Lone Pine: The Story of a Lost Mine

by R. B. Townshend

"Oh, Felipe, yes," she sighed. "I do not know how to tell you. My father spoke to me this morning and said it should be in three days. He has sent for the padre to come. In three days, Felipe! What shall I do? I shall die!"

The young Indian groaned under his breath. "In three days!" he said. "Ah, that is too cruel! Is it really true?"

"Oh yes," came the whispered answer. "My father said he would beat me to death if I did not consent. I should not so much mind being beaten, Felipe—it would be for you; but he would kill me, I believe. I am frightened."

Felipe felt the shiver that ran through the finger-tips clasped in his. "Do not be so afraid, Josefa," he said, trying to keep up her courage. "Can you not tell the padre that you hate old Ignacio and that you will not marry him?"

"Yes," replied she, "but he will say, 'Oh, nonsense, nonsense; girls are always afraid like that.' As long as my father is cacique the padre is bound to please him to make sure of getting his dues. He'll do what my father wants. He will not mind me."

"There is only one thing for us to do," said the boy; "we must run away together."

"But where?" said she, "and how? They will catch us, and they will beat us, and they will marry me all the same to that ugly old Ignacio. I hate him from the bottom of my heart; and if ever he dares to try to master me, I'll do him a mischief."

"Ah, but he is going to bribe your father with three cows," said her lover disconsolately. "He can do it, too, easy enough. He is the very richest man of all the Eagles, and I suppose the Eagles are the strongest family in the pueblo next to the Snakes. Anyway the cacique always favours them, so he has a double reason for wanting to hand you over to that old miser. Alas! I have no cows to give him, not even one little calf. We Turquoises are so few and so poor! The cacique would never hear of your marrying one of us. He is so proud of having married a Snake himself, that he thinks nobody good enough for his daughter who isn't able——" He was silenced by the girl.

"Hush!" said she quickly in a smothered tone, "I hear him moving about in the farther room"; and the Indian lad listened, motionless as a statue, with all the wary concentration of his race in the moment of danger.

The red Indian has often been represented as apathetic. He is not. His loves and his hatreds are intense, only, both by birth and bringing up, he is endowed with extraordinary power of controlling their expression. Underneath their outward self-restraint these simple folk of Santiago were capable enough of feeling all the emotions of humanity pulsing through their veins and plucking at their heart-strings. Felipe and Josefa, exchanging hand-clasps and vows of fidelity through a hole in an adobe wall, were as passionate and as miserable as if the little drama which meant so much to them was being played on the wider stage of the great world outside. When the girl whispered "hush" to her lover, both held their breath and listened, each conscious of the pulse that throbbed in the other's hand. It was a noise from inside the house that had startled the girl. She could hear that someone in a farther room had got up and was throwing a stick of wood on the fire. With a gentle pressure her finger-tips were withdrawn from her lover's, and her hand disappeared back through the hole. Felipe sank down into the crouching position he had been in till she came, drawing the blanket over him for concealment and warmth as before. For nearly half an hour he remained perfectly still. Then a slight rubbing on the inner side of the wall became audible, and presently looking up he saw not a hand only, but a whole arm reaching down to him from the opening. Up he sprang, and stretching himself on tiptoe against the wall he succeeded in bringing his lips up to the little hand, which he kissed silently again and again.