“What’s happened?” asked Mrs. Trent, foreboding fresh trouble, since, of late, trouble had become so familiar a visitor.

“Well, ma’am, the bird has flown.”

“Please explain, Samson,” she anxiously urged.

“That bird of dark plumage––Ferd, the dwarf. He’s escaped, vamoosed, took wings and flew.”

“Oh, Samson! I’m so sorry. I hoped you would look after him until I could find some suitable institution in which to place him. It’s time he should be helped, for if he’s so sharp to do evil, he must have equal capacity for better things.”

“Yes, ma’am. So I allow; and I had them same hopes myself, not ten minutes ago. I hadn’t said a word to anybody, but after you gave him to me, I remembered what the little captain had commanded, for it sort of struck home, that did. I ain’t overly saintlike, myself, but what of goodness I’d catched from you all I meant to pass on to the coyote––I mean, Ferdinand Bernal. I reckon it was his face, ’stead of a ghost’s, that Aunt Sally saw by the window.”

“I thought you locked him in some room?”

“Lock and double-locked. Bolted, besides. Worst is, all bolts and locks are just as I left ’em. Had the key in my pocket and went in, saluting, and 91 there wasn’t anybody to salute. Well, ma’am, if he’s out, and ’twas him saw that money, there’d better two of us sleep beside it, rather than one. He’s the uncanniest creature ever I met, and I hope never to meet his mate.”

“Very well. I do not see what harm he can do, after all, except to himself, now. Jessica, dear, please bring the key, and John can put this money in the safe. If it weren’t for Elsa’s satisfaction, I should regret that Pedro ever found it. Then we must all to sleep. It’s been a most eventful day, and we are tired.”

Before long the whole household was asleep; but the last to seek her rest was Mrs. Benton; nor did she do that until she had locked whatever locks would fasten, peeped under every bed, and invaded the sacredness of Wun Lung’s “heatheny den.” Then she placed her Bible on one side her bed, a broom and horsewhip on the other, and lay down to watch, explaining:

“’Cause I’m goin’ to watch, even if I am resting my body horizontal. I’m so tired I can’t set up straight, nohow, and I shan’t wink a wink till daylight comes and the rest are moving.”

Having called out this valiant resolution to Mrs. Trent, in the adjoining room, she instantly closed her heavy lids, and opened them no more till a series of thumps upon her shoulders aroused her. Then she realized that Ned and Luis were reminding her of yesterday’s promise that, if they’d eat no more plum cake overnight they should have some for their breakfasts.

“Land of love! What you doing? Is it daylight? Why, ’twas dark as Egypt when I lay down, and I–––Can it be that I––I––have overslept?”

“Plum cake, Aunt Sally,” reminded Ned.

“Plumsally!” cried Luis, with a forcible whack. Which was instantly returned, and with such added interest that he ran howling away, leaving the disturbed matron to scold herself at leisure for her lapse from duty, while she hurriedly dressed.

Naturally, she had to submit to some teasing on account of her valiant resolution of the previous night that she “wouldn’t wink a wink,” but Mrs. Trent was delighted that the faithful woman had, at last, enjoyed a needed rest. Besides, everything was bright at the ranch on that happy morning. Even Wun Lung had caught the infection of Christmas preparations, and was intent upon providing some dainties of his own, against the approaching festival, which should so far outshine the homelier pies and puddings of Mrs. Benton, as his own revered country outshone, in his opinion, even this pleasant one in which, at present, his lot was cast. He had also felt good-natured enough to put aside a plentiful breakfast for his mate––or foe––of the kitchen; and since it was such a time of happiness, Aunt Sally condescended not only to eat it, but to pronounce it “good.”

Hearing this unexpected praise, the Chinaman wound and unwound his precious queue, after a fashion he had of expressing satisfaction; and smilingly advised Mrs. Benton to “step black polch,” where she would find things to do.

So to the back porch the good lady retreated, carrying with her great dishes of fruit to prepare, and not forgetting two enormous slices of the rich plum cake she had promised the little boys, and which would have made less active, hardily reared children ill.

