Clifford Josephine
Overland Tales

Invitations, accordingly, were issued for a certain day; but the Fates so willed it that the horses of Company "F" were stampeded from the picket-line by a band of Apaches, during the night preceding; and Arroyos, the guide, expressed his conviction that he could lead the troops to the rancheria of these Indians, and recover the horses taken. Although Major Stanford's position as post-commander would have justified him in sending some subaltern officer, he preferred to take charge of the expedition in person, leaving the post in Captain Manson's hands.

"You look pale, child," said Major Stanford, bidding Eva farewell, while the orderly was holding his horse outside. "I am almost glad, on your account, that the dinner-party could be put off. Your color has been fading for weeks, and if you do not brighten up soon, I shall have to send you back home, to your aunt." And tenderly smoothing the glossy hair back from her face, he kissed it again and again, before vaulting into the saddle.

Accompanied by Marcelita alone, Eva, toward evening, set out on her usual ramble, following the road from which the path branched off, leading into the valley. At the point where the road falls off toward Tucson, she stopped before taking the path that led to the spring, and cast a long, shivering look around her. Wearily her eyes roamed over the desolate land; wearily they followed the road, with its countless windings, far into the level country; wearily they watched the flight of a solitary crow, flapping its wings as it hovered, with a doleful cry, over the one, single tree on the plain, that held its ragged branches up to the sky, as though pleading for the dews of heaven to nurture and expand its stunted growth. An endless, dreary waste – an infinitude of hopeless, changeless desert – a hard, yellow crust, where the wind had left it bare from sand, above which the air was still vibrating from the heat of the day, though the breeze that came with the sunset had already sprung up; the only verdure an occasional bush of grease-wood, or mesquite, with never a blade of grass, nor a bunch of weeds, in the wide spaces between.

Farther on to her right, she could see the rough, frowning rocks in the mountain yonder, looking as though evil spirits had piled them there, in well-arranged confusion, to prevent the children of earth from taking possession of its steep heights, and its jealously-hidden treasures.

Grand, and lonely, and desolate looked the mountain, and lonely and desolate looked the plain, as Eva stood there, her hands folded and drooping, the light wind tossing her hair, and fluttering and playing in the folds of her dress. It was the picture of her own life unfolding before her: lone, and drear, and barren; without change or relief, without verdure, or blossom, or goodly springs of crystal water; the arid desert – her life, dragging its slow length along; the frowning mountain – her duties, and the unavoidable tasks that life imposed on her.

With a sigh she turned from both. Before her lay the cool valley, sheltered from careless eyes, and from the sand and dust of the road and the country beyond. Very small was the valley of the spring, with its laughing flowers and shady trees – like the one leaf from the volume of her memory that was tinted with the color of the rose and the sunbeam.

"And up the valley came the swell of music on the wind" – bringing back scenes on which the sun had thrown its glorious parting rays in times past, when life had seemed bright, and full of promise and inexhaustible joy. But she brought her face resolutely back to the desert and the mountain.

She walked on rapidly toward the spring where Marcelita had spread her rebozo on the trunk of a fallen tree, before starting out to gather the flowers that grew in the valley.

Almost exhausted, Eva had seated herself on the improvised couch, but was startled by a step beside her. Was it a spirit conjured up by the flood of memories surging through her breast that stood before her?

"Eva!"

"Charlie, oh, Charlie! have you come at last?" But already the spell was broken.

"I cannot think why Lieutenant Addison should wish to surprise me here. Would it not be more fitting to visit our quarters, if he felt constrained to comply with the etiquette of the garrison?"

"For God's sake, Eva," he cried, passionately, "listen to me one moment; grant that I may speak to you once more as Eva – not as the wife of Major Stanford. Let me hear the truth from your own lips. Eva, I have come here, to this horrible, horrible country, because I knew you were here. I came here to see you – to learn from you why you were false to me; why you spurned my love – the deepest and truest man ever felt for woman – and then to die."

He had thrown his cap, marked with the insignia of his rank and calling, into the grass at his feet; and the last rays of the sun, falling aslant on his rich, brown hair, made it bright and golden again, as Eva so well remembered it.

