From Las Flores, where the Indian village still held together in a shiftless sort of way, Raquel Estevan and her friend Ana Mendez galloped north mile on mile over the mesa above the sea.

"Art never tired, Raquel?" demanded the older and darker of the two as they halted to let their animals drink where a rivulet ran full from the foothills. "Since we left the ranch house thou hast never lessened the gallop."

"Tired? I should shame to acknowledge that, when DoÑa Luisa never rests on the way. She endures it all, while only the young ones complain."

"Endures! What would she not endure for her beloved Rafael—now your beloved Rafael?"

Ana was not malicious, but there was a touch of mockery in her tone and questioning glance.

"Why should he not be beloved?" asked the other, smoothing carefully the mane of her horse and bending low to conceal the slight flush of cheek. "Is he not handsome and good?"

"It is not easy to be good when a man is so handsome," laughed Ana; "still, I will take your word for it! But, Raquel, you always get clear of the question; not once have you said that you find him beloved. Are you going to be coquette to the wedding-day?"

"You talk to amuse yourself," and the violet dark eyes were lifted an instant. "You learn to coquette when you marry, and cannot forget; but the nuns never teach us that."

"What need?" and Ana showed her white teeth in a laugh. "They did not teach us we must breathe to live; yet some way we learned it! But confess! You outride all the party to reach San Juan, and Rafael; yet how are we sure what urges you?"

"My promise."

"But why the promise, if the man is not beloved? You have had no harsh guardian, as I had; you were all free."

"Free? Oh yes, I had always the choice between some husband and the veil of a nun. And then—then DoÑa Luisa came with her love and her son, and her great plans of good work I could do out in the world. And so—and so we are riding to meet him, and I outride you!"

"I never hasten to trouble," remarked Ana Mendez; "and if we should meet him on the way, you would send me at once to the carriage. I should put in hours listening to the virtues of Rafael Arteaga and peril my soul pretending to agree with his mother."

"Why should you do that?"

"Raquel, do you really see how little the ideas of Don Rafael and his mother agree? I know little enough—thanks to California, which keeps its girls from education; but I do see that every thought of Rafael Arteaga is for the new ways, the ways of the Americano."

The younger girl drew up her horse with a cruel jerk, and faced her friend.

"Anita, beloved," she said, sadly, "you have said the thing I felt, but did not know. Why not let some less dear one tell me?"

"Holy Maria! Who else would? You are going among strangers, but you are no more a stranger to the California of to-day than is DoÑa Luisa. I hope all the time some one tell you at San Diego, or at San Luis Rey, but no one does; and Rafael does not meet us; and—"

"The letter did not reach him, or else he has gone by boat," said the other, steadily. "Anita, why do you sometimes seem not quite friendly to Rafael? Your words—"

"Never think it!" cried Ana. "We are friends enough, but—I know him better than his mother—that is all! He has turned the heads of many girls, but I do not think he has turned yours, Raquelita!"

The other girl made no reply.

"I do not think so," continued her friend, "because you have never once lost sight of duty,—the duty DoÑa Luisa and the padre have taught you to see. You are good, Raquel,—when you are not in a temper; but about Rafael you do not think your own thoughts. You dream of the life of your father and DoÑa Luisa when all this land was theirs. But the dream is gone, and to-day we wake up."

"I see—the old world was too slow. You wake up to be all Americano—no?"

"Raquel, do you hate them as much as DoÑa Luisa?"

The girl from Mexico turned her face toward the sea, and did not answer at once. Then she said:

"Only once in my life have I spoken with an Americano, and I did not hate him."

"A young man?"

"He—he was not old," she confessed. "On my soul, I believe you have had a lover!" cried Ana. "Oho! you can play Rafael at his own game, after all! Santa Maria! I thought you were too pretty to be the saint they think you. Tell me!"

"There is not anything to tell," said the younger girl, quietly, though the color crept to her cheek; and then after a little she added, "He died. I never saw him but once; the padre said I was wrong to—to—oh, they said things to me about heretics! I never knew any other, and I promised not to. But if he had lived I should not have promised; that is all."