Mrs. Trent had moved her sewing machine to the porch, and Jessica sat near, with a little table before her, trying to write the Christmas invitations that had been so delayed, and to express them after a style which should not too painfully expose her own ignorance. The result was not so bad, considering the slight training the child had had, and her few years, yet it did not satisfy the mother, who felt that education was the one good thing, and who longed to have her child’s bright intellect developed as it should be.

Poor Jessica had written and rewritten the note intended for Mr. Hale a number of times, and still had it returned to her with many corrections, after Mrs. Trent’s reading of it, and now laid it aside with a sigh of discouragement.

“Can’t that wait a while, mother? If I may write to my darling Ninian Sharp, I’ll get myself rested. He doesn’t mind trifles like wrong capitals in the right places––oh! dear, I mean––I don’t know what I mean. But may I?”

“Certainly, dear. Though, first, come here and let me try the length of this sleeve.”

Lady Jess obeyed readily, for new clothes were rare events in her simple life. This natty little “Christmas frock” was white, with scarlet trimmings, and quite sufficiently in contrast with the plain blue flannel ones of everyday use to captivate her fancy and make her patient under the tedious process of “fitting.” Yet she was glad to return to her table and her letter to Ninian Sharp, which she found no difficulty in composing, since she was free to do as she chose.

And this was the epistle which, after some delay, reached the newspaper man, at a time when he happened 94 to need cheering up, and brought new life and interest into his overworked brain:

“MY VERY DEAR MISTER SHARP: My mother and the children and aunt sally, and Me and all the rest the Boys, are well and send Their LUV. We are Now Inviteing you To come and Spend the holidays at dear Sobrante. everybody is Coming, most, and i Got lost and was found in a Hole. The Hole is in the ground. there was Money in It, that the Boys said my fortynineer stole and He Didn’t. It was elsa winklers and wolfgang was mad at her, and there was a Ghost, but it got away, else samson and Me would have shot it against the mission cordiror wall and had a nexibition. and ferd that was lock up got away two; and say, please my dear mister sharp, Will you see if this stone that’s in the package is any good? Pedro, thats a hundred years, says it’s copper and copper is worth money. We need some money bad, and i hope it is, and I don’t no anybody as clever as you. so Please write write away and tell us if you will come and tell ephraim Marsh, that the Boys will be at marion railway station with a buckborde and horses enough. i am Making something to put in everybodys stocking. i Began to make the things after last Christmas, that ever was, and i Have more than twenty-five presunts to Make and i Have got three done, one of Them is Yours. your Loving friend,

“JESSICA TRENT.”

When the letters were completed, the little captain felt that she needed recreation, and her mother agreed with her; but, unlike her former habit, could not consent to the child’s going anywhere alone. The recent terrible experience had banished from 95 Mrs. Trent’s heart that comfortable sense of security which had prevented life on the isolated ranch from being a lonely one. She now felt, as Aunt Sally phrased it:

“Afraid of your own shadder, ain’t you, Gabriell’, and well you may be. In the midst of life we are in the hands of them Bernals, and no knowin’. That son John of mine may try to hoodwink me that ’twasn’t no ghost I saw last night, but ghost it was if ever one walked this earth. It wasn’t, so to speak, a spooky ghost, neither; it was an avaricious one, and it wasn’t after no folks, but ’twas after that money, sharp. Ain’t disappeared, for good, neither. Liable to spring up and out anywhere happens; and you do well, Gabriell’, not to trust our girl off alone again. Not right to once. Where’s she hankerin’ to travel now? She’d ought to be learnt to sew patchwork, instead of riding all over the country, hitherty-yender, a bareback on a broncho or a burro. If she was my girl–––”

“If she was your girl, dear Aunt Sally, you couldn’t have been more anxious than you were while she was lost. And the life is good for her. It’s right for all women to understand sewing and household arts, but the captain isn’t a woman yet, and I have faith she’ll acquire all fitting knowledge in due time. She’s anxious to ride to Pedro’s. She says there was something different in his manner, last night, from ordinary, and, indeed, I fancied so myself. She’s gone to find which one of the boys can best leave his work to ride with her.”

