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THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH 
 
The My&ery at the Carrol Ranch 
 
 A Story of the South- Weft 
 
 Carl Louis Kingsbury 
 
 In the sad south-west ; in the mystical sunland, 
 Far from the toil and the turmoil of gain : 
 
 Hid in the heart of the only, the one land, 
 
 Beloved of the sun and bereft of the rain. 
 
 Rhymes of the Rockies 
 
 Published by 
 
 David C. Cook Publishing Co. 
 Elgin. Illinois 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1910, 
 
 BY DAVID C. COOK PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 ELGIN, ILLINOIS. 
 
The Mystery at the Carrol Ranch 
 
 fflp CARL LOUIS KINGSBUFtYi^ \ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 A DAY OF TROUBLE. 
 
 BY DINT of incessant care in water 
 ing, driving away intrusive hens, and 
 making ferocious but perfectly harm 
 less demonstrations with bits of rocks 
 against whatever dog might chance to come 
 near them, Mrs. Easton had succeeded in 
 growing a screen of morning-glories along 
 the front of the little east porch. She had 
 finished watering the precious crop one 
 morning, and was standing a little back, 
 studying the effect with deep satisfaction, 
 when her eye was attracted to a moving 
 speck on the road beyond the south field. 
 
 Despite her sixty odd years, Mrs. Eas- 
 ton s eyes were keen, and she turned from 
 a momentary inspection of the far-off speck 
 with a sniff of contempt. 
 
 " Some cowboy ridin his horse to death, 
 as usual," was her inward conclusion. 
 " Beats all that one of the critters can 
 never go anywhere no, not as far as the 
 post office after a postage stamp without 
 ridin full tilt, as if his time was too precious 
 to be wasted in goin at a decent gait." 
 And, with a last complacent look at her 
 morning-glories, she turned back into the 
 house. 
 
 In the dining-room she found her grand 
 daughter, sixteen-year-old Nora Carrol. 
 Nora had an array of bright-hued bits of 
 print spread out on the table and was 
 busily engaged in matching them. The 
 ultimate outcome of the matching was 
 destined to be a " piece quilt," such as Mrs. 
 Easton, who had instigated the industry, 
 
 was wont to construct in her own younger 
 days. 
 
 Nora glanced up from her occupation as 
 her grandmother entered the room. 
 
 " Would you put a red one here, grand 
 ma?" 
 
 Mrs. Easton, walking over to the table, 
 studied the proposed effect. 
 
 V No, I wouldn t. Red and pink don t 
 go well together. Another thing, child, you 
 must be careful to turn in all the edges of 
 the pieces this way; if you don t, they ll 
 all fray out, and 
 
 " Hark ! Grandma, someone is calling !" 
 
 Mrs. Easton, intent on her artistic dem 
 onstration, did not catch the remark. 
 
 " When I was a girl " she was begin 
 ning, when Nora broke in again. 
 
 " There ! Don t you hear that, grand 
 ma?" 
 
 Mrs. Easton paused to listen, and then 
 looked reproachfully at her granddaughter. 
 
 " Of course there s someone callin ! 
 How long are you going to sit there and let 
 them holler? Why, when I was your 
 age But as Nora had already vanished 
 through the open front door her grand 
 mother, hastily postponing her reminis 
 cences, followed her. 
 
 Beside the gate a man, mounted on the 
 lean cow-pony of the Southwest, had halted, 
 and, as Mrs. Easton approached, he was 
 saying to Nora : 
 
 " And nothing would do but he must try 
 cutting them out himself. He hadn t more 
 n got into the thick of the mix-up when 
 his horse stumbled, and he fell, and was 
 trampled on " 
 
 M105432 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 " Who fell and was trampled on ?" de 
 manded Mrs. Easton, coming up breathless 
 and pale with apprehension. 
 
 "Mr. Carrol dio. He s hurt some." 
 
 " Oh, ^e isn t hurt badly don t say that 
 he is hurt badly !" Nora exclaimed, her 
 face white undei all ?t? ybidmg tan. 
 
 <k Well, you see, we couldn t tell just how 
 bad he is hurt," the range rider admitted, 
 " because he didn t know nothin , and 
 
 " Do you mean that he was unconscious?" 
 cried Mrs. Easton, in consternation. 
 
 " Why yes I reckon that s the diction 
 ary word for it. Anyway, he s as limp as a 
 rag baby. The boys are bringin him home. 
 Big Pete, he rode over Rosita way to fetch 
 the doctor 
 
 " The doctor !" Mrs. Easton echoed the 
 words with a groan. " Is he as badly hurt 
 as that?" 
 
 " One of his legs is broke, sure. We 
 can t tell yet whether they re all broke, or 
 not. He was down, all of a heap, and the 
 cattle trampin over him; nobody can t tell 
 exactly what did happen, but we low that 
 he ll come to his senses again." 
 
 The rider, Fred Brown, gathered up his 
 reins, but lingered to explain : " The boys 
 they thought I d better come on ahead and 
 kind of prepare you-all, like. They ll be 
 close at hand, now, and I must hurry back 
 and meet em. They thought, the boys did," 
 he insisted awkwardly, " that it might be 
 easier for you if I come ahead and kind 
 o broke the news to you." 
 
 " Thank you for doing it," said Nora, 
 faintly. Her stricken face bore so piteous 
 a look that Fred was constrained to add, 
 as he again turned his horse s head toward 
 the round-up camp on the Cimarron, where 
 the accident had taken place, " It may be 
 that there ain t more n one of his legs 
 broke ; we couldn t be sure, you know." 
 He touched his horse and was gone, while 
 Nora and her grandmother reentered the 
 house; there the bright bits of print scat 
 tered about the dining-room table first at 
 tracted Mrs. Easton s attention. 
 
 " Put away your quiltin pieces, child. 
 There s no tellin when you ll get a chance 
 to work on em again maybe never. This 
 is a dretful thing to have happen to us, 
 right at the beginnin of the round-up sea 
 son, too ! We lost pretty nigh all our crops 
 last year by flood, and nigh all the cattle 
 the year before by winter storms. But, for 
 all that, you won t hear me makin any 
 complaint. I m used to sufferin in silence. 
 
 " I did begin to think that maybe we d 
 get a little forehanded this year, but that 
 hope s all over with now. Dear, dear ! 
 what a time it will be for us all ! For, if 
 I do say it, James temper ain t none of the 
 best at any time. You know yourself, 
 Nora and there s no use in denyin it 
 that many s the time when it would be 
 safer, as well as pleasanter, to touch off 
 a bunch of cannon crackers than to cross 
 him. 
 
 " Now what are you cryin about ? Look 
 at me I ain t uttered a word of complaint, 
 nor sha n t, not if I run my legs off, as I 
 prob ly shall, waitin on him." 
 
 " Oh, poor father ! Grandma, they are 
 bringing him home on a stretcher !" 
 
 " What in time would vou have them 
 bring him home on? A pitchfork?" 
 
 But, despite her protestations, Mrs. Eas 
 ton s ruddy face grew a shade paler as 
 the vision of her son-in-law returning in 
 this helpless fashion to the home that he 
 had left, well and strong, a few hours be 
 fore, presented itself to her imagination. 
 
 " We d best get his bed ready," she added, 
 in a subdued voice, while Nora hastily 
 gathered up the last of her pieces. 
 
 In the midst of the preparations in the 
 injured man s bedroom, Mrs. Easton sud 
 denly remarked : 
 
 " What puzzles me is to know what on 
 earth James was tryin to cut out cattle 
 for, anyway. That s work for the most 
 skillful cowboys which your father ain t. 
 Now, you know that as well as I do, 
 Eleanor." 
 
 " Fred was telling me, just before you 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 came out, grandma, that father s horse 
 he was riding the bay colt was green and 
 awkward 
 
 " There, now ! Do you reckon that a 
 real, proper-brought-up cowboy would try 
 to cut out cattle from a half-wild herd of 
 a thousand or more, on an unbroken horse? 
 I m surprised at James. It s past account- 
 in for, unless he got mad about something, 
 and then he d undertake anything." 
 
 " Fred said Fred thought that perhaps 
 he was kind of put out about something," 
 Nora said, hesitatingly, with her eyes on 
 the sheet that she was carefully spreading 
 over the bed. 
 
 "Oh, he was put out, was he?" 
 
 There was a long pause. Mrs. Easton 
 did not ask what it was that had roused 
 her son-in-law s temper, but she presently 
 observed : 
 
 " When a man gets mad he s a good deal 
 like a balky horse : he doesn t feel any hurt. 
 If so be as your pa has come to his senses, 
 and is real mad yet, he won t feel the pain 
 like he would if " 
 
 Just then a sound of trampling feet was 
 heard outside, and Nora cried: 
 
 " Here they come, grandma !" 
 
 A little procession of horses and foot 
 men had stopped before the gate. The foot 
 men were carrying a rude stretcher, and, 
 as Nora hurried out, she heard the occupant 
 of the stretcher voicing a vigorous protest 
 against being " toted around like a baby !" 
 
 "Oh, you re better, aren t you, father?" 
 she exclaimed, as she sprang to his side. 
 
 " Better? There ain t anything the mat 
 ter, as I know of," he replied. 
 
 It was plain that he was still somewhat 
 dazed. It was at this instant that Mrs. 
 Easton approached and began at once a 
 voluble rehearsal of the salient points of 
 the disaster as she had heard it. 
 
 " Oh, James !" she cried, " what a dret- 
 ful calamity this is ! Are all of your legs 
 broke? Fred, he said one of em was, 
 and " 
 
 " I reckon, ma am," interposed one of 
 
 the cowboy attendants, " that Mr. Carrol 
 he was just stunned like; he s come to 
 now " this was self-evident, as Mr. Carrol 
 was already breathing low-toned anathemas 
 against Fred " and if we was to carry him 
 in against the doctor comes He paused 
 inquiringly, and Mrs. Easton answered by 
 leading the way into the house, whither the 
 men followed with their burden, while Nora 
 stayed behind a moment to care for the 
 riderless horse that had brought up the 
 rear of the procession. This horse was the 
 unlucky bay colt. Nora led him to the 
 stable and then ran to the house. The doc 
 tor had come during the brief interval of 
 her absence, and she entered the room 
 where her father lay just in time to hear 
 his verdict: " Badly stunned; ankle twisted; 
 a general shaking up. You ll find your bed 
 a comfortable place to stay in for some days 
 to come, Carrol." 
 
 After the doctor and the cowboys were 
 gone, James Carrol opened his eyes he had 
 kept them obstinately closed in order not to 
 look the contempt that he felt for the 
 former s observation as to his finding his 
 bed the most comfortable place to stay in 
 and looked inquiringly at his daughter, who 
 was sitting quietly by his bedside. 
 
 "Did you take care of the colt?" 
 
 "Yes, father." 
 
 " The colt wasn t to blame ; he s green. 
 It wasn t his fault that I had to ask him 
 to do something that he didn t understand; 
 he d a done it all right if he d known how." 
 
 " What made you if he didn t know 
 how " Nora began, and paused. 
 
 "Made me try it with him? Because 
 I ain t the one to shirk my work, like some 
 of the rest of my family there ! do put 
 down that cat ! It makes me crawl all over 
 to see her rubbing against your face." 
 
 As Nora meekly shoved aside the house 
 cat that, with paws around her neck, was 
 purring sympathetically, he went on: 
 
 "Where s Rupert? I haven t seen any 
 thing of him through all this fuss. Hasn t 
 he got back yet?" 
 
10 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 " No, father." 
 
 Her father stifled a groan of mingled 
 pain and disappointment. 
 
 " I don t know what to do with that boy. 
 He s no good on earth ! I tell you, Eleanor, 
 he s no good on earth !" his voice rose 
 angrily, as Nora winced at the words. " If 
 it hadn t been for him, I wouldn t be lying 
 here this way, at the beginning of the 
 round-up season. He ll be the ruin of all 
 of us yet, and you and your grandmother, 
 who are always upholding him, no matter 
 what he does, will live to see it." 
 
 " I I don t understand, father," Nora 
 ventured, timidly, " how Rupert could be 
 to blame for your getting hurt. I thought 
 from what Fred said that it was because 
 the bay colt " 
 
 " Fred s a fool !" her father interrupted, 
 harshly. " Rupert never came at all," he 
 concluded, without taking the trouble to 
 explain in what way his son was to blame 
 for the accident that had befallen him. 
 " And I d be willing to bet that while I m 
 held here flat on my back by his careless 
 ness, he s sitting on some rock, or, maybe, 
 lying flat on his back, looking up at the 
 sky, or at anything else except the cattle 
 that he s set to watch, and with no more 
 thought of em than if they was a herd of 
 buffaloes in the heart of Africa!" This 
 summing up appeared, even to Nora, to be 
 so extremely probable that she made no 
 remark, while her father went on irritably : 
 " And it happens to-day that Cosme, who 
 is of some use, must be gone." 
 
 Nora knew that Cosme, the Mexican boy 
 who did odd jobs about the ranch, had 
 gone to Pinos Altos, a long day s drive 
 distant, but when her brother rode away in 
 the early morning, she had not heard his 
 destination mentioned. " Where did Ru 
 pert go, father?" she asked. 
 
 " Where did Rupert go?" echoed the in 
 jured man fretfully. "Who knows where 
 he went? All I know is where I told him 
 to go, and that was to the range on the 
 south slope of the Tefoya Mesa with a 
 
 bunch of cattle that I am going to herd 
 for Wilson, and then to come on to the 
 round-up on the Cimarron. It isn t far; 
 he could have got the cattle over there 
 and been on hand at the round-up by ten 
 o clock, easy, but here s the day nigh gone, 
 and not a sign of him yet !" 
 
 " It isn t quite so near night as it seems, 
 father; there s a fog coming down from 
 the hills, and that makes it seem later." 
 
 "A fog?" Mr. Carrol raised himself on 
 one elbow, the better to peer out of the 
 window at his bedside. " So there is. I 
 noticed this morning that the hills in the 
 north looked kind of hazy. Well, if Rupert 
 has let those cattle get away from him, and 
 the fog settles down as thick as I ve seen 
 it in New Mexico before now, ther ain t 
 enough cowboys in the territory to get them 
 together again until it lets up. A fog!" he 
 repeated anxiously. " I wish your little 
 Jersey was in the corral. I hate to have 
 her out when there s any danger of the cat 
 tle straying. He laid himself back on the 
 pillow with a sigh. " Well, there s nothing 
 for it but to wait till Rupert comes, if he 
 comes at all; like enough he ll manage to 
 lose himself as well as the cattle." 
 
 " I might go out and be doing the chores ; 
 I might feed Snowflake," Nora suggested, 
 rightly deeming that the chore about 
 which her father was most concerned was 
 the care and feeding of the beautiful white 
 mare. 
 
 " Maybe you d better, then there ll be 
 that much done, anyway ; and ask your 
 grandmother to make me some coffee, and 
 make it strong." 
 
 " I will, father." But the girl paused at 
 the door on her way out to look wistfully 
 back at the figure on the bed. " I wish 
 that I could do something for you," she 
 said at last. " I m afraid you re suffering 
 more than you will own up to, father." 
 
 " I m suffering some, I ll admit that, 
 child; but it doesn t do any good to dwell 
 on it." He closed his lips with the forti 
 tude of an Indian, resolved to let no sign 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 11 
 
 escape him, but opened them again imme 
 diately to add another item to the long list 
 of Rupert s shortcomings: 
 
 " I m suffering in mind more than in 
 body. If your brother has allowed those 
 steers to get away, I don t see how we are 
 to round them up again ; and that s what he 
 has done, of course." 
 
 " It may be that he has," Nora admitted, 
 with a sigh that was not all of sympathy 
 for her father, as she rose and quietly left 
 the room. 
 
 <t 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 NORA TRIES TO HELP RUPERT. 
 
 WHERE are you going, now, 
 child?" Mrs. Easton demanded, 
 as her granddaughter passed 
 through the kitchen on her way to the 
 barn. 
 
 " Out to feed Snowflake, grandma. 
 Please make father a cup of strong coffee; 
 he thinks he would like it." 
 
 " Well, as if I hadn t a realizin sense of 
 that ! There s the water a-bilin for it al 
 ready. When you come to my age you ll 
 know, without being told, that hot coffee, 
 next to camphire, is the best thing that a 
 man can drink or put on his wounds, I 
 mean." 
 
 She proceeded to prepare the beverage, 
 and made such good speed that she was 
 soon in the barn at Nora s side. 
 
 " I feel worried about Rupert," she con 
 fessed, as Nora paused in her occupation 
 to glance inquiringly at her. She pushed 
 back a lock of her rebellious gray hair, as 
 she went on, anxiously: 
 
 " What do you s pose has become of him, 
 this time? Do you think it s anyways 
 probable that the Apaches have got him?" 
 
 Despite her own anxiety, Nora laughed. 
 Fourteen years had passed since the very 
 last of the murderous outbreaks of Apache 
 Indians in New Mexico had taken place, 
 and even then the disturbance was several 
 
 hundred miles distant from the Carrol 
 ranch, but Mrs. Easton had not failed, on 
 all occasions since then, to express her 
 haunting conviction that those ubiquitous 
 red men were directly responsible for it, if 
 any member of her little flock failed to ap 
 pear promptly at the expected time. 
 
 " Well, what do you s pose has become 
 of him?" she demanded, resenting Nora s 
 laugh. 
 
 " Grandma," returned Nora, facing about 
 suddenly, " do you remember the Bible les 
 son that you read us last Sunday?" 
 
 " No, I don t; and if I did, I dunno what 
 it has to do with 
 
 " But I do, grandma," Nora interrupted 
 eagerly. "It was this: If there arise 
 among you a prophet, or a dreamer of 
 dreams that was part of it, and it made 
 me think of Rupert." 
 
 Mrs. Easton shook her head doubtfully. 
 " Rupert s as smart a boy as ever lived," 
 she averred, " but I can t say as I ve no 
 ticed any signs of his bein a prophet, 
 and" 
 
 " Ah, but did you ever see such a 
 dreamer of dreams?" declared Nora, tri 
 umphantly. " You know, yourself, grand 
 ma, that he s as likely as not to have for 
 gotten everything on earth but some cloud 
 he is watching or some wild birds flying 
 over " 
 
 " While you are at home doing his work 
 for him," Mrs. Easton admitted, in a low 
 tone, and added: "I hope he ain t in no 
 worse trouble than watchin clouds or ant 
 hills for he s fond of both this time ; he s 
 takin a good while to go to the Tefoya 
 Mesa." 
 
 " Oh, he ll come all right; don t worry, 
 grandma," replied Nora, taking up the 
 pitchfork and beginning to pull hay out of 
 the stack before her. 
 
 " Me worry ? I guess not ! Some folks 
 might let themselves give right away when 
 trouble s piled on to em as thick as it has 
 been on to us to-day, but I ain t one of that 
 kind. What I have to bear, I bear, and say 
 
12 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 nothin . Some folks might keep thinkin 
 of the prairie dog holes that a range rider s 
 horse sometimes steps into and never gets 
 up again, while the rider lays beside him 
 with a broken neck, maybe, or they might 
 be afeard that a boy like Rupert had met 
 up with drunken Mexicans and had got into 
 some dretful quarrel, or that the Apaches 
 had scalped him, but I never think of such 
 things; I make it a rule to never trouble 
 trouble till trouble troubles me. Well, I 
 jest wanted to hearten you up a little about 
 the boy; now I ll go back and give James 
 his coffee." 
 
 She hastened back to the house, leaving 
 Xora so effectually " heartened " that the 
 tears came to her eyes as she staggered into 
 the stable, bent under the weight of the 
 heavily loaded pitchfork. After caring for 
 the horses, and stopping before the bay 
 colt s stall to express her very unfavorable 
 opinion of him, she went outside the stable 
 and stood for a moment looking steadfastly 
 toward the south, the direction whence, 
 owing to the exigencies of the trail, Rupert 
 must come if he were returning from the 
 east range of the Tefoya Mesa. The fog, 
 rolling majestically downward from the 
 northern hills, had blotted out all the nearer 
 landscape, but, far to the southwest, a thin 
 stretch of plains, lifted somewhat above the 
 surrounding level, was yet bathed in sun 
 light. Some cattle were moving restlessly 
 upon it, and, with the fog between and be 
 yond, this sunlit stretch had the effect of a 
 pasture swinging insecurely in midair. 
 
 Nora was used to such odd combinations 
 the effect of sun and plains and fog. What 
 especially interested her was that she at 
 length made out a horseman riding swiftly 
 down the long line of the sky pasture. 
 Even at that distance she instantly recog 
 nized Rupert, and understood, moreover, 
 that such riding could only be in an at 
 tempt to round up a scattered herd. 
 
 Disregarding the amiable whinnies of the 
 white mare, who, from the semi-darkness of 
 her stall, was thrusting a dainty muzzle 
 
 toward her, Nora ran to the rear of the 
 stable where the bay colt was housed, and, 
 in a kind of breathless, furtive hurry, tossed 
 her father s saddle on his back, led him out 
 by the rear door, which was out of sight 
 from the house, and mounting, dashed away 
 through the thickening fog toward the far 
 sunlit line along which she had seen her 
 brother racing his jaded horse. She could 
 no longer see horse or sky line, but she told 
 herself, as the bay colt bounded onward: 
 
 " The cattle have got away from Rupert, 
 and he will never in this world be able to 
 get them together again without help !" 
 
 The black and naked mesquite bushes, all 
 alike in their gnarled unloveliness, started 
 from out the mist, only to vanish again on 
 either side in endless procession, as the 
 colt s flying feet spurned the road. 
 
 For all sight or sound of other life than 
 her own and the colt s, Nora felt as she 
 might had she entered the heart of a billowy 
 fog ocean, but she kept on at a reckless 
 pace, assured that her brother was some 
 where ahead of her, and that he needed 
 help. 
 
 Whether she would be able to give the 
 needed help remained to be seen, but the 
 gait at which she kept the bay colt was 
 none the slower for that. To her loyal 
 heart there was but the one patent fact: 
 Rupert needed help, and there was no one 
 save her to render it. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 WHAT RUPERT WAS DOING. 
 
 RUPERT, for whose return father and 
 daughter watched, each in a differ 
 ent spirit, but with equal anxiety, was 
 having sufficient trouble of his own. 
 
 In the early morning he had left home 
 filled with hope and good intentions, among 
 which might be reckoned a firm determina 
 tion to carry out to the letter the directions 
 that his father had given him in regard to 
 the work for the day, and to allow no be- 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 13 
 
 traving side issues to divert his attention 
 from the matter immediately in hand. 
 
 But Rupert was always swayed by cir 
 cumstances, and there was, for him, an end 
 less chain of interesting circumstances con 
 nected with the cattle drive. His father 
 had been right in saying that Rupert could 1 
 have easily reached the round-up on the 
 Cimarron by ten o clock, after leaving the 
 herd of steers on their allotted range, had 
 he attended strictly to business ; but strict 
 attention to business (as he understood the 
 word) and Rupert were utter strangers. 
 
 So much so that before nightfall of that 
 same day Rupert was driven nearly desper 
 ate by the recollection of the things that he 
 ought to have done, and had left undone, in 
 order, as it now seemed to him, that he 
 might have the more time to do the things 
 that he ought not to. 
 
 Rupert loved the great, wild plains. 
 They were to him as the open pages of a 
 book spread out for his entertainment. 
 Each succeeding day, with its differing 
 atmospheric effects, was as the turning of 
 a new page in the great book whose leaves 
 the fixed, unalterable, melancholy, gray 
 plains were always the same, but whose 
 illustrations varied with every passing 
 hour almost, indeed, with every passing 
 minute, as cloud shadows, flying over the 
 waste of gray, caught his eye and drew it 
 upward to the cloud itself floating in a 
 waste of blue. The flight of an eagle, the 
 wavering line of some far-off mirage, or, 
 in summer, the dizzying shimmer of heat 
 waves undulating endlessly over the scorch 
 ing solitudes, would hold him spell-bound 
 and speechless for minutes at a time, and 
 what mischief might not a half-wild, in 
 tractable herd of cattle get into in those 
 minutes? 
 
 Cosme, the Mexican helper, had started 
 at dawn with the work team and \vagon 
 for Pinos Altos to purchase supplies, but 
 as Rupert, with his bunch of steers well 
 in hand, rode up the long slope of the 
 Tefoya Mesa, three miles east of the ranch 
 
 house, he caught a vanishing glimpse of 
 Cosme and the outfit going at good speed, 
 not on the road that wound like a con 
 stantly narrowing white ribbon toward 
 Pinos Altos, but well beyond that road and 
 traveling without apparent aim, straight 
 over the unbroken plains toward the north. 
 Pinos Altos lay due east, thirty miles away. 
 Halting his pony, Rupert sat gazing after 
 the disappearing wagon in constantly in 
 creasing amazement. There could be no 
 doubt as to its being his father s team and 
 wagon. Rupert s vision was as keen as a 
 hawk s, and it is a poor eye that cannot lo 
 cate and classify any object of reasonable 
 size at an almost unbelievable distance in 
 the clear air of the Great Plains country. 
 
 " Now what do you reckon that little 
 rascal is going off that way for?" Rupert 
 suddenly questioned his cow-pony, Vidette. 
 As Vidette gave no other reply than an im 
 patient shake of her head, Rupert, who 
 was much in the habit of talking to his 
 stanch little mount, continued decisively: 
 " Well, whatever it is, you can just make 
 up your mind that it s for no good." 
 
 He watched the outfit for a few minutes 
 longer, then glanced around at the cattle 
 that, taking advantage of his momentary 
 inattention, had already stopped, spread out, 
 and gone to grazing. Whatever might be 
 said of Rupert s discretion, he was not alto 
 gether lacking in discrimination. His 
 quick, inquiring glance told him that the 
 grass was good, and he knew that the 
 steers, fifty in number, having been in the 
 corral without food since the previous 
 evening, must be very hungry. It seemed 
 to him that they were safe to remain where 
 they were, or, at least, near by, for some 
 hours, and it w r ould take but a few minutes 
 for him to overhaul Cosme and find out 
 what the Mexican was doing; then there 
 would be ample time yet left for him to 
 make the round-up camp, without rushing 
 the steers to their destination, either. 
 
 " Vidette, my girl, we ll just step along 
 and see what Master Cosme is trailing 
 
14 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 after," he informed the pony, as he whirled 
 her about and set off at a good pace, straight 
 after the lessening object that was still 
 traveling steadily northward, well beyond 
 the Pinos Altos road. The distance be 
 tween the point where Rupert had first 
 sighted Cosme and himself was, as he esti 
 mated it, about four miles. It would be 
 a mere playspell for fleet-footed Vidette 
 to make the four miles and back again 
 within an hour, he reckoned, as he blithely 
 took up the trail, leaving the steers un 
 guarded, it is true, but also wholly oblivious 
 to his departure, and of everything else 
 save eating. As it turned out, however, 
 appearances were deceitful in this case, as 
 in so many others. 
 
 In some of his too-frequent moments of 
 exasperation with his only son, Mr. Carrol 
 was wont to say that Rupert was an indus- 
 trous lad, in one way, inasmuch as he was 
 always busy, either in getting into a scrape 
 or in getting out of one. He was certainly 
 justifying the first part of his father s state 
 ment when he turned his back on his 
 charges and sent his pony racing down the 
 long slope of the Tefoya Mesa in pursuit 
 of the young Mexican. His estimate of 
 the time that it would take to overhaul the 
 Mexican was correct, as far as it went, but, 
 unfortunately, it did not go far enough, for 
 he failed to take into account the fact that 
 the outfit was traveling, too. He had un 
 wittingly embarked on the proverbially 
 long, stern chase. More than that, when 
 Cosme, happening to glance back, saw him 
 coming, he sprang up in the wagon, and, 
 seizing the long whip, lashed the straining 
 horses into a furious gallop. This unex 
 pected move filled Rupert with such blind 
 ing fury that he forgot everything but the 
 pursuit. He was sure that the Mexican 
 had instantly recognized by whom he was 
 followed, and was bent on escaping him. 
 
 Suddenly Vidette, whose acquaintance 
 with the spur had hitherto been of the 
 slightest, felt a stinging, goading prick in 
 her side; she sprang forward as if all the 
 
 Furies were at her heels. The little mare 
 was noted throughout the cattle country for 
 her phenomenal bursts of speed, and this 
 one took her, in an incredibly short space, 
 within hailing distance of the occupant of 
 the wagon drawn by the lumbering, panting 
 work horses. 
 
 Rupert stood up in his stirrups. 
 
 " You, Cosme, stop !" he shouted, his face 
 white with rage, while he shook his 
 clinched fist menacingly at the reckless 
 driver. " Stop, I say ! Do you want to 
 kill those horses?" 
 
 For reply Cosme again laid the lash over 
 the backs of the straining bays. But they 
 were built for heavy draft work, and not 
 for speed; they were already doing their 
 best, and, whip as he might, Cosme could 
 get no more than that from them, while 
 Rupert s horse was still fresh. Paying no 
 further attention to the Mexican, Rupert 
 now bent all his energies to trying to stop 
 the horses. It took but an instant to pass 
 them; that done he faced his pony about 
 squarely in their path, and so near that, as 
 Vidette came to a full stop, the end of the 
 wagon tongue grazed her side. She held 
 her ground, and, despite the long, stinging 
 lash that the Mexican plied frantically 
 about their heads, the work horses would 
 not, as he tried to make them, run down 
 their stable companion. They swerved, 
 rearing and backing, threatening momen 
 tarily to overturn the wagon. 
 
 In the midst of the melee, Cosme, seeing 
 the uselessness of this kind of resistance, 
 suddenly abandoned the whip and tried to 
 regain control of the horses by turning 
 them to one side, obedient to the pull on 
 the lines, the frightened creatures came in 
 stantly to their feet and started forward. 
 Rupert, silent and rigid as a statue, stood 
 up in his stirrups until the forward end of 
 the wagon-box was within two feet of 
 Vidette s shoulders, then with a spring, cat 
 like in its unexpectedness and agility, he 
 had freed his feet from the stirrups and 
 was standing on the. seat of the saddle. 
 
You, Cosmc, stop! Rupert shouted. 
 
 18 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 17 
 
 Another spring, and he was in the wagon 
 with his hand on the Mexican s throat. 
 
 " Say say now, you you unutterable 
 greaser tell me what you mean by this !" 
 
 As Cosme made no other reply than to 
 grasp and struggle, the muscular young 
 hand tightened its grip on his throat. 
 
 " Are you going to tell me?" Rupert de 
 manded fiercely, at the same time shaking 
 his victim as a cat shakes a mouse. Cosme, 
 strangling, at length got both of his hands 
 clasped around the wrist of the hand that 
 was slowly but surely choking the life out 
 of him, and pulled at it frantically, until 
 Rupert, suddenly aware of what he was 
 doing, relaxed the strangling pressure of 
 his fingers. 
 
 " You d better get under way and tell me 
 what you re up to," he advised, as Cosme 
 gaspingly tried to recover his breath. 
 
 " Me, how was it I could tell yo any 
 thing w en yo was chokin me to death?" 
 the Mexican sputtered, in an aggrieved 
 tone. 
 
 " It s a job I m going to finish, right 
 now, unless you tell me." 
 
 " Me I Cosme began, and stopped. 
 Rupert s efficient right hand was at his side, 
 and he was standing threateningly over the 
 Mexican. The horses had been whipped 
 and harried into such a state of terror that 
 any word, sound or movement would startle 
 them. With a yell Cosme suddenly shied 
 his broad-brimmed, pointed hat at their 
 heads; they sprang forward, jerking Ru 
 pert as Cosme had instantly divined would 
 be the result off his feet and down into the 
 wagon-box, where he sprawled at length. 
 He was not lying, however, exactly as 
 Cosme had anticipated he would, for if the 
 young Mexican was quick, the young 
 American was quicker. Cosme found him 
 self in the unfortunate predicament of the 
 soldier hoist with his own petard. He had 
 succeeded, it was true, in jerking Rupert 
 off his feet, but as he fell, his clutch at 
 Cosme brought that individual down with, 
 and under, him. The Mexican, taken com 
 
 pletely at a disadvantage, was powerless to 
 help himself. Rupert, with his right hand 
 again in action on the sinewy brown throat, 
 planted one knee on Cosme s chest, and 
 with his free hand gathered in the lines 
 that were in imminent danger of slipping 
 beyond his reach. Holding the gasping 
 Mexican down steadily, he spoke soothingly 
 to the horses. 
 
 "Whoa, boys! Whoa, Ned! Whoa, 
 Frank ! Come, now, come, that s good 
 boys ! Come !" Accustomed to his voice, 
 and to associate only gentle treatment with 
 it, the horses, frightened though they were, 
 instantly responded. 
 
 They were standing quietly, and the lines 
 were wound securely around the brake 
 handle, when Rupert again turned his at 
 tention to the Mexican. 
 
 Cosme, who had fully realized the futility 
 of resistance under the circumstances, had 
 not suffered so much as during his previous 
 brief experience of strangulation. 
 
 "Well?" said Rupert, looking down into 
 the shifty black eyes that evaded his own, 
 " out with it !" 
 
 " I ain t got nothin to tell, me," re 
 turned Cosme, sullenly. " It was w at you 
 gringos call a joke, my running away from 
 you jus a joke. Now yo let me up, an* 
 I go straight to Pinos Altos." 
 
 " No, you won t; you ll never go straight 
 anywhere not as long as you re the fellow 
 you are but I ll tell you what I m going 
 to do. While the horses are getting over 
 their scare, I m going to put in the time in 
 giving you a dose of the same medicine 
 you ve been giving them. Get out get 
 down to the ground. I m going to lick you, 
 good and plenty." 
 
 As Cosme did not instantly respond to 
 this invitation, Rupert assisted him by jerk 
 ing him summarily out of the wagon. 
 
 When both were on the ground, Rupert 
 proceeded to make good his promise, until 
 Cosme, whimpering, presently entreated : 
 
 " Le me go ! Le me go ! Oh, le me 
 go ! I tell yo true, now !" 
 
18 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 "See that you do; if you tell me any 
 lies, I ll find it out, and I ll give you a 
 worse dose than this one ever thought of 
 being. Where were you headed for?" 
 
 " For the witch woman s cave, on Sul 
 phur Butte," was the sullen reply. 
 
 The Sulphur Butte, so called because of 
 its color, loomed darkly against the sky 
 line a dozen miles away, and, as Rupert 
 looked toward it, he dimly recalled the tra 
 dition among the Mexicans of a very an 
 cient, very wise, very avaricious old woman 
 who dwelt, keeping mystic state, somewhere 
 amid its shadows. Declining to inquire 
 into the motives that prompted Cosine to 
 make such a visit, or to attempt making it, 
 Rupert went on : 
 
 " How about your trip to Pinos Altos for 
 supplies? You were headed full forty miles 
 out of your way. Did you intend to come 
 back to-morrow?" 
 
 "Me? No; the boss he would know if 
 the horses they was use too hard. I was 
 goin say the wagon she break down ; have 
 to lay over on road one day." 
 