"All! Rafael would think it enough! On my soul, I am glad you are so human—though I have no love myself for heretics!"

"Human!" mused Raquel. "Is it human to remember, when one should forget and cannot?"

She did not say it aloud, and refused to discuss the matter further.

"He is dead," she said; "Rafael cannot be jealous of a man I saw but once; it was only the dream of a girl—like a picture in a book—and the page is closed. I shall marry Rafael, and work in the world instead of in the convent. It is for Mother Church and—it is right!"

At San Onofre the surf was breaking against the cliffs. It was high tide, and the beach road was deep enough for a horse to swim. Raquel had ridden far ahead, and now stood on the brink of a torrent cutting its way down from the hills to the sea.

The girl glanced back at the swaying chariot-like carriage on a far hill, and wondered what would be expected of their broncos in this crisis.

The animal she herself rode danced and fretted with fright at the roar of the surf and the dash of the hill stream, but she sat the saddle with ease, answering to every curve or side leap as lightly as a gull that floated on the incoming wave.

Her face held something of the power suggested by her strong right hand. The eyes were so soft, yet steady, and of darkest violet. The black lashes touching her cheeks gave them tender shadows, and the hair, in two thick braids reaching to her waist, framed a face of youthful curves and charm. But what was it made every man, and many women, turn to look again at the face of Raquel Estevan?

Many girls were as beautiful, but something beyond the beauty of feature or color was in her strange half-Egyptian face,—a certain barbaric note held in check by the steady eyes and the mouth firm yet tender. It was a mouth made for love; yet—was it the shadow of the dark veil she had so nearly worn? Was it a hint of regret for the cloistered life left behind? Or was it the shadow of some future—a prophecy of the years to come?

Ana paused at the edge of the stream, in terror at the volume of water barring their way on every side.

"Ai! ai! And Aunt Jacoba but a moment ago declaring that she will have her supper in the refectory of the San Juan Mission. Neither Mission nor supper can we see this night—and no Rafael!"

She turned dismayed though roguish eyes on Raquel.

"He did not expect us when the rains came," said Raquel with quiet certainty. "If he received DoÑa Luisa's letter, he has gone by sea to San Diego. Did she not say so, Anita?"

"Oh, he can do much, your handsome Rafael," agreed Ana, "but he cannot yet stop the tide, or dam La Christienita! Such a dry bed in Summer! and now it is a river."

"But not deep?" hazarded Raquel. "Not so deep as the carriage bed."

"Deep? There is one ford that is safe if one knows it; but, Holy Maria! on each side are pits of a depth to drown us all!"

"Oh, if there is a good ford to be found—" The rest of Raquel's sentence was drowned in Ana's shrieks of protest, as her horse was spurred into the torrent in search of the roadway safe for a carriage. Ana was right; there were pits, and there were great round bowlders on the edges of them. The horse stumbled on one, recovered, and stumbled again where the current swung into a whirlpool; and then, as the water roaring in her ears almost drowned Ana's screams, a sharp authoritative voice sounded from the bank—

"Loose the stirrup!"

Raquel did so mechanically, just as a rope circled about her shoulders, pinning her arms to her sides, and with a quick, cruel jerk she was wrenched from the saddle; and as her horse, relieved of her weight, swam straight for the opposite shore, she felt herself caught by a strong arm and lifted across another saddle. The man with the reata had caught her first, lest she be dragged downward into the whirlpool, but it was another man who dashed through the whirl of waters and bore her to the shore, where half a dozen men waited. They were evidently vaqueros; one of them had thrown the reata, and hastened now to loosen it, to lift her from her rescuer and stand her on her feet. She swayed a trifle, and reaching blindly for support, she caught the arm of a man beside her, the one who had lifted her from the water. Then for the first time she noticed that he wore the garb of a priest, evidently a secular priest, for he wore a beard, and even then it struck her as strange that he looked so bronzed and rugged. His grasp was that of a rider of the range, rather than a priest of the Church.

