When Felicidad looked up Juan Rio was standing by her. He leaned over Pablo, listening intently. "Juan Rio always does his work well," he muttered. "Bah! I'm not going to hide for a little thing like this-not I-I can take the risk.” He stepped out on the balcony and peered up and down the street. The watchman's lantern was gone. His voice crying the hour, "Las doce, sereno el tiempo," sounded faintly in a distant street. All was safe. Juan lifted the young artist's body in his powerful arms, wrapped the black capa around it, and carried it down the steps and out into the street. There he left it, trusting to luck that the heavy-laden burros, driven in from the country in the dim early morning, would trample it under their feet before it was discovered. Felicidad stood mute and motionless until Juan disappeared with his burden. Then, her dark eyes narrowing and growing blacker, she picked up the bloody knife lying at her feet and followed him. Creeping softly down, she stood in the dark shadow by the stairs and waited. Juan soon came in, and as he turned to bar the gate, Felicidad sprang on him and buried the knife between his shoulders. Without a sound he fell, his miserable life snuffed out like a candle. With almost superhuman strength she dragged the body into the street and laid it with the face toward Pablo. The same hand might have stabbed them both. Then she went in and barred the gate. The summer months passed, and with them the heavy clouds that during that season lie over the beautiful mountains. "La Mujer Blanca" (The White Woman) was revealed in all her glory, covered from head to foot with a sparkling veil of snow. Popocatepetl, her lover, loomed up, keeping watch over her slumbers. Again the Teatro Nacional was crowded, for the Señorica Felicidad had returned to dance, after a long vacation. She had been seized with a sudden illness, caused, some said, by the shock of a horrible murder committed near her house. Two men were found stabbed, both fatally, it was at first reported. The one who after a long struggle survived and finally recovered, seemed to have no clear idea of what had happened. The affair was shrouded in mystery and at last dropped for lack of witnesses. The people waited patiently for their favorite, and at length she came, a little thinner, but the same Felicidad,-in her short, yellow petticoat trimmed with black, and her little. high-heeled red shoes. How she danced! How the people shouted for joy! When she paused just at the footlights to acknowledge their applause, she saw a face-" Madre de Dios!" Could it be? Yes -it was Pablo! Their eyes met. Felicidad gave a low, frightened cry. Then quickly recovering herself and bowing, she ran toward the wings. Cries of "Mas! mas! La señorita, la señorita!" came from all sides-but the dancer had fainted. "She stood in the dark shadow, and waited" "N A TALE OF THE PINES BY ADDIE E. SCOTT OW you've said enough Tom, an' you better hush right up. You've no great call to blame Steve, for you 're as like as two peas in a pod, barrin' he's han'some an’ you hain't." The young woman speaking was large and fair. She kept on beating her cake batter energetically, but crimson spots burned in her cheeks, and her tones held a sharpness not unwonted of late. She measured her flour, sifted it with strong, rapid hands, and turning again toward her brother, began speaking as she stirred it in. "You hain't no fonder o' work 'an Steve is, an' Steve was raised a gentleman an' 's had schoolin' an' you hain't; an' mother's allays earnt your grub." "I war n't the first to pitch on Steve," the boy muttered shamefacedly. The woman made no reply. The boy leaned against the baking-table and watched his sister's preparation's with interest. "What kind o' cake you makin', Mag?" he ventured conciliatingly. "Marble," the woman returned shortly, as she cleared a place on the baking-table and deposited thereon two small ovals fresh from the oven. She broke them and they crumbled richly in her fingers, emitting a faint spicy smell. Evidently her test proved satisfactory; for, taking a bright pan, she began filling it with alternate layers of the dark and light dough, and using the corner of her clean gingham for a holder, transferred the whole to the oven, entirely forgetful of the cooling fragments. But the boy's fingers tingled for the tempting morsels, and as she did not speak again, he raised his head and regarded her. She had pinned a coarse towel across her lap, and taking a pan of pears was proceeding to peel them rapidly. The sharp blade traveled swiftly around the fruit, and the paring fell away in long thin lines. But her mind was far from the work of her hands. The large airy kitchen faded from her view. The hop-vines rustled against the windows, and the tangy smell of the pines floated in at the open door. With unseeing, introspective eyes she sat, while the cake browned in the oven and the pan of spiced vinegar bubbled on the stove. She was fighting the old, old battle over again. The boy reached out a tardy hand for the dainties, and stole unheeded from the room. Finally the woman rose with a deep sigh. She seemed to have decided some