 Cosme, dust-begrimed, battered, with 
 blood trickling down from a slight cut 
 where Rupert s knuckles had visited his 
 cheek too savagely, was, for the nonce, 
 beaten. It was patent that he was telling 
 the truth. 
 
 " Get into the wagon and drive back to 
 the Pinos Altos road, and see that you keep 
 it," Rupert ordered, sternly. 
 
 The Mexican climbed into the wagon, 
 and from that vantage turned appealingly 
 to the young American : 
 
 " Was yo goin le on, back at ranch, 
 w at it was I was tryin do?" he asked. 
 
 "Is that any of your business?" 
 
 " Yes. Me, I don t care. My fadder he 
 no good to me; I ain t got no other place 
 but ranch for go to. If you was tell the 
 boss, me, I might jus* as well be all dead 
 now as any time." 
 
 " Set your mind at rest on that score, you 
 coward. I m no telltale." 
 
 Cosme, content with this which he knew 
 
 to be strictly true started the team, and 
 Rupert walked back to where Vidette stood 
 waiting, mounted, and himself started back 
 toward the herd that he expected to find 
 still grazing where he had left them. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 AN INVITATION TO A DANCE. 
 
 THE cattle had almost immediately dis 
 covered the absence of the herder, 
 and not caring to penetrate into a 
 country that was new to them, began graz 
 ing in the direction of their old range. 
 With a dawning sense of liberty, haste 
 grew upon them, and when, two full hours 
 after his encounter with Cosme, Rupert re 
 turned, it was to find himself alone on the 
 mesa, with no herd in sight; moreover, a 
 glance at the sun told him that it was 
 quite ten o clock, and his father would be 
 expecting him at the round-up camp. His 
 heart sank as he realized what the en 
 counter with Cosme might cost him the 
 more that, no matter what came, he was not 
 one to make explanations or excuses that 
 could, by any stretch of ingenuity, be con 
 strued into clearing his own record at the 
 expense of another. 
 
 By what perverted idea of moral obliga 
 tion Rupert was guided in this matter of 
 not disclosing the guilt of another, espe 
 cially when his father was fully entitled to 
 know of that guilt, it would be hard to say. 
 In justice to his father he should have tried 
 to enlighten him as to the Mexican s true 
 character, and in common kindness to the 
 dumb animals placed in Cosme s charge, he 
 was also in duty bound to tell what he 
 knew, but he took a certain savage pride in 
 sticking to the letter of his declaration 
 when he had informed the Mexican that he 
 " was no tell-tale." 
 
 For a long time after reaching the de 
 serted grazing ground, Rupert stood up in 
 his stirrups and bent his keen glances far 
 and near in search of the missing cattle. 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 19 
 
 He was well enough versed in the ways of 
 herds to know that they had undoubtedly 
 headed for their old range, a long distance 
 in the opposite direction from the one that 
 he wished them to take. He was soon 
 upon their trail, and a few miles brought 
 him up with them; they were trotting stead 
 ily toward the old range, and it soon be 
 came evident that they had no intention 
 of abandoning their purpose of reaching it. 
 
 It was long before Rupert was able to 
 turn them on the back track, and that he 
 did so at all spoke volumes for his perse 
 verance and the good qualities of his horse. 
 Back and forth, to and fro, now this way, 
 now that, raced the pony and his young 
 rider, minute after minute, hour after hour, 
 until, late in the afternoon, the sullen brutes 
 were as far on the right track again as the 
 sky pasture down which Nora had seen 
 her brother s pony galloping. Having got 
 them so far, the tired and hungry boy 
 realized that with night coming on he could 
 do no more without help. It was cold, too, 
 and growing colder. He checked the faith 
 ful little bronco, whose heaving sides \vere 
 wet with foam, and looked desolately off 
 in the direction of home ; there was nothing 
 to be seen there now but an obscuring 
 ocean of fog. He was very hungry. Sup 
 pose he rode home, got something to ea . 
 and a warm coat, and came back to keep 
 guard over the cattle all night? He 
 thought them tired enough to stay where 
 they were if they were watched, but it 
 wrung his heart to think of putting this 
 extra work upon the pony, who was already 
 trembling with fatigue. 
 
 " Maybe father 11 let me take Snowflake, 
 if he s got the bay colt used up, as he prob 
 ably has," thought Rupert, with very small 
 hope indeed that the valuable white mare 
 would be entrusted to him through the try 
 ing hours of an all-night guard. 
 
 " I m afraid you ll have to bring me back 
 if I do go, Vidette," he said aloud, at last; 
 " and so I won t go." The cattle, although 
 seemingly quiet, were still alertly ready to 
 
 make a break for freedom at any unguarded 
 instant, and Rupert began slowly circling 
 round them. This is the cowboy s usual 
 hint to his charges that they may settle 
 down where they are. A few of them took 
 the hint. The pony was. very tired and 
 walked with lagging footsteps. In the 
 silence, broken only by her slow footfall, 
 Rupert had scarcely time to become aware 
 of a sound of trampling hoofs, when three 
 horsemen burst into View, much as though 
 they had been mysteriously projected on a 
 canvas of fog. Rupert recognized them 
 joyfully as herders from the 7-H Ranch 
 from over on the Vermijo. 
 
 " Where you goin ?" demanded the fore 
 most, as they halted beside him. 
 
 Rupert candidly explained what had be 
 fallen him. These men had not heard, any 
 more than had Rupert himself, of the acci 
 dent that his father had suffered, but they 
 were none the less cordial and sympathetic. 
 One remembered that he had some lunch in 
 his saddle pocket, and an instant afterward 
 Rupert was sampling it with relish. 
 
 Suddenly one of their number exclaimed, 
 " Boys, I ll tell you what let s do: we ll help 
 this kid run this bunch of steers into the 
 old Valdez corral. It ain t more n half a 
 mile or so out of our way; then he can 
 start em out again to-morrow and chase 
 em all day if he wants to." 
 
 " I reckon I ve had chasing enough to do 
 me for a day or two," answered Rupert. 
 " But that s a mighty good plan of yours, 
 and I ll be everlastingly obliged to you all 
 if you ll help me to carry it out." 
 
 " Oh, that s all right ; we won t leave you 
 now till you re out of this scrape," returned 
 the spokesman of the little party. " We 
 was kind of hopin to meet up with you, 
 anyway," he went on. " There s goin to 
 be a dance at the 7-H to-morrow night, 
 and we d like first-rate to have you come. 
 De Vargas is goin to play." 
 
 " De Vargas! Is he?" A thrill seemed 
 to go through Rupert s veins; he lifted his 
 eyes to the bronzed face of his companion. 
 
20 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 " Yes ; them Perrez folks are kin to him 
 in some way, and he s there on a visit now. 
 It ll be a big thing to have him to play, 
 won t it?" 
 
 " I should say so !" replied Rupert, slow 
 ly. The fame of the Mexican violinist had 
 penetrated even beyond the boundaries of 
 his far Southwestern home. Rupert had 
 already forgotten that he was hungry; the 
 slice cf bread that he had been eating fell 
 unnoticed from his hand. " I d like to go," 
 he said, as they urged the unwilling cattle 
 slowly forward, " but I don t know as I 
 can; I will if I can." 
 
 " All right. We ll keep a place for you," 
 was the gay response. 
 
 A herd of tame sheep could not have 
 been more submissive than was this same 
 rebellious herd when they found four horse 
 men pitted against them instead of one; 
 the wildest among them only ventured to 
 snort and shy a little when, from out the 
 mist in front, a girl, mounted on a bay 
 colt, her hair streaming behind her, and 
 her face pale with anxiety, burst suddenly 
 upon them. Rupert was the first to dis 
 cover what had startled *them. " Hello, 
 Nora! How came you here?" he called, 
 eagerly. 
 
 * I saw you, and I came to help." 
 
 " You ve got mighty good eyes, and I d 
 have been glad enough of your help if 
 someone else hadn t got in ahead of you. 
 This is my sister, Nora Carrol," he intro 
 duced her to the cowboy who chanced to be 
 nearest. 
 
 The cowboy whose name Rupert had 
 forgotten, if he ever knew snatched off his 
 wide-brimmed hat with a sweeping obei 
 sance. It struck him, in the hasty half- 
 glance that the exigencies of the case per 
 mitted, that Carrol had more than one rea 
 son for feeling proud of a sister like that. 
 
 The refractory steers were safely cor- 
 raled at last, and the three friendly cow 
 boys bade brother and sister a cordial good 
 night. 
 
 " We-all will watch out for you, sure, 
 
 to-morrow night," one called back, cheer 
 fully, " and if you don t come we-all will 
 serenade you with cornstalk fiddles." 
 
 As their breezy laughter floated back to 
 them through the shrouding mist, Nora 
 was conscious of feeling a pang of envy 
 for their light spirits. Their presence had 
 kept at bay for the moment the heavy sense 
 of trouble that now enveloped her again 
 as she turned to give Rupert further de 
 tails of their father s accident, and now, 
 with more leisure to think the matter over 
 than when she had first told him, the same 
 idea occurred to Rupert that had occurred 
 to his grandmother : " I don t see why fa 
 ther tried to do such work; he never did 
 before." 
 
 " He was kind of put out, Fred said," 
 Nora explained, hesitatingly. 
 
 Rupert s face flushed. Certain faint 
 lines, that the molding hand of Time might 
 eventually chisel into the semblance of a 
 hard mask, deepened about his sensitive lips. 
 
 " That means that he manages to put the 
 blame for the accident on me," he said, 
 bitterly. " I reckon he got angry because 
 I didn t show up the minute he expected 
 me, and so just rushed into anything that 
 came along, out of spite." 
 
 Nora s bent head drooped yet lower. 
 
 " You are speaking of father, Rupert," 
 she said, sadly. 
 
 Rupert s only reply was an angry excla 
 mation and the advice, proffered in no gen 
 tle tone: 
 
 "Don t try to be a saint; you ll make a 
 botch of it if you do." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 FATHER AND SON. 
 
 A3 BROTHER and sister neared the 
 ranch house on "the evening of the 
 belated round-up, Rupert relapsed 
 into gloomy silence, his thoughts dwelling 
 apprehensively, yet resentfully, on what his 
 father might be expected to say when he 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 21 
 
 learned the outcome of Rupert s attempt to 
 drive their neighbor s cattle to a new range. 
 
 " As Patrick Henry says," he burst out 
 suddenly, " The only lamp by which my 
 feet are guided is the lamp of experience, 
 and judging by my experience in the past, 
 I know that father will be red hot at me 
 I wish that he wouldn t. If he only knew 
 what Cos He checked himself as the 
 Mexican s name almost slipped from his 
 lips, and completed the sentence adroitly: 
 " co se. I have taken 
 
 " Co se !" Nora s nose uptilted in dis 
 satisfaction. " I wish, Rupert, that you 
 wouldn t affect that Southern cowboy pro 
 nunciation. I don t see, just because we 
 happen to be well, marooned in this wild 
 country, why we can t at least keep our lan 
 guage pure." 
 
 " Marooned in this wild country." Ru 
 pert musingly repeated the sentiment that 
 had especially claimed his attention, and 
 then went on with the engaging smile that 
 won him friends wherever he went: 
 
 " When one comes to reckon it all up, I 
 don t know who can blame father for get 
 ting mad ; he has reason enough, and he ll 
 do it, all right." 
 
 His face clouded again as he continued : 
 " It does seem to me, Nora, that I don t 
 more than have time to crawl out of one 
 scrape before I m head over heels into an 
 other; and, without exception, the latest 
 scrape is worse than the one that went be 
 fore it." 
 
 " It is too bad," Nora said, sympathet 
 ically. Being an essentially truthful char 
 acter she did not attempt to refute the 
 statement. She sighed as she added, with 
 apparent irrelevance: "The doctor said 
 that father ought not to be excited in any 
 way; that he ought to be kept quiet." 
 
 " Well, say, then, suppose for his own 
 sake that we don t mention this latest ex 
 ploit at all ? Let him think that I got the cat 
 tle over to the range all right, but that I had 
 trouble with them which was why I was 
 late for the round-up. I had the trouble 
 
 that s no dream but he d be surprised to 
 learn how much more trouble I had with 
 another kind of cattle Rupert checked 
 himself quickly. He was wont to confide 
 everything to Nora. 
 
 " What do you mean ?" she asked. 
 
 " Nothing. In the morning I ll start out 
 early and get the bunch to the far side of 
 the mesa. There ll be no more harm done 
 than has been done already, and, since he s 
 in a nervous condition, anyway, he need 
 know nothing about it." 
 
 " Why don t you think wouldn t that 
 be deceiving him?" Nora queried doubt 
 fully. She was a year younger than Ru 
 pert, and ready in all things to admit his 
 superiority only, her nature was of the 
 frankest, and she did not take at all natu 
 rally to evasions. 
 
 "No, it wouldn t; it would be simply 
 keeping back a little of the truth for his 
 good." 
 
 " Suppose you have trouble again to 
 morrow or that we have, for I m going 
 with you we d be sorry, then, that we 
 hadn t told him all about it this time." 
 
 Rupert stifled a sigh of relief as Nora 
 made the announcement that she intended 
 to accompany him next day, and responded 
 perversely : " We re not likely to have any 
 trouble; I shouldn t have had any to-day, 
 if it hadn t been for Cosme confound 
 him !" 
 
 As she had previously wondered how 
 Rupert could be to blame for her father s 
 accident, Nora now wondered how Cosme 
 could be held accountable for Rupert s 
 negligence; between the two peppery tem 
 pers, however, the girl had learned a dis 
 cretion beyond her years. Her task now, 
 as always, was to prevent collision, if pos 
 sible, so she held her peace, and Rupert, 
 who was tired, hungry and cross, burst out : 
 
 " I reckon I m as sorry as anyone that 
 father is hurt; I don t want to excite and 
 make him worse. But, of course, if you 
 feel like telling, you re going to do it. You 
 don t care how much trouble you make me. 
 
22 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 Care! I believe you like to do it, just so 
 you get your own skirts clear." 
 
 " Rupert, do you think father would have 
 approved of my taking this colt and riding 
 out to help you, if he had known of it?" 
 Nora asked, in a broken voice. 
 
 This reminder of a risk, and possible 
 danger, encountered for his sake, shamed 
 the boy, but the suspicion of tears in the 
 broken voice also irritated him. 
 
 "Oh, that s right! Now cry!" he ex 
 claimed bitterly. " A fellow can t speak 
 to you without you begin crying." 
 
 A few yards more, passed over in silence, 
 brought them to the stable door, in which 
 a lighted lantern was hanging. 
 
 " Grandma has been watching for us," 
 Nora said, as she drew rein in the little 
 circle of light that it threw upon the en 
 croaching fog. Before she could slip from 
 the bay colt s back, Rupert, with Vidette s 
 bridle over his arm, was at her side. 
 
 " Let me help you down," he said, gently, 
 holding up his arms. As Nora s feet 
 touched the ground he laid his face against 
 her cheek for an instant. " Don t be mad 
 at me. Nora," he whispered. " You and 
 grandma afre awful good and I m awful 
 mean." 
 
 Nora s eyelashes were still wet as she 
 answered, with a little gurgling laugh, " I 
 know you are, but I m not mad." 
 
 "You think I ought to tell, though?" 
 Rupert insisted, ^with an eager glance into 
 her face. 
 
 " I won t tell. I ll promise that, Rupert, 
 for I know that you ll do what s right about 
 it, without any help of mine." 
 
 " Don t be too sure of that," returned 
 Rupert, grimly. 
 
 Leaving him to care for the horses, she 
 went on into the house. 
 
 Mrs. Easton had shrewdly surmised 
 what had become of her as soon as she 
 missed Nora that evening. Her surmises 
 had become certainties as soon as she 
 hastened out to the barn and found the 
 bay colt missing also. Now she greeted her 
 
 granddaughter s entrance with a low-toned 
 inquiry: 
 
 " Did you find Rupert?" 
 
 Nora nodded silently, and her grand 
 mother, with the wisdom that ripens best 
 under gray hairs, asked no more, though 
 burning with curiosity on the subject. 
 
 " I dunno s you ll believe me," she went 
 on, in her usual tone, as she passed from 
 the living-room into the kitchen, whence 
 Mr. Carrol s bedroom opened, " when I tell 
 you that that black hen has hatched out 
 fourteen chicks from thirteen eggs; thirteen 
 eggs was just what I give her, and when 
 I went out to the barn to look at her a 
 spell ago, I could skurce believe my eyes. 
 Fourteen chicks ! Of course, one of the 
 eggs was a double-yelked one." 
 
 Mr. Carrol, by the doctor s directions, 
 was well under the influence of opiates, but 
 he roused up enough to murmur drowsily 
 in answer to this statement : " Or else some 
 other hen laid in the nest while she was 
 sitting. Has Rupert got back?" 
 
 "Rupert? Oh, yes, he s back; he s just 
 finishing up round the stable." 
 
 " Very well ; send him to me as soon as 
 he comes in." 
 
 Out at the stable, as he went about his 
 evening chores, Rupert was having a hard 
 wrestle with his conscience. In vain he 
 tried to convince himself that it would be 
 better, all round, for him to gloss over the 
 day s proceedings, leaving the exact truth 
 untold, but there was Nora Nora, who 
 always seemed as far above deceit or pre 
 varication as the stars were above the 
 earth, and to whom obedience to their fa 
 ther was a kind of religion, yet who had 
 braved his displeasure, as well as taken a 
 deadly risk, in mounting a half-broken colt, 
 wholly unused to the fluttering skirts of a 
 girl rider, to come to his Rupert s aid. 
 Nora was no coward, if she was a girl. It 
 seemed to him, suddenly, hardly fair that 
 Nora s brother should be guilty of a sneak 
 ing or cowardly act, either hardly fair to 
 her. 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 23 
 
 " The reason that I don t want to tell 
 the truth is because I m afraid to just 
 afraid of father s tongue, that s all. It 
 biteth like an adder, it stingeth like a ser 
 pent, " thought the boy, lingering in the 
 solitude of the barn to review the situation, 
 and getting a good deal mixed in the prac 
 tical application of his Scriptural lore. 
 " I reckon I m several kinds of a coward," 
 the boy continued in his solitary musing; 
 " but I would hate to have Nora blamed, 
 too, as she would be, if father finds out that 
 she knows something that she isn t willing 
 to tell him, and the fault all mine !" 
 Which was Rupert s first realization of the 
 great truth that one may not be mean, or 
 cowardly, or selfish, to himself alone, but 
 that the result of the thing that he is, or 
 does, will surely affect in some degree all 
 of those with whom his Jife is intimately 
 associated. 
 
 On a shelf in Vidette s stall lay an oddly- 
 shaped, oblong case of dark wood. Tired, 
 hungry, cold, with a weight of trouble on 
 his young heart, a compassionate yearning 
 over the father whom he yet dreaded to 
 face, a longing to comfort and to be com 
 forted, Rupert yet waited, after the chores 
 were all done, before he sought the shelter 
 ing warmth of the house, to hold up the 
 lantern and look at it only at the case that 
 covered his treasure. Once he stretched 
 out his hand and stroked the insensate 
 wood tenderly. One saw, then, that the 
 boy s long, slender, flexible fingers were 
 those of the born musician. " Father says 
 that my playing sets his teeth on edge," he 
 murmured, half aloud. " I wonder if he 
 would send De Vargas out to the barn to 
 play !" 
 
 With a farewell glance to see that all was 
 snug for the night, and a smile for the 
 white mare, who, not finding her ration of 
 alfalfa hay exactly to her taste, was tossing 
 it daintily on the floor, bit by bit, Rupert 
 took the lantern and went out, locking the 
 door after himself with the key that Nora 
 had found time to bring him. 
 
 Supper was on the table when Rupert en 
 tered the kitchen, and his grandmother said, 
 " You d better set right down and eat, 
 Rupert. Your pa he s had his supper he 
 wouldn t eat nothin but a cup of coffee 
 and I guess he s dozin now." 
 
 "How is he?" Rupert asked, as he pro 
 ceeded to wash his face and hands at the 
 sink near the door. 
 
 " He s as comfortable as can be expected, 
 and he s uncommon quiet; he s skurcely 
 spoke since the doctor left." 
 
 This was not at all what Rupert had ex 
 pected; he had thought that the wounded 
 man would be fuming with impatience, and 
 the reverse picture conjured up by his 
 grandmother s words was so awe-inspiring 
 that for the first time he completely lost 
 sight of his own discomfiture. His ablu 
 tions finished, and his dark hair neatly 
 brushed, he said, softly, " I reckon I ll just 
 tiptoe in and take a look at him, grandma; 
 if he s asleep I won t disturb him." 
 
 Mr. Carrol was not asleep ; he opened his 
 eyes as his ears caught the boy s faint foot 
 fall, and looked at him steadily; all the 
 pain and disappointment of the day just 
 past swept over him again in a wave of 
 angry recollection as the boy s troubled 
 gaze met his. He raised himself upon his 
 elbow, regardless of the pain the move 
 ment cost, and glared at his son in white 
 wrath. " So you ve got around at last, 
 have you? Well, you can look at me and 
 see a part of your day s work; now tell 
 me about the rest of it." 
 
 " There s nothing to tell," returned 
 Rupert, rebelliously, all the pity that he 
 had felt for his father hardening into de 
 fiance. 
 
 " Nothing to tell !" echoed the other, in 
 fury. " Give an account of yourself, sir, 
 or, I swear, I ll set Cosme to dog your 
 footsteps after this. I ll have an account 
 of you from someone whom I can trust." 
 
 " I should say not that I m called on to 
 make observations," remarked Mrs. Easton, 
 who had followed Rupert into the room, 
 
24 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 " that that was about as unfeelin a speech 
 as any parent could get off to any child; 
 let alone gettin it off to an only son, and 
 a good one." 
 
 "Never mind, grandma; if father feels 
 like setting his hired boy and a greaser at 
 that to keep watch of me, I ll make it a 
 point to see that he earns his wages. I ll 
 give him something to do," said Rupert. 
 
 " You ungrateful serpent ! Have you no 
 sense of shame, no remorse for what you 
 have done, when you see me lying here as 
 the result of your criminal folly?" roared 
 the invalid. 
 
 "That sounds like as if you might have 
 read it out of a book, James," interposed 
 Mrs. Easton, amiably; "and if you did, 
 you know yourself that there ain t much 
 use in belaborin a serpent, count of its 
 bein ungrateful. A serpent, accordin to 
 my knowledge of natural history, is un 
 grateful because it s like them dogs in that 
 hymn of Mr. Wattses you remember 
 about that hymn : Let dogs delight to bark 
 and bite, for tis their nature to that s 
 the way it runs," the old lady concluded, 
 with a countenance of really cherubic in 
 nocence. 
 
 Racked with pain, and secretly very 
 much ashamed of his outburst, Mr. Carrol 
 sank back upon his pillow. " You may as 
 well go," he said, coldly, to Rupert. 
 
 " Not until I have told you why I came 
 so late, father," Rupert said, approaching 
 the bed again and looking wistfully at his 
 father. 
 
 " Go on, then," was the answer. 
 
 The lad recited the history of the day s 
 proceedings, or, it should be said, as much 
 of the day s proceedings as it seemed to him 
 at all advisable to relate. In making the 
 suppressions that he did, he was actuated 
 solely by a desire to do the right and hon 
 orable thing by all concerned, and, while 
 under no illusions in regard to sparing 
 Cosme who deserved no consideration 
 whatever he yet had a mistaken, fanciful 
 idea that it would not be honorable in him 
 
 to tell tales, even on one who had proved 
 himself so unworthy. The much less im 
 portant matter of failing to mention Nora s 
 part in the day s work he passed over with 
 no twinges of conscience, assured that Nora 
 herself would speak of it. 
 
 When Rupert s story was ended, Mr. 
 Carrol lay for a long minute silently re 
 viewing in his mind all of its points; then 
 he said, with a good deal less temper than 
 might have been expected, even with a 
 faint suggestion of apology in his tones : 
 
 " I see that you ve had a hard day. So 
 have I. I reckon it makes me unreason 
 able. Of course, you were not to blame 
 for my making a fool of myself by trying 
 to cut out cattle with a green colt. I can 
 take all the glory for that myself." 
 
 " Father," said Nora, quickly, as Mr. 
 Carrol relapsed into silence, " I took the 
 bay colt and went out to help Rupert." 
 
 "Did you? It was a reckless thing to 
 do terribly reckless but it seems there 
 was no harm done." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 A VIOLIN SOLO. 
 
 OME, now, Rupert, set right down 
 and eat your supper," Mrs. Easton 
 again urged, as the trio filed into 
 the kitchen. 
 
 " I m not hungry. I don t want any sup 
 per," Rupert declared, and, snatching up 
 his cap, walked to the outer door, closing 
 it sharply as he strode out into the dark 
 ness of the moonless night. 
 
 Mrs. Easton stared at the closed door 
 for an instant, then, dropping into a chair, 
 buried her face in the folds of her apron. 
 
 " Without was wailin , and darkness, 
 and gnashin of teeth !" she murmured. 
 
 " Oh, grandma, grandma, don t cry ! 
 Don t cry!" Nora implored, putting an 
 arm around the shaking shoulders. " Oh, 
 grandma, I ve heard you say, lots of times, 
 that if we only trust " 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 25 
 
 " Only trust !" Mrs. Easton echoed the 
 word with concentrated bitterness. " That s 
 just it, exactly ! The idea of our settin 
 round, like a couple of stoughton bottles, 
 only trusting, while them two-edged swords 
 are hackin away &t each other s hearts !" 
 
 Nora had nothing to say to this. All the 
 little anchors and wise saws as to doing 
 one s duty, regardless of consequences, 
 seemed suddenly to have failed both her 
 and her grandmother in their time of need. 
 
 Indeed, it was a distinct shock to dis 
 cover that her grandmother had, in effect, 
 scornfully repudiated her own philosophy 
 when it came to making a personal appli 
 cation of it. 
 
 Nora sat down at the table, propped her 
 chin on her folded hands, and set herself 
 soberly to studying out, if it could be done, 
 some solution of the growing difficulty be 
 tween father and son. That it was a 
 growing difficulty it was useless to deny, 
 to herself, at least. 
 
 With her grave eyes fixed upon the yel 
 low flame of the kerosene lamp, she seemed 
 looking beyond the homely domestic con 
 venience beyond, and into a future where 
 Rupert, if this trouble continued unchecked, 
 wandered alone alone into what far, un 
 happy countries. 
 
 Young as she was, she yet saw, with a 
 solemn and prophetic understanding of 
 what it all meant, a lonely, sensitive, im 
 pulsive and stubborn boy, drifting farther 
 and farther away from home and all re 
 straining ties, into what outer darkness 
 who could tell? A blow could not have 
 hurt her so much as did her father s, reck 
 less threat of setting Cosme to dog Rupert s 
 footsteps. " As if he expected to find 
 Rupert doing something mean !" she 
 thought, indignantly. But repentance in 
 stantly followed what seemed a disloyal 
 thought toward her father. " It was pain 
 that made him say it just the pain," she 
 said, unconsciously speaking aloud. 
 
 " Yes," returned her grandmother, mis 
 understanding her, " it s a dretful painful 
 
 thing to have happen." She remained be 
 hind the eclipse of the gingham apron for 
 a moment longer, and then came out to add : 
 " But I suppose it ll blow over; such things 
 most generally do. It would be easier to 
 bear while it s blowin over if we could 
 feel sure that it wouldn t all blow up again. 
 Still," she continued, pinning her faith once 
 more to one of her two great sheet anchors, 
 " what does Mr. Watts say? I would not 
 live alway ; I ask not to stay, where storm 
 after storm broodeth dark o er the way. 
 You see, these things are ordained for our 
 good in this way every flare-up makes us 
 the more willin to quit this earthly scene 
 and go where flare-ups are no more." 
 
 " You mean, grandma, that these trou 
 bles are for our good, don t you? Just 
 you and me ? But how about father and 
 Rupert?" 
 
 " I didn t say anything about them, 
 Eleanor. How can I tell just what the 
 Lord is up to ? One thing I am afraid of 
 I m dretfully afraid of it, child." 
 
 The gingham apron was brought into 
 requisition again as she went on : " I m 
 afraid that the Lord ain t got Rupert in 
 the holler of his hand, so to say, as he 
 has you. Why, you d be safe to do the 
 right thing if you was set down in the 
 midst of a band of howlin savages. Why, 
 even if they wanted to make soup of you," 
 the old lady continued in forceful illustra 
 tion, " you d manage to find time to tell 
 em the best way to do it, cordin to your 
 lights, and to help em every way you 
 could; but Rupert he d resent it." 
 
 " I daresay he would," Nora admitted, 
 her distress visibly lightened as this picture 
 presented itself vividly before her imagina 
 tion. " But that isn t because I m any bet 
 ter than he is, or 
 
 " Well, for the land s sakes, Eleanor 
 Carrol ! Who has ever so much as inti 
 mated that you are any better?" 
 
 " No one, grandma. I was only going to 
 say that it s because I m more stupid." 
 
 " Oh, I don t know about that. You are 
 
26 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 different; and then he s a boy." After a 
 little silence, during which she seemed to 
 be reflecting profoundly, Mrs. Easton said: 
 
 " When I was a girl, my father he used 
 to put up a barrel of cider every year to 
 make vinegar; after a while the cider would 
 get to fermentin , and father he had a 
 purty good-sized bump of curiosity he was 
 always wantin to know just how it was 
 a-doin inside the barrel. He d go down 
 cellar, now and again, and loosen the bung, 
 a-tryin to judge of the contents by the 
 way the stuff was actin . Sometimes he d 
 no sooner get the bung loosened than it 
 would shoot out and sizz, fizz, spatter ! 
 the cider would come pourin out, a-wet- 
 tin him all up and wastin more n half 
 of it, like s not, before he could get con 
 trol of it again; while if he d jest let it 
 alone, it would a gone on in its own way, 
 as nature ordained, and a made good, 
 wholesome cider vinegar. Now, Nora, it 
 does pear to me, sometimes, that that is the 
 way it is with your father and Rupert. 
 Rupert he s the barrel, and James can t be 
 easy; he can t rest and let the barrel sizz 
 it out in its own way, but he must be 
 a-loosenin the bung and makin a heap 
 of trouble for himself and the barrel. Well, 
 there," she concluded, rising abruptly, " I 
 might jest about as well not got any sup 
 per at all; none of us has et a mouthful." 
 She began putting away the untasted food, 
 while Nora, whose heart was sore for her 
 brother, slipped quietly out of the door into 
 the night. 
 
 Meantime Mr. Carrol was suffering from 
 another sort of pain than that caused by 
 his injuries; he had heard Rupert s reply 
 to his grandmother s entreaty, and, subse 
 quently, the opening and closing of the outer 
 door; he even heard his mother-in-law s 
 parable of the cider barrel, and acknowl 
 edged its applicability to himself with a 
 grim sense of justice. 
 
 " Reckon maybe Rupert never was meant 
 for a cowboy, not even for a little while, 
 .as I want him to be," he told himself, in 
 
 late recognition of a very patent fact. " It s 
 kind of hard to make anything dance to 
 the tune you want em to if it hasn t an 
 ear for the music. But Rupert s got to 
 dance to my whistling for a while yet; 
 when the time comes he ll be all the better 
 fitted to do his own whistling." 
 
 He was so restless and uneasy that, in 
 spite of the pain it cost him, he man 
 aged to struggle up to a sitting posture on 
 the side of the bed. Having got so far, he 
 was compelled to spend some minutes in 
 waiting on the vagaries of the bedroom 
 furniture, which seemed suddenly endowed 
 with motion of a singular kind a waver 
 ing, billowy motion that had a dreadful 
 tendency to engulf the room and its occu 
 pant in black oblivion. He had got con 
 siderably the better of the motion before 
 he recognized it as only a deadly faintness 
 in himself. Having recognized it, he kept 
 on doggedly. He had dressed himself, after 
 a fashion, and, staggering into the kitchen, 
 had collapsed, rather than sunk, into a chair, 
 before Mrs. Easton, who was washing 
 dishes with a clatter indicative of the dis 
 turbed state of her mind, awoke to a knowl 
 edge of what he was doing. Her shrill and 
 indignant remonstrance, when she did 
 awake, was cut short by the reopening of 
 the door as Nora again entered. She, too, 
 cried out in astonishment at sight of her 
 father, who, at first dumb with the pain 
 that the exertion had cost him, now found 
 voice enough to protest. 
 
 " What s the use of making such a fuss? 
 I ve only got a sprained ankle, anyway, and 
 a few jittle scratches, the doctor says. I 
 expect to be around all right in a day or 
 two." 
 
 " A month or two, more like, if you re 
 going to act up this way," responded his 
 mother-in-law, severely. " But if you will 
 run the risk of setting up, let me put your 
 foot on this stool and put a piller under it." 
 Both of which she did with the gentlest 
 possible touch in spite of her caustic com 
 ments. Nora, after her first surprised ex- 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 27 
 
 clamation at sight of the injured man, not 
 only out of bed, but dressed and in the 
 kitchen, had not spoken, but, resuming her 
 former attitude at the table, was again ap 
 parently studying the yellow flame of the 
 kerosene lamp. Mr. Carrol, .propped up in 
 his chair with every nerve on the alert, was 
 listening with an intentness to which every 
 other sound proved a maddening interrup 
 tion for a step on the walk outside a step 
 that did not come. 
 
 A long silence ensued, broken only by a 
 soft rustling as Mrs. Easton turned the 
 leaves of her Bible in quest of some sup 
 porting text. Mr. Carrol s unconfessed 
 suspense becoming at length insupportable, 
 he asked : " Did you hear or see anything 
 of your brother when you were out just 
 now, Eleanor?" 
 
 Nora withdrew her eyes from the con 
 templation of the yellow flame and regarded 
 him gravely. " Yes, father, I heard him. 
 He s out there in the barn in the dark 
 playing on his violin. I didn t speak to 
 him," she went on absently, her ears seem 
 ingly again filled with a strange, sad melody. 
 " He was playing something that made me 
 feel kind of bad." 
 
 " His playing most always has that effect 
 on me," said the father, dryly, the appre 
 hension that had been torturing him sud 
 denly vanishing. He had feared that the 
 boy, in a burst of rebellious rage, had left 
 home, perhaps for good. Presently he went 
 on in a gentler voice: "I suppose likely 
 Rupert can t help being as he is. Maybe 
 I hadn t any call to say that I d set Cosme 
 to watch him; Cosme ain t any such great 
 shakes himself Rupert ought to know 
 that." 
 
 " Perhaps he does know it, father," Nora 
 suggested, doubtfully. 
 
 " You mean that that would make the 
 idea all the worse? I suppose it would. 
 Well, I wish I had sent him to town in 
 stead of Cosme. Cosme could have man 
 aged the cattle, all right, and it would be 
 kind of interesting to see what sort of mis 
 
 chief Rupert would get into in town." 
 
 At this juncture Mrs. Easton closed her 
 book with unusual emphasis. 
 
 " I can t find it," she announced. " I m 
 pretty sure it s there, though. But it s true 
 I might a got hold of it in one of Mr. 
 Wattses hymns instead of the Bible." 
 