"False!" she repeated, slowly, as though her tongue refused to frame the accusation against him; "you were false – not I. Or was it not deceiving me – to tell me of your love; to promise faith and constancy to me while carrying on a flirtation – a correspondence with another woman?"

"You cannot believe that, Eva, any more than I could believe what Abby Hamilton told me – that you had left your aunt's house without telling me of it, purposely to avoid me and break every tie between us – till a package, containing all my letters to you, was handed me the day we marched from Fort Leavenworth."

"Those letters had been taken from my desk in my absence. But I had intrusted Abby with a note for you, when I was called to my sister's bedside. And, was it not Abby with whom you were seen riding?"

"Yes – to meet you at Mr. Redpath's farm; and I afterward sent you a note, through her, to which there came no answer save that package of my own letters."

"Why, then, did you go from me? Had you so little faith in me, so little love for me, that you could make no effort to see me? Was it so great a task to write me a few, short lines!"

"Then none of my letters have ever reached you? Oh, Eva, my darling – my lost one – can you not feel how my heart was wrung, how every drop of blood was turned into a scorching tear, searing my brain and eating my life away, when day after day passed, and no tidings came from you? I was on the point of deserting the command, of bringing ruin and disgrace on myself, when a brain fever put an end to my misery for the time, and I was carried to Fort Lyons, as they thought, only to be buried there. When I returned to Leavenworth on sick-leave, I was told you were gone, and your aunt took good care not to let me know where to find you. She had never liked me; but I could forgive her cruelty to me, did not your wan face and weary eyes tell me that my darling girl has not found the happiness I should have sacrificed my own to have purchased for her."

Eva bowed her face in her hands, and deep sobs seemed to rend her very soul, but no word passed her lips.

"Then your life has been made a wreck, as well as my own, Eva?" he continued, wildly, almost fiercely. "Is it right that it should be so: that we should be robbed of all that makes life sweet and desirable, by the wicked acts of others? Must we submit? Is it too late – "

"Too late," echoed Eva; "you forget that I am the wife of another. We must submit. Do not make the task harder for me than it is, Charlie; promise never, never to come to me again."

"I promise," he said, kneeling beside her, and bending over her hand. "Here at your feet ends my wasted life; for I swear to you that I will never go back into the world that lies beyond this camp. But if you believe now that I have been true to you and to my faith, then lay your hand on my head once again, as you did years ago, before we part forever."

"Forever." For an instant the hand he had reverently kissed was laid lovingly on his soft, wavy hair; then Eva arose, leaving him with his face buried in the damp grass, and the shades of night fast gathering around him.

An orderly with a letter for Mrs. Stanford had been waiting for some time at the quarters. It was from Major Stanford.

"You went out with the major this morning, did you not, Tarleton?" she asked of the man.

"Yes, madame; and the major sent me back with dispatches for Captain Manson, and this letter for you."

The major wrote: "Arroyos' opinion, after closely examining the tracks of the absconding Indians, is, that we had better wait for reinforcements before attacking their rancheria. Keep Marcelita in your room. I know how timid you are. If you prefer to have a guard nearer to your quarters, send your compliments to Captain Manson – he has my instructions. We shall probably return to-morrow, by sundown. Till then, 'be of good cheer.'"

"There are more men to be sent out to-night?" asked Eva of the gray-headed soldier. She had always shown particular regard for this man; so he answered more at length than he would have ventured to do under other circumstances.

"Yes, madame; and I heard the men say down at the quarters, that the new lieutenant who came with the infantry was to take charge of the scout."

"Very well; tell Holly to give you a cup of tea and something to eat. Say to the major that I shall not be afraid to-night."

"Thank you, madame." And with a military salute, he retired.

Her husband's letter lay unheeded on the table, and Eva was still in the dark when Captain Manson entered the room, some time later. Marcelita brought candles; and the captain, pointing to the letter, said:

"The major is very anxious that you should not feel the slightest fear to-night. I hope you have worded your answer so that he will not have any uneasiness on your account."

"I sent word that I should not be afraid."