"Father, the Virgin have you in her keeping! You saved my life then. I shall always—always—"

Then she could no longer distinguish priest from vaquero; the earth seemed to meet the sky, and between them she was extinguished.

When she awoke she no longer could hear the screams of Ana, and the red rays of the lowering sun touched the face of the priest as he bent over her. It had more of youth than she had at first perceived.

"Lie you still," he said, as one used to command. "The water was rough with you, and the reata rougher. Swallow some of this wine; it came from your own carriage, and is better than ours."

"From the carriage?" The carriage was on the opposite side of the stream, but her horse had followed her and was tied near, shaking himself like a great dog.

"Yes. I sent one of the boys—the vaqueros—across. Your friends know you are safe, but the carriage cannot come over—not yet; you have had good fortune to get out."

"The good fortune was to find you here, father," she said, and catching his hand she kissed it reverently. "It is a good omen and shows me a blessing is on my journey to my father's land. You may have known him by name. I am Raquel Estevan, and it was my father Felipe who once owned this land from mountain to sea."

"Felipe Estevan—you! But that cannot be. He is dead, and his one child is in religion—I was told so—I—"

The color came back to her face, and she raised herself on her elbow.

"It is true—I was for the Church—but I will tell you all—some time!"

"Go on," said the priest, authoritatively, "tell me now!"

"I was told it was better to work for God out in the world," she said, softly, "and so I am coming with my Aunt Luisa, father's cousin, and—"

"And—" he looked at her strangely. "Then it is you—you they bring to marry with Rafael Arteaga. Holy Mary! And it is Felipe's daughter—Felipe Estevan—who sold for a song rather than live under the Americanos; and it is for his daughter I wait here by San Onofre—for his daughter!"

Raquel stared at his evident agitation, not understanding. The sentences of the padre sank to muttering beneath the black beard, as he turned and strode away. The vaqueros, standing together holding their horses as if eager to be gone, exchanged wondering glances and eyed the girl curiously. Directly he came striding back and halted beside her.

"Yet you marry with Rafael Arteaga," he said, accusingly. "You are Felipe's daughter, yet you are much Americano—eh? You are of the States, is it not so? Between you two, old California will no longer have foot-room from San Jacinto to the water out there. God!" and he ground his heel into the turf. "Yet are you Felipe's daughter, and we must let you go!"

"No!" she cried as vehemently as he. "I go nowhere from the rules of my father in this land. The things he loved I love; the things he fought for I will guard! It is for that, father, I marry with Rafael. He is—he is not so much for old California, I know—I hear! His mother is afraid; she grieves over that much! But the two of us—the two of us, with your prayers to help, and we keep him always for our father's country—always till he die—with your help!"

"With my—help?"

"Your prayers, father! You will see I am Felipe Estevan's daughter, even while I am born in Mexico. I will do what a son would do for our land and our Church. You will see—you will see! It is a blessing from God that you meet me here like this at the edge of the land. Always I have thought these thoughts in my heart, but only to you—a priest—could I say them in words, and it is well you meet me here like this. Your words are the words I needed to make me see what I want to do. It is like a baptism that I went under that water a girl, and your hand lift me out a woman! The Virgin sent me here this day that I meet you. You have opened the gate of the land for Felipe Estevan's daughter."

He leaned against the trunk of a young live-oak and stared at her with a derisive smile in the smoke-black eyes.

"Yes, the Virgin sent me," he said at last, "and she came near sending me too late. The trail is bad along La Christienita for the night-time, and the night is close. The man will take you back to your friends."

"But you, father? You come to the carriage and see the mother of Rafael—no? They wait for us. DoÑa Luisa is so very old; she will be anxious till she speak with me—and with you."

She arose and held out her hand. He regarded her strangely, and shook his head.

"The men have other work than to camp with a pleasure party. I stay on this side and have far to travel before sunrise. This once I talk with you—maybe nevermore, and to San Juan you take one message for Rafael Arteaga."