 " Got hold of what, mother?" her son-in- 
 law inquired with interest. 
 
 " Why some kind of a statement about a 
 king that had a really scandulous temper, 
 and, at last, the folks that had to do and 
 to suffer along of his tantrums, they hit 
 on the scheme of havin a boy that had un 
 common faculty in playin on some kind 
 of a musical thing a jewsharp, or a mouth- 
 organ, or, maybe, a fiddle; I dunno bout 
 that they hit on the scheme of havin this 
 boy come and play before him to keep him 
 within bounds like. The scheme was a 
 grand success, for the king was as mild and 
 peaceable as a lamb while the boy was 
 playin ; that s where the proverb, Music 
 hath power to soothe the savage breast, got 
 its first start, I s pose." 
 
 " You re sure you didn t think that prov 
 erb up yourself, mother, just to help Rupert 
 out?" sarcastically inquired Mr. Carrol. 
 
 " Well, of all things ! If you d a read 
 your Bible half as faithful as I have, you d 
 a known " 
 
 What it was that he would have known, 
 Mr. Carrol was destined never to find out, 
 for, just then, the door opened and Rupert 
 came in. Mrs. Easton stole a glance at 
 his face and abruptly changed the subject. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 NORA S CHARGE. 
 
 UNDER the ministration of the gentle 
 spirit that, for him, dwelt within the 
 compass of his violin, Rupert s anger 
 had entirely vanished. 
 
 When, after an hour or more, spent in 
 playing, he reentered the house, he had 
 quite forgotten that he had left it in anger 
 
28 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 such a short time -before, and it was with 
 a good deal of anxiety that he discovered 
 his father sitting up in the kitchen. 
 
 " Why, father, ought you to be out 
 here?" he inquired, doubtfully. 
 
 " As to that, I dare say it would be 
 more to your liking if I kept my bed, but 
 I ll try to have a little supervision of affairs 
 yet awhile. Did you get the chores all 
 done?" 
 
 " Yes; what Nora didn t do." 
 
 "That s right; pile your work on to 
 another whenever you can." 
 
 " Father," interposed Nora, her voice 
 trembling, " I didn t do enough to hurt 
 myself, and Rupert has had such a hard 
 day if you only knew " 
 
 " I know enough. Rupert Ml make hard 
 times for himself and everybody else, wher 
 ever he is. Ain t you going to eat any 
 supper, Rupert?" 
 
 " No; I m not hungry." 
 
 " You ll manage to make yourself sick, 
 I see, and then the cattle on the range 11 
 all be lost, with me tied up this way." 
 
 " Boys are cheap," observed Mrs. Easton, 
 in an indignant aside, " but it would be 
 dretful to lose a critter; there s a money 
 value on critters !" 
 
 Mr. Carrol rose stiffly to his feet. " If 
 you ll light a lamp in my room, Eleanor, 
 I ll go back to bed; I see that my room is 
 full as welcome as my company in this 
 house." 
 
 His movements were so slow and halting, 
 however, that Rupert sprang impulsively 
 to his side. " Let me help you, father." 
 
 "No; I reckon Nora s right: you re all 
 wore out. Sit down and rest, and I ll get 
 along alone." But he did not refuse Nora s 
 proffered aid when she came back from put 
 ting a light in his room; he even gave Mrs. 
 Easton a parting shot on her account. 
 " Girls ain t cheap, if boys are. I ve found 
 out that there s one girl that can be de 
 pended on, no matter how tis with her 
 brother." 
 
 Rupert had gone to bed when Nora re 
 
 appeared in the kitchen. Mrs. Easton had 
 taken up the worn old Book that she was 
 wont to consult in time of trouble, but she 
 pushed it aside as the girl came in. 
 
 "What are you looking for, grandma?" 
 
 " Nothin partic lar; I was jest studyin 
 about your pa and Rupert, and a Bible 
 verse that I know of come into my mind. 
 You see, Nora, I ve known your pa ever 
 since he was a mite of a boy; I knew his 
 father before him, too, and James father 
 was afflicted with the same kind of a stormy 
 temper that he s got; it runs in the family." 
 
 Nora sat down and began pulling some 
 long strands of her fine brown hair through 
 her fingers. " We can t be blamed, then, 
 for getting on the warpath, as Rupert calls 
 it, if, as you say, it is our nature to," she 
 said, thoughtfully. 
 
 "I didn t say it was your nature, child; 
 you re different. Most folks, Eleanor, are 
 a good deal like a hen that s just laid an 
 egg. She ain t easy in her mind until she s 
 cackled so s the whole poultry yard knows 
 what a fine thing she s done. And so tis 
 with folks. They can t rest, nor let anyone 
 else rest, until they ve run all over the 
 neighborhood with the tale of what they ve 
 done, or thought of doin . 
 
 " And, in the end, they re quite as likely 
 to be satisfied with declarin their intentions 
 of doin some big thing as they would be 
 with doin it. More so, mebbe, for I ve 
 took notice, this many a year, that the folks 
 that brag about their work, or their talents, 
 or their industry, most gen lly take it all out 
 in braggin . It wasn t so with the Carrols; 
 they were secretive. They were forever 
 denyin themselves things that they really 
 needed in order to buy something that should 
 prove a gratifyin surprise to some other 
 member of the family, and I am not say- 
 in that it s a partic larly agreeable way," 
 she added, impartially, " but it was their 
 way. And sometimes when James is uncom 
 mon ha sh with Rupert, I can t help think- 
 in of his father and his ways, and it makes 
 me think that James has certainly got 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 29 
 
 somethin in view for Rupert, and, knowin 
 in his own heart that he means to do well 
 by Rupert for he does mean that any 
 way, it s powerful aggravatin to him to 
 find that Rupert s way is so different from 
 his. He s like that hen we ve read of, that 
 hatched out a duck in place of the chick she 
 was expectin . Nora, I always felt kind 
 of sorry for that hen more n I did for 
 the duck, if anythin cause the duck had 
 all its life before it, while the hen she d 
 been lottin on the comfort she was goin 
 to take with that chick. And what com 
 fort did she get out of the duck? Not a 
 whit. Rupert he s a duck, where James has 
 use for a chicken, and jest here comes in 
 that verse I was thinkin of. Someone who 
 pears to have been kind of reproached for 
 not keepin an eye on them that was prone 
 to get into trouble, and helpin them to 
 steer clear of it, asks: Am I my brother s 
 keeper? as if it ought not to be expected 
 of him to look out for others. I think he 
 was wrong there, Eleanor, and I ve pretty 
 nigh made up my mind that that is one of 
 the pieces of work the Lord has laid out 
 for you. He s kind of lookin to you to be 
 your brother s keeper." 
 
 The kitchen clock ticked loudly, while 
 Nora sat silently considering this proposi 
 tion and all that it implied. The cat, whose 
 devotion to her was inconveniently strong, 
 sprang into her lap, where she sat working 
 her claws, and purring loudly in expectation 
 of a caress. Nora laid her brown little 
 hand on the furry head. " That s a good 
 thought, grandma, and I m going to try to 
 live up to it." 
 
 " Well, child, I ain t real sure that I 
 should ever a thought of the matter in that 
 light, exactly, if you hadn t a been livin 
 up to it pretty faithful all along," Mrs. 
 Easton admitted, candidly. " Come," she 
 continued, " it s high time we was abed." 
 
 Rupert had said in confidence to his 
 grandmother that he could not rest until 
 those steers, now in the Valdez corral, were 
 safe on the east range. In consequence, 
 
 Mrs. Easton was astir so early that the gray 
 light of dawn was just struggling in at the 
 kitchen windows when she and Nora and 
 Rupert sat down to the breakfast table. 
 Mr. Carrol was still sleeping, and the three 
 spoke but little for fear of disturbing him; 
 but, as Rupert got up from the table, Nora 
 also got up. " You know I m going with 
 you," she said. 
 
 Rupert, who had just tiptoed into his fa 
 ther s room to get the key of the stable 
 door from its nail at the foot of his bed, 
 paused, swinging the key on one finger, and 
 looked at her thoughtfully. " I don t know 
 as you ought to, Nora; father wouldn t like 
 it, maybe." 
 
 " You know he didn t object he almost 
 praised me when he found that I had taken 
 out the colt, to help you last night; and he 
 didn t object, either, when I told him that 
 I wanted to go with you this morning." 
 
 " That s true. I wouldn t let you go if 
 it wasn t for that. I don t want to get into 
 any more trouble. And I don t think I shall 
 really need you, young lady, except for your 
 company. You re better for company than 
 you are for a cowboy." 
 
 " Don t be too sure of that; wait till I ve 
 had as much practice in the business as you 
 have." 
 
 " Well, that you ll never have, not if I m 
 alive and can stop you. Come on. You 
 shall ride Vidette, who s got sense, and I ll 
 ride the colt, who hasn t, so we ll be well 
 matched all around." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE COUGAR IN THE CORRAL. 
 
 IT WAS not a long ride from the ranch 
 house to the deserted corral where the 
 cattle had been secured, but it was long 
 enough to have taken what Rupert called 
 " the edge " off both Vidette and the colt 
 before they came close enough to it to ob 
 serve that there was something unusual go 
 ing on among the cattle. 
 
30 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 At that early hour, and after the hard 
 drive of the day before, the steers would 
 naturally, if undisturbed, be quiet and still 
 resting. 
 
 That such was not the case was amply 
 testified by the clouds of dust that rolled 
 up from the enclosure much as if, save 
 that its color was gray instead of blue, it 
 had been the smoke of a raging fire. 
 
 " Well," Rupert exclaimed, in surprise, 
 " what on earth can be the matter now !" 
 
 He decked his horse, and Nora followed 
 his example. 
 
 " Listen !" he said. 
 
 Out from the eddying whirl of dust there 
 came to their ears clearly, now that the 
 clatter of the horses hoofs no longer 
 interfered with their hearing, the sound of 
 furious, angry bellowing. Rupert, greatly 
 concerned, touched the bay colt with his 
 spurred heel. 
 
 " Sounds as if they were having the time 
 of their lives, all by themselves," he re 
 marked to Nora, who was keeping close be 
 side him, for Vidette, without waiting for 
 instructions, was running neck and neck 
 with the colt. 
 
 " It does sound that way," Nora assented. 
 Secretly, she was a good deal alarmed. To 
 drive a herd of peaceable cattle anywhere, 
 that was all right an undertaking that no 
 one need be afraid of; but a mass of en 
 raged and fighting beasts that was a dif 
 ferent matter. Still, she had not the slight 
 est intention of holding back or seeking 
 safely in flight. 
 
 But Rupert instantly recognized a danger 
 that had not occurred to her. 
 
 " Now, Nora, if those fool cattle are 
 fighting among themselves, you turn square 
 about and put for home." 
 
 " No, Rupert. I 
 
 " Now you ll do exactly as I say. I don t 
 know that they are fighting, but it sounds 
 very much like it. I never knew, or heard, 
 of an entire bunch getting on the warpath 
 with each other, as these seem, judging by 
 the noise they are making, to have done. 
 
 If they have, I ll just ride up quietly, open 
 the corral gate, and run for it before they 
 find out what s happened. They ll come 
 pouring out, and, likely, cool down when 
 they find the gate is open ; they re terribly 
 hungry, and we ought to be able to handle 
 them that is, unless you are obliged to 
 run for home." 
 
 " But, Rupert " 
 
 " There are no buts about it, Nora. 
 You don t understand. The danger isn t in 
 what you ll do, but in what your horse will 
 do. Vidette is so well trained, she knows 
 her business so well, that if she sees a 
 chance to make herself useful, she s going 
 to do it, regardless. Now stop." He 
 brought the colt to a halt, and Vidette 
 promptly followed the colt s example. 
 
 "You see that low butte, right there?" 
 He pointed to the square-topped hill on his 
 left. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, if the cattle start down this way, 
 when I let them out, you ride to the top 
 of that butte. Until then just stay where 
 you are. If it s safe for you to come on, 
 I ll whistle for you." 
 
 Accordingly, Nora held in the chafing 
 Vidette while Rupert hurried on to the 
 corral. Arrived at the gate, she saw him 
 stop his horse and look into the enclosure. 
 It seemed to her a long time, though in 
 reality it was less than five minutes before 
 his high, clear whistle sounded, summoning 
 her. When she had reached his side, 
 Rupert pointed silently toward the center 
 of the enclosure. The bay colt, with head 
 erect and eyes distended with terror, was 
 trembling violently, but, true to the good 
 blood that was in him, stanchly held his 
 ground. 
 
 " What is it? What is it?" she cried, as 
 Vidette, unconcerned, stopped beside her 
 brother s trembling mount. Rupert shook 
 his head. Fifty steers, inside the corral, 
 in the full swing of a Wagnerian chorus, 
 made such an uproar that to hear any lesser 
 sound was entirely out of the question; but 
 
This part of the circus is past hurting 
 
 31 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 33 
 
 he pointed to the center of the corral, and 
 Nora made out, rather from the motion of 
 his lips than from any sounds that she 
 heard, that he was telling her to wait until 
 the dust settled a little, or until the crowd 
 ing animals fell back. 
 
 Yidette, afraid of nothing, crowded 
 closer, and put her nose inquiringly over 
 the top bar. Then she stamped and shook 
 her head angrily. 
 
 Rupert, from his higher seat on the back 
 of the tall bay, leaned down to pat his pet 
 approvingly. 
 
 " Good little girl !, You d like to get a 
 chance at that cougar yourself, wouldn t 
 you?" he said. 
 
 Then, motioning Nora to follow, he 
 turned and rode away from the corral until 
 they were at a sufficient distance to enable 
 them to hear each other speak. 
 
 " There s a cougar in there, and they re 
 all taking a hand, or a hoof, in trampling 
 it to death," Rupert informed his sister. 
 
 " A cougar !" 
 
 " Exactly; a cougar, and I m rather sorry 
 for him. The Valdez corral has not been 
 used for a long time, and it looks to me as 
 if this particular unfortunate may have 
 taken up his residence in it. There are two 
 or three stalls, dark and spooky, at the 
 south end, just the places for a skulking 
 wild animal to pitch on for a lair. This 
 fellow was probably in there last night 
 when we turned the cattle in, and just lay 
 quiet until along about daylight before try 
 ing to get away. Or he may have made a 
 kill. I m almost afraid he has, and that 
 that is why the cattle are so excited. It 
 doesn t seem as if they would get so per 
 fectly maniacal just because a cougar hap 
 pens to come among them; besides, if 
 there was nothing else, it s necessary for 
 me to get into fresh trouble, and getting 
 one of Wilson s steers killed would be a 
 good start toward it. 
 
 " Well, the cougar showed up among 
 them, but he ll never show up anywhere 
 else. I m going back, now, to open the 
 
 gate. You ride close up to the fence on 
 the north side and stay there. The cattle 
 are crazy enough, but if you keep back 
 they ll not notice you. They must have a 
 chance to spread out and get clear of the 
 corral before we can do anything with 
 them. 
 
 " Stay close, and I ll join you in a min 
 ute; then I ll see that Vidette doesn t put 
 a finger in this pie, as she looks as if she 
 would like to." 
 
 Nora obeyed instructions, and Rupert, 
 riding again to the corral gate, swung low 
 down from his saddle, removed the peg 
 that held down the heavy bolt, lifted the 
 bolt, and swung the gate wide open. Then 
 he turned again and rode up beside the 
 fence where Nora waited. 
 
 The cattle began at once to pour out. 
 They were, as Rupert had said, desperately 
 hungry as well as thirsty, for they had had 
 no chance to graze during the previous 
 afternoon, and they had spent the night in 
 the corral in lively controversy with a 
 cougar. 
 
 Mounted, as they were, brother and sis 
 ter could look over the corral wall, and it 
 was with much satisfaction that they noted 
 that the open gate held a greater attraction 
 for the infuriated cattle than did the torn 
 and trampled semblance of what had once 
 been a magnificent cougar. 
 
 When the last steer had trotted clumsily 
 out of the enclosure, Rupert rode in. Nora, 
 from her station beside the fence, watched 
 with breathless anxiety, fearful yet that the 
 trapped creature might have some life in it. 
 
 " Come in," Rupert called, at last. 
 " Come right in. This part of the circus is 
 past hurting or helping anything more in 
 this world. See," he continued, as Nora 
 joined him, " they ve made a pancake, and 
 a big one, too, of this fellow. I wonder, 
 now, if he did make his lair in here." To 
 settle this point Rupert rode slowly around 
 the corral, peering sharply into the dark 
 recesses of the empty stalls. 
 
 " There might be cubs or a mate ! Do 
 
34 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 be careful, Rupert !" Nora entreated. 
 
 " Well, if he, or she, had a mate, the 
 mate is, luckily for itself, off on a vacation. 
 There are no cubs, and nothing else but 
 bones and blood, same s that cross old 
 bear left in his cave in the good old days 
 of Horatius. There s plenty of bones in 
 this stall, the one farthest west. Come 
 on up and look in for yourself. It s 
 pretty plain that Mr. Cougar had taken up 
 his abode here, and that we intruded on 
 his solitude." 
 
 " Oh, I m so glad that none of the cattle 
 were killed !" Nora exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes; a steer or two killed would have 
 made a complication, sure enough. It must 
 be that my luck is changing. I don t know 
 when such a golden opportunity for my 
 getting into trouble has been passed up be 
 fore. As it is, it s fortunate for me that 
 the cattle are to go to a range that s sev 
 eral miles from the ranch house. Judging 
 from the looks of a good many of those cat 
 tle, that cougar certainly did put up a gal 
 lant fight." 
 
 "Why, how is that?" Nora asked, in 
 quick alarm, lest, after all, Rupert might 
 be confronted with another difficulty. 
 
 " Well, you can see for yourself, when 
 we round them up. The sides and flanks 
 of a score of them are torn and gashed by 
 the cougar s claws and teeth, but there are 
 no bones broken, and they are all able to 
 eat. They ll be all right again long before 
 father or Mr. Wilson gets around to inspect 
 them. Wilson has gone to El Paso; that s 
 why I ve had to do this work and what a 
 mess it s been, too ! Come on, now, let s 
 hustle them along. There s a water hole 
 on their new range, and they must be 
 thirsty enough to be willing to go to it by 
 this time." 
 
 This surmise was so correct that the 
 difficulty proved, after the steers were once 
 headed in the right direction, not to be 
 to keep them going, but to keep up with 
 them. Long before noon they were safely 
 established on, as Rupert described it, " the 
 
 place they long had sought," and brother 
 and sister turned their horses heads home 
 ward, very thankful that this piece of trou 
 blesome and adventurous work was safely 
 over with. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 RUPERT RESOLVES ON DISOBEDIENCE. 
 
 T WONDER," said Nora, suddenly 
 breaking a long silence, " where 
 Daisy is? Father was speaking of 
 her last night. He said that he had in 
 tended to have her brought up." 
 
 " She s all right," Rupert returned, 
 rather absently. " I saw her with the rest 
 of the home herd two or three days ago. I 
 got off my horse, and she came up and be 
 gan nosing around my pockets in search 
 of some dainty. You ve spoiled her for the 
 rough life of the range, Nora, but she does 
 look pretty." 
 
 "I d like to see her; it s been a long 
 time since I ve seen her." 
 
 " Any time that you like to ride over 
 toward the Muldoon Hills you ll probably 
 see the apple of your eye grazing with 
 others of her kind," returned Rupert. 
 
 " Not with others of her kind," retorted 
 Nora, with a laugh. " There are no oth 
 ers of her kind in New Mexico, I believe. 
 I m so glad that those cattlemen gave her 
 to me, when they came along through here 
 with that herd and she was so worn out that 
 she couldn t go any farther. You wouldn t 
 think, to look at her now, that she was such 
 a weak little scrap of skin and bones less 
 than two years ago." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I m glad you ve got her," 
 Rupert said, still absently. 
 
 " You remember, don t you, that Cosine s 
 father was quite put out because the men, 
 who had stopped with him over night, 
 didn t give her to him instead of to me?" 
 pursued Nora. 
 
 "Was he? The old rascal! I d forgot 
 ten it, if I ever did know. Say, Nora, I 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 35 
 
 do wish that it was of any use to ask father 
 to let me go over to the 7-H to-night. I 
 know it s of no use to expect it, especially 
 now, when he s so mad at me. They re 
 going to have a dance. I don t care a 
 straw for that, but Valasco De Vargas is 
 to be there, and I d give I don t know 
 what I wouldn t give, if I had it for the 
 sake of hearing him play." 
 
 Nora, who sympathized with Rupert s 
 musical tastes and secretly believed him to 
 be a genius, knew all about De Vargas. 
 " Oh, I wish you could go !" she exclaimed. 
 " I do wish you could ! How is it that 
 De Vargas happens to be out there?" 
 
 Rupert explained, and added, glancing at 
 the face that had kindled at the mention of 
 the violinist s name, " I wish that \ve could 
 both go, Nora. You d enjoy it as much as 
 I, I expect." 
 
 Nora shook her head. " No, we couldn t 
 both leave, anyway, and we ought not to, 
 with father hurt as he is. I ll do anything 
 that he wants of you, though, and be glad 
 to, if he ll let you go." 
 
 " Well, I won t ask him," declared 
 Rupert, stubbornly. " It won t do any good, 
 if I do." 
 
 " I m afraid it won t do any good if I 
 do, either," said Nora, " but I mean to do 
 it. Why, you have never heard a really 
 good player in your life, and you ought to 
 have a chance to judge whether he plays 
 any better than you do." 
 
 Rupert laughed. " What a little brick 
 you are, Nora ! No going back on your 
 own in you, is there? If I played in public 
 I daresay you think I d soon be as famous 
 as De Vargas himself?" 
 
 "Why not? I should think so; indeed, 
 you d be more so, because you are an 
 American, and De Vargas is only a 
 Mexican, anyway." 
 
 " Mexican, white or Indian, it s all one. 
 Father won t let me go to hear him; he 
 hates the whole business." 
 
 Rupert s prophecy proved so far correct 
 that it seemed robbed of the dignity, even, 
 
 of prophecy, but appeared simply a recital 
 of some foreknowledge. Mr. Carrol, on 
 being consulted, not only sensibly refused to 
 allow him to participate in a frolic that 
 would keep him up all night, as well as 
 necessitate a twenty-mile ride, but he was 
 evidently surprised that Nora, whom he ac 
 counted ordinarily reasonable, should ask it. 
 
 " There are cattle thieves around," he 
 said, in conclusion, " and the range must 
 be watched mighty close. What will 
 Rupert be fit for, after he s been out kick 
 ing up his heels all night? If there was 
 nothing else, I don t approve of them rough 
 dances 
 
 " It isn t the dance," Nora assured him, 
 eagerly. " It s the violinist, De Vargas 
 
 " Worse and worse ! The idea of riding 
 twenty miles on top of a hard day s work 
 for Rupert will have to get in those cattle 
 from the Vermijo this afternoon just to 
 hear a greasy Mexican fiddler ! I m aston 
 ished at you, Nora; I should think you d 
 have more respect for your brother than 
 to ask it ! I tell you, Rupert wants to keep 
 straight, and to keep out of low company. 
 I ve got something better than getting 
 mixed up in any cowboy fracas in store 
 for him, now I give notice !" 
 
 Nora, recalling what her grandmother 
 had said only the evening Lefore as to the 
 dominant traits of the Carrols, said noth 
 ing in reply to this ambiguous speech. Per 
 haps her grandmother was right, though 
 she had not thought so before, and his 
 father really had some project on foot for 
 Rupert s lasting benefit. The vague, half- 
 confirmation that her father s words gave 
 to this idea afforded her so much satisfac 
 tion that it was with quite a radiant face 
 that she left the room and went out to find 
 Rupert. 
 
 Rupert was at the woodpile hacking away 
 at a twisted cedar log. Wood-cutting was 
 a part of Cosme s work, but the Mexican 
 usually contented himself with the assur 
 ance that there was enough on hand, ready 
 cut, to cook another meal. It did not seem 
 
36 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 to him necessary to make provision for a 
 future more remote than that. 
 
 Rupert looked up as Nora approached, 
 and the brightness in her face was reflected 
 for an instant in his own. " Did he say I 
 might go?" he asked eagerly, adding: " You 
 look as though he did." 
 
 " No, he didn t ; he isn t willing for you 
 to go, Rupert." 
 
 " What made you look so glad, then ?" 
 demanded the boy, dropping the axe and 
 staring at his sister, all the brightness gone 
 from his face. 
 
 "Did I look glad? stammered Nora, 
 guiltily. " It it was something else." 
 
 With a pang beside which that caused by 
 his father s refusal to allow him to attend 
 the dance was as nothing, Rupert found 
 himself suddenly confronted with the idea 
 that his sister, the one in whom he trusted 
 above all others, might have interests apart 
 from his might, nay, did, have secrets 
 from him. Why didn t she tell him what 
 had made her so happy all at once? Bend 
 ing to his task again with averted face, he 
 plied the axe, while Nora, feeling miser 
 ably that she had been guilty of looking 
 pleased when her brother was sorry, looked 
 on in silence. Finally she said : " Father 
 wants you to drive in the cows from the 
 round-up camp on the Vermijo this after 
 noon. You know they were left to shift for 
 themselves when father was brought home." 
 
 "All right; I ll go as soon as I ve cut 
 a little more wood," answered Rupert, 
 coldly. 
 
 " Leave the wood for Cosme," Nora ad 
 vised. " He ll be back some time this 
 afternoon, and you ve got enough cut for 
 now." 
 
 " Don t worry about me," was the un 
 gracious retort. " There s no danger of my 
 hurting myself; ask father if there is." 
 
 Feeling that in his present mood her 
 presence served only to irritate him, Nora 
 walked slowly away toward the house. 
 
 Rupert cast an angry glance after her. 
 " You may look as happy as you please, 
 
 Miss Nora, because father denies me every 
 pleasure, and everything else that he pos 
 sibly can," he muttered, " but I m going to 
 hear De Vargas to-night, whatever father 
 says. He has no right to deprive me of 
 every advantage. It isn t just the pleasure 
 alone and he knows it it s the educa 
 tional part, and I m gong I m going." 
 
 All his latent kindliness toward his fa 
 ther, his reasonable toleration for what, in 
 his saner moods, he recognized as merely 
 outbursts of the high and uncontrollable 
 temper that formed, as his grandmother 
 had so often painstakingly pointed out, an 
 unfortunate heritage for his father, sud 
 denly hardened into a kind of sullen deter 
 mination to have his own way, to do the 
 thing that he most desired to do, at what 
 ever cost. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 A LESSON IN ARITHMETIC. 
 
 COSME, the Mexican helper, reached 
 the ranch house with his load of sup 
 plies on the evening of the same day 
 that Rupert and Nora had had the interest 
 ing experience of witnessing a fight be 
 tween a herd of cattle and a cougar. 
 Rupert was not yet back from his trip to 
 the Cimarron, and this fact, for reasons 
 best known to himself, seemed to afford 
 the young Mexican a good deal of satis 
 faction. Not that the Mexican feared, in 
 the least, that Rupert had failed to keep his 
 promise in that matter of the attempted 
 trip to Sulphur Butte, but there were other 
 later treacheries that he had an uneasy 
 suspicion that Rupert might divine, though 
 having the fullest confidence in his own 
 ability when it came to hoodwinking Ru 
 pert s father. Rupert s father believed in 
 him, while Rupert, Cosme felt with a bitter 
 sense of injury, did not and never had. He 
 recognized that it was going to be a hard 
 matter to keep Rupert in a state of igno 
 rance concerning his, Cosme s, misdeeds, 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 37 
 
 and it was, therefore, most desirable that 
 he should have an opportunity to recite the 
 events of his trip to Pinos Altos without 
 being subjected to any cross-examination 
 from the too keen-witted young American. 
 
 On entering the. house and learning of 
 the accident that had befallen its head, 
 Cosme ventured to express his respectful 
 sympathy and commiseration. His polite 
 regrets were cut short midway of their ut 
 terance by the invalid s ordering him to 
 bring into the kitchen the various articles 
 he had been commissioned to purchase. 
 
 The order was obeyed with cheerful 
 alacrity, and Cosme stood by, looking on 
 with a face of innocent interest, while Mr. 
 Carrol slowly checked off the list. 
 
 The inspection proved entirely satis 
 factory, and then Mr. Carrol said : " Seems 
 to me there ought to have been some 
 change back from that twenty dollars that 
 I gave you." 
 
 " Well, of all things !" interrupted Mrs. 
 Kaston. " Did you trust Cosme with 
 twenty dollars? Why, he can t count ten 
 cents straight ! Besides, I thought you al 
 ways had things that you sent for by Cosme 
 charged, and paid for them when you or 
 Rupert went into town." 
 
 " Well, that s right ; I do generally, but 
 this time I let Cosme take the money. You 
 say there was nothing left, Cosme?" 
 
 " That w at I buy cos viente dollah ; not 
 some less. It was on count at new t ing 
 at gov ment put up at stariff at it cos 
 not some less as viente dollah." 
 
 " I been thinking all along that the tariff 
 would prove a bad thing for us poor farm 
 ers," replied Mr. Carrol. " Well, take care 
 of your horses, Cosme; I daresay they re 
 tired enough." 
 
 The black eye of the Mexican glinted 
 inquiringly around the premises as he left 
 the house. He had seen nothing of Nora 
 since he came in, but, just as he was com 
 ing out of the stable door after having cared 
 for the horses, he caught a glimpse of her 
 pink dress flitting along the path to the 
 
 spring down under the cliff near the root 
 cellar, and, dropping his pitchfork, he hast 
 ened after her. 
 
 Nora looked back, startled, as the sound 
 of hurried footsteps following her caught 
 her ear. "Oh, is that you, Cosme? I 
 didn t know you had got back yet." 
 
 " Yes, me I was got back a long time. 
 How come you no see at?" 
 
 " Oh, I started to go to the spring for 
 some water an hour ago, but I stopped to 
 look at a little pocket of black sand beside 
 the trail, and " Nora checked herself sud 
 denly. But she had already said enough 
 to fully enlighten the young Mexican. 
 
 " At pocket black san no good such 
 place as at; too small pay for work; give 
 all out in no time tall." 
 
 " What do you mean?" 
 
 " All em pocket full of gol -like nuff," 
 Cosme continued, mournfully. " But me, 
 I no care for gol ; w at gol w en a mans 
 has no educate . If I was educate , me, I 
 would dig up gol and jewel, like w at 
 Senora Easton tell of, an I would be a 
 mighty man in e Ian ." 
 
 Nora had always felt a kind of instinctive 
 distrust for her father s brown-faced young 
 employe, but this tone of gentle melan 
 choly in speaking of something that, for 
 him, was practically unattainable, disarmed 
 her vague suspicion and won her sym 
 pathy. " I wish that all of us had a better 
 chance to learn something, Cosme," she 
 said, putting down the water pail and lean 
 ing thoughtfully against a jutting rock be 
 side the narrow trail. 
 
 Cosme picked up the pail. " I gets the 
 water for you, senorita. I do more as at 
 for anyone w at was sorrowful for my no 
 educate . Senora Easton, she say I was not 
 could count ten cent. I can do at; she 
 was mistake, but " Cosme spoke slowly 
 and with curious precision ; if Nora had 
 been less intent upon the bits of gravel 
 that she was pushing about with the toe 
 of her shoe, she would have seen that he 
 was watching her with keen anxiety " I 
 
38 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 no can do w at you call sums in at rithum- 
 tic w at tells about figgers." 
 
 "Would you like to study arithmetic?" 
 Nora asked, looking at him in surprise. 
 
 Cosme shifted his gaze to the bits of 
 gravel. " I have not good miff know how 
 to read at Englis ," he replied, evasively. 
 " But sometime I was get to study to my 
 self, an I make up w at you call sums, like 
 it was this one: suppose, now, at one boy, 
 or one man, he have viente dollah " 
 
 " Twenty dollars, that is. Yes?" 
 
 " Si ; an suppose he have spen all at 
 viente dollah, an suppose he work for a 
 man w at pay him ten dollah a mont .i How 
 long it goin take at man, or at boy, to 
 get hole of viente dollah again?" 
 
 "How long? Why, two months, of 
 course." 
 
 "Two mont s? Si, it was take two 
 mont s." Cosme again took up the pail that 
 he had dropped in the intensity of his in 
 terest in the solution of his " sum." " I go 
 get at water for you now, Sefiorita," he 
 said, moving away. 
 
 " W ait, Cosme. You know I have al 
 ways felt sorry that there were no schools 
 here for your people, and I think, if you 
 want to learn, that you ought to have a 
 chance. If you would like to study arith 
 metic 
 
 Cosme shook his head. " Mi padre he 
 say I no got very big min . I goin study 
 over at sum w at I tell you, but I no try 
 to put too much in my min at once for fear 
 at h? goin bust." 
 
 " It would be an awful pity to have such 
 a thing as that happen to your mind," re 
 turned Nora, laughing, as she turned back 
 toward the house, while Cosme went on to 
 the spring. 
 
 It was so hard for Mr. Carrol to keep 
 quiet that he was now hobbling around on 
 improvised crutches ; supported by them, he 
 was standing in the doorway as Cosme came 
 up with the water. He stood aside to let 
 the Mexican pass, remarking: "Your fa 
 
 ther s away on the round-up now, isn t he, 
 Cosme?" 
 
 "Si; he was gone on at roun -up for 
 be gone six or ten weeks is time," re 
 sponded Cosme, cheerfully. 
 
 "That s too bad; I was in hopes I could 
 get him to work for me for a few days." 
 
 " It was too late for think of at," re 
 plied Cosme, with conviction. " He was 
 goin be gone two mont s, I bet you." The 
 young Mexican had so powerful a reason 
 for wishing that his austere parent might 
 be kept busy at a distance for some time 
 to come, that his wishes unconsciously col 
 ored his statement. 
 
 Valdez, senior, having been unexpectedly 
 delayed, had not yet departed on the long 
 and lonely riding tour that Cosme knew he 
 was about to undertake. As a matter of 
 fact, Valdez, stationed at the present on 
 the Cimarron, and not too far away, find 
 ing an off day on his hands, had decided 
 to make use of it in going to town for 
 supplies, and when he came to that de 
 cision, a well-merited retribution was al 
 ready on his son s track. 
 
 Rupert came in late to supper at the end 
 of his long day s work. He found his fa 
 ther lying on the lounge in the kitchen, and, 
 as he sat alone at the table, his father s gaze 
 dwelt on him with so much interest that 
 Rupert suddenly resolved to ask, on his 
 own account, the favor that had been re 
 fused at Nora s intercession. He pushed 
 away his plate and looked wistfully at the 
 recumbent figure in the corner. 
 
 " Father," he said, " I would like to go 
 over to the 7-H to-night, to hear Valesco 
 De Vargas play." 
 
 " Yes, your sister told me this morning 
 that you wanted to, and, I own, I was sur 
 prised. There are cattle thieves around, and 
 here I am, tied by the ankle to a lounge or an 
 easy-chair. All the heavy work of the range 
 is on your shoulders for I can t afford to 
 hire help, even if there was any to hire, 
 which there isn t and you want to go scour 
 ing across country to a cowboy dance !" 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 39 
 
 " It isn t the dance," Rupert reminded 
 him, eagerly. " You know what it is, fa 
 ther, but you hate my music worse than you 
 do the cowboy dances !" he concluded, bit 
 terly. 
 
