The San Rosario Ranch

by Maud Howe Elliott

"Rum place, that; passed it to-day."

"If you want to earn a little money to pay your travelling expenses, I should like to finish that picture."

The man did not answer, but stretched his great limbs and yawned.

"It's blasted cold for the season."

Graham nodded assent, blowing a great cloud of tobacco-smoke from his lips, and composing in his mind, meanwhile, a picture in which this wild-looking fellow, with his rough hair and coarse, strong outlines, formed the central figure. He was of a low type of humanity, with a narrow forehead and large, heavy features; his face was tanned where the skin was visible, the heavy beard growing high up on the cheeks, leaving little uncovered surface. His clothes were somewhat dilapidated, but his wide sombrero hat and high boots were strong and whole. His figure was superbly developed, and Herculean in type. As he sat crouching on the floor, hugging his knees, his back braced against the wall behind him, he nodded wearily, and, after various abortive attempts at conversation, finally fell into a sound sleep, his head resting against the wall behind him. Graham took a charred brand from the hearth, and with this rough tool drew, on a smooth board in the side of the cabin, a sketch of the man before him. As he looked narrowly at his model, he perceived that his face was disfigured by some recent scratches from which the blood was still unwashed. They were got while riding through a thorny thicket, the artist fancied, and thought no more about them, touching in the details of the desolate background. The man's expression was hardly human in his sleep, the fierce animal face was so stupid and brutish. It is wonderful how character is expressed in a sleeping countenance. The studied or unconscious control which we hold over our features when awake is overthrown in slumber, and the real nature is seen with no polite restraint or deceitful mask. A beautiful woman is beautiful no longer while sleeping, if she have a bad heart. It is a terrible thing to look upon one who is dear to us in sleep. Even when the countenance shadows forth holy dreams, it is awful to watch its still composure, so like death, and to feel that impassable distance between the unfettered soul and our own earth-bound spirit,--that distance which, but for the briefest spaces, is never bridged over in our whole lives, though they flow quietly side by side through peaceful days and happy nights.

Though the man had closed his eyes in the knowledge that it was entirely safe for him to sleep in Graham's presence, his slumber was not an easy one. He started often and groaned more than once; while his hand nervously made the movement of striking with a weapon at some unseen foe. The artist watched him for some minutes.

"I should like to have another day's work on that rascal's torso," he said at last; "I suppose if I paid him enough he would come to the tower."

As he spoke he tore a leaf from his notebook, and writing a few lines upon it placed it in the fellow's nerveless hands, lest he should steal away before morning. Then he threw himself back and slept again long and heavily. When he awoke it was broad daylight in the cabin of which he found himself the sole occupant. At first he wondered if he had dreamed that his lodging had been shared by a rough companion; but no, there was the sketch upon the wall of the sleeping figure crouching by the fireplace. Besides, his visitor had left a trace of his presence. Near the spot where he had sat lay a handkerchief. The artist carelessly picked up the square of white linen, somewhat surprised to find that it was of the finest quality. A red stain on one corner induced him to examine it more carefully. It was neatly stitched with an odd pattern which was not unfamiliar to him, and in one corner was an embroidered monogram of an intricate form. The letters were cunningly twisted together, and it took him several minutes to distinguish them. Two L's, an I, a T, an E, an N, and a C, all enclosed in a large M. Nobody in the world could have so many initials, not even a Spanish grandee. It must be a name, probably one beginning with M, as that was the most prominent letter in the chiffre. He studied it for an instant, and suddenly cried aloud that name which had become so dear to him,--"Millicent!"

What could it mean? Millicent's handkerchief in the possession of that ruffianly fellow, the dark crimson stain of blood marring its whiteness? What could have befallen her? He dared not even think of what this portended; and thrusting it into his breast, he ran to the door and looked all about him. Silence everywhere; no movement in the copse before the door; no trace of his late visitor save the broken branch of a buckeye near which his horse had been tethered.

Graham was a brave man, with nerves at once sensitive and strong; but the picture which rose before his eyes unmanned him for the moment completely. He leaned against the door-post quaking with terror, too much confused to know what next to do. He could not think; he only saw that villanous face before him in its heavy sleep, that clinching of the hand, that motion as of stabbing with a knife. In the breast of what victim had that weapon been buried? At the recollection of what crime had he groaned aloud?