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Page 6
"A man dead?" the girl repeated, unwilling to grasp fully.
"You will see," returned Ignacio.
CHAPTER II
THE SHERIFF OF SAN JUAN
The girl in the old Mission garden stood staring at Ignacio Chavez a
long time, seeming compelled by a force greater than her own to watch
him tugging and jerking at his bells. Plainly enough she understood
that this was an alarm being sounded; a man dead through violence, and
the bell-ringer stirring the town with it. But when presently he let
two of the ropes slip out of his hands and began a slow, mournful
tolling of the Captain alone, she shuddered a little and withdrew.
That it might be merely a case of a man wounded, even badly, did not
once suggest itself to her. Ignacio had spoken as one who knew, in
full confidence and with finality. She should see! She returned to
the little bench which one day was to be a bright green, and sat down.
She could see that again the pigeons were circling excitedly; that from
the baking street little puffs of dust arose to hang idly in the still
air as though they were painted upon the clear canvas of the sky. She
heard the voices of men, faint, quick sounds against the tolling of the
bell. Then suddenly all was very still once more; Ignacio had allowed
the Captain to resume his silent brooding, and came to her.
"I must go to see who it is," he apologized. "Then I will know better
how to ring for him. The sheepman from Las Palmas, I bet you. For did
I not see when just now I passed the Casa Blanca that he was a little
drunk with Se�or Galloway's whiskey? And does not every one know he
sold many sheep and that means much money these days? Si, se�orita; it
will be the sheepman from Las Palmas."
He was gone, slouching along again and in no haste now that he had
fulfilled his first duty. What haste could there possibly be since,
sheepman from Las Palmas or another, he was dead and therefore must
wait upon Ignacio Chavez's pleasure? Somehow she gleaned this thought
from his manner and therefore did not speak as she watched him depart.
That portion of the street which she could see from her bench was
empty, the dust settling, thinning, disappearing. Farther down toward
the Casa Blanca she could imagine the little knots of men asking one
another what had happened and how; the chief actor in this fragment of
human drama she could picture lying inert, uncaring that it was for him
that a bell had tolled and would toll again, that men congregated
curiously.
In a little while Ignacio would return, shuffling, smoking a dangling
cigarette, his hat cocked against the sun; he would give her full
particulars and then return to his bell. . . . She had come to San
Juan to make a home here, to become a part of it, to make it a portion
of her. To arrive upon a day like this was no pleasant omen; it was
too dreadfully like taking a room in a house only to hear the life
rattling out of a man beyond a partition. She was suddenly averse to
hearing Ignacio's details; there came a quick desire to set her back to
the town whose silence on the heels of uproar crushed her. Rising
hastily, she hurried down the weed-bordered walk, out at the broken
gate, and turned toward the mountains. One glance down the street as
she crossed it showed her what she had expected: a knot of men at the
door of the Casa Blanca, another small group at a window, evidently
taking stock of a broken window-pane.
The sun, angry and red, was hanging low over a distant line of hills,
the flat lands were already drawing about them a thin, faintly colorful
haze. She had put on her hat and, like Ignacio, had set it a little to
the side of her head, feeling her cheeks burning when the direct rays
found them. The fine, loose soil was sifting into her low slippers
before she had gone a score of paces. When she came back she would
unpack her trunk and get out a sensible pair of boots. No doubt she
was dressed ridiculously, but then the heat had tempted her. . . .
A curious matter presented itself to her. In the little groups upon
the street she had not seen a single woman. Were there none in San
Juan? Was this some strange, altogether masculine, community into
which she had stumbled? Then she remembered how the bell-ringer had
mentioned Mrs. Engle, the banker's wife, and his daughter and Mrs.
Struve and others. Besides all this she had a letter to Mrs. Engle
which she was going to present this evening. . . .
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