 " And why, in the name of all that s sen 
 sible, you want to bring up that subject 
 again, is more n I can tell !" interposed 
 Mrs. Easton, briskly. " Tears like when 
 things begin to kind of simmer down and 
 cool off you might let em alone, but you re 
 like that hymn speaks of and tear agape 
 that healing wound afresh ; pears like you 
 might let things heal up." 
 
 " Well, he s not going to any 7-H or 7-1 
 to-night, and that s all there is about it!" 
 declared Rupert s father, decisively. To 
 Xora, a silent but sympathetic listener to 
 the brief dialogue, there seemed something 
 half relenting in the tone in which her fa 
 ther immediately added : " Why don t you 
 and Nora have a game of backgammon ? 
 That s int resting, even to folks looking on, 
 which is more than you can say for anyone 
 looking on at a dance, or at a fiddling it s 
 all the same thing." 
 
 " I want to hear De Vargas," Rupert re 
 peated quietly, but, if his father could have 
 guessed it, with a decision as inflexible as 
 his own. 
 
 Cosme was sitting in a corner of the 
 kitchen, silent, as usual, his black eyes 
 placidly observant of his white associates. 
 The Mexican lad seldom spoke unless he 
 had learned some new English words and 
 wished to try their effect, but now he broke 
 in unexpectedly: "That De Vargas once 
 I hear him at a perform he play 
 Cosme flung out his brown hands, fingers 
 extended and palms upward in mute rap 
 ture " he play so as los angels goin come 
 at him to hark." 
 
 " I reckon not," returned his employer, 
 scornfully. " When the angels want to 
 hear good fiddling if there is any good 
 they can probably get to hear it without 
 coming down here to listen to any greasy 
 Mexican. You d better get to be<i Cosme." 
 
 The young Mexican, taking his snubbing 
 amiably, as usual, arose obediently and dis 
 appeared up the crooked little stairway that 
 led to his sleeping quarters in the attic. 
 
 " I reckon I ll go to bed, too," observed 
 Mr. Carrol, yawning. " I didn t sleep very 
 well last night." 
 
 " I hope you ll sleep well to-night," was 
 Rupert s mental rejoinder to this statement. 
 In spite of his angry thoughts, however, 
 and the inward spur of the disobedience 
 that he was resolved upon committing, it 
 troubled him to see the usually active man 
 struggling painfully to an upright position. 
 Forgetting the rebuff of the previous even 
 ing, he went to his father s side and silently 
 offered the support of his shoulder, and 
 this time it was not refused. When he 
 had gained the bedroom and sunk down on 
 the side of the bed, Mr. Carrol asked : " Did 
 you lock the barn door, Rupert?" 
 
 " Yes," returned Rupert, his heart-beats 
 quickening with apprehension of the very 
 question that came next: 
 
 " What did you do with the key?" 
 
 " It s in my pocket." 
 
 "That s no place for it; hang it up 
 where it belongs." 
 
 " Yes, sir," replied the lad, obeying read- 
 ily. 
 
 " St. Peter keeps the golden key," mur 
 mured Mrs. Easton, who had followed them 
 with the lamp, " and what a time of it he 
 must have ! I ve thought, many a time, 
 that I wouldn t be in his shoes, not for any 
 consideration you could name. Look at the 
 responsibility ! Why, of the two, I d a sight 
 ruther have Gabriel s job, and I never 
 thought I should like that." 
 
 " I don t much expect you ll ever be 
 called on to take either one of em," said 
 Mr. Carrol, smiling. 
 
 There was no answering smile on 
 Rupert s face as he bade his father good 
 night and left the room. There was more 
 than one key in his pocket, and the one that 
 he had hung on the nail in his father s 
 room was not the key to the barn door. 
 
40 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 THE LIGHT IN THE FOG. 
 
 GOIXG directly to his room, Rupert 
 undressed and went to bed but not 
 to sleep. He had not retired with 
 any such commonplace intention as that. 
 For a long time he lay with eyes wide 
 open and ears strained to catch the slight 
 est sound. At last he heard what he was 
 waiting for. The kitchen door was opened, 
 and his grandmother put the cat outside, 
 with the usual admonition to that member 
 of the family to " go to the barn and catch 
 a mouse." Then he caught Nora s light 
 step as she stole softly to the door of their 
 father s room and heard her ask if there 
 was anything that she could do for him 
 before she went to bed. A low-toned " No " 
 was the answer. After that he heard the 
 opening and closing of the door of Nora s 
 room, followed, directly, by the prodigious 
 sounds that his grandmother made in blow 
 ing out the lamp. How many times he had 
 laughed quietly to himself as the familiar 
 sounds came to his ears ! For Mrs. Easton 
 was not built on the model of one who 
 can do things quietly, and her nightly strug 
 gles to extinguish the lamplight were far 
 from silent ones, each noisy and laborious 
 exhalation of breath being followed usually 
 by such emphatic and uncomplimentary ex 
 clamations as: " There, drat it ! You didn t 
 get out that time, did you? Take that!" 
 Puff ! puff ! " Well, of all the contraptions, 
 this kar sene lamp is the most aggravatin ! 
 I d ten times ruther have a taller dip, my 
 self, but I s pose that wouldn t be modern 
 enough for this family. There, you re out, 
 are you?" and the final groping across the 
 room in the darkness, when the old lady 
 seemed to come in violent contact with each 
 and every chair that they had ever owned. 
 The little comedy went on as usual this 
 evening, but Rupert heard it without amuse 
 ment. What he had been waiting for was 
 the ensuing silence a silence that seemed 
 to deepen and grow more intense as the 
 
 night wore on. Sure, at last, that the fam 
 ily were all sleeping soundly, Rupert got 
 up and dressed himself in the dark not in 
 his everyday attire, but in the suit reserved 
 for Sundays and special occasions. Then 
 he took the stable key from the pocket of 
 the trousers that he had worn that day, 
 and, shoes in hand, crept noiselessly across 
 the kitchen. Just as he reached the kitchen 
 door the clock began striking; he stood, with 
 the door open, counting the strokes eleven. 
 The moon would not rise for an hour yet. 
 Closing the door as silently as he had 
 opened it, he sat down on the doorstep, 
 drew on his shoes, and hurried to the barn. 
 Unlocking the door, he went inside, feel 
 ing his way past the stalls where the work 
 horses were drowsily munching their hay, 
 until he came to the one occupied by his 
 pony. His heart was in his throat for a 
 breathless instant when, peering intently 
 into the darkness of the enclosure, he could 
 make out no dim form, as he had been able 
 to do in the other stalls. 
 
 " Vidette ! Vidette !" he whispered anx 
 iously. 
 
 A joyous whinny answered the call, as 
 the pony, who had been lying down, scram 
 bled rather stiffly to her feet. 
 
 "Poor Vidette! You re just about 
 played out," murmured Rupert, remorse 
 fully. " Well, I won t take you out again 
 to-night. I won t take you, either, you 
 clumsy elephant !" he disdainfully informed 
 the bay colt, who was Vidette s stall mate, 
 and who went on eating, undisturbed by 
 this threat. From the bay colt s point of 
 view the world had nothing better to offer 
 than plenty of well-cured grama grass, 
 ripened by the sun and the winds that wan 
 der unhindered over the wide expanse of 
 the Tefoya Mesa. 
 
 Turning about, Rupert made his way 
 past the horses again until he reached 
 Snowflake s stall. The petted creature 
 stretched out her soft nose and sniffed at 
 him inquiringly. Then, as Rupert held out 
 his hand, she licked the palm in which she 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 41 
 
 had expected to find some sugar. " I m 
 going to give you a dash, my beauty," 
 Rupert told her, patting her nose coaxingly. 
 
 Because his father s saddle was already 
 adjusted to this particular horse, Rupert 
 took it down from its hook on the wall and 
 tossed it over her back, then he cinched it 
 tightly, while the mare, turning her head, 
 watched operations with the grave air of a 
 connoisseur. In leading her out, Rupert 
 stumbled and fell on the threshold. The 
 mare was so close on his heels that, as she 
 suddenly stopped in her tracks, her ad 
 vancing foot remained uplifted over his 
 prostrate body. 
 
 " Good girl ! Good girl !" whispered 
 Rupert, springing to his feet and patting 
 her tenderly. " You might have smashed 
 me, if you hadn t stopped. I don t know 
 but what I deserve smashing for taking 
 you out this way, but I reckon it ll come out 
 all right, if you ll just travel." 
 
 So saying, he relocked the barn door, put 
 the key in his pocket, and mounted. The 
 mare had already more than proclaimed 
 her willingness to travel. She was dancing 
 and curvetting in delight at the prospect 
 of a run. Rupert held her in until he was 
 well past the silent house, then gave her 
 the rein, and, rejoicing in the chance to 
 stretch her limbs, she loped away, swift as 
 the wind. 
 
 Although he was perfectly familiar with 
 the entire country within a radius of ten 
 or fifteen miles from his home, it happened 
 that Rupert had had little occasion to 
 traverse the unfrequented road to the 7-H 
 ranch house. The road was, in fact, so 
 little used that, in the clear light of day 
 it was but a dim trail of hoofs and a few 
 wheel tracks, faintly indicated on the tough, 
 wiry grama grass, too resistent to be 
 crushed by either hoofs or wheels, or to 
 long retain the imprint of their passing. 
 In addition to the difficulty of the trail a 
 late-risen fog had, since sunset, swept down 
 from the high range to the north, and was 
 slowly but surely obscuring all landmarks, 
 
 and this despite the illuminating aid of a 
 full moon. 
 
 Confident in his knowledge of the gen 
 eral direction to be taken, however, Rupert 
 rode on without drawing rein, and without 
 making any particular attempt to follow 
 the road until his own home was fully five 
 miles behind him. The 7-H Ranch was 
 nearly twenty miles distant not far, as 
 neighbors go, in that land of clear air and 
 level roads. Rupert calculated that he 
 would be able to reach the scene of festiv 
 ities before midnight, that he might re 
 main for a couple of hours, and return long 
 before either he or Snowflake should be 
 missed. It was perfectly true, as he had 
 told his father, that he did not care for the 
 dance itself. 
 
 Such rough and questionable entertain 
 ments as these were apt to be did not ap 
 peal to him. What he desired was to hear 
 the famous violinist s tone, to observe the 
 handling of the instrument. De Vargas 
 and his violin alone on a hillside would 
 have proved, for him, just as strong an 
 attraction as could De Vargas as the cen 
 ter of the orchestra of a cowboy dance. 
 That he was wearing himself out, render 
 ing himself, through so much hard riding 
 and loss of sleep, unfit for the work that 
 his father depended upon him to do, and 
 that, especially under existing circum 
 stances, he was bound in honor as well as 
 duty to do, and to do well and cheerfully, 
 never once occurred to Rupert. His 
 thoughts were centered absolutely, to the 
 exclusion of all other considerations, upon 
 himself and the gratification of his own de 
 sires. 
 
 Suddenly as, hat in hand lest at the gait 
 he was riding it should blow off and be 
 lost and bent low over the saddle-horn, 
 with his hair tossing wildly in the wind 
 and his eager eyes aglow, he fancied that 
 he could see, at a considerable distance 
 ahead, a faint illumination, as of a light 
 shining dimly in the fog. Halting, he 
 looked long and intently at the spot that 
 
42 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 might be a light. " Or, it may be a good 
 deed," he thought, whimsically. " How like 
 a candle in the dark shines a good deed 
 in this naughty world !" Satisfied at last 
 that it was a light, and not so very far 
 ahead of him, Rupert ran over in his mind 
 several explanations that might account for 
 its being there. Still, with the habit of 
 caution that becomes instinctive with the 
 plainsmen, young or old, Rupert dropped 
 silently from the saddle to the ground. He 
 had already discovered he was not directly 
 on the 7-H road, even if he was anywhere 
 near it. One of his mental explanations 
 required that he should be near it; it might 
 be that the light was that of some belated 
 party on the way to the dance someone 
 who had met with an accident perhaps, and 
 been forced to stop. Convinced, after a 
 hurried search, that wherever the 7-H road 
 was, it was not near him, Rupert started 
 out to locate it. 
 
 Bridle in hand, he led Snowflake sev 
 eral yards to the right, then as far to the 
 left no road. Inwardly chafing at the loss 
 of time that it would entail, Rupert yet 
 resolved to find out definitely what the 
 light, far from any traveled road, meant 
 at that hour of the night. 
 
 To this end he led Snowflake back for 
 some distance, hoping the while that who 
 ever was accountable for the light s being 
 there had not yet heard her approaching 
 footsteps. If they had not he knew that it 
 was owing to the deadening effect of the 
 fog, and he devoutly hoped that the fog 
 would still continue to favor him. When 
 he judged that he had got far enough away 
 from the vicinity of the light, he tied Snow- 
 flake s bridle to a strong branch of a low 
 mesquite, and, leaving her with the injunc 
 tion to keep very still, started back to in 
 vestigate the source of the light. He was 
 a little startled to find, on again approach 
 ing it, how much nearer he had been to it 
 before dismounting than he had supposed; 
 moreover, it was plain that Snowflake s 
 rapid footfalls had been heard. 
 
 In a sheltered, almost overhanging, recess 
 of the sheer wall that suddenly dropped, 
 mesa fashion, without warning to a lower 
 level much as if the lower land had parted 
 company from the upper by slumping 
 straight downward away from it was, as 
 Rupert, stealing noiselessly nearer and 
 nearer, soon discovered, a campfire of the 
 most economical construction. Over the 
 fire two men were hovering; one was 
 yawning and stretching sleepily, as if just 
 aroused from a nap, which, indeed, was 
 the case, while the other busied himself in 
 propping a coffee pot securely over the tiny 
 flame. Beyond the fire, close at hand, 
 Rupert caught the vague outlines of two 
 saddled horses, tied in a clump of mesquite, 
 and, beside them, two others that had on 
 rope halters only. Rupert could see that 
 the sleepy man was talking grumbling, tie 
 judged by the accompanying pantomime 
 and that the other was making no reply. 
 
 " Huh !" thought Rupert. " Sitting down 
 on the plains, miles from anywhere, to make 
 coffee at midnight; no blankets at least 
 there s none in sight and no camp equi 
 page except that coffee pot ! Now I wonder 
 what that means?" 
 
 It is unlikely that his interest in find 
 ing out what it meant would have been 
 strong enough to delay him longer had not 
 the man who was bending solicitously over 
 the coffee pot looked up, suddenly and 
 sharply as if in irritated contradiction of 
 something that his companion was saying. 
 The firelight, such as it was, fell full upon 
 his face, and Rupert, with a start of sur 
 prise that was almost akin to terror, recog 
 nized Ham Hardy. His mind flew back 
 in instant review of what he had learned, 
 in common with other people, of the man 
 who was crouching over the fire. 
 
 During the spring round-up of the year 
 before, Mr. Carrol, who was very short of 
 help, had engaged Ham an expert cow 
 hand to help during the round-up. Ham 
 had worked faithfully, as Rupert recalled 
 the circumstances, for about a week long 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 43 
 
 enough to have enabled him to become 
 thoroughly familiar with the premises, out 
 side and in, and with the daily and nightly 
 habits of the family. Then, one morning 
 at the breakfast table Ham had suddenly 
 announced his intention of quitting the job. 
 
 To Mr. Carrol s indignant inquiry as to 
 his reasons for so doing, Ham had respond 
 ed, with an insolent look at Mrs. Easton, 
 who reigned supreme in the kitchen : 
 
 " Don t like the grub that s why !" 
 
 Mr. Carrol, white with wrath, had leaped 
 from his chair as if with the intention of 
 attacking the boor, but he was stayed by 
 Mrs. Easton s impassioned entreaty: 
 
 " James, James, let him alone ! I m sur 
 prised at you! Can t you see that the poor 
 critter has never before in his life set at 
 a table where decent food w r as spread? He 
 ain t to blame. He s used to livin on 
 tobacco and cheap coffee, as airy one with 
 eyes in their heads can see by the looks 
 of him. Let him alone do !" 
 
 Mr. Carrol had taken her advice as far 
 as laying violent hands on him went, but 
 he had ordered the glowering reprobate to 
 41 Get out !" an order which Hardy, grin 
 ning maliciously the w 7 hile, promptly 
 obeyed, merely pausing to inform his candid 
 hostess : 
 
 " I ll git even with you-all, yit ! You 
 jest watch out and see !" 
 
 So far nothing had come of the threat, 
 but the few cattlemen to w r hom the incident 
 had been related had cautioned Mr. Carrol 
 to keep a close watch on his stock. 
 
 Unknown to the Carrols, Mr. Ham Hardy 
 was one of the distinctly bad men of the 
 territory. Those who knew of his general 
 character declared that it was no part of 
 his policy to undertake any honest work. 
 He had been, so they declared, merely 
 studying the situation, and whatever knowl 
 edge he had acquired was sure t& be turned 
 to some evil account in the future. 
 
 On ascertaining the identity of the man 
 with the coffee pot, Rupert, who was much 
 too near to be safe, since the fog might lift 
 
 at any instant, leaving him standing in the 
 full glory of the moonlight with not so much 
 as a mesquite shrub to conceal himself be 
 hind, had begun a rapid retreat, or, rather, 
 detour. His ultimate object was to gain 
 the brink of the sheer wall above the fire 
 where Ham was boiling his coffee. 
 
 Mrs. Easton, with her usual clear-sight 
 edness, had hit the nail on the head, and 
 the hit, as Rupert was soon to learn, still 
 rankled. Ham was addicted to the use of 
 his villainous tobacco and yet more villain 
 ous coffee as a drunkard is to his whisky, 
 and he seldom lost an opportunity to in 
 dulge in either, or both, of them. If he 
 could, undiscovered, gain this vantage- 
 point, Rupert knew that he would be able 
 to overhear whatever passed between them, 
 and it seemed to him, at the moment, of 
 paramount importance that he should learn 
 what took such a doubtful character as Mr. 
 Hardy and, he had no doubt, since he 
 was with Mr. Hardy, his companion out 
 on a night excursion like this. 
 
 As he hurried away he recalled the inci 
 dent of the breakfast table and the care 
 fully veiled opinion that its recital had 
 elicited among the cattlemen, that Mr. 
 Hardy s real occupation in life was that of 
 stealing horses and cattle, and that he was 
 an adept in this line of work. 
 
 Certainly, as his father had said, there 
 were horse and cattle thieves about. Per 
 haps, Rupert thought, as, having made the 
 detour, he crept softly, very softly, to the 
 top of the mesa wall, he would soon be able 
 to learn from Mr. Hardy s own lips just 
 how correct the general opinion in regard 
 to him was. 
 
 The man whom Rupert mentally desig 
 nated, because of the manner in which he 
 had been engaged when Rupert first caught 
 sight of him, " The Sleepy One," was still 
 grumbling. That was the first thing that 
 Rupert learned as, having gained the posi 
 tion that he coveted, he stretched himself 
 flat on his stomach but a precariously few 
 feet above the two men. 
 

 hLt Vsr a* burse s wcr a-ennrnr". 
 
 ii IS^TIr r^ . i.r -JgC 
 
 Xis. I ini t i^ 
 
 jj-ii-rr -e 
 
 - ^rcr inr* - 
 
 
 . nert r. one _y ~s^ ~ 
 
 TKcat a* e sartc io 
 
 "" We re 2r^:in* to git 
 
 lefore is rhs^r -e ziore. I -re ot tbe 
 
 "2^ cnrrt nat 
 
 "" X- I aos t : WE I 
 
 tH 2. 
 
 d be- 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 45 
 
 ness, that he, though plainly startled, care 
 fully lifted the coffee pot as he sprang, 
 thereby losing none of its precious con 
 tents. 
 
 Bill glanced up at the overhanging wall 
 above them. " I reckon the fog s loosened 
 a bit of the earth; it s always crumbling." 
 
 It was. Rupert realized this and resolved 
 to make his retreat as soon as the attention 
 of the men was attracted from it. This 
 was speedily done. Ham Hardy drew a 
 watch from the pocket of his rough over 
 alls, and, leaning down over the fire, con 
 sulted it. 
 
 It s goin on after eleven now. The 
 Carrol outfit will be sleepin sound as so 
 many logs by this time. Early to bed an 
 early to rise that s the motter of them 
 kind of folks. We ll be there at jest the 
 right time if we start now. Lucky they 
 ain t got no dog. I settled that business for 
 them six weeks ago, and the old man s been 
 too obstinate to git another. Lucky fer the 
 dog he didn t git, too, fer I kept a dose of 
 the same stuff that fixed the first one on 
 hand fer any other that he might git. 
 Soon s I drink my coffee we ll start; we ll 
 ride slow." 
 
 Only waiting until Ham was fully occu 
 pied in drinking the coffee which, to judge 
 from the exclamations that accompanied the 
 act, must have been unpleasantly hot 
 Rupert crept softly away, wriggling along 
 on his stomach until sure that it would be 
 safe to get to his feet, and even then walk 
 ing very softly for a few yards farther be 
 fore he reckoned it safe to break into a 
 run. Reaching Snowflake s side, he mounted, 
 and struck off at a swift gallop straight 
 away from the vicinity of the 7-H road 
 way if, indeed, he had been near it. His 
 first object was to get well beyond possible 
 sight or pursuit. Of his being seen he felt 
 assured that there was little danger in 
 fact, no danger whatever ; and as to being 
 pursued how, he asked himself, gleefully, 
 could he be pursued if he had been neither 
 heard nor seen? 
 
 After some minutes of rapid riding, 
 Rupert checked his horse and listened. Not 
 the slightest sound of life broke the silence, 
 and, satisfied, he started on again, but at 
 a much slower pace, mentally questioning 
 himself. Ought he to return home and 
 warn his father of the impending robbery? 
 And, apart from revealing his own disobe 
 dience a disobedience that, as yet, had not 
 accomplished its purpose what good would 
 that do? The thieves could not get the 
 mare if she was not in the stable, while if 
 he now returned and put her in her usual 
 place they might yet Rupert found it ex 
 tremely hard to convince himself of this, 
 after the enlightenment that he had just 
 received manage to get her. 
 
 In the end Rupert succeeded in lamely 
 congratulating himself upon having taken 
 Snowflake from the stable and out of dan 
 ger at such a critical juncture. He tried 
 hard, also, to convince himself that it was 
 now almost a duty for him to finish the trip 
 as he had first planned it. 
 
 It was a piece of pure good fortune that 
 he had been enabled to learn the intentions 
 of the thieves on the morrow. What 
 steps could he take on the morrow, since 
 he could not well tell his father that she 
 was in danger, to render Snowflake any 
 safer? 
 
 With a shrug of his shoulders, Rupert 
 finally dismissed this perplexing question, 
 and, suddenly remembering that there was 
 a short cut over the mesa to the 7-H, 
 turned Snowflake s head in that direction. 
 Confident, as an older and more experienced 
 person would not have been, of his ability 
 to keep the right trail, Rupert again al 
 lowed the fast mare to go at top speed, un 
 checked, almost unwatched. 
 
 It was nearly morning when Mrs. Easton 
 was awakened by an odd sound. Not a 
 loud sound, but so unusual that it had 
 power to arouse her as a far louder, famil 
 iar sound could not have done. She sat 
 up in bed, listening anxiously. The next 
 
46 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 instant she was on her feet and pattering, 
 barefoot, across the floor to Rupert s room. 
 
 " Either that boy has got an amazin at- 
 tackt of nightmares, or he s a-cryin in his 
 sleep !" she thought excitedly. " And, 
 either way, he needs wakin up." 
 
 Reaching the boy s bedside, however, she 
 found him lying perfectly quiet, and de 
 cided that, if he had been beset by night 
 mares, they had now taken flight. She fore- 
 bore to arouse him, but contented herself 
 with tucking the bedclothes more closely 
 around his shoulders. Then she turned 
 away, only to stumble and nearly fall over 
 a little heap of clothing on the floor. Men 
 tally reciting some of the things that she 
 would say to Rupert when he awakened, 
 as to his carelessness in leaving his cloth 
 ing lying around in such untidy fashion, 
 she went back to her bed and to sleep. 
 
 But Rupert was awake, and his pillow 
 was already wet with unavailing tears. 
 After his grandmother s visit he stifled his 
 sobs, and, growing calmer, at last fell 
 asleep, only to find that sleep was worse 
 than waking. In his sleep he seemed to 
 be continually falling falling at the same 
 time that he was striving, in dumb terror, 
 to keep from being crushed by some other 
 falling body that slid, struggling, beyond 
 him, on, and down, down into unknown 
 depths. 
 
 The slight noise that Cosme, the first one 
 up, made in coming downstairs, awoke him 
 again. He opened his heavy eyes and 
 looked around. Day was breaking. The 
 growing light showed him the clothes that 
 he had donned a few hours before, lying in 
 a disorderly fashion on the floor. He 
 sprang up, and, dressing quickly, picked up 
 the Sunday suit and began hanging it in 
 its place in the closet; some white hairs on 
 the trousers legs caught his eye. He car 
 ried the garment to the window, and, by 
 the insufficient light, brushed it as well as 
 he could, thinking the while that now he 
 knew how a murderer must feel while try 
 ing to conceal the evidence of his crime. 
 
 Much as he dreaded to face the moment 
 that he knew was fast approaching, he 
 dared not linger in the bedroom. He went 
 out into the kitchen where his grandmother 
 was preparing breakfast, replying mechan 
 ically to her morning greeting, not a word 
 of which he had understood. His head was 
 so hot, there was such a ringing in his 
 ears, his heart felt so like a leaden weight 
 in his breast, that he understood nothing 
 save that he was waiting for something 
 that was coming, that was close at hand, 
 when Cosme put his head in at the door. 
 
 " Oh, at las you was up !" exclaimed the 
 Mexican, who prided himself on his habits 
 of early rising. 
 
 "What if I am up, or not up? What 
 business is it of yours?" returned Rupert, 
 crossly. 
 
 " It don t make not anything at me, 
 whether yo gits up in the daytimes, or gits 
 up not at all," replied Cosme, cross in his 
 turn ; " but the barn door was lock , an yo 
 padre he have the key." 
 
 " Oh, yes ; I ll get it for you." Rupert 
 turned away quickly, feeling a wave of 
 crimson rush over his face. Stepping 
 softly into his father s room, he took down 
 the key that he had, on the previous even 
 ing, hung on the nail at the foot of his 
 father s bed, slipped it into his pocket, and, 
 taking therefrom the right key, went back 
 to the kitchen and tendered it to Cosme. 
 Then, as Cosme started for the barn, he 
 leaned against the sink, too unnerved for 
 the moment to stand upright and face the 
 thing that was surely coming that came, 
 as Cosme reopened the door, his black eyes 
 glinting with excitement. 
 
 " Hola, Rupert ! At Snowflake ! Was 
 she at her stall las night?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Vive Dios ! She was not at it now 
 she was gone !" 
 
 " I reckon not," returned Rupert, his 
 courage beginning to revive, now that the 
 crisis had come. " Probably you don t see 
 straight." 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 47 
 
 " Yo go look all over at stall all over 
 all at stalls, si then yo see. No alba 
 Snowflake was there ; yo go see." 
 
 " Nonsense !" reiterated Rupert, with 
 stiffening lips, but making no movement 
 toward an investigation. 
 
 Nora, who had been assisting about the 
 breakfast, was already gone, however; she 
 came running back at this moment and 
 added her testimony to Cosme s. " She is 
 gone, Rupert; perhaps she has broken out 
 some way." 
 
 " That may be," said Rupert, catching 
 at the idea eagerly. 
 
 "If she s not in her stall she s been 
 stolen !" called the father, sharply, from 
 his room, where he was dressing in tremu 
 lous haste. He now hobbled out and joined 
 the excited little group. " I ve always been 
 expecting that this would happen !" he de 
 clared. " It s just some more of your care 
 lessness, Rupert; you didn t lock the door 
 last night." 
 
 Rupert said nothing; he was willing to 
 let it go at that. But Cosme had testimony 
 to offer on that point also. " The door, she 
 was lock this morning; me, myself, I unlock 
 it but now. I look, I call all other horse 
 there but alba Snowflake." 
 
 " Of course," said his master, irritably. 
 " What would any thief in his senses want 
 of any other horse if he could steal Snow- 
 flake?" 
 
 Cosme nodded his head in solemn assent 
 to this proposition, and Mr. Carrol went 
 on: "They picked the lock, I reckon; it s 
 a spring padlock, and all they d have to do, 
 after picking it and getting the horse, 
 would be to snap it on to the staple again." 
 
 This was, in effect, exactly what Hardy 
 and Bill had done on opening the door and 
 finding their prize was not there. Deciding 
 at once that the fact that the mare was not 
 in her usual place did not necessarily prove 
 that she would not be there another time, 
 the two thieves had carefully replaced the 
 lock as they had found it, and rode away, 
 resolved to make sure, another time, that 
 
 the coveted animal was within the building 
 before taking the trouble to pick the lock. 
 
 Accompanied by the entire family, Mr. 
 Carrol made his slow way out to the barn, 
 intent upon a careful search of the prem 
 ises. " Maybe we can find the rascals 
 tracks," he said. " If we can do that it 
 may give us some clue." And an instant 
 after he called sharply to Rupert : " What 
 are you doing? If you haven t been shuf 
 fling your feet in the sand there by the 
 door ! The place of all others where the 
 fellow would be likely to leave tracks ! 
 Well, I swan ! If you don t beat anything 
 I ever saw! You d make a good detective; 
 they ought to have you on the force in some 
 city," he continued, in bitter sarcasm. " It 
 wouldn t cost the state much to board its 
 criminals as long as they had you to help 
 catch em." 
 
 But now came a cry from Cosme, who 
 had walked a few paces away from the door. 
 " Here was some track; tres, cuatro, cinco, 
 seis si, seis; no more at all but seis ; also 
 the tracks of one horse. This, it was where 
 the thief git on Snowflake s back !" he con 
 cluded, triumphantly. 
 
 Mr. Carrol went over and inspected the 
 tracks carefully. After a moment s study 
 he drew a long breath, saying : " You re 
 right, Cosme ; whoever took her rode her 
 away. Possibly he took a saddle, too." 
 
 Nora had already thought of that ; she 
 now announced that all of the saddles were 
 in their places, and such proved to be the 
 case, as Mr. Carrol found on looking for 
 himself. As they were returning to the 
 house, Mr. Carrol said : 
 
 " Saddle up as soon as you have had 
 your breakfast, Cosme, and ride down to 
 Pinos Altos, to notify the sheriff. It s his 
 business to catch horse thieves. But I ll 
 give fifty dollars to anyone who finds 
 Snowflake. I d give more if I had it to 
 give ; I d be safe enough in offering most 
 anything, though, for I don t think anyone 
 will ever claim the reward. Whoever has 
 taken Snowflake had his plans all laid; he ll 
 
48 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 probably run her over into Mexico, and 
 when she s once there she s the same as 
 dead to us. The Mexicans ain t hurting 
 themselves to help Americans catch horse 
 thieves in their country." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 NORA FINDS SOME WHITE HAIRS. 
 
 THE family, coming in from the search 
 for traces of the thief, or thieves, 
 who had taken the white mare, gath 
 ered at the breakfast table, but, in the midst 
 of the general excitement, Rupert neither 
 ate nor spoke. 
 
 One member of the family alone noted 
 this fact. That one was Nora. 
 
 When Cosme had gone, bearing instruc 
 tions to spread the tidings of the mare s 
 disappearance as far and as fast as possible, 
 Mr. Carrol turned wearily to his son : 
 
 " You d better ride down to the canon, 
 Rupert, and see that those steers are all 
 right. They re the best we ve got, and it 
 wouldn t surprise me if they d been lifted, 
 too. We shall have to put on a night 
 guard, I m afraid. We might as well bank 
 rupt ourselves paying guards as to sit still 
 and let the rustlers take all we ve got. If 
 the steers are all right we won t put on the 
 guards just yet, though. It may be only 
 horses that the thieves are taking, and 
 they ve got the best one that we shall ever 
 have, already." 
 
 Rupert turned away without comment. 
 He was glad of employment, and doubly 
 glad to be alone. Riding to the point desig 
 nated, he found the cattle safe, as he had 
 every reason to expect that they would be, 
 and, dismounting, he left his pony free to 
 graze at will, while in an abandon of de 
 spair he threw himself on the ground that 
 he wished might open and cover him from 
 sight. It seemed to him at the moment 
 that he could never be a happy, careless 
 boy again , never know the restfulness of 
 dreamless sleep; yet, before very long, he 
 
 was unconscious that the watchful pony 
 came and sniffed inquiringly at the brown 
 head lying so low in the grass, or that the 
 grazing cattle, chancing to come near, 
 started back in affright at sight of the mo 
 tionless herder. 
 
 The sun was well past the meridian when 
 he awoke. Vidette, with perhaps some 
 vague recognition of her master s misery, 
 was close at hand, but the cattle had strayed 
 so far that it took some time to round 
 them up. 
 
 When that was done it was time to re 
 turn home, and so the dreadful day was 
 done. He found Cosme at home before him. 
 Cosme reported that the sheriff had taken 
 the description of the lost mare, which, to 
 gether with the intelligence of the prom 
 ised reward, was to be scattered far and 
 wide throughout the cattle country. 
 
 " Also he say, at sheriff, at it was not 
 yo who was alone in losin something. That 
 Sefior Sanford, who have the fas horse, 
 las night he los two of them. The sheriff 
 say this country it was gittin so hot, some 
 body got to hang pretty soon. Also Senor 
 Sanford he have offer one big rewar for to 
 fin the thiefs what took his horses; an also 
 the county, it offer rewar for fin em. 
 Make one big fortune for at somebody 
 what fin s at thiefs ! The sheriff he have 
 gone with a small lot of men ridin down 
 the road w at leads to Mexican border." 
 Cosme concluded his recital with the words: 
 " He think, at sheriff, at we goin git 
 Snowflake agin. He say she too well 
 known too easy for to foller, count of 
 her color, for em to git away with her." 
 
 " I hope he s right," said Mr. Carrol. 
 " But I don t think he is. Whoever took 
 Snowflake made sure of its being a success 
 ful steal before he tried it on." 
 
 " I tole him, me," Cosme went on, proud 
 ly, " at he mus be lookin for some small- 
 size thief; the man w at stole alba Snow- 
 flake, he got small-size feet mos small as 
 mine." Cosme had the slender, delicate 
 foot of his race; he advanced one of these 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 49 
 
 members now and looked at it approvingly 
 as he remarked, " Mos small s mine, it 
 was." 
 
 Rupert, who was present, was not even 
 thrilled by Cosme s words. He had already 
 been through so much that his capacity for 
 suffering seemed dulled, but, glancing up 
 suddenly, as Cosme finished his story, he 
 was startled and shocked by the glimpse 
 that he caught of Nora s quickly averted 
 face. What ailed Nora? Did she grieve 
 so over the loss of the mare? Or why 
 should she avert her face from him, and 
 why should she look so terrified, so appre 
 hensive? 
 