momentous question, and to have found relief without lightness of heart; for although the painful color faded from her face, her eyes held a look of settled sorrow. The pungent smell of the spiced vinegar had penetrated to the utmost limits of the yard, and presently an old woman entered, bending sidewise under the weight of a basket of tomatoes she carried in her hand. Setting them down heavily she threw off her dark sunbonnet and pushed the hair from her moist face. The old woman did not reply; but she rose presently and began sorting her toma toes, her hands trembling with a pertur bation she could not hide. Seven years before her daughter had been the finest girl on the ridge. Much of her force, her physical capableness and beauty, combined as it was with a certain slowness of mind that made painful an mental effort, the girl had inherited from her mother. Yet she had walked through the forest to pick up the crooked stick. For what else could Steve Bayne b called? Yet Bayne was pleasing in person, with a fascination that few could resist, and before his marriage had had many love affairs, and more than one girl had wept over his loss. It was whispered at times that Bayne had never lost interest in the game, but kept his hand in by occasional practice, and that some of his "old girls dressed with greater care if Steve Bayne was to be at the dance. And Steve was usually there. With his arm around a woman's waist, his handsome head bent low, whispering the flattering nothings that never failed to bring color to the dullest face, Steve seemed in his element, and directly opposed to many of the men, who had come only at the earnest solicitations of daughters or wives, and who begrudged the flyhours. ng But lately a new interest had arisen at the dance. The merchant had married and brought his young wife home. "Let the woman with a husband or lover hang on to his coat-tails now," the old French woman had said on seeing Rose Everson. And many had come to agree with her; for certainly the alluring young beauty made everything subservient to the homage of men. Much of her time was spent in her husband's store, which became the popular place of the town. To Steve Bayne, craving pleasure and finding none, uneasy under the altered conditions which gave him a deserted cabin and empty larder instead of a thrifty wife busied with the manifold duties of providing and preparing, yet ever ready to serve, Everson's offered occasional refuge. For a time after Mag's departure, shamed that it had come to pass, Steve worked to retrieve his waning fortunes; but as all prospect of bonding or selling his mine seemed to vanish in the distance, Steve's short-lived endeavors became less frequent and his cravings for pleasure more keen. Unaccustomed to labor, too proud to sponge on his neighbors or appear in rusty attire, Steve began to blame Mag for her long delaying, declaring that he, too, Would leave their lonely cabin, never to return; that the world held women far prettier and less tiresome than Mag, whose whole gospel seemed that of work, and who begrudged the cost of any pleasuring or the tickets to a dance. And it was at the first of these bitter feelings toward Mag that he fell under Rose Everson's spell. He had panned out some gold, and sponging his suit with painstaking care, came into the town, staked all at the gaming table, and won. Late in the afternoon he walked into Everson's with pockets fuller than for many a day. His first impulse was to seek Mag, and walking in, suddenly, turn the glittering pile into her lap. But a moment's reflection changed his course; for his sporting habits were a thorn in Mag's side, and furthermore, should she consent to keep the coin and return with him, the bulk of it would go toward the laying in of winter supplies, and give him but little of the freedom he craved. No; rather, he would be measured for a new suit, he needed one badly enough, -and send the order, with various other items to the city. Rose Everson stood by as he looked over the samples, touching the small squares of cloth with her pretty pink fingers, and when Everson went to wait upon customers, she gathered up her dress. and sweeping the samples in, beckoned him to follow into the room. It was Steve's first entrance into the enchanted land; but as his quick eye noted its charm, he resolved it should not be his last. Springing lightly upon a chair, Rose shook her dress, and sent the samples in a shower upon the floor. "There is my favor, Sir Knight," she laughed. "Shall it be a scarlet sleeve, or a broidered glove?" Then bounding to the floor she sank into a cushion. here," she said. Sit No, not for worlds." Perhaps you are wise." "You are the best-dressed man around." "Because I wear nothing but black?” "Not so. Because of your carriage. I noticed it at the dance six weeks ago, and asked who you were." "I wish I had known." "Why?" This was not the home-coming she had looked forward to, when, weary with her day's canning, she had thrown herself on the bed, and snuggling the sleeping baby in her neck, had longed for its father, until she could feel his warm kisses and the touch of his hands. For Mag's affections were rich and deep, overbalancing her sense of wrong. Many a time, Steve, won by her gentle magnanimity, would stroke her cheeks and call her his good angel. Under his caresses the bitter sting of existence would pass for a time, and Mag, with lightened heart, would stitch, stitch, stitch, at her rapid machine. But everything seemed dreary to-night. Their little cabin had gathered dust, and cobwebs hung from the dingy walls. The windows, left open by a man's careless hand, had given passage for the forest "Because I have missed six weeks of winds, and the little ornaments, costly pleasure." Rose Everson threw back her head and laughed. When had she met a man so worthy her steel? 