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Page 4
He was all sincerity; Ignacio Chavez would no sooner think of being
rude to a beautiful young woman than of crying "Scat!" to an angel.
But as to staying here a thousand years . . . she glanced through the
tangle of the garden to the tiny graveyard and shook her head.
"You have just come to San Juan?" he asked. "To-day?"
"Yes," she told him. "On the stage at noon."
"You have friends here?"
Again she shook her head.
"Ah," said Ignacio. He straightened for a brief instant and she could
see how the chest under his shirt inflated. "A tourist. You have
heard of this garden, maybe? And the bells? So you travelled across
the desert to see?"
The third time she shook her head.
"I have come to live here," she returned quietly.
"But not all alone, se�orita!"
"Yes." She smiled at him again. "All alone."
"Mother of God!" he said within himself. And presently to her: "I did
not see the stage come to-day; in San Juan one takes his siesta at that
hour. And it is not often that the stage brings new people from the
railroad."
In some subtle way he had made of his explanation an apology. While
his slow brown fingers rolled a cigarette he stared away through the
garden and across the desert with an expression half melancholy, half
merely meditative, which made the girl wonder what his thoughts were.
When she came to know him better she would know too that at times like
this he was not thinking at all.
"I believe this is the most profoundly peaceful place in the world,"
she said quietly, half listlessly setting into words the impression
which had clung about her throughout the long, still day. "It is like
a strange dream-town, one sees no one moving about, hears nothing. It
is just a little sad, isn't it?"
He had followed her until the end, comprehending. But sad? How that?
It was just as it should be; to ears which had never been filled with
the noises or rushing trains and cars and all of the traffic of a city,
what sadness could there be in the very natural calm of the rim of the
desert? Having no satisfactory reply to make, Ignacio merely muttered,
"Si, se�orita," somewhat helplessly and let it go with that.
"Tell me," she continued, sitting up a little and seeming to throw off
the oppressively heavy spell of her environment, "who are the important
people hereabouts?"
_La gente_? Oh, Ignacio knew them well, all of them! There was Se�or
Engle, to begin with. The banker of whom no doubt she had heard? He
owned a big _residencia_ just yonder; you could catch the gleam of its
white walls through a clump of cottonwoods, withdrawn aloofly from San
Juan's street. Many men worked for him; he had big cattle and sheep
ranches throughout the county; he paid well and loaned out much money.
Also he had a beautiful wife and a truly marvellously beautiful
daughter. And horses such as one could not look upon elsewhere. Then
there was Se�or Nortone, as Ignacio pronounced him; a sincere friend of
Ignacio Chavez and a man fearless and true and extravagantly to be
admired, who, it appeared, was the sheriff. Not a family man; he was
too young yet. But soon; oh, one could see! It would be Ignacio who
would ring the bells for the wedding when Roderico Nortone married
himself with the daughter of the banker.
"He is what you call a gunman, isn't he?" asked the girl, interested.
"I heard two of the men on the stage talking of him. They called him
Roddy Norton; he is the one, isn't he?"
_Seguro_; sure, he was the one. A gunman? Ignacio shrugged. He was
sheriff, and what must a sheriff be if not a gunman?
"On the stage," continued the girl, "was a man they called Doc; and
another named Galloway. They are San Juan men, are they not?"
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