“It’ll be John Benton, Gabriella Trent. You see if it ain’t. That man just sees the world through Jessica’s eyes, and he’s never got over being jealous ’at he wasn’t the one took her to Los Angeles 96 that time. If he had all the work in creation piled up before him, and she happened to say ‘Come,’ some other whither, whither, ’twould be, and not a minute’s hesitation. Anyhow, it’s Marty’s day for mailridin’, and there he lopes this instant.”

The ranchmen took turns in riding to the post, each esteeming it a privilege, and finding nothing but pleasure in the sixty miles’ gallop to Marion and back. At that moment, indeed, Marty was swinging out of sight on his own fine mount, the mailbag before him on his heavy Mexican saddle, the wind created by the swift motion of the beast raising the brim of his broad hat and thrilling him with that sense of abounding life and freedom which comes so forcibly to men in the wide spaces of the earth.

He was the youngest of the “boys,” even though past his first youth, and the “life” of the ranchmen’s quarters, where all liked and some loved him.

The women on the porch watched him till he became a mere speck in the distance, and Aunt Sally sighed:

“That George Cromarty is as likely a youth as ever I knew. He’s that good to his old mother, back in the East, I tell my own son John, he ought to profit by such an example. I should hate to have anything happen to him. Yes, indeedy, I should hate to have a single bad thing happen to poor George Cromarty.”

A little nervous shiver ran through Mrs. Trent’s slender frame, yet she turned upon her companion, as she threaded her needle, with a laugh, exclaiming:

“Oh! you dear old croaker! Why can’t you let well enough alone, without mentioning more evil? 97 You know the old saying that to speak of trouble is to invite its visitation. Surely, there was nothing about to-day’s postman to suggest disaster. George is a typical ranchman, and my husband used to point him out to visitors as what a man might be, who grew up, or old, where ‘there was room enough.’ Big-hearted, full of fun, tender as a woman, but intolerant of meanness and evil doing. It would be a dark day for Sobrante if ill befell our ‘Marty.’”

“Well, I don’t know. Something’s going to go wrong somewhere. I feel it in my bones, seems if. There, I told you so! Yonder comes that lazy boy of mine and Jessie. There’s more things needing him here on this place than you could shake a stick at, yet off he’ll go traipsing just at a nod from his captain.”

“Don’t begrudge them their happiness, Aunt Sally. Certainly, after grief, it is their due. Well, John, will you act escort for the little lady of Sobrante?” asked its mistress.

“Will I not? And do me proud. She ain’t to be trusted with any of the flighty ones, Samson now, or–––”

Mrs. Trent’s laughter––that morning as heart-whole and free as a girl’s––interrupted the ranchman’s disparaging comments on his fellows, sedate grayheads as most of them were; for well she understood the universal devotion of all to their darling captain.

“Oh, John, I can scarcely associate the idea of frivolity or carelessness with our big Samson; but wait a moment, please, before you start. There’s such a store of good things left, though in fragments, that I’d like to pack a basket for Pedro. I 98 wish he did not insist upon living so alone. He is so old and I feel, as the native Californians used, that the older a person grew the more precious. I wish you’d try to persuade him to let somebody else take his place with the sheep, and to arrange his small affairs so that when he comes down for his Navidad he will remain. There’s enough to keep him busy and happy here.”

“I’ll try, mistress. But he’ll not be persuaded. Old Pedro wouldn’t think he could breathe down here in the valley, for long at a time. Well, good-by. Ready, captain?”

“Ready, John, as soon as mother gets the basket. Quiet, Buster. I believe you’re more eager for a canter than I am, even.”

Then when the basket had been handed up to John, the pair merrily saluted the women on the porch and rode away; but Mrs. Benton called shrilly after them:

“Turn back and start over again! Turn back, I say! Both your horses set off left feet first. That means bad luck as sure as you are born!”

But nobody paid any heed to Aunt Sally’s forecasts of evil, save to laugh at them. Only Mrs. Trent again felt that nervous shiver seize her, and but for shame’s sake would have begged her daughter to defer her ride until another day.

However, shame prevailed; or common sense, which is far better; and well it was––or ill––that the riders kept serenely on their way, indifferent to “signs” and ignorant of what lay before them.