 With a recklessness born of utter de 
 spair, Rupert determined to know. Nora 
 left the room soon afterward to attend to 
 her little flock of poultry, and Rupert fol 
 lowed her. When they were out of earshot 
 from the house he began at once : 
 
 " You think a lot of alba Snowflake, 
 as that fool Cosme calls her, don t you, 
 Nora?" he asked, in a voice full of pain 
 and bitterness. 
 
 " Yes, I do or did," returned Nora, 
 steadily, although the color forsook her 
 face. 
 
 " Why do you say did ? Don t you 
 think anything of her now?" 
 
 ."Am I my brother s keeper? Am I my 
 brother s keeper?" The words seemed 
 sounding in her ears, now near, now far 
 off ; now low and soft, now loud and ter 
 rible, in their commanding suggestiveness. 
 
 " Yes," she said aloud, in a clear voice, 
 and with an involuntary upward movement 
 of her trembling hands a movement such 
 as hands that were clinging blindly to a 
 cross might make. Her heart had an 
 swered the question that, to her vivid imag 
 ination seemed, just then, to fill all space. 
 
 But Rupert took the answer differently. 
 " Why did you say did, then?" he re 
 peated. 
 
 " Because " she looked in his face, hesi 
 tated, and concluded lamely : " Grandma 
 says, What is past, is past; let it rest. " 
 
 " That s very pretty, or would be, if one 
 knew what you were talking about. Best 
 thing you can do with some objects is just 
 to let them alone. Say a dead dog, for in 
 stance; but when it comes to a stolen 
 horse 
 
 " Or a dead one," interposed his sister, 
 in a quiet voice. Her face gleamed white 
 in the gathering dusk. Rupert looked at 
 her, but he did not speak, and she went on 
 in a tone so low that he bent his head to 
 catch the words. " You know, Rupert dear, 
 I was the first one, after Cosme, to go to 
 the barn this morning. I thought of the 
 saddles right off, and looked for them. 
 When I came to father s, I I found the 
 saddle blanket lined quite lined with 
 white hairs; it was lying on the saddle, and 
 father had used the bay colt last. Snow- 
 flake is shedding her coat. I ve heard fa 
 ther say that he looks as though he d been 
 out in a snowstorm every time he rides her 
 lately. I I shook the blanket and turned 
 it the other side out before Cosme came 
 up and I know that De Vargas plays so 
 well and Vidette was tired and Snow- 
 flake had been doing nothing. Afterward, 
 when I was making your bed, there were 
 white hairs oh, so many of them on the 
 carpet, and your your Sunday clothes 
 She broke down suddenly, and, leaning 
 against the corral fence, covered her face 
 with her hands and sobbed aloud. 
 
 Rupert continued to stare at her like one 
 stunned for a breathless instant, then : " I 
 see what you are up to," he said, harshly. 
 " You mean to tell father. All right, tell 
 him just tell him your mean, sneaking 
 suspicions. What proof have you got to 
 support them? Some white hairs! Didn t 
 I take care of all the horses yesterday? 
 But I wouldn t have believed that you d 
 turn against me," he continued, his lips 
 quivering. " It s all right, though, if you 
 feel like it; don t hesitate on my account. 
 Just tell father all that you think you 
 know; make the most of it, for it s the last 
 chance you ll ever have to tell anything 
 
50 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 about me." He threw out his arms with a 
 passionate gesture in which, however, 
 there was no suggestion of clinging to a 
 cross and concluded bitterly : " I haven t 
 a friend on earth, not one; and I don t 
 care, either only, I wouldn t have thought 
 that you d go back on on me, Nora." He 
 turned, and was striding away in the direc 
 tion of the highway, when Nora sprang to 
 his side. She caught his hand, and, when 
 he tried to shake her off, held on with all 
 her strength. 
 
 " Wait !" she implored, breathlessly. 
 " Wait !" As the boy, angry and humiliated, 
 still tried to wrench away his hand, she 
 moaned : " Rupert, Rupert, Rupert ! I shall 
 die if you leave me !" In her anguish she 
 sank down on her knees before him, and 
 her forehead was smirched with the gray 
 dust of the roadway. Her brother s keeper ! 
 If he fled from home in his present mood 
 mad with shame and remorse, feeling, too, 
 that she, in whom he most trusted, had 
 failed him in his need what calamity 
 worse than death might not his reckless 
 ness lead him into? She knelt in the dust 
 before him, clinging to his knees and cry 
 ing abjectly. 
 
 " Get up, Eleanor," he said at last, in 
 a husky voice. "Don t cry any more; I 
 won t go away." He did not add, " I will 
 tell the truth." 
 
 Nora got up; she laid her two hands on 
 his shoulders, looking up into the face that 
 was a trifle above her own. " I haven t 
 asked you any questions, Rupert," she said, 
 earnestly, " and I will not ask any. When 
 the time comes, if there is anything that 
 you ought to tell, I kno^w that you will 
 tell it. But, oh, Rupert ! do not think, no 
 matter what comes up, that I will say any 
 thing against you. Oh, if you knew how it 
 hurts me to hear you say that no one cares 
 for you, when I when I She broke 
 down again. 
 
 " I say such things because I m so hate 
 ful that I don t see how anyone can care 
 for me," Rupert confessed, miserably. 
 
 " That s a pretty big mistake," Nora re 
 turned, with a forlorn little smile. Her 
 hands fell away from his shoulders, and 
 she went about attending to the wants of 
 the chickens that, a motley crew in various 
 stages of development, were flocking after 
 her. 
 
 Rupert stood in his place and watched 
 her a moment; then, with his back turned, 
 " It was an accident," he said, in a hushed 
 voice. 
 
 Nora nodded; the cross to which she 
 had seemed but now to be clinging was 
 already pressing heavily upon her shoul 
 ders. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MRS. EASTON BEMOANS THE Loss OF 
 SNOWFLAKE. 
 
 AFTER a few days the little household 
 settled down as nearly as might be, 
 under existing circumstances, to the 
 usual routine, but, of course, there was a 
 difference. 
 
 The head of the house, held prisoner by 
 his injured ankle, fretted ceaselessly at his 
 enforced inactivity, while Rupert, never 
 rugged, was daily growing paler and 
 thinner. In spite of this, however, he was 
 attending to the range work, all of which 
 now devolved upon him, with an anxious 
 solicitude that he had never before dis 
 played. His father, observing this, began 
 to question, inwardly, if he had not been 
 mistaken about his son perhaps, after all, 
 the boy was entitled to more credit than he 
 had been giving him. But it was a part of 
 the general misunderstanding between the 
 two that it never occurred to Mr. Carrol 
 to speak a word of praise or commendation. 
 
 Rupert, sometimes dwelling with bitter 
 ness upon his father s tendency to find fault 
 with him, was wont to paraphrase a line 
 once written in description of the character 
 of Lincoln : " Oh, quick to praise and slow 
 to blame !" Only, unhappily, Rupert felf 
 
In her anguish she sank on her knees before him. 
 
< I r 1 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 53 
 
 that the description best fitted his father 
 when it was reversed. 
 
 Cosme, as he respectfully intimated on 
 more than one occasion, would have been 
 glad to assist in the search for the mare, 
 but, to his secret disgust, was set to work 
 at the spring plowing, instead. 
 
 Mr. Carrol chafed at being kept idly at 
 home when he was so much needed in a 
 half-dozen other places; he was sure, for 
 one thing, that if he had been searching 
 for the stolen mare, he would have found 
 her, or tidings of her, before three days 
 were past. He was repeating this state 
 ment for the twentieth time, one day, when, 
 to his unconcealed astonishment, Mrs. 
 Easton, who had heard the words often 
 enough before, without being visibly 
 affected, sat down, and, burying her face 
 in her apron, burst into tears. 
 
 Although touched by this display of affec 
 tion for his lost pet, Mr. Carrol was also 
 vaguely irritated by its utter uselessness. 
 
 " I don t know as there s any use in cry 
 ing about it," he observed, at length, as his 
 mother-in-law continued to sob. " She s 
 gone, and there s no help for it, as far as 
 I can see." 
 
 Now it might have been noted of Mrs. 
 Easton, if anyone had ever taken the trou 
 ble to reflect on the subject, that she sel 
 dom wasted her ammunition ; in other 
 words, when she felt moved to give a 
 dramatic lecture, or a symbolical exposi 
 tion of any theme that interested her, she 
 liked to have her little audience all on 
 hand. On this occasion Rupert and Nora 
 were both present, as she made sure by 
 peeping furtively out from the corner of 
 her apron, before she responded, sighing: 
 
 " Yes, James, them are true words, and 
 sad ones. What does Mr. Watts say to be 
 sure, he was speakin of a man, but it 
 amounts to the same thing she was a 
 mare ; take her for all in all, we ne er shall 
 see her like again ! And such a beautiful 
 critter, too, and so affectionate, and so gen 
 tle except when she got mad and fast ! 
 
 Them razor-back hogs that we used to 
 know of, down in Texas, that they called 
 wind-splitters, wasn t a circumstance to her 
 when she got fairly started. Snowflake ! 
 It s a pretty name, too, but I wouldn t won 
 der if it was a unfort nate one. Snow- 
 flakes melt. So has she as far as we can 
 make out, and we are left like Rachael, 
 mournin for her children and refusin to 
 be comforted." 
 
 " There s no use in taking it to heart 
 that way," remonstrated her son-in-law, in 
 a voice that was but little better than a 
 growl. He had an uneasy apprehension that 
 his astute mother-in-law was, in some way, 
 laying a trap for him. 
 
 Mrs. Easton put down her apron and 
 stared at him in amazement. " Bid the 
 stricken deer go weep, the hart ungalled 
 play, " she murmured, reproachfully, and 
 then : " I don t want to as much as intimate, 
 James, that you are wantin in affection for 
 that mare, but your words do have that 
 kind of a sound to me. Why, what will be 
 come of us if she ain t found ! Mr. Watts 
 says, speakin of the Goddess of Liberty, 
 I have but one lamp by which my feet are 
 guided, he says. Regardin this family, 
 the lamp by which their feet was guided, 
 appears to a been that mare. Now she s 
 gone out, and what is the consequence? 
 Here you be, frettin and worryin to that 
 extent, James, that, if it was my last words, 
 I must say it: your words are like nothin 
 more nor less than a bunch of them spnt- 
 terin firecrackers, an/1 all a body has to do 
 to set em off, is to speak of that mare, and 
 they go fizz ! all at once. You refuse to be 
 comforted ; you can t see no good in nothin 
 any more. Now here s Rupert : some folks 
 might think they reely might, James that 
 he in his way which is a diffrunt one, 
 I ain t denyin that is almost as beautiful 
 a critter, and worth as much concern, as 
 that four-legged mare. Well you set still, 
 Rupert," she commanded, as the boy made 
 an uneasy movement, as if meditating es 
 cape. " He s gettin as thin as a shadder. 
 
54 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RAXCH. 
 
 and as white as a sheet; he don t eat 
 enough to keep a plains sparrer alive since 
 the mare was took. Nobody, save and ex- 
 ceptin his old grandma, has any eyes for 
 him: other eyes are a-searchin the earth 
 for tracks of that mare s hoofs by day. and 
 the sky for traces of her spirit by night. 
 And Xora? I d like to ask any of you what 
 would become of this family without Xora ! 
 Yet, here she is, a-taggin along in Rupert s 
 footsteps, still and white and a-startin at 
 every sound, like a hunted maverick. So 
 I say again. Lord grant that we may learn 
 the fate of that mare soon, or this family 
 will grieve itself off the face of the earth. 
 Scripture says, Make not to yourselves 
 idols of wood, or of brass, and I guess it 
 mentions a few other animals, but it don t 
 say nothin about horses. So. James, we ll 
 go right on mournin for the mare, and 
 makin ourselves, and everybody that comes 
 nigh us, just as miserable as we can, for 
 tis our nature to. and I do presume to 
 say that we all of us furnish an interestin 
 spectacle to that Cosme. who keeps his 
 weather eye on us, indoors and out, and 
 blinks world without end," she concluded, 
 out of breath, and got up hastily to shoo 
 out an intrusive chicken that had ventured 
 to strut in at the open doorway. 
 
 As she disappeared Mr. Carrol turned to 
 his son and regarded him attentively. 
 " You don t look very well, Rupert ; your 
 grandmother is right and you, too, Xora. 
 I hope it isn t as she thinks just the loss 
 of the mare that is troubling you?" There 
 was a hint of anxiety in his voice. 
 
 Rupert, staring steadily out of the win 
 dow, said nothing. Xora felt that the bur 
 den of responsibility for an answer rested 
 with her. 
 
 " I don t people often get kind of run 
 down in the spring, father? I guess I 
 have been kind of dull lately on account 
 of the weather. Maybe Rupert feels it, too," 
 with a wistful glance in his direction, and 
 a hope of accounting for his changed looks 
 on the same general ground. 
 
 " Well," returned her father, evidently 
 dissatisfied with this explanation, " I never 
 supposed that children brought up as you 
 have been, out of doors in all weathers, 
 from babyhood up, could get run down in 
 this style, just because winter s gone and 
 summer s coming. You ll soon need a pair 
 of band-boxes to live in at this rate. As 
 for Snowflake, he went on, in a changed 
 voice. " maybe I have seemed to care an 
 uncommon lot about her. and to feel her 
 loss more than I ought to. Your grand 
 mother is generally right about such things, 
 but it isn t altogether on account of Snow- 
 flake herself that I feel the loss. To tell the 
 truth," he added, hesitating, the confession 
 evidently at war with his usual secretive 
 habit, " I had decided to sell her." 
 
 " To sell her !" echoed both his listeners, 
 dismayed. 
 
 " Yes, to sell her," Mr. Carrol repeated : 
 " that man that was up from Santa Fe last 
 month offered me three hundred dollars 
 for her. I didn t say then that I d let him 
 have her it was hard for me to make up 
 my mind to part with her but I told him 
 to call on his way back, and I d give a 
 definite answer. He was on his way to 
 Denver, and he s due back next week. I 
 had decided to let him have her; it s too 
 risky, as we ve found out to our cost, for 
 us to try to keep so valuable an animal." 
 
 " But," interposed Xora, " you are so 
 fond of her." 
 
 " Yes," her father assented, " but I m 
 fond of something besides her, too." His 
 glance at Rupert emphasized the remark. 
 Rupert, with his eyes fixed determinedly 
 on the view outside the window, did not 
 see the look, and his father, as if already 
 half repenting the tacit admission of affec 
 tion for him. went on gloomily: "There s 
 no use in talking of all that now. The 
 horse is gone, and three hundred dollars 
 with her; the spring work is behindhand; 
 I m crippled, you both getting peaked; your 
 grandmother crying, and nobody up to time 
 except Cosme not," he continued, his 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 55 
 
 sense of justice stirring suddenly, " but 
 what you re doing the best you can lately, 
 Rupert I ain t making any complaint of 
 the way you re handling the cattle, the last 
 few days but there ought to be two hands 
 on the range all the time now." 
 
 " Oh, I reckon I can manage well enough 
 alone," Rupert replied. 
 
 His voice sounded so lifeless and weary 
 that his father looked at him solicitously. 
 
 " I don t know you do appear to be 
 pretty well run down," he said, slowly; 
 " kind of odd that I hadn t noticed it be 
 fore." 
 
 " And now, thanks to grandma, you 
 won t notice anything else," thought the 
 boy, ungratefully. 
 
 He was mistaken. Mr. Carrol did not 
 seem to be watching him particularly as the 
 days went by. He took to thinking in 
 stead, which was infinitely more dangerous, 
 for he had presently traced the starting 
 point of Rupert s altered looks and silent 
 ways back to the night that the mare was 
 stolen. Yet he had never really cared 
 so much for the handsome animal as for 
 his own homely little cow-pony, Vidette ; 
 he would miss Vidette, if she should dis 
 appear, and grieve for her, probably, but 
 his father did not believe that her disap 
 pearance would affect his health as the loss 
 of Snowflake appeared to have done. And 
 Nora? Mr. Carrol was suddenly reminded 
 at this point in his cogitations of one of 
 Mrs. Easton s oft-repeated quotations 
 credited, of course, to the versatile Mr. 
 Watts : " True hearts are more than coro 
 nets, and simple faith than Norman blood." 
 " If there s a true heart on earth," mused 
 Nora s father, " it s Nora s, and whatever 
 affects her brother affects her, of course; 
 and whatever affects either of them 
 affects me but I reckon they re too young 
 to understand that. For the present I ll 
 keep that reward standing, and, for the rest, 
 I ll wait I ll wait." 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 COSME BRINGS NEWS. FROM PINOS ALTOS. 
 
 ON THE same day that the disappear 
 ance of the famous white mare of 
 the Carrols was being circulated 
 throughout the country, Valdez, senior, the 
 father of Cosme, presented himself at the 
 store where Cosme had but the day before 
 purchased a wagon load of supplies. 
 
 Valdez was a good customer, so the 
 grocer shrewdly bided his time. It was 
 not until the Mexican was slowly strapping 
 up his depleted leather wallet that the 
 tradesman remarked, affably: 
 
 " You must be going out on a long trip, 
 this time. This makes lemme see five V 
 five s ten n ten s twenty yes, thirty-five 
 dollars worth of stuff that you ve bought 
 in the last two days. Coin into Mexico?" 
 
 " No," returned Valdez, shortly, and 
 added : 
 
 "Me? I was have bought but fifteen 
 dolla of stuff." 
 
 "That s to-day? Oh, yes, of course, it s 
 all right. I hope you don t think I men 
 tioned it because I wanted the pay. I 
 don t. You can have all the time you ask 
 from this house*, now I tell you. But I was 
 thinking of the twenty dollars worth that 
 Cosme got for you, yesterday." 
 
 " Let me see that twenty dolla of 
 Cosme," said Cosme s father. 
 
 He examined the bill that the merchant 
 brought him, going over each item care 
 fully, although he could not read a word 
 of English, and, when told what Cosme had 
 said, paid it without a word. But his eyes 
 burned and his grizzled mustache seemed to 
 to bristle. 
 
 The storekeeper watched him thought 
 fully. " That little rascal of a Mexican s 
 been piling up trouble for himself, I 
 shouldn t wonder," was his mental com 
 ment, as Valdez, looking neither to the 
 right nor left, walked steadily out of the 
 store. 
 
 Certainly it was an evil day for Cosme. 
 
56 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 On the street his father met an acquaint 
 ance who made haste to tell him that, on 
 the day before, he had seen Cosme, al 
 though Cosme had not known of his pres 
 ence, being, at the moment, absorbed in bet 
 ting on the wheel of fortune. Cosme s fa 
 ther, having the fortunate gift of silence, 
 made no comment on this intelligence, but 
 there was no occasion for reticence with 
 himself, and, driving homeward, he often 
 looked speculatively at the tall stalks of 
 cane cactus growing thick and rank in iso 
 lated patches. He thought how the Peni- 
 tentes, of which savage sect he was a mem 
 ber, lashed themselves with the stinging 
 thorns, and reflected complacently on the 
 good that it did them. 
 
 " I makes at boy to rememb dis time," 
 he muttered. " I makes him to carry some 
 scar. I teaches him to make up lies at 
 me, si. I teaches him to gamble ! Wen 
 I gits back from dis roun -up, we see !" 
 
 The search for the lost mare was pushed 
 so far they were all so sure that she had 
 been stolen and ridden aw r ay at speed 
 that Rupert, who alone could have told 
 where she was lying dead, began to breathe 
 more easily. He did not despise himself 
 any the less, and, in his heart, longed to go 
 to his father with the truth. The longer 
 he delayed the harder the task became, 
 until his morbid dread of his father s merci 
 less reproaches grew into a shrinking 
 terror. It seemed to him that it would be 
 easier to be condemned as a horse thief 
 than to listen to what his father might, with 
 good reason, say to him. 
 
 Nearly three weeks slipped by. Mr. 
 Carrol, whose hurt had proved to be of a 
 much more serious character than the doc 
 tor in the hasty examination that the vic 
 tim would tolerate, and that for the one 
 occasion only had diagnosed, was yet hob 
 bling about the premises on crutches, so 
 that, as Rupert could not be spared from 
 the range work, Cosme was again sent to 
 Pinos Altos for supplies. 
 
 Rupert, knowing the young Mexican for 
 
 the treacherous soul that he was, had, when 
 he heard the matter mentioned, a momen 
 tary impulse to protest against it, but, along 
 with the numbing sense of misery that .iad 
 been his since he entered upon those days 
 and weeks of deceit, there had grown a 
 distrust of himself a distrust saf .ly at 
 variance with his usual gallant independ 
 ence of speech and action. Cosme started 
 early, as always on these expeditions, and 
 Rupert saw him depart with his mental 
 protest unspoken. What had Cosme done, 
 or what could he do, Rupert s guilty con 
 science mocked, that was as bad as the 
 thing that he himself had achieved? 
 
 As it happened, Cosme reached the vil 
 lage just as an event of such importance to 
 the community was taking place that the 
 young Mexican was sufficiently entertained, 
 during the few hours of his stay, without 
 having recourse to any projects of his own. 
 
 It was nearly dusk when he drove into 
 the ranch house yard on his return next 
 day. As on the previous occasion, Mr. 
 Carrol directed him to fetch his purchases 
 into the kitchen, while he checked them off. 
 
 Cosme, with difficulty holding back his 
 great news, waited until the business in 
 hand was disposed of. When the last arti 
 cle on the list was satisfactorily accounted 
 for, his employer said: 
 
 " You ve done everything all right, 
 Cosme, very well, indeed !" as, indeed, he 
 had, since Cosme was by no means lacking 
 in intelligence and adaptability when he 
 chose to turn either to account. 
 
 " Me," returned Cosme, beaming, " it 
 was mos won erful at I make at job all 
 right, with no mistake at all, same like yo 
 say, senor, because I was full of excite in 
 at town yes erday. Almos after the things 
 they was all bought, I was afraid, me, to 
 camp for the night like w at yo tole me for 
 to do, bout a mile out on the road back to 
 the ranch, an wait, like Seiiora Easton "- 
 with a respectful inclination of his head in 
 that lady s direction " say, till daylight 
 doth appear. " 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 57 
 
 " Very dangerous, I should say, camp 
 ing on the Pines Altos road, on your way 
 home !" commented his employer, dryly. 
 " But since you have got back all right, 
 you d better look after the horses now, and 
 then come in and get your supper." 
 
 The family had just finished the evening 
 meal when Cosme drove up, so that all the 
 members of the household were present, to 
 Cosme s satisfaction, as he gently protested, 
 in reply to this suggestion : 
 
 "Si, me? I was full of hungry, also 
 the horses, but I would explain to the senor 
 that it was not at I w r as afraid of gettin 
 hurt at the camp. No, it was the excite . 
 I was full of excite . Pinos Altos, she was 
 also full all of her !" Cosme, who had 
 been holding his peaked straw hat in one 
 hand since his entry into the kitchen, now 
 waved that useful article of wearing ap 
 parel dramatically, the better to illustrate 
 how very full Pinos Altos was of the 
 " excite " that had so affected him. 
 
 Mr. Carrol, seeing that the young Mex 
 ican really had something to tell, adjured 
 him, bluntly: 
 
 " Well, what was the matter with Pinos 
 Altos? Out with it!" 
 
 " The thiefs, senor the thiefs w at have 
 been makin such big steals of horses, and 
 also catties. Xo more will they steal. The 
 sheriff he have got them both. He have 
 brought them to Pinos Altos and put them 
 into the strong house of iron." 
 
 " W-h-e-w ! That is news, indeed ! So 
 the sheriff got the thieves, or some of 
 them. Did you learn who the men were?" 
 
 " Si ; one, he was at Hardy man 
 Senor Ham Hardy, he was. The other he 
 was name Billium Senor Billium." 
 
 "Billium?" Mr. Carrol repeated the 
 name thoughtfully. " I don t recollect ever 
 hearing that name in this part of the coun 
 try before." 
 
 Cosme, always polite, hesitated. " Si ; 
 there is a possible at I have made mistake 
 in the name, me. At Pinos Altos always 
 they call him Bill. Long time ago my 
 
 padre tell me at Will, w en he was a front 
 name, he stood for William, and so I think, 
 me 
 
 In spite of himself, Mr. Carrol laughed. 
 " I see. You carried the idea out when 
 it came to Bill. Well, have they recovered 
 any of the stolen horses ?" 
 
 " Si ; also the sheriff said to him so my 
 hermano, who lives at Pinos Altos, tole 
 me and it was of a gen ral voice among 
 the people at the sheriff had tole it to 
 them" 
 
 "Well, well, well! Take that for 
 granted ! Did they get any of the stolen 
 stock back?" 
 
 " They tole the sheriff, w en he tole them 
 that the peoples would hang them, sure, if 
 they didn t own up, w ere they had taken 
 Senor Sanford s horses to, in Mexico, and 
 sole them to a man w at keeps horses to 
 go fas on a racetrack. At sheriff, at once 
 he said he would go down to at place and 
 bring them horses back." 
 
 " I don t know that he can. The law in 
 Mexico Mr. Carrol dropped the specu 
 lation with an impatient gesture. " Did 
 you hear anything about Snowflake?" 
 
 " Me, I hear it say and Senor Billium 
 and Senor Ham Hardy both swear it hard 
 at the sheriff at they did not get Snow- 
 flake. At sheriff he say some other mem 
 bers of the gang have tooken Snowflake." 
 
 " It s rather odd, though, that she should 
 have disappeared on the same night that 
 the others were taken, if she was taken by 
 another party." 
 
 " Si, it was at w at the sheriff say, too." 
 
 " I m glad that they ve got the men. 
 Sanford offered a big reward for the re 
 covery of his horses. If the sheriff suc 
 ceeds in getting them back the reward will 
 go to him." 
 
 Rupert, sitting silent and unnoticed in 
 his corner, felt a sick loathing of himself 
 at the words. Nearly a month ago he had 
 known who it was that had stolen the 
 Sanford racehorses. If, he reflected, he 
 had been a better neighbor and less of a 
 
58 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 coward, he would have gone to Mr. San- 
 ford and told him, thus saving him, as well 
 as the county, several hundred dollars of 
 expense; still, his accusing conscience ran 
 on, what difference could it make how he 
 treated his neighbor, or what sort of a citi 
 zen he was, seeing the sort of son and 
 brother that he had turned out to be? 
 
 He was roused from his tormenting re 
 flections by his father s voice again ad 
 dressing Cosme, who had once more ven 
 tured to hint that now was the time for him 
 (Cosme) to turn in and assist the sheriff 
 in the search for the lost Snowflake. 
 
 " No, I reckon not," Mr. Carrol returned, 
 decisively, in response to the respectfully- 
 worded hint. " You just attend to your 
 business which is the farm work, just now 
 and leave the sheriff to attend to his." 
 
 " At sheriff he have to wear one small 
 window on his eye," remarked Cosme. 
 
 "Wears glasses. Well, what of that?" 
 
 " He no have eye at see way off, like 
 mine." 
 
 " His eyes seem to serve his purpose 
 pretty well. You attend to your work in 
 the west field. You ll find plenty of em 
 ployment for your eyes up there." 
 
 " Si, at was a good place to see from. 
 I use my eye up there, me." 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 COSME TAKES TO STUDYING THE LANDSCAPE. 
 
 THE young Mexican, taking his em 
 ployer s advice seriously, applied him 
 self from that time on to his double 
 task of attending the farm work and study 
 ing the landscape at the same time. 
 
 He was thus engaged on the very same 
 day that his father returned home from his 
 latest trip with the round-up forces. 
 
 Close to the upper edge of the field where 
 Cosme was harrowing, a thicket of scrub 
 oak grew like a low green wall. Through 
 a slight break in this green wall Cosme 
 could catch fleeting glimpses of the 
 
 northern extremity of the Tefoya Mesa. 
 For the most part, where the mesa joined 
 the plains, it was as if the waves of a low, 
 advancing ocean had suddenly been struck 
 rigid and motionless. Cosme noticed at 
 length that at one point the rigid wave had 
 been transformed into a low, sheer wall. 
 Stopping at each returning round to swing 
 his team into the furrow, Cosme took oc 
 casion to study this northern slope, in which 
 direction lay the short cut to the 7-H Ranch. 
 
 The memory of his bad day s work at 
 Pinos Altos, three weeks before, weighed 
 heavily upon him. He had gambled away 
 the money that his employer had entrusted 
 to him, and, fearful that he or Rupert might 
 come into town and find out what had been 
 done, if he had the account charged to Mr. 
 Carrol, he had compromised matters with 
 himself by having the bill charged to his 
 own father. Valdez, senior, was known 
 to be good pay, and the grocer made no 
 objection. But suppose that his father 
 should chance to return and should visit 
 that grocery before he (Cosme) could save 
 up enough out of his wages of ten dollars 
 a month, to settle it himself? The lad 
 turned cold at the thought. 
 
 If he could but find the missing horse 
 and claim the promised reward ! 
 
 Cosme had swung his team around into 
 the furrow for the twentieth time, and was 
 slowly settling down to the next long plod 
 around the field, when, suddenly, a tiny 
 speck of white lying at the very foot of the 
 abrupt break in the mesa wall, attracted his 
 attention. It seemed to him odd that he 
 had never noticed it before, for it was a 
 conspicuous point in the universal waste 
 of gray. Cosme went on with his work at 
 last, but at each succeeding turn he looked 
 and looked again to make sure that the 
 speck was yet there. Finally, as his eyes 
 again sought the white spot, he saw a pair 
 of vultures slowly circling and circling 
 above it. When he saw the vultures, Cosme 
 grinned with pure enjoyment. He thought 
 of the many snubbings that he had had 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 59 
 
 from Rupert, and, above all, of the com 
 plete and workmanlike threshing that he 
 had received at Rupert s hands, not so long 
 ago, and his black eyes glittered. 
 
 " Aha ! this afternoon, now, I make some 
 observation, me, on at place at look like 
 one snowdrif, w en there is not any snow 
 somew ere else !" 
 
 Down at the ranch house Nora was hav 
 ing trouble with her little flock of poultry. 
 After a fruitless search about the corrals 
 and barn, she went into the house to tell 
 her grandmother that the big hen turkey 
 was missing. 
 
 " Them turkeys are enough sight more 
 bother than they re worth !" Mrs. Easton 
 declared, on hearing this. " They re jest 
 like them sand fleas : one minute the ground 
 Ml be covered with em, and you think all 
 you ve got to do is to put out your foot 
 and squawsh em, but, when your foot gets 
 there, they re gone!" 
 
 " Maybe she s sitting," Nora suggested. 
 
 " I wouldn t wonder a mite; and if she is, 
 she s as like to a gone down to Pinos Altos 
 or the Cimarron to do it as to a stayed 
 within ten miles of home." 
 
 Are you talking of that hen turkey?" 
 asked Mr. Carrol, from his seat near the 
 window. " I saw her skulking around in 
 that oak thicket, up at the end of the west 
 field, the last time I was up there. I 
 thought then that she was probably steal 
 ing a nest." 
 
 " You can depend on it that s where 
 you ll find her," said Mrs. Easton. 
 
 " I ll go right up and see," Nora replied, 
 taking up the broad-brimmed straw hat that 
 she had but just tossed down, and starting 
 off in the direction of the field. She was 
 a good deal surprised, on nearing the field, 
 to find one of the work horses tied under 
 a tree, close to the oak thicket, the harrow 
 standing idly in the furrow, and Cosme, 
 with the other horse, nowhere in sight. 
 The trampled grass under the tree showed 
 that the horse had been there, stamping, 
 
 and fighting flies, a long time. It seemed 
 to her that there was something wrong 
 about such a state of affairs, but recalling 
 that her father had the utmost faith in 
 Cosme, she decided that he might possibly 
 have been called away somewhere upon 
 legitimate business. She went on, and, a 
 moment after, was lost to view in the dense 
 growth of scrub oaks. The thicket was so 
 dense, in fact, that she presently found her 
 self obliged to crawl on hands and knees 
 before she could penetrate its depths. Her 
 perseverance was rewarded when, a few 
 yards away, she caught a glimpse of the 
 alert head and watchful eyes of the turkey 
 as she crouched silently on her nest. See 
 ing that the troublesome bird was likely 
 to be as safe there as anywhere else, and 
 would certainly resent interference, Nora 
 had just decided to leave her alone, and to 
 creep out as she had come, when she heard 
 the sound of footsteps close at hand. 
 
 Rupert had returned from the range 
 early in the afternoon. Dreading any acci 
 dental chance that might leave him alone 
 with his father, and so give the latter op 
 portunity to ask inconvenient questions, he 
 thought that he would go up and see how 
 Cosme was coming on with the harrowing. 
 
 Like Nora, he stopped in astonishment 
 at sight of the tethered horse standing 
 alone, but, unlike her, he was not ready to 
 believe that any lawful errand of Cosme s 
 could account for the situation; standing 
 close to the thicket, with his hand on the 
 horse s mane, he glanced inquiringly around 
 just at the instant that Cosme s head sud 
 denly appeared ascending from a little 
 arroyo that led out on to the plains, out 
 of sight from the house. The head was 
 followed by the Mexican s slim little body, 
 and the body was mounted on the missing 
 work horse. Presently horse and rider had 
 scrambled out of the gully and were slowly 
 approaching the spot where Rupert awaited 
 in angry impatience. 
 
 " This is a nice piece of business !" be 
 gan Rupert, pointing to the reeking horse, 
 
60 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 which gave every indication of having been 
 mercilessly ridden. " Look at that horse ! 
 Wet with foam and sweat, and he a plow 
 horse ! Father shall hear of this, now I 
 promise you. You ll have better luck than 
 you deserve if you don t get fired for this !" 
 
 Cosme, unabashed, slid from the horse s 
 back and quietly began replacing the har 
 ness. Not until Rupert, angered still more 
 by his silence, had started to go away, did 
 he speak. " Wait," he said, deliberately. 
 " Me, I got some speak to tell to yo ." 
 
 The Mexican s countenance, as he faced 
 Rupert, wore a bluish pallor, strikingly ap 
 parent, underlaid as it was by his tawny 
 coloring. But it was not fear of Rupert, 
 or of anything that Rupert might say, that 
 caused his face to blanch and his knees to 
 wobble. Returning, elated and triumphant 
 from his clandestine investigation of the 
 mesa cliff, feeling jubilantly certain of a 
 safe and speedy settlement of the account 
 that so troubled him, Cosme had met his 
 Xemesis. His Nemesis took the outward 
 semblance of his father, Juan Valdez, and 
 Juan Valdez had been able to convince his 
 son, in words that scorched like molten 
 lava, that the way of the transgressor is 
 hard. Valdez had been out in search of 
 his son, and the latter had nearly reached 
 the field where he was supposed, by his 
 trusting employer, to be working, when he 
 came face to face with his parent. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 W r iiAT COSME FOUND. 
 
