"Ah, Padre mio," she interrupted, "it's too bad! I'm afraid I'm still the little devil that I was!" and laughing, she rose from her seat and passing around to his end of the bench, stood beside him and began to pull the leaves from a rose-bush.
"Padre mio," she said softly, looking down at him with mischievous lights dancing in her eyes, "you don't really regret that I have remained what I am, do you?"
"Oh, I didn't mean to infer that, my child!" he answered with a note of reproach in his voice, looking up into her shadowy, downcast face. She gave a little laugh, and tapping him gently on one shoulder with her fan, said: "Do you know what you are, Padre mio?"
"What, my child?" he asked innocently, his face brightening at the question.
"You're the dearest old goose that ever lived!" and bending over him, she kissed him lightly on the crown of his head before he could prevent it.
"Chiquita, my child—you're too impulsive! Have I not repeatedly forbade you—" but the sound of her laughter and retreating footsteps on the pathway leading to the house was the only response his words invoked. "Dios!" he exclaimed, recovering his breath. "I sometimes think that God created man, but woman—the devil! They never listen to anything one has to tell them!"
Chiquita went quietly to her room, walked straight to her bureau and opening the lower drawer, took out a small pistol which lay concealed beneath a chemise in one corner. Examining it carefully with the practiced eye and hand of one who has been accustomed to the use of firearms all her life, she loaded it and then placed it inside her breast. She knew Don Felipe as no one else did, and thoroughly realized the danger that threatened her. From that hour, waking or sleeping, the weapon must never leave her.
XV
Who was Richard Yankton? Many had asked that question, foremost of whom was Dick himself; but years of unremitting search had failed to reveal his origin.
In the spring of 1870 Colonel Yankton, who with his regiment of cavalry was stationed in Arizona, came one day upon the smoldering remains of an immigrant train—the work of the Apache Indians.