"Nevertheless, I shall place a sentinel near your quarters, if I possibly can. To tell the truth, Major Stanford has ordered out more men than I should ever have sent away from the post. If Arroyos was not so confident that all the red devils are engaged in that one direction, I should have advised the major to leave more men here. But you need have no fears."

The sound of the bugle and the tramp of horses interrupted him.

"The command is going out; they will reach the major some time during the night. Can't think what on earth brought that youngster – Addison – out here. Been anxious to go on an Indian scout, too, ever since he came: he'll cry 'enough' before he gets back, this time, I'll warrant you. The clang of those cavalry trumpets is horrible, isn't it; cuts right through your head, don't it?"

Eva had dropped her hands almost as quickly as she had raised them to her temples; and with her face shaded from the light, she silently looked on the cavalcade that passed along under the mellow light of the new moon.

She sat there long after the captain had left her; she sat there still when the early moon had gone down, and Marcelita had closed the door before resorting to her favorite seat on the floor, with her back against the wall, from where she watched her mistress with eyes growing smaller and smaller, till they closed at last. The wind had risen again, and was blowing fitfully around the corners of the adobe buildings, causing the sentinel on his lonely beat to draw his cap firmer down on his head. It was just such a gusty, blustering wind as would make the cry of the watchful guard appear to come from all sorts of impossible directions, when "ten o'clock and all is well" was sung out. A dismal howl, as though hundreds of coyotes were taking up the refrain, answered the cry; and then the clamoring and yelping always following the first howl was carried farther and farther away till it died in the distance.

Marcelita shook herself in her sleep. "Holy Virgin protect us, they are the Indians," she muttered, with her eyes closed.

Eva had drawn her shawl closer around her; but neither the wild night nor the doleful music had any terror for her; she only felt "her life was dreary," while listening to "the shrill winds that were up and away."

Silence and darkness had once more settled on the camp; but the silence was suddenly rent by fierce, unearthly sounds: yells and shrieks, such as only hell, or its legitimate child, the savage Indian, could give utterance to; shouts of triumph and exultation that made Eva's blood run cold with horror. Marcelita had started to her feet at the first sound, and was tearing her hair wildly, as she repeated, in a paroxysm of terror, "The Indians, the Indians! Oh, saints of heaven, protect us?" The darkness was broken by little flashes of light, where the sentinels, some of them already in the death-struggle, were firing their muskets in warning or in self-defence. A sharp knocking on the door, and voices outside, brought Eva there.

"Open, madame, quick: there is no time to be lost" – it was Holly's voice – "they have attacked the men's quarters first, and we can reach head-quarters and the adjutant's office from this side. It is the only safe place; but quick, quick." And between them – the man who had been on guard near the house and the faithful Holly – they almost dragged Eva from the room, and hurried her into the darkness outside.

The elevation to which exalted rank of any kind raises us, is always more or less isolation from our fellow-beings. Major Stanford's, as commanding officer's quarters, were some distance from those of the other officers, and the space that lay between them proved fatal to Eva's safety.

Every single verde-bush seemed suddenly alive with yelling demons, when the little party had fairly left the shelter of the house behind them.

Holly had no arms, and the other soldier had been lanced through the body; still Eva pursued her way, and could already distinguish Mr. Grumpet's voice cheering the small number of men on to resistance, when a whizzing sound passed close by her ear, and the next moment she found her arms pinioned to her body by the lariat thrown over her head, and felt herself dragged rapidly over the ground, till dexter hands caught and lifted her on the back of a horse. Here she was held as in a vice, and carried away so swiftly that Marcelita's screams and Holly's curses – heard for a moment above all the din and confusion of the impromptu battle-field – soon died away in the distance, as her captor urged his animal to its utmost speed.

On dashed the horse; the angry winds tore her hair, and the spiteful thorns of the mesquite caught her flowing robes, and rudely tore her flesh till she bled from a thousand little wounds, but not a moan or murmur escaped her lips. A merciful fit of unconsciousness at last overtook her; and, when she awoke, she found herself on the ground, her wrists fettered by sharp thongs, that were cutting deep into the tender, white flesh. The first faint glimmer of light was breaking in the East; and Eva could see that quite a number of Indians had met here, and were evidently in deep consultation on some subject of vast importance; for even the savage who was cowering close beside her, as though to watch her, was leaning forward to catch the conversation, with an intent and absorbed air.