66 Are you married?" she asked suddenly, leaning forward and turning wide brown orbs up to his own. Are you?" he queried, gazing into their soft depths. She lowered her head poutingly. "Yes," she said. "So am I." with a woman's labor, lay scattered over the floor. Mag surveyed the two poor rooms with sinking heart. If Steve had but seemed to care! The coldness of his greeting, the silence of the walk home had taken the heart out of it all. She sat down a moment in weariness. But when Steve came in with the cones little Matt had gathered, she was encircled in a fierce cloud of dust. "Better wait till morning, had n't you?" Steve said, as he lit the fire and hurried out. Mag gave a half laugh, half sob. Was n't that just like Steve, with the dust an inch deep, and flour, too, where the mice had gnawed the scanty bag! But she hurried her preparations and sent little Matt to a neighbor's for milk. "Tell her we'll get our cow home tomorrow, an' pay it back." Mag fed the baby patiently, and put it to bed; and long after Steve lay sleeping tossed in dull misery by his side. Mag rose in the morning with aching head, and labored throughout the day, and many days thereafter. Life was the same, save for this, that Steve no longer recounted his doings or gave her a word of love. His habits, still irregular, had taken a certain change, and Mag noted with bewilderment that he started over the trail each evening, dressed in his best, and no longer with dog and gun. Many a question trembled on her lips, but she dared not voice them, fearing to rouse the phantom of their separation, which hung coldly over both. One evening Steve came home earlier than usual. Ceasing to expect him at any certain time, Mag had their frugal supper ready; but rising, she cut more bread and poured out a cup of tea. Little Matt looked up gravely, but Steve did not sit down. He seemed constrained, uneasy, and Mag watched him with saddened eyes. How handsome he looked in his new clothes! When he went into the yard, the baby, having eaten her share of the stew, took her bread and toddled out. Steve picked her up and kissed her little red mouth. "Good-by, Toddykins," he said. Mag watched him until he disappeared along the trail, and then burst into tears. Used to his comings and goings, it yet seemed portentous to-night. Three days later Steve had not returned, and Mag took the children and walked up to the mill. Mrs. Ball was a great talker; she would tell what everybody was doing and incidentally of Steve. "Why, dear child, hain't you gone yet?" the woman exclaimed in astonish ment at seeing Mag. "Never tell me you're a-goin' to stay in them woods alone." "I don't know what you mean," Mag stammered, turning pale. "Sakes alive! you don't mean to say Steve's gone an' not lettin' you know! Well, on my soul, that's a purty piece o' business fur a married man to do!" "Where 's he gone?" Why, he's gone to the city,-gone down to see his pa. Don't his pa live in the city? Well, that's what he said. Mebbe he was jokin'. But he's took the stage an' gone.' "Where'd he get the money?" Mag interrupted, incredulously. The old woman put down her work and came forward in real consternation. Now, Mag Bayne," she said earnestly, "you don't mean to tell me you did n't know about the sellin' o' Steve's mine? Why, he got five hundred cash downGood Heavens, woman! what you goin' to do?" Mag, clutching the baby wildly, was staggering down the steps. She saw it all now. Steve had dropped a scrap of letter, and she had read the dainty, perfumed bit, wondering who "Rose" might be, and puzzling over the city address. He had gone to her! Unlearned in the ways of the world, she had jumped far beyond the truth; but this she could not know. A week later Steve Bayne was going over the trail to Mag. His cup of pleasure had not been the rich wine he thought it would be. The little Everson had fooled him once, but she never would again, he muttered. After all, one woman like Mag was worth a dozen makeshifts such as she; and with the thought of Mag his pulses quickened. In fancy he saw her golden head, heavy with braids, bent low above her seams, and the baby at her feet upon the floor. But the place had a deserted air. With sinking heart he opened the gate and walked in. Close by the step, where the flowers had been, a heap of ashes caught his eye, and from it protruded the iron framework of Mag's prized machine. She had burned her bridges behind her and forever gone. |