The light of the sun shining into Paul's eyes, blinded him; and though he saw the finger laid on her lips, he could not see the dishevelled hair and bloodshot eyes, and approached her, looking for some glad surprise. He had donned a Mexican costume, and the little silver bells on the outside seam of his pantaloons jingled musically at every step; while the short jacket, showing the pistol-belt under the red sash, set his figure off to full advantage.
He spoke laughingly: "You see I have turned Mexican, every inch of me!" then he caught the wild eyes, with their frenzied look, and he grasped her hand, exclaiming, "Good God! what has happened?"
"Happened?" she echoed with a demoniac laugh; "we have been deceived—outraged—cheated out of our life's happiness—both you and I! Behold the traitor and the serpent!"
Drawing aside the curtain that hung in the door-arch between the two rooms, she beckoned him to approach, and pointed silently to the group in the next room. Bending over the reclining form of the man on the lounge stood a girl, whose face, of angel goodness, was turned in profile to the two intruders at the doorway. The man's eyes were closed; and as the girl stooped lower, his hand stole softly around her form, and nestled there, lovingly, tenderly, as though it had found a long-sought resting-place. Pliant braids of glossy black hair fell far below the girl's waist; and her eyes were of the almond shape, that we find in the faces of those descended from the people of Castile.
In a moment Paul's burning eyes had taken in the picture, and an inarticulate sound came over his lips. The woman beside him watched him with the eyes of a tigress; and he never knew—was it her touch that guided him, or did his own evil passions move his hand from his reeking brow to the pistol in his belt? There was a sharp report, a shriek and a groan, and the next minute Paul Kennerly was dashing over the plain, mounted on his fleet black horse, the wind tossing through his hair, and raising it from his bare brow, where it reared itself proudly, like the mane of a lion when he flies from captivity and death.
THE ROMANCE OF GILA BEND.
Travelling from Los Angeles to Tucson, you can, if you choose, sleep under a roof almost every night, providing you have good teams. There are Government forage stations along the whole route, where travellers are "taken in" by the station-keepers, though not on Government account. I do not say that it is pleasant at all these stations, particularly for a woman, as she will seldom or never meet one of her own sex on the way. When we left Fort Yuma, Sam, the driver, assured me that I would not see a white woman's face between there and Tucson. He was mistaken. I met not only one, but a whole family of them, one after another.
The day that brought us to Oatman's Flat was murky, dark, and gloomy—a day in full harmony with the character of the country we were travelling through. We descended into the Flat by an abrupt fall in the road that landed us at once among a clump of scraggy, darkling willows, drooping wearily over a sluggish little creek. In the distance we could see the white sand of the bed of the Gila, and half-buried in it the ghastly, water-bleached limbs of the trees that the river had uprooted year after year in its annual frenzy. We could not go the upper road, on account of the Gila's having washed out a portion of it, and the lower road seemed to be regarded by Sam with all the disfavor it deserved. Verde or grease-wood, as ragged and scraggy as the willows, covered the whole Flat, except where, towards the centre, a dilapidated shanty stood on a sandy, cheerless open space. Not far from it were the remains of a fence, enclosing some six paces of uneven ground, and on the only upper rail left of the inclosure sat a dismal-looking, solitary crow.