They had made their way into the mountains, as the Apaches always do after a successful raid; for the less agile horses of our cavalry cannot follow their goat-like ponies on paths and trails known only to the Indians.

Perhaps Eva was even now lying among the rocks and bowlders that had looked down on her so frowningly yesterday at sunset; perhaps, even then had the foe into whose hands she had fallen marked her for his prey, as he watched and counted – unobserved by the less keen eyes of his "white brethren" – all the chances for and against the success of a sudden onslaught.

From the little flat where they were halting, Eva could catch just one glimpse of the country at the foot of the mountain; and from it she could see – though the mist had not yet cleared away – that they must have ascended to a considerable height. Broken, jagged rocks inclosed them on all sides; a stunted tree or overgrown cactus, here and there, springing into sight as the light grew in the east. A heavy dew had fallen, and Eva was so chilled that she could not have made use of her hands, had they been unfettered. The watchful Indian had noticed the shiver that ran through her frame, and his eyes were fixed on her face, to discover if consciousness had returned. But his eyes wandered from Eva's face directly, and travelled in the direction of the narrow trail by which they had come, winding around the wall of rock, behind which the deliberating savages were seated in a circle, Indian fashion, their legs crossed. At a little distance could be seen their horses, nibbling the scant grass the mountain afforded – and one of these, perhaps, had loosened the little stone that rolled down the side of the mountain.

So the Indian mounting guard over Eva appeared to think at least, for he again turned his attention to the proceedings of the council, when suddenly there came the warning of their sentinel on the rock above them, and simultaneously the shout of "On them, my men! down with them! She is here! she is safe!"

Eva's guard uttered one yell before Lieutenant Addison's ball laid him in the dust; but a dozen arrows were already aimed at Charlie's heart.

"Eva!" he cried, "Eva, have courage; I am coming, I am near you!"

So near that she could see where the arrow had struck his side, and the blue coat was fast growing purple from the blood that followed where the arrow in its flight had made that ugly gash. So near that she could realize how desperate was the struggle between him and the half-naked, light-footed horde that disputed every step to Eva's side, literally at the point of the lance.

But the soldiers were not far behind; and with the strength that comes only of love or despair, the young man reached Eva's side at last. She had not fainted – much as my lady readers may upbraid her for this omission of the proprieties – but held up her poor, fettered hands to him with a look for which he would have laid down his life a thousand times over.

"You are free!" he cried, loosening her fetters with trembling hands; "you are free! And if I have broken my promise – if I have come to you again – I have come only to die at your feet."

THE GOLDEN LAMB

"Oh, dear! this is one of her tantrums again!"

"Well, she is the funniest girl I ever did see."

"And it is only because I laughed at the way the forlorn old maid, whom she calls her dressmaker, had hunched that lovely lavender till it looks like a fright."

"See how she's jerking it, to make it fit."

"Hush, girls," broke in the mother; "that is not the way to improve her disposition. Don't be watching her; look out here at the window; see the number of sails coming in through the Golden Gate this morning."

The view from the bay-window in the second story front, which was used as a sitting-room for the ladies of the family, was certainly very grand this bright December morning, when the sun, shining from an unclouded sky, kissed the waters of the bay till they looked as clear as the heavens above, with millions of little golden stars rippling and flashing on the blue surface. But far more attractive to the two young ladies, who pretended to be counting the vessels in sight, was the view in the back-ground of the room, where a slender, petite figure, with head half-defiantly thrown back, was noting in the tall pier-glass the effects of the changes her quick fingers made in the lavender robe, whose silken folds were sweeping the carpet. The head was crowned with a glory of the brightest, lightest golden hair, while the eyes, flashing proudly from under the long silken lashes, were darker than midnight. Yet the sparkle and the laughter of the noonday sun were in them, when the cloud, just now resting on the child-like brow, was dispelled by a kind word or a sympathetic touch.

"There, Lola – it is perfect now," said Mrs. Wheaton, turning to her youngest daughter, and thus breaking the seal laid on the lips of her two older ones.

