of his Church, and had baptized her himself. When Mariquita was ten years old he sent her to the Loretto nuns, out on the heights beyond Denver, where she had been confirmed, and made her first Communion, and many subsequent Communions.

For five years now she had had to "hear Mass her own way." That is to say, she went out upon the prairie, and, in the shade of a tree-clump, took her lonely place, crossed herself at the threshold of the shadow, and genuflected towards where she believed her old school was, with its chapel, and its Tabernacle. Then, out of her book she followed the Ordinary of the Mass, projecting herself in mind and fancy into that worshipping company, picturing priest and nuns and school-fellows. At the Sanctus she rang a sheep-bell, and deepened all her Intention. At the Elevation she rang it again, in double triplet, though she could elevate only her own solitary soul. At first she had easily pictured all her school-fellows in their remembered places—they were all grown up and gone away home now. The old priest she had known was dead, as the nuns had sent her word, and she had to picture a priest, unknown, featureless, instead of him. The nuns' faces had somewhat dimmed in distinctness too. But she could picture the large group still. At the Communion she always made a Spiritual Communion of her own—that was why she always "heard her Mass" early, so as to be fasting.

Once or twice, at long intervals, she had been followed by one of the cowboys: but the first one had seen her face as she knelt, and gone away, noiselessly, with a shy, red reverence. Her father had seen the second making obliquely towards her tree-clump, had overtaken him and inquired grimly if he would like a leathering. "When Mariquita's at church," said JosÉ, "let her be. She's for none of us then."

And they let her be: and her tree-clump became known as Mariquita's Church by all the cowboys.

One by one they fell in love with her (her father grimly conscious, but unremarking) and one by one they found nothing come of it. Whether he would have objected had anything come of it he did not say, though several had tried to guess.

To her he never spoke of it, any more than to them: he hardly spoke to her of anything except the work—which she did carefully, as if carelessly. If she had neglected it, or done it badly, he would have rebuked her: that, he considered, was parental duty: as she needed no rebuke he said nothing; his ideas of paternal duty were bounded by paternal correction and a certain cool watchfulness. His watchfulness was not intrusive: he left her chiefly to herself, perceiving her to require no guidance. In all her life he never had occasion to complain that anything she did was "out of place"—his notion of the severest expression of disapproval a father could be called upon to utter.

It was, in his opinion, to be taken for granted that a parent was entitled to the affection of his child, and that the child was entitled to the affection of her father. He neither displayed his affection nor wished Mariquita to display hers. Nor was there in him any sensible feeling of love for the girl. Her mother he had loved, and it was a relief to him that his daughter was wholly unlike her. It would have vexed him had there been any challenging likeness—would have resented it as a tacit claim, like a rivalry.

Joaquin was lonelier than Mariquita. He did not like being called "Don Joaquin"; he preferred being known by his surname, as "Mr. Xeres." One of the cowboys, a very ignorant lad from the East, had supposed "Wah-Keen" to be a Chinese name, and confided his idea to the others. Don Joaquin had overheard their laughter and been enraged by its cause when he had learned it.

He had not married till he was a little over thirty, being already well off by then, and he was therefore now past fifty on this afternoon when Mariquita came out and stood all alone where the homestead as it were rejoined the prairie. At first her long gaze, used to the great distances, was turned westward (and south a little) towards where, miles upon miles out of sight, lay the Mile High City, and Loretto, and the Convent, and all that made her one stock of memories.

The prairie was as empty to such a gaze as so much ocean.

But the sun-stare dazzled her, and she turned eastward; half a mile from her, that way, lay the river, showing nothing at this distance: its water, not filling at this season a fifth of the space between banks was out of sight: the low scrub within its banks was out of sight. Even its lips, of precisely even level on either side, were not discernible. But where she knew the further lip was, she saw two riders, a man and a woman. A moment after she caught sight of them they disappeared—had ridden down into the river-bed. The trail had guided them, and they could miss neither the way nor the ford.

Nevertheless she walked towards where they were—though her father might possibly have thought her doing so out of place.