 THE interview between father and son 
 was not unduly prolonged. Valdez, 
 senior, had, it is true, the power to 
 keep silence in two languages and that 
 was a thing to be proud of, since so many 
 people of so many races find it impossible 
 to keep their thoughts to themselves in 
 one but he did not exercise his gift on 
 Cosme. When the latter, with his father s 
 stern permission, started on again, it was at 
 
 a much slower pace and with no elation in 
 his heart. But, as his horse climbed wear 
 ily up out of the arroyo on to the level 
 ground, the sight of Rupert standing mo 
 tionless beside the work horse that he, 
 Cosme, had left behind, gave the resource 
 ful young Mexican an idea. It was plain 
 that Rupert was waiting to upbraid him; 
 very well he would settle that matter by 
 springing on him a new and worse scheme 
 for getting himself out of a new and 
 worse difficulty. 
 
 When the harness was properly adjusted, 
 and Rupert had hesitated expectantly in 
 answer to his call, Cosme suddenly turned 
 his back on the horses and confronted 
 Rupert. He extended his open hand; on 
 the palm something white was glistening. 
 
 " What is at ?" he demanded. 
 
 Rupert picked up the glittering trifle and 
 examined it. 
 
 " You know perfectly well what it is, and 
 that it s mine. How did it get into your 
 hands? Don t tell me any lies about it, for 
 I m willing to thresh you again, and to do 
 a good job, too, if I think you need it." 
 
 The glittering object was a silver coin 
 with a pin soldered on to one side. The 
 date of its coinage was that of the year of 
 Rupert s birth; above the date his initials 
 were engraved. Nora had a coin of the 
 same value with the- year of her birth en 
 graved, and, moreover, the Mexican silver 
 smith who did the engraving was an uncle 
 of Cosine s, and had stopped at the ranch 
 house, with his little traveling forge, while 
 doing the work. 
 
 " You know it s mine," Rupert repeated. 
 " I didn t even know I d lost it thought 
 it was on my Sunday coat. Where did you 
 find it?" 
 
 Cosine s black eyes were on Rupert s face 
 as he answered: " I fin it at pin lyin in 
 some dirt, one, two steps from a dead 
 horse." Rupert gasped. The objects around 
 him seemed to undulate and waver for a 
 moment ; he recovered himself quickly to 
 hear Cosme s voice saying : " At horse 
 
What is at?" Cosme demanded. 
 
 01 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 63 
 
 w ite, she was never goin run fas er than 
 the win no more. All the time I was 
 think : Poor alba Snowflake, w at a bad 
 man rode off the cliff and break at the 
 neck ! Then I see that pin lookin up at 
 me like one eye that tell the truth, n I 
 know. I know how Snowflake was come 
 there. I been use that short cut to the 7-H 
 myself, sometime." 
 
 The Mexican, his recital concluded, 
 waited gravely. For a minute Rupert could 
 not speak. A swift, wild wing, cleaving 
 the upper air, cast its shadow over him; 
 involuntarily he raised his eyes to watch 
 the bird s flight, wishing that he, too, had 
 the power to take wing and fly away from 
 this network of deceit and trouble that he 
 had woven about himself. Cosme s eyes 
 followed his with a dim comprehension of 
 his thought, but he waited; it was for 
 Rupert to speak. 
 
 " Well," said Rupert, at length, " what 
 are you going to do about it? Go to my 
 father and tell what you have found, of 
 course. Here, you can take this pin to 
 show him, if he has any doubts of your 
 story. But he won t have," he added, bit 
 terly; "he ll recognize it by its ear marks." 
 
 " Yo padre," observed the unmoved 
 Cosme, " he offa cincuenta dolla for at 
 horse cincuenta dolla ! More n she s 
 wor se dead horse so; but he no say she 
 mus be alive. He say cincuenta dolla , 
 jest so. See?" 
 
 " Go and tell him, then, you Mexican 
 dog!" Rupert burst out furiously, "and 
 get your money." He started to go away, 
 instantly resolved that, despite his promise 
 to Nora, he would leave home, never to 
 return, and would leave it on the instant. 
 
 But Cosme s voice again arrested him. 
 " Hole on, Rupert ! I got some more words 
 to say. One word is, at Mexican dog jes 
 good s Merican coward that w at I think, 
 me. I was feel sorrowful w en I fin at 
 Snowflake. I feel sorrowful for you ; I no 
 feel, sorrowful now, but I no goin to tell yo 
 padre not yet. I want to talk at you," he 
 
 continued, miserably. " I have some trou 
 bles also, too." 
 
 "Well?" urged Rupert, impatiently, as 
 Cosme paused. 
 
 " Si ; mi padre he got some notion not 
 like w ite notion. He believe in w ip. He 
 think I do some wrong, me. I was goin 
 make it all right. I no kill mos fines horse 
 in de worl , n go on actin some lie to 
 make all peoples believe at at horse been 
 stole. No; but mi padre" Cosme s teeth 
 were chattering as the vision of his padre 
 in his savage wrath, for Valdez anger had 
 lost none of its intensity by waiting, rose 
 vividly to his remembrance; if Rupert was 
 a moral coward he was undeniably a phys 
 ical one, and the luster of his black eyes 
 was dimmed by smarting tears that he 
 dashed roughly aside as he concluded : " Me 
 padre goin w ip me with cactus branch. 
 Same like los Penitentes. To-night he say 
 for me to come at the ole cabin w ere we 
 was use to live; down yon " he waved 
 his hand toward the former abode of the 
 Valdez family, a squalid hut, nestling 
 against the barren hillside, a mile away; 
 " come at the edge of night, mi padre say. 
 He will be at there. Say he goin break 
 me of some bad habit. I say at him I was 
 too ole to w ip. Not this time, he say ; say 
 he goin do me good with some scar." 
 
 " He s an old scoundrel !" observed 
 Rupert, candidly. "What did you do?" 
 
 " Not anything at was no matter; I was 
 goin make it all right." 
 
 Rupert did not insist upon a more ex 
 plicit answer. The result of his own dis 
 obedience had been so tragic that it seemed 
 improbable that the Mexican could have 
 done anything worth mentioning beside it. 
 Yet Cosme s offense had been, in intention, 
 much worse than his. Both had weakly 
 yielded to temptation, and Rupert s remorse 
 was none the less bitter because the tempta 
 tion that had conquered him was not base, 
 as Cosme s had been. 
 
 " I don t see how I can help it if he has 
 taken a notion to thresh you," Rupert said 
 
64 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 at last, his interest in Cosme s affliction 
 eclipsed by the recollection of his own 
 greater troubles. 
 
 Cosme lifted his ragged straw hat and 
 passed his hand over his forehead, on which 
 the perspiration stood in heavy drops. " I 
 goin git out of it," he said. 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " I goin git someone to go at at cabin 
 in my place." 
 
 " You re acquainted with some bigger 
 fool than I am, then, if you know of any 
 one you can get." 
 
 " No, no fool ; muchos troubles. I not 
 goin ask yo padre for at rewar not goin 
 say at snowdrif was a Snowflake. No. 
 You was a-goin at at cabin in my place." 
 
 " I go in your place !" cried Rupert. " I 
 think I see myself! Are you crazy?" 
 
 " No; no crezee. See, it easy. We both 
 same shape, both so high. Yo has on my 
 clo es all dark in cabin. Mi padre still 
 man, no speak jes w ip, w ip ! All he 
 say, Tek off yo coat!" Then he bring 
 the cactus branch down on yo shoulcla 
 swish, swish!" Cosme enacted the imag 
 inary interview with a spirit and accuracy 
 born of experience. " Wen mi padre t ink 
 yo had nuff," he continued, " he jes go 
 off an leave yo lone. I know. Then I 
 goin help yo home. I goin be mighty 
 good at yo , then," he added, commiserat- 
 ingly. 
 
 " Well, you have hatched up a beautiful 
 scheme," said Rupert, who had been study 
 ing the situation while Cosme talked. " I 
 suppose you know that he ll kill me if he 
 finds me out, even if he don t do it thinking 
 that he s finishing you off." 
 
 " He goin stop short off of killin ," re 
 turned Cosme, doggedly. " He no fin yo 
 out ; yo keep still, at all ; blood no tell. 
 W ite blood make same kin of stain like 
 Mexican both red. Yo goin do it?" 
 
 He looked into Rupert s face; the eyes 
 of both boys glared at each other for a 
 moment, then Rupert s gaze dropped. 
 " Yes," he said, " I m going to do it." 
 
 He was answering his own thoughts rather 
 than Cosme s words, but he knew very 
 well that the latter understood him to 
 promise to become his substitute for a 
 flogging. 
 
 He walked away, reflecting that by the 
 time Cosme discovered that he had been 
 deceived, and told his father what he 
 knew, he himself would be so far away 
 that it could not much matter what his 
 father said or did. His heart was filled 
 with bitter self-contempt, but he could not 
 bring himself to tell the truth, as he longed 
 to do; still less could he endure that his 
 father should hear it from Cosme. 
 
 "It ll all come out some time; I wonder 
 that no one has found poor Snowflake be 
 fore now," he thought, miserably. " I m 
 not afraid that Cosme confound him ! 
 will tell, as long as he thinks I ve saved 
 him a whipping. He ll be so afraid of my 
 going back on him and telling old Valdez 
 the truth that he ll never open his mouth 
 about it, but I can t stay and bear it a 
 minute longer. I wish, for poor Nora s 
 sake, that I had honor enough about me 
 to face the truth. She d do it if she was 
 in my place. And what is there to face? 
 Just father s anger. But how angry he 
 can be! No, I ll go away. I promised 
 Nora that I wouldn t, but I will. I ve al 
 ready proved myself a coward; now I ll add 
 liar to that, and maybe she won t think 
 it worth while to fret after me when I m 
 gone." 
 
 So communing with himself, ashamed, 
 repentant, remorseful, yet still lacking the 
 courage to take the course that he knew 
 to be right, he approached the house, intent 
 on slipping quietly by it into the highroad. 
 There was a strange horse tethered to the 
 hitching-post in front of the house, and, 
 reflecting that the visitor, whoever he 
 might be, would soon be going, and might 
 overtake him if he were on the road, 
 Rupert stepped aside and sat down in the 
 lee of a strawstack to await his departure. 
 As he sat with his elbows propped on his 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 65 
 
 knees and his eyes fixed on the highway 
 that he meant soon to traverse, there 
 seemed to him a desolate suggestiveness in 
 the way in which the road went on and 
 on, growing darker as the familiar sur 
 roundings receded, until, at last, all was 
 lost to view in a heavy pall of darkness, 
 and one could but guess at what lay be 
 yond. So had he gone on in wrongdoing 
 until now. What lay beyond that verge 
 to which the lights, the love of home, could 
 not penetrate? 
 
 The visitor, a neighbor, who had called 
 simply to ask about the injured foot and 
 to inquire if there was any news of the 
 stolen horse, came out, mounted his horse, 
 and rode away. Still Rupert, lost in 
 gloomy reverie, did not stir. 
 
 When Rupert and Cosme, standing so 
 close to the oak scrub that, lying hidden in 
 its depths, she could not avoid hearing 
 every word of their conversation, began 
 talking, Nora started to wriggle out of her 
 place of concealment. After hearing a 
 sentence or two, however, she lay per 
 fectly quiet, listening. 
 
 When the angry interview was over, she 
 still crouched silently in her place until 
 Rupert was out of sight. A hasty glance 
 in his direction assured her that Cosme 
 was once more plodding along beside his 
 harrow, to all appearances a perfectly 
 guileless Mexican; then Nora crept out 
 followed by the derisive chatter of the hen 
 turkey, who felt herself mistress of the 
 situation dropped quietly into the gully 
 up which Cosme had so recently ridden, 
 and so made her way home, unobserved 
 by either of the boys. 
 
 Nora did not go into the house; instead 
 she began an anxious, breathless search 
 about the premises, interrupted only by an 
 occasional pause to scan the highway, down 
 which she feared to see a boyish figure 
 striding. Knowing Rupert as she did, she 
 knew, to an unerring certainty, that he 
 would either immediately confess the part 
 
 that he had taken in the mare s disappear 
 ance, or else, in spite of his promise to 
 the contrary, he would leave home, bent 
 on never returning. Never might have 
 seemed a long date to set for the offense 
 that he had committed, but Rupert s sister 
 knew something of the matchless reserves 
 of obstinacy in her dreamy brother s char 
 acter. Having assured herself that he had 
 not entered the house, she continued the 
 search, oppressed with a terrible feeling 
 that perhaps his whole future depended 
 upon her now doing the right thing in the 
 right way. Not repulsing him, no, no ! 
 when he so needed support; not upbraiding 
 him; not upholding him in his wrongdoing, 
 and so helping to blunt his moral suscep 
 tibility; not condoning his cowardice for 
 he had been cowardly but making him 
 feel, through and above all, that she loved 
 him, that she was not acting as his judge, 
 that she would die for him and make no 
 sign, if need be. Poor Nora hurried back 
 and forth, with all these thoughts, not 
 formulated, but in a confused, tormenting 
 jumble, spurring her on. More than that, 
 even before the hen turkey s derisive chat 
 ter had followed her quiet retreat from the 
 oak thicket she had thought of a plan for 
 keeping Cosme from claiming the fifty- 
 dollar reward, and, at the same time, shield 
 ing Rupert himself until, of his own ac 
 cord, he should be ready to speak the truth. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 NORA CARRIES OUT HER PLAN. 
 
 CONTINUING her search for Rupert, 
 Nora at length went out to the straw- 
 stacks that, like so many golden wig 
 wams, crowded close up against the corral 
 walls. Crouched under one of these, his 
 face hidden in his hands, she found her 
 brother. 
 
 Going quietly to his side, she softly laid 
 her hand on his shoulder. She could 
 scarcely restrain the cry of dismay that 
 
66 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 rose to her lips as she saw the haggard 
 wretchedness of the face that was raised 
 to meet her own. If she had ever for a 
 moment wavered, as she had not, in her 
 determination to do all in her power to 
 help her brother at this crisis in his life, 
 the expression on his face then would 
 have rebuked her. 
 
 Was not she, also, her brother s keeper? 
 That did not mean, according to her under 
 standing of it, that she was to try to preach 
 to him. What boy in his senses would 
 not have resented that? And she younger 
 than himself, too. 
 
 No, the real meaning of the words was 
 that she was to walk beside him, to walk 
 silently and without complaint, into the val 
 ley of humiliation. She returned, steadily, 
 Rupert s inquiring gaze. 
 
 " Rupert," she said, quietly, " I didn t 
 ask you any questions when when some 
 thing happened, not long ago. But you 
 made me a promise. Sometimes things 
 have come up that make me almost afraid 
 that you don t don t intend to keep it." 
 
 " You know already that I am a coward, 
 and now you are beginning to understand 
 that I am also a liar," returned Rupert, 
 with resolute hardihood. " You are quite 
 right, if you refer to my promise to you not 
 to leave here. I intend to break that prom 
 ise. What put it so aptly into your head 
 that I do? You see you re getting down 
 to the bottom of my admirable character 
 or, I should say, the dregs." 
 
 Nora, dreading to let him know that she 
 had overheard the interview between him 
 self and Cosme, parried a little. 
 
 " It isn t very comfortable at home, just 
 now," she said. Yet she knew that she 
 must tell him what she had heard, if he 
 could not be induced otherwise to renew 
 his promise. 
 
 " It s a good time to leave it, then, if 
 it isn t comfortable, especially as I happen 
 to be the one who makes it uncomfortable," 
 Rupert said, again hiding his face in his 
 hands. 
 
 Nora stood beside him for a silent mo 
 ment, wondering anxiously what course she 
 had better take, then she said softly, 
 " But you won t go away, will you, Ru 
 pert?" 
 
 " Yes," returned Rupert, looking up sud 
 denly, " yes, I will. You may say that I ve 
 broken my promise to you. That s all 
 right I ve done a number of things ; one 
 more or less don t matter. You ll forget 
 about it and me when I m gone." 
 
 Nora quivered, but made no direct re 
 ply to this speech. After a momentary 
 struggle she said, " I didn t mean it, 
 Rupert it was an accident but I was up 
 in the oak patch, and I heard what Cosme 
 said to you this afternoon." 
 
 Rupert sprang to his feet with an excla 
 mation of surprise and anger, but he pres 
 ently resumed his seat. " After all, it don t 
 matter," he said, doggedly. " You knew 
 I had taken the horse, and suspected, of 
 course, that I had killed her. I did. That s 
 all there is to it." 
 
 " Unless," Nora suggested, " you should 
 conclude to tell father." 
 
 " Which I shall not. Set your mind at 
 rest on that score." 
 
 " Surely, you will not let Cosme s fa 
 ther 
 
 " No," returned Rupert, with a glance 
 down the darkening road, " no, I will not 
 do that." 
 
 " Then will you promise me one thing, 
 Rupert just one thing? Will you?" 
 
 " How can I tell until I know what it is? 
 And what are my promises good for, any 
 way?" answered the boy, miserably. 
 
 " Rupert, I never knew you to tell a lie, 
 or to break a promise." 
 
 "Until this business came up; put that 
 in and you ll have it right. I seem to my 
 self to have been the father of lies, lately. 
 I seem to be somebody else, all at once; 
 maybe it s a kind of hypnotism," he con 
 tinued, desperately. " I don t lose myself 
 in day dreams any more, for one thing, and 
 I haven t touched my violin since. There 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 67 
 
 isn t any music in me now. I m more like 
 one of those devil fish that we read of. 
 I m full of a blackness that oozes out and 
 obscures all the good in me if there ever 
 was any." 
 
 " It s all good, and the blackness will 
 pass Only promise me that you will not 
 leave home to-night, Rupert." 
 
 Rupert looked at her speculatively. 
 " Why should I promise that, Nora ? I 
 might just as well walk into a den of raging 
 lions and be done with it. If you heard 
 what Cosme said, you know very well that 
 he ll tell the whole story to father and come 
 on him for the fifty dollars. Besides, if 
 I go away it ll cost father fifty dollars, in 
 addition to the three hundred that I ve al 
 ready lost him. I understand all that, and 
 I m going. There s some consolation in 
 knowing that Cosme will get the whipping 
 he deserves." 
 
 " But, wait wait, Rupert ! I have a plan. 
 If Cosme does not tell if everything goes 
 on as usual will you stay, then, Rupert?" 
 
 " I don t see how Cosme s mouth is to 
 be shut, unless I go to the cabin in his 
 place," objected Rupert, a faint color ting 
 ing his cheek. It seemed to him that shame 
 upon shame was piling upon him. Was 
 there no spark of manhood in him, that he 
 could stoop to let honest little Nora con 
 coct schemes for saving him from the pun 
 ishment that he deserved, he felt, more 
 than Cosme did Cosme who was a Mex 
 ican. " I ll promise for to-night," he said, 
 abruptly. " I will not go to the cabin, and I 
 don t think wild horses could drag me be 
 fore father, but I will not go away yet." 
 
 " Father need not know until you are 
 ready to tell him," Nora repeated again. 
 " You ll tell him yourself, some day. Do 
 not worry about Cosme. I have a plan." 
 
 She gave no inkling as to what the plan 
 was, and Rupert, his senses dulled by mis 
 ery, had not the curiosity to ask. 
 
 Juan Valdez had not been obliged to 
 nurse his wrath against his son to keep it 
 
 warm. It was still burning hot as he ap 
 proached the deserted cabin on the hillside, 
 where, as he supposed, Cosme awaited him. 
 It was almost dark without the cabin, and 
 so dark within that, as Valdez reached the 
 door and shoved it open, he could, at first, 
 distinguish nothing inside. He stood upon 
 the threshold for a full minute, a sinister- 
 looking figure, peering into the gloom. He 
 was clad in the rough dress of the frontiers 
 man, and he carried in his right hand a 
 long, lithe branch of green cane cactus, 
 armed with its innumerable sharp needle 
 points, each from a quarter to a half inch 
 in length. His eyes becoming accustomed 
 to the darkness, he at length descried an 
 other pair of eyes shining back at him 
 through the gloom, and the savage fury that 
 had begun to well up in him at the thought 
 that his son had failed him, abated a trifle, 
 but it was with no less sternness that he 
 gave his order: 
 
 " Come out here an tek off yo coat, 
 Cosme; yo goin need it for pillow w en I 
 gits t rough with yo this time !" 
 
 " Mr. Valdez if you please, wait. I I 
 want to talk with you," responded a trem 
 bling voice. 
 
 Valdez nearly fell over backward as, out 
 from the shadowy corner into the dim light 
 that came in at the open doorway, stepped, 
 not Cosme, but Eleanor Carrol ! 
 
 Valdez knew Nora very well, and, on 
 general principles, approved of her, but her 
 presence at this juncture, apparently in 
 Cosme s stead, seemed to him little less than 
 an outrage. He ground his teeth in rage, 
 and the cactus branch in his hand quivered 
 as Nora, her voice strained and harsh with 
 the sick terror that shook her from head 
 to foot, but none the less resolute to accom 
 plish her purpose, repeated : " I want to 
 talk to you, Mr. Valdez." 
 
 " Maybe dis was w at yo calls one of 
 dem new kin o Merican jokes, hey?" de 
 manded Valdez, fiercely, but prudently 
 dropping the cactus branch, lest he should 
 be tempted to use it. 
 
68 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 " Oh, no, no ! How could I try to make 
 a joke of such a thing as this?" cried Nora, 
 eagerly. " But," she went on, venturing 
 a step nearer the angry father and laying 
 a timid hand appealingly on his arm, " I 
 want you, if you please, to let Cosme go 
 not to punish him this time." 
 
 Valdez gray mustache began to bristle, 
 a sure indication of rising temper; his 
 anger, however, was not directed against 
 Nora. " He make a complain at yo , dat 
 Cosme; he tell yo come at me an try for 
 make me no w ip?" he asked, stooping to 
 regain the cactus branch. 
 
 " No, no, indeed, he did not, Mr. 
 Valdez. No one asked me to come ; no one 
 knows that I am here. I came of my own 
 accord." 
 
 " Yo was a brave senorita," Valdez ad 
 mitted, with a kind of reluctant admiration, 
 and immediately added : " How yo know 
 Cosme goin git w ipped?" 
 
 " I I came to hear of it in a way 
 a strange way, Mr. Valdez, but it was not 
 Cosme s fault that I heard. He does not 
 even know that I know of it, and if you 
 will please believe me, and not ask me how 
 I heard " 
 
 " Oh, me, I was believe all w at yo 
 says. Yo is one dem kin w at spick 
 straight," Valdez acknowledged. " I no 
 ask bout dat some more, but yo tell me 
 w at for yo no want Cosme w ipped?" 
 
 In her anxiety to shield Rupert, Nora 
 "had completely overlooked the fact that 
 Valdez, senior, would certainly be sur 
 prised, not to say astonished, at the inter 
 est that she was suddenly displaying in his 
 son, yet she felt his question to be so rea 
 sonable that she must give an answer. 
 
 " I it seems to me such a cruel way of 
 whipping, and he is such a big boy," she 
 stammered. 
 
 " W ippin goin hurt small boy, same s 
 big," Valdez assured her, " an Cosme he 
 have to have a w ippin dat was cruel to 
 make him rememb some t ings." 
 
 " I don t think it s right," Nora persisted, 
 
 sticking to the only reason that she felt 
 free to offer. " There ought to be other 
 ways." 
 
 " No odder ways good for Cosme," de 
 clared Cosme s father, shaking his head, 
 gloomily. " W ip he mus be." 
 
 He was now sure that he understood 
 the real cause of Nora s solicitude in 
 Cosme s behalf. As far as his experience 
 went, all of the white people Protestants 
 and Catholics alike were strongly opposed 
 to the rites and the merciless flagellations 
 practiced by the Order of Penitentes, to 
 which he belonged, and into which he fully 
 intended to induct Cosme. He believed that 
 the tender-hearted white girl was begging 
 off for Cosme, not only on the ground of 
 humanity, but from religious convictions 
 also. He was so sure of this that he at 
 once accepted it as an idea to be combated. 
 " Cosme he ain like w ite folks," he said, 
 persuasively. " W ite folks dey have dey 
 kin o ligion w at dey gits t rough de 
 head; Cosme he gits his t rough de hide, 
 si." 
 
 " Please don t whip him !" Nora implored, 
 unable, in her distress, to follow this line 
 of reasoning. 
 
 " Si, I got Cosme s soul on my han to be 
 saved. I goin lick him good. W at for 
 he no come to-night, w en I tell him?" he 
 added, suspiciously. 
 
 " He was led to believe that you would 
 not need him," returned Nora, evasively. 
 And she went on quickly, with seeming 
 irrelevance, " You remember my Jersey 
 heifer, Mr. Valdez?" 
 
 "Si; w at for I forgit her? She only 
 Jersey on range." 
 
 " Yes, and she s mine, Mr. Valdez all 
 mine." 
 
 " Si, dat I know, me. I works for dat 
 outfit w at lef her with yo . I could a 
 save her, too, all same like yo ," he added, 
 enviously. He had always begrudged Car 
 rol s daughter the possession of the only 
 Jersey on the range. 
 
 " Very well ; then you know that I can do 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 69 
 
 what I like with her, and if if you will 
 please let Cosme off, I will give her to you, 
 Mr. Valdez." 
 
 " S posin me, I say si, I do it. Wat, 
 den, become of Cosme s soul?" inquired 
 Valdez, visibly wavering, however, in his 
 determination to insure Cosme s salvation. 
 
 " Perhaps Cosme will be a better boy 
 after this ; perhaps he will " began Nora, 
 hopefully. 
 
 But Valdez interrupted her. If he ac 
 cepted the bribe, it seemed, even to his flex 
 ible conscience, that it was no more than 
 fair to warn the girl of the futility of any 
 gentle means with Cosme. " Dat s a nice 
 heifer, dat Jersey. I goin let Cosme off 
 dis time, if yo say so," he began, " but 
 yo can t pend on nuttin w at at Cosme 
 say at yo . Some Mexican dey learn w ite 
 folks ligion an keep it up good. Dey got 
 better min s dan w at Cosme has. Cosme 
 he young, an besides dat, he fool, too 
 can t pend on boy like him. Were yo say 
 dat heifer was at?" 
 
 Nora told him, and, soon after, they 
 parted on much better terms than had 
 seemed at all probable at the beginning of 
 the interview. Shielded by the thickening 
 dusk, they were just in time to escape the 
 observation of Cosme, who was making a 
 stealthy approach to the cabin from the 
 rear. 
 
 The boy \vas intent on carrying out his 
 benevolent purpose of being " very good at " 
 Rupert, when his father should have fin 
 ished with him. Reaching the cabin, he 
 stole noiselessly up to one of the windows, 
 underneath which he crouched, listening 
 anxiously. Assured at last that his father 
 was not within, he mustered courage to go 
 to the door, which he cautiously shoved 
 open; still no sound. He stood on the 
 threshold, as his father had done, peering 
 into the darkness, for, by this time, it was 
 entirely dark within the cabin, until the 
 silence began to frighten him. "Rup t!" 
 he whispered softly. " Rup t, w ere yo at?" 
 
 A shuddering terror, lest his father had 
 
 not this time stopped " short off of killin ," 
 held him motionless for an instant. Then 
 he told himself doggedly : " Me, I got to 
 know." He advanced into the room with 
 cautious tread, feeling at each alternate 
 step with his foot before he ventured to 
 set it down, lest it should be placed upon 
 a recumbent body, until, in the center of 
 the room, he stopped, drew a match from 
 his pocket, and lit it. The tiny flame, held 
 aloft, revealed a room empty of human 
 occupants, but in the interval before it 
 went out, it revealed something else that, 
 to the trained eye of the Mexican boy, told 
 much. On the floor beside him he had 
 seen a cactus branch. Striking another 
 match, he applied it to one of the splintered 
 bits of dry pine still remaining in the fire 
 place, and, with this torch in hand, again 
 examined the cactus branch, which he ap 
 proached with respectful caution, as if 
 apprehensive that it might, through some 
 demoniac agency, spring up and attack him 
 of its own accord. Nothing of the sort 
 occurring, he ventured to turn it over with 
 the toe of his boot. " Not been use hard 
 not tall," was his sage conclusion. " Mi 
 padre he goin be shamed to w ip hard, w en 
 he see how good I was come at the cabin." 
 It was an unconscious tribute to his father s 
 silent ways that he had absolutely no fear 
 that Valdez had discovered the identity of 
 his victim. His father would ask no ques 
 tions, and Rupert, Cosme knew in the 
 depths of his treacherous soul, had enough 
 heroism, when put to the test, to withstand 
 any torture and make no outcry. He put 
 out the torch, and, closing the door again, 
 made his way back to the Carrol ranch, 
 well pleased with the outcome of his 
 scheme, although, certainly, it was hard to 
 be obliged to give up the " rewar ." 
 
70 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 " THE LAND OF DREADFUL DREAMS." 
 
 THE Carrol family were wont to pass 
 their evenings together after the early 
 supper was over, and Cosme, who al 
 ways sought his bed in the kitchen attic 
 at an early hour, sometimes sat among 
 them, modestly in the background and list 
 ening respectfully to whatever chanced to 
 be said. It was in this way that the at 
 tentive Mexican had stored his mind with 
 the wise sayings of " Seriora Easton." 
 
 Rupert, after he had again promised his 
 sister that he would not leave until she had 
 had an opportunity to try her plan 
 whatever it was passed an indescribably 
 wretched evening. He felt that Nora s 
 plan, like everything else, was bound to be 
 a failure, and in his heart there sprang up 
 a feeling of resentment against his sister 
 for having again induced him to remain. 
 It would have been so much better, he told 
 himself, to leave to leave as fast and far 
 as time and opportunity would take him. 
 Cosme, sitting blinking beside the kitchen 
 stove, was only waiting, of course, for a 
 chance to tell his father of the discovery 
 that he had made that afternoon. Rupert 
 wished that he had the courage to forestall 
 the disclosure and the explosion that was 
 bound to follow by telling of it himself, but 
 he could not at the moment bring him 
 self to do it. 
 
 Still the minutes slipped away. Bed 
 time came, and Cosme yet crouched in his 
 accustomed corner, his black eyes glinting 
 on all with amiable impartiality, although 
 an interested observer might have noticed 
 that they shifted quickly from every other 
 face or object, to rest inquiringly on 
 Rupert. As for Nora, she went quietly 
 about her usual household tasks, divided 
 between jubilant elation for Rupert was 
 still at home and a growing feeling of 
 apprehension. She had not at all worked 
 out the details of her hasty transaction ; 
 at the moment she had thought only of 
 
 keeping Rupert at home. Recalling now 
 her interview with Valdez, and the price 
 that she had paid to save Cosme a whipping, 
 she began to wonder, for the first time, how 
 she was to account for the fact that the 
 little Jersey had passed from her ownership 
 to that of Valdez. " I will keep still if 
 they ask me," she decided. " I will not tell 
 an untruth no, not to save my life, or 
 Rupert s, and that s worth more than mine 
 but I can keep still, and I ll ask Mr. Valdez 
 not to tell." 
 
 Full of this purpose, she slipped out of 
 the house the next morning almost before 
 it was light enough to see clearly, and 
 started to walk to the Mexican s cabin, a 
 couple of miles away. But Valdez was also 
 astir early. He had long coveted the Jersey 
 heifer, and, now that she was his, meant 
 to lose no time in getting her in with his 
 own small herd. He reflected complacently 
 that the heifer would amply repay any 
 financial loss that he had incurred on ac 
 count of Cosme s gambling propensities. In 
 consequence of his haste to gain possession 
 of the four-footed treasure that was to ac 
 complish so much, Nora had not made half 
 the distance to the Valdez residence 
 when she encountered the owner thereof, 
 mounted on a gaunt cow-pony, and making 
 good time in the direction of the Carrol 
 cattle ranch. Valdez halted abruptly as 
 Nora s slender little figure and anxious up 
 turned face appeared in the roadway be 
 fore him. He instantly jumped to the con 
 clusion that she had come to tell him that 
 he could not have the heifer, and as quickly 
 decided that he would be justified in telling 
 her, as a means of coercion, that he would 
 kill Cosme if she repudiated her bargain. 
 When, however, Nora made known her 
 errand, he readily acceded to her views, 
 only stipulating that he might be allowed 
 to refer all inquirers to her for an explana 
 tion. 
 
 " Yes, you ll have to do that you surely 
 will," Nora agreed. 
 
 She looked so unhappy that Valdez, soft- 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 71 
 
 ened, sought to cheer her by feigning to 
 see some virtue in the lad for whose sake, 
 as he supposed, she was sacrificing so 
 mtuch. " Maybe dat Cosme goin be more 
 civilize after he git- Merican ligion," he 
 said. " Maybe he be good boy ; I do no, 
 me maybe it was like Mericans say : he 
 not so w ite like he is painted." 
 
 " Maybe not," returned Nora. " I hope 
 you ll get the heifer all right, Mr. Valdez." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I gits her. I have no troub 
 at all. Adios !" 
 
 Nora sped back home, and Valdez rode 
 on. Before noon the pretty Jersey was safe 
 in his corral. But the Jersey was, in her 
 lesser way, almost as notable an animal as 
 the white mare, therefore when Rupert rode 
 out to the range that morning and cast an 
 inquiring eye over the herd, her absence 
 was instantly discovered. She had never 
 been known to stray away from her mates, 
 and since none of the other cattle were 
 missing, her disappearance seemed unac 
 countable. After a pretty diligent search, 
 bent on doing his duty in this case, at 
 least, Rupert rode back to the house and 
 reported the loss to his father. 
 
 " Well, well ! What will go next? Are 
 you sure you have hunted for her thor 
 oughly?" 
 
 " Yes, and I don t see how anyone could 
 have stolen her, father." 
 
 " You didn t see how anyone could have 
 stolen Snowflake, did you? But she was 
 stolen." 
 
 Rupert was silent. After a moment s re 
 flection, Mr. Carrol said : " You d better 
 ride over and tell Valdez ; he s at home now. 
 He ll get on her track sooner than anyone 
 else, because he s all over the country, 
 and 
 
 " Wait a minute, father," interposed a 
 trembling voice. " I please don t send 
 Rupert down to ask Mr. Valdez about Daisy 
 because please don t !" she concluded, 
 lamely. 
 
 Mr. Carrol turned around and stared at 
 her in sheer amazement, then: " Why not?" 
 
 he demanded. " I never heard of such a 
 silly thing in my life! Don t you want to 
 find Daisy again?" 
 
 " No yes I father, she isn t lost, she 
 isn t stolen. I I know where she is. I 
 sold her." 
 
 " You sold her!" echoed her father. He 
 stared at the girl a moment, and then sat 
 down heavily. It was not like Eleanor to 
 keep things from him. " When did you 
 sell her?" he asked. 
 
 Nora shook her head miserably. " I I 
 would rather not tell, father." 
 
 " What did you get for her?" 
 
 Again Nora shook her head. 
 
 " Do you mean that you won t tell?" 
 
 " I can t tell you, father. I wish I could, 
 but I can t." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 Nora burst into tears. " If I could tell 
 you that, father, I could tell it all to you." 
 