Matilda, good-hearted, and really loving her sister, in spite of her greater beauty and her "strange ways," meant to improve the opportunity.

"Yes, indeed, Lola; and I've a good mind to let Miss Myrick make up my olive-green after New-Year's. I really think that if I take as much pains as you do, and go there twice a day to show her, she will be able to fit me splendidly. Don't you think so?"

Lola gave her sister a curious look while she spoke, her face flushed, and after a disturbed expression had flitted over it the hardly banished frown seemed ready to come back. "I don't know what Miss Myrick would want with you twice a day; I don't go there twice a day, I'm sure."

"Oh, I was only thinking – well, you are the strangest girl." Miss Matilda would have been offended, probably, had her sister given her time; but Lola's hands were already gliding over her hair, removing hair-pins, switches, and other appendages from the elder young lady's head.

"Let me show you how I mean to dress your hair on New-Year's eve," said Lola, and peace was made. To have her hair done up by Lola was always an object worth attaining – no one else could make Miss Matilda's angular head appear so well-shaped as she.

Miss Fanny meanwhile had picked up a book and thrown herself on the lounge to read, but combs and combing material having been brought in from an adjoining room she soon became interested in the braids and twists with which her sister's head was being adorned. During the progress of the work, she, as well as the mother, threw in suggestions, or made criticisms with a freedom which sometimes caused the short upper lip of the fair hair-dresser to be drawn up until the milk-white teeth shone out from under it, though she responded with the utmost amiability to the hints thrown out and the advice so lavishly given. The mother had never allowed an opportunity like this to pass without "improving her daughters' disposition," as she termed it – striving honestly so to do by trying the somewhat quick temper of the impulsive, affectionate child. Because the girl's eyes flashed fire and her lips curled haughtily when any fancied slight was put upon her, as she thought her shy but loving advances were repulsed, the family had come to look upon the youngest born as having a bad disposition, when really a more amiable child than little Lola had never grown into womanhood.

"She's an odd one, and always has been ever since they gave her that outlandish name," the father would say, stroking his slender stock of reddish-white hair from his forehead till it stood straight up like a sentinel guarding the bald pate just back of it; "she don't look like the rest, and don't act like 'em, either, though I spent more money on her education than both her sisters put together ever cost me."

What he said about Lola's looks was true; the other two daughters had inherited from him their water-blue eyes and florid complexions, while Lola had the eyes of her mother – so far as the color went. But could the pale, quiet woman ever have known the deep, intense feeling, or the heartfelt, open joyousness that spoke from her daughter's eyes? Who could tell? She had come to California in early days a sad-eyed, lonely woman, and – she had not married her first love.

Her name Lola owed to the only romantic notion her mother ever had, as her father said. When the child had grown to be two or three years old, and Mrs. Wheaton had noted but too often the dreary look that would creep into her eyes, even at this tender age, she kissed the little one tenderly one day and murmured, her sad eyes raised to heaven, "Dolores, he called me, and if he be dead, it will seem like an atonement to give the name to my pet child." Her husband, blustering and pompous in his ways – meaning to be commanding and dignified – seldom opposed a wish his wife decidedly expressed, never stopping to ask reason or motive; and the Spanish children with whom Lola's nurse came in contact calling her by this diminutive, the child had grown up rejoicing in her outlandish name, and an unusually large allowance of good looks.

In the meantime Matilda's hair has been "done up" and duly admired, and Miss Fanny, loath to abandon her comfortable position on the lounge, has just requested Lola to bring for her inspection the list of invitations made out for the New-Year ball to be given by Mr. and Mrs. Wheaton.

"Wonder what Angelina Stubbs will wear?" soliloquized Miss Fanny. "And how she'll make that diamond glitter! Wonder if papa will ever give me the solitaire he promised me?" – turning to her mother.

"No doubt of it, if he has promised it," was the quiet reply.

"Swampoodle was up to three hundred this morning. I should think he could afford it." Then glancing at the list again, she continued: "Here's young Somervale's name. I suppose Angelina will be hanging on his arm all the evening."

