In another instant the delicate, finely split rushes had been snatched from the weaver’s hands, and he exhorted:
“By all that’s great, old man! Tell me, has Jessica Trent passed this way?”
“Why for? Once, but once, since the long journey and the finding of that bad Antonio came she to Pedro’s hut. Give back the basket. For her, of the bright hair, it is; my finest, and, maybe, my last. Why not? Yet still again I will keep the fiesta, si. The child. Many have I loved, but none like my little maid. The basket.”
This was a long speech for the silent dweller on the mesa, and there was more of anger in his usually calm eyes than Samson had never seen there, as he rose and extended his skinny hands for his treasure.
The herder restored it, his heart growing heavier as he did so.
“Think fast, good Pedro. The old are wise, and hark ye! These many hours the child is from home. The mistress––you love her?”
“She is my mistress,” answered the shepherd, in a tone which conveyed all his deep feeling. To him his “mistress” represented a material Providence. From her hand came all the simple necessaries of his life. From her, on the approaching nativity, would also come some things which were not necessaries, but infinitely more precious to the centenarian than such could be. On the nativity he would be sent, upon the gentlest mount his lady owned, to the mission service which he loved. Thereafter he would ride back to Sobrante, his own priest beside him, to feast his fill on such food as he tasted but once a year. At nightfall of that blessed day he would gather the ranchmen about him, in that 33 old corridor where once he had seen the ancient padres walk, breviary in hand, and tell his marvelous tales of the days when the land was new, when whole tribes of redfaces came to be taught at the padres’ feet, and when the things which now were had not been dreamed of. Some who listened to these Christmas stories believed that the secrets at which the shepherd hinted were vagaries of his enfeebled mind, but others, and among them Samson, gave credence to them, and yearly did their best to worm from him their explanation.
That mention of the “mistress” had touched him, also, to anxiety, and he motioned the herder to repeat his statement. He then straightened himself to almost the erectness of the younger man, and begun at once to gather his rushes and rap them carefully in a moistened cloth. With an expressive gesture toward his cabin, he suggested that Samson was free to enter it and provide such entertainment for himself as he chose, or could find. And so well did the herder know the shepherd that he fully understood this significant wave of the hand, and replied to it in words:
“Thanks, old man, but some other time. At present I’m keener on the scent for my captain than for even your good coffee. If she comes, report, will you?”
The other did not notice what he heard, but himself proceeded to the cabin and safely deposited his handiwork within it. Then he came out again, whistled for his dog, Keno, whose head he stroked for some time, and into whose attentive ear he seemed to be whispering some instruction.