"A message? Yes?"

"Tell him Felipe Estevan's daughter has saved to him this once a treasure; but no woman can guard him always, for—El Capitan is never too far to come quickly!"

"Oh—Capitan?" she said with sudden comprehension. "I was told at San Luis Rey how much he is the enemy of Rafael. But it must not be, father. Cannot we help that? I have heard of Capitan from an old soldier of the wars, who told me all I know of my father: he was a brave boy and—he fought beside my father. I remembered that when I passed his mother's grave at San Luis Rey—it will never be bare and forgotten again—never! I planted it thick with the passion-vine. DoÑa Luisa tells me she was a great woman. She prays that some day the two cousins may be friends."

"DoÑa Luisa prays for what only the good God could make happen," said the priest, grimly. "But of course all things are possible to the good God, even in the land which God forgot. Fidele is waiting."

He made a movement toward the Mexican holding her horse, and without further words mounted another animal himself, and galloped away along the fringe of trees skirting the caÑon. Several of the others followed. Only three remained to watch Fidele pilot his charge across the ford, where the ford was safe though deep; and once her animal's feet touched the opposite bank, her attendant, with a sweep of sombrero, but no words, wheeled his own horse and fell in line after his comrades, who were disappearing one by one toward the mountains.

Raquel Estevan sat her horse at the edge of the stream and stared after them, giving little heed to the shrill calls and exclamations of the women. Even after they had stripped her of the soaked riding-dress and wrapped her in serapes for the night, she maintained a thoughtful silence, and all Ana's hints of romances went for nought, so far as gaining replies or special notice.

What treasure had Felipe Estevan's daughter saved for Rafael Arteaga? And why—why—that strange intensity of the priest? These questions were turned again and again in her mind as she lay there in the light of the camp-fire watching the stars move across the high blue. The other three women were sleeping as best they could in the carriage, smothered in serapes. Jacoba lamented every waking moment, because of much-feared rheumatism,—she was so certain it would mean a camp at the hot springs for a month, just at the time of the wedding!

DoÑa Luisa made no complaint. When told the carriage could not by any means cross safely, she braced herself for the ordeal of the night, and Raquel, glancing toward her, could see her face gray-white in the gathering dusk. All the night that gray profile met her eyes, for she slept not at all.

The driver had stretched himself where his horses were tethered, but the two Indian boys who rode with the carriage kept a fire of aliso boughs burning. They would nod at times with sleepiness, but the whispered command of the girl ever wakened them quickly, and the dying fire would blaze again. There was no conversation, only brief commands and prompt obedience; and thus the girl passed the first night in the land of her father, the roar of the sea and the wild calls of the coyotes keeping silence from the night.

When the coyotes ceased and the birds heralded dawn, one Indian boy rode across at the ford and gauged the depth of the water on his cow-pony's legs. It was "muy bueno"—very good indeed, the water had gone down a foot, and before the dawn broke, the whole cavalcade was again under way. There was breakfast to ride for, and it was several miles across the hills.

Pedro was of the opinion that there was a round-up in the caÑon of La Paz, about half-way to San Juan. If so, there might be "carne oeco" and coffee to be had—perhaps tortillas. The vaqueros would be eating by dawn, but if it was possible to drive fast, there might be hope of coffee at least.

So Raquel rode ahead, alert at the coming day and the promise of it. Ana was glad to stay in the carriage with the older women, complaining that she had caught cold from the sea-damp. At one bend of the road she noticed Raquel far ahead, bending low over the neck of her horse, scanning the ground. Then she turned out of sight under the live-oaks in a narrow caÑon, and came galloping back to the main trail as the carriage came up.

"One would think you were searching the sand for grains of gold washed down from the mountains!" called Ana; but the girl shook her head, and rode thoughtfully up the incline to the mesa above. She had been noting the curious fact that the party of vaqueros and the priest had left the trail one by one, heading toward the hills wrapped still in the mist of the morning.