 She was sitting beside the table, and, 
 as she spoke, she leaned her forehead upon 
 it, until her loose brown hair, falling on 
 either side her face, hid its convulsed work 
 ings. Mr. Carrol looked at her his little 
 daughter, whom he had always found, be 
 fore this, so obedient, so frank and the 
 pain that, but a moment since, had pierced 
 his heart like the thrust of a keen-bladed 
 knife, gave place to another feeling some 
 thing cruel and savage that seemed to take 
 possession of him as he looked at the bent 
 head and shaking shoulders of the girl, who 
 for the first time in her life distinctly re 
 fused to do his bidding, to answer the ques 
 tions that he had a perfect right to ask. 
 
 " You may keep your secret," he said, 
 coldly. " A father is of mighty little ac 
 count in this house, it seems; but, until you 
 are ready to explain the whole thing to me, 
 you may stay in the root cellar, and "- 
 with a glance at Mrs. Eastern, who stared 
 in open-mouthed dismay, as she heard this 
 sentence " I ll keep the key." 
 
 " How long is it since I said that I didn t 
 envy St. Peter his job?" murmured the old 
 lady, solemnly. " Yet, for all the responsi- 
 
72 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 bility, I d rather have it than that of the 
 creatur who keeps the keys to the other 
 place !" 
 
 " I ll keep the key," repeated Mr. Carrol, 
 doggedly. He rose from his seat, and, with 
 very little aid from his crutch for the in 
 jured foot was now nearly well started 
 for the door. " Come, Eleanor," he said, 
 sternly. 
 
 " Wait, wait, James !" Mrs. Easton 
 begged. " You know why, James, it s as 
 dark as a stack of black cats in that cellar, 
 and, like enough, there s tarantlers, to say 
 nothing of the centipedes that are always 
 there. And James, Nora s afraid of the 
 dark, you know that yourself James !" 
 But as Mr. Carrol was by this time outside 
 the door, she hurried after him, to add: 
 " Maybe oh, James ! I hate to say it right 
 before the poor child ! You know it ain t 
 like Nora to act this way, to be obstinate. 
 She leaves that to them that can make a 
 plumb success of it. She ain t been sleep- 
 in well lately. She s been havin bad 
 dreams, and she s afraid of the dark she 
 always was. Why, James ! James !" her 
 voice rising to an imploring cry as Mr. Car 
 rol continued on his course toward the root 
 cellar with Nora following meekly at his 
 heels. Finding that her son-in-law would 
 not stop, Mrs. Easton ran after him with 
 a nimbleness surprising in one of her age. 
 " Wait !" she beseeched again, and Mr. Car 
 rol stopped. 
 
 "What do you want?" he demanded, 
 sternly. 
 
 " I want to tell you, first, that there was 
 a rattlesnake in that cellar not long ago, 
 and it s working alive with insects you 
 know that. That was the main reason why 
 you said yourself that we d better not put 
 things there any more." 
 
 " Is that all you ve got to say?" 
 
 " No, it ain t. I hate to say it before 
 Nora, but you compel me to. The child 
 ain t been sleepin well lately; it ain t like 
 her to do anything underhanded or sneak- 
 in , and, mavbe who can tell? she s been 
 
 havin bad dreams. Maybe her brain is 
 softenin !" 
 
 As if he almost hoped that her strange 
 conduct might be accounted for in this way, 
 Mr. Carrol looked searchingly at Nora. 
 The girl, knowing the wiles of her doting 
 grandmother, returned the look, a faint 
 smile lighting up her tear-stained face. 
 
 " Her brain ain t soft, nor her heart, 
 either," Mr. Carrol announced, as the re 
 sult of his inspection. He took another 
 step, and halted; in spite of his anger it 
 pained him to feel that he was wounding 
 the heart of the woman that he called 
 mother. " Eleanor knows how to avoid 
 being locked up there," he said. " She has 
 only to answer my questions. 
 
 " I cannot answer them," Nora said 
 again. But this time the words were ad 
 dressed to her grandmother, who, in re 
 turn, studied her face as attentively, and 
 more intelligently, than her father had: 
 done. 
 
 " James," she said, suddenly, " the Bible 
 says: He moves in a mysterious way, His 
 wonders to perform, and it s so; yes, it s 
 so. In old days, too, they used to put His 
 messengers into lions dens, but we ve 
 grown merciful. We only jest chuck em 
 into dark holes where the centipedes and 
 scorpions and tarantlers can play hide-and- 
 seek over em ;" with which parting shot 
 she turned about and started back to the 
 house, while Nora and her father contin 
 ued on their way to the root cellar. 
 
 This cellar was a dark excavation in the 
 side of the gully bank, at some distance 
 from the house. In New Mexico, as in 
 Southern Colorado, it is not customary for 
 the people to construct cellars underneath 
 their houses, as in more frigid climates, 
 and this lack is made up, in a measure, by 
 building various kinds of dens, which might 
 not inaptly be described as caches, where 
 such perishable articles as milk, butter, 
 vegetables and fruits are kept. If there 
 chances to be a hillside near the ranch 
 house, the proprietor s task is easy. He 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 73 
 
 merely excavates a space of the dimensions 
 that seem to him requisite for the purpose, 
 and the cellar is done. It is not always 
 considered necessary, even, to add a win 
 dow to the one bit of architecture the 
 door but the Carrols were progressive. 
 The small cavern dug out of the gully side, 
 close to the towering rock that served in 
 stormy times as a kind of wind-break, had 
 a single strong window, as well as door. 
 The cellar had fallen into disuse, chiefly on 
 account of its inconvenient distance from 
 the house, and the window, for some reason 
 best known to Mr. Carrol, had been banked 
 up with earth and straw to such a height 
 that not the smallest ray of daylight could 
 penetrate the interior. The place was, as 
 Mrs. Easton said, infested by vermin of 
 many sorts a fact of which Mr. Carrol 
 was perfectly well aware, but which he 
 was, at the time, too indignant to consider 
 seriously. One of the greatest drawbacks, 
 as he knew, to the exploration of the 
 ruined homes of the Cliff Dwellers, not so 
 far away, was that the ruins had virtually 
 been taken possession of by rattlesnakes 
 and adders ready at a moment s notice to 
 hiss a venomous challenge to the hardy ad 
 venturer who should dare to disturb their 
 torpid ease. 
 
 Reaching the cellar, Mr. Carrol, without 
 more words, unlocked the door, pushed his 
 shrinking daughter inside, and, relocking 
 it, pocketed the key and walked away with 
 out the aid of his crutch, which he had for 
 gotten ; and without limping, for he had 
 also forgotten his injury. 
 
 Left alone in a place so dark and gloomy 
 that she had always, even with the radiant 
 sunshine of New Alexico streaming in at 
 the open door and gilding its remotest cor 
 ners, entered it with a kind of half formed 
 dread, Nora stood quite still until, her 
 eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, 
 she made out the dim outline of an upturned 
 butter firkin, on which she presently seated 
 herself, with a shuddering recollection that 
 the dark cavern underneath it would be the 
 
 place, of all others, that a tarantula would 
 like best for a permanent abode. And 
 there were always little tarantulas in their 
 permanent abodes. As for centipedes as 
 she leaned forward, peering helplessly into 
 the darkness, a lock of her own soft hair 
 slid straying over one of the hands that 
 were clasped around her knees, and she 
 screamed aloud. Then, realizing what it 
 was, she blushed with shame at her own 
 cowardice. But she was terribly over 
 wrought and unnerved; she had been, as 
 her grandmother said, suffering from sleep 
 less nights and torturing dreams. As she 
 cowered silently in the thick darkness, her 
 fancy began to revert more and more to 
 those dreams, and the other tormenting 
 thought that had at first oppressed her, was 
 thrust further into the background. She 
 had begun to realize that her plan had 
 been a foolish, ill-considered, indefensible 
 one, but she ceased to care for that now. 
 " I know that there is such a place as the 
 Land of Dreadful Dreams," she murmured,, 
 shuddering, and staring wide-eyed into the 
 velvety blackness, " and I wouldn t a bit 
 wonder if places like this are kind of gate 
 ways that the creatures that live in it creep 
 out through." 
 
 She sat a long time or what seemed 
 to her a long time considering this 
 view of her dreamland experiences rather 
 than the more directly personal problem 
 which should, it would seem, have claimed 
 her attention. 
 
 By the time that certain soft little sounds, 
 as of bits of falling earth the sound being 
 smothered, as if it might be a long way 
 off, over in the direction of the window- 
 began to come to her ears, she was far 
 enough advanced on her dangerous journey 
 into the unknown to recoil with dumb 
 terror from every sound, half expecting 
 that it would be immediately followed by 
 some tangible creation, some pursuing 
 phantom that, claiming her for prey, should 
 drag her bodily into that formless, terrible 
 void, The Land of Dreadful Dreams. 
 
74 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 MR. CARROL DECIDES TO INTERVIEW VALDEZ. 
 
 RUPERT had sat, a silent listener, dur 
 ing the interview between Nora and 
 her father. When Nora admitted 
 that she knew, but yet refused to tell where 
 the Jersey was, the whole of her poor, little, 
 unselfish " plan," with its fatal lack of 
 business sense, was suddenly clear to him. 
 She had bribed Valdez to spare his son, 
 and the bribe that she gave was her be 
 loved heifer. Something else was made 
 clear to Rupert something that he had 
 never before fully comprehended and that 
 was the love, the absolute devotion that his 
 sister felt for him, and her unquestioning 
 faith that, some time, " when he felt like 
 it, when he was ready," he would explain 
 everything and accept the consequences, 
 whatever they might be. To Nora, he knew 
 that such an admission, however long de 
 layed, would seem the act of a hero. He 
 neither looked at nor spoke to his sister as 
 she followed their father, sobbing, on the 
 way to an imprisonment that, to the boy 
 who knew her so well, seemed as terrible 
 as it really was. More could scarcely be 
 said. 
 
 There was a long mirror in the room; 
 when Mrs. Easton ran out in the vain at 
 tempt to intercede for Nora, Rupert walked 
 across the room and stood before it, looking 
 steadily at the image reflected therein. 
 What another, standing beside him, and 
 following the direction of his eyes, would 
 have seen, was the likeness of a very hand 
 some and manly-looking boy of sixteen, or 
 thereabout; but it was not with the outward 
 form that Rupert concerned himself, and, 
 certainly, the image did not strike him as 
 that of a hero. Looking gloomily into the 
 eyes that looked gloomily back into his, he 
 said aloud : " She did it for you, and she 
 will die before she will betray you. Oh, 
 you coward ! You coward ! You coward !" 
 But the look on his face, as he turned away 
 from the glass, was not that of a coward. 
 
 Leaving the cellar, with Nora safely be 
 stowed behind lock and key, Mr. Carrol 
 walked directly to the stable, mounted the 
 bay colt mounted, not without being pain 
 fully reminded that he still had use for his 
 forgotten crutch and rode swiftly away 
 toward the Valdez cabin. If he had taken 
 the short cut along the dry bed of the gully 
 that had the day before served to let Cosme 
 unobserved out on to the plains, he must 
 have passed the Mexican s corral, where he 
 would have seen the Jersey, and so would 
 have been spared some hours of remorse 
 ful anguish. 
 
 There were no such fripperies as fence, 
 gateway or walk to mar the primitive sim 
 plicity of the Valdez abode; accordingly, 
 Mr. Carrol rode straight up to the door, 
 which stood open, and called for Valdez. 
 The summons was answered by Valdez 
 wife, a slatternly woman with a pair of 
 shifty black eyes that told their own story 
 as to where Cosme got his skill in deceit. 
 In reply to Mr. Carrol s inquiry for her 
 husband, the senora informed him that 
 Valdez had but that moment started for 
 the Half Circle A-Bar Ranch, a dozen or 
 more miles to the north, and that he was 
 not expected to return for some days it 
 might be weeks, as he was to assist those 
 cattlemen in rounding up a widely scattered 
 herd of several thousand head of cattle. 
 
 " How long did you say he had been 
 gone?" asked Mr. Carrol, with an anxious 
 glance toward the north, where a heavy 
 storm was gathering had already gathered 
 and broken, indeed for the muffled roll of 
 distant thunder came distinctly to their ears. 
 
 Senora Valdez cast her black eyes up at 
 an imaginary, invisible sun, for the sky 
 above them was overcast. " He was gone 
 five min ," she announced, after a little con 
 sideration of that quarter of the heavens 
 where she supposed the sun to be. 
 
 " Five minutes? Then I can easily over 
 take him." He reined the colt around, but 
 lingered to explain to Senora Valdez : " I m 
 anxious to have him look around for my 
 
Then I can easily overtake /iiw," he said, reining the c oli around. 
 
 75 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 77 
 
 Jersey heifer; she s missing this morning." 
 " Si !" murmured Cosme s mother, fold 
 ing her small brown hands demurely in her 
 scarlet apron. " Si, sefior." Leaning 
 against the door frame, she continued to 
 regard the rider placidly as he struck spurs 
 to the colt, who went loping away into the 
 heart of the rain clouds that were rolling 
 rapidly down to meet him ; but, out of the 
 corner of her eye, she cast an oblique glance 
 toward the corral, and congratulated her 
 self that its walls were high. 
 
 Furiously angry, to all appearances, at 
 Nora s persistent refusal to explain her 
 conduct, Mr. Carrol had decided to carry 
 out the first idea that had suggested itself 
 to him, and to employ Valdez to trace the 
 heifer, which could not be far away, no 
 matter into whose possession it had passed. 
 Let him once find out where she was, and, 
 he told himself, he would have her back, 
 even if he were obliged to go to law about 
 it. A minor like Nora had no right to dis 
 pose of property anyone ought to know 
 that. As the bay colt pounded on, mile 
 after mile, Mr. Carrol began to think of 
 the old saw, " First catch your hare," the 
 hare, in this case, being an able-bodied 
 Mexican mounted on a fleet-footed cow- 
 pony, and with fully two hours start of 
 the lame man on the lumbering colt. 
 
 Senora Valdez estimates of the sub 
 divisions of time w r ere always more confi 
 dent than accurate, and, in this case, her 
 only regret, as she cuddled her arms com 
 fortably in the scarlet apron, and contin 
 ued to watch the vanishing rider, was that 
 she had not said two minutes instead of 
 five ; all the more, then, would the white 
 sefior have felt encouraged to keep up a 
 chase that she knew was bound to prove 
 entirely futile. It did not seem to her, 
 however, that it mattered in the least where 
 the Sefior Carrol went, so that he went far 
 enough, and fast enough, away from the 
 vicinity of the Valdez corral. A slow, 
 meditative smile stirred her lips as she 
 glanced toward the north and at the dark 
 
 masses of clouds charged with a deluge of 
 rain. She thought of the Elescalante 
 Arroyo, a narrow, rocky gully, miles in 
 length, that cut across the road between 
 their cottage and the Half Circle A-Bar 
 Ranch, like the gash of an unhealed wound 
 on the surface of the plains. Down its 
 almost perpendicular walls a horse must 
 zigzag cutiously at any time, and, even after 
 a short rain, let alone such a waterspout 
 as the coming storm promised to be, the 
 pent-up waters in its narrow bed trans 
 formed the dry gully in a few minutes to 
 a raging torrent, impassable for man or 
 beast. " If Sefior Carrol crosses over be- 
 yon the Elescalante when the rain it is 
 comin , he will stay beyon it when that 
 the rain it is come," Senora Valdez as 
 sured herself, and sat down inside the door 
 way to roll a cigaret, while waiting for the 
 rain that presently forced her to close the 
 door. 
 
 Carrol had ridden five or six miles be 
 fore the pain in his ankle became so insup 
 portable that even his stoicism could no 
 longer ignore it. Besides, he had not yet 
 caught the faintest glimpse of the man 
 whom he was following. The plains just 
 about him were undulating, and he thought 
 that if he could but force himself to hold 
 out until he reached the top of the next 
 rise, which commanded a long stretch of 
 level land, he must surely see and be able 
 to signal Valdez. Between him and the 
 top of the next rise, however, lay the 
 Elescalante Arroyo; down its steep sides 
 he urged his horse at a snail s pace, dashed 
 through the sandy bottom, crept up the op 
 posite bank, and reached the desired point 
 at last, only to be met by a deluge of rain, 
 driven before a wind so fierce that it nearly 
 took away his breath. Before its sweeping 
 advance the whole landscape was rendered 
 an indistinguishable blur, almost instantly; 
 he could not have seen Valdez then if he 
 had been within twenty rods of him, in 
 stead of being, as he was at that moment, 
 snugly ensconced in the kitchen of the 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 Half Circle A-Bar. As the rain dashed 
 over him, Mr. Carrol turned in his saddle 
 to look for his " slicker," or waterproof 
 coat, a necessary part of the range rider s 
 equipment, which is usually carried in a 
 compact roll, attached to the saddle. The 
 slicker was not in its accustomed place, 
 which fact considerably surprised its owner. 
 To his knowledge the saddle had not been 
 in use since the day of his accident, and he 
 distinctly remembered dismounting on that 
 day, just before reaching the round-up 
 camp, to tie the slicker more securely to it. 
 Rupert had, in fact, untied the coat and 
 tossed it aside as an unnecessary encum 
 brance on the night of that disastrous ride, 
 and had forgotten to replace it on his re 
 turn. 
 
 Not finding the coat, Mr. Carrol looked 
 about for some place of shelter. His plains 
 training told him that a storm of such vio 
 lence must inevitably be of short duration, 
 and he preferred to await its passing, to 
 getting thoroughly drenched. He had, by 
 this time, again reached the arroyo; riding 
 part way down its steep bank, he came to 
 a ledge of overhanging rock close beside 
 the trail. Dismounting, he hastily divested 
 the horse of saddle and blanket, tossed them 
 under the protecting rock, and followed 
 them, not a minute too soon. The rain was 
 now descending in long, slanting, solid 
 sheets, that beat upon the hard ground and 
 the nearby rocks with the loud impact of 
 descending hail-stones. There was no 
 room for the colt under the ledge, but Mr. 
 Carrol clung to his bridle and scolded him 
 roundly as he pulled and fretted, twisting 
 about in a vain attempt to obtain shelter 
 from the pitiless fury of the storm. Mr. 
 Carrol had no instinct for animals; he did 
 not understand them, and his love for 
 Snowflake had been fully as much the pride 
 of ownership as of any real appreciation 
 of the exceptionally fine qualities of the 
 mare. If it had been Rupert crouching 
 under a rock to escape the storm which 
 his horse must weather without shelter, he 
 
 would have talked commiseratingly with 
 the animal, would have aroused in him, if 
 he had not been utterly stupid which the 
 bay colt probably was a feeling of loyalty, 
 of devotion, that would have precluded the 
 possibility of desertion. But it was Ru 
 pert s father, and, at a peculiarly deter 
 mined tug that the colt gave the bit in the 
 effort to turn his hind quarters where his 
 head should be, Mr. Carrol gave him a 
 resounding slap on the cheek. The colt, 
 already more enraged than even his irri 
 table master, reared, struck out with his 
 iron-shod hoofs fortunately missing his 
 aim but startling Mr. Carrol into dropping 
 his hold of the bridle; then, whirling 
 around, he went tearing straight down the 
 bank, through the arroyo bottom where 
 the water, thick with foam and debris, was 
 already, above his fetlocks dashed up the 
 opposite bank, and so, with bridle reins 
 dragging, struck out for home and shelter, 
 as straight as the crow flies. 
 
 Mr. Carrol, for the moment utterly dis 
 mayed, crouched back under the rock, won 
 dering how he was to get home. He had 
 neither seen the water in the arroyo, nor 
 heard, above the roar of the falling rain, 
 the splashing made by the colt s hoofs as 
 he dashed through it. He sat for a long 
 time wondering and thinking with growing 
 apprehension of poor Nora, locked up in 
 the noisome root cellar, and afraid of the 
 dark, before he awoke to the imminent dan 
 ger of his own position. 
 
 The wind had gone down, the rain had 
 ceased, and he started to leave the shelter 
 of the rock, when a sound reached his ear 
 that brought to his face an awful, indescrib 
 able change such a change as might come 
 to one, who, utterly unsuspecting, finds him 
 self suddenly face to face with death. He 
 had heard a sound like the voice of many 
 waters, and he knew instantly what it 
 meant. Imprisoned within the narrow, 
 rocky confines of the arroyo, a flood was 
 coming a flood that caused the very earth 
 to tremble, as ifc swept resistlessly along its 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 79 
 
 course and he was crouching under a rock 
 half way down the arroyo bank the bank 
 farthest from his home. 
 
 A flood? He himself had stood on the 
 other bank, one day, and seen a black wall 
 of water, fifteen feet high, sweep down the 
 arroyo, bearing everything before it. It 
 came on that occasion from a cloudburst 
 up in the mountains, and he had watched 
 the phenomenal rapidity of its advance with 
 absorbed interest. Within two minutes the 
 narrow, dry creek was a dry* creek no 
 longer; it was so full that little dashes of 
 foam, torn from the waves by the swiftness 
 of their advance, were tossed to his very 
 feet as he had stood upon the bank. And 
 now now he was nearer to the bottom of 
 the gully than to its top, and the waters 
 were upon him. 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 A RIDERLESS HORSE. 
 
 AFTER that brief, scornful survey of 
 his own face and figure as revealed 
 in the mirror, Rupert hurried from 
 the room. He was going out to the cellar, 
 intent on securing Nora s release by a 
 straightforward recital of the whole story, 
 when the sound of clattering hoof-beats 
 down the road drew his attention in that 
 direction. The lively rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat 
 came from the hurrying feet of the bay 
 colt, and he was carrying his master toward 
 the Valdez cabin. Rupert understood at 
 once what that meant. 
 
 " But he ll get nothing out of old Val 
 dez," he told himself, thoughtfully. " Val 
 dez isn t owning up, to any great extent, 
 when it comes to a property deal in which 
 he gets the best of it." 
 
 For an instant he was tempted to ride 
 after his father and confess all before his 
 father could meet Valdez, but a moment s 
 reflection convinced him that this would 
 be useless. While it could not possibly 
 benefit Nora, it might cause his father to 
 
 discredit his story, since it might appear 
 to him that he (Rupert) feared to have 
 him talk with Valdez. After lingering 
 irresolutely about for a little, he at length 
 turned his steps again toward the cellar 
 where Nora was imprisoned. Reminding 
 himself that his father had neither forbid 
 den anyone to go near Nora, nor yet to look 
 in upon her if they could he began in 
 dustriously digging out the half-rotted straw 
 that was piled over the window. It was 
 the faint, muffled sound of this digging 
 that Nora heard when she imagined that 
 some familiar demon might be creeping in 
 upon her from the Land of Dreams. In 
 his haste, Rupert had not stopped to sup 
 ply himself with proper implements for the 
 purpose, but was digging out and throwing 
 the straw aside with his bare hands. Sud 
 denly, with an involuntary cry, he sprang 
 backward; he had found on the outside of 
 the cellar what poor Nora, on the inside, 
 was thinking of with sick apprehension. 
 The last handful of straw, on being re 
 moved, had unearthed a nest of tarantulas. 
 The great, hairy, repulsive-looking mother 
 spider straightened up on her eight long 
 legs, and seemed to Rupert to glare men 
 acingly at him before she scuttled out of 
 sight, while the rotten straw was suddenly 
 alive with miniature copies of herself, 
 scampering off in all directions. Luckily, 
 Rupert s hands had not touched the poison 
 ous creatures, but he shuddered as he real 
 ized the narrowness of his escape. 
 
 Nora had not known of his presence 
 until his cry attracted her attention. She 
 got up and hurried over to the window. 
 "Rupert, Rupert! Was that you?" she 
 called, eagerly. 
 
 " Yes ; go away from the window, Nora." 
 His voice had an unusual sound that filled 
 Nora with vague alarm. 
 
 "What is the matter, Rupert?" she per 
 sisted, pressing still closer to the window 
 behind which, inside or out, as Rupert 
 knew, a legion of fighting tarantulas, 
 aroused and on the alert, were hiding. 
 
80 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 If one should bite her there in that hole 
 from which there was no escape, and in 
 the dark Rupert believed that she would 
 either faint away or go into convulsions; 
 she might, in fact, do either, if he so much 
 as told her what he had just seen. 
 
 " Nora !" he shouted, sternly, raising his 
 voice to make it the more impressive, " get 
 back from the window, as I tell you; mind 
 me, now !" 
 
 " I will," came the answer. And Nora 
 stumbled back to her seat on the butter 
 firkin, wondering what had made Rupert 
 so cross, but feeling a warm glow of thank 
 fulness that he had come. 
 
 Meanwhile, Rupert, having stopped long 
 enough to get a pitchfork, was again at 
 work at the window, and Nora had scarcely 
 seated herself when a long shaft of day 
 light entering dispelled the darkness of 
 her prison. A few more turns of the pitch 
 fork, and the window was cleared. Then 
 Rupert, with an eye out for tarantulas, 
 which still remained invisible, pressed his 
 face against the grimy panes. " Hello, 
 Nora! How goes it?" 
 
 " Pretty well," replied his sister, joy 
 fully, all her fears taking wing with the 
 advent of light and Rupert. " Didn t you 
 cry out?" she added. " I was sure I heard 
 you." 
 
 " I had to cry out, didn t I, to make you 
 hear?" 
 
 " Oh, but your voice sounded strange." 
 
 " So did yours ; anyone s would through 
 a few tons of dirt and straw, I reckon." 
 
 " Did father say you might began 
 Nora, anxiously, and stopped. 
 
 " Might blast for you? No, it s my own 
 idea entirely." 
 
 " It s awful good of you. I don t see 
 what makes me so cowardly. I was just 
 sick with fright before I heard you." 
 
 " I was nearly sick with fright after I 
 heard you," thought Rupert, but prudently 
 forbore to say so; instead he remarked, 
 " Well, Nora, you seem to have gone into 
 the cattle business on your own account. 
 
 Hadn t you better take me into partner 
 ship?" 
 
 Nora, to her brother s secret distress, had 
 drawn nearer to the window, but, as he was 
 pretty sure that the tarantula and her fam 
 ily were snugly bestowed in the recesses of 
 a small, round hole, just underneath the 
 window-casing, he merely put his hoof heel 
 on the hole and made no reference to it. 
 The momentary relief occasioned by Ru 
 pert s presence had again given place in 
 Nora to the dull, benumbing pain that his 
 silence when she was punished had caused. 
 She made no reply, and Rupert went on: 
 
 " You had better take me into partner 
 ship, as far as telling me all about it goes; 
 you really had, Nora." 
 
 Nora hesitated. " You must know, 
 Rupert," she said, at last. 
 
 " Oh, I reckon I know, pretty well," was 
 the answer, " but I d like to hear the de 
 tails." 
 
 Nora gave him the details, accordingly, 
 and at the conclusion of her story asked 
 abruptly: "Where s father?" 
 
 " He s gone over to see Valdez, I be 
 lieve. I saw him riding off in that direc 
 tion." 
 
 A pang shot" through Nora s heart at 
 these words. Rupert had risked nothing in 
 coming to her; perhaps he would not have 
 come if their father had been at home. 
 Still, true to her determination to shield 
 him at all hazards, she broke out hurriedly: 
 " You had better pile the straw back against 
 the window again and go away, Rupert; 
 father will be angry again if he finds that 
 you have been letting light in here." 
 
 " Don t you worry, sis," returned Rupert, 
 stooping to pick up a small stone which he 
 planted securely over the mouth of the 
 tarantula s residence. " I m going to let 
 light into some other places than this cel 
 lar." There was no mistaking the tone 
 in which this was said, even though the 
 words came, muffled and faint, through the 
 barrier between them. 
 
 Nora pressed up close to the window on 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 81 
 
 her side; there was a triumphant ring in 
 her voice as she spoke. " Are you, Rupert ? 
 Are you, really? Oh, I am so glad!" 
 
 "That s all right; but you re not in a 
 particularly joyful setting. I wish you 
 would keep back from the window." 
 
 " Why ?" Nora stared about the little 
 opening in surprise. " There s nothing 
 wrong about it that I can see," she urged. 
 
 " You don t know ; maybe the sills are 
 rotten. It might cave in after my taking 
 the straw away, so." 
 
 " It seems safe, and the walls are so 
 thick," Nora persisted, lingering. 
 
 " Say, I ll tell you what I ll do !" ex 
 claimed Rupert, suddenly starting back 
 himself, as he caught a glimpse of a set 
 of long, hairy legs that seemed to be quiv 
 ering on the verge of a spring, while the 
 phenomenally bright eyes of their owner re 
 garded him attentively from the shelter of a 
 crevice in the rotten window-ledge. " You 
 go and sit down on that old firkin and keep 
 away from the window, and I ll get my 
 violin and play for you; that ll be better 
 than trying to talk this way." 
 
 " So it will," Nora agreed, happily. She 
 was no longer fearful that her father would 
 be offended with her for consenting to any 
 alleviation of her imprisonment, since Ru 
 pert was ready to explain. " You haven t 
 played for a long time," she added, and 
 instantly regretted what might seem like 
 an unnecessary reference to the late trou 
 ble. In her reliance on her brother, the 
 trouble was already relegated to the past, 
 no matter what the outcome of Rupert s 
 revelation. With her, the trouble had been 
 for long, not the loss of property, but the 
 cloud upon Rupert s integrity. 
 
 Rupert, who was already half way to the 
 stable, had not heard the remark, and it 
 was but a moment before he reappeared 
 with the violin under his arm. During his 
 absence, however, brief as it was, Nora s 
 attention had been attracted by a sound like 
 that made by a heavy rain. She had prom 
 ised to keep away from the window, and 
 
 she could catch no glimpse of the world 
 outside through the dirt-encrusted panes. 
 " It can t be rain," she thought. " If it 
 was, I should see drops on the glass." 
 
 It had escaped her notice that, as the 
 cellar faced the south, owing to the shel 
 ter of the cliff-like hill on the north, as 
 well as to that of the great rock beside the 
 window, the bit of level space in front of 
 it would be nearly as well protected as it 
 would have been had there been a roof 
 over it. While she was still wondering, 
 Rupert s face appeared at the window. 
 
 " Here we are; now you just sit still and 
 listen to the entertainment." 
 
 " But wait wait, Rupert !" In her 
 anxiety Nora again approached the window, 
 and Rupert began, rather ostentatiously, to 
 replace the violin in the case that he had 
 just taken it from. 
 
 " You promised to keep away from the 
 window," he observed. 
 
 " Oh, I will !" cried Nora, retreating, 
 hastily. " But I thought I think I heard 
 rain." 
 
 " Which, having good ears, you certainly 
 did, and probably do," replied Rupert, seat 
 ing himself composedly on a convenient pro 
 jection of rock, and proceeding to tune his 
 violin. 
 
 " Is it raining?" 
 
 " Hard." 
 
 " I m afraid you ll get wet, Rupert dear. 
 It s so good of you to offer to play for me, 
 but I can t bear to have you get wet." 
 
 " And I can t bear to have my violin get 
 wet; that s the reason why I m going to 
 sit right here where there can t a drop of 
 water touch me." 
 
 " And there s father," observed Nora, 
 sorrowfully. " It s the first time he s been 
 out since his accident. He ll be sure to 
 get a soaking." 
 
 Rupert, who had purposely placed him 
 self so that, while playing, he might have 
 an eye on the road by which his father 
 would return, made no reply, and not many 
 minutes had passed before Nora, listening 
 
82 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 entranced to the waves of melody beating 
 their way upward against the strong, 
 drowning rush of the rain, became oblivi 
 ous of her surroundings and all beside. 
 Rupert did not forget; while to all appear 
 ances as completely absorbed in the music 
 as Nora herself, he yet kept a sharp lookout, 
 not only on the tarantula-infested corner 
 by the window, but upon the roadway. 
 
 He was resolved not to lose a minute in 
 acquainting his father with the real mo 
 tive for Nora s late business transaction, 
 and with the real facts in regard to Snow- 
 flake s disappearance. It seemed strange 
 to him now he who had so lately shrunk 
 like a guilty coward from accepting the 
 consequences of his own bad acts that 
 such an intolerable, crushing load had been 
 lifted from his heart by the mere resolve 
 to do what was right, at any cost. 
 
 " It s all Nora s doings," he thought, 
 gratefully. " Why, I might have been a 
 hunted criminal by now, but for hu-r !" 
 
 Half an hour passed, then the melody 
 that the boy s wizard fingers were evoking 
 from the instrument stopped with a dis 
 cordant jar that brought Nora out of a 
 blissful trance, and made her jump in alarm. 
 "What s the matter? How you startled 
 me !" she cried. 
 
 " Did I ?" returned Rupert, stooping to 
 pick up the bow that had slipped from his 
 fingers. " I just dropped my bow, that s 
 all." He strove to speak quietly in spite 
 of his quickened pulses and throbbing 
 heart. " I m going away for a tew min 
 utes," he added, and was gone. 
 
 " In the rain ?" protested Nora, but to 
 no purpose. Rupert was already on his 
 way to the stable, beside which, vaguely 
 outlined against a blurring background of 
 rain, the bay colt had suddenly appeared, 
 riderless. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 MRS. EASTON RELEASES THE CAPTIVE. 
 
 MRS. EASTON had also seen the 
 riderless horse, and, as Rupert 
 reached the stable, she came hurry 
 ing out. The wind caught her loosened 
 gray hair and sent it streaming out behind 
 like a defiant banner; the rain pelted her 
 face and her uncovered head, but she did 
 not heed such minor discomforts. 
 
 " Now," she panted, breathlessly, as she 
 reached the boy s side, " I don t expect 
 nothin but what a jedgment has overtook 
 us all ! There s been some dark carryin s 
 on here lately, and the punishment for em 
 has come; it has come the heft of it on 
 James Carrol, where it don t all belong, 
 not by no means !" The tears mingled with 
 the raindrops that streamed down her 
 ruddy cheeks as she wrung her hands in 
 helpless distress. " Oh, how true is the 
 words of Mr. Watts when he says, Oh, 
 \vhat a tangled web we weave when first 
 we practice to deceive ! " 
 
 " Confound it all !" cried Rupert, goaded 
 to fury, " I wish that Mr. Watts had 
 broken his neck before ever he took to writ 
 ing verses ! He s got one pat for every 
 breath that I draw." 
 
 " Don t talk about broken necks, child," 
 his grandmother admonished him tremu 
 lously. " We ve like got one in our fam 
 ily, this minute. What are you going to 
 do?" 
 
 " Why, I m going out to look for father, 
 of course. He went toward the Valdez 
 place." 
 
 "Can I help you any?" 
 
 " Yes, just hang on to the colt s bridle, 
 while I put a saddle on to Vidette." He 
 had his own pony out of the stable, and the 
 saddle on her back, almost before his grand 
 mother comprehended what he was about. 
 
 An instant more and the cinches were 
 drawn taut, and Rupert, with a motion light 
 and swift as a bird taking wing, was in the 
 saddle. 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 83 
 
 " Give me that bridle," he said, leaning 
 down from his saddle to snatch it. " Now, 
 grandma, do go in and get your wet clothes 
 off. And don t worry. Don t you see that 
 the colt has just given father the slip in 
 some way. If father had been thrown, the 
 saddle would be on the horse yet." 
 