"Charles Somervale?" asked Matilda. "Papa said we ought not to have him come; he says his salary will no more than pay for the kid gloves and cravats he's got to buy when he attends gatherings like these, and papa thinks it is wrong to encourage a poor young man in acquiring a taste for fashionable society."

"Poor or not," persisted Miss Fanny, "he's got to come, because he's a splendid figure in a ball-room, and such a dancer! Poor, indeed! Why, Angelina Stubbs would take him this moment, and her father would jump at the chance."

"I should think he would – to get rid of her domineering," laughed Miss Matilda. "But our papa isn't a widower, and I doubt that he would give any man a fortune to have him marry one of his daughters."

Miss Fanny's face grew crimson with vexation. "You are very disagreeable sometimes, Matilda. But I don't wonder at your fearing my getting married before you, seeing that you are the oldest of the family."

It was now Matilda's turn to get angry, but the mother's quiet, even voice broke in and calmed the rising storm before the oldest of the family could frame an answer. The leading question – the dresses to be worn the night of the ball – was brought up; and when the mother turned to consult her youngest daughter on some point, she found her no longer in the room.

"Where is Lola?" she wondered.

"Gone to the matinee, probably," yawned Fanny, composing herself for the further perusal of her novel, "and I should have gone too, if it was not too much trouble to dress so early in the day. Dear me, don't I pity Tilly, though!"

"Why?" asked Mrs. Wheaton, regarding her eldest daughter.

"She will have to sit up straight all day long with that bunch of hair on her head. She thinks old Toots is coming to-night, and she wouldn't for the world lose her elegant coiffure and the chance of looking pretty in his eyes."

Before she had finished speaking her eyes were fastened on the book again, and whatever Tilly replied about not wishing to receive a solitaire as gift from her father fell unheeded, apparently, on the fair Fanny's ears.

It was a mistake about Lola's having gone to the matinee. If we follow her we shall see her ascending one of the streets in the same quarter of the city in which the paternal mansion – as the novel-writers have it – stood, though in a far less fashionable part. Indeed, there was no fashion about; for a corner-grocery, or a retail fruit-shop occasionally made its appearance among the ranks of the generally neat houses, each of which was provided with a flower-covered veranda, or a trim front yard. One of them boasted of a garden and veranda both – the former set out with well-tended flowers, the latter almost hidden under creeping roses and trailing fuchsias. Everything about the place looked prim and neat; even the China boy, who opened the door for Lola, seemed to have been infected by the spirit prevailing, and his snowy apron fairly blinked in the rays of the sun falling through the curtain of the foliage, thinned by the cold nights of the winter season.

Miss Myrick was in, sewing by the window, seated in her own chair, so low that she could not see out into the garden, for fear of being tempted to waste her time. The parlor was comfortably furnished, homelike and tidy, though Miss Myrick occupied it most of the time with her work. She did not often sit in the little room at the back of the house, which really had a better light – the windows opening to the ground – because there was another garden there, and Miss Myrick was so passionately fond of her bright-hued pets that it once happened that the sewing which had been entrusted to her by a cloaking establishment in the city was found unfinished and she in the garden when the porter came to take the garments home. Since that time she had been a great deal stricter with herself – she never had been strict with anybody else, not even with Charlie Somervale, when he had been left to her a romping, frolicking boy of thirteen by his dying mother.

She was an old maid even then, dreadfully set in her ways, as people said, and the twelve years which had passed since then had made her no younger. Her ways, however set, must have been gentle and good, for they had won the boy back from the almost hopeless despondency into which his mother's death had thrown him, and she had made of him a man such as few are met with in our time. His mother had left him nothing, his father having died in the mines years before, poor and away from his friends.

Dying his mother had said to her friend, "Find my brother; he will provide for the boy for my sake." This, however, Miss Myrick had failed to do for two reasons: she knew of the whereabouts of the brother only that he was in the Indies; and had she known more she would not have prosecuted the search, because – well, Charlie "didn't know exactly, but he guessed that her mother had intended Miss Myrick for her brother's wife, but the brother had declined taking stock in that mine." Charlie was clerk in the bank, and we must forgive him some of his peculiar expressions on the ground that "he heard nothing but stocks talked from morning till night."