“Drive to Hooven's,” commanded Hilma. “If you won't, I'll walk there.” She threw off the lap-robes, preparing to descend. “And you,” she exclaimed, turning to Mrs. Derrick, “how CAN you—when Harran and your husband may be—may—are in danger.”
Grumbling, Vacca turned the carry-all about and drove across the open fields till he reached the road to Guadalajara, just below the Mission.
“Hurry!” cried Hilma.
The horses started forward under the touch of the whip. The ranch houses of Quien Sabe came in sight.
“Do you want to stop at the house?” inquired Vacca over his shoulder.
“No, no; oh, go faster—make the horses run.”
They dashed through the houses of the Home ranch.
“Oh, oh,” cried Hilma suddenly, “look, look there. Look what they have done.”
Vacca pulled the horses up, for the road in front of Annixter's house was blocked.
A vast, confused heap of household effects was there—chairs, sofas, pictures, fixtures, lamps. Hilma's little home had been gutted; everything had been taken from it and ruthlessly flung out upon the road, everything that she and her husband had bought during that wonderful week after their marriage. Here was the white enamelled “set” of the bedroom furniture, the three chairs, wash-stand and bureau,—the bureau drawers falling out, spilling their contents into the dust; there were the white wool rugs of the sitting-room, the flower stand, with its pots all broken, its flowers wilting; the cracked goldfish globe, the fishes already dead; the rocking chair, the sewing machine, the great round table of yellow oak, the lamp with its deep shade of crinkly red tissue paper, the pretty tinted photographs that had hung on the wall—the choir boys with beautiful eyes, the pensive young girls in pink gowns—the pieces of wood carving that represented quails and ducks, and, last of all, its curtains of crisp, clean muslin, cruelly torn and crushed—the bed, the wonderful canopied bed so brave and gay, of which Hilma had been so proud, thrust out there into the common road, torn from its place, from the discreet intimacy of her bridal chamber, violated, profaned, flung out into the dust and garish sunshine for all men to stare at, a mockery and a shame.