 There was comfort as well as good sense 
 in this reasoning. Mrs. Easton looked after 
 the vanishing trio a moment, revolving it, 
 then she walked away, but not toward the 
 house. Her garments were streaming a 
 fact of which she appeared to be utterly 
 unconscious as she approached the root 
 cellar. She had been perfectly cognizant 
 of Rupert s whereabouts and occupation 
 since his father s departure, and both had 
 met \vith her entire approval. Now, she 
 felt, it was time for her to act; Rupert 
 might be mistaken. " If James is lost, or 
 even if he s hurt," she reflected, struggling 
 against the wind that whipped her wet gar 
 ments about her legs in what seemed like 
 a determined effort to impede her prog 
 ress, " in the excitement and suspense that s 
 sure to follow, nobody 11 think of asking 
 him for the key to the cellar, or even of 
 lookin in his pockets for it; and he put 
 it in his coat pocket, I noticed that. Like 
 enough he s lost his coat as well as him 
 self, and that poor girl locked up out there 
 all alone !" 
 
 She had by this time reached the wood 
 pile, where she stopped long enough to pick 
 up an axe. Necessity knows no law. 
 I ve heard that lots of times," she reflected, 
 plunging recklessly on in more senses than 
 one. " If James was alive, or even if he 
 ain t killed, he d thank me for rememberin 
 Eleanor, when everyone else loses their 
 heads and forgets all about her !" 
 
 She was not at all surprised, on reach 
 ing the cellar, to find the straw removed 
 from the blocked-up window. Taking 
 refuge beside the sheltering rock, she 
 called : " Eleanor, Eleanor ! Be you alive, 
 my darling?" 
 
 Nora, seated on the firkin in the middle 
 
 of the cellar, had been straining her ears 
 to catch any sound above the persistent 
 dash of the rain. In spite of his attempted 
 lightness, there had been a note of alarm 
 in Rupert s voice which Nora was quick to 
 detect. She \vas very uneasy, but she 
 could not help smiling at her grandmother s 
 anxious inquiry. 
 
 " Yes, grandma, I m alive yet," she re 
 sponded, cheerfully. " It isn t much past 
 dinner time, is it? I couldn t have starved 
 to death yet, you know." 
 
 " I m glad you re alive, child. I guess 
 we re goin to need you," remarked the old 
 lady, ambiguously. 
 
 "Has father got back? And where did 
 Rupert go?" questioned Nora, eagerly. 
 
 Both questions were hard to answer, but, 
 knowing that she must be able to offer, to 
 the prisoner herself, some sufficient excuse 
 for what she was about to do, Mrs. Easton 
 had resolved to tell the truth, or as nearly 
 the truth as she could, in her present state 
 of excitement and distress, approximate it. 
 " Rupert has gone after his father," she 
 explained. " He s young, but he may be 
 able to save him, for all that." 
 
 " Gone after father !" Nora came to the 
 window and pressed her face against the 
 panes. "What can you mean, grandma?" 
 
 " Oh, it s all plain !" returned the old 
 lady, with a whimper. " It s a jedgment, 
 that s what it is. He came home flyin , with 
 the bridle on, and covered with mud, and 
 
 Nora gave a cry of anguish. " Oh, 
 grandma! What has happened? What 
 has happened? Why did father come home 
 with the bridle on?" 
 
 " I didn t say that, child. I said he 
 came home without a rider." 
 
 " Who came home without a rider, 
 grandma?" Nora implored. 
 
 " The bay colt, of course. Who else 
 should come, except your father, and he s 
 been left behind somewhere the Lord 
 above knows where, or how but this I m 
 sure of: I ll do my duty, just as James would 
 wish me to, if he was alive and lookin 
 
84 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 down on me from heaven or wherever he 
 is this minute ! Stand back, Eleanor 
 away back, at the other side of the cellar." 
 
 Nora obey, wondering what was coming 
 next. She was not long left in doubt. 
 Raising the axe, Mrs. Easton brought it 
 down on the window with a resounding 
 blow that effectually shattered all the glass 
 and nearly all the sash. The blow was 
 followed by a rush of delicious, rain- 
 washed air. Nora inhaled it gratefully; 
 she had not before realized how rank and 
 noisome the atmosphere of the cellar had 
 been. But she trembled for the possible 
 consequences of her grandmother s bold act. 
 Her grandmother was not trembling in the 
 least; she was cautiously removing more 
 sash. 
 
 " Oh, grandma ! I I m afraid father 
 will be so angry !" Nora faltered. 
 
 " You forgit that James is killed, most 
 likely or, at any rate, badly hurt and 
 he ll be thankful enough, in either case, as 
 I said before, to have any responsibility 
 taken off his shoulders; besides," she went 
 on, relentlessly, " if he s killed, and his 
 relicts is found, it s goin to tax all our 
 minds to see to the funeral as it ought to 
 be seen to, and you ll be needed somewhere 
 else than in this cellar." 
 
 In her heart of hearts, Mrs. Easton was, 
 even at that moment, in spite of her un 
 certainty as to his fate, so angry with her 
 son-in-law, and so bitterly resented his 
 treatment of Nora, that there was more 
 than a suggestion of resignation in the 
 tone in which she spoke of making arrange 
 ments for his funeral. But at these words, 
 Nora had burst into such passionate weep 
 ing that the sound of her sobs brought her 
 grandmother to her better senses. 
 
 " There, there, there, child ! Do stop 
 cryin so! I don t think that James is 
 killed Lord forbid ! But he may be hurt, 
 and if he is, you ll be needed at the house. 
 Come now, climb right out here; be care 
 ful of the glass." 
 
 Stirling her sobs, and stepping gingerly 
 
 around the splintered mass of glass, Nora 
 reached the aperture where the window 
 had so lately been, and crept cautiously 
 through. It had stopped raining almost as 
 suddenly as it began, and the late after 
 noon sun was lighting up the rain-drenched 
 landscape as they walked back to the house 
 together. 
 
 Mrs. Easton then proceeded to change 
 her wet clothing, while Nora busied her 
 self in the preparation of a belated dinner, 
 which she could not herself touch, although 
 earnestly admonished to do so by Mrs. 
 Easton, who declared it her duty to keep 
 herself inwardly strengthened for whatever 
 calamity might be in store for them. Dis 
 couraged by Nora s want of appetite, the 
 old lady abandoned her own efforts in be 
 half of an inward strength. 
 
 " There s that Cosme," she remarked, 
 pushing away her plate. " He s been mak- 
 in one excuse and another for hoverin* 
 around the house all day; he ll eat all there 
 is left, and lick the platter clean, if there 
 was a ton of it." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 NORA is ORDERED BACK TO THE CELLAR. 
 
 FROM his shelter under the rock, in the 
 bank of the arroyo, Mr. Carrol gave 
 one all-comprehending look at the 
 wall of water which, filling the narrow 
 space from bank to bank, was sweeping 
 down upon him. 
 
 Realizing instantly that escape by way 
 of the trail was now impossible, he began 
 to climb straight up the nearly perpendicu 
 lar side of the gully. His ankle, swollen 
 and inflamed from the exertion of the ride, 
 had been paining him most intolerably but 
 the instant before, but now in his frantic 
 struggle for life he forgot the injury. 
 Twice he tried to gain a foothold in the 
 crumbling, rotten earth that slumped spirit 
 lessly away beneath his feet, sending him 
 sprawling and staggering back to his start- 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 85 
 
 ing point, with the roaring waters coming 
 closer, closer, until the first wild bursts of 
 spray were tossed upward so far that his 
 blanched cheeks were wet with it. Mr. 
 Carrol was not a praying man, but suddenly 
 his own voice sounded, unexpectedly, in his 
 ears : 
 
 " O God, please help me out ! Don t 
 don t let me die here while my poor child 
 is being unjustly punished. Help me !" 
 
 Once more he struggled up the bank up, 
 and up, still higher, until a nimble spring 
 landed him on top of the rock that had shel 
 tered him, and, reaching up, he was able 
 to grasp the tough roots of a cedar tree 
 that, defying drought and flood, clung tena 
 ciously to the side of the arroyo. Up he 
 struggled, slipped, and grasped the tree 
 trunk just in time to save himself; another 
 upward scramble, and his arms were around 
 the sturdy trunk of another cedar growing 
 on the very verge of the bank itself, and 
 here the water caught him. With a roar 
 like that of some savage beast clutching its 
 prey, it caught and lifted him upon its 
 dizzying current; it threshed him to and 
 fro, up and down; it beat him with frag 
 ments of driftwood, and once it swept re- 
 sistlessly over his helpless head; and then, 
 as he clung, strangling and blinded, the 
 water was falling. In five minutes it was 
 lower than his shoulders; in ten it was so 
 much lower that, after one or two cautious 
 efforts, Mr. Carrol succeeded in extricating 
 himself from its current and climbing out 
 upon the bank. He sat down in the grate 
 ful warmth of the sun, and watched the 
 brown water swirl past until it was so 
 nearly spent that he knew, if his foot had 
 not been throbbing so painfully that it was 
 almost impossible to move, that he might 
 easily wade across the little thread of 
 water still left in the arroyo, and so hobble 
 on toward home. He had about decided to 
 try it, pain or no pain, and was specula- 
 tively eying the cedar in quest of a possible 
 straight branch in the midst of its distorted 
 ugliness, when a shout from the opposite 
 
 bank drew his attention, and there was 
 Rupert with his horse. 
 
 Rupert had gone first to the Valdez 
 ranch, but, having an unfortunate fancy 
 for short-cuts, he had taken a little-used 
 trail across the mesa which brought him 
 out near the Valdez corral. Looking into 
 this enclosure as he rode past, he saw 
 Nora s pet Jersey, plainly very ill at ease, 
 walking around and around the enclosure in 
 a vain attempt to find some point of egress. 
 The sight filled him with a fresh sense of 
 shame and humiliation, but his face be 
 trayed nothing of it as, riding up to the 
 door, he accosted the senora, asking if she 
 had seen anything of his father. 
 
 " Yo padre ride away, so," replied 
 Senora Valdez, waving a small brown hand 
 vaguely in the direction of the Cimarron. 
 
 "Where? Where was he going, do you 
 know?" demanded Rupert, anxiously. 
 
 Occasionally, when there was nothing 
 to be gained by doing otherwise, and when 
 the infrequent impulse seized her, Senora 
 Valdez had been known to tell the truth. 
 Some such vague, irresponsible impulse 
 seized her now, and she gave Rupert the 
 information he sought, adding, with a 
 beatific smile : 
 
 "Rain come hard at de norf; make 
 Elescalante Arroyo to hold muchos waters; 
 yo padre, if he pass arroyo befor water 
 come, no come back so fas as he come 
 over." 
 
 So, keeping a sharp lookout along the 
 road, lest the colt might have escaped his 
 father before the arroyo was reached, 
 Rupert pushed on, reaching the gully, as 
 has been said, at the moment that his father 
 had decided to try crossing it on foot. 
 
 Mr. Carrol, as his son rode across the 
 stream and led the bay colt again to his 
 side, was a pitiful figure. Splashed with 
 mud from head to foot, stiff and aching in 
 every joint, while the concentrated essence 
 of all pain seemed to be in his ankle, he 
 was unable to mount the horse unassisted, 
 but suffered Rupert to help him up on a 
 
86 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 rock, from which vantage he at length 
 gained the saddle. After learning how 
 the colt had come home, and, as a result, 
 how Rupert had had the good fortune to 
 strike his trail so soon, Mr. Carrol spoke 
 but once during the dreary homeward ride, 
 and that was to observe, as they were pass 
 ing the Valdez ranch : 
 
 " I daresay Eleanor thinks she s been in 
 the cellar a week, at least; time passes 
 slowly to anyone in the dark." 
 
 " Or to anyone in the water," Rupert in 
 terposed wickedly. It did not seem to him 
 that his father realized the full severity of 
 the punishment that he was inflicting on 
 Nora and the punishment was undeserved. 
 The instant that they reached home and 
 his father had been made comfortable, he 
 would make his confession. Looking at the 
 suffering man beside him, he wished that 
 the confession was already made and he in 
 Nora s place, if that would be any satisfac 
 tion to his father, but he had a feeling 
 that no such childish measures would be 
 considered meet for his offense. 
 
 When they reached the house, Mrs. 
 Easton came hurrying out to meet them, 
 followed more slowly by Nora, on whom 
 her father s eyes rested with a look of 
 surprise and displeasure; but he was in too 
 great distress to ask any questions just 
 then, or to listen to any explanations, had 
 they been offered. Not until a bath, a 
 change of clothing and a liberal application 
 of the contents of the camphor bottle to 
 the injured ankle, followed by a warm 
 meal, had, in a measure, restored him, did 
 he address Nora. She had been active in 
 ministering to his comfort; when that was 
 reestablished he turned to her: 
 
 " How is it that I find you here, when I 
 left you locked in the cellar?" he asked. 
 
 Before Nora could reply, her grand 
 mother hastened to answer the question, as 
 well as a number of others that she thought 
 Mr. Carrol might eventually ask: 
 
 "How is it that she s here? Because I 
 let her out." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " I broke in the window. You see, 
 James, we I got the idea that you might 
 be in great trouble why, I even thought 
 you might have been killed, and I knew, 
 of course, that if you was, you would need 
 Nora to wait on you. I felt that, for your 
 sake, it would be best to have her on hand. 
 She wasn t very willin to come, I ll say 
 that much not but what she d be willin 
 to wait on you if you was killed, or alive, 
 either, for that matter but she seemed to 
 think, almost, that I hadn t ought to a let 
 her out. That wasn t exactly right in her, 
 you ll admit yourself, James. Old as I am, 
 I hope I know right from wrong!" 
 
 " You don t seem to have known it in 
 this case," was the stern comment. 
 
 As one result of the day s exciting 
 events, Mrs. Easton was really over 
 wrought, and very tired. As Mr. Carrol 
 spoke, her gray head drooped. It seemed 
 a bitter mockery of their general utility 
 that now, when she so sorely needed their 
 aid, no supporting text or quotation from 
 Mr. Watts came to her mind. Vanquished 
 as much by her own weariness as by her 
 son-in-law s unrelenting attitude, she buried 
 her face in the folds of her gingham apron 
 and sobbed as helplessly as any schoolgirl. 
 
 Nora, from her seat near the window, 
 looked at her pityingly, longing to go to her 
 side and comfort her, but afraid to move 
 lest her father should be still further 
 affronted. 
 
 Rupert, springing to his feet, had taken 
 a step toward his grandmother, when his 
 father called out sharply: " Sit down, 
 Rupert !" As the boy obeyed, he went on 
 angrily: "Why, what s the matter, in my 
 own house, that I am disobeyed behind my 
 back and defied to my face ! Eleanor, as it 
 was your grandmother who let you out 
 and you had no business to come, you 
 know that but as she let you out, and your 
 being shut up seems to worry her, you may 
 stay out if you are ready to tell me all 
 about that trade of yours." He paused an 
 
Sit down Rupert," he said in a changed voice. 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 89 
 
 instant, and, as Nora made no response, 
 went on hurriedly: "If you don t like to 
 speak before your grandmother and Ru 
 pert 
 
 " It isn t that, father," Nora said, tremu 
 lously. " If if I could tell you at all, I 
 would not mind speaking before them." 
 
 " Very well, then," said her father, 
 quietly. " Rupert, go out and board up 
 that window again ; take some of those inch 
 planks and fasten them up with spikes. 
 Get my crutch from the bedroom, and I ll 
 take Eleanor out. You ve been a good and 
 obedient girl till now, Eleanor," he contin 
 ued, addressing poor Nora, who sat regard 
 ing him in a kind of dumb amazement, 
 " and that s all the stronger reason why 
 you should be well punished do you un 
 derstand well punished, for this." 
 
 It was noticeable, for all the haste and 
 heat with which he spoke, that Mr. Carrol s 
 eyes, as he said this, were not upon the 
 cowering culprit, but upon his son. 
 
 " The heif heif heifer was hers !" 
 sobbed Mrs. Easton. 
 
 " It ain t the loss of the heifer that I 
 mind; you know that, mother. It s the con 
 temptible secrecy and slyness of the act it 
 self." 
 
 Rupert, who had been waiting an oppor 
 tunity to speak, and, like a greyhound in 
 leash, quivering with impatience, now broke 
 in with kindling eyes: "Don t use such 
 terms as sly and contemptible when you are 
 speaking of Nora, father. Nora ! When 
 you hear what I m going to tell you, you ll 
 you ll feel like kissing the hem of her 
 garment, as I do. Father, it is her unselfish 
 bravery that has shamed your cowardly son 
 into speaking the truth ; don t worry Nora 
 any more about that heifer. I know where 
 she is, and why she is there." 
 
 Mrs. Easton, her tears suddenly dried, 
 put down her apron and fixed her eyes on 
 the boy who stood paling and flushing un 
 der his father s searching look, while Nora, 
 clasping her hands, leaned forward in an 
 attitude of breathless attention. Mr. Carrol 
 
 sank back in his chair and drew a long 
 sigh a sigh which sounded very much like 
 one of relief, while an expression of pain 
 ful perplexity that had become almost ha 
 bitual to his face, of late, suddenly van 
 ished. 
 
 " Sit down, Rupert," he said, in a 
 changed voice. " If you ve got anything to 
 tell, I reckon we re all ready and willing 
 to hear it." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 UNRAVELING A WEB. 
 
 RUPERT seated himself, as requested, 
 but before beginning his story, he 
 volunteered the seemingly irrelevant 
 information : 
 
 " There s a nest of tarantulas under the 
 window-ledge of the root cellar. I put a 
 stone over it; please remember, all of you, 
 not to move it." 
 
 His father nodded, and Mrs. Easton re 
 marked, sotto voce: 
 
 "A teakittle full of bilin water 11 set 
 tle their business." 
 
 Nora was silent, and her air of intent 
 listening did not relax. Rupert s story was 
 just then of more interest to her than the 
 fact that she had narrowly escaped an en 
 counter with a score or more of those ven 
 omous and pugnacious creatures. 
 
 Rupert glanced at her. " You remember 
 that evening, Nora the night before 
 Snowflake was lost when you came out 
 to help me round up the cattle that got 
 away from me, on the east range?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, I didn t tell you so, but I had 
 promised those cowboys who helped us, be 
 fore you came, that I would go over to the 
 7-H Ranch the next night. I was crazy 
 to hear De Vargas, father " he turned to 
 his father, a note of appeal in his voice: 
 " I don t know how I am going to ask you 
 to forgive me for what I did, and I reckon 
 you won t feel much like it when you know 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 it all. It seems to me as if I must have 
 taken leave of my senses about that time. 
 I have been so cowardly, I ve acted so 
 many lies if I haven t told them outright 
 that I feel like a sneaking whelp, and I 
 guess I am one." 
 
 " Go on," commanded Mr. Carrol, briefly. 
 
 " I asked you to let me go, father, but 
 I didn t think you would; and I knew it 
 wasn t right to ask it when you were hurt 
 and suffering, but I was going and I 
 started, anyway. I waited until you were 
 all asleep, then I went out to the barn; I 
 had not intended to take Snowflake at first, 
 but Vidette seemed so tired that I was 
 ashamed to take her out again, and Snow- 
 flake was begging to go. It was hard work 
 to hold her after we got out on to the 
 plains; she went like a shot. You remem 
 ber that short-cut around the head of the 
 mesa to the 7-H ? I meant to take that ; 
 I thought I had taken it, and it s so smooth 
 till you pass Dry Creek that it s safe 
 riding, so I let her have her head, although 
 it was dark. But I went too far south; 
 instead of rounding the mesa, I was riding 
 along its upper end; you know how it drops 
 down on the north, all at once, for nearly 
 twelve feet. I didn t see where we were, 
 and Snowflake didn t, either, until all of a 
 sudden she tried to stop; she did stop, so 
 quick that I was shot off, clean over her 
 head, but she was too late to save herself. 
 I kept on going, slipping and sliding to the 
 bottom of the slope, and I heard Snowflake 
 crashing after me. I had time to think, as 
 we both went down, what if she should fall 
 Dn top of me ! But she didn t. I wish she 
 had. When we both reached the bottom 
 she lay at arm s length from me; I was not 
 hurt at all. I got up and looked at her, 
 lying huddled up in a heap at my feet. If 
 she had been a little scrub broncho," Rupert 
 interpolated bitterly, " she would have 
 jumped up without a scratch, but it was 
 Snowflake, and so and so " Rupert s 
 voice shook ; he concluded, huskily " she 
 didn t get up. It was a long time before 
 
 I would believe that she couldn t. I patted 
 and coaxed and called she did not stir. I 
 didn t go near her head at first ; I was 
 afraid afraid that I should find out that 
 she was dead. When I did force myself to 
 lift her head I saw that the thing that I 
 had been afraid of had happened. Her neck 
 was broken." 
 
 Rupert paused to get control of his voice, 
 and his father, with his face turned away, 
 looked steadfastly out of the window. His 
 face was still and grave, but no longer 
 angry. Perhaps he saw a terrified, con 
 science-smitten boy his only son kneeling 
 alone in the wide night of the plains, be 
 side the beautiful, motionless creature who, 
 but a moment before, had been carrying 
 him, wild and free as the wind. And she 
 was dead. Poor Rupert ! 
 
 " I meant to tell you, father, just as 
 quick as I got home ; I meant to awake you, 
 if you were asleep, so that I need not lose 
 a minute, but when I got here, I I grew 
 afraid. The moon had come up long be 
 fore I got home, and there was a mist, and 
 when I came upon a band of cattle they 
 would start away from me and stare and 
 snort. I knew it was just because they 
 were not used to seeing anyone on foot, 
 and yet it made me feel as if they knew 
 what I had done as if everything was 
 avoiding me. I knew that the straight 
 forward course was best. I have known it 
 all along. I I haven t enjoyed deceiving 
 you, father," Rupert went on, brokenly, 
 " but I didn t seem to have will-power 
 enough to bring myself to tell you. I 
 thought, along at first, when you were in 
 quiring around and offering rewards for 
 Snowflake s recovery, that it would be 
 easier to run away from the trouble than 
 to face it. I thought that, since I wasn t 
 a very good hand on the range and, I 
 don t suppose, ever will be you d be fully 
 as well satisfied if I went, and it wouldn t 
 cost you any more to pay a good hand than 
 it does to get things out of the tangle that 
 I m always getting them into. I should 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 91 
 
 "have gone, then, but for Nora; she sus 
 pected what I had done and what I meant 
 to do." 
 
 Mr. Carrol withdrew his eyes from the 
 contemplation of the landscape outside the 
 window to glance inquiringly at his 
 daughter, who answered the look with a 
 slight affirmative nod. 
 
 " Nora begged me to stay," Rupert went 
 on, " and, father, I am so hard, and so 
 unfeeling, that I held out. I wouldn t 
 promise her not to leave home until she 
 went down on her knees to ask it of me." 
 
 Here Mrs. Easton had a momentary re 
 course to the gingham apron, while, with 
 an incoherent reference to Mr. Watts, she 
 murmured : 
 
 "" On your knees, fair saint, to me ? 
 
 Not so, not so ! Arise, lest the avenging 
 
 angel s pen, 
 Dipped in thy tears, shall trace anew the 
 
 record of my sins ! " 
 
 " Grandma !" murmured Nora, implor 
 ingly. 
 
 Rupert continued: "I promised, and 
 I stayed. It wasn t easy to do, father, be 
 cause every day that I put off my confes 
 sion made matters so much the worse. The 
 other day yesterday Cosme found Snow- 
 flake s body, and beside it my silver birth 
 day pin, where it had fallen when we rolled 
 down the cliff. Cosme seems to have sus 
 pected me, all along, and it was easy enough 
 for him to see how matters stood after 
 that. When he told me what he had found, 
 and what he suspected, I made up my mind 
 that I would go. I would go, if I broke 
 promises piled sky-high." 
 
 " Why didn t Cosme come to me? Why 
 didn t he tell me that he had found her?" 
 asked Mr. Carrol. 
 
 " I was going to tell you that. It seems 
 that he has got into trouble of some kind 
 with his father. He didn t say what it was, 
 but his father had ordered him to show up 
 at the old Valdez cabin, last night, and take 
 a good threshing. I reckon old Valdez 
 
 don t spare the lash when he gets after 
 Cosme. This time he had promised to use 
 cane cactus branches, and well, Cosme 
 threatened to come on you for the reward 
 for finding Snowflake he said that you 
 didn t say she d got to be alive if I didn t 
 go down to the cabin, when it got too dark 
 for his father to distinguish between us, 
 and take the whipping in his place. To 
 keep him quiet until I could get away I 
 promised. I intended to go straight away 
 without coming into the house, but there 
 was a man here, and I waited for him to 
 be gone. Nora overheard Cosme and me 
 talking; she hunted me up; she tried to 
 make me promise again that I wouldn t 
 leave. I wouldn t promise her not to go 
 away until she said that she had a plan 
 oh, father, you will be ashamed to hear me 
 say it she said that she was sure that she 
 could persuade old Valdez to agree to let 
 Cosme off, and, at the same time, not to 
 speak of the matter to him to just let the 
 whole thing drop, as if it had never come 
 up at all. And I was so worn out that I 
 consented to stay and let her try it. Her 
 plan succeeded; it wasn t until she told you 
 this morning that she knew where the Jer 
 sey was that I had the least idea what it 
 had been. When she said that, I knew 
 Valdez has always wanted Daisy. I was 
 just as sure that Nora had turned her over 
 to him, as the price of his silence, this 
 morning, as I was this afternoon when I 
 rode past his corral and saw her there." 
 
 " How is that, Nora?" Mr. Carrol asked, 
 as Rupert ceased. 
 
 " It s right," Nora confessed, hurriedly. 
 " Mf. Valdez agreed not to tell how he 
 came by her; he was to send anyone asking 
 him, to me." 
 
 For so hot-tempered a man, Mr. Carrol 
 controlled himself remarkably well. He sat 
 for some moments after Rupert s story was 
 concluded, with his elbows on his knees and 
 his fingers interlaced, apparently lost in 
 thought. The other occupants of the room 
 were equally silent. Rupert was inwardly 
 
92 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 bracing himself to receive sentence, but 
 feeling glad for all that glad to his very 
 finger-tips that he had confessed, that he 
 was no longer a sneaking culprit. Being 
 a culprit, simply, seemed to one of his dis 
 position far less terrible than to be com 
 pelled to recognize himself a sneaking one. 
 " We seem, as near as I can make out, 
 to have been carrying on considerable of a 
 game of cross purposes," Mr. Carrol at 
 length observed, looking up at Rupert, 
 frankly. " You ll be surprised, son, that 
 well, that I haven t been quite blind, myself. 
 You are an honest lad, still it seems that 
 your sister and Cosme both suspected just 
 about what did occur ; it s rather odd, seems 
 to me, that none of you should have thought 
 of crediting me with wits as bright as 
 theirs. You were very anxious to hear 
 that fiddler, we all knew that. I got to 
 thinking things over a day or two after 
 Snowflake disappeared, and I seemed to re 
 ceive quite a bit of light on the subject; 
 maybe I got the more light because even 
 laudanum won t always keep a man who is 
 in pain asleep all night. I was awake when 
 you crept into the house along toward day 
 light. I had heard the barn door shut 
 when you put away my saddle, I suppose 
 before you came in. It was so hard to be 
 lieve that you would do such a thing, that 
 you would try to deceive me, though, Ru 
 pert, that I did not connect these two cir 
 cumstances and your evident misery with 
 the fact of Snowflake s disappearance, until 
 I happened to glance out of my window 
 and saw Nora frantically shaking my sad 
 dle blankets. She did not get off all the 
 white hairs, as I found later on examination, 
 and I had not ridden Snowflake for a num 
 ber of days; I had used the blanket on the 
 bay, and I knew that those white hairs were 
 fresh. It was easy, too easy, to imagine 
 what was in your mind, and the course that 
 you would probably take. As to Cosme s 
 claiming the reward, he could no more do it 
 than Valclez can keep Daisy. One of the 
 boys from the Cimarron found where Snow- 
 
 flake was lying, the other day, and called 
 last night to tell me. I said nothing about 
 it, for I wanted you to own up what you 
 had done, like a man, Rupert. A blind man 
 could have seen how you were suffering, 
 and I was terribly afraid that, in your des 
 peration, you would give us the slip. I 
 meant to hunt you up, hot-foot, if you did 
 leave. Sometimes often," he continued, 
 thoughtfully, " there comes a moral crisis 
 in a boy s life a moral crisis. I knew 
 that such an one had come to you. It 
 seemed to me best, for your future strength, 
 that you should struggle through with it 
 alone. It seems that you couldn t quite 
 conquer the evil impulses unaided, and 
 there s where your sister s love has proved 
 itself wiser than my theorizing. 
 
 " Of course I did not know just what 
 part the heifer s sudden disappearance and 
 Nora s refusal to explain it had to do with 
 your struggle, but I knew that, since Xora 
 could not, all at once, have changed her 
 nature, it had something to do with it. 
 Things were looking so dark that I con 
 cluded it was time to use a little vicarious 
 coercion, if you ll excuse such a dictionary 
 expression. I thought that if nothing else 
 would bring you to your senses, harshness 
 toward your sister, who was suffering for 
 your sake, might do it." 
 
 " You seem to be a pretty good judge 
 of character," Rupert remarked, with a rue 
 ful smile. 
 
 " Yes, in this case, at least. You see, I d 
 been making a study of it, and I d about de 
 cided that if you could endure to see her 
 unjustly punished, you could endure almost 
 anything. But if Nora had been less heroic, 
 if she had told us all about her remarkable 
 trade, that scheme would have failed, too. 
 Eleanor, my little girl, come here and give 
 your cross old father a kiss." 
 
THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 93 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 4 ^ T T HAS hurt me all along, Rupert," 
 I Mr. Carrol said when Nora had 
 complied, and had taken the opportu 
 nity to whisper: "Please don t be hard on 
 Rupert, father. He has suffered so much !" 
 " to see, as I could not help doing, that 
 you believed that it was alone the loss of 
 the mare that grieved me, and it cut deeper 
 and deeper the longer you persisted in your 
 attempt to deceive me. Well let that all 
 pass. We ll begin again, all round. I ve 
 been a good deal to blame in one way, my 
 self. I m naturally close-mouthed and hot- 
 tempered. I feel sure, now, that it would 
 have been far better if I had early formed 
 the habit of taking you a little more into 
 my confidence, and I am going to do so now 
 to the extent of saying that I believe, with 
 Nora, that you have suffered enough. I 
 .shall not attempt to inflict any further pun 
 ishment on you, Rupert, for you have, un 
 fortunately, punished yourself severely 
 severely. Rupert, I told you that I intended 
 to sell Snowflake. I also intended to use 
 the money so obtained in sending you away 
 to school. Why should you have thought, be 
 cause it is a fact that I cannot well en 
 dure the sort of music that folks drag out 
 of a fiddle, that I was cruel and unfeeling? 
 Have I ever objected to your having a 
 fiddle? I have only insisted that you should 
 not allow it to take your mind from your 
 work; there was, to me, a great reason 
 why your work should be well done, why 
 we should be very saving of our time and 
 of our money. I ve seen, all along, that 
 you had a great talent for that peculiar 
 kind of business. You get it from your 
 grandmother s my mother s folks. I be 
 lieve in cultivating whatever talent anyone 
 has, if so be it isn t a bad one. I promised 
 myself that this fall you should go down to 
 Santa Fe to school, as you have so long 
 wished, and that the price of Snowflake 
 should help to pay your way and to pay for 
 
 music lessons. I wish, now, that I had told 
 you of it. It would have made your life 
 pleasanter." 
 
 And that was all that Mr. Carrol had 
 to say about it; he was never known to 
 refer to the subject of Rupert s escapade 
 again, and when curious visitors inquired 
 as to Snowflake s fate, his answer was, 
 " She accidentally fell over a cliff and was 
 killed." But, on that same day, he had 
 called Cosme to him and instructed him to 
 go over to his father s and drive home the 
 Jersey heifer that he would find in his fa 
 ther s corral. 
 
 Great was the young Mexican s surprise 
 on hearing this so great, that he so far 
 departed from his usual habits as to ven 
 ture some halting surmises as to how the 
 heifer came there. " Yo s posen, now, at 
 at Daisy, she jump corral an git in like 
 at?" he asked. 
 
 " It may be," responded his employer, 
 coolly. " It s like enough that that 
 stariff you was speaking of a few days 
 ago got after her, and she jumped in there 
 for safety. Anyway, you go and get her 
 out." 
 
 Cosme, who understood that he was be 
 ing made sport of, obeyed less amiably than 
 usual. He had a suspicion, for which he 
 could seem to find no grounds, that the 
 fact of the Jersey s being in his father s 
 corral had something to do with the whip 
 ping that Rupert was to have taken in his 
 stead. Did he take it? Cosme never knew. 
 
 Valdez, senior, on returning home and 
 finding that the coveted Jersey had been re 
 claimed by Mr. Carrol, bore the loss 
 philosophically. Privately, he had had his 
 doubts, from the first, as to the legality of 
 the transaction that turned her over to 
 him. He assured Mr. Carrol that he bore 
 him no ill-will, but added pathetically : " I 
 promise Senorita Nora not to w ip Cosme ; 
 fool, me. I got Cosme s soul on my han 
 for be save. How I goin save it, if I no 
 w ip for bad habit?" 
 
 " You ve whipped him too much already," 
 
94 
 
 THE MYSTERY AT THE CARROL RANCH. 
 
 Mr. Carrol declared; and added, from the 
 wisdom of his new experience, " Try mak 
 ing a friend of him. That s better than 
 coercion." 
 
 " Me ? I knows nuttin bout at coussin ; 
 maybe at good for^w ite boy. I goin lick 
 Cosme good nex chance I git." 
 
 And Valdez kept his word to the letter. 
 
 A year afterward, when Rupert went 
 away to school, the little family left behind 
 saw him go with proud and thankful 
 hearts. He had earned the right to go, and 
 to be trusted. Nora, standing beside the 
 road in front of the house, watched the 
 stage that carried him until it became a 
 mere vanishing speck in the distance, then 
 she looked off and away over the far plains, 
 and the purple mountains that uprose before 
 her, silent, changeless friends. It was 
 
 early morning, and here and there, from 
 warm hillside or hidden mountain valley, 
 blue pennons of smoke were curling lazily 
 upward smoke that rose, as she knew, 
 from lonely little cabins, from remote cat 
 tle camps, the fixed and the migratory 
 homes of both white and Mexican ranchers 
 and herdsmen; and, gazing on the uplifting 
 panorama, if there was any pain in her 
 heart because of the chances that she her 
 self had missed, Nora resolutely stifled it, 
 Rupert s feet were set in the right way at 
 last, and the future her intuition, the clear 
 vision of love, told her held great prizes 
 for him, and the best prize of all, as she 
 saw it, and as it came to pass, was that 
 her brother came to be recognized not only 
 as a trustworthy man, but as a power for 
 good wherever his lot was cast. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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