Lone Pine: The Story of a Lost Mine

by R. B. Townshend

Towards evening it was reported that the ditch was running again, and Josefa and her step-sisters went out to draw water. With the great earthen jars on their heads, they filled out one after another, and marched off to the waterside. Here they lowered their burdens to the ground, and slowly filled them by dipping up cupfuls of water with their gourds. There were several other women at the waterside doing the same thing, and there was much animated talk about the blasting of the acequia—for they had heard the explosions quite distinctly at the village—and about the improvement of the ditch, which was fuller now than it had ever been before.

Then some of the younger girls took to playing and splashing each other, and one said something sly to Josefa about Ignacio. She flushed up and was on the point of flying into a rage, but calmed herself in a moment, returned a laughing retort, and joined in the fun and the splashing. Her step-sisters were surprised, for they well knew her feelings on the subject of the intended marriage; but they supposed that perhaps she was growing more reconciled to the idea of it.

At last the welcome interval of fun and gossip came to an end. One by one the jars, now full and very heavy, were carefully elevated on the heads of their owners, the party broke up, and the women returned to their respective homes. Josefa was hoping for the appearance of the figure she desired to see, and lingered as long as possible; but when the rest of the party had assumed their burdens she could delay no longer, and, taking up hers, moved after them, the last of the file.

As they re-entered the village she saw with joy that her manœuvre had succeeded. Felipe was strolling very slowly, and apparently quite unconcerned, up the street, leading the mare and mule towards the corrals.

They dared not speak, but they had devised a little code of signals of their own. A shake of the head conveyed to her, "I have failed"; a crook of the forefinger, "I am coming to-night." An answering crook from her said to him, "I will meet you"; and they passed on their ways, no one but themselves the wiser for the little exchange of messages that had taken place. But Josefa's heart sank lower still as she crossed the threshold and thought that one of the precious three days was already gone, and no means of escape was yet provided.

At sunset her father returned. The acequia round the point had been properly embanked on its lower side, and the stone dislodged by the blasts cleaned out of its channel. He was in high good humour at the success of the work, which would render memorable his term of office. He brought his saddle indoors, and, taking down a key from a sort of shelf of wickerwork, which was slung by cords from the roof beams, he took his horse to the stable. He did not keep him at the corrals, where the prospector kept his mare and mules, but was the proud possessor of a mud-built stable, with a lock on the door.

His coming set Josefa thinking again. "Our great difficulty," said she to herself, "is a horse. Why not take my father's? If I could only get the key we could manage it. I could not indeed get down the saddle and take it out of the house without making a noise, but Felipe must find a saddle. And if I can get the key and we take my father's horse, he will have nothing to pursue us on, which is double reason for taking it."

Filled with this idea, she got some more corn and began to grind again, so that when her step-mother went into the kitchen to prepare the evening meal she was left alone in the outer room. Her father came back from the stable and replaced the key on the shelf, and then went out again without speaking to her. Now was her chance. She darted silently across the room, seized the key, and flew back to her work so quickly that no one in the next room could have suspected what she had done.

She was so bright and cheerful that evening that her family thought she must have ceased her opposition and become reconciled to the match. "Ah," said her step-mother, "if Ignacio only gives you work enough, and doesn't spoil you, he'll have a docile wife as any in the pueblo."

Josefa laughed aloud. "He will have a docile one when he gets me!" she said. But she laughed to think how blank they would look at daybreak